PwrMac

I originally started to research this article to find out what the future held for my G5. Apple introduced the G5 in 2003, advertising it as the worlds fastest desktop computer. The G4 was long due for a successor and the G5 definitely delivered, with the fact that is was “64 bit” being treated as though it was very significant. I felt as though because Apple will cease supporting Macs with G4 or G5 processors with the introduction of Mac OS X 10.6, that those of us with G5s will never fully be able to take advantage of 64 bit computing (That the G5 is theoretically capable of).

The fact that a processor is 64-bits does not inherently make it faster. To utilize the 64-bit capability you need an operating system that supports it. When the G5 shipped, it came with a special version of 10.2, and when 10.3 came out, it shipped with native G5 support. Support for what though? The only added benefit for the G5 with these two version was the fact that the OS could use more then 4 GB of Ram installed. Sad? I think so. But thankfully, Tiger rolled along and…. wait for it… an application could use more then 4 GB of ram at a time. Touted as “No Small Feat” in Apple’s Tiger Developer Overview Series, the article goes on to outline the benefits of increased address space. The real change came in 2007 with 10.5 which shipped with a 64-bit capable kernel, making it an official “64-bit OS”.

But alas, 10.5 is only partially 64-bit due to the fact it only ships with two  applications (Xcode and Chess) for 64-Bit PowerPC Machines. This means that not even the Finder is 64-bit capable in it’s current state. Xcode (Apple’s application development software) I could see having benefit from being 64 bit. Chess I cannot. I kinda feel as though Apple may have begun recompiling their apps in 64-bit PPC code but once the decision was made to go exclusively Intel they stopped.

You can find out what 64 - bit applications are on your computer (if any) when you run this code in terminal a list of 64-bit applications on your system is compiled for you:

locate -0 app/Contents/MacOS/ | xargs -0 file | grep ppc64 (for PowerPC machines)

or

locate -0 app/Contents/MacOS/ | xargs -0 file | grep x86_64 (for Intel machines)

I was surprised to learn that there was a third 64 bit application on my machine, Radon. Radon (radon.tominatedsoftware.com) is a new lightweight web browser that I’ve been trying out. This prompted me to further research what the benefits are of compiling software for 64 bits. The most obvious answer is that 64-bit memory addressing allows for an application to use more then 4Gb of ram. But what about speed? The answer is… extremely complicated. To make a long story short, I’ll quote Apple’s own technical literature (Apple’s 64-bit Transition Guide):

Myth: My application will run much faster if it is a “native” 64-bit application.

Fact: Some 64-bit executables may run more slowly on 64-bit Intel and PowerPC architectures because of increased cache pressure. On Intel-based Macintosh computers, you may see some performance improvement. The number of registers and the width of registers increases in 64-bit mode. Because of the increased number of registers, function call parameters can be passed in registers instead of
on the stack. The increased register width makes certain performance optimizations possible in 64-bit mode that are not possible in 32-bit mode. These improvements will often (but not always) offset the performance impact caused by increased cache pressure. The 32-bit PowerPC architecture is a 32-bit subset of a 64-bit architecture. The PowerPC architecture supports 64-bit arithmetic instructions in 32-bit mode (with some limitations). Since there are ample registers on 32-bit PowerPC, function call parameters on PowerPC have always been passed in registers. For these reasons, on PowerPC architectures, software does not generally become significantly faster (and may actually slow down) when compiled as a 64-bit executable.

So for 64-bit PowerPCs, it looks as if increased memory addressing is the only benefit. When Intel switched to 64 bit they added more and wider registers. The increased number of registers is utilized with 64-bit code, so there is a speed benefit. When Apple and IBM switched to 64-bit processors, no new registers were added and thus no speed benefit (Kinda makes you think why then was the 64-bit attribute was marketed so heavily when the G5 was introduced if there is no speed benefit… or nearly any tangible benefit at all.) I then was a little puzzled about why Radon is complied for 64-bits on PowerPC systems. I decided to ask Logan Cooke, the programmer for Radon. He was extremely helpful and gave this explanation:

Hello Brian,
64-Bit’s main advantage is the ability to process more memory and address it in a more efficient way. PPC processors that were 64-Bit are the same in the way they address memory. 64-Bit is only truly effective if the environment (OS), the software (XCode, Chess etc.) and the processor are 64-Bit compliant. Unfortunately, Apple did not meet these standards until Leopard, Macs first truly 64-Bit OS. But as you may know, most programs are not 64-Bit (iChat, Apple Mail etc.) making the 64-Bit technology nothing more then a feature addition on the Leopard Fact Sheet. So i guess, I feel that 64-Bit has very little advantage in a wider sense without compliance across the board.
Thanks,

