Mac OS X is the best desktop OS ever. Seriously, it is. The newest offering, OS X 10.4, is slick beyond comprehension at times.

The migration app included and run during the post-install setup program is the coolest thing I have ever seen. Check it:

I bought a new dual G5 2GHz for a coworker a couple of weeks ago. Usually, when a new machine comes, I set it up on the network, install the suite of apps we use (Adobe Creative Suite, Macromedia Studio, QuarkXpress, et cetera, et cetera), config the user account, enable sharing on the needed directories, and so on. It takes usually 4-6 hours. But not any more.

Now, I boot up the new Mac, next to the old one, and turn it on. It starts the setup program, and along the way asks if I am migrating from an old machine. When I say yes, it waits for me to connect a FireWire cable between the new machine and the old machine. I then power on the old machine, holding down the ‘t’ key. This boots any recent Mac into Target FireWire mode, allowing the old mac to basically become an external FireWire hard drive. Once that is done, the new Mac begins transferring user information and programs to the new machine. It took about 60 minutes to transfer roughly 50GB of files, user information, and programs, to the new machine. And when it is complete, it prompts me to turn off the old Mac, and reboot the new one. After I rebooted, all I had to do was reactivate Quark, which has a bogus licensing scheme these days, but you can activate through their web site, and it only takes about 10 minutes for themto get back to you with a new ‘Activation Code’.

But seriously, *everything worked*. Printers, file sharing, all programs, the user account was absolutely identical, icons in the same place, everything. Absolutely fucking gorgeous.

Now if only XP could help me out like that….even with F&STW it still takes agonizingly long to get a new machine to the state I need to to be….Three days of free time and my T30 still isn’t absolutely dialed, and that was just a reinstall!

The swivel Coolpix is back.

This new one, however, has many, many advantages to its old 950-series bretheren.

• 6.0 megapixels
• 10x optical zoom
• compact size
• 2.5″ LCD

I ordered one for my office to replace our woefully-insufficient Olympus D510-Z. With 1GB SD card, the S4 came to just over $450. With those features, that is a really great deal, imo.

It’s a lot of fun to shoot with, being both very fast and very point-and-shoot friendly. It’s a little too automatic for me, but it has to be pretty easy to use to be useful here at the shop.

It can shoot an entire hour of video to its 1GB card, and I’ve been taking advantage of that. I am a fan of low-fidelity digital video, and it’s great with still slideshows in things like baby-photo DVDs. It also takes some great still pictures. 6MP makes for some really nicely detailed images at the $400 price point. Through my HP photo printer, it is amazingly easy to see the improvement from my 3.2MP Canon to the Nikon shots. I prefer the color from my Canon, but I have also had it long enough to know better how to set up the shots for the conditions.

All in all, I think this is a really nice camera for $400. The swivel-action is very cool for those party-shots where you are trying to take a picture of yourself with someone else, being that you can rotate it around to see the LCD while taking a picture. 10X optical is incredible on a camera of this size. The video features are great, and you can even zoom while shooting video.

I just got back from the Apple store. The iPod nano is wicked small. Wicked small. And light. I would totally ruin one.

But damn. In black, they are some sick shit. Come on Apple. Sell me a black 60GB.

Sitting here on my desk is a brand-new ThinkPad T42. I bought it for a new hire at the office. I have yet to play with a ThinkPad purchased after the Lenovo sale.

First Impressions
T-series ThinkPads are sick. The composite case is just ill. This new ThinkPad T42 (2378-R4U) is only about an inch thick, and makes my T30 (2366-85U) look completely old. I really like the look of T-series ThinkPads - they look very industrial, not slick-design stylee like many notebooks on the market. There’s something about the look that makes an IT geek know that it means business.

I have yet to power the machine on, but I have already encountered one issue. Upon opening the memory chip cover, the small washer that is meant to keep the screw inside the plastic was not correctly placed. So, unscrewing it did not make the cover lift up as it should, making me have to use a precision screwdriver to remove the cover. I was able to correctly seat the washer after installing the 1GB chip that I installed, and now the cover works correctly. Not a huge deal, but that was the very first thing I did to the machine, after ogling it that is. Makes me a little nervous.

I’ll let you know how the initial setup process goes, as well as some updates from down the road. I really want it to go well, because I don’t want to have to buy corporate notebooks that aren’t ThinkPads.

helpful stuff from those super smart guys over at IBM.

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-ie2mozgd/

Link found here originally: http://www.whatdoiknow.org/enjoying/

A nice link collection, worth checking out.