Guaranteed to bloat

I'm the "proud" owner of one of Apple's most infamous spare parts: their old, bloatable Macbook battery! Went to the store from where I had purchased the Macbook some six years ago, and they told me that they would have to source for a replacement battery from around the region. I dithered for a while but then decided that it wasn't worth throwing RM490 to buy a new battery with only a three-month warranty. I would interpret this to mean that yes, the replacement battery is guaranteed to bloat again after the three months are up!

Flashback malware

I have to face up to the inevitable fact that my MacBook - which, by the way, I use very little nowadays - is now liable to get infected by computer malware if I'm not careful. In particular, the flashback virus has been in the news for several weeks now and users of Apple computers are rushing frantically to get a fix.

Suddenly, Apple users have come to realise that it is not only about flashback but computer viruses in general that can infect their machines. Apple computers are no longer the safe machines once believed.

Apple itself has come out to patch up their most recent operating systems although they were slow, or perhaps reluctant, to respond immediately. As usual, they thought smugly that their operating systems were invincible to attacks. But eventually, they did respond with the patches for their newest OS X operating systems.

Yesterday, I learnt that the company has released an update for their old OS X Leopard. Glad to hear that of course, but nevertheless I'm still disappointed because there was nothing for the OS X Tiger which I'm still using. Tich, I'm way behind in my OS X, aren't I?

Fortunately though, I still hope to be spared from this flashback infection because of a fortuitous decision to instal an anti-virus program on my MacBook. This was done in March 2011 - that's more than a year ago - on the advice of an old school pal who had alerted me from London about the possibility of Apple computers being affected by viruses, not particularly flashback. He had then recommended me using the free Sophos anti-virus program.

I'm still in the process of doing a thorough anti-virus scan of my MacBook's harddisk and at slightly past midnight, it still looks clean. So far, it has been a very slow process, already taken almost two hours and only about 320,000 items on the computer scanned with another 280,000 to go. Whatever, I am rather thankful that I had listened to my old friend. Better be safe than sorry.

Anyhow as an added insurance, I've also disabled Java on both the Firefox and Safari browser programs on the MacBook. Can't be too careful, can I?

UPDATE: Sophos finished scanning my harddisk at about four o'clock in the morning. So it was almost a six-hour job. The program detected three threats which I've now removed from the MacBook. Thankfully, flashback was not among them.

If you are an Apple user, you can download the Sophos Free Antivirus for Mac Home Edition from their website.

TuneIn radio app

It has been a very long while since I ever thought about buying one of those Internet wifi radios. The idea appealed to me a lot. As far as I can remember, I had been playing around with short-wave radios, dialing in to all sorts of radio transmissions from across the world, whatever I could like audible on the radio waves. I wasn't into it in any big way, though. More like dabbling with this stuff. And my radio-listening hobby began most probably from my primary school days.

The very first transistor radio in my possession - actually, bought by my father - was this Hitachi WH-817. My first window to the world. Practically slept with it. With the adjustable lever on the front, I could switch from medium wave to short wave. It's long been spoilt and thrown away but I saw the exact same model in a museum in Sitiawan last year, still with its original leather case. So you can imagine my excitement. Wow, wow, wow.

This was my favourite transistor: the Sony ICF-7600D which I bought in Singapore. The price then was a cheap SGD100 and at that time in the mid-80s, the Malaysian Ringgit was still at near parity with the Singapore Dollar. It's still in good working condition but where I'm living right now, I shall need a good external antenna to pull in any decent signal. All things considered, the Internet radio would be a logical progression for me in this modern age. Many radio stations have turned to streaming and I would been able to pick up their radio streams easily.

How long has it been since I was eyeing a wifi radio to buy? I think it must have been at least two years. There were a few models that I was drooling a lot after, in particular the Philips Streamium MCi298 and the Logitech Squeezebox Boom (and later, the Touch).