Logan

So there you have it. I think. 64-bit processing also allows for memory to be addressed more efficiently (at least as far as these two architectures are concerned), potentially giving a speed boost. Also adding for the argument against Snow Leopard orphaning the G5 is that, in fact, the data paths are still only 32-bit (even though there are two separate paths, one in and one out). This can be seen in this architectural diagram:

G5's still only have 32-bit data buses.

So I guess G5 users aren’t actually missing much when it comes to the world of 64-bit computing. Good thing, since there won’t be much more development in 64-bit programs for them. But all things aside, it is actually Apple’s Core 2 Duo machines the stand to benefit the most from a 64-bit Mac OS. Now I don’t feel so left out.

- Brian

In the Intel Mac age, Windows can run natively on Macs thanks to their Core Duo processors but unfortunately, PowerPC Macs don’t have this luxury. The only option for them was (and partially still is) to emulate a PC using Virtual PC 7. Although no longer sold, Virtual PC 7 took Intel machine code and translated into something that PowerPC registers could understand. The result was a program that allowed the installation on a “Virtual” PC on your computer. It was slow to say the least, but it wasn’t entirely unusable. It’s performance was acceptable for some applications, and was the only option to running Windows only software. The concept is outdated today due to the fact that Intel Macs can natively recognize Intel Code.

Virtual PC is slow. There is no debate. However it is reasonably responsive and it’s performance with non-resource heavy programs is more than acceptable.  In fact, Word 2007 running under emulation launches faster the Word 2008 does running natively:

Word 2008 takes 12.9 seconds to load under Leopard, where as Word 2007 only takes 9.6 seconds. This is kind of very sad. Think about it: Virtual PC 7 uses a portion of your Mac’s ram (which you can allocate, up to 512MB), and emulates a 550Mhz Pentium Pro processor.  I had to use Sandra Lite XI (a benchmark suite) to determine the processor type as it was never advertised and doesn’t show up under System Properties. By emulating a Pentium Pro, Virtual PC 7 lacks any type of single instruction multiple data or instruction set (which includes MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3 etc). SIMD instruction sets accelerate any type of media and 3D instructions, and today’s OSes (and most programs) are optimized to take advantage of the added performance they provide (which may be one reason Virtual PC 7 has a hard time running resource heavy programs).  The Pentium Pro was in fact the last consumer Intel processor without a SIMD instruction set (Intel’s first SIMD instruction set was MMX, introduced with the Pentium MMX). 

In my opinion, this is one major factor that makes Virtual PC 7 so slow. The reason being is that according to Sandra Lite, the Integer and Floating point performance of the Pentium Pro in the PC environment is on par with 2Ghz+ processors. This is pretty impressive (but may also be dependent on the processor in your Mac):

Why Run Windows?

One of the main uses I have for Virtual PC 7 is Office 2007. Although I own Office 2008 for Mac, I find that while the compatibility between the Mac and PC Office documents is good, it’s far from perfect. Especially with PowerPoints. Being a full time college student I have use PowerPoint all the time, and with Virtual PC 7, I can fire up Windows XP and load the PowerPoint presentation. I can make changes to it as necessary so it displays properly on the PCs at school. Another reason for running Office 2007 is that some features are only available in the PC version of Office. Specifically, the ability to embed YouTube videos in PowerPoint Presentations. You simply can’t do this on a Mac, there is no option to.

There is also the occasion that I want to run a Windows only application. For instance, when Google Chrome came out in beta. Since there was no Mac version there was only one way I could try it out:

Virtual PC 7 & Leopard

So for some, like me, Windows under emulation is still a viable option to running Windows. However with Leopard and Vista there are some additional hurdles. Users of Virtual PC 7 were disappointed when they upgraded to Leopard: Leopard breaks Virtual PC 7’s ability to access a Mac’s DVD or CD drive. It turns out that there is a solution. 

Installing Apple’s Boot Camp Drivers (which are meant for Intel Mac’s running Windows) will regain the ability to use your optical drive. The Boot Camp drivers aren’t available for download off of Apple’s site and obtaining them can be a little hard. Thankfully user chrishelms at the InsanelyMac forums has been kind enough to find them and post them for download: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=71519 .

