tech ronin

I Ordered a MacBook Pro today

I released Studio Manager 8 on November 29. My earnings were not stellar for about 3 and a half months due to my devotion to development.

I wanted to reward myself in some way for my hard work and accomplishment of this major software upgrade. My only hope was that sales would be great in December. Great enough to allow me to afford a new MacBook Pro 15".

The good news is that I got a bunch of orders in the first 21 days and got enough to place my order with Apple today. Yesterday was a $7000 sales day. That put me over into I need a tax deduction land.

So, by 5 pm today, I placed my order. The delivery time is probably about 5 days since I custom-ordered a 160 gig drive. It's not going to make it by Christmas but it will be coming in sometime next week.

If I didn't feel the need to have a luxurious-sized 160 gig drive, I could have just bought a MacBook Pro last night at the Apple store. But no, I wasn't willing to settle for a 120 gig drive if it would only cost an extra $100 to get the 160.

Here's why I got the MBP. I like the bigger screen. The bigger the better as long as it doesn't get so big as to be awkward on my lap. The 17" is too big and harder to take with me. I mainly commute around my house, but I just didn't think the 17" would be comfortable for me.

My lovely little 13" MacBook is great for portability but not as good for the work I do. I need room to have more than one application and multiple windows visible at once. I copy things from one screen to another, for example. I have loved the speed of the MacBook when running FileMaker 8.5. I expect the MacBook Pro to be even faster with a big screen and yet only a few ounces heavier.

Also, I find the sharp edges of the MacBook to be a little painful. I prefer the feel of the rounded edges of my PowerBook which is similar to the new MBP. This is one of those cases where the drug of the MacBook with its great glossy screen and speed led to a hard drug, the MacBook Pro.

Reluctantly and ambivalently, I sprung for the 2.33 ghz model which sells for $2499. Ouch! I thought computers were supposed to be cheaper these days. But then, I've never bought a computer that came with 2 gigs of RAM standard.

I really didn't want to spend an extra $500 for the high-end MBP, but I did the math. The processor speed difference between the 2.16 ghz $1999 MBP and the 2.33 ghz MBP is about 7.5%. You multiply the difference times $1999 and it comes out to be $157. You get an extra meg of RAM installed for you. Apple charges $175 for that extra gig.

Finally, you get 256 mb of video RAM in the higher end model vs. 128 mb in the lower. I'm not a big gamer due to time constraints, but the way Apple has been finding ways to improve general video performance by exploiting the video card made me want the 256 and you can't upgrade the 128.

Generally speaking, it is better to go a little higher-end when you buy a notebook because they are so much harder to upgrade. You can upgrade RAM pretty easily, but the hard drive on the MBP is fairly hard to replace. You are stuck with whatever comes in the machine. Right now, if you want a new 15" Mac notebook, you are going to spend some money.

Good thing I got $7k in sales yesterday. Good thing these notebooks are really, really good.

I went over to the Apple store last night so i could see if they happened to have a 160 gig glossy 15" in their inventory. No luck. They only add RAM, not hard drives. I spent a quality 20 minutes with a glossy 15". It has 1440 x 900 pixels, a nice bump up from my little Blackbook at 1280 x 800. A good computer for getting my work done.

I'm expecting to be quite pleased on Christmas day even without the MBP arriving by miracle. Knowing it is on the way is going to make me pretty smug that day. I can pay attention to the non-material aspects of the day knowing the material aspects are taken care of.

I know I'm spoiled. But, it's the principal tool of my trade. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Rumored mini OS X for Embedded Devices Sounds Awesome

Wow! This rumor from the well-respected AppleInsider rumor site, is really exciting. According to AppleInsider, Apple “has been developing an operating system based on the core technologies of Mac OS X for use with embedded devices... Apple intends to integrate the software on a couple of devices beginning early next year.”

There have been rumors before about this and it makes a lot of sense. I believe it. Here's why.

OS X is based on Unix which has already been deployed extensively in handheld devices of various types including cell phones.

A lot of the cell phone rumors of late have mentioned iChat, one of Apple's OS X applications.

The cell phone rumors talk about wi-fi and skype phone types of capabilities that are closely associated with full scale computers, not many handhelds - yet.

We know Apple wants to do small devices. That was a major reason given for going intel-based. Portable devices needed to be able to do a lot on not much power due to battery-life considerations. And, all we've seen so far is the iPod which was already out before the whole Intel switch.

The reason I'm excited about OS X in a small device is because that means you would have a lot of brute strength and full computing ability in a handheld device.

We've got rumors for a video ipod with a larger screen, multiple cell phones, a multifunctional PDA kind of device and very small notebooks. We know Apple likes small, thin and light. We know computers are more often mobile and miniaturization marches on.

Doing a lite version of OS X leverages Apple's computer company strengths to extend its reach and success in the mobile devices space.

The ambition of this project matches Steve's ambitious nature. And it would explain why we've been hearing rumors about these other devices for two years now and nothing has shipped. It's hard to do operating systems and might be harder because you have to figure out how to address all the issues of working on a smaller device plus you now have to make the smaller device work synergistically with a notebook or desktop computer.

