eSATA or Firewire 800?...

Most of my screencasts are recorded on my MacBook Pro and as I mentioned in a recent show, now that Snow Leopard has "beefed up" screen sharing, I record using ScreenFlow on the machine but view and control it from my Mac Pro.

Works a treat!

I've always had a separate user account on the MacBook Pro, specifically setup for using when recording screencasts. It's just easier to control a separate account and I can configure it to keep it looking fairly clean and tidy (unlike my normal user account). 

However, the more I think about it, it would actually be better to have a completely separate SL build which I could restore back to a fresh install at any time. That would give me complete freedom on what I install, when I install,  and overall control of the configuration of the machine without fear of screwing up my working configuration.

The current SSD drive on the MacBook Pro is just 256GB so I don't really want to sacrifice any of that usable space by partitioning a separate partition, so I've been experimenting with using an external 500GB 7200RPM hard drive via Firewire 800. I've split this into two separate partitions and installed a clean install of Snow Leopard on the primary, configured it with all the tools I need to do my screen captures, and backed it up to the second partition using SuperDuper. This seems to work fine!

On to my question.

Click for bigger image

I'm using the NewTech Voyager "Q" Quad external interface via Firewire 800 to connect the drive to the MacBook Pro. This gives me a fast connection to the drive (though not as fast as with the SSD!) and I'm able to boot from the external drive just fine.

However, I suddenly remembered that this unit supports drives via an eSATA connection! (as per illustration - connection 7)  

Hmmm...

My MacBook Pro has an ExpressCard slot and you can pick up an eSATA ExpressCard for £30 or less. 

My question is...

Would I really notice any difference in throughput or real world performance if I went with the eSATA connection to the external boot drive rather than the current FireWire 800 connection?

I'd be interested in anyones thoughts!

Update on Monday, October 5, 2009 at 10:00AM by Don McAllister

I've ordered the eSata ExpressCard so I'll do some comparisons when it arrives to see if it makes any real world difference.

Interview with David Spark...

No, not my Mac Roundtable buddy David Sparks (MacSparky) but another David Spark, the Davis Spark who is publishing a series about "Making Money from Podcasting"

The series is being published at the Technologiser website but I understand it's part of a larger project.

I had a chance to chat with David for 10 or 15 minutes last week via Skype and the interview and a write up is now available over at the website. As it's part of a series, you'll find some other interesting content covering the handful of podcasters who have managed to break the mould and actually make a living doing the thing they love.

One particular interview gives me immense satisfaction and that's the one from Israel Hyman, who runs the successful Izzy Video podcast and has also gone full time. I met up with Izzy a couple of times at the New Media Expo (as it was) and gave him some advice and background on how I built up ScreenCastsOnline. He was kind enough to mention this in his interview as one of the factors in "going it alone". It's so good to see he's been able to replicate the success I've had using the same model.

If you're at Blogworld next month Izzy, I'll let you buy me a beer :-)

Some mistake surely...

Yeah! 

The Tom Tom car Kit for iPhone 3GS appeared on the UK Apple store today. £99 

Seems a bit pricey but does include GPS enhancements, a better speaker, a better microphone for hand free and an audio out. Plus a charger.

However, the product page states:

Eh! It includes the application as well (£60 on it's own) - A bargain!!!

Hang on!

I bought the app when it first came out? I've already spent £60. You mean I should have waited? Where's the option to buy the car mount on its own?

This can't be right?

My thoughts are that the product page is incorrect. 

Why have the header "Did you notice"?

I think the section should read:

Did you notice?

You need to get both the Tom Tom navigation app for your iPhone 3GS or 3G and the docking kit to hold your iPhone securely.....

We shall see!

If the app is included with the Car Kit, then either Apple or Tom Tom need to make a reduced price version available without the app for us early adopters. If they don't, there will be hell to pay!

I've placed a call with Apple customer support who are checking it out for me. Will keep you updated.

Update on Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 11:19AM by Don McAllister

Just had a response back from Apple customer services who have quoted the Tom Tom FAQ:

This would indicate I was right and the App store entry is in error?

I've written back to the Apple rep that they need to clarify this and get the Apple store page changed if this is the case.

Update on Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 11:33AM by Don McAllister

Direct quote from Apple:

The Apple Store Publishing Team is currently working on it to correct the error.

Can I say told you so yet!

Update on Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 1:55PM by Don McAllister

Looks like the Car Kit page has been taken down from the UK store page, along with the Staff pick entry from the front page.

I thought they'd just update it in flight?

Update on Friday, September 25, 2009 at 7:22AM by Don McAllister

Tom Tom themselves have now announced that the Apple store entry was wrong and the cart kit does not, in fact. include the app itself.

I just can't help myself...

If you listen to one of the recent Mac Roundtable podcasts, you'll hear us all discussing the merits of Apple Cinema Displays and I explain why I haven't gone down that route, mainly due to the expense.