After you download the four pieces you’ll have to use a program like UnRarX to join them. Once you have the Drivers folder, drag it to the Windows desktop, open it up, and then open the Apple folder. Inside, you’ll see an installer titled BootCamp. That’s the one your looking for. For those users new to Virtual PC 7 and are installing Windows for the first time with Leopard, you’ll want to install the PC additions (in the “PC” menu) as well.  Now you should be good to go.

One Leopard Advantage:

There is at least one advantage to running Virtual PC under Leopard:

You can have a PC running in one of your spaces. It’s nice to be able to switch from a PC to a Mac on the fly.

Virtual PC 7 & Vista

If running Windows XP is a slow experience, running Vista is a glacial one. It’s slow to load, slow to respond, in fact, it walks instead of “runs”. But here’s how to do it.

Vista installation isn’t supported with Virtual PC 7, under Tiger or Leopard. The reason being is that Vista requires an ACPI compliant computer, a feature in a PC that Virtual PC 7 doesn’t emulate. Officially that is. Thankfully frgough of macoshints.com found a work around (you can read the full article here http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006060816033250).

Here’s how to do it step by step:

1. Set up a new virtual machine with the option of installing your own OS, and select Windows XP Professional when it asks you for what file system.

2. Once the PC is set up you should be at a screen reading “OS not found”.  Reset the machine through the “PC” menu and repeatedly tap the Delete key. You should be able to enter the Virtual PC’s “virtual” BIOS.

3. If you tap the right arrow twice you’ll enter the “Power” menu. Select “ACPI Aware OS” and change No to Yes. Choose save and exit.

4. Insert the Vista DVD or capture the DVD image, and you can start the installation process.

And it’s very long, long process. Setup takes a few hours, and you literally have to wait minutes to get to the next screen of the setup process. Once you get through setup, the installation will take hours. What I did was I went through the setup in the evening, and I let the install complete over night. Then you have to complete the setup process when you finally boot into Windows. Have patience. After Vista is installed, you’ll want to switch to classic view to speed things up a bit (and I mean a bit). Once your up and running and you actually get a program to run, the program usually is useable: 

 As you can see, it’s reasonably responsive. It’s actually quite usable. And… it loads Word 2007 just as fast as Word 2008 launches on my Dual 1.8Ghz G5. It’s depressing, really. It would have been nice if Microsoft tried to optimize software for us.

Why would you want to run Vista? Well there is some software that requires Vista to run. Eventually, most all Windows software will require Vista. And although it’s doubtful that Virtual PC 7 will be able provide the performance to run these programs anyway, I figure it really doesn’t hurt to have a copy of Vista I could run to try it out. And also… I just think it’s cool. Something about running the latest Wintel OS on a 4-year-old PowerPC machine just intrigues me. One caveat: for some reason under Vista I can’t get an internet connection. I tried coping the drivers from XP, but with no avail. If anyone can figure out a workaround, let me know.

There you have it. If there is any questions about this or your having trouble please let me know and I’ll try to help. You can reach me at powermacblog@gmail.com. One last thing: even though you can’t buy Virtual PC 7 new, you can get it used. Amazon.com has a few people selling it here:

P.S. Just for fun, here is a screen shot of Window’s Vista Performance Information score:

There are plenty of blogs and groups on the internet dedicated to the photographs taken with the iPhone. Its relatively high quality camera (for a camera phone) has encouraged owners to showcase their creative side to an extent. I’m guessing many wouldn’t think these pictures could be considered art. I know some do: Just What I See.  Just What I See is a web site dedicated to the photography of one iPhone owner. The best I can tell, it looks like he must enhance the pictures after taking them with photo editing software.

The photography that the iPhone excels at is the “Of the moment” type. This is true with most camera phones. The ones with better quality are capable of taking pictures that (in my opinion) could be considered as art. My interest with photography comes and goes mainly because I have too little time (and money) to dedicate to it. It can be an expensive and time consuming hobby. The digital revolution has helped negate some of this, but I feel as though many of the cameras I’d like to use are far more expensive than I can afford. And even then some can’t match the quality of some simple, old, SLR type cameras. I have spent a good amount of time taking pictures in the past but these days I simply do not have the the luxury of going on dedicated photography outings. My photography hobby had gone to the wayside.

