Blog posts tagged with: apple

I have multiple Macs and PCs. I like to use the Macs more, but I do most of my development in windows. I tried using parallels at first, but it turned out to be slow for several apps.

I've been using parallels with my MBP for a few months now. My MBP had 2GB of RAM and is a 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. Parallels always made OS X slow, and running applications like Visual Studio was painfully slow.

I decided to replace one of my 1GB sticks of RAM with a 2GB stick of RAM to reach the maximum available 3GB of RAM in my MBP. Apparently if you try to use two 2GB sticks of RAM, then there could be memory address overlap and problems can arrive.

What did I find? The performance difference after installing the extra 1GB of RAM is amazing. Windows runs extremely fast in parallels, and there are no delays at all. I have parallels configured to use 16MB video and 1500MB of RAM. It runs better than my best PC. Before I had parallels configured to use 1GB of RAM.

I even keep parallels open during my normal work day while in OS X just for convenience's sake. This is something I wouldn't dream of doing with my old configuration.

In conclusion, if you're going to buy a MBP and you are going to use parallels. Make sure you select the 3GB RAM maximum. It makes all the difference in the world.

Apple not licensing its OS to other hardware vendors, gives Apple a big advantage overall.

Anytime there is any type of hardware upgrade, Apple gets the credit (and traffic/hits/sales). When a new processor gets released by Intel (for example today's 8-core release), Microsoft will not get any new traffic from it; However, Apple will get millions of unique hits (once they release it) because of the hardware release.

The other good part, is that Apple can guarantee that anyone that has an Apple, has a good reliable, fast, non-sluggish experience. With Microsoft, they can't guarantee this since Windows runs on any PC hardware which is not sold by Microsoft.

I wanted a high performance laptop that could run both Mac OSX and Windows. I ordered the 17 inch MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz 2GB RAM Dual Core laptop. This post will discuss my experience with the performance of the laptop, my disassembly of the laptop, my experience with apple phone support, my visit to the apple store, my experience with replacement parts and my overall impressions of the MacBook Pro.

2 weeks ago I received my MacBook Pro directly from apple.com. I took it out of the great looking box and tried to turn it on, but there was no response. I figured the battery was dead, so i plugged the laptop to the wall and pressed the power button. Again no response, so I held down the power button, I noticed that the power button was loose.

Eventually I got the computer to turn on. After working for a couple hours I figured the battery would be charged enough. The power plug is magnetic so I really wanted to try popping it out as I've seen so many times in their commercials. Once I pulled the plug, the laptop turned off right away. I plugged it back in, turned it on again and watched it boot back into OSX. I checked the power management settings and everything was OK. At this point I figured I was doing something wrong.

Every MacBook Pro battery has a little button and 5 LEDs next to it. You press the button to see how charged your battery is. It's a very nice feature that allows you to see how much battery power you have before turning on your laptop. The next day, I noticed that my battery was fully charged. I again pulled the plug and realized that it turned off the computer. I figured I had a faulty battery and looked on the net for anyone with a similar problem. I found a couple forums that described the issue. From this forum I found the apple battery exchange program, but noticed that my serial number wasn't in their list of acceptable serial numbers for an exchange.

I called support and found the customer support rep to be very helpful. They had me try 5 or 6 different things and then they put me on hold as they called a manager. A couple minutes later the support tech was back and told me that I did indeed have a faulty battery. He asked me if I had purchased the Apple One Care when I purchased my laptop. I informed him that I did. He asked for my credit card number in case I didn't return the faulty battery after the replacement battery arrived. I happily provided it.

There are a couple important parts of the support call that I left out.

1. The Apple One Care didn't arrive at my house yet, and they didn't have a problem helping me.
2. The laptop wasn't in my name, my business partner ordered the laptop online.

On both issues, they understood and did NOT give me a hard time. They could have used either one of these as an excuse to not help me.

They informed me that my battery would be at my house in 5-7 business days. I asked them if they could ship it express because I had a trip to San Francisco in a few days. He said that it was not possible for replacement parts even if I were to pay for the extra shipping cost. On the second business day my replacement battery arrived. I was very happy because it arrived within a couple days of my trip.

The replacement battery fixed my problem. But another problem started to occur. The loose power button that I mentioned at the start of this posting started to move around and it became harder and harder to turn on the laptop. I didn't have time to deal with it yet so I went on the trip to San Fran.

When I arrived there I realized that there was an Apple store only 5 minutes from my Hotel. I went in and asked a rep at the 'genius bar' if he could help. The genius bar is a big desk with several tech reps that can help you with any and every problem you have. He informed me that he would help me, but for future reference, I had to make an appointment to get help. He told me it would take 7 business days to fix the power button. He would have to replace the whole front panel.

The apple store, by the way... was amazing. It was glass, 2 floors with translucent steps and all computer models and iPods were laid out with a lot of space. You were free to play with anything and everything. Upstairs they had their famous commercials playing from a projector. They had a few rows of chairs and they held tutorials on Mac OSX software every day.

My trip to San Fran was only a few days, so I couldn't leave it with them for 7 days. I asked the genius bar tech rep if he could do the repair by the next day and he said that it wasn't possible. He mentioned that he saw this problem before and that it was a missing spring in my power button. So he wrote me up a case number and told me all I'd have to do would be to call apple and reference the case number. He also moved the laptop out of my business partners name and into my name.

After arriving home I couldn't bring myself to return the MacBook Pro for what would probably be another 2 or 3 weeks while apple looked at it. It might even be longer because of the holidays. I decided to take the chance and take apart my MacBook Pro. Knowing that it was very possible to mess it up and void the warranty, I still thought I'd take the chance.

