"Hi Mike, Got a new Mac Pro today to replace my previous one. It's an 8-core 2.8 GHz Model with a Radeon HD 2600 XT (I ordered a GeForce 8800 GT separately; its expected shipping date just increased from today to March, 7th). (My CTO 3GHz w/8800GT card option should arrive by mid-Feb.-Mike)
Here are some tidbits you might find interesting:

RocketRAID 2314 works fine for me (unlike previous 2008 Mac Pro owner reported earlier here, but that reader now thinks the card may have been defective.-Mike)

Radeon HD 2600 XT works in both old and new Mac Pro
(FYI: The 2600XT is NOT a faster/better card than the previous X1900XT card for Mac Pros, it doesn't even support some OpenGL features in OS X that the old X800 card did. If you have an X1900, don't bother with a 2600XT card.
Another 2007 Mac Pro owner said although his new 2600XT card "benchmarked" (openmark/xbench) and lower than his original Nvidia 7300GT card, with his 30in Cinema display it ran Apple's "Shell" and "Arabesque" screen savers more smoothly than the 7300 GT.)

Radeon X1900 XT works in both old and new Mac Pro

(PC) VGA GeForce 8800 GT SC works in both old and new Mac Pro in Windows

The new Mac Pro can boot Tiger v10.4.11 (!) - I only tried that with the X1900 XT inside, it was by accident actually (I keep a Tiger on a separate partition for emergencies and maintenance like running Diskwarrior and iDefrag) (FYI: I wrote Oliver to ask if he used a Tiger install from the 2007 Mac Pro and if he'd actually used OS X Tiger on it for some time (not just a simple boot). A reader with a new 2008 Mac Pro w/2600 XT card is trying to get a tiger install to work but hasn't yet.-Mike)

Mac Pro can use 667 MHz FB-DIMMs (but any 800 MHz FB-DIMMs still in the Mac Pro will also run at 667 MHz)

The new Mac Pro has two rubber rings on the drive sleds' screws do dampen vibrations

There are some specialties about my setup though, as I simply swapped the hard drives between the old and new Mac Pro, the new Mac Pro now runs the regular 9B18 build of Mac OS X 10.5.1, whereas the old Mac Pro runs the newer 9C16 Build.
Hope this info is useful to anybody
Cheers, Oliver"

I wrote Oliver to ask if he'd actually used OS X Tiger on the 2008 Mac Pro to see if there were any problems seen in use. (I wasn't sure if he'd done more than boot Tiger on it.) Several readers had asked about running OS X Tiger on a 2008 Mac Pro as their Pro Audio software wasn't compatible with Leopard yet. (I wondered if there was some new motherboard chipset driver required that was not present in public OS X 10.4.x release.) I also wondered if OS X Tiger's graphics card drivers would work with the new cards. (ATI HD 2600 GPU was in AL iMacs which ran OS X Tiger and the later MacBook Pros had an Nvidia 8600M (Mobile) GPU, but wasn't sure if those Tiger drivers would support new newer PCIe 2.0 cards.)

• 4GB (2x2GB) Mac Pro RAM (667MHz) - $150
• 2x2GB PC2-5300 SODIMMs $92.50 (I'm using this 4GB kit in an AL iMac since Nov.)
• Retail OS X Leopard $107.50
• ElGato Turbo.264 - $72.50 (FYI: page here w/Encoding Speed Tests w/Turbo.264)
• 160GB IDE/PATA 2.5in Notebook HD - $92.50
• 250GB SATA 2.5in Notebook HD - $145 (Before $30 Hitachi rebate)
• 250GB IDE/PATA 2.5in Notebook HD - $150
• 1TB Seagate SATA II 3.5in HD - $299
• 1TB Hitachi SATA II 3.5in HD - $295 (Before $30 Hitachi rebate)

" Mike, xlr8yourmac was the first site I made a webclip of on my iPod touch. I thought this may be of interest to you as I am sure I am not the only one.
http://vjarmy.com/archives/2008/01/howto_iphone_webclip_icons.php
-Corey
Sent from my iPod "

Thanks, this morning I created/uploaded an icon file for this site and tested it on an updated (1.1.3) iPhone. (I've not tried it, but Dan later wrote with a link to http://clipalizer.com.)

"Went absolutely smoothly with six accounts upgrading from Microsoft Office 2004, running 10.5.2C16 on a MacPro Quad 2.5 GHz, 8 GB RAM, four 1TB drives.

(Office 2008) Definitely faster, a bit more "eye candy" but nothing else I've noted in day to day use of Entourage. Word loads a great deal faster, and generally more "snappy." Haven't used Excel or PP yet. Just an FYI.
Also couldn't register, but that shouldn't be an issue (I hope).
Ishan B, MD "

Registration with MS seems a common problem. (I'd personally not want to register with MS live either.)

• Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac Build 5584
• Cocktail 4.0.2 (Leopard edition)
• Sound Grinder 3.2.3 (audio file converter)
• Azkend 1.0 (puzzle game)
• Sunset Studio Deluxe (game)
• MacPool 8.8
• WMF Viewer for Mac 2.4.1
• Raw Photo Processor 3.6.6
• cuePics 1.0.2 (slideshow software)
• The Unarchiver 1.6.1
• Sublime 1.3 (edit, spot, and render subtitles for DVD Studio Pro)
• Unknown Error (6) When restoring iPhone or iPod touch with iTunes (Apple)
• Installing and verifying the iPod touch January Software Upgrade (Apple)
• Northern Softworks releases Leopard Cache Cleaner 4.0.4
• AssistiveWare releases new versions of KeyStrokes 4, SwitchXS 2.5 and LayoutKitchen 2
• What Bugs Apple Fans (Forbes)
• Perspective: Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: I don't care who wins (cnet)
• Time Warner Confirms Overage Trials - Secret trial no longer very secret (dslreports)
• iTunes Movie Rentals and Netflix Online: Different Markets (NYtimes)
• How iTunes Digital Copy works (appletvsource)
  Apple also has a guide on Downloading video from DVDs with iTunes Digital Copy
• Remote Buddy 1.8.7 (3rd update this week)
• Report: Surgeons Perform Better After Playing Wii (wired)
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Benchmarks (PCGames.de)
• BioShock Receives a Record-Breaking 12 Interactive Achievement Award Nominations (businesswire)
• GeForce 9600 GT: G94 Arrives Early
• The MacBook Air CPU Mystery: More Details Revealed
• Tabulator Xbox Live Video Marketplace vs. Apple TV (joystiq.com)
• Mac Pro: Supported Microphones (Apple)
• Xserve RAID: Best practices for data integrity (Apple)
• Restore error messages on the iPhone and iPod touch (Apple)
• iPhone: Basic troubleshooting (Apple)