The Streamium was supposed to be launched in Malaysia but despite all the hoo-haa and hype on their webpage, the model was never released locally at all. After a while, all traces of information on their webpage were removed. I tried to get in touch with the Philips office but always, I would hit a blank. Moreover, there was nobody replying to their customer service emails. Well, nobody answered my emails anyway.

Disgusted with the lack of information and response from Philips Malaysia, my attention turned to the Boom. I happened to be in Singapore and friends directed me to Sim Lim Square. If ever there's a place where you can find computer peripherals, this must be it! But despite walking all the floors, I was disappointed. None of the outlets carried the Boom but there was one shop carrying the Touch which they claimed was a newer model than the Boom.

I was rather hesitant because what I was looking for was a portable Internet radio that I could carry around the house. The Streamium or the Boom would have been ideal. The Touch would require it to be hooked up to a hifi system or at the very least, a pair of small portable speakers. I wasn't particularly interested in keeping a radio that could not be moved anywhere easily, although the idea of connecting it to my hifi system was very appealing.

So I didn't buy the Touch as well. A second visit to Singapore followed months later. By then, my resolve was already weakening. Surely, this time I will buy a unit. But as fate would have it, I didn't. Again, I hesitated. I'm due to make a visit there again sometime next year. Surely, I will pick it up then? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Then yesterday, a Singaporean friend asked me to download the TuneIn radio app for my new ipad. It's really good, he said, lots of good channels. Stephen knows me well enough; he knows what I want and he knew I was still searching for a good Internet radio.

True enough, TuneIn is a very interesting app for the ipad. It pulls in streaming signals from all over world so I'm able to listen to transmissions from far-flung places like the States or Britain or Australia or wherever. I'm only limited by the speed of the Internet line.

And last night, I wondered how the sound would be like if I were to connect the ipad to my hifi system. Well, it sounded alright. The music resonated out through my speakers with clarity and good separation. No fuzziness or distortion at all. I suppose it would be the same if I were to hook up the Touch to the hifi system as well but now, I'll never know.

I'm glad that I did not buy the Touch earlier. To me, the ipad performs just all well. It serves my purpose and that's all I want.

New toy, old toy

I had been thinking of getting one of these play things for a very long time but had put it off for one reason or another. But mind you, it's not because of a certain Mr Steve Jobs (deceased), okay? None of that. It's just that several weeks ago, I happened to see the usefulness of the ipad2 for presentation purposes. Quite a nifty little machine, that! So I went to the Switch store at Queensbay Mall this afternoon to pick up this 16Gb+3G baby. What I'm left with now is for a friend to return from overseas so that I can copy the presentation slides from him....

On death

I found a copy of Steve Jobs' commencement address at Stanford University on 12 Jun 2005. Here is the part that interested me most. I think he must have been a Buddhist at heart:

Steve Jobs at Apple's "Let's Rock" media event in San Francisco on 9 Sep 2008

"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

"About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

"I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

"This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

No more Jobs

 

Stories are everywhere on the Internet. Initially, I read it here and here, but then I saw it here, here and here. No doubt, I'll see it there, there and there too, eventually!

Google Chrome for Mac

So finally, Google Chrome arrives for the Apple, although it is still a beta version. But be warned: my initial euphoria has turned to great disappointment. I've just noticed that it refuses to run on the Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). The application software will only work with 10.5 or later. Utter disappointment. In the meantime, users of Leopard or Snow Leopard can still download Google Chrome from here.

Let us respond positively to Steve Jobs' appeal

Well, Steve Jobs is back at Apple after taking leave at the beginning of the year to undergo a liver transplant. People attending the Apple Rock n Roll event in San Francisco yesterday saw a gaunt and frail-looking Jobs strolling onto stage in his trademark black tee and blue jeans to explain his absence, thank the crowd for their support and then unveil new features for the iPod but which did not include the strongly-rumoured deal for Beatles music.

Below is only a static picture, so please don't be tempted to click on the "play" button. It doesn't work. You can always search for him on YouTube, such as here.

