Fresh Air

[Coligny]

The 2600K is unlocked which allows for easy overclocking. I'm not planning to overclock but the 2600K also includes the better HD 3000 integrated GPU and I plan to use this for awhile to drive my twin Dell 24" 1920x1200 displays.

The 2600 has Intel vPro technology which seems to be aimed at IT departments for security and remote management. Both the 2600 and the 2600K have Intel's VT-x which is for virtualization with packages such as Xen or VMware.

I was more thinking aboot the VTd technology allowing direct hardware access for the VM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization#I.2FO_MMU_virtualization_.28AMD-Vi_and_VT-d.29

If you uninstall one set of drivers and revert to VGA before installing the next set of drivers it should be fine. Personally I generally just stick with AMD/ATI graphics though, I've never really liked nvidia that much.

yeah, try to do that when the former video card is a smoldering pile of melted electronics... (my video cards demonstrate a previously unknown love for immolating themselves in colorfull bonfires...).

I personally never overclock anything, stability, reliability and longevity are my primary concerns. But 'made for overclocking' components used at regular or slightly lower speed are nice in my book...

[FG Lurker]

I was more thinking aboot the VTd technology allowing direct hardware access for the VM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization#I.2FO_MMU_virtualization_.28AMD-Vi_and_VT-d.29

I'm pretty sure that is only for baremetal virtualization. In other words where you have a hypervisor and then multiple OSes running on top of that -- data center stuff. I don't think it affects the only sort of VM work I am likely to be doing -- running VMware on top of Win7 to run legacy OSes for testing purposes.

yeah, try to do that when the former video card is a smoldering pile of melted electronics... (my video cards demonstrate a previously unknown love for immolating themselves in colorfull bonfires...).

1. Install new video card
2. Boot into Windows Safe Mode and uninstall old drivers
3. Reboot into standard mode and install new drivers

I personally never overclock anything, stability, reliability and longevity are my primary concerns. But 'made for overclocking' components used at regular or slightly lower speed are nice in my book...

I used to overclock and do all sorts of crazy things. Had a dual processor Celeron 300A rig at 450 way back in the day... Not anymore though, stability and reliability far outrank any extra speed or few thousand yen saved. Besides, quad cores with hyper-threading all running at 3.4GHz? That's plenty of speed for me right now.

[Coligny]

1. Install new video card
2. Boot into Windows Safe Mode and uninstall old drivers
3. Reboot into standard mode and install new drivers

I was intoxicamated by the fumes...

(woke up... see monitors bluescreening, compy shutdown... then smoke goes out... nearly as bad a the morning(s) when my old cat sleep on my chest and start vomitting right on my face...)

[American Oyaji]

My main computer is an aging IBM ThinkPad T60 running Windows XP. The XP install on this machine was done on 2008-09-05 @ 16:48 and has been running well since. It's been heavily abused too, I have many dozens of packages installed and have added/removed dozens and dozens more. I use this machine 12 to 16 hours a day pretty much every day.

The days of having to do a reinstall every year or so ended with Win9x.

Lurk, I had a T60 at work for 3 years and I HATED to have to give it up when the lease expired. Best Windows laptop ever before they started going to this widescreen stuff. Then again, I'm I've been using a lenovo C100 for nearly 5 years and it's been rock solid too.

[FG Lurker]

Lurk, I had a T60 at work for 3 years and I HATED to have to give it up when the lease expired. Best Windows laptop ever before they started going to this widescreen stuff. Then again, I'm I've been using a lenovo C100 for nearly 5 years and it's been rock solid too.

I'm definitely going to miss some things about this computer. The biggest one is probably going to be having three displays. In a couple of months I'll probably buy another display with a DisplayPort connector and then I can go back to having three again. Until then I'll have to manage with two.

It's definitely taken a lot of use and abuse and kept on running. I've had it for ~5 years now and it really hasn't missed a beat. If it wasn't for the 3GB memory limit I would keep it another year or so I'm sure.

[Yokohammer]

OK, so while you Windows guys have been discussing flange nuts and left-handed skyhooks, etc., I have spent a couple of days doing some serious work on the new Air.

