It was pretty quiet at the ole' Apple Store here in Tucson. I got there just at ten, and while there were stanchions to organize the crowd, they weren't needed and just sat off to the side looking lonely. There were plenty of people in the store, and about half were buying Snow Leopard. Supplies were plentiful, but I was there early.

Installing on both a MacBook Pro and a Mac Pro were two different stories. On the laptop, things were ducky. Everything worked, mail accounts were there, bookmarks, the usual.

On my desktop it was not so pretty. I kept getting messages that I needed to add a password for my MobileMe account, which I dutifully did. Problem was it kept asking. Then I saw some messages about the keychain. Whoops. Not a good message to see.

Well, the short version is that somehow my keychain was hosed. I tried to repair, but that didn't stop the problems. I finally threw away my keychain data and started again, re-entering my email passwords and a few other things. All is back to normal. I also saw a strange message about my iDisk, but I followed the directions and threw a rather large file away. It appeared to be a copy of my idisk for local use.

Other things pretty much work. My Sonos audio system is fine, Photoshop CS3 seems OK, and while it didn't get a heavy duty run through, it opens images, applies filters, runs actions, and saves properly.
Shut down is almost instantaneous, and I noticed I'd saved 14GB after the upgrade.

I'm seeing lots of little niceties. When I take a screen shot, it has a name that includes the date and time instead of 'picture 1'.

All in all, not too painful, but not completely trouble free. With keychain passwords gone I may wind up doing some extra typing for awhile on web sites where I have an account, but that's not too horrible.

Snow Leopard is clearly faster, trimmer, and a bit more fun to use. A good use of $30.00 and just a little bit more time than I planned in getting over a couple of glitches.

Say, just for the sake of argument, that you're Psystar. You've been served by Apple for selling (they claim) illegal clones of their machines, and selling their OS (which you claim isn't even copyrighted) on illegitimate hardware. Sure, you've won a minor victory in the battle, but generally, the opinion is that you're a dead company walking -- when a company like Apple not only has it out for you but has pretty legit claims to back themselves up, you could be said to be in trouble. And so, what do you do?

Well if you are Psystar, you apparently release more computers. Determined to stick it to Apple as hard as they possibly can before they're legally wiped off the map, Psystar has announced the release of the Open(3), a desktop running OS X and packing up to a 2.53GHz Core2Quad Q8200 processor, up to 4GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, and all of the other usual options you'd want on a machine like this (6x Blu-ray burner, GeForce 9500GT). Technically, the box starts at $599, but as Engagdet notes, even if you max it out to around $2000, you're still paying less than an equivalent Mac Pro.

This is pretty much the computer retail equivalent of Bugs Bunny kissing the hunter. We can imagine Apple's lawyers steaming from the ears at this point -- here's hoping Psystar gets to have their fun while they can.

As Macworld notes, this is it for the ol' Firewire 400. With the introduction of the new Mac mini the other day and the refresh of the Mac Pro and iMac lines, the old version of Firewire is left only on the white MacBook. It's evolution at its finest, and our good friend Nilay Patel over at Engadget put together this perfect video showing just how hard it is to say goodbye to yesterday.

As I said on the Talkcast a long time ago when this was first hinted at, it's not a huge loss in my eyes. This is an outdated standard, and if you've got anything sitting around that absolutely requires a FireWire 400 port (and you've already upgraded completely to a computer that doesn't have one), then it's time for an upgrade. Those happen, you know -- there's a reason they're not selling Polaroid film any more. Besides, FW800 ports can easily drive your FW400 gear with a $8 cable.

Nostalgia, however, is a powerful force. So it's with a damp hankerchief and wet eyes that some of us will bid farewell to FireWire 400. Long live FireWire 800!

Today's new hardware announcement refreshed the Mac mini and iMac lines, and at long last, the Mac Pro was also given some love. In the 14 months since the last Mac Pro refresh there have been some significant hardware changes within the microprocessor world and within Apple's own line. The result meant that the Mac Pro, while still a beast, wasn't as cutting-edge as it has been in the past. Let's look at the update and see if that story has changed.


Processor and Chipset

The big news with this Mac Pro update is the Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem" processor. Intel's "Nehalem" is the latest breakthrough in Intel's 45nm space. The Mac Pro may actually be the first commercially available computer that uses the Nehalem-based Intel Xeon. The base configuration is a Quad-Core 2.66 Ghz Intel Xeon, but you can configure a Mac Pro with two Quad-Core 2.93 Ghz Xeons, effectively meaning 8 cores. As far as I know, the 16-core option for the latest Xeon won't be available until later this year. To put it another way, this is bleeding edge.

