Category: Windows

Comments and Trust

Some doughboy has a series going on how he is “freeing himself from Apple’s grip after being a fanboy for 15 years. Again, I could give a shit what kit someone else is using. As long as I don’t have to support you, go nuts. In fact, everyone should be familiar with the major computer platforms and at least handle the various smartphones. Competition is good and knowledge is power.

That being said, Mike Doyle seriously has his head up his ass about Apple. He complains that Apple locks people into their platform by doing such insidious things as including useful software like a web browser, calendar app and mail client. Or having said web browser include RSS functionality. Or by making and selling peripherals, which I assume includes input devices (mouse and keyboard) and a monitor.

Oh, and the iPhone is evil and tying OS X to only (reliably) run on Macs is wrong, despite a court defending Apple’s right to do the same. I left a rather lengthy comment on his site, but I decided to just publish it again here.

I just wanted to chime in and say that while its great that you’re exploring alternatives to the platform that you’ve been using, I don’t really understand where a lot of your anger is coming from. In your earlier posts, you complained that Apple was exerting too much control by including a lot of Apple software, notably Safari, Mail, iCal and iTunes. And that that Safari includes an RSS reader. (FYI, Mail has one too.) Are you really arguing that Apple shouldn’t include useful functionality out of the box? That makes about as much sense as the people who argue that Microsoft shouldn’t include IE with Windows. As in, none at all. So you just discovered Firefox, DragThing, NNW and whatever else. These are not new apps that suddenly broke through Apple’s tyranny. (Well, Picassa’s new, but that’s just because Google didn’t port it to OS X until this year. Again, not Apple’s fault.)

But that’s not because Apple didn’t want you to, otherwise this link wouldn’t make sense, would it? (BTW, that link is the #5 top download at apple.com/downloads.) Just because Apple doesn’t ship it, doesn’t mean they don’t want you to use it. Its not Apple’s fault that you didn’t discover Google’s apps until recently, or that both Mail.app and Mobile Mail have always supported IMAP. You know what’s even better than Google Calendar? Busy Cal. Check it out. It uses iCal’s open library database and easily syncs with Google.

Oh wait, did I say open? Why yes I did. Your iCal data is open and easily exportable, your Address Book data is open and easily exportable, your Mail.app data is open, easily exportable and uses open standards and your iTunes library is in an open file structure, in /USER/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library. Any Mac app that uses Core Data stores its data using SQLite. Address Book even directly syncs to Google. Don’t like iTunes? Use Double Twist. To the guy who said that Apple basically stole BSD: a) the BSD license is not the GPL and has no sharealike requirements and b) Darwin, OS X’s kernel is not BSD. It takes a lot from BSD, but it is its own open source project. Yes, that’s right. Apple’s kernel is completely open sourced, as is Webkit. Go look at Safari’s Help>Acknowledgements sometime. Hmmm, looks like BSD license, and GPL v.2 license in there!

As for that PC World article you linked to, please. The iPod/iTunes thing has been done to death. There are plenty of non iPod PMPs out there. Go buy one of those. BTW, the Zune uses the exact same business model as the iPod. iPhone and AT&T? Where are the howls of outrage that the Droid isn’t available on Sprint or that there’s no GSM version for AT&T? Carrier exclusivity is nothing new or unique to Apple. OS X and the Mac? That’s Apple’s business model. Apple is not Microsoft, Red Hat or Dell. Apple tried licensing the MacOS before, and it almost killed them. Oh and 10.6.2 didn’t kill Atom support, because Atom was never supported. Pushing unwanted software onto Windows users was bad behavior and was, frankly, inexcusable. But they must have figured that Windows users would never notice, since Microsoft does that all the time. And a patent? Tech companies apply and receive stupid patents all the time. Wake me up when that actually shows up in a real product.

As for your phone, this is a tricky issue. There is clearly a difference of opinion at Apple. Clearly they want the iPhone to be both a pocket computer and an embedded device, but it can’t be both. The situation with the App Store is bad, without question. Something has to give. The question is whether or not it will before Android gets better than the iPhone. The Droid and Android 2.0 are good, but not good enough to make a dent in the iPhone. Yet.

