Archive for the 'General Macintosh' Category
I know, many of you probably don’t want to hear about the iPhone – but hey, the IRAF installers and IDL tips are all still here, so I can post about what I want. You don’t like it? Make your own Mac IRAF site. 
Anyway, I’m not really going to post about the iPhone persay, but I was thinking on Friday how Apple much has transformed in the last 10 years. Would anyone have believed it in 1997 if you told them massive lines and massive media attention would surround the release of any Apple product? OS X didn’t exist, the Mac was struggling, the Newton was .. not a success.
Now, the Mac is healthier than ever – Apple rules the music player market with the iPod and is set to, at the very least, transform the expectations of mobile phone users. Personally, I don’t think the $600 iPhone is going to change the world, but the $300 iPhone Nano (or whatever they’ll call it) sure will. Just as it took a while for the iPod to truly explode, I would imagine the same is true of the iPhone.
There was a line in this sci-fi TV show, back in the 90s, “Seaquest DSV,” which referenced some future buyout of “Apple Computer” buying Microsoft, and – especially at the time (and even, frankly, now) it was laughable. I remember thinking “no way the Macintosh will ever be that big.” And, it probably never will be. But, it never occured to me Apple would create other, non-Macintosh things that would prove so succesful. (Though, arguably the iPhone is Mac-like in that in runs OS X.)
Obviously, here at Mac Singularity we care about OS X and the boon it is the productivity of our astronomical research. But for me, as a lifetime Apple user, it’s quite a trip to see them create so much attention and in general, have so much success. It’s been quite a ride from Wired urging us to pray for Apple’s survival.
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The problem – your department’s network won’t let you ssh or connect directly to your work Mac, you can only ssh to one special computer, and then from there you can ssh to your Mac. But, you’d like to be able to use Apple file sharing or sftp directly to your work Mac.
Well, SSH Tunneling (Port Forwarding)[sic] is great, clear, explanation of how to use SSH tunneling to directly connect to an ssh-enabled machine that doesn’t allow ssh connections from people offsite/off-campus, etc. It shows how, even when you can only access the work machine through the “gateway” machine (a situation I face here at UF), that you can setup an ssh tunnel through the gateway machine to access your work machine directly.
The best part about this? I can now use sftp (specifically fugu and its ability to edit external text files in TextWrangler) on my work quad core mac from home. I always knew this sort of thing was possible but … now at last I’ve figured out how to do it!
Update Oh, it gets so much better. Because in addition of using port 22 to forward ssh to your work machine, you can also forward port 548 (appleshare).
So, a variation on the tip from the site would be like so (where work is the Mac on your desk that has ssh and appleshare running (actually for this tip, your Mac only need be running file sharing, not ssh) and gateway is the one machine you’re allowed to ssh into from off-campus.
ssh -l myuserid -L 7778:work:548 gateway cat -
Then minimize this terminal window, and then use the Finder to “Connect to Server” in the Go menu. Enter “localhost:7778″ as the server address and boom, you should see the standard apple file sharing login window for your work machine. Enter your user name, password, and choose what you want to mount. Nice. (I use 7778 here, but you could use 7777. Obviously, if you use 7777 for forwarding port 22, you need to use a different port to forward 548).
Tags: apple, appleshare, networking, port forwarding, ssh — .
This is an excellent article in ComputerWorld comparing the value of Macintosh hardware to similarly configured PCs from Dell, Sony, etc.
The comparisons show, that for the equipment you’re buying when you buy a Mac, you’re getting a good deal. As I like to say, there are cheaper PCs than the cheapest Mac, but … you’re getting less computer.
The author says that the 15″ macbook pro (which, incidentally, is what I think my next Mac will be… sometime in late 2008 though) and Mac Mini aren’t good values in his mind, but he didn’t quantify this. Another site that compares Macs and PCs of similar price feature by feature is System Shootouts.
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Well, I’m at the AAS meeting in Honolulu.
