The MacDeskBlog

Okay, so one of the last things I said about the server was that I thought I had fixed the bug which was causing the performance problems, but that I was unwilling to declare the bug squashed yet.

It’s squashed. Performance has been good ever since. The machine is stable, reliable and at last performing as desired.

Additionally, I have the sites copied over to the new server (identical software setup, beefier hardware specs), I should be able to get to the database copy this week and start testing it.

And, then there’s the Allume deal, which, if it goes through (and it’s looking very likely), will mean another migration (back to Mac OS X Server! Yeah!) later this summer.

So, I got this email from GoDaddy late last week: “Bandwidth Warning: Dedicated Server Monthly Bandwidth Exceeded.” Surprised, I logged into my admin interface for the server, and saw that it didn’t give me a summary of monthly bandwidth, only a daily graph. Adding up the columns, I decided that I had not exceeded my bandwidth and would continue my investigation later. Later turned out to be yesterday, and this time I found my monthly summary: 126GB of 500GB allocation.

How the hell is 126GB used out of 500GB allocated exceeding my bandwidth?!? Bad GoDaddy! Shame GoDaddy! It’s really quite bad enough that my 500GB bandwidth on each server doesn’t pool (I had used 4GB of 500GB for the new server until I copied the sites yesterday), but them trying to scare me into buying more bandwidth is shameful. It almost worked too. Bastards. They list their superior service as one of the top ten reasons to use them, but their service stinks. Now they’re trying to trick me into buying extra bandwidth which I won’t use. And the Virtual Dedicated Server I initially leased from them was a piece of crap and lost most of my data. All in all, I must say that I can’t recommend them as a server provider. Sure, they’re cheap, but, well, they’re CHEAP. I’ll be happy to move off from their hardware when the time comes. Tiger Server, here we come.

You may have surmised from the lack of updates that the inspections went great and I’ve been way too busy working on the house to get around to posting anything. Or you may have surmised from the same absence that the inspections went badly and I’ve been too depressed to write anything. Of course, there are any number of other conclusions to which one could have jumped. As it turns out, though, the second one is pretty much on target.

The inspector came by on Tuesday and refused to sign anything off for one reason which he really did not articulate well. So, I tried to address that concern and brought him back on Thursday for another inspection. The result was essentially the same except that we at least got him to clarify that he wants the rough electrical, the rough plumbing and the mechanical (furnace, ducts, gas lines) all complete before he’ll sign off any of them. Argh!

So, I brought in three HVAC companies to bid on the project. Two of them complained a lot about how difficult the duct work would be with the plumbing and electrical already complete. They both recommended putting the furnace in the attic, which I find distasteful on several levels. The third company is, of all people, Sears & Roebuck. I know, I was surprised too when “& Roebuck” was mentioned over the phone. Dave, the Sears guy, was considerate enough to write up two bids (I made a similar request of All Bay HVAC, but they only sent me one), each of which was between the bids from All Bay and L.J. Kruse. Dave saw no significant problems posed by the plumbing nor electrical, even when invited by me to complain about them. He also saw the custom built furnace closet in the garage as being appropriate for its intended usage. So, Sears got the contract. The only downside with them, is the two week delay until they can start, but I’m accepting that.

My crew got all of last week off as well as the Friday after the last inspection. The crew is now down to Steve and Orlando until the siding can go up. Steve is going to do some work on the stairs and try to sweet talk the inspector into unbinding the electrical from the plumbing and mechanical so we can put up the siding sooner rather than later. It’s the end of June, and we’re still getting rain showers. Love that Global Warming mucking up our seasonal weather patterns.

Michelle and I have set a deadline for the house. If we are unable to move in by then, I’m going to sell the damn thing. In an effort to stave off getting to that point, I’m going to interview a few of contractors in the next couple of weeks to see if I can get some professional help to get us through these cursed inspections. My first two calls will be to Goddard Construction and W.B. Elmer Construction, both of which were recommended to me by the competent engineer I had on the project (i.e. the second engineer, Josh Fisher). I’m hoping that I’ll manage to get through inspections right before I would be deciding which one to hire, but I want to have one ready to step in should we fail the next inspection or fall further behind schedule.

