Bus error: Jake Billo’s weblog

This post continues the Zune review series. I received the device for free as part of a Matchstick promotion. My goal is to provide a technically engaging and impartial review for people interested in MP3 players. Other posts include

• Marketing in action: Matchstick sends out a Zune
• ChatThreads follows up on the Zune feedback sweepstakes

From futility to mass-market?

One thing that always struck me about the Zune is how futile the first Redmond effort seemed: when it launched in the United States (and US only), the iPod was definitely entrenched and all the reviews basically said the same things. Microsoft didn’t build the player - they simply tweaked a Toshiba Gigabeat and ran with it. The software at the time was a pretty skin on Windows Media Player that didn’t use the same library.

From my initial impressions, much of that has changed. The Zune software, in its 2.5th iteration, still has a very unique interface that might appeal to indie kids - but it’s snappy and stands out on the desktop. The hardware feels well-built and has wireless synchronization: a feature Apple can’t yet match.

Hardware first impressions

Zune arrives in compact, Apple-style packaging, although the encased plastic skin is hard to remove and caused immediate smudging of the screen. Removing the device from its container wasn’t as obvious as the iPod Touch removal process. The back, metal enclosure has a nice tactile feel and should resist scratching: this solves a huge problem with the iPod classic models that causes resale value to plummet.

The device didn’t have any battery charge by default. After plugging it into the PC, a very faint battery indicator appeared - although I thought a USB port had failed since the device didn’t appear to respond right away. Switching to a different USB port fired up my hard disk, and the IDE activity LED told me that a device was being connected. The screen displayed on zero charge is so dim that I had to get confirmation from a friend that the Zune was actually showing something.

While I didn’t get an accurate time estimate on the total charge time, it took less than an hour for the Zune to become active. I’d peg the MP3 player as fully charged (from zero to 100%) after four to five hours.

While the Zune is attached to the computer, all controls are inaccessible and the device simply displays “connected”. Synchronization activity is displayed with a slightly inaccurate percentage indicator, which looks nice but seems to always stall at 84%-85% completion when new songs are copied to the unit.

Using the “squircle”, a touch-sensitive control pad, is intuitive and works as expected. You can either touch (swipe) or click up, down, left or right on its surface. In playback mode, these directions perform the usual actions required from a portable music player (volume up, volume down, previous track and next track). Other screens use the directions to navigate left, right, up and down. Clicking the centre of the pad activates the currently selected item.

The “back” and “play/pause” buttons feel firm and make a distinctive click when pressed. It’s definitely possible to use the device while it’s still in a pocket, although users may want to disable touch sensitivity if this is the primary means of use.

On the device, anyone familiar with the Xbox Live “twist” user interface will be pleasantly surprised.

Categories, such as albums, artists and playlists are displayed across the top of the screen; items within that category can be scrolled up and down. The album browser displays a thumbnail of the associated image, and expand to two lines when highlighted, much like the active item in the “My Games” screen above.

(I don’t know how Avril got on there, or even why her pop-punk drivel is in my library. It’s definitely time to rate some of my music so this travesty can never occur again.)

The build quality of the device is excellent. Its solid construction and easy “gripability” provides a confident feel - I’m not concerned about dropping the Zune on the sidewalk or having it slip away from my grasp, unlike the iPod touch.

Audio quality on the unit itself is good, although the stock headphones leave quality to be left on the table. Using the premium headphones included with my review kit was a much better listening experience - they’re comparable to my favourite pair of Sony MDR-EX61 in-ear buds for audio range. The premium headphones also have magnetic backings so that they’re less likely to tangle in a pocket.

Compared to the BlackBerry 8320 that I’ve been using for basic MP3 listening on the bus, the Zune has a richer, more full bass sound on the same audio files. It’s definitely noticeable when switching from one device to another. This may be equalizer-correctable in the BlackBerry OS, but the software upgrade to OS 4.5 isn’t available on a wide scale yet. For now, my verdict is that the default Zune settings are quite good for standard music listeners.

