Solid State Drives have been replacing Hard Disks on computers lately. Instead of storing data on a rotating magnetic disk, they store data in flash memory: basically silicon chips that keep data even when powered off. They are lighter, use less power, have no moving parts, and most importantly are way faster than hard disks. The problem is that, compared to their rotating counterparts, they are (still) more expensive.
Still, prices have dropped dramatically recently. Shlomit’s computer was feeling a little sluggish so I decided to give it a nice little upgrade.
Crucial M4 SSD
After waiting for a good price on DealMac for a few weeks, I bought a 256 GB Crucial M4 for $180, a very good deal at the time of this writing, to replace the stock 250 GB spinning disk.
The upgrade is reasonably simple, here are the steps:
Copy your Hard Drive contents to the SSD.
I used a borrowed adapter to connect the SSD to the Mac via USB.
Use Disk Utility (it comes with Mac OS X) to format the SSD.
Use Carbon Copy Cloner (donation-ware) to copy the contents of your old hard drive to the new one. This was straightforward and it even created a Recovery Partition on the SSD. But it took a long time: almost 3 hours.
Swap the hard drives. It’s easy, just follow the instructions posted on any of hundreds of YouTube videos. Like this one. But make sure you have the right tools, in my case a Philips #0 and a Torx #6 screwdrivers.
Turn on your Mac and be amazed at how fast it feels now.
Go into System Preferences and make sure you select the SSD as the Startup Disk. Otherwise every time you boot your computer, it’s going to spend ~30 seconds looking for the old drive.
Carbon Copy Cloner doing its thing.MacBook in mid-transplant. Make sure you don’t misplace a screw.
Really, the speed difference is amazing. Everything is snappy. Opening programs like iPhoto or iTunes happens in less than a second.
If you have a computer that’s 1-2 years old and you want something much faster without buying a new machine, strongly consider upgrading to an SSD. You may have to sacrifice capacity but I think it’s worth it. Just put your pirate movie collection in an external hard drive and/or pay $25 to keep your music on iTunes Match.
If you are buying a new laptop, make sure you get one with an SSD. If it’s too expensive, get a slower processor instead to make up for the difference. You will be surprised at how most slow tasks are dramatically sped up by an SSD. Don’t believe me? Check out this video of a side by side comparison:
Google announced the Nexus 7 tablet on Wednesday during their Google I/O conference. This is the first Google branded Android tablet ever. In summary:
$199 for 8GB, $249 for 16GB.
Quad-core Tegra 3 processor
7″ inch 1280 by 800 pixel screen.
New Android version 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
My friend Andy wanted to know what I thought of it, so here it goes:
Android
Based on the reviews I’ve seen, it looks like after four years of stutter and jerkiness, Google got very serious about making the Android UI fluid and responsive. This was hard because Android was originally developed to be a Blackberry clone and some basic architectural decisions were made that prevented having a smooth interface. This is one example of Google aggressively fixing the most serious flaws in Android and it looks like they are making lots of progress. That and the deep integration with Google’s excellent cloud services. Android is getting better.
Price point
To beat the iPad, it is not enough to have a comparable product. You either have a much better product or you have a much cheaper product.
After many attempts, no Android tablet was good enough. So Google chose plan B: sell a much cheaper product. The Nexus 7 hardware does cut some corners (back camera, cellular radio, expansion ports) but what it has is very good. And it is being sold at cost – hoping to make it up later by selling movies, apps, songs, ads.
So rather than being a direct iPad or Windows 8 competitor, the Nexus 7 is aiming at the cheap Amazon Kindle Fire. And it looks like it is much, much better product.
Sucks to be Dell
These are tough times for OEM partners: Microsoft releases Surface and has the advantage of early access to software and direct access to Windows engineers. Now Google does something even more ruthless to its parners: on top of all the advantages of owning Android, they decide to sell hardware at cost.
Dell, HP, Asus, Toshiba, Samsung, etc. cannot sell tablets at cost without a way of making up their losses later. In the brave new world of tablets, Apple’s “making the whole widget” way is the way and Microsoft and Google seem to have caught on to that.
