Snow Leopard (part 1)
By joe | September 6, 2009
When most people ask me about my experience with Snow Leopard so far, I’m forced to say, not much. There’s not much to notice, which is probably why Apple wisely opted for the bargain price of $29 for their latest operating system, Snow Leopard. This is version 10.6 of the OS X (10) operating system foundation. It was intended mostly as a performance upgrade, updating code to a version more able to exploit the power of today’s multiple processor, 64 bit computers, which also come with more RAM than I had storage in my first computer (1 GB, by the way, along with 1GB Jaz cartridges).
Getting ready to start the installation
Snow Leopard also has some cosmetic changes and big upgrade for QuickTime Player. If you consider that it typically cost $25 for the QuickTime Pro version previously, than, for four more dollars, you get a faster computer and 6GB free disk space. Overall, I’d say if you want to stay current, get the upgrade, you’ll hardly notice it, and it is worth the cost of the upgrade for the overall benefits. However, I wouldn’t rush to upgrade as I did. Read the rest of this entry »
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Music Throughout The House
By joe | February 8, 2009
When I was young, I used to play vinyl records, one side at a time, with headphones on, while I laid in front of the family hi-fi. Even by the standards of the day, it was cheap. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the music and lyrics, when the needle wasn’t popping from the dirt in the grooves of the record.
It is times like today, when I sit back and listen to my new speakers in the dining room, selecting one of over 7500 songs from my music library stored on my computer in my office on another floor, that I have to take time to appreciate how far technology has come during my lifetime. Combining the iPhone, AirPort Express, Apple TV, and iTunes, I have the ability to access my entire music library wherever in the house I want.
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ATI HD 3870: The First 60 Days
By joe | January 21, 2009
HD 3870 After 2 Months of Usage
Over my Christmas vacation, I opened up the case of my Mac Pro to see how well the upgrade of the video card was holding up. The fan sound and card performance were the same as when I first installed it – very quiet and improved performance in Motion and other graphics intensive activities (such as the cool visualizers now available with iTunes). The case fans do get a bit noisy during rendering operations, but it’s still a far cry from hearing that constant sound from the X1900 XT. I have to be honest, I can’t say the performance was a huge leap from my original X1900 XT card. There is some improvement, but the biggest advantage will be the reduced fan noise and cleaning required. Read the rest of this entry »
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