A Very Sound City

It’s Not Just Tech…

So many hit records came out of a dumpy studio which happened to have stellar acoustics, and 1 of 4 Neve analog mixing consoles in the world…

“Yes you can do this on your own, but you’ll be a much happier human being, to do it with other human beings, and I can guarantee you that” — Mick Fleetwood

“You still have to have something to do with those tools” —  Trent Reznor

“Be true to yourself, and make music that you love.  Go out and play, turn people on to your music,  spread it yourself.  Don’t think it happens any other way” –Rick Rubin

Sound City & The Human Element

I love well done Documentaries.  Dave Grohl went way beyond mere facts, figures, and history to put together “Sound City”.  Much is said about the creative and human elements of putting together great music, and the interviews of folks such as Tom Petty, Rick Rubin, Stevie Nicks, Lee Ving, Neil Young, and Trent Reznor are spot on.

I very highly recommend Sound City.  It’s very much about the ethos of not trying to get computerized perfection, but to get into a Creative Space and Flow, and to produce art with others (and to embrace the little imperfections that occur anytime Humans play instruments 😉  Jack White had talked about the same themes in his interview with Conan O’Brien

All of this is not to say that tech and computers don’t have a place in Music Production.  They surely do!  But I agree with Dave’s view that they should not overwhelm the process.

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Create. (Jack White & Conan O’Brien)

It’s a New Year. Create!

So this is a post that’s very much a late New Years Resolution, and is pretty much me telling myself how I am going to get into the state of Hard Work on Creative Things (techy, coding, writing, music, or whatever).

What does it take to turn your creativity into real results? I would say that Jack White and Conan O’Brien have very real, proven insight. They did a great chit chat on the topic, covering a lot of ground about hard work, passion, keeping things simple, and Jack’s obsession with the number 3. Watch this when you have an hour and can Focus… (I know, that F word – don’t go getting all tl;dr on me)

Why this inspires me…

So, ok. Jack and Conan are obviously creative and successful, and I’m struggling to find the creative and tech groove where I can consistently do new work… (I am not talking about the context of employment, per se, I am talking about my drive to get traction on my personal projects).

I think three pillars of achieving some artistic success would be: Creativity, Passion, and Hard Work. Jack encapsulates by saying “I want to create something every day… I cannot wait to catch up to this idea I had 3 weeks ago”.

For me, it’s easy to be Creative.. at least with ideas. I can even be Passionate about wanting to get them implemented. But it doesn’t get me far, because I can suck at follow through. My block is not breaking problems down into small enough chunks (I am talking about playing guitar, or redoing my web site, or revamping my blog, or being consistent with real and virtual photography). When I think of a project as a whole, it’s too easy to get daunted by the size of the task, and to put it off. If I could get paid for hemming and hawing on scratching a creative itch, I’d be rich (or if I could get paid for overloading the mashed potatoes of my thoughts with tons of gravy cliches :)

So one takeaway from Jack’s chit chat would be: Simplicity. In my mind, that translates to “break things down into simple parts, and start working on them one by one”. It also can mean Iteration. I don’t have to tackle my whole web presence in a day, and I can get a creative update done in a series of simple steps….

Which leads me to.. I tend to get all the more Passionate about something when I sense little successes are within reach, and that leads me to Work Harder. It’s a sense of “knowing I am on the right track”. I think there’s the element of a Positive Feedback Loop – to let little achievements be that spark that drives me every day to keep at it.

I resolve to get up earlier and at least chip away at projects every day. My goal is to get into the groove that Conan calls ”hard hard freekin’ work” (but, make no mistake, work that is enjoyable!)

A tip of the hat to where I first saw this on Laughing Squid.

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Use Longer Passwords, Today

Short & Sweet, Too Easy To Beat …

So I was just led from a HuffPost bit to this article: “No password is safe from this new 25-GPU computer cluster” …

The title is a bit misleading, but the gist is that any 8 character password can be cracked in 5.5 hours with a cluster of 25 off the shelf AMD Radeon graphics cards.  The longer a password is, the longer it takes to crack.  More on that in “How long would it take to crack your password?

