Shredding My Brilliance

Back in September of 2008, I promised to upload a screenshot of my ancient Quadra 660AV when I got it working again. Well, I did get it working again... and yes, I totally forgot about uploading a screenshot.

Not that anyone really cares about seeing it, but...



So there you go. My word is kept.

AJH

I'm entering this entry with my WiFi-enabled iPod Touch.

I haven't felt this geeky since I typed one in by stylus on my Palm Tungsten E2 like three years ago. My Palm is still alive, though it has invariably seen better days (the touchscreen doesn't like to calibrate anymore, for one, so you're always hitting just to the left of what you want), but since technology has been screaming past me... I figured it was time.

I didn't get an iPhone... frankly, I think they're overrated, and I cringe at the though of being stuck with AT&T forever. And, to that extent, this thing is proving to be up to the task -- and then some. Hell, it even knows where I am!

Now, if that ain't creepy, I dunno what is.

That is all.

AJH

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

The computer that I normally use at my job, the so-called "assistant manager's computer", is a 2.8Ghz Celeron-powered eMachines... thing. I have no model number for it, because it's generic, so I can't link to a website or anything.

Well, I have finally made my full transition into the role of assistant unit manager. They told me to "make the job your own", and so I have... and part of that involved pulling off a huge coup, and replacing that tired old eMachines with... actually, an even older iMac G3:



And get this... this little 600Mhz PowerPC G3-powered iMac, with 768MB of RAM and OS10.4.11, runs CIRCLES around that 2.8Ghz eMachines behemoth. Like, seriously! Particularly in situations that call for connecting to the remote machines... because part of what we do requires us connect remotely to a mainframe in Raritan. And Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection for Mac works about ten thousand times better than it does on the PC. No joke!

By far, though, the coolest thing is this:



You can see inside the thing, Man!

I remember when Molly had one of these, a purple one, back in the days when I was still using either a PowerMac 6100 (which I still have, by the way) or a Centris 610 (which I don't have, but I do have a Quadra 600AV, which was kind of the same thing).



Yes sir, we've definitely come a long way.

It got me thinking, though, of what my top five favorite computers were. Like... the five best machines I have ever laid my hands on. Here, then, is my list:

#5: The Apple IIe
This is, of course, the first machine I ever saw or touched. My elementary school had a limited number of these things, on carts, and they wandered from classroom to classroom. When you were lucky, you got to use Bank Street Writer or Number Munchers or something. And once or twice a month they'd gather all the big, rolling carts into the art room and we'd learn Logo or something. This is what made me want a computer. BUT...

#4: The Mac 128K
It wasn't until the original Macintosh stumbled into my school's newly christened "computer lab" that I really fell in love with computers. This is the machine that got me bugging my family for a computer.

#3: The PowerMac 5400
I'd had a couple of Macs by the time I acquired my 5400, but the 5400 is where it all started to fall together and make sense. People malign these machines, but it really was the first Mac that I could really upgrade. I remember that mine had a bad hard drive, so I went out and bought a 20GB Maxtor drive for something like $80. My brother and I went on a monumental search for the bizarre RAM DIMMs the thing used, and it was the first computer that I had that used USB (via a PCI card that I installed myself). It had a built-in microphone and I remember experimenting with a very primitive AIM audio-chat with my friend Jamie. It only had MacOS 8.6 (I hadn't even made the leap to OS9), but I liked it so much that, when the internal monitor started to go bad, instead of upgrading to a newer Mac which was in my price range, I instead bought a PowerMac 6400, which is based on the exact same "Alchemy" motherboard, so I could just transfer over all the hardware and stuff.

#2: The MacBook
My girlfriend Georgina got me a 2.1Ghz MacBook for my birthday, and it is the machine that has become attached to my side. This computer has taken the coolness of any other computer you can get, and mushed it all into a notebook computer that I can take with me wherever I frikkin' go! I'm using it now. Chances are, if you read an email from me, it was written on it. If you see me on AIM, you're catching me using it.

When on the road, it operates as a normal laptop, with a trackpad and all that portability and power. But when home, it transforms into a very powerful desktop system, with a 17" LCD monitor, external iSight camera, Altec Lansing speakers, USB2 backup drive, Apple aluminum keyboard and Logitech optical mouse. She is, simply, second to none.

