Overall the Mac OS 10 is pretty impressive. Being a Linux guy, it’s nice to be able to get into the guts of the OS and have familiar Linux like tools. But with any system there are positives and negatives. So to get on with it here are the:

Top 5 Annoying things about my MacBook Pro

#5 No right click

I don’t know what the Mac fascination is with a one-button mouse, but this gets old real quick. You can use the keyboard key “cntrl” in combination with a mouse click, but that’s pretty annoying.
It’s a easy fix to get around, the Mac OS has supported every USB mouse or keyboard I’ve tried to use, and the “right-click” on every mouse I’ve tried works as expected.

#4 No Number keypad

I’m looking at this keyboard as I type this article and there is 2 1/4 inches to the left and right of the keyboard. It’s being used for speakers, but there is plenty of real estate to allow for a number pad.

Mac’s I’ve noticed are the “pretty boys” of the computer world and I think the MacBook Pro didn’t have the right look with a keyboard that included a number pad.
It’s easy enough to plug in a USB keyboard or number pad, it’s just annoying to have to carry that crap around.

#3 Not ergonomic

The MacBook is beautiful, Apple has always done a great job of making some of the best looking laptops out there. But ergonomics is one of those things that takes a back seat to looks for Apple.

I’m at a computer almost every waking hour and have carpal tunnel type problems so I’m sensitive to the ergonomics of the machines I use. They keyboard and touchpad are very high up on the MacBook Pro putting your wrists in a very bad position if you like to rest them on the laptop while you type or use the touchpad.

If the keyboard and touchpad were located lower on the laptop your wrists would be able to bend in a more natural position. To get around this I find I have to hold my hands and wrists hovering over the keyboard, this works nice but it’s tiring to do for very long.

#2 No docking station

Most major notebook manufactures have docking stations you can use. Mac doesn’t offer one. You can get a USB docking station, but that doesn’t help you with video, sound or power.

My guess is Apple hasn’t been able to make one that’s pretty enough or they don’t have enough corporate type customers making requests for them.

So the end result is I have to plug in a bunch (Power, DVI, Ethernet, USB Devices) of stuff every time I go somewhere with my MacBook. Livable but annoying.

#1 Can’t operate MacBook with lid shut

This is absolutely maddening. You shut the lid, MacBook goes to sleep. Period. There doesn’t seem to be any way around this.

Alright, the MacBook I have has a very nice screen, but I have a better screen at work. I don’t have the desktop real estate to have two side-by-side screens. Sense I can’t operate the MacBook with the lid shut (like you can with every other laptop on the planet), I’m stuck with the MacBook screen instead of the nice big screen I could use at work.

With most laptops you can keep the laptop closed and plug in an external monitor, but there is no way you can do that with the MacBook. Very very annoying, epically sense there is no workaround.

In Conclusion

Overall I like my MacBook Pro. It’s a solid sleek machine, but it’s got it’s own set of flaws. If I was on a budget and needed to buy a personal laptop for myself, I’m not sure if I would get a MacBook or not. If it was 20-30% cheaper it would be worth it, but given the cost combined with the annoying things I’ve discovered I’m not sure if I would get a MacBook or not.

Overall with a MacBook your paying for hardware that is allowed to run the Mac OSX operating system, so if you prefer OS X there really isn’t a option. I’ve only been using OS X as my primary OS for a couple months so I haven’t made up mind on that one yet. I’ll put out another article when I do.

In my case I wanted something similar to a co-located server, but I didn’t want to worry about hardware anymore. There are lots of Cloud services out there, most of them seem to go for the “Cloud Application” approach. Which basically means you host your App on their Cloud and they give you all the distributed Cloud resources you need. But in my case I needed entire Linux and Windows systems, not just a application hosted.

Enter GoGrid. GoGrid from what I understand uses Xen, they have a dozen or so OS Images in certain configuration and through the web interface you basically pick your IP, how much RAM, the OS, and the Image of that OS you want.

