I have had the G1 for awhile but no phone service for it. Since it is unlocked I decided to get a SIM card for it in Taiwan and use it while I was there. Getting and installing the card was super simple and I did it at a 7-11 store. It was a matter of putting the card in and turning it on.

As a phone device I found it to be excellent. Sound was clear and it was easy to use. The screen was sharp and overall responsive. One annoyance was that it accidentally dial too easily unless you lock the touch screen. The other annoyance was that the contact list was not easy to navigate and search. I am not sure why Google struggles with contacts on both its site and the phone.

The camera on the G1 is super especially compared to the iPhone. With 3MP and autofocus, it is a real camera. Its excellent intergration with Google means that it can hold its own as a PIM. Add to it the wifi and browser capabilities and you have a nice portable computer that fits into your pocket. For traveling, the G1 is very well suited.

The screen can be a bit larger as it’s current size limits its use as a portable dock reader. The UI of its apps are not as uniform, and Android is not as polished as the iPhone. Its marketplace needs to be improved so more apps get built. Battery life is short and needs improvement for it to be a true road warrior.

The experience of using the G1 vs IPhone is like using a PC vs Mac. The advantage of a open platfom is variety but initially a less polished user experience.

There were two things about the new MBP that I was worried about. First, the keyboard didn’t feel as good as the previous MBP keyboard. However, since I don’t plan on using the built-in keyboard most of the time (I use an external IBM Model-M keyboard) this isn’t as big of a deal. When I do need to move around with the notebook, I can live with the keyboard.

The other concern was the glossy screen. I already had a glossy screen Vaio so I used that to see how would it bother me if I used a glossy screen all the time. After a few days, I didn’t find myself too bothered by the reflectiveness of the Vaio, so I decided to go with the new MBP. Now, I’ll just have to say that this screen is even more reflective then I expected. In the morning with the sun shining through the window behind me, I can use the screen to shave! Yet, I noticed that it didn’t bother me (and my eyes are very sensitve) because choosing a different background will help reduce the problem. Also, I don’t find myself working with the sun directly behind me most of the time and the positive of the screen outweighed the reflectiveness. The glossy screen looks very very good. The colors are sharp and vibrant. The whites are more white and black is more black. It’s very obvious next to my matte LCD. Ultimately, both matte and glossy have their own pros-and-cons, but the glossy screen has become a non-issue for me.

I had complained about the blurriness with OSX ‘s handling of anti-alias fonts. On my work MBP, I installed TinkerTool to disable it for most font sizes and installed some Windows fonts to replace the default OSX fonts. I was going to do this also with my MBP, but the problem wasn’t there! The fonts looked good on the new MBP. I initially thought maybe Apple did something, but once I move to a dual monitor setup I saw the fuzziness on the external matte LCD. So it seems that the same light diffusing property of a matte screen also is the contributor for making the font look fuzzier to me.

In the end, configuring everything was pretty easy. Most of the time was spent transferring data from the old machine to the new.

What made me initially consider getting a MBP wasn’t because of the Apple name or its software. The software that I primarily use are all equal or better on Window or Linux. What got me interested was that it can run many open source Unix software on a laptop. Basically, the BSD component of OSX was what made a MBP even worth considering.

Still, it was a hefty price to pay a notebook for something that I mostly do on my Linux or Windows desktop and I would still have to keep my Windows machine around for the things that weren’t available on OSX. The subsequent release of Bootcamp (update for SP3), Parallels and VMWare fusion suddenly made the possibility of reducing the physical machines I have by one by running Windows on the MBP natively or through a virtual machine. Add to the fact that my current machine is over 3 years old, it was starting to make more economic sense.

At work, I was given a MBP so I’ve been able to use it for a few months and see how I liked it. OSX is nice but has its annoyances like Windows does and as a desktop OS, I feel no urge to replace Windows with it. What I love is a good UNIX laptop that can also be a desktop replacement when needed.

