When Apple announced the iPad, I was puzzled that Microsoft Exchange email support was not listed. Sure, the iPhone has fairly good Exchange ActiveSync support, but not all iPhone features will be included in Apple’s tablet.

Considering the high profile Exchange enjoys in the iPhone details page and the exhaustive list of supported mail servers on the iPad page, the absence of Exchange was notable. I wondered aloud if perhaps Apple would release a corporate option pack with Exchange ActiveSync, VPN, and other enterprise features.

Yes, the iPad supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync

Happily, this appears not to be the case. Apple updated the iPad site contents while announcing pre-ordering of the device, and Microsoft Exchange is now included. This is a relief – I suspect many would be very disappointed if they couldn’t use their new toy at work!

VPN support still is not listed anywhere on the iPad site, however. But since my fear of an enterprise option doesn’t look to be coming true, I’m going out on a limb and suggesting that this will be in the package on April 3 as well.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Yes, the iPad Supports Microsoft Exchange
This post was categorized as Apple. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

One of my favorite features of Apple’s Mac OS X is the clean and simple media players bundled within. QuickTime and Front Row are so much easier to use than Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, and Front Row presents a “10 foot” interface complete with a remote control. But I often find myself wanting to watch a movie without my remote in hand, and was distressed to see that Apple implemented entirely different keyboard shortcuts for the transport controls in QuickTime 7, QuickTime X, and Front Row.

Here’s my simple cheat sheet to Apple’s various media players.

	QuickTime 7	QuickTime X	Front Row
Play/Pause
Chapter Rewind	+
Chapter Forward	+
Rewind		+	Hold
Fast Forward		+	Hold
Slow Rewind	Hold
Slow Forward	Hold
Step Rewind
Step Forward
Volume Up
Volume Down

For a company that prides itself on user experience and consistency, these controls are maddening. The only consistent control is the space bar as a play/pause toggle, and that’s pretty much universal in media players.

The mix of rewind and forward transport controls is just insane!

• The arrow keys are easy and obvious to press, yet they are mapped to a generally useless feature (step or frame rewind/forward) in QuickTime 7 and X! Why not use them for rewind and fast forward?
• Why doesn’t QuickTime 7 have a nice easy rewind/fast forward control, Apple? Command-arrow plays forward or backward, a totally useless feature.
• Front Row has the most intuitive (to me) control set, and includes a nice graphical indication of the three levels of fast reverse/forward offered by holding down left or right arrow.
• QuickTime X’s fast reverse/forward is a two-key combination with Command and arrow, making it difficult to remember and execute. I keep mixing it up with the chapter controls (which use Option and arrow) and losing my spot in the video.

I have seen lots of lists of QuickTime and Front Row keyboard shortcuts, but many seem wrong. Perhaps Apple eliminated some commands over time? For example, OS X Daily claims J, K, and L are rewind/fast forward transport commands for QuickTime 7, but these don’t seem to work in Snow Leopard.

Note that Final Cut Pro uses another different set of transport controls. J, K, and L are rewind, pause, and forward, and multiple presses change the speed. It uses the arrow keys for frame advance, too, but adds a 1 second advance with shift-arrow. So an Apple power user has to learn four different transport command sets? Give me a break!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Apple QuickTime and Front Row Keyboard Shortcuts
This post was categorized as Apple. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Although “don’t be evil” isn’t Google’s official corporate motto, the company and its admirers have embraced the concept implicitly and explicitly. But pride goeth before a fall, and the buzz around Google isn’t just about their new social networking feature: Cynicism and disillusionment with Google is growing.

Why Do They Hate Me?

Last week I wondered out loud about this: When did everyone get so cynical and disillusioned with Google? It’s ironic that answers rolled in on Twitter and FriendFeed even as Google was stomping into their turf with Buzz. What response did I get?

1. Google’s corporate censorship moves, especially in China, look pretty evil to some
2. Google’s lack of innovation outside search, especially its repeated attempts to “take over” social media, soured many
3. The poor and informal customer support provided by Google is notorious
4. Many just don’t “get” Google’s mission anymore – are they a search engine, an advertising platform, a software or hardware vendor, or what?