So you don’t think it’s a problem today?  How about those files that will be up in a cloud 10 years from now? 🙂  Yeah… what you store today, can be cracked tomorrow, by an ever-increasing range of misguided mammals that have nothing but time and equipment.

Of course, you can always go back an reencrypt things later…  or change all of your passwords, later… sure, you’ll remember..  Wait, let me go make some popcorn, this’ll be fun to watch 😉  Got them all?  Sure!?  Hee hee..

Just start using longer passwords now.  Think of little phrases or sentences.  Think of “future proofing” your passwords a bit, at least for a good 10 years or so.

Wait?  Graphics Cards?

Yep, Graphics Cards.  GPUs.  For certain operations (cranking through a massive set of computations), the use of OpenCL on a GPU is much faster than a CPU.   You can Deep Dive on OpenCL, and quickly realize “oh oh, CPUs are nothing compared to some specific areas where a few graphics cards can effectively be something we would have called a Supercomputer just 10-15 years ago”

But wait, who has a 25-GPU cluster sitting around?  In 10 years, everyone, in one card.

No, I dont think I am kidding.  Check out “CPU And GPU Trends Over Time“.  I did check out the actual data files for the graphs, and the key one was for GPUFlops:

  • 2003 – NVidia FX5900: 25
  • 2007 – NVidia 8800 GTX: 518
  • 2010 – NVidia GTX 580: 1581

…and I know for a fact that the NVidia GTX 690 (2012) is way faster…

So What To Do?

Yeah, I know.  Security is such a pain.  Use longer passwords, and don’t use the same password for everything.   There are many followup parts to this that I could write (two factor authentication, the whole USB key enchilada, the rise of biometrics and nanotechnology, etc).  For now I would just say “go longer, and if you run into web sites that limit passwords to 8 characters, yell at them”.

Oh, and a little Post Script:  when I was in College.. a lad in my 20’s using some old Vax 11/750 running BSD Unix, I had a really fun password.  It was ”        “.  Yes, 8 spaces!  I knew that only the first 8 characters entered mattered.  I merely held down the spacebar for a few seconds, hit return, et voila!  Logged in!  If I felt someone was watching me, I would type a few random characters at the end, and still be logged in.  Those were much simpler days.

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Beginning of the World

Happy Winter Solstice!

It’s a wonderful Winter Solstice Day!

Oh, and there are some rumblings that the World Ends Today because a Bunch of Mayans Said So …  Maybe I should get in One Last Post!

Sigh, whatever!  I thank the Mayans for being very right on about Chocolate.

How to treat Today?

Today is the Beginning of the World.

If you have been hung up on Numerology, or Astrology, or some other thing pointing to a Sign or some impending Doom & Gloom, then here’s a simple suggestion:  Cut that out!

Treat it as the beginning.  It’s a new start!  The world didn’t end.  You have the rest of your life to get going on all those projects you’ve been pondering.  Woo hoo!  So do it!  Obviously I need to include myself, and practice what I preach… well, I have been blogging.  It’s a good start.

But seriously, one way to look at today is to consider all of these past predictions involving calendars and numbers as “they were trying to make sense of things at that time, based on what they knew”.  It’s even possible that we’re making some silly predictions now that will be scoffed at in 100 years (but not Climate Change… I am afraid that one is very real).

So it’s the Beginning!  It’s a new start.  The World didn’t end.  Some people made a bunch of money on T-shirts and some disaster kits got sold.  Big Whoop.  Get out there and feel confident!  Do stuff and things!

Go out an^%$#~Enj–~Connectio^~rrors.oy the D^%M..Disconnected From Internet Error~~~..9^%

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Guest Post: Star Trek Barbie, by Sophia Smith

A Guest Today!