As for the legal stuff, you actually did commit at least one crime there. Seeing as how you used Pwnage instead of Blackra1n, you were a party to a violation of the DMCA on the Dev Team’s part and you violated copyright law when you downloaded that hacked .ipsw file from that Google link. Why do you think that the Dev Team doesn’t distribute those files? If you answered “Because that’s really fucking illegal and Apple would sue us and win?” then you’d be correct! Yes, you bought that iPhone and you can do whatever you like with it, but the OS is Apple’s and fucking with it is illegal under the DMCA and redistributing it is illegal under the Copyright Act.

Before you protest, EULAs like Apple’s have been held up in court, and no, the Psystar case has no bearing here because Apple doesn’t distribute the iPhone OS independently of iPhone devices. And don’t tell me about the developer builds because I’m an iPhone dev and you’re not and I had to agree to all sorts of shit, including agreeing not to fuck with the OS. That includes reverse engineering, decompiling, digging out private APIs and the such. That’s not Apple tramping on my rights, by the way, that’s a contract that I read, and agreed to.

And the baseband unlocking is another issue. Is it legal to hack the baseband? I don’t know, you tell me. Its a legal gray area, but not the slam dunk “its my right to do what I want with my stuff” that you think it is. If you want to run your own custom OS on the iPhone and still be legal? Then port Android. There’s no law (at least in the US) preventing you from doing that. The hardware does belong to you, but the software doesn’t. Don’t like it? Call your Congressman.

Also, do you know where you got that .ipsw file from. I mean do you *really* know? Are you aware that jailbreaking involves finding a security hole in the OS, you know like a buffer overflow that can enable arbitrary code execution? How do you know that you don’t have a keylogger installed, just waiting for you to go to your bank’s website? And of course, the answer is, you don’t.

I also jailbroke my 3GS so I could run GV Mobile, which is nice, but not OMFG nice. (Version 2 could change my mind, but since that’s not due until Christmas, I’m not going to hold my breath.) I used Blackra1n, which took about 30 seconds, much nicer than the hours of terminal voodoo the original jailbreak took, let me tell you! The difference is Blackra1n only installs itself and not anything else (a quick SSH session does wonders). The problem with jailbreaking is that it can render your phone highly unstable (my original required constant reboots until I got fed up enough to just rejail it) and removes code signing.

Also, if you haven’t already, get a terminal emulator and change your passwords (both the root and mobile user account use alpine as their passwords). type ‘passwd’ and your new password then type ‘su’ then ‘alpine’ then ‘passwd’ and then your new password.

And finally, don’t use iTunes to update your phone. This isn’t because Apple hates jailbreaking, its simply because jailbreaking is an unsupported hack. That means that Apple doesn’t support it, doesn’t test for it and doesn’t really think about it when they build new OS versions. The reason why you lose your jailbreak when you update is because the update overwrites the whole OS, but doesn’t touch the userland, kind of like how a major OS X update works. There is *never* any danger of bricking a jailbroken phone just from an update. The danger is when you update an unlocked phone, which is running custom baseband firmware. Again, its not because Apple hates you, its because you’re running an unsupported hack that may or may not be compatible with the upgraded firmware.

Since you’ve been an Apple user for so long, I’m going to assume that you’ve never had to flash new firmware onto a motherboard. Before Apple, that was a really, really scary thing to do. In fact, other than iPods, iPhones, Macs, PS3s, PSPs and Xboxes, it still is. Apple made firmware updates easy and reliable. Once you step out of there, its both hard, scary and often unrecoverable. Try recovering a bricked PSP after a failed firmware hack. Trust me, its a hell of a lot harder than simply plugging it back into iTunes for a restore.

