Moshe Bar at Byte.com has performed a careful and thorough side-by-side benchmark/comparison of OS X as a pure server (not desktop) environment by installing both OS X and the SuSE PowerPC Linux distribution on an XServe. Short story: OS X lost to Linux on every measurable count, but Moshe is still impressed, since OS X is so new while Linux has had a decade to tune its subsystems. To my knowledge, this is the first such test done with this degree of care.

Related link: https://connect.apple.com

Apple has released their Java 1.4.1 developer preview. It is listed as DP2. A second download includes corresponding tool updates. This is not a finished product. The download requires an ADC membership (which is available at three levels, one of which is free) and an agreement not to discuss the download except on an approved Apple list.

I spent the better part of yesterday hanging around the Orthopedic clinic at the University of San Francisco Medical Center. In these situations I take my TiBook and write — in part because I’m compulsive, but also because I get very bored sitting around for hours waiting for the medical world to grind through its paces.

I had on a black, long sleeve Polo shirt, Levi blue jeans, black belt, and black leather shoes. I wear wire rim glasses when I write. Generally I look for chairs in the waiting room that don’t have arms so I can sit with the TiBook on my lap and type.

OK, so here I am doing my Mac thing in the waiting room and this lady keeps looking at me. (No not that way!) More like I’m some kind of convict or something. So, I start looking back at her hoping she’ll spill the beans.

She goes to get a drink of water and on her way back she asks me if I’m the guy she’s seen on TV, you know the one that likes Mac computers. I politely tell here that I’m not an actor in real life, but have been known to put on a good show when caught doing something wrong.

Now she thinks I’m weird and decides to sit somewhere out of view.

Then, a while later I’m in an actual exam room, still dressed the same, still working on my TiBook, and the white coats come in. They’re chatting away with the patient while I work, and then one of them stops and asks me, “Hey, are you the guy on TV who switched from Windows to Mac?”

Based on my earlier experience, I decided to answer more directly and said, “No, I’m not one of those people who you’ve seen on TV, but from what I know, they’re everyday people like me.”

Then one of the doctors exclaims, “Boy, that’s a nice looking computer!”

I’m thinking afterwards, Apple has done it again. This series of ads has crept into the consciousness of a segment of our population, and they have lingered there. Not only are the ads themselves sticking, but the types of people, and to some degree, what they look like and the clothes they are wearing.

I don’t know how many computers the Switchers campaign will ultimately sell, but I do believe that Apple will continue to be a very recognizable brand. And from what I know about business, that’s half the battle.

“My name’s Derrick Story, and I’m a photojournalist.”

Related link: https://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?topic_id=4156

Pocket PC Thoughts talks about the popularity of Pocket PCs in the enterprise market, and attributes some of this popularity to .NET-based solutions that involve SQL CE. The Compact Framework lets developers share a common code base between desktop and handheld Windows platforms.

Could the Pocket PC be what takes .NET across the chasm?

According to this article at eWEEK, Apple is preparing to release OS X 10.2.2, aka “Elvis” in the next few weeks. Elvis will feature an optional fully journaling filesystem, which can be enabled from the command line. For those of us migrating to OS X from BeOS, this is huge news - Be’s BFS was one of the operating system’s crown jewels (full journaling was only one of BFS’ selling points). Unfortunately, journaling is expected to slow OS X down 10-15%, which was not true of BFS. Prayers are being answered, one at a time…

Related link: https://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2002/Oct/13#x909

Sam Ruby points to an Eclipse plugin that supplies the equivalent of Visual Studio .NET’s Add Web Reference feature.

I’ve blogged many of the sessions from Day Two of the href="https://www.sellsbrothers.com/conference/">Sells Brothers Web ServicesDevCon:

• Don
  Box’s Keynote

• Yasser
  Shohoud’s the Right Way to Build Web Services

• Mindreef’s
  Mark Ericson and Dave Seidels on Web Services Diagnostics

• Tim Ewald’s Building Web Services with System.XML
• Eugene Kuznetsov’s talk on Network Infrastructure Requirements for Web
  Services

• Keith Ballinger’s talk on .NET Web Service Security Support
• Clemens
  Vasters’ The XML Web Services X-Files: Tales from the Labs

I’m at the Sells Brothers Web Services DevCon today and tomorrow. Before I ran out of steam, I managed to blog a few of the sessions:

• Sam Ruby’s keynote
• Glen Daniels’ Apache Axis session
• Peter Drayton’s REST & SOAP session
• Steve Loughran on “When Web Services Go Bad”
• Noah Mendelsohn speaking on W3C XML Schema
• Scott Seely on Inheritance in Web Services

Related link: https://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000650

In a really wonderful post, Aaron Swartz describes his visit to the Supreme Court for Eldred v. Ashcroft. The whole thing looked like a bunch of kids and school, all of which would almost certainly be diagnosed with ADD for their curiosity and inability to resist asking questions.

