[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay 

Also, why go through the expense of designing an all new remote if you're trying to kill Front Row?

Cuz there is probably 100 people or so who would buy it so why not.

Kinda like the Expresscard slot on the MBP's. It was one of those things that they would get blasted for not having but I have NEVER seen anyone use one other than for a 3G modem at best. So happy when they removed it.

[Salty]

Yah it seems like Front Row now is basically for watching movies and not for listening to music which is annoying. That said I saw the new remotes at the Apple store and I like it a lot! Wish I could get a USB receiver for an old mini I could be using that doesn't have the receiver for it.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Salty 

Yah it seems like Front Row now is basically for watching movies and not for listening to music which is annoying.

I'm using iTunes to listen to my music when I'm *AT* my Mac.

What am I doing wrong ?

-t

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

I'm using iTunes to listen to my music when I'm *AT* my Mac.

What am I doing wrong ?

-t

Probably masturbating.

[turtle777]

Here. Here.

-t

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Cuz there is probably 100 people or so who would buy it so why not.

Kinda like the Expresscard slot on the MBP's. It was one of those things that they would get blasted for not having but I have NEVER seen anyone use one other than for a 3G modem at best. So happy when they removed it.

I actually know people who need both bus bandwidth and portability.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

Doesn't work with a Fritzbox if the router feature is turned on. Unfortunately I cannot turn it off since I have an Alice branded Fritzbox which is not configurable. Neither will I be able to upgrade the firmware should AVM decide to ever fix the issue.

I'm not gonna roll my eyes here, but "FritzBox" and "branding" is two good strikes against getting something working.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

I'm not gonna roll my eyes here, but "FritzBox" and "branding" is two good strikes against getting something working.

I'm willing to bet a penny that LogMeIn still works.

-t

[PB2K]

slightly offtopic but when they announced a 64 bit processor with 64 bit OSX every nerd was raving about it, but to be honest I don't notice anything extraordinary. and these windows notebooks are an exceptional hell, all these different Windows AND 32/64 bit versions.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

I'm not gonna roll my eyes here, but "FritzBox" and "branding" is two good strikes against getting something working.

All the eyes rolling in the world doesn't change the fact that I have to use the modem my ISP provides me with.

[Spheric Harlot]

You do?

I'm not aware of Alice using anything beyond bog-standard ADSL2 protocol.

An off-the-shelf Netgear modem/router generally works just fine.

[TETENAL]

And does an off the shelf Netgear modem also provide the required VOIP service for Alice so I can still use my phone?

And that you are not aware that Alice uses anything but the standard protocols doesn't make me know what protocols they are using so I can go buy the correct equipment. And then where do I get to know the configuration of said equipment? I'm "not aware" that Alice supports third party devices.

I'm also not keen to spend > 100 € to get Back to My Mac working on my end. Especially when you consider that whether the other end will be working is still a lottery.

Both Alice and the Fritzbox are somewhat popular in Germany. Fact is that Back to My Mac is not working while other stuff (Skype, iChat, EyeTV) has no problems whatsoever.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by PB2K 

slightly offtopic but when they announced a 64 bit processor with 64 bit OSX every nerd was raving about it, but to be honest I don't notice anything extraordinary. and these windows notebooks are an exceptional hell, all these different Windows AND 32/64 bit versions.

64 bit was never really going to do much. Maybe 20% increase in some apps.

The bigger deal was supposed to be OpenGL but I'm surprised how slow developers are to get on it.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

64 bit was never really going to do much. Maybe 20% increase in some apps.

The bigger deal was supposed to be OpenGL but I'm surprised how slow developers are to get on it.

OpenGL will revolutionize games - or so I hear. We're talking 3D!! And not the wireframe, or just Gouraud shading. Textures and stuff!! I kid you not.

OpenCL.. well that's probably great too.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

64 bit was never really going to do much. Maybe 20% increase in some apps.

The bigger deal was supposed to be OpenGL but I'm surprised how slow developers are to get on it.

20% is pretty significant without any hardware changes...

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

You do?

