Apple has won a decisive victory over Pystar, the clone computer maker which sells Mac OS X preloaded on non-Apple hardware. The summary judgement won by Apple ruled that Pystar had violated copyright laws and violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). It sounds like the road is ending for Pystar. It sounds like this should be the obvious outcome, but I think many of us are simply shocked at Pystar’s vigorous attacks against Apple and wondered if they did indeed have a case worth fighting.

It is just unthinkable that there was any sense in Pystar’s arguments. It is hard to comprehend what Pystar was really up to in the last many months of legal battle. It’s a David vs Goliath kind of battle, except that the David in this case is more the villain than Goliath is.

I hate to sound like an Apple fan boy, but I think Apple has done quite well with Mac OS X. It’s a pity that you need an Apple hardware to run Mac OS X legally, and Apple hardware is slightly of a premium over generic PCs. But of course, the Mac argument is that you’ve got to consider the total cost of ownership. A Mac comes included with many functionalities that would have been additional cost items had you bought a generic PC.

In this digital age, intellectual property is a big thing. I remember growing up with computers at a time when, at least in Singapore, software piracy and hardware cloning is a norm. Things have certainly changed nowadays. You would pay for a licensed copy of your operating system (unless it was free to begin with). That’s not just because it came bundled with the PC you bought, as computer users are generally more sensitive toward upgrade paths and borrowing of installation media, showing they care about doing the right thing. (Perhaps that’s because they are scared of getting caught doing bad things… something which is becoming featured more publicly nowadays.)

Honestly, had they made software cheaper and affordable, people would probably not mind paying “the right price”. For example, the Mac OS X 10.6 upgrade was so affordable, I imagine most people were happy to pay the US$29 (S$48) upgrade price.

Back to Pystar. The clone maker reminds me of my starting days with computers. At that time, no one bought an original Apple computer. That was the era of the Apple ][. I think Apple was just as keen to protect their intellectual property at that time, but the state of intellectual property laws then just made it very difficult for them to effectively take action. Today, their eagerness to protect their intellectual property is not very different from a quarter of a century ago. It is just so surprising to find a clone maker back in the market, let alone operating in the USA.

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I know I’m a little late talking about iPhoto ‘09. But I just got my iLife ‘09 box last week, installed it into my MacBook, and played with iPhoto ‘09 for the first time after having read so much about its features. iPhoto is really about the only application I use in the iLife suite. At some time I will probably try to put iMovie, iDVD and iWeb to good use. There’d be lesser use of GarageBand for me though.

The thing that fascinates me most about the new iPhoto is the Faces detection. It is really amazing. I identified Vanessa in one photo. iPhoto picked up a whole bunch of other possible Vanessa photos automatically, including ones where there were so many people in the photo and Vanessa was just one tiny face in there, or another were her face was smeared all over with chocolate. iPhoto did a pretty impressive job.

The faces detection isn’t perfect of course. There were a few mismatches. Including, ahem, one in which my dad was identified as me. I wonder if we really do that much alike. Hmm or is iPhoto saying I’m looking that old?!

iPhoto can also automatically group photos based on the place where they were taken. This depends on geo-tagging information being embedded in the photos. This isn’t so useful for me right now, because I do not have my photos geo-tagged. (I could, it is something my N97 supports, but I haven’t decided if I really want geo-tagging turned on.)

Other features in the new iPhoto includes integration to automatically upload photos and albums to Facebook and Flickr. It is really convenient to use.

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Of course we already know that Apple’s Mac hardware has enjoyed steady growth in the market share of desktop and notebook computers. But it is always a pleasant surprise to see it featured in TV programmes, movies, and other mass media. A colleague pointed out something interesting. The web configuration interface of our new Cisco Wireless LAN Controller features a Mac in the splash screen welcome page.

It’s not a very modern Mac computer though. It looks like a Powerbook G4, which runs the PowerPC CPU that is now obsolete. (Apple does not sell PowerPC based desktops or notebooks anymore.)

