Utah Open Source Planet

Next week we are running a Final Cut Pro 5-day class to prepare students for the Final Cut Pro exam and get more familiar with the software.  It’s great, except the software is huge and doesn’t load into a monolithic system image very well.  As such, I had to find a way to deploy the software in a timely manner without a lot of work or overhead.  

I started first with a modular NetInstall image.  The idea was that I would include the software packages in the install image, it would create the image, and I could install it without worrying about configuration.  Boy was I being hopeful!  At first it would not recognize the software, and then it finally accepted the mounted disk images as I dragged them into the Automator Action.  I thought all was well, until I tested the image.  

It installed the OS just fine, but didn’t include the Final Cut Pro packages.  Well, I thought, I would just need to create a base install, and then deploy the software through a package.  Seemed easy enough, at least..

Mac OS X 10.5 has a great feature with PackageMaker (available with the XCode Tools Development package) that is called a Snapshot Package.  Basically, you can install software on your Macintosh Computer while this is running, and PackageMaker can tell the difference between the original state of the machine and the new improved state.  You can then create a package that would install all the changes across the board, and you would be all set.  

I started by using PackageMaker on the MacBook Pro that I would be using for the class.  I then started the process on the MacBook Pro, installed Final Cut Pro and the Motion Content, and waited.  Once done, I stopped the snapshot, reviewed the changes, and tried to make the package.  PackageMaker crashed on me every time.  I tried three different MacBook Pros, each with the same result.  

At that point, I started to get frustrated.  I tried the same process on my office Mac Pro, and it worked!  I was able to make the snapshot image, and create the package.  I then transferred it to a MacBook Pro computer and started the package.  It ran, told me it was successful, and I was sitting on cloud nine!  Until I tried to run Final Cut Pro, that is.  It would crash every time I tried to run it.  It could have been a permissions issue, but by this time I was running out of time.  I have a busy week with a surprise class and some instructor interviews to conduct, and I needed to come up with a solution quickly.  

So, I tried installing the software on a MacBook Pro from disk images using the installer command from the Command Line.  It worked, installed a bit more than we usually do, but otherwise was successful.  Well, if this would work, surely I could create a script that would mount the images, install the packages, unmount the images, and delete the images to free up space.  It was worth a try. 

The script was easy to write, and is below: 

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# This script should install Final Cut Pro and Motion from disk images.
# The script will need to be run as root, which the package should do
# automatically.
# First it will mount the images, and then it will run the Installer
# scripts for Final Cut Pro, and then Motion.

# The Images are assumed to be in /Users/Shared

hdiutil mount /Users/Shared/Final\ Cut\ Studio.cdr
hdiutil mount /Users/Shared/Motion\ Content.cdr

# Now the Installation will be run.

installer -pkg /Volumes/Final\ Cut\ Studio/Installer/FinalCutStudio.mpkg -target /
installer -pkg /Volumes/Motion\ Content/Installer/MotionContent.mpkg -target /

# Once finished, the script needs to unmount the images.

umount Volumes/Final\ Cut\ Studio
umount Volumes/Motion\ Content

# Now no longer needed, the disk images can be deleted.

rm -rf /Users/Shared/*.cdr

The Script worked on my inital testing, as long as it was run in sudo (installer needs to be run as root).  So I took it a step further and set it up as a package.  I opened PackageMaker again, added both the disk images to it and set the install location to the /Users/Shared directory.  I then added the script to the last package (in this case Motion) as a postinstall script, so that it would run after the Motion image was copied.  I created the images without any errors, and tried the deployment:  Success!  It installed just fine, and everything worked in Final Cut Pro that was expected to work.  

So, I then figured that if this worked, surely it would work if I added it to a NetInstall image, right?  So I created a new NetInstall image workflow that would add this image to the NetInstall.  I then tested it out, and it still didn’t install the package.  So, I copied the package to the server, shared it out, sent the package to each machine, and installed it manually from there.  In the end, I got the deployment working, and the total deployment (not counting the time taken to try and create images and such) took about half the amount of time it would have if I installed everything with the CD’s.  It could have taken even less time if I had Apple Remote Desktop installed and used it to deploy the image.  

So, that was my experience.  I’m going to look at the NetInstall workflow to see if I missed something in how I placed the Automator Action for the package install.  Until then, I still have a very viable deployment solution that takes less time than I would have expected.  ^_^

I’ve been tracking the iPhone app store pretty closely, as I have been really interested to see what people are developing.  The first day it was available (the Thursday before the iPhone 3G was released), there were quite a few interesting apps, but most were trivial proof of concept apps that were released just to show what could be done.  

But now, we see more useful apps coming to the Store, and many of them are free (the economics of the iPhone apps are an interesting discussion on their own).  While I don’t have an iPhone yet (I’m waiting until September when AT&T indicates I can get the subsidized price), I’ve already started to collect some apps: 

eBay Mobile:  Yes, I use eBay.  I’ve used eBay ever since I worked there, and I still like to check it out as a way to price objects.  

PayPal:  I use PayPal rather extensively when billing clients.  It’s convenient for me, and convenient for them to make the payment through PayPal.  I also pay for my items in iTunes and Second Life through PayPal.  

eReader:  I’ve always loved eReaders, though I would like to see a free app that will include text files.  But, in the mean time, I’ll stick with the eBooks that I have gathered over the years.  

Evernote:  I’ve never used Evernote, but I do like the idea of having notes to myself available everywhere I am.  Perhaps I’ll start to remember things.  

Last.fm:  An internet radio on a mobile platform.  Do I really need to explain it?  ^_^

Mocha VNC Lite:  Not that I would use it on an iPhone on a regular basis, but having a VNC client available should I ever need to use it, that’s just good preparation. 

Palringo IM:  Instant Messenger, much like GAIM and Adium.  It covers all the main messenger protocols out there, which makes it really useful.  

Remote:  Turns your iPhone/iPod Touch into a WiFi Remote for your iTunes and Apple TV.  So should you lose your tiny remote…

Twinkle:  A twitter app that doesn’t have ads.

WordPress:  App for blogging from your iPhone.  Not sure how it works quite yet, but I’m pretty excited to find out! 

WritingPad:  A text editor.  It would be handy for those quick spells of inspiration that comes at the oddest moments.  

So, from my wishlist, only a few things have not been realized…yet.

Presentation Software:  I haven’t seen any presentation software show up on the iPhone App Store.  If I just haven’t seen it, please post the app in the comments.  I would even be willing to pay for that app.

Bluetooth Keyboard Support:  Still no bluetooth tethering available.  For this I’m still holding out for the iPod Slate.  ^_^

Terminal:  A lot of people have said that a terminal would just not be available for the iPhone because it would open up a whole can of worms for Apple.  I don’t agree, but until the app comes I’m not going to hold my breath.  But until then, I think I could get by.  ^_^

iCal:  As I haven’t purchased the iPhone yet, I don’t know if iCal on the iPhone is any better.  For those of you who do have an iPhone, can you view multiple calendars at once, and add an event to a specific calendar (without it creating a whole new calendar just for that one entry)?

Second Life Client:  I know this probably sounds silly, but wouldn’t it be nice to be able to access Second Life from any location, particularly if you were teaching/attending a college class in Second Life?  Well, for now you can’t with the iPhone, but it’s coming!  Vollee is developing their handset Second Life client for the iPhone, and hope to have it available soon.  Needless to say, I hope to see it in the App store before the end of September.  ^_^

DOS Emulator:  I haven’t seen one yet, but it may be possible to port DOSBox over to the iPhone.  Perhaps a project to get to know Objective-C…

VoIP:  Yes, there is a VoIP app (TruPhone), but it requires using their system with their rates.  I would prefer to have a VoIP client that could be configured to use my own system.  Of  course, it seems to be a Skype competitor, and in that arena they look very promising.  