I do. AT&T uses proprietary handshaking for their VDSL/ADSL2 stuff. You have to use their special modem and not anything else.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

And does an off the shelf Netgear modem also provide the required VOIP service for Alice so I can still use my phone?

And that you are not aware that Alice uses anything but the standard protocols doesn't make me know what protocols they are using so I can go buy the correct equipment. And then where do I get to know the configuration of said equipment? I'm "not aware" that Alice supports third party devices.

Woah there, Nelly.

I didn't implement the ****ing protocol or gimp your router.

You hadn't mentioned VOIP, and to be honest, I hadn't considered it at all, as I've been on ISDN for the past decade and am switching back to analog landline for telephony as soon as wilhelm.tel hooks up the 100 MBit fiber cable they planted in the basement last December.

I have no idea what protocols are commonly used on VOIP and how ISPs futz with them to make them incompatible with other hardware.

TKR in Kiel might be able to help you out here, but you're obviously not keen to dump your FritzBox just to implement a service you're just as obviously not interested in.

Put down that gun - it's unloaded and the hat only makes you look silly.

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

Both Alice and the Fritzbox are somewhat popular in Germany.

Widespread != popular.

Alice *is* popular (though it bears no resemblance to the sensational service it was/had back when it was still HanseNet), but they sold a remarkably boneheaded combination of Siemens modem and non-configurable Siemens WLAN bridge for a few years (until recently), which guaranteed at least one Wi-Fi conflict in any block of flats here in Hamburg. At least, I had dozens of clients who had to go out and buy a real router. Those were widespread, but not popular unless you consider indifference popularity, and once people actually became aware of them, it was only because of problems, which *probably* didn't create "popularity" for the bridge units, either.

The recent-series FritzBox actually seem quite stable and useful. Back when AVM first brought out the FritzBox, they were terribly chancy and completely unreliable pieces of shit.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

20% is pretty significant without any hardware changes...

THe problem is it 20% on really intensive things such as video encoding and even then only if you have a ton of RAM.

It is more like looking at it from the standpoint that you paid for the speed and RAM you were supposed to get from the start but the non-64 but software was crippling it.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

THe problem is it 20% on really intensive things such as video encoding and even then only if you have a ton of RAM.

It is more like looking at it from the standpoint that you paid for the speed and RAM you were supposed to get from the start but the non-64 but software was crippling it.

True. That's a side I hadn't considered. I'm still glad it happened though. Ever since Handbrake went 64-bit, I've been led to back up my DVD library, only takes about 30-45 minutes per DVD now

[DrTacoMD]

The big thing about 64-bit is that it paves the road for more future improvements. At present, there's very little perf difference between a 32-bit and 64-bit app, but once you get large amounts of RAM (greater than 4GB), the 64-bit programs can really shine, while the 32-bit app will run exactly the same.

Plus Intel's x86 chips had several limitations (such as number of registers) that have been corrected in x64.

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Ever since Handbrake went 64-bit, I've been led to back up my DVD library, only takes about 30-45 minutes per DVD now

Ooh, I haven't tried the new Handbrake yet. That's pretty hot.

[imitchellg5]

You may have to download an older version. They took away 64-bit on one of the last updates, citing bugs (I've had none).

[macaddict0001]

The big benefit of 64 bit computing is the size of the numbers that you con process in one cycle, its like having a calculator with a bigger screen. each extra bit doubles the size of the number in binary, so the increase is exponential. A 32 bit processor can handle a number 2^32 in one cycle while a 64 bit processor can handle a number 2^64 in one cycle. A huge increase in computational power, of course if your working with smaller numbers it doesn't matter how big the screen is. That's my understanding of things anyway.

[lpkmckenna]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

The bigger deal was supposed to be OpenGL but I'm surprised how slow developers are to get on it.

Not sure if serious...

[indigoimac]

Dashboard was and continues to be a bloated cow... then again it's useless either way... at least to me.

Calculator has floating point calculation issues with the paper tape that don't need to be displayed to the user.

Other than that yes Front Row -- it's a hidden feature, but it's decent

Printer Sharing is disastrous between 10.5 and 10.6 as the driver managers don't get along

That's actually about it-- to be honest my only major gripe w. 10.5 was its handling of network shares in finder but thank god they fixed all that very nicely.