Today’s post is by my daughter, Sophia, a 19 year old Junior at UC Santa Cruz.  I’m happy to have this piece as a strong lead towards the more Creative & Social side of this blog!

Sophia is a double major in Modern Literature and Spanish Language Studies, and you can find her writings at Sophia Words.  This piece, “Star Trek Barbie”, was first published in the Leviathan Jewish Journal – you can find it on Calameo (page 16).

I wont set this up too much, except to say that it’s two facets of her upbringing, and she  reflects well about Then and Now.   Sophia did have every Disney Heroine, and it is true that I was pretty reluctant about the whole Barbie Thing.  Sophia and I used to watch a lot of SciFi (Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.), and Star Trek Barbie was my way of getting an accomplished / smarty angle in.. a compromise of sorts.

I didn’t let her watch “Barney” either 😉


Star Trek Barbie

Sophia Smith

As an only child, I didn’t have siblings to play board games or sports with, so I amassed a pretty impressive collection of stuffed animals and dolls.  Although I had a variety of baby dolls, my dad refused to buy me Barbies. For my eighth birthday, he finally caved and got me my very own Star Trek Barbie. She was dressed as the Commander of The Voyager, had her own phaser gun, and even came with a subordinately dressed Ken doll.

My dad didn’t like the message that Barbies send to young girls. He considered them to be vain, vacuous, and placing emphasis on beauty and clothes over traits like intellect and determination. Dad didn’t want me to feel pressured or preoccupied by Barbie’s hyper-femininity, and so he kept it out of my toy chest.

I was well aware of why Barbie was withheld from me, but just like sugary cereal or a forbidden TV show, I craved what I couldn’t have, and always sought to play with Barbies when I went over to a friend’s house. I felt guilty for doing this, because I could hear my father’s voice in my head encouraging me to do something more mentally engaging.

With my dad’s influence, I learned how to skateboard, how to play guitar, how to code web pages, and how to think for myself. I wouldn’t trade these skills for the world, but the fact that I didn’t feel as secure in my girlhood as my female peers definitely caused some problems for me during elementary school. Even though he was well-intentioned, my Dad’s emphasis on stereotypically boyish activities like skating, music, and technology over “girly” activities like fashion and boy bands led me to bottle up a lot of internalized misogyny. Whenever I would see a girl with acrylic nails or fixing her makeup in public I would roll my eyes in frustration and reassure myself that “I’m not like other girls! I’m smart and practical and I don’t care about stupid girl stuff!”

Just as I was not encouraged to be excessively feminine from a young age, so too was I not exposed to my Jewish heritage or traditional Jewish activities like my father had participated in during his youth. I was raised by a Jewish father and a Christian mother. My mom has a large, close-knit family and because of this I was raised to celebrate Christmas and Easter with my maternal relatives. My father was raised in a Jewish household, but didn’t have much motivation to expose me to Judaism; I never went to temple, celebrated holidays, attended Hebrew School, or had a Bat Mitzvah. Whenever I asked my dad about taking a more active role in my Jewish education, I was usually told that I could “decide for myself” when I was older.

I lacked an exposure and a comfortability with femininity and Judaism throughout my teenage years. Whenever I met someone whom I perceived to be a more authoritative or confident figure in either arena, I felt slightly uncomfortable because I saw a fulfillment in them that I myself lacked; I felt less knowledgeable and self-assured in areas of femininity and Judaism. This uncomfortability bothered me enough to begin to address these previously overlooked aspects of my identity as I became a young adult. I have embarked on a journey of hashing out my identity on my own terms, as a woman and as a Jew.

In my youth I had convoluted my Dad’s lesson about the dangers of emulating Barbie; I became convinced that femininity and success were mutually exclusive. I had decided that femininity was inferior, so surely it would only hold me back. My mom was a feminist and taught me to believe in equality from a young age, but it wasn’t until I entered college that I realized that feminists don’t have to be anti-feminine. I could be as girly as I want to be and still care about pursuing education, being passionate about women’s rights, and remaining dedicated to my less-feminine hobbies like skateboarding.

