Macbook Air vs Toshiba R500

Hi to all,

today I want to talk about the brand new subnotebook by Apple, the MacBook Air.
Since it has been announced at the latest MacWorld conference, I have seen and read countless whining posts where people complained against pretty much everything.
I think most people miss the point of this notebook.
Here is what I said in a french forum (sorry for my english readers!):

Bonjour tout le monde,

ça fait quelques temps que je ne suis pas venu sur le forum par manque de temps et de choses intéressantes à raconter, mais l'arrivée du MBA me fait réagir. Déjà, parceque la lecture de nombreux posts m'interpelle. Je ne veux pas généraliser, et je ne vise pas particulièrement des posteurs de ce forum, mais parfois on voit des trucs de fou. Ici par exemple:
" il ne correspond pas a mes attentes, mon blackbook actuel me donne satisfaction , et est mon seul ordinateur a la maison, j'attendais un portable plus puissant et plus léger..."

Ah ouais, donc en fait, il faudrait un 13" avec un C2duo 2.33 Ghz, 1 kg, un lecteur dvd, et 7 H d'autonomie c'est ça? Ah oui, et à 1200 euros aussi, sinon c'est trop cher.

Mais ça encore, c'est pas le pire que j'ai pu lire. Des trucs comme : "ça fait depuis 2001 que je n'ai pas vu un portable sans lecteur optique..." Bah dis donc, je sais pas trop où il a chercher le gars, mais il y en a eu des ordis sans lecteur CD/DVD, notamment dans les ultras, tels que certains thinkpads, des asus, des acer en 12", des sony achetés au Japon customisable...
Bref, tout ça pour revenir sur un point qui m'horripile: beaucoup de gens (encore une fois, je ne généralise pas!) sont très prompts à juger un ordi en fonction de leurs besoins personnels (ce qui est bien) pour ensuite propager leur avis en pensant que c'est le seul valable (ce qui est est moins bien): s'il ne me convient pas, c'est donc forcément que c'est de la merde!

Et bien non, ce n'est pas le cas. Tout ordi (tout produit de consommation en fait...) a une certaine cible de marché en tête, et n'a généralement pas pour objectif de satisfaire à toute la population. C'est pour cela qu'en économie on parle de biens dits "différenciés"...bref, je m'égare.

Dans le cas du MBA, la cible marketing n'est clairement pas une personne qui dispose d'un seul ordi, et dont le MBA serait la seule machine. Dans ces conditions, je suis d'accord pour dire que le MBA ne remplirait pas sa tâche convenablement (et encore, ça dépend...) car il souffre de certaines limitations, que tout le monde s'est empressé de souligner. Je ne nie d'ailleurs pas la présence de ces limitations, mais il faut bien comprendre encore une fois que nous n'avons pas tous les mêmes besoins: moi par exemple, je n'utilise pas de firewire, donc ça ne me manquera pas, j'ai rarement utilisé plus de 1 périphérique USB en même temps (notamment parceque ça bouffe de la batterie...), je n'ai pas besoin de lecteur, à part pour réinstaller Windows, et ethernet, en déplacement, je m'en fous. J'avoue quand même que ce dernier point m'ennuie un peu, mais bon, je suis assez pour tout ce qui permet de limiter l'accumulation des câbles en tout genre.
Prenons la question du lecteur. Moi aussi, avant d'essayer, je me disais que ça risquerait de me gêner de ne aps avoir de lecteur. Mais, en fin de compte, je me suis rendu compte que je ne m'en servais jamais, car j'ai tout sur un DD externe (divx, fichiers, musique...). Au pire, si j'ai besoin d'un truc sur un cd, et qu'il y a un autre ordi dans le coin (avec un lecteur), je fais une image disque, que je fous sur ma clé. Bon, c'est pas pratique, mais ça dépanne de temps en temps. Bref, je pense qu'un lecteur n'est vraiment plus indispensable de nos jours, mais je comprends que certains soient encore réticents.