So that’s my list, and what the market has done to fulfill it.  I’m still waiting for a couple of features, but all in all there are enough apps out there to make getting an iPhone worthwhile.

I’m back from the Chicagoland area, and It’s good to be back home.  The trip home was mostly without incident, with both planes actually arriving on time (or earlier).  The trip was pleasant, and I made some really great friends with other instructors and developers out there within the ranks of the Apple Certified Instructor network.  

So, what about the training?  

Directory Services:  The Directory Services class was phenomenal.  It focused on connecting to various directory systems out there (both Active Directory and OpenLDAP), using the built in GUI tools, third party tools, and using the command line utility.  

We spent a lot of time demoting and promoting our servers to Open Directory Masters, while connecting to another directory system and making an Open Directory Replica.  

I learned a lot of new things at the training, mostly on how to replicate and create backup Directory systems for failover.  I’ll start covering each chapter in more detail as time permits, but needless to say it was a very useful class.  

Overall the flow was well designed.  The material was a little lacking in that some work in the workbook was not available or mentioned in the reference guide.  But other than that, it was well done.  The cognitive load was well managed with the timing of the class, and the constructivist method was well represented in this material.  Arek Dreyer, who wrote the reference guide, did a great job with the work.  I hope he works on the material again with the new 10.6 materials for which Apple Training is already planning.  

Advanced System Administration:  I want to preface this review by mentioning how this class was originally conceived.  When 10.5 came out, Apple Training looked at the existing certification and noticed that an Apple Certified Systems Administrator could go the whole certification process without once taking anything more than Server Essentials.  

Apple wanted to make the certification more meaningful, and so decided that knowing how to set up the environment was more important than knowing how to manage an Xsan or Podcast Producer.  And, quite honestly, they were right.  A Systems Administrator needed to focus on the core system that allows for Xsan and Podcast Producer to work well with the rest of the system, and not just the peripheral systems.  

So, basically, anything that didn’t fit into Deployment (system imaging and image maintenance) and Directory Services needed to be dumped into this class.  As such, the class is 5 days long and still too short for the material.  It’s also a fairly new class, as it is the only class that was not recreated from Tiger classes.

So, what do I think of it?  It definitely shows the signs of a kitchen sink class.  If you don’t have experience in the Command Line and didn’t take any of the other classes, you would be totally lost on this one.  It is completely designed to be a capstone course, and allow the student to design their own solution while completing the class.  

But there are problems:  If you don’t focus on the on-going narration (which the instructor had better be creating along the way for the sanity of the learners), then you can easily get lost in the details.  There is a lot of focus on current UNIX solutions, potential issues, tools that are still in development, and proprietary command line tools that Apple has created to manage their utilities.  All this is thrown at the student in four pillars:  Planning and Implementation, Networking, Administration (monitoring, security, and automation), and Troubleshooting.  

The narration is thus:  You have just been hired as the new PretendCo Systems Administrator, and the company is on the cusp of huge growth.  You find out that the company, up to now, has been running on one server, set up as a Standard configuration system for convenience.  You now have to do some real management to scale up the system you put in place in order to cope with the new growth expectations.  

For me, it’s going to be a challenge to teach this in a For-Credit schedule, if just because the course narration will be really difficult to keep in the student’s mind.  When I offer this class, I’ll be spending a lot of time focusing on the instructor notes, so that I can keep that narration flowing.  I may need to build the narration into some online exercises as well.  

So, overall, Directory Services was a hit, and a blast to teach.  Advanced System Administration was great, but I was honestly only able to keep up because of what I had already known having both taken all the previous Apple classes, and my experience with Linux.  I’m thinking that I may make the Linux Fundamentals a prerequisite for taking this class.  That way I can know that my students have had time to whet their experience on a UNIX environment in the command line.

This week I finish up with my T3’s for Apple with Advanced Server Administration.  This class is focused primarily on running the ADDIE process (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate) throughout the IT  infrastructure of a company, and build it up using both the GUI and Command Line tools.  Because it is assumed that you have been learning the GUI tools up to this point (this is the capstone course), it primarily focuses on the command line tools available to the Mac.  

I’m not sure when we will offer the class at the U, as much depends on other training offerings and any additional infrastructure we would need, but I already have a lot of people interested in this class.  Most of them are Linux administrators who are going to be supporting the Apple platform, and want to do so with SSH (just as they would with Linux).  I already have a list of people who would love to take that class.  

Anyway, it all hinges on whether or not I’m judged “good enough” to train.  Partly judged by my peers, partly judged by the Master Trainer, my fate rests in their hands.  At this point, however, I’m less concerned.  I’m rather more concerned with how my family is doing back home.  I’m literally counting the days until I fly out.  But I will miss the Chicago area.  

Anyway, more details on the classes I attended during this trip sometime next week.  I’ll give a teaser for the classes, and give you my opinion of the materials and flow of the class.  

I've had mixed feelings about whether to upgrade my iPhone to the new 3G model. Ultimately, I get three things: 3G, GPS, and 8G more RAM than I have now. None of those alone were enough to tip me and together, they were marginal. Consequently I wasn't all in a tizzy over today's iPhone availability. Still, since I had a few friends who were excited to get one and were coming up to the Apple store in Salt Lake to get one, I figured I'd tag along and maybe pick on up. What I wasn't ready for was 7 or 8 hour lines.

I figured that iPhones would be plentiful. Beside, it wasn't the launch of a 1.0 product (and hence less excitement). On top of all that, after the doors opened last June the lines went so fast that I figured you'd be able to show up anytime today and waltz in and get one. Wrong.

What changed between last year and this one was the in-store activation. Last year, you bought your phone and took it home to activate it. Yeah! That was a heavenly experience. This year--to curb people buying phones so and then unlocking them--in-store activation is required. It's taking, according to some of the Apple Store employees working the line, 20-30 minutes.

That's when the activation system is working at all. There have been, according to reports, frequent break downs. Consequently, the line moves in fits and starts; lurching toward the door.

The whole experience, as a result, has been much more frustrating than last year. People waited in line last year and this year. But that's where the similarity ends. People aren't anxiously waiting for the doors to open and then rushing in to buy the product they've been lusting for. Instead, the doors have been open for 7 hours and hundreds of people are still lined up waiting for the machine to serve them because of IT problems. Big difference Apple.

Tags: iphone apple gear

As promised, here is my review for the Mac OS X Deployment 10.5 T3 that I attended this last week.  

First, the location.  Of course I’m biased, but I have always loved Chicago, and as such enjoyed the trip Villa Park and Oakbrook Terrace.  The hotel was nice, and the location of the training facility was fairly easy to get to.  The only problem:  no sidewalks.  It makes it difficult to walk when you don’t have sidewalks, and there isn’t enough room to walk on the street (without getting hit).  Other than that, the location was nothing to complain about. 

The materials:  There are quite a lot of material for this class, and I was a little concerned that it would be impossible to fit it all into a 2 day training.  Luckily, that was the thought of the course developers as well, and as such the training was extended to 3 days.  That fits in perfectly with my training schedule I have planned for the University, so I didn’t complain. 

