David G. Shrock's Blog, page 8

MacHack Test

I like OS X for development including Windows development which is my primary job. OS X provides access to Unix tools, building and testing using virtual machines, and an efficient interface for multi-monitor and multi-desktop work. Of course, a Mac is necessary for building iOS applications. Doing all my work on a single machine taking up little desk space seemed very attractive, and that’s what I did in 2009 with the purchase of an iMac.

One problem cropped up: I started avoiding LightWave 3D (CPU intensive 3D modeling and animation software) due to heat. Although the aluminum body on the iMac dissipates heat well, it’s not good enough for CPU intensive tasks running more than a few hours. Placing a fan on the desk moving air behind my iMac helped, but wasn’t desirable. With my iMac getting on in age, I decided to look for another solution.

The only breathable desktop Apple offers is the Mac Pro, but the current selection of machines are based on three-year old technology at overinflated prices. (Apple doesn’t normally reduce prices over time.) Intel was late delivering new Sandy Bridge Xeon processors, but once they did Apple didn’t update the Mac Pro line. Rumor claims, an update may come next year. I don’t need more than 32 Gb of RAM, so I’d be happy with something between a Mac Mini and Mac Pro that supports desktop graphics cards. This xMac doesn’t exist. Might it come next year? If Apple plans on redesigning the Mac Pro, this might be a good time to adjust their desktop selections.

I decided to give building a “hackintosh” a try to see how a mini-Mac Pro might work out. Following the guides on tonymacx86.com (remember to purchase a copy of OS X from the Mac App Store and get it onto a USB drive,) I selected parts targeting OS X Mountain Lion:

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H motherboard.
Ivy Bridge i7-3770 CPU
Asus nVidia GTX570 graphics card
16 GB Corsair Vengeance RAM
Cooler Master HAF 912 case with 120mm fan
Arctic Freezer 13 CPU cooler
1 TB Western Digital hard drive (for Windows)
500 GB Western Digital hard drive (for OS X)

120mm quiet fan

Internal working

Quiet is good. I replaced the stock CPU heat sink with the Arctic Freezer, and the case fan with a larger 120mm fan. The Asus GTX570 consuming three slots remains quiet under heavy load.

I installed Windows 8 Preview on the new drive for reference and make sure all my hardware is functioning. After running a stress test, I installed OS X following the guides. Some say hackintosh installation has become much easier in recent years, but it’s still not something I would recommend to those without PC building experience.

The process of installing the software isn’t push-button easy, but made simpler by choosing known compatible parts. I had to pull my graphics card out for the first phase, relying on the HD4000 in the CPU (which worked perfect.) After first OS X boot with the basic Multibeast files, I put the graphics card back in and everything was happy after that. Note the Multibeast instructions carefully (try this one at macbreaker.) Checking the wrong box may mean restarting the entire installation. Add one thing at a time and reboot after each to make sure OS X starts and the added hardware driver works before going on to the next. My biggest problem turned out to be the audio, which still doesn’t work.

I ran some benchmarks to make sure everything is working properly. The Cinemark test surprised me at 44.5 FPS as I wasn’t expecting full 3D OpenGL acceleration with the GTX570, but scored lower than in Windows 8 at 56.7 FPS. The following charts include the 2009 iMac with i5 for reference.

“LW Sum” represents the sum of three single-frame renderings in LightWave 3D 10.1. According to Geekbench (Primate Labs,) the new machine is nearly twice as fast as the iMac scoring better in Windows 8. In LightWave, tests show near dead even between OS X and Windows 8 at more than twice the speed as the old 2009 iMac.

Except for the audio problem, the HackMac seems to be in working order. I’m uncertain if I want to depend on HackMac for regular work as I hate to be interrupted when I’m deep in the creative process. At this point I’m considering keeping my iMac for iOS development, Photoshop, and VM testing. I’ll use the new machine for LightWave 3D in Windows 8.  Besides, I’ve always felt two computers are better for heavy multi-tasking than one monster computer. (Raytracing 3D images can take many hours.)

using the iMac as a monitor to save desk space

Using the iMac as a monitor has one curious issue: the iMac puts out a bit of extra heat while in Target Display Mode and the fans don’t seem to want to speed up. To compensate, I use smcFanControl to bump the minimum fan speed a little (+300 RPM.)

