MacBook PRO with Retina Display Review

First and foremost, I must caution Mac fans, iZealots and other Apple fanbois that there is content (text and photography) that you might consider NSFW below. Now, I'd be lying to you if I were to tell you that this was an impulse purchase. On the contrary, I already knew I wanted to buy a Mac laptop for some time. What was fortunate is that I didn't decide to buy a different Mac earlier in the year and was able to get Apple's latest model. Another thing that I'd like to make clear is that my expectations for this machine were and are quite high, not just because of the hype, but because it's quite costly relative to "comparable" non-Apple models.

So, moving on to the fun stuff: 

The "unboxing": One of the (positive) things that I remember from owning an Apple laptop some ten years ago, is the care that Apple puts on the customer experience -- this includes the presentation of the box. This time, though, Apple had a lot to live up to. Not only they sold me a new take on MacBook PROs, but at this price tag it better damn be apart from the rest. It was what I expected, but that also means that they failed to blow me away -- again just speaking of the box and product presentation. Below is a slideshow of the unboxing and first boot. 

The actual box is plain and elegant, but nothing to write home about. Inside was: the MBP, the power brick and cord and a getting started book that greeted me "Hello."

Look and feel: the machine looks slick and feels very well put together. All seems to be placed in the right spots and all other things tucked away and snug, as they should. Perhaps this is something most people don't mind, but I cannot stand all the gaudy "Intel Inside" "NVidea" "WiFi" stickers most PC manufacturers place near the keyboard that tend to peel off and leave nasty gooey glue behind. I surely am glad the MacBook Pro was pristine and immaculate. The machine feels solid and by that I mean not just in terms of build quality, but also in terms of weight. Apple managed to cause a bit of cognitive dissonance due to the visually sleek and low profile of this laptop, it gives the impression of being lighter that it actually is. After opening the lid for the first time (i.e. the MBP still off), the retina display stands dark, abundant glare but otherwise unremarkable. The keyboard sits sunk in a sort of embossed plateau so as not to be in contact with the display. The speakers to the either side of the keyboard taking a relatively big chunk of real estate. On the sides are the Thunderbolt, USB3, power and HDMI ports.

First boot: a few moments after I turned on the machine for the first time, the Retina display lit up. A mere seconds later I was already in the account setup screen. After finishing entering the information plus WiFi setup, I was presented with the login screen.

First login: as soon as I logged in for the first time is when the Retina display showed its true self. All I can say is "WOW". It's really, really, really great. Great color, great contrast, great resolution. I didn't think it would make such a big difference, but it does and then some. I don't know if the Retina display costs $400 (over the non-Retina MBP), but after seeing it with my own eyes, it surely made a good case for itself. Another HUGE plus is the complete lack of crapware and bloatware just about every PC manufacturer always include. No Norton pop-ups, no Comcast ads, no game demos, in short, no bulls**t.

Performance: at this price level and looking over the spec sheet it's not hard to infer that this machine is a monster. And this inference does translate to reality. The machine feels very snappy and responsive. I downloaded and installed several applications like VirtualBox, Python, SublimeText 2 very fast and without delay. Granted, I have yet to tax it with heavy video processing or 3D gaming, but as far as I can tell this machine will stand up to any challenge (also, after I try some video editing and gaming, I'll post the info).

Preliminary conclusion: I've had this machine only for a few hours, so I don't think it would be fair or responsible to give a definitive opinion about it; however, for the few things that I have done and the look and feel I can say that this is a serious machine that means business. Whether it's worth $2K+ price tag, it's way too early for me to tell. Do I recommend it? Well, again, given the provision above that I need more of my usage data to make an informed and educated opinion, I'd say if you are itching to buy a Mac and you have the money, I don't think you'll be disappointed if you get one of these.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview Review

TL;DR version: lots of potential, I like what I'm seeing thus far.

Slightly more elaborate version: Microsoft's next gen of the Windows family is (and has been) out for public  preview (which can be freely downloaded here). Installing it on a blank drive was a breeze and without issues. With the exception of my laptop vendor's driver for dynamic graphic-card switching, all other hardware was detected and properly configured. From the get go, you can tell that they are making an effort to modernize their well-known and familiar UI; however, this can end up being a double-edge sword  for them.