More hardware details - such as FM radio support, podcasts and video playback will be detailed as I explore those features over the next few weeks. Here’s what’s ahead:

What’s impressed:

• Video playback appears to be smooth and looks great, even on the small screen.
• Support for FM radio is a unique feature that’s nice to have out of the box.
• The wireless synchronization works like expected without complaint.

What’s failed it:

• Slow performance when browsing the Pictures menu.
• Inconsistency in scrolling some menus: the wrap-around feature doesn’t work by touch.
• Overshooting artists and some other menu items by touch - reversing direction is not immediate.

Software first impressions

I’d already had the latest version of the Zune software installed, so there was no installation experience to speak of. To replicate the experience, I tried downloading and deploying it to a new Windows XP virtual machine - the process was fairly easy, barring the fact that running Windows Update concurrently caused the installer to fail. Finishing all the critical updates and rebooting the VM solved that issue, and the software installed without complaint. It’s hard to fault anyone but myself for that scenario.

I have all my music stored on a remote server, which isn’t a typical home user configuration but provides the most convenient way for my laptop and desktop to both use the same pool of media. Windows Media Player takes a long time to seek for the files, even over a gigabit LAN - and refuses to share content to my Xbox 360 without a series of long, painful permission changes.

Running the same process with the Zune software started badly. Windows Vista takes an inordinately long time (compared to Windows 2000, XP or any non-Windows OS) to enumerate all computers on the same workgroup. Simply expanding the Network icon started the hard drive churning - I switched over to My Computer,  mapped a network drive with the direct UNC path to my files, and switched back to the Zune software before the process finished.

After selecting the “M” network drive, the import was quick and displayed albums immediately. Unlike Windows Media Player, the background process appears to have increased priority, letting users get started listening to their music right away. This snappiness is an excellent change and bests every other audio player but Winamp.

Ratings in the Zune software are either nothing, a complete heart for “like”, or broken heart for “don’t like”. During the import process, the library seemed to import some metadata for these files from Windows Media Player at the equivalence of five stars for the “like” rating. Without the granularity of a standard 1-5 (plus zero for unrated) rating system, it’s difficult to customize playlists appropriately.

More software features and functionality will be detailed in an upcoming review, since the software is what really makes the device shine. Here’s a sneak peek:

What’s impressed:

• The find album info feature is accurate, consistently good and fixes ID3 tags without complaint.
• Interface effects are well-designed.
• When it comes to device software updates, the process is seamless:

What’s failed it:

• No mini-player mode, unlike iTunes or Windows Media Player 11’s toolbar. The equivalent is the Now Playing mode, which doesn’t offer album or artist sorting.
• Rating the current track involves switching to the “now playing” view. The collection also lacks a “go to the currently playing” command - Ctrl+L is one of my most-used iTunes shortcuts.
• Returning to a default view once you’ve filtered a search involves clicking from “artists” to “genres”, then back again. There’s no easy way to start at the default Collection screen again.

Social community first impressions

A large part of the Zune experience involves “the social”, which is a Windows Live ID-based system that assigns you a Flash-based card. The card displays a custom picture, background image, and recently played artists, and it can be embedded on other social networking profiles such as Facebook:

Unfortunately, the Facebook application is not always at its best:

When I clicked Sign In from the Zune software, it pleasantly surprised by displaying a list of all Windows Live Messenger accounts saved on the computer - a neat integration capability that you’d probably expect to see on a Mac. After providing the account password, I was prompted to accept updated terms of use through a browser, completely removing the immersive user interface experience. As per usual with Microsoft, the page redirected about four times and then attached to a Windows Live ID sign-in, which required the password yet again.

