Initially I ordered a Dell Inspiron 910/Mini 9, after reading about how easy it was to get Leopard running on these machines. However, after initially quoting 15 days delivery then then, on the 15th day, extended this to 30 days - at which point I cancelled the order.
Instead, due to its looks and frankly astonishing battery life, I ordered a Samsung NC10.
As it turns out, although all Atom netbooks are created equal, some are more equal than others - especially where OS X compatibility is concerned…
“The SureFire ShotTimer is an effective, convenient way for shooting enthusiasts, law enforcement officers, and military personnel” … blimey, steady on! … “to improve their shooting skills and monitor their progress.” … ahh
ShotTimer (not available in the UK, where we obviously don’t think that military personnel, law enforcement officers and enthusiasts should be shot)
This morning I really feel as if I’ve joined the big time, almost able to rub shoulders with people such as Mario Wolczko
Due to its heavily customisable design, I use Gentoo Linux on all of my home Linux servers - and this generally works well. Gentoo developers do seem to have the unerring ability to semi-regularly throw absolute clangers, though - and this is one of those occasions…
I’ve just added a new top-level page named Downloads in a first-pass attempt to provide the framework to allow the migration of all of the data from my (old, off-line) O2 server to this new Mini-ITX system. For nostalgia purposes, I’ll probably migrate all of the content at some point in the future - but right now the downloadable content is probably the most relevant.
Foxconn technical support finally same through, and sent me Beta BIOS S02 for the troubled A79A-S. This finally allows memory to run at 1066MHz, albeit with greatly increased timings, well above the speed that the memory is capable of.
The Jetway J7F5M MiniTIX motherboard is yet another entry in the 17×17cm small HTPC/low-powered server market. This particular model runs at 2GHz and features Jetway’s proprietary expansion connector for adding additional network, video, or serial ports. I have a 2xRS232 expansion card on mine, to allow me to fix otherwise broken servers via a serial link - it’s the way of the future
What impressed me is that options for the expansion board appeared in the BIOS, and without any obvious option-ROM loading sequence as is often seen delaying the boot sequence nowadays (JMicron, I’m looking at you) - I can configure the additional ports along with the rest of the system.
What is unfortunate, then, is that Jetway have broken ACPI DSDT tables, built with Microsoft’s non standards-compliant ASL compiler, installed with their BIOS.
This causes a number of issues, including premature shutdown and standby/resume failures - but luckily these are all fixable!
I don’t have to most successfully history of predicting what Apple might do next - but then, who does?
There’s an interesting discussion on MacRumors about newly-leaked photos (allegedly) showing more details of the machines which will be announced this Tuesday.
(Additionally, the Contact links from their Support Forum return an ASP error page, as does attempting to post any topic whose text includes an apostrophe! Colour me highly unimpressed…)
