Part 32 of elf's Apple PowerBook G4 Journal
Moving to Leopard
software leopard
Thu Nov 01 15:09:48 2007
Now that Leopard is out, I have to ask myself whether I want to,
need to, can or should install it both at home on my Powerbook (running
Panther 10.3.9) and/or at work on the Mini (running Tiger 10.4.10).
At work my home-directory is NFS mounted from the central
fileserver and I login via NIS authentication to my departmental
account. All this was configured using Marcel Bresink's NFSManager that
does all the dirty work configuring NetInfo. It has been my
experience that NIS on Tiger is flakey at best— after a reboot
I have to wait about 5 minutes before NIS authentication begins
working (it worked properly with 10.4.8).
Now with Leopard, Netinfo has been replaced with
Directory Services which is accessible via dscl (Directory
Services Command Line). This means that NFSManager is no longer of
any use. But, since Leopard is Unix™ certified, does it mean that NFS
and NIS can be configured manually, by editing the appropriate files
in /etc ?
At home, Leopard should just work, however, I don't really feel
compelled to install Leopard at all, as Panther does everything I
need.
Update Thu Nov 01 20:46:50 2007: I should note that I'm
still running iTunes4 at home and am only now considering upgrading
to iTunes7 for the convenience of full iTunes backup
capabilities.
David emailed me an answer to my /etc question in
regards to Unix certification:
[POSIX] means that certain libraries and system calls are
present (and work a certain way), and that various binaries accept
certain option flags. /etc is OS specific and is not
covered by POSIX.
Keeping Balance in the Universe
karma
Fri Nov 02 14:02:41 2007
c.f. Domestic Car/
Mac Ownership Theory and Ownership of the Species.
A few days ago, at around 5PM, a woman stopped to pickup her order
of Chinese food at a downtown Toronto restaurant. She parked in front
of the restaurant, leaving her BMW X5 running, with the keys in the
ignition. A few minutes later, she exited the restaurant with her
dinner and noticed that her BMW was no longer there. She called the
police on her cell phone and reported that her SUV had been stolen.
At a quarter to six, that very same BMW drove down a quiet
residential street; the driver accidently hit the rear-view mirror on
another parked vehicle, panicked and accelerated to about 120km/h and
lost control of the SUV which then struck an old Ford Taurus parked
on the street, causing it to fly onto someone's front lawn.
The BWM was observed to be driven by a well-dressed, white,
middle-aged couple. One of the witnesses stayed behind to talk to the
police while the other witness got into their car and attempted to
follow the stolen BWM (but lost track of it). It was eventually found
abandoned at Yonge and Wellesely; the owner's purse was still in the
front seat, with its contents untouched.
The Ford Taurus, however was a complete write-off. The owner of
the Taurus is a faculty member in this department who was planning to
buy a Mac. The following day, he walked into the AppleStore in the
Eaton Centre and bought a 15 inch Macbook Pro.
He is considering getting a Hyundai to replace the Ford. My boss
is quite livid about this entire episode to the point that he asked
the faculty member to not mention to me, that it had taken place. He
believes that I hired the couple to destroy the Ford (which, was the
only domestic car parked on that street).
I am not making this up.
Sat Nov 03 00:27:03 2007: The faculty member's biggest
complaint about his Mac is that it doesn't have Java 6. So he's
forced to do his Java development on his old Compaq running
XP. Way to go Apple.
Vax Barcelona
hardware laptop bags
Fri Nov 02 18:30:45 2007
Rather unique looking laptop bags from Vax Barcelona (Flash).
Letter from Edinburgh
hardware "ipod touch"
Sun Nov 04 07:26:45 2007
Perhaps, yes, it was the crazy insanity of that
night in New York when we first met that made me forget there were
such practical issues to consider.
In typical understated humour, Andrew Law writes a letter to his
beloved.
Leopard NFS
software "directory untility"
Sun Nov 04 07:33:32 2007
It seems that my earlier concerns about NFS on Tiger have been
addressed in Leopard. Colin Gordon discovers,
"... a “Show Advanced” button in the Directory Utility. And what appeared?
A tab for network mounts! All I did was add a quick entry of the
form you’d expect, start NFS on my Solaris machine, and voila!
Immediate access to my backups over NFS."
Now all that remains is NIS support.