Apple is not a beginner at doing hard computer projects. They wouldn't undertake something like this lightly and would be very painstaking to get it right. Perhaps we are going to be blown away by this new device *platform* in January. Wouldn't that be nice?

Technorati Tags: Macintosh, OSX

Moleskine Writing Walking Breakfast Routine

I started writing in my Moleskine daily when I incorporated it into a daily package. A group of things I do together.

I live about two miles from downtown Mill Valley, California. A town of 14,000 people, 12 miles North of San Francisco. The heart of Mill Valley, is the Depot Bookstore & Cafe which opens onto a small town square.

The cafe is the best nearby place to sit and write. It seats about 50 people. That's about 40 more seats than you can squeeze into the local Peet's across the street. Peet's admittedly has better coffee, but the Depot's coffee is pretty good and the people-watching, cafe and comfortable seating makes it better for casual writing.

But I digress. The point is that this is a whole little downtown with quite a lot of character and only a modicum of cheesy touristy stuff. It's got its fair share of high-end touristy stuff, but hasn't succumbed to T-shirt stores. You would like it.

Luckily, the eggs and toast breakfast served at the Depot cafe works for me. I eat the toast dry (no jam even though they have great jam here) and ask for 1 slice rather than the default two slices to avoid temptation. You probably don't want to know, but I eat the toast with eggs -- combining the two which allows the eggs to serve as the topping on the toast and the toast to add a little variety to the eggs.

I love food and hate food shopping, prep and dishwashing, so an eggs, toast and coffee breakfast for $6.47 works as a daily habit. So, I walk all the way from my house or drive about six blocks and walk from there. Either way, I get at least two 20 minute walks. One going and one coming back.

The route I take is on Ethel Avenue which is up above the main drag - Miller Avenue - and in the trees and hills enough to make it easy to get some good exercise if you walk briskly on the downhill parts. The nature, including Redwoods along the way, is a major plus. And, hardly any cars drive on Ethel. It is really narrow so one car passing per walk would be above average.

The walking and breakfast combo would be great in and of itself. But, I add in a large ruled Moleskine notebook and daily entries to ratchet things up a notch. I date the entries something like: Dec 9 (1) Saturday. The parens around the 1 is really a circled 1 and I number the pages in an entry that way.

All my moleskine pages are numbered in spreads. One page number per spread of two pages. This hasn't really been of much use but sometimes I will refer to another entry and having a page number to refer to helps. Although, the date would also probably suffice. Whatever. I like having the page numbers just in case. I can see how far into the book I am.

Finally, what do I write? it varies. I have gotten into the habit of entering stock market index numbers, the crude oil price and value of the dollar. This might be a way to get into writing. It's easy. No thinking. And, I've found that the stock market's ups and downs affects my software sales, so it is of some interest. And the value of the dollar impacts foreign sales. It's fun. I usually read the business page while I'm there and those stats are available.

I also frequently enter short quotes or notes extracted from things I read in the papers there. The SF Chronicle is almost invariably available free. Sometimes you get a treat with the New York Times. I'll read a bit of that if there's something really good.

I also report on things I've done in the last 24 hours. Daily diary kinds of things but that's very short usually. The main goal of my writing is not to document my life, that's a secondary thing. I like to capture some of the highlights. Things of note. When traveling, I'll write more about what I've seen that day. Average days, I might write more about what work I've accomplished.

The big topics are (1) what do I need and/or want to do that day or soon, (2) my ideas and observations and (3) work ideas, observations, analyses which could be ideas on marketing my software or how to do something in software or a new feature I should add and (4) goals and wishes and possible future scenarios for my life.

My Moleskine is thus a thinking tool and way to keep my focus and advance my work (for pay and otherwise). It's almost like a listener. If you've ever wished you had two of you, this is one way to do it. I'm the reader/listener and the writer. Putting things down in writing lets me converse with myself I guess. It gives some distance. It's powerful.

As this post is getting quite long, I'll just say that on good days I write 6 to 8 pages and some days it is more like one. This writing-walking-breakfast thing is a major part of my life. It is wonderful. Perhaps if I didn't work at home it wouldn't be as desirable to get out somewhere everyday. Perhaps the conversational aspect of the writing wouldn't be so valuable.

I love it. It feels like a healthy and useful luxury and I hope I can always carve out a space in my schedule to do it. So far I've been doing it for close to a year and there's no end in sight.

Technorati Tags: Journaling, Moleskine, Walking, Writing

Don't buy a PC before Jan 30

Don't succumb to the hype. Don't let yourself be fooled into believing that you can buy a PC now and then use the enclosed upgrade coupon to upgrade when Vista comes out on January 30th.

Microsoft says you can upgrade your computer to Vista. But every computer professional will tell you that you would be better off just buying a new computer with Vista already on it.

If I were big into PCs, I would want to buy the first Vista PC on January 30th. But I would really think twice about doing that. There are bound to be all sorts of software compatibility issues not to mention bugs in the initial release.

Buying in April or so would give you a chance to read the reports and see how smooth the Vista experience is. Give it a little time.

Me? I'm waiting for Leopard. Hoping for an early release in January or February.

Technorati Tags: Vista