Companies are going to make mistakes, especially massive and aggressive ones like Google. It is inevitable that their compromised position on freedom of speech in China (and India) would raise hackles, but the company apparently decided it was acceptable to gain entry there. But many of Google’s other moves are more troubling to some.

Paved With Good Intentions?

Almost every penny of Google’s prodigious revenue comes from personalized advertising. Google plainly states this in their annual reports: “Advertising revenues made up 99% of our revenues in 2006 and 2007 and 97% of our revenues in 2008.” The company spends about 13% of this revenue on research and development, 9% on sales and marketing, 7% on administration, and 5% on stock-based compensation. I imagine many of these numbers will come as a shock to average Internet users, many of whom probably assumed Google was less dependent on advertising revenue and spent much more money to employ and house so many great software developers.

Google’s stated mission may be “to organize the world’s information,” but that’s not what the company actually does. It runs a massive collection of Internet properties which serve to collect personal information and serve advertisements. Many of Google’s employees seem to be genuinely interested in making the world a better place, or at least organizing the world’s information, but good intentions don’t pay the bills. Shortly after launching its eponymous search service, Google began gobbling up the lucrative advertising market it now dominates.

Not everyone is bothered by this. Many, including myself, are happy users of Google’s excellent products, including search, Gmail, Reader, News, and Maps. I’ll knowingly put up with targeted ads to subsidize these services because I trust that Google really is anonymizing and protecting my information. I’m sure most users don’t really think much about privacy and freedom when searching the Internet or sending an email, but even those that do have been content with Google.

Yet even Google fans have to admit that not every product is excellent. Many, like Wave, seem half-baked while others, like Orkut, seem more like misfires. Google almost missed the boat on the social web and now seems desperate to catch up. Core technology like PubSubHubbub is heading in the right direction, but Google has been unable to stitch it all together. Perhaps Buzz will be able to ride Gmail’s coattails to success, but we have seen so many failures before.

What Is Google?

I think the core criticism of Google is more fundamental than concern about censorship, advertising, privacy, or failed products. Instead, alarms are ringing at Google’s repeated and well-funded attempts to be much more than an organizer of information.

In 2008, the company tried and failed to muscle in on wireless spectrum, a move many thought was a carefully executed trick to force open the United States mobile phone market. They then introduced their own mobile phone operating system, Android, putting themselves in direct competition with Symbian, Microsoft, and especially Apple. This intensified with the Google-branded Nexus One, the removal of CEO Eric Schmidt from Apple’s board, and the launch of multi-touch features. Google seems to be stepping up to directly challenge Apple for dominance of the new mobile computing world.

The company is also moving into fixed broadband, offering temporarily-free Wi-Fi at major airports and announcing a plan to give free gigabit fiber optic service to communities in the United States. They are becoming a telecom company with Voice, and some have suggested a buyout of T-Mobile or the launch of Google-branded phone service. Google is also a cloud computing company, a hosting provider, and even an electric power company.

Even if all of these moves are taken as support of the company’s core mission, they do lead one to question Google’s corporate mission. If their advertising business wasn’t the limitless cash cow it has historically been, I’m sure Google’s investors would be asking some hard questions. What business does an advertising company have supporting blimps, gene sequencing, and electric cars?

Even if you are not worried about the money or the wisdom of these investments, it begs the question, “what is Google?” I believe this is the source of Google’s buzz-kill. In dominating the Internet, Google has tapped into a vein of confusion, concern, mistrust, schadenfreude, and downright hostility. I suppose it comes with the territory.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Google’s Evil Buzz Is Building
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer history, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The new Jawbone Icon is the best iPhone headset yet (and I need to check my email and voicemail more often)

With my Cardo Scala abandoned in a New York taxi and my Motorola H800 falling apart, I decided it was time to pick up a new BlueTooth headset. As luck would have it, I decided to buy on the very day that Aliph released their next-generation Jawbone headset, the ICON.

