adinoto's blog

I just got a little friend’s visit yesterday asking me about a wierd question. “Adi, do you have a formatting tool for USB device?” .. Ha? I wonder what. Everyone can simply use Operating System’ formatting tool, no matter it’s gonna be a Windows or Mac or Linux. So what in the hell they gonna need special formatter for it. It also reminds me a little “affair” with china-made USB fake version of VIAO, Sony, Apple USB that claim to have a 4GB or even 8GB on the box, but when you start using it, it can’t store more than 32MB or sometimes 64MB if you’re lucky 😀 … Even worse when you start format it will only show 32 to 64MB of space. 😀

Nothing is really new about that. It’s too common for the first timer who went to China for a visit. But what makes it interesting is that my friend got an Nano-clone iPod from china’s last visit… Nano? Ho oh… you’ll see it yourself down here. Now I realize that it’s not easy to become an Apple Executive in China mainland. I know once Tony Ho, who ran China Operation but was kicked out due his inability to broaden Apple’s penetration in China more than 1%. Of course it’s due soo many no-name brand cloner who produce el-cheapo MP3 box. Steve, you gotta think forward beyond just US and European market if you want to be more successful than ever. Think Different Steve!! …. Oh yeah, did I mention that this little gizmo is only worth 30 dollars? Just what it takes to fit the 50-100 dollars/monthly income for most developing countries.

New MacBook Pro 15″ just come out at MWSF 2006. It sports Intel Centrino Duo (Dual Core Pentium M for you who missed the news) at 1.67GHz and 1.83GHz price at 1,999 and 2,499 for each configuration.

Now let’s take this toy further by setting up a dual or triple boot with Windows XP and/or Linux x86 at your choice. Now get Windows XP and flop it to PowerBook oopss did I just miss the word PowerBook 😛 … flop it into your MacBook Pro. See how it boots. The special BIOS will handle operation for dual booting configuration. Prepares coffee first for attended 39 minutes Windows XP installation… Voila it works. Now Windows XP run on MacBook Pro… but wot? It’s only shows 800×600 resolution instead of its native 1440×900. Calm down, cowboy… it’s time to find the VGA driver for it. Digg for this here and its control center here. Remember that ATI control center only works if you have .NET 1.1 Framework. Get it here.

Now everything seems perfect. The screen just look nice and let see what’s more on Device Manager. Hmm.. time to get the wireless connection works. It sports 802.11g. Get it from here. And now what?? Of course this is based on monolog since I don’t have a MacBook Pro on hand at this moment. 🙁 … unless Steve is kind enough to give me one for an incentive for writing more Mac column :)) … what do you say Steve? 🙂

boni_soehakso : boss ada live nih di CNBC
macnoto : rese tv cable kenapa tiba2 mati 🙁
macnoto : masih ada ga tv live nya di cnbc?
macnoto : gue lagi mau telpon tv cable rese anjrit banget
boni_soehakso : bete
boni_soehakso : lg kepotong barusan ganti ttg bird flu di turki
boni_soehakso : cacat……..
boni_soehakso : CNBC siaran ga niat
boni_soehakso : tololllll
macnoto : iya orang udah mau kiamat lu masih ngurusin si botak 😛

*ngacirrr

With recent CES (Consumer Expo) and upcoming MWSF (MacWorld Expo San Fransisco), lots of friends of mine asking will Apple finally taking down Microsoft and once again rule the desktop. I simply say it will never be… Unless Apple is willing to let PC hardware use/license Mac OS X on ordinary PC hardware. Apple should letting the Mac OS X go as an independent product. Why? Because end users are the last mile and they are all the laggards. They are slow to change. They use Windows!! Some of them are using Windows 95 and most corporate are happy enough with Windows 98 Second Edition. Some portions are Windows 2000, XP and Windows 2003 users. And they have lots of investments (softwares and hardwares), and familiarity based on Windows that not easily change overnight.

By the time Apple are happy enough with Leopard (10.5) and/or Dharma (10.4.4), people will stay there with Windows, and some even experiments or start migrating to Windows XP x64 Edition and/or trying Windows Vista in the mean time. The point is there’s no way Apple would ever be a clear winner of desktop competition if Apple would never release Mac OS X as stand alone product. To win the battle it’s not about technical excellency, it’s the market share, dude!!

Dang!…. so will Apple or Steve Jobs will ever release Mac OS X as a stand alone product?? I don’t think so (I hope I’m wrong, or may not too little too late if Steve start changing his mind about this)… why? Because Apple never think that they have made a mistake by keeping the OS proprietary, and there where Microsoft stole the show…. especially with huge success of iPod!! (Still a propriatery product). Though the case with music player is different.

Read my previous rants here. Are you there, Steve?

Frankly said, I heard about the LuxPro “iPod Shuffle” fake just when it went public. It’s an old story. But to me I found a bit surprise when I struck my eyes on local electronics store in my small city, Bandung., that the fake iPod and accessories lying there in bulk!!

“The iPod Shuffle” available in 256MB and 512MB, while the earphone is for sale for only 3 dollars. Fiuhh… this is prove that iPod is a popular gadget, and now become a generic term.

Personally I don’t recommend you to buy the fake iPod Shuffle since it comes with lower quality, and the price is about the same the original one. But for earphone, I guess it depends, if you need an earphone for your personal use, better stick with your original, but if you want an earphone for let’s say your iBook or your PC laptop, this one is a steal. The quality is superb, though a bit noisy on lower frequency.

I even got a strange USB cable that has Apple logo on the end, and Sony logo on the other end… Wierd 😀 … but good quality. I find it nicely fit for my digital camera, functionally and esthetically 😛 …. I even passed one to Apple’s engineer that he said would be good for use in his White Sony PSP…

Steve, what’s next? Mac OS X for everyone??