But basically, he passed along this important and significant message to the audience and beyond, which I'm highlighting in red: "I'm very happy to be here today with you all. As some of you know, about five months ago I had a liver transplant. I now have the liver of a mid-20s person who died in a car crash and was generous enough to donate their organs. I am alive because of their generosity. So ... I hope all of us can be as generous and elect to become organ donors. I'd like to thank everyone in the Apple community for their concern. It means a lot ... So, I'm vertical, I'm back at Apple and loving every minute of it. It's wonderful."

The iPhone's in Malaysia. New iPod Shuffle soon too?

For days, I've been waiting with some curiosity for Maxis to launch the Apple iPhone in Malaysia. Yes, the iPhone is now officially available in the country but to buy it, users have to be subscribed to Maxis. That's how Apple wants it: tie their iPhone with a country's telco. But this sort of tie-up is ridiculous and unrealistic from the consumer's point of work as it becomes restrictive. Of course, it's still possible to bring in an iPhone from overseas and avoid all the association with Maxis.

Anyway, I received an SMS from the telco last night that said: "Be one of the first to own an Apple iPhone3G from Maxis! Check out the iPhone3G rateplans & pre-book yours today at www.maxis.com.my/iphone"

This morning, I decided to visit their website and see whether their enthusiasm could be infectious. On a personal level, no. I'm not too keen on their rate plans. Of course, I would like to use an iPhone but there's no compelling reason to commit at least RM100 a month to a telco just to own it. My monthly usage is never higher than their iValue1 but I suppose a lot of local geeks will fall over this opportunity. Not me, I'm no geek.

Honey, I shrunk my iPod. Yes, that's what's happening at Apple. They shrunk the iPod Shuffle and it's so tiny. Two days ago, Apple unveiled a 4GB Shuffle that's even smaller than its predecessor. Measuring 46mm by 8mm, it's even smaller than an AA battery. Pretty impressive dimensions.

The 4GB Shuffle holds up to 1,000 songs and has a feature that can tell users the song titles, artists and playlist names, as well as provide status information, such as battery life (up to 10 hours on a single charge). The only controls on the gadget are the on/off switch and the shuffle/llnear switch. To navigate the menu and adjust the volume, users have to play with a small protrusion on the right earphone cord.

No Google Chrome for Mac yet, so use CrossOver Chromium

Looks like Google Chrome for the Mac is still a long way off. I tried searching to see whether a Mac version was already available (remember, a Windows version was launched last year) but it's not. But the developers did ask for my email address so that they'll inform me when it's ready.

Nevertheless, I noticed that there is something similar called CrossOver Chromium, created by the people at CodeWeavers, and released for free download on Mac OS X as a native Mac .dmg file or on Ubuntu, RedHat, Suse, etc. as standard Linux packages.

CrossOver Chromium: looking a lot like Google Chrome

According to their webpage, the program is a proof-of-concept, developed for the fun of it (and it doesn't even have an auto-updater), to showcase the capability of Wine which is an open source technology allowing Windows executables to be run as-if-natively on Intel-based Unix operating systems such as Linux and Mac OS X.

The developers advised that CrossOver Chromium should be used with discretion and they take no responsibility for crashes, lost data, errant cookies, or that sort of thing. In short, CrossOver Chromium should not be used as your main browser.

Picasa for Mac

I didn't forget to download the new Picasa for Mac. The program is now installed on my MacBook and it looks almost the same as the Picasa 3 version that I have on my home desktop. Well, at least now I have more options on image processing.


Picasa for Linux is available too. Hopefully, I can get it installed on my office Linux box by the end of next week!

Google's Chrome on MacBook

Well, I've managed to install Chrome on my MacBook and this screenshot shows how it looks like:


Of course, I'm not supposed to be able to do this because Google said that a Mac or Linux version of Chrome is not available yet. But hey, it won't stop anybody with the Parallels program on their Macs from installing Chrome inside their Windows XP or Vista, right?

True to Google's style, Chrome is very minimalist. Where are all those dropdown menu items? I miss them. And the bookmarks? Oh, there's a little folder icon in the top right corner. It says "Other bookmarks." It's a great paradigm shift after using Internet Explorer and Firefox but I'm sure the menus won't be missed before long.