The Jawbone Backstory

The Jawbone series has emerged as the most-hyped headset around, with a devoted user base that swears to its effectiveness. They praise its “Noise Assassin” technology, which uses special software and a nubbin that senses the motion of your jaw bone when you talk (thus the name!) But they complained about the proprietary charging cable, the lack of a physical on/off switch, and the “we are the Borg” look of so many business folks sporting headsets identical except for color.

The ICON moves everything forward. It comes in a variety of design themes with different colors and textures. It uses the same industry-standard micro-USB plug as my Motorola. It has a real power switch. The company even claims advanced noise reduction capability. Plus, the ICON is cheaper than its predecessors, though $100 is still pretty pricey.

My ICON

I picked up my Jawbone ICON at an Atlanta Best Buy store. It was the first one they had sold; the guys had just put them on the rack and weren’t sure what the price should be! But I was willing to drop $106.99 (including tax) to take my iPhone call quality to the next level.

Unboxing revealed a stubby headset, a wide variety of rubber ear attachments, some tiny manuals, and a USB charger with the world’s shortest micro-USB cable. The headset fired right up and paired easily with my iPhone, not even requiring a ridiculous game of enter-the-useless-0000-PIN.

This is apparently the first headset, other than the now-discontinued Apple model, that reports its battery status back to the iPhone for display. It also integrates nicely with the voice dialing features of the Apple wonder-phone, though I can’t understand why “call” is not a synonym for “dial”.

The Fitting Room

I was immediately impressed by the Jawbone Icon, but this wore off quickly. Although it ships with no less than eight different ear attachments (including a hook that can be added to any of the seven pads), I was unable to get a good fit. The default pad-plus-loop (shown in the images and video above) just wasn’t snug enough, and the little jawbone nub didn’t touch my cheek securely. Without this, my smooth-talking voice kept cutting in and out, irritating the party on the other end of the call.

I switched to the small circular pad, which fit nicely into my ear but didn’t hold the headset securely. So I added the hook, which kept my new $100 toy from hitting the floor but was too small for my ear. That ear hook is impressive, with a ball-type connector allowing near-infinite positioning, but it doesn’t hold the headset securely either, allowing it to “fall away” from my face whenever I look up or down. No dice.

I finally tried out the largest pad-plus-loop without the hook. Lo and behold, this last-ditch attempt worked, holding the headset securely, correctly applying the nub, and allowing me to speak clearly. But it feels a tad too big in my ear, becoming a pain after an hour or so. I’m not one of those “ear mullet” folks who leaves my headset in all the time, but I do get on long conference calls quite often. Although I now have a functional Jawbone Icon, I’m still not 100% satisfied.

Headset Apps!

The final cool new feature of the Jawbone Icon is MyTalk. “Apps” are the buzzword of the moment, thanks to Apple and the iPhone, and Aliph isn’t left behind: The Jawbone Icon can run apps! Apparently, one can log into Aliph’s MyTalk web site and download different voices for the headset and even special apps that allow it to do nifty things.

I can’t tell you how cool MyTalk and the Jawbone Apps are. No, seriously, I can’t tell you. See, I don’t have access. MyTalk is in beta and, although Aliph allows folks to register for beta access, I guess I didn’t make the cut. I held off this review for a few weeks, even after posting the first unboxing video on YouTube, but still have had no response from Aliph about access.

So I’m going to make stuff up. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could get Lt. Uhura from Star Trek to be the voice in the Icon Ear Mullet? Or Marvin the paranoid android from the BBC dramatization of Hitchhiker’s Guide? And I’d love it if I could tap and hold the button for 15 seconds and have Starbuck’s deliver a grande green tea latte with no syrup! Maybe it’ll have voice control so I can even order a venti nonfat cafe mocha with two pumps and no whip? Naah, that’s crazy talk! You’d definitely need to set a voice command macro to get a Hoffacino!

Seriously, I have no idea what MyTalk is all about. But I guess it’s cool. Maybe the Aliph bouncer will let me in once they read this review…

Update: Aliph approved me a for a MyTalk Beta account right after this went live. Look for a review soon!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | iPhone Review: Aliph Jawbone ICON BlueTooth Headset
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Western Digital is first to market with "Advanced Format" 4K-sector drives, but when will vendors support them?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the new generation of hard disk drives that use 4K sectors rather than the historic 512 byte size. As I noted in that piece, although PC and Mac users with recent OS versions had nothing to fear from these, embedded devices like the TiVo and Drobo I use and love might not be compatible. I tried reaching out to these vendors, but only one has actually responded.