I think the day will come where Macs would be equally important as Wintel computers, and manufacturers of peripherals, accessories, and other gadgets and devices that are meant to work with computers, will have to properly support both Wintel and Mac platforms right from the start.

Or, more interestingly, perhaps Wintel and Mac camps will come up with a universal way for independent drivers or modules to work on both platforms at the same time. I guess this is beginning to sound like EFI device drivers. Whatever form it takes, do what is needed to unify the different operating platforms. Then again, I imagine Microsoft would be opposed to this idea.

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The cat is out of the bag. The latest version of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system, code named Snow Leopard, will be launched in September. Current Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) users can upgrade to Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) for just US$29. That seems like a very reasonable upgrade price to pay.

Apple’s WWDC event is happening right now, and there are plenty of news to talk about. The iPhone is one of them, but there are plenty of hardware refreshes throughout the MacBook and MacBook product lines.

First off, there are the new 15″ MacBook Pros, and updates to the 17″ MacBook Pros. The 13″ models were all known as MacBooks previously, but the 13″ aluminum unibodies have now been “upgraded” into the MacBook Pro line. So now, the MacBook line has just that single white polycarbonate body version left. All the aluminum unibodies are MacBook Pros, except for the ultra-thin MacBook Air which remains as the MacBook Air. There is also some price drops. For example, the entry level 13″ MacBook Pro (which is the previous middle 13″ MacBook model, or the lower of the two previous aluminum unibody 13″ MacBook models) now sells for US$100 less, although it seems to work out to be only S$100 less in the Apple Singapore store.

The price reductions are great. For some time, I’ve begun to think that the Mac hardware have been overpriced. The reduction is “not enough” in my opinion, but it is certainly a first step in the right direction.

The new Safari 4 browser is finally launched too, and available immediately for download. I hope the various bugs that made me “give up” and go back to Safari 3 has been fixed.

I will be looking forward to Snow Leopard. I hope they have a bundle for iLife ‘09 and Snow Leopard upgrade. Here’s a snippet about Snow Leopard from Apple’s press release:

“We’ve built on the success of Leopard and created an even better experience for our users from installation to shutdown,� said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “Apple engineers have made hundreds of improvements so with Snow Leopard your system is going to feel faster, more responsive and even more reliable than before.�

Yeah, each new version is always faster, more responsive and more reliable. Although no specific date in September was announced for the release of Snow Leopard, if Apple does make the release on time, they would be weeks ahead of Windows 7. They better be weeks ahead of Windows 7, otherwise all the media attention would too quickly be turned to the launch of Windows 7 instead.

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There are many nice things about the Mac. Some of them are definitely the envy of PC. Sometimes the PC cannot resist the temptation to copy. But you know what? Sometimes the copy is so duh. Here’s something I just came across: Multi-Touch gestures for the PC. Yes, Multi-Touch is now no longer exclusive to the MacBooks and iPhones.

Seen from Gizmodo, a Japanese company has a new product called SmartTrack Neo, which is an external USB trackpad that supports gesture movements to control a PC. The graphics depict features such as scrolling (already commonly available on PC anyway), rotating, zooming, and previous/next navigational controls.

Cool. Except that the external trackpad itself is not cool. It is really clunky.

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The Apple Store has just reopened with three new Macs: the new Mac Mini, the new iMac and the new Mac Pro. Actually there are more new things: the new Time Capsule and the new Airport Express. They’re not all ready for immediate shipping in Singapore, but soon enough in just a couple of days (or a little longer, depending on what product you’re looking for).

I’ll just take a minute to comment on the Airport Extreme, because it was something I was considering to get not too long ago. I got the Linksys WRT610N in the end, because the “old” Airport Extreme was not a simultaneous dual-band 802.11n wireless broadband router. The keyword is “simultaneous”, something that I had not caught on until I researched the products in detail. The “old” Airport Extreme was dual-band, operating at 2.4GHz for 802.11b/g compatibility, and 5GHz for 802.11a compatibility, but you had to choose one band or the other. You could not have the Airport Extreme operate in both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies at the same time. It was for this reason (among others, but this would have been an important one) that I ended up with the WRT610N.

