Andy's Blog

Chrome OS: a first look

2009-11-20T08:56:28Z

Google took the wraps off of their new operating system, Chrome OS, today. And of course, after reading all that I could about Google's presentation, I downloaded the source code and got compiling. Google has really polished the build environment — it was pretty easy to get Chrome OS compiled and running inside of VMware:

Chrome OS, after login

I have posted a gallery on Flickr, which goes over my initial impressions of Chrome OS. In short, it is as Google says — they have optimized for speed and security. Even in VMware, Chrome OS boots quickly, and renders web pages in a flash. And it seems like Google has added quite a few security protections — having the root filesystem mounted read-only is an especially nice touch.

But unfortunately, these appear to be the only two areas in which Google has innovated. In my previous blog post on Chrome OS, I hoped that Google would use this opportunity to finally free Linux of some "legacy" baggage, such as the X11 windowing system. But alas, Chrome OS uses X.org, and toolkits such as GTK+. Google is really just focused on getting the browser running — they're not trying to advance the state of the art on any other fronts.

And so while I'm sure that this is going to help Google reach their goals for Chrome OS, my inner operating systems nerd is disappointed.

-Andy.

Links for Thursday November 19th, 2009

2009-11-20T02:00:03Z

AMD avoiding Larrabee route on road to CPU/GPU "Fusion" - Ars Technica:
"It's entirely possible that Intel will sink a ton of effort and money into Larrabee, only to see it upstaged by a much-less-daring approach from AMD."
It's going to be interesting to watch this play out.
Apple's Mistake: This is another great essay from Paul Graham. But my problem with this essay, and with all criticisms of the App Store, is that they assume that all developers are the same. For the set of developers that Graham considers, his essay is spot-on. But there are lots of other developers out there, where Apple is a far less draconian gatekeeper than what they are used to.
I think if you want to do a game on iPhone, you're going to have to go through the App Store. But all other developers are just going to migrate to the web. With all of the HTML5 bells and whistels in Mobile Safari, I think that web apps will be able to deliver a pretty good experience.
Sweet! Is Sugar the future of publishing? - Fortune Brainstorm Tech: A positive article on my current place of employ:
"... the San Francisco company has 12 sites, 114 people, and boasts an online audience that's comparable to that of Time Warner's (TWX) People.com."
We've definitely been growing. When I started last year, there were 70ish employees.

Links for Wednesday November 18th, 2009

2009-11-19T02:00:02Z

Marco.org - Is Palm's Comeback Losing Steam?: Interesting post from Marco Arment. I agree that Palm needs to have a WiFi-only device (like the iPod touch), but disagree with his conclusion:
"For Palm, it’s too late. They bet the company and made a decent effort, but it wasn’t enough. They’ve already lost."
I think that Palm should get the benefit of the doubt — I'll be interested in next year's "Pre 2".
Dash to D.C.! Tech Guru Will Head Gov't Incubator, Digitize Democracy | The New York Observer: It'll be interesting to see if Anil Dash can pull this off. I'll be rooting for him.
IEBlog : An Early Look At IE9 for Developers: Of note, Microsoft is really working on improving JavaScript performance, and CSS compliance. Still no word on HTML5 video, though.
Startup Visa · Nat Friedman: Sounds good to me.
Enlightenment working with top-tier electronics maker: Interesting. It's been years since I used Enlightenment, but I'm definitely curious about this.

Links for Tuesday November 17th, 2009

2009-11-18T02:00:03Z

Blag Hag: Hmmm, I knew I saw a trend here...: Is this blasphemous?

Chewy's first day of school: It gets even better when viewed full size. Awesome.

kung fu grippe : Three things about Marco Arment: Instapaper is really as good as Merlin Mann says.

Links for Monday November 16th, 2009

2009-11-17T02:09:24Z

Will Apple's History Repeat? - Continuations: Comparing the closed nature of the iPhone to the history of the PC is quite popular, but flawed. I think the more apt comparison is between the iPhone and video game consoles -- both are closed platforms, controlled by a single vendor, which must approve applications before they can appear on the system in question. Yet video game consoles have been tremendously successful over the last 20+ years, so I think it's likely that the iPhone will be successful as well, even though it isn't hacker friendly.

