The return of the 12-inch PowerBook G4

October 3, 2010
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

My 12-inch PowerBook G4

The PowerBook G4 12″

Let me get this out of my system right now: the 12-inch PowerBook G4 is possibly the best laptop Apple has made. Don’t get me wrong, I love my current 15-inch unibody MacBook Pro: I appreciate the build quality, the design, the performance, the screen estate, and everything. But this piece is about what was my former main machine, which stayed with me through thick and thin from January 2004 to July 2009, and which has returned as my second machine after a forced hiatus due to hard drive failure.

Tech specs

This is the second-generation, DVI model with a PowerPC G4 at 1 GHz processor. RAM is maxed out at 1.25 GB. Screen resolution is 1024×768 and the graphic card is a 32 MB Nvidia GeForce FX Go5200. It has a combo optical drive (DVD‑R/CD-RW), and it’s currently at its third hard drive. The original 4200rpm 40 GB was replaced in August 2004 with a 5400rpm 40 GB hard drive, and just a few days ago — thanks to Nicola’s generosity — I upgraded to a 5400rpm 80 GB hard drive. Yes, the second hard drive lasted from August 2004 to August 2009, which is not bad at all, considering modern hard drives’ life expectancy.

Personal history

After my blueberry iMac G3 died a miserable death in spring 2003, my main machine at that time became the clamshell iBook G3/466 SE FireWire (graphite). It was a great performer, and it had its advantages over the iMac: a faster processor (466 MHz against the iMac’s 350), more RAM (320 MB against the iMac’s 256), a DVD drive (I already got rid of my television set, so the iBook was the only option to watch movies), a FireWire port (the iMac only had USB ports), a bigger hard drive (10 GB against the iMac’s 6.4 GB) and of course it was a sturdy, portable Mac. But I had to endure a small screen real estate (the iBook’s native resolution is 800×600), and sometimes, with many applications and windows open, the environment felt really cramped.

So I started saving money, aiming for the then-new 15-inch Titanium PowerBook G4, and the even better 15-inch Aluminium model. But I couldn’t save enough to buy one when it was finally time to upgrade, so I opted for the smaller brother. At the time it really felt like a fallback choice, but I soon came to appreciate the little 12-inch buddy. Performance-wise was more than enough for me and it didn’t feel much slower than the 15-inch model I had been testing in the store. What finally won me was its compactness. I could carry it everywhere with a small backpack. I could comfortably work while commuting in impossibly crowded trains. Soon I felt I made the right choice.

The 12-inch PowerBook G4 rewarded me by being a trusty, resilient companion. It suffered a couple of potentially dangerous liquid spills, but luckily nothing was damaged both times. It worked 24/7 during a very hot summer, with its fan constantly on, but never skipped a beat. It survived the bumps and the on-the-road trips during my relocation. It never gave me a problem, either with the software, or with the hardware (apart from the hard drive).

Then, when another round of unibody MacBook Pros came out in July 2009, I decided it was time for a change. I wanted to upgrade to a faster machine and with an Intel architecture. A part of what I do requires that I stay up-to-date with technology, and when it was confirmed that Snow Leopard would be for Intel Macs only, I felt that it was time for a personal transition. Of course, I didn’t want to abandon the PowerBook entirely — it would make for a great second machine.

The purchase of my 15-inch, 2.66 GHz MacBook Pro, came under serendipitous circumstances. Not two weeks after using the newer Mac, the PowerBook G4’s hard drive started to fail: soon after booting, it would overheat and start making an awful noise that sounded like loose metal balls inside the PowerBook’s case. I managed to back up a few data that had remained there, and was forced to decommission the PowerBook until I could find a replacement.

The return

I can’t thank Nicola enough for sending me that drive. It had been a fruitless hunt up to his intervention. A few days ago I operated the hard drive transplant and proceeded to reconfigure the PowerBook from scratch. So I made a fresh installation of Mac OS X 10.5, went through the long process of downloading and installing all the system software updates, and then the fun started.