[sdilley14]

I use Front Row pretty consistently. Its pretty nice for throwing parties. I have my MBP hooked up to my 42" LCD, so its nice having that display on the TV when music is playing. I like using it, but I can't really think of any ways they could improve on it/add to it?

[alex_kac]

Originally Posted by Doc HM 

Back to My Mac. Haven't heard a peep out of that for a while.

I use it all the time when I travel. That's at hotels, my brother-in-law's house, and airport Wifis. Its really great. It doesn't always work, but more often than not it does for me.

[alex_kac]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Haha, can't believe Apple charges for that "feature" when you can get it free with LogMeIn.

-t

You don't need either LogMeIn or Back to my Mac. Simply turn on port forwarding on your router with screen sharing on, and go to "Connect to Server" and type in vnc://<your IP>. Use Dynamic DNS and its a snap.

Far better than LogMeIn which I curse whenever I have to use.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by alex_kac 

You don't need either LogMeIn or Back to my Mac. Simply turn on port forwarding on your router with screen sharing on, and go to "Connect to Server" and type in vnc://<your IP>. Use Dynamic DNS and its a snap.

I know.

Far better than LogMeIn which I curse whenever I have to use.

I have extensively used three ways to "get" to my and my parents computer:

1) VNC / ARD (w/ DynDNS)
2) Hamachi
3) LogMeIn

LogMeIn is the only one that consistently worked and never came up with hitches.
You won't believe how many stupid issues I encountered with VNC/ARD.
LogMeIn is my lifeline. When all fails, it works.

The problem with VNC / DynDNS is that you have too many moving targets:
* DynDNS
* VNC daemon
* computer with fixed IP
* open ports

With LogMeIn, you are only dependent on the LogMeIn daemon running and port 80. It takes care of everything else.

-t

[alex_kac]

The problem I have with LogMeIn is the browser extension. I keep wanting to close windows and end up closing the whole stupid window or tab. Then I have to spend way too much time to reconnect to it. I curse it every time I have to use it.

Maybe they have an RDC app and that's my fault for not seeing one, but if they did it would be better. I use the built-in screen sharing of OS X and I've never in years had a problem getting in from any place I've been to - international or otherwise.

LogMeIn usually works, but not always. What I really hate is if I close the window 2-3 times in a row, it won't let me connect again at all. I just get a blank window. I have to quit my browser, wait 15-30 minutes and try again. Then it works. But I can only stand to use that when I absolutely must.

[voodoo]

I'd like to re-itarate that the Finder seems to get no love from Apple. One could say it works, but so does Windows, that's not saying a lot. There have been no improvements of any significance since 10.2 or thereabouts.

The Finder has been 'rewritten' at least twice (or so claims Steve) since 10.2 but the first rewrite was to make it perform better and look like iTunes and the second rewrite was just moving it to Cocoa, bringing essentially no improvements. They've added some features to the finder such as CoverFlow, but that was in my opinion a clear sign that Apple is running on fumes when it comes to Finder development.

CoverFlow as bought into Apple and bolted on to the browser-window in the Finder, which doesn't strike me as an encouraging sign of active Finder development and refinement within Apple. There is no vision behind the OS X Finder, in fact it seems to be treated as an abandoned part of OS X - more or less.

As is the Apple menu, which is completely static and needs third party hacks to customize.

Every time a major upgrade is announced to OS X I hope for some significant progress or vision regarding the Finder. The thing is updated so slowly and with such disinterest that some shareware Finder replacement has caught up with it and as a browser, surpassed the Finder.

Apple has been concentrating very much on technical aspects of the OS, or under-the-hood improvements and they have been very successful. I'd just like them to pay a little more attention to the Finder in the next upgrades to OS X.

It has become so useless that I rarely find myself going there, using instead the recent items of the Apple menu or the Dock. The Finder could be much better and much more useful than the Dock and the Apple menu. And it still relies on suffixes for file-types. Really Apple? It's 2010 and I'm seeing suffixes.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

And it still relies on suffixes for file-types. Really Apple? It's 2010 and I'm seeing suffixes.