Drobo Compatibility Is Coming

You can discover all sorts of things in firmware release notes if you look hard enough. The latest firmware for the Data Robotics DroboElite and Drobo S (versions 1.0.1 and 2.0.1, respectively) now include 4K drive support. The former was released at the end of December, though I didn’t get around to blogging about it then. So users of the third-generation Drobo products are set as far as 4K “Advanced Format” drives go.

I sat down with Drobo’s new CEO, Tom Buiocchi, at the Business Development Event in Palo Alto today and asked about this issue. The company assures me that the still-current second-generation devices, the Drobo and Drobo Pro, will also get 4K disk drive support in their next firmware update. They recommend updating the firmware of any Drobo device before installing a 4K drive, since the drive will have to be reformatted and rebuilt otherwise. I appreciate their responsiveness.

Update: Drobo Pro (firmware 1.1.5) and the base Drobo (firmware 1.3.6) got 4k drive support in early February!

If Not Now, When?

Since these new drives remain scarce, I agree that this support alone is not cause for a firmware rev. But the fact that online retailers are shipping them with little notice or warning about incompatibility does raise flags. Here’s hoping everyone supports them before they become common!

I remain concerned that no other maker of embedded hard disk-based devices has responded. This is not a priority for those that don’t support end users swapping out hard disk drives, but there are many devices that remain questionable. I’d love to hear from Netgear, Iomega, Linksys, Synology and others regarding their level of support.

Update: Synology released updated firmware to support the Western Digital EARS 4K Advanced Format family of drives at the exact moment I posted this!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Drobo Adding 4K Drive Support – What About Everyone Else?
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Exchange ActiveSync support was conspicuously absent in the Apple iPad introduction

Apple introduced their “magical” iPad today, demonstrating impressive updates to iWork but focusing on home and consumer applications. The company never mentioned business applications beyond Keynote presentations, leaving a question as to whether they support Exchange ActiveSync like the iPhone family.

The mystery deepens on the Apple.com specs pages. Although they claim that “iPad will work with all the popular email providers, including MobileMe, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and AOL,” Exchange ActiveSync is notably missing. Remember that this was a major feature demonstrated and called out on the iPhone pages. Its absence here is conspicuous.

Update: Apple updated the description when announcing pre-orders and Microsoft Exchange support is now officially included!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Does Apple’s iPad Support Exchange?
This post was categorized as Apple. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

I’m an old-school UNIX guy. This is one reason I like Mac OS X so much: It’s a solid UNIX system under a pretty and functional GUI. Unlike (probably) most Mac users, I find myself using terminal sessions frequently, often running a few different windows with ssh sessions to various UNIX systems.

My affinity for the command line probably explains my fascination with clever fonts. If you’re like me, I think you’ll chuckle at the bizarre combination pictured below.

Two stupidly-cool fonts in action: My normal DEC VT220-like terminal and a super-large terminal with super-tiny Tom Thumb displaying Hamlet. All of Hamlet. No kidding.

VT220 Terminal

That green-on-black window is my standard terminal. It’s an awesome duplicate of the original DEC VT220 font that really brings back my days sitting at “the Wedge terminals” at WPI. The font is “Glass TTY VT220” by Viacheslav Slavinsky. I’m running it at 20 points to make it look perfect.

In the window is Carole Gunst’s blog post from HighTechHistory.com announcing publication of the autobiography of Digital co-founder Harlan E. Anderson, “Learn, Earn, and Return: My Life as a Computer Pioneer.” I thought that was apropos.

Tom Thumb Hamlet

The one in the back is just plain weird. It’s a terminal using a miniscule yet readable font, “Tom Thumb” by Robey Pointer (based on a font by Brian Swetland). I used FontForge to convert Robey’s BDF to an OS X-compatible dfont package and fired it up in Terminal at 6 points.

