Just in case you didn't have anything else to do this fine Thursday afternoon, you may want to check out this x-ray image of a MacBook, which is exactly as cool as it sounds.
Jason de Villa (I'm assuming no relation to Joey de Villa) recently had his "brother the vet" borrow his x-ray machine to scan his MacBook, and this is the result. There's a hard drive, and various spinny things, and some ports over on the left side.
What else can you make out?
[via Gizmodo]
You're probably a keyboard jockey. You laugh mightily at all those fools (fools!) who reach for the mouse whenever they need to perform only the most basic functions like command-a, command-s, or the almighty command-z. You probably figured out years ago that you could navigate the Finder without using the mouse, and lo, were you a genius.
Fortunately for us keyboarderati, there's always new stuff to learn. Lifehacker points out a few "hitherto unknown-to-me" shortcuts that I likewise was unaware of. For any emacs geniuses out there, you may already know about these.
* Ctrl+A: Beginning of line (like Home) * Ctrl+B: Backward one character (like hitting the left arrow) * Ctrl+D: Forward delete (like the Forward Delete button on Macs) * Ctrl+E: End of line (like End) * Ctrl+F: Forward one character (like hitting the right arrow) * Ctrl+H: I'm not entirely sure on this one, but it looks like it just does a right-to-left delete (like the regular delete key on Macs). * Ctrl+K: Kill/remove text between cursor and the end of the line. * Ctrl+N: Next line (like down arrow) * Ctrl+P: Previous line (like up arrow) * Ctrl+U: Remove/delete current line * Ctrl+V: Page down
I'd like to add just one more, which is the € (euro) sign, which can be printed by holding option-shift-2. Now that I live (temporarily in France), this has come in handy quite a bit.
Any other obscure ones? Add 'em in the comments.
My fiancée is still rockin' an iBook G3, so I'm not sure why you couldn't spruce up an iBook G4 for something beyond an art project, but no matter. As art projects go, this one is pretty swank.
Uruguayan Mac lover "yosoyelger" recently made this neat lamp as a birthday gift for his girlfriend using the "carcass" of an iBook G4 (more pictures of the lamp are on his Flickr account). Hrm, maybe we should start taking up a site to repurpose old Apple hardware, instead of just leaving it by the side of the road?
[via Gizmodo]
Sure, we’ve showed you pictures of the new MacBook Pro getting its naughty bits put on display for the whole world to see, but you’ve never seen the MacBook Pro like this before. The folks at TechRestore have put together a stop-motion video journaling the entire disassembly process. Yeah it’s truly horrible graphic imagery at its best, but it’s so horrifying you just can’t look away.
[via Gizmodo]
Time was, writer John Hodgman was known for his vast knowledge of hobos, as opposed to representing the PC in Apple's "Get a Mac" ads. Oh, how times change.
While discussing his new book, Hodgman talked to TIME about what it's like being Mr. PC (yes, that's my new name for him):
I was really curious as to why they asked me to audition. My career as a magazine writer was largely prefaced on the idea of curiosity, to go on adventures and weasel my way into the lives of people that I admire. The process of auditioning for a commercial seemed like a process where I might learn something that I could write about. It did not occur to me that it might lead to the job. I got called back, and by the third time we talked, I thought, "You can't really be serious."
But thank goodness they were serious, Mr. Hodgman (Mr. PC). Justin Long may be no slouch as as the Mac but it's the interplay between the two "computers" that keeps me coming back for more. Now can we work in some hobo and mole-men jokes in the next "Get a Mac" ads, Apple? You know that would be nine kinds of awesome.
They're like collector actiom figures with defects, or like whem you get two McMuggets in your Happy Meal that are fused together to make ome giamt McMugget...like, like, a super McMugget.
Yum.
I'm referrimg, of course, to MacNooks with flawed keynoards. Like this ome from Emgadget, with two "M" keys...amd mo "n"!
There was also this ome, which is apparemtly my meighnor's computer-his music is always either off, or, more oftem, REALLY, REALLY LOUD.
How lomg nefore these start showimg up om enay for imsame collector's prices? Nooths will ne set up at Macworld showcasimg famnoys' "rare" collectioms of "ome of a kimd" Mac keynoards. Amd it wom't ne lomg nefore people start switchimg out their keys with other MacNooks' keynoards im am attempt to deceive others imto thimkimg theirs are flawed, too. Nastards.