And this might seem strange, but...

#1: The Commodore 64
It's old. It's obsolete. It's not a Mac OR a PC. But the C64 was the first computer that I had. It was the original computer that my grandfather bought me for Christmas in 1986. And it was from this computer that all my knowledge came from.

From the Commodore 64, I taught myself how to program. I learned not only the commands, but what they MEANT. I taught myself BASIC and 65xx Assembly Language with the C64 and without it I never would have figured out 680x0 Assembly or, more recently, x86 Assembly. I learned to do things on the C64 that the C64 was, frankly, not meant to do. The Commodore 64 is, in short, the benchmark by which all future systems are judged:



I've talked enough for tonight, and I have to get back to work, so... that is all.

AJH

Something I find amusing... if you do a Google image search for my name, you in fact find a picture not of me...



... but of Andrew. Andrew is a friend and coleague that I have known for quite some time, but he is definitely not me.

Sometimes, I love the internet.

AJH

Today, I found myself sitting in the emergency room of Monmouth Medical Center with one of my clients. Bored, I pulled my MacBook out of its case and began playing around.

I was disappointed in that they did not have any wireless networks available (harumph... Kimball Medical Center in Lakewood, where my girlfriend works, has free WiFi access, thankyouverymuch). But I amused myself by going through some pictures, and playing a game or two of Eric's Ultimate Solitaire X (a new experience; I've been playing this game since 2001, in MacOS 8.6, but I've never played it with a trackpad).

Here is what is new. I've used plenty of gadgets. In the summer of 2006, I had my Palm Tungsten E2 with me wherever I went (I still do, actually: it has its own pocket in my laptop case). Before that, I often used my old cell phone -- a beat-up old Nokia who's model number I can no longer identify -- to browse the web, a feature it was not intended to do, but which I somehow managed to figure out. And before that, even, I had an annoying habit of lugging my luggable Mac Classic II with me when I was going to be somewhere for a while (such as Boston):


Living it up in Boston:
... a weekend getaway doesn't get much less romantic than this...

I've even rocked the occasional iPod or, in one embarassing case, my little brother's old, buggy, 2MB MP3 player. Here's what's new, though. As I was sitting there, tapping away, the doctor walked in and, before even looking at her patient, said to me, "Hey, nice laptop!"

"Er... thanks," I said, and closed it. I felt as if she might have been hinting off to me that I wasn't supposed to be doing that here. After all, they often tell you not to use your cell phones in hospitals, so maybe this'd fall into that category (though every cart on the floor was powered by some manner of Dell laptop).

But instead, she came over and started checking it out. Pretty soon, I had this small group of five or six people all gathered 'round, marvelling at my slightly-out-of-date notebook computer. And it dawned on me that, out of all the different gadgets and doodads and sprockets I've had, this is the only one that has actually turned heads and gotten compliments. Compliments! Like somehow I'm responsible for the coolness of this computer.

Somehow, I don't see people being that interested if, say, I was working on an Acer system, or even this monster of a Toshiba.

I guess that's part of the attraction of the whole Apple thing. They're just, er, "in" and kind of cool right now. Which is not actually why I got the thing, but is a nice side effect.

In other news... we have another convert. My soon-to-be-married friends Mark and Jill are in the market for a computer. Last summer, I rebuilt Jill's Windows machine for her. It was a mess and I did the best I could, but there's only so much polishing you can do to a turd. So Mark called me a few weeks ago and asked if I would be willing to part with my old, beloved G4.

I was a little hesitant, of course. I'd had that machine since 2005, and it was my baby. I'd put a lot of upgradin' into it. But I hadn't used it in quite a while, thanks to a burned out GPU fan. So I reluctantly put a bid on eBay for a new video card, and told him that, sure, they could have it:



Hell of a deal for $50, I say. My trust dual-450Mhz G4, loaded with 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, DVD/CD-RW combo drive, gigabit ethernet, aftermarket USB2.0 and now enough ATI goodness to put the anemic Rage 128 Pro it came with to shame. Plus a still-boxed MacOS X 10.4 installation DVD, awful USB powered speakers, keyboard and mouse.