Since I was using the 27″ iMac with crazy-huge 2560 x 1440 resolution, I got curious about just how much information could be displayed in a Terminal window at once. Running Terminal at 633 x 197 characters yields 124,701 characters on screen, along with the scroll bars, header, and menu. That’s enough for every word of Hamlet on screen at once. Including footnotes. Wow!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Two Stupidly Cool Terminal Fonts
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer history, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Using system memory for storage is something of a lost art these days. Although system RAM capacity has become plentiful, cheap and quick disk storage is just as common. But many of today’s I/O intensive tasks can still benefit from the untouchable quickness provided by a ramdisk. Happily, most operating systems are still capable of creating and using ramdisks. This article discusses the creation, use, and performance of ramdisks in Mac OS X.

On The Extinction Of Ramdisks

System RAM is not typically used for storage anymore

Ramdisks were a cheat to make slow system I/O tolerable, but it was never an easy decision. These days, computers are fast enough that ramdisks are rare. Every part of the computer has gotten quicker and cheaper over the last two decades, including hard disk drives, RAM, and CPUs. A typical laptop like my MacBook Pro might have 4 GB of system RAM, 320 GB of hard disk capacity, and dual 2 GHz CPUs.Those specs would have seemed inconceivable just a few years ago: I still have a Dell laptop with a 20 MHz CPU and two expensive upgrades: 1 MB of RAM and a 20 MB hard drive!

Far more impressive, though, are the numerous performance optimizations that have appeared. I/O channels are quicker than ever, and caches have appeared at most performance bottlenecks. It’s hard to believe, but computers used to rely much more on raw storage. Many hobbyists recall waiting for data to load from cassette tape drives, or that one key performance advance in Intel’s 80486 chip was its on-chip cache. Today’s CPUs have three levels of cache, and operating systems have gotten much better at caching data internally as well.

Hard disk drives have sprouted their own caches, too, making I/O seem quicker than it is. My 1997 Toshiba laptop used an un-cached 4200 rpm hard disk, but even laptop drives today sport 16 MB or more and spin at 5400 rpm or faster. Although RAM was scarce back in the day, the performance gained from a ramdisk was worth the effort. Faster I/O and strategic caching has largely eliminated this need. Increasing operating system intelligence also plays a major part – witness the failure of hybrid hard drives.

The Modern Use Case

A long-standing argument in the field of computer system performance revolves around whether to manually reserve resources and place data or to let the system dynamically manage resources on its own. Computers do a decent job if allowed to, often adapting quicker and more efficiently to changing demands. But some jobs are harder to automate, and buffers and caches don’t always catch the right data.

Purely temporary data can be written to a ramdisk as a high performance scratch space. There is no need to store this on disk at all, and merely placing it there is likely to “pollute” the buffers, pushing out real useful data.

A ramdisk can also increase security somewhat by never allowing certain data to be written to disk. Ramdisks are sure to be flushed on the next reboot, but data on disk can linger and be discovered later.

One could even argue that today’s high-performance solid state disk is simply an evolution of the old ramdisk concept. NAND flash and RAM both offer the high random performance of the ramdisks of yore, and many analysts expect them to displace high-performance hard disk drives in the coming years. So perhaps ramdisks are not extinct after all!

Ultra-performance storage systems like this Violin array use RAM for storage

Using Ramdisks In Mac OS X

Mac OS X has the ability natively to create and use ramdisks. Here’s the simple procedure:

1. Create the ramdisk with hdiutil – This terminal command will create a 1 GB ram disk and report the name used. The number following the “ram://” statement is a number of 512 KB disk blocks – multiply the desired ram size in MB by 2048 (that’s 1024 times 2) to derive other sizes.
   hdiutil attach -nomount ram://2097152
2. Format the ramdisk with diskutil – The next command will format the newly-created ramdisk using the diskutil tool. We will use /dev/disk3, but you should specify whatever disk device hdiutil reported from step 1. You can also specify a different filesystem or disk name.
   diskutil eraseVolume "HFS+" "ramdisk" /dev/disk3
3. Your ramdisk will now appear – OS X will now mount the newly-created ramdisk and it will appear on your desktop. Note that the contents will be destroyed if it is unmounted or if the operating system is rebooted!
4. Delete your ramdisk – It’s worth saying once again: The ramdisk will disappear and all data will be deleted when you eject it or power off your computer. Be sure to back up any important data from it, then eject it with the following command:
   hdiutil eject /Volumes/ramdisk

Script It!

