Clone Wars

It was inevitable really — IBM PC clones built to run OS X, such as that built by pystar — and yet there is still a fundamental issue with this solution.

“Another company is preparing to sell Intel-based computers that can run Apple Inc.‘s Mac OS X. But unlike a Florida clone maker that’s been sued by Apple, Open Tech Inc. won’t pre-install the operating system on its machines.”

Yes, they can run OS X Leopard (or Tiger). Yes, it even gives a very similar, almost identical experience. But OS X alone doesn’t make a Mac.

Design Emporium.

It’s the sum of all parts, from large multi-touch track pads on the mac books through the specific selection of base hardware such as motherboard reference design and choice of components. Windows XP (and to a lesser extent) Vista, along with a number of UNIX-ish platforms such as Ubuntu or Fedora have tended to obfuscate compatibility and reliability in component choice over recent years.

Today, it is possible to select almost any type of processor and mate it with a compatible mainboard, some ram, a random graphics card and a hard-drive of some description and you’ll be able to run Windows at the very least, with just about any other Linux derivative also working right-out-of-the-box. But that’s really not how a macbook or mac pro are built.

Components and reference designs are often tuned to suit each other. Something that was done to quite some degree early on in the development of both IBM and HP (Compaq) hardware (as an example) a few years ago. If you supported such hardware seven-or-so years ago, it was not at all uncommon to see very non-standard hardware in use by all the big name brands. Sure, one paid more for it (sometimes a great deal more) but ultimately that resulted in a better, more reliable product.

Clones R Us.

Fast forward back-to-the-future, and most IBM clones are built from off-the-shelf hardware. IBM’s are now in fact built by Chinese giant Lenovo. Customised hardware is still used in the Server realm, but far less often in PC clones. They are no longer built to survive, but rather to suit a market that demands the absolutely-lowest-price. Reliability and compatibility are no longer major watch-words.

Today’s Macs do actually share a lot of similarities with their clone brethren. The same graphics cards, the same hard-drives.. even the same CPUs. The switch to Intel was always going to be a smart one as high levels of component production is assured. It was considered foolish by many so-called Mac experts, surely it would fail. That is obviously not the case, sales are soaring.

This very machine I wrote this article on, can run (and has) run OS X. Indeed a number of clones can. However after observing my partner use her Mac Book, and having the (all too brief) opportunity to use it myself, it’s clear they are not just an ordinary clone. They have been built under an entirely different design philosophy. Macs are built with select components rigorously tested to ensure optimal co-habitation and reliability. Just as brand name PC’s were, years ago.

The Art of War.

Ultimately then, the philosophies can be best expressed as follows: Mac’s empower. Clones duplicate.

And so, the Pystar or Open Tech might well run Mac OS X — and run it just fine — but they are not a Mac. They use non-authorised modified code to bypass operating system constraints that keep OS X Mac only. And that is seldom noted in the push to sell these products. Buying one of those systems means almost no support, on a platform that has an unsupported Operating System (despite what they tell you) that may cease to function at any time.

You are not buying a Mac clone. You are buying a PC clone that just happens to run OS X. It’s not a 1:1 copy, it’s just a cheap, hacked and broken facsimile. Before I used a mac book, I would have suggested that a hacked clone was “almost as good as the real thing”. They are not. There is a difference.

The claims by Pystar and Open Tech that these systems are legally able to run OS X is a joke. They use published hacks to bypass code in the OS X builds. I am no lawyer, but that is still a direct violation of the EULA [section F] which forbids reverse engineering (or tampering with) any code that is not already published under an Open Source licence.

“.. you may not copy,decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, or create derivative works of the Apple Software or any part thereof.”

That’s a legal view, of course, which is open to interpretation and potential legal challenge. But that really isn’t the point. That which makes a Mac stand out from every other PC clone is the entire package. From OS to hardware to support — a Mac is more than just the operating system it runs. It is the sum of it’s parts.

And that is something these cloners simply do not get. In turn, neither will their duped customers, who will continue to buy these systems under false belief.

Recovery Position

Apple has built in disk duplication and Time Machine. Microsoft has msbackup and absolutely no built in disk duplication.