Over the course of my college years I have come into my own space within femininity, but I am still struggling with what Judaism means to me. Reconnecting with my Jewishness has come in small, incremental steps. Spending time with Jewish friends and working for the Leviathan has given me a new perspective on a younger, fresher version of Judaism than my grandfather’s traditional faith. During childhood I thought of Judaism as a series of rituals performed in a strange language that I didn’t understand, but after meeting a variety of Jews in college who come from diverse backgrounds, I have come to see that Judaism is not as narrow a label as I once thought. While my Jewish identity is by no means conventional, I am confident that I can still find a place within this diversity.

I have discovered that I really enjoy nail polish and high heels. I feel that the things we enjoy are a foundational part of who we are. Even though my father might have equated girly behaviors with impracticality, for me they have become a source of empowerment because I have reclaimed femininity as an integral part of my feminist philosophy.  Just because some people might make this connection between femininity and impracticality doesn’t make femininity a universal waste of time. More generally, the labels that we reclaim for ourselves don’t have to fall under the same connotations given to them by our elders.

A huge part of reclaiming labels has been redefining them for myself, my identity, and my lifestyle. This has helped open a door for me to become my own person. Arianna Huffington, a founder of the Huffington Post, asserted in an article that “too often we outsource the definition of our success to others in ways that are self-destructive…But shouldn’t the major element of success be one’s own satisfaction and fulfillment?…And, even worse, [outside pressure] leads to people making wrong decisions, or, at least decisions that are wrong for them” (1). This rings true for my experiences thus far; I used to gauge my success based on others’ definitions of my identity as a woman and as a Jew. My entire life I have heard other people’s definitions of “woman,” or “Jew,” e.g. girls should be pretty, quiet, pleasant and accommodating, or Jews should be scholars of their faith, knowledgeable about Israeli politics, and vocal about their Jewish lineage and experiences. While hearing these narrow perspectives on identity can be interesting to hear on a sociological level, the choice of what a girl or Jew should be is ultimately up to every individual.

I like to paint my nails. I also like to skateboard. I like to talk with other Jews and learn about Jewish culture. I also like to eat bacon. These complexities to my identity don’t make me a “bad” woman or a “bad” Jew. They are simply a part of what being a Jewish woman means to me. Being successful as a woman or as a Jew means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. We all have different identities, and we negotiate the parameters of these labels in a unique and personal way.

Works Cited

1. Huffington, Arianna. Arianna Huffington: Success, Power, Ulcers, and the Need to Redefine Success. Empower Lounge. Web 17 Nov. 2012.
<http://empowerlounge.com/arianna-huffington-success-power-ulcers-and-the-need-to-redefine-success/>

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Branching Out (An Epiphany)

Let’s Have Some Range …

When I headed back into blogging territory recently, there were two aims.  One was to explore the methods used for SEO and Monetization (was doing a project about that for a friend).  I’m reasonably up to speed on that now.

The other aim is simple:  I like to write!

But I need some range.  I feel too confined to just do Tech all the time.  I don’t like telling myself to shelve some idea just because it’s more on my Creative side.

My Epiphany is simple: write about whatever the fuck I want.  Use good categories and lead-in links so that some readers only see my Tech stuff, or only Creative, and so on.  I’ll be damned if I am going to feel hemmed in on my own blog.

But What About The Pros?

A couple of hours after my little moment of Clarity (but had not mentioned it to anyone), a good friend wrote me to nudge me in the same direction.  It was as if she were reading my mind!  Her quote was “I love love LOVE seeing the multi-facetness of people”.

And, of course, she’s Right On.  I have a hell of lot more range than just talking about JavaScript and Hackintoshes 😉

The Exalted Blogging Pros would probably say “stick to one topic” or “start another blog”.  My friend and I call BS.  I don’t have 1000’s of readers and am not aiming to make a living at this.  I had thought about starting a second blog, but I’d rather have “some” readers all in one place, instead of a “few” in two.  Maybe they’ll get into a Gang Fight, a la Sharks vs Jets, over in some Comments Section.  I’d fucking make popcorn to watch that.