Timon Royer Mediendesign » Blog Archive » Apple 27″ iMac (late 2009) Core i5 and Core i7 benchmarks are out: The comparisons between the new iMacs and the Mac Pro are stunning. I didn't think that the Mac Pro could look any worse, but I was wrong.

Youtube in 1080P or how to redline your processor with Flash | 9 to 5 Mac: See, I'm not the only one complaining about Flash on Mac OS X.

The War For the Web - O'Reilly Radar:
"It could be that everyone will figure out how to play nicely with each other, and we'll see a continuation of the interoperable web model we've enjoyed for the past two decades. But I'm betting that things are going to get ugly. We're heading into a war for control of the web. And in the end, it's more than that, it's a war against the web as an interoperable platform. Instead, we're facing the prospect of Facebook as the platform, Apple as the platform, Google as the platform, Amazon as the platform, where big companies slug it out until one is king of the hill.

And it's time for developers to take a stand. If you don't want a repeat of the PC era, place your bets now on open systems. Don't wait till it's too late.

It's going to be interesting to see how the web evoloves over the next decade. As long as new companies are able to startup and play with the big boys (i.e. Twitter), I think everything will be okay.

We've got the scoop on a new Buffy series! | SCI FI Wire: Motion comics can be a little odd (check the "Astonishing X-Men" one on Hulu for an example), but if they get the original cast for the Buffy ones, I'll be on board.

Links for Friday November 13th, 2009

2009-11-14T02:00:03Z

AppleInsider | Conflicting reports within Qualcomm suggest Verizon-only iPhone: Apple likes to do the impossible. I could see Apple pressuring Qualcomm in order to deliver this new chip in mid-2010, presuming that Apple even wants to mess around with CDMA, of course.

Verizon: How Much Do You Charge Now? - Pogue’s Posts Blog - NYTimes.com: When I read things like this, I wish that Apple had gone the MVNO route with the iPhone.

Core i5 iMac arrives: first benchmarks | Electronista: Looking good so far.

Morale: Fighter Pilots Face A Dismal Future: Isn't this how Skynet starts?

I finally bought a new camera

2009-11-13T06:50:00Z

As I have mentioned previously, I have been in the market for a new camera. I almost bought a Canon back in July, but had second thoughts. Finally, after much deliberation, and reading a review from David Pogue (login required), I finally caved and bought the Sony DSC-WX1. I was actually hoping to get away from Sony, because I have grown tired of their fondness for proprietary memory cards and data connectors. But they sucked me in with the wide-angle lens, excellent low-light sensitivity, automatic panoramas, and HD video.

And since this is about photography, I have some example pictures online. Here is one of my favorites so far:

Sun setting over the Pacific Ocean

And I have uploaded these galleries:

And now, a word about video

One of the things that I was most excited about with my new camera is the ability to shoot HD video. And so far, I've been impressed with the output from the WX1. However, when I went to upload some sample video, I found that most online sites, even if they purport to offer HD viewing, scale down the size of the video. For an example, see one of my sample videos that I uploaded to Flickr. Since I want to be able to show an un-adulterated video from my camera, I decided to fool around with the new HTML5 video tag:

Sample video from the DSC-WX1
(>8MB, requires Safari 4, Chrome, or Firefox 3.5)

I actually leveraged much of Mark Pilgrim's excellent tutorial, and encoded an Ogg version (for Firefox), and hacked up some JavaScript to display an error in non-HTML5-compliant browsers. Kindof a fun diversion, and I am really enjoying watching video natively in my browser, instead of via flash.

End video tangent

In summary, I'm really enjoying my new toy. I still need to play around with it more, but that's what going hiking is for. If you want to read more, I'm going to post a few more of my favorite photos after the break.

-Andy.