In Apple’s world, you can use the original OS disc and Time Machine to fully restore a broken situation. Apple have gone to the extreme of producing a one-touch backup solution. Set that bad-boy up, once, then you’re good to go. In Microsoft’s world, you’re on your own skippy. It’s a dog-eat-cat world world out there.. to hell with ensuring the OS can be restored.

At this point you may well be thinking “what about System Restore? fucking noob”. System Restore is a wonderful drain on disk space (with the ever logical usage level set to 10% by default) — it even works, sometimes. It’s also a haven for net-nasties of nearly every flavour.

And it’s always a case of Russian Roulette as to whether it will heal an install. Or deep-six it. That’s assuming you can actually boot into your system to begin with. Logically one has to assume that’s just not possible if the install actually implodes.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I have backups. Mountains of data and cruft and bloat. And stuff that I might actually need at some point too. But the problem frequently comes down to a central location. And what, exactly, do I actually need to make sure I have? Microsoft have taught us that the average user shouldn’t see large portions of the drive and yet will somehow be armed with a keen knowledge of the right things to store in a safe place.

That’s a plan that will always work, right?

Now, having bled in Microsoft’s world for nearly as long as Windows has existed (at all) I’ve got the art of finding hidden-shit-I-really-need down pat. But the average user? Now you know why an entire Microsoft-centric industry of highly-trained individuals exists, to do just one thing. Recover your stuff.

And yet Microsoft, to this very day, still don’t understand they are responsible for enabling us. We can push the fucking button if needs be.. sure, but after decades of building operating systems, you’d think they would — being the pants wearer in the relationship — have got a fucking grip and built an OS that can be successfully recovered from reliable backups.

No. No they have not. Instead, one must frequently erase a system that had a working install — ensuring the pre-requisite multiple-hour forensics mission was successful — re-install the operating system. Find drivers for core hardware — like network cards — potentially without internet connectivity. Then re-install at least one service pack. Then all the security updates. Then the applications.

Only then, once Microsoft feel that the operating system is somehow magically complete again — and one is as certain as one can be that all the applications are back — can one even consider locating the aforementioned forensic data and then return it from whence it came.

In the same period of time it takes me to get back to a running OS, an Apple Mac user has already gotten their life back on track, as though nothing. ever. happened. Who was the ass-hat at Microsoft that allowed this to continue? Windows 7 is around the corner and, yet again, there is absolutely nothing slated to revolutionise data retention.

Do you know what is most damming about the whole situation? It’s such a common issue in the Microsoft world that it doesn’t sound at all odd that folks will re-install their operating system every few months for what appears to be absolutely no functional reason whatsoever. And that should be an entirely ridiculous notion, not the norm.

I’ve spent 2 days attempting to breathe life into the rapidly-decaying corpse that was once my operating system. In the end I have had to — like a great many frustrated users before me — accept defeat, destroy the operating system volume and start all over again.

And again I am reminded of how inadequate and boneheaded the entire situation really is. Nearly every other popular operating system has this nailed down. It’s (very) early on a Thursday morning, do you know where your data is?

Leisure Suit

Looking for inspiration in all the wrong places. Sometimes it’s easier to point towards others’ content, rather than create my own.

It’s cheating — I have to come clean. I need to:

• write everything for me — not just for you.
• write with genuine passion — not with vague abandon.
• stop accepting close enough — it’s right or not at all.
• hold myself accountable to my content — it needs conviction.
• understand my limitations — then work to move beyond them.

Writing great content isn’t easy. It takes passion, energy and faith. Not in the sense of the Good Lord, Mohammed or Vishnu, rather in that I truly understand the fundamentals of the subject I speak of — and a conviction to see it through, no matter the risk.

I’m a geek. I should write about geeky subjects and how and where geeky things have relevance — I have shied away from that topic for fear it will bore. The challenge is to turn that into something people simply cannot wait to read.

You’re not reading this because I am trying to be someone else. You’re reading it because of me. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. It should inspire, challenge or excite. That commitment demands I respect the reader and deliver content worthy of consideration in return.

Thanks for listening.

Neurotic Design

I was recently given a tough challenge. Design a layout — something I am still quite unskilled at — for my partners brand new blog. I was given a rough sketch, a moderately simple brief (two column layout) and a degree of flexibility in how I interpreted it.

