Both MacBook Pros are 2Ghz, purchased on the date of the announcement (January 10th).
Two days ago, both computers shut down suddenly (at different moments, obviously) while still showing about 10-20% juice left. In one of the cases (my computer), it corrupted the hard drive so badly that I had to erase it completely (this is after trying DiskWarrior from a G4 with the MBP in FireWire target mode, trying TechTool, Disk Utility, and the help of a very kind, but nonetheless baffled Genius (at Apple's downtown SF retail store)).
Now, I took a look at the batteries, and both are swelled.
The computers are still great, Windows still runs fine... for the next few hours, we'll run it straight from AC power and see what the Apple Store has to say.
Shameless plug... if you're under the impression that your neighborhood is weird or that your house creaks only on satanic holidays, check out this map of haunted places to double-check that you've chosen the right place to live.
Actually, we were expecting to go to Where 2.0 before the shutdown - the part about the conference on the page (as it was prior to the slashdotting) was not from the Google spokesperson.
... but until Griffin comes out with a new product (my money is on them) or Belkin updates its 'voice recorder' with a mic-in jack, the Mini-Disc still has the edge over the iPod as to being a great portable recorder/bootlegging device.
then again, the MiniDisc "should have" supported optical transfer from it to a digital optical in, such as the one the new G5s ship with, to really stay 'interesting'. right now, it's only useful to record. soon, it won't be useful at all.:-)
Looking at the outgoing logs of the local firewall, I saw an infected portable trying to connect to sequential IPs on port 135... it seems to me that the virus could have done a lot more damage if it first started by scanning the local subnet it was on (i.e. the 192.168.1.* lan it was located on with lots of PCs), and then looking around on those "random" IPs... why did it spare my office so gently?;-)
Good point that FireWire is widely superior to USB, but ordering a cable (in addition to a FW card if you don't own one) might not be such a bad idea: the new iPods don't come with cables to connect them "straight" into a FireWire jack - for that, you have to use the included dock.
As taking the dock with me is not what I would call "music on the go", the direct ipod-to-firewire cable looked to me as a necessity. Guess what: both the iPod-FW and the iPod-FW/USB cables (see ipod accessories) cost the same: 19.95. My conclusion: might as well take the double cable, just in case I might need it...
By the way, does anyone think that not including a FW port on the iPod was a way to lessen its use as a portable file sharing tool? I mean mostly kids that went to copy software from Macs at computer stores, that wouldn't have bought the direct iPod-FW cable if it hadn't been shipped with the iPod, just as it is happening right now? You would sure look crazy with a docked iPod trying to plug into a FW port while looking as if you were casually browsing around;-)
At first thought, the only "problem" would be that if you were "switched" to a "new" connection, your IP address on the internet would be a different one - a situation that could cause some trouble.
For example: you send a http request to get a file, and you get switched over to a new connection (and ip address) while some tcp packets are still travelling to your "old" ip... guess what happens:-)
It would be interesting though for the "switching server software" to wait for you to stop transmitting packets for some time, and then switch you...
I even wonder if it would be possible, once the handover to a new gateway to the internet was done, for your "previous" gateway to keep on forwarding any packets it may receive for you...? and even more, would it be conceivable for you to "reply" to those packets, through your new gateway that would "know" you were answering to packets sent to your "previous" ip address...?
... is this sort of networking magic possible at all?:-)
[I wanted to write in the following into my first post on the subject (in this same thread), but thought it wouldn't interest anyone... anyway, here it goes]:-)
I agree that a "clock" would be hard to steal from an embedded system - actually, I'm curious if a related discussion in the "Assemblé Nationale" (Québec's (the province (which Montreal is located in)) National Assembly where our Ministers (in the UK sense)) discuss issues) at that moment may be the key to answer your question - how can a (software? embedded?) clock be stolen?
The juicy (French only) link in question is this one (search for "Keno") where the opposition asks (back in April 1994) the Finance Minister if he is aware that three computer chips were stolen. The chips are then later referred to as EPROM, thus probably containing the "Keno program" itself. 5 days later (you can find the 3 references at the Debates to the "Keno incident" by using this google link), the theft of three chips was confirmed by the "Sûreté du Québec" (the provincial police).
What's more, the faulty Keno machine was later sent to the Las Vegas company that manufactured it (this is all related in this debate), but their report wasn't made available to the Québec government.