Until I got my iPhone that is. Once I got a taste of it’s semi-high quality pictures, my interest in photography was renewed. Suddenly I could take a picture whenever I saw something worth remembering. And not just the candid things that only happen for a moment and then disappear. But also sights, views, and perspectives that I would quite often say to myself “That looks cool.”, I could now capture:

A blossoming tree on Kelly Dr.

Just an umbrella we were sitting under in Ocean City, NJ

The skylight in my old apartment.

For another example: I drive a convertible which obviously provides me with a panorama of the world around (and above) me. The iPhone has allowed me to take advantage of perspectives that could only be seen from the middle of some streets:

The Arts Building viewed from Broad St southbound

The Macy’s building on the left, viewed straight up from the intersection of Juniper and Chestnut streets.

Most of my photography you see here has few or no alterations done to them. The only picture enhanced above is the photo of the Arts Building. I have decided to try and dedicate part of this site to  iPhone photography, not just mine but also yours. In the future (hopefully soon) I will be creating a separate page showcasing the photography taken with iPhones.

I’m not the usual speed freak, and I actually buy Macs that are a few years old. My last machine  was a G4 PowerBook I bought in 2006, and now I have a G5 tower I purchased in the beginning of this year. My Macs have to be fast and responsive. Although one might think a G5 tower from 2004 (a low end dual 1.8Ghz at that)  wouldn’t be able to even come close the performance of a lowly Core 2 Duo Mac Mini (This misconception promoted mainly by the GeekBench benchmark, which I feel is a horrible way to gauge performance…ah, a Blog for another day) they would be wrong. Yes, this requires some upgrading, and no, I’m not talking just about the much-suggested Ram upgrade (although it is important). A fast hard drive can make your machine as responsive as a new Mac, and responsiveness to me is what makes a computer fast. If your Mac boots in 46 seconds, launches Apps within seconds, executes core animations smoothly, and can handle 8+ applications without a hiccup, would you really want a new one?

A fast hard drive speeds things up for two reasons. The first and most obvious is the fact that it will be able to find and read information more quickly, cutting down on load times. The second I think is overlooked. Virtual Memory is essentially hard drive space used as  (slow) ram. In the unfortunate event this happens (and in today’s computing world, its impossible to avoid at some point) a fast hard drive will make up for some of the lag time as Virtual Memory is used.

The two main things that affect  disk performance is seek time (how fast the drive finds stuff) and sustained read speed (the average speed the drive spits stuff out). A drives rotational speed, measured in RPMs, mainly affects its seek performance. The faster the platters in the hard drive spin, the faster it can find information. A drives size affects read speed. Greater capacity means that data is stored more densely, allowing information to be read faster. Most of today’s desktop drives are 7,200 to 10,000 RPMs. The 10,000 RPM drives are far more expensive and tend to be on the small side of capacity, although they obviously faster. The most common 10k drives are the Raptor series from Western Digital. The price and size of these drives prohibited me from using them as a candidate in my system. This narrowed my selection to the 7200 RPM drives, the most popular. There are many, many options here, and although typically the larger drives are the fastest thanks to the denser platters, there was one drive for me that stood out. The 640Gb hard drive from Western Digital has shown in many benchmarks to be nearly as fast as the 1Tb (1000Gb) drives, the current performance kings. This is thanks mainly due to the fact that the 640Gb capacity is reached by using just 2 320Gb platters. The drive can be found on NewEgg.com for under $100, making this the obvious choice for me. It’s also important to point out that you should also consider how much cache the drive you choose has, as you should look for something that has nothing less then 16Mb.

Ram, naturally, is the upgrade of choice for most users. But determining how much ram is important. To do that, open up Activity Monitor in your utilities folder, select “System Memory” (from under the process window) and take a look. Page Outs is the most important number here. On my Mac, with 3Gb of Ram, I haven’t paged out once after my system has been up for 4 days, and while I was running six programs. After a normal day of usage, take a look at your page outs. The general rule of thumb is Page Outs should be 20% of Page In’s. If by the end of the day you see very little page outs, then you’ll gain absolutely nothing by upgrading your memory, and don’t have anyone else tell you otherwise. Having said all that, it’s my opinion that a normal user should need about 1.5Gb of Ram if your using Mac OS 10.4, and 3gb of Ram with 10.5.

