With the computing dramas of the last few days I was hoping that the Mac Pro would turn up, and it did this morning. Today as they say is the first day of the rest of my life, for today I’m a Mac user.

First Impressions
The Mac Pro is heavy, and comes is a very large box, so large that the courier driver bought it to the front door on a trolly 🙂
That aside, wow! I plugged it in, turned it on and within 5 minutes I was up and running. I’ve owned many, many PC’s over the years and it’s never been this simple.

About an hour after the Mac arrived the 4gb of memory arrived from the States. God bless the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement, under $400 US delivered and no customs duty to be paid. This is where the experience gets better. Unlike PC’s, which are usually sealed with a sticker saying that if you break it you void your warranty, the Mac Pro not only has a button to release the side of the box, the instruction manual that comes with it even explains how to insert the memory! So much for Mac’s being closed systems! Putting the memory in was also easier than any PC I’ve ever encounted. Top end new PC’s might have this functionality now but essentially the 8 Mac memory slots reside on 2 cards that can be easily removed to place the memory in. No fussing around trying to get the memory in the slot in a small space, the memory easily slotted on the card, and the card takes less than 5 seconds to reinsert. Turned the Mac back on, not one problem.

Interface
As a life long PC user this is a bit of a shock. Surprisingly the minimize window buttons on the left aren’t a big deal, after half a day I’m not even looking on the right hand side anymore. Looks are wonderful. Sure, Vista is a nice interface but this is something more special again. I half suspect that maybe it’s also the programs as well, Twitterrific for example is splendid, but the whole thing just gels visually so well.
Hardest part so far is the task bar (the top bar). I’m use to having my drop down menus at the top of a window. The hardest part is remembering to click on an application to access this, for example I’ll have Photoshop open on monitor two to create images for TechCrunch. I’ll get use to it, just a small thing.

The Bad

Mac’s are suppose to just work, and I’ve got to say that mostly that’s true, installing programs for example is a breeze. The problems is that I’m having issues finding device drivers for my Logitech Cam, Keyboard and Mouse. The keyboard and mouse are working, but none of the supplemental buttons on either are. The webcam doesn’t work at all, despite being relatively new. Now to be fair none worked under Ubuntu either, but Apple brags that your peripherals will work, this clearly isn’t the case, although I’ll spend some more time in the coming days digging for drivers. Some of the way things install can also be a little dicky as well, for example I have what look like disk drives for a couple of the programs on my desktop, when I delete them I delete the programs, it’s like I’ve mounted the program instead of installing it.

Parallels
I’m creating this post in Ecto: for a blogging platform raved about it’s not half as nice as Windows Live Writer; that and you’ve got to pay for it. I’ll probably purchase Parallels in the next couple of days and run either Vista or XP in it so I can switch back to Writer, and maybe even get my Webcam working. I need Windows for testing purposes anyway: yes, I should be embracing Mac alone but I write reviews for a living at the moment, and it’s not uncommon to encounter Windows only apps.

Overall
On speed alone I love it, but having said that it’s an Apple and Oranges comparison (pardon the pun), 2x Dual Core Intel 2.66 something or others with 4gb ram vs an AMD 3400+ with 2gb of ram on my PC box. No regrets, I’ve still got a lot to learn but so far no error messages, no validation messages, no continual prompts asking me if I want to do that: not having to deal with this alone is worth its weight in gold 🙂

It’s been 30 days since I made the grave error of upgrading to Vista. Before that day I was a happy Microsoft customer, after that I bought a Mac (which should be delivered this week).

The 30 days marks the day I can no longer use Vista because I am unable to validate it, despite now trying to reinstall it several times as per the advice I got off the phone from Microsoft, and of course having a valid a legal copy of Vista itself, along with the key for XP.

Silly me never thought to burn XP before this day: Compaq’s don’t come with a restore CD, only a backup partition, so my only space filling choice was Linux unless I wiped the hard disk, which I wasn’t willing to do.

Linux has come a long way. I’ve still got my Red Hat Linux for Dummies book from 2001 and I still remember trying to use it then: it was a complete nightmare.?Ǭ† Unfortnuately its only marginally improved now.

