Today Motorola responded to all of the eFuse nonsense with something that makes the situation a bit better.

Motorola’s primary focus is the security of our end users and protection of their data, while also meeting carrier, partner and legal requirements. The Droid X and a majority of Android consumer devices on the market today have a secured bootloader. In reference specifically to eFuse, the technology is not loaded with the purpose of preventing a consumer device from functioning, but rather ensuring for the user that the device only runs on updated and tested versions of software. If a device attempts to boot with unapproved software, it will go into recovery mode, and can re-boot once approved software is re-installed. Checking for a valid software configuration is a common practice within the industry to protect the user against potential malicious software threats. Motorola has been a long time advocate of open platforms and provides a number of resources to developers to foster the ecosystem including tools and access to devices via MOTODEV at http://developer.motorola.com.

This is very good compared to bricking the phone.  At least the phone can be recovered by the user instead of having to ship it to Motorola for a repair(not sure of the complete details and how warranty would work).  I’m also happy to see that Moto responded so quickly to the public.  However, this still does not sit well with me as Android was developed with developers and tinkering in mind.  If I want to mess around with my device, why can’t I?

(Thanks to Tom for pointing this out for me)

According to a source at My Droid World (and Motorola themselves), the Droid X has an eFuse chip installed in the device. The long and short of it is that Motorola has installed this eFuse in the new Droid X which checks the phone for the proper kernel, boot-loader, and ROM and if the proper software is not found it will automatically “trip a fuse” to corrupt the phone’s boot-loader forcing you to get it repaired and will most likely void your warranty. Oh and did I mention that the phone can ONLY be repaired by Motorola, so the Verizon Store won’t help you (well, they’ll ship it to them for you) and you’ll most likely end up pay for a new phone.

Why is Motorola doing this to their phones? According to the Motorola blog:

We understand there is a community of developers interested in going beyond Android application development and experimenting with Android system development and re-flashing phones. For these developers, we highly recommend obtaining either a Google ADP1 developer phone or a Nexus One, both of which are intended for these purposes. At this time, Motorola Android-based handsets are intended for use by consumers and Android application developers, and we have currently chosen not to go into the business of providing fully unlocked developer phones.

Now if I read that correctly, Motorola just told people to buy an HTC device (the Nexus One or a Google ADP1 dev phone) and not their product because their “Android-based handsets are intended for use by consumers and Android application developers.” So, the DROID was a fluke? Well…

When we do deviate from our normal practice, such as we did with the DROID, there is a specific business reason for doing so. We understand this can result in some confusion, and apologize for any frustration.

You’re joking, right? You deviated on the DROID for a “business reason” and now that everyone loves your Android-based phones, you’re going to change it? How stupid does that sound?

First, if you’re going to say you have a reason you could at least tell the people what that reason was even if it’s most likely about money. Secondly, why would you want to change something that has worked already? You know the whole “no fix if no broke” thing? The DROID was probably the best smartphone released last year because of it’s features and it’s openness. Taking one of those key selling points away is really going to piss people off. Also, not only is it frustrating, it’s just a punch right in the face of all the people who praised your phone for it’s openness.

What happens when (like the MyTouch 3g and G1, etc) the developers stop caring about a phone so much that they don’t release a new version of Android for it, when their phones are still capable of running them? Or if Motorola decides not to update the SenseUI on the phone and you’re stuck with whatever they stop with? Well, of course you’re supposed to buy another phone from them, but it probably won’t be a Moto phone if the eFuse is still there. But there are a lot of people want to get all they can from their device (I mean, you did pay $200+ for it!). So they’ll end up going the route of rooting a phone and installing a modded Android install and continue to be happy with your device. Does it change that fact that it’s still a Motorola brand phone? No, it just shows that your hardware still kicks ass 2 years after it was released instead of going to the bottom of the old electronics drawer or whatever.