Wow. This is a big week in my life. You know how things supposedly come in threes? Well, it seems like that applies to my life too sometimes, though I think in truth major things just happen in bunches. As humans, we like to see order where there is none, intention where there is coincidence, meaning where there is chaos. We create myths to explain the inexplicable, and superstition so we can feel an irrational control where we have no control at all. We invented luck to explain why good or bad things happen.

And then there are times when our lives become malleable. Usually, it’s because some significant change has been thrust upon us or simply becomes inevitable. As we adjust to one thing, other things must adjust as well. Or as we focus our mental energies on finding balance in life, we realize that multiple things are out of balance, and work on changing them all at once. Say you’re overextended, you figure out not just one thing to cut out of your life, but rather everything which is not adding value and cut them all at once.

These are the ramblings of a sleep deprived man. Yesterday after work, I met Michelle, Steve and Reuben at the house. Steve showed me all of the work he done cutting out my plumbing and piecing it back together, as well as a spot where he had nicked an electrical cable. Theoretically, I just needed to solder the plumbing and replace the wire. Seeing that we had a long night in front of us, Michelle and I went out to dinner before getting started. Steve and Reuben, of course, were just wrapping up their day.

The trials and tribulations of fixing the plumbing are unimportant, but suffice it to say that we worked into the wee hours of the morning until we finally finished the plumbing line. Michelle spent some of that time replacing the electrical wire, some helping me, and some sitting patiently, keeping me company. At around 2AM, I was prepared to throw in the towel, as she was extremely tired and I was exhausted. But she was willing to press on in order for the house to be ready for the inspector today. So, off she went in search of fries and a shake as I tried to fix the final leak in my newly assembled hot water line.

Anyway, after recharging on Giants fries, we finished at 3:30AM, theoretically ready for rough plumbing and rough wiring inspections today. The plumber returns today to reinstall the gas line which had to be cut in multiple places over the course of the past 4 months, and to reassemble part of the drain, waste and vent (DWV) system, which had to be disassembled yesterday in order to insert yet another joist. I wish I had a picture of this particularly cluttered portion of my house. I’ll have Michelle take one today. I think that Steve is also supposed to be ready for framing inspection today, though I’m not sure if there aren’t any more dependencies for that.

My own confluence of events this week, consists of: last night’s marathon plumbing and wiring session; today’s major inspection schedule; today’s significant meeting about the future of MacDesktops (I need to leave for that meeting very soon); tonight’s soccer game in which I am our starting goalie (as of this year); and a transition between jobs at work this week, from the department where I’ve been for the past eight years to one where I hope to finish my career.

Cross your fingers for me for those inspections today. I need all the luck I can get with this house.

Oh, I do have some pictures from the weekend, which we spent running the circuit for the smoke detectors, and running multimedia cabling (two ethernet, one telephone and a coax) throughout the house. I’ll put them up tonight along with pictures from last night. I’m out of time for the moment.

I read I, Cringely for June 9, 2005 and I must say, that I think he really is pretty far off the mark this time, to the point where I feel compelled to try to debunk some of what he says. I think he’s trying to build up a straw man with his five questions, but it doesn’t really come across very well. Maybe he’s just putting forth questions he keeps hearing. Or maybe he’s just being rhetorical. Regardless, to me the Q&A comes across as too misleading.

“Question 1: What happened to the PowerPC’s supposed performance advantage over Intel? ”

That’s a damn good question.

“… Was that so much BS? Did Apple not really mean it? And why was the question totally ignored in this week’s presentation?”

It was not BS. Apple absolutely did mean it. And it was totally ignored this week because Apple isn’t leaving the PowerPC because of past performance, they’re doing so because of current and future performance. Remember what every mutual fund broker says? Past performance is not an indicator of future returns. Well, past PowerPC performance was good (as has been borne out by numerous comparisons from MacAddict to PC World to Ars Technica), but the future looks bleak. Heck, the present is pretty dire for Apple’s laptops.

