How will the new MacPro work with BootCamp?

MacPro-Black

Of course Apple has announced the new strange MacPro, though not answered all of our questions about it. And my biggest question at the moment is about BootCamp, which because of Windows limitations of only being installed within the computer.

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I know on Laptop’s the only solution then is to partition your SSD harddrive and install windows there, but on current MacPro’s you can use an entire secondary hard drive as your bootcamp partition.

The new MacPro is run by a single SSD harddrive, so as of now it looks like you will have to partition, and install Windows on that, which means you will need a very large and expensive SSD drive to fit a full working windows environment and a full working Mac environment.

My current MacPro’s boot drive is a 3TB hard drive, which has 1.43 TB used. And 902.4 GB of that is used by my user. The scary part of that is that is with all of my extensive iTunes library on an external SAS. And that still leaves 500GB of data for my system and applications on Mac, which is pretty big for an SSD drive. I know there are ways to move your user to a separate hard drive, but it isn’t easy and is easy to really screw up your system! And honestly I wouldn’t really want my user to be external to the system.

Of course much can be moved out of my user, I have 219 GB in Parallels, which I could easily stop using now that I use bootcamp. And I have 117 GB in MobileSync files, which seems like an awful lot of iOS backups. And I just looked and After Effects CC has 107 GB of Disk Cache in my Application Support folder! Youch! Need to figure that out. Hell I have 14.3 GB of Mailboxes for Mail! Youch that is a lot of files, but still files within my User folder that would take up too much space on a single SSD drive!

Well it is a moot point right now, as I have my old MacPro, and couldn’t afford a new model even if it was out and all the questions were answered, but what freaks me out the most is see myself leaning more towards building a bad ass PC, and I really don’t want to give up on Mac as a platform. So maybe a Mac Laptop and a PC, or so I got he Hackintosh route? Some say they are so unstable and hard to upgrade (as you have to wait till files are updated and hacked so you can upgrade), but then I could have a Mac and a PC and have what I really want, a tower bigger than a current old tech MacPro. Something like the ASUS z9PE-D8 WS motherboard in the EEB form factor with dual Xeon’s. That could literally stomp on the single Xeon in the new MacPro and i could run Dual NVIDIA Geforce for Titan’s for graphics. That would be an amazing machine, expensive sure, but I would have so much fast internal storage and I wouldn’t have to invest in a ton of money in Thunderbolt peripherals (especially since Thunderbolt has not really caught on, and it doesn’t seem to be catching on very big in the PC world which means it will always be a niche product).

Digg updates iOS app, still too little too late?

Digg has updated it’s iOS app to work with digg reader, but is it too little too late? Again as with the Digg web browser, my rss feeds are totally out of order, and can’t be re-ordered within the app. There aren’t many viewing or share options (it uses iOS’s sharing feature).
Hopefully this gets better, but for now I will stick with Mr. Reader 2.0 syncing with Feedly!

Mr Reader 2.0 for iPad iOS

MacStories has a great article on the new version of the iPad RSS reader Mr. Reader 2.0.

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Mr. Reader 2.0 an awesome $3.99 iOS iPad RSS reader, that gives Reeder a run for it’s money, and more so right now since it works with may more services than the iPad REEDER app which has not been updated in a while (though the update is promised).

Mr Reader 2.0 is fast and works with BazQux, Feedbin, FeedHQ, Feedly, Feed Wrangler and Fever. It also works with 1Password if you use that (please add support for SplashID Safe my password record keeping of choice).

Even more imprressive is it’s incredible sharing features! First off you can view the entries in the original RSS, a Full Web Version (far superior to Feedly’s pitiful web browser with no back and forward controls), Instapaper, Readability and Pocket. Then you can use a ridiculous amount of sharing services that you can re-order and do with as you please. You can add other browsers, other apps, like Hootsuite and many others, add mail actions, or even bookmarklets, so if you are viewing the web version you can share to Pinterest which no other RSS reader that I know of lets you do! And you can even download custom color schemes for the app!

This is an awesome program! So awesome I wish they had a paid web browser version that was this good, as I would totally use it, and use another service as my backend. It is so much better than the web interfaces of Feedly, Feedbin, Digg or BazQux!

This is an awesome app, and currently my iOS RSS reader of choice!!! You can get it at the iTunes store.

Bazqux is another Paid reader alternative

So there is a new Paid Google Reader alternative4 called BazQux Reader.
bazqux

You get a 30 day free trial, and then you can pay either $9, $19 or $29 a year to use the service.

It promises to be very Google Reader like, supposedly using the exact same API, all that needs to be changed is the address to allow programs to work with it.

It does not have a search function as of yet though.

And it has more sharing options than some allowing you to go to e-mail, twitter, facebook, google plus, tumblr, evernote, delicious, pinboard, pocket, readability and instapaper, though you can’t seem to turn off the share feeds you don’t want to use or re-order them in any way.

It is fast and very google reader like though, and since it is paid they promise not to go away.

Digg Reader Beta is Out

So for people who signed up for the beta, Digg Reader has been released as a desktop web only version (which that link will let you sign up for the beta), which will import your Google Reader feeds directly from Google Reader (while it is still up). I was able to try it out today and it is fast, and it imports your feeds very quickly, though doesn’t seem to care what order you have imported them in, and they are certainly not alphabetical, so you will have to re-order your feeds to use them.
diggreader

It has a clean interface, but not many options. You can digg posts, save them for later and share them with Facebook and Twitter and that is it. And they have not updated the mobile app yet, so you can only use it on your desktop computer via a web browser.

Like other alternatives it has no search function as of yet.

It is a decent enough free RSS reader, though not all that impressive as of yet.

New MacPro GeekBench Scores

Well the new MacPro (not the final release version) is showing up in MacBench scores according to MacRumors, and the results are pretty good. Currently getting a 23901.

My MacPro model stock rates an 11970, and mine currently rates at 13510, so it is about the speed of my stock machine faster. Pretty impressive. Still there are Hackintosh’s easily getting 28000 or higher (if overclocked), so it is not as impressive as it could be!

Adobe Encore CS6 is the last version

Rich Young at PVC is reporting on this and how to install it if you have Creative Cloud.

Personally I hate this. DVD Studio Pro is already dead, and ancient and now Adobe’s disc making software is gone too. Sure we can use the old version, but it will never be updated again? That really sucks! This is a very Apple ish move, and I personally don’t like it. Yes digital delivery is huge now, but there is still a time and place for disc based media as it looks better, and with 4K on the horizon, it will be sticking around in one form or another for a long time.