Looking at Apple's benchmarks (obviously, the independent tests that are sure to come will probably give a more accurate overall picture), the 8-Core 2.93 Nehalem-based Xeon processor offers some significant speed increases over last generation's 8-Core Xeon 3.2 Ghz.

Aside from pure processor speed, the new chipsets include an integrated memory controller, Intel's QuickPath, Turbo Boost and Hyper-Threading technologies. The Hyper-Threading implementation is especially interesting because it means you can run two threads on each core, effectively meaning your Mac can recognize 16 virtual cores on an 8-core system. This is a virtualization nut's dream.

On the memory front, a single Quad-Core Mac Pro can take up to 8 GB of RAM. If you do the 8-core option, that capacity expands to 32 GB.

Graphics and Displays

Last October, Apple committed itself to using DisplayPort technology for its products and displays. The unfortunate side-effect of that decision meant that users wanting a Mac Pro to go with that sexy new 24" Cinema Display were out of luck, because those displays require a Mini DisplayPort, something the previous generation Mac Pros just didn't support. No more. The new Mac Pro features both Mini DisplayPort and a dual-link DVI port, so you can hook up both a 30" Cinema Display and that new 24" LED beauty.

Apple is touting the new Mac Pro as having "the fastest Mac graphics ever". Indeed, the stock NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 (note, NVIDIA changed the naming convention of its graphics chipsets recently, but the GT 120 is based on the 9500GT chipset) with 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM is a pretty decent start, especially for video professionals. You can customize the Mac Pro to include the ATI Radeon HD 4870 with 512MB of GDDR5 memory, which is one of the latest and greatest cards available from ATI.

You can put in up to four GT 120 cards in the Mac Pro, meaning you can drive as many as 8 displays off the Mac Pro. That's the video setup of my dreams.

It's been busy in the dwarven mines of Cupertino, we can tell: much new iron has arrived today, and the store is back up (though getting hammered at the moment)! We'll go into detail on each of the announcements in the next hour or so, but here's the basic scoop:

All of Apple's consumer desktops have been updated, with new iMacs and new minis. The iMacs offer 'twice the memory, twice the storage' in the new $1499 base 24" model, and all have been updated with the GeForce 9400M graphics subsystem. BTO options on the 24" iMac include up to a 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, a 640GB or 1TB HD, and a rogues' gallery of graphics upgrade options: the NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 or the ATI Radeon HD 4850 instead of the 9400M. Gamers, start your engines.

The mini... well, Dave and I have to eat our words on the mini, because the new models do indeed come with five frickin' USB ports, FW800 and both DVI and DisplayPort video-out, as well as the 9400M integrated graphics. The spy shots, the video and the box picture appear to have been spot-on (despite the 'scientific' scoffing analysis of Photoshop artifacts in the original shot). $599US gets you the base model with a 2GHz C2D and 120GB hard drive/1GB of RAM (really? 1GB?), $799 doubles the RAM to 2GB and bumps the HD to 320GB. The new mini also uses less power than before, only 13 watts at idle. For all of you that had 'five USB ports' in the pool, instead of 'sharks with lasers on their heads' -- congratulations. Who knew that Gillette was collaborating with the Onion and Apple on product design?

The pro desktop has been revved with new Mac Pro hardware: shipping next week, the new models start $300US cheaper than before and now feature Intel's Nehalem chip, along with a redesigned interior, DisplayPort + DVI standard and more spec upgrades -- but no 16-core model.

The Airport Extreme and Time Capsule were also updated with dual-band support (allowing Apple TV and iPhones to use the older 2.4GHz band without dragging other devices down) and 'Guest Network' capability for your no-account friends who come over and mooch your wireless. Yes, you know who you are.

Macworld also notes that there was apparently a 'stealth' update to the MacBook Pro today, bumping the top processor speed to 2.66GHz.

Our complete coverage:
Mac Pro
Mac mini
Time Capsule
iMac
MacBook Pro

Full press releases in the 2nd half of the post.

There has been plenty of confusion over the continuing saga of Seagate hard drives with firmware problems that can lead to eventual failure and data loss. We've followed the story here and here.

It hasn't been pretty for either Intel or non-Intel Macs. It would have been nice for Seagate to provide a Mac OS X-native firmware updater for older machines. There must be an awful lot of hard drives out there just waiting to fail. Many people who don't follow tech news don't even know what pain might strike them.