A constant for me (at least with Computers and Photography) is to learn the rules, and then know which ones to break and when (sometimes you might return from a function in multiple places, and you don’t always  have to shoot a photo “full frame”).  This is another case of that, so I say “To Hell With Conventional Blogging Wisdom!”  (laughing to myself, because there is a perceptible feeling of casting off some writing handcuffs)

So, what happens now?

Oh, I lose a couple of folks perhaps – perhaps they are firmly rooted in some Blogging Conventional Wisdom, or they don’t like me swearing.  Oh Well 🙂  I’d rather pick up some new readers that are happy to follow any or all of the range of things I choose to write about.  That feels more Real to me.

I do need to work on my main web page, to make a couple of obvious lead-ins for Creative and Technical.  Hold me to it!

I also want to have some Guest Posts.  I have a pleasant surprise in store on that front!

The other thing to say is:  Yes, of course I will still do Tech Posts.  I’ve been paying attention to it almost every day since 1977, and am very much a generalist and still into it.  I just dont want to pigeonhole myself as only writing Tech.

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Update: HP 4530s Hackintosh Replaced By 4540s?

4530s Discontinued

I wrote a post a while back about how I transformed my HP 4530s into a Mac.  It works well and I love it.  I’ve also been pointing to the Amazon page for it, hoping that someone would temporarily lose their mind, order 10 of them, and flood me with referral fees.  Snap! No such luck!

I’ve been watching the price of this waver all over the place, and now I see the price at a whopping $569.99!  I paid $488.95 for mine, and had seen the price dip to about $450.

I can no longer recommend getting a new 4530s, and I have taken it off the sidebar for my blog.  It’s discontinued, and it no longer makes sense to go this route.

Look At The HP 4540s Instead

Now, having turned my back on the idea of a new 4530s, it would be awfully mean of me to leave you hanging.  I mean, how would that make me look?  It’s so close to Christmas, too!

My advice is: go check out an HP 4540s.  There are many of them (this was true of the 30 as well, with varying i3/i5/i7 processors).  My hunch would be to zero in on one with an Ivy Bridge processor.  This is a little tricky, and I see that one of the listings on Amazon is confused as to whether they are selling an i3 or i5 (big thing to make a mistake on, but a 3110M is an i3).  I do point to a machine later in this post that I think would do well, but I don’t have personal experience with it!  I’m just giving a heads up.

To understand the range of the 4540s, look at the HP 4540s Specs.  The processor options are bit over the top (why so many?!):

  • Intel® Core™ i7-3612QM (3.10/2.1 GHz, 6 MB L3 cache, 4 cores)
  • Intel® Core™ i5-3360M (2.80 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache, 2 cores)
  • Intel® Core™ i5-3320M (2.60 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache, 2 cores)
  • Intel® Core™ i5-3210M (2.50 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache, 2 cores)
  • Intel® Core™ i5-2450M (2.50 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache)
  • Intel® Core™ i3-3110M (2.40 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache, 2 cores)
  • Intel® Core™ i3-2370M (2.40 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache)
  • Intel® Celeron® B840 (1.90 GHz, 2 MB L3 cache)

I did not bother to bold the Celeron, and I would shy away from getting one.  Too weak.  Stick with the Core i3/i5/i7 range for laptops.

The thing to note about processor numbering is:  the ‘3’ denotes an Ivy Bridge processor, whereas a ‘2’ denotes the older Sandy Bridge.

I would go for an Ivy Bridge i3-3110M or better, because the graphics (HD4000, versus HD3000 for Sandy) are much improved.  That would have me looking at this one  – be aware that this is my guess, and you should do some independent research.

Here is a good review to start with: HP 4540s Review

And, of course, the folks at tonymacx86.com have been talking about this in the 4540s thread.