Well, the Airport Extreme is now updated. It looks beautiful. I would consider to get the Airport Extreme now if I were still looking around for a 802.11n wireless broadband router.

The new Macs are mostly an evolutionary upgrade. Still cool. But not terribly exciting news. They are still expensive too. In this day and age, particularly the economic climate, paying from S$1948 for a desktop, even if it looks cool, is not really that cool.

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Nowadays, Apple picking up awards from a “PC” magazine isn’t very surprising anymore. This time, Apple has once again swept up all the awards from PC Magazine’s 21st Annual Reader Survey in all the categories of Desktop and Notebook computers. This is in the September 2008 issue of PC Magazine, which I don’t normally read but happened to chance upon a copy in my workplace yesterday.

Macs are really enjoyable to use. I think many people have realized that, but some are still apprehensive about abandoning their familiar world of WIndows. As more and more friends and colleagues make the switch, I guess these people will eventually find the courage to take the leap. I guess that’s why we see their sales figures and user base continue to grow at an increasing rate, overtaking others in the industry.

In separate news, Apple has found itself to be the most-sought computer brand according to a survey conducted by ChangeWave Research.

Also interestingly, Apple is cited to be the number 10 top brand on the web (again) according to Nielsen Online. If you look at the table, Apple is the only computer hardware manufacturer in the list. Of course I’m sure iTunes, iPods and iPhones probably helped push them ahead of other brands.

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This is the start of “Week 1″. It is the second week of school at NUS because the semester started with “Week 0″. Yes, how very much like computer people to start counting from zero. Week 1 is where orientation is over and classes officially start. Week 0 at NUS wasn’t overly crowded. Today, I’m seeing congestion everywhere.

The Internal Shuttle Bus services, for example, were completely packed. The new freshmen have not yet learnt that the rear bus door does not close if there are people standing on the steps. It added to the delays as overcrowded buses were held up at the bus stops.

The first bazaar for this 2008/9 academic year was held at the forum. I’m seeing familiar stalls again (see here and here). There will definitely be more to come. There is a different kind of bazaar happening at YIH. They are selling notebooks there.

NUS has an annual notebook tender where they are able to put together relatively attractive notebook offers for students to purchase. This has been running for perhaps a decade. Nowadays, purchasing a notebook has become a given. Once upon a time, you wonder very hard if it is really necessary or beneficial to purchase a notebook. Nowadays, the question is not if, but which notebook to buy.

This is not a peculiarity with NUS, of course. It happens in universities elsewhere in the world too. You can see Apple targeting students with their back-to-school promotions.

Incidentally, some “bad news” for those buying Macs now. There is much speculation that the MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks will be refreshed end September. So now, there is also the big question of “when” to buy, if you’re looking into MacBooks or MacBook Pros.

Happy schooling.

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The new school year at NUS has started. Many people are buying new computers. Some of them will be buying Macs, particularly since they have gotten quite popular in the last few years. Now, how do you get it working in NUS? Most official help resources are going to focus just on Windows XP or Windows Vista. So here you are, my concise guide to getting a couple of basic things setup to work in NUS.

The Macs are supposed to be easy to use, so why is such a guide necessary Unfortunately, there are some things that are not so straight-forward afterall. No doubt there are some areas that Mac OS X still needs improvement to work seamlessly in an enterprise environment.

I’ve put together the guide at: Mac @ NUS. Right now, there are just a few basic things:

1. Setting up NUS wireless network.
2. Accessing NUSNET Exchange email.
3. Mapping network drives.
4. Printing to network printers (in SoC).

More things will come later, but I guess those are the most important things to get started.

