Mac OS X Log

2003-02-03T05:55:00.000-08:00

Hey, I've finally got this blog running over on CARS under Moveable Type. Check it out! It still needs some work, but the best part is there's an RSS feed! And no banner ad!

So update your bookmarks because I won't be updating this here Blogspot version anymore.

2003-02-03T05:29:00.000-08:00

Dan Gillmor has a link up to an online statement advocating the verification of electronic voting systems. Normally, I think online resolutions are a waste of time ("Tell Lucas Arts we want Jedi Knight II on the Mac!"), but this is from a collection of Stanford-types (some of them so-called "college boys") and if you're at all concerned about the validity of elections in this country I'd encourage you to consider adding your name.

2003-02-01T16:26:00.000-08:00

I read that the new versions of iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie were available via Software Update and when I went to grab them I found my G4 tower was also missing OS X 10.2.3, the latest update to Airport and the most recent version of iCal. Where the hell have I been? About half an hour after I was through with a whole mess of downloading and optimizing there was a knock at the door.

The guy was here to deliver my iLife CD.

D'oh!

Oh, well. At least I hadn't updated the PowerBook yet.

I've only dinkered around with them a bit, but I had one bug already. When I opened iMovie, it said "No project is open, do you want to open one, create one or quit?" (By the way, no annoying splash movie anymore, thank god - I hated that.) I chose to open a project, navigated to one on the hard drive and double clicked it. iMovie just popped me back to the same dialog box. I tried it several times with no success so I quit and then double clicked on the project in the Finder. It opened fine.

2003-01-29T18:30:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Crowe confirms my experience with Safari below.

2003-01-27T18:43:00.000-08:00

This is a strong second opinion to something I've noticed myself (link via Drew Hamlin's blog). The PC laptops that I've come into contact with in the past few years have been significantly underwhelming. I've previously blogged about my relationship with a particularly loathsome Compaq Armada at work and the machines I see my fellow classmates using at the University of Washington look enormous even compared to my 15" PowerBook and they just sound clunky. The keys sound cheap and people often turn and look when one of them starts typing on their laptop. I can get my PowerBook out and start typing and no one will even notice.

2003-01-27T09:10:00.000-08:00

This is very strange. I can't seem to access anything from Safari, but Chimera works fine. At first I thought the dread Internet slowdown had kicked into high gear (low gear?), but I switched browsers and things were coming up fine.

Why would Safari not be able to get into the Apple Store but Chimera would?

2003-01-20T20:41:00.000-08:00

Apple's main page has a little icon that says "Welcome Safari User" when it detects Safari as the browser. Cute.

2003-01-18T19:49:00.000-08:00

So, does this mean that the recording industry will start pumping CDs out in this format which, if I had to guess, only plays the PC layer in a Windows machine? So I guess we can forget MP3s, huh?

Well, until someone finds a hack around it. I mean, c'mon. This is bullshit.

2003-01-14T10:31:00.000-08:00

Does this (link via Mcwetlog) sound like the Steve Jobs you know? Listens to email criticism and online message board postings?

Or does it sound like a rumors site trying to cover its ass for making wild, innacurate speculations before Macworld?

So, Apple determines it needs an additional revenue stream if it's going to be profitable to the extent it'd like. They do the research and they determine that a nominal fee for some of the applications it was formerly giving away would increase the company's bottom line by X amount. They decide to go foward with it.

Then Steve Jobs gets some emails and reads some message board postings and four days before the keynote changes his mind.

I dunno. It's possible, but I doubt it. It's more likely that Apple considered charging for the applications months ago (when Heid submitted his book to his publisher) and then decided against it. Months ago. Not a week and a half ago.

It's articles like this that make me think that the people who write these sites have never worked in a professional corporate environment before. While mercurial CEOs do make snap decisions, they are very rare because, if you're wrong, it's your ass that has to go in front of the board and shareholders and explain why you backed off on the basis of some message board postings.

Apple has a finance department. They (or marketing) run a model to see what the expected return on charging for these apps would be. Jobs, based on input from his vice presidents, makes the final decision on whether or not to go ahead with the fee. It's extremely unlikely (in my opinion) that he made this decision days before the keynote and weeks before iLife was to ship.