This is already way too long, but I just want to say that I don’t really care what kind of computer or phone you use. I think that more people should experience as many platforms and ways of computing as possible. I just think you need to let go of the notion that Steve Jobs spends his days thinking about how to lock you into Apple’s ecosystem. You also need to not blame Apple for your failure to explore alternatives until now and to stop blaming Apple for things that are clearly not Apple’s fault.

Steve Jobs is not your friend. Apple is not your buddy. Apple is a publicly traded, multinational, multibillion dollar corporation, which like all such entities, exists to make money. They happen to make the most money when they build high-quality hardware running unique, high-quality software that provides an excellent customer experience. The things that Apple gives away, its does so for its own advantage. Such advantages might help the open source community, or potential rivals like Google and Palm. Don’t forget that Google is exactly the same. You are not Google’s customer. You are a set of data points and a pair of eyeballs that Google sells to its real customers.

PJ over at Groklaw, while discussing Apple’s victory over Psystar, mentioned that if what you’re really after is software freedom, then you need to go somewhere other than Apple or Microsoft. Or IBM or Adobe or Oracle or really Google for that matter. If that’s what you’re really interested in, then its open source only for you. That involves a lot of work, but its doable. I tried it and its not for me.

The other thing to be aware of is that the GPL is exactly the same as any EULA from Apple or Microsoft. Its just that the GPL favors “the community” over a corporation. Your usage of the code is still restricted and still bound by copyright law. The GPL would have no teeth without copyright law. There’s no open source free for all and there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

My comment about running a black box iPhone ipsw file? The same concern applies to Google and Android. Google doesn’t disclose what it does on its servers, nor does it disclose how its closed, proprietary Android apps work. Additionally, there is no requirement for handset makers or carriers to disclose the changes they make to Android before you get your hands on it? How much do you really trust Google? How about Verizon, Motorola or Samsung? Its in Apple’s best interests not to fuck its users, because Apple sells directly to those users, and it knows that trust lost is never regained. Google “sells” Android to handset makers and carriers, not to end users. Google just needs to keep them happy, not you. Google doesn’t sell you email, calendar service or maps. It gives them for free so that it can harvest data to sell to its customers, who are advertisers. Google makes its money from advertisers, not from you. Google is selling you to advertisers. How much do you really trust Google?

iPhone Mac stoopid Windows

Fights With MacMacs

Earlier I made the mistake of commenting (negatively) on a RoughlyDrafted.com post here. I’m not innocent here as I flame-baited the thread by linking to John Welch’s immensely entertaining takedown here. Dilgar seemed to be getting a bit defensive, so when I posted my own comment here, he got all pissy about it.

I’m posting my response not because I feel wronged or offended, I just wanted to share the stupid, especially when it comes from a real-life Artie McStrawman.

[Disclaimer]

I am not an IT goon and have neither an Exchange server nor a Snow Leopard server lying around to play with, so my response is written from the perspective of a knowledgeable user. You have been warned.

[/Disclaimer]

I think your perspective has been contaminated by the vitriolic strawman attacks posted by John C. Welch in his franticly unprofessional frustration outlet known as Bynkii.com.

Just because you think it doesn’t make it so.

When you say “the idea that MobileMe is a credible Exchange alternative is a joke,” where did you get the impression that I wrote of MobileMe as a drop in replacement for the majority of Exchange shops?

When you wrote this: “With Snow Leopard and the iPhone each now providing their own client layer for accessing Exchange Server, Apple can now offer its users alternative access to other server products as well, from its own MobileMe and Snow Leopard Server offerings to web services from Google and Yahoo. This effectively turns Microsoft from a direct seller into a wholesaler that has to deal with Apple as a middleman retailer.”

That very strongly implies that Exchange and MM are in direct competition. While SL Server is a more credible drop-in replacement/alternative to Exchange, MM is most certainly not. MM is just that: all about me. It has no groupware functionality at all, even between members of a family plan. In order to share calendars, I had to build a hack that goes through Google calendar and BusyCal, which requires at least one of our Macs to be on to sync everything. Its an ugly solution for something that should be built-in, especially considering how easy it is to share calendars using Google. If it wasn’t for the fact that Google tends to mangle my contacts, I would seriously be considering dropping my MM.