Metro UI: At first, while I found the Metro UI visually pleasing, I wasn't sure how to navigate my way to the familiar and ubiquitous Windows desktop paradigm we all are so accustomed to.  Also very obvious is Microsoft's concerted effort to foster and push its own computing ecosystem (SkyDrive, Bing Maps, Search, Internet Explorer, and so forth) which is something they have not very good at in the past few versions of Windows. Don't get me wrong, they are not trying to put a wall around you or insistently annoying you. No, they simply visually encourage you (i.e. prevalent screen real estate)  to use those services and apps for a better experience. So, after some trial and error, I figured out how to get to the familiar desktop. Once there, the first thing I realized is that there isn't "Start" button in the task bar. So what happens when you click the "Windows" button on your keyboard (or CTLR + ESC)? You are taken back to the Metro Dashboard. And then it clicked (in my head). The Metro Dashboard is the "start" menu but taken literally -- which is a really neat thing -- but it will take some getting used to for some users. After installing some necessary software (i.e. Chrome and VirtualBox), I set out to "explore". So, I learned when you put the mouse pointer near the lower (or upper) right corner a menu shows up gives the options of settings, search, devices, share, etc. You can go to the Start area and once there, you can press ESC to return the the app you were working with. Also in that Start dashboard, if you click on your username, you'll see a menu with options to log off/switch users and so forth. While in the Start dashboard, if you right click, you'll get a choice to see all installed apps which can be helpful if you are looking for an app but don't remember its name. Also really neat, while in that same area, as soon as you start typing anything, windows will search for an app with those letters you have just typed.

Apps Compatibility: all apps I've installed have worked without any problem. VirtualBox installed and runs an Ubuntu image flawlessly. Chrome runs without a hitch. Adobe Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS5, again, both seamless and flawless. The two exceptions have been Cisco AnyConnect VPN client (which works fine under Win7) and the ATI graphics card auto-switching driver. Neither of the latter work at all. They both installed without warnings or errors, but when it's time to run, they error out. I also installed some dev tools (MS VisualStudio 11 for the Web, Notepad++, Dart editor/VM/Dartium, etc.) and all work well and otherwise as expected. Steam client and other games work well (well, the programs run well, the graphics are horrible due to driver issues, as explained above).

Not tested: IE10. While I've heard really good things about IE10, truth is Chrome is working very well for me, so there really isn't a good reason for me to try IE10 to any meaningful extent.

Overall, I think Windows 8 has serious potential. I've become familiar with the Metro Dashboard in a short time and I actually enjoy it. Microsoft also seems to have taken notice that users want to customize their computer experience (specially when it comes to themes and wallpapers), so, they now let people customize the start screen and the lock screen (both customization options missing in Vista and Win7) as well as the desktop and the background of the Metro Dashboard. My only concern would be that for older people who aren't tech savvy who have finally -- after so many years -- gotten used to the Windows workflow that this new workflow/UI paradigm will get them confused and flustered which in turn can turn them away. At any rate, I think the OS is behaving really well considering it still in beta and definitely showing lots of promise. So, I would say that, if you have the time and a blank drive to experiment with, you should give Windows8 preview a try.

web2py: an MVC framework that will rock your socks

Living under the shadow of the venerable and much more famous Django (and outside the view of Rails' unwavering zealots), is an amazing MVC framework called web2py. Let me tell you why I find this framework to be absolutely great and why you should give it a try.

First: it's completely self-contained and self-dependent. All it requires to run is python (2.6+) installed in your computer.

Second: Documentation, documentation, documentation. Of all the MVC frameworks out there (including some that are much older and "mature"), I've never seen so much care and effort put into documentation as with web2py. The documentation is not just a collection of half-assed tutorials with a few code snippets here and there with some commentary and whatnot. No, web2py's documentation is actually a full-fledged and very well written book which you can read online or download and print via PDF. But don't be fooled thinking that just because it's a book that it will be a "slow" book or that it will be full of technical platitudes. On the contrary, its focus in the few chapters is to get you up and running fast without neglecting very useful technical side notes and leaving the thick of deep technical explanation for later chapters.  The documentation leaves the likes of django's and rail' in the dust.

Third: Meta-admin interface included. That's right, if you thought django's "freebie" admin interface was rad, wait till you see web2py's. It's not just an app-specific admin panel (like django's), it's also a panel to admin all of your available apps their contents and settings.  It's a really awesome feature, specially if you are developing/maintaining more than one web app.

Fourth: Built-in web-based IDE? Yes, web-based built-in IDE. When was the last time that, out of the box, you could have a rather complete web-based IDE to get your scaffolding, code generators, models and views and get you started with all the rest of your coding (Zen Conding included) with Rails --or django for that matter? Hmmm I'm guessing never. You could, theoretically, never have to run a shell command (other than to start the web2py driver app) to develop your app. I'd like to emphasize, it's not just a gimmick for "ooo's and ahhh's". It's a very powerful and time-saving tool.

Fifth: Adhering to standards and very well suited for RESTful apps. Classic and elegant /noun/verb (corresponding to controller/action) URLs makes app design straight forward.

Sixth: Built-ins. Web2py has an incredible collection of built-in widgets, forms, validators, types, and so forth. These are great for turn-key proof-of-concepts (or production-ready apps, if these do what you need).

Seventh: top-notch security. This is something the team who developed web2py worked hard to tackle. Web2py addresses OWASP's top ten security issues/vectors throughout their apps. That way you can focus on coding functionality and much less time worrying about the plethora of security risks web applications can have.

There's a lot more I could talk about, for instance its powerful database abstraction layer, it's intuitive templating engine , its form generators, its WSGI-compliance (which is almost a requirement to run in production environments), but I leave that as an exercise to the reader :)