My backup script called for the creation of a tar file, compression, encryption, and rsync copying. I decided that I could perform the first three functions on the ramdisk to increase performance and reduce the chance that an unencrypted version would remain on the disk if the script failed.

A simple command line combination of the above creates the necessary ramdisk:

diskutil eraseVolume "HFS+" "ramdisk" `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://2097152`

This failed once I put it in a shell script, however. The issue was the finicky nature of diskutil – hdiutil’s output included a number of whitespace characters, and diskutil failed in the script whenever it encountered this. So I used the cut command to grab just the first field of the output, like so:

diskutil eraseVolume "HFS+" "ramdisk" `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://2097152 | cut -d " " -f 1`

This solved my problem, and I was able to tar and compress to /Volumes/ramdisk in my script. I added the hdiutil eject command to the script right after the encryption step to wipe out the unencrypted data. Although this isn’t foolproof security by any means, it’s better than nothing.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Ramdisks: Back From the Brink of Extinction
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer history, Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Making a list? Who's naughty and who's nice?

Who’s naughty and who’s nice? The average computer geek of the last decade would have placed Microsoft atop the naughty list. The average corporate IT manager’s nice list probably wouldn’t have included EMC and Oracle. Yet Google, Apple, Sun, HP and even IBM don’t have this frequent negativity directed towards them. What’s the difference between naughty and nice when it comes to IT companies? I’ve heard complaints of the greed and arrogance of these companies, though their boosters would point out that it’s easy to envy the success of others.

But things are changing. Microsoft has a bona fide hit on their hands, with Windows 7, Xbox, and Bing re-introducing the company to new customers that don’t harbor old grudges. Inside corporate IT, the halo cast by VMware seems to highlight the re-energized EMC in much the same way. With their competition taking dents in the ongoing battles, Microsoft and EMC just don’t look so bad anymore.

Microsoft: Hearts and Minds

The blooms in many Microsoft competitors’ rose gardens seem to be fading. With “do no evil” Google only finding lucre in the filthy advertising business and the naughtiness of “evil as we wanna be” Apple peaking, Microsoft’s Internet and consumer efforts are starting to seem downright approachable. That’s one way to change your image: Wait for your competitors to catch up and your customers will catch on. The geek parade still loves Google and Apple, but their ambitious drive and massive revenue are distasteful to many.

Every time I write about Apple products, at least one credible geek has to call me out for being a fanboy. The core of their arguments seem to combine scorn for friendly interfaces and pretty hardware, a distaste for Apple’s huge profit margins, and a belief that the faithful wear Apple-tinted glasses when looking at alternatives. I guess Apple users look like a bunch of sissies to the more manly geeks in the audience.

In fact, it’s become something of a badge of pride to stick by Microsoft, even as the UNIX weenies and Apple-heads wander off. They ask “who’s got the most market share in desktops and servers?” Windows Vista’s appetite for hardware and unstable nature might have challenged them, but the quick, slick, solid Windows 7 has reaffirmed their faith. And they know that those who throw stones at Windows Server are living in the past: Ridiculous naming aside, Windows Server 2008 R2 is every bit as great in the data center as Windows 7 is on the desktop.

But there’s more to Microsoft than Windows. Even ardent Microsoft haters have to admit Bing is solid, functional, and even clever. Indeed, Microsoft has taken the search battle right to Google and is working hard to innovate past their rival. Xbox has a solid beachhead in the gaming world, challenging successful and innovative products from Nintendo and Sony. Azure puts a developer-friendly face on the nascent cloud computing market and is anything but a “me-too” to Amazon EC2 and VMware. Barring any major product or PR disasters, Microsoft is well on the way to renovating their sagging corporate image.