Mac users who had written Seagate about their problems did not get much information, but now there are some more details sent in an email to customers about the bad news for non-Intel based Mac owners. Full email reproduced below:

If you are trying to update your drive firmware with a MAC, you must have an INTEL MAC to allow you to perform this action. If you do not have an INTEL MAC, you will then need to take the drive to a PC, or a MAC with an Intel Processor. If you do not have either, you may need to warranty the drive with Seagate, and the return drive should have the updated firmware upon receipt.

If you have an INTEL MAC, you would simply need to burn the ISO file to CD using the burning utility that you have installed on your system. Once you have the CD created, you will then need to reboot the system with the newly created CD in the CD ROM bay while holding the "C" key on the keyboard to tell the system to boot to the CD rather than the internal hard drive. Once you have booted to the CD, simply follow the onscreen prompts to complete the firmware update. Older Macs that are PowerPC (PowerMac G3,G4,G5, iMac G3,G4,G5) based can not bootup to the FreeDOS. FreeDOS is the operating system that is booted to when booting to the firmware update CD. Please keep in mind that you should always backup the data on the drive before doing the update in case there is data loss. In most cases, the data on the drive should remain in tack and unaltered; however, things happen, and its always better to be prepared in case we come across any obstacles with the integrity of the data on the drive.
Instructions for updating firmware on a Intel based Mac.
1. Download and burn the Firmware ISO that has been provided to you by Seagate for your drive/s
2. Burn the ISO to a CD (how to: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/8729.html)
3. Insert the freshly burn CD back in to your Mac.
4. Reboot
5. After the Chime press and hold the Option key on the keyboard.
6. Once you see the Apple with the spinning gear beneath, release the Option Key.
7. At this point the system will come to a screen with pictures of hard drives and a CD, the CD should be named Seagate.
8. Click on the CD
9. Click on the arrow pointing to the right.
10. At this point FreeDOS will boot and the on screen instructions should be followed.
Once again, I want to thank you for your business.. If you still need further assistance, or the information provided was not of good use, please feel free to contact Seagate Technical Support at 800-SEAGATE ( 800-732-4283).

Translation: You are well and truly hosed if you don't have access to a Mac Pro or a Windows PC that can update the firmware. People who have returned their drives to Seagate got a refurbished drive, even if a brand new one was sent in for exchange. Worse, there are some scattered reports that the replacement drive still had the bad firmware! Way to go, Seagate: if your Mac-owning user base didn't feel completely screwed over before this, we all probably feel that way now.

MacRumors.com's Arnold Kim writes that a few of the participants in his website's forum are eagerly awaiting the arrival on March 29 of a new Nehalem-based Intel Xeon processor -- suitable for use in the fastest Mac Pro desktops.

What do these new chips bring to the table? Raw power: TechRadar found that 2.8GHz Nehalem Xeon processors scored a SPECfp benchmark of 160, compared to the current Penryn-based Xeon processors that scored just 90.

Kim makes a good point -- part of the reason we haven't seen much movement lately in the Mac Pro line is because of the popularity of Apple's notebook lines: something Apple admitted in its first-quarter conference call on January 21. What that means for the final release date of any new Mac Pro models is anyone's guess.

Once the processors are available for sale, anecdotal evidence would suggest it's just a matter of time before Apple includes them in new Mac Pro models. That's not a guarantee, though.

Last year, when Apple last updated the Mac Pro line, they offered a single highly-customizable build-to-order option, rather than a range of trim levels.

[Via IGM.]

When we last left this running soap opera of some Seagate hard drives failing, the drive manufacturer had issued some firmware fixes, then pulled a couple out of circulation, and now has returned them with some fixes for the fixes.

The firmware updater, at first glance, looks like it needs a Windows PC, but the reality is the ISO images, once burned to a CD, will boot on an Intel based Mac. They will not work on any PowerPC platform, so don't even try. I was surprised that these discs would boot, but it worked for me and there are similar reports all over the tech support boards.

Let me state up front that firmware updates can be deadly, and only try this if you have good, recent backups of all your data. This is really important, because if it fails because you haven't followed the instructions, your hard drive is offline. The data will be OK, but it will not be accessible. Seagate is saying they will retrieve data from problem drives, but that is a slow process and a gigantic hassle.

These instructions are for a Mac Pro, which are the Macs most likely to have added internal drives. If you are brave, and only if you are brave, read on for the steps...

Reader Sam K. (thanks!) noticed the fun on Twitter -- lots of folks are sharing their memories of the first Mac they bought/used with the #firstmac hash tag, and boy is it fun reading through them.

