Electronista has a post reporting that Adobe has a new Flash preview release dubbed “Gala” (10.1.81.3). With the arrival of “Gala” Adobe has added support for H.264 video hardware decoding on Macs with OS X 10.6.3 and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M graphics chips. Since I own a 15″ unibody Macbook Pro with an NVIDIA 9400M I decided to see how much of a performance difference the new Flash build might offer. For my testing I didn’t use any traditional benchmarking suite, so please take the results accordingly. I do think my tests should represent a “real world” type scenario. Basically, I played back a 720p HD video from YouTube and monitored the resulting Flash Player Plug-in CPU load in Activity Monitor. I found that when running the test on the latest “non-Gala” version of Flash the CPU load on my 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro with 4GB of RAM went up to about 90% CPU utilization. Also the fans on my Macbook kicked in about halfway through the video which runs about 4:30.

When I ran the same video after installing the “Gala” build of Flash I saw a significant drop in CPU usage. The CPU load hovered between 30 and 40%, roughly about a 50 to 60% decrease in load. I also didn’t have my fans kick in.

With “Gala”, you can tell when the Flash hardware decoding has kicked in by the appearance of a small white square in the corner of the video. Adobe says that in addition to improved playback of H.264 video the hardware enhanced version of Flash should also result in improved battery life. Might be welcome benefit for long Hulu video watching sessions when away from a power outlet.

To be fair I also switch YouTube over to the HTML 5 beta and tested the same video at 720p. Again in my very non-scientific benchmark test I noted that Safari’s CPU load went up to about 20% with the video playing.

A friend of mine recently posted on Twitter an image like the one above. Very logically he posed this question… How does 3.65 + 0.35 = 3.75? Is this some strange new cult of Apple mathematics? There appeared to be missing 256MB of RAM. Concerned for my friend’s memory loss and a bit puzzled myself, I opened my Activity Monitor. You can see, I had exactly same result. Being the Mac geek that I am, I didn’t panic. I figured there had to be a logical explanation. Maybe this was like hard drives where they say 1 TB on the box, but in reality you get less. That happens because when marketing the hard drive they base the numbers on 1GB equaling 1,000 MB instead of the actual 1024MB that it should. In the case of my RAM that wasn’t it. So what gives?

A quick Google search revealed the logical answer. It’s something I should have realized immediately but didn’t. See, I have a newer 15″ Macbook Pro with an integrated NVIDIA 9400M GPU and it uses… You guessed it. 256MB of shared RAM.

Mystery solved.

First let me say I am loving Apple’s new iPad. One of the first “killer” features for me is the ability to quickly and easily respond to email while sitting on the couch or in bed. In the past I have used my iPhone for this, but because typing on that device isn’t ideal I would often respond with more terse emails than I would have liked. The iPad’s on-screen keyboard is much more “typeable”. It resolves the issue but as I discovered this morning nothing is perfect. Checkout what awaited me when I finished my work and turned off the iPad.

Yup. A nice greasy virtual fingerprint keyboard. The iPad, like it’s smaller siblings the iPhone and iPod Touch, loves grease (and cat hair BTW). Luckily it also has the same oleophobic coating as the mini pads too. A simple wipe with a soft lint free cloth resolves the issue. Still kinda funny. For sure you’ll want to keep a cloth around and handy for when you finished fondling your favorite new iThing.

I knew that you Mac Geeks across the pond were used to paying a bit extra for your Apple kit, but I hadn’t realized it had gotten this bad. As I write this, picking up this Mighty Mouse would set you back approx. USD $16,000 and change. Don’t know about you, but for that price I would expect it would have a whole different kind of multi-touch. What might be more amazing than the price tag on this item though, is they seem to be going like hotcakes. “Only 1 left in stock–order soon”.

Obviously someone in the Amazon.com stockroom wasn’t minding their comma and got over excited with the zeros. Thanks to Roz for the tip-off.