Uhm, that's a gross misrepresentation of things.

Originally Posted by John Siracusa

There are only two popular methods for representing concrete types: HFS/HFS+ type/creator codes and filename extensions. Mac OS X supports both, but Apple "strongly encourages developers to use file extensions as alternative means for identifying document types." Apple's reasoning is that the Internet, the new "lowest common denominator" of interoperability, does not support HFS-style attributes and forks; it deals only in flat files. Where the overwhelming majority of "flat file" volume formats (i.e. Windows/FAT, Unix/UFS) failed to change Apple's thinking, the pervasive connectivity of the multi-million-node Internet has succeeded.

See here: Ars Technica: Mac OS X Q & A - Page 2 - (6/2000)

-t

[lpkmckenna]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Uhm, that's a gross misrepresentation of things.

No he's right. With Snow Leopard, creator codes are now ignored.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Not sure if serious...

Sorry I meant OpenCL.

Can't these geeks come up with names that aren't so close?!!!!

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by indigoimac 

Dashboard was and continues to be a bloated cow... then again it's useless either way... at least to me.

Calculator has floating point calculation issues with the paper tape that don't need to be displayed to the user.

Other than that yes Front Row -- it's a hidden feature, but it's decent

Printer Sharing is disastrous between 10.5 and 10.6 as the driver managers don't get along

That's actually about it-- to be honest my only major gripe w. 10.5 was its handling of network shares in finder but thank god they fixed all that very nicely.

When availability of network shares comes and goes the 10.6 Finder still freaks out by disconnecting them randomly rather than trying to reconnect a little later, at least for me.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

I have extensively used three ways to "get" to my and my parents computer:

1) VNC / ARD (w/ DynDNS)
2) Hamachi
3) LogMeIn

LogMeIn is the only one that consistently worked and never came up with hitches.
You won't believe how many stupid issues I encountered with VNC/ARD.
LogMeIn is my lifeline. When all fails, it works.

The problem with VNC / DynDNS is that you have too many moving targets:
* DynDNS
* VNC daemon
* computer with fixed IP
* open ports

With LogMeIn, you are only dependent on the LogMeIn daemon running and port 80. It takes care of everything else.

-t

I'm still reticent to trust some third party service and their assurances that this is "secure", it just doesn't sit right with me.

I wish Apple would take more of a Linux approach in allowing you to start and stop services via the CLI, and not forcing you to use a GUI for certain things (such as their application firewall). It would be nice if all you had to do was setup DynDNS and open up port 22, this would at least get you as far as being able to troubleshoot the remaining problems (i.e. is VNC running, responding on port 5900, is the firewall blocking this port, etc.)

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I'm still reticent to trust some third party service and their assurances that this is "secure", it just doesn't sit right with me.

I wish Apple would take more of a Linux approach in allowing you to start and stop services via the CLI, and not forcing you to use a GUI for certain things (such as their application firewall). It would be nice if all you had to do was setup DynDNS and open up port 22, this would at least get you as far as being able to troubleshoot the remaining problems (i.e. is VNC running, responding on port 5900, is the firewall blocking this port, etc.)

One of the main problems of doing remote tech support (like for my parents) is that they move around with their laptops. Sometime they're on LAN, sometimes on WiFi, sometimes in a hotel, sometimes at my siblings place etc.

It's impossible to do VNC or ARD (or CLI port 22, for that matter) in all those circumstances.

Now, Back to my Mac is supposed to mitigate that, but it doesn't seem to work with all routers. FAIL.

-t

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

One of the main problems of doing remote tech support (like for my parents) is that they move around with their laptops. Sometime they're on LAN, sometimes on WiFi, sometimes in a hotel, sometimes at my siblings place etc.

It's impossible to do VNC or ARD (or CLI port 22, for that matter) in all those circumstances.

Now, Back to my Mac is supposed to mitigate that, but it doesn't seem to work with all routers. FAIL.

-t

Why would the router matter? Doesn't Logmein create a tunnel directly from PC to Logmein? This is the only way you can do this, AFAIK, so I would assume that Back to my Mac would try to do the same?