Hope this helps, and enjoy your Macs!

 

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One Year. One Island. One Internet Device.

Some History

Way back in 1994, I wrote an article for a then-ISP called “West Coast Online”.  It was  “TV or the Internet?”.  I proposed the scenario, way back then, of being stranded on a deserted island with a great TV + Whatever Channels, or, a great Computer with Internet Access.  Remember, this was 1994.  For me, it was an obvious choice… I would have taken the Net.  This was before Hulu and Netflix and Amazon Video and so on…  My point, way back then, was that I would prefer to be interactive.

So, it is nearly 2013.  Let’s update the question!

The Scenario

Let’s say you are going to be stranded By Yourself on some Tropical Island for all of 2013.  It doesn’t matter what you write, or video, or what you do through any communication means.  You are Really Stuck There.  It’s a Hypothetical.  Revel in it!

Aside from all the basics (like food…), you get a choice of Just One Internet Device.  Let’s say that power is no problem, and your Net Connectivity all over the island is perfect.  Storage is not an immediate issue, as you can always offload to the Cloud…

…But, you only get One Device.  Let’s assume you don’t break it 🙂

What To Choose?

I think this is a deceptively simple question.  A friend of mine said she’d pick her iPhone.  She can do everything on it… but I think the small screen would drive her crazy in a week.  But, I could be wrong.. let’s dive in, shall we?  In all cases, you have a webcam, and doing photos and video is no problem.

  • Phone – an iPhone or Android phone.  Ok, cool.. you can take it in a pocket as you hike all over the island.  You can do great photos and movies.  Perhaps you realize after a week that the small screen is driving you batty.  But hey!  You can take it everywhere!
  • Tablet – this is a muddled one.  You could have an iPad mini, or an iPad, or some Android Tablet.  Heck, perhaps you want a Kindle.  Now we get into an interesting space: you cant take the Tablet quite so easily all over the island, but you can more easily get some things done (such as writing and video and pics), and you have a much better web experience. Do you leave it behind a lot, when you would have taken the phone?  No cheating with adding a keyboard to the tablet.
  • Laptop – Not so portable as a Tablet, but what a difference!  More flexibility, but not so much fun to lug around.  Even more screen space to watch movies…  No cheating with adding an external monitor to the laptop 😉
  • Desktop – We’re not going anywhere on the island with this beast!  This is more about making the best of things when you are back in your tropical hut.  You have a huge 30″ screen and a webcam, and can get any computing task done.   Games rock.   It’s your ultimate desktop.  You just cant take it outside.

Not So Easy, Is It?

For me, it’s not an easy choice.  I waver between Tablet and Laptop.  A phone is ridiculously small to do much with writing, video, and photos.  A full-on desktop is a perfect choice if it’s going to rain every day for a year.

So here is my question to you:  which would you pick?  Let me know in the comments.

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A Desktop Hackintosh Wishlist

You Weren’t Kidding!

I had just posted “Coming Soon: Wishlist for Desktop Hackintosh Build” and wanted to follow up quickly.  The whole notion of what I would want in desktop Mac has been percolating in my noodle for a few weeks now.  I don’t have the money to do it right now, but I gotta write it down and have something to point to as a baseline.

Desktop Hackintosh Goals

The goals of this project are to build the foundation of quite a screaming machine at a reasonable price.  What do I mean?  I mean a system that includes an Intel Core i7, 32gb of RAM, and a surprise Nvidia graphics card for just under $1500!  It’s something that would dual boot Mac and Windows 7, and be a Mac Pro class machine for substantially less. There are other goals.  I wanted to think about balancing stability, price, and performance.  When it comes to stability, I decided not to overclock, and to use a case that lends itself to great ventilation.  When it comes to price, I did not bother with a huge hard drive or an SSD, or a higher end processor that charges extra for more overclocking capabilty.  I use that savings for a lot more memory in two key places (as you shall see!).  When it comes to performance, you will see my reasoning for going with 32gb of memory 😉 There are some obvious things that I am not mentioning in this post:

  • Monitor
  • Mouse
  • Keyboard
  • Bluetooth
  • WiFi
  • An SSD drive
  • A DVD drive

For Monitor, Mouse, and Keyboard, these are all highly subjective things 🙂  My fave monitor used to be a Asus PA246Q 24″,  which could Pivot.  There is a newer version of that monitor now.  As far as Bluetooth and Wifi, one could get a card, or look at the alternate motherboard that I suggest.  I dont feel compelled to have it from day 1.