It’s that time of year again… Movember; and once again all this month I’m growing (as best as I can) a mustache to help raise awareness of men’s health issues and to fight prostate cancer. If you can, please donate to the cause.

What is Movember?

What many people don’t know is that 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime and testicular cancer is the most common cancer in men aged 18-35.

So, during Movember (the month formerly known as November) I am growing a mustache to show support. The funds raised go to the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LIVESTRONG).

How to Donate

To donate to my Macstache you can either click this link to donate online now using your credit card or PayPal account

Or, write a check payable to ‘Movember Foundation’, referencing my Registration Number 353272 and mailing it to:

Movember Foundation
PO Box 2726
Venice, CA 90294-2726

All donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Thanks for your support,

Adam.

For a long time now I have been a fan of the “Joy of Tech” comic produced by Nitrozac and Snaggy. As a matter of fact I have had a link to their comic on this blog since it’s inception. They do awesome work and are great contributors to Apple pop culture. You may also recognize their work in the TWiT podcast album art.

The past couple years, just prior to Macworld, the “Joy of Tech” has put out a Macworld celebrity sightings checklist. You can see this years edition here. Last year I began hoping that my Mac celebrity status might rise enough to someday earn a spot on their list. When the comic posted this year I carefully inspected the faces and was very happy to see friends and colleagues like Veronica, Leo, Andy, Chuck, Don, and others all prominently displayed. But alas I didn’t seem to join the ranks this year. Then I noticed a small grouping in the lower corner. There was Jonny, Woz, Sinbad, Derrick, Walt, and could it be? For a brief moment my heart swept and my ego swelled. Was that me? Should I fire up Twitterific and tweet it to the world?

Needless to say… no tweet went out. After that brief moment the euphoria wore off and I came to my senses. It was Robert Scoble. But hey, it’s not all bad. I apparently have a passing resemblance to famous tech blogger Robert Scoble. Plus, if anyone asks if it IS me, I figure I don’t have to go out of my way to deny it. Right?

This month thanks to my co-worker Sean I have been doing something I have never done before in my life… growing a moustache. Now, I can tell you that being a geek I am not the most, shall we say, “manly” of all men (yes I can admit it). As such, my “stache” is neither full nor attractive. So why would I jeopardize my nerdy good looks and ruin all this years Holiday photos? One word: Movember.

What is Movember?

Every year 1 in 6 men in the United States will develop prostate cancer and every year in the U.S. 28,000 men will die from the disease. The sad thing is that if detected early 90% of prostate cancer is curable. All it takes for early detection and all that requires is a simple exam.

So, during Movember (the month formerly known as November) I have growing a Moustache to support the Prostate Cancer Foundation and their fight against prostate cancer. The money raised is donated directly to the Prostate Cancer Foundation and will be used to fund high-impact research to find better treatments and a cure for prostate cancer.

How to Donate

To donate to my Macstache you can either click this button and donate online now using your credit card or PayPal account

Or, write a check payable to the ‘Prostate Cancer Foundation’, referencing my Registration Number 1695001 and mailing it to:

Prostate Cancer Foundation
Attn: Movember
1250 Fourth St
Santa Monica, CA, 90401

All donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Thanks for your support,

Adam.

Those of you who are old enough will maybe remember the 80′s hit Jenny by Tommy Tutone. The song repeated over and over again 8675309, the supposed phone number of a fictitious girl named Jenny. Back then the song drove anyone across the nation with that phone number nuts as they were overwhelmed by annoying random phone calls.

Today, most movies, TV shows, songs, commercials, etc. use a “555″ number to avoid this type of issue. So imagine how strange it was for me last night when I saw one of Apple’s latest iPhone 3G ads prominently featuring what looked like a legitimate phone number. In the new Work Friendly ad for the iPhone 3G there is a point when they display a contact entry for Scott Frankel and right there in the middle of the screen is an actual (408) phone number. Two actually, because there is also a bad edit in the middle where the screen magically changes mid-shot and adds a second “office” number. After my initial shock wore off I began to wonder. Why would Apple use a “real” number in an iPhone ad? Was this simply a mistake by the ad agency? A clever marketing campaign? I could see by the zip code it was a Cupertino number, so was this a secret hotline into Apple’s headquarters? Well, any Mac geek can probably guess what I did next. Of course. I grabbed my own iPhone and started dialing.

