Apple's Merciless Business Orientation
From Jacek:
Dear Charles:
I am writing this with regard to your text Linux, Freedom, and
Frontiers. As many times before, you simply read my thoughts. I am
disgusted by the merciless business orientation/direction taken by
Apple. I refuse to became totally dependent on business concept of
iTunes as forced, necessary way of even simple connecting machines like
iPhone and computer. Transmitting files via Internet or iTunes instead
of connection by USB cable, or Bluetooth Send File? No, thanks. This is
why I do not even think on buying iPhone, iPad, etc.
I am on the verge of making a switch - first in my life. After close
to 30 years long time of using solely the Mac platform - machines and
system - I begin to take under serious consideration my switch to
Linux. Just have to learn on Linux; maybe the LEM would open/create a
new place - a sort of shelter for Mac old-timers in our devotion to
what Macs used to be, and, in our opinion, still should be.
I am pipe smoker, so let me present an analogy: The Dunhill briar
pipes were famous because of their outstanding quality. Then the
quality went down. Some former Dunhill employees - most skillful pipe
carvers have formed small workshops of their own, stating that their
pipes are "what Dunhill once were and what they should be". I speak on
Ashton and El Wood also known as Ferndown; maybe for Mac users like
ourselves the Linux will be playing such role ?
With kindest regards,
As always,
Jacek in Poland
Hi Jacek,
Great to hear from you. I'm rather fond of that piece
myself, and it received some critical acclaim at the time in Claire
Wolfe's Living Freedom blog on
March 26 and again on
March 29.
If you're serious about switching to Linux, that last
link in particular should be of interest.
I've certainly thought about it, but at this stage of
the game developing a whole new workflow ecosystem to replace the one
I've woven in the Mac OS over the past 18 years seems a bit daunting,
and there are some Mac features (e.g.: AppleScript) and applications
that I wouldn't want to give up. Also, to the best of my knowledge,
there is no voice software for Linux that is anywhere near being in the
same league as MacSpeech/Dragon Dictate. Plus, I really love the
current crop of Mac notebooks. :-)
Of course, if the Mac OS in the future gets too
iOS-ified or locked-down for my taste, I may find myself obliged to
reconsider.
As for your "shelter for Mac old-timers" suggestion,
perhaps that's something Dan will consider.*
I like your Dunhill pipes analogy. Long ago, I was a
pipe smoker, but a Dunhill was way out of my price range at the time,
and then I quit smoking nearly 40 years ago.
Charles
* Publisher's note: Low End Mac has always been a
"shelter for Mac old-timers", our reasons being that Macs have a long
hardware life and become more capable over time as the Mac OS moves
forward. For instance, Charles Moore is running Mac OS X 10.4 on a Pismo PowerBook from 2000 that
shipped with Mac OS 9. One of my three G4 Power Macs is a dual 500 MHz Mystic, also
introduced in 2000, that's running Mac OS X 10.5 just fine - as is my
dual 1.6 GHz
upgraded Digital
Audio model (introduced January 2001). I also have a dual 1.25 GHz Mirrored Drive Doorss
model running 10.4 Tiger (for Classic Mode, which 10.5 Leopard does not
support). Thanks to OS X, which has improved with each major
revision, these machines are all vastly more useful than when they were
first introduced.
We have published quite a number of articles about
using Linux on Macintosh hardware over the years, especially Ubuntu on
PowerPC Macs. Linux is getting easier, but it's a whole different ball
game. While some would rather run the latest Ubuntu build on their
aging PowerPC Macs to have access to the latest browsers, a lot of us
prefer the familiarity of the Mac OS and don't fret over using a
version of Firefox or Safari that isn't the latest and greatest. As
someone still using the Classic Mac OS (via the Classic environment in
Tiger) daily, I fall in that camp, although I am not averse to fiddling
with Linux now and then. dk
OS X 10.6 vs. 10.5 CPU Temperature
From AJ:
Hello Charles,
I agree with your assessment that
10.6.5 runs hotter than 10.5.8. I have an old Intel iMac 17" Early 2006 that
I dual boot into both - and with Temperature Monitor app and widget. I
can see that in 10.5.8 my CPU temps are upper 20's, and in 10.6.5 they
are in lower 50's. I saw some forums that mention that GPU may be the
cause, but the temps are within 2°C. I also checked activity
monitor for CPU usages, and not much of a difference between the two.
My only other complaint is when I use remote management with VNC,
10.6.5 gives me frozen screens once in a while and 10.5.8 is rock
solid.
AJ
Hi AJ,
Thanks for the report.
On my MacBook, Leopard runs in the high 60°s to
low 70°s C, while Snow
Leopard typically hovers in the high 70°s to low 80°s if
you're doing anything, which maddeningly is jut enough to cause the
cooling fan to kick in.
Charles
Hello Charles,
80°s ? You're kidding, right? 20° within the boiling point
of water (or max CPU temp)! Even my Mac mini does not run that hot. You
may want to make sure that there is no dust bunny buildup in the
ventilation route of the CPU. When I was an engineer at an industrial
sound system design company, we tried to make sure our components did
not go over 0.5 to 0.75 of the max temp. Semiconductor speed tends to
slow down as the component is heated. Oh well, if the CPU ever fails, I
consider that prime opportunity to upgrade the CPU and clean out the
fan and heat sink. All my computers have had their CPU, hard drives,
memory, backlight, and other components upgraded.