The Subject Matter:  There was still a lot that I wanted to cover but couldn’t in the class, mostly those focusing around the command line.  But then, there is a separate class for that, which I will be attending in two weeks.  ^_^  But those important topics, such as deploying through the command line, and imaging through the command line, were covered in depth.  Also planning, scaling, and third party utilities for managing a deployment option was well covered.  

One really nice thing I liked about the class was a mandate for the student to immediately apply what they have learned to a real world situation.  They do this through a Deployment planning sheet, which the trainer should have printed out for each student.  We didn’t have it, but it was made available to us in PDF form, and there is a link that comes with the learning materials to PeachPit’s website for the same PDF.  Once the form is filled out, the last chapter talks about real world solutions in many large companies, school districts, and training centers, and gives the student time to go through their document to see what they find useful, and what they don’t need, in their deployment of OS X.  

The Requirements:  It is essential the student have a command of both the Mac OS X GUI and have command line experience before starting this course.  Basically, students would need to have completed at least the Server Essentials course, and be able to manage a UNIX command line experience.  Why?  Because at the beginning of the course you are just expected to set up your computers with little assistance from the book.  At this point, it is expected that the student knows already how to set up a brand new install of Mac OS X. 

The command line experience would be more along the lines of familiar with syntax of commands.  Most, if not all, of the commands used are Mac OS X Utilities and not your typical UNIX commands, yet the syntax is the same and therefore the student needs to be familiar with that syntax.  There may be some situations when troubleshooting is necessary, and as such the student will need to know how to get to the man pages.  

Something else that would be important before taking this class is having troubleshooting knowledge, and an understanding of what you are being prepared to learn.  This way if something doesn’t quite work they way it’s written in the book, you can step outside of the given examples and find alternatives.  That’s part of learning, something that many students I have had in the past didn’t quite understand.  It requires reading/studying ahead of time, asking questions, and being attentive.  

The Pace:  Unlike both Support and Server Essentials where we pend a lot of time trying to catch the class up after some really long first setup exercises, this class is paced just right for the materials.  We as a training class (of 10 trainers) finished with plenty of time on the last day to cover some topics more in depth, and that was with us doing the majority of the optional exercises.  So with a typical class at this level, the pacing will be such that students will have some time to play with some configuration, or perhaps have a long lunch as a thank you for coming to the class.  

Overall, it is the best designed Apple training course I have attended so far.  The materials are well designed, the pace is just right (low to medium cognitive load), and the course talks well to adult students (through Constructivist methods).  This is a class that may not run often here in Utah, but will most likely be a well attended class when it does.  It is by far my most favorite class to date.  ^_^  

Also, I’d like to say thanks to everyone that attended, because they gave me some very welcomed constructive criticism, and the Master Trainer was a great host.  If only the Cubs could have won all three games I was there, rather than just one of the two.  Oh well, there is always next time.  

The speed of the new Mac OS release has me thinking.  It’s really soon since Leopard was released, and Exchange support really isn’t enough to warrant it.  Then I keep coming back to the reasons Apple said they are releasing it:  Security, Efficiency, and Power Consumption.  This is really low-level stuff, down to the kernel. 

When Mac OS X was first released, the OS was built around the Mach kernel.  To date, there are only two OSes that I am aware of that have successfully used the Mach kernel:  Mac OS X and the NeXT OS.  THis shouldn’t be surprising, since Steve Jobs owned NeXT, and just brought it over to Apple when he came back.  

But the Mach kernel is very limiting, meaning that there is a lot of overhead to make it work across platforms.  While it can work fine on various architectures, the Mach kernel has to be developed specifically for that platform before it will work.  As such, there is an inherent flaw in using this core in an OS that is poised to do so many things.  

Another problem with the Mach kernel is virtualization.  Now, I’m not talking about virtualization in a desktop sense, but rather a server sense.  While it is possible to use the current OS in a virtual machine (both Parallels and VMWare are doing something just like that), it’s very difficult to get it to work in Compatibility Mode, because the kernel needs to be modified heavily.  Since Compatibility mode is more efficient than HVM, it should be a goal of Apple.

But then I read this article regarding the possibility of using Xen as a replacement for the Mach kernel, as tested and run by Moshe Bar.  All of a sudden, my heart skipped a beat.  Xen!  Running natively on the Mac as a Bare-bones OS, virtualizing the Mac OS!  I started looking back at the evidence:  no PPC support, which means Intel only.  The Core 2 Duo and Atom chips all have Intel VT technology, so it should be no problem.  With Xen at the core, they can still keep Darwin open source, which is a huge plus.  And, you no longer need to boot up to Windows to use it:  Just run it through Xen.  It would work almost like fast user switching, but fast OS switching.  

And, virtualization no longer becomes a problem, either for desktop or server level.  The OS can still be targeted specifically for Mac Hardware (though I think that will no longer be an issue as there is a law against requiring software to run on specific hardware), and could even be easily migrated to other hardware platforms, should Apple so choose.  

Okay, once the euphoria of the possibility of Xen being the platform for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, the nagging started to hit me.  Could there be reasons why Apple wouldn’t go with Xen?

1. The new “Grand Central” multi-core optimization project.  It *could* be Xen, but why rename it?  Perhaps because it isn’t Xen at all.  Of course it still could be, just modified to fix the Mac even more. 
2. XenSource was purchased by Citrix not long ago, and the question of it’s Open Source status is still hanging.  There could be some collaboration here, but Apple likes to have control of everything from start to finish.  It now becomes very unlikely.  

When Apple announced they were releasing a new version of the Mac OS so soon after the initial release, I nearly threw a hammer through the dashboard.  Why so soon?  We were just getting Mac OS X 10.5 training down, and now they have 10.6 coming as soon as January?  That’s Crazy! 

But then, when I heard about the goal of 10.6, it made a bit more sense.  So what is that goal?

1. Streamline the OS.  They want to streamline Mac OS X so that it runs more efficiently, particularly when it comes to power consumption.  Apple is no fool:  They know that energy prices are going up, and more people are moving to notebooks.  They also know that notebook owners are away from an outlet longer these days.  So, battery life needs to be improved.  The OS will be optimized for this event.  
2. OpenCL Processing Power:  All that processing power in the GPU that can’t be accessed,  all going to waste!  Why not use it as another processor in the machine?  The processing speed goes up overall on the machine while decreasing the need for faster (and more power-intensive) processors.  I’m not fully aware of what OpenCL can do, but from the whitepapers on the topic, it looks promising.  
3. Security:  Apple has been plagued with some security news lately, mostly due to Safari’s vulnerabilities.  That will be focused on within this release, making Mac OS X more secure as a result.  I’m interested to see the results when they are done.
4. Exchange Integration:  Finally!  Mac is going to integrate Exchange into iCal and AddressBook (or Directory, either of which will be fine).  That means users can finally stop having to use that train-wreck, er, I mean program called Entourage to work with their Exchange calendars.  I’d also like to see some Exchange plugins for Calendar Server, allowing integration and publishing from the Server side of things.  

This week I am preparing for training in Chicago (Villa Park) for OS X Deployment, 10.5.  The class is newly remade, with a pretty hefty schedule for something that was supposed to be just 2 days long.  As it sits now, It looks like it will be a good 3 days for the class, though I will find out for sure next week.  

The course seems to be pretty straightforward, focusing on deploying Mac OS X to a large audience.  All the bases are covered from planning to execution.  It will be a great class to sit through, and prepare to take the certification exam.

