Irrefutable proof that the Mac Pro is overdue for a makeover
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Mac Pro, Theft, design
The Mac Pro’s design has remained virtually unchanged since its PowerMac G5 days, and while Apple has thus far been able to successfully ignore my daily pleas for a redesign, I think even they may now have to admit the design is a bit long in the tooth. After all, once Dell copies you, it pretty much sucks the cool out of the room. Kind of like when even the nerdiest kid in school had a Swatch. (Who’s with me? The Swatch)
Check out Dell’s new Studio XPS 435 Desktop Computer. Basically they took the Mac Pro chassis, hit it with the ugly stick, and then covered it in shiny plastic. The result is as sexy as its name. They even left the Mac Pro’s grill peeking through at the bottom.
Ordinarily Dell’s “Apple copying” cycle is roughly 5 years behind Apple releases, so they’re a few months late with this, but hopefully it will be the kick in the pants that Apple needs to get a new model out the door.
Looks like Apple failed French
According our good friend Chris over at the French Mac site macgeneration, Apple’s MacBook announcements were riddled with quite a few spelling/grammatical errors, the most notable being this one.
Apparently “parfaitement con” translates to “perfect idiot” in French. Whoops!
The page has since been changed to read “parfaitement conçu”, or “perfectly designed”. Errors were also found on the Displays and MacBook Pro pages which changed their intended meanings quite a bit.
Macs don’t cause cancer… PEOPLE with Macs cause cancer!
Filed under: Hardware, Mac Pro, Not Cool, Rampant Speculation, Rumors, WTF
Valleywag reports on the findings of a French publication called The Liberation of France which claims that Mac Pros emit leukemia-causing agents (such as Benzene) into the air when used. Multiple reports coming out of the Apple support forums mention strong toxic odors believed to be caused by “a protective resin coating on the RAM PCB’s and/or RAM riser card PCB’s and should diminish over time as it burns away.”
So not only does Apple make you pay more for your RAM, but the RAM they DO overcharge you for causes cancer?
Great.
That’s why we recommend going 3rd party for RAM. We bought 32 GBs of RAM from EDGE and haven’t had a single case of Leukemia here yet (knock on brushed aluminum).
“Hey! LEGO my Mac Pro!”
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, Mac Pro, Photos
On a scale of “1 to Awesome” this LEGO Mac Pro rates a solid Awesome. Not only is it a faithful scale model replica of a real Mac Pro (designed using Lego Digital Designer 2.0), the thing actually houses both a Hackintosh PC running OS X AND a Mac mini.
Awww… they totally wussed out on the monitor…
That’s impressive enough to rate this rig a 9, but where it achieves true “Awesome” status is that it has a mini LEGO Steve perched on the Apple logo.
Suddenly the term “bricking your computer” takes on a whole new meaning. In fact, it took 2,588 LEGO bricks to build this monster.
Not sure where LEGO Woz is… probably stuck on a LEGO Segway somewhere with LEGO Kathy Griffin.
[via Gizmodo]
Mac Pro Vader has returned – looks a little beat
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, Mac Pro, Mods, Photos
Last Labor Day we noticed the appearance of MacPro Vader at Atlanta’s DragonCon, and were both impressed and terrified by his amazing outfit constructed from a Mac Pro box. Well, apparently MPV lives down there in Atlanta, because who do you think we ran into yet again this weekend?
Yup, it’s Mac Pro Vader, looking a little worse for wear, but not too bad considering the damaging effects using the Dark Side of the Force has on a body.
Hide your Xbox 360’s shame with Lian Li’s Mac Pro rip-off case
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Mac Pro, Opinion, Theft, design
Odds are if Apple ever decided to resurrect the Pippin and it would look more like the Apple TV or a Wii than a Mac Pro, but still, for hard core Mac gamers who are desperately trying to forget they enjoy playing games on a Microsoft console, case maker Lian Li has the answer.