Considering Carnegie
paperback
Mon Nov 05 21:20:38 2007
I was debating whether to purchase the just-released paperback
edition of David Nasaw's massive biography of Andrew Carnegie (Indigo
Books ($15.84) has it cheaper than Amazon.ca ($17.52); see below,
however) when I Googled across two book reviews (I don't remember the
NY Times review but from the snippets I've read, it was reviewed as
being overly lengthy, though comprehensive and complete)— one by
Jackson Lears for The New Republic Online; the other by
Christopher Hitchens for The Atlantic Monthly.
The Lears review begins by talking about Marx ... then I started
skimming and ultimately lost interest. Hitchens works Star Trek into
the first paragraph and wins handily; he writes quite beautifully,
even for an atheist. (Aside: From what I can recall, the NY
Times review of his book, God is not Great, was quite
dissappointing as the reviewer filled it with complaints about
Hitchens as a person, rather than review the book itself. I was
surprised that no one wrote a letter to the editors.)
![](images/howibecameapirate_thumbnail.png)
Update Tue Nov 06 13:01:10 2007: I popped into the Indgo
Books store in the Eaton Centre this morning and was quite surprised
to find that the book cost $24.00! I even double-checked the price on
the store terminals which showed the in-store prices and irewards
discounts; it seems that the price on the website ($15.84) is for online
purchases— pretty sneaky. I did however pickup a copy of
How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long, since Amazon.ca gives
a ship-time of 1-4 months and I wanted this book by Christmas.
Screensaver: Anemona
software
Tue Nov 06 18:55:28 2007
I am trying out a new screensaver called Anémona
written by Oriol Ferrer Mesia; 10.4 or later is required. The only
option I changed from the default was to reduce the particles
(check-box
"Less Particles").
My previous screensaver was Ignis
Fatui which has been in use for 5 months.
Quake Wars PC Demo Comments
software game quakewars
Wed Nov 07 18:18:18 2007
Last week, I had an opportunity to play the Quake Wars PC Demo for
about 4 hours. To say it's an amazing game would be an
understatement. The MegaTexture terrain is amazingly detailed and a
joy to behold visually (even at 1024x768, the upper limit of the
stupid KVM that was in use). The ability to ride vehicles and
aircraft was quite a thrill (never having played Half-Life
2). Equipment blows spectacularily up into many parts. The demo
guarantees at least a year of gameplay. The only competition Quake
Wars has, is Call of Duty 4.
The learning curve to playing the networked game skillfully is
very steep. There is much strategy involved for the attacking forces
(human); the Strogg (aliens) have an easier time
defending. Before playing the game online and embarrassing yourself,
I would recommend reading the strategy guides on the QW
community site, then playing locally against the skillfull bots
and only then going online to first spectate the games and finally
joining in.
The Mac version, which is scheduled to be released in December, is
currently in alpha. Regretfully,
the game requires a 128MB standalone video card (because of
MegaTextures) and will be Intel only, so I can't play it on my
Powerbook at home, nor my Mini at work. (I still fondly recall the 25
on 25 marathon sessions of Marketgarden on the Charter.net server in
Florida which was id Software's testing ground for a large-volume
game RtCW server).
Update Thu Nov 08 12:08:13 2007: David says it was 32 on
32. I also found a strategy
guide by BradyGames and a free sample chapter for Island
Assault.
Widget: Sunclock
software widget sunclock
Thu Nov 08 13:59:32 2007
A really nice Sunclock
widget, based on code from the Konfabulator widget, which shows
the terminator line on a Mercator projection.
Scarfs
fashion scarfs
Thu Nov 08 14:04:32 2007
Cold and windy weather brings forth the scarfs and yesterday I
wore mine— a six-foot long grey scarf from the Gap and made in
Italy. During especially windy weather, the scarf tends to unwrap
itself and the ends keep flying-off in all directions and smacking
into passerbys. I googled for instructions on tying scarfs and came
across a Doctor Who
Scarf fan site.
I am still experimenting with different techiques of tying my
scarf. I used the Doctor Who knot today, but since it wasn't as windy
as yesterday, it wasn't a true test.
iPhone Cost in Canada
Thu Nov 08 16:05:42 2007
Last Tuesday's Globe and Mail had a great
article on the cost on using the iPhone with Roger's current
phone plan for data compared with AT&T's iPhone plan in the
U.S. and O2's plan in the UK. I particularily enjoyed reading the
footnote to the article, "Rogers data prices based on fees for Window
mobile plans. Data rates for other Rogers' cellphones are $10 for the
first 10,240 kilobytes and then 3 cents for each additional
kilobyte. So 200 megabytes (MB), equal to 204,800 kilobytes, could
cost $5,837."