The first number, Scott’s “mobile”, simply had a call failure each time I tried it. The second “work” number went straight into a generic voicemail box. Now, I didn’t leave a message, but I have to wonder what would happen if you did. What is the point of all this? Is there a point? In the back of my mind I was kind of hoping this was a great viral marking scheme and the start of some cool iPhone/Apple treasure hunt like the kind of campaigns the folks over at Mac Heist have crafted in the past. But alas, it doesn’t appear to be so. Seems like a missed opportunity. Truth is, it’s probably just a prank on some poor unsuspecting intern who works at Apple. This guy is now wondering why he gets like 3,000 voice mails a day and why the folks in marketing snicker at him as he shuffles out of his cubicle each day to go have lunch. Maybe he should give Jenny a call and see if she’s available to join him?

So over the last week Psystar has created a lot of buzz, controversy, and skepticism with their new Open Computer. They claim their system will run an unmodified retail version of OS X Leopard on non-Apple hardware. Now, EULA breaking legal issues aside, we know from the OS X86 Project, that it is possible to cobble together a beige box PC clone and make it run OS X. The thing is, to date no one has done it commercially and, as far as we know, Psystar has not shipped an Open Computer running OS X yet.

Today, Psystar tried to put all naysayers to rest by posting this video on their web site. They claim it shows their Open Computers running OS X Leopard, Ubuntu 8, and Windows Xp Professional. Now I am not refuting their claims, but as I watched the video I did notice some things that seem just too wonky not to point out. Besides I always love a good conspiracy theory.

As the video opens we see the alleged Open Computer running OS X on the far left. There is a bundle of small cables under the desk below the system and it looks like they are probably Ethernet cables. Nothing too unusual but, as you will see, they later seem to disappear. Even more unusual is the space below the desk on the right where there is an empty wire rack shelf system. Note that at this point in the video there seems to be nothing there. Also note that the area to the right of the display is empty. These two points will become significant later.

As the camera pans right we see the Ubuntu machine and the Windows box. Both have several cables coming out the side of the computer and running to the right toward the monitor.

Now notice the Mac system… no cables coming off to the right like with the Ubuntu and PC systems. Also notice that the bundle of Ethernet-like cables pointed out in the opening scene no longer seem to be visible.

Next the video transitions into showing the Open Computer supposedly running Leopard and the Mac version of Quake 4. What is interesting in this shot is there now seems to be an extra cable running from the right of the monitor toward the area of the desk where the empty wire shelf system sits. That shelf is also no longer empty as it looks like it now has a strange blue box sitting on it. At first I thought the cable near the monitor might be the mouse cable, but in the Quake demo scene you can clearly see the mouse cable moving with this mysterious second cable above it. The thicker cable does seem to be the monitor cable and it is going off to the right not the left. Remember, the Open Computer that is supposed to be running OS X Leopard is to the left of the monitor, not the right. Interesting.

Finally, the closing shot shows the exterior of the Psystar offices. When reports of Psystar and their Open Computer (initially called the Open Mac) first surfaced on the web, several reports noted that they changed their address as many as 3 times. Now that fact alone is strange enough, but throw in a phone number with an oddly high number of 6′s, plus the fact that they seem to want to keep things private and you have the makings of a full blown conspiracy.

Can someone ring up Fox and see if he is available to come down to Florida?

Good news. GoDaddy recently updated some equipment and the Maccast server and it’s OS were the recipients of some tweaks. At the very least things should perform a little snappier around here. Thanks GoDaddy!