So there you have it... no real answers, only more questions.:-)
You've got a great memory - that was 6 years ago.:-)
Here's the story from "The Risks Digest" ("Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems").
Basicly, they caught the guy, and then released him and even gave him the money back with interest.
The "source" of the problem? A missing clock that was supposed to seed the random number generator. Thus, upon rebooting (every morning I suppose), the same number sequence would be generated as the seed would be the same...
I have had a "similar" bad experience with HP - my girlfriend's scanner broke and when I called their technical support, they told me I would have to pay about 250$ canadian to get it *repaired* (the warranty was expired (by something like a month!...)). If I had sent the unit, I would have paid through the nose and waited, and then (probably) gotten my old scanner "fixed".
When I went to Future Shop to check out the scanners they had, the same scanner was selling new for 110$ CDN. When I phoned back to HP to tell them how angry I was they were trying to rip my girlfriend off (paying twice the price of a new device for repair?), they never returned my calls... could they have been too ashamed?.
I don't know if any of these researches exist or are valid, but reading in your post...
Essentially, EM radiation as emitted from Cell Phones, pagers, wireless computer hardware and computer monitors does a wide range of strange things to the human body.
... pretty much discredited the rest... EM radiation from pagers...? Maybe those "super high-tech" pagers with the two-way communication, but for the "95%" pagers out there that are simple radios with a chip to decode the messages intended for the user carrying the device, the radiation is pretty much comparable to that of a WalkMan...:-)
Like all Unix variants, Mac OS X has it quirks. It is also a young OS, and not all Open Source or Unix software projects have had time to test their programs on the Mac and make the necessary alterations
Linked from that last page is http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/php/ - a site concerning a prebuilt PHP Apache module for OS X... they are working on the 4.2.0 version and I don't have a doubt that these folks will deliver...!
Installing pre-compiled MySQL, PHP and Graphviz packages on a OS X-running powerbook was a great (and quick!...) experience. May everybody taste the sweet pleasure of writing PHP code on their balcony!:-)
The IOC bans websites from using or showing video clips, the story hits Slashdot and now free-speach advocates are getting crazy shouting that it's an infrigment of their Nature-given right to watch an event which is, by the way, international.
You know what happens next - kids with video capture cards start recording every bit of Olympic activity they can, "DivX;-)" it and send it out on Napster and Gnutella. Oh, and don't forget those that will create hexadecimal dumps of the movies' content in text and print those on t-shirt with "The IOC can suck my dI0Ck" on the back.
C'mon, it' s pretty obvious that the IOC has learned a less on from the De-CSS episode and is seeking to improve the rating for a pretty much dying event.
I can see it already: thousands of kiddies all watching Curling just to see what the fuss is all about.
The car has 16 mobiles phones and costs 295K US$ though no mention of any GPS-related equipment.
Great, now you can videoconference and access the internet while being lost and having no way out... oh, well you could always try to use google to find where you are by typing the names of some things that you see around...
www.google.com/search?q=I+see+some+trees+and+uh+we ll+oh+oh+a+guy+on+a+bicycle+just+passed+ by
I've always wondered: "now" that we have incredibly powerful telescopes, wouldn't be possible to take closeup pictures of the moon, for example where people have landed (and/or left some stuff)? (it has been already asked if it would be possible to track the moon considering its relative fast speed).
It sure would put an end to all of those conspiracy theories... or maybe confirm them.;-)
SmartFilter's SmartFilterWhere (this one's pretty nasty as it asks you for some personal info (name, phone, etc.) but I'm not sure if it's absolutely required to fill out those fields).
By the way, I only checked the blocking software mentionned on this peacefire page so if there are others, you're on your own.:-) Oh yeah, and I didn't find any test page for N2H2's Bess.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks, but no thanks ;-)
Greg
The file is available here:
http://www.gregsadetsky.com/aol-data/
There are 14 mirrors listed there. They have all been added after this first mirror went live less than 20 hours ago.
I have already transferred 863Gb of data in that short period of time.
Both MacBook Pros are 2Ghz, purchased on the date of the announcement (January 10th).
Two days ago, both computers shut down suddenly (at different moments, obviously) while still showing about 10-20% juice left. In one of the cases (my computer), it corrupted the hard drive so badly that I had to erase it completely (this is after trying DiskWarrior from a G4 with the MBP in FireWire target mode, trying TechTool, Disk Utility, and the help of a very kind, but nonetheless baffled Genius (at Apple's downtown SF retail store)).