The next screen asked for some more personal information, most of which was already filled in the fields. A curious requirement was the Web site’s insistence on receiving a birthdate during signup. The information should already be present in my Windows Live ID account, but I’d have a hard time seeing why they’d need this detail: even complying with COPPA, they’d have known that detail when I initially attached my Xbox Live account to the Live ID. Overall, the signup seemed simpler than a comparable Apple/iTunes account, since Windows Live already had most of my information.

The final stage in the process launched the Zune software (even from Firefox) and prompted:

Did you know…?

Now that you have a Zune account, you can:

Join the Social, a beta online community where you can discover new music, share music with friends, and customize your Zune Card with your personal pictures and favorite songs.

Buy music and music videos and download free video and audio podcasts at Zune Marketplace.

Manage your account, configure privacy settings, and buy Microsoft Points online at Zune.net.

I was slightly offput to hear that the community features were still in beta, considering the software has already been through three major releases. Then again, the term “beta” these days seems to have been redefined to mean “lacks official support”.

Activating the Social component for the first time, my account was activated with this garish, zebra striped card. It would have been nice if Zune would have imported my avatar from Xbox Live’s selection, since the zune.net default selection of profile pictures and backgrounds leaves something to be desired.

Notice those non-striped avatars at the bottom? Along with my Xbox Gamertag list, I seem to have picked up some “friends” who are definitely not the same people I know from Xbox Live. My initial assumption was that they must have been default Microsoft-assigned accounts, but wasn’t sure if they were alter aliases of Xbox Live friends. I ended up having to look at each of the new profiles to find out why I had friendship foisted upon me.

Looking at “DJ Ms E”’s profile page on zune.net, all was explained:

This member of the Social is a Zune DJ. They’re automatically added to new members’ friends lists to get them started, and don’t count against your 100-friend limit.

It would have been nice to get more of a notification of who these additional friends were. Perhaps a badge or custom icon next to their profile image would have been a better cue than simply dropping them beside my existing Xbox Live friends. There’s also no way to remove these people from within the Zune interface - all remove requests are handled through the zune.net website.

It’s also interesting that this was the first time I’d heard about the 100 friend limit, and the limit includes Xbox Live friends. For people with distinctly different tastes in music and online gaming companions, I could see social butterflies easily running into problems here.

What’s impressed:

• The signup process is much less painful than I’d expected.
• Integration with Facebook is a nice touch.
• The Zune card appears to give badges or awards for listening to various types of music. Continuing along the lines of achievements is addictive and awesome!

What’s failed it:

• The Facebook application has occasional issues when clicking on the left-panel link.
• Horrible selection of backgrounds and avatars.
• Who are these people on my friends list, and why wasn’t I told about this earlier? And why can’t I remove them from within the application?

More impressions: marketplace, device synchronization and performance

What’s next for the Zune? I’m going to publish an in-depth look at the marketplace, syncing music and videos, and how well the software performs. Here’s a summary of what’s ahead:

• Marketplace: Not entirely there yet. Unknown error messages and content purchases just don’t work well. If content isn’t available in Canada, don’t display it!
• Music synchronization: Simplistic and easy - perhaps even too dumbed down. There’s no apparent way to fill the device with content, and autoplaylists are a shadow of Smart Playlist capabilities in iTunes.
• Performance: It’s a memory hog, but it’s only frozen once; all my data was saved out properly to boot. Zune beats iTunes hands down in this matter.

Be sure to check back soon for more impressions and thoughts - and maybe some more technical content!

From Boing Boing:

Western Digital is disabling sharing of any avi, divx, mp3, mpeg, and many other files on its network connected devices; due to unverifiable media license authentication.

The support page on the issue effectively notes that the ‘license authentication’ nonsense blocks any type of media from being accessed by anonymous share users.

I don’t own any WD external hard drives at present, but I’m sure as hell never getting one with these ridiculous restrictions, which look like they were penned by a third-world translator. I’ll stick with Seagate, who has decent pricing, good warranty service - and whose CEO is incredibly outspoken:

“Let’s face it, we’re not changing the world. We’re building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn.”