I normally use a MacBook Pro (2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo, purchased early 2009) connected to a second display at home as the core of my system*, and I always though it was pretty zippy. But the Air, with MS Office 2011 installed, is so responsive I'm now finding the MacBook Pro to be slow. As has been noted, the Air (more specifically Lion) is not for users who want to keep using older software, but if you're prepared to update to the latest of everything it's a huge step up.

[SIZE="1"]* That's after I retired the dual 2 GHz G5 desktop that was starting to seem like a lumbering dinosaur compared to the MacBook Pro.[/SIZE]

Edit: I should probably add that I didn't buy the Air for speed. I bought it for portability and convenience. I hadn't expected it to blow my MacBook Pro out of the water, but it does. I am more than a little surprised.

[IparryU]

Dood, even XP was quite awesome... as long as it works it super cool...Then it start hic upping (give it 6 month-one year) and you'ze a fucked as a schoolgirl in a candy van... and pray for your data, bookmarks, apps, settings... because the only good way to go back to a working state is a fresh install...

I haven't made a fresh system instal os OSX since the release of the beta on my G4 who retired 6 month ago...

I have the XP Home version of TT's computer (Aspire ONE D250 WinXP Home SP2) and it is sweet.

XP is really easy to reinstall and keep your data, but not software. Here is what I did:
-Slipstream WinXP Pro SP3 with service packs and drivers for my computer (note i slipstreamed it on a 1Gb bootable USB)
-copy wpa.bak and wpa.dbl to a USB from C:\windows\system32 (if i so decided to go back to WinXP Home)
-format HDD into 40~50Gb for the OS and the rest for data
-install the Slipstream WinXP Pro SP3
-copy the wpa.dbl and wpa.bak from C:\windows\system32 for this version of Windoze OS

then if my computer slows down again, i just format and reinstall my system partition. It takes me 3 hours of my time to format, install OS, install programs, download the updated software for Office, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe CS5, etc, and reinstall all that stuffs, and customize everything again.

only 1 hour is me doing something besides drinking a Sparks or looking back an fourth from the movie that is on and my computer. Great for when you are just bored as all hell or just want to reinstall everything for the hell of it.

It's fun for me... sort of like crack but with out the twitching and scratching...

[IparryU]

Being a vehement Linux fanboy, I finally broke down and picked up the most basic iPad 1 for a bargain just after the 2 came out because I'm a cheapass, but I'm practically married to the thing. To paint a picture about how strongly I feel about Linux: everything at our house is Fedora, I even forced my wife to use it (she says she likes it).

just to Q&A you on Linux, why Fedora over Ubuntu or Suse?

Also, what is the best way to get the wife used to a Linux OS vs Windoze or MacOS?

[Yokohammer]

I have the XP Home version of TT's computer (Aspire ONE D250 WinXP Home SP2) and it is sweet.

XP is really easy to reinstall and keep your data, but not software. Here is what I did:
-Slipstream WinXP Pro SP3 with service packs and drivers for my computer (note i slipstreamed it on a 1Gb bootable USB)
-copy wpa.bak and wpa.dbl to a USB from C:\windows\system32 (if i so decided to go back to WinXP Home)
-format HDD into 40~50Gb for the OS and the rest for data
-install the Slipstream WinXP Pro SP3
-copy the wpa.dbl and wpa.bak from C:\windows\system32 for this version of Windoze OS

then if my computer slows down again, i just format and reinstall my system partition. It takes me 3 hours of my time to format, install OS, install programs, download the updated software for Office, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe CS5, etc, and reinstall all that stuffs, and customize everything again.

only 1 hour is me doing something besides drinking a Sparks or looking back an fourth from the movie that is on and my computer. Great for when you are just bored as all hell or just want to reinstall everything for the hell of it.

It's fun for me... sort of like crack but with out the twitching and scratching...

This a pretty good demonstration of one of the main reasons I use a Mac.

Somehow Windows users get inured to all this hoop jumping and come to the conclusion that it's easy. I can see how it can be fun (hey, I'm a geek too), but it ain't "easy".

I open the lid on my Mac and use it (immediately ... no waiting for boot or system initialization if it's the Air), and then close the lid again when I'm done. That's pretty much it for the life of the machine, unless there's an OS upgrade somewhere along the way (which is also dead simple). That is easy.

