New tools from Intel drive Mac apps to Penryn
New tools from Intel drive Mac apps to Penryn
Agam Shah Wed Nov 28, 11:23 AM ET
San Francisco - Intel upgraded its software development tools on Wednesday to help Mac OS X Leopard applications perform better on Intel’s Penryn processors, suggesting the power-efficient chips may be offered soon in Apple Macs.
pment Products for Mac OS X includes updated compilers and libraries for development environments like C, C++ and Fortran that optimize applications to take advantage of features in Intel’s latest 64-bit multicore processors, said James Reinders, director of marketing for Intel’s software development products division.
The updated tools will optimize applications to take advantage of features like SSE4, a set of instructions that debuted on Intel’s latest Penryn processors to boost multimedia performance in systems.
Apple has been tight-lipped about offering new Mac systems with Penryn, although many speculate that Apple’s Mac Pro workstations will be the first to include the chips, which are manufactured using a 45-nanometer process to boost performance.
Many of the updates to Intel’s tools focus on optimizing applications for dual- and quad-core processors. The updated compilers and libraries enable programmers to build better scalable, multi-threaded applications for multicore systems using Apple’s Xcode 3.0 IDE (integrated development environment) and Leopard OS, Reinders said.
Xcode 3.0 includes a set of tools to create, debug and optimize applications. Intel’s tools integrate with Xcode 3.0 and have been tested for Leopard, Reinders said.
The compilers and libraries are also supported by Linux and Windows, Reinders said, making it easier for developers to offer their products for the Apple environment. Apple used the software tools to make Leopard better and faster, Reinders said.
The latest 10.1 version will include the updated Intel C++ Compiler and Fortran Compiler, as well as Threading Building Blocks, Math Kernel Libraries and Performance Primitives. Although the compilers and libraries are available separately, all of them are included in the Intel C++ Compiler Professional Edition package.
The tools are available for download from Intel’s Web site.
Tech Shakedown #4: Should Vista be able to force an unwanted reboot when it wants to?
Tech Shakedown #4: Should Vista be able to force an unwanted reboot when it wants to?
Posted by David Berlind @ 2:18 pm
Categories: General, Vista, IT Management, Software Infrastructure, Personal Technology, Video, Technology Shakedown
Tags: Microsoft Windows Vista, Reboot, David Berlind
LINK TO VIDEO HERE
Like many departments within many companies, today was a day when our department got together and did some online slide slidesharing. We use Microsoft’s NetMeeting but I don’t use Internet Explorer and my one attempt at at getting the slides on my screen (there’s a way to view the Web only version of the slides in Firefox) froze my system up. I had to CTRL-ATL-DEL to the Windows Task Manager and had to kill every instance of Firefox. Unfortunately, I didn’t capture this on video. Not that it would have mattered. At the time, I was using one of my more heavily polluted (software, downloadware, all-sorts-of-ware, etc.) systems and it constantly misbehaves on me.
Fortunately however, I captured something else on video: it was Vista telling me to save my work because it was going to reboot. But this wasn’t any old reboot. This was a you-have-no-choice reboot. I had stepped away from the system for a few minutes and when I came back, it basically told me I had 1 minute and 30 seconds to save my work because it was going reboot itself, no matter what. Luckily, our camera was sitting there on its tripod (we were about to tape something else) when this happened and we caught it on tape. As you can see in the video, although the dialog appears to have some options to postpone the reboot, I can’t get into those options. They’re grayed-out.
It was at least four minutes (if not longer) until the system had finished rebooting itself. My question is, what if I couldn’t afford a reboot at that moment? What if I was in the middle of some process that hadn’t been completed and wanted to keep the machine running until I had a chance to finish that process. Like viewing a shared slide-show? Or a Web transaction? Or imagine if I just didn’t want it shut down at that point. Does Vista really know better than me? Should it be permitted to lock me out as it prepares to do a forced reboot? Fellow ZDNet Matt Conner who was operating the camera at the time was pretty stunned and you can hear him in the background saying “What if you had something going on?†It’s something he has apparently never seen on his Mac.
On the couch and enjoying Apple TV
On the couch and enjoying Apple TV
By BOB LEVITUS
For The Chronicle
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The Apple TV out-of-box-experience was just what I’ve come to expect from an Apple product  a real no-brainer.
I connected the Apple TV box to my HDTV via composite video cable, plugged in the power cord, then turned on the TV and followed the on-screen instructions for connecting to my wireless network.
I next walked to my office, launched iTunes 7.1, typed the short pass code that was displayed on my TV screen in the other room, clicked a few more times in iTunes, and Apple TV began copying my iTunes library to its 40 gigabyte internal hard drive.
Finally, back in the TV room, I used the Apple TV remote to set up streaming audio and video from two other Macs, my son’s iMac and my MacBook Pro, so I could enjoy the contents of their iTunes libraries as well.