2003-01-10T16:03:00.000-08:00

Check this out! (Link via Splorp.) See those spelling errors like "curlous" instead of "curious" and "tne" instead of "the"?

Those are because he's posting those blog entries from his Newton.

The minute I get home I'm going down the the basement. The green brick is back.

2003-01-10T07:59:00.000-08:00

Ah-ha! Vindication is mine! Blogger Pro just plain ol' blocks Safari!

2003-01-10T07:48:00.000-08:00

Splorp points to a conversion tool for moving your Chimera bookmarks to Safari.

It's web-based which makes me a little uneasy (don't think I really want someone else possibly recording what my bookmarks are) but, actually, I've pretty much already moved mine manually.

2003-01-08T22:56:00.000-08:00

Needless to say, the web is fairly abuzz about Safari. Can't shake a stick without hitting a comment about it.

Now batting: Kottke.

He's right - I'm all for the integration with Sherlock. Makes perfect sense to me.

And whoever wrote the first comment (about how it's just so darn easy to go to a web site) is high.

Sorry, sorry. I'm still really drunk.

Uh, well, not really.

2003-01-08T20:43:00.000-08:00

Well, apparently there are two sides to every story.

I think the jury's still out on this one, but I will admit that my previous post was colored by some unfavorable experiences with Blogger, my lack of knowledge and one post I read somewhere.

Plus, I'm totally drunk.

Well, not really.

2003-01-08T20:08:00.000-08:00

After using Safari for a while, a few notes.

First, Blogger Pro is not compatible with it, which is just another reason to scrap Blogger Pro, like I needed one. It's got nothing to do with standards, they just write their shit for specific browsers, in this case Mozilla/Netscape/Chimera or IE. That's it.

Problem is, the alternative I chose, Moveable Type, uses CSS and I can't get anything but IE to render my first attempts at CARS 2.0 correctly. Grr.

Regular Blogger does work with Safari, which is what I'm typing this in.

Second, John Gruber at Daring Fireball has a thoughtful "review" of Safari.

Now, I've been reading Dave Hyatt's weblog since he joined Apple and I must be the stupidest guy on the planet because if you would have asked me last week if Apple would create a browser I would have said no.

But I largely agree with Gruber's analysis. While I originally liked the brushed metal (textured) look of Safari, I now agree with him - it doesn't make any sense. I'm sure Apple's reasoning is that all of their other recent apps are textured so it would be confusing to the average user if Safari were not.

That's bad policy. Just because you don't publish another non-iLife application is no reason to go violating the interface guidelines that you created.

As for tabbed browsing, I don't really use it. As a matter of fact, I find that I often accidentally select "Open in new tab" instead of "Open in new window" from the contextual menu, which is the cause of much cursing (not that it takes much with me). My biggest complaint about tabs in Chimera is that I have yet to find a way to get rid of a paticular tab, other than closing the entire window and starting over.

The solution I read somewhere that would do tabbed browsing one better is an OS X drawer that would show multiple pages per window. Then you even get a little thumbnail of the contents. With my PowerBook's screen orientation, I'd rather have a drawer taking up horizontal real estate than tabs taking up vertical real estate.

I didn't agree with him that the progress bar in the URL field was "hideous", but it is certainly confusing. Is it selected or still loading? Selected or loading? Who knows?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll de-texturize Safari.

2003-01-07T18:08:00.000-08:00

AirPort Extreme lets you use wireless bridging to widen your range beyond the standard 150-foot coverage. Bridging, which allows one AirPort Extreme Base Station to connect to another AirPort Extreme Base Station, eliminates the need to run expensive cables to extend a network. Previously, all AirPort Base Stations required a physical connection to the Internet. With wireless bridging, two or more AirPort Extreme Base Stations can be connected wirelessly, effectively increasing the range of your network as far and wide as you?d like.

Glaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh....

Of course, I'd have to buy two Airport Extreme base stations, but damn.

2003-01-07T15:30:00.000-08:00

Sigh.

