teh blog of Jim

We have just gotten an anonymous tip from a source that indicates that Apple is planning a special event on February 20 to introduce Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), iLife ‘07 and iWork ‘07 as well as updated Mac Pros.

Hmm… maybe some updated Mac Minis and new displays too?

STOP.
INDEXING.
WIKIPEDIA!

Dear Google,
For several days now, Wikipedia has been excruciatingly slow, to the point of it being unusable. I have heard that this happens when you index it, and I’ve noticed that the latest caches of Wikipedia pages are within the last few days. Knowing this, I have been able to determine that you are currently in the process of re-indexing the free encyclopedia. By doing this you are depriving the world of a valuable resource. Please stop. Instead, I suggest that you buy an xServe RAID and ask the wikimedia foundation to copy their articles onto it once a week. Then, the array can be shipped back to a Google office for indexing. This would be cheaper for the Wikimedia foundation, and it would allow for the free flow of information that the Internet and Wikipedia were designed to facilitate.

-jX

I’ve been reading a lot lately about why ZFS, the filesystem developed by Sun Microsystems, is so important to users of Mac OSX. It all sounds great! I want ZFS! oh wait… Windows doesn’t support it? Linux uses a userland hack? Linux can’t boot from it?

Why?!?! I thought Linux and ZFS were both open source?

Oh… Licensing. :-\

Well… isn’t the point of open source software to innovate without legal formalities? Since ZFS is so revolutionary, and Linux so widespread, why can’t Sun tweak their license to allow for ZFS inclusion in the Linux Kernel? Or, can Sun… just once… fork the code and hand it over to Linus Torvalds under the WTF Public License?

ZFS, with all it’s fancy features and redundancy would easily become the filesystem of choice for Server Admins, business users, and the small yet dedicated home userbase.

So what needs to be done?

1. Modify the GPL and/or CDDL so that code can be shared between the two licenses
2. Code ZFS into the Linux Kernel
3. Code ZFS support into GRUB and LILO
4. Code fsck and similar utilities for ZFS support

DO IT!

oh… have I mentioned how much I love Firefox’s spellcheck feature?

Merry Christmas!

AMD,

Please do the following:

1. Starting with the K8L series, include on-chip randomness generator based off of atomic decay.
2. Jack up the number of FPUs and make them wider or put them on a separate, user-upgradeable chip.
3. I don’t want this “4×4″ crap you’re pushing. I want a native Quad-core design by the next FX release.
4. Up the bus speeds! There’s no work for the shiny processor if the data can’t get to it.
5. Copy Intel. Copy their Instruction sets and implement them in all your processors. Also, make some of your own that will help with gaming, video editing, protein folding, and cryptography.
6. Have chips clock themselves based off of their temperature and workload unless (trusted) software requests to modify it.
7. Up the caches. Can’t go wrong with that.

1. Sell the iPhone
   The iPhone would be an excellent investment for Apple, as many people (including Your Humble Narrator) would want to buy one.
2. Make the 16:9 iPod
   People want it, let them have it!
3. Sell DVORAK-Layout Keyboards
   As Apple’s primary market is of the pro-sumer (read “nerdy and proud”) type, DVORAK keyboards would aid in serving this niche market by staving off carpal tunnel syndrome.
4. Update to 802.11n
   Although the specification is not complete, Apple should roll out draft 802.11n hardware so that consumers can get a taste of the speed and range it offers. Once the final specification has been published, firmware updates could bring the hardware to that specification.
5. Upgrade the iSight
   iSights (or as I refer to them, Whore-cams, for their obvious potential use) are currently able to capture 640×480 images at 30 frames per second. Upgrading these to at least two megapixels would allow for better picture when video chatting and better pictures when using photobooth.
6. Move Completely to 64-bit and Don’t Look Back
   64-bit processors like Intel’s Core 2 Solo, Core 2 Duo, and upcoming Core 2 Quadro all support the standard x86 implementation of 64-bit processing, known to the Unix community as AMD64 (as opposed to Intel’s failed IA64), which can give a speed boost to some number-intensive applications like Video editing, protein folding, and cryptography.
7. Use 3-Buttoned Mice
   Left-click, right-click, wheel-click. It’s everything you need. Nothing more, nothing less.
8. Cellular Modem Options
   For the MacBook Pro (read “Professional”, as in business) it only makes sense that a cellular modem be offered. Imagine if a business user simply had to insert their SIM Card into their shiny system and have a 6Mbit connection at their fingertips?

   Of course, it would support the standard Cellular and PCS protocols, such as GPRS, EDGE, 3G, and HSDPA. However, if the device were software-based and had hardware support for 850, 900, 1800, 1900, and 2100MHz bands, software updates could be used to provide for changes in cellular technology. In this case, a hardware upgrade would only be needed if a different set of frequencies comes into use.