Pen and paper in hand, I began writing a list of selected pieces of software, trying to keep that list to the essentials. I want this PowerBook to start a second life as a lightweight machine for writing, browsing the Web, and handling email. I also want to store a subset of my vast photo archive on it, and when I find a new battery I’d like to take the PowerBook with me on the occasional photo stroll, so I can dump the contents of my camera on it and do some light retouching on the fly.

So, while on my MacBook Pro I keep all kinds of redundancy (a dozen Web browsers, at least 8 text-handling applications, various programs for photo/image editing, and so on and so forth), the ‘software restoration’ process on the PowerBook so far has been strict, aiming to provide a minimal set of tools for all the intended activities:

  • Browser: Safari is more than adequate. I only added Stainless for the multi-processing architecture, allowing for parallel sessions (which — quoting the website — allow you to log into a site using different credentials in separate tabs at the same time). And because there’s no Google Chrome for PowerPC Macs.
  • Email: Although Apple Mail would have been enough, I chose to install Mailsmith because the interface is less in my way and is better suited for small displays, and because I wanted to have a Mac where I could try the 2.3 pre-release version. To simplify things, I set up a single Gmail account that receives mail forwarded by my three most important accounts, so that I always know what’s going on when I’m on the move.
  • Text handling: Pages, TextEdit and TextWrangler answer all my needs. For reading PDF documents, Preview is a fine tool. I’ve added Skim mostly because I’m more accustomed to its interface and features. For quick, synchronised notes, needless to say: Notational Velocity.
  • Photo handling: Graphic Converter is quite a complete package for what I expect to do on the PowerBook.
  • Music: Well, iTunes comes with Mac OS X, but I don’t plan to grow a music library. Spotify gives me enough music when I need it, and I save a lot of hard disk space…
  • Video: Movist, absolutely, for everything that QuickTime can’t handle, or can’t handle that gracefully.
  • RSS feeds: NetNewsWire.
  • Fonts: In my Dropbox, I keep a sort of “Fonts common set” folder where I place a handpicked, constantly updated list of fonts I want to have on all Macs. So, after installing Mac OS X and Dropbox on the PowerBook, I just copied the contents of that shared folder in [username]/Library/Fonts. To handle fonts, I installed FontExplorer X free (download available at the MacUpdate page for FontExplorer X Pro).
  • Other tools I can’t work without: Dropbox, TextExpander and, yes, ClickToFlash.

 

And that’s about it. As you can see, I managed to set up a Microsoft-less, Adobe-less environment.

The PowerBook restoration process is not over, anyway. I need to find a decent battery, because the original is more than dead and holds no charge. Then I’d also like to find a new AC adapter. The original adapter works, but the cable is bent right before the jack that plugs in the PowerBook and I’m not comfortable moving it too much. But for now the PowerBook is back in service, and that’s what matters.

On distraction and virtual crutches

September 29, 2010
by Riccardo Mori
Software

Roughly a week ago, Mandy Brown spoke a very important truth on Twitter:

If we’re distracted, it’s not because we’re surrounded by devices that demand attention — it’s because we lack the willpower to turn them off.

Lately, observing the geeks I usually follow (in my RSS feeds, on Twitter, etc.), I have noticed a tendency to rely a lot on various small utilities that are supposed to shape our productivity somehow. Or rather, to shape the way we should be productive. These aren’t bad tools, per se: they do their best to target the infamous issues of this Age of the Geek: distraction and short attention span, often induced by the constant incoming stream of hyper-information. There are To-Do utilities, both for the Mac and for iOS devices; applications that help you focus on the task at hand by creating a ‘distraction-free’ environment, like WriteRoom and Ommwriter Dana for writing, or more general applications like Concentrate and Think; programs that actually block access to certain websites or to your Internet connection for a predetermined amount of time, like SelfControl; and then reminders, planners, assistants, all kinds of applications. You’ve been there, you know what I’m talking about.