Passons à la puissance ou à la capacité; c'est étonnant d'ailleurs cette manie qu'on les gens de regarder en premier la taille du DD:"ouah, 160 Go, c'est trop de la balle! Et puis 2.33 Ghz, c'est trop rapide..." Ouais, c'est vrai, mais pour un ultra, ce n'est pas le but. Et si on ne joue pas, ou si on ne fait pas de montage vidéo, franchement, on n'utilise jamais le proco à fond, ce qui est con, vu qu'on le paye cher, et qu'en plus ils tendent à ne pas être sous-voltés, ce qui consomme pas mal. Pareil pour un DD: certes, un 7200 rpm, c'est bien; mais ça chauffe, ça consomme énormément, et c'est gros. Donc, dans un ultra, ça n'a pas sa place.
Moi, j'ai un toshiba R500 de moins d'1Kg, sans lecteur dvd, avec un proco de 1.06 Ghz, et il remplit toutes ses fonctions, même si, sur Vista il est un peu lent parfois quand je fais tourner un logiciel de maths, ou quand je compîle en LaTeX. Sur Linux, il est un peu plus rapide déjà...
Tout ça pour dire que dans un ultra (il faut bien définir ce qu'est un ultra aussi: quand je vois que tom's hardware compare des ordis de 2.3 kgs en les appelant des ultras, je reste dubitatif...), il y a ps mal de choses qui n'ont pas leur place, un gros dd et un gros processeur en faisant partie.
Certes, cela ne convient pas à tout le monde, en plus la miniaturisation se paye souvent cher. Soit; mais encore une fois, le MBA n'a pas pour objectif de plaire au grand public, qui lui préférera acheter un Asus (je précise que je n'ai rien contre Asus, j'en ai eu 3, et j'ai fait acheter à ma mère un Asus) à 1000 euros, pesant 2.5 Kgs, un écran 15"4, une magnifique résolution de 1280x800 (la résolution: encore un point souvent oublié dans les comparaisons; moi, je ne pourrai pas bosser sur un ordi ayant une résolution faible sur un 15"4 par exmeple...), une carte graphique qui consomme bien comme il faut, un DD de 160 Go, histoire de garder ses 80 films tous dessus...

Voilà, mon coup de gueule est passé, j'espère que je n'ai froissé personne, ou au moins, pas trop de monde.
En tout cas, je vais suivre un peu l'évolution du MBA, et surement le prendre assez rapidement (même si j'aime bcp mon R500, et que 950g, c'est quand même génial!) s'il s'avère que le DD réagit quand même bien avec Léopard. Ce qui m'embête le plus en fin de compte, c'est Excel: comme j'ai l'impression que ma vie future va consister à passer pas mal de temps sur Excel, l'absence de pleins de raccourcis claviers sur Mac Excel (par rapport à Windows...et je suis sur Windows au boulot...) m'ennuie un peu, même si on peut customiser pas mal de choses apparemment.
Mais bon, moi qui dit depuis longtemps qu'un 13"3 est une taille idéale (i.e. un bon compromis entre portabilité et efficacité), un 13"3 de 1.36 kgs, c'est vraiment génial (avant le plus léger était le SZ en version carbon à 2500 euros, et il faisait quand même 1.7 kgs...même s'il a bcp d'autres qualités...mais bon, il est sur Windows)!

EDIT: j'oubliais: la batterie soudée, c'est vraiment, vraiment, vraiment, une idée de merde par contre...
Par contre, la RAM soudée, franchement, on s'en fout: 2 Go de Ram dans un ultra, c'est bien suffisant. S'il vous faut plus, c'est qu'il faut prendre autre chose qu'un MBA.



Basically, what I say is that the MBA is definitely a secondary computer: I, for one, would not even consider buying one if this was my only computer. However, given that I already have an iMac, I am only looking for something small and light to carry around. I really don't care about the optical drive since I almost never use one, I don't really care about the single USB port since I never use a mouse (I don't like mouses, I am all about keyboard shortcuts, and I consider a mouse to be a waste of time most of the time...) and I seldom use more than one port at a time. I do not use firewire, so I don't care either. I might miss the ethernet port, but I also seldom use it.
Maybe I am not a typical user, but I don't think the MBA is for a typical user either.
Finally, it is not because the MBA does not suit the great majority that it is not a good laptop. I have read a lot of funny comments in some forums, such as "you can have more by paying less...". Well, I guess this guy was refering to some 15"4 Asus notebook (btw, I really like Asus, and I had my mother buy an asus) costing 1000 euros and weighing around 2.9 kgs with an awesome XGA resolution and, of course, a large 160 G hard drive. In my opinion, you can't compare the two: the Asus is certainly good acting at a desktop replacement which is going to move around once or twice a month. But carrying it all day long, every day? No way!

Finally, for my english readers, here is a nice post that I really like: http://wilshipley.com/blog/2008/01/macbook-air-haters-suck-my-dick.html

I don't agree with all that he says (above all about the battery...I really disliked the fact that it can't be removed!), but he pretty much sums up what I think. Moreover, some of his comments are pretty hilarious!