Now, I took a look at the batteries, and both are swelled.
The computers are still great, Windows still runs fine... for the next few hours, we'll run it straight from AC power and see what the Apple Store has to say.
Good luck to everyone dealing with this issue.
Shameless plug... if you're under the impression that your neighborhood is weird or that your house creaks only on satanic holidays, check out this map of haunted places to double-check that you've chosen the right place to live.
Happy halloween...
Greg
(I'm the Greg mentioned on the page)
Actually, we were expecting to go to Where 2.0 before the shutdown - the part about the conference on the page (as it was prior to the slashdotting) was not from the Google spokesperson.
... but until Griffin comes out with a new product (my money is on them) or Belkin updates its 'voice recorder' with a mic-in jack, the Mini-Disc still has the edge over the iPod as to being a great portable recorder/bootlegging device.
:-)
then again, the MiniDisc "should have" supported optical transfer from it to a digital optical in, such as the one the new G5s ship with, to really stay 'interesting'. right now, it's only useful to record. soon, it won't be useful at all.
Greg
Looking at the outgoing logs of the local firewall, I saw an infected portable trying to connect to sequential IPs on port 135... it seems to me that the virus could have done a lot more damage if it first started by scanning the local subnet it was on (i.e. the 192.168.1.* lan it was located on with lots of PCs), and then looking around on those "random" IPs... why did it spare my office so gently? ;-)
Greg
A bit of googling turned it up...
http://www.californiacoastline.org/
Enjoy
Gr*g
Good point that FireWire is widely superior to USB, but ordering a cable (in addition to a FW card if you don't own one) might not be such a bad idea: the new iPods don't come with cables to connect them "straight" into a FireWire jack - for that, you have to use the included dock.
;-)
As taking the dock with me is not what I would call "music on the go", the direct ipod-to-firewire cable looked to me as a necessity. Guess what: both the iPod-FW and the iPod-FW/USB cables (see ipod accessories) cost the same: 19.95. My conclusion: might as well take the double cable, just in case I might need it...
By the way, does anyone think that not including a FW port on the iPod was a way to lessen its use as a portable file sharing tool? I mean mostly kids that went to copy software from Macs at computer stores, that wouldn't have bought the direct iPod-FW cable if it hadn't been shipped with the iPod, just as it is happening right now? You would sure look crazy with a docked iPod trying to plug into a FW port while looking as if you were casually browsing around
Greg
At first thought, the only "problem" would be that if you were "switched" to a "new" connection, your IP address on the internet would be a different one - a situation that could cause some trouble.
:-)
... is this sort of networking magic possible at all? :-)
For example: you send a http request to get a file, and you get switched over to a new connection (and ip address) while some tcp packets are still travelling to your "old" ip... guess what happens
It would be interesting though for the "switching server software" to wait for you to stop transmitting packets for some time, and then switch you...
I even wonder if it would be possible, once the handover to a new gateway to the internet was done, for your "previous" gateway to keep on forwarding any packets it may receive for you...? and even more, would it be conceivable for you to "reply" to those packets, through your new gateway that would "know" you were answering to packets sent to your "previous" ip address...?
Greg
[I wanted to write in the following into my first post on the subject (in this same thread), but thought it wouldn't interest anyone... anyway, here it goes] :-)
:-)
I agree that a "clock" would be hard to steal from an embedded system - actually, I'm curious if a related discussion in the "Assemblé Nationale" (Québec's (the province (which Montreal is located in)) National Assembly where our Ministers (in the UK sense)) discuss issues) at that moment may be the key to answer your question - how can a (software? embedded?) clock be stolen?
The juicy (French only) link in question is this one (search for "Keno") where the opposition asks (back in April 1994) the Finance Minister if he is aware that three computer chips were stolen. The chips are then later referred to as EPROM, thus probably containing the "Keno program" itself. 5 days later (you can find the 3 references at the Debates to the "Keno incident" by using this google link), the theft of three chips was confirmed by the "Sûreté du Québec" (the provincial police).
What's more, the faulty Keno machine was later sent to the Las Vegas company that manufactured it (this is all related in this debate), but their report wasn't made available to the Québec government.
So there you have it... no real answers, only more questions.
Greg
You've got a great memory - that was 6 years ago. :-)
Here's the story from "The Risks Digest" ("Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems").
