Slashdot Mirror

Yeah, Lombard batteries are hard to find....

Actually, I just bought one of those and it is pretty shitty. The cells are physically larger than those in Apple's pack which requires them to use a very thin and flexible casing. The top and bottom of the casing are made of plastic inserts which were already peeling off, exposing the battery, when I purchased the thing.

The advantage is that I have a new battery for only $150.. disadvantage is that I'm afraid of it blowing up.

There are two things you want to do here. You want to be able to boot your laptop from a removable medium, and you want to transfer data to other systems. I don't see why you have to have a single solution for both. Maybe it's kewl to have a bootable USB key or SD card, but is it practical? Booting from external media is not something you have to do very often, but when you do have to do it, you really have to do it. So you need something reliable. Almost all recent systems can boot from the CD, so why not just burn all the boot images you might need onto CD? Or if you just have to have a read-write bootable device, get a USB floppy. (You'll probably have to buy one from the manufacturer of your laptop to get one that's bootable.) It's old-fashioned, and it isn't good for any serious data transfer, but it's very reliable. And you need reliable.

The second problem is data transfer. Now, the main merit of a USB key is portability. But if your data is already on a laptop, you already have portability. If you want to transfer data between your laptop and another system, why spend a lot of money on a USB key, which requires multiple steps to accomplish the transfer? It's faster and cheaper just to connect the two USB ports directly.

Here's a useful how-to on powering wireless base stations using Power-Over-Ethernet (POE). Several wireless vendors already sell POE kits for wireless APs. Here's a POE kit for the AirPort.

Power+Ethernet over one wire is a great combination for settting up APs, because many of the interesting places to put a wireless access point (e.g., in the attic, by the pool, in the middle of the ceiling) may not have a power outlet nearby, or you may simply not want to run two sets of wires (AC power + ethernet) to the location.

-Mark

Just to add to the recommendations for Apple Powerbooks, I have a 15" TiBook 800Mhz and cannot recommend it strongly enough or to enough people. This machine is the best. OS X makes it just work. It is light, strong and fast (especially for the weight). Don't worry that it's too heavy...I carry mine around all day and it truly is light. DVD etc is great. If you want Japanese friendliness, Apple is the only vendor you should be looking at.

I'd recommend the 15" over the newer AlBooks if only because the screen hinge lets you attach a "tilt 'n tote" which helps with heat issues. You really will love this accessory.

Everyone should be lucky enough to have an Apple laptop.

That's cool. Sorry if I flamed there. As I said, your points, IMHO, are right on the money as well.

I've tried Linux, briefly, a couple of years ago, and kept up with the changes. It was promising then. When OS X showed up, things looked familiar, and I saw where Apple was going. Now it's a win-win situation for most of us.

Like Linux? Use it anywhere on anything. Like Macs but need UNIX? OS X. Interested in OS X but can't afford a Mac box? Darwin. Need maximum compatibility? Windows XP (sorta). Reminds me of a t-shirt I've been wanting:

Macintosh for Productivity
Linux for Development
Palm for Mobility
Windows for Solitaire

(4 to 6 pin cable)

Really. The cost per gig on an extra hard drive is no longer prohibitive to just use one to back up your data, then store it in a safe location. It's faster in transfer than a CD, and depending on setup, could work very well with a central server in your network used to back up files. There are various caddy's available from various companies, so the process would be to plug in, and synch up with the server.

Just one example of such a product

If I needed to set up a comprehensive backup, I'd definetly choose a secure central server for important data with a nice RAID setup, and have a set of external HD's synched up daily and stored offsite.

The major disadvantages to CDr/DVDr's would be vulnerability to magnetic damage, and lack of a true history due to the write-once nature of CDr/DVDr's. You'd still want a CDr drive also, for things like mailing data to people, and perhaps for special backup situations with limited data. I still see no major role for a DVDr drive though.

Ryan Fenton

I personally have a Dell Inspiron laptop, and like any desktop replacement notebook, it gets extremely hot after even short periods of sustained use. One thing I've found that works wonders for not only helping keep it cool but also with making the computer easier to work with for extended periods of time is a simple little item called the Podium CoolPad. While it seams amazingly simple at first glance, it's amazing how effective it can be. I can't recommend it highly enough.

I'm not in any way affiliated with the retailed I linked to, they're just one of the few around who actually offer the product.

For technical books/articles on MacOS X, see

DevDepot
MacTech
O'Reilly
Stepwise

Actually, no, you can get an adapter to connect an ADC monitor (which includes DVI, power and USB in a single connector) to a DVI-compatible video card, plus a USB connector and power source.

A little over a year ago I bought a Dr. Bott 2-port USB KVM from DevDepot for $139. Dr. Bott stuff is more Mac-friendly than most-- the KVM has dual video ports (i.e. Mac DB15 and PC HD15) for each position on the switch.

All cables are included with the switch, and the video cables have one end HD15 and one end DB15-- no matter how you have to hook your computers up, you can get it done by just swapping cable ends, no video adapters needed.

Contrast this with Belkin, who charges out the ass for everything, cables are extra, and sometimes requires a separate box to provide Mac connectivity, resulting in an ugly mess of tangled cables. Sure, the Belkins are electronic while the Dr. Bott is physical, but I'd rather pay less and wait a few seconds for my keyboard and mouse to be detected when I switch (and have a much neater-looking work area).

There is no such thing as a "cheap smart card reader/writer".
Sure there is. A quick Google search found:
K3 Samrtcard reader for USB $184.95
or these smartcard readers from $49.

"What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"

We've used Metrowerks CodeWarrior to develop and debug very heavily multithreaded applications on MacOS, NT, Solaris, and Linux for about five years now; the CodeWarrior tools seem very much 'up to the job' and thread-aware. As a nice plus, CodeWarrior runs on multiple platforms (including Mac OS X now), which is a nice plus for our development, which is all multiplatform.

We now use a diversity of compilers/IDEs/debuggers, but CodeWarrior is still a favorite, even if it's just because of the "Blood, Sweat, and Code" T-shirts.

Well, you can get the EGCS/Gnu tools with the CodeWarrior IDE for Linux from Metrowerks. Annoyingly, there are separate Red Hat and SuSE versions.