Bottom line
This is the first Android product I’ve ever wanted to own. It appears to be really good, and the price is great. Best of all, it’s very light (340 g). Sure, they had to destroy the trust of every hardware partner they have in the process. Too bad for them.
It would be unforgivable to live in the Bay Area and not make it to one of the largest (the largest?) events that the city has to offer: The Gay Pride Parade. It was packed. The photos came out extra colorful. Enjoy!
By now you’ve heard that Microsoft announced its own tablet: Surface (formerly a largely vaporware table). If you haven’t, go read about it before continuing.
On the surface (pun intended) it looks like a cool product that may challenge the iPad for best tablet. I like following what happens in the tech sector, so I have a bunch of thoughts.
OEM backstabbing
Microsoft for the most part has been a software company. Notable exceptions are their mouses and keyboards, Xbox, Kinect, Zune and Kin. They make a huge chunk of their money by selling Windows licenses to companies like Dell and HP, who then build largely identical PCs and sell them to you.
Now Microsoft is going to compete directly with its partners, with the handicap of earlier access to software, the ability to better integrate the software and the hardware (Apple style), and without the added cost of software licenses.
Yeah, people at Dell are pissed, even if they won’t admit to it publicly.
Even more confusion
Windows licensing has been a complicated mess for some time: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate, etc. I don’t even think people who work at Microsoft know what the hell the difference between them is.
Now it’s worse: Windows 8 will also run on ARM processors. But it will be a special version of Windows 8 called Windows RT. Windows 8 has desktop interface and tablet (Metro) interface. Metro will work great with fingers but horribly with a mouse. Desktop will work with a mouse but will be unusable with a touchscreen. Windows RT only supports Metro. And it won’t run any of your existing Windows applications because those are built for Intel processors.
But Microsoft is releasing two (!) tablets: one that runs Windows RT and will be comparable in size and weight and price to an iPad, and another one that has an Intel processor and will be comparable in size and weight and price to a MacBook Air. But in tablet shape. The expensive one will run your current applications, but they will probably be unusable unless you use a keyboard and mouse/trackpad.
Are you confused enough yet? Is it obvious to you which one you should buy? Why are they making such a mess? Because…
Nobody at MS can make a decision
And this is the heart of the problem. To me it seems like nobody at Microsoft has the balls to make a decision: “We’re going to do ARM.” “We’re going to do full Windows with Intel.” “We’re going to pick keyboard A or B.”
The lack of a clear message confuses customers and ensures that no matter what you end up buying, you will at some point regret your choice or at least having a nagging solution that you should have bought the other model: my tablet is too heavy! the battery life sucks! I can’t run all applications! the cover is too thick! the keyboard has no travel! I can’t use the pen! I paid extra because of the pen and I never use it!
Protecting the Monopoly
All of this reeks of desperation. They see Android and iOS slowly but surely threatening the Windows PC monopoly. Tablets are growing, PCs are not. They don’t trust OEMs to come out with cool or cool enough products running Windows 8. They felt like they had to do it themselves. And maybe they had to. Maybe Apple’s do-it-all approach really is the way to go if you want the better (but not necessarily cheaper) product. And maybe more people are buying the better, not necessarily cheaper, product.
Timing
So why announce all of this now? They have no prices yet. They announced no specs. No battery lifetime. Not even the ports on the device. They had no Intel-based tablet on display at all. And nobody was allowed to touch the keyboards – the most important and arguably innovative thing about Surface. They clearly are not ready. This is vaporware.
The reason, I think, is that they had to show something before Google very likely announces their own tablet next week at Google IO (also backstabbing their own hardware partners in the process).
They had to do it even if it means pissing your partner off. Even if it means that nobody with a clue will buy a Windows Ultrabook until the Intel Surface comes out so that proper reviews exist – a full three months after Windows 8 ships! Crazy.
Surface vs iPad
Surface and iPad are both tablets. But I think there are some fundamental differences in the basic usage philosophies surrounding both. Time will tell which one is right or if there’s room for both approaches. But if Microsoft’s tablet history (they’ve been pushing tablets since the nineties, believe it or not) is any indicator…
First, iPad is meant to be used mainly in portrait orientation. That’s why it has a 4:3 screen ratio, the home button and cameras and dock connector are where they are.