Quite a number of new systems I’ve built have included the P5B Deluxe or P5B Deluxe-WiFi motherboards. After an aggravating experience with a new build today - really out of the ordinary for the hardware - I figured I’d write up my experiences to save other people a potential issue.

Symptoms: When installing Vista x64 on a P5B Deluxe with 4GB RAM, the installation wizard blue screens and fails with a STOP message. I’d initially tried to pin this to the Intel ICH8R storage controller, since this was my first setup running a RAID1-array on a 64-bit OS. Unfortunately, RAID1 is almost necessary for a new home system these days because hard drives do fail, and people don’t like burning 500GB of their personal files to DVD.

However, even after setting the IDE controller to “Compatible” in BIOS, I received different errors - some apparently related to RAM, and the Windows Memory Test on the Vista installation DVD indicated that the machine had hardware issues. I broke out my copy of Memtest86, which found nothing out of the ordinary.

I tweaked the BIOS settings - memory remapping, PECI support - all with no real results or varied blue screen messages.

The solution eventually came to me when I was re-browsing Asus’ download site for BIOS upgrades. As part of all new system builds, I upgrade the BIOS to the latest stable version available. Unfortunately, Asus has two separate pages for these upgrades: one which just indicates “new BIOS releases”, and another page that lets you know which ones are beta versions. One thing you don’t want to do for a stable family system is install a beta BIOS, and any revisions publicly available after April 2007 are considered betas.

I likely wouldn’t have experienced this issue (and indeed proved it) if there was only 2GB of RAM in the system, or I wasn’t using an Intel E6750 1333MHz CPU. So, lesson learned? Make sure you read all the BIOS pages on Asus’ site before downloading and installing one. Currently I’m planning on reverting back to the latest official 1101 version, as opposed to version 1216 which seems to display these issues.

Update: Apparently downgrading your BIOS is a trickier proposition than originally thought. EZ Flash 2 (the built-in flash utility) will not downgrade BIOS versions, so you have to locate a copy of a DOS application called AFUDOS that supports downgrading:

AFUDOS 2.07

From this application, you’ll need to make a bootable USB stick/CD/floppy with the older BIOS image on it, and then use the command:

AFUDOS /iBIOS.ROM /pbnc /n

where BIOS.ROM is the path to the BIOS file you’d like to flash.

It’s been about 20 days since I was last able to crank out a post for the site - I’ve started a few entries but haven’t been able to finish anything of substance.

Work has primarily been what’s on my mind. I’ve finished - or at least stabilized - a large custom application for my job, which has new heights of reliability and performance compared to something like SharePoint Server and Project Server 2007.

For reference, and for any of you tasked with implementing a Windows 2003 Server / IIS / SharePoint / Project Server installation should read the available documents and get some good books first. Then, plan to install it at least five times before you get the hang of it. Here are just a few things that could, or did, go wrong during my test implementation:

• If a computer is not associated with a domain - just a workgroup - you’ll have to have some way of synchronizing usernames and passwords. This is acceptable if there are less than fifteen users, but if there’s a required password change every X number of days, then you’re looking at a serious problem.
• Implementing anonymous surveys, regardless of all the articles indicating that this is indeed possible, means that you will suffer ongoing pain. Drawbacks include absolutely lousy support for anonymous users in SharePoint in general; Firefox will call up a domain login prompt regardless of your IIS anonymous access settings, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Want to replicate the worst problem on your own setup? Create a survey with a page break in between the questions. Not only is it a UI nightmare (”Next” versus “Save”), but I can guarantee you a few sparring rounds with the Permissions Page of Death - even in Internet Explorer.
• Don’t migrate from a workgroup to a domain. Just start with a domain installation, even if it takes you through a maze of red tape to get a box connected. I was able to save a complete SharePoint content database, but Project Web Access is unforgiving if you decide to do such a migration. I couldn’t even log in once the process was complete.
• You will need a beefy box to get started with this sort of thing. Plan for at least a two server deployment, with a dedicated SQL Server database box and a dedicated web frontend. In my experience, performance on a standalone system was unacceptable with even two simultaneous users. MediaWiki does a much better job running on lower-specced hardware.