The responses are all over the place, from the old ][e (technically my first computer ever at school, though the first one I actually owned at home was a Tandy Color Computer my Dad bought from one of his coworkers) and //c up to the old iMacs and even a few people who can only claim iPod as the first Apple product they used. The first Mac I actually owned was much later than my first steps into BASIC -- when I needed a laptop a few years ago, I picked up a 12" Powerbook G4 and have been straight OS X ever since.

It's great to read this stuff, because you can see just how Apple has shaped people's lives. I was amazed to hear all of the emotion in the calls to Steve on our talkcast last week, but looking at something like this Twitter feed (to put your own memories in, just mark a tweet with the #firstmac tag somewhere in there) really shows you how dedicated Apple's products have made the company's customers. These people have all bought a Mac, whether it was a Mac SE (errrr, a Mac Classic?) or a MacBook Air, and never looked back since. Very cool.

And while we're at it, is it possible that you're on Twitter and haven't yet started following us? If not, jump in and do so now!

Mac OS X has been pretty much a dream for me. I can't ever remember getting the Apple blue or gray screen of death. My Mac Pro is up 24/7 and only reboots when I've done a software update. Most of the time it happily chugs along. The same is true for my MacBook Pro. It's been problem-free except for one bad battery that started to swell. Apple eagerly replaced it.

That makes it all the more vexing when minor things go wrong that seem pretty unexplainable. One little problem is Apple Mail notification sounds. They seem to work about half the time. I have 3 email accounts, and the one that is the most unreliable is the MobileMe account. Even though mail sounds are turned on, I usually don't get any sound when mails comes in. I use the 'glass' sound, but it fails on any selection. My POP mail accounts seem to trigger the alert properly.

This same problem existed in Tiger, and has survived several Leopard updates. This minor but irritating issue exists on both my computers, and so far has eluded all my detective work to eliminate it. This bug is impervious to permission resetting, changing default mail sounds, playing with the sound control panel, (yes, 'play user interface sounds' is checked) and making sure that Growl and other 3rd party hacks are nowhere on my computers. The guys at the Genius Bar scratch their heads and smile.

The Apple support boards are full of similar complaints, and when you eliminate the people that had their sound turned down, or the other obvious fixes, there is a pretty large residue of people who have this problem. Apple must be aware of it.

Don't get me started on the error I get 2-3 times a week when Time Machine tells me a backup didn't work, and then the next hour everything is fine. This is another error that has survived several Leopard updates. Like a good citizen, I always do the larger combo updates to have the best chance of replacing any bad system components.

Every OS has a long list of issues. Actually, I find the current build of OS X the most reliable system software I have ever used. That said, I'd love to see some of these little bugs cleaned up. I'm sure you have your own lists and will share them.

Maybe Apple will read this and send me a fix for my notification sounds issue. The problem is, I probably won't notice the mail when it comes in. Grrrrr.

It's the Holiday Season, and over the years I have happily spent a lot of my XMAS money with our favorite fruit named company. My love affair with Apple products goes back to the venerated Apple II. I do have a couple of PC laptops in the house, and of course I can also run Vista on VMWare Fusion, but I'm pretty much a Mac guy through and through. Always have been. Always will be.

Nevertheless, I'd like to find some gifts from Apple under my tree this year. They are not big deals, but would be greatly appreciated. So Kris Kringle, if you're listening, pass these on to Mr. Jobs and friends.

• How about some documentation? I know Steve thinks books are dead, but in the old days Apple documentation was really first rate. Remember that old MacWrite manual? Apple, I know you are in the electronics business, but reading help files on a laptop screen that covers up the application I am trying to learn is a bit of a pain.
• When you release an update to an iPod, iPhone or OS X how about telling me what the update really does. I know you have gotten better at this, but why should people have to guess all the features and fixes that you have put in? Just own up to it and trust your customers.
• Find another partner in addition to AT&T for the iPhone. My phone is a great product that is significantly damaged by an inferior, unreliable network. To me, "more bars in more places" means I'm looking for bars to find a stiff drink so I can recover from my frustration with dropped calls, poor signal strength, and sporadic 3G coverage.
  
• A lot of your products get really warm. My MacBook Pro can be a sizzler on my lap. My Mac Pro keeps my office pretty warm, and I don't need those high temperatures since I'm in Arizona. Don't get me started on the Apple TV. I do think it is a great product, but I'm thinking I could make a fondue on that top surface. There is no fan in the Apple TV and when I put it in standby to spin down the hard drive it wakes up by itself paying no attention to my command. If I want to be ignored, I can walk into any Home Depot. (Update: Some users say the Apple TV does have a fan. I regret the error. It's still too darned hot!)
  