This will be the second time I am leaving my wife and son for training.  Luckily, this week will be a short one, as I am leaving on Monday, and coming back late Thursday night.  This way I will still be able to teach my Server Essentials class on Friday, and not put the students one more day behind.  

The next step will be going to Mac OS X Directory Services 10.5, and Advanced Server.  These classes are 4 and 5 days each, respectively, and will put me a full 11 days away from my wife and son.  I didn’t do well last time around Christmas, but this time the major holiday will be behind me, and I will have another that following week to devote to my son.  

At any rate, it will be the first time I have ever been to Chicago in my life, and I’m really excited.  I’m a big Chicago Cubs fan, and have always wanted to see the Windy City.  Perhaps I’ll get a chance to head into town for the weekend.  One can only hope.  

When the first iPhone was released, I got all excited, just like everyone else.  I thought it would be the perfect phone for me, until I saw what it didn’t come with, i.e. apps.  The price was high, but my euphoric response didn’t see that.  But the 2 year contract with AT&T did slap me into real life.  It just became too impractical for me to own, and so I let go of the dream.  Much like Nick in GPF Comics, I walked away.  It was just too impractical for what I was hoping it would be:  a replacement for my laptop.  

Now the new iPhone 3G has been announced, with the release on July 11th.  I can honestly say I am excited for the release.  This time the price for the device is lower, and I already have a 2 year contract with AT&T (when my wife and I found out we were expecting, we thought cell phones would be a good idea).  And I hate my current phone.  Why do I hate it?  Because it has a blasted camera button on the side of it, and I keep taking pictures of my pocket when I pull it out.  I need a new phone. 

So, I’m seriously looking at the iPhone 3G.  The data price hasn’t gone up for my Business account, but it’s still pretty steep.  That’s one strike against it.  The other will be determined entirely by the application offerings that are available for the iPhone.  The teaser pictures are encouraging, but there are some pretty specific applications I would like to see for the new iPhone.  

Also, I’m still holding out for a UMPC from Apple.  I want an iPod Slate, and there is some evidence that it will be happening in the next quarter, just in time for Christmas.  So instead of both my wife and I getting an iPhone, we are getting one, and hopefully the Slate will be released on time. 

So, my over all impression:  the new iPhone is a definite buy, but with some reservations.  Look for September to at least have a refreshed version of the iPod Touch, and perhaps have the iPod Slate.  If not, then I may get another iPhone.  After all, with 10.6 not supporting PPC processors, I need a new laptop anyway.

Yes, it’s started.  So many bloggers, “news” sites, and rumor mills are talking about the expected 3G iPhone, and how it will change the world.  Lots of sources “close to the 3G iPhone project” have been touting the appearance of the new Wunderkind of the Smart Phone genre, and the many bells and whistles that they will be sporting.  But one aspect of the new iPhone has been oddly silent:  the up and coming applications that everyone is expecting.  

Now, as I’m sure comes as no surprise to those who follow my blog (thanks you two! ^_^), I’m very pro-Mac.  I like the Mac platform, I like the fact that it’s now 100% UNIX compatible as of 10.5, and I like the fact that it’s simple to use.  Part of that has to do with the design of the hardware, but most of it has to do with the applications that are available for the Mac.  That’s what really makes a Mac a Mac.  You can change a windowing system on either Vista or even Linux to look like a Mac, but it still doesn’t have the same applications running.  

Well, we know that Apple already has released various beta versions of the iPhone OS SDK in order to encourage developers to write programs.  This is great, but we haven’t heard much from developers as to the applications they are writing.  Many have speculated, but none confirmed the release of a Microsoft Office suite (surely watered down if not just a viewer) for the iPhone, and some other apps like a version of Flash from Adobe.  But nothing concrete.  

Well, if I were calling the shots, or at least if I were looking for Apps that would appeal to me, here would be my list: 

1. Presentation Software:  I want to be able to show a Keynote from my iPhone.  This could be either something built into iTunes sharing (like photo albums), or an actual Keynote viewer and basic editor.  Either way, I would like to see an app that will let me present Keynotes.  Then I would just need to have a way to hook up the iPhone to a projector.  
2. Text Editing:  This could be as simple as a plugin for Google Docs (which didn’t work well on the first gen iPhone), or a separate application that is more than just a note taker, but could be less then a full fledged version of Pages or Word.  But typing on the software keyboard?  let’s talk about: 
3. Bluetooth Keyboard Support:  Yes!  Let us tether a bluetooth keyboard to the blasted thing!  It would be convenient on so many levels.  And it’s one major requirement I have for the rumored iPod Slate. 
4. Spreadsheet Viewing:  This could be just as simple as adding the Preview option from Leopard into the iPhone OS.  I’m not thinking about using a spreadsheet program on the iPhone, that’s something to do on a real computer.  But it would be nice to be able to read a spreadsheet that is sent to you, or review it before a presentation. 
5. Terminal:  Yes, I want a terminal on my Mac.  Why?  Because I use it constantly while checking connections, servers, ports, and running various apps.  It would be invaluable for any IT professional to be able to SSH into a remote machine while traveling, check on a server status, restart services, etc. all while away from a real computer.  
6. Full Version of iCal:  I want something more robust than the current iCal software on the iPhone.  All new events created on the thing shouldn’t create a new calendar.  It should also be able to subscribe to new calendars, and color-code them.  That would be nice. 

In some organizations, the Customer Service function is largely viewed as a cost center, draining resources of the firm. I maintain that this perspective is what less mature companies support. More mature companies and, subsequently the more successful ones, understand the strategic fit of Customer Service in the overall value chain and it’s functional role in the supply chain.

In what follows, I’ll take a hypothetical iPhone defect case and show how customer service in this example plays a pivotal role in the overall iPhone supply chain — a key player in the overall product value chain.

Strategic Fit of Customer Service in the Supply Chain

In a supply chain network, the Strategic Fit of Customer Service is often the voice-of-the-customer post-release of the service or product. The phrase “start with the customer and work backwards” is really a misnomer. Why? Well, in most products or services, it really starts with the customer and ends with the customer — that is, the customer’s voice is heard at the level of product design and then the voice-of-the-customer is heard at the market monitoring level, post-release of the product or service.

We know — through pretty accurate anecdotal evidence — that the supply chain of the iPhone looks like the following:

From a high-level, we speculate that the following are the material suppliers of the Apple iPhone:

1. Samsung: The Singapore facility manufactures CPU and Video processing chips.
2. Infineon: The Singapore facility manufactures Baseband Communications hardware.
3. Primax Electronics: The Taiwan facility manufactures Digital Camera Modules.
4. Foxconn International: The Taiwan facility manufactures internal circuitry.
5. Entery Industrial: The Taiwan facility manufactures connectors.
6. Cambridge Silicon: The Taiwan facility manufactures bluetooth chipsets.
7. Umicron Technology: The Taiwan facility manufactures printed circuit boards.
8. Catcher Technology: The Taiwan facility manufactures stainless metal casings.
9. Broadcomm: The U.S. based facility builds touch screen controllers.
10. Marvell: The U.S. based facility builds 802.11 specific parts.
11. The Apple Shenzhen, China facility assembles the hardware, holds inventory, and handles the pick, pack, and ship steps of the fulfillment process.

If I am correct in any of my research and assertions above, it’s easy to see that if there is any disruption in material flow of any supplier into the Apple Shenzhen, China facility, then production either slows or halts altogether.

