Now while I was setting up the Leopard machine, I had it sitting in the opposite corner of my cubicle with a standard mouse & keyboard attached, and was getting some wrist pain from that, so I set up ARD screen sharing through VNC on the Leopard machine so I could control it from my PowerBook or the PC. I also have ARD screen sharing through VNC set up on my PowerBook, so…

When I finally figured out to look for the Connect As… button in the the Columns View, of course my first thought when I saw that Share Screen… button was, “Hmmm. What does that do?” So being the geek that I am I clicked it, it asked for my password, and up popped a view of my PowerBook screen. Inside that was a view of the Leopard screen, and inside that was a view of my PowerBook screen, and inside that… You get the idea. Very cool indeed!

Oh, and I almost forgot… I’m controlling my PowerBook through my Lenovo PC via Synergy and QuickSynergy (my post on that here). So it’s Lenovo — PowerBook — Leopard on Intel — PowerBook — Leopard on Intel — PowerBook — Leopard on Intel — ad infinitum…

(click on the image for a full-size screenshot)

Vine Viewer is able to record movies of what’s going on, and once I figure out how to get the file size down a ways (right now it’s full-resolution, and 240MB) I’ll post it, just for fun.

Update: Here it is. Enjoy!

Tomorrow is the 7th Annual Sioux Falls Bike To Work Day. The electric is ready to roll, so I’ll be there, even if it is a long way out of my way. Who can pass up free pancakes?

Free! Convert any media file format (Documents, Images, Audio, Video & Archives) without buying or installing anything on your PC

All you do is upload a file, tell it what format you want it converted to, and it’ll email you with a download link when it’s done. Of course, there are limits to what it can do — MS Publisher files are out of bounds for some reason (Zamzar will do .pub files) — and you certainly don’t want it converting something that contains sensitive or personal information. But for that oddball file that gets emailed to you that you can’t open or convert on your own, it’s great.

And it doesn’t just convert files; if you see a video online, whether it’s on YouTube or just in a weird format, and want to be able to download a copy, just go to YouConvertIt.com’s Video Conversion page; paste the link to the video you want converted, and click the button. In a short while you’ll get an email with a download link. Very slick.

And that’s not all; there’s a separate section that does just unit conversions. Granted, the interface is a little clunky and I can do the same thing and probably more quickly with the Calculator that comes with OS X, but for those times when I need to convert something that Calculator doesn’t handle (like a parsec, which is 19,161,519,629,164.8 miles), it’s pretty darned helpful.

Huzzah!

As cool as that is, I’m certainly not the first to get one; several people have already received the machines they ordered, and one guy sent video and photos to Gizmodo. It’s been a bit funny — yet sobering — reading through posts and comments on Gizmodo; the initial posts were pretty skeptical in nature, and only fueled my own skepticism, but now the tone has changed to disdain for those silly enough to actually purchase one of the machines. Many of the comments are tainted with a base hatred of anything Mac, which is to be expected from that crowd.

I knew up front that buying this machine would be a shot in the dark, and bought it with a Plan B that would put the purchased OS and hardware to work in different roles in the event that they couldn’t be effectively used together. Another article at Gizmodo has a good list of reasons to avoid buying a Mac OS machine from Psystar, and although many of their reasons are very valid, I had considered most of them before buying. The one that will keep this machine out of graphics production is the inability to use Software Update, and the inability to do a reinstall. Oh well. On to Plan B.

But then the reported noise level issue may make even Plan B unworkable, so a Plan C may be needed — putting the hardware into a server role of some sort, or swapping out fans or power supply. But then again, it seems that Psystar is reacting fairly rapidly to customer concerns, so it may well be that this won’t be an issue with mine.

We’ll see.

I just got a phone call from a polite young man by the name of Jose from Psystar to let me know about the delay with the white cases, which would delay my order unless I switched to a black case. I confirmed that switching to the black case was fine with me, and he let me know that the machine would ship within a day or so. From the voice on the line, my guess is that Jose is the same guy who did the speaking part for the a href=”http://www.psystar.com/a_peek_at_the_open_computers.html”>video posted on their website last week.

Granted, there still is no outside confirmation that anything has or will ship, but I’ve got to tell you that if the whole Psystar thing is a scam, these guys are running the con far beyond what you’d expect. If it were a con and I was running it, a phone call to the customers definitely wouldn’t be part of the plan.

News flash: I emailed Rudy yesterday asking for an update on the ship date for the machine I ordered, and got two responses back. The first was time stamped 1:13PM yesterday, but didn’t show in my inbox until this morning:

We would like to inform you that due to the high demand for Open Computing Products, our White Cases are currently out of stock. We can equip your Open Computer with a black case with no delay, or you can keep your order for a White Case, however there will be a delay of at least 15 days.

