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I greeted 2010 by upgrading my web server hosting this site and blogs.

Apple‘s PowerMac had been my favorite platform since 2004. I had been hosting the site on my very own web server since I got hold of an Apple PowerMac G4 (466 Mhz) and broadband access.

Then, in early 2006, I upgraded to a PowerMac G5 (Dual 2.0 Ghz) after several months of penny-pinching and bringing my own lunch to work. Apple’s products are by no means cheap. With their elegant design and top-notch quality, Apple is the very best in personal computer technology.

In my honest estimation, since early 2004, these two (2), trusty servers had a downtime of, probably, only 30 days. Those were the days when I had to dust-out the internals & fans, upgrade the memory or video or, move their location around the house . These babies just keep on running & running.

Remember your first HP LaserJet? Those brutes just keep on printing since the early days of ‘desktop publishing’ until you get tired of them only because of aesthetic reasons. You hate to put those machines in the landfill. They are still working. Donate and recycle!

So, the PowerMac G5 is now my back-up server. Enter the Mac Pro Dual Quad.

Physically, it looks very much the same as the PowerMac G5’s anodized-aluminum case including the weight (about 40 lbs). But, did I notice that it’s now much sleeker & shinier?. Or, maybe, simply because it’s just a newer model?

It now sports two DVD drives – dual layer but no Blue-Ray capability here, a redesigned board which makes it easy to install hard drives (up to 4) or upgrade the video card & memory.

Upgradeable parts, basically, are on sleds now. Slide out, upgrade, then slide back in.

The installed video card has a dual-link DVI port & a new Mini DisplayPort (a smaller reincarnation of their ADC port). And, of course, there are more USB & FireWire ports.

Simple yet elegant. That’s Apple for the rest of us.

But, I have to bring my own lunch to work…again. Everyday.

 

Related articles

• The new Mac Pro finally available to order on December 19th (imore.com)

Last Thanksgiving Day, I had the opportunity to buy the new ROKU HD-XR Media Player at a deeply discounted price. It was the company’s Black Friday online promo and they

limited the sale to only 500 units of their top-of-the-line streaming media player. In 30 minutes, all 500 units were gone. And, trust me, the online buying experience was extremely slow – and painful – even at my fast 6 Mbps Internet connection.

The ROKU media player is one of those underrated gadgets that will probably become as popular as the iPhone or may become obsolete as the LaserDisc player. It’s one of those electronic gizmos that I found to be as reliable as, say, the microwave oven. Right now, I have a ROKU attached to every TV in the house.

Netflix (the online video rental service) was the driver that brought ROKU into existence. When Netflix began streaming movies in late 2006, it was only via the PC.

But who likes to watch movies on their small PC monitor? So, like most techies, I attached my PC to my then, old 27″ Sony Trinitron via good, old, composite video cables.

Back then, a TV (and/or, a PC video card) with an HDMI connector was still a “video-interface-media-content-delivery-format” that was being fine-tuned by multimedia hardware makers and the big media studios like Sony, Viacom, Universal Pictures, etc.

So, it’s either you turn on the computer to do some work and be on the Internet or, do I watch a Netflix movie?  The luxury of being able to do both is OK, but, the guilt that came from burning all those wattage by just watching an old movie was just too much.  My old PC has a 600-watt power supply while the Sony TV consumed about 120 watts.

I was also via Netflix’s web site that I learned about ROKU streaming devices’ availability on May 2008. I immediately got one – the ROKU HD – and I was so impressed with the unit that I excitedly recommended them to my brother & sister who also have Netflix subscriptions!

All ROKU models -SD, HD & the HD-XR – have similar 5″ x 5″ x 1.75″ dimensions and consume a mere 5 to 6 watts at peak operation. All have built-in WiFi & 100 Mbps Ethernet.

The main difference between the HD and the HD-XR model is that the latter has faster WIFI N and a USB port for future use. Both has composite, component, S-video and HDMI video outputs. I would say that you avoid getting the cheap, low-end SD model since it only has a composite video output. The SD is sufficient if you only have an old model TV with A/V jacks.

ROKU had also provided more content by adding more channels (Pandora, BlipTV, MediaFly, etc) and would probably become a full-pledged media server come 2010 by making use of the USB port on the HD-XR model via a firmware update!

—links:

www.roku.com
www.netflix.com

My trusty Nokia 6230 was badly bruised after almost 4 years of use. It had endured numerous drops & bangs, numerous cellophane tapes at the back cover because of the oversized battery I installed and dust had perennially gathered on its minuscule but colored screen.

During this period, Apple Computer had already become Apple, Inc due to the huge success of the iPhone (released June 29, 2007) and had, in fact, a second version already out in the market in the iPhone 3GS while Microsoft had released Windows Vista and is almost about to release its latest Windows 7 OS this October.

I am a Mac fanatic but not an iPhone fan. In my opinion, Nokia is a way, way better cell phone maker than Apple, Inc. They had been making phones for the Finnish military way before there was even a company called, Apple Computer, Inc.