Now, I'm wondering whether Chrome has beaten the record set by Firefox 3 as the most downloaded program within a single day.....

P.S. Light blue. I still don't like this colour!

Google's Chrome

Do a search on "google chrome download" and you'll see that Google has already soft-launched their browser. Frankly, I don't like the colour. It's light blue and it's missing some vibrancy.

I've just heard that Google is launching their own Internet browser called Chrome from tomorrow. Chrome is supposed to be so easy that even monkeys can start using them.

Chrome is touted to be lightweight and fast, and able to cope with the next generation of web applications that rely heavily on graphics and multimedia. The new browser is also supposed to work even better with Google's suite of web-based applications such as Documents, Picasa and Maps.

More than challenging the traditional desk-top programs, I sincerely believe that Chrome is going to give Internet Explorer and Firefox a serious run for their money! Where will it leave them? But too bad that Chrome won't be available for the Mac or Linux yet but I'll be looking forward to it.

Want to learn more? Visit Google's Chrome comic book and read the first few pages. Frankly, I got bored after the first six or seven pages.

MacBook Air

I was watching a recording of Apple CEO Steve Jobs give his keynote presentation at Macworld 2008 early this morning. The showman that he is, Steve Jobs really took his time to slowly display his latest toy, the MacBook Air, to the impatient crowd who were hanging on to his every word.


First, he teased the crowd with a picture of a large envelope on the projection screen:


Then, he slowly walked to the podium stand and held up a similar envelope. Could this really be it? The world's thinnest notebook? Inside the envelope?


You could hear the people in the audience going oohs and aahs when he unravelled the string and slowly brought out the MacBook Air:


It was really that thin. At its broadest, the MacBook Air is still thinner than the thinnest non-Apple notebook in the market today. Jobs was balancing it on the tips of his fingers. I was thinking to myself: he'd better not drop it, not in front of a big audience. Do you want one??


For all its appeal, the Macbook Air compromises in several areas. From what I can see, there's no optical drive so if you want to watch movies on DVD, you'll have to go wireless to connect to an external DVD-ROM drive. Can be quite a hassle. There's also only one USB port.

But the new features include an oversized trackpad with multi-touch technology that allows you to swipe, pinch and rotate what you see on the screen. Impressive! Aesthetically thin with black keys on a backlit keyboard. So do you still want one??

Switch to Sony

I don't know whether you'd consider this to be a betrayal of one's ideals but the owners of the Switch outlets that sell the full range of Apple products in Penang have now opened this Sony shop at the Queensbay Mall in Bayan Lepas. The shops are barely a hundred metres apart.

I suppose the two businesses complement one another because some consumers like Apple products and some others prefer non-Apples. Consumers will be pointed to the other outlet for an alternative choice. In business, practicality comes first and the most important consideration is to think about your bottom line.

Macbook battery on the blink

When I purchased a Macbook one year ago, it never occurred to me that I should also buy an extended warranty for the laptop.

But then, my Macbook's battery developed a problem recently. All I could see was an X in the battery icon where normally, I would see the charge in percentage. No matter how long I attempted to charge the battery, it couldn't be done. Everytime I pulled the battery adapter from the laptop, it would go pfft!

I sought help from CG Computers, one of Apple's authorised dealers in Malaysia, at their Hardwicke House centre in Penang. Yap Kant, the engineer there, had both good news and bad news for me.

The bad news was, my battery had died. The good news was, my Macbook was still under warranty. But...the warranty was going to expire by the end of this month. He said I had better buy the extended warranty to safeguard my precious purchase. So did Henrick, another their staff.


So while I was waiting for the replacement battery to arrive, I went around to ask a few fellas about the extended warranty.

The first person I asked was Nanis. If ever there is a man who is without doubt totally, absolutely, 100 percent crazy about Apple products, it must be Nanis. He said the extended warranty was fully recommended because anything could always go wrong. He knew of a person who was very lucky with the extended warranty because his motherboard burnt out. For a laptop, a spoilt motherboard would be almost equivalent to the cost of the whole computer itself.