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I’m not a new comer to the Mac. I’ve been using an oldish PowerBook G4 for the last 2 odd years. But just switching from that PowerBook to the new MacBook has been so fascinating that I’ve been wondering why didn’t I get the MacBook any earlier. I’ve been doing new things with the MacBook that I’ve never tried before with the older PowerBook, and along the way I’m discovering how many more cool things that I’ve been missing out previously. Even simple things like email using Mac OS X’s Mail application has made the mundane daily routine more productive and interesting.

I like to keep open mind and explore many different options. Even though I liked my old PowerBook, when it came time to consider getting a new notebook, I did not want to assume it will be a Mac, or to rule out other kinds of notebooks. (I hesitate to refer to the “other” category as “Windows notebook”, because clearly with those other notebooks, I would still give myself the option to install Linux. Yes I know the MacBook does run Windows too, and other x86 operating systems of course, but why would I buy a MacBook to run Windows…)

So as I was evaluating various notebook options, the question of the OS (along with apps) came up. The OS is important. It is part of the total picture. The notebook hardware is not very useful without something to run on it. What are the options with the “other” category of notebooks? There are basically two choices:

1. Run Windows. Either Windows XP or Windows Vista.
2. Run Linux, something like Fedora or Ubuntu.

Let’s talk about Linux first. I’m not a Linux newbie. In fact, I’ve been playing with Linux since the era of Yggdrasil, which I’m pretty sure most people nowadays have not heard of. That was the time when the Linux kernel wasn’t even at version 1.0. I think Linux is great on servers, and I do run many Linux servers, but personally I feel Linux is still just not quite there yet for desktop or notebook uses. Fedora or Ubuntu will probably “work out of the box”, but that’s only if you subsequently don’t do much with the box. There are many times on my notebook that I like to be just a plain simple end-user and have everything just work, and have everything just work with each other. Yes, everything just working is not enough, they have to all work with each other. I’m talking about hardware interoperability, application integration, network accessibility, breathe the Internet, and live the Web.

Windows XP isn’t all that bad actually. Every hardware manufacturer tries to ensure compatibility with Windows XP. Many probably also try to do so for Windows Vista, but perhaps they still haven’t got up to speed yet. If you decide to use Microsoft Office, well you have application integration between Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook. However, at the same time there are also so many other compelling alternatives. Sometimes, the only solutions come from someone other than Microsoft, and that’s where we start to find things falling apart. It doesn’t seem so bad if you’ve not seen greener pastures.

Still, Windows isn’t all that bad, really, if you are willing to put up with compromises. The trouble is that after a while, I’ve gotten tired of compromises.

One thing that many techies tend to forget is that the computer should work. I am a techie too. Once upon a time, it was fun to install Linux, it was fun to figure out how to get Linux to hibernate on my Thinkpad X21. Sometimes, it seems for techies that it is more fun for the computer to not work, because then there would be something to fix.

I grew up and started to work. I am still a techie, and I still like to tinker with things. But, at the same time, I would like my computer to work as it should. It is like my phone. The purpose of the phone is to let me make phone calls (or send SMS messages, or whatever). It is nice to be able to install 3rd party applications, or write my own applications, or do a whole bunch of extra things that other people’s phones don’t do. But, the phone has to be able to make phone calls. How useful is a phone that doesn’t make phone calls?

I have to mention phones, because I had a frustrating HP iPAQ previously. Yes, a Windows Mobile phone. When there was a incoming call, the iPAQ would sometimes freeze up momentarily, just like Windows on the PC sometimes does, and by the time it registers the fact that I’ve been hitting the Answer key, the caller had hung up. Another silly thing that often happens is with the connection to my bluetooth headset. When my headset goes out of range, the phone often doesn’t know. When I answer an incoming call, the iPAQ sends audio to the non-existent headset, and by the time the iPAQ realizes the headset is not around anymore, the caller has again hung up. The iPAQ was cool because it had PDA features, WLAN and a camera. It would have been cooler had the phone worked.