First hurdle? Typography. My partner is a budding author and as such I wanted the design to focus attention on the content. San-serifs were out, which meant finding a good serif that was easy on the eye. It eventually came down to a choice between Palatino and Georgia, neither of which are particularly stunning when viewed at 9, 10 or even 12 pixels.

Solution? Make it bigger. Much bigger. Typically that isn’t the first (or best) answer to a styling issue and yet, somehow, it just works. Sizes are defined in EMs, but body text is equivalent to ~14px and post headings a whopping 19px. Both give the body text a clear, carefree feel with a moderate amount of typeface styling actually being visible, making it a bit of a joy to build.

The design is comment free, yet there is easy access to the feedback form — encouraging more thoughtful responses — and, overall, I am pretty happy with the result. It’s also pleasing in that the final result matches the original sketch quite closely. Perhaps I have indeed remained true to my partners simple, yet elegant request. The comments so far is that I have.

Amusingly, my partner is as nervous about her re-invigorated launch into the blogosphere as I am in how well the design will be received in return. Design really isn’t my forte, but I am pleased on how it all turned out (it validated on first pass, no less) and how much I learned in the process.

Bumped

Media Temple have just incremented some versions on their (dv) product line. Notably PHP5 has been upgraded to 5.2.6 (current stable release) which is a welcome improvement and Plesk has jumped a version to 8.4.0.

Both shipped during May, thus it forms a very proactive and on-the-ball choice — be sure to check out Media Temple’s release above for all the geek-worthy details, there is a lot of improvement (in Plesk particularly) overall and as such it represents a worthy return for the short upgrade period.

I also have the (slightly dubious, yet intensely pleasing) distinction of being the first cab off the rank to have an existing (dv) upgraded — oh yes, here at the The Lab we bravely risk it all¹ so you don’t have to.

The process was slick and entirely painless.

As a result, it would be remiss of me not to thank the wonderful folks at (mt) — for building such great systems — and in particular Daniel Greene who drew the short straw to place their bets on the upgrade-user-plus-all-their-shit-and-pray roulette wheel. Nice work brother.

Since rolling from the grid to dedicated-virtual, I cannot stress strongly enough the level of commitment and professional support Media Temple have brought to the table. Nothing is ever too much trouble, no issue is ever left un-answered. If you are in the market, they are the go-to guys for virtual hosting. If you decide to take the plunge, help a brother out and tell them I sent you.

New orders will see the above improvements from day one, if you’re already a (dv) playa, maximum respect yo — submit a support request — profit.

¹ ok, so I do have multiple-redundant stored copies of all SQL databases and full data backups. I’m crazy, not stupid.

Under-whelmed

WWDC 2008 will be remembered for the launch — albeit in one month from now — of the worst-kept secret of ’08 and very little else.

MobileMe launched — providing a web-based version of what many other mobile synch tools provide out-of-the-box — that takes over where .mac left off and finally, Snow Leopard — sounding very much like an equivalence of a Windows Service Pack at best.

That isn’t a bad thing, mind. Stability is a sore-point for many Vista users looking for something different and, perhaps, better. But the amount of coverage for things not-iPhone was appalling.

Sure, the iPhone finally makes it to a wider global market without requiring various hacks. However, we cannot buy one now. Buzz surrounding the all-new device will have well and truly peaked before this thing actually hits market.

I awoke at 5am this morning, with expectation zinging over what might await me. I needn’t have bothered. A (not so) new phone, talk of an updated OS and a mobile service all of which aren’t actually here yet.

I really think Gruber has nailed it when he talks of what Apple’s announcements at WWDC this year really mean:

“The physical phone is not the story. A year from now, the iPhone 3G will be replaced by another new model. The platform is the story.”

Yes, it’s clear they are going to sell billions of phones. At circa US $199 how can they not, surely? Although it’s not entirely clear if that is actually based on AT&T contract pricing. It’s anybodies guess what that actually translates to outside of the US and how much it will end up costing to buy outright.

Watching the keynote isn’t all that inspiring. It’s simply going through the motions of officially launching everything we already new and confirming the pre-event speculation for the most part. WWDC ’08 is basically an all-singing-all-dancing version of their future road-map.