Related link: https://www.macworld.com/2002/11/features/database.html

The article I wrote for MacWorld a few months ago on setting up OS X for MySQL/PHP web development, “Serve It Up,” was published in the November issue. There are actually two versions of the article - one on Jaguar, which is in print only, and another on 10.1.x, which is the one they ran online. Enough stuff changed between 10.1 and 10.2 that the online version won’t quite work under Jaguar.

The topic is more technical than the typical MacWorld audience, so producing the piece turned out to be a real editing challenge. In fact, I probably did more round-robins with my editor than for anything I’ve ever written… a process that bordered on becoming a genuine pain in the ass but that was worth it in the end, even if some of it doesn’t quite sound like me.

A few users new to the command line have reported some frustration, but overall, the response has been great so far.

As I was sitting in the audience last week at the Mac OS X conference watching David Mash create beautiful music with his talent and a TiBook running Mac OS X applications, it seemed like a good time to dispel one of the lingering myths for this platform: Mac OS X is just for Unix geeks. That’s not true! In fact, it’s amazing for musicians, photographers, and digital movie makers.

If you take a minute to sign up on David Mash’s site (free, no hassle), you can read one of his articles (titled Mac OS X for Musicians) that explains all the current pro music software available for the modern Mac. When you combine these programs with the low latency and robustness of the platform, you have a perfectly wonderful tool for sophisticated music making. (And if you ever have a chance to watch David play, don’t miss it!)

Next, take digital photography. I have an all day workshop coming up in San Francisco this November where I’ll demonstrate the power of Mac OS X for imaging. With just a basic consumer digital camera, and using iPhoto, QuickTime, Photoshop, PixelNhance, or Graphic Converter, you can create truly professional-looking pictures. (Plus, Mac OS X is great for all-day demos because it doesn’t crash :)

Lastly, digital movies … We’re publishing an article this Friday from a recent Switcher who chose Mac OS X specifically for movie making. He’s using iMovie to create the short pieces that he’s always dreamed of, but never really had the equipment to make it happen. The best part, the article covers in detail all the tricks he’s learned along the way.

And that’s not even getting into Final Cut Pro, Maya, and a host of other cool tools for the film maker.

It’s true, Mac OS X is great for geeks. Guilty as charged. But as a photographer, amateur movie maker, and former (bad) musician, I can also tell you that this is a great platform for creativity.

Keep an eye on the Mac DevCenter for lots of practical hands-on tools that can help you set your creativity free. After all, there’s more to computing than work.

Well, I’m actually on vacation for two weeks (off taking pictures of fall color!), so I won’t be able to chime in on your comments. So you’ll have to talk amongst yourselves.

A funny moment happened during David Pogue’s keynote on Tuesday morning when he commented that surely a conference of this caliber would have a wireless network available. After all, we’re talking Macintosh here!

The audience fell for the setup and many cried out, “We have AirPort here!” David replies, “Oh, man, I thought you guys were taking notes.” [Everyone laughs]

This indeed is a laptop world at the Mac OS X Conference. You see PowerBooks aglow in all the sessions, iBooks are scattered about the break area upstairs, and the bar looks like a high tech Internet cafe in Europe — and every single laptop is connected to the network.

Launching iChat is like that first step into a big party. Indeed you have your usual AIM buddy list, but the Rendezvous pane is the interesting one at this gig. Who are all there people? Many of them of course say hello:”

“Hi Derrick, we need to talk about that article I promised you.” “Hey, can you help me with my digital camera?” “I really liked your session today, when are you speaking tomorrow?”

This is really cool!

Now here’s the truly amazing part: Apple has stocked the Terminal Room with the latest hardware that is beyond drool-worthy. And nobody’s there!

Talk about BYOB! The bar is empty at this party. Everyone is chatting about with their own personal hardware that they brought with them.

AirPort, iChat, Rendezvous, laptops, and a bunch of interesting folks. That’s what this conference is really about.

I’m working on a new open source project that should be finalized, documented, and available shortly. What I want to know is: what sort of system analysis do you want to perform on your OS X box? There’s the standard quota stuff, and obvious sysadmin tasks like logfile watching, etc., but what else? How about what users have used what programs based on Preference files? Go nuts with your suggestions and desires - you may see them become reality.