There are three possibilities for the iPhone's release in Canada:
an iPhone with no data capabilities in Canada (which makes it a iPod
Touch with a telephone); very expensive data costs (which would limit
sales significantly since free Wifi hotspots are non-existent) or a
new data plan for Rogers which would be limited to iPhone users only,
making the iPhone an attractive option for other phone users to
switch to.
Fri Nov 09 22:22:06 2007: David sent a couple of links that
provide more details on the iPhone in Canada— which looks like
a Third World country when it comes to data
rates for cellular communications.
"The Ignition is on the Left"
ad porsche
Fri Nov 09 08:40:37 2007
I don't typically read the ads that appear in the Globe and Mail
but on Wednesday, the title of a Porsche ad appearing on the
bottom-left of a page caught my eye, "The Ignition is on the
Left". Above these words is a small black and white photograph
showing a goggled and helmeted racer wearing a short-sleeved white
shirt, white pants, black leather gloves and a cravat, leaping
feet-first into a two-seater. The rest of the ad is all text, also
typeset in Helvetica (have to double-check).
On the facing page, in the bottom right was a colour ad for a
Porsche SUV (which is mocked by Porsche enthusiasts who ask, "Why
would you drive a slow Porsche?").
Browser/OS Site Statistics
stats
Sun Nov 11 22:43:02 2007
Looking over the web stats for my journal, I see that most of the
visitors are running Windows (this is quite a surprise).
Browser/OS | Readers (%) |
Firefox/Windows | 37* |
Explorer/Windows | 27* |
Firefox/Macintosh | 13 |
Safari/Macintosh | 11 |
Firefox/Linux | 4 |
Opera/Windows | 2 |
*However, consider that 90% of the traffic (new visitors) is Google
(image) searches (so we can eliminate the Windows browsers, though
it's a surprise that Firefox beats IE in the
standings).
Firefox/Windows at No. 3 means that 10% of traffic
(returning visitors) is from "switchers" who either use, or have used
another OS before switching to the Mac. Most return visitors are from
Europe and Canada.
Android
software android sdk java
Tue Nov 13 12:38:20 2007
The week before the Android SDK was released, the Sunday NY Times
business section ran a detailed profile of Andy Rubin head of the
Android project at Google (summary: he loves automation and robotic
gadgets; Danger Sidekick was his invention). Note also the
Dell/Google ad at the bottom.
On November 12, Google released the Java-based* Android SDK
for Windows, Mac (Intel) and Linux and unveiled
the first prototypes. There are also Eclipse plugins to help with
project management. Steve Horowitz demonstrates a
prototype 3G phone (Quake looks pretty cool); the Youtube video is
introduced by Sergey Brin sporting a really a wicked haircut.
*
Except it isn't really; it's Java syntax code that is compiled to run
on the Dalvik VM.
Ordered my OLPC Laptop
hardware xo olpc laptop
Tue Nov 13 14:59:57 2007
Also, we have been safety approved for lap
use—XO is the first "laptop" approved for usage on one's lap in
many years. (The reason that most laptops are now called "notebook
computers" is that they run too hot for safe lap use.)
—OLPC
News, 2007-11-10
On Monday, I ordered my OLPC laptop. I've created another journal to document it. People still have
another 2 weeks to order it. They are expected to arrive mid-to-late
December or early January. Delivery by Christmas is not certain.
The laptops have an elaborate security system that can be used to
remotely disable the laptops if they are reported stolen. The Gold
release of the OS is still being worked on.
According to the stats, 640 people watched this Google
Video explaining the OLPC mission, yesterday. There is a lot of
speculation as to how many have been sold so far; I guess no more
than 1000— a wild guess based on the number of people on
#olpc.
Udate Tue Nov 13 23:20:04 2007: There was supposed to be a
confirmation email, but I haven't received one. The mail logs show
nothing, other than the 2 announcement emails I have already
received. Comparing this with Amazon's ordering system, the OLPC
ordering process is quite amateurish. They should have hired Amazon
to handle the logistics of ordering and delivery (when I mentioned
this on #olpc, I received a cryptic, "Maybe we tried." response; a
company called Brightstar is handling it for OLPC.)