EMC: Keeping It Real

EMC is leaving the little storage market behind and doesn't look as big and scary in the larger IT world

What Microsoft is to average computer users, EMC is to enterprise data storage folks. No one denies that they make great products, and have dominated the market for two decades. Although they don’t have the massive share Microsoft has in the desktop OS market, no one comes close to EMC in enterprise storage. They spent the last decade steadily growing to control 25% of the market leaving a wealth of competitors fighting it out far below.

Through all this growth, however, EMC has never been loved by their customers. I’ve known literally dozens of IT shops who refused to buy from EMC, even though the sleazy sales tactics that turned them off (and indeed the sales reps themselves) are reportedly long gone from the company. Like Microsoft, EMC hasn’t softened its approach as much as their competitors have hardened theirs. With the market getting tougher, the tough guy doesn’t look so bad anymore.

I hear that things have improved inside the company, too. All giant corporations have their share of intrigue, politics, and dead weight, and EMC is certainly no exception. But the reports I hear from insiders are positive, and improving all the time. EMC is making some smart moves, giving acquisitions the independence to thrive and building revenue outside their enterprise storage base. Hiring great folks like Scott Lowe, Christopher Kusek, and Ed Saipetch doesn’t hurt, either.

Customers seem to be sensing a change, too. It’s hard to hate VMware, RSA, Legato, and the rest of EMC all at once, though some have grudges against two or three. EMC is successfully diversifying into other areas of information technology. Like Microsoft, EMC’s new customers never learned the old stereotypes. Now that they’re swimming in a much larger pond, EMC looks neither as big or as bad as it once did.

You Will Decide

Are EMC and Microsoft really turning the corner? We will all know in a few years. If the geeks of tomorrow no longer resent their success and hold past mistakes against them, both companies could enter a renaissance not only of credibility but of business success.

Santa Claus image: Public domain from Project Gutenberg

Gorilla image: public domain from Pearson Scott Foresman

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Are Microsoft and EMC beginning a renaissance of geek respect?
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer history, Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The Mini DisplayPort connector can turn a 27" iMac into an expensive monitor

I didn’t intend to buy a new iMac. I was happy with my Mac Mini desktop system and my MacBook Pro was a fine portable (now that the video has been repaired). I simply wanted more display real estate so I could do some video editing. But my shopping trip took a detour at the Apple store: The 27″ iMac is simply the best computer monitor you can buy, and it happens to have a great computer embedded in it too! The gorgeous LED IPS panel and massive 2560 x 1440 resolution really shines in intensive applications.

There is another secret lurking inside, though: The Mini DisplayPort connector on the back is bi-directional, so you can connect another computer, turning that new 27″ iMac into a gorgeous monitor! I was eager to try this out, and sure enough my 2009 Mac Mini had no trouble taking over the iMac’s display using a $30 Belkin cable. But actually using the iMac in this configuration has not been pleasant.

The Basics

First, only “late 2009″ 27″ iMacs have this display input capability. Although the ports on the back of the 21.5″ iMac and others look identical, none can do this trick.

Get your hands on a 27″ iMac, a Mini DisplayPort cable (I used this $30 Belkin cable), and a recent Mac Mini, MacBook, or other computer with a Mini DisplayPort video output. Plug one end into the iMac and the other into your other Mac. As soon as the two Macs are running, the display will blank out and switch from the iMac to the external one.

You can switch inputs by pressing Command-BrightnessUp (usually Command-F2 or Command-Fn-F2) on the iMac’s keyboard. It will also automatically switch when it detects a signal, such as when a computer is connected or wakes up from sleep.

While the external source is displayed, the iMac will ignore most keyboard and mouse movements. Some special function key commands appear to continue working, however, including brightness (F1/F2), rewind (F7), play/pause (F8), fast forward (F9), and mute/volume (F10/F11/F12).

The Limitations

Sound good? Well, there are some serious limitations that make this not so great in practice.