In the end, I decided to go ahead and get the MBP. It gives me a new gadget to learn and play with. This process reminded me of the early days of Linux where the distros made it really easy to install Linux on an existing Windows machine and that helped ease adoption (well, a little opposite since its Window on Mac instead of Linux on Windows). It’s just too bad that there isn’t a more widely supported Linux notebook.

I knew that it was going to be very light, but I was still surprised when I held it in my hand. This machine is LIGHT, but at the same time felt very solid. The keyboard is the classical Thinkpad keyboard so it felt good to type on, but I do feel that the trackpad is a bit tiny even for me. After running it for a whole day burning back-up CDs, watching videos and basically continuous operation it remained very cool. No worries about burning the family jewels when you have it on your lap with this one.

The software offering for the x300 is a mixed bag. Thinkpads are definitely business oriented machine and I can appreciate heir approach to functionality. The applications’ interface is not pretty but they work.

Along with the x300, I got the Lenovo enhanced USB port replicator to connect the ethernet, peripherals, speakers and monitor to. This worked initially, but the ethernet connection is flaky. After installing my own apps, the display driver seems to have gotten corrupted and whenever I tried to switch from expanded view to mirror view I would get the blue-screen-of-death. Removing, reinstalling, removing, updating new drivers all failed to solve the problem and it just was stuck on expand mode.

I ended up selecting the system restore function when the machine was booting and told it to put the machine back to it’s original state when I got it. This was easy to do. Just hit F11 as it boot, select the option and let it do its thing. It deleted everything, reinstalled and went through the Windows setup. When it finally finished, it booted back into windows and I reinstalled the driver and things worked as expected.

Overall this is an awesome little machine that doesn’t come with a lot of crapware preinstalled. The USB replicator’s drivers are a little flaky, but the restore function worked like a charm.

Having access to the internet anytime with a fully functioning web browser is no doubt… awesome. This was my #2 reason for liking the iPhone. This worked pretty well right out of the box and I had no problem connecting through the phone or getting it set up to access my home WIFI. The only thing missing is the ability to play songs from internet radio stations especially given that this is a combined music/video/phone device.

As a proud Dad, I naturally have the urge to show off pictures of my son, but I resisted the “carry 100 pictures in my wallet” stereotype. Well, with the iPhone I can be the modern day equivalent of it and literally carry thousands of pictures to show from the phone (don’t worry, I’m not carrying that many). The image quality looks good on the iPhone screen, but since I was managing my photos in Picassa, I had to create an album for the iPhone then export that album to a directory that I tell iTunes to sync. I have to do this each time I want to add a new picture. It’s a workable solution but not a great one.

Using VLC, I was able to convert my divx/xvid video to mp4 which I can copied to the iPhone and watch while I travel. The video quality and sound was excellent. I wish I could this as easily on the DS.

As an PDA device, the iPhone comes a little short and is more an phone then a Blackberry competitor at this point. Managing contacts could be easier in my opinion and the default list of apps is what you expect on a phone (calendar, clock, notepad).

As a phone, the quality is good, but the lack of a speed dial function sets it back to the stone age in that area.

As a music player, having to buy an adapter before being able to use regular headphones is plain silly.

The iPhone looks beautiful coming out of the box, but the shining silver band around the display is scratched easily even if the glass is more difficult to get scratched. It doesn’t matter though because when the border gets scratched the whole aesthetics of the device is compromized I’m talking about it being scratched by lint, folks! I had the device in my pocket (nothing else there, no coins, keys, pieces of paper, etc) for 10 minutes and it still got some scratches. I had to buy an iPhone condom to protect it from further scratches and to hide it.

Overall, it’s a good multi-function device but it’s not a PDA with a phone. It’s a phone with more advanced PDA functionality then typical phones. Or it’s a mobile media device with a phone and PDA functionality. If the iTouch had a camera, I’d probably have gone with it since my wife would already have the internet covered on her phone. The iPhone is a very good first generation device and has a lot of potential to be more in the future. I hope that future won’t be dominated by just Apple but that other companies will learn from the success of the iPhone as to what people are looking for and more.