Basicly, they caught the guy, and then released him and even gave him the money back with interest.
The "source" of the problem? A missing clock that was supposed to seed the random number generator. Thus, upon rebooting (every morning I suppose), the same number sequence would be generated as the seed would be the same...
Greg
I have had a "similar" bad experience with HP - my girlfriend's scanner broke and when I called their technical support, they told me I would have to pay about 250$ canadian to get it *repaired* (the warranty was expired (by something like a month!...)). If I had sent the unit, I would have paid through the nose and waited, and then (probably) gotten my old scanner "fixed".
When I went to Future Shop to check out the scanners they had, the same scanner was selling new for 110$ CDN. When I phoned back to HP to tell them how angry I was they were trying to rip my girlfriend off (paying twice the price of a new device for repair?), they never returned my calls... could they have been too ashamed?.
Greg
I don't know if any of these researches exist or are valid, but reading in your post...
... pretty much discredited the rest... EM radiation from pagers...? Maybe those "super high-tech" pagers with the two-way communication, but for the "95%" pagers out there that are simple radios with a chip to decode the messages intended for the user carrying the device, the radiation is pretty much comparable to that of a WalkMan... :-)
Essentially, EM radiation as emitted from Cell Phones, pagers, wireless computer hardware and computer monitors does a wide range of strange things to the human body.
Greg --= mecano.ca =--
yes, PHP support is still lacking a bit from our beloved OS X...
m l - Apple's PHP page where they "admit" that...
:-)
here are some links on the subject that may be of some interest:
http://developer.apple.com/internet/macosx/php.ht
Like all Unix variants, Mac OS X has it quirks. It is also a young OS, and not all Open Source or Unix software projects have had time to test their programs on the Mac and make the necessary alterations
Linked from that last page is http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/php/ - a site concerning a prebuilt PHP Apache module for OS X... they are working on the 4.2.0 version and I don't have a doubt that these folks will deliver...!
Installing pre-compiled MySQL, PHP and Graphviz packages on a OS X-running powerbook was a great (and quick!...) experience. May everybody taste the sweet pleasure of writing PHP code on their balcony!
Greg
Here's the full-length article!
Greg
Hmm.
;-)" it and send it out on Napster and Gnutella. Oh, and don't forget those that will create hexadecimal dumps of the movies' content in text and print those on t-shirt with "The IOC can suck my dI0Ck" on the back.
The IOC bans websites from using or showing video clips, the story hits Slashdot and now free-speach advocates are getting crazy shouting that it's an infrigment of their Nature-given right to watch an event which is, by the way, international.
You know what happens next - kids with video capture cards start recording every bit of Olympic activity they can, "DivX
C'mon, it' s pretty obvious that the IOC has learned a less on from the De-CSS episode and is seeking to improve the rating for a pretty much dying event.
I can see it already: thousands of kiddies all watching Curling just to see what the fuss is all about.
Not bad, IOC. Not bad.
[Check out this other Jesus-powered IOC]
Greg
The car has 16 mobiles phones and costs 295K US$ though no mention of any GPS-related equipment.
e ll+oh+oh+a+guy+on+a+bicycle+just+passed+ by
Great, now you can videoconference and access the internet while being lost and having no way out... oh, well you could always try to use google to find where you are by typing the names of some things that you see around...
www.google.com/search?q=I+see+some+trees+and+uh+w
Greg
very interesting, but... there's *no* way around this? some filters, something like that?
I've always wondered: "now" that we have incredibly powerful telescopes, wouldn't be possible to take closeup pictures of the moon, for example where people have landed (and/or left some stuff)? (it has been already asked if it would be possible to track the moon considering its relative fast speed).
;-)
It sure would put an end to all of those conspiracy theories... or maybe confirm them.
Greg
On most of the softwares' web sites, you have some sort of "test" section where you can enter an URL and check if it's blocked or not. For example...
:-) Oh yeah, and I didn't find any test page for N2H2's Bess.
SurfWatch's "Test a site" page
CyberPatrol's "CyberNOT Search Engine"
CyberNanny's "Check a site" page
WebSense's "site look up" page
SmartFilter's SmartFilterWhere (this one's pretty nasty as it asks you for some personal info (name, phone, etc.) but I'm not sure if it's absolutely required to fill out those fields).
By the way, I only checked the blocking software mentionned on this peacefire page so if there are others, you're on your own.
Greg