Your next line, “The fact is that MobileMe is and always has been a consumer solution, and Apple has always billed it as such (Remember “Exchange for the rest of us”?)” is correct, and harmonizes with what I did write, that MobileMe offers an Exchange alternative for “us,” that is users who don’t need or want to spend $25,000 on an entry level Exchange infrastructure.

Then why compare them? As if a $25k solution is in the same ballpark as a $100 one. An apples to apples comparison should be Exchange vs SL Server and/or MM vs Live/MyPhone vs Google. Exchange is not a consumer product and MM isn’t for business (or even for groups). They’re totally different markets with different needs. If there’s any confusion on my part, its the fact that you weren’t clear about the distinction between them.

The problem with reading delusional, fact bending, strawman burning, poop flinging rants like those published by Welch is that you end up repeating talking points that have no connection to the discussion at hand. You might as well sit in front of an AM radio spewing lather about death panels, Kenyan birth certificate forgeries, and how public insurance will turn the USA into Nazi Germany.

Frankly, I don’t even want to address the knuckle dragging, sexualized fantasies Welch manages to inject in every rage tantrum he writes, even if they might include random jabs as me.

His point, that there is only one market on earth, and only one problem solved by one solution, is so simple minded that it doesn’t deserve discussion. Apple is rapidly selling its services to users who don’t need Exchange. Nobody is suggesting that Exchange Server installations are directly competing against MM or SL Server, any more than FileMaker Pro is pitted against Oracle or SQL Server. There’s still a big market for FM Pro.

OK, exactly which of his “talking points” did I mindlessly repeat. He brought up some very specific technical inaccuracies which you failed to address. I pointed out the obvious (and non-conspiracy theory) reason why MS would license Exchange to Apple (and Google) and mentioned my personal experience with MM and connecting a SL Mac to an old Exchange account. Neither Welch nor I insinuated that there’s only one email market, but there two markets that use Exchange: Big organizations and SMB. MM is a poor solution for either one. Its that market that uses Exchange, and since you were comparing it to MM, the logical conclusion is that you were mentioning those markets.

Also, for the AM-radio crack: fuck you. Using flowery language to hurl your shit doesn’t make it smell any better.

In the mobile market, MM offers a superior alternative for anyone who wants a personal account that provides desktop/mobile sync and push messaging, and lacks a connection to a huge corporation that has invested millions in building an Exchange infrastructure.

Clearly, but that’s like being surprised that the sky is blue. (Although, I’ve lived in SF long enough to know that it is a pleasant surprise when there’s a blue sky, but you get the point.) Again, no one uses Exchange who isn’t using it for business, so why bring it up? Consumers use Yahoo, Hotmail/Live and Gmail or their ISP for email. So yeah, if you want the features that MM offers, its a good value, but that’s hardly worthy of analysis.

Microsoft has a very strong position in corporate messaging, but it isn’t making much headway in mobile messaging, thanks in part to the failure of Windows Mobile. RIM has eaten up Microsoft’s business prospects in the mobile push messaging arena. That’s why Microsoft is desperate to associate the iPhone with Exchange. It’s also happy to have SL apps working with Exchange.

I don’t know what you mean here. If you’re talking about BES, then we’re still on Exchange. If you’re talking about EWS, then we’re STILL on Exchange, but including WinMo, iPhone, Pre, Symbian and HTC Android builds. Basically every non-BB smartphone and a bunch of dumbphones. MS isn’t doing nearly as much work to integrate the iPhone and OS X with Exchange as Apple is. Apple has far more to gain from the proposition than MS does. Again, we’re dealing with entirely different divisions of MS here. Exchange cares about Exchange, not WinMo.

Will SL apps help Microsoft sell upgrades to the now two year old, current version of Exchange? It doesn’t matter if it does. Mac users who think Apple should have made SL apps support old versions of Exchange dating back to 2003 or 2000 are simply pinning the problem on the wrong vendor. It’s Microsoft that has changed its strategy and API enough to leave Apple with less than ideal options.