Personally, the question is: should I sell my Toshiba R500 to get the Macbook Air?
This is a difficult question since my Toshiba has a nice format (i.e. 12") and is much lighter than the Macbook (i.e. less than 1kg vs 1.36 kg). Battery life should be about even...
However, the macbook air is a bit more powerful (which is always nice), has a larger screen and above all, it has Mac OS! This is the main selling point for me, even though I have to admit (a bit reluctantly) that Vista is not that bad after all (for instance, I am a big fan of its "recent places" and "recently changed" links).

Well, I am still hesitating, and I will wait for some feedback when it is finally out in France.

EDIT: wow, since I have added this post, more than 1000 persons have visited my blog yesterday!!! Now I know how to get more popular: just talk about Apple new toys :-)

Freerice.com

Hi again!

this time, I want to introduce you to a nice website I have discovered:
http://freerice.com
This is a wonderful site where you can improve your knowledge of english vocabulary and at the same time, help reduce world's hunger!
How on earth is that possible you might ask? Well, basically each time you find a good answer, Free Rice donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.
However, the game is not easy by any means, above all for a non native english speaker such as myself. Each time you make 3 good answers in a row, you "gain" a level, and when you make one mistake, you are down one level. My personal record is level 43, but I tend to hover around level 40-41 most of the time.
Still, it's nice to know that you can waste your time on the internet and help fighting for a good cause.

I found Free Rice.com in the blog of Patrick Rothfuss (http://www.patrickrothfuss.com/blog/blog.html) who is a new sci-fi author and a promising one it seems. His first book, The Name of the Wind, is doing pretty well so far.
I haven't had time to read it yet since I have to read the whole Memory, Sorrow and Thorne series, and I am stuck at the first book, mainly because I don't really like the beginning, but also because I have so many things to read. For instance, I am reading a very good book called " A demon of our own design"


written by a risk manager in Wall street (formerly at Salomon for instance). It gives a great insider's perspective on some crisis, such as the 1987 one. Still, he might be tad pessimistic (one might say realistic...) at times about finance's future prospects.
Additionally, I have to study many books, such as the famous Hull:



or a less well known:
which are not books you can read and digest in a few hours (especially the latter).
Anyhow, when I am done with Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, I plan to read Rothfuss' book.

Merry christmas to all!

Well, it's been a long time, but I have been really really busy lately between the internship and my courses. Indeed, I spend the first three days of the week working as an assistant Fund analyst in a subsidiary of BNP Paribas Asset Management. The job is not too difficult for the moment, but I tend to finish a bit late (around 7-7.30 p.m). Hence, it is a bit difficult when I have to study after work since I am not back at home before 8 p.m. Above all since I have some courses in Finance from Thursday to Saturday (only 3 hours on Saturday) and time is also scarce during the week-ends. Recently, before the winter break, I had 3 exams in 3 weeks so that I haven't really had time to do anything else than work. At least, my exams went well, even though it was a bit weird to switch from being the one giving exams to doing the exams! Also, I am more used to typing than writing now, so that I tend to write more slowly now and I tire more quickly when I write. I guess I will get used to it.
As a whole, next year is going to be pretty tough I think, since we have a lot of exams planned, and a few dissertations also.
At least, I get to learn many things.

On the geek side, I think the forthcoming year is going to be pretty calm for me. First, because I won't really have the time to sell/buy stuff, to look at reviews on the internet, compare prices...all the things that take time. Second, I think I have found a kind of equilibrium: I have had an iphone for a month now, and even though there are things that bother me (such as the fact that there are no word counter for text messages, or that you can't delete a single text message...), it is pretty cool, and I don't see myself switching back to another phone. Maybe the next generation iphone. As to my laptop, I also really like my Toshiba R500, even though it also has a few flaws. The thing is, I don't really have that much time to use it anymore: I don't bring it to work, and I seldom use it at school; hence, I clearly don't need to get a new laptop. That might change if Apple finally releases a small 12"1 laptop weighting less than 1.5kgs (around 3.2 pounds)...but I don't think they will do that anytime soon.
I might get a new camera though: I was considering buying the Sony T200 instead of my Panasonic FX9. Still, I won't have many opportunities to make some interesting pictures next year, so that I am still a bit reluctant to buy it.
Of course, this is good news for my wallet and it will compensate all the stuff I have had to buy for work, like a few suits, ties, shoes, socks...