And that’s why I feel a little, well, let down by Apple. What they seem to have forgotten in all this new “sans-one-more-thing” world, is that I, the potential user, still need to feel important, that what I’m being offered makes me feel, well, cooler.. and that it really will be worth my time. Sure, there is a strong developer angle here. I get that. But we’re not all developers and as such we still look to these events and keynotes for inspiration.

I need assurance that Jobs and Apple are on the case. That they’ve got mega-cool-shit happening right here and they want me to be a part of it. Being told to wait a month for a yet-to-be-priced phone doesn’t make me feel cooler. Not being told availability or pricing doesn’t make me feel cooler. Not having anything else up their sleeve, really isn’t at all cooler. It’s just not assurance.

So we’ll see what Apple come up with moving forward. One more thing.. just not today.

Twitter Redux

I’ve found it increasingly interesting that commentators believe that somehow, twitter is still — like a bad recurring LSD trip — just moments away from a mass exodus.

Indeed, Twitter has been declared “dead” more often than Jimmy Hoffa and Elvis combined.

“By building up a huge mass of users, Twitter benefits from our existing social connections and their inertia. But as the problems continue, it’s possible that someone else could grab the mindshare – and traffic – that currently belongs to Twitter.” #

It’s more than just the social connection equation. And premonitions of competition swooping in — claiming massive numbers of twitter evacuees — has one rather large flaw. It never actually happens. Why? It’s not for want of trying, surely? Almost everyone seems to believe they have the “winning formula” for a service that will dispatch-and-bury Twitter in a flurry of Web 2.0 candy-coloured craziness.

Yet, despite various attempts, the competition just doesn’t gain traction. And it is because they fundamentally miss-understand quite what Twitter has achieved (and indeed continue to achieve). By seeking to replace Twitter, any competitor will have already sealed it’s fate.

Twitter has captured the hearts — and loyalty — of so many because it has endured still, despite the growth pains, despite the outages and in spite of the competition. There is no doubt that some are frustrated with the continued reliability concerns, colourful tweets about outages are not uncommon — that it encourages communication is clear — even those remarks are made via Twitter.

There is no doubting Twitter was smart from the outset by opening the API and continuing to make steady progress on attempting to bullet-proof the systems in use. That API has unleashed dozens of clients that provide all manner of capabilities. And it allows for increasingly open communication between other social networks, such as Friend Feed and Facebook, not to mention the various and highly creative projects using Twitter to communicate, trend or graph, stalk, punch time or simply just inform.

The increase in communication over very real issues — that any real-time messaging platform will suffer at some point — shows a sense of maturity that is fresh and appealing. That it plays well with others and encourages highly creative use ensures long-term loyalty and helps build tool sets that can become indispensable. Twitter continues to grow and continues to survive, because it thoroughly embraces the culture and spirit that has grown around it.

As we can see, the relatively open Twitter API allows for remarkably creative solutions. By jettisoning Twitter one risks losing so much more than just the simple one-hundred-and-forty character short message service. Far from being at risk of becoming a has-been care of the NextBigThing ^tm I can only see twitter continuing to grow and move forward with ever more creativity.

The smart money is on working with Twitter, and gaining the massive community built around it — ignoring the platform and community it has built, is to invite failure.

Grindhouse Revival

Something that started off as being a bit of a stress diversion has become a monthly event I entirely look forward to. And it has resulted in a realisation that viewing movies will never quite be the same again.

It all started with the realisation that a “night at the movies” just doesn’t thrill me the same as it used to. The anticipation has faded, jaded by the reality that the modern cinema has been reduced to a cash generating machine, more intent in churning over screenings and jamming souls into rooms seldom larger or less generic than public transport.

Gone are the old style theatres, with truly massive screens, luxurious curved bucket seats and the unique odour that always permeated the dimly lit, cathedral-like atmosphere. Gone is the intermission at the most inopportune moment, where our dashing hero, or busty bimbo is about to do something really. fucking. cool. And gone is the “life” it all seemed to imbue to the entire experience.

So what does one do, when recreating that experience means attending a gold class like establishment with all the stresses and effort required? And it’s not quite the same, is it? Oh it’s quite exclusive, you can consume alcohol, recline in comfort and have food delivered on demand, but it’s still just that little bit fake. And if a night-out is on the cards, why not spend it at a nice eatery instead?