2003-01-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

Whoo-BABY!

That was some Keynote (if you'll pardon the pun)! Of course, they DID announce new PowerBooks, but I'm actually still happy with mine. I wouldn't want one as large as the 17" machine and mine has more RAM, a larger display and a faster processor than the 12" machine.

The 12" machine is sweet, though. That is very cool.

Also, I'm creating this post in Safari. It is totally cool. Very fast, even after using Chimera.

Sorry, that's not much in the way of stunning insights, but I'm still blown away. It was hard to crack wise about it when I was so tickled. All the bad hype about charging for apps was for naught and, while there was no digital device, there were substantial updates to apps and new apps.

Then the PowerBooks...

I think Steve's right. They are knocking the lights out in the laptop world. Which is good, because they're kind of getting blown away on the desktop.

It's too bad it doesn't look like you can upgrade an existing machine to 802.11g, but I'm considering getting a new base station with an antenna port. The USB port will allow me to plug in my Epson printer and ditch the bridge which has to be powered separately. I just need to confirm that the range will be significantly better than my rev. 1 base station.

All in all, kudos to Apple. That was a stellar show.

2003-01-06T20:40:00.000-08:00

So, the first time I bought a PowerBook, when I really wanted a small, lightly powered laptop, the iBook was announced two weeks later.

Now, I just got my state-of-the-art 1 GHz PowerBook less than a month ago and MacRumors and MacNetJournal are hypothesizing new PowerBooks tomorrow.

Someone's gonna get a piece of my mind if there are...

2003-01-06T20:06:00.000-08:00

I was stunned to have my iPod cut out on me today as I sat in the Park Place Cafe waiting for my carry-out chicken katsu. I found myself looking at the empty battery signal (not in any way to be confused with the bat signal). Having read online complaints of people finding their original iPod's battery to be rather short-lived after a year of use, I was somewhat fearful.

After about 15 minutes charging in the car on the way home tonight, it had two bars back on it. That doesn't seem right.

It's charging right now. We'll see how it behaves tomorrow. Apparently no one is able to find a supplier for replacement batteries for the things and Apple basically makes you buy a new iPod at a $50 discount.

Hmm. $250 a year is a little steep for an MP3 player. Let's hope it returns to its youthful vigor.

By the way, I'm thinking of not ordering the chicken katsu again. About 85% of it is great, but about 15% seemed to consist of breaded and fried feet or that red thing that hangs off the chicken's head.

What the heck's that called?

2003-01-04T11:53:00.000-08:00

Certainly you've seen the latest - that Apple will be charging for iApp upgrades from now on. Personally, I don't blame them and I think $50 for iMovie is extremely reasonable. Some seem to think it'll be $50 for iMovie, iPhoto and iDVD. That's a steal, if you ask me.

So far, the only reasonable counter-argument I've seen has been this (and if you haven't looked at Inluminent yet you should - the practice of randomly inserting pictures of stunningly gorgeous women into your blog is sheer genius - wish I had thought of it). However, if the other rumor I've seen (that Apple will cut prices on iMacs) proves to be true, then it takes the air out of the argument that we pay more for Macs to get free apps.

I go back and forth on the "do Macs cost more?" issue. A friend was recently looking into buying a PC and I was helping her look into some. I was pretty surprised at how cheaply you could get one, particularly when all she was interested in was email and web surfing. Fortunately, I was able to talk her into accepting my old Performa 6400 for free. Hopefully it'll make a Mac user out of her.

2003-01-03T15:32:00.000-08:00

Apparently Intuit is now licensing TurboTax for a single CPU (link via BoingBoing). Even though I would only use it on a single CPU anyway, I think that's a load of crap so I'll probably give the other one (what the heck is it, Kiplinger?) a try this year.

Here's my problem with this scheme, which Will does not bring up: if I use tax preparation software, aren't I required to be able to reproduce the return for a certain number of years? I don't know for sure, but even if I'm not required, how the hell do I know I won't need to go back and go through it? Last time I checked, the IRS determined if I got audited or not, not me or Intuit. Guess I wouldn't be able to get rid of my PowerBook for a while.