We also know that the Austin, Texas Apple Operation is largely where Apple Care physically sits, with another office just outside of Sacramento, California. So, for any contacts into their Call Center, then that is most likely where the contacts will enter (they also have, we understand, outsourcing partners, but Texas Apple Care is the headquarters).

So, more completely, then, the high-level iphone supply chain may represented like this:

Market Monitoring, Defect Data

When a product is released into the market, there can be many channels of market monitoring of the health of the product. In the medical device or pharmaceutical industry, where I once worked, the Market Monitoring phase of the product lifecycle represents a large portion of the product, especially in how it meets regulatory concerns, etc. Marketing and Public Relations also have an especial interest in market monitoring since the voice-of-the-customer post-release can and, usually does, help the firm improve their product or service.

Let us assume the following:

1. Apple Care (Apple iPhone Customer Service) has a program for collecting product health, post-release, of the product. These can be from inbound contacts to the Apple Customer Service or through blogs or through message boards.
2. In this program, Apple has a simple and elegant way of making that information actionable, involving collecting data, stratifying of the data, root cause analysis, then practical countermeasures to improve the iPhone through upcoming releases of the product.

iPhone Defect Data

Extending this hypothetical iPhone case, let’s say that Apple Customer Service collects inbound iPhone Defect Data using a very simple check sheet, like the following:

The first column shows very broad defects as reported by the iPhone customers. On the right column are the simple counts. This is called a check sheet. Other variants of this simple quality tool are to collect by day, time, shift, product color, version, etc.

The next step to make this data actionable is to visually render it in a way that points to an healthy area of opprotunity. Below might be a picture that can help us — an iPhone Pareto of Defects:

The above picture is a Pareto Chart, showing the check sheet data, in visual format. As a consumer of this data, the Apple Customer Service folks might want to pay closer attention to the first and second bars of the Pareto, because those two bars represent “iPhone Touch Screen” defects.

The Pareto above naturally leads the consumer of this data to ask “Why?” — “What’s going on with the Apple iPhone Touch Screen?”

The next step, then, in the lifecycle of product monitoring and improvement is to conduct a Root Cause Analysis, focused on areas where the opportunity trade-off is good. In other words, to truly get-to-the-heart of Touch Screen defects, Apple must meet with the suppliers of the iPhone Touch Screen technologies. Based on the Supply Chain network drawn above, Apple should meet with BroadComm, the supplier of the iPhone Touch Screen technologies.

In that meeting, both Apple and the supplier can look over the data, go to the Gemba, and conduct root cause analysis on what’s going on with the Touch Screen.

iPhone Defects Root Cause Analysis

There are several tools that can aid in the process of Root Cause Analysis. Basically, it is a simple approach of asking “why” several times until you arrive at an atomic but actionable item. To visually view the process of the “5-why’s”, a tool called an (Ishikawa Diagram) or a (Cause-and-Effect Diagram) or a (Fishbone Diagram) is often helpful — this tool is referred by either of these names.

Main Components of an Ishikawa Diagram

1. At the head of the Fishbone is the defect or effect, stated in the form of a question.
2. The major bones are the capstones, or main groupings of causes.
3. The minor bones are detailed items under each capstone.
4. There are common capstones, but they may or may not apply to your specific problem. The common ones are:

• People
• Equipment
• Material
• Information
• Methods/Procedures
• Measurement
• Environment

After completing your Fishbone Diagram excercise as a group, it is helpful to test your logic by working the bones: top-down OR bottom-up like:

this happens because of g; g happens because of f; f happens because of e; e happens because of d; d happens because of c; c happens because of b; b happens because of a.

The excercise above is crucially important — you must test your logic so that it makes pragmatic sense and that the atomic root cause is actionable — that is, you can do something to correct it, reduce it, or eliminate the root cause.

Once you or your team arrive at a root cause for a specific capstone, then you typically “cloud” it to identify it as a root cause. A good rule is that there is typically *NOT* 1 root cause for a problem, but potentially several. Below is a diagram of one fishbone, decomposed:

Once the Apple folks and the Apple iPhone Touch Screen supplier arrive at the root causes of the iPhone Touch Screen defects, then the supplier needs to put-in-place countermeasures so that the next shipment of the Touch Screen — perhaps in the next version of the iPhone — won’t have this defect anymore.

In fact, there can be much Public Relations and Marketing campaigns from this effort: Apple can show the public that it has listened the concerns of the market; Apple has done this by fixing the defects that most pains that market, in relation to the iPhone product. There can be much branding from an effort like this.

Conclusion

Customer Service plays a key role in the value chain of a product or service. Some firms view and, consequently behave, as if Customer Service were simply a cost center. These firms miss the point altogether: Customer Service is a major vehicle for hearing and learning about what the market is perceiving and feeling and experiencing from our products or services. This data and information can be made actionable through the strategic and smart utilization of Customer Service.

Disclosure

The data above is only hypothetical. The process above works and, if done strategically and with an eye toward the customer, then Customer Service can be a major player in how our products and services can be improved and how we can shape the signals we send to the market and, consequently, how the market can begin to perceive the firm.

I love Apple, but I don’t own an iPhone. I would love an iPhone and would gladly accept a free iPhone from Apple and/or other free Apple products. Apple can join the other companies that have sent me free stuff here.

+++++

Please find originally-written articles on Queueing Theory below:

• Queueing Theory: Part 1
• Queueing Theory: Part 2
• Queueing Theory: Part 3
• Queueing Theory: Part 4
• What is Waste?
• On Time-Traps and Waste
• Call Centers as Queueing Systems
• Travel Time & Waste
• Little’s Law for Product Development
• YouTube’s Queueing Properties
• Psychology of Queueing and Disneyland
• Queueing, Disneyland, and FastPass
• Multi-Tasking Leads to Lower Productivity
• Queueing Theory and Terrorism
• On Queueing Theory and Elevator Mirrors
• Psychology of Queueing, Haunted Houses, and Halloween
• The Variability Tree
• Attitude and the Psychology of Waiting - The Psychology of Queueing

For a few articles on Operations, lean and six sigma, please visit the links below:

• Managing Constraints Under Peak Volumes

• Order Pipeline of Events

• On Game Theory

• Series on Queueing Theory

• Applied Regression Analysis

• 5S

• Click-to-Ship Processes

• Kanban Sizing and “Pull”

• Lean at Krispy Kreme

• Theory of Constraints and Camping

• Lean for Software Development

• Don’t Waste the Customer’s Time

• Featuritis and the Focus on the Customer

ShareThis

I’m going to step away from my normal focus on Social Media because the inner-geek in me just couldn’t resist. Recently Chris Pirillo posted a challenge that I just couldn’t help taking on. In it, he criticizes a post by Preston Galla of ComputerWorld stating “5 Reasons Vista Beats OS X”, and he makes some very good points. I admire Chris a lot because he’s one of the most unbiased Geeks I know, except when it comes to the Mac. Chris and I would get along well.

I too am a Mac user, in fact, the post I am typing at the moment is on MarsEdit on a Macbook. I absolutely love my Mac, and thus far have not found a preferred Operating System for development and desktop environment to work on, at least as a software developer (I should note that actually, most of my software development is over Terminal on the Mac, over to a Linux Server, my preferred server OS).