In addition to the 3GHz G5 and the PowerBook G5 that we were supposed to have by now, we were also supposed to have dual and quad core G5s. Actually, we were supposed to have dual and quad core G4s even before the G5 was developed, now that I think about it. That is how far behind IBM and Freescale are on their roadmap for the PowerPC line. PowerPC processors were also supposed to be smaller, faster, less complex, use less power and generate less heat than x86 processors, only one of which has been true since the 603, and not by much (less complex). Of course, Intel had similar but different problems within that timeframe. Itanium was supposed to be the be-all-end-all, second coming type of blockbuster exclamation point <insert your own superlatives here> to the x86 line. And it turned out to be an overpriced, under-performer. The P4 turned out to be less powerful per MHz than the P3, though it made up for it with higher clock speeds. And I seem to recall some incompatibility problems with the early P4 too. Oh well.

Even so, G5s are at parity with P4s in today’s desktops.

“Question 2: What happened to Apple’s 64-bit operating system? … So is 64-bit really nothing to Apple? And why did they make such a big deal about it in their earlier marketing?”

This question is pretty much answered as asked … “marketing”. When a company decides to invest in a particular technology and push it to market, they tout it as ‘new and improved’. Is it new? Certainly! Is it improved? Only time will tell.

So, will Apple abandon 64-bit processors in their move to Intel chips? Maybe. We’ll have to wait and see. Will they be disgruntled about switching back to 32-bit processors if they have to? Maybe. Or maybe they’ll be ecstatic. We’ll have to wait and see. The only thing we can be sure of is that, whatever they decide to do, they’ll market the hell out of it!

“Question 3: Where the heck is AMD? … Apple and AMD makes far more sense than Apple and Intel any day.”

Come on. Get real. AMD is a bit player. Apple has just spent the last 30 years playing with a bit player and getting ridiculed for it throughout the past 20 years. The PowerPC was obviously superior technology in 1994, but it’s not anymore because the manufacturer doesn’t have enough interest in it. Apple is now happy to let other companies play with AMD. They want to latch onto the juggernaut for this type of a major transition. Once there, might they release some AMD models? Who knows? Personally, I doubt it, but it would certainly be more logical to do it then than announcing that they’re switching over the CPUs from one marginal manufacturer to another marginal manufacturer even if that manufacturer is compatible with Intel. Does AMD have great products? Probably, but that’s not as relevant and selling this transition to press and public, and that means going with Intel.

“Question 4: Why announce this chip swap a year before it will even begin for customers?”

Well, before I delve into my longest response, I need to set it up by circling back to Question 1 and expanding upon it just a little.

In addition to IBM and Freescale being way behind in development of the PowerPC line, they don’t seem to have PC chips in mind for the future. They essentially don’t want Apple’s business anymore. They decided that they can’t compete with Intel for desktop processor design, so they’re going to find another pond (gaming consoles, primarily) in which to try to be big fish. Sure, they’re happy to sell Apple their existing processor lines as long as Apple is willing to buy them, but they’re not going to develop anything for Apple anymore. Apple doesn’t seem to have had much of a choice in the matter.

So, working from the premise that Apple’s switch was a fait-accompli, why would Apple pre-announce it?

Let’s think about what would have happened had Apple not pre-announced it. Next year, Apple would have discontinued a particular model of Mac and when the channel dried up, they would have announced the switch to Intel. Developers would have panicked. No matter how good Rosetta is, performance using it will not compare with performance of native applications. Sure, Adobe and Maya would have had native versions of their applications in the works, which they only spent 3 hours converting but which wouldn’t be shipping for another 3 months, and Microsoft would have a similar story except the new Office suite would be ready any day now and end up shipping 9-12 months later. The rest of the developer community would have felt entirely betrayed and justly so. Native software would have trickled in over the course of the next year. Consumers would have panicked. All they would be able to buy would be an obsolete G5 desktop or a more obsolete G4 iBook/PowerBook (though laptops will probably be the first to be converted to Intel) with plenty of software available for it at the moment but a big tombstone painted on its side, or a brand spanking new Pentium M Mac (whichever is the first to get replaced) with no software available for it. Consumers would have felt entirely betrayed and justly so.