The new Outlook for Mac will likely also use EWS, as even Microsoft sees MAPI as a pile of old spaghetti code.

SL is not at all likely to get companies to upgrade their Exchange servers, which as you like to point out, is a very expensive undertaking. I also don’t think that either Apple or MS is to “blame” for anything. Clearly, MS is going to be using its own new standard for upcoming products. Whether or not Outlook 2010 will be backwards-compatible remains to be seen. Also, MS now isn’t allowed to break from the past or update their API’s? I thought we all wanted MS to embrace the future (or at least the recent past). That’s why people are still bitching about Win7 still having the registry, etc. Apple building its own apps to connect to other people’s services is nothing new. Office for the Mac has been shitty for years, but MS screwed Apple over by switching to something new? Something Apple likes to do itself quite a bit, BTW. Color me unconvinced.

Apple is adding Exchange support to SL to increase the visibility of Macs and bypass the third rate clients Microsoft has provided Mac users. The fact that Microsoft keeps moving its own goalposts in terms of the latest Exchange features is no surprise. It’s not Apple’s goal to beat Microsoft at its own game. Look at how unwinnable that has been for WINE, OpenOffice, or any other attempt to clone Microsoft’s proprietary protocols.

Which is why Apple licensed it. The reason why all of those projects suffer from such high levels of suck is because they have a religious devotion to the GPL that Apple doesn’t share. Updating their software with new features is hardly “moving the goalposts,” especially since this is the first time that Apple has offered this level of integration.

As I pointed out, Apple’s goal is to offer workable Exchange support while focusing on delivering products targeted to its own customer base, sharing much of the investments made. Apple isn’t trying to make SL apps on par with Outlook, it’s making its own MobileMe and SL Server on par with its own support for Exchange, enabling and encouraging Mac users to switch to Apple’s own offerings wherever possible.

But you were talking about MM in comparison to Exchange. Users don’t use Exchange or SL Server, they use Outlook, Entourage or Mail.app. Mac users aren’t going to switch from Exchange to SL Server; that’s generally not a decision they get to make. MM exists in parallel to Exchange. It offers value for an individual similar to what one gets from Exchange, but since one generally uses Exchange for work and MM for personal stuff, there is little room for overlap or “switching.”

If you doubt that, come back in 5 years and tell me how MobileMe compares to MyPhone or whatever Microsoft is offering for its dwindling Windows Mobile platform. Then tell me how much progress Exchange has made in expanding its market share compared to SL Server. Exchange will certainly still be making Microsoft money, and more money that Apple makes in the enterprise by some factor of ten, but Apple isn’t about winning dominance, it’s about making a better product. And for many Mac users, MM is a superior alternative to running their own Exchange Server.

You’re asking me to predict what an Apple service will look like in 5 years? I can say pretty confidently that MM will still be a consumer product and will not be a viable replacement for Exchange. And since MM is already superior to MyPhone/Live (even though both have features that the other lacks), I don’t know what point you’re trying to make here. As for the progress part, I think you got turned around. Its Apple that needs to catch up to MS. Apple is adding features to OS X server that make it more enterprise friendly, but here Apple’s solutions are immature. I have no doubt that Apple will continue to improve OS X server, but MS’s services are robust and mature already. Hell, Apple HAD to use EWS for the iPhone, since OS X server only gained the ability to remotely manage iPhones with SL. Its nice that Apple finally supports its own product that’s been on the market for more than two years, isn’t it?

hardware home theater Mac personal Windows

Home Theater Part 2: HTPC

I think I should start off with a note. I’m not writing this for any other reason than to geek out over stuff in writing. I’m not bragging or showing off or anything like that. I like to obsess over details, configurations and componants before I actually buy anything. Writing what I want to do helps me plan things out and make better decisions later on. It also keeps me from driving everyone around me crazy from taking about it nonstop until I finally take the plunge. Also, the choice of componants should clearly indicate that this is a budget system.