Don’t get me wrong - SharePoint, when installed and running properly, is a really neat collaboration tool that supports wikis, discussion boards, and all other manner of accountable content. When adding the Project Web Access component, though, strap yourself in and prepare for a wild adventure of babysitting installation processes.

In personal news, I’m still running the RC1 build of Windows Home Server, which is actually a remarkably long time for me to run any particular OS. I’ve heard rumblings of possible releases, and I would like to move to the RTM version, but so far none of my sources have been forthcoming. One thing I’d like the ability to do is dedicate a larger partition size to my System drive, which was locked at 20GB when I installed the operating system. After a few installations, my Program Files directory looks like it needs to be relocated.

For the record, don’t attempt to install Steam to your D:\shares storage pool. You’ll get miscellaneous errors and it’s just not worth the hassle.

Hardware news? I recently bumped up to a Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 with 4GB RAM for my main box, and added a Tuniq Tower 120 for cooling. The heatsink, besides being comparable with the “fins of death” passively cooling a Compaq Celeron 333 I once owned, is quite the nice addition and is currently allowing a 3GHz overclock with no issues. I still might need to tweak things a bit, but this guide at Anandtech was quite helpful getting the initial settings configured. As it stands, WinRAR absolutely flies when cranking out archives.

I think the biggest problem in my setup right now is the speed of disk access; Windows Home Server runs a drive rebalancing service in the background and often it seems like it’s kicking in at the least convenient moment. There’s an appreciable difference going from a 7200RPM Seagate Barracuda drive to a 10K RPM Western Digital Raptor. I’d like to see what running two Raptors in a RAID-0 configuration adds, but the drives are expensive enough that it’s not an idle experiment worth performing.

Edit: fixed some poor grammar.

Over the past few days, I’ve been trying to achieve the proverbial “holy grail” of display resolutions with my Sony KF-42E200A television. These series of TV’s also go by the series name E2000; the A in E200A indicates the Canadian model of this set. They use LCD rear projection technology, and are nearly deprecated in favour of people wanting thinner LCD panel or plasma TV’s. I, however, enjoy the more accurate colour reproduction, wealth of inputs and inexpensive nature of this particular 42″ set. It also has a replaceable lamp in the event that it dies.

However, it’s buyer beware for this TV when attempting to use the system as a home theatre PC; because the E2000 series has deprecated a VGA port in place of two HDMI inputs, you have to be wary of what resolution you decide to send it. The TV is “smart” enough to detect common PC resolutions (800×600, 1024×768, 1152×864) and tries to adapt them to the screen size, but also detects common HDTV resolutions (720×480p, 1280×720p, 1920×1080i.) When a HDTV resolution is detected, the TV automatically “overscans” the content:

This is perfectly acceptable for DVD and game console content, because all of those devices compensate for overscanning when outputting video. However, when it comes to PC usage, your desktop often gets cut off, making it fairly difficult to see certain icons and controls. You do have several options: changing the resolution or resizing the desktop within your ATI Catalyst Control Center / nVidia Desktop Manager. For my 8500GT, I can’t use PowerStrip or similar programs to force a custom resolution because the driver support’s not there.

In any event, what I’ve found so far is that setting the resolution to 1152×648 (I’m using a DVI to HDMI cable) will give a 1:1 pixel mapping resolution, with a slight amount of black borders around the edges. Then, using the nVidia control panel, I changed the resolution to 1280×720 and selected “do not resize my desktop” in the HDTV settings panel. Afterwards, I switched the desktop back to 1152×648 for standard PC usage.