I'll be sad to see her go, but at least she'll get a good home, and won't just be sitting around in my office collecting dust.

Now, to find something to do with all those Power Mac 6100s I've got laying around...

AJH

Oh, did I happen to mention that they updated the MacBook like a month and a half after I got mine?

And did I also mention that, unlike every other person out there, I am actually glad that I didn't wait for the new version?

My reasons are as follows:

1. The video. Everyone is dancing about, overjoyed that finally, the MacBook has gamer-ready NVIDIA graphics. Granted, the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M is a lot quicker than my MacBook's Intel GMA X3100, but like the X3100, it shares the main system memory. Only, instead of sucking up 144MB or so, like mine does, the nVidia card swipes 256MB of the main system RAM. Let me say that again... a quarter of a gig of your memory is syphoned off for graphics. Is it only me that sees this as kind of... wrong? I mean, I can totally understand using main system memory, but once you get to 256MB and above (the 9400M can actually use up to 512MB), it seems like you're getting cheated out of RAM.

2. No FireWIre. For some reason, Apple has decided to remove the FireWire port from this MacBook. Mine has one. And I use it. Even if I didn't have any FireWire peripherals -- and I do -- I am also the guy that all the other people go for troubleshooting advice. As a result I have, on several occasions now, made excellent use of the Target Disk Mode feature that you can only do with FireWire.

3. Battery Life. I never thought I'd hear myself say it, but I actually use the battery in my MacBook rather often. And I generally get a good amount of life to it. Four or five hours, generally, and that's with doing semi-heavy-ish work. The new MacBook is touted as having five hours of "wireless productivity", but the real results have been varying, and none of them have been anywhere near what I get with my current model. Go figure.

4. DisplayPort. Plurgh. I just bought a frikkin' mini-DVI to VGA adaptor from Apple. Like, it just got here two weeks ago. And it works fine. Even driving my 28-inch HDTV downstairs (though I generally use it instead to drive my second monitor, an Acer AL1716 17" LCD, which is considerably less demanding.

5. The Trackpad. I like to have a button. And multi-touch makes my eye twitch.

Then there's a lot of it that's just... not relevant to me. I don't need a backlit keyboard. I don't care about matte vs. glossy displays (my MacBook is plenty glossy, and I like it fine). Marginally faster processors (or not, in the case of the 2Ghz MacBook) and a slightly quicker FSB are nice, but are hardly dealbreakers in my world and don't make a shilling's worth of difference in everyday computing.

One thing I am annoyed about is that they lowered the price of the entry level, plastic "White MacBook" to $999. That means that the $1400 that Georgina ended up paying for this (which was the middle-range MacBook at the time) could've been, ultimately, cut down by $200 or $300.

I'm not telling her this, by the way.

AJH

Now we're getting it on Skype, too?



Oddly, AIM is STILL the only service I haven't gotten spam over. Hrmm.

AJH

But this time, I actually have a complaint.

I've used this computer -- my first "new" Mac (having acquired most of my previous versions through my connections at Morris County schools and/or Ebay) and my first notebook computer -- for a bit over a month now, and I've finally come up with something I'm not too thrilled about.

And my gripes are not stupid complaints, like those located in this crusty, year-old review, in which the author proclaims that he wouldn't buy one because he "just can't survive without keyboard backlighting" (what ever happened to the home position? Do any of us actually even look at the keyboard when we're typing anymore?), and that Apple should release a version of the MacBook "complete with aluminum case, backlit keyboard, FireWire 800 port, and a "real" GPU" (er.. isn't that just a MacBook Pro?)

Also, none of my complaints have anything to do with the integrated Intel GMA X3100, from which the graphics are driven. Honestly, when I first got the system, it could be a little sluggish doing things while playing graphics-slob Second Life (which even Georgina's ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT driven iMac chokes on), but since I upped the RAM to 2GB... I can run Second Life (at medium video settings), iChat, Yahoo Messenger, Mail.app, iTunes and the ubiquotous XRG (or iStat, depending) without so much as a hiccup.

Nor will I bitch about the keyboard, or the internal speakers (what do people expect from tiny internal notebook speakers? I mean, seriously!). I'm not going to complain about the palm rests getting discolored (a little Windex fixes a lot).