So if I wanted to create a new Centos 5.1 Linux LAMP server I’d do the following:

1. Login to GoGrid
2. Click the “Add” button
3. Select “Web / App Server”
4. Pick the name, IP address, RAM, select Centos, and choose the “LAMP” image
5. Wait 5-10 minutes
6. Login

It’s actually simpler than this list illustrates. That whole process is one button and a popup with drop-down menu’s for all the options.

So from there you have your own Linux machine to get into. For good or bad, it’s your machine from there, if you bugger it up it’s on you. I have acciedently created a bad firewall rule and locked myself out of my machine and GoGrid tech support was able to get me back in, but I did have to give them my root password to fix my messup.

So from what I’ve seen GoGrid set’s up a basic image for you and gives you a radom generated password from there it’s your own setup. If you change the password GoGrid can’t get back into it unless you supply it to them.

GoGrid has a nice management screen to take care of all your machines. After you login to you see a list of all of your Machine and can see their status, IP address. You can also choose to reboot, delete, or modify. It’s very simplistic and easy to use. I would like to see a “backup”, or “snapshot” type button on this page, but I’ve been told that’s in the works.

Billing:

Where this system really shines is the scalability and the way you get billed. I can create 5,10,20, or 30 machines and I only get billed based on what I use. So if I have 30 machines then later finish a project or whatever I can downsize that to 5 machines instantly. You basically pay by the hour, your savings are instant as well.

Compare this to the co-located rack I have at a ISP, I pay XXX/month just for the rack and now that I’m ready to get rid of that rack I have to give 60 days notice. I also have another rack that has some older servers that we’re no longer using. So I have to worry about that hardware, can I re-use it, can I sell it, and how much will it cost to move that old hardware?

GoGrid basses everything on the amount of RAM you use. From billing to system resources. For example if you build a 2GB RAM system you have more hard drive space than a 512MB system. I’m not sure the exact disk sizes on the other systems but I get 100GB hard drive space with a 2GB machine.

For billing, they charge you based on the “GB’s” of RAM hours you use. For the “Pay as you go” plan it’s 0.19/RAM hour. So if you have 10 machines at 512MB or 5 at 1GB you pay the same amount.

Right now I normally have between 5 and 10 machines with GoGrid so I got one of there pre-paid plans which gives you a better per RAM hour rate. The “Advanced Cloud” package is $499/mon and gives you 5,000 RAM hours which basically cuts the cost in 1/2 from the “Pay as you go” plan. Any time over that 5000 RAM Hours then gets charged at 0.10/RAM Hour which is still about 1/2 of the “Pay as you go” plan.

To break down the costs a bit:

For servers running 24/7 for 30 days during a month the RAM Hours would be:

512MB RAM = 360 RAM Hours/Month
1GB RAM = 720 RAM Hours/Month
2GB RAM = 1400 RAM Hours/Month

So with my “Advanced Cloud” package that costs $499/mon I get 5,000 RAM hours that could let me run the follow number of servers in the following configurations:

• 3 2GB Machines AND 1 512MB Machine

-OR-

• 7 1GB Machines

-OR-

• 13 512MB Machines

Again this is just a estimate so you can get a idea of what you get for that price. But the big idea behind it is I can just shut off what I’m not using anymore, or add to it just as quickly.

One quick note on a mistake I made. I thought that “RAM hours” ment the Machine had to be on to use RAM hours, so if I powered the virtual machine down I wouldn’t have to pay for the hours unless I turned it back on. But that is wrong, you pay for RAM hours on that machine as long as it exists and you see it through the web interface. To quite paying for a machine you have to delete it, not just turn it off.

Network:

Most admin’s are worried about their network connection. For a test application I setup a Asterisk PBX on a Centos GoGrid machine. VoIP is very sensitive to jitter, latency, and bandwidth. But I was successfull in setting up the latest beta of Asterisk (1.6.x, this one dosen’t depend on Zaptel or ztdummy) and setup a confence system.

