New 500GB drive promises to save power
By Peter Cohen
Western Digital (WD) on Monday announced that it’s shipping in volume its WD Caviar GreenPower (or GP) 500GB hard disk drive mechanism. The drive costs $149.99.
The WD Caviar GP is a 3.5-inch hard disk drive bound for external enclosures or internal chassis inside computers that use Serial ATA (SATA) interfaces. The “GreenPower” moniker indicates that this unit is especially designed to be power-efficient. WD claims the drive is the industry’s coolest and quietest running eco-friendly 500GB drive.
The GP 500GB model uses the same technology as its 1GB counterpart. It yields and average drive power savings of four to five watts over other drives in its class; WD claims that results in an annual CO2 emission reduction of up to 13.8 kilograms per drive per year, or the equivalent of taking a car off the road for about three days per year.
The drive utilizes special technology that reduces power load during startup, and optimizes spin speed, transfer rate and caching algorithms. It will automatically unload its recording heads during idle periods, for example, which reduces aerodynamic drag. It also reduces less noise and lower vibration rates accordingly.
The drive sports a 16MB data buffer and an average read seek time of 8.9 milliseconds (ms). Transfer rate is 3 Gb/s for the buffer-to-host (SATA) speed, and 1,160 Mb/s for the buffer-to-disk transfer rate.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Leopard Update
Latest Mac OS X 10.5.1 build fixes Finder data loss issue
Published: 04:00 PM EST
Apple Inc. on Monday continued to pound away at its first maintenance and security update to the recently released Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system, issuing a new test build to developers that fixes the much publicized Finder data loss issue.
People familiar with the ongoing testing process for Mac OS X 10.5.1 Update say the new build, labeled Mac OS X 10.5.1 build 9B16, was accompanied by a note to developers that specifically mentions a Finder-related fix affecting files that are moved between directories.
It was widely reported earlier this month that Leopard's Finder is affected by a glaring bug in its directory-moving code, which could lead to horrendous data loss if a destination volume disappears while a move operation is in progress.
Those people familiar with pre-release builds of Mac OS X 10.5.1 also added that the software update will deliver an enhancement to Leopard that will allow Apple's Software Update and installer applications to make revisions to application files which may have been moved outside their designated "Applications" directory on Leopard volumes.
As was the case with build 9B13, which was released for private testing last Monday, Apple is reportedly asking that its developers test the latest build broadly, paying particular attention to Time Machine, Mail, iCal, Back To My Mac, Bonjour, AirPort, gaming graphics, networking and the Finder.
Mac OS X 10.5.1 is expected to be released as a free update within a few weeks' time.
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People familiar with the ongoing testing process for Mac OS X 10.5.1 Update say the new build, labeled Mac OS X 10.5.1 build 9B16, was accompanied by a note to developers that specifically mentions a Finder-related fix affecting files that are moved between directories.
It was widely reported earlier this month that Leopard's Finder is affected by a glaring bug in its directory-moving code, which could lead to horrendous data loss if a destination volume disappears while a move operation is in progress.
Those people familiar with pre-release builds of Mac OS X 10.5.1 also added that the software update will deliver an enhancement to Leopard that will allow Apple's Software Update and installer applications to make revisions to application files which may have been moved outside their designated "Applications" directory on Leopard volumes.
As was the case with build 9B13, which was released for private testing last Monday, Apple is reportedly asking that its developers test the latest build broadly, paying particular attention to Time Machine, Mail, iCal, Back To My Mac, Bonjour, AirPort, gaming graphics, networking and the Finder.
Mac OS X 10.5.1 is expected to be released as a free update within a few weeks' time.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Steve Zalot presents iLife'08
Many thanks to Steve Zalot for a tremendous presentation on Apple's new iLife'08 and iWork'08. He certainly covered all of the bases and everyone had a tremendous insight into what the programs had to offer.
Now all we have to do is put his helpful hints into play.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Read - Watch -Do sequence for learning
Adobe Photoshop CS One-on-One (CD-ROM included)
By McClelland, Deke
Copyright: 2007
ISBN: 978-0-596-52975-8 490 pages, $49.95 US, $64.99 CA,
Company/Producer’s name: Deke Press/O’Reilley
Phone #: 800-998-9938 Online address: www.oreily.com
Deke created this book for both amateur and professional graphic artists, designers, and photographers. It is another in a series of books that provide step-by-step lessons accompanied by beautiful full colored lessons combined with video lessons and data files. The author’s approach is a “hands on –step-by-step process" that allows the reader to proceed at their own pace and establish their own sequence of lessons to personalize the instruction.
The book’s content is divided into 12 lessons that include several (up to 3-7) step-by-step exercises to explain the techniques. Explanations, data files, and video lessons support these real world project based exercises.
The book is highly visual, colorful, informative, easy on the eye providing nicely laid out pages on heavy clay based paper, and a comprehensive index to support the text.
Lastly, the wonders of the digital age have provided us with the possibilities of a virtual classroom in which anyone can invite an expert in the field to tutor them one-on-one. I would like to say that Deke McClelland has created a comprehensive training experience into which you can submerge yourself for hours at a time. In process of reading this book you'll get a good dose of graphics theory, best practices, and tips for avoiding Photoshop disasters. L. McNeil
By McClelland, Deke
Copyright: 2007
ISBN: 978-0-596-52975-8 490 pages, $49.95 US, $64.99 CA,
Company/Producer’s name: Deke Press/O’Reilley
Phone #: 800-998-9938 Online address: www.oreily.com
Deke created this book for both amateur and professional graphic artists, designers, and photographers. It is another in a series of books that provide step-by-step lessons accompanied by beautiful full colored lessons combined with video lessons and data files. The author’s approach is a “hands on –step-by-step process" that allows the reader to proceed at their own pace and establish their own sequence of lessons to personalize the instruction.
The book’s content is divided into 12 lessons that include several (up to 3-7) step-by-step exercises to explain the techniques. Explanations, data files, and video lessons support these real world project based exercises.
The book is highly visual, colorful, informative, easy on the eye providing nicely laid out pages on heavy clay based paper, and a comprehensive index to support the text.
Lastly, the wonders of the digital age have provided us with the possibilities of a virtual classroom in which anyone can invite an expert in the field to tutor them one-on-one. I would like to say that Deke McClelland has created a comprehensive training experience into which you can submerge yourself for hours at a time. In process of reading this book you'll get a good dose of graphics theory, best practices, and tips for avoiding Photoshop disasters. L. McNeil
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Apple Updates MacBooks to Santa Rosa, GMA X3100; 2.6GHz MacBook Pro
posted by MacRumors.com
Thursday November 01, 2007 05:08 AM ESTAs rumored, Apple has quietly updated the MacBook tonight to the Santa Rosa architecture with mild speed bumps and the GMA X3100 integrated video
White 13.3"$1099.00 2.0GHz/1GB RAM/80GB/Combo/GMA X3100
$1299.00 2.2GHz/1GB RAM/120GB/SD-DL/GMA X3100
Black 13.3"
$1499.00 2.2GHz/1GB RAM/160GB/SD-DL/GMA X3100
Despite comparable clock speeds (2.0 -> 2.0GHz, 2.16 -> 2.2GHz) to the old models, the new MacBooks use the Santa Rosa chipset which boasts a faster 800MHz front side bus over the previous MacBook models. The introduction of the GMA X3100 video card also provides significant benefits over the previous models. The new specs can be seen at the Apple Store:
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