[color="Gray"]OK, OK, sorry ... I might have just dropped a molotov cocktail into an otherwise peaceful thread ... heh heh ...[/color]

[Ganma]

[SIZE="1"]* That's after I retired the dual 2 GHz G5 desktop that was starting to seem like a lumbering dinosaur compared to the MacBook Pro.[/SIZE]

Tell me about it. I have a 20 inch G5 iMac which hardly gets used, but I still keep it 'cus I don't plan to be buying another 20 inch. ...useful for art projects only.

[Yokohammer]

Tell me about it. I have a 20 inch G5 iMac which hardly gets used, but I still keep it 'cus I don't plan to be buying another 20 inch. ...useful for art projects only.

That's the trouble with old computers!

You always have a niggling suspicion that they should be useful for something or other, so they tend to sit around, taking up space, just waiting for that opportunity to come along.

Isn't there some way I can use my old G5, or my old Core 2 Duo HP laptop for that matter, to control my coffee maker or something?

[FG Lurker]

This a pretty good demonstration of one of the main reasons I use a Mac.

Yeah, that was pure insanity and in my experience very unnecessary. I abuse my computers a lot more than nearly anyone yet XP managed just fine for 3 years. Can't imagine doing regular reinstalls like that.

Somehow Windows users get inured to all this hoop jumping and come to the conclusion that it's easy. I can see how it can be fun (hey, I'm a geek too), but it ain't "easy".

Some people find it fun. For the vast majority of users it's neither fun nor necessary.

I open the lid on my Mac and use it (immediately ... no waiting for boot or system initialization if it's the Air), and then close the lid again when I'm done. That's pretty much it for the life of the machine, unless there's an OS upgrade somewhere along the way (which is also dead simple). That is easy.

I'm just getting started with this new computer and Win7 but so far I'm impressed. From power on (not coming out of sleep) to the login prompt takes ~5 seconds. It took longer than that for the T60 to POST. It will be interesting to see how things go for the next while.

OK, OK, sorry ... I might have just dropped a molotov cocktail into an otherwise peaceful thread ... heh heh ...

Nah, I tried to switch to a Mac in late 2006 and found nothing but endless frustration. It was a busy time for me so perhaps not the best time to switch computers but still, it was one of the most frustrating things I have ever tried to do computationally. Coming from a guy who has worked with SAP that says a lot! In the end a lot comes down to what you are used to using and how it fits the way you work.

Today (2011) I don't think either system is inherently better from a user experience standpoint. Prior to OS X though it was NT4 vs System 7/OS8/OS9 and NT won that hands down. Ugly but it never crashed.

[FG Lurker]

OK, so while you Windows guys have been discussing flange nuts and left-handed skyhooks, etc., I have spent a couple of days doing some serious work on the new Air.

I spent yesterday getting the new Win7 computer set up. For about 100,000yen total I built a computer that is way faster than the 228,000yen Mac Pro and probably faster than the 328,000yen Mac Pro in many situations. Also has 16GB of memory, a 60GB SSD, and 2x2TB of RAID 1 storage. I don't even want to imagine what those upgrades would cost from Apple, if they're even available. If I saved something around 200,000yen by putting in a day's work I'm fine with that.

I normally use a MacBook Pro (2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo, purchased early 2009) connected to a second display at home as the core of my system*, and I always though it was pretty zippy. But the Air, with MS Office 2011 installed, is so responsive I'm now finding the MacBook Pro to be slow. As has been noted, the Air (more specifically Lion) is not for users who want to keep using older software, but if you're prepared to update to the latest of everything it's a huge step up.

If you put a fast SSD into the Pro and add some more memory I think you will find it runs much faster than it does currently. Responsiveness is much more dependent on disk speed and available memory than raw CPU power. (A 2.53GHz Core2Duo should still have more grunt than a 1.7GHz i5 anyway...)

* That's after I retired the dual 2 GHz G5 desktop that was starting to seem like a lumbering dinosaur compared to the MacBook Pro.

Dual quad core G5 CPUs? That's the same machine Chuck bought if memory serves. That was quite the scam on Apple's part, they charged an arm and a leg for those and then totally abandoned them a few years later.

[Yokohammer]

In the end a lot comes down to what you are used to using and how it fits the way you work.

I think that really sums it up right there.