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Golden Gate bridge, at dusk

Panorama of Pacifica, CA

Volvo S40 navigation, at night

Walking home through Moscone Park at night

Links for Wednesday November 11th, 2009

2009-11-12T02:28:31Z

O2 UK to Officially Unlock iPhones Following Competitor Launch: This is how it should work in the U.S.
Daring Fireball Linked List: Droid Limited to 256 MB of Storage for Apps: While I don't have more than 256MB of apps on my iPhone, my guess is that I'm below average -- most people, if they are downloading games, are way over this limit. But what really stinks is having an arbitrary limit at all. And this isn't easy for Google to fix.
Carmack: Working With Apple Is a Rollercoaster Ride - John Carmack - Kotaku:
"At the highest level of Apple, in their heart of hearts," Carmack said, "they're not proud of the iPhone being a game machine, they wish it was something else."
Sounds plausible.
Whedonesque : Comments on 22328 : Hollywood Reporter says Dollhouse is cancelled.: Joss appears to confirm the cancellation. I will say that Dollhouse is, by far, my least favorite of all of Joss Whedon's projects. Maybe I'll change my mind during the back half of Season 2 (which I will of course watch), but that's how things stand right now.
Owners of new iMacs reporting Flash playback problems | MacNN: Ug. This after I said that Flash on the new iMacs looked good. Hopefully this is a couple of isolated incidents.

This is why I want more memory in my next machine...

2009-11-03T06:58:49Z

...especially if is running Mac OS X:

The top 4 processes running on my iMac, sorted by RAM used

You better believe that right after I took this screen shot, I sent Mail.app the old Command-Q.

-Andy.

Hot pumpkin action

2009-10-31T05:44:15Z

Mine is on the left:

Posted via email

Zoey the shark

2009-10-31T05:26:00Z

Posted via email

Kaylee, the turtle

2009-10-31T05:24:22Z

Chris and Tanya broke out the dog costumes:

Posted via email

More wacky fun with BTO pricing at the Apple online store

2009-10-30T05:47:13Z

This isn't what I intended to write about tonight, but when I discovered it, plans changed. The online Apple store allows you to change certain components in Macs that you order online, in what Apple calls the "Build To Order" (BTO) process. So, I now present to you two different Mac mini's:

Two Mac mini (Late 2009) BTO configurations from the online Apple store

Can you spot the difference? The Mac mini on the left has a 2.53Ghz CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 320GB disk. The Mac mini on the right has the exact same specifications. Yet the Mac mini on the left costs $949, while the identical machine on the right costs $799.

Give up? For the Mac mini on the left, I started with the base 2.26Ghz model ($599), and upgraded the CPU ($150), RAM ($100), and hard disk ($100). The Mac mini on the right is the stock 2.53Ghz model, which includes all of the upgrades that I added to the base model.

Apple's BTO pricing has really gotten screwy with this latest update. Maybe it has always been this way, but somehow I would think there would be more griping about this. Or maybe Apple's penchant for letting marketing set the prices of components, instead of letting the market set the price, has finally caught up with them.

-Andy.

Links for Thursday October 29th, 2009

2009-10-30T01:00:17Z

One-handed computing with the iPhone: Kottke nails it:
"Straphangers in NYC and elsewhere know what a great one-handed device the iPhone is. Riding the subway and reading has never been so easy, especially during rush hour..."
I have found that I can't use my MacBook Air on the commute home the vast majority of the time, because I can't find a seat. Thus, it's up to the iPhone to save the day.
How Apple sliced its pie in 2009 - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Brainstorm Tech: Look how much the iPhone grew in just a year. That slice of the pie is going to look really big next year.
Apple's 10K reveals higher R&D, more key suppliers, warns of lower margins | 9 to 5 Mac: Lots of interesting stuff, including (emphasis mine):
"The Company expects to experience decreases in its gross margin percentage in future periods, as compared to levels achieved during 2009 and 2008, due largely to the anticipated impact of product transitions, flat or reduced pricing on new and innovative products that have higher cost structures, both expected and potential future cost increases for key components, a stronger U.S. dollar and higher logistical costs."
This bodes well for us continuing to see cheaper Macs in 2010.
YCRFS 3: Things Built on Twitter: Paul Graham gets to the heart of Twitter:
"Successful new protocols are rare. There are only a handful of commonly used ones: TCP/IP (the Internet), SMTP (email), HTTP (the web), and so on. So any new protocol is a big deal. Each one of those protocols has spawned many successful companies. Twitter will too."

Initial impressions of the new iMacs (Late 2009)

2009-10-28T08:02:44Z

As is my custom, whenever Apple releases new Macs, I must go to the store and play with them. And so it was that on Saturday, I went to the Apple Store on Chestnut street in San Francisco, and accosted the new iMacs. But before I go any further, yes, the new iMacs are still glossy:

A nice, reflected view of Chestnut street

So, while I may have some quibbles with the new iMac, I have to admit that Apple continues to impress with the overall design, fit, and finish of the machine. As predicted, Apple made the machine thinner, but thankfully they didn't make any of the compromises that I listed. While some other all-in-one PCs (notably from HP and Sony) seem to be decent, nobody can really touch Apple in this space.