No... instead, my major issue with the thing is this:



When the machine is closed, there is a little indent on the case for you to stick your finger in order to reopen it (there's a magnetic "clasp", so there's no hooks or levers or whatever). And when I stick my finger in there to open it, invariably, I end up putting my finger directly on the thing that's right under it, on the top part of the computer:



Uh huh. The iSight.

I've seen what happens when you get fingerprints all over camera lenses. My old iSight, the external kind, collected a few fingerprints and dust and the picture was never quite the same again.

One thing I'm trying to do with this MacBook is keep it... nice. Unlike my older Macs, that unfortunately succumbed to the yellowing cigarette smoke of my pre-quitter youth, I would like this machine to continue to look nice and function properly. And it irks me that every time I open it, I inadvertantly stick my grubby little fingertip onto the lens of my built-in camera.

Also, I don't like that I can't figure out how to turn off the silly system sounds. My G4 never made noise when I emptied the trash in 10.4. Why does this make them?

And, er... well, that's about my only complaint.

AJH

I formally denounce Microsoft Office.

Office 98 for Mac was nice. When I got my PowerMac 6100, Office 98 was already installed on it, and I actually liked it. It was a far cry from Word 5.1 that I'd used on my Mac Classic and fervently refused to use on my subsequent 68040-based machines (the LC, Centris and Quadra).

I went through versions of MacOS like underpants and, when running a dual OS9/OSX setup on my G3, I tried out Office 98 under the Classic environment and I learned that, though it was great under OS9, it sucked under Classic. So when I finally updated completely to OSX 10.4 in 2005, I also updated to Office 2004.

Well, I've updated again. This time, I've gone from a PowerMac G4 with 10.4 to an Intel-powered MacBook with 10.5 happily chugging along. I decided that, with the switch of processors, it was time to up the Office version. And so, I procured Office 2008.

And what a frikkin' mistake that was.

Office 2008 runs like a goat on waterskis. It's awkward, it's ugly, it's just... terrible. A lot of people like to malign Microsoft, but I've never really felt that way. Office has always been a good suite of applications, Messenger has always worked nicely enough and is being actively developed (more than you can say for ICQ). But Office 2008 makes me feel the pain that everyone else talks about.

So I took a trip over to my old friend OpenOffice.org, which has always had a decent-working alternative for MS Office. I swear by OpenOffice on Windows systems (I don't like to shell out money if I don't absolutely have to for a silly word processor and spreadsheet).

The thing I don't like about OpenOffice is that it is dependant on X11 (other link here) to run, and that annoys me.

I, therefore, put my formally endorse...

NeoOffice!

NeoOffice is based on OpenOffice, but it runs natively in MacOS X without needing X11 to fire up. I used to be a little iffy about it, because when I first tried it out, it was a bit buggy and didn't work too well... but since I installed it the other night, I have nothing but good things to say about it. It did a fantastic job helping me edit a paper for my friend Jamie, and displays with style the random PowerPoint presentations that my mom and Molly forward to me on a regular basis.

I highly recommend switching. Unless you're on Windows. Then you should stay... with OpenOffice.

In other news... that Quadra 660AV I mentioned earlier? I brought it home from my parents' attic. I also found my 2.1GB Quantum Fireball SE (SCSI!!) and an Apple Basic Color Monitor: my very first Apple monitor. I also have my old MacOS 7.6.1 install CD. I intend to fire this system up, just for nostalgia's sake. I'll be sure to toss a screenshot, if I'm able (lord knows how I'll transfer it).

Okay, that's it for now.

AJH

---

Edit 17 September 2008 09:13PM: I brought my Quadra home FROM my parents' attic, not TO it. Dur.

Rick Wright is dead.

The world just got a lot suckier.

AJH

My entire computing life has changed. Drastically.

I've always been a desktop guy. I've always been the kind of guy that likes to muck with things. The first* real Mac that I had, a Centris 610, I immediately upgraded the RAM, the VRAM and I put a CD-ROM drive in (which it did not originally come with). I also replaced the hard drive with a 2.1GB Quantum Fireball SE -- my favorite drive ever, and one which continues to operate today as an emergency backup drive.