Well, here’s a shocker: I do not use any of them. Again, it’s not because I think they’re not effective or efficient — I’m sure they are. It’s just because, for me, they end up being another potentially disruptive layer for my attention and concentration. But also because they’re not ‘educative’ or ‘corrective’; they’re supportive, and I believe they quickly become crutches. They patch the problem at hand (distraction, lack of concentration and focus), but they don’t eradicate it or help the chronically distracted do something for their distraction. I don’t want to be dependent from software crutches to be productive and get things done. I want to act myself, be in control, prevent my brain from getting too lazy, ill-organised, forgetful. For how I function, the recipe is really simple and well summarised by Mandy Brown’s tweet above. It’s a matter of will power. I know what gets me distracted while I have work to do and I have learnt to switch it off without remorse.

This past week has been hectic, and I had a lot to do. Two deadlines were inexorably approaching and I needed unbroken slabs of time. I closed my email clients and RSS readers — together they are far more distracting than checking Twitter every now and then, at least for me. I put the Cube to sleep so I couldn’t routinely glance at the other monitor. This was well enough to keep my focus at a satisfying, productive level. I usually waited to check my email until I needed a break. I would get up from my desk, go brew some coffee, and check my crucial email accounts on my iPhone. I didn’t need to have any software blocking any website, I didn’t have to disconnect from the Internet, and so on. I finished my work on time, and I ended up feeling less tired than I thought. But most of all, I felt focussed and in control.

I know, the highest act of will power would be to leave all applications open as usual, and practice the ultimate discipline of ignoring their noise. I’m getting there, one step at a time…

Aggiornamento ignorato

September 20, 2010
by Riccardo Mori
Mele e appunti

Aggiornare a iWork 9.0.4 non è stato automatico

L’altro giorno è accaduta una cosa che penso valga la pena riferire nel caso possa tornare utile ad altri. Per lavoro, ho dovuto aprire Keynote (un programma che uso assai raramente), e sono subito stato accolto da un messaggio che mi avvertiva della presenza di un aggiornamento — la versione 5.0.4 — e di lanciare Aggiornamento Software se volevo procedere. Avviato Aggiornamento Software, dopo il classico controllo iniziale, il programma mi informava che non vi erano aggiornamenti disponibili per il mio computer. Per curiosità, ho aperto anche Pages e Numbers, e anche loro mi avvertivano della disponibilità di una versione aggiornata, la 4.0.4 e la 2.0.4 rispettivamente. Ma Aggiornamento Software continuava a fare lo gnorri.

Per me, tenere aggiornato il Mac è un’operazione meccanica, automatica. Ero quindi convinto di aver già aggiornato iWork all’ultima versione 9.0.4, specie dopo aver letto una serie di notizie che sottolineavano come Apple avesse aggiunto la funzione di esportare in formato ePub dentro l’ultima versione di Pages, la 4.0.4. Perplesso dal comportamento di Aggiornamento Software, ho deciso di scaricare manualmente l’aggiornamento di iWork dal sito Apple e di procedere a installarlo per conto mio. Scaricato il pacchetto, fatto doppio clic, partiva Installer. Dopo qualche secondo, Installer mi avvisava di non aver trovato nessuna versione di Keynote, Pages o Numbers da poter aggiornare nella cartella iWork ’09. Mistero.

Avendo iWork ’09 anche sul mio Power Mac G4 Cube, ho lanciato Aggiornamento Software sul Cube, che mi ha prontamente avvertito della disponibilità di Safari 4.1.2 e di iWork Update 9.0.4. Dopo aver dato conferma, l’installazione di entrambi gli elementi, sul Cube, è andata a buon fine. 

Guidato da un sospetto, passo al Finder in entrambi i Mac e navigo fino alla cartella Applicazioni. Sul Cube la cartella della suite iWork si chiamava iWork ’09, sul MacBook Pro semplicemente iWork. Ho rinominato iWork in iWork ’09, rilanciato l’Installer sul MacBook Pro e l’aggiornamento è andato a buon fine. Non so perché sul MacBook Pro la cartella si chiamasse soltanto iWork, forse l’avevo rinominata io per errore, ma sta di fatto che se non mi fossi accorto di questa discrepanza, con tutta probabilità iWork avrebbe smesso di aggiornarsi e di essere rilevato da Aggiornamento Software. Fate quindi attenzione a come si chiama la cartella di iWork, non spostatela e non cambiatele nome. 

