Apple

It is hilarious to read how Apple failed to sell me

1. in 2007
2. in 2008
3. and in 2009

I do love the company, I just find the premium too high for me personally but worth every penny for most. It would be fun to list what Apple did manage to sell me...

1. B&W iPods from around 2005 that I still use today. Well, one died around 2010 (battery did, hdd got replaced with CF a lot earlier), but the one I bought for Lili is still going despite hdd getting damaged by Katherine in 2010. Ebayed in 05-07 at $80 vs. $200 MSRP.
2. 2008. iPhone - the original, aka 2G. Bought in May 2008 for $250 from AT&T refurbished (2 weeks old upon arrival) and without contract (Thanks, but no $400 iPhones on 2 year ATT in 2007 and no iPhones or any other phones with contract for me since 2004). Was bought for iOS development. Still used today mostly as an MP3 player and for development too. Still last a week on a charge or 4 hours as a bluetooth MP3 player.
3. 2010. iPad, bought in May 2010 at MSRP (after a week waiting list) to give out to my sister. If it was not for the occasion would I buy it? Probably YES, even though I am happy that I did get a chance to buy iPad2 instead. However I would probably end up buying Nook Color for $200 instead of $500 for iPad2 that is worth every penny.
4. 2010. 3!!! iPhones 3G - all as gifts to family in Russia, ebayed between $160 and $200. Enough said.
5. 2010. ATV2 - bought the next day it become available, returned after a week since Boris chewed remote and replaced a week later with another one. At $99 it is the best Apple product yet once the community ported XBMC onto it and no longer do I have to have a Mac running to watch TV.

I am also ready to buy IPT4, but Katherine is dragging... So overall it looks like Apple is doing a lot better now (should I say Apple did great in 2010?) and I am buying their products once every couple years and keep on using them for 4+ years which is a good track record lately, but would hardly match a Dell that I used 1999-2009 or a Ford that I bought in 2000 and still use, or 1997 BMW that I bought in 2005 and continue using...

P.S. I did use non-unibody MBP (2007-2009) that I liked and 2010 aluminum i5 based MBP that I liked less at work, if that matters or counts...

Sysadmining or "a post I didn't finish in over a year" or what used to be "4 boxes 4 kernels"

Hazard installs 10.6.0 in about 15 minutes screwing up existing bootloader (fixable by repairing with Windows disk) - select just what is really needed to boot just once to apply combo update. Still the best way to install OSX is to CarbonCopy reference disk (with combo update applied) and to install Chameleon, set up Extra, etc on per board basis. Which is as follows:
GA-H55M-S2H needs

1. ApplePS2 driver deleted in /System/Library/Extensions for PS2 keyboard to work with VoodooPS2
2. IOUSBFamily.kext rolled back using Multibeast for 10.6.6
3. RealtekR1000L.kext added to /System/Library/Extensions to enable Ethernet
4. Chameleon RC5
5. My Extra folder with DSDT.aml mapping RTL888b paths and the rest of extensions to enable PS2 and audio and "busratio=20 arch=x86_32" in Boot.plist

AMD

HP board still doesn't work with PS2 keyboard no matter what I try (don't bother installing VoodooPS2 from Multibeast because it would kernel panic on AMD and SL_Voodoo_PS2 didn't work either). Also, AMD is unstable in 64-bit mode (with -force64 option that is - Finder crashes, quicklook doesn't work, etc), so especially for OSX AMD suck even more. Just run in 32-bit on AMD.

Still, AMD requires legacy_kernel (installable as package after combo update) and HP mobo requires FakeSMS (in Extra - delete the one installed by Hazard in SLE), EvoReboot and ElliotForceLegacyRTC not to fuck up BIOS, optional NullCPUPowerManagement, plus VoodooHDA in SLE - all installable with Multibeast.

GA-G31MX-S2

GA-G31MX-S2 doesn't boot with Q6600 anymore. When it did, new Hazard (Intel only) worked fine for 10.6.2 that is. The following is too old to matter but anyway...

• Chameleon_RC4
• CMOS_Reset\Elliot,
• Patches\About this Mac
• Patches\evOreboot
• Patches\PS2 Fix
• Audio\Azalia and ALC888
• nVidia\NVEnabler and NVInject

EEE

Almost 2.5 years and EEE 1000H is going strong (stronger then the rest of $300 computers I had since 2006)... in its class that is. EEE 1000H is the reason I want another $300 EEE or any netbook to still last around 4 hrs after 2.5 years of battery abuse. If it was not for 1024x600 graphics, shift key and failing trackpad it would have been perfect despite that you cannot do any Android development on it and to do WP7 you need 2GB RAM and iOS development ain't fast. Still EEE would be fun when Lion comes around or Windows 8 for that matter.

Atom needs patched kernel, but some managed with stock on H1000 (hmm, really?). Apart from that just use backed up Extra.

Windows scores

EEE	2.2,4.5,2.0,3.0,5.4	GMA950 is the lowest and processor is not fast either
D605 2.67GHz	4.3,3.9,1.0,1.0,5.9	ATI-200 is shittier then GMA950
HP	5.6,5.5,3.8,5.2,5.7	GF8400 lowest score is "aero" with "gaming" score higher then HD3650
GA-G31MX-S2	5.9,5.5,4.9,4.7,5.9	HD3650 lowest score is "gaming"
GA-H55M-S2H	6.8,7.2,4.8,5.1,5.9	i3-530 integrated graphics is on par with HD3650

Sizing disks

No matter what, OSX needs at least 40GB... well one could squeeze it into 30, but that's really pushing...

OSX takes about 7.2GB. Add to that 10+GB for XCode and on 30GB drive we have just 12GB left. FCP would take another 1.5GB making it impossible to install iOS SDK updates. Premiere would take from 1.5GB to 2.4GB alone leaving just 8GB available and making 30GB OSX drive hard to update.... So, for OSX allocate 40GB. CS5 is just a 64-bit update of CS4 and since I have no NeatVideo for CS5 for now we are editing in CS4 and thus 32-bit CS4 is what goes onto OSX.

Win 7 takes over 10.5GB after install. Turning Games, Tablet and Gadgets off and running update would bump it up to 11GB. IE9 would make it 11.5GB. Once you install Office it is 13.5GB and after update we are talking 15GB system. Premiere 1.2G-1.4G plus update and we are past 15GB and 20GB is too small. Thus Win 7 needs 30GB for system drive.

40BG+30GB makes 70GB and that's just for software alone. I guess I am not buying $999 11" MacBookAir, not until it gets 128GB SSD (screw just 5hrs battery too). At $1199 13" MacBook Pro is twice the weight of 128GB MacBookAir and twice the value and lasts "7 hrs" too. But then again, why would I buy 2 lbs, 2.3GHz i5, 1280x800 GMA based system for $1200 when since 2006 I was buying $300 computers?

P.S. I do detest the time wasted to learn the above truths.