René Rebe

When Apple introduced the massively blurred translucency in iOS 7 I already was skeptical weather that vast amount of number crunch is really worth anything. Wasted for some background effect. Just making everything less snappy and wasting battery life.

Now Apple extends this blurry transparency to Mac OS X 10.10 -Yosemite- (a really bad name to pronounce internationally btw.), and also letting Apps like iPhoto scroll the view content, blurred under the window’s title- and toolbar.

I recently got a pretty fast 15″ rMBP w/ Nvidia GPU to drive my 4k display at work. Of course OS X -10.9 and such- is super snappy on that. Now guess what? The current Mac OS X 10.10 beta with this blurred, transparent windows makes them all bit sloppy to drag around over the screen. This flat UI would normally be a snap to draw for the GPU. No gradients to compute, or bitmaps to blit, … just solid fills. But no, just waste all the GPU power while at it :-/!

Planned obsolescence at it’s best. For nothing. Well, except blurry background content.

You can go ahead and google Gausian blur, and do the calculations of operations required for it. Not to forget the massive radius Apple must be using for this, …

There would be some optimization possibilities, such as not using each pixel, only every 4th or 8th for this blurry madness, though, …

Some posts scattered on the web claimed a Intel Harpertown Xeon, like the X5470 could work in a MacPro 2,1 (or eve 1,1 - they are hardware identical, just different firmware) given they still use the same LGA 771 socket. There even is a post where someone claims that he got a voice message from Apple confirming Harpertown support for his MacPro 2,1.

However, yesterday I tried that (Mac Pro 2,1 with the newer firmware) and I can assure you they do not work. The main logic board led indicator CPUB failure would light but nothing much else would happen.

Another note: Before you pull like crazy on the front fan assembly: mine were fixed with a second screw, the disassembly guides I found only mentioned one at the main logic board, however I had a second screw holding it in place just at the bottom side, where the CPU heat sinks end.

PS: It was actually still quite good that I disassembled the beast. With the original Xeon’s it still works (puh!), and considering that after some 6 years of 24/7 server load it was full of dust and so an internal cleanup was more than overdue ;-)

Unfortunately there are followups to my precious notes about the current .NET bubble. Google buys Nest Labs for a whopping 3.2 billion $US no less.

Nest has a niche product, currently only operating in the US, and not even with any international sales.

There are profitable, serious, big, decades in business companies that value for significantly less, …

But then again Google Ventures is a previous investor, so my understanding is Google Ventures would get at least a bit of that money back?

Уважаемые Клиенты German Medical Care,

1. НОВОСТИ GerMedCare
Время идет, осень совсем скоро сменит зима. В преддверии холодов, смены года и предстоящих праздников хочется
не только начать подводить первые итоги работы, но и напомнить, что так как конец года обычно является активным
временем, когда многие из Вас пользуются возможностью долгих праздников, чтобы не только хорошо отдохнуть,
но и потратить часть пред и после новогоднего отпуска на себя и на заботу о своем здоровье, все это нужно планировать заранее.
Начиная с 10 декабря консульства будут перегружены, срок оформления визы может быть увеличен до нескольких недель.
С 23 декабря консульства будут закрыты на Рождество, а вот с 3 января 2014 года в Германии работа уже продолжится в обычном режиме.

Что касается первых итогов, положительной тенденцией является тот факт, что около половины наших новых клиентов
приходят к нам по рекомендации, что накладывает еще больше ответственности на нашу работу и говорит о Вашем доверии.
Радует, что большинство наших клиентов - это пациенты, которые успешно прошли лечение и регулярно подтверждают,
что здоровы или пациенты, которые проходят регулярный годовой осмотр в превентивных целях, а также пациенты,
которым необходимо то или иное высококвалифицированное лечение.

Мы так же прислушались к Вашим пожеланиям и чаще предлагаем Вам на выбор лечение в исключительно частных
клиниках Германии, помимо государственных. Преимущество исключительно частной клиники - это в первую очередь
время,которое доктор тратит на пациента. В частной клинике у доктора больше времени для детального разговора,
осмотра и ведения лечения, а также возможность привлечь по интересующему Вас вопросу специалиста как
широкого профиля, так и специалиста узкоспециализирующегося именно по Вашему вопросу.

Мы всегда работаем с выбранными докторами с хорошей репутацией и с клиниками, которые предоставляют
самый высокий уровень профессиональных медицинских услуг. Что касается ценовой политики - диагностика в среднем
стоит одинаково везде, стоимость операции может меняться в зависимости от уровня доктора, чем более
узкоспециализируется доктор, тем его услуги дороже, и от уровня комфорта в клинике.
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For me it is no surprise that most vendors stopped adopting the “RT” flavor of Windows. The main reason people want the old, and buggy pile of junk that is the decade old legacy Windows code are exactly that: legacy Windows apps. Be that office, industrial, games, what not, …

With Windows “RT” you do not get anything of that. Worse: Developers can not even re-compile their existing apps for the “RT” desktop. I guess there would be plenty of smaller, and also bigger Windows companies who would do so with pleasure. But no: Microsoft just would not allow for that. What a pity. And a fail trying to copy Apple even up to the software lock in. For Apple it certainly only works because they had awesome looking and a pleasure to use software on (r)evolutionary hardware. And after a head-start they had enough customers locked into their eco system. But people do not love Microsoft like that. Au contraire: after decades of crashing DOS and Windows, and hindering competitors due their monopoly powers people do not want to be locked into a Microsoft product or eco system yet again. So for Microsoft to gain traction it would have made much more sense to allow side-installs like on classic Windows boxes just as well.