Nokia’s drawback is that it’s not a computer company like Apple, Inc. Nokia’s vision got blurred when it was a bit late to see the integration of cell phone and computer technologies. It pays to have a company located in Silicon Valley where all these related technologies come into play: WiFi, video, flash memory, radio transmitter, Internet, etcetera, plus, of course, a brilliant user-interface…the elegant Mac OS X.

Palm, Inc is another story. It was one of the very first tech firms that tried to use a handheld device and to adopt it to the new Internet technologies that arrived in the early 90s. Hence, it has the Palm Pilot PDAs (basically organizers with capabilities to connect to the Web via modems), the Treos (phone/PDAs) and now, the Palm Pre.

Many tech “wannabes” (or, people who had been using a computer only after the web browser came out in the early 90s) had been ringing the death knell on Palm as a company after Apple’s iPhone came out in the market.

This almost came true until an investment group linked with U2’s lead singer, Bono, stepped up to the plate and invested big time ($325 million) in Palm in Oct 2007. The group was Elevation Partners.

The new group rolled the dice and on Dec 2008 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, they announced the impending release of a new Palm phone with an entirely new user interface called WebOS.

Creating an entirely new interface was not only a technological necessity for Palm to survive the brutal smart phone market but was also a sound financial move. The current Palm Treos are still running on the old Palm OS (renamed, Garnet OS) which Palm had sold-out to ACCESS software of Japan. This meant that Palm was actually paying ACCESS a royalty for every Palm Treo phone it had rolled-out since that software spin-off of 2006.

So, in June 5 of this year, Palm rolled-out the glorious Palm Pre with the Sprint Network as the sole U.S.  carrier. But, why the exclusivity to Sprint? Palm had all the right reasons to go with Sprint. The biggest carrier, AT&T, is not only the slowest of all U.S. carriers, but also their customer service is among the worst in a survey taken from all of the top corporations in the U.S considered. Second, the iPhone is already tethered to AT&T. AT&T’s signal is so poor (they had sold most of their bandwidth to other smaller GSM providers like T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile, etc) that I really believe that the iPhone would be faster running with the Sprint Network. And lastly, Sprint is bound to become the first to have the next generation 4G signal nationwide in the U.S.

My verdict? Apple’s iPhone is more popular but the Palm Pre is way better smart phone. Mobile OSX  (later renamed as iOS) simply is just too bland as a phone interface. It’s clunky and all too familiar. I would like all the features of Snow Leopard on the iPhone but no..this is only a cell phone. I have all the Macs Apple had created so far, but no more OS X on a phone, please. Palm’s WebOS is like the 1984 Macintosh when PCs were still running DOS 5.0 or even 6.22. It’s always the thrill of something new we tech lovers always look forward to or long for — something different.

But what else is new? People has the herd-mentality. While the rest of the world are using PCs, I’m was using the Mac. While almost all people are using Facebook, I’m on LinkedIn. Blue-Ray? No, thanks, I’ve got HD OnDemand.

So, while others are pecking the on-screen keyboards on their iPhones, I’m simply sliding out a small, actual keyboard on my Palm Pre, sliding and flicking ‘card’ apps, faster and simpler. Another bonus is the free, built-in GPS with Sprint Navigation as well as the Sprint TV. Sprint’s signal is way,way better in most of the surrounding areas where I live than AT&T’s (my old Nokia’s previous mobile carrier).

With the Palm Pre and Sprint, I made the unpopular but sensible choice.

During our recent visit to Puerto Rico early this year, I brought along my Garmin NUVI 660 to test its accuracy as well as its dependability. Since we bought the unit about middle of 2007, it had been our constant travel companion for much of our trips around California and had been quite dependable on most occasions.

The Garmin NUVI 660 is the company’s best-selling unit for a quite a number of reasons. Its 4.3″ color screen seems to be the right size for any automobile without a built-in GPS navigation system. The included windshield attachment is not only durable but also well-designed.

Other features like hands-free calling via Bluetooth-compatible phones, MP3 player, FM transmitter, travel kit, picture viewer as well as storage expansion via the SD card slot makes it the hands-down choice among first-time automobile GPS buyers.

But it is the simple yet very functional user-interface that made Garmin’s NUVI series a winner. A few taps on the display screen and you’re ready to navigate. And, if your Bluetooth-compatible phone rings while navigating around, simply tap the phone icon and you’re ready to answer the call via the built-in microphone & speaker!

Except for new constructions and a few interior roads, the built-in North American map had been generally accurate. I updated -via DVD software – it only to the latest 2008 North American map when I discovered that our car was literally running through the waters of the Benicia Strait as we passed through the newly constructed Benicia-Martinez Toll Bridge – the gateway that connects I-680N to I-80N.

We had booked our rental car with Hertz weeks ahead for a six-day tour of this U.S. territory in the Caribbean. Puerto Rico’s main airport is in San Juan while our hotel was booked in the second-largest city in the islands – Ponce – which was a good 65 miles away. This would be a good initial test for the GPS unit in beautiful Puerto Rico.