I realize not everyone cares about modding their phones, hell it’s most likely a larger portion than the people who do care, but the issue is that Motorola is making it okay for a company to brick YOUR phone if they don’t like what you do to it. You know, the phone YOU paid for with YOUR money (which Motorola took of course!). A lot of people buy devices based on how much the company lets you tinker with the device after you buy it.

I’m almost positive that the phone will still be hacked, but this is going to cause a big backlash in the Android community against Motorola (and probably Verizon even though they most likely have nothing to do with it). A lot of Android folk are very pro-open-source and while the software is still “open” the hardware will strike you down if you try to change it.

While I won’t tell people not to buy a Moto phone again I will say that the Droid X will probably be a bad choice if you’re going to alter the base software or if you want the phone to last a long time.

The lab is primarily used for video editing and 2D/3D graphic design. These are three very expensive fields when it comes to software. For video editing we use Final Cut Studio 2. We have a lab license which allows us to run 5 copies at any single time; this license costs us a one-time upgrade fee of around $2000. Of course we had to have Final Cut Studio before that so you need to factor that cost into it also. I’m not sure how much it was originally, but I’m guessing between 2 and 5k. Now, we don’t pay a yearly fee or anything, it’s installed, and it works. No fuss. Is there anything else out there we could use, something free? Maybe cheaper?

In short, no.

There really is nothing like Final Cut Pro out on the market. (And don’t tell me Adobe Premiere Pro because I’ll just have to punch you in the face) Avid is around, it’s been around, it will probably always be around; but it’s not FCP. Avid is a whiny little pain in the ass that doesn’t work if it doesn’t get it’s way, not to mention it’s about $2000/license. No thanks. So FCP is something we’re stuck with it looks like, no big loss. (I know there are open source editors out there, but they’re just not as good and intuitive as FCP is at all, so don’t bring that up.) With respect to Adobe, we do have 1 license of After Effects. It hardly gets used, but it’s really a good program from what I’m told.

Next is 2D graphic design. This one is a bit simpler. We use Adobe Creative Suite 3 (no, we didn’t upgrade to CS4) which comes with Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, and Acrobat Pro. We’ll ignore Flash for now because we really can’t use anything else that I know of. Photoshop is the standard graphics/photo editing software, the weapon of choice for graphic designers if you will. Without this piece of software your digital media lab (or in this case, my lab) is a laughing stock of the DM world. However, there are freebies out there, although they might not be as good they sure as hell will do the job well. GiMP and GiMPShop are around and have been for a long time. This Linux counterpart to Photoshop gives users who cannot afford the price tag from Adobe the ability to make beautiful graphics like the pros. It’s tools are almost 100% similar, and it’s interface can also be with the help of GiMPShop. I would show screen shots comparing the two, but I can’t seem to get GiMPShop to run on my laptop. (BTW, the two run with X11, not natively.)

InDesign and Illustrator are programs I am not so sure about replacing, I’ve never tried alternatives to them. I know there are a few out there though. Inkscape is one that looks like a promising Illustrator replacement, it’s free too! For InDesign we have Quark of course; although Quark is rapidly getting replaced my InDesign, and one called Scribus, another open source replacement. I’ve never used any of these so I cannot speak for them, but if you’re looking, try them out!

Dreamweaver is for web-development. It’s more of a helper for most new developers. It’s gotten a lot better over the years, but it’s still nothing that cannot be replaced by good ol’ hand coding with TextMate or whatever editor you prefer. These are all wonderful, some are free, some are not. However, for true web editing I have to give props to Coda by Panic. I’ve mentioned before that I love this program. I do. I really think this is probably one of the best code/web/css editing programs on the market, ever. It’s beautiful, and it’s functional. It’s also $99. Does this bother me? No. Each penny of that $99 is worth it. If you’re just doing web stuff, don’t go near Dreamweaver, get Coda, as a matter of fact, get multiple copies of Coda to give to friends. That’s how much I love it.

Look at this beautiful CSS editor! I can also edit the code of the CSS and ANY OTHER CODE WITH CODE HINTING!