Turns out that Linux doesn’t like NTFS partitions or Nvidia video cards or even running on more than one monitor!

Again, silly me, I’d downloaded Ubuntu a week ago and had tested it on the laptop when I should have tested it on the desktop.

Half a day later and I’m now posting this from Firefox running under Ubuntu. I know more about shells than I’ve ever wanted to know, and it’s all working. Did I mention that Ubuntu feels like using Windows 95 in terms of aesthetics? Ugly as sin, and Beryl doesn’t want to work for an allegedly better look. The Mac Pro can’t come soon enough, and if it doesn’t I’ll fly to Melbourne and ring Getamac.com.au’s necks, my Mac memory ordered from the States less than a week ago is already in Perth for delivery Monday, the Mac order hits 14 days tomorrow! I can’t win! 🙂

Now back to suffering from Ubuntu orange, or is that Ubuntu baby spew 🙂

I heard a women by the name of Stephanie, a single mother on welfare on ABC 720am Perth this morning. Her complaint was that she was being screwed over by the Government because she is being forced to find 15 hours of paid work. Stephanie is a single mother with 3 teenage children who apparently volunteers and worse still (and god forbid) has an aged parent in a nursing home. The indignation from Stephanie was so thick you could carve it; Stephanie believes that its her god given right to stay at home and continue to receive welfare, and that she is (I kid you not on this) “too busy” to take a paid job.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could all sit at home and raise our kids on welfare! Note we aren’t talking about a mother with a young child looking after their kids here who perhaps in dire circumstances deserves government, Stephanie’s kids are all at school and she has plenty of time to volunteer.

Here’s my issue: she who must be obeyed and I work full time to put meals on our table. We pay taxes, and although things are going well now they haven’t always been. We’ve struggled in the past, but we’ve always worked hard to improve our lot. Why should I pay taxes for some woman in Perth to not work when she is fully capable of working?

And then there is the ABC.

Geoff Hutchison gave Stephanie the complete soft treatment. Some goose from Centrelink came on to provide the counter argument and totally stuffed it up with Government new speak that never got close to the issue. The show then read out email after email favoring Stephanie, and talk back callers were the same, little to no counter argument was presented. Interestingly it warped into some sort of discussion about the Government not valuing volunteering, Stephanies only real claim to fame. Here’s the thing: volunteering is giving your own time when you are able, after work if you of a working age. This was my email to the show, that unless I missed it was never read out (note that it was in bite sized chunks on purpose to suit the medium)

Geoff

I?m appalled at your soft treatment of Stephanie. No one likes working, but we all have to do it. We shouldn?t have to pay taxes to sustain Stephanies lifestyle choice. If she is capable of doing volunteer work then she is capable of doing paid work. My wife and I both work, we don?t get a cent from the government; the hand out mentality of people like Stephanie sickens me. My only message to Stephanie: get a job and stop expecting the taxpayer to support you, life?s hard in the real world; get use to it, the rest of us have.

It will probably never see the light of day on the ABC. I’ve always known from my Government days that the ABC is biased, but locally I’ve never really seen it before. The one sided support of Stephanie in her anti-Government rant (and most of it was how the Government was out to get her) seems to prove that at least in Western Australia the ABC has no interest at all in being anything other than biased against the Federal Government. I’d switch to 882 6PR but simply we don’t get the coverage in the Bunbury area and there are no decent local alternatives. In future I might just stick to ABC Classic FM or News Radio on the occasions the reception is good enough.

The dream isn’t over!: 

Crowded House – 16 Nov 07 at Enjoy Perth!

Tickets go on sale at Ticketmaster July 6. A bet Ticketmaster goes into melt down that day…as they do everytime anything big goes on sale.

Wow, wow and wow! Now if only it came in 3G, but wow anyway.  

Apple – iPhone – A Guided Tour – Medium

It’s times like this I’m immensely proud to be Australian:

Aussies Repelled 5 gunboats (smh.com.au)

The Australian Defence Force says up to five Iranian gunboats tried to capture Australian sailors in the Persian Gulf in December 2004…

The BBC reported earlier today that Iranian naval forces tried to capture the boarding team, but were repelled in the face of machine guns and “highly colourful language”.