What do you get from disgruntled consumers and disgruntled developers? Three things:
1. No sales. Same result as pre-announcing, sales dry up for about a year until the software is ready.
2. Really bad press, including the return of the Apple Death Watch.
3. Class Action Lawsuits galore.

So, what happens over the course of the next year?
1. Some consumers will decide to wait until next year.
2. Some consumers will decide that waiting until next year will hurt their productivity, so they’ll buy anyway.
3. A few consumers will decide that the Dual G5s really do kick the butt of Pentiums. Doing the math, they’ll figure that Apple is going to take at least a full year to convert the entire lineup (as they have said), and new software will be fat binaries for several more years after that. So they really have little to lose over the lifetime of a computer, and they probably have a lot to gain by buying now and/or when Apple has a fire sale to clear out the last of the PowerPC inventory in 2006/7.

Overall, Mac sales will dip over the next year, but not as badly as they would have over the following year had Apple waited and blind-sided everyone.

Cringley says that Apple could have quietly released the developer machines under NDA so their would have been native software available at release. But that wouldn’t have worked for several reasons:
1. Apple’s developer programs are open to everyone (student memberships were $99 last time I checked). NDA or no NDA, that cat would get out of the bag and fast.
2. WWDC is the only opportunity Apple has to talk directly to a broad range of developers in order to get them on board. WWDC is a public event with press inside at the keynote and around talking to developers and eavesdropping.
3. Apple could have seeded a few of the developer systems to only their most trusted developers in order to avoid the two problems above, but that puts them back into the disgruntled consumers and disgruntled developers scenario I described previously.

Sure, Apple is great at keeping secrets, and it’s great at taking risks. It’s also pretty good at major transitions (68K to PowerPC and Mac OS 9 to X). Keeping this transition secret would have been at least as hazardous as making it public. Personally, I think the risk of trying to keep it secret would have been greater than that of making it public now. Apple’s prepared to take its lumps now, softened by the continuing success of the iPod line, so that they’ll come out less bruised when the transition is complete.

“Question 5: Is this all really about Digital Rights Management?”

Actually, I agree with Mr. Cringely here. I also think that DRM is a non-issue.

“The obvious questions about performance and 64-bit computing come down to marketing. … The vaunted Intel roadmap is nice, … and nothing that IBM couldn’t have matched. If Apple was willing to consider a processor switch, moving to the Cell Processor would have made much more sense than going to Intel or AMD … This is simply about business — BIG business.”

Yes, I agree that 64-bit computing is largely marketing. We’ll see how committed Apple is to it. I disagree, though about the roadmap. IBM has lost interest in developing the PowerPC line, preferring the POWER chips instead. Skimming the Ars Technica article on the Cell Processor leads me to the conclusion that switching to the Cell processor would be a comparable task to switching to Intel chips. Well, Cell is an IBM chip design, and Apple is tired of being burned by IBM. They’d be foolish to hop to another chip line from the same manufacturer and end up in the same place in five or ten years, if lucky. Besides, the press would have eaten them alive for switching processors again, to a non-Intel processor, again. IBM has demonstrated an inability to outpace Intel’s development efforts, while simultaneously demonstrating a willingness to license its own manufacturing advances to Intel to ensure that they keep up. IBM did a terrific job with the PowerPC for several years, but the bottom line is that they just aren’t committed to it anymore, and that doesn’t bode well for the Cell Processor either.

So yes, it’s about big business. Apple bet against Intel in the past and got burned by it. Manufacturing machines which could not run Windows contributed substantially to Apple’s market share decline from 50% to 3%. They’re trying not to perpetuate that mistake. Not licensing early was the other. It is entirely conceivable that HP will want to license Mac OS, and it’s remotely conceivable that Apple might let them. Steve seems to be of the opinion that they already missed the boat on licensing, but that might have or may in the future change in the new Intel landscape.

