And I have photo proof:
They clearly stole Steve Ballmer’s sub sandwich right before he put it in his mouth.
Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.
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I use a Macbook Pro with VMware Fusion, which lets me run a bunch of virtual Windows machines for testing. I upgraded my internal drive to a quick 320gb one a few weeks ago, intending to run all my VMs off that internal drive, making it easier to do testing on airplanes or in coffee shops. Problem is, one of the things I test is Quest LiteSpeed, database backup software that does a lot of disk I/O, and during heavy backup/restore testing, I couldn’t do much multitasking because the internal laptop drive was being hit so hard.
I figure it’s a matter of time before I put a second hard drive in the Macbook Pro, but for now, I’ll stick with external drives.
I’ve got a bunch of USB drives, so I did some comparisons to see which ones got the fastest storage performance inside VMware. I wanted to find out how much performance I’d really gain by switching to an external drive, and did it make a difference whether I used FireWire or USB.
Keep in mind that this is not the native performance of each drive – this is the performance as seen inside a VMware Windows XP guest. I didn’t care what the native performance is, because that doesn’t do me any good. I’m only interested in performance as seen by the VMware guests because that’s the only thing I’d use the external drives for.
Here’s the benchmarking results from HD Tune:
Internal Western Digital 320gb 2.5″ WD3200BEVT:
Big, bulky external Maxtor OneTouch III 3.5″ 500gb connected via FireWire 400:
Whoa. That’s only averaging 35.5 MB/sec, whereas the internal gave me 48.5 MB/sec. I’m surprised there.
External Maxtor OneTouch III 3.5″ 500gb connected via USB:
Not much difference in speed between FireWire and USB as far as speed goes, but the USB connection used almost double the CPU power.
External USB enclosure with a Fujitsu MHY2120BH 2.5″ 120gb (the Macbook Pro’s original internal drive):
I’ve also got an external SATA RAID enclosure that does mirroring & striping, and I’ll test that later just out of curiosity, but there’s no way I’d put my virtual machines on there because it weighs more than my laptop and it makes a loud racket.
These results are not scientific – I just did one pass of testing on each drive. Your mileage may vary. Offer not valid in all fifty states. No purchase required to win. See participating locations for details.
My verdict: I’ll put the virtual machines on the 2.5″ external enclosure. It’s tiny, doesn’t require external power, and it won’t be as fast as the internal drive – but at least it’ll let me multitask.
Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.
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Great news – Pedro Costa has got a working solution! Apple Mac Mini 2010, 2011, and 2012 models all boot a patched version of VMware ESX 5.0:
VMware ESXi 5 Running on an Apple Mac Mini
I’d always wanted a small VMware vSphere 5 (ESXi) lab farm up and running, and I wanted to use Apple Mac Minis just for compactness and the silence. It has to be vSphere ESX or ESXi, not VMware Fusion or Parallels, because my clients all use ESXi and I wanted to be able to do things like VMotion and Storage VMotion.
These ISOs work for my Apple Mac Mini 2011 (5.1):
Download the ISO, burn it to CD, and boot from it. The install goes flawlessly. The USB keyboard works, video out (via HDMI!) works, and the onboard Ethernet wired network card works. WiFi doesn’t, but that’s okay – I wouldn’t even run a lab off that.
Presto – my Ikea datacenter comes to life!
My Ikea Datacenter
That’s two Mac Minis running VMware ESXi 5, a cheap $250 Netgear NAS handling the storage duties for shared storage, and a few other pieces of unrelated tech gear.
Thanks, Pedro!
Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.
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Erika got me an Apple Macbook Pro for Christmas. (Yes, fellas, you move across the country to put your girlfriend through college and it might pay off for you too.) Being an Apple geek, I was painfully aware that rumors pointed to new Macbook Pros at this year’s Macworld show in January, so I was torn. Should I return the Macbook Pro for a refund and wait for the show, or should I keep the laptop she bought me?
I decided to keep the one she bought me because I didn’t have any complaints about it at all. It’s pretty much my dream machine: 4gb of ram, big hard drive, DVD burner, great LED-backlit screen, you name it, and it’s still nice and light. I even talked to her about it and assured her that this was the one for me.