9. Cool Batteries
   No, I’m not talking about Badass rapper Nickel-cadmiums who are tight with “fiddy”, I’m talking about Lithium Ion batteries that don’t explode, catch fire, or think they’re C4 or thermite. Knowing that you’re going to have a groin and/or home 20 minutes from now is very comforting to customers.
10. Build Mac Mini That Can Drive the 30″ Display at Full Resolution
    Is it really that hard? Update the graphics hardware just a wee bit… tiny computer + big display = teh awesome. The feeling would be almost James Bond-like. Imagine having a huge-ass display mounted on your wall and sitting on your desk is the smallest yet usable computer known to man. You lazily roll away from the desk on your spinny chair and send a few terminal commands to the system via the bluetooth keyboard. You’re so 1337.
11. Make the Mac Mini Silent
    This means no fans. The Mac Mini, paired with a 30″ Display (see above), could be the ultimate Home entertainment system. Also, a comparison between a budget-level *coughDellcough* PC and a silent Mac Mini could land a few sales to the Audiophile and easily-annoyed market.
12. Offer Solid State Storage
    A solid state storage device could speed up boot times, program launches, remove the noisy hard drive, save battery life, prevent lost data from sudden drops, and make systems smaller and lighter. The latter three are characteristics perfect for the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines.
13. Linux Support in BootCamp
    Although OSX is an excellent Unix-based operating system, some things can only be done in Linux. For example, Stanford University’s Folding@Home software was compiled for OSX on PPC. This leaves the user with four options: Use the Rosetta translator software (which means that the folding application takes a performance hit), use Microsoft Windows (eww), use WINE to emulate windows (and take a perfomance hit), or use Linux.

    Although teams of clever Linux Gurus have made MacIntel hardware boot Linux, it is not elegant by far, as driver support in Linux for the Mac hardware is rough around the edges at best.

14. Ability to silence the startup chime
    The chime just annoys me. I don’t know why, but I’m sure I’m not alone. A quick google search comes up with several unofficial ways to disable the sound, but I’d prefer an official solution.
15. Open Up Xgrid
    In a perfect world, everyone would have enough money to provide themselves and their families with food, water, shelter, clothing, education, and a server rack full of Xserves. However this world is not perfect and few of us have that kind of money. In order to bring simple grid computing to the technically inclined, I suggest that Apple open up the protocols or produce and release a free (gratis/as in beer) boot image for PPC, PPC64, x86 and AMD64 machines that allows their resources to be allocated to an Xgrid. Since this obviously breaks their business model concerning clusters, I would also suggest a numerical limit to the number of non-Mac machines that can be run in one grid, perhaps 20.
16. Youth Outreach Program
    Over the years, my public school district in western Pennsylvania has bought hundreds, if not, thousands of Macintosh computers (hell, the elementary schools still have Apple ][s!) . Sadly, they’re poorly maintained. For example, my C++ class is taught on iMac G3s from 1999. These systems overheat regularly, thus crashing, and obtaining the name “Crapples” from the student body. Newer eMacs are used in the Library environment, and are in excellent shape — because they’re rarely used. The authentication server used for the Library system is poorly equipped to handle the number of machines assigned to it, often taking 30-40 minutes to accept a student’s credentials, if at all. It doesn’t help that the library infrastructure is made exclusively out of Ethernet hubs, either.
17. Pseudo-BIOS and SLI
    Although I admit that EFI is an excellent idea, and this problem will solve itself in a few months (in the form of EFI-compatible cards from nVidia and ATI), backward compatibility is needed. The Mac Pro is a very powerful system, perfect for gaming… except for one thing… the graphics card options. In my opinion, nVidia is the king of graphics. As such, I would like to see a dual-7950GTX solution for the Mac Pro. This isn’t currently possible because the firmware on the graphics board is expecting to see a PC-style BIOS on the other end of the PCI-Express lane, as opposed to the EFI. I expect that nVidia’s next generation of graphics cards (the 8xxx series) will support both EFI and BIOS, forcing ATI to do the same with their rebuttal technology.
18. Lower Prices
    Every consumer’s dream is to see the item they’ve been lusting after fall into their price range. I’d like to suggest (read as “request”) that Apple lower their profit margins on their computer systems in order to sell more. It’s not a complicated concept. If lowering your price 2% gets you 5% more sales, you’ve just made 3% more than what you would have without lowering your prices.
19. Back Both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD
    This is a big one… having a system that can play the disk that your clueless aunt bought you for Christmas would be a major comfort when the holiday’s come around.
20. Ok… this isn’t all that important…
    Include a ParaPara game with every iSight and iSight-equipped MacBook:
    
    
    Can’t you just smell the Japanese flowing out of your screen?
    

-jX

Huh… it appears that I’ve been Dugg.

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