Vimeo: HD Video
hardware hd video
Tue Nov 13 18:11:37 2007
I didn't realize the amazing quality of video that was possible
with state-of-the-art cameras and lenses until today, thanks to
Vimeo, a YouTube for HD footage. The video titled, "My Backyard This
Morning" on page 6 is
breath-taking in fullscreen.
Big Bang Theory
"big bang theory" tv nerds mac
Wed Nov 14 12:20:00 2007
Big
Bang Theory is a TV comedy show about stereotypical nerds. There
are 2 main characters (both nerds) and 3 supporting characters (2
other nerds and the girl next door, who is a waitress). I have watched
3 episodes and they range from "mildly amusing" to "hilarious". This
week's episode featured a Macbook Pro as a supporting character.
The theme song is by the Barenaked Ladies.
DTrace Intro
software dtrace
Wed Nov 14 17:02:07 2007
I watched the DTrace
Review Google Video by Bryan Cantrill today. DTrace, a dynamic
tracing facility for both user and system processes and the operating
system itself, is available on Solaris 10, FreeBSD and MacOSX
Leopard. My notes are below (NB: you need root to run dtrace):
Show dtrace usage:
# dtrace
List all instrumented probes available (>50,000 lines):
# dtrace -l |less
Trace all system calls (syscall) being made:
# dtrace -n syscall:::entry
More useful, trace all system calls and show the name of the
executable that made the call:
# dtrace -n syscall:::entry'{trace(execname)}'
Keep an aggregate count (@) of all system calls being made; the
total count is displayed when ^C is pressed:
# dtrace -n syscall:::entry'{@[execname] = count()}
Probe the system calls of a specific program; e.g. imap and get an aggregate count:
# dtrace -n syscall:::entry'/execname == "imap"/ {@[probefunc] = count()}
If you only want to aggregate on the read() system call, change 'syscall:::entry' to 'syscall::read:entry'
# dtrace -n syscall::read:entry'/execname == "imap"/ {@[probefunc] = count()}
A more detailed how-to
is also available from Sun.
Updates: Panther, Tiger, Leopard
software updates
Fri Nov 16 22:37:23 2007
Apple released a security
update (2007-008) for Panther; Tiger updated to 10.4.11 and
Leopard to 10.5.1, in addition to updates for many Apple professional
apps, Adobe apps and iPhone/iTouch firmware. The significant Panther
security fix is for the Flash player key-logging vulnerability.
The Panther update is going to kill my glorious uptime. The Tiger
update for the Mini at work will be installed just before I shutit
down for the the Christmas (aka. Mid-Year) break.
A Day at the Races
smart phones
Fri Nov 16 23:15:44 2007
By releasing the iPhone, Apple elevated a SmartPhone— a mobile
phone that does more than make telephone calls, and has features like
a touch-screen, a keyboard, a web browser, wifi internet access, GPS
mapping, etc.— from a mere geek toy to a chick magnet;
something having mass appeal to the regular, non-technical consumer.
With the Google's announcement of Android, an open mobile phone
platform which future SmartPhones will run, the race for market share
is completely redefined. The new race is between Android and
Apple. Currently, the market is fractured because of the various technologies used around the
world and various operating
systems used by different companies for their phones.
The iPhone handset exists today, but a SDK allowing third-party
developers to develop software for it will be announced at the next
WWDC. On the other hand, the Android SDK exists but the handsets are
expected to appear in mid-2008. The question is, how many
participants will join the race. The answer is difficult to see
because it's a foggy day and the finish line is not clearly
discernable. And in this race, only first place matters because the
gold medal winner gets to do the commercials for Cheerios and
Depends.
Macworld has an interview
with the CEO of ARM. There are some statements worth quoting:
Symbian’s first operating system running on ARM was launched back in
1996 or 1997, and here we are 10 years later and Symbian has a
majority share of the smartphone market.
The iPhone is based on ARM11... a microprocessor we first delivered
to semiconductor licensees in 2002, so it’s actually quite elderly
technology...
I think it’s inevitable if the iPhone continues to be as successful
as it appears to have been on launch, there will be iPhone II, III,
whatever. And hopefully, if we do our job right, then they will be
based on future ARM products.
That a device using 2002 hardware (though running a modern OS)
made the front page of many newspapers, is an indication that the
average consumer lacks the awareness of the state of the art in mobile
telephony.