The new iMacs feel quite sold — the 27" machine weighs in at over 30 pounds. And as I mentioned, the machines appear to be well put together. Here's an example of the fit and finish:

Closeup of the glass bezel on the new 27" iMac

I spent most of my time focused on the 27" iMac. Here are some impressions:

The Screen: The centerpiece of the new iMac line is the screen on the new 27" model. Overall, it's hard not to be impressed with this screen (well, aside from the glossiness). The viewing angle is good, it's bright, and the resolution is fantastic. The 30" monitor that I have at work really has me spoiled, so I have been pondering getting one for home. Well, the 27" iMac would definitely scratch this itch. Because it crams so many pixels into a smaller screen, things appear to be smaller. For example, I noticed that the text in the menu bar (at the top of the screen) was definitely smaller. I think this is something that one would get used to. The only other minor issue that I noticed was some sort of weird moiré pattern — it was only noticeable when I held my head at a certain position — not too close, not too far — from the display. I'm not sure if this was just an issue with the unit that I looked at, or if I'm just making the whole thing up.
Performance: Apple had the stock 3.0Ghz Core 2 Duo model on display, but even without the Nehalem goodness, I found the performance of the machine to be quite good. I ran the fullscreen Hulu test, and the machine passed with flying colors. And the ability to upgrade to a quad core CPU is really awesome. I can't wait until the Core i5 and Core i7 machines start shipping next month, to see how they benchmark.
Expandability: The big surprise with this revision is that Apple has increased the number of SO-DIMM slots to 4 on all of the iMacs, even the 21.5" models. This means that the machines can be taken to 8GB of memory using only 2GB SO-DIMMs, which are quite cheap. Going beyond 8GB is also possible, although expensive. But, you could easily take one of these iMacs up to 8GB today, and expand the memory further in a year or so, when 4GB SO-DIMMs aren't so expensive. Other than that, the SD card slot is nice, as is the ability to support video input, so that the nice 27" display can be used as a monitor. Unfortunately, it looks like this feature might be quite limited, and thus not as exciting as I had hoped.
Keyboard and Mouse: I can't say that I really liked the new keyboard. I mean, it seems decent for a wireless keyboard, but I found that I wasn't very accurate when typing on it. This is a moot point for me, as I am a confirmed Kinesis man now, but its sortof surprising at this point that Apple isn't raising the bar on ergonomics (since they are raising the bar everywhere else). As for the new Magic Mouse, it seems to be okay. The scrolling action worked fine in Safari, and I could left-click and right-click. The other multi-touch actions seemed to be hard to trigger, and might not be all that useful. I'm more ambivalent on this feature.

And now, for the things that I don't think are so hot about the new iMacs:

The glossy display: I know that I keep harping on this, but I wish that Apple offered a non-glossy version.
The non-replaceable hard drive: Apple has gotten their house in order on all of the MacBooks, but not on the iMac. Granted, it looks like replacing the hard drive in the new iMac might be slightly easier than on the old model. But you still have to take out the entire LCD. Yuck.
BTO hard drive pricing: $250 to go from a 1TB drive to a 2TB drive? Yuck. A bare drive can be had for less than $200, and Apple is charging $250 on top of whatever they are charging for the 1TB drive.
Video In: This is one of those features that could have really been killer. If I could hook up a PS3 or my Wii to the new iMac, it would be a done deal. As I am living in a much smaller space now, I price devices that are efficient and can serve multiple purposes. But it's looking like the iMac isn't going to help me out here (although there is hope for some sort of funky adapter, I suppose).
Lack of Blu-Ray: After Chris wet my whistle with some Firefly-on-Blu-Ray action, I've actually kindof wanted this. And I really thought it was going to happen this time, but once again, we have been denied.

Overall, the new iMac scratches a surprising number of itches on my new machine list (I am surprised that they went Quad Core), but I'm still not 100% convinced. I'm going to wait a month, and see what the reviews and benchmarks of the Core i7 model are like, before I make up my mind.

Full gallery is here.

-Andy.