These two upgrades can help your machine keep up with the latest and greatest from Apple. If you need proof, here are some videos of my system in action:

It takes me 46 seconds to boot fully:

Coverflow images load instantly:

This is the real stress test:

Here I am running Virtual PC 7 (with Windows XP running within the emulation enviroment), Safari under Windows XP, iChat, iTunes, Mail, Safari, Word 2008, Google Earth, Activity Monitor, and Aperture. That’s 10 applications. Google Earth, Virtual PC 7, and Aperture are the most resource hungry of the 10. First up is Google Earth, where I navigate to Philadelphia without a hiccup ( I had the 3-D buildings option on as well). Next I switch to Virtual PC 7 running Windows XP, where I launch Safari for Windows and navigate to Apple’s web site. Up next is some simple editing to a picture of a G5 with Aperture. Finally I switched  to iTunes. I started playing some music and switch to Cover Flow to demostrate is still scrolls fluidly, and loads cover art instantly. The rest of the movie show cases various iTunes visualizers, all of which run smoothly. The last 10 seconds or so I switch back to Virtual PC 7 and zoom in on the Start menu to clearly show its XP.

My Mac does all that and remains responsive. Its four years old, and its also the third slowest G5 Power Mac ever built (only the single 1.6Ghz and 1.8Ghz models are slower). It’s funny to me that people are quick to consider old computers slow. If my Mac is slow, you’d never know it.

- Brian

I clearly remember the day, September 13, 2007. After discussing with my roommate that I was saving for an iPhone because my phone was on its way out, I demonstrated for him that my flip phone’s left hinge was broke. When I did, the phone snapped in half. It was 5:40. By 6, I had run down 8 blocks to the closest AT&T store and was the proud owner of an iPhone.

iPhone number one that is. Two weeks later I was in an Apple Store complaining I could *barely* hear people on the other end, especially when walking down the streets of center city Philly. I was told nothing was wrong with it and I was sent home. After some googling I found other users that had the same problem. Before I took another trip to the Apple Store, I called technical support. They were very friendly and helpful and agreed the phone should replaced, and gave me a case number to give the “genius” at the Apple Store so I wouldn’t have to explain anything to them. I traveled out to the nearest Apple Store walked out with a new iPhone.

Flash Forward 9 months. That 2^nd iPhone held up pretty well except it eventually developed an odd problem when sometimes the phone would think headphones were attached, so I couldn’t hear people when I made a call. The only way to remedy this was to attach a pair of headphones and detach them, not even a hard reset would rectify the problem. So if I didn’t have a pair of headphones handy there was no way for me to make a call. Again, I found others with this particular problem on the net and they had their phones replaced. Since this wasn’t going to be something that I could live with I again headed to the Apple Store. I was told by another “genius” that it was just lint and I should blow in the headphone jack, which was something I already tried. I insisted on a new phone, and after a little resistance he complied.

That third iPhone provided me with the most dramatic problem of the 5. A week after having the replacement, I was web browsing on it at work. I had put down the phone to take a customer and when I picked it back up, I immediately threw it down – it burnt my hand. Not a bad burn, but I’d liken it to picking up the handle of a cast iron pan that you were frying an egg on. I shut down the phone, but once it powered back up it could no longer make or receive calls. Again I called Apple and explained what happened but instead of being helpful, the tech service rep told me I had to talk to customer relations because this was my third phone. I was enraged to say the least. The phone was a week old, kept in a case, and it literally had a melt down… and this was my fault how? Getting through to customer relations took a good hour and a half, but once I was connected they agreed again to replace the phone.

iPhone number 4 lasted all of 3 days. It developed a problem where the internal vibrator loosened and became, more or less, a buzzer. Back to the Apple Store I went. I wasn’t really pleased at this point to say the least, and didn’t bother calling tech support this time. I walked in and I tried to be calm, and when I finally got a “genius” I simply showed him the phone, told him right off the bat that I know it would be my 5^th phone, but Apple had a warranty they have to honor. I did not want to put up with anymore resistance, and I knew having said that there was little the “genius” could say or do except to replace my phone.

Its been about 2 months and so far everything’s good. I did make it a point to buy the extended AppleCare before mine was up. If I do by chance need to replace another 5 iPhones this year, I’d be out $1000 without the warranty (out of warranty, replacement iPhones are $200 each).

Welcome to PwrMac.com. This blog is run by me, Brian G. Reilly. If you have any ideas, questions, comments, conundrums, or other miscellaneous ramblings, you can email me at PwrMacBlog@gmail.com. 

Pwr to the Mac Users.