Luke from iFixit.com was kind enough to test out a new NVIDIA-based MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM (two 4GB chips) to see if the earlier reports were true. NVIDIA representatives had stated that the new chipsets used in the MacBook and MacBook Pro could support up to 8GB of RAM. Previous generation MacBook Pros could only reliably support up to 4GB of memory.

Preliminary results show that while the new MacBook Pro did recognize the entire 8GB of RAM, during actual usage, the computer appeared to be limited to 4GB:

The machine would hit an invisible wall at 4GB and act like it had run out of memory. In the larger screenshot, two instances of Parallels can be seen (both set to 2GB of RAM). The second instance, however, only occupies a small portion of RAM expected. It’s unclear why this limitation exists, as Mac OS X is able to use more than 4GB on Apple’s Mac Pro. As a result, MacBook and MacBook Pro owners should not expect to be able to upgrade to 8GB of RAM at this time.

iFixit has posted a disassembly guide for the new MacBook Pros including RAM replacement and will post updates about these results after further testing.

It is possible that Apple has locked in the restriction of 4GB of memmory awaiting the release of Snow Leopard. As a sells pitch of sorts. Upgrade to Snow Leopard for $129 and unlock the capability of 8GB of memmory on your MacBook Pro Late 2008 model.

Will just have to wait and see what happens, if anything.

But for now, here is a good review by Ars on the new iPhone 3G

Link

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After some testing on my own to see what I could do to fix the problem I have come to the conclusion that there is some interference from the bluetooth connection and my Airport connection. After disabling my airport and using the wired connection for hours I have had no problems.

Apple, please get this issue resolved soon. I don’t like being all tangled up in wires.

UPDATE: Just wanted to give everyone an update on how I fixed the issue. I found that I have a new wireless network in my area now, which I believe was set to the same channel as my router. I went into my router settings and changed my wireless channel from 6 to 9 and applied the change. I haven’t had a problem since. Apple suggested that I buy a Airport basestation because it supports more then the 2.4GHz spectrum. This would also fix my problem, but for $200.

First, here’s a potentially easier way to share the screens of other Macs on your network. First, realize that the screen sharing feature is just an application. It resides in /System/Library/CoreServices, under the tricky name of Screen Sharing. Find it now, and drag it onto your Dock, or into your sidebar, or your toolbar—whichever you prefer for quick launch access.

Now you can launch Screen Sharing directly from the Finder, without first selecting a machine in the SHARED section of the sidebar. When you do, a dialog box appears onscreen, asking for the remote machine’s address. Great, you’re thinking, now I have to type in a machine’s IP address to connect to it? This is progress? No, not yet it’s not. Quit Screen Sharing if you launched it, switch to Terminal, and copy and paste this line:

defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing ShowBonjourBrowser_Debug 1

Now launch Screen Sharing again, and revel in the new Bonjour Browser window that allows you to pick which machine you’d like to connect to from a list:

You can now pick your machines from a list of all Macs on the network. (And if there are any other Bonjour-compatible operating systems that support VNC (the technology behind screen sharing), I would expect they’d show up here as well, but I can’t test that assumption.) If you click the Add to My Computers box, the machine you connect to will be added to that section of the browser window, making future access a bit easier (think of it as a Favorites section).

Now that connecting is easier, let’s add even more functionality to the program. Again, quit Screen Sharing if it’s running, and then pop back into Terminal. If you’ve presently got a screen sharing session open, close it. Then copy and paste the following lines into Terminal, then press Return:

defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing \
'NSToolbar Configuration ControlToolbar' -dict-add 'TB Item Identifiers' \
'(Scale,Control,Share,Curtain,Capture,FullScreen,GetClipboard,SendClipboard,Quality)'

That’s all one long line, so feel free to copy and paste directly to Termianl. When you launch Screen Sharing again, you’ll see six new buttons on your toolbar. (If you can’t see the toolbar, use View -> Show Toolbar to make it visible.)

So what do these new buttons do? Here’s a quick rundown on each.

Switch between controlling the remote Mac (the default) and simply observing the other machine.

Switch between allowing the remote Mac’s keyboard and mouse to be used (the default) and locking them out.

This button will lock the other Mac’s screen, displaying an all-black background, a huge lock icon, and the text you enter after clicking this button. Note that there’s a minor bug here; you’ll actually see the name of a variable that Apple left in the text field, too—so if you type “Using remotely,” the displayed message will be “Using remotelylockedByString.” This button is off by default, meaning the other Mac’s screen displays what you’re doing.

Click this button to capture the remote Mac’s screen to a local file. You’ll capture the full screen, and the system will ask you to pick a name and save location for the file.