Disassembling the laptop was pretty hard. Figuring out how to get the front panel off took me about an hour. Once I got the front panel open I had to figure out how to put the power button together properly. I was crossing my fingers that the 5 pieces that make up the power button was all I needed. After about 2 hours of playing with it I finally figured out how to get the power button working. It had nothing to do with a spring like the apple tech at the apple store mentioned. I don't think he was educated at all about the issue. If anything his suggestion cost me a lot of extra time because I was trying to rig the power button so it would touch a sensor on the main board. There was no spring and there is no spring involved in the power button.

So now I finally have a fully working MacBook Pro. I've been using it for about 2 weeks now and the performance is nothing short of amazing. I love the glossy display, I love the speed and I love the performance. I'm overall very pleased with apple and their support, although the apple store techs at the genius booth didn't turn out to be of any help.

As for working with the actual laptop, I love the way you can scroll left <-> right by dragging your index and middle finger from left to right. Ditto for scrolling top <-> bottom. I like that there is a single button and that you can right click by placing your index and middle finger on the pad and pressing the button. The build in speakers are very loud and clear. The symmetry in the laptop and the silver finish is beautiful.

The end result is that I'm extremely satisfied with apple support, I'm extremely satisfied with the performance of the laptop, I'm a little disappointed that I had a laptop with a bad battery and a broken power button. And I believe that in the future I'll only buy apple hardware. That has to say a lot, that even after all the problems above I still would only buy apple.

I was going to write about when people started to hate Microsoft, but I came across something more interesting... the supposed reason why people hate Microsoft.

Many people say that one of the main reasons people don't like Microsoft is because of the size of their dominance. "People simply don?t like big monopolies". On the contrary though, Apple's iPod owns a huge amount of market share for digital audio and video players, yet they are still absolutely loved by almost all. Many people find it exciting that they are so big.

I believe that it's because of perfection. Microsoft can't be bothered with perfection. Instead they focus on copying the latest features, and getting something out the door. The focus on simplicity and elegance, is simply not there. With Apple the ease of use is there, the perfection is there, the focus on usability is there. I don't believe the people who work at Microsoft want to build the best thing possible. I don't believe they are inspired to do so. I don't believe they have the drive to. I believe that the employees want to get their job done, and that's it. At companies like Apple or Google, the employee's goal is to create something great, something perfect, something that has a great ease of use. And that's why we love them.

One example that comes to mind: When Microsoft launched their Live search, it was supposed to be a Google killer :)... you couldn't middle click on links to open them in a new tab. Did Microsoft not care that just about every Firefox user uses this in their everyday use? The quality is just never there with Microsoft. It took them years to realize that tabs give a superior ease of use and that people that browse everyday can save a considerable amount of time by using Firefox. Microsoft's lack of simplicity and usability is why I personally don't like Microsoft. They don't try to make things usable. They try to make them for idiots.

One final reason that could have a lot of effect is that Apple doesn't disclose what it is releasing and when they are releasing it until it is ready (most of the time). Microsoft always disappoints all of their customer base.

Who is Jef Raskin? Jef Raskin started the Macintosh project. He hired Bill Atkinson who put together the first prototype.

Jef named the Macintosh after his favorite type of apple, the McIntosh Apple. This name was only supposed to be a codename, the real name would eventually be the Apple V; However, the Macintosh name stuck.

Why is the Macintosh important? For one, it was the first computer to popularize a graphical user interface. It is also the moniker used in all of apple's computers.

Steve Jobs abandoned (or was forced out of) the Lisa that he was working on, to work on the Macintosh. Jef and Steve didn't get along and in 1981 Jef left the Macintosh project. The first Macintosh was first released in 1984.

It is said that Steve had more influence on the end product than Jef, which I would believe to be true if he was on the project without him for the final 3 years before launch.

I have an Apple 30" cinema display and new Mac Book Pro Laptop. The 30" cinema display has a max resolution (which I use) of: 2560x1600. The screen is huge and is sure to give me a huge productivity boost for my work. The price tag on the 30" apple display is around 2k USD, but over time it'll pay for itself. I'm extremely happy with it. Ever since I got an iMac several months ago, I will never go back to PC hardware. Everything is bright, nice, fast, and overall just plain better with Apple.

See the 2005 commencement speech at Stanford by Steve Jobs.

If you haven't heard of iTV, it's a product that apple will be releasing in the first quarter of 2007. Not many people realize it, but it's going to change their lives. In the future, say goodbye to DVDs and any other type of disc based media. Say hello to new ways to view video for free such as integration for your TV with youTube. Say hello to podcasts on your TV from sites like revision 3. Say goodbye to renting and purchasing movies. Everything will be downloaded and synced automatically to your iTV box.

iTV will power it all. It will connect wireless into your home network. Just about every home that has a TV and a DVD player currently will have one, including you. The price has been announced already, $299.00 USD.

Probably the most impressive guy on the planet...

• Steve Jobs was booted out of apple by the board in 1985.
• In 1986 he bought "The graphics group" which he renamed to Pixar. He purchased it for 5 million.
• After leaving apple he also founded NeXT.
• The internet was CREATED by Tim Berners Lee on the NeXT operating system.
• In 1996 apple bought NeXT and used it as the basis of their OS X operating system. They bought it for 402 million.
• In 1997 Steve started work as interim CEO back at apple.
• In 2000 he dropped the title interim and became CEO.
• In 2006 Disney purchased pixar for 7.4 billion.

I've never seen windows work so fast and nicely before. And of course it's on apple hardware. Pretty funny