1. I can’t get any USB keyboard to trigger the display switch no matter what I try. Only the original Apple BlueTooth keyboard that came with the iMac will trigger a switch. This annoys me, since I’m a dedicated IBM Model M user…
2. There is no KVM capability in OS X, so the keyboard and mouse are useless when you connect an external computer. I use an IOGear USB KVM and was able to get this working with my Mac Mini and iMac, but switching required the otherwise unused BlueTooth keyboard (see above).
3. The iMac has to be on and running OS X for the Mini DisplayPort input to function.
4. Switching sources takes a second or two, and the iMac switches displays whenever the connected computer wakes from sleep. This leads to some surprising work pauses if you leave it connected.
5. Only native DisplayPort video is usable. Although there are many cheap Mini DisplayPort adapters, these are normally for output only and will not work. So computers with VGA, DVI, or HDMI ports won’t work. without a converter.

I tried all sorts of tricks to send the proper key sequence from my USB keyboards and using AppleScript, but nothing worked. I’d love for Apple to deliver a KVM solution in OS X, but barring that an enterprising programmer ought to be able to figure out a software solution.

Can It Be Used With Other Computers?

The short and easy answer is no, the iMac’s Mini DisplayPort input is very unlikely to work with anything but a Mac, since most non-Macs don’t use DisplayPort. And since DisplayPort is a computer (rather than entertainment) standard, it’s unlikely that your Blu-Ray player, game machine, or DVR will work either.

The medium answer is yes, it might very well work just fine with some PCs equipped with a DisplayPort video card.

The longer answer is yes, a variety of companies are working on adapters to allow other devices to use the iMac’s display. Apogee has promised a special converter box just for this exact purpose, and folks have had varying success with the Gefen and Atlona converters.

The very long answer is that you can force just about anything to work with the iMac’s Mini DisplayPort input but it’ll be very hard and probably not worth it. There are three things to consider when trying to send video from one device to another:

1. The physical/electrical connection must be compatible. The iMac only accepts Mini DisplayPort cables, so any connected device must terminate with a male Mini DisplayPort connector. Most basic (read cheap) DVI or HDMI adapters can not convert formats, and merely connect appropriate pins from one format to another. There are plenty of cable and adapter options for regular DisplayPort, however. But DisplayPort 1.1 fiber optic cables are right out.
2. The data format (including DRM) must be compatible. Simply using a DVI-to-Mini DisplayPort adapter is insufficient. The DVI device will send DVI signals that the iMac won’t be able to interpret, or they might not be connected at all. Even if the data format is converted correctly, it appears that the iMac does not support HDCP input, although HDCP is enforced for signals output to HDTVs. This means that a DVI Blu-Ray player might not display correctly on the iMac even if the DVI signal is correctly converted!
3. Display resolution is less of a concern, but must be considered as well. My iMac was happy with a variety of input resolutions from my Mac Mini, but the native 2650×1440 resolution is way beyond the DVI spec. So full resolution will require a dual-link DVI connection (expensive and rare) or a scaler (even more expensive).

What does this mean? Here’s the answer for various devices:

1. Apple computers with Mini DisplayPort connectors just need a cable, including the 2009 MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, and iMac.
2. Other computers might work, provided they have MiniDisplayPort or plain large DisplayPort, though the latter requires a physical adapter.
3. Computers with DVI connectors (including older Macs) will probably need an expensive adapter like the Gefen, Atlona, or Apogee boxes and won’t be able to use the full resolution of the iMac without an expensive scaler box like this one from Atlona. We’re talking $100 to $500 to get things connected, and it might not work.
4. Entertainment devices like Blu-Ray players, Xboxes, and PlayStations likely require HDCP enforcement so they probably won’t work without some special anti-DRM voodoo. This is exactly what Apogee is talking about delivering, but I’ll believe it when I see it. And it’ll likely cost at least $200. Note that this is spelled explicitly out in the DisplayPort FAQ!

Conclusion

Finally there is the issue of sound and control. The iMac’s Mini DisplayPort input only supports video, so audio and USB connectivity requires an alternative path. You can use a KVM like my IOGear to switch your keyboard and mouse, but no audio will be sent. Probably the best compromise would be to use external speakers for both the iMac and connected device.

So there you have it. The iMac’s awesome display can be used by external devices. But it’s not really satisfying to use without some extra devices: A KVM and speakers at least, and some expensive video voodoo at most. Sorry to ruin your day!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Turn Your 27″ iMac Into An Awesome Monitor
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