Oh, and then there is the SecureBoot (or what it is called for Windows on ARM). So developers, researchers, students and enthusiast can not even buy the hardware from the overfilled and non-selling Surface RT stock to put Linux or any other of their own OS flavor on it, … :-/

I tweeted it already the other week:

now I admit something “embarrassing”: I might get myself an #Surface Pro 2, …

— René Rebe (@renebln) September 25, 2013

The number one reason for that is plain simple: Productivity for content creation. While I had most iPhones and iPads (like every other generation) I use my iPhone most of the time, but the iPad is mostly just sitting on my desk or bag waiting for the next software test. For occasional reading in public transport it feels too big and heavy, I use the iPhone for that. And for real office productivity the iPad just does not work for more than basic email response. Of course my situation as computer scientist is a bit special. I simply can not do (any serious) programming directly on the iPad. So during the commute, airplane taxi, or on a passenger seat I can not do much with the iPad except consuming something (like news, or a book) answering an email or so. I can not work on an algorithm, fix some bug, or things like that.

Of course with the Surface RT it is even worse: you get the system restrictions with even less apps. The only improvement over that is the Surface Pro. I think it is the biggest mistake from Microsoft to limit the RT’s classic, desktop apps like that. Without that arbitrary restriction (again copying Apple) even Windows RT could be more popular, e.g. for classic, legacy business workflows. Basically the classic Windows customers, maybe the only marked Microsoft Windows is still strong.

While I already considered the first Surface Pro I mostly did not get it due the abysmal battery life. Two to three hours of “normal, real use” (in contrast to the just on, dimmed display, not touched setup used for this longer, official rating) is just not good these days. Of course I knew the Intel “Haswell” CPU Core generation was just around the corner, so I was awaiting this update.

Now the Surface Pro 2 is announced and it delivers just that: A 75% improvement in battery life they promise (and [graphic] performance) due Intel Haswell generation CPUs. Along with some minor improvements left and right (display, touch cover backlit keyboard, dock and such, …). Remaining drawbacks? 40% more weight (900g vs. 652g) and thickness, and probably about half the iPad’s battery life, …

Of course the biggest hurdle still is the Windows OS. As engineer, and spending more than a decade in the open source, Linux side of the world I do not have the highest words for the mess that is Win32 API, kernel and UI design with decade old DOS and 16 bit legacy cruft built-in. Of course the latest NSA scandal does not contribute to the faith in their security and possible crypto or real backdoors to the system.

However, it should be possible (at least there are reports it works with the 1st gen Surface Pro) to also run Linux on it (after disabling SecureBoot that is). This is also something not (easily) possible with the iPad (or the Surface RT). And it should (theoretically) be possible to even run Mac OS X on it, …

So the new, Surface Pro 2 should theoretically vastly boost my productivity while on-the-go: More than answering emails or plain “media” consumption: Aside from real emails, with different attachments, spread sheets, PDF invoices, spec sheets, etc. to real work: code, design. And this likewise applies to others, too. Think photographers, graphic designers working with some Gimp-like program (Photoshop et al.), real office spreadsheets and documents, presentations, etc. Also a plus, and a must: An usable USB port - where I can plug in some USB device to work with, such as a document scanner. And when you come to work you can plug in your desktop class display, keyboard and mouse and work on.

Yes, there are apps for many things on iOS. But let’s face it: aside some awesome games, and social apps most things are toys. Next to no real (that is more than basic features) word, spread, photo or graphic editing. And given the extreme iOS (and Windows RT) restrictions next to no computer science programming. Aside graphical calculators, BASIC, and a Lua shell, or two.

I know, I do not like Windows, the Win32 Api is disgusting, it is full of security issues, the old apps are not touch optimized, … But at the end of the day being able to write some code and send out some more complex email (with more than one kind of attachment) and with a real keyboard, is what counts to get work done.

There could be a point, even in the near future, where productivity on iOS gets better: If Apple continues to push it’s own 64-bit ARM CPUs to the MacBook Air (as they already announced is as “desktop class” performance), there could be an quad-core A8 MacBook Air in one or two years. If iOS and Mac OS X further merge there could be similar, full-blown graphical, office, and science apps for that.

