With an 802.11n notebook, I can take advantage of the new Airport Extreme, which I’d want for a faster connection to the not-yet-purchasd Apple TV. Which would mean I’d have to replace our old TV with an HD monitor with DVI inputs.

I knew it was going to be an expensive year.

Update:
Others report to have performed this upgrade successfully using the Apple part MA688Z/A which can be found here or a local authorized apple repair store, and while this appears to be a G only card, the Airport Extreme updater performs the necessary upgrade.

Mac Rumors offers a list of often discussed hardware and software expected this year including:

• Apple Phone
• New Mac Pro
• iTV
• Leopard
• New Displays
• iLife ‘07
• New Video iPod

I fear it’s going to be an expensive year.

1. Nintendo releases an innovative console with motion-sensing controllers
2. console sales quickly reach more than 400,000 in Japan, 600,000 in the US, continually selling-out shortly after stores open, successfully establishing success
3. a few people online claim stories of controller straps breaking, flying remotes, and broken items on impact
4. web-sites appear devoted to humorously highlighting Wii player mishaps, capitalizing on buzz, hoping to catch visitors and ad revenue
5. “news” stories report on hyped incidents, increasing popular media coverage
6. Nintendo reminds Wii owners of the safety precautions they provide with each console, game, and controller to protect themselves from lawsuit-happy idiots
7. consumers declare the devices unsafe and defective, demand reparations
8. Nintendo considerately responds to public concern, offers free strap replacement in retail stores and online
9. class action by idiots ensues
10. class action stirs Nintendo defenders at kotaku and slashdot

There’s nothing particularly surprising in this series of events. As a happy owner of a Wii and four remotes, I can only identify a few reasons you might have explaining why you can’t be trusted with this toy.

• You deem the wrist-strap too uncool for your Wii Sports: Bowling stance, and skip it before hurling the ball down the lane. But your hands are covered in Dorito-grease, and you’ve been drinking (like you do), and you release that ball with just the right about of spin, curving it in for a strike. But it’s still not a bowling ball, and you’re still in your dorm-room, now quiet with a remote through your TV.
• Wii Sports: Golf so realistically replicates your golf course experience, you can’t help continuing your bad habits in front of the video-game. Like slightly twisting left on your swing. Or consistently over-shooting the green. Or chipping into the water-hazard and throwing your club after it. But that wasn’t your club.
• I got nuthin’ else … Just don’t let go of the damn controller, and don’t make up stupid excuses if you do without wearing that strap.

We’re currently restricted to single-player gaming as no additional controllers were available when we got the system, but it’s still fun taking turns in Wii Sports (Tennis, Baseball, Golf, Bowling, and Boxing), and I’m many hours into The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I’ve encountered some shoulder and wrist soreness from repetitive motion, but that’s not surprising after spending hours punching, swinging, and throwing the wiimote around; I just need to stretch more before playing my video games. I’ve found it’s possible to play with smaller motions, but it’s less fun.

You’re all welcome to visit for a work-out.

Ideally, I show them the problem, they order a new one, and I show up later to make the swap and they synch what’s important. Hopefully the transition goes smoothly.

Holy Shit

After the contest to hack the EFI of the Intel Macs to run Windows, I didn’t think this was far off, but I certainly did not expect it to come from Apple.

Casey first alerted me to this, and my initial impulse was to reply, “why the hell would I want to dual boot?” The answers are slim, with the highest on the list being “because you can,” shortly followed by “could I play Half-life 2 or Counter-Strike: Source?” That’d be rather impressive… But certainly not productive. One of the reasons I bought the MacBook was to abandon Windows.

Anything requiring me to turn off my current Mac OS where everything pretty much “just works” and switch to Windows without access to running my OS X programs will be disruptive, and running Windows without official support from either Apple or Microsoft promises a rough experience.

the Apple Remote Control (IR), Apple Wireless (Bluetooth) keyboard or mouse, Apple USB Modem, MacBook Pro’s sudden motion sensor, MacBook Pro’s ambient light sensor, and built-in iSight camera will not function correctly when running Windows.

However, if I could just install some Windows libraries and then run programs compiled for windows without the full OS, and do so natively while remaining in OS X, then I’d be happy. Hopefully some day soon we’ll see that instead.

But I’m a glutton for punishment, and will at least try Bootcamp it to see what happens. Apple offers some details on requirements and issues one might expect.

Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it’ll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world. So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes.

After I backup my Mac.

Update:
So!

Today I ran Boot Camp, which had me burn a CD with hardware drivers, set the partition size for Windows (5GB default), and mere minutes later, I was rebooting to a Windows install CD.

Note: They’re not kidding when they say you need a Windows XP disk with Service Pack 2. I started with an MSDN disk handy containing that, XP Home, and something else accessible via boot-menu. Sadly, that menu was unusable as the laptop keyboard was not even initialized during the emulated boot process. So don’t bother attempting this unless you’ve got the XP CD proper: the one that you’d get at the store, with your PC, burned ISO to a bootable disk, whatever. And your legal XP license key. That you acquired legally. Microsoft is happy you want to deface your Mac, as long as you pay them for the priviledge.