We apologize for the inconvenience. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact us at Support@psystar.com

Sincerely,

The PSYSTAR Support Team
www.Psystar.com
888-456-7801

Of course I ordered the white box; I don’t know why. It used to be that most all PC’s were in boring beige boxes; these days beige has been supplanted by black, so white is a good alternative to set it apart. I guess. Or maybe it had something to do with the time Toby W. gave me a hard time about that BEST ColorStation we had at CCL that was running on a funky looking black Proliant box, and he thought it was an Apple machine… Whatever.

But then the second message, time stamped 8:21AM, gave a little more encouragement:

We are pleased to inform you that your open computer is currently in the build stage, and is scheduled to be shipped out on monday. You will receive a tracking number with your shipment. Thank you for your patience.
Thank you,
PSYSTAR Support Team
www.psystar.com 305-356-6666

Woohoo! That is most definitely good news!

The email messages and the video give me great hope today that I might actually get my hands on one of these machines, and soon. Here’s hopin’!

And still, there has not been word one from Apple about the whole situation. That is what is truly weird about all of this.

I already had a nice 22″ flat panel Samsung monitor that I’d hook up to the PowerBook while at work, and thought it could work for both machines with a USB KVM switch between the three devices, but had some difficulty getting the Belkin unit I have on hand to work. So I went shopping online for a replacement, with DVI connectors instead of the VGA on mine. But then I happened across a neat piece of software that works so slick, I dropped those plans altogether…

It’s called Synergy, which is an Open Source utility which allows you to set up two or more computers — each with it’s own monitor — and use one keyboard & mouse to control all of them. (So I guess my title on this post is a little off, since it’s more of a Virtual KM switch, but oh well!)

On my desk, the Windows machine acts as the “server” portion of my setup — because the keyboard & mouse are plugged into it — and the PowerBook, being a portable, acts as the client. The setup instructions were a little obscure; definitely not written for the Mac “fire it up and it just works” crowd, but I got it configured ok on the windows side. The Mac side of the software downloaded from the Synergy SourceForge page was totally baffling, so to Google I went for help. What I found is that I wasn’t alone in having trouble getting it to work, but thankfully some kind soul put a GUI on the Open Source code and made it Mac-easy. Downloaded QuickSynergy, draged it to the Applications folder, fired it up, entered the server’s IP address in the Client tab and hit Start; that’s it.

So now I’ve got the Lenovo box hooked up to the keyboard, monitor & mouse, and the PowerBook on a stand right next to the monitor. I move the cursor to the right side of the monitor and it hops over to the PowerBook, just as if the PowerBook’s screen is an extended desktop on the PC, and like the mouse is connected directly to the PowerBook. And when I need a larger screen on the Mac, I push the mouse over to the Mac side, plug the DVI cable into the side of the PowerBook, and press the input switch on the monitor (the PC uses the VGA input.) Extended desktop on the Mac, controlled via the keyboard & mouse on the PC. Several people at work think it’s magic; I almost have to agree with them.

Yes, the Apple BlueTooth keyboard is still sitting there, only because it hasn’t found a new home yet, but it did come in handy while getting things set up. You’ll notice the Logitech TrackMan Wheel on the keyboard drawer; one of the best input devices ever. My hand rests on top of it, my thumb rolls the ball to move the cursor, and I get no wrist pain. Unless of course I end up working on someone else’s machine for an extended time.

Even though the keyboard is Windows-centric, I have no trouble with on the Mac side. The Alt key acts as the Apple key, and the Windows key acts as the Option key. No muss, no fuss. However, I do have trouble remembering which keyboard command to use depending on which machine is being controlled at a given time; most keyboard shortcuts on the Mac involve using the Apple (Command) key, but in Windows it’s Ctrl. Copy on the Mac is Apple-C (or rather Alt-C on the physical keyboard), but Ctrl-C on the Windows side. Ditto with Paste, Undo, Cut, etc… Not a huge issue, but it really drives me nuts some days!

In the photo you also see the Windows Server 2003 screensaver, which is running inside a VMWare console in the foreground on the main monitor; what a cool app that is, and for free even. VMWare lets you run a virtual machine inside a machine — I’ve been using it test on an upgrade to our print management database system (looking forward to that like a root canal) — in much the same way that Virtual PC allowed you to emulate a PC inside a Mac in years past. And at that price it can’t be beat. Another neat thing is that the VMWare site has a huge library of virtual appliances that you can download (either for free or for a price, depending on the device). The virtual appliances are all preconfigured, along with the properly configured OS, and will do any number of chores for you on a network. It’s too amazing for a sidebar here, so I may have to write about that later.

