A Fruitless Visit to the Apple Store

Rich Pav Podcast Episodes, Soliloquy, Soundseeing

Why yes, in fact I did spend hours thinking up that title, thank you very much. This one ran just a little too long for my tastes. If others think so too, I’ll cut out some of the dead air next time.

It amazes me how not in tune I am with what works or doesn’t work in my own podcasts. It almost seems as if the more uncomfortable I am with something–the content, the delivery, or the editing–the more it resonates with listeners.

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Rich Pav

Richard has been living in Japan since 1990 with his wife and two teenage sons, Tony and Andy.

11 thoughts to “A Fruitless Visit to the Apple Store”

  2. A short iMac note- the Intel Core Duos have the same screen resolutions as their PowerPC G5 counterparts (1680 x 1050 for the larger 20-inch iMac) with the exception that the G5s will only mirror to another monitor, and the CoreDuos will actually do extended desktop into another monitor (up to the 23″ Cinema).

    Also, dual booting would be nice if you could “Fast User Switch” between OSs, like one odes between OS X user profiles, but shutting down and restarting with Windows XP sounds like a chore. A better method would be to run XP virtualized, like the OS X does with OS 9. If MS releases a VirtualPC that is Universal Binary, then it would no longer be emulated, but rather virtualized, right? That would be the way to go. Plus it would be supported, in a sense, by Microsoft.

    Though, aside from PC gamers, my belief is that anyone who sticks with OS X for a while will soon find out that they don’t really need Windows for anything… Just my personal… opinon…(cough)

  3. I always feel as if I was trapped in a cage on a Windows machine (Exposé…). I do not need Windows personally, and I am really glad about that. Everything I have to do can be done (better) using a Mac.
    Of course there are reasons for certain people to use Windows since certain software they have to use is not available for OS X.

    Virtual PC is under further development as MS reported, but at least on Intel Macs it should be able to work with the graphics card. Surely, it would not be fast enough in order to play Doom 3, but if anyone wants to run Vista (this time I have to cough) on a Mac running Virtual PC, without adressing that card it would be an even greater pain…

    Why are you so obsessed with Vista, Rich? (Didn’t listen to the podcast yet 😉 )

    1. If I’m going to pay through the nose for a laptop, it’ll be for one that can run both MacOS and Windows. I hadn’t thought about the possiblity of emulating Windows to get it to run. Maybe only the BIOS would have to be emulated.

  5. One of the things that annoyed me the most when I traveled to Japan back in April, was that people keep trying to speak to you in perfect Japanese even though you’ve tried to tell them that you understand little to nothing of what they are saying.

    This happened to me many times in combini shops. The clerks use to make the most superfluous questions ever, like “do you want me to put this into a bag?” instead of taking the items and stuffing them into the fucking bag without asking.
    One of the most common questions was, “do you want me to warm this up in the microwave?” The problem is that they ask you this without looking in the eyes, and without making some kind of movement that would indicate you that they are going to put it into the microwave. So you just stand there, grabbing your small Japanese conversation book, trying to find out if they are not gravely insulting your mother.

    I think that Japanese people in general are no used to being around tourists very much, so they are not very good at making themselves understandable.
    Here in Spain, where I live, any old granny selling bread in her small bakery shop lost in the middle of nowhere, will be able to make any foreigner understand her by just gesticulating a bit. Some other people will start talking louder or in a more simple way, but somehow, they will do everything possible to help the foreigner understand what they mean.

    Por cierto, ¿aún hablas castellano o se te ha olvidado todo?

  6. Hi Rich. About your comment about an Apple employee telling the new machines are not worth buying because something better is coming… Well, that’s not really right. An anonymous source told Wired something much cooler is coming. That could be of course something entirely unrelated to e.g. the MacBook Pro, like a Mac Mini Media Center…

  7. Check out this link: http://www.apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/64E7EA353646669ECA2570F50012430B

    Some clues on legacy operating system compatibility with EFI might be found in Intel’s EFI mini-site, specifically the part about a new compatibility framework that it created recently. From page four.

    “For IA 32 systems, the Framework loads itself above the 1MB real-mode memory boundary to accommodate an optional Compatibility Support Module (CSM). CSM implementations can be tailored to platform requirements. A typical CSM is approximately 60KB (~38KB compressed) of firmware that is specific to each Participating Vendor and is based on that Vendor’s latest BIOS code base. A contemporary implementation of the Framework on a PC includes a CSM for supplying services to operating systems that do not boot using EFI and for supporting legacy option ROMs on add-in cards. For legacy boot the Framework initialises the platform’s silicon and executes EFI drivers. Then control is transferred to the CSM, which supports the legacy OS boot.”

    So, as long as Apple has included a Compatibility Support Module, Intel-based Macs should be able to boot XP.

    It seems unlikely that Apple would have left this out. It has already said it isn’t doing anything to prevent Windows from booting on a Mac.

    1. I guess the only way to know for sure is to wait until someone tries and reports back. Apple said they weren’t preventing anyone from installing Windows, but they weren’t helping either. Sure would be nice if they’d clear up the confusion once and for all. I’m probably not the only one who’s purchasing decision rests on whether or not it’ll run Windows too.

      Yes, I realize how this makes little sence to Mac zealots. Like I said, I used to be one myself. It’s just now I see computers as appliances like TVs or toasters, not as an expression of my personality.

  8. Hi, I just started listening to your Podcasts and the audio quality on this one was quite extraordinary. You really feel you’re at the subway station and aboard a train!

    Could you talk about your Podcasting setup and how it’s recorded? Do you do any post-processing?

    Looking forward to more soundseeing around town, good job! 🙂

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