The surroundings might be agreeable, but that life, that atmosphere, that excitement is still missing — the very thing that made going to the movies, well, special, has gone. And that is where my partner and I found ourselves at then end of yet another tiring week a month or so ago. Getting all dressed up to go out, to then relax seemed somewhat counter intuitive.

We could have gone out, spent up on the credit card and tried to pretend we weren’t actually being strip-mined by yet another faceless corporate cashing in on the “old movie” experience. But we decided to do something different.

We put various beers in the fridge to reach that perfect frosty chill. Wine was cooled to near-perfection. My wonderful partner whipped up a batch of some of the singularly best tasting Nachos I’ve ever experienced (why nachos? Why not?!). We turned off the lights and fired up Grindhouse — the Tarantino and Rodriguez collaboration and experiment into re-creating the 70’s style B-Grade epics.

And it was heaven. Cold beer, comfortable surroundings, pleasant company with no pimply faced thirteen-year-old angst-ridden teens throwing food, cellular phones or each other around the theatre. No oh-my-fucking-god-you-have-a-HUGE-head idiots all clumped together in the middle row. No half-drunk projectionist pissing away his last deciding to fuck with the focus every quarter-hour just to make everyone as miserable as he was.

We had a genuine, honest-to-god intermission. With yet more beer being opened, more wine poured. We had the experience that a night at the movies should always be and that is no more. We watched Death Proof and Planet Terror the way it was meant to be seen. And it was, frankly, fucking magic.

Sure, it wasn’t “on the big screen” but what the hell does that actually mean anymore? We don’t go for the experience any more. We only go to see the big effects, or to be bruised any battered by the seventy-billion forty-thousand-watt speakers.

And when you realise that going to the movies is now really just going through the motions of seeing something on the big screen — out of some crazed belief that that is the way everything must be seen — that you realise you’ve just been conned by the motion pictures industry. Because if it’s “good enough” you’re just going to buy the same damned thing on DVD, or Blue-Ray disc regardless.

They’ve conned us all into believing we somehow owe them and by God we must attend, or else! Why? With modern surround-sound systems being a dime-a-dozen and large screen TV’s almost the norm, what in the hell do we get out of our ticket anymore, when one can almost replicate the very thing that we use to justify going in the first instance?

It can’t be “for the experience” because that last shred died when George Lucas proved beyond shadow of doubt that it’s entirely possible to fuck over one of the last truly cinema-worthy epics. There’s just nothing enticing about spending money to sit in someone else’s over-grown lounge to see yet another remake that should have been taken out the back, along with it’s director and shot.

It’s grind-house-time at our place this weekend. Saturday night we’ll have two shows on. One has been decided , the other is still pending. The random assortment of beer will be cold, the wine on ice and the Nachos piping hot. That’s my idea of a good night at the movies. It’s a revival and we will sully ourselves in 70’s style b-grade. The more eccentric, eclectic or horrific, the better. Eurovision is all of these things and so much more, yet it will be just one of the two glorious indulgences.

Who knows quite what we’ll see after intermission. And that is just how movie nights should always be.

7 Repeats Sins of Past

At first it seemed as though Windows 7 would be a radical departure from the current bloat that is rife within Redmond, with a pint-sized kernel promising minuscule size, modularity and the performance gains inherent in such a design. Sadly, that isn’t to be.

And it all started out so well, with such great promise.

October 2007

“While Taut stressed that MinWin was an internal-only project which “you won’t see us productising, but you could imagine this being used as the basis for products in the future.” He later elaborated that “we’ll be using (MinWin) internally to build all the products based on Windows. It’s not just the OS that’s running on many laptops in this room, it’s also the OS used for media centres, for servers, for small embedded devices.” #

Bloat is out, minimal is in, check out our bespoke new kernel.

December 2007

“We do know that the next generation of Windows will be built around a stripped-back ‘microkernel’ codenamed MinWin. As previously reported, MinWin has been described as “the Windows 7 source-code base”.” #

Minimal is still in, we think, not sure about the bloat factor — we’ll get back to you.