When configuring Windows Media Center, I chose a 720p resolution, which automatically compensates for the overscan issue and uses the nVidia 1280×720 settings.

Reference links that may assist in your efforts are at AVSForum:

Sony E2000 Settings/Tweak Thread
The Official Sony E2000 series Thread
Setting up PowerStrip to yield 1:1 Pixel Mapping on Sony A10 LCD RPTV

It’s “System Administration Saturday”, which is my new informal term for all the maintenance and hijinks required to maintain a stable home network and computing environment each week. I have a significantly overcomplicated LAN, but it’s necessary to maintain the concept of “access from anywhere” that I enjoy being able to use.

Along with the usual maintenance required during the week, one of the things I figure I should do is maintain a real-life changelog of what goes on so that I know what might’ve recently been changed. Today’s can be summarized as:

• Enabled the jumbo frame setting on bender and monolith with a payload size of 9000 bytes. I’m still only seeing spikes of 20% usage on the gigabit Ethernet adapter from bender, but file transfers across the switch are slightly improved in speed.
• Attempted another fix to the WRT54G v8’s port forwarding configuration to resolve FTP passive mode issues. No word on whether this has worked yet; if not, I’d be willing to bet there’s something odd with FileZilla Server requiring a reinstallation.
• Resynchronized the bender dropbox and downloads folders to monolith. monolith’s disk space is sitting at 475GB free of 1.71TB total. There’s room in the box for one more internal SATA drive and one eSATA unit, but I’d need a new, reliable enclosure to put an eSATA disk into production.

Along with these changes, I’ve compiled a list of several potential new upgrades that would be “nice to have” items whenever I get a bit of spare cash:

Edit: Fixed table formatting to be less… wide.

In recent months, I’ve often complained about the state of wireless data access in Canada - that is, how expensive it is to use the Web, access email and operate instant messaging over mobile devices. These incredibly high data rates make access to devices like the BlackBerry, HTC TyTN, and the obligatory iPhone limited to those users who have a business or government-locked plan with unlimited access.

One of the references I frequently cite is that Canada is worse than some third-world countries when it comes to this sort of thing.

As an aspiring developer, I’m incredibly interested in what these new devices are capable of. In order to make a serious go of Web development for mobile devices, though, it’s at least a $200 plus contract investment.

Working for Research in Motion gives an especially interesting perspective on the scenario. As a co-op student, I have a device with an (allegedly) unlimited data plan; co-ops don’t get voice (phone calls) activated on their units unless it actively relates to their job role. Since I work on BIS projects, this doesn’t apply to me - which is fine, I’d rather not place personal calls on a work device. I’m not an incredibly heavy data user by any means: I hit Google News once per workday at lunch, and I used Blackberry Maps for about 20 minutes this weekend to try and find out where MacGregor Point’s entrance was.

If I added in a bit of Facebook Mobile access, this type of data usage as a standard consumer would likely put me in a 25MB/month bracket - less than 1MB per day, which could easily be eaten up with a few Google Image searches.

Such a level of usage would require a $60/month, three year contract purchase plus whatever cell phone voice package I selected. Unless I was willing to call up my provider and argue over retention plans (which is a very popular topic at Howard Forums), I could be paying well over $100/month.

The ever-present speculation on forums and blogs to date seems to surmise that if and when Rogers is awarded the iPhone contract in Canada, they’ll be forced by Apple to reduce data rates to something more in line with the United States unlimited plans - $60 per month for a goodly number of minutes, text messages and unlimited EDGE access. Once this change is implemented, the other carriers will supposedly fall into position. I don’t have any insider industry information on this though: one would think purchasers of the BlackBerry Pearl, the highly consumer-oriented device, would already be raising hell about the situation.

As a consumer, I’d welcome lower-cost, wide availability of data plans. Just don’t count on the magical Apple product to change things here. I’ve heard suggestions of writing to the CRTC, the MP for my region, the Minister of Industry, and the Prime Minister. Would any of these things actually be the correct place to direct my concerns?