I have never "loaned" or otherwise infringed on Intuit software so they can lick my center of gravity.

2003-01-03T09:20:00.000-08:00

You'd be surprised at what's going on on the Newton these days. I get most of my Newton news via Splorp, where Grant Hutchison maintains a nice list of current Newton links.

Today, for example, he notes an MP3 player for the Newton. Previously I mentioned there's an RSS reader and you can sync addresses with Jaguar via another application. Grant himself maintains a Newton web server at Splorp.

All in the name of wringing the last bit of life out of a totally cool technology that never received the attention it deserved.

2002-12-30T18:16:00.000-08:00

Oh, dear. There go hours of productivity.

I'm a sucker for Risk.

2002-12-27T13:11:00.000-08:00

Anne Onymus at Low End Mac says the number one worst Mac-related move of 2002 is "Rumor Sites and Parodies of Rumor Sites." Of course, this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek as LEM's the Rumor Mill pre-dates CARS by several years, but I disagree with the comment that "any more parodies will only encourage them."

I frankly think that when CARS rates as highly as Mac OS Rumors or any other site on RumorTracker, it says something about what they're publishing. It says, hey, crap that's totally made up seems just as valid.

Now, "Anne" is probably just trying to keep the competition down while giving a good-natured jab at herself (and me), and that's fine. But, if CARS has one "message" (and I generally hate comedy that tries to have a message), it's that a great deal of what you read in the Mac web, and the web in general, is not journalism by any stretch of the imagination. Anything that doesn't follow a standard editorial process, that doesn't require fact-checking from a reputable, attributable source, that doesn't have a clear deliniation between news and opinion, is not journalism.

Even Shawn King on Your Mac Life states openly on his website that he's not a journalist. His show is entertaining and you can learn a lot from listening to it, but he doesn't spare his opinion and he's got a very close relationship with the show's sponsor, Marathon Computing. You're very unlikely to hear a poor review on YML of that little glowing knob jobbie they make, partly because it's just damn cool, but also because you don't bite the hand that feeds you.

So, good on Shawn for being honest and open about what he does.

This is why it irks me that Mac rumor sites portray themselves as something more than what they are. I've read them for years and, from time to time, you can glean interesting tidbits from them about upcoming Apple products, but they're more like astrology than astronomy.

2002-12-27T10:52:00.000-08:00

Turns out Rob McNair-Huff of Mac Net Journal lives just a few blocks away from me. It's a small world.

Although I wouldn't want to have to paint it.

As he mentions today, there's a big wind storm headed our way tonight. We live on top of a hill in north Tacoma so, once again, I fear for my roof which we should have had replaced this past spring.

Also, I'm sick as a dog (that's really a very anti-dog cliché), so the thought of being holed up in the house with no electricity is pretty damn dismal. Hopefully it won't come to that. Particularly since my banner gift this year was an EyeTV.

Although, it occurs to me that since the EyeTV runs off of USB power, I should be able to watch TV as long as my PowerBook's two batteries hold out, if the power does go out. And, since I haven't sold off my old PowerBook yet, I could use the battery from that as well - so make that three batteries.

This is assuming, of course, the cable doesn't go out.

I also got a book for Christmas. Maybe I should just read that.

2002-12-23T10:37:00.000-08:00

My favorite Jaguar "extra". That's really cool.

2002-12-20T09:25:00.000-08:00

When did the entertaiment industry become so unrealistic? (link via BoingBoing)

Back in the early '80s, my dad bought the family a BetaMax. What a great machine (spoken like a true Mac owner)! So, a few years go by and BetaMax gets, uh, BetaMaxed and we switch to VHS. I was able to go out and buy a couple of tapes and copy the movies that we had legally purchased to the new format.

Is there something wrong with that? Why should my right to maintain a copy of something that I legally purchased take a back seat to the industry's desire to force me to shell out more and more money every time a new format is introduced?

Here's a clue, stop making crap like Two Week's Notice and maybe you'll realize where the hell your profit's going.

2002-12-19T18:31:00.000-08:00

Mac OS X 10.2.3 is out.