The interesting thing is that I wrote an HTPC post maybe eight months ago, but deleted it because it ended up being a hardware wish list and me bitching that the thing still wouldn’t do everything that I wanted, after spending close to a thousand (pretend) dollars. It was too hypothetical. Now, on the other hand, its a serious consideration. The landscape is different enough now that I get to completely revisit the subject. First thing is to decide what exactly this thing is supposed to do. Second is to look at my hardware and software options, including and out of box solutions versus building my own system.

Most of the HTPC setup that I’ve seen are heavily geared towards watching and time-shifting television shows. I’ve thought about this for some time and came to an interesting conclusion. I just don’t watch that much TV. Which is to say that I don’t watch that many TV shows that I would care to record or time shift. Even when I miss a show that I wanted to catch, I either have an iTunes subscription or can easily find a hi-def torrent somewhere. However, that’s not to say that things won’t ever change, so I’d like to keep this option open. TV tuners are available both as PCI cards and as USB dongles, so adding one later shouldn’t be an issue. I just have to make sure that it’ll play nice with the Harmony and with Comcast, preferably before I buy!

Movies

For me, this is the biggie. I like movies. A lot. I’m a huge Netflix fan, getting as much as I can out of my disk plan, and recently out of the Instant View as I can. I’m also a Boxee fan, and eagerly await fixes to some of the bugs that’s holding it down. I’m also in the process of rebuilding my old Quicksilver into a multi-terabyte media serving monster. The plan is to rip my DVD collection with handbrake stick them into my central iTunes library so I can access them over the LAN without having to hunt disks down. Since these are my own rips, anything that plays nice with iTunes shouldn’t have any issues playing them back.

The other consideration is Blu-ray. If I so choose, I can add a Blu-ray drive to a Windows-based HTPC. There are some ramifications to this. A Blu-ray drive currently requires Windows, as neither Linux nor OS X support the AACS DRM needed to decode the disks. Which sucks. However, the alternative is to rip the disk and perform some voodoo in Ubuntu, or run Boot Camp from a Mac. Neither solution is as elegant or smooth as just having WMC just running. I hate DRM, since it limits the things I can do and my options. That’s why I’m still keeping the PS3 in mind, since I can keep the DRM stupidity limited to the black box that way. In any case, I’ll want an HDMI port for the best picture and to complete the ACDP-compliant chain for BR playback.

Since I mentioned the PS3 and DRM, I’ll just point out that I have no intention of buying or renting any movies from the Playstation Network. Ever. Their DRM is positively draconian. I don’t care at all for Fairplay, but at least I’m allowed to back stuff up and restore for if (when) a hard disk fails. I should also point out that I don’t buy movies from iTunes, either, and I usually only rent the $0.99 rentals.

Music

Since this machine will be connected to my central iTunes library, it’ll also have full access to all my music. This is fortuitous, since it will also be connected to my stereo! There’s not much else to say about my music, since its fairly mature. I’ll probably want to re-rip some of my earlier rips at a higher bitrate, since they were originally done at 128kbps and I now favor 320kbps. Having my music streaming from the HTPC means that it’ll be piped through the stereo, which is always a plus.

The other issue is movie and TV sound. If I don’t connect the HTPC to the reciever, I’ll want to pipe the sound there. I’ll want an optical port to connect to the receiver.

Other Stuff

There are lots of other nifty things than an HTPC can do conected to an HDTV. There’s MAME, huge web browsing, Netflix, Hulu, etc. I’ve been playing with Boxee, but its still in alpha, and it shows. On the other hand, its getting better and more stable with every release, so I imagine I’ll find it becomes a part of my permanent entertainment system in no time.