Their XB01 case for the Xbox is more than a little reminiscent of the long-in-the-tooth-styling of the Mac Pro and the G5 tower before it, and may be just the thing to help camouflage the Xbox 360’s design. Made in Taiwan with the “Finest Quality Craftsmanship”, Lian Li’s case promises to keep your machine running cool, and will run you a cool $150 to do so.
Above: OK, maybe not a total rip-off. They didn’t put the Apple logo on the side…
Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader chaplare for the link!
[via Kotaku]
Review: DecoCases’ Alu-Magnesium Protection Case for MacBook is “heavy” on protection
Not too many people buy a MacBook thinking it will be as scratch and shock-resistant as a Panasonic ToughBook, but usually after a couple of days (and the first couple of scratches) many MacBook owners begin looking around the web for a laptop case of some sort.
DecoCases’ Alu-Magnesium Protection Case for MacBook/MacBook Pro aims to offer the ultimate in laptop protection by more or less turning your MacBook into a ToughBook (well, on the outside at least). Let’s see how it does. Read more
Apple swapping out defective x1900 XT cards for (some) Mac Pro owners
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, Hardware, Leopard, Mac Pro
And this is why I love Apple…
A while back I lamented how ever since upgrading to Leopard, my Mac Pro had been exhibiting some odd graphical glitches, mainly in the form of odd lines that would run across various windows in the Finder and apps. I eventually found that the problem was somewhat widespread, at least for owners of the quad-core Mac Pro model I ordered, and who, like me, had splurged for the $350 ATi x1900 XT card.
Above: That ain’t right… Click to embiggen.
Numerous discussion threads can be found by confused users such as myself whose machines were working fine under Tiger, but began experiencing graphics corruption since upgrading to Leopard.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1209998&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7035792#7035792
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6762160�
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6691646�
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6791972�
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6803482�
Well, even though I bought my Mac Pro on September 15th of 2006, and did not purchase AppleCare, I figured what the hell, let’s call Apple Support and see what happens. Well, what do you know, Apple was nice enough to send me out a brand new replacement card, free of charge (minus shipping). I didn’t even have to threaten them with Macenstein’s legendary bully pulpit – Apple Support just rocked all by itself.
Above: Out with the old…
Above: …and in with the new.
In looking at the two cards I can’t find any discernible differences, and they appear identical in Apple’s system profiler. So while I’m not sure what is different/fixed in this batch of cards, I have had my first “graphics glitch-free day” since installing Leopard, so it looks like the new card has done the trick.
Above: I’m not sure what the difference is between the 2 cards, but the new card seems to be doing the trick so far.
So if you are a Mac Pro owner experiencing x1900 XT card troubles, give Apple a call, even if you don’t have AppleCare. It could save you $350.
Apple’s Mac Pro announcement makes Blu-ray an unlikely candidate for Macworld debut
Apple’s newly announced Mac Pros seem like real power houses, but one thing is preventing them from being truly state-of-the-art: A Blu-ray drive.
The current tech specs list the new Mac Pro as shipping with a regular old “Super Drive”, and there is no custom Blu-ray add-on option. Yes, there is still the standard extra optical bay found in previous models which would allow you to add your own Blu-ray drive down the road, but seeing as these new Mac Pros ship today, it looks like Apple doesn’t plan to offer Blu-ray at this point. Due to cost and size factors, it would also be unlikely that any new Mac portables announced at Macworld would ship with Blu-ray drives if the Mac Pros do not.
So it’s looking pretty bleak for Blu-ray fans. Our last hope is that somehow a new Blu-ray Apple TV will make an appearance, but we’re not holding our breath.
Apple Introduces New Mac Pro/Xserve
In a sign that Apple perhaps has something more important to announce at next week’s Macworld, today the company announced updates to its Mac Pro and Xserve lines.
Apple today introduced the new Mac Pro with eight processor cores and a new system architecture that delivers up to twice the performance of its predecessor. The new Mac Pro combines two of Intel’s new 45 nanometer Quad-Core Xeon processors running up to 3.2 GHz, powerful new graphics and up to 4TB of internal storage to offer the ideal system for creative professionals, 3D digital content creators and scientists. The standard 8-core configuration starts at just $2,799.
Read more
