posts

The New York Times describes Fusion-io, a start-up Steve Wozniak has joined:

The company relies on high-speed flash memory, commonly used to store data on an iPod or digital camera. Fusion-io takes many flash chips and packs them together on a module that is a bit bigger than a deck of cards. The module slides into certain slots inside servers. That gives the main computing chip quick access to data stored on the flash chips. In traditional systems, servers must hunt for data on separate storage systems linked to the processor by a slower connection.

Continue reading ⇢

Infoworld:

In an interview at a New York City event Tuesday to mark the extension of Microsoft’s collaboration with EMC to help IT pros improve virtualization, security and content management, Ballmer touched on the progress of Windows 7, stressing that its faster performance, longer battery life and simplified security settings will be “a pretty good step forward in terms of what users care about.”

For these reasons and others, Ballmer warns, enterprises that stick with Windows XP too long they will hear about it from impatient users who have been using newer computers running Vista and Windows 7 at home.

Continue reading ⇢

Washington Post:

Broadcasters now have until June 12 to turn off their analog signals, although they can do so anytime after Feb. 17 if they choose to. Many broadcasters already air a digital signal as well as an analog signal. Once analog signals cut off, consumers with older analog TV sets that receive over-the-air broadcasts with an antenna will need to buy a digital TV set or install a converter box to keep getting signals.

Continue reading ⇢

CNET has a piece pointing out several applications designed to help guys… uhh… track the cycles in the lives of the women around them. Really. Here’s a sample:

PMS Buddy, due to launch for the iPhone this week, has been available as a free service for nine months. The site’s tagline is “Saving relationships, one month at a time.”

[…]

Take the competing app PMSTracker. “Tired of your wife/girlfriend/sister/mom/secretary biting your head off unexpectedly once a month?” the app summary on iTunes asks prospective buyers. Another one, called uPMS, markets itself as “an application for all guys out there suffering the monthly Psychotic Mood Shifts from their better halves.”

Continue reading ⇢

Gizmodo:

Still, taking all tests into account, you could conclude that the MSI Wind is on a pretty level playing field with a 4-year-old Apple laptop packing a PowerPC processor. Is that some great feat? I’m not sure. Is it interesting? Yeah, it’s kind of interesting, especially if you were considering a used iBook to save some cash.

This answers one of the biggest questions that comes to mind when I think about putting OS X on my new HP Mini 1000. It’s currently running Ubuntu, and runs like a dream.

Continue reading ⇢

Ars Technica:

Despite all of Apple’s foot stomping about Universal Binaries and convincing developers how easy it is to straddle both sides of the Mac CPU fence, the company felt the need to take the much-buzzed new “Artist Lessons” feature of GarageBand ’09 to the side with greener grass. From iLife ’09’s system requirements section at the Apple Store online: “GarageBand Learn to Play requires an Intel-based Mac with a dual-core processor or better.”

Continue reading ⇢

Mac OS X Hints:

When confirming a large number of Faces in iPhoto ’09, you probably already know you can drag across multiple photos to accept them all at once. Sometimes, though, you might want to reject a group of Faces instead.

To do this quickly, just drag across the photos while holding down the Option key. You can also use this hint to reject individual photos without having to double click them – just hold down the Option key and click on a particular photo to reject it.

Continue reading ⇢

Macworld points to an article in Barron (their site requires a subscription… sigh…) claiming that sales are down in Apple Stores:

New data from Needham hardware analyst Charlie Wolf says that there was only 1.8 percent less foot traffic in the December quarter 2008 versus the end of year 2007.

But here’s the rub: most of those shoppers are walking out empty-handed. Wolf notes that same-store revenue dropped 17.4 percent during the period, year-over-year.

Continue reading ⇢

Damien Stolarz details how he stuffed two 500GB drives inside his MacBook Pro with one of these. I love his honesty about the rig:

A smart thing to do would have been either:

1. Make a RAID mirror of the two drives. I would only have 500GB of storage total, but my chance of data loss would be far less with a backup drive.

2. Leave the drives separate. I’d have 500GB + 500GB, and I could even back up critical data using Time Machine.

   Continue reading ⇢

CNN:

When to quit – said Kamen, also the inventor of health care technologies and the Slingshot water purifier – is “the toughest question there is” for any entrepreneur who survives on creativity and instinct.

“It’s not nearly as glamorous as people think to keep working on something and to keep hitting roadblocks and to keep going,” he said.

Continue reading ⇢

PC World has some fun examples of what to do with older Macs - including robots, car-puters and more.

Continue reading ⇢

Jon Armstrong of Blurbomat (he’s married to Heather of Dooce), has posted this jaw-dropping screenshot of his Mac Pro working way too hard. The culprit? Adobe Flash.

Continue reading ⇢