Flash on any type of CPU is generally very heavy in usage. More so for the older CPUs. Specifically speaking, Power PC G3s and G4s.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of using a machine with one of these chips in recent years with Flash version 9 installed, it’s not a pretty site. Flash is heavily CPU intensive and will not hesitate to max out your CPU on sites such as Youtube. Not only that, it’s also very jittery at first. It needs to buffer any flash content before you view it. For example, if you go to watch a Youtube video, once the page loads you’ll need to instantly pause the video and wait for it to load about halfway through (sometimes all the way), then hit play. Otherwise the video will be roughly 2-5 frames-per-second until the video is fully loaded.
Not a pretty site, but alas there’s hope! You can download the release candidate of Flash version 10. Version 10 will not decrease the amount of CPU used by much (Youtube still maxes out my CPU when viewing videos on my iBook G4), however you will notice a difference as version 10 adds graphics acceleration. What this does is offloads a bit of flash onto your GPU versus your CPU. No need to buffer flash!
So download it if you haven’t and enjoy.
Well it’s been rumored almost exactly to the day since the Apple “Let’s Rock” event and today it’s been confirmed: New laptop’s on October 14th!
Several rumors are:
- A new design for the Macbook Pro’s and Macbook’s
- An all glass multi-touch trackpad for the Macbook Pro’s with “enhanced” multi-touch controls.
- An entirely new Macbook in the sub-$1000 area.
- Possibly the option for a larger screen size on the Macbook and/or Macbook Pro’s.
- The Macbook Pro’s getting quad-core chips (not really a rumor, just a hope).
- Nvidia GPUs in the Macbook line.
- Cheaper overall Macbook’s and Macbook Pro’s.
For that last bit, that would only be possible with the highly rumored Apple Brick manufacturing method. In short Apple uses water jets and the like to cut the entire laptop case out of a brick of aluminum. This significantly cuts production costs as this would be done in the US (not China) and would only need a minimum number of staff to oversight it. I highly believe this to be true as the same source for this rumor correctly predicted the iPod Touch, Fat Nano and the Macbook Air (to name a few).
That’s all for now folks. I’ll do another blog post on the 14th (or maybe before if another plausible rumor appears).
A few weeks back Google announced, and then released their web browser Chrome. Unfortunately it is only available for Windows at the moment, but Google did provide the source code and method for compiling Chrome for other operating systems like Linux and Mac OS X.
So obviously I tried compiling it for OS X as soon as it was possible. And after three hours of trying and two GB of space wasted I was presented with literally thousands of errors in XCode. I’m not a programmer so I decided to give up. Though only a day later I found a method for getting Chrome to work in OS X through use of Wine.
I won’t go into the details of what Wine is or does, just know that it lets you run Windows applications on other operating systems. Suffice to say, it worked (after about two hours of waiting for files to download and install). It wasn’t easy to get working and you had to launch Chrome from the terminal, so I held off blogging about it.
So why am I blogging about it now? Well, because there’s an easier method which was made by the people over at CodeWeaver’s.
CodeWeaver’s make a commercial version of Wine for Linux and Mac OS X called Crossover. Crossover builds on Wine making it easier to install specific applications than on a typical Wine installation.
CodeWeaver’s decided to make a free release (which is a first), called CrossOver Chronium. You can probably guess that this is a stand alone application to run Google’s Chrome web browser inside of Linux and Mac OS X, and you’re right. So if you’ve been wanting to give Chrome a whirl but don’t use Windows, head over to CodeWeaver’s site to download Crossover Chronium!
Par MacRumors.com, new Macbooks have begun to ship. The new macbooks are said to have a “very thin aluminum casing” and an LED-backlit display whilst also having a lower entry-level price.
This is oddly similar to the rumors a few months back when iPod shipments began to slow down. Shortly thereafter Steve Jobs announced new models of some of their iPod line-up.
Can we finally see sub-$700 Macbooks? I hope so!
Well after months of speculation Mac OS X 10.5.5 is out and, obviously, it has a ton of bug fixes including a graphics upgrade (perhaps games will run even more nicely now?). I haven’t seen anything about Blu Ray support yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Now we just need to see if there’s any reference to future Macbook’s in there (you know, like how iTunes secretly had support for unreleased versions of the iPod Touch and iPhone a few months back).
Anyhow, here’s a small photo gallery of me installing 10.5.5.
Update: Be careful and backup! Someone has already posted a screenshot of his iMac after what the update did to it.
Wow, we just got done with Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event and there’s already rumors of an event next month on the 14th (for those whom aren’t month savvy, that’s October 14th). At least according to John Gruber.
Such speculation was misguided; Apple has held an iPod/music special event in September or October every year since 2001, and, to my knowledge, has never once used such events to announce new Mac hardware. Those of you holding out for a new lineup of MacBooks will have to wait until October 14, according to sources who, as they say, are familiar with Apple’s hardware plans
This really comes at no surprise to me. It’s been roughly six months since Apple’s changed anything in their Mac line-up, and since hardware changes a lot in short periods of time, Apple needs to update at least their laptop devision.
So without further adieu, here’s my speculation on the changes we might see to the Macbook line-up (if not on the 14th then whenever Apple does decide to update them).
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The Macbook- Ah the good ol’ Macbook. So far has ye’ gone. Sadly the Macbook, while looking fantastic, is still using the rather dated Apple look of white plastic. Time for change! And that change brings a nice aluminum casing which an enhanced multi-touch trackpad. Nope, I don’t believe this will be a Macbook Touch. Why? Too soon. I believe that, at the earliest Apple will announce any “Macbook Touch” at Macworld 2009. In addition to this I believe that the CPU will be upgraded to 2.4 GHz as the base speed and 2.5 GHz for the top speed (yes, I know it’s the same as the current Macbook Pro).
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The Macbook Air- Honestly I think nothing will change here aside from maybe a faster CPU and a larger HD (120 GB)
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The Macbook Pro - Okay, here’s the biggy. To start off, though, I believe that the Macbook Pro will also get a case redesign and a more functional multi-touch trackpad. But the two big things are the CPU and GPU. I believe that Apple will switch the Macbook Pro to a mobile Intel Quade Core chip. These are relatively new and provide the power pro customers need if they’re on the go. Secondly I believe that the GPU will be upgraded to an Nvidia 8800 (don’t care which model to be honest). All of Apple’s higher-end Mac’s are getting an 8800, why not the Macbook Pro?
There you have it, my predictions for the new Macbook’s.
