chris | word

I’m here and seated and ready to see the magic of a steve jobs keynote. starting soon.

My latest Ask the MACist article is here. Enjoy! And I just love this picture.

My latest column is here. So much writing to do so little time. I’m gonna have to link here occasionally but i will try to update as well. But for now . . .

Soon I will relate the story of why I decided to go back to my 12“ Powerbook and not keep using my 13” Intel MacBook. Until then.

Just in case you don’t get enough Chris in your day I am now writing a weekly Mac help column for LAist called “Ask the MACist”. Today is the first one so please take a minute and check it out.

And, if you have any Mac or Mac-related questions, feel free to send them in. Maybe I will be able to answer one for you and as an added bonus, you can see your name in print! What could be better than that?

Nice weekend all.

after moving into the new place i realized that it was a great opportunity to get rid of stuff i really don’t need and could do without or could substitute something else for. so, out went the big g5 tower (to my bro, sam). out went the big pc tower (to my friend shaun) and in came the new 20″ intel iMac from Apple. not just any new 20″ intel iMac mind you. i sprung for the extra video ram (doubled it to 256 megs) and maxed out the ram to 2gb. a must, really. ram is pretty cheap these days and is a great way to improve performance for not that much money. if you have the means i definitely suggest maxing out the ram in any Mac you purchase. you won’t be sorry you did.

what does this all mean and why should you care? you might not unless you enjoy the occasional game of half-life 2 or other pc only game. or, you want to run outlook or some other pc app that has no mac counterpart. like the macbook, i decided to install bootcamp and use the iMac as my new windows machine on the desktop. i did this mostly to see if it would replace my pc tower as a gaming machine. the short answer is yes. absolutely.

in fact, using the iMac booted into windows xp provided a superior gaming experience than i previously had on my windows gaming box. the iMac performed very very well. so, it has replaced two machines for me and now i have much more room on my desk to pile up other stuff i need to get to. so, if you are looking for a great gaming machine and want to play pc games and mac games, the intel iMac is a great choice. it also does other stuff like check email, browse the internet and normal computer things.

i have not tried it with very many other pc games yet. i felt that half-life 2 was a good game to start with given that the system requirement of the game are quite high. it a beautiful game to see and it looks great on the 20″ monitor of the iMac and its even in widescreen 16 x 9. very cool. i won’t go into the whole installing boot camp procedure here as its kinda boring. suffice to say that i installed it and used it in the normal way without any changes. installed windows xp w/sp2 without a problem and was in windows and running soon afterward.

the one change that turned out to greatly improve things was that i ditched the ati drivers that bootcamp puts on the driver install cd and instead used other video drivers from the super genius over at omega. these drivers rock. much better than the lame ones that bootcamp wants you to use. after making this change i got greater frame rates and no freezes or anything.

to be honest, i had no freezes prior to replacing the drivers but i did see the increased performance from these drivers that i hoped. so, if you go to all the trouble to do all of this, be sure to get the omega drivers and use them. one other note. you can’t install drivers that you get from the ati website so don’t bother downloading them at all. even though the video card in the 20″ imac is technically an ati x1600 it doesn’t mean you can actually use the drivers from ati. you can use the omega ones and you should.

so over the last couple of months i have cut the number of computers i have at home in half. two laptops into one: the macbook. and two desktops into one: the iMac. not to mention that the iMac runs so much quieter and cooler than the g5 tower its not even funny. the g5, while a great machine, is really hot and really noisy. now i can actually enjoy music in my office again and not have to turn it way up to drown out the sounds of the g5 tower. i am much happier now.

in other news, i made a couple of posts at Laist lately and will also be heading down to san diego in july to cover the big san diego comic con. i haven’t been in several years and this will be my first time in a long time mostly as an observer and attendee. the last couple of times i was there with a film project or something and was too busy to really look around.

so this time should be fun. although, its not all fun. there will be a little business too. i will be making a few notes for Laist as well as meeting with a few people regarding some upcoming projects that i can’t talk about at the moment. very secret and all that you know. suffice to say that i might be going back into yet another business i was in a long time ago. at least a little bit. or, maybe more than a little bit. what can i say? i like to keep busy.

and now, a little more on the very cool macbook. now that i have had chance to use it for a little time i have come to like it even more. i put in the 2gigs of ram and that made all the difference. it is now one heck of a machine. i got mine from other world computing but you can get it almost anywhere. i recommend owc or new egg or crucial.

i managed to get all my info transferred over from the powerbook and now most of the apps seem to work. some are, of course, not universal such as microsoft office or photoshop, but even those still open pretty fast and are able to be used with no problem. although, as i said before, more memory does help.

the first time you open them it does take a minute but after that they run just fine. as well as they did on my previous laptop, the 12“ powerbook with 1.5 ghz g4 processor ( a great machine that i will miss). fortunately, the powerbook found a good home with my friend zach from laist and the oaks so i know its being put to good use. he will treat it well.

