I’ve been working on installing Rails for OSX using darwinports, but the performance I’m getting is just terrible. I can’t really figure out why the server is lagging so much. I did manage to get lighttpd set up, but I’m still trying to figure out if there is a config string I can use in order to set up fastcgi for all my rails vhosts (without specifying them individually). Is it possible that mysql-vhosting supports this?
DVD Ripping for the iPod
Posted by sethbc
on October 13, 2005
I found a great guide for ripping DVDs for the iPod, and Macs in general using H.264 (thanks to Boing-Boing for the link). I haven’t yet ripped anything because I’ve been looking at average times, and it looks like to rip a DVD with full quality will take about 16 hours on the old 1.5 Ghz G4. Does anyone know of some good settings for ripping a DVD? I don’t really care about keeping the file size under 700 megs, because I’m not planning on burning anything on CDs. I suppose my main question is about the interoperability between the iPod and the computer. I don’t want watch movies at 320×240 on my computer. If I fullscreen that movie, the quality is going to be crap. So can I rip a 640×480 movie and watch it on my iPod? Or something of a higher resolution? I’m going to investigate whether iTunes will down-sample the video, or whether the iPod is capable of doing this on its own.
In other news, Apple released a new media-player like iMac. I’m wondering why we’re not seeing a tv card on the new iMac though. It seems like this is a feature that Apple should definitely look into doing. If Apple is really interested in making the Mac the digital hub, and the iPod the portable extension of that hub, this is definitely where things are going. The problem with that of course, is that then the TV studios wouldn’t make as much money on the sales of their TV shows through the iTunes Media Store (after all, it can’t really be called the music store anymore). I think Apple is trying to infuse their hardware sales while most of the apple fans are waiting until the new Intel chips.
Speaking of the new Intel chips, I was looking at the Altivec to SSE migration guide, and it looks like they aren’t going to be releasing the EM64T chips with the macs, because they haven’t even come up with an API for 64-bit x86 programming! Apple, the champion of the 64-bit desktop, appears to be backing off their big 64-bit push. All of the SSE registers are bigger than 32 bits though, so I guess there are still some 64-bit registers available. I still think this is a mistake though. Apple pushed so hard for 64-bit computing, and this platform switch gives them the opportunity to start over with a clean slate. I know Apple wants more gigahertz for their computers, but this shouldn’t be at the expense of other causes they have supported (especially where the EM64T technology is already available). The flip side of this coin is that the regular x86 P4’s are going to be cheaper. I hope Apple decides to drop their prices though. If they do, the recent explosion they’ve seen in the last year will look like a blip on the radar screen.
Technorati Tags: Apple
Gripes about OS X
Posted by sethbc
on July 21, 2005
I’ve got to say that I think most of the ideas here are just tiny gripes. The Command/Control thing is just like saying you want PC manufacturers to remove the windows key from the keyboard. Or how about everyone just remove the ‘z’ key (I barely use it). Far more annoying than this is the nonstandard layouts that every manufacturer uses for laptops. If there were a standard layout, things would be so much easier to change between!
The Save button?!? Give me a break. Use those command keys you were just complaining about
I will say that the multibutton mouse is huge however. He’s dead right that expose and dashboard are just begging for a mouse button!
Technorati Tags: Apple