Un dubbio rimane, comunque: come mai fino alla versione 9.0.3 gli aggiornamenti di iWork si sono regolarmente installati?

Attenzione a troncare

September 18, 2010
by Riccardo Mori
Mele e appunti

La figura mostra una porzione dell’interfaccia di Google Chrome per Mac: quando si effettua il download di uno o più file dal Web, in Google Chrome appare una barra di stato in basso che permette di accedere ai vari file. Nell’angolo a destra ecco la scritta in figura. Si noti che la parola troncata Mostra tutti i downloa… occupa più spazio che non Mostra tutti i download.

Sono dettagli, ma i dettagli contano.

iOS 4.1 on an iPhone 3G

September 15, 2010
by Riccardo Mori
Software

As Steve Jobs announced at the keynote on September 1, the iOS 4.1 update (released last Wednesday), among other fixes and new features also addresses the performance problems affecting the iPhone 3G. From what I’ve gathered, after the original iOS 4 update, the overall performance on the iPhone 3G kind of went downhill, but not in the same way for everyone. I was rather surprised to hear that for some iPhone 3G users their device had basically become ‘unusable’. Yes, I noticed some degradation on mine, but not system-wide, and not consistently. Sometimes things would get remarkably better after a force-reboot, other times it was enough to clear some caches and do a sync with iTunes. And more importantly — as I wrote in July:

As more and more apps were updated and made iOS 4‑compatible by their respective developers, I couldn’t help but notice (wait for it) a progressive performance improvement. The iPhone keeps feeling snappier. Transitions and animations are smoother, more apps seem to open a tad faster than before, the virtual keyboard feels more responsive, and (again, wait for it) the iBooks app itself has mysteriously improved to the point of being actually usable.

Of course, when you start getting used to a certain performance degree, you tend to be a bit forgiving with what we may call ‘minor annoyances’. Having a usable iPhone is better than having an unusable one, but it’s not at all like having an optimal user experience. I didn’t stay on iOS 3.1.x and I refused to downgrade to it because I thought that the improvements brought by iOS 4 were worth the upgrade, especially the ability to have folders and a unified mailbox view. So I accepted the tradeoff of having a slightly less responsive iPhone 3G.

After a week with iOS 4.1, I can safely say that performance and responsiveness are back to iOS 3 times. In particular, I’ve noticed the following:

  • The iPhone 3G boot time seems shorter. There were times before when it seemed it was taking forever to go from the Apple logo to the Springboard.
  • UI animations and transitions are smooth once again. I mean, really smooth. This is especially true for the animation effect on big sliders like Slide to unlock, Slide to power off, etc. The responsiveness of such sliders has once again improved and they actually move with your finger like they used to.
  • The virtual keyboard is back to being snappy. Before iOS 4.1, this was one of the annoyances that were quickly getting frustrating. In whatever app I was (even in the Spotlight search interface), the keyboard just couldn’t keep up with my typing, at least visually. I would type three or four letters with no animation at all on the virtual keys (thus I didn’t know if I had tapped the right letters), I would pause for a second, and then watch the letters being entered all at once with an irksome delay. Now this appears to be fixed for good.
  • Apps (especially the built-in ones, especially Settings) open faster than before, and they close instantly when you tell them to, without delays or animation hiccups.
  • Scrolling is smooth again. Before iOS 4.1, flipping my finger on a long list to scroll faster resulted in awkward pauses and staggerings of the interface. This didn’t happen regularly, but boy was it annoying when it did.
  • Generally speaking, all gestures are now performed instantly and without delays: pinching, reverse-pinching, double tapping, swiping… All is back to normal.

If you own an iPhone 3G and haven’t updated to iOS 4.1 yet, I recommend you do. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.