Earlier today I checked the Psystar website, and they must’ve been doing some maintenance on the server or changing something with the configuration; got nothing but errors. And the pit in my stomach came back.

It was Sunday, so it wasn’t difficult to put it out of my mind for most of the day. When I checked it again just now; the site is back, with a new post on the front page saying they’ve contracted with a new payment processor with more capacity (… we challenge you, let’s see if we can max this one out.) Last I heard they had switched to PayPal when the original processor dumped them. I went through the order process just for fun, and no sign of PayPal anywhere, just the standard Visa, MasterCard & American Express.

The post also says that they’ve started shipping orders that were placed the week of April 7; that’s funny, I thought they hadn’t started selling until April 14, which is the first day they showed up on the Internet radar and announced that they were building a Mac clone. They say, “We will be shipping units out of our new facility starting Monday, April 21st, including those orders placed the week of April 14th.” I wonder who the lucky recipients of those early shipped machines are. I keep hoping to see something on the net from one of these people, reporting their experience with the machines.

Forbes Magazine has an article containing an interview with Rudy Pedraza. There, he’s being as evasive as usual, but insistent that Psystar is legitimate, and people who have ordered will receive the goods they’ve ordered. The facts of the matter — that the website is still up, still being updated, and orders can be placed — is all a bit reassuring. I’m still a little nervous, but still holding out hope.

And Apple continues to be silent on the whole matter. Hmmm.

But then I had a decent night’s sleep, and woke up to see this insightful comment on the Gizmodo thread from commenter AJcorex:

Meh, sounds like it’s just a few guys who’ve tried to make it in the world of sales with little success, found somethin that the world wants, and don’t know how to cope with the demand.

all these blunders could be due to the mass hysteria this has all caused.

I’m waitin it out to see what happens. But this is clearly not the work of any con artists, it’s just too full of doofy errors.

So, so very true. If they were con artists they would’ve,

1. known that marketing a Mac-compatible clone would generate the attention — & scrutiny — they’re now receiving;
2. made themselves conveniently unavailable for comment,
3. been long gone with the money and credit card numbers after only a day or so of business.

So, I think I’ll give Psystar the benefit of the doubt and assume that the business is run by a handful of doofuses who are now struggling with the demand and attention they’ve generated, and the with some of the stupid but well-intentioned blunders they’ve made along the way.

Here’s hoping. Still!

Of course, something like this is pretty easy to mock up & fake, but…

The question of Psystar’s legitimacy is still open. Engadget has had a few articles on Psystar, and has spoken at length with owner Rudy Pedraza, who supposedly promised to send a machine to them for testing. It was Tuesday when that was mentioned, and as of today, Engadget has not posted anything on that at all. Hmmm.

Just now I opened Psystar’s home page and found an interesting note:

We’re in the process of moving to a new location which is now listed on our contact page. The first new address posted (10481) was in error and our correct address is 10475 NW 28th Street. PSYSTAR was, prior to this past week, not ready to handle the enormous production capacity demanded by the online community. Due to the incredible response we have now expanded to a larger commercial unit to handle the supplies and assembly of Open Computers. THANK YOU for all of your orders.

Midday yesterday our store was not receiving any orders. This was due to the fact that our merchant gateway, Powerpay, dropped the ball on us and refused to process any more transactions from our company. We have reverted to Paypal until we can find a high-volume merchant. Apparently Powerpay was not ready to handle the community’s demand for Open Computing.

Due to the wave of orders for Open Computers coming through there is currently a 10 to 12 day build time for all products.

The contact page says this new address is in Doral, FL. I popped that address into Google Maps, but it didn’t recognize the city Psystar lists — Doral, FL. Using the Zip Code 33172 brings you to Miami, and shows what looks like yet another residential neighborhood.

That makes the second time they’ve changed their address. The first published address looked like a residential area. The second address was in a commercial area, but a manager at that building has never heard of Psystar. And now this? Dang. What are they trying to pull?

And the thing with their merchant gateway, Powerpay… If this cnet article is true, it turns out that they didn’t exactly “drop the ball”; more like they tossed the hot potato as far as they could when they found out exactly what Psystar was selling.

Another interesting thing I bumped into yesterday was a Google Ad at the OSX86 Project Wiki page:

That’s pretty bold, having a Google Ad on that site, especially considering that the guy who developed the EFI emulator, the gadget at the core of the OSX86 project, claims that Psystar ripped it off without giving him credit.

I’m getting a little nervous. Maybe I should talk with the bean counters & let them know what I’ve done in case they need to undo it with the credit card folks. Gulp.