“Then what is the driving force? Microsoft.”

I believe that Intel and HP and many other major players in the PC world hate Microsoft. I think that Apple does mean more to Intel than another 3% market share, though you also shouldn’t underestimate the value of 3% market share to Intel. Apple is a potential rapier for Intel to fence with MS. Intel, however, is not a software company. Buying Apple would not gain them much, if anything, appreciable over partnering closely with Apple, as they are suddenly doing. Intel has been making processors and only making processors for a very long time now. Diversifying into software development would be a mistake for them. (I know they do write a little bit of software, but it’s just a little, and aside from their drivers, it’s not very good.)

While Cringely makes a few interesting points and conjectures, I think that his questions are pretty much red herrings, and his hypothesis that Apple will followup selling its soul to Intel by selling its body to them too is off the mark. And, I really doubt that Apple or Intel stockholders would approve of such a merger. I sure know my Apple shares would be voted against it.

It is clear to me that I need to redesign the site now, as in very soon. I keep receiving emails from people who think the site is broken because they keep seeing just the message box at the top of the page, not realizing that the pictures are still there, just a little bit lower. This is an extremely clear indication that the expanded message box is causing problems for users, and is therefore bad design.

I’m wasting too much space at the top, and creating a false bottom by the clean break all the way across the page below the message box.

Anyway, I have big big plans for the redesign. I’ll try to break them into manageable chunks. Whenever possible, I’ll rollout incremental releases. Hopefully, this will mean incremental improvements over the coming months more than it will mean constant change and confusion.

My impending ability to work on the redesign is directly related to the improved stability of the server since yesterday. I may have fixed that bug right before I posted about needing help isolating the bug. The bit of code that I changed really shouldn’t have been able to cause the behavior I was seeing, so I’m not declaring the bug squashed yet. However, the simple fact that there haven’t been any slow database queries since I made the change yesterday, compared to a few dozen per day since I moved onto the Linux servers in early May, has me hopeful.

Also worth mentioning is that I have not cut over to the new, beefier server yet. It’s merely awaiting my copying about 20GB of pictures and site files over to it, and configuring the database and web server. Maybe this weekend, or maybe next week.

Recapping:
1. Scroll down
2. I am aware that the site design desperately needs an update
3. I actually think that I’ll be able to start that soon
4. Server stability and performance is improving, but
5. The never-responding-search bug might still be out there, so tell me if you encounter it!
6. New server still on the way, and soon.

There’s a bug in the site right now, and I can’t reproduce the problem in order to find the bug.

Symptom
You submit some request and never get a response from the server.

What to do
Use the email link at the top of the MacDesktops home page (“Let me know”) to tell me exactly what you were trying to search for, and to send me the URL which appears in your browser when it’s not getting any response. To help me the most, your email should include:
1. The full, ugly URL.
2. Which fields you entered things into.
3. What you entered into those fields.
4. Which browser you are using, including version number.
5. Which operating system you are using, including version number.

Hopefully, a couple of those emails will enable me to reproduce the problem and squash the bug.

Thanks for your help,

Ryan

I started to write up a little something yesterday about Apple’s announcement of the switch to Intel processors. It wasn’t very good, so I scrapped it.

I’m still in shock. After mocking Intel processors for so many years, it’s really hard to say “Yeah! This is a great move!” Personally, I don’t think that Intel’s current offerings are particularly good. G5 processors match or outperform P4 processors despite the 50% GHz difference.

But when I read what Steve said yesterday and let it sink in a bit, I can grudgingly acknowledge that it might be a good move, and here’s why. First off, while Mac desktops are still going toe-to-toe against Wintel desktops in the performance arena, Intel has done a better job of getting their power consumption and heat production down, so Wintel laptops are still advancing while Mac laptops are still stuck on G4 chips. I haven’t looked at any cross-platform performance comparisons lately, but I’m prepared to concede that a 3GHz P4 Sony Vaio laptop is faster than a 1.67GHz G4 PowerBook.

