Posts from — December 2008

Those of you who know me know that I love Christmas and everything to do with it.  I look forward to it all year and on December 26th the only thing that’s kept me going was the knowledge that in a few weeks I would be getting Christmas all over again in the form of a Macworld Stevenote.  Well, in a disheartening turn of events, Apple posted THIS page officially announcing the cancellation of Christmas in January. 

Ok, so they didn’t really cancel Christmas but they really did announce that it will be their last year participating in Macworld and Steve Jobs would NOT be giving his traditional keynote.  Instead, Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing, will be giving the keynote.  I don’t really blame Apple for pulling out of Macworld – I mean when you have 42.7 Million people go through your retail stores in a single quarter, who needs to spend millions on a trade show where the same old people come through and ask the same old questions.  I think it’s a good business move but am still at the same time saddened that we will not be able to sit like giddy little nerds school girls while Steve Jobs drops a, “One more thing . . . ” bombshell on us.  I guess we’ll just have to wait until WWDC to hear from the man himself . . . that is if he’s healthy enough . . .

Anyhow, this post was meant to be about predictions so THIS is what our fearless leader over here at Silverado was brave enough to put on paper.  I for one am not as optimistic . . .  I do think they’ll have to announce a new Mac Pro with the Nehalem architecture, I’m not sure that we’ll see USB 3.0, FW1600 or 3200, wireless USB or eSATA ports.  I seriously hope they come but I just don’t see it happening.  Only time will tell . . . or I guess only Phill Schiller will tell.  =)

TB

Like many Apple users, I’m pretty quick to use the ol’ Software Update tool so handily provided with Mac OS X.  It’s convenient and doesn’t require me to manually search for updates when they’re available but instead just pops up and asks if I would like to upgrade.  Some people say I’m a fool and should NEVER, under any circumstances update right away but instead wait for the “bugs” to be worked out.  Ah, ok, maybe once or twice I’ve been caught in a bind and had to do without an app or two due to an upgrade that caused some issues but it’s never really been a problem.  

Enter 10.5.6 . . . 

I first heard from Robert Leong, a tech at Dulce Systems that clients using Mac Pro’s prior to the early 2008 release should NOT upgrade to 10.5.6 as it causes major problems with Dulce’s storage devices.  Here is his email:

“There seems to be a crop of new issues with this new release and will render the RAID not detected and not mountable (the data is still okay on the RAID), our engineering team is working on the solutions with Apple.  This issue affects PCI-express RAID based products on Mac Pros; PRO DQ, PRO RX, Quad, Duo Quad.  We have also seen on 2007 Mac Pros where the PCI-express configuration (Expansion Slot Utility) setting does not ’stick’, it reverts to x8, x1, x1, x16 speeds always.  So any PCI-express cards installed are affected also.  The only way at this time is to use 10.5.5 or earlier, if already updated to 10.5.6 a restore to a point prior to update from your backup or unfortunately if no backup a reinstall from DVD is required to go back to an earlier version.”

We now have confirmed that 10.5.6 did indeed “break” Apple’s Expansion Slot Utility which was used prior to the early 2008 Mac’s.  Bad for Dulce products but also bad for any product requiring use of the Expansion Slot Utility . . .  Including Kona Cards from AJA.  For Dulce users who may have already updated, please follow THIS LINK and install the latest driver.  If you have already downloaded the 10.5.6 update, all is not lost.  There is a way to revert back to 10.5.5 but as Robert mentioned, it requires a reinstall and is not a fun process.  Or you can just wait it out as Apple is sure to have a fix soon.  Stay tuned . . .

TB

While browsing around the App Store the other day I came across this little gem . . .  it’s called Ski Lodge and it’s a great tool to have for any Snowboarder or Skier out there.  AND while it’s regularly $4.99 it’s on sale for a limited time for only 99¢!  

The “All Resorts” tab lets you browse through over 380 ski resorts in the US and Canada.  Each resort has a decent amount of information available for it, including temperature, snow totals for the last 24to 48 hours, current weather, and snow base.

When the desired location is selected, you get even more information. It’s then when you can view the difficulty of a mountain in graphical form, the trail map, photos, the website (Safari does load for this), a map of where the resort is (Maps loads), and the phone number for the mountain, which dials directly from an iPhone.

While it’s not the perfect app, no app is, it’s pretty cool and I’m looking forward to future feature upgrades.  Maybe GPS on the trial map to tell you exactly where you are on the mountain – of course you probably wouldn’t have the signal strength for GPS up there so it wouldn’t make a difference but still . . . a nice thought.  Anyhow, I would recommend grabbing this while it’s still just 99¢.  Click HERE for the direct link.

TB