For example, even Windows people were bellyaching about what a pain Win 7 was when it came out, but I, an inveterate Mac guy, worked with it for a while (as I mentioned in a previous post) and found it to be quite nice. Fast on even a basic Core i5 machine too. It's just that it wasn't what people were used to, so it was "bad." Until they got used to it. Always the case.

"What you are used to using and how it fits the way you work" ... yup.

[FG Lurker]

I think that really sums it up right there.

For example, even Windows people were bellyaching about what a pain Win 7 was when it came out, but I, an inveterate Mac guy, worked with it for a while (as I mentioned in a previous post) and found it to be quite nice. Fast on even a basic Core i5 machine too. It's just that it wasn't what people were used to, so it was "bad." Until they got used to it. Always the case.

"What you are used to using and how it fits the way you work" ... yup.

For me the biggest issue with OSX was the lack of standardized keyboard controls. Yes, you can do some things via keyboard but there are many that you can not do. Windows was designed from the beginning to be usable either with a mouse or via keyboard. The mouse is a great tool for many tasks but it also slows down many others. Having to constantly use the mouse to do small tasks that should be available by keyboard drove me close to insanity. In the end I abandoned the 300,000yen MacBook Pro and bought the T60.

[Yokohammer]

[FG Lurker]

Maybe with a fast SSD, but it looks as though the new Airs are in the process of leaving previous stock MB Pros in the dust:

That's an overall system benchmark though, right? The SSD in the Air vs the HDD in the MBP will make a huge difference. It makes a huge difference in real life too, machine is way, way more responsive with an SSD than with a HDD.

[Yokohammer]

The SSD in the Air vs the HDD in the MBP will make a huge difference.

It does. "Huge" is almost an understatement.

What surprises me is that this year's Airs are twice as fast, or more than twice as fast in the case of the 11", than last year's Airs. They both use SSDs, so why the big difference? The two obvious changes are the CPUs (from Core 2 Duo last year to Core i5 this year), and the OS. The OS is much leaner than the previous version, at least partly because all that Rosetta stuff for backward compatibility is gone (Snow Leopard was a little over 7 GB. Lion is a little under 4 GB). Might have a substantial effect.

[FG Lurker]

It does. "Huge" is almost an understatement.

What surprises me is that this year's Airs are twice as fast, or more than twice as fast in the case of the 11", than last year's Airs. They both use SSDs, so why the big difference? The two obvious changes are the CPUs (from Core 2 Duo last year to Core i5 this year), and the OS. The OS is much leaner than the previous version, at least partly because all that Rosetta stuff for backward compatibility is gone (Snow Leopard was a little over 7 GB. Lion is a little under 4 GB). Might have a substantial effect.

For some reason I thought last year's Airs had a HDD as standard with an SSD as an option. Looks like they are both SSD.

I guess it's a combination of the faster i5 CPU and the big improvement with the integrated graphics. The integrated graphics on the i5 are way better than anything Intel has produced before and are pretty much as fast as a basic discrete chip from ATI (now AMD).

[Coligny]

SSD change the world... even with little ram, having the virtual memory done on the SSD make it litghning fast...

[FG Lurker]

SSD change the world... even with little ram, having the virtual memory done on the SSD make it litghning fast...

Putting virtual memory on an SSD is a fast way to kill the drive though.

[IparryU]

[quote="Yokohammer"]This a pretty good demonstration of one of the main reasons I use a Mac.

Somehow Windows users get inured to all this hoop jumping and come to the conclusion that it's easy. I can see how it can be fun (hey, I'm a geek too), but it ain't "easy".

I open the lid on my Mac and use it (immediately ... no waiting for boot or system initialization if it's the Air), and then close the lid again when I'm done. That's pretty much it for the life of the machine, unless there's an OS upgrade somewhere along the way (which is also dead simple). That is easy.

OK, OK, sorry ... I might have just dropped a molotov cocktail into an otherwise peaceful thread ... heh heh ...[/quote

very valid point... i fuggin hate macs... i feel like i am playing a Famicom after years of playing PS3 (another fucked system)...

Famicom sounds good now...

[nikoneko]

very valid point... i fuggin hate macs... i feel like i am playing a Famicom after years of playing PS3 (another fucked system)...

Famicom sounds good now...

Learn Unix then you will appreciate a mac over windows. Night! *ducks*

[Caustic Saint]

I'd been using a Hackintoshed Dell Mini10v for the last 18 months or so, but went and got the new 13" Air (base model) yesterday.