Hardware

The Apple Setup

I’m primarily a Mac user and default to Apple products first. My temporary HTPC is my first-gen Macbook Pro, which has given me a lot of experience about what I really want and can accomplish with a dedicated HTPC. The problem is that Apple doesn’t make a dedicated HTPC (yet). The two obvious choices are an TV or a Mac Mini. I considered the TV first, simply because its cheaper and is supposed to be a dedicated set-top box. It has an HDMI port and is highly hackable, most notably via Boxee. However, its nowhere near as versatile as a full computer. Boxee can run Netflix instant viewing quite comfortably on a Mini, but not at all on the TV, because the smaller device doesn’t have the raw horsepower to decode the stream. The TV can decode HD iTunes downloads because of h.264 hardware accelerators for which no public APIs exist.

What I’m hoping for is an updated Mini that combines the HTPC features of the TV with the full computer-ness of the Mini (but with modern components like the nVidia 9400M graphics card).

The Dell Solution

I like the Dell Studio Hybrid. Its in the same price range as the Mac Mini, but has a few advantages. It was clearly meant to be used as an HTPC with an HDMI port and an optional Blu-ray player (which adds over $200, but you can’t get a slim Blu-ray player for any cheaper. If at all). It also comes with Vista, which is only useful because WMC is damned good. Plus, just about every peripheral I could get will work with it. On the downside, it still ships with the Intel graphics. Plus, it runs Windows, which, WMC aside, sucks and will eventually fuck up and piss me off. Boxee doesn’t yet work on Windows, but should this month.

The DIY Solution

The benefits of building your own HTPC are, of course, the same as building any PC. You can select exactly the components you want, and not have to deal with crap you don’t. This usually comes at the cost of integration and size. Those are dealt with by thorough research and artful cable management and by careful choice of case. I’m not going to go too in-depth about my reasoning behind the following list of parts, since it should be fairly obvious. The case isn’t the most powerful or extendable, but its quiet, smallish and it looks like a piece of home theater equipment, rather than a PC. The same goes for the processor. AMD gets its ass kicked by Intel on the high end, but I’m not looking for a octo-core gaming monster. I want a processor that won’t immediately kick the fans in, but can still handle HD content without trouble. In that, AMD excels. The X2 BE-2300 is a 64 bit, 1.9GHz dual-core processor that consumes 45 watts! That’s damn impressive. Low power means lower energy costs, but more importantly, less heat, which means less fan noise. The Antec case has some good air flow management and three 120mm fans, which spin slowly, generating less noise.

Proc: AMD Althon X2 BE-2300 $34.99

Mobo: As
us M2N68-VM with HDMI $66.99

RAM: Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) $69

HDD: WD Caviar 1TB with 5-year warranty $119.99

Optical: Lite-On 4x Blu-ray $89.99

Case: Antec Fusion HTPC Case $174.99

Video: On-board

Sound: On-board

Of course, there are other miscellaneous parts, but these are the biggies. This configuration leaves both PCI slots on the motherboard open, so I can add something like a tuner card or eSATA later. The case also has room for a second hard drive. 1.5TB drives are coming down in price, so I might splurge for one of those. It might also be interesting to boot Windows from a flash drive, and leave the hard disks open for more media.

Clearly, a DIY HTPC is the most fun and quickly becomes the most powerful. If I was to build this machine today, I’d probably test install it with the Windows 7 beta, and see how well that works. Depending on how stable the configuration is, I’d probably just leave 7 on there until I can get a retail copy. Otherwise, I’d just load Vista and wait until I can upgrade to Win7 final.

The interesting thing is that this configuration costs 573.91, which is ~$20 cheaper than the Mini and ~$130 more than the base Hybrid, but is significantly more capable than each (adding a Blu-ray drive to the Hybrid adds $200). That ignores shipping and tax, but prices change often enough that doing exact comparisons is a waste of time.

The reason why I’m only considering Macs or Windows is because Linux won’t easily work with iTunes or Blu-ray. There are a couple of really cool Linux media centers, but they all require more work than I’m really willing to put into this. Windows will work with a minimum of effort on my part. This machine needs to be rock-solid and need as little post-setup configuration as possible, almost appliance-like. I don’t think I can pull that off with Linux right now.

So, I’ll have a much better idea of where I stand after the Philnote on Tuesday. In any case, I have a really good idea of what I’m going to be spending my tax return on!