Quoting a “military source”, BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner reported Iranian forces made a concerted attempt to seize a boarding party from the Royal Australian Navy and that the Australians “were having none of it”.

You can imagine it now, a bunch on RAN personnel are surrounded by Iranians with guns and the simple response to the Iranian’s is that they can get f*cked and f*ck off…and it worked!

Aye-curumba!

Big Brother says sorry to Mexico | NEWS.com.au 

Ditching muck at the Mexican flag was pretty bad, I can remember commenting on it while watching Friday Night Games last week.  It’s not nearly as bad though as Andrew suggesting that the “Aussies” in the house should be saved from eviction in response to the all male eviction round, that was just down-right racist given the fact that every housemate is Australian despite their diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Great news for those in Perth: the resources sector has launched a free WiFi network in the Perth CBD. More details in my post at Perthnorg. I know where my hotel will be located next time I’m up 🙂

I read with interest yesterday’s announcement of Broadband Connect 2, the Federal Governments latest state supported rollout of broadband Australia wide. Most interesting was Labor’s feeble attempts at a response. Seriously, the best they could come up with was “the Government is following us”? These people want to run the country?

First, Broadband Connect 2 follows on from the brilliant Broadband Connect program. Disclaimer here that I was previously a staffer, but I’ll run on my track record here of being cynical about most things the Government does, Broadband Connect on the other hand really was a brilliant program. It gave towns throughout Western Australia and the nation access to base level broadband where by they’d probably still be waiting for it, and yes, that includes the estate I live on, my 2mb Cable came free for the first 3 months, free modem and I pay well under comparable Telstra ADSL rates for the service.

Broadband Connect 2 will build on the momentum of the original program by subsidizing the roll out of a national next level Broadband network. Notably, and this is probably being overlooked in a lot of the news about the program, this will include WiMax. As far as I know this would be the first time a Federal Government worldwide has investment this sort of money into WiMax, which makes the program fairly special in itself. Some criticism is being leveled at the speeds, 12mps minimum to the bush, but I’ve got to say that’s a whole lot more quicker than the 2mps I’ve got now (and yes, for all intensive purposes I live in the bush). Sure, it’s not world beating speeds, but it’s a step in the right direction and as Coonan points out in her media release, it’s the starting point, once the infrastructure is in place this can be ramped up.

As a supporter of free markets I do have some concerns about Government pumping this sort of money into the private sector, although having said that it’s the only real way to get decent broadband delivered outside of the capital cities. It’s also a darn site better than Labor’s policy of raiding the Future Fund to build a Government owned network. Of course, the Government should never have sold the Telstra Copper network, but you cant change history.

Overall though, the Government plan is in some ways the better of two evils, the right plan given the budget surplus and the need to bring Australia into the 21st century on Broadband speeds. If history is a guidance it will also be as highly successful as the original Broadband Connect was before it.

Fred Wilson thinks nothing good comes from people over 30, that only kiddies can produce great Web 2.0 companies. Fred Wilson can kiss my ass.

Hey, perhaps black people can’t produce good Web 2.0 startups as well Fred? Oh, forgot, discrimination on the basis of race is outlawed, obviously age discrimination is the United States isn’t…or is it? Wouldn’t it be hilarious if the next 30+ entrepreneur sued Fred when he turned them down because OMG they might be married, have a kid or two or even worse still, have the odd gray hair.

When I look back on my past my life after 30 has been my most productive years. From 20-30 I was lost, had one job after another trying to find something that worked for me. I made a pile of mistakes, and the worst was teaming with self obsessed hypocritical c’s. 30 wasn’t much better, the excesses of youth combined with a moral dilemma that pushed me to the brink. 31 has been much better, free of the shackles of selling my soul for the holy dollar I’ve been more productive and have more on the go that I’ve ever had before, and am now more happy than I’ve ever been.

Dave Winer says it well: I did it anyway. At 29 I became obsessed with the notion that you have to do it by 30, at 31 I know that it’s a complete crock of shite. There are no shortage of examples of companies founded by 30, 40 and even 50 year olds. Kids can be creative, but common sense and experience comes with age. Wine improves with age, people do as well.