May 2008

“Another question we often get asked is whether Windows 7 is a major release. The answer is “yes” — it’s hard to describe any product that is used by millions of people and worked on by thousands of engineers as anything else. That said, the long-term architectural investments we introduced in Windows Vista and then refined for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 will carry forward in Windows 7.” #

Minimal? We meant “modular”.. and bloat will be available in more versions than you can possibly imagine.

Interestingly (hindsight is a powerful history filter) we’re told that previous comments were actually based on a false premise, which it seems where assumption based on comments that “we’re definitely going to be using this internally” doesn’t actually mean it’ll be used at all because they “don’t have any productization plans for it”.

This, despite reasonably clear comments back in 2007 that MinWin was in vogue and that it would be used practically everywhere. As is often the case, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Despite the initial excitement Redmond has had for MinWin, as expressed above, it’s back to business as usual from the software giant:

“Contrary to some speculation, Microsoft is not creating a new kernel for Windows 7.” — Chris Flores.

MinWin is, then, an experiment in simplicity. A “what if” and perhaps, a direction that Microsoft would like to head off in, if it did not have to be concerned with the 500 pound gorilla that is the legacy NT architecture strapped to it’s back. Changing the kernel radically means that software vendors may have to start from scratch and that’s a risk that Microsoft are clearly not yet ready to commit to. Vista’s development costs cannot be ignored either and that ensures we’ll have yet more life squeezed from the NT base.

At least Apple new when to stop flogging a dead horse and migrate to a platform with a future, despite the obvious hurdles such a radical shift presented — it was a ballsy move that many pundits suggested could even mark the end of Apple. Their continued growth has virtually silenced any such claims that the end was at hand.

So, despite partial admittance that Vista, XP and 2000 before it are all bloated to a greater or lesser extend and that perhaps a clean break really is due, Windows 7 will ultimately be what Vista might have (some might say should have) been. It is a re-affirmation that unlike Apple, Redmond just isn’t ready to let the old NT based architecture — first launched in 1993 with NT 3.1 — go, at least, not without a fight.

It’s also clear that ‘7’ will be targeted squarely at the Enterprise, where Vista adoption has been far slower than retail — further, with potentially hundreds of different modular options available, the Enterprise market could order an Operating System entirely to spec — further entrenching Microsoft’s position.

And it’s also the market sector that resists change most. They are the people Microsoft want to woo, because Vista just isn’t opening doors — it’s just not business friendly. Every other week there is yet another report of how the corporate space is waiting for the successor to Vista as corporations eye up the eventual extinction of XP support.

7 is Microsoft’s response.

Ultimately then, Microsoft intends to modularise a spruced up, stabilised Vista, re-brand it as whatever ‘Windows 7’ launches as, and sell it piecemeal — the 9 different flavours of Vista currently available are but a first taste of what is to come, namely newer covers for an old and very familiar nag.

Embiggen

Ever have the feeling that something isn’t quite right? Like when Uncle Jim invites you to sit on his lap as he has a “surprise” for you — you know innately that there is just something wrong with that picture.

In that “something is strangely wrong” vein, here are two closely cropped example images taken from this website, a few moments apart.

fig.1 — before.

fig.2 — after.

The same site, two different text sizes. The image in fig.1 represents what IE6, IE7, FF2 and Safari 3 (tested so far) all decide is “the” size, in this case paragraph text is set to 62.5% to make EM calculations far less taxing.

It’s not just here either, in spite of my sometimes suspect code¹. Half of the Internet appears to have been up-sized. And the aberration appears to be strongest, if not a little random in EM based designs — which as any good designer will tell you is “the” sizing methodology to use for bullet-proof layouts.

So here we have yet another divergence in web “standards”. Only it doesn’t always strike. Not exactly the easiest issue to resolve.

Right now Firefox 3 users must feel like they’re viewing the internet through the bottom of a beer glass. Depending on CSS markup used, it may be larger than life. Not that that is a bad thing, given page zooming finally works. It’s just yet another different thing that has to be considered.

So, hold on to your hats ladies and gentlemen. Firefox 3 is set to up the bling and bring us a fresher, bigger Internet — but perhaps just like Uncle Jim, not quite the way we might have expected.

¹ The Lab actually validates, a rare occurrence in these parts.