For an SSD drive, I made up for it, in part, by thinking about 32gb of RAM, and the idea of RAM disks.  An SSD surely makes sense down the road.

As for a DVD drive – eh, it’s “nice to have”.  I can do installs of Windows 7 and Mac via a USB key. Oh, and for Windows 7 and Mac OS, get the retail versions of each!  I don’t touch on that in this post (I can’t afford this at the moment, it’s just a stake in the ground). So let’s look at this!

Desktop Hackintosh Components


Case - The Corsair Carbide Series Black 400R Case is featured in an InsanelyMac Video. I think it's a well thought out case that can handle as many fans as you would ever want, has space for large graphic cards, is easy to work with, and has great cable management. It also lends itself well to expansion (drive bays).

One more thought about cable management: This is important for good airflow. That, in conjunction with not overclocking the processor and graphics card, means that I don't have to worry about getting extra fans. Cooler and Quieter!

Power Supply - The Corsair Professional Series  AX 750 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Gold (AX750) is a very solid performer. I would pick this with an eye towards being able to support additional drives, fans, and cars. I have not researched as to if it would be beefy enough to drive 2 big graphics cards (such as a GTX 680, but, a quick check makes me think it would be just fine).


Motherboard - The Gigabyte Motherboard GA-Z77X-UD5H is a great mid-range choice. Gigabyte makes boards that are well supported in the Hackintosh community, and it helps that Gigabyte Insiders are aware of it.

With so many Gigabyte Motherboards to choose from, one may ask me "why this one?". There are some higher end ones that support bluetooth and wifi, or even Thunderbolt. It's easy to add another $50 by doing things that way. This is the one I point to as to being easy to work with, lends itself to future expansion, known to be compatible, and at a great price point for the overall project.

Processor - The Intel Core i7-3770 Quad-Core Processor 3.4 GHz is a crucial choice for this project. It's an i7, which is the top of the consumer line, but, it is not the more expensive Intel Core i7-3770K. A key difference between the two of them is that the 3770k is unlocked for overclocking ...

... but I dont want to overclock this machine! It's going to be a screamer as is. It is better to take the $30 saved and apply that towards twice as much basic RAM, or twice as much texture memory in the graphics card.

Another benefit from going this route is that by not overclocking, I don't have to worry as much about cooling. I feel comfortable with the idea of using the cooler that comes with the processor, as opposed to spending another $30 - $50 for a more massive one. Having said that, I would pay attention to processor temperature at full load, and ponder swapping in a more beefy cooler if need be. The combination of good cable management, the good case, and not overclocking should all work towards keeping the temperature manageable.

I hope I don't have to come back to this point and eat my hat 😉

Memory - I would get 2 of these for a total of 32gb of memory. Why 32gb? It's a fact that memory is cheap these days (true story: in 1980 I paid $250 or so add 32k to an Atari 400 ...) I'd run a large ramdisk, more than 1 Virtual Machine (Mac, Linux, or Windows) for development and testing (think about simulating separate servers for a web server and database). There are other tasks that can consume all the memory you want to throw at them (video editing comes to mind).

32gb gives a lot of space, and ram disks are a lot faster than SSD. The higher end iteration of this would be to simply have both. The downside of RAM disks is that if you crash hard, bye bye data! 🙂 (it's not as bad as all that .. there are good strategies to checkpoint a RAM disk to something more permanent, to some local storage or over a network) Always be aware of your tradeoffs, and how to minimize their effects.