Given that I have lacked time recently, I don't have anything particularly interesting to share, except for a website that I have doscovered recently: www.freerice.com.
But it will be the subject of another post!

See you.

Resizing pictures in batch under Linux!

Hi to all!

I have discovered a very easy way to resize a bunch of pictures using Linux.
First, you need to install imagemagick:

[CODE] sudo apt-get install imagemagick [\CODE]

Then, what I did was to copy all the pictures I wanted to resize into a temporay folder.
Finally, using the command line, I went to the previous folder, and typed the following:

[CODE] mogrify -resize 800x600 *.jpg [\CODE]

and all the pictures were resized.
Of course, you can choose any size you want. Instead of"mogrify", you can use "convert" which does not replace the picture but instead creates a new one with the desired size.

You can also rotate pictures. For instance:

[CODE] mogrify -rotate 90 picture.jpg [/CODE]

where "90" is the number of degrees you wish to rotate picture.jpg.

Here is a link with more infos on imagemagick:
http://polishlinux.org/apps/graphics/enchanting-pictures-with-imagemagick/

Wow: more than 1000 visits!!!

Against all odds, I have crossed the 1000 visits mark a few days ago!
It is still a small blog, but I am happy that people come to visit it.
When I look at my Clustr Map, I even see people visiting from places I don't even know!

From now on, I will try to update my blog more regularly, but not next week since I am leaving for one week to Egypt!
Hopefully, I will have some pretty pictures to upload when I am back. However, I am going to Taba, which seems to be far from pretty much everything, so that I guess I won't get to see the pyramids.
I will focus on landscapes pictures then.

Review of the new Toshiba Portege R500

Presentation

I have recently got the new ultra laptop by Toshiba, the Portege R500. I got it in Japan, and it is a non-standard version since its only a 1.06 Ghz processor, with no bluetooth, and no DVD writer. That way, it is the lightest 12" notebook available at under 1 kg (i.e. 2.2 pounds). It is even lighter than the 11"1 Asus U1F or the new Sony Vaio TZ!
As you can see in the pictures, it is also quite thin, at least as much as my former Asus U1F. It is also, of course, a bit bigger.
Compared to the U1, the packaging is quite scarce; you only got one battery (vs 2 for the Asus), no case...But, it only shows that Asus has really outdone itself with the packaging of the U1F.
In my opinion, the R500 is not as pretty as the U1, but it is of course, subjective. The biggest advantage of the R500 is that it does not have this glassy-style coating on the top, which, albeit very cute and styly, attracts fingerprints as much as honey attracts bears. The R500 is still a nice-looking machine.

Performances

This is where the R500 shines compared to the other ultras and to the U1F in particular. Indeed, more subnotebooks such as this one use a 4200 rpm hard drive, which tends to reduce performances a lot. In the R500, there is a 5400 rpm hard drive, and boy, what a difference it makes!
It boots more quickly (around one minute for linux), applications open up more quickly, transfers of files are quicker...
Even though the U1F and the R500 have the same processor, the R5OO just feels faster.
As to battery life, I have to admit that at first, I was a bit disappointed since with the Wireless on (no BT and no DVD drive), brightness set to 50% and while doing some light editing and web browsing, the battery lasts around 4 hours and 15 minutes under Linux. I guess it is a bit higher under Vista without Aero and the widgets.
Of course, more than 4 hours is a lot, but I was expecting more. However, one has to remember that this is only the so-called lightweight battery. Thus, I guess I will have to get the large battery when it is available if I want to be able to use it for one day of work without the need for the ac adpater.

The downside of having such a thin laptop and using a 5400 rpm HD is that the R500 tends to heat up rather quickly on the left-hand side (I guess where the hard drive is), but it remains ok. Consequently, the fan is almost always on, but is not too noisy. Still, in a quiet environment you definitely hear some noise.

On to the screen, which has received a lot of attention in different reviews. First, note that this is a mat screen and not a glossy one which means that it is easier to use outdoors, but that it is less appropriate for watching movies. Moreover, the lateral viewing angles are pretty limited, meaning that no more than 2 people can watch the screen at the same time; given the size of the screen however, I think it is ok all the same.
To conclude on the screen, I must say that it is not as bad as some people had it: I use my R500 a lot, and I have never had any problems with the screen yet. As I said, watching movies might be a bit difficult, but I have been able to watch a few without difficulties; the key lies in a good positionning of the screen.
I have not really experimented with the special "outdoor feature" of the screen since I am using Linux, and it does not work on Linux.
This is a great transition ta talk about Linux on the R500.