I will be the first to admit however that the Mac does have its flaws, in particular Leopard. I do run a Vista Ultimate machine, and I love it too, but for different reasons. Let me give 5 real reasons, and Chris, if you’re reading I would love to hear your response to this, why Vista, at times can be better than a Mac, in particular Leopard. Here are 5 reasons in response to Chris’s challenge that I think really make sense:

1. It’s all about the media. Chris, I’m not sure if you’ve used Windows Media Center to its full extent, but sit down, set up a Windows Media Center machine/server, and then set up an Xbox 360. Be sure your server has a good TV card or two in it as well. Now, sync the two, and begin watching TV live over your home network. Add on a Media Center Extender to another TV in your house and begin streaming live TV on another channel to that TV as well. Now, on one of the extenders, open up some music, maybe even from your iTunes library on your PC (assuming it’s not DRM protected, stupid Apple). Go on over and visit the videos you have stored on your PC. Install some MCE plugins, and begin browsing your videos on Youtube, or even Netflix watch now movies. Got HD? MCE supports it. Go to the sports section, see all the sports games playing currently and what their scores are, surf through all the sports channels (all in HD!). Go in and schedule to record your favorite TV Series. AppleTV isn’t even near ready for this (although I so desperately would love to see them do it!). Heck, turn off MCE even and start playing some games, or rent a movie. If you can point out a Mac combination that can do that, I’ll jump for joy!
2. The corporate environment. As a CTO and entrepreneur, I simply cannot force everyone onto a Mac. I have first, the expense of the learning curve and integration between Mac and PC, and second the cost of the Macs themselves. I can get a PC for under $500 these days. The closest equivalent to that is the Mac Mini, which still, at the equivalent PC level is more expensive. Now, add to that the expense of Parallels so those that need Windows apps like Quickbooks Corporate editions and others. True, integration with Exchange is possible, but is still pretty limited when compared to Windows. In the end I’m looking at a pretty expensive IT budget. Again, I think a Mac is an excellent development machine, and would still encourage a Mac for my developers due to their need to develop in cross-platform environments, but it just doesn’t make sense cost-wise across the entire company.
3. Hardware compatibility. I agree - there are a lot of options when it comes to supporting hardware for a Mac, but, can I just get a decent wireless print server that works with the Macs in my household? What about print drivers that work across the network with Windows-connected printers? Leopard fixes some of that, but it’s still not anywhere near compatible as the Vista machines are. Is it Mac’s fault? No, but it is a strong point to buying Vista. What about shuffling around every time I need to connect to a projector because Macs use the non-standard VGA/DVI adapters? I’m sure the readers can come up with more unsupported hardware.
4. Finance Software. I touched on this a little earlier, and Galla very broadly covered it in mentioning supported software, but his claim was not backed by specific examples. Simply saying, “Vista runs more software” is an opinion, and Chris, as you point out not necessarily proof that Vista is better. However, one thing I do have issues with is the vast array of Windows Finance software (aka Small and large business versions of Quicken and Turbotax) but lack of within Leopard. I run a very small business at the moment, and frankly, Quickbooks for Mac is simply too much for me. I’m looking for something more like Quicken Home and Business until my business gets large enough for me to hire an Accountant. There’s also the flip-side to that in that if you run a very large business, there are no enterprise versions of Quickbooks for Mac. This is why both my Father, and Father-in-Law who are CPAs do not use Macs. For now, I’m stuck to slowing down my machine with Parallels any time I need something like that, which, IMO is a hack.
5. It’s all about the animated wallpaper! Can your Mac run animated pictures of waterfalls, running streams, or flowing lava? My Vista machine can. Come on - you have to admit that’s something my Vista machine can do that my Macbook can’t, don’t you? So long as we’re going to praise the Mac UI this is one really cool feature I’d just love to see on my Mac. There are also other cool UI features on Vista that I like, even though I think Mac trumps them as a whole.

So, those may or may not be big things to some, but that is my list, and you asked Chris. Of course I could always come up with 10 more things that Mac beats Vista in, but my point is, as they told us when I was a Sales person at Computer City as a teenager, there are strengths to each OS - it’s important to evaluate what works best for you and your situation, and choose accordingly. Now, I ask my readers, are there any reasons (supported by true, concrete facts) that you feel Vista beats Leopard or the Mac in general?

In some organizations, the Customer Service function is largely viewed as a cost center, draining resources of the firm.  I maintain that this viewpoint is one that less mature companies support.  In what follows, I’ll take a hypothetical iPhone defect case and show how customer service in this example plays a pivotal role in the overall iPhone supply chain — a key player in the overall product value chain.

Strategic Fit of Customer Service in the Supply Chain

In a supply chain network, the Strategic Fit of Customer Service is often the voice-of-the-customer post-release of the service or product.  The phrase “start with the customer and work backwards” is really a misnomer.  Why?  Well, in most products or services, it really starts with the customer and ends with the customer — that is, the customer’s voice is heard at the level of product design and then the voice-of-the-customer is heard at the market monitoring level, post-release of the product or service. 

We know — through pretty accurate anecdotal evidence — that the supply chain of the iPhone looks like the following:

From a high-level, we speculate that the following are the material suppliers of the Apple iPhone:

1. Samsung: The Singapore facility manufactures CPU and Video processing chips.
2. Infineon: The Singapore facility manufactures Baseband Communications hardware.
3. Primax Electronics: The Taiwan facility manufactures Digital Camera Modules.
4. Foxconn International: The Taiwan facility manufactures internal circuitry.
5. Entery Industrial: The Taiwan facility manufactures connectors.
6. Cambridge Silicon: The Taiwan facility manufactures bluetooth chipsets.
7. Umicron Technology: The Taiwan facility manufactures printed circuit boards.
8. Catcher Technology: The Taiwan facility manufactures stainless metal casings.
9. Broadcomm: The U.S. based facility builds touch screen controllers.
10. Marvell: The U.S. based facility builds 802.11 specific parts.
11. The Apple Shenzhen, China facility assembles the hardware, holds inventory, and handles the pick, pack, and ship steps of the fulfillment process.

If I am correct in any of my research and assertions above, it’s easy to see that if there is any disruption in material flow of any supplier into the Apple Shenzhen, China facility, then production either slows or halts altogether.

We also know that the Austin, Texas Apple Operation is largely where Apple Care physically sits, with another office just outside of Sacramento, California.  So, for any contacts into their Call Center, then that is most likely where the contacts will enter (they also have, we understand, outsourcing partners, but Texas Apple Care is the headquarters).

So, more completely, then, the high-level iphone supply chain may represented like this:

Market Monitoring, Defect Data

When a product is released into the market, there can be many channels of market monitoring of the health of the product.  In the medical device or pharmaceutical industry, where I once worked, the Market Monitoring phase of the product lifecycle represents a large portion of the product, especially in how it meets regulatory concerns, etc.  Marketing and Public Relations also have an especial interest in market monitoring since the voice-of-the-customer post-release can and, usually does, help the firm improve their product or service. 

Let us assume the following:

1. Apple Care (Apple iPhone Customer Service) has a program for collecting product health, post-release, of the product.  These can be from inbound contacts to the Apple Customer Service or through blogs or through message boards.
2. In this program, Apple has a simple and elegant way of making that information actionable, involving collecting data, stratifying of the data, root cause analysis, then practical countermeasures to improve the iPhone through upcoming releases of the product. 

iPhone Defect Data

Extending this hypothetical iPhone case, let’s say that Apple Customer Service collects inbound iPhone Defect Data using a very simple check sheet, like the following:

The first column shows very broad defects as reported by the iPhone customers.  On the right column are the simple counts.  This is called a check sheet.  Other variants of this simple quality tool are to collect by day, time, shift, product color, version, etc. 