After that, there was a string of other upgrades, especially when the PowerPC came along. When my brother and I got our PowerMac 5400's, it wasn't long before my we had maxed out the RAM (after tracking down a very rare RAM DIMM), installed Comm II ethernet cards and set them up with USB PCI cards. I upgraded the old hard drive to a 20GB Maxtor DiamondMax. These upgrades followed over into my next machine, a PowerMac 6400 (essentially the same machine, in a tower).

Then came the biggies, my old G3, which was a Frankenstein monster of upgrades. The first thing I did was overclock the 266Mhz G3 to 300Mhz (easy, via jumpers). The 8GB hard drive was tossed out in favor of a 40GB drive, and the 24x CD-ROM was replaced with a DVD-ROM/CDRW combo drive. It got a SCSI-driven Zip drive, and I rigged a secondary cooling fan into the side vents to compensate for the increased system load. Again, she got a USB PCI card and a FireWire PCI card. Again, the RAM was maxed to 321MB (which Apple stated was the best it could do, though others claim 768).

My G4 was also updated, though not quite as much. She got a triple-port USB 2.0 card to compliment her built-in USB 1.1 ports. She also got the combo drive, a primary 60GB Maxtor hard drive and a secondary 80GB Hitachi drive for backups (secondary due to a lower RPM and a lower buffer, which made the system seem about 50% slower when running from the larger drive).

Given the choice of a new computer, I would of course love to have a Mac Pro. I mean, who wouldn't, right? But I was about to settle for a Mac Mini. It was smaller, it was a Mac, but I was having trouble wrapping my brain around having the kind of a system that is essentially non-upgradeable.

Then I saw the MacBook, and Georgina, who had offered to buy me a computer for my birthday (in order to add that finishing touch to the library that we're putting together in the empty bedroom of our house), said that if that's what I wanted, then she would get it. She didn't have to tell me twice, and bless that sweet little bucket thing for doing so. This is the first new computer I've ever had, except for my Commodore 64 in 1986 and, just like the C64, is one of the coolest things in the world.

I went away on business for four days and you can be damn certain that the MacBook went with me. After experiencing that... screw modification! The MacBook was responsible for keeping me sane while I was away. This thing goes with me everywhere now. When I got home, I sat on the deck of my house and replied to email in the warm sunshine.

When you can do that... who the hell needs an extra USB port?

That is all.

AJH

---

* I had other Macs before I had my Centris 610: a Mac Classic II which I originally had intended to be a temporary stand-in for my ailing Commodore 128D, and an LC475 which wasn't actually my computer, and which I could never get a monitor to work on. Therefore, I count my Centris 610 as the first real Mac that I owned.

So here I am, still in Hyannis, still having the not-time-of-my-life.

I owe Georgina big time for getting me this MacBook for my birthday, because it has kept me sane. Last night, I sat in the hotel lobby until 3AM having an iChat videoconference with my brother. The night manager thought it was the greatest thing.

A word about MacOS X 10.5, which I am now running. It's different. When I first got OSX and installed 10.2.8 on my G3, I was not impressed. Later, when I got my G4 and installed 10.4.3 I was impressed but I was a little hesitant, as nothing seemed to work with it yet.

Now I've got a MacBook with 10.5 installed and I have to say that I like it, and have very little against. I even like the new folders, a sentiment that is not shared by most.

I think that the appearance in general harkens back to the days of OS9 and Platinum -- a UI that I found inifinitely better than Aqua.

Either way... everything seems to work, and work well. People complain about the translucent menu bar, and there's a checkbox to turn that off. The Dock I never liked to begin with. And since I used the Migration Assistant to transfer everything from my old G4 to this, it's like I just morphed my old 10.4-run G4 into a notebook.

All in all... good show, old chap.

Oh well. Off to get some lunch.

AJH

So here I sit, in the bathroom of a hotel room in Hyannis, where I have been sent on business. The human anxiety attack snores loudly in the bed next to mine, occasionally waking to complain to himself, before going back to sleep. And all I can think to myself is: WHY?

The one good part about this is the fact that I have brought the shiny new MacBook that Georgina bought me for my birthday. It is keeping me sane, at least as sane as one can remain while seated in a hotel bathroom on a flimsy plastic toilet seat furiously typing away into his blog.