Standard disclaimer: Although I work for RIM, chances are you know just about as much as I do about future product plans, business speculation, and carrier relationships. Go check Engadget or something if you really want dirt. Anything mentioned in this post or on this site is strictly my opinion and most certainly not that of my employer. This posting confers no warranties, rights, or anything else that you think you’re owed. I’m under an NDA, so anything mentioned here is already public knowledge or my own personal speculation.

This conference call transcript should explain everything, as well as Larry Hyrb’s podcast feed.

When they have to bring in Peter Moore to explain things, plus offer a $1 billion-plus loss on financial statements, you KNOW that there was something seriously wrong that Todd Holmdahl couldn’t weasel his way out of.

I figured that it might be a good idea to draw up a network diagram of my home setup in preparation for a DSL installation later this week. Since about January, I’ve been investigating alternate internet service providers, since there’s no way I can afford having a slow or disconnected Internet line. If Rogers decides to implement bandwidth throttling or caps, I want to make sure there’s a backup connection in case the 8Mbit Extreme line gets pulled or shaped.

I signed up for the 5MBit unlimited DSL package from TekSavvy; they’ve been getting incredibly good reviews on BroadbandReports (DSLReports) and they have technicians active in the forums all the time. I also decided to go with a guaranteed static IP address for the line, since they specifically don’t block any ports.

Apple’s huge WWDC was today, and the Steve Jobs speech, while devoid of any new hardware, was fairly interesting in that it heralded the announcements of two huge features for OS X 10.5.

A new Desktop was nice to see, considering Apple’s effectively had the same Desktop UI since OS X 10.0. The improvements to the Dock look pretty interesting, although I’m unsure if I like the “curved” Stacks feature so far.

The new Finder, though, is a welcome item. There are a few minor performance problems with the current iteration browsing network drives and navigating folders. Ideally this will be fixed with the new sidebar implementation.

I also had the chance to try out the Safari 3 beta on my PC today. The download size was decently small, and it seems to use a similar amount of RAM to Firefox. The page rendering speed, though, is like Apple claimed - blisteringly fast. Memory usage always seems to be a problem with several of the “OS X on Windows” applications, but as long as the program doesn’t persistently chew up more over time, I’d rather have snappy performance when the browser is the active window at the expense of some system resources.

Speaking of RAM, I’ve already hit the hardware limit for my MacBook of 2GB, and I’m eyeing the new Santa Rosa-based MacBook Pro systems because they can go up to 4GB. I’ve also hit the 2GB sweet spot for my main PC workstation, and while I’d love to go to 4GB and see what happens for performance, Windows is only going to allocate 3.5GB of that at most. My typical usage is generally under 1GB, but I haven’t been firing up Eclipse on my home system lately.

I also installed the newest iteration of the WRT54G (revision 8.0) since my existing WRT54GS v1.1 decided to drop a port. When Linksys routers lose a LAN port, generally it means that their time routing packets is over with. The new model has less onboard memory and apparently is less tolerant of third-party firmware, but the official stuff seems to do 90% of what I want. The LED blink rate is also slightly faster. I’ll have to run a few further tests with BitTorrent and some other network intensive applications and compare performance.

As a result of the new router, I’m going to try and get my FTP and HTTP servers up and running again. It’s useful to point people to e98.homeip.net/files in case there’s an image, MP3 file or ZIP archive needing to be transferred without incurring the wrath of MSN/Windows Live Messenger’s god-awful file transfer system.

I also intend to write a post sometime this week about my new consulting venture with Dave and Warren called EdgeLink Consulting. We’re just in the initial stages of setting things up, but basically it’ll give any computer repairs I do more of an official standing.

In any event, rebooting for Safari 3 on the Mac… why is this needed on the Mac and not on the PC?