The next step to make this data actionable is to visually render it in a way that points to an healthy area of opprotunity.  Below might be a picture that can help us — an iPhone Pareto of Defects:

The above picture is a Pareto Chart, showing the check sheet data, in visual format.  As a consumer of this data, the Apple Customer Service folks might want to pay closer attention to the first and second bars of the Pareto, because those two bars represent “iPhone Touch Screen” defects. 

The Pareto above naturally leads the consumer of this data to ask “Why?” — “What’s going on with the Apple iPhone Touch Screen?”

The next step, then, in the lifecycle of product monitoring and improvement is to conduct a Root Cause Analysis, focused on areas where the opportunity trade-off is good.  In other words, to truly get-to-the-heart of Touch Screen defects, Apple must meet with the suppliers of the iPhone Touch Screen technologies.  Based on the Supply Chain network drawn above, Apple should meet with BroadComm, the supplier of the iPhone Touch Screen technologies. 

In that meeting, both Apple and the supplier can look over the data, go to the Gemba, and conduct root cause analysis on what’s going on with the Touch Screen.

iPhone Defects Root Cause Analysis

There are several tools that can aid in the process of Root Cause Analysis.  Basically, it is a simple approach of asking “why” several times until you arrive at an atomic but actionable item.  To visually view the process of the “5-why’s”, a tool called an (Ishikawa Diagram) or a (Cause-and-Effect Diagram) or a (Fishbone Diagram) is often helpful — this tool is referred by either of these names.

Main Components of an Ishikawa Diagram

1. At the head of the Fishbone is the defect or effect, stated in the form of a question.
2. The major bones are the capstones, or main groupings of causes.
3. The minor bones are detailed items under each capstone.
4. There are common capstones, but they may or may not apply to your specific problem. The common ones are:

• People
• Equipment
• Material
• Information
• Methods/Procedures
• Measurement
• Environment

After completing your Fishbone Diagram excercise as a group, it is helpful to test your logic by working the bones: top-down OR bottom-up like:

this happens because of g; g happens because of f; f happens because of e; e happens because of d; d happens because of c; c happens because of b; b happens because of a.

The excercise above is crucially important — you must test your logic so that it makes pragmatic sense and that the atomic root cause is actionable — that is, you can do something to correct it, reduce it, or eliminate the root cause.

Once you or your team arrive at a root cause for a specific capstone, then you typically “cloud” it to identify it as a root cause. A good rule is that there is typically *NOT* 1 root cause for a problem, but potentially several. Below is a diagram of one fishbone, decomposed:

Once the Apple folks and the Apple iPhone Touch Screen supplier arrive at the root causes of the iPhone Touch Screen defects, then the supplier needs to put-in-place countermeasures so that the next shipment of the Touch Screen — perhaps in the next version of the iPhone — won’t have this defect anymore.

In fact, there can be much Public Relations and Marketing campaigns from this effort: Apple can show the public that it has listened the concerns of the market; Apple has done this by fixing the defects that most pains that market, in relation to the iPhone product.  There can be much branding from an effort like this.

Conclusion

Customer Service plays a key role in the value chain of a product or service.  Some firms view and, consequently behave, as if Customer Service were simply a cost center.  These firms miss the point altogether: Customer Service is a major vehicle for hearing and learning about what the market is perceiving and feeling and experiencing from our products or services.  This data and information can be made actionable through the strategic and smart utilization of Customer Service.

Disclosure

The data above is only hypothetical.  The process above works and, if done strategically and with an eye toward the customer, then Customer Service can be a major player in how our products and services can be improved and how we can shape the signals we send to the market and, consequently, how the market can begin to perceive the firm. 

I love Apple, but I don’t own an iPhone.  I would love an iPhone and would gladly accept a free iPhone from Apple and/or other free Apple products.  Apple can join the other companies that have sent me free stuff here.

+++++

Please find originally-written articles on Queueing Theory below:

• Queueing Theory: Part 1
• Queueing Theory: Part 2
• Queueing Theory: Part 3
• Queueing Theory: Part 4
• What is Waste?
• On Time-Traps and Waste
• Call Centers as Queueing Systems
• Travel Time & Waste
• Little’s Law for Product Development
• YouTube’s Queueing Properties
• Psychology of Queueing and Disneyland
• Queueing, Disneyland, and FastPass
• Multi-Tasking Leads to Lower Productivity
• Queueing Theory and Terrorism
• On Queueing Theory and Elevator Mirrors
• Psychology of Queueing, Haunted Houses, and Halloween
• The Variability Tree
• Attitude and the Psychology of Waiting - The Psychology of Queueing

For a few articles on Operations, lean and six sigma, please visit the links below:

• Managing Constraints Under Peak Volumes

• Order Pipeline of Events

• On Game Theory

• Series on Queueing Theory

• Applied Regression Analysis

• 5S

• Click-to-Ship Processes

• Kanban Sizing and “Pull”

• Lean at Krispy Kreme

• Theory of Constraints and Camping

• Lean for Software Development

• Don’t Waste the Customer’s Time

• Featuritis and the Focus on the Customer

ShareThis

Abilene Christian University has a program to give all students an iPhone. They've also got a video that shows how the iPhone might be used on campus (the video is conceptual, not factual). I found some of the ideas to be pretty interesting, but wonder how much IT support would be needed to pull them off. For example, in one sequence the students type things into an application running on the iPhone and a tag cloud is built on the projected screen in real time. Slick.

The current standard in teaching IT support is Blackboard and anyone who watches this video and then thinks about what Blackboard can do will be sorely disappointed that our capabilities are so thoroughly limited by this dinosaur from the 90's. Schools pay a lot of money for Blackboard and its one of the worst Web applications you can imagine. If I worked there, I'd be embarrassed to admit it.

All this just goes to show that there's still plenty of blue ocean in the educational and instructional software market if someone were willing to crack that nut.

Tags: academics byu apple gear iphone

Have you wondered what it takes to take a MacBook Air apart and what it looks like when you do? Look no further. Here's a step-by-step with high-res photos from iFixIt. The battery isn't trivial to replace, but it's definitely easier than replacing the hard drive on an iMac. I'd do it.

Unfortunately, the 80Gb drive is the largest one that will fit. I wondered about that because often Apple's top choice is one size smaller than the current leader in terms of space. I regularly crack open my new MacBook Pros before I've even turned them on to replace the drive. Looks like Apple had to go state-of-the-art here to save the 3mm that the larger drives would have cost.

Tags: osx gear apple

I love Time Machine. I've been in the habit of doing full disk backups, but that won't save me from accidentally deleting a file unless I notice before the full disk backup is made. With time machine I'm protected. I still do a full disk back up from time to time so that I have something to boot from and then restore from Time Machine on if my main drive goes belly up.

One thing I've noticed: most mornings when I close up my laptop and take it with me for the day, the Time Machine backup disk won't eject. I get the standard "this disk is in use and cannot be ejected" warning. I'm confident the only thing using the disk is Time Machine. It seems that Time Machine makes it hard to eject disks.

This wouldn't be so bad on a desktop, but on a laptop, it's a pain. I hate just unplugging and getting the red stop sign warning about damaging the disk. Maybe more my paranoia than anything, but I like to avoid it.

I've found that forcing an unmount after trying the regular eject always works:

sudo umount -f /Volume/Phil\ Backup

Obviously your volume name is probably different and no, I didn't forget the "n" in "umount". Note that name of my backup drive is "Phil Backup". Why it doesn't work before an eject, I'm not sure. Still, it avoids the warning.

