Mighty Mouse Saves the Day?

Apple announced their new Mighty Mouse today. It looks pretty innovative in design — certainly, it is not just a “me too” entry from Apple. The time for a multi-button mouse from Cupertino is finally here, which is not a moment too soon, in my estimation. Ideally, Apple will soon make the Mighty Mouse standard equipment and offer a Bluetooth Mighty Mouse as its premium mouse.

I have not actually tried the Mighty Mouse yet, but I am considering buy a new mouse, so if they offer a Bluetooth one before I buy something else, I may seriously consider it. I especially like the Mighty Mouse's innovative scroll ball, which makes more sense than the tilting wheel method of offering horizontal scrolling on a wheel mouse. It would have been better with two or three side buttons, or perhaps a way to squeeze it different amounts to activate different functions, but at least it has enough buttons to run Dashboard and Expose.

Price wise, it is a bit steep at $49 for a corded mouse with a standard optical system, but that comes with the territory. Anyone reading this planning to buy a Mighty Mouse? It works with Windows as a standard HID device, so I'm presuming it will work on GNU/Linux as well.

Logic Board Blues

My PowerMac has been in the shop for almost two weeks. I knew I was in trouble before I took it in: it has had intermitent freezing problems since it was apparently hit by a surge this spring. It acted just like a car and refused to produce the problem when the Apple Store was trying to diagnose what was wrong. After four or five days, they gave up on diagnosing it and just ordered a new logic board.

For whatever reason, the logic board didn't arrive until today, despite being sent DHL. They installed the new logic board and — good news! — now the problem isn't intermitent, it happens every single time it is turned on! So, they said they are now testing everything inside the system to see if it could somehow be adversely impacting the new logic board. They also have another logic board on order, but that'll probably be another day or two.

I miss my G5. I hope the next logic board works better than this one did.

The Migration

Well, last night I was still busy copying stuff, so I didn't report exactly what I was up to. I copied any files of any importance onto the new hard disk I bought for my G5, then removed that drive so that Apple would be working with the warranted drive, and I would also have a backup of everything.

I also copied all files I expected I might want access to in the next week or two (most of my home directory) to my iPod. I then copied the 16.5 GB I placed on it onto my PowerBook, which is now serving as my primary system. (Thanks to .Mac sync, my PowerBook is usually already well sync'ed with the PowerMac, but I don't keep everything on it.) The only things I needed to copy onto it were my documents, photos and music. E-mail, being IMAP-based, was already there, and .Mac takes care of bookmarks, contacts and calendar.

I then brought the PB onto my desk and plugged it into my Cinema Display. The system happily woke up from sleep and automatically switched to the maximum 1920×1200 resolution of the display. I could almost forget I wasn't on my G5, if it was not for the fact that things are quieter, and my dock looks itty bitty on this screen (since its size is adjusted for the normal 1024×768 resolution of the 12” PowerBook).

The Apple Store said they weren't sure what was causing the problem: the SATA controller, one of the processors, the logic board as a whole, etc., but they were going to look at it today. Depending on what is needed, they may already have the needed parts in stock. That would be nice!

All Hands Abandon Ship

Well, my G5 is going in to the shop (finally) to get the problems I've been experiencing fixed. I may be quiet for a bit while I get everything situated on my PowerBook…

Virtual FireworX

If you have a Mac, and you're looking for a way to make your system seem a little more festive for Independence Day, checkout Virtual FireworX, which I just reviewed in my gadget column at OfB. It is really impressive, and a basic version of it is even free.

A 64-bit UNIX Workstation...

…for under $900? Now, this looks like a tempting deal. Now that Solaris comes with the Java Desktop System as its primary desktop environment, I'm betting these should sell pretty briskly.

New Stuff

Well, OfB received review copies of Mandriva Linux LE 2005 and Linspire Five-0 this week. Hopefully, I'll be able to give some initial impressions soon. I'm especially interested in Mandriva — I didn't try the last release, so hopefully there will be lots of new things to explore. It has been a few years since I last ran the then LindowsOS, too, so that may be interesting.

Time permitting, I'd like to give the new OpenSolaris a spin as well.

Macs Go Intel

Sure, it has been rumored for years. Sure, any technology observer even slightly familiar with Apple knew that Mac OS X had been run in house on Intel. But, Apple parting ways with the processor it has spent all of these years promoting? If Apple was a few millennia older, without doubt this would have been prophesied as a sign of the apocalypse. The real apocalypse may not be here yet, but the computing world has just seen one of the biggest earthshaking announcements in years. Now Apple faces one of the hardest projects ever put forward for a computer company in its position: keeping backward compatibility. Read my first thoughts on Universal Binaries and Rosetta at OfB.biz.

Meet the Apple Nessie PC

Having read the News.com story about Apple’s supposed impending switch to x86, let me propose an excellent code name for this forthcoming system: “Nessie.” Like Nessie’s namesake Loch Ness Monster, the rumor of Mac OS on x86 rings of the stuff of tabloids, not something that people take seriously. Of course, that leaves us to ask what we are to make of it when one of the most respectable online computer news sources, News.com, reports as virtual fact that Apple will be switching to Intel, and the story apparently seems credible enough to get Reuters to pick it up. Read my full thoughts at OfB.biz.

Apple to Go Intel?

News.com is usually a pretty respectable news source, so when they report as fact that Apple is switching to Intel, I have to pay somewhat more attention than I usually give to such claims. But, Apple to Intel chipsets? That makes little sense, since no legacy software would run (at least decently), the systems would be slower, AltiVec would no longer be available, etc., etc. If this is true, I predict Apple will not survive the switch. For now, I am presuming the report will be proven false during Job's WWDC keynote on Monday.