Toggle between windowed (the default) and full screen modes. In full screen mode, the toolbar floats in the top left of the screen. To exit full screen mode, click the “X” button on the toolbar.

Not really a button at all, this is the quality slider. If you’re finding that screen updates are going slowly, for instance, you can reduce the quality—all the way down to a badly dithered black-and-white representation—to speed things up.

You might run into the occasional glitch with some of these features—like the extra text displayed in the lock screen mode—but for the most part, they work quite well. You can customize the toolbar as you would in any app, too. Feel free to use Command-drag to rearrange the icons, for instance. The only thing you can’t do is drag the default set back into the toolbar. If you do that, you’ll lose all your custom buttons. Obviously, that’s also the easiest way to undo this hint; just pick View -> Customize Toolbar, and then drag the default set up onto the toolbar. But after trying screen sharing with these new features, I have no intent to give up the added functionality!

The main thing to me is this new view in iTunes 7 called album view. In which a user can graphically scroll through album art to the chosen album and find your music. It is very sleek and sexy. The problem I encountered was that if you have a soundtrack that has multiple artists songs in the album, you get the same album over and over in they view only because iTunes recognizes that they have different artists. Come on APPLE! It is one album, I’m sorting by albums, SHOW ME THE ONE ALBUM. NOT 11 OF THE SAME STINKING ALBUM!

Now that I got that out of they way, gapless playback. I love this idea for gapless playback, its great to listen to songs with no gap and get the real feel the artist was going for.

I have also noticed, with other users, that when you login or off MSN, or you lose your internet connection, you music playing in the background suddenly stops, and a minute later resumes.

My last nudge with the release is when I play videos. When I play my TV shows (The Office for example) in a small window on my desktop, I lag out. The video is all stuttery and slow and the refresh rates are horrible. When I change over to full screen all is well. This has never happened before, why start now?

UPDATE: After reading some other bloggers post about there experiences (problems) with iTunes 7, I have come to realize that iTunes is using more memmory then it did in version 6. In version six I got about 20,000 K – 40,000 K Memm Usage, and now I get 144,000 K Memm Usage.

Here are some links to other bloggers issues.
-iTunes Memmory Hog
-Huge Problems with iTunes 7
-iTunes 7 Bug Discovery

“…portability engine for Intel-based Macs, offering game developers and publishers the ability to deploy Windows-based games on new Macs quickly and easily, without the need for traditional arduous porting.”

It looks like I was right. Things are starting to slowly merge and close the gap. Don’t get me wrong though, Windows and Mac with never be the same.

So now for another prediction! With all the talk about next week and Apple’s WWDC 2006, I’m going to make my predictions as to what Apple will unleash.

1) Power Mac will be replaced by a new Intel Xeon Processor, and a availble Intel Core Duo processor.

2) Mac OS X 10.5 (of course) but here are the features im guess at will be added.

a) tabbed browsing inside Finder.

b) new iChat features (possible to sync to iPod)

3) New…..er MacBook and MacBook Pro.

I’m betting some updates to some of things they have been having issues with, and maybe a new processor.

4) New iPod!

a) Wifi, Bluetooth capabilities

b) ya, it will be a phone. (thats my guess anyways)

5) New iPod Nano colors. This is probelly my only guess that I don’t really think will happen, but it could.

Anyways, I just had to go and make some predictions because everyone else is. I can’t wait to get this next week over with so I can sell my PC and by my MacBook, that is, if they release a new…er MacBook.

Two, I can’t fully forget Windows. My job requires me to know everything there is to know about all OS’s. I couldn’t possibly imagine not keeping up-to-date in Windows world.

I have changed my mind however. I have seen the signs, and I read them right. I had a feeling Apple would switch over to Intel, and soon I feel AMD will come into the picture too. There were signs that Apple was working on getting .exe’s and Windows working on there machines and its true, Windows works on the Intel macs, and they even put this out.

Windows on a Mac? Introducing the Boot Camp Public Beta

The next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard, will included a new feature called Boot Camp, which lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system on Intel-based Macs, like the new Mac mini and iMac. To experience this today, download the free Boot Camp Public Beta. Switching was never such an easy choice.

With the move to intel boards, it is my feeling that more and more of the good games, will come to the Mac. I also feel that Apple will soon put out something to match, even beat ActiveX.

With all of this, I have decided today that I am going to be ditching my PC, and I’m going to by a MacBook Pro. I don’t plan on buying it for two to three more months, and hopefully they will have Rev. 2 of the MacBook Pro out by then.

More people should follow in my steps