Just fixed a corrupt boot partition (probably only 1 file) on my fathers MacBook Pro (early 2008). I used Target Disk Mode, installing the 10.5.6 Combo Update on it from my MacBook Pro. This feature sure is handy for a situation like this, it is a real shame that the new MacBook’s (non pro) don’t have FireWire ports. RIP FireWire/Target Disk Mode.
I recently got a 2nd generation Drobo which is a great device that offers USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 connections. Being the Mac guy I am, I naturally went for FireWire using a 800 to 400 cable connected to an iMac 2 GHz Intel Core Duo 2GB ram. I was getting a transfer rate of 15 mb/s to the iMac’s internal hard drive, if I was lucky. Just for kicks I decided to try the USB 2.0 connection and now I am getting 17.5-19 mb/s, I was really surprised. I never thought I would be wishing for the FireWire speed of my old PowerMac!
It appears that Apple (or maybe Intel) has done some optimization work on USB 2.0 with the Intel transition and FireWire has slipped a bit (remember I am talking the 400 version). Granted it could be that FireWire just blows on the iMac (or Drobo), maybe a MacPro screams.
If you want an easy hardware RAID setup give the Drobo a look.
If you are a Mac developer or iPhone developer using Cocoa for your apps you have to check out Cappuccino and Objective-J, which allows you to bring that Cocoa knowledge to web apps.
For someone like myself who has never really gotten into advanced web development this is a very useful toolset.
The guys at 280 North have done a great job of making JavaScript behave very similar to Objective-C and Cappuccino mimic Cocoa.
Check out this cool demo
Back when I was using Tiger if I wanted to burn a DVD+R DL (double layer DVD that holds 8.5GB) I had to use Roxio Toast to burn the disk as the Finder did not support it. Well today I tried burning a DVD+R DL in Leopard, all seemed fine, at the start. The finder did not throw up any errors until about halfway through burning the disk. So I tossed the disk and put another in the drive and tried again, unfortunately I got the same result. If these were normal DVD’s I wouldn’t be so mad but these things cost a few bucks apiece!
Once I buy a few more DVD+R DL’s I will have to try Toast again to make sure it still works, you would think Apple would fully support the drive that came with my Macbook Pro I bought over 9 months ago. I am starting to think Apple might be spending too much time on the iPhone.
Update: Burned the disk with Roxio Toast 8.0.3
Today marks 5 years since my first Mac was delivered to my door (PowerMac G4 933mhz). The journey has been a pleasant one with very few bumps along the way. I came to the Mac after a few years of full-time BeOS usage, with a short stint of Windows 2000 in-between.
Thanks Apple for putting the fun back in computing, especially after suffering through several months of Windows usage.