OK. it's not a big list, but it's a list just the same. What's on yours? And to all, a good night!

Danny Gorog at APC Magazine has written a really nice analysis of something that's rather strange when you think about it -- why aren't there any high definition DVD drives on Macs yet? It has been asked for by a few folks, but by and large, Apple has pretty much ignored the whole high definition debate. And even now, when we supposedly have a winner in Blu-ray, Apple hasn't pulled the trigger, and consumers, as Gorog notes, haven't even really cared much.

In fact, across the entire PC market there's not a lot of wholehearted support for Blu-ray or any major high definition formats. It's not that DVDs are "good enough" -- HDTVs are selling by the truckloads -- it's more that consumers, apparently, just don't want to settle on another format. And that may be the key to this whole thing -- Apple has a vested interest in selling content, and implementing some other content producer's format into their machines will take away from their best HD content channel yet: iTunes.

And customers, happy to not have to buy yet another permanent format of their favorite movies, may be satisfied with having no next-generation disc format. I, like many users, have already watched tons of HD video without ever having bought a Blu-ray disc. If Apple doesn't need the drives to deliver the same quality content, why should they bother?

I love Tom's Hardware -- they're traditionally a PC site (and being a gamer, I've built and run my share of PCs), but like most PC guys, they aren't afraid to lay out the specs and draw direct conclusions from there. And that's exactly what they've done with a very Mac misconception: that Apple computers traditionally cost more than the average PC.

To the average user, that seems true -- if you go to, say, a Best Buy or a Circuit City, and look at the Macs they're selling versus the seemingly equivalent PCs they're selling, then yes, you're seeing higher pricetags on the Apple stuff. But when Tom's lays out what you get out of each computer, the prices are generally the same. In fact, they even build an equivalent Mac Pro, and there's only a $5.67 difference.

Of course, that doesn't stop people from trying to prove otherwise (Apple, you'll note, is not a client of NPD, and they don't actually share which computers they're talking about in the study). And of course, as Tom's Hardware commenters will tell you, there's really no argument for gamers yet, as amazing hardware is nothing when it doesn't run your software the way it should. But it's good to see TH taking a serious, relatively unbiased look at the price differences, and Apple getting a little more love from the traditionally PC crowd.

Is it time to finally put your HD mountain biking documentary on Blu-ray? Apple upgrade vendor MCE Technologies announced availability of a totally Mac-compatible Blu-ray recordable drive for Mac Pro and Power Mac.

The $499 (internal) drive is compatible with Mac OS X 10.5.2 and later, requiring no special drivers for burning -- just install it in your Mac Pro or Power Mac bay, pop in blank Blu-ray media, and you're ready to roll. The drive does both single-layer (6X BD-R or 2X BD-RE) and dual-layer (4X BD-R, 2X BD-RE) burning for capacities of 25GB or 50GB respectively. That's up to 50,000 photos, 12,500 music tracks, or 4 hours of HD video.

There's a $599 version bundled with Roxio Toast 9 and the Toast BD//HD Plugin, as well as an external drive with FireWire and USB 2.0 ports for $749.

To write professional Blu-ray discs that can play on set-top Blu-ray players or Sony PS3, you'll need Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 Encore along with Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 or Final Cut Pro. Basic Blu-ray movies can be burned with Roxio Toast 9 and the BD/HD Plugin.

[via The Mac Observer]

One area that the Mac has long lagged behind its PC counterparts is in custom tuning, particularly overclocking. With the Intel Macs this has naturally started to change, though the toolset for overclocking in OS X has been rather barebones. So it's interesting to see that the German division of ZDNet has released the ZDNet Clock tool for OS X.

Using the ZDNet Clock tool Mac Pro and Xserve owners (and those only) can boost the processor, front side bus, and memory frequency resulting in a not insignificant "free" performance gain. It should be noted that overclocking puts a strain on the hardware and should be used with caution as it's certainly possible to damage your Mac. Furthermore, there are several side effects in OS X including distorted system time and problems when waking from sleep (the overclocking is disabled on wake). Nonetheless, for those of you out there lucky enough to have a Mac Pro (or Xserve) and crazy enough to push your hardware to the edge may want to have a look.

The ZDNet Clock tool is a free download from ZDNet (the link is in German, click the Jetzt herunterladen button to start the download) and requires a Mac Pro or Xserve running Leopard.

[via AppleInsider]