Apple has released a 17 inch version of the MacBook. Aside from the larger display, it’s the same specs as the 15 inch MacBook with the exception of an 8x DL SuperDrive and a FireWire 800 port. I miss the FW800 port, but I think I’m still happier with a machine that is 1.2 pounds lighter.
Category: toys
Bits, pieces, and fun stuff
Random Thoughts
My 2005 Select membership hardware discount key expires in week or so, so I did what any self respecting Mac developer would do. I went shopping. The first week with my new MacBook has been a lot of fun. Some random thoughts:
- It is wickedly fast. Scary, freaky fast, even.
- Parallels Workstation works very well for me – WinXP launches in under 40 seconds (4 Betas in two weeks! Do those guys sleep?).
- Eclipse is very snappy. The sluggish "Hey! Look at Me! I’m running a Java application!" feeling I used to get with my PowerBook is gone.
- The MacBook feels a lot lighter than my 17" PowerBook, and I’m enjoying that. In fact, I’m enjoying the loss of weight more than I’m missing the extra screen real-estate (especially with my new 20″ Cinema display :-)).
I hates you PC hardware! Hates you!
The pvr needed some extra speed. I’ve been transcoding recorded shows to mpeg4 to reduce their size, and the poor P 1.8 was bogging down under the load.
"No problem" I thought. This is generic PC stuff. Checked the mobo specs then off to TigerDirect to get a Celeron 3.2 GHz. I shut everything down, grounded myself, removed the CPU cooler, popped the Pentium, installed the Celeron, replaced the CPU cooler, and fired the pvr back up again.
No video.
The hard drive spun up, the lights came on, but nothing else. The machine did not boot, nothing.
"Hmm, strange" I say. Swapped out the Celeron for the old Pentium, no change. I checked the powersupply voltages, they all look good – I think. So I’ve either hosed the mobo, or I’ve zapped two processors, or all three.
Hates it. Hates it I do.
Update: BORKED MOBO! (Grrr!) I’ve got it working again, but after all that I can’t use the new processor ’cause I can’t keep it cool enough (Double Grrr!).
PVR Mk2
The PVR saga continues…
Current Specs:
- New quieter case: Antec Aria
- New mobo: ASRock P4VM800 – P4 1.8GHz, VIA Chipset
- New video card: Nvidia GeForce 5200
- New Keyboard: ACK-580
The remainder of the stuff is the same as my first attempt. I’ve decided to use a video card to drive The TV so I can get the 16:9 aspect ratio (which isn’t possible with the PVR-350 card’s tv out).
I’m unable to get the Nvidia card to display at The TV‘s native resolution (1366×768) so I’m using 1024×768 and The TV is scaling it up. Not perfect I know, but good enough for now.
To get the correct aspect and screen dimensions in X11 (and xine) I added the following to the “Monitor” section my XF86Config-4 file:
DisplaySize 600 330
To get the correct aspect ratio when playing video files I had to modify the mplayer settings in Utilities/Setup -> Setup -> Media Settings -> Videos Settings -> Player Settings:
/usr/bin/mplayer -monitoraspect 16:9 -fs -zoom -quiet -vo xv %s
I gave up on using the PVR-350 remote, there were too many times I ended up needing to switch to a keyboard. I replaced it with an IR keyboard (the ACK-580 from Directron) which works great. The range is excellent, however I cannot get the mouse pad thingie (in the upper right hand corner) to work. It works well on a Windows machine (Ick! I feel sullied!) but I cannot get X11 to see it.
Overall, I’m pretty happy. Some things I’m still want to work on/tweak:
- Get automatic comercial skipping to work reliably.
- Figure out how to transcode recorded shows to Mpeg4 to reduce their size.
- Get torrentocracy working.
New TV
Olevia LT37HVS. Not the best LCD around, but a damn good deal with the rebate.