The most interesting Mac-related news is that, for the first time, AAS presenters can use Macs (and Keynote) for presenting in oral sessions. They have Powerbooks with Parallels running OS X and Windows in every room, so people are free to use whatever OS and presentation software they want. Excellent idea. Hopefully this becomes standard practice for AAS. I grumbled about being forced to use Windows here some years ago, so it’s only fair I post again now that the situation has been improved.
On an unrelated note, I attended the NASA CAE workshop on improving the introductory astronomy class for non-majors, and it was excellent. There is a large body of research that lecture-only classes are ineffective for teaching non-science major courses, and so called “active learning” techniques are better. I’m convinced, and I think many people would benefit from the workshops so… find one near you and check it out.
Tags: aas, keynote, powerpoint — .
Well, Apple just can’t keep Kerberos working. Upon the most recent Apple security update, again with the ssh segmentation violations. It’s getting highly annoying.
The trick is to use Pacifist to replace the Kerberos.framework file (or something) with that from the 10.4.9 update. Described, more or less, in this thread here.
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A nice profile on a collaborative effort between Astronomers and medical researchers at Harvard is up at Apple’s Site. Check it Out.
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Hmm, so first we had this post about 42 reason why people might switch to the Mac. (Hooray!). Then later we got this response of nine reasons people should stick with PCs. It’s a doozy. Let’s go over it.
- Cost:PCs are cheaper
Well, there are PCs that are much cheaper than the cheapest Mac but they are also much, well ,cheaper than the cheapest Mac. Slower, with less features. If you compare similarly equipped Macs and PCs, the Mac is even or ahead. This shocked people when the Mac pro came out, but it’s true.
2: Operating System: yes, some may laugh, but with a PC you’ve got choices.
You’ve got Windows, which is precisely why people would want to flee the PC, and Linux . Linux runs on Macs too, but OS X has all the goodness of Linux anyway. If you’re sticking with the PC for Windows, well, God help you. Plus with Parallels you can run all these other OSes anyway, should you want, including Windows.
3: Software: The is a huge smorgesboard of software available for PC’s. Mac on the other hand suffer from a serious lack of options.
There may be a few situations where some specific application is unavailable or lacks a counterpart for MacOS X. But these are rare situations that will not effect 95% of PC Users. People don’t want 20 different programs that do the same thing poorly, they want one or two that does it well. Plus, you can run Windows within Parallels or boot camp if need be.
Gaming
This is a legitimate advantage for PCs. If you want to play the latest games, and that’s your priority, a PC is for you. You can Boot Camp it with a Mac and play them at good speeds, but you’ll have to drop some serious dough for Windows. Blizzard is awesome about Mac support, and Aspyr and others do some great ports, but gaming (due to people programming for DirectX) is something better done in Windows.
Servicability: something gone wrong with your Mac? not a problem, if you’re lucky enough to live near a Apple shop they’ll fix it for you…. Oh yeah, I nearly forgot, Apple doesn’t like you tinkering under the hood so you can fix it yourself. Something with my PC goes wrong, I flip the lid and have a look, or I take it to any number of PC shops that do repairs all within close driving range.
If you live far from an Apple authorized service provider, this might be a problem. If under warranty, Apple will overnight you a box which you can overnight a Mac back in.. at least, they do this for laptops. For heavier equipment this may be a problem indeed. For Mac Pros, they are quite serviceable by the user for something like a HD replacement. Most “regular” PC users aren’t going to want to perform surgery on their PC anyway, I thought this list for was “regular” computer users?
