News for Monday, 13 March 2006

Before further benchmarks, here are more impressions about the MacBook Pro I recently got.
- As already stated. Airport reception is really impressive, even better than that of the iBook, which used to be a reference in that field.
- While I couldn't perform comprehensive tests concerning the autonomy, it seems quite good indeed, and comparable to that of a PowerBook 1.67GHz in similar working conditions, that is over 3 hours of websurfing with brightness set to 50%.
- However carefully I would listen, I failed to notice any abnormal noise. The only thing your hear is the rotation of the 7200 rpm hard disk, closer to the outer casing as a result of the overall slimness.
- Both cores are being taken advantage of as on any Dual PPC: smooth use and reactivity were up to my expectations when running simultaneous tasks. Only multiple and concurrent disk accesses succeeded in impairing performances.
- In normal working conditions, temperature remains in a very acceptable range. Rare occurences of overheating will be noticed in the upper left corner, which won't keep you from using your MacBook Pro as a laptop. Under heavy workload, temperature does rise significantly, but proportionaly less than on a Powerbook, which you just cannot keep on your knees. In these conditions, the rotation of both fans can be heard. However we're talking there about both cores running at 100 %, which is obviously not how people looking after some autonomy use a laptop (in these conditions, the battery won't last over an hour).
To be continued...

In its crusade to invade all possible internet-related markets, and to become essential to all internet users, Google is now proposing maps of Mars, the red planet. After Google Earth, Google Mars.
http://www.google.com/mars/
Knowing that Martians did not connect their network to the human web, the chance that they can use this service is quite low. It is most likely that Google is using this "service" as a pure marketing tool in order to release PR/information that are not related to its recent legal problems and decline on the stock market.

Nycta has spotted what could be Apple's worst mistranslation.

Apple advocates software cracking !
On the French version of the MacBook Pro's webpage (http://www.apple.com/fr/macbookpro/oneverymac.html ), you can read that OSX comes complete with utilities allowing "old school soft cracking with UNIX" instead of "old school UNIX hacking". It's in the second bullet:

To be fair, this is due to a translation problem, because in French, “hacking” is usually considered and translated as piracy, while it does not have this meaning in English. In France, hackers and pirates are considered to be the same people; probably due to poorly-informed journalists reporting on security breaches and exploits as well as IT companies which have been using this “similarities” between hackers and pirates to sell their anti-piracy solutions.

Translator's note: seems they'll need a new translator soon ;) :P

The iMac core duo intiated a series of core Duo equipped desktops, though this CPU was first intended for laptops.
PC motherboard manufacturers follow the same path and will shortly release products compatible with this CPU. It is actually the first time a mobile CPU proves competitive as compared to its specifically desktop designed counterparts.
The release of those motherboards should result in much cheaper Core Duo CPUs.
A great opportunity for iMac and Mac mini Intel whose machines will evolve for a small price, before they find out, when the Merom is released, if it will work on their Macs too.

Wa advised you many times to use your freezer to retrieve data on a HD that scratches and does not mount any more. Camille proves us once again how efficient it can be.

Here's the conclusion of the data rescue operation on the iBook of a friend, whose HD all of a sudden stopped working... a recent switcher, Francis hadn't made any backup...
I plug his iBook using target mode, but impossible to mount the faulty HD. With a friend, we try some basic operations such as single user mode to try and transfer data via Terminal and another trick (fsck, mkdir /Volumes/Dead-Drive, mount), yet nothing works.
Let's mention the fact the scene takes place in Montréal. It's -10°C outside, so I put the iBook in the snow on my balcony for a quarter of an hour. And when I retry target mode... it's unbelievable, data are visible and accessible. Slowly first, but then faster and faster, I copy them at "normal" speed as if I was using any good working HD! The whole operation outside, the iBook in the snow while copying data.
After half an hour - an hour, we'd rescued the essential data. A great success! And a challenge taken - I could almost start my business as a data rescue specialist, taking advantage of the rigorous weather conditions in Canada :-P

Though unorthodox, this technique is definitely worth trying when everything else proved useless.

TomTom, the company leading the car-dedicated GPS market, is also getting "iPod maniac". Hereafter are photos taken by Michel at the CeBit.
One can see that the "iPod controller" is now part of the main menu in TomTom next generation GPS devices.



One will just need to connect its iPod to the TomTom, then it will be possible to control your music player via the GPS user interface. Let's call it integration :)

Apple is emptying all its stocks. Today one can even find iPod 3G on the French RefurbStore. With 50 to 59% discount, it could be interesting for some users: a 40GB iPod + its dock station for 255 Euros (all taxes included).
There is no iPod but plenty of PowerMac G5 on the UK RefurbStore, while the German RefurbStore is proposing 17" PBG4 and iPod 3G.