 

 

Hunger Games Book Review

My brief book review of Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is at Goodreads. I enjoyed it, but felt a little short on it leaving some things open for the next book. My only complaint is the main character’s (Katniss) inner conflict is not as well told as the action, but it did not detract from the story enough to lower my enjoyment.

I haven’t seen the movie yet.

My review on Goodreads:

Overall a fun and exciting story in a post-appoclyptic-style America where the mortal combat arena has returned as popular entertainment. The intro is short taking us right to Katniss volunteering in place of her sister, Prim, chosen as one of two tributes from District 12. The story fills in more details about Katniss and her family’s past as the story evolves. The pace is great moving from the tribute preparation, building character, into the arena where Katniss deals with survival and also her inner conflict with self-image. Her relationship issues are only partially resolved, but the ending prepares for the second book.

The first-person perspective works well for the most part including pulling the reader into the action, but struggles in other areas in particular to Katniss’s inner conflict with her self-image and relationships. The reader is given too much knowledge about her co-tribute’s feelings that Katniss almost appears stupid. Pulling the reader tighter into her self-image would negate this shortcoming and work better with the first-person present tense. I find this is only a minor bump, not enough to detract from the story.

Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale 2012

Find new books at the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale during July. My books are taking part with Raven Memory at 50% off using SSW50 code, Shadow Memories at 100% off using SSWIN, and Kandy Fangs is free all year long.

Busy, Busy

I’ve been busy fixing up my new home taking care of the essentials and sprucing the place up. Essentials include fixing broken items, removing dead critters from dark recesses, yard maintenance, and rescuing a neglected deck. When there’s extra minutes to spare I clean, polish, and paint. All that and I continue working near normal hours, maybe a little less. It’s exciting—including the dead things.

Writing fiction is on hold for a while at least until my imaginary friends start bugging me again.

Dee Count Update 1.4

Dee Count 1.4 minor update includes improved art for the new iPad and not much else. Use the software support form to send suggestions or requests.

PayPal Updates Terms

As noted by Mark Coker on the Smashwords blog, "PayPal Revises Policies to Allow Legal Fiction," PayPal has worked with the ebook community to adjust their terms covering sales of erotica content.

This is about distributing legal fiction, and always has been. As stated in my previous post, it's about money and the law. The difference between obscene and literary value sometimes becomes debatable, but it should be the responsibility of the retailers and community to determine.

I don't blame credit card companies for trying protect themselves, or increase their revenue by taking advantage of sales of questionably obscene material, but it's in everyone's best interest to find a fair way for everyone to continue business. Ebook retailers risk may increase, but I believe most of them already take responsibility and work with the community like Smashwords has shown.

PayPal Erotica Crackdown

In the last few weeks, PayPal has asked several ebook vendors including Smashwords and Bookstrand, to remove their erotica titles in order to continue service sparking a number of articles from sites like Huffington Post and TechCrunch. See "The PayPal Fiction Crackdown Roundup" at Dear Author for a background overview. Several bloggers and commenters have brought up morality and censorship, some asking how a payment transaction service can decide what vendors may sell. It's not about morality or corporations trying to control others.

It's about money and the law.

Some have brought up censorship and morality enforcement including the TechCrunch post which says, "it's clear that PayPal thinks it can police the Internet." The "morality police" claims (one comment and another,) seem to come from PayPal trying to categorize books with defined subject matter as noted by Mark Coker of Smashwords in an email to authors posted here that, "Their hot buttons are bestiality, rape-for-titillation, incest and underage erotica." This would appear to include some mainstream and historical books, but likely this is an attempt by PayPal's acquiring banks to differentiate obscene erotica from romance and other literature.

Mark Coker identified the source of the problem in his second email to authors posted here with this statement:

PayPal is trying to implement the requirements of credit card companies, banks and credit unions. This is where it's all originating. These same requirements will eventually rain down upon every other payment processor.