"Addresses an issue in which the computer does not sleep if Personal File Sharing is on."

Whoo-hoo!

2002-12-17T15:07:00.000-08:00

John Gruber is jonesin' for the OS X Finder. He's got his mad on. He's opened up the big can o'whuppass. He's, uh, got many a disparaging comment to make about it…

Just when you thought it might die down…

He has many excellent points, but at the end of the day, there are going to be some people for whom the OS 9 Finder works better (at least for the time being) and some for whom the OS X Finder works better. It depends on what you do with it. I haven't seen the numbers, but I'd be surprised if "the vast majority" are lost in OS X, although I'm willing to admit I just don't know.

For myself, I thought for sure I wasn't going to like the single window mode in the OS X Finder. I "grew up" having each double click spawning a new Finder window and, by gum, that's the way God meant it to be.

But I've totally switched over to the single window. Now, when I go back to OS 9, I'm annoyed at all these windows cluttering up the screen, making it hard for me to figure out which are the ones I want and which were just intermediary steps to getting there. So, while Gruber says the browser metaphor is a solution to a problem no one had, I would amend that to say a solution to a problem no one knew they had. I'm not saying my amendment is more correct, I'm just saying that's my perspective. Although I'd be very interested to know how many OS 9 users who've made the jump to OS X still use the "spatial orientation."

Contrary to his assertions, I would put the Finder somewhat high on the list of reasons I prefer OS X to OS 9, although I certainly didn't expect to at first.

He may be right that the proponents of the OS X Finder are people who've spent a lot of time using Windows and Unix (that, I think, describes myself and Jonathan Crowe), but to say the Finder is the OS is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, no one ever said OS 9 had an interface problem (although maybe they should have). What they did and still do say is that it had a memory management and multitasking problem.

OS X excels in these areas. My wife's original iBook runs OS 9 and her primary applications on it are Outlook Express and Internet Explorer. Explorer would just as soon take the whole machine down as display a page and, consequently, she has to reboot almost nightly. I use Chimera on my PowerBook and 0.5 was highly prone to crashing (particularly on ESPN.com). But the OS didn't care. All I had to do was launch the application again. (0.6 is nigh rock-solid in my experience.)

Also, I don't understand what he means by the Finder development's "current direction", as if it were antithetical to the Finder getting better. I doubt that even Apple would argue that many of the things he mentions are bugs and I would bet they're on someone's list of things to fix (Puma, anyone?).

Mostly, though, I think it's unrealistic to focus solely on the Finder and ignore the areas where OS X kicks OS 9 up and down the street.

Of course, we'll never agree on this. It's like arguing Windows vs. the Mac.

2002-12-13T13:42:00.000-08:00

Second Impression.

I first said that I thought my brand-spankin' new PowerBook wasn't quite as fast as I'd hoped it'd be. I'd like to retract that. It's every bit as fast as I'd hoped. My first impression was somewhat colored by the fact that I was mostly doing something that just naturally takes a long time: installing things. Particularly the OS takes a while to install.

Now that I've used it for a while, I've noticed that applications launch lickety-split, which used to be one of my minor gripes with the 400 MHz model. The difference is most noticable in Mail. I’m one of those people who hardly ever deletes a thing, so my mailbox is rather large. But on the GHz machine, Mail opens in one bounce.

Strangely, I've noticed I've been getting a lot of timeouts requesting mail from one of my accounts. I rarely got these before. I'm not sure what the problem is (probably something on the provider's end), but it gives me the impression the PowerBook is so fast it just can't wait for the reponse from a slow server. "C'mon! C'mon! What is taking you so long?!"

Another thing I've noticed, the texure of the Titanium seems grippier (as in "easier to grip"). That's awfully nice when you're carrying around a $3k laptop.

Sadly, the kitcen continues to be a dead zone for Aiport. My wife's original blueberry iBook picks it up no problem, but not the TiBook. Fortunately, it looks like Cory Doctorow is looking to solve the same problem and has prompted a lively discussion about how to bridge an Airport connection.