I had already saved some of our intended destinations in the Favorites folder of the GPS unit. So, after getting our rental car – a mint-green 2008 Toyota Yaris – from the Hertz compound 2 hours after we landed in the Luis Munoz Marin Airport in San Juan, I hooked-up the unit unto the car’s windshield (unlike in CA – where I had to use a friction-mount –, attaching it on the windshield in PR is not illegal), tapped on a few icons as soon as it powered-up and on we headed to our hotel in Ponce!

It passed the initial test with only a minor quirk. While it guided us correctly to up to the main city, it failed to recognize the mostly one-way and narrow streets where our hotel was situated in downtown Ponce. I had to park the car a few blocks away and looked for our hotel…yes, with the GPS on my hands!

The following day, on our trip to the Arecibo Observatory, the GPS unit’s accuracy was at its lowest point. While it can accurately track the main highways, it kept telling us ‘to turn left -or, right- along Highway 111’ while we’re already traversing the steep, twisting ascents of the same highway!

We also had a lot of ‘dead-spots’ while cruising along a few mountain stretches. I thought that as long a you have a view of the open sky, your GPS unit can pick-up the satellite signals quite easily. Of course, just like in most densely populated cities like San Francisco it takes a while for the unit to pick-up the satellite signals, I was surprised that it could easily get a reading in the metropolis of San Juan.

One very useful feature of this gadget is the ability to track you where you are and from your location, get all the useful information – auto services, hotel, gas stations, food, etc – that you may need.

A good example would the time when we were in Plaza del Mercado (a public market) in Santurce, San Juan, PR and it was raining a lot. Looking for a taxi was extremely difficult as the place was a little off the beaten path.

Garmin NUVI 660 to the rescue.  I simply raised the unit’s antenna, tap the ‘Food, Lodging’, then, ‘Spell Name’ icon, entered, “Taxi” and voila…I got the names as well as phone numbers of the available taxicab companies in the nearby area. A quick call to the taxicab company of our choice and in a few minutes, a taxi appeared from nowhere to get us back to our hotel!

Overall, I was quite satisfied with the performance of the NUVI 660. It not only gave us peace of mind that we will get to where we want to go to but also for the other little things the device can offer you.

The Garmin NUVI 660 is a must-have device for travelers. Highly recommended.

Since the Palm Pilot debuted in the 1996 and established the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) market, many had no doubts that, one day, PDAs will approximate the power of a personal computer.

That time is here – thanks to rapid advances in flat-screen & wireless technologies, as well as in flash memory – and there’s no company that understands it better than the original creator, Palm, Inc.

Just put your hands in one of their newer models – be it the Treo 680 (or, its Windows Mobile counterpart, the Treo 750), the Palm T|X or, their only model in the “mobile manager” category, the LifeDrive – and you’ll be amazed at the things these little devices can do. These devices had come a long, long way from being the simple electronic organizers that keep your notes, addresses, memos and loaded with simple apps like date book, calculator, note taker and an expense tracker.

I was surprised at the wireless capabilities of these handhelds today. Using Hands High Software’s WiFile Pro (WiFile LT is bundled free in the Palm software CD), I was able to access either Mac or Windows networked files so easily (wow!…really, hassle-free), via the built-in WiFi capabilities of the T|X or the LifeDrive.

With their Treo series, Palm was able to address the needs of users who like to have a phone integrated with their PDAs. And with the LifeDrive, Palm is still trying its hardest to assuage notebook computer users to swap them out with this pocketable device instead.

How about in its core business segment – the handheld or, the original PDA market?  Palm realized that slowly and surely, the PDA market is undergoing convergence with telephony/wireless and that PDAs will soon integrate all the features of these mix. The Palm T|X is a case in point.

Except for a phone feature, the $299 Palm T|X packs in its 3.08″ x 4.76″ x .61″ shell, all the features of a decent Internet-capable home computer. Load it with the appropriate software & you’ll be surprised how easy it is to access your home (even your company’s) networked files, copy DVD movies (thanks to its SD/SDIO/MMC-capable slot as well as the fantastic storage capabilities of these stamp-sized memory devices) for viewing on your long commute or, simply browse the Web (WiFi’s built-in) for any information of your liking.

PQ Computing Inc’s $35 application, Pocket DVD Studio (for Palm/Pocket PC) can compress a 3-hour DVD movie into, approximately, a 368 MB .avi file – or, .wmv if you want . So, if you have a 2GB SD card in your Palm T|X, you can easily fit about 4 to 5 full-featured movies!

Some would say that for $299, you could buy a used, middle-end notebook & have much use for it than these “overpriced gadgets”. True. But, the last time I checked, these notebooks are still put into carrying bags & slung on shoulders. They still don’t fit inside my favorite shirt’s pocket.

Palm – and all handhelds in general – had indeed come a long way from being a nerd’s show-off gadget to an alternative device for people on the go who hates carrying that hefty notebook.