Parts/ Upgrading
I somehow doubt most 59 year old mothers are going to want to open up a PC and perform an upgrade. I thought this was about “regular users.” Anyway, the Mac Pro is the easiest computer to upgrade on the planet, with an awesome case design that allows for easy hard drive upgrades and access to all the PCI slots. The iMacs and Macbooks… not so much. All laptops are typically a real pain to open up, but the MacBook has a very simple hard drive bay, and RAM is easy on both the MacBook and Macbook Pro. The MBP has an express card slot. Most Macs have things built in like wireless networking and firewire that upgrades aren’t that neccesary. The biggest problem would be hard drive upgrades on an iMac. You’re sort of stuck with firewire or usb drives. Nor can you upgrade the video card on an iMac (that is lame). But, the notion that all peripherals work with PCs because of “extensive driver support” must be a joke. I’ve seen PC users struggle with getting hardware to work more times than I can count. (Let’s not even talk about Linux’s hardware support).
Peripherals: …Sure you can plug something into a Mac the same way as a PC, but will it work with a Mac? Believe it or not theres more to peripherals than digital cameras, which all work with a PC anyway.
Is this a joke? It’s often a driver install fest on PCs to get perihperals to work most things work on Macs that don’t even say they support OS X. What peripherals is this guy talking about anyway? USB memory cards work, no drivers. USB Printers work with the gimp-print drivers, or the driver from the manufacturer. USB Mice work, just plug in and go. External hard drives, plug in and go. Macs probably support a smaller set of hardware in totem, but it’s much more likely to work.
Better Peripherals: more choice and no stupid 1 button mouse. PC mice also come with a scroll wheel for scrolling, a Mac Mouse…well a weirdish rubber button thingy.
It’s fast becoming obvious this guy has never used a Mac. All USB 3 button / scroll wheel mice just work on Macs. I bought a $20 USB Kennsington mouse with 2 buttons and a scroll wheel and both the scroll wheel and all 3 buttons are recognized and used by OS X; I didn’t even install a driver. Mac Pros and iMacs have come with the 3 button “mighty mouse” for almost a year now. (not 100% sure about that time frame, but the mighty mouse is standard issue.) A legitimate critique would be say, force feedback joysticks and such; a Mac won’t know what to do with them. But, this goes back to the gaming thing, which I already conceded.
Usability: for the average person who doesn’t live in Silicon Valley, PC’s are actually more usable, after all, not only do you hardly ever find a Mac in an average (ie non-tech firm) business, very few other places run them, where as PC’s are everywhere and virtually everyone has exposure to Windows.
Yes, you’ll have to adapt from your Windows-entrained ways to use a Mac. Because the Windows-way is usually so complex and confusing that it may shock you when something is much simpler on the Mac. There is always inertia when moving to a different platform, but just because you use Windows at work is not a reason to tolerate it at home.
All in all, a very unimpressive list. Other than for gaming, I can’t imagine why I personally would ever want to deal with Windows.
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Wow, this tip really works. Probably more so on slower machines (like my iBook G4) than newer ones (like the Mac Pro in my office.)
Via Daring Fireball, it’s on the Hawk Wings web site. You use sql lite to do something to the Envelope Index file. There’s no period once you get into sql lite. The only suggestion I have is that there’s no period on the vacuum command of course, so once at the sqlite> prompt just type:
vacuum subjects;
and then wait for a bit while it vacuums. Afterwards, Mail really is significantly snappier at loading folders.
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Pfeiffer consulting group has apparently analyzed the ease of use of theinterfaces of Vista, XP, and OS X. Their conclusion is that Vista is worse than XP, and both lag far behind OS X.
I don’t know exactly the metrics they used to determine this “friction” score, but I would hazard to guess that Macs have a high score due to better adherence to Fitts’ Law. Basically, in order to maximize the ease of accessing a user interface element, it should be a) close, b) a large target.
Take for example the menu bar in OS X versus Windows. The menu bar in OS X is an infinitely large target, at least vertically. You just throw the mouse to the top of the screen and it stops on the menu bar. Or, take for example, pop-up menus. On a Mac the current selection is under the mouse on a pop menu, but not so on XP. (This is another reason I use Safari or Camino rather than Firefox, Firefox has generic non-Mac pop-up menu behavior.)
So, I’m not surprised that OS X comes out ahead of Windows, but I am a bit surprised about Vista lagging behind XP. That’s a trend in the wrong direction.
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