For a while now, on my primary production Mac Pro, I've gone with a three monitor system (OK, four if you count the flat panel 32" LCD on the wall)

 

The main display is a 30" Dell (2560x1600), flanked on the left and right by two Dell 2007FP 20" monitors (1600x900). The original reason for getting the two 20" monitors was that they can rotate by 90" and as such, matched the height and resolution of the 30" Dell when in portrait mode. I've since resorted to having them in landscape mode, there just seemed to be more usable screen real estate in landscape although obviously, it's the same!

The only issue with the 20" monitors is that they are 4:3 not 16:9 (or similar) and this presented a problem when recording screencasts on the Mac Pro. I usually need to reset my resolution to 1280x720 and the 20" monitors didn't support this natively. All was not lost though as an application called SwitchXRes allows me to reset the resolution to this and although there are large bars top and bottom it works fine. 

All was well with the world until I read a blog post by Ethan Kaplan - BlackRimGlasses  - VP of Technology over at Warner Bros. I've been following Ethans blog for a while and if it's possible, he's an even bigger Mac fan than I am. Presumably, because of his job, he is able to indulge in some quite nifty technology (that's my excuse too!)

When reading the description of his main Mac Pro he tells of a four monitor setup...

This is my main work machine, which I estimate I use 8 to 10 hours per day, five days a week. The machine is a 2009 Mac Pro, with eight cores running at 3.0ghz. I have 16 gigabytes of RAM in the machine, and two Nividia 8600GT video cards. These cards drive four Samsung 2343BWX displays.

I love these displays for a few reasons. First off, they have the typical Samsung display, which is to say crisp, bright, high contrast and even gamma. And secondly, they are one of the only high density LCD’s on the market, running at 2048×1152 resolution. 

Hmm...

Those monitors sure sound nice, and they are true 16:9 resolution. 

Hmm...

So what could I do!  I ordered one from eBuyer over here in the UK to try it out (a snap at £183 inc VAT) - Product page

It's gorgeous.

As well as running in the full resolution of 2048x1152, it also runs natively at both 1280x720 and 1920×1080, the standard HD resolutions. Perfect for recording my screencasts and playing back true HD content. I might even experiment with 1080p versions of my screencasts (or that may be overkill!)

So the decision was taken.

A second Samsung has been acquired and I'll be replacing both Dell 2007FP 20" monitors. I considered going with three but I couldn't give up the 30" Dell, not for now anyway!

I'll let you know how I get on with this configuration (and I'll post a photo)  but in the meantime, is there anyone in the Uk looking to buy a couple of Dell 2007FPs at a knockdown price!

Update: The second monitor arrived but the DVI port seems dead. D'oh! Ebuyer returns are on the case and the faulty monitor should be collected tomorrow and the replacement here by the end of the week. 

Update on Monday, September 21, 2009 at 10:52PM by Don McAllister

Further to my reporting that one of the monitors has a dead DVI port, I'm sorry to report that the remaining monitor also appears to have a problem. The screen is flashing on and off and when on, there seems to be a slowly moving line going up the screen. I've switched it off overnight and will check it again tomorrow but at this point, I may just go with returning these for a refund.

Beautiful monitors but if two out of two go bad on the first day....

Update on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at 10:56AM by Don McAllister

Ah well, it's the following day and the second monitor is still showing signs of instability so it's back to the supplier with that one too. 

After thinking about it, I can't really afford to have unreliable monitors so as these must be part of a bad batch, I've decided to get a refund on both rather than a replacement. So it's back to the Dell 20" for now.

Now if Apple would just produce a Cinema Display with DVI as well as Displayport, and offer an option minus the built in video camera, I'd happily pay the Apple tax for a well built reliable monitor.

Kudos to the supplier of the faulty monitors by the way - Ebuyer.com - absolutely pain free returns procedure.

Sorry Spotify, back to the free model....

Following the launch of the iPhone client for Spotify, I thought I'd try out a months Premium subscription for £9.99

Whilst I love the idea, I've been shocked to discover I just haven't used the premium service at all, except for a couple of tracks when I first signed up.

In fairness, it may well be that I'm not the ideal punter or typical of the demographic that Spotify is aiming at. I'm fairly old (!), have an established taste in music, and by now, have most of my favourite stuff already on my iPod. 

The main issues I found were:

• I never really got around to caching any songs on my iPhone client. Most of the stuff was already there on my iPhone and I really didn't want to spend the time trying to do a diff to see what was missing.
• I didn't realise just how much I used the Remote application on the iPhone to manage my iTunes collection on my main machine and have music playing via an Airport Express or Apple TV. As far as I can see, there's no way to replicate this using Spotify. It's such a boon when friends are around to play music and skip or search for tracks via the iPhone remote on iTunes. Sorely missed using Spotify.
• The main killer for me though was the lack of background playing on the iPhone client. I just don't use my iPhone with a single application loaded. I'm jumping from email to Twitter to Instapaper to Bylines. Without the background playing, it's really no use to me.

So whilst I think it's a fantastic concept, and ideal for anyone who really wants to seek out and listen to new music, I've just cancelled my Premium subscription and reverted to the free model.

Which I think is a shame, I really do :-(