At this year’s Macworld, Steve Jobs introduced the Macbook Air. I’ve always liked thin & light subnotebooks, and I probably would have succumbed to the hype and picked one up if I didn’t already have my Pro. Thankfully, though, I have the Pro, and it’s a better machine for me anyway. I run a virtual machine with Windows for those tasks I just can’t get away from, and the Pro’s 4gb of memory make that a much easier task.
The Apple TV is more enticing, especially since I’m buying a new HDTV as soon as we get to Houston, but I can’t justify it when a Tivo HD costs around the same amount yet does a lot more.
2007 was the year of mucho Apple expenditures, but I think they just might not get any moolah from me this year. I’m surprised – I had money burning a hole in my pocket – but I just can’t bring myself to buy any of those new gadgets.
Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.
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Yes, that would be the same iPhone that I bought recently for $599. As Ben put it, my first two months of iPhone ownership cost me $100 per month. Ouch.
On the bright side, it was worth $599, and it’s a steal at $399.
Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.
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Bloglines, my beloved RSS reader, now offers an iPhone-friendly version at http://i.bloglines.com. Oh, happy day!
I’m still lovin’ my iPhone, but the Exchange integration really does suck. If you don’t use Microsoft Exchange for email, then the iPhone is fantastic. It works great with my home email, at least.
Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.
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The verdict is in: everybody loves the iPhone.
As soon as people put it in their hands and scroll a screen up or down for the first time, they’re completely hooked. It’s fun to watch their faces as they see how fast and playful the user interface feels. I saw one smile after another, just foolish dopey grins.
I gave a lot of demos, and people were sold long before I walked through all of the features. I don’t think I ever made it through even five or six of the apps before people were completely done. They had to have one, and their only two hesitations were the price and the AT&T service.
Is the iPhone expensive? Of course. But if you want something jaw-dropping, you gotta pay for it. Either you want it badly enough to fork out the $600, or you don’t, and the latter say they’ll wait for the cheaper iPhones that will inevitably appear. One of my coworkers said it best when he said he got excited just thinking about all of the devices that the iPhone will inspire.
I’m not so sure. The iPod’s been out for years now, and while it’s inspired a few other devices, the copycats suck. The Zune comes to mind. Apple’s on top of their design game right now, and judging by the looks of all the excited people today, Apple’s going to make billions of dollars. By the time somebody comes out with a device that’s even remotely close to these capabilities, Apple will have moved on to iPhone v2 with things like 3G data connections and GPS. Pretty exciting.
During the day of demos, the battery drained about halfway. I don’t think I’ve ever had a phone drain that much battery because I’ve never used a phone continuously for that long. It’s a good thing Apple built in such a good battery, because people are going to want to touch this thing all day.
Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.
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I went in just now to grab a headphone adapter for my car, and the place was absolutely packed. Every iPhone display was jammed with people packed in like sardines, all trying to get a look at it and play with it. Two people in front of me checked out with iPhones. They’re going like hotcakes. Amazing.
Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.
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Turns out Apple had photographers at the Miami Beach store where I was waiting. You can check out their Day One Gallery, but you won’t spot me.
Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.
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It rocks.
The end.
Just kidding. Of course there’s more to know, but here, I’m only going to cover the things I haven’t seen written in the press.
Photos emailed directly from the iPhone don’t include EXIF tags. I know, this one’s a little obscure, but if you email photos directly from your iPhone to Flickr, they won’t include the nice EXIF tags for your camera type, aperture, and so on. Check out this photo, and notice that it has EXIF tags on the right side that say it was taken with an Apple iPhone. Now look at this photo, and there’s no such EXIF tags. The second one was emailed directly from my iPhone to Flickr. The first one was uploaded via the Flickr Uploadr after I docked my iPhone and imported the photos using iPhoto. It’s picky, but I just wish I could upload photos directly from the phone and still get the EXIF data. (7/2 – see update at the end of this post.)
It’s a great bedside companion. I’m on call 24/7, so I keep my phone in a charger next to my bed. Even when it’s set to check email all the time, it doesn’t make any noises or light up when I get an email. I love that – otherwise, it’d be beeping and vibrating all night. The iPhone just stays completely black and quiet while charging, only lighting up when an actual phone call comes in.