This has already been going on in other industries doing business on the web including porn, gambling, dieting and tobacco. These are considered by banks as high risk (see list on merchant-accounts-services.org) due to higher than normal fraud, chargebacks, or questionably legal sales. Any vendor may be considered a high risk if their chargebacks are greater than one percent, but the banks and processors categorize certain businesses as high risk from chargeback statistics or industries that may have a history of illegal activities. It's also to a money processor's advantage to categorize sales of questionably obscene materials or services as high risk to charge more fees.

Vendors selling merchandise or services in these high-risk areas pay extra fees as outlined by instabill.com on their Adult Merchant Account used by some porn sites. However, porn sites still have to be careful about what is depicted due to laws about distributing obscene materials.

The US law forbids distribution of obscene materials—which are not protected by the First Amendment. The Miller Test from US Supreme Court in 1973 defines obscene material as satisfying three conditions (source):

the average person would find that the work, taken as a whole and applying contemporary community standards, appeals to the prurient interest;
the work depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, when applying contemporary community standards; and
the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Selena Kitt, an ebook publisher of Excessica and erotica author, makes the point on her blog (http://theselfpublishingrevolution.blogspot.com/2012/02/slippery-slope-erotica-censorship.html) that PayPal would rather not pay for high-risk accounts, and so must comply. In her search for an alternative, Selena Kitt found out that Amazon Payments have a similar rule against the sale of "'sexually explicit materials.'" In a comment of the TechCrunch post, she continues saying that she has tried many other merchant accounts for credit card processing, including those specializing in porn sites, and turned down for "'illegal activity.'"

Why now? PayPal has been processing transactions from these vendors for years, likely under the assumption that none of the ebooks being sold were obscene and the vendors doing their due diligence to remove obscene ebooks. Now they know, or they believe there is a risk. There is no attempt at policing the internet here. PayPal is following terms of service with banks to reduce risk.

The rising success of erotica authors has captured the attention of credit card companies that don't want to risk becoming involved in accepting payments for (questionably) illegal sales. Ebooks containing rape, incest, or bestiality is not a problem as long as the work as a whole is considered artistic, scientific, or has literary value. Vendors like Smashwords and Excessica need to fight showing that they take care in removing purely obscene materials, and even then they may still find themselves in a high-risk category without PayPal services due to varying views on what is considered to have no literary or artistic merit. The banks and credit cards still want their fees. If there is enough profit in erotica literature, then someone will find a way to continue selling likely to come with higher fees. After all, it's about money.

Note:  I don't read erotica, I have no knowledge if any of these vendors have ever sold obscene ebooks, and I'm not a legal expert. I think it's fair to say there is a perceived risk of distributing obscene materials—no different than any other adult entertainment—whether that perception is based on law or monetary gain.

Ebook Week 2012

[image error]It's Read an Ebook Week, March 4-10. As part of the fun, my ebooks are free on Smashwords using coupon code RE100.

Shadow Memories, collection of shorts.

Raven Memory, a novel.

Kandy Fangs, a novella. Always free.

Learn more about Read an Ebook Week at ebookweek.com.

Dee Count v1.3 update

 

1.3 includes a productivity improvement and a fix.  Learn more about Dee Count for iPad.

Productivity Improvement

The custom count button (?) now updates the value and selects the button beside it (normally a 12) allowing for quicker repeated custom count entries. The custom button remains denoted by the question mark, and the third button becomes your custom value. The custom entry pad now always starts blank for quicker entry. This is perfect for when there are several products without barcodes that are counted by hand. In the older versions, this required an extra button tap and deleting the current custom value.

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Screen shot of new count buttons

In the above screen shot, the current count selection is 3 and the custom entry is set to 5. Tapping the ? opens the count by entry pad.

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Screen shot of custom count entry

Let's say we have a product missing a bar code, and we counted by hand to find 24 on the shelf. Enter 24 and tap OK. The 24 is already selected, so we type in the product code.

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Screen shot of adjusted custom count entry

Fixed

In landscape orientation, sometimes several of the action menu buttons didn't work. Now works in iOS5 and iOS4, tested in iPad 2 and original iPad.

 

In Dee Count with iOS 5 there seems to be a ...

In Dee Count with iOS 5 there seems to be a glitch with the actions menu. When the menu shows up at half-height, some of the buttons don't work. I'm looking into it. A workaround is to turn the iPad to the tall orientation and re-open the menu.