Learn more about RAM disks for Mac, or Windows

Graphics Card - So we have been saving money by not going crazy with the motherboard and processor. Where are we going to go a little wild?

Yes indeedy! Not just any NVidia, but a EVGA GeForce GTX 680 4096 MB Graphics Card!

That's right... Not overclocking, to keep the price down [1], but with 2x the texture memory that one would expect. I call this planning 🙂 This will come into play when doing things such as heavy Photoshop and/or Video Editing. The other thing to note here is that it is not the faster big brother, the GTX 690. That's much pricier. This, to me, seems like a sweet spot if you are going to have just one graphics card (otherwise I might think of 2 GTX 6xx cards running in SLI mode).

[1] versus some more expensive GTX 680 models... believe me, there are too many of them to wade through

Hard Drive - The hard drive for this machine is pretty anti-climatic. It's the new version of the Seagate Barracuda 7200 1 TB. This is meant to be great starting point towards getting a dual boot Mac and Windows 7 machine going. One could go wild with multiple drives and larger capacities. That doesn't enter into this project. Also note that because I specified 32gb of RAM, it will be easy to make large RAM disks in either Mac or Windows 7. This will be a lot faster than thrashing to scratch disk space (compared to an actual hard disk) in programs such as PhotoShop, Premiere, or Final Cut.

So What Now?

Heh, I shelve it for the moment, and pay some attention to which components I might change.  There isn’t anything here I could forsee changing for 6 months.  It’s pretty up to date.

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Coming Soon: Wishlist for Desktop Hackintosh Build

Say What?  Desktop Hackintosh?

I want to get a better handle on how Amazon Affiliates works. Since I have a strong desire to put together a decent desktop machine, it gives me a chance to point to all of the components on Amazon.

Maybe that article will have tons of hits and people will buy everything on the list and the referral fees will go crazy (deep breath) and… (wake up Daniel! It’s just a dream)

I just want to get a flow going on how to point to multiple items on Amazon.  Perfect to meld it with a pet project I want to do.

So What’s A Hackintosh?

A Hackintosh is an Intel-based machine booting up as a Mac.

Apple makes Macs. Macs run on Intel-based hardware; the same as Windows machines. With a bit of help, Mac OS X, 10.8.2 can run on a wide range of hardware.  In most cases, it can do so faster, for much less than the cost of an iMac or Mac Pro.

As I’ve written recently, I converted my HP 4530s to dual-boot Mac and Windows 7.  I love it. The two part blog series on that is at:

The Story of My Hackintosh Laptop – Part 1 (The Mac side of it)
The Story of My Hackintosh Laptop – Part 2 (adding Windows 7 back to it)

As I said, I love how the laptop came out, but I don’t mistake it for a full-on desktop development machine.  I need speed, memory, and graphics capabilities that I can’t get from my laptop (multiple virtual machines for Dev and Testing, graphics for WebGL, Unity, Machinima, Virtual Photography, Video Editing).  A Hackintosh can be  a very capable Windows 7 box, along with being a Mac Pro Class performer.

What About Amazon Affiliates?

Referral Fees, Baby! I’ll show you some cool stuff, and you might think: “say, little Scooter over there in Kansas City sure could use a honkin Intel Core i7 for Christmas!”. You click it and buy. You’re happy.  I’m happy. Scooter’s only 2, so he’s wailing. We’ll work on this story a bit.

Anyhoooo … one task of mine is to figure out which WordPress plugin works well with Amazon Affiliates.  There are so many …

When Will This Article Come Out?

Really Soon!  I don’t have the funds on hand to actually build the desktop, BUT… I can lay a good foundation, and point to some great resources.  That can get others going (and they’ll send me photos, taunting me with tasty hackintosh snacks, just out of reach).   It also gives me a handy checkpoint down the road, where I can say “ok, now I would use this other graphics card, or this other disk drive, etc”.

More Soon!

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