DAYUM!!

Double the screen size, massive speed increase and only about 200g more in weight. Heavenly. (Sure, it costs a lot more than my Mini10v did, but it's well worth it.) I'm also loving Lion and the full-screen apps. Swiping between them is beyond slick and makes alt-tabbing feel very clumsy.

In the words of Ferris Bueller, "If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

[Tsuru]

Putting virtual memory on an SSD is a fast way to kill the drive though.

Moar RAMZ is always better... still a lot faster, and cheaper too. You don't need to permanently store the contents of the paging area do you? Just get a 64-bit OS with a shitload of RAM and turn off the pagefile/swap partition.

[Yokohammer]

... went and got the new 13" Air (base model) yesterday.

DAYUM!!

Told you so!
Frickin' insane, innit?

[color="Gray"](Welcome to the club)[/color]

[Caustic Saint]

I actually hadn't even seen this topic until after I'd bought my machine. Ever since the latest Air refresh I'd been looking at them a lot, but thought it'd be a bit of an extravagance. My wife saw me checking out the Apple site for the umpteenth time this past Saturday and asked about them. I said I really wanted to get one to replace my netbook and her only response was, "if you want it, you should go get it."

I would've had it that night (we were in Shibuya anyways) but my American bank flagged my debit card for "unusual purchase activity" and it was refused. A call to them that night cleared it up and I was back at the Apple store first thing Sunday morning. Good on them for having models with English keyboards in stock.

I also picked up the USB-Ethernet adapter to be able to use Migration Assistant to get all my apps/info off my old iMac. That process was dead easy, if a bit time consuming. Once it was running I just left to run errands and it was done when I got back. (56 gigs took a little over an hour.)

[Yokohammer]

I also picked up the USB-Ethernet adapter to be able to use Migration Assistant to get all my apps/info off my old iMac. That process was dead easy, if a bit time consuming. Once it was running I just left to run errands and it was done when I got back. (56 gigs took a little over an hour.)

Did you get the SuperDrive as well (only JPY 6,800)? I figured it would be essential for new installs from disk, and in fact used it to install my fresh copy of Office 2011. No problem. But other than encoding CDs, which I do a lot on my main machine,* there's not much need for an optical drive on a portable these days. Got the USB-Ethernet thingie too.

[SIZE="1"]* CD's I have actually bought, by the way.[/SIZE]

[Caustic Saint]

Did you get the SuperDrive as well (only JPY 6,800)? I figured it would be essential for new installs from disk, and in fact used it to install my fresh copy of Office 2011. No problem. But other than encoding CDs, which I do a lot on my main machine,* there's not much need for an optical drive on a portable these days.

I didn't get the USB Superdrive. I have 2 other Macs handy (a Core2Duo iMac and a CoreDuo mini), so if I really need access to an optical drive I'll try out the Optical Disk Sharing thing and see how that goes. I suspect I'll be able to get by just fine without one connected directly to the Air.

[Yokohammer]

I didn't get the USB Superdrive. I have 2 other Macs handy (a Core2Duo iMac and a CoreDuo mini), so if I really need access to an optical drive I'll try out the Optical Disk Sharing thing and see how that goes. I suspect I'll be able to get by just fine without one connected directly to the Air.

That makes sense. The less clutter the better. In my case, since the Air was primarily purchased to be a "road computer" (although that plan might get modified a bit now that I've seen how fast the darn thing is*) there is a small chance that I might need to be able to access or write optical discs at a client's office, for example, and I figured I could always chuck the SuperDrive in my bag if that seemed likely.

* There are a couple of noteworthy corollaries to the Air situation.

1) There is a rumor that Apple is planning to release a 15" variant of the Air – a super-slim notebook. But it is not yet sure whether it will extend the Air lineup or be an addition to the MacBook Pro lineup. Should be sometime later this year, if it happens.

2) The Apple 27" Thunderbolt Display (check out the Apple website) looks like a great deal at about JPY 84,000. Not only is it a very nice large display that will plug right into the air, but it also supplies USB ports, a Firewire 800 port, a second Thunderbolt port, and even a power plug for the Air. Built-in speakers, too. I can see how the Air and one of those displays (and of course the usual external storage for backups, etc.) could turn out to be all I need.