Amyome out there im Reader Lamd get amy of these flawed keynoards? Let us kmow!
You know the drill—and by the drill, I mean the electric screwdriver. Apple releases a new gizmo, and three or four different firms race to be the first to tear it limb from limb. The team at iFixit is on the case (and the screen, and the motherboard), pulling apart the new MacBook and MacBook Pro to ogle its sweet, sweet aluminum unibody.
The MacBook Pro teardown is an eleven page masterpiece, including a comparison against the previous MacBook Pro model. The new case construction apparently lends itself to a cleaner interior than earlier models, including better cable routing and fewer screws.
Similarly, the seven page MacBook teardown is likewise detailed. The optical drive is now SATA, and apparently there’s a subwoofer packed in there too. Crazy. Of the MacBook, iFixit proclaims “This may be the most beautiful laptop we’ve disassembled. Apple has a right to be proud of their engineers and manufacturing team.” Awwww.
iFixit remarks that there’s a lot of similarities between the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air on the inside as well as the out which, while not surprising, suggests that Apple is trying to standardize as many of the parts as possible.
So, folks, does this wanton display of innards convince you that you need a new laptop? Because I am seriously on the fence about it.
Last time we heard from His Wozness, he was being interviewed by The Daily Telegraph and the BBC (part of his British media tour?), appearing as part of the Intel Development Forum, and possibly getting married in Indianapolis.
But we haven't heard much about what Woz is up to professionally. Apparently he's just been named to the board of directors of a startup that focuses on SSDs (that's solid-state drives).
Earlier this year, the company released something called the ioDrive, which it claims is the "first direct-attached solid-state drive (SSD) on a PCI-Express (PCIe), with I/O performance outstripping that of mechanical disks by hundreds of times."
That sounds pretty rad, if in fact the company's claims are true.
According to a company press release, Woz' job will be to advise "on future market trends; consult with senior management on company R&D efforts and product road-mapping; and introduce Fusion-io to key strategic alliances in the industry, as well as sales opportunities."
Oddly, its hardware doesn't appear to be Mac-friendly yet, but we're hoping that Woz is on the case and introduces Fusion-io to Apple--surely that will be the strategic-iest alliance that he can offer.
The relentless pursuit of putting OS X on something not made by Apple can be an all consuming obsession for some. I personally don’t identify with the mindset. The amount of hassle, the lack of support, and minor (if existent) savings just don’t seem worth it to me.
For those that want to cage OS X in that ugly PC case, there is a way to install OS X without having to fiddle with code. EFI-X is a little USB device you attach to your supported PC hardware that allows when to slide in an unmodified OS X install DVD and get that OS we all love onto that hardware.
I expect most, if not all readers, are perfectly happy with the Apple branded and supported hardware. If you’re not, the EFI-X costs a mere $170 (estimated based upon currency conversion) and simplifies the task of gutting Apple’s profit model creating a hackintosh.
I once learned the hard way that when a Mac OS 10.3 Panther disc is inserted into a MacBook, the computer suffers a kernel panic and general lack of "doing anything useful." But my 10.5 disc could travel from MacBook to Intel-based iMac to a MacBook Pro without causing a system-wide "abandon ship!", which is nice to know. And with some fine-tuning, who knows what you could do?
The real fun comes when trying to clone older versions of Mac OS (why hello, Classic!), but victory is still out there! For instance, here's what happened when an OS 9 disc, a clamshell iBook (god, why didn't those come in purple?), and a CRT iMac all party together:
This procedure also works with the Classic Mac OS, though I find one must be more careful with version numbers than in OS X. Through time I ended up with a clamshell iBook and CRT iMac and only one set of OS 9 discs for an even older clamshell iBook that no longer functioned. I could install the system on the iMac, as it was the only one that could boot from the discs. Then, after updating the system to 9.2.2, I would copy the contents to the iBook, which would work flawlessly. Unfortunately, when I tried to clone the system to my eMac, I ended up with no sound or 3D graphics. I suspect that the problem lies in an old ROM file in the System Folder that predates the eMac.Bah, it's always the old ROM files in the System folder, ain't it?
But seriously though, I see this as another example of the Mac rightfully dancing around going, "I am so great! I am so great! Everybody loves me, I am so great!"