The keyboard is nice and comfortable, but a two button mouse is still preferable. Overall the system runs well, but I don’t feel it’s a speed demon. For those running Windows on OSX, 4 gig is recommended. Running with 2 gig is ok, but it’s like running Windows on 1 gig while also slowing down OSX.

I like Quicksilver and Geektools and I love the UNIX underlying. The support for external display kick the butts of my windows notebooks (especially ones by HP). The dimensions of the 15″ Macbook and the weight balance is excellent. The 17″ model is too big to travel around with and the Airbook just isn’t that compelling to me. Personally, I feel the 15″ is the sweet spot in Apple’s notebook line.

Since I got the Macbook Pro, I’ve been finding out a little more about Apple stuff mainly because I’ve been looking for software and utilities and since you can’t go to any Apple-related site without hearing about Macworld, I actually paid some attention to Steve Jobs’ announcements. This year there doesn’t seem to be much revolutionary new products coming from Apple as compared to last year when they announced the iPhone. At the same time, though, the Apple fanbois made everything sound like Apple has just invented fire.

Macbook Air? It’s a pretty neat product and while it might be something new in the Mac universe, sub-notebooks are hardly a new thing here in the rest of the world. Almost as soon as it was announced, Gizmodo did a comparison of Apple’s sub-notebook with 5 other sub-notebooks. At most in the sub-notebook category, it has some evolutionary refinements, but the Apple Nation was cheering as if they’ve never seen a light portable notebook before…

To the right of the notebook, I had the large monitor which is the extension of the Windows desktop and what I’m staring at most of the day (when I’m at my desk that is). Next to large monitor is the 17″ monitor that is connected to my Linux work station.

There is only a single keyboard and mouse, and both are connected to the Linux workstation. By running a VNC Server on the Windows machine and a program call x2vnc on the Linux machine, I can move the mouse/keyboard cursor across all three monitors as if they were one and even copy-and-paste between UNIX-Windows apps. The only limitation is that Linux apps can’t be moved off the the 17″ screen and Windows apps can’t be on the 17″ screen, but effectively my one keyboard and mouse controls both computers.

Being so used to VNC, I tried to do the same thing with OSX. Imagine the above system except with the Macbook instead of the Windows notebook. At first I tried using Apple’s Remote Desktop which is suppose to be basically a VNC Server. The problem is that x2vnc or any other vnc client I tried could connect to OSX. I then downloaded a VNC Server for OSX, but that didn’t recognize the dual monitor display of the notebook+external monitor.

Fortunately, the solution was the open-source Synergy tool which does much of the same thing as x2vnc and has both a server and client for Linux and OSX. Basically, on the Linux workstation, I run the Synergy “server”. On the Macbook, I run the Synergy “client” and now I can do what exactly the same thing as before with one mouse and keyboard.

Installing Synergy was a snap. On Linux, use whatever your app management tool might be (i.e. “yum install synergy”) and on OSX use Macports (i.e. sudo port install synergy). The Synergy site has instruction on what the configuration file should be and then it’s just a matter of running the programs on each machine.

With my physical environment ready, I started to tackle trying to get a good ToDo app for OSX. For me, a todo utility must be easy to access. I’m too lazy to have to move my hands from the keyboard to the mouse. ^^; I also want the data to be presented simply and non-obtrusively. It’s surprisingly hard to find this combo. Even on Windows, I didn’t have a great solution: I used Google Desktop’s todo widget which required that I use the mouse to select the widget before I can type into it, but the look was simple and basic.

I tried a few Mac Todo lists and was going to go with DoIt since it had Quicksilver integration that allowed me to write items to the list with keyboard strokes… almost. The problem was that DoIt also requires you select a category from a drop down list before it adds the todo item, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to select the category without using the mouse.

