Tuesday January 24, 2006

- RAM modules for Apple notebooks: a test - Eric - 14:21:17

After months of tests and analysis, we release today an article dealing with RAM module incompatibility problems with Apple notebooks as well as an overview of the real benefits that one can expect when adding additional RAM modules in his notebook. This large test has been made possible with the support of dozen of Mac users, and thanks to SwissBit for providing us RAM modules over such a long time period. In the mean time DDR2-SODIMM-based Apple notebooks have been released (PPC and x86-based models), and once they will all be based on Intel x86 CPU we will for sure repeat this test. SwissBit has already validated its DDR2-SODIMM modules for the last G4-based PowerBook models (rev October 2005).

Before buying a new RAM module for your notebook, you should read this article.

PS: there is also a “special offer” running for a short time, so read the article carefully ;)

- DDR2 price will increase - Lionel - 12:43:44

Source : Digitimes

After months of non-stop price cuts, DDR2 memory chips will be more expensive from February 2006. Within the last weeks, the price of the DDR2-533 was raised up by 7%.
This increase might be valid for quite some time, due to a combination of different factors:
- main manufacturers, such as Samsung, have reorganize DDR2 production lines to produce NAND chips used for flash memory such as the one used in iPod Nano.
- DDR2-base motherboards are finally becoming a standard, thanks to large availability of Intel chipsets.



[translation by Eric]

- Rosetta likes RAM... a lot! - Lionel - 12:35:22

The website HailStoneSoftware has performed a test in order to determine how important ram is when running applications under Rosetta.
But unlike most other test, he focused not on performance level, but rather on memory usage when applications were opened.
The result is really interesting, since most non-universal binaries application running via Rosetta on a MacIntel will request between 1.5 to 3.77 fold more RQM than when running on a PPC-based Mac
Safari that runs fine with 14.8MB RAM on OSX PPC, will use 53.52MB when being emulated via Rosetta on a MacIntel.
So, if you move to MacIntel but still rely heavily on PPC-based applications, you rather get as much RAM as possible.


[translation by Eric]

- Fake iPods take Paris over - Lionel - 09:51:30

Let's hear Marc's story.

Yo Lionel, a short while ago at the Louise Michel [Paris, France] tube station, a guy approaches me an proposes me an iPod at a really cheap price... Needless to say that was one of these fakes that are much talked about. I would have dismissed the fact if I hadn't been offered another one at the Saint Lazare train station not even two hours later. The packaging does not bear the Apple logo, but the device furiously looks like an iPod nano... until you turn it on and you see the low quality screen and the... 256Mb capacity! The earbuds, on their part, are quite similar to the famous white Apple ones.

One more step in the massive wave of iPod counterfeits... and if they are so common in Paris, it means there must be a warehouse somewhere in the area where boatloads of fakes are stored.
Let's hope that Apple's lawyer spend as much time tracking them as they are with suing rumor sites ;-)

[moose: this can be bad for Apple: people will buy an "iPod" and then find out it's crap and think that Apple's products are crap...]

[translation by moose]

- Apple Service & Support: "Support different!" - MacEnsteph - 04:53:33

During the last two years, Apple has considerably improved all of its support pages in a coherent and detailed manner. Thus each product, whether hardware or software, has a primary page which contains the use and service, and the whole thing is very well structured.

The success and dominant position of the "iPod + iTunes" have made the support pages particularly neat, and they were revised at the end of the year. For the iPod, starting at the primary page "Troubleshooting", the "How-to", "iPod Service", and "Mor Information" tabs make it possible to quickly find your way to the questions and problems most frequently asked. There are also tutorial videos, a mockup "iPod 101" class, and many other useful tidbits which help with repair or learning more.

We thus made a point of pointing out this didactic effort from the company in Cupertino, which shows on one hand a permanent preoccupation with a concise and structured presentation, and one the other hand that the feedback they received was not ignored (even if sometimes the resolution of a problem can take a long time), since the recurring questions and/or problems are covered.
In fact, these support pages create a positive image for Apple to future users who are attracted to Apple through it's "Trojan Horse" that is the iPod.

[translation by jwa]

- iPhoto '06 on a G3 [updated] - Lionel - 04:24:05

We pass this off to MrVx.

Well, I don't know if it's really legal, but I like to have a copy of iPhoto (and thus my well organized photos) on my iBook G3 (16 vram) in addition to my primary copy on my eMac. But for iLife '06, Apple decided "to prohibit" the installation of iLife on a G3! Seeing as how the new version of iPhoto is an essential upgrade for me (version 5 is too slow!), So I decided to try simply copying the application installed on my eMac to my iBook. Bingo, the new iPhoto runs perfectly on my old portable G3!

It's simple and I'm sure that many Mac G3 users had the same problem as me, but since I didn't find any reference anywhere on the web to this, I thought it would be a good idea to send it to you.

That said, I repete that I do not know if Apple allows the use of iLife on a primary computer in addition to a portable computer, but only seeing the error message ("configuration not supported") when trying to install iLife on a G3 leave me perplexed... perhaps because GarageBand and iDVD would not launch or launched with difficulty, but why deprive honest users of a wonder like iPhoto, which I have proof that it functions very well on a G3???

Let's hope that Apple does not block this method of copying to the G3 after installation on a supported machine in a possible 6.0.1 update!

To our knowledge, the Apple license agreement implies that the software should only be installed on one machine.
It is likely that the majority of effects in iPhoto would not work on a G3, but there still should be some ability to use this software on a portable, even if it's only to empty the memory card from a camera.

[update] Aaron has sent us the link to his webpage describing a step by step procedure to turn iLife06 into a G3-friendly applications suite :

Not many people have noticed this but Apple dropped the G3 support from the new iLife '06 and iWork '06 suite of software they just released. What does this mean for all you iBook G3 users and well that's about it, well you have to turn to hacking. This is completely legal so you don't have to worry about you or I getting that "Special Call" from Apple. I tested this on my 500MHz iBook G3 with OS X Tiger, 10.4.3.

Follow the link : http://mcmacsite.com/files/archive-0.html

[translation by jwa]
[update by Eric]