However, to be really useful for the growing class of programmers: Some of the restrictions need to be lifted: be able to generate and run code (for programming, think Xcode), allow to fork of new processes (for anything, from helper programs in scientific apps, to scripting, Xcode, compiler, converter, anything beyond simple apps. And of course the USB port should be fully usable for custom drivers and apps, …

Some of the iOS restrictions are really silly, and what starts to drive some people away from it :-/

For some excessive amount of time -as I do not find the last half decade MacBooks perfect- I am looking for a PC laptop. The Samsung Series 9 came pretty close, just that the max 4GB RAM of the 13″ is a little little for a software engineer, …

Yesterday Sammy announced the Haswell based, latest Intel Core generation refresh, and I unfortunately have to say: What the heck?

They managed to ruin the machine for the most part: Gorilla glass touch panel!?!?! Thanks, but no thanks! Most of all I do not want to look in a mirror the whole day. This just hurts the eyes, seriously. Not to mention office lights or sunlight. Thank you very much. Of course the touch panel can mostly be ignored. I mean: Who would want to raise the arm the whole day, and even smearing the screen with natural skin oil??? Definitely not me. I could ignore the touch panel - if there would not be this glossy gorilla glass cover, ieek. And then the screen resolution. Yeah, Retina sounds awesome in product advertisements. But fact is, only Mac OS X scales the UI reliably. Such a display is no fun on Windows, nor Linux. All non-top notch Windows Apps will have scaling issues. Sometimes even the top notch ones, … :-/ And obviously all the added mega pixels just burn vital battery life away, …

So then let’s come to the ATIV Book 9 Lite (why continue to use an established, simple brand name like Series 9, when you can ruin it with something like ATIV -what the heck?- Book, yeah, well, ok …). Finally a nice and light AMD Ultrathin. Awesome! We need more of that!! I would get it immediately, if not, … 1366×768 resolution seriously? Come on, after 3200×1800 at the premium, you want to sell us last millennium 1366×768? How crazy is that? One excessive high-res, the other below the bare minimum. And of course only 4GB of RAM, … when you cripple it, make sure you cripple it for real, … The brave new world of soldered on the board, no user swaps SO-DIMM, …

What are those product managers thinking? Really??

PS: And btw. classic: Other companies (like Apple) would have pretty product pages available on their website at launch time, … Samsung? Nada. Not listed yet (on the US, or German) website; at the time of writing. Yeah, why list the just announced flagship product so people can take a look, and order, …?

These days you really wonder, …

For some time now we had some simple email registration for the free trial of some of our software products. We are aware that some users do not like it, however, we are a small company and also need to think about some trial follow up reminder, questionnaire, etc.

Of course most annoying for us are invalid email addresses, causing bouncing error messages, blocking our email server, support accounts or a combination of those, … So after some week of too many delivery errors we ended up adding some basic input validation. However due to the complex nature of HTML, Javascript, and XML-RPC based AJAX or variants thereof we only, quickly did so in the JavaScript. Just some simply straight forward checking. You certainly get the idea. For normal customers that worked great.

Guess what happened next? Java spam bots eventually found the form and started feeding the usual v1a6ra, and other related medical, drug and other spam thru the form. Of course they where usually sending some random email address for their spam, resulting in the same, and in the end even higher amount of email delivery errors than we wanted to prevent initially.

After too long time the pain became too big. Yesterday we finally moved the input validation into our server backend as it should be. Never trust the client, always validate 100% on your final server side. Of course one shoudl do so from the beginning. Just that Web 2.0, with HTML, Javascript and all the surrounding “technologies” are such a complex, error prone, and not so easy to debug mess, that this is unfortunately a rather complex affair, …

Let’s see what annoying trickery comes next to that simple form, … ;-)

For some time I was wondering how suspend time on my iPhone 5 can be so low. Having owned the very first gen iPhone, the 3G, the 4 and now the 5 the current suspend and talk time did not really feel like progress. Au contraire: It felt short :-/

Historically I never had much Apps. After all the initial iPhone was about doing mobile web right, it even did not allow third party Apps. Even when third party Apps where allowed, and appear I did not have many of them. After all I wanted mobile Web, email, and such, …

However over time some Apps accumulated, and of course nowadays people continuously ask to like some Facebook upload and the like. So I had this infamous Facebook.app opened every other day. What I did not realize was, how much hiccup it is doing in the background! After quitting it completely, via the taskbar the battery life actually went up from barely 24h standby and a little use over the day to nearly 48h standby with occasional regular office day use.

If that is not an improvement! Of course it is still fare away from regular, old fashioned mobile’s - but those also did less, had less fancy, smaller screens, etc. Most of all it shows how bad some mobile Apps are written!

So disappointing that the vendors want to press in activation and always on into their next gen consoles like the Xbox one. Fast forward a decade and you can certainly not play your then old games anymore when the DRM servers are gone away. I personally find this less than acceptable. All the investment in games go to the next landfill then, … While you still can play your most favorite legacy NES, Sega, Playstation and even Amiga et al. games with your kids and such, …

Guess I can start a “Brave New World” category here for things like that :-/