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11 months ago I wrote about the opening of an Apple retail Store in my home town Almere. I was excited and wanted to support this local dealer by using them as preferred supplier. After they opened, I wanted to buy a Mac Mini and went there twice, but they didn’t have any. When I wanted to upgrade my MacBook Pro with more memory, they didn’t have a 2GB memory module, so I had to order it online. Two weeks after the introduction of the updated iPod Touch (32GB) I went there, but they didn’t get any yet. Yesterday I went again and they still didn’t have any. The Media Markt store in town had them on sale last week (all sold out) and Apple delivers within a couple of days. The sales person of Warnerraven at the iCentre Almere said I could order it and wouldn’t even be required to take it, if I change my mind. But why should I order it there, wait and go back to the store to pick it up (difficult enough with their limited opening hours), while I can order it directly from Apple and have it shipped home for free? This store obviously can not afford to have Apple’s popular products on stock. The main reason for me to go to a local retail store is to get a product directly without waiting and shipping costs. Lately, I usually come home empty-handed and instead order online (often cheaper).
In some areas retail stores still make sense (products you want to try out and feel or where you need service), but otherwise many stores are just obsolete, wasting valuable space in our cities and increasing the price of products.

Update: I ordered it online from Apple and it was delivered really fast on Tuesday already.

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Today the first Apple store opened in Almere, well just a Premium Reseller, not a real Apple Store. But I am still glad about it. Until now only chains like Media Markt or Dixons sell Apple products in Almere and I would rather buy from a local reseller like Warnerraven.

click on image to go to Flickr

The store is a bit on small side and didn’t have as much choice as I had hoped for. It has a second and third level which I guess will probably be used for workshops.

I went to buy a Mac Mini (before Apple decides to discontinue it) to replace by old PowerBook as home-server/media server, but they didn’t have them yet. I am not in a hurry, so I will try it again next week.

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When I was going to order my new MacBook Pro with the new LED display, one of the most difficult decisions was the one between glossy and matte display. I haven’t been happy with the matte display of my old 17″ PowerBook, which is almost unusable in outdoor situations. As we have a beautiful garden and camp a lot when we travel, being able to use my laptop outdoors is quiet important. When you search for information and experiences with both display types, you will find a lot of different opinions and usually people love or hate the glossy display. What I did not find was a good real world comparison, esp. in outdoor situations. I took the chance and went for the new glossy display with LED technology and today I compared them both in the real world.

Left: MacBook Pro 15" glossy LED display
Right: PowerBook 17" matte display

Both displays are set to full brightness.

Situation 1: In full sun

Both laptops in the full sun – a tough situations for most laptops. The matte display of the PowerBook is hardly readable while the glossy is still usable.

Situation 2: In the shadow

In the shadow with bright blue sky behind me. Glossy display has some reflexions now but is better readable. Choosing a darker background reduces the visible reflections. Matte display is readable but not usable for activities like image editing (a typical outdoor activity of me when we are traveling).

Situation 3: In the shadow with dark background

Another one in the shadow, now with dark background. The glossy display is perfect, just like indoor. Matte is dull and very sensitive to direct sunlight.

Verdict

I think the results speak for themselves. With this display the laptop actually is worthy being called a mobile computer. Current matte displays will probably perform slightly better as they are brighter than my almost 2 year old PowerBook and some owners actually report that it works good as well in the sun. The few reflections on the glossy display hardly disturb me and by changing position or angle, those can usually easily be avoided.

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I got my iPod Photo 60GB today. In an act of desperation (dead iPod Mini, dead external Seagate 2.5″ drive) I needed a replacement for both and since the new H&B CA-5555i car mp3 receiver seems to connect well with iPods, I decided to order one of the last iPod Photos. I didn’t want the newer iPod Video, which is much more expensive. I don’t have any interest in the video function. The photo capabilities of the iPod Photo on the other hand can be useful, so I also bought the iPod Camera Connector, so that I can empty some of our digital cameras if needed. I tried it with our Canon EOS 350D and it worked flawlessly. The FujiFilm S2Pro is unfortunately not being supported.
Strange is only the plug of the power supply which absolutely does not fit into our outlets here in the Netherlands – because it is a UK plug. Don’t understand, why a Dutch dealer is selling it like this but luckily I can use my old iPod Mini power supply and cables (including the firewire cable!), as well as the AC plugs from our PowerBooks (just the plug, not the power supply!).

Technorati Tags: ipod, apple

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Today I had time to install the new audio MP3 receiver in my car. I bought this receiver since it offers USB 2.0 and iPod support (according to the information on the web). My plan was to connect my old iPod Mini or a USB hard drive to this receiver.

The installation went smoothly within a few minutes. The user interface is easy to understand and without looking at the manual I was able to select radio stations and store them as preset.

Next I connected my 100GB Seagate USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive. The blue LED of the Seagate drive did not go on at all. So obviously the USB port of the CA-5555i does not provide enough power.