Apparently, life has gone a bit downhill for me.

The one good part about all of this is that Georgina, who is currently sleeping at home, is going to be waiting for me when I get back. I am consistently amazed at how lucky I was to find her... or, rather, for her to find me. I've been through a few relationships in my time, but this one is by far the best. Even though we see each other every day, it still was awful having to leave her this afternoon to drive down here.

Good grief, I've gotten mushy in my old age. Two years ago, I wouldn't be caught dead uttering something like that into a public blog. People like me don't have feelings, do they??

Anyway. It's almost 6AM, and we arrived here at about 4:30AM after driving for six hours, following the most assinine directions that MapQuest has ever vomited out. Due to the extreme lateness (or earliness, depending on how you look at it), I'm going to have to get some rest here. Things to do, y'know, people to see.

AJH

So I finally did it and changed my username on LiveJournal from my questionable derision665 (a name I used as a cop-out so I didn't have to use the name I liked) to ajh. It was available and, you know, I think it reflects me more than a AOL screen name I haven't used for five years or so.

So the new URL here is, therefore, http://ajh.livejournal.com. The old URL will continue to redirect to here for the immediate future, but I don't know how long that's going to last.

That is all.

AJH

George Carlin, 1937-2008

That is all.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold the ThunderTank:



This is a 1990 Mercury Cougar LS, which I have recently finagled as a mode of transportation to replace my ailing 1985 Pontiac Grand Prix.

In short, the GP needs doors. By "it needs doors", I mean that the doors that it currently has are on the verge of falling off, and are entirely rotted through on the bottom. It also has a leaky radiator and a vacuum leak that I have spent months trying to track down, to no avail.

Yeah.

So, after eight years or so of faithful service, I felt that it was time to take the Pontiac off the road for a bit, as I did in 2003, to give it an overhaul and get it back to the V8 monster that it is.

In the meantime, I found this very nice condition Cougar with a pretty solid-looking Essex V6 that will hopefully prove to be reliable transportation while the GP is in mothballs.

Of course, now that I'm actually driving the Cougar around, I'm starting to like it a lot. Don't get me wrong... the Grand Prix is my baby. I practically built the thing myself and there is little that I don't know about it. But the Cougar has a different... feel to it. It reminds me of my friend Andre's '93 Thunderbird Super Coupe, which, at the time, felt like a real "sports car".

The Grand Prix exudes muscle. It's built like a muscle car. It's mechanical and monstrous and, even when it was new, it was considered outdated. It's fed by a four-barrel Quadrajet, it's got that full-frame bulk to it... it's loud and it's obnoxious and when it's sitting next to you at a light, you know you're not going to beat it.

The Cougar, on the other hand, is a lighter (despite actually weighing about 600 pounds more than my Pontiac), more advanced kind of thing. It's not that much younger than my Grand Prix and yet, there's this all-digital dash, bucket seats that have you sitting down in the cockpit... it's like it was built for this kind of sport driving (as it was, kind of). The steering is tighter, the suspension less bouncy. Damnit, man, the thing is fun to drive.

So now I've gotta figure out how to split my money in working on BOTH cars this summer. Guess it's a good thing I got that promotion at work.

Updates as they happen.

AJH

Thanks to Ed for the link.

Holy criznap... Yahoo Messenger amazes me again:



Yeah, and it only took... oh... two years or so since they last put out a major update.

At least they've finally managed to finagle voice into it, a feature that was sorely missing (but falsely advertised) for far longer than was acceptable.

Now we just need an update to the six-year-stale version of ICQ. Pluh.

AJH

And here we are, in the first day of December, and they're already talking about snow tomorrow. Again... I feel like I've been down this road before. Harumph.

In good news, I get my car back from the shop today. It's been sitting for some time with bad bearings in the front passenger wheel and a funky idler arm but I finally decided to do away with laziness and get it fixed (they also replaced the driver's side front brake hose -- a chore I've been procrastinating on since Subo and I replaced the passenger side in 2003 -- and threw on some new rotors). So I'm psyched about that.

Okay... time to go and get this done with.

AJH

Again, I don't know why I find this funny.

AJH