The speakers are worthless for music, but okay for Youtube videos. I’ve played a few songs without using headphones, and man, what a mess. I wasn’t expecting quality speakers anyway, given the tiny size of the iPhone, but if you’re going to play music, just use the headphones.
The iPhone handles WiFi roaming better than I’d expected. I take morning walks down Lincoln Road on South Beach, where we’ve got lots of businesses providing WiFi for various charges. My old Cingular 8125 couldn’t figure out which WiFi networks to join, and it took forever to update the list of available networks. Often, I’d walk completely past a business before the 8125 even knew there was available WiFi. The iPhone, on the other hand, shows a list of available WiFi networks in less than a second, and marks which ones are locked. When I pick an unlocked network that uses a different type of security (like MAC address filtering or a lack of DHCP), the iPhone detects that within 4-5 seconds and offers to join a different network.
The YouTube app is half-baked. When the YouTube app first opens, the list of videos appears in portrait mode, regardless of how the iPhone is held. When a video starts to play, the app switches to landscape mode – again, regardless of the iPhone’s orientation. Watching YouTube videos is a constant exercise of flipping the phone back and forth. There’s other indications that the app was a bit of a last-minute rush, too, like the description fields on videos. They’re artificially clipped at about a dozen words, each ending in … Videos have tags, but you can’t click on the tags to find related videos. Blah blah blah. This app is begging for a quick revision.
The iPhone is the perfect size for sipping and surfing. On my morning walks with the 8125, I couldn’t hold a cup of coffee in one hand, hold the phone in the other, and surf the web. The 8125′s controls were just too awkward to use with one hand. The iPhone felt absolutely perfect in hand, enabling me to even type emails one-handed. The phone’s size and onscreen controls are something to behold. Even shooting pictures is easy – at least for right-handers – without changing your grip on the phone. I haven’t seen a review yet that really shows how easy it is to use this phone with only one hand.
Emails can only be deleted one at a time. We’ve got alerting systems at the office that sometimes dump out 10-20 emails at once, and deleting the emails one by one on the iPhone is a bit tedious.
I’m surprised by how dissimilar the applications are. Every app feels different. For example, in the SMS app, the Edit button is at the top left and the New button is at the top right. In the Mail app, the Edit button is at the top right and the New button is at the bottom right. The New button looks different from app to app too – sometimes it’s a plus sign, sometimes it’s a blank square with a pencil. I knew the Stocks and Weather apps would be oddballs because they’re HTML apps, but why is the Notes app so – amateur? Yellow legal paper and comic writing? Come on, comic fonts are so first-year-desktop-publishing.
I’d like to be able to access settings from each app. In order to change mail settings, you have to go home, then drill all the way through the Settings app to the settings for mail. Then go back home, and back through the mail program. Instead, if I’m in a mail account, why not let me jump straight to the settings for that account?
Every app needs a back button to hit home. Throughout most of the apps, the top left is reserved for a “back” motion, like to go back to the previous screen. But when I get all the way “up” to the app’s main screen, I can’t hit it one more time to go back home. It’s very distracting to say to myself, “Oh, wait, I can’t go back anymore. I have to go home now.”
I’m mostly listing complaints here, but only because I’m touching on the things I haven’t seen in the media. What I’ve read is that the phone is awesome. They’re right. It’s awesome. I love using this thing!
UPDATES:
It doesn’t work with the NikePlus jogging kit. When the sensor is plugged into the iPhone, the iPhone displays a message saying the accessory isn’t supported by iPhone. I suspected that’d be the case.
Photos emailed from the phone are mini-versions! When a photo is forwarded via email, the iPhone automatically sends a smaller 640×479 version instead of the full 1600×1200. That smaller version doesn’t include the EXIF tags. Damn! I hate that. If I want to send the full-size one with tags, I should be able to do it via preferences. Yes, I know the file size is larger, and yes, I know that most users will prefer a smaller size for faster emailing and easier viewing on non-iPhones, but…but…but….
Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.
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