The Seagate comes with a double USB cable with 2 plugs, one for data+power and one just for power. So I plugged the power plug into my laptop and now the blue LED went on. The laptop did not mount the drive and the CA-5555i also displayed USB-Drive, but that was about all. It did not scan the drive for mp3 files. The hard drive has one FAT32 partition and according to the manual, this should be supported. So maybe connecting it to the laptop is a problem, but without a car USB-charger I can’t think of a better way to test it.

The interesting questions would have been, if the CA-5555i supports large USB drives like this one at all and I wonder how many files it can actually handle. As you can see, the manual mentions 200 folders and a maximum of 500 files. Would be nice if those were 500 files per folder, because otherwise it would be pretty useless connecting a regular hard drive or iPod. The manual does not provide any information otherwise about USB storage and iPod support, which is a bit strange since it is being advertised as ‘optimized for iPod’.

Last but not least I connected my old iPod Mini. It started charging but was not mounted as USB-Drive. Since the battery of my iPod Mini is hardly working any longer I was not able to try it with a charged iPod. Because I don’t have a SD/MMC card, I wasn’t not able to test this feature either.

The last image shows the CA-5555i at night.

Update – 2005/02/22:
I connected a different iPod Mini and an iPod Photo 30GB today and both worked fine and I did not notice a file limit. When the iPod is connected, you can not use the iPod controls, just like when you connect it to the computer. Both iPods have been initialized for Windows systems (as far as I know using FAT32). I also tried a CD-RW with ISO 9960 file system and some normal mp3 files but that did not work.

Update – 2005/02/25:
The reason why it did not read the CD-RW was, that the CD drive does not work at all! I would like to send it back but then I would have to send the package all the way to France (bought it at an Dutch online store!) on my own costs, so I am wondering if I need the CD drive at all. Today I also tested a 2GB SD card and it worked well but what I don’t like is the mp3 display and navigation of the CA-5555i. Finding a mp3 while driving would be a dangerous and almost impossible activity. So, the USB port for the iPod might seem like a good idea but it is not really a practical solution.

… to be continued

Technorati Tags: ipod, CA-5555i

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Have you been missing your good old unix terminal with green letters on an old CRT montitor, just like when you where a student hacking the AIX on the mainframe of your university?

The answer is GLTerminal. A small terminal app for Mac OS X:

GLTerminal emulates a 1970’s terminal monitor, complete with flaws in brightness, warped display curvature, and flicker. It even simulates baud rate lag. And! for extra verisimilitude, the character colors can be green or amber.

The the world wide web the way we saw it more than 13 years ago (the first graphical browser was released in 1993):

Technorati Tags: apple, unix, terminal

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Do you use the Apple iTunes Music Store and did you actually read the terms and conditions? I did and they are one reason why I am not using the iTMS. Now a Norwegian consumer rights organizations filed a complaint regarding the terms of service.

When you purchase music from iTunes they give themselves the right to single-handedly change your rights at any given later date. For this and other reasons the Consumer Council of Norway has delivered a formal complaint to the Consumer Ombudsman where we ask them to look into several violations of The Marketing Control Act.

Technorati Tags: apple, drm, iTunes

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The MacInTouch survey spanned every laptop capable of running Mac OS X, encompassing 41 models sold over seven and a half years. More than 10.000 readers reported their experience along with thousands of comments. Their detailed results show, that the first revisions of new Apple laptops have a significant higher failure rate.

By contrast, 17″ and 15″ Aluminum PowerBooks, PowerBook G3, and iBook G4 12″ models all appear to have become more reliable as new versions were introduced. This may indicate that Apple engineers were able to learn from early problems and fix them.

This is also our own experience. Our fist Apple notebook was a white 500Mhz G3 iBook from 2001. Just after warranty had expired the hinge problem started, which means, that the display turns black at a certain angle. This is a common problem with the internal video cables. I hardly know any iBook user who does not have this failure or the defective motherboard. The 1.25Ghz 15″ PowerBook suffers from the latch problem – it often doesn’t stay latched. I tried some of the repair tips but it only helped a bit. I am writing this article on a 10/2005 1.67Ghz 17″ PowerBook and until know did not have any problems. Some early AirPort connectivity problems where solved by a software update. So I cross my fingers and hope, that the results of the survey are correct and that this PowerBook will be as reliable as one would expect for the price they cost.

All of this is also the reason why I don’t really care much about the recent MacWorld 2006 rumors about new Macs with Intel processors. We all know that Apple will introduce new hardware with Intel processors in 2006 but I would and will wait at least until 2007 before buying any of those.

Technorati Tags: apple

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Having the 17″ PowerBook with the higher resolution of 1680×1050 pixel turned out to be handy at work today. Here I am monitoring logs and the status of 3 different servers at once. Thank god server administration is not my job. I only kept an eye on these terminal windows while doing my regular work.

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