To make this easier, I made an alias for it in my .bashrc file:

alias u="sudo umount -f /Volume/Phil\ Backup"

Now, just typing "u" at the command prompt (which I've almost always got ready) will unmount the disk. Anyone have a better solution or am I the only one dealing with this problem?

Tags: osx apple howto

One of the things that interested me about the Mac Book Air with the solid state drive was the hope that it might give better performance than a standard HDD and even better battery life.

According to this review from Ars Technica, the performance gains mixed:

[T]he summary is: the SSD does worse in sequential disk tests and writing in general, but spanks the HDD in random disk tests and reading from the disk.

From No spin: Ars reviews the MacBook Air with solid state drive
Referenced Wed Feb 06 2008 20:58:53 GMT-0700 (MST)

What does that translate into?

• Booting is no faster
• Exporting a Quicktime movie is slower
• Building software is faster
• Unzipping an archive is faster

Most applications won't seem much different. In short: don't spend the $1300 in hopes of getting increased performance. You won't see much.

Tags: apple osx gear

The much rumored iPod Slate turned out to be just that, a rumor. Some say that it was never to be, while others say that it just wasn't ready to be released to the public quite yet. Either way, we don't have it, which means I can still put up a wish list for the features I would like to see in such a device.

Why am I talking about this now? Well, here is hopes that it will be ready and inexpensive enough for the Christmas season (starting in October), and that somehow my ideas/wishes/suggestions will have time to be adopted. Of course, that assumes that someone in Cupertino actually reads my blog.

Hardware
First and foremost, it needs to be very mobile. This means the form factor for the iPod would be perfect, if just enlarged slightly. This will allow for maximum portability, while still being large enough to be able to see/read/use. Also, in addition to the size, the multi-touch display would be invaluable, allowing for operation without a mouse. An iSight camera facing the user would be a must, allowing for iChat AV usage.

Next, ports. Your standard iPod doesn't have anything other than the proprietary iPod docking port, and that needs to change with the iPod Slate. Add a USB port and a micro-DVI port, just like what's present on the MacBook Air. Why? Because occasionally you may want to hook up a USB device of some sort (usually extra storage). The micro-DVI port would be necessary for presentations (i.e., Keynote). That would make this device a phenomenal seller in the business market (and education).

Now input devices. Allow the tethering of bluetooth devices, like the Apple Bluetooth Keyboard. It's thin enough to be useful for something like this, as both would be easily stored in a portfolio. A bluetooth headset would be a given, I would think, and perhaps even a bluetooth microphone alone. Why? An excellent option for people out making a quick and dirty Podcast interview. You can leave your iPod Slate in your pocket, and still record the conversation like a professional.

What about the guts? The processor doesn't have to be really powerful. Let's face it, this isn't going to be a gaming machine. The hard drive could also be small, like the 16 GB solid state drives that are already part of the iPod Touch. That keeps the price down, and gives the user plenty of storage for office work and basic recording. Want more storage? Perhaps have an upgrade to 32 GB. Anything more would be nice, but would price the device beyond overall acceptance.

Also, along with the expected Bluetooth and WiFi, have 3G/4G built into it. Not necessary, but would be really nice for those businessmen traveling, and need something compact. This way you also don't have to worry about including a slot for a 3G card. Of course, people could use the USB dongles available... but wouldn't it be nicer to have it built in? And while we are talking about it, why not have a small stand built into it, so it can stand up on it's side. Perfect for using the bluetooth headset (though this could be a third party add-on that I would pay a small amount of money for ^_^).

And finally, drives. As proven with the MacBook Air, you don't need a drive if you already have a system that can share their drive over the network. If that's the case, why worry about anything more than just the hard drive on the iPod Slate? The innovation that came with the Air can be easily adopted on the iPod Slate.

Software
Make the iPod Slate versatile: allow standard Apple software to be installed. Granted, gaming will not be a huge priority (except for your distraction games like Chess or Cards), but iLife would be nice. I don't think people will be working particularly with iDVD, but iPhoto, iMovie (to a small extent), and Garageband would be almost an absolute must. iTunes is pretty much a given. And, if some games are optimized for the platform... Well that is just the game-maker's win, isn't it? (Hint: WoW and Second Life would be great!).

I would also like to see Pages, Numbers, and Keynote on the device. Why? Because I'm looking for a production machine that will let me write documents easily (with a bluetooth keyboard), show presentations, and let me keep track of information in a spreadsheet all in my pocket. The PocketPC has had this capability in a very limited form for a long time, and it would be a mistake to have the opportunity to improve on this opportunity go to waste.

Next, have a full version of iCal, with all the calendars, subscriptions, etc. This is what is missing from the iPhone and iPods. People that need to live in a calendar to keep their life going in the right direction need it. On top of iCal, have a full version of iChat, Mail, and Address Book installed. It's only logical, and would make it a killer device.

Pricing
Here is the real bottom line: don't price it as high as the MacBook Air. This isn't meant to be a high-end sub-notebook. But it is the most advanced iPod out there. Make it between $600.00 and $900.00, and you will have it sold easily. Students will choose it over any other laptop for their school work, and then choose another machine for gaming. It's a quick and easy way to get people into the Mac platform while still letting them hold on to a PC. When that PC then dies, they will buy a Mac next, because they have had time to compare.

So, that is my wish list. Do I expect everything to be adopted? Not at all. But I do hope that the next iPod Slate will have, at minimum, everything the iPod Touch has, but with Bluetooth for a keyboard, iWork for office work, and a micro-DVI port for presentations. That alone would be a huge leap forward for the iPod.

Overshadowed by all the hype generated around the “MacBook Air” and iTunes Rentals, it seems people are missing one big announcement that comes with the MacBook Air. That announcement is the final inclusion of a Solid State hard drive in an Apple product. While other manufacturers have this, it has been speculated for a long time that this was going to happen with Apple, starting with a Patent they filed last year.

In Leo Laporte’s show last Saturday, I mentioned in IRC I thought Apple was going to announce a solid-state drive at this keynote. He quickly dismissed it (while unwilling to confirm any rumor, a wise decision). I’m happy to say, I was right!

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Some people wonder why I love my iPhone. I'll give you one simple reason: In all the years I've owned mobile phones, not one ever got better as it aged. The iPhone has gotten better three times now and promises to do so in the future. Today's bump added pseudo-GPS capability (which seems to work surprisingly well), a user-manageable home page, and multiple SMS recipients.

As an aside, my update wasn't seamless. After it tried the first time, it told me I had to do a restore. That worked fine, restoring the software to the latest version and then syncing my contacts, music, and so on from iTunes. Be sure you sync before you upgrade. If you have, then a restore is no big deal--just takes a little longer.

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Apple iPhone (click to enlarge)

Since yesterday's announcement that Google had released an iPhone-ready look and feel for it's Google Apps, I've been playing with GMail and Google Reader quite a bit on the iPhone. This is a much improved experience. I'm impressed. The apps are responsive and function well on the reduced real estate of the iPhone screen.

Because GMail pre-loads recent messages, clicking on a message to read it brings it up nearly instantaneously. The address fields also auto-complete. I could see myself using GMail on the iPhone instead of the built in Mail application and getting along very nicely.

Reader still isn't my favorite way to read news. I've used NetNewsWire on the Mac for a long time and have a style of reading news that Reader just doesn't seem to support. Still, it's snappy and clean on the iPhone and that's a real plus.

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Yes, the highly anticipated Keynote is scheduled for today, with high expectations for Apple to announce new and wild releases. The one th