I finally got around to applying the 10.4.9 update to my MacBook. Just before my reboot the uptime displayed:

17:17 up 65 days, 9:40, 2 users, load averages: 0.21 0.17 0.28

Pretty good stability for a laptop (or computer of any kind). I could have kept going as performance seemed the same as it did when I'd rebooted 65 days ago.

My MacBook has been the fastest and most stable Mac I've ever owned. Highly recommended if you're in the market for a non Windows laptop.

Apart from the iPhone, Apple also gave more details on its AppleTV.

I guess once you switch to an essentially x86 PC architecture you've got to start coming up with some other ways to innovate. Hopefully this diversification won't affect Apples core business areas (Mac OS X & Macintosh hardware).

From MacWorld 2007 - iPhone.

I wonder how good/bad it will be ? Looks promising so far.

Big risk for a small company (comparitively speaking of course) to get distracted by telephony . . .

Not Mac specific - XScreenSaver has been the mainstay of most Unix/Linus distributions for many years but the last few releases have included native OS X builds too.

A collection of Apple TV commercials - right back to the infamous 1984 ad.

AnandTech put in some pre-production samples of the new Intel quad-core 'Cloverton' chip into their Intel Mac to create a Quad-core Octomac.

It looks like professional desktop workstation (Windows, Linux and OS X) class machines will pack a fair bit of power in the very near future.

Not that anyone else cares :-)

Took delivery of a new 1.8GHz Core Duo MacBook yesterday - copied all my stuff across from my old 600MHz G3 iBook in about 2hrs via crossover cable (if I'd had a firewire lead I could have used the built in migration assistant to move all my stuff over).

The best I can say is that it works exactly the same as my iBook but much much much faster. I just got the cheapest model with no frills - I might see about adding more RAM at a later stage.

The Maglock power-lead is very funky and works as advertised, the slot-load DVD is a nice touch as is the built in iSight and FrontRow Remote - can't see much use for either of these other than taking pictures of the cat when she decides to sit on the keyboard.

The 60Gb disk is almost full - I have about 15Gb free - once I try Parallels for some Virtual Machine goodness that'll be all my space gone. I think I'll probably rationalise my iTunes library - its just a subset of the stuff on my PC anyway.

Battery life seems a little disappointing - the cell seems bigger than the iBook battery but on a full charge I see about 4hrs of life with minimal power management - thats the same as my iBook with a 3 year old battery (which showed 6hrs when it was new).

I'm looking for Intel binaries for my favourite apps - I tend to live in NetNewswire and Safari for the most part with occassional forays into Mail, iTunes, Terminal and iPhoto so there isn't that much I need to track down. My old non-Intel apps work surprisingly well in PowerPC emulation mode - Apple is to be commended for the work they've invested in making a seamless transition across archs and OS's.

I've christened the new machine 'Mr Hoppy' after Ivan Dobskys psychotic space hopper sidekick from Monkey Dust.

Once I'm happy with the transition I'll need to try and unlock my iBook DVD (currently set to the wrong region for NZ) before selling it. Then again it would make an ideal Ubuntu system . . .

Looks like their beta program has kicked off - Beta Center - CrossOver Mac - a free time-limited install.

As a total Apple-fanboy I can't go without mentioning the cool stuff previewed at Apples World Wide Developer Conference this year.

Coverage of Steves Keynote -

* Engadget

* ArsTechnica

Engadget reported 600000 hits during the coverage - hard to imagine any other tech company getting this sort of exposure for anything.

The new hardware looks great - I'm not entirely certain if 'Leopard' will offer a compelling reason to upgrade the OS though. Shame they can't beat Vista out the door.

As usual I can't afford any of it but its nice to look :-)

Caught this over at John Siracusas Blog - Apple looking for assistance porting ZFS to the Mac.

As John points out the performance overhead probably would preclude its use in consumer machines but for their server stuff it would be ideal. No point re-inventing the wheel for this type of thing if someone else has already done the work. As someone else pointed out hard-drives are getting to be so cheap its a wonder machines don't come with a mirrored pair for redundancy anyway.

For consumer stuff hopefully Apple can pull out a database driven file system like BeOS FS used to have . . .

Looks like Apple have just updated their Mac Mini line with the new Intel processors in Solo and Duo configurations.

The new iPod dock looks pretty dull. Without stereo speaker seperation how can you get any decent definition in sound ? Oh well I guess Apple wants a slice of the accessory pie.

Being an inveterate Mac/Apple fan I thought I'd link to some of the announced goodies -

The Apple site appears to be getting hammered pretty hard at the mo' but their new stuff will be on the front page.

Sample Keynote announcement summaries from ArsTechnica, Engadget, Gizmodo.

I'd love one of those new PowerBooks. Although unless you've got a lot of money and enjoy being on the bleeding edge most of this stuff doesn't tend to stabilise until the v. 2 of the product.

Via Hack the Planet and Slashdot:

Try with Mac OS X 10.3 or later. If there are no display devices on-line the window server will create a virtual framebuffer.

In Tiger, Mac OS X 10.4, fast user switching gets a related feature. When a user session is switched off-screen, if a screen watching program such as OSXvnc-server is running, the off-screen session will get a virtual framebuffer so that it can be remote-operated while another user session or a login window is on the hardware console.

Try running OSXvnc.app, for example, and switching users. A remote VNC viewer will be able to connect to the session switched off-screen, so you can continue working from a remote location. When you set this up, make sure you set up a password for access and take the usual security precautions for a remote-controlled system.

Primary to control your Mac or to help your Mac control your environment:

• Salling Clicker for bluetooth remote control of your Mac
• Indigo - X10 home automation software
• Phlink - answering machine
• BluePhoneMenu - bluetooth caller ID

Interesting look back at Mac Classic (pre-OS X) Outliners.

A great stash of old Mac Games at Mac Garden.