Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Apple computers endure better than Windows machines? -- Comment()
Ssp mirrored my experiences with a 2.5-year-old iBook, which has been getting faster all the time: "Same with my Powerbook. I was just talking to my brother yesterday (who uses my dad's old "Pismo" G3 powerbook). And while I have had my computer for almost three years and the Pismo is about a year older than that, we don't find that speed is much of a problem. To be more precise: Yes certain things could be faster, but those are mostly related to processing media say, rather than to the general slowness in all applications that I experienced on my previous Mac. Also just compare this to the Wintendo world: Most computers that are three years old are - rightly - considered very slow and tend to be replaced earlier."

-- Comment()
Scientists find computer speed limit: "If there is an article of faith in computer science, it's that everything can keep getting faster and faster. But scientists say they've discovered an apparent speed limit that will restrict how quickly data can be written onto disks and then retrieved."

Problems with Cisco VPN on Mac OS X -- Comment()
Ssp asked about Cisco VPN: "How do you connect to the Cisco VPN? Do you use the annoying GUI Cisco provides where you have to enter your password every single time you connect to the network? [...] Now that I can use the university wireless network, which requires use of Cisco VPN, from home I start finding this quite inconvenient - particularly with my Powerbook automatically going to sleep when idle. I'd much prefer a solution that reconnects automatically without need for any further password entry. Just like Airport does."

Yes, I'm using the GUI of the Cisco VPN, and I have found it inconvenient. But I have learned to live with it. A further caveat: if you are sending mail with Mac OS X Mail, and disconnect Cisco VPN, the mail-to-be-sent may disappear without trace. This never happens ordinarily when a network connection terminates, only when Cisco VPN is used. I really wish Cisco VPN would be integrated into the Keychain on Mac OS X, or there would be a command-line interface to it.

My old iBook is getting faster all the time -- Comment()
When Apple announced the new iBooks and PowerBooks on Monday (April 19th), I went to the Apple Store, selected a good configuration on 12" iBook and 15" PowerBook, and was almost ready to order a new computer. Only then did sense prevail. I'm actually quite happy with my 2.5-years-old iBook. In fact, the system has been getting faster, because Mac OS X 10.1 was quite slow in some tasks, 10.2 was already better, and 10.3 is rather nice in terms of performance. So, it feels like I have been getting a new computer every year since i bought the iBook. Of course, software has grown meanwhile, but many packages have also improved in performance: iPhoto, iTunes, Mail etc.

My only regret is that I didn't originally get 640 MB of memory for the iBook, only 384 MB. The hard disk of 30 GB is still sufficient, however, even though I have 17 GB of music and 2 GB of photos on it. And as I recently ordered a new battery for the iBook, also battery life will get better, I believe.

Smalltalk developer is honored -- Comment()
Smalltalk Creator Wins 'Nobel Prize' of Computing: "The ACM will honor Dr. Alan Kay with a 2003 Turing Award for his development of Smalltalk, the first complete dynamic object-oriented programming language and the template for Java and C++."

I remember fondly Smalltalk, which I had to learn in a course on object-oriented programming. The programming project was done in pairs, and our task was to program an interface for chess, including features for checking that the moves made by the players were legal. Later I had Smalltalk on my Mac, and played with it a bit, but never used it for any larger projects.