Flash Drives
hardware "flash drives"
Sat Nov 17 08:50:22 2007
Robin Harris replaced the stock hard drive in his Macbook with a
flash drive (solid state) and performed
some tests to see how much more battery time he would get. He
concludes that the extra 30 minutes is not worth the cost of
replacing a HD with a flash drive (and the biggest flash drive to
date is 64GB).
In comparison, the OLPC (with a very low-power CPU and agressive
power management using a special ASIC along with a hardware
framebuffer that freezes the display to a static image when the
laptop sleeps) has a flash drive because of the rugged operational
requirements. As mentioned in the Google video, it uses the JFFS2 filesystem which
has built-in wear-levelling
protection required because of the limited (1M) number of writes that
flash RAM is able to undergo.
Screensaver: Filigree
software screensaver filigree
Sat Nov 17 23:28:02 2007
Another screensaver to try: filigree.
This is not to say that I'm tired of Anemone. It's just that Filigree
has a few more options to tweak. Requires 10.4 or later.
Kindle
hardware ebook amazon kindle
Mon Nov 19 12:51:53 2007
Today, Amazon released a 5 inch x 8 inch ebook reader called Kindle. It has a 6 inch
(diagonal) 600x800 E-Ink display with a 167 dpi 4-level grayscale
screen. It has 256 MB of RAM (180 of which is available to the user)
which can be expanded via a SD card. It has USB 2.0 connector (for
transfering Audible audiobooks and MP3 files) and a EVDO/CDMA
wireless modem for purchasing and downloading purchased books
(NY Times bestsellers cost $9.99), magazines (Time,
Fortune, The Atlantic (but not The New Yorker) for
$1.99; free 14-day trial) and newspapers (NY Times
($13.99/mth), Washington Post, WSJ (both $9.99)) and
popular blogs, from Amazon.com. The device costs $USD399. There are
no additional subscription costs. It has a built-in dictionary for
looking-up words and can access the Wikipedia.
The Kindle
User's Guide has more information:
When Kindle is connected to your computer, you will see three
directories or folders. The one called "documents" contains all of
your digital reading materials like books, newspapers, your "My
Clippings" file, etc. The "Audible" directory is for your audiobooks,
and "music" is for your MP3 files. You can add Kindle compatible
files to these directories, and you can copy, move, or delete the
files that are already there. The computer file formats that you can
read or listen to on your Kindle are listed below:
- Kindle (.AZW)
- Text (.TXT)
- Unprotected Mobipocket (.MOBI, .PRC)
- Audible (.AA)
- MP3 (.MP3)
Other types of files (DOC, HTML, images) have to be emailed to
Amazon for conversion (for a fee); the files are then wirelessly
downloaded to the Kindle. Feh! Looks like there are a
few OS X utilities (MakeDocDD, PorDiBle) to convert text files
into formatted PDB files (same as PRC files?).
People can self-publish their
ebooks; that sounds promising.
RMS Rebuttal
history lisp
Mon Nov 19 18:53:57 2007
Dan Weinreb posted a
view disputing RMS' memory of the reasons that motivated the
creation of FSF and the open software movement. Many Big Names posted
comments to the blog.
Apropos David Chapman's comment, "I wish that RMS had built a
stand-alone LISP into gnu early on," I would like to know why the GNU
(after all, GNU's Not UNIX) project was "based" on UNIX rather than
LISP.
Fossa
ikea fossa
Tue Nov 20 13:22:58 2007
I was browsing Ikea's website last night and came across this
battery-powered pepper mill, code-named Fossa.
This is only funny if you understand Portuguese.
Geoff Arnold: Kindle First Impressions
amazon kindle
Thu Nov 22 22:05:29 2007
Geoff Arnold (who works for Amazon) bought a Kindle and gives his
first impressions
(summary: he likes it).
I have to say I was rather surprised by many of the negative
comments people made about the Kindle on various blogs— people
would not have looked stupid if they'd only downloaded the User
Guide and read through it. And some people even predicted the
demise of the Kindle without even using it.
Update Fri Nov 23 17:14:06 2007: a design
criticism of the Kindle.
Last Exit to Nowhere
tshirts cinema merchandise
Fri Nov 23 17:14:47 2007
Some t-shirts of
entities that exist only in cinematic imagination— The Overlook
Hotel, Weyland Yutani Corp., Cyberdyne Corp., the city of Amityville etc.
The only t-shirt that doesn't appeal to me is the one from Tyrell
Corp; the HAL9000 t-shirt is borderline.