Ted also told me about the same tale. Ordinarily, he said, he wouldn't bother with an extended warranty for desktops but he would recommend it for laptops. Jeffrey, the third person I asked, also said more or less the same thing, that he would buy the extended warranty in my position.

Well, I guess that settled it. When I went back to CG Computers to collect my new battery, I bought the Apple Care Protection Plan. And not a moment too late.


Cost? Not cheap at RM899. But I consoled myself that a new off-the-shelf battery for my Macbook would have cost me RM650. Somehow, it's not so painful now...

PC Fair was in town

Oh, I forgot ... the PC Fair was in town a week ago. Not this weekend, but last weekend. We had ours in Penang a week before the KL folks get to have theirs.

As usual, it was a HUGE computer pasar malam. Nothing new to impress me except to look at the new range of iPods on display, not only at the CD Computers' Switch station but at other outlets too.

I took the opportunity to try out the panoramic feature on my Sony Ericsson K750i. I snapped these three photos in sequence and had the software merge them together. At a glance, I can hardly see where one photo ended and the other began but if you look closely, the seams are there. Still, I'm impressed enough by the software's capability. Thought, maybe, I can share with you too. Here it is. Please click on the image to see the result of my experimentation.

iPod touch

Cool...an iPod that now looks like an iPhone. Launched earlier on Wednesday by Steve Jobs in San Francisco. I don't own an iPhone because it's useless here in Malaysia. And I don't own an iPod because for ages, I've been using a MiniDisc player for my music.

I'm not complaining about my MiniDisc player though, because it's such a faithful servant. It gives me the best possible sound when I'm recording or playing back with it. But I'm hard put to find any shop selling blank minidiscs even in Kuala Lumpur and that's a big obstacle.
But it looks timely to get an iPod touch eventually which combines the best of audio and video playback. A multi-touch interface, a 3.5-inch widescreen display, wifi web-browsing with Safari and it comes in either the 8Gb or 16Gb model. I'd prefer a bigger capacity model but it seems that that's not an option. Best, it will integrate well with the latest iTunes7.4 that I already have on my MacBook so I can easily import all the music from my CD collection. But wait...shouldn't I get the iPod classic instead with its 80Gb and 160Gb models since I don't normally watch a lot of movies or videos? Cor, hard choice to make here....

Guess I'll have to wait a few more weeks before I head to CG Computers here in Penang for a peek at the new iPods.

Boot Camp dumped

Just a short note to say that I've finally dumped Boot Camp in favour of Parallels. This is for real and the long haul forward. So, no more rebooting of my MacBook to go from Tiger to WinXP and vice-versa. This feature really convinced me to switch over.


parallels

Parallels on MacBook

I've been using Boot Camp on my MacBook ever since I bought it last December to use those programs that run exclusively on Windows XP - programs like my Sony SonicStage and my Willfame.

Since last Wednesday, I've been playing around with Parallels which when installed on the MacBook, allows you to create a virtual machine that lets you instal Windows XP, Windows Vista and even Linux.

Parallels is so convenient that anyone using this program will eventually want to stop using Boot Camp. I know I will. My version of Parallels is only for trial use so it is quite inevitable that I've got to get myself an activation key before the end of the month.


Here is how my MacBook looks like with Parallels. The Paint program and ZoneAlarm are both running on Windows XP Home while the flash video clip is running on SWF on Mac OS X (Tiger). If you look closely, the video clip is showing the two richest guys on the planet, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

One nice feature about Parallels is the Coherence mode which makes the virtual machine practically invisible on the MacBook. Here, you see both Windows' Internet Explorer (displaying my other blog, It's All In The Planning, at ssquah.wordpress.com) and Mac's Finder side-by-side. The only visible trace of Windows XP running is the taskbar above the Mac's Dock, but I can even auto-hide it. Neat, eh?



parallels