2002-12-11T08:45:00.000-08:00

My 1 GHz PowerBook arrived on the first anniversary of CARS.

Mmmm, synchronicity.

Anyway, my impressions so far:

It's fast, certainly, although I think slightly less fast in OS X than I expected. But when I booted into OS 9? Holy crap. Like lightening. The hard drive is large enough that I'm going to drag out my old games and load 'em up. Should be interesting.

It took me a couple of hours to partition the hard drive, install everything that needed installing and copy over all my data from my old PowerBook via Firewire target disk mode. I had never actually done that before. It's exceptionally fast, as you'd expect. A great way to do it.

The screen on the new machine is way brighter than my old PowerBook. I now find it hard to believe the old one didn't bother me.

The keyboard has a nicer touch to it. The keys feel snappier and more responsive.

Burning a CD was quick. I haven't tried a DVD yet (need to get some media, although it did come with one blank disk).

I haven't tested Airport reception (the kitchen was a notorious dead zone for the old PowerBook), but I'm sitting here looking at my battery indicator and it says 95%. That's weird. It should be fully charged by now. It's possible the battery needs to be drained and then recharged.

Overall, I'm totally looking forward to using this machine and running it through its paces.

2002-12-09T19:16:00.000-08:00

I received my first real "your site sucks" email today (about Crazy Apple Rumors)! That's pretty good! Almost a whole year, as tomorrow is the first anniversary of CARS.

2002-12-06T18:39:00.000-08:00

It's shipping! It's shipping!

You know, one of the most annoying things is those hours in between when a company says something has shipped and when it appears in FedEx's tracking database.

Where is it?

2002-12-05T17:05:00.000-08:00

Weird experience with my iPod today. It was playing… but no sound was coming out of the headphones. That's never happened before. At first I assumed it was a loose connection but everything was tight as a drum. Then I thought it was the headphones, so I tried some others and got nothing with them, too. Finally, I reset it and when it came back up… sound again.

You know, I got it about a year ago. It's possible it just wanted to take its birthday off. My wife's the same way.

2002-12-03T20:29:00.000-08:00

Because, I mean, really... how long does Blogger expect me to look at "Error 503: Unable to load template file. We're working on this. Please try back later."

It's been months.

I don't think they're working on it. I really don't.

2002-12-03T20:28:00.000-08:00

Just a warning, I'm working on moving this blog over to Moveable Type (along with the rest of the planet). At some point in the next 8-9, uh, years, I'll make the switchover and set this up to forward to the new address (on the CARS server, naturally).

2002-12-01T13:25:00.000-08:00

Aww, they fixed it. And I forgot to copy it before they did. I always do that.

2002-12-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

New Mac rumors site misspells "Macintosh".

(Second paragraph says "Macontosh", in case they change it.)

Nice start, guys!

2002-11-29T23:38:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Peterson breaks down Peter Chernin's Comdex speech (link via Dan Gillmor).

This is truly the seminal technology battle of the current era and, as Peterson notes, it's difficult to get the average American interested in it because the issues are complicated. Most important, though, are his notes on "what we can do" at the bottom. If you're reading this site you probably already buy Apple, but if you haven't already, I encourage you to join some of the organizations he listed. I already have.

2002-11-28T12:08:00.000-08:00

My PowerBook order still says "Being Assembled".

Man, this must be one huge PowerBook...

2002-11-28T00:10:00.000-08:00

Holy crap.

Splorp reports that there's an RSS reader for the Newton.

OK, now I have to go down to the basement and find my old Newton.

2002-11-25T22:03:00.000-08:00

So, I've been having some trouble getting my PowerBook and my Power Mac to sleep by themselves.

For like a year.

I've tried warm milk, stories, singing...

OK, joking aside, the PowerBook would sleep for a while after upgrading to Jaguar (Grr! Rowr!) but then that went away when I had to rebuild my hard drive. I thought I had solved it when I deleted some preferences file and rebooted, but it came back after installing something or the other. I don't know what.

Now, after reading a note on Apple's site posted by someone with the same problem, I tried turning off network checking for the correct date and time.

Sleeps again.

What the fuck? Is it checking like every thirty seconds?