Now, consider that laptops are half of the PC market these days, and IBM/Freescale’s inability to miniaturize the G5 becomes a huge problem. We were supposed to have 3GHz PowerMacs and G5 PowerBooks by now, but we don’t.

Next, think about IBM’s motivation. IBM just signed up Microsoft’s XBox, Sony’s Playstation, and Nintendo’s Revolution for PowerPC production. Game consoles comprise a huge market, much larger than Mac sales especially when you consider that each XBox will get, count ‘em, three PowerPC processors. PowerPC’s also go into embedded systems. IBM and Freescale already have a huge market for PowerPC processors. Apple is the only personal computer manufacturer in that mix. So, Apple’s needs do not mesh well with IBM and Freescale’s development plans. Considering how much it costs to develop new processors, it doesn’t make sense for IBM or Freescale to pump money into designing processors just for Apple. Apple could pay them do continue development, but why should they when they could switch to Intel chips? Continuing development would be continuing expense. Switching only costs them once. Sure, Intel chips are most expensive per unit, but they should still be cheaper than paying upfront for processor design and development for each new generation of chips.

Also, there are a few other less compelling bits to think about. There’s the old “if you can’t beat them, join them” cliche, which does apply here. Apple is trying to convince people to switch from Windows to Macintosh, but the processor architecture is a barrier. People ready to ditch their old PC’s are weary of switching to Macs because they’ll lose all of their licensed applications. If the new Mac can also boot Windows, licensed software will no longer be lost. They could just reboot the machine into Windows and still use it. Another less compelling issue, is the egg on Steve Job’s face. He declared that 3GHz Macs would be shipping by now and we’re still not there. Steve may be fed up with IBM (already was with Freescale) and ready to take his business elsewhere. A third bit to think about is the iPod. It is conceivable that Apple has been planning this transition since the switch to Mac OS X, but has not been in a financial position to carry it out. Now that the iPod is a blockbuster product and analysts are fairly universally singing the praises of Apple, they are finally in a position where a one to two year dip in computer sales won’t put the company into a death spiral.

My friend Pete Priel sent me this eWeek article which has some additional insights about Apple’s potential motivations and some intriguing ideas about potential implementation (hint Windows running side by side with Mac OS X, potentially with an integrated GUI?). Another friend, John Engler blogged his own more neutral thoughts on the topic.

Finally, I’d like to make a couple of things clear. First off, I have no inside information on any of this. I’m speculating about some of this, and digesting press releases and articles for the rest. Second, I’m not thrilled about this switch, but I can live with it. Third, I still don’t really like Intel, so don’t expect to see many Intel Inside desktops appearing any time soon. (I think there’s a saying like “love is fleeting, but hate lasts forever” or something like that. I don’t hate Intel, but my dislike still has some life left in it.)

I spent another weekend and another Monday night working on the house. My friend Dave Giessler came over Sunday and worked on the wiring. We ran the circuit for the downstairs lights, and he exposed and cleaned up the wiring upstairs so the inspector can look at it all (new and old). I almost finished the plumbing. I’m short one piece of flexible tubing to connect the inlet of the (temporary) water heater. We also ran out of 12-3/g Romex on Sunday, so I have a couple of three way switches to run wires for, and a little bit of clean up work to do in the pantry, upstairs bath and closet. If I can get supplies today or tomorrow, I should be able to finish up both the rough plumbing and the rough inside wiring on Thursday night. If I’m lucky, that could mean inspections on Friday, though it will probably end up on Monday instead.

My hapless Giants are back in town after a truly dismal road trip. I’m heading to the game tonight with Ken. I haven’t seen him in many months, primarily because work transferred him to another site. Should be a fun evening.

My friend Michele wrote this little ode for her company this morning and shared it with me.

It’s still Pac Bell Park to me too. And there’s no joy on a seven game losing streak.