Linux

As I have just said I use Linux on my R500. Why Linux over Vista?
One great asset of Linux compared to Vista IMHO, is the more efficient use of RAM. Indeed, under Kubuntu Feisty, the starting memory usage is around 180 Mb, out of my 1000. With Firefox open (a few tabs and a few extensions), Thunderbird and emacs it rises to 310, and with a 760 pages pdf, to 360 Mb. It means that, indeed, under Linux, 512 Mb are quite enough for a reasonable use. Moreover, note that there are lighter desktops than KDE, and Firefox and Thunderbird are both memory hogs, which means that using Linux on old computers is really a good idea. With my R500, Linux is a lot faster than Vista.
Moreover, Vista is just XP with a new GUI (Aero) basically, and XP is quite an old OS. It does not stand the comparison with Linux. Even the 3D Aero is really laughable compared to the real 3D effects one can get with Compiz Fusion under Linux. So, even though

How does Linux fare on the R500? Quite well I must say. The beginning has been a bit rough, since I have tried many distros before finding the one that most satisfies my needs. I have tried Kubuntu Gutsy beta, Open SuSe 10.3 Beta, Fedora 7, Linux Mint 3.0 (I used this one on my U1F, but strangely, the installer crashed every time I tried to install Linux Mint on the R500...), Sabayon Linux 3.4e, PCLinuxOS2007...Each of these distros had something that I disliked, or didn't worked the way I wanted it to work. Sabayon was quite good, but it is Gentoo-based, and compiling from source is just tooooooooooo slow for my liking: I erased Sabayon when the install of Thunderbird took more than 30 minutes. Finally, I settled on Kubuntu Feisty 7.04 which does a good job at recognizing the hardware: the only things that do not work from scratch are the fingerprint reader, the outdoor button, and the SD card reader. I also have some issues with the brightness buttons that do work, but behave strangely. I don't really care about the fingerprint reader, the lack of SD card reader was a pain when I was in vacation, but it is not very important. I forgot to say that the little button on the left side of the R500 that allows to increase and decrease volume does not work from scratch, but I have been able to make it work thanks to xmodmap and xbindkeys...and some help!
This is THE weakness of Linux IMHO: it does a good job at recognizing most of your hardware, but when something does not work, it is a pain to make it work. I mean, even though I am not a Linux expert, I don't think I am an average computer user, and still, I have had some difficulties solving those problems. For instance, I haven't yet found how to make my SD card reader work. Of course, there is a lot of help available over the web, above all for ubuntu, but still, I think it remains a bit complicated for the average Joe (lot of command line involved...).
To conclude on Linux, I must add that I have a problem with my Vista partition, so that I can't access it now. But it's ok, I don't really care.
In any case, I am going to install Virtualbox and have a virtualized version of XP directly in Linux for stuff like Illustrator of Excel (yes I know there is Open Office, but the Spreadsheet does not handle VBA well, and I will need VBA next year) or chess programs. Maybe iTunes also.


Conclusion

Overall, I am happy with this purchase. The U1F was a lovely machine, and the R500 is a worthy replacement. The only thing I might want now is a SSD drive to improve performance once again.
But I will wait prices have gone down a bit, since I will need at least a 64 Gb one, which costs something like 900 dollars right now!


EDIT: A few additions

First, After using the Toshiba for watching movies during my holidays, I can confirm that the angles of vision are pretty limited. However, it is still possible for two persons to watch a movie end enjoy it.

Second, I have just discovered that I can adjust the brightness of the screen by hovering over the Knetworkmanager icon (under Kubuntu) and using vertical scrolling. Since I had some issues with the Fn+F6 and F7 keys, this is great discovery for me.

Third, I still have a few issues with my keyboard, since, when I type very fast, it tends to behave erratically. For instance, sometimes, if the insertion point of the mouse is not located where I am typing (that is, pretty much all the time) instead of typing where I want to, it types at the insertion point, which is generally located somewhere else in the text I am typying. This is very annoying, and I really don't understand why it is behaving this way.

Asset Management it's gonna be!

Yes, I have been selected for the Master Asset Management in Dauphine, so, I guess that's what I am going to do next year.
Hence, I will spend the summer reading books such as these:






Above all the last one, since I think I will specialize in Alternative Investments like Hedge Funds.