So if not Linux and not Windows, I’m pretty left with only one option: Mac OS X. Thank goodness, actually, because then it makes hardware selection so much easier. Only the MacBook, MacBook Pro, or the cool new MacBook Air. The MacBook Pro was too big for me, and expensive too, so that narrows down the selection to just the MacBook and MacBook Air.

It turns out just choosing between these two, the MacBook and MacBook Air, was difficult enough. The MacBook Air is cool. The MacBook Air may have limited ports for external connectivity, but in reality, I rarely have any wires connected to my existing PowerBook G4 anyway except for the power cord. The lack of optical drive wasn’t a biggie either, since again, I rarely have any CDROM or DVD media loaded in my notebook. The LED backlighting for the MacBook Air display is nice. But the MacBook is about S$1K cheaper, offers more ports (I appreciate the FireWire 400 port for connecting to my DV camcorder), has built-in optical drive, significantly more power CPU (up to 2.4GHz after the 26 February refresh), and well, it was S$1K cheaper. In the end, I decided to go for the MacBook white 2.4GHz version.

Subsequently, there was the matter of the rumoured update to the MacBooks. MacRumors’s buyer’s guide listed the MacBook as a “buy” because of the recent 26 February refresh. The average product refresh cycle for the MacBook is 192 days, so a new fresh is not expected any time soon. However, some sources have said that the 26 February refresh came about because Intel was aggressively phasing out the older 65nm Merom CPU chips, forcing Apple to update to the newer 45nm Penryn CPU chips. As a result the next MacBook refresh may in fact come sooner than the usual 192 days. (Remember I said I was a techie… that’s why these stuffs about chips catch my attention.)

Guess what, if you keep waiting for a better spec hardware, or better price, you’re never going to buy anything. The hardware will always get better. The price will always drop lower. Let’s not wait any longer. Particularly since nothing is firm, just speculations and rumours.

So, I went ahead to order my first original Apple hardware. Yeah, I didn’t buy the PowerBook G4. Twenty over years ago, I had a compatible Apple ][+ (I think it was called “Orange”). I haven’t actually bought any original Apple product previously.

Sadly, Apple wasn’t as good as I thought them to be.  I had to order a second MacBook because the first had some trackpad quality issues. What a bad way to start my first business relationship with the real Apple.

The new MacBook has been great. As I started out saying, I just regret not having moved on to the MacBook any earlier. The Mail application was surprisingly nice to use. I had expected to use Thunderbird at the outset, as I did on my PowerBook G4, but it turns out that the Mail app does a pretty decent job too. Then, there’s all the fun with integration with iCal. iCal in turn, via iSync, worked will with my Nokia N95 8GB. The N95 8GB worked with the MacBook to provide the latter with Internet access via 3.5G. Photos from the phone synced, via Nokia Multimedia Transfer, straight into iPhoto (and music into iTunes). The Safari web browser is pretty cool too. It’ll probably take forever to go into the details of the various niceties of Mac OS X, and I shan’t try to begin here.

I think the key point here is that I want integration. It is not enough for things to work. They need to work with other things, and they need to work beautifully.

Admittedly there are some things on Mac OS X that is still not quite so intuitive. Joining the wireless 802.1x PEAP network in my workplace is not so straight-forward. Perhaps that’s just how 802.1x is. It isn’t so intuitive on Windows XP either (I don’t know about Vista). Adding a network printer in a Windows domain is even more tricky. How will anyone figure out to right-click on the a certain tool bar to add a new too bar icon, so that Advanced printer items become available? (It was just as bad in Tiger, where you had to press Option while clicking on the + button to add printer.) They’ve got to fix these silliness.

All in all, the MacBook is simply a joy to use. I’m so happy that I’m not putting up with Windows, and it is a really wonderful upgrade from my old PowerBook G4 running Tiger.

 

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