Cigars for Everyone!
Uncle Andrew
Meet the newest member of our little dysfunctional computer family, and the chewy center of my blogging universe: Ichabod, the Headless PowerBook.
This little feller started life as my boss’ main work computer, until a freak accident (well, it was an accident, and a freak was involved, let’s just leave it at that) left it with a Hibachi’ed screen. It went into my computer graveyard for a few months until I took to it with a screwdriver and removed the now-useless top half. I lent it to some friends for use as an email computer for a few years, until recently when I decided to take a shot at using it as my Web server.
Technically, this computer is not compatible with OS X, but really the only thing that’s missing from it is the built-in USB ports, so I went ahead and used a godsend of a program called XPostFacto, which got it installed and running in, well, not no time, but not not no time, neither.
The only potential catch is the relatively low horsepower. Basically, this thing is the equivalent of a first-generation iMac. While it runs the OSX GUI—and all the attendant eye-candy—at a pace slightly less than “blistering”, the UNIX underpinnings should run at a decent clip, including the MySQL database needed to run a blog. And really, let’s not kid ourselves; it’s probably a red-letter day when three people access this site at one time.
So if ‘yall would do me a favor, leave a comment let me know how our new little bundle of joy is doing at its task, be it sprightly or sludgy. Mahalo Nui Loa!
All portions of this site are © Andrew Lenzer, all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted.
January 16th, 2005 at 6:04 pm
Well, it’s not fast, but then it’s not not fast either : P Nice Work on the Powerbook though. I had mine in “exploded view” (all parts hanging out) hung on my wall for a while. It’s amazing how fast a $3000 investment can bcome a door stop isn’t it?
January 16th, 2005 at 6:06 pm
Ok, maybe it’s slow enough for me to retry the submit button… More memory?
January 16th, 2005 at 6:36 pm
Seems OK. I’m still waiting for some Razzle or Dazzle.
January 16th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
Hey guys, thanks for the input!
Gavin: your post came through twice; hard to tell where the lag came in. I’ve noticed that Safari doesn’t play too hot with WordPress at times, if you’re using it. I already have 288 megs in this thing (160 more than it’s technically supposed to be able to access), so it ain’t a RAM problem.
Guess we’ll see how things go over the long run. My luck, it’ll catch fire tomorrow. 😉
January 16th, 2005 at 8:49 pm
“I’m still waiting for some Razzle or Dazzle.”
Gonna be a loooooooong winter. 😀
January 18th, 2005 at 3:45 am
Speed report,
With the Quicktime movie embedded in your top entry I did see some noticable slowing to the page load. In particular the side bars and header seemed to stall while waiting on the Quicktime feed. Fortunetely for me I was checking your site at 3:30A PST so traffic was at the its daily low. Does WordPress alow you to prioritize the order in which content loads? If so that might alow you to upload content for your visitors in a manor that does’t seem to hesitate. Otherwise, Yeah Razzle or Dazzle!
One of these afternoons we will have to simulate a large amount of traffic on your site to see how your headless MAC holds up.
January 18th, 2005 at 3:56 am
One other item. I veiwed your mini Hitchkock Quicktime movie in the browser on an Intel/WinXP machine at work that is using the Firefox browser. However, that shirt folding movie from November did not, and still does not, load in the browser on the same machine or my home machine running Win2K and Firefox. Was there some difference in the encoding or method of file inclusion between those two clips?
January 18th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
“Does WordPress alow you to prioritize the order in which content loads? If so that might alow you to upload content for your visitors in a manor that does’t seem to hesitate.”
Unfortunately, WordPress doesn’t allow for that. I could hard-code the HTML in there, but that would defeat the purpose of going with a Pop-N’-Fresh medium like PHP. I’d rather make you wait. 😉
“I veiwed your mini Hitchkock Quicktime movie in the browser on an Intel/WinXP machine at work that is using the Firefox browser. However, that shirt folding movie from November did not, and still does not, load in the browser on the same machine or my home machine running Win2K and Firefox. Was there some difference in the encoding or method of file inclusion between those two clips?”
I didn’t author the shirt one. I don’t really know if there are any major differences between the two clips, but I do know that I prepped the bird one for streaming. Maybe that’s the difference. On the other hand, you’re the first to mention having a problem.
January 18th, 2005 at 1:36 pm
Off-topic, I’m kind of disappointed that no one seems to have noticed the preeminently Geek tableau in the picture: rescued laptop computer perched upon laser printer, with Hulk poster and closet full of Aloha shirts in the background.
January 31st, 2005 at 6:29 am
I took a look at the specs of the new MacMini and I am struck by the obvious. If you take a $1000 iBook, strip off the monitor, battery, keyboard and trackpad (easily $500 worth of components) you have a MacMini. OK, those may not be $500 worth of components but I think that is the gist of Apple’s new product. If you want more proof, go to cnet.com and check out their product description video. The give away is when they whip out with the power supply and it looks identical to the power supply brick from Tricia’s Dell laptop, only in white.
So what is my point, I think with your headless PowerBook you have beaten Apple to the punch in the whole stripped down laptop market. Just a thought.
January 31st, 2005 at 8:24 am
I hope that computer is a big seller for Apple, but really, I’m not very impressed. I suppose it depends on how much performance they were able to squeeze out of the components they used, but all in all, your comparison to a headless iBook is quite correct. Between the previous-generation processor, the 4200rpm drive and the so-so video card, I think the Mac Mini is a real compromise machine, suitable primarily as a Web surfing machine for the kitchen or for teaching Grams and Gramps how to use a computer. Still, I hope it sells a jillion units.
Funny you should mention Ichabod, as even now I am Frankensteining together another machine from spare parts, to see if it will run any faster. 😀