Now we come to 3D graphics. Our choice program in the lab is Autodesk Maya 2008 Unlimited. Maya is the “industry standard” for 3D graphics, right with 3D Studio Max; both of which are now owned by Autodesk…weird huh? Maya comes with so much stuff that it’s very hard to find a comparable program. Some difficulties come up with licensing (you need to be running a license server if you have a set number of licenses, and you need to make sre you get Unlimited or Complete. The difference is just what kind of fluids or fur you get, whatever. I like Maya to a certain extent. it’s powerful and fairly easy, but it’s licensing is annoying, and it costs a good amount for upkeep. We need to constantly upgrade if we want the bugs to go away (because lord knows you don’t want to keep fixing your software after the first service pack which we paid a few thousand dollars for in the first place) and if we want service for the license we bought, that’s also more money.

Maya's starting interface.

To replace Maya many people opt for Blender; Maya’s open-source cousin from the Dutch. Blender is completely free, and it does a lot of the things Maya does. It really is an excellent replacement for Maya; however, it’s got a steeper learning curve than Maya. While Maya may still be considered difficult to grasp anyway, Bender is like a nightmare to some 3D artists I’ve known. So if you can learn Blender (which by the way has all documentation online free as all good programs should) you will probably be very happy with the results.

A random screenshot from Blender 2.4 from Wikipedia.

Besides these main programs I have taken liberties to find free versions of other programs for my lab machines as replacements to troublesome or other non-free programs. Adobe Acrobat 9 has a nasty issue with network users on Mac OS, it crashes…all the time. I’ve taken Acrobat off and replaced it with a PDF plugin for Safari and Firefox. If someone wants to use Acrobat Pro, which is VERY rare here, then they can ask me to install it for them, for now Preview works just as well. AppFresh is a free program that checks all of your programs for updates and allows you to install them at once. very handy for updating the lab machines. And I can’t forget my favorite free buddies Carbon Copy Cloner and DeployStudio, without these FREE tools I would have be dead trying to deploy the lab and backup systems.

So, if you’re on a tight budget and you’re looking for cheaper alternatives, try out some of these. They might end up being better for you in the long run. If you have any other programs to suggest, drop a comment, I’d love to try some new programs out. Just remember, sometimes you don’t get what you pay for.

A few months ago Windows 7 build 7000 came out, I signed up for the beta and downloaded it.  I figured I’d give it a shot.  I had been using Windows XP on my MacBook Pro for a bit and I wasn’t really into Vista much so I decided, what the hell.  I installed the 32-bit version on my computer (I know my laptop is 64-bit but there’s a weird issue with installing 64-bit windows on this version of the MBP, can be fixed but didn’t know at the time) and began using it.

The first thing I noticed was the look and feel of the OS.  It’s very aesthetically pleasing; much nicer than XP and a small step up from Vista.  I noticed that the taskbar at the bottom was now like the dock in OS X, programs show up there when running (icon only) and you can “pin” the icon there permanently for later use; also, if you mouse over the icon you get a small snapshot of the window or program running, clever.  Windows 7 ups the graphics a bit in some visual effects which drastically challenges your graphics card at times, but of course the effects can be disabled; however, I only noticed this issue with it when attempting to run Windows 7 in Parallels (note to self, don’t try again).

Another thing I noticed about 7 is that it’s fairly speedy and responsive.  After installing my MBP drivers on the system the computer runs very nicely; no hiccups, no glitches, no lockups, very solid.  I began testing some small duties on it after a bit: typing, searching, surfing, etc.  I have yet to install and heavy programs like Premiere Pro or Photoshop yet, but that’s only because I don’t need to…I use Mac OS for that.  The main use of my Windows install is for Steam.  I installed steam and Left 4 Dead (among other games) and the games play fine.  I have had only one lockup playing Left 4 Dead and I don’t think t was a Windows issue.  The game loads FAST so I have no complaints about that.

I’ve also been using the latest Windows Media Player on it; another program which I used to avoid at all times.  The new WMP is pretty nice; it plays what I want it to play, and it looks better.  I even like how it organizes your music when loaded up with album art.