so, a few more thoughts on the macbook:

the black is starting to show more crap from my fingers. mostly on the track pad but some on the rest of it too. not so bad but a little annoying. it can be cleaned and the stuff seems to come off pretty easy by just rubbing it with a soft cloth such as the kind you used to get with every sony ericcson cell phone. soft is the key here as i don’t really know how much this thing could scratch if i pressed harder.

also, i am still not in love with the keyboard. although, as i use it more i find that it gets easier. it might be because i am a lazy typer and was very used to the keys being so close together so now that they are not, i am getting more typos. i think apple will realize that this keyboard isn’t very good and perhaps make some changes to it. i wonder what steve jobs thought about it when he used it for the first time. i bet he didn’t love it either and just thought it looked ”cool“. which it sorta does so there you go.

i have also installed bootcamp on the macbook and yes, windows xp. now that it is up and running it works just like an xp laptop when i am booted in windows and its a mac when running osx. installing boot camp was sort of a pain and here are the two most important things to realize when you are going to try to do it:

you must an installer cd with windows xp pro or home with service pack 2.

you cannot use the actual windows installer cd because it is too shiny for the cd drive in the macbook. it won’t work. at least it didn’t for me.

i had to make an exact copy of the windows installer cd onto a cd that was not shiny and then the install went off without a hitch.

now, my best windows machine is a mac. go figure.

more later. but a hint. i am going to install final cut pro studio and see what happens when i run it with the shared video memory. i bet it won’t make that much of a difference but we’ll see.

quick update on the new macbook. got matched 2gb of ram from other world computing and installed it today. what a difference! now this macbook flies. much better with more ram. not really a surprise but damn, really nice.

applications load faster, graphics are snappier and all in all a much better user experience. don’t get me wrong, it was useable before with just the stock 512Mb but for me, just barely. this makes a huge difference.

as we are moving this weekend (yes, on memorial day weekend. feel sorry for me?) i won’t get a chance to replace the 80Gb hard drive that came with the macbook with the new 120 GB i got at the same time as the ram. after we move and after i finish putting in the new drive, its time to install bootcamp and (shudder) windows xp. then, the circle will be complete. or something like that.

i’ll report back when i’m done with all the fun and exciting details. oh, one more thing. i really don’t love the keyboard at all on the macbook. the more i use it the more i don’t like it. unfortunately, its the biggest problem i have with the macbook. its just not very responsive and is harder to type on then the old one on my 12“ powerbook.

if i could take that keyboard and put it on the macbook, then i would have a perfect machine. alas, it is just one of those things that i will have to deal with i guess. more later.

so, got the macbook now. just took it out of the box and starting to put it through its paces.

first impressions:

- it’s black

- it’s matte

- the glossy screen is better than i thought it would be

- the keyboard is more annoying than i thought it would be – the keys are a little too far apart for me

- performance is pretty good even with the stock 512MB of ram. i’m sure it will be much better after i put the 2 Gigs in

- its hasn’t gotten too hot yet. i even tried it on my lap wearing shorts and it was fine. no hotter than my 12“ powerbook

more to come but that’s it for first impressions. all in all pretty cool so far.

(btw – the photo is from the good folks at engadget, not me)

got some boxes today. that was fun. from a place called box city in van nuys. even got a tape gun too. its neat. apologies (yes, again) for the lack of posting but i have been a little under the weather for awhile after my work of late. stress is a funny thing that does bad things to you. its just bad, bad, bad. that’s why i try to avoid it as much as possible and one of the reasons i pretty much gave up on showbiz. too much stress.

oh well, i guess i messed that one up, didn’t i? in other news, put my order in for a shiny new black macbook today. its a cool new laptop (sorry, not a laptop) a cool new macbook which will allow me to get rid of two pieces of hardware and go down to one. with a macbook running mac osx and windows xp via bootcamp i won’t need a windows laptop anymore either. cool, right?

apple says the computer should ship in 5 to 7 business days but i hope its faster than that. usually is. let’s hope so. although, what with the moving and all i doubt i would have much time to play around with it anyway so its probably good that it doesn’t get here until after the move anyway. less of a temptation to just sit around and play with it instead of packing.

anyway, i’ll give a full report on it when it comes and let you know if the glossy screen and the new keyboard are annoying or cool. my dell laptop has a glossy screen so i’m not too worried. i don’t think it will bother me. we’ll see. ok, gotta go now and walk over to rite aid to pick up some stuff.

1984 won’t be like 1984. on this date in 1984 apple introduced the macintosh and things were never the same. oddly enough, steve jobs hate the macintosh and tried to kill it. of course, he later changed his mind, took over the project and the rest is, as it is often said, history.

now with steve jobs poised to take a seat on the disney board and apple scoring record profits from sales of ipods and even a few macs, the little company has come a long way. pretty soon, steve may be able to realize his dream of making apple a bigger and better version of sony.

its been 22 years now and the mac and apple show no signs of slowing down. all of the doom and gloom predictions of the past have given way to glowing reviews and almost universal praise. apple has become a media darling. i guess when it works it really works. of course, it could have just as easily gone the other way. as smart as steve jobs is, luck has played a factor. luck always plays a factor. so, here’s to luck.

who knows what the next 22 years will bring. hope i’m still around to find out.