In less than 15 minutes, Apple TV was up and running, and I was on the couch enjoying a movie. I watched feature films and TV shows I purchased from the iTunes store as well as feature films I converted from DVD with Handbrake.
The video was not quite DVD quality, but in both cases it looked surprisingly good considering the size of the movies, which ranged from around 600 megabytes to 1.5 GB each. And while the audio quality wasn’t 5.1 surround sound, it was, again, quite impressive when you take into account the file sizes.
Being able to choose iTunes songs, artists and playlists on the TV screen with the Apple TV remote control was a treat.
Finally, using Apple TV to display slide shows from iPhoto was the icing on the cake. I loved being able to select background music and turn on the Ken Burns effect and gorgeous transitions without leaving the couch. And the photos looked spectacular.
I wish it supported true high-definition programming and surround sound. So for now when I want the most engrossing experience, I’ll still watch DVDs. But for most movies and TV shows and all of my music and photos, Apple TV is a delightful addition to my HDTV setup.
Bottom line: I like Apple TV. A lot.
Bob LeVitus is the author of 48 computer books including Mac OS X Tiger For Dummies, and a Mac consultant, troubleshooter, and trainer. Visit his Web site at www.boblevitus.com. E-mail comments to doc@boblevitus.com.
Brad Mangin: The Boys of Spring
Brad Mangin: The Boys of Spring
By Joe Cellini
For freelance sports photographer Brad Mangin, who shoots chiefly for Sports Illustrated and Major League baseball, spring training is as much a required stop as opening day. Although the story lines from Arizona are typically not as newsworthy as Barry Bonds’ regular season pursuit of the all-time home run record, a chase Mangin has covered over several seasons, they are very much at the heart of baseball’s timeless appeal.
“There are so many changes every year,†says Mangin, who tracked those changes recently during a three-week shoot in Scottsdale, Arizona. “Sammy Sosa is now a Texas Ranger, Alfonso Soriano is with the Cubs, and Barry Zito is a Giant. But also the Diamondbacks have new uniforms, so you’ve got to get the players wearing them. Other than that, it was just games.â€Â
But what games. As described and photographed by Mangin, the pre-season emerges as a kind of baseball lover’s Brigadoon. “It’s a fantasy land,†he says. “When I get up in the morning and open up the black-out curtains in the hotel there is rarely a cloud in the sky. Then I go to a game, every day at one o’clock, each day at a different park. And the days all blend together.â€Â
But Mangin’s photos (see Gallery) stand strikingly apart. To catch these moments, which he does as consistently and sure-handedly as any good short stop, Mangin draws from his deep knowledge of both baseball and photography. And to process and organize the scores of images he generates on every shoot, he anchors his workflow in the field and in the studio on a Mac.
“Spring training involved just classic hard-core use of my MacBook Pro,†says Mangin. “I’d shoot the game, return to the hotel, download my cards into my laptop, select my images, batch caption them, and then burn one or two DVDs, depending on how much I shot.†Mangin generally overnighted the discs to Sports Illustrated in New York, but if the magazine needed faster turns he would ftp JPEGs to his editor so he could work with them until the RAW images arrived on disc.
“When I got my MacBook Pro I couldn’t believe how fast it was,†he says. “Because I frequently have to do everything myself  captioning, archiving, and editing  it’s awesome having this wonderful machine to do it with.â€Â
Up Through the Ranks
The road to Scottsdale and the Majors was as long and circuitous for Mangin as for any of the young players he covers there. “I always loved sports,†he says. “When I was a kid I wanted to be the Giants radio announcer. But as PA announcer for our high school basketball games I discovered that I didn’t have a really good voice.â€Â
What Mangin did have was a really good eye, which he discovered in a formative high school photography course. “I always thought that some day, if I could earn a living going to the ballpark, it would certainly beat the heck out of a real job,†he says. In pursuit of that goal, Mangin studied photojournalism at San Jose State with professors Joe Swan and Jim McNay, pretty much living in the darkroom until he graduated in 1988.
After graduation, Mangin worked his way up through several newspapers, shooting lots of high school and little league sports, until he caught a “big break†working as a San Francisco-based staff photographer for a new paper called the National Sports Daily by director of photography Neil Leifer. “As a 25-year-old punk I went to work for this incredible, 6-day-a-week, 48-page national sports paper,†he says. Mangin covered the NBA finals, the Super Bowl, and the World Series for the paper until it shut down after 18 months.
After that, Mangin “kicked around,†stringing for the Associated Press and eventually taking a job with a small newspaper, but he was unhappy. “I had a taste of just doing sports full time,†he says. “So I quit my newspaper job, and since 1993 I have been a full-time sports photographer  working completely without a net.â€Â