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Why would the router matter? Doesn't Logmein create a tunnel directly from PC to Logmein? This is the only way you can do this, AFAIK, so I would assume that Back to my Mac would try to do the same?

Don't ask me.

Tetenal reported that Back to my Mac doesn't work with a router that's very popular in Germany.

http://forums.macnn.com/89/macnn-lou...x/#post3939235

Something about Apple's implementation that's non-standard.

-t

[nonhuman]

Back to my Mac requires a router that support UPnP: Back to My Mac: Supported router devices

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

Back to my Mac requires a router that support UPnP: Back to My Mac: Supported router devices

Thanks for the info.

Well, LogMeIn works w/o UPnP. FTW.

-t

[Powerbook]

Don't forget the holy PowerPC.
These pricks abandoned it.

[Oisín]

^ Not a part of OS X, though.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Powerbook 

Don't forget the holy PowerPC.
These pricks abandoned it.

One of the smartest things Apple has ever done.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

One of the smartest things Apple has ever done.

Absolutely! I wasn't sure at the time, since I didn't know how smooth the transition would be - and I was already sick and tired of transition periods with Apple products, but it turned out great and Intel is at the top of its game these days.

The switch to Intel was a good thing™

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by Powerbook 

Don’t forget the holy PowerPC.
These pricks abandoned it.

I’m not sure what was so holy about PPC, except that latterly it was wholly inadequate and falling further and further behind Intel’s processor offerings. Perhaps the G5s were different (I can’t comment, never having used one for more than a few minutes at a time), but the G4s being used in laptops were disgracefully underpowered. Using even one of the earliest CD Macs underlines just how outdated and anæmic the PPCs were in comparison.

Censuring Apple for its decision to transition off the stagnating PPC architecture onto one with a proper roadmap and the support of a company committed to offering modern portable processors is disingenuous at best, and blindly stupid at worst. Just because Macs now use ‘the processor of the Beast’ doesn’t change the fact that the computer you’re using is still a Mac. What makes a Mac a Mac is a combination of industrial- and software-design, but mainly its software — OS X is the Mac, not OS X-running-on-PPC. If architecture was so holy and so important, then there hasn’t been a ‘real’ Mac since they stopped using the original Motorola 68xxx processors back in the early/mid-nineties. (You could also make the same argument that there hasn’t been a real Mac since they transitioned from ‘Classic’ to OS X back in the early–’00s, but that falls into the same disingenuous logic as arguing about architecture.)

Do I love my PPC Macs? Definitely. Are they still usable? Absolutely. Would I voluntarily go back to using one as my primary machine? Absolutely not. The performance under any reasonably modern OS (read: Tiger onward) is just not good enough to use them by choice as my only machine. To grasp on one of the currents topics du jour, Flash is unforgivably slow on them. I use ClickToFlash on all my machines, but when I want to watch the iPlayer, I want to be able to view it fullscreen without it jumping or freezing every couple of seconds. Of course, Flash performance is poor on OS X with an Intel, but at least it has the horsepower to compensate for it. The PPCs don’t.

Ultimately, a Mac could be using a Difference Engine as its processor and it wouldn’t matter a damn. What matters is performance, and increasingly, performance-per-Watt. Anyone who argues otherwise has imbibed way too much of the Kool Aid.

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

One of the smartest things Apple has ever done.

Amen to that.

[voodoo]

The PowerPC was a wonderful thing back in the day. It always lagged behind though and since the same job can be done as well or better with an Intel i386/x64 well then so be it.

I've only had one Intel based Mac (the one I'm currently using) and I've never noticed it is Intel based. It's a Mac and runs and perform exactly the same as my earlier PPC machines (except faster).

The G5 had and probably has a lot of potential and was very powerful and effective. IBM just wasn't interested in it, and well that's that.

Besides, now I can run Windows games on the Mac !!

[lpkmckenna]

Originally Posted by Powerbook 

Don't forget the holy PowerPC.
These pricks abandoned it.

Apple abandoned PowerPC after Motorola and IBM abandoned it. Leaving your purchasers to twist in the wind is bad business.