Rogue Wolves

After too much time and money spent trying to keep my iBook G3 cranking out bits to meet my high demands I sadly realized my usage is beyond it's capabilities.

This iBook was my first Apple computer (I "switched" back in 2004) and I've grown pretty fond of it but it was time to retire it. I tried hard to keep it limping along but issue after issue has plagued it in the last year. I've upgraded the RAM, replaced the logic board and replaced the hard drive. Now I suspect the logic board may be going again. I won't sink anymore money in it. Especially since it's dog slow and I'm pushing it past it's capabilities. It served me well as an experiment of the Apple world.

To replace my iBook I decided to buy a new MacBook. I need portability and in my opinion there was no sense buying anything other than a new Intel based Mac since eventually Apple will stop supporting the PowerPC architecture. Plus the Intel based Macs are blazingly fast and fairly well priced.

I've had my MacBook for about a month now - sorry no gratuitous shots of me opening the MacBook packaging - search Flickr if you want that - and it's easily the best computer I've ever owned. It does have it's issues but it's fast, light, has a great form factor and is loaded with features:

• Intel Duo Core
• Blue Tooth 2.0
• USB 2.0
• Firewire 400
• mini-DVI output
• optical digital/audio in/out
• gigibit ethernet
• built-in 802.11g (54mbps wifi)
• DVD-RW/CD-RW
• magsafe power adapter
• built-in iSight webcam
• glossy wide screen (1280 x 800 native resolution).

As I said there are some issues with it and there has been much talk on the internet about the problems that plague it. I'll address them below...

I was recently contacted by Erik Scrafford from ZigZig Software about my previous post Subversion on OS X. He informed me of another Subversion client that his company makes called ZigVersion. I decided to download it and give it a try.

First impressions:

• Very clean intuitive interface. (SvnX is a bit more cumbersome with it's multiple windows and harder to find features.)
• It just works. No fighting with it to connect to my repository.
• It shows me file statuses in the browser window. Right there no clicking to find it. It updates automatically with no refresh necessary.
• It does lack the ability to manually show differences or changes made to files or aid in merging file changes. I figured out I can try a checkin to find out what I changed as my next bullet points out. (With SvnX I have a FileMerge option which launches Apples fantastic FileMerge tool)
• On checkin it shows a window that displays all files changed and when you click on them it shows the differences from the last version! Nice job! Making it easy for developers to see what they have changed quickly is a great way to help eliminate stupid bad checkins and increase productivity.
• No Drag and Drop capabilities. I'd like to be able to drag and drop files/directories to the Finder to do checkouts and be able to drag and drop from the Finder to do checkins. Would also be awesome to be able to drag and drop in the repository to move things around.
• I could not see how to add new projects/folders to my repository? Do I have to do a checkout/checkin of everything just to add a folder?
• Is it possible to checkout a previous version or revert a file to version x?

ZigVersion is still in beta but it looks promising as a streamlined Subversion client that is simple to use and just works. There is, however, one other problem I see with ZigVersion: the name. Maybe it's a small thing but ZigVersion will always show up LAST in any software listing. Those damn Z's get you every time.

Good Luck to ZigVersion I'll definitely keep my eye on this. Thanks for the heads up Erik.

PC Magazine has a review roundup of personal anti-spyware tools for Windows. If you just want the results skip to the Editor's Choice section. I personally use Lavasoft's Ad-Aware on my work machine. If you don't run anti-spyware I'd strongly recommend you download one ASAP. It's unfortunately a necessity in this day and age.

Also, ZDNet has a lengthy review of the top anti-spyware tools for corporate/small business environments.

Some common symptoms of a computer infected by spyware are: random popup ads, computer slowdown, computer crashes or the browser homepage changing mysteriously. If you are experiencing any of these then it may be possible your computer is infected and you should run an anti-spyware application and hopefully it can remove it. Good luck.