I finally came across a mixed low-tech/high-tech solution. Quicksilver has an action called “Append to text file”. Using a simple text file (i.e. todo.txt), I created a trigger and keyboard shortcut that when hit, let’s me type a todo item that gets appended directly into the text file. To see my changes, I used a very neat little app called Geektool that display a transparent window containing the text output of anything log file, script output or image.

One limitation of this setup was that I used Geektool’s file type to handle the display of the todo file. This only works when the file is appended to at the end like typical log files. This means that if you edit the file with another application, the change doesn’t show up. The solution is to not use “file” but use a Geektool “command” with a refresh timer. By using the command, “curl ” every 30 seconds, it’ll regularly update the window with whatever is in the text file. Not as good as detecting a change automatically, but works well.

I hook the notebook on another network and it performed fine so it seems like I got bit by this same bug. I’m surprised that Apple still haven’t fixed it, but I suspect this mainly effect corporate users which might still not be a big customer base for Apple to pay attention to.

The nice thing about the OSX is that it is build on top of UNIX which is a developer’s OS. You’ll find that most open source tools are available and if not then getting it compiled from source is usually possible. I used compile everything from source including the kernel, but now that I am a lazy old man, I tend to prefer using some sort of package management solution that has the dependencies resolved. For Linux, I like the yum package management tool that sits on top of RPM. It beats the hell out of downloading the source and figuring out all the dependencies.

M pointed me to MacPorts as a similar repository/package management solution for OSX open source packages. It’s really easy to use. Simply download the install package from the site, run it and you’re ready to go. I did ran into one bug where it didn’t create a .profile file for me so the path to “port” couldn’t be found. I’m not sure why, but a quick look on the site and I knew which directories to add to my $PATH variable.

export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH

Don’t forget to “source ~/.profile” to pick up the change.

With MacPorts installed, it was only a matter of grabbing the programs I needed for a web development environment: Apache2, MySQL, PostgreSQL, PHP5.

Installing Apache2:

• sudo port install apache2
• cp /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf.sample /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf
• sudo /opt/local/apache2/bin/apachectl start
• point your browser to http://localhost to see that everything is running.

If you want to automatically start apache at boot-up then do then:

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.apache2.plist

Installing MySQL and PostgreSQL:

• sudo port install mysql5 mysql5-server; sudo -u mysql mysql_install_db5 (to start the daemon: cd /opt/local ; /opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin/mysqld_safe &)
• To automatically have mysql start: sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.mysql5.plist
• sudo port install postgresql84 postgresql84-server
  To create a database instance, after install do
  sudo mkdir -p /opt/local/var/db/postgresql84/defaultdb
  sudo chown postgres:postgres /opt/local/var/db/postgresql84/defaultdb
  sudo su postgres -c ‘/opt/local/lib/postgresql84/bin/initdb -D /opt/local/var/db/postgresql84/defaultdb’
  (to start: /opt/local/lib/postgresql84/bin/postgres -D /opt/local/var/db/postgresql84/defaultdb)

Installing PHP5 with support for MySQL, PostgreSQL:

• sudo /opt/local/apache2/bin/apachectl stop
• sudo port install php5 +apache2 +postgresql +pear
• sudo port install php5-mysql php5-sqlite
• sudo cp /opt/local/etc/php5/php.ini-development /opt/local/etc/php5/php.ini
• sudo vi /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf
  • add “Include conf/extras-conf/*.conf” to /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf
• sudo /opt/local/apache2/bin/apachectl start

Installing Eclipse IDE:

• Download the IDE from Eclipse.
• unarchive it to whichever location you want to run it from (I put it in /Applications/eclipse).

With that, the an Unix development environment capable of doing web development with PHP, MySQL and/or PostgreSQL as well as Java/C/C++ development is all ready!

For a little more detail about the set up process, I stumbled on this nice post.