Found this on Neowin:
Apple has initiated a worldwide battery exchange program for certain rechargeable batteries that were sold for use with 15-inch MacBook Pro computer systems from February 2006 through May 2006.
We recently discovered that some 15-inch MacBook Pro batteries supplied to Apple do not meet our high standards for battery performance. To give our users the best experience possible, we will replace these batteries for customers free of charge.
…
The affected batteries have model number A1175 and a 12-digit serial number that ends with U7SA, U7SB or U7SC.
Mine was one of those affected. I was thinking the battery life was a little weak — glad they realized it too!
Get your replacement: 15-inch MacBook Pro Battery Exchange Program
Technorati Tags: apple, macbook pro, battery, recall, battery life, rechargeable, batteries
So, I decided to try to do an upgrade on my home PC to the new Vista build 5472 (preview). Previously, this machine was running Windows XP Professional. It's been a while since I've taken a look at Vista…probably Beta 1. With 5472 being the post-Beta 2 build, much has improved. The upgrade process was very slow, but I am pretty impressed that everything seems to be functioning normally. I usually hate doing upgrades, and I really don't have anything important on that machine, but I thought I'd try it anyway. A lot of things have improved greatly, but it still appears to be slow. The first day was unbearable — I know it was doing some indexing and defragmentation, but the hard drive was running like crazy. Anyway, I really wanted to see the new eye candy and the PC I have at home didn't have the capability to do Windows Vista Aero. It has an internal video card…but, I soon fixed that problem. It was a good excuse to go get a decent video card, and I picked up a basic ATI Radeon X1300. Wow - I really like the 3D window animations. Needless to say, I'm very excited about Vista. I'm also very excited to see what Apple has in store for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (it'll be demoed at the Worldwide Developers Conference on August 7). A co-worker was showing me Xgl on Linux too, which looks really slick too. I think that's definitely the future of desktop computing. It has the potential to help with organization, and it's definitely fun to play with.
Technorati Tags: windows, vista, aero, glass, leopard, apple, mac os x, ati, radeon, x1300, wwdc, xgl, linux, novell
Yesterday, I went into the local Best Buy and saw the new HD-DVD and Blu-ray players on display. On the HD-DVD side, I saw the Toshiba HD-A1. On the Blu-ray side, I saw the Samsung P1000. These both produce phenomenal results! I've been dying to move up to hi-def DVD — just being able to play movies at true 1080i (I don't have a 1080p TV) and upscale my current DVD's (in standard def) would be awesome. Part of me wants to wait for the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player…but it's so difficult when you walk into Best Buy and see these two units! Anyway…today, I get to work and notice Major Nelson had a podcast Show #183 The one about HD-DVD. I learned a LOT about the two. I highly recommend this podcast. I also didn't realize how strongly people feel for one or the other…check out the comments to Robert Scoble's post about "Grassroots picking HD-DVD over BlueRay?"
Here's my thoughts: Both are awesome! I tend to lean toward HD-DVD just because I hate Sony's attempt to rule the world with Blu-ray…but realistically they're both great! Right now, I think HD-DVD is a better solution. My understanding is that HD-DVD is currently releasing 30GB media, whereas Blu-ray is releasing 25GB (capable of much more). For movies, HD-DVD is also using VC-1, whereas Blu-ray is (currently) using old MPEG-2. What's this mean? Not only is HD-DVD using a much more efficient codec, but it also currently has more storage available…therefore the movies produced are capable of better quality pictures. But — this will change — both Blu-ray and HD-DVD support VC-1. Both are great — and it'll only be a matter of time before we have players that play CD/DVD/BD/HD-DVD for less than $1000.
Technorati Tags: blu-ray, hd-dvd, hd-a1, p1000, 1080p, 1080i, vc-1, mpeg-2, hi-def, bd, dvd, xbox 360