Anyway, I got a “real” XP disk, and let Windows install. It was… a windows install. Nothing special there. So it puts files on the disk, boots off those files, and I’m looking at the default Windows background wallpaper. Without the hardware drivers, the resolution isn’t perfect and the color depth is off, but it’s certainly Windows. I inserted the disk containing the previous mentioned drivers and the auto-run installer kicked in. Approving the driver updates led to another reboot, and finally that damned Windows startup sound and I’m looking at Windows in 1440×900.

Pretty easy, and very creepy.
(In fact, I’m typing this update in Firefox, in Windows. On a Mac.)

Then, the time spent in “Windows Update.” While that ran I installed Gaim so I would feel so disconnected while operating in Windows. After some long downloads and a reboot, the updates were complete.

First fun thing - Half-Life 2 CDs. Pop disk 1 in, auto-runs… and lets me know I’ve got embarassingly little space available to install it’s content. A quick look at my mess reminds me I failed to give the Windows partition anything more than the default 5GB, which might sound like a lot… (have you looked at how much space your new windows install takes up?), but really 5GB isn’t if you want to dump a few modern games on your drive. No obvious way to resize my partition.

So I start over in Boot Camp with a 15GB Windows partition for round 2.

2 hours later…

Half-Life 2 CDs! (I’m still anxious to try Counter-Strike) At this point we’re still just Windows on a computer, nothing exciting while I swap CDs. Since HL2 runs with Valve’s Steam app, I’ve got to wait a while for it to decode/authorize/download updates. So I let that run.

While that’s downloading, I pull out my Doom3 CDs. Again some disc swapping, and Doom’s done! And Steam is still downloading and applying updates. While it does that, let’s just see how Doom runs…

I can’t make Doom 3 slow.

Nice. I’ve not used a machine that ran Doom well until my MacBook.

Looks like Counter-Strike: Source is 99% patched now, so I’ll end this post with this:

• Boot Camp was simple and quick, and had I allowed for more space the first time, I wouldn’t have had to repeat my steps. Majority of time consumed was basic waiting on the Windows install.
• I’ve never had a machine that ran Windows this well. It’s almost a shame I’ll only use it to play few games. Most of my time I’ll be back in OS X doing everything else.

I’m anxious.

I will always wonder what I could have done better to protect Seagate from this harsh world, but regretting mistakes in the past will not bring the music back. All I can do now is take what I’ve learned to prepare for the future, pray, and implement redundancy.

Memorial services will be held on the back porch with the sledgehammer.

My efforts for a Free iPod failed, and until recently I was content to try another marketing scheme to see if I could obtain one that way.

But I’m tired of waiting. Hans didn’t help - the other day he informed me by SMS that Best Buy had a 20GB for a measly $160, with the catch that it was an open box without all the parts. Who Cares! I declared to no one in particular, ignoring completely the concept of that question. I was playing City of Heroes with Kelly and Trevis at the time, but that was quickly abandoned for a fast trip to the store.

The iPod was visibly used, but appeared to be in working condition. It came with no cables, but with one exception we had the necessary parts. I opted to purchase the needed cable and a service plan to cover defects for two years, and was on my way home to test it out quickly.

Plugging it in at home, I discovered additional flaws. The obvious issue was what must have been caused by someone sitting hard on it, the front half the case was overlapped on the left side by the back half, exposing the seam and likely applying unneeded pressure to the internals. If everything still worked fine, I could ignore that, except the hold switch that would allow me to lock the buttons inconsistently worked. Having an iPod I cannot unlock is no good.

The next opportunity I had to return it was at lunch today, well within the 30 day return window. I was planning on exchanging my broken iPod for one of the less used 20GB open box items, still cheaper than brand new. When I got to the case, I found a 40GB for even less. It even came with the power brick! (not really excited).

Anyway, wanting more for less, I took the 40GB to the service counter for the exhange. There, I learned about how Best Buy doesn’t really have a trained staff to address the returned items, and most of them just end up back on the shelves. Apple wont really accept the returns from Best Buy, so if a “technician” believes a device is truely broken, they’ll be good to stomp on it for good measure to ensure it’s not returned to the shelves. I think my 20GB was stomped, and still returned to the shelf.

If I was wise, I would’ve taken this hint and immediately run back to the case to swap my used/returned/stomped? 40GB for a shiny brand new 20GB. I didn’t. I made my purchase, and went back to work.

Tonight, I plug in my brand “new to me” iPod, and find that the hard drive is not working, and disk writes fail. Back into the box it goes.

Kelly has been encouraging me to just get a new one, and get it over with. I’m finally inclined to agree.

Cons:

• I purchased it at full price as an exchange at Best Buy, which meant waiting half an hour in the wireless device section of the store where the iPods were locked while the two employees who supposedly staff the area were just gone. Waiting is dumb.
• Reassuring the service rep that despite their “geek” saying the one I was returning was working fine, simply powering it on was not sufficient to test the disk write failure I complained of.
• Knowing that if I just started at the Apple store, I would’ve wasted far less time.

Pros:

• It’s new. No one has abused it.
• It’s so slim and light. Small enough for dropping in a jeans pocket or taking along cycling.
• The USB2 transfer carries data and power.
• It just works, the way all things should.

There are a few people who were fast enough to grab them from Office Max, and those successful in finding the price matching stores, but thanks to the lack of success so far, I’m not optimistic about my own chances at this point.

Regardless, I’m attempting CC in Brentwood tomorrow with an order placed online for in-store pickup. When I show up in the morning with OM’s ad, Circuit City can either do the work to price match, or can deal with the instant return of the item.