Surface is meant to be used mainly in landscape orientation. That’s why the keyboard attaches where it attaches. That’s why it has a 16:9 (optimal for video watching) screen.
iPad is primarily meant to be used while holding it up with your hands and with your fingers.
Surface is meant to be used as a traditional laptop: on a table, with a keyboard and trackpad. Since it sits at a 22 degree angle when using the built-in kickstand, I bet that tapping on it with your fingers is too likely to knock it down.
For all these reasons, I think Surface is more a laptop that looks like a tablet (as defined by the iPad) and not as direct of a competitor to the iPad as one would think initially. It’s a very basic different approach to computing, and one that’s understandable knowing where Microsoft comes from.
Surface vs Android
Android on tablets has failed so far. Let’s wait and maybe talk about it later.
One more thing: Windows Phone 8
Windows Phone 8 was announced yesterday. It’s a nice and much needed upgrade. But it’s not shipping yet, and one thing they did say is that no Windows Phone 7 hardware will get upgraded to the new OS. This is reasonable because under the hood they are quite different pieces of software even if they look similar.
But what schmuck would go out and buy a Windows Phone 7 today knowing this? Only a clueless schmuck. Nokia is already hurting, now it’s going to get worse. Thank you, from Finland!
Conclusion
Yeah, I think that it’s desperate for MS to release a tablet and betray it’s partners. I think combining a tablet/touch interface with a desktop/mouse/keyboard interface in one OS is a mess: you’ll get a horrible experience at least part of the time regardless of what kind of machine you have in front of you.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Windows 8 is really really good and developers will get behind it and it will be a great success. Microsoft has lots of money and a few monopolies that allows them to push this for a while even if it costs them dearly.
Astronomers have figured out, among other things, how big the Universe is. Most people have no idea how they figured it out.
This video by the Royal Observatory Greenwich does a fantastical job of explaining it to mere mortals using no math but outstanding visualization. It’s so well made… you gotta watch it if you haven’t yet. Yes, even if you are one of my dear astronomer readers:
On Monday Apple released a new MacBook Pro with Retina Display. It has an incredibly high resolution screen with 5.1 million pixels. Four times as many as the regular 15″ MacBook. Compare to your big full HD 1080p TV, which has only around 2.1 million pixels.
So a regular person sitting in front of this computer at a regular distance cannot see the individual pixels on the screen.
This is another step in Apple’s quest to kill the pixel: sure, screens will still be made out of pixels but you as a user could not care less, everything will look perfectly smooth.
Need more proof? This is how you select screen resolution on this new Mac:
Screenshot from AnandTech
Yep, they only mention anything related to actual numeric screen resolution as a little side not in grey letters.
I used the stock Debian Linux image and copied it to an SD Card on my Mac. After hooking everything up it booted!
I was able to play with it for a bit, but not much. I’m no Linux expert but the online guides were very helpful. Later I’ll try to play some video or something on it.
The HDMI to DVI Apple-branded adapter costs about the same as the Raspberry Pi.Web browsing is glacially slow. Maybe something can be done through software improvements but I don't think there's a lot of hope. Here you can see the world's best website as rendered by a Raspberry Pi. This is not Photoshopped. Heck, it's not even GIMPed!
As widely reported, last week there was a transit of Venus. It’s a rare event so I wisely decided to go check it out at the Lawrence Hall of Science. Unwisely, I attempted to get there on bike – but after a one hour battle with gravity I gave up, came home, showered, and drove.
Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley
Over there, they had a bunch of telescopes properly set up with filters and pointing to the Sun. Lines were long but brisk. If you missed it, this is what it looked like:
More photos, including the beautiful view of the bay:
I just got my Raspberry Pi delivered 20 minutes ago after a seemingly eternal wait. I’m staring at it blankly with no idea what I should do with it. Any suggestions are welcome.
In the meantime I need to grab an SD card and a power supply so I can boot it up.
The Raspberry Pi is a very inexpensive ($35 because I bought the “high-end” one) small computer. It has an ARM processor (like your phone!) and a few ports. You provide a Linux installation in an SD card, a power supply, keyboard, mouse (optional), and a screen. I’m sure people will put together cool things for this once it’s been out for a while. For now… let’s see what I can do.