AJ
Hi AJ,
Nope, not kidding. In Snow Leopard after a couple of
days of uptime with my usual suite of applications running the CPU temp
as reported by the Temperature Monitor utility ranges between about
77°C and 82°C during normal use. In Leopard, the same machine
with basically the same set of programs launched runs about 10° to
15° cooler. My old (now my wife's) 17" PowerBook G4 1.33 GHz
runs in the mid to high 50°s.
On the MacBook, the cooling fan tips in at about
77° to 78° in Snow Leopard - somewhat lower in Leopard.
The ventilation ports are clear with no indication of
dust buildup.
Charles
Hello Charles,
I am assuming you are not running a fan controller; you can try
smcFanControl
or something equivalent to see if there are any improvements. On my
Snow Leopard Mac mini, it is set to 2800-3000 rpm (not much noise) to
get it to iMac level. My iMac does not need it.
From what I read in some forums, some other users run the fan at
5000 rpm, which to me would be too noisy. The Mac mini fan running at
1500 is hardly perceptible. Well, laptops tend to run hotter, so I
wouldn't worry too much, since the temperatures you mentioned are about
the same as what I read in other forums. Besides, I think on the Apple
laptops, the CPU are soldered on, so that allows a lower profile board
(for better air circulation) and better heat transfer from the CPU to
the board, so the board acts like an extra large heatsink (some people
get angry at Apple for soldering the CPU rather than using a socket but
there are reasons other than cost why Apple did this).
This is what we also did with amplifier boards to dissipate heat.
Just looking it up, the true Max temp on the CPU is 125°C, and
there is an internal CPU Temp shutoff at 110°C. So don't worry
about your temperatures.
Running a fan controller will just bring Snow Leopard to Leopard
temperature levels, if you wanted.
AJ
Hi AJ,
I forgot to mention that my MacBook most of the time
sits on a CoolPad mini laptop
stand that lets air circulate around the bottom of the machine, which I
expect helps some.
I've considered fan controller software, but one of my
priorities is keeping fan noise to a minimum, so goosing the fan to run
more or faster does not appeal. Probably Snow Leopard's default
settings are doing a good job of striking a compromise. What I want, of
course, are Leopard internal temperatures without any fan activity at
all. (I fondly remember my PowerBook
5300 and 1400c that didn't
have internal fans at all.) I would probably opt for using a Targus
Chill Mat or similar device with large, slow-turning, much quieter
circulation fans if I went that route.
If this higher-temp issue was my only gripe with Snow
Leopard, I would be a fairly happy camper. However, the Spaces hang and
USB flakiness are driving me to distraction. Sigh. I notice that the
USB has crapped out again this morning on wake-up, which will require
another restart to restore normality (last restart was last evening).
Meanwhile, I'm using Tiger on the anvil-dependable old Pismo.
I can appreciate that a hard-soldered CPU would result
in more efficient heat transfer, but the inability to support processor
upgrades certainly diminishes the long-term value of current Apple
laptops.
Charles
Snow Leopard Problems: Try a Clean Install
From Tom,
Charles,
Just as an experiment, you might want to try a clean installation of
Snow Leopard on your MacBook Pro without the separate Leopard
partition. The changes in Open Firmware between Leopard and Snow
Leopard were massive (we're talking 32-bit vs. 64-bit and more). They
are totally different cats, so to speak.
Cheers,
Tom
Hi Tom,
No doubt wise counsel, but with my hard drive
ecosystem, it would be a major project that I just don't have the time,
nor can afford the downtime, to tackle.
I'm limping along in Snow Leopard these days, but it's
frustrating. Of course, if I get too frustrated I can always switch
back to Leopard, which is a known quantity and an excellent performer
on this machine.
Charles
Re: Mac OS X 10.6.5 Update a Step Backward
From Björn, following up on Mac OS X 10.6.5 Update: No Problems
Here:
Strange, did you run AHT to make sure HW is healthy?
Sent from my iPhone.
Hi Björn,
I haven't as yet. There is no indication of any
hardware problems, and the MacBook runs very nicely in Leopard.
Charles
Is It Possible to Disable HFS+ File Compression in
Snow Leopard?
From Gregg:
Why would I want to [disable file compression in Snow Leopard*]?
For one, with today's inexpensive storage, there's no point to
having an operating system wasting any amount of CPU power, no matter
how efficient, on such compression/decompression.
Second, Windows has had this useless "feature" at least since NT4.
Back when it made any sense at all, it was a noticeable performance
hit, so most NT users, which were mostly businesses, upgraded to bigger
and faster drives (or whole new computers) rather than trying to
squeeze a few more megs out with file compression.
Thirdly, if Ars
Technica has it right, the compressed files are packed into the
files' resource forks. Just when I thought that which should never have
been was going to finally be done away with, Apple brings it back.