I used Teliax as my VoIP provider and consistantly get ping times in the 10ms range. Usually you want it to be under 50 for decent VoIP quality. So I’m happy to report I’ve been using it in production for a couple weeks and consistantly have 5-10 peopole calling in at the same time for conference calls with no quality issues.

Most of my users that use Windows use remote desktop to get into the Windows servers. They say it’s just as good as the connection to the Windows machiens we have in the office. The Windows desktop’s are very fluid with no latency problems. File transfers from offsite seem to do very well too.

What’s Lacking:

• VPN – You can add your own on your Windows or Linux machine but there isn’t a default setup. So I find myself creating a Machine just to do VPN for my GoGrid network of machines.
• Backup or Snapshot – I’d like a way to do backup’s and snapshots through the web interface but that’s not available now. But you still can do backup’s via any other normal means, for me I use rsync and ssh.
• More RAM – 2GB is the max RAM size you can get. They are supposed to be giving us the option for 4 and 8GB of RAM but I don’t know the ETA on that.
• Can’t make your own image – Your stuck with the image choices they give you. So if you wanted Ubuntu, Gentoo, WinXP or something like that your out of luck. This is another one of those things they are supposed to add, but there is no ETA on it yet.
• Network Storage – There is no central NAS/SAN type of storage. They are supposed to add it, but there is no ETA.

Conclusion

Overall I think it’s a great service. I prefer this over getting a co-lo server or rack at some facility. GoGrid seems very active on adding features and fixing bugs and their support has been very good.

The features they are lacking right now aren’t holding me back from using it in production but I am waiting on some key features such as more RAM and network storage. Before I can move the majority of my network over.

In the meantime I’m happy I got rid of a rack of servers and have gained the flexibility to increase or decrease server capacity based on my companies needs in minutes.

Most of my web services (email, docs, web) I was able to host on Google Sites, they let me use my domain name for site localized versions of Gmail, Google Start Page, and Google Docs. But their Google Sites service dosen’t have a blog service, or at least one that is easy to use.

My blog requirements were as follows:

• Easy to use – Pretty obvious but allot of the blog tools out there are fairly complicated for doing something like a simple blog
• Good web editor and decent third-party blog editors (ScribeFire for example). The web is great, but sometimes it’s nice to have a real program to do the work for you. Some of the blog tools out there make life alot easier.
• Easy to export – I like to try new things out and I may switch blog services, so I wanted something that’s easy to export. This is good for keeping a personal archive/backup, as well as giving you something to import into a new service.
• Free – Ok I’m cheap, but there are tons of free blog services out there so this seemed like a decent enough requirement.

WordPress was the only application that I was able to find that meet all my requirements. Not to mention WordPress offers the WordPress code itself as a Open Source application. So if I get a wild hair and decide to use a hosting service or get my own server again I can download and install my own version of WordPress.

When you go to their website it defaults by listing the top stations, but you can also search for particular genre or a specific station. They have by far the largest list of streams I’ve seen on the net, and it’s quick and easy to find and listen to a stream without having to register or pay a fee.

To play Shoutcast you can use any of a host of different players out there, but for Windows and Linux I’d suggest the following:

Linux:

• xmms
• songbird
• kaffeine

Windows:

• songbird
• winamp
• Anything but Windows Media Player (It really seems to suck for streams)

SHOUTcast | Free internet radio!

Overall I’ve been looking for a Blog service and tool that I could use from Linux and Windows that would allow me to get my thoughts out in a minimum amount of technical effort. There are, of course tons of tools out there. But there aren’t that many that work in Linux and Windows and work with various blog sites.

From that point of view ScribeFire was the best tool I’ve been able to find so far.

ScreenShot:

RHEL4 Linux, Firefox 2.x, ScribeFire 2.0.2