Periodic Table of Elements Shower Curtain
merchandise "shower curtain" chemistry
Fri Nov 23 18:46:26 2007
The premiere episode of the TV show, Big Bang Theory, had
a scene where the next-door neighbour needs to shower in the nerd's
apartment. When she needs help operating the shower, we are shown the
bathroom and a shower curtain printed with the Periodic Table of
Elements features prominently.
This is an actual product that is available at ThinkGeek
and at Amazon.com
for USD$30.
MSG Mail
humour design
Sat Nov 24 21:44:29 2007
Furthermore, we will change the browser URL from
http://gmail.microsoft.com to the more professional looking
http://by114w.bay114.gmail.live.com/mail/mail.aspx?rru=home.
What
If Gmail Had Been Designed by Microsoft? posits a parallel
universe where Google is owned by Microsoft and the resulting design
decisions.
"What If Gmail Had Been Designed by Apple" would have been more
interesting and useful.
World Wide Parrot
rms parrot mit
Sun Nov 25 22:58:08 2007
Reading through rms' blog, I came across an entry about a
project at the MIT Media lab involving the design of web browsers for
parrots.
She and some friends are still working on their computer interface
for parrots... However, she said that the system is not reliable enough
to leave a parrot alone with it. This is because they developed it on
Microsoft Windows, and parrots don't know how to reboot when they get
the Blue Screen of Death. I promised to find people who would help
them switch to GNU/Linux.
Applestore: Free Shipping, Engraving and Gift-wrap-- Today Only!
freebies
Mon Nov 26 12:25:45 2007
Today only, if you order from the Applestore
online, you get free shipping (over CAD$75, like always) free laser
engraving (like always) and free Apple signature gift-wrapping with a
greeting card.
Eco Location
technology phone "umberto eco"
Wed Nov 28 21:15:05 2007
David sent me a link to a paper by
Donald Norman about minimizing (why not eliminating?) the dangers and
annoyances of mobile phones. One interesting note that is made in the
paper is about people talking loudly into their phones— it is
human nature to automatically raise our voices when we perceive that
the person we are talking to, will not be able to hear us because of
distance and we tend to modulate the level based on the feedback we
get from them. He notes:
In the early days of the telephone, the problem of speaking level was
widely noted and discussed. The technological innovation was clever:
a small amount of a person's voice was fed back to the earpiece, and
people then naturally adjusted the loudness of their spoken voice to
produce a comfortable level of feedback in the earpiece... With the
modern mobile telephone, there is no feedback of one's own voice in
the receiver.
On the train home tonight, I just finished reading the NY Times
Book Review from two Sundays ago and by a strange coincidence the
brief review of Umberto Eco's new collection of essays, chose to
quote his essay on cell phones...
Eco Takes Umbrage: Umberto Eco's new book, “Turning Back
the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism,” a collection of essays
that first appeared in Italian newspapers... "The imbecile who sits
beside us on the train doing financial deals at the top of his
voice," he writes, "is in reality strutting around like a peacock
with a crown of feathers and a multicolored ring around his penis."
(Multicolored ring around his penis? Those Italian newspaper
columinists can be pretty vivid.) "They want everyone to know they
are decision makers in a refrigerator manufacturing company, that
they buy and sell on the stock exchange, that they organize
conferences or that their partner has left them. They have paid for a
cellphone and the hefty bills that come with it, to flaunt their
private lives in the presence of all."
Eco is one of my favourite authors (both of fiction and
non-fiction) and I remember, in the days when I had hopes of dating
beautiful women, that one of the selection criteria included her love
of Eco's writings. I once knew a beautiful girl whose fondest wish
was to have dinner and conversation with Eco.
Intel Developer Tools for Leopard
software
Thu Nov 29 07:06:59 2007
Intel is shipping
new compilers for Xcode:
Intel announced on Wednesday that the Intel Software Development
Products for Mac OS X includes Version 10.1 of its C++ Compiler and
Fortran Compiler. The tools have been optimized for Apple's Leopard
and Xcode 3.0 development environment... Intel's compilers have
autoparallelizing capabilities and libraries for Mac OS X.
"This is a significant step in that it brings full Intel support to
the Mac operating environment," said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel
Consulting. "It will help application developers modernize their
applications with multithreading so their applications can take
better advantage of current and future multicore Intel
processors. This is very important, as applications that can't use
multicore processors won't be able to provide better performance in
the future."