One surprising thing I was very happy to find was when I was repairing my girlfriend’s Sansa View media player.  In Windows XP you can load it up like a regular drive, or using windows media player, it only gives the option to open or play, thats really about it.  I was shocked to see that when I plugged the player into Windows 7 it gave me a window with the correct product, the ability to update the firmware, sync pics music and videos, play, etc.  This made me very happy to see it had built in Sansa support (and if it didn’t at first it downloaded it from the internet!).  It made it so much easier to fix the player and organize the music on the player.

Now Windows 7 isn’t completely without it’s problems.  While the interface is beautiful it does do some work on your graphics card at times.  I have an ATI Radeon x1600 with 256MB video memory in my MBP, the graphics did hang sometimes (not too much) but it was definitely doing something.  It might also be about the drivers, ATI has released some Windows 7 beta drivers, but again they are only beta.  Another thing I noticed was that I couldn’t install some programs; MacDrive and Symantec EndPoint Protection.  This is possibly the case in Vista also, but it did kinda suck that it wouldn’t install them.  The system also still complains a lot about security issues which gets annoying after a bit, but you can decrease the sensitivity of the annoyances to a certain extent.

So, the good definitely outweighs the bad here and I’m looking forward to seeing Windows 7 when it’s complete.  I believe that if this beta is this good, then Windows 7 has a damn good change of being “the next XP.” Overall, I’m very happy with Windows 7 and I’m very happy to see a Microsoft OS that functions well and is easy on the eyes.

Note: I am running Windows 7 build 7000, I have not installed 7100 or RC1.  I may have to update if anything changes with later builds, but for now I’ll leave it at this.

If you’re any sort of tech with multiple computer that need to be imaged every so often you know how much of a hassle it can be.  If you have a NetBoot system running it’s a breeze; however, this ease usually comes at a cost (money cost that is).  Mike Bombich, founder of Bombich software has created some useful Mac applications over the years. One is Carbon Copy Cloner, a program which I use all the time and find to be one of the fastest, easiest, and safest methods of cloning any drive (to either another drive or a disk image).

The other program which I use very often is NetRestore and NetRetore Helper.  NetRestore and it’s helper are VERY easy-to-use GUI interfaces to create a MacOS netBoot image and netRestore image for deployment over multiple machines.  My lab has 10 Macs in it which don’t get updated all at once sometimes, and at the end of each semester the computers all have a lot of left over student files and different versions of some software running.  NetRestore makes it very simple for me to make a clean, updated image of a lab machine, then just boot from the network from the other machines and it takes care of the rest. It’s usually 100% automated, and completes all computers in about 2-3 hours.

What makes these pieces of software better than say, Norton Ghost or SuperDuper! or whatever? They’re 100% free to use.  Yep, no charge at all.  No catch, no signing up for anything, no logging into the site to download, NOTHING.  The only thing you’d have to deal with is an advertisement on CCC’s progress screen.  Very small price to pay for this software.

So, why am I writing about NetRestore now?  Well, because I like it and I would definitely reccommend it to anyone who needs to deploy multiple Macs.  But I am writing now because NetRestore has reached it’s end of life. On November 17, 2008 Mike Bombich posted a letter on his site explaining the reasons for ending NetRestore.  It’s very funny when I am sad to see a program go away, but it’s sad to see such a good program go away.  I also find it ironic that of all the software I have never paid for, I have actually donated money to Mike Bombich for all of his hard work for his free programs. That’s how much I like this software.

Even though NetRestore has reached EOL, I will still be using it on all of my lab machines until it stops working on them.  Thanks Mike for all of your hard work, and I’ll continue using CCC for all of my cloning needs:-)

Visit Bombich.com for more info on CCC or NetRestore

Just a short note: In his letter, Mike Bombich reccommends a site called DeployStudio,  I have yet to use this to deploy the lab, but the program does seem promising and nice.  I’ll use it someday and maybe give a review.  Until then, Bombich’s NetRestore will be king.