(IMHO, Apple invented Apple Double mainly to make it as difficult as
possible to do anything cross-platform between Mac and AnyOtherOS.)
Why did Apple even bother with this when they could see that it
wasn't being used by users of the "dark side" OS? To me it looks like
someone at Apple finally noticed a really old Windows feature and
decided just for the heck of it that OS X ought to have it too,
and who cares if it's of any real use.
So how about an article on how to turn off all the less than useful
and downright useless "features" of Snow Leopard, for users who want to
get every last bit of performance out of their Mac? For example, Quick
Look, from what I've read about it, I wouldn't even want it
installed.
I've always optimized my Macs by removing the nonessential
"Gee-whiz-ain't-that-kewl?™ stuff I never used. It was much
easier with Mac OS 9.x and older; I want to be able to make Snow
Leopard lean and clean too.
Every OS goes from "It'd be great if it had *this*." to "Why the
bleep did they add that?" Snow Leopard has achieved the
latter.
Gregg
Hi Gregg,
If there is a way, I have no idea how. I'd never paid
any attention to this issue before reading your letter. I checked out
the Ars article, and if you haven't already seen it, you might find
10.6:
Compress Files with HFS+ Compression on Mac OS X Hints
interesting.
Gotta disagree with you about QuickLook, which I love,
use many times a day, and miss a lot when I'm using my Tiger
machines.
Charles
Another Method for Installing Tiger on a G3
iMac
From James:
Charles,
I'm writing in response to the posted in your mailbag column, on
LEM, from "Wade", about his
experience in installing Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" on a G3 iMac 600
MHz. The timing of this article was in perfect synchrony to my own
situation, where I was wanting to do virtually the same thing: Upgrade
[from Mac OS X 10.3]
Panther to Tiger on an external 3.5" dual-FireWire 400 drive,
normally used to boot up a G3 Flower Power iMac 500
MHz. Wade's report gave me encouragement to proceed, so thanks!
Wade
mentioned "Everything formatted on my Intel MacBook was unreadable on
the PPC iMac in 10.3.9 - nothing made on the MacBook would show up on
the older iMac as readable." This makes me wonder if Wade remembered to
use the "Apple Partition Map" scheme rather than "GUID Partition Table"
when he used Disk Utility to format the drives (you have to click the
"options" button or something to find that option). Well, despite
following his instructions, I was unable to prepare a functional Tiger
disk startup image on a handy 2.5" FireWire drive (which is otherwise
bootable, from experience).
Fortunately, my MacBook is of a vintage that actually has a single
FireWire 400 port on it, so I had great success as follows: I put the
Tiger install DVD into my MacBook optical drive and booted up in
"target disk mode" (holding down T during restart). Since one of the
two FW400 busses on the iMac doesn't work, I chained the functional
iMac FW400 port to the external drive, and then the external drive to
the MacBook. When I rebooted the iMac, holding down the option key, I
was delighted to see the Tiger install DVD show up from the MacBook
optical drive! I'd essentially turned my MacBook into a FireWire
optical drive. I was able to boot from the install disc and
successfully update the Panther system to Tiger. Hurrah! (Note that at
one point the iMac reported an unreadable drive and offered to format
it; fortunately I realized that it was seeing the GUID Partition of my
Intel MacBook internal drive, and I cleverly chose not to format
it!)
Hope this helps someone!
James
Hi James,
Thanks for the observations and tips. The GUID point
is well-taken.
Your successful workaround is yet another testimony to
the goodness of FireWire.
You have a Flower Power iMac G3! Now there's a real
collector's item. I've never actually seen one other than in
pictures.
Charles
Another Option for Installing Tiger on a
DVD-Challenged Mac
From Sam:
Dear Mr. Moore,
I just read fellow reader Wade's description on how he installed
Tiger on a G3 iMac; it made interesting reading, as I did the same only
a few weeks ago.
The iMac in question was my parents'
DV SE Graphite,
and I hoped to get rid of Panther and put in Tiger. It refused to boot
from the installer DVD disc, which I traced to the Combo Drive being
somewhat tired. Luckily I have an external FireWire DVD±RW
drive, so I used that to boot the iMac, wiped the hard drive, and then
installed without a hitch. With two sticks of 512 MB RAM I got very
cheaply off
eBay (working pulls from an eMac) it is motoring along happily.
I believe a FireWire external DVD drive of some description is able
to get me out of such predicaments, as it has done so before, apart
from serving its intended purpose. I do suspect that if Wade had one,
he might have saved quite a bit of labour and time too. This is
especially true for PowerMac users, as they cannot boot from external
USB devices.*
All the best,
Sam
Hi Sam,
FireWire optical drives (and hard drives, for that
matter) have saved my bacon more than a few times over the years. I
have an old QueFire CD burner drive, but no FW DVD burner outside the
SuperDrives in my computers, which can be employed in Target Disk Mode
as external drives if you have a Mac that still supports FireWire.
Unhappily, my MacBook doesn't, which is about the only thing I don't
like about it. I do have a USB external optical drive though, as well
as several USB external hard drives, and I've booted from them,
although performance is poor compared with FireWire.
Charles
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