2002-11-25T21:21:00.000-08:00

New to Unix? Me too. But TidBITS has a nifty little primer.

OK, I knew a lot of it already, but because I've been using Windows I couldn't figure out why "cd.." wasn't working.

It's "cd .."

Duh.

2002-11-25T13:22:00.000-08:00

I thought if I came to the school library I'd be more productive than if I sat at home where the omnipresent threat of cable Internet access was preventing me from getting anything done.

Turns out the library is fully 802.11-enabled.

I'm doomed.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go check ESPN.com.

2002-11-21T16:44:00.000-08:00

Have you used XP recently? My god, it blows. Not from a technology perspective certainly, but from a UI perspective.

I know such things are somewhat a matter of taste, but how anyone can say they prefer the XP interface to that of OS X is beyond me. Yet, some people claim to.

Well, some people like Dr. Pepper. I don’t understand that either.

The company I used to work full-time for and now work part-time for has fairly well converted to XP lockdown machines running all apps except Internet Explorer through Terminal Services. I may have expounded on this before, but this leads to one of the sloppiest interface experiences ever as I was reminded again today.

The antiquated Compaq 6500 I had been using got swapped out for a "trim" client. Props to TS for allowing the 6500 to be even usable. It's respectable in a business setting to find a machine still doing a decent job after three or four years. (That's not the machine I've been using all along, it's the one they gave me when I became a contractor.)

So now I look at a moderately attractive black and silver Compaq (again). The machine has far more style than the operating system.

After the guy who set the machine up (who's got an iBook at home, by the way) left, I started dinkering with the few settings I was allowed to dinker with; predominantly look and feel stuff. I found the background they install a little distracting, so I got rid of it in favor of a plain blue field as I didn't have any of my own files around. Then, I thought I'd check out the jauntily named "Windows XP Style" appearance.

I thought the silver tone would be the least offensive of the options. I was right, but it still wasn't unoffensive enough. Click on a menu bar of silver, blue or, blech, olive green and what do you get? A stark white menu. A stark white menu set against a garishly colored and iconed menu bar. It's like a Kaleidoscope scheme that was never finished.

Add in the fact that none of these settings affect the TS apps, which all appear in "Classic Windows" grey (just the way Classic appears in OS X) and you've got butt ugly (just the way Classic appears in OS X).

I quickly switched back to "Classic Windows" for a more consistent look, but the thing is, in OS X the new look is the better look and in XP the old look is the better look.

This is, of course, my personal opinion. But I wouldn't be surprised if the next version of Windows foist yet another look on users. And expect that it'll look a lot more like Aqua.

2002-11-21T08:48:00.000-08:00

As a counterpoint to the below, you can see Jonathan Crowe's account of his first year on the Mac.

2002-11-21T07:54:00.000-08:00

I hesitate to link to this because, in general, I'm opposed to pabulum, but there it is, if you can stomach it (link via McWetlog). Another anti-Apple screed, the likes of which I hadn't seen in a while. Of particular amusement:

- The contention that Apple will only be selling replacement units from here on out. Um, anyone know a switcher? I do. I know several, actually. And none of them were using Unix before and I'm sure the numbers are better from that community.

- The reiteration of the "Macs cost more" myth. Sometimes I just want to bang my head against a wall.

- The knocking of Apple for not using faster Intel chips while at the same time saying they can't change because developers wouldn't re-write their code. Now, granted, the development community's patience is probably a little thin after re-writing for OS X, but it is most certainly within the realm of possibility, particularly in the long run.

The scenario I see is that Apple ekes out an existence on the PowerPC, introducing IBM's 970 at some point in the next few years (god willing) and then re-evaluates things after that. Two years is a lifetime in technology and, given the fact that they would make an emulation layer as they did with the move from 600x0 to PowerPC, which was infinitely more seamless than Classic, developers could move more at their own pace.

2002-11-17T14:35:00.000-08:00

I find it very humorous that the order status icons in Apple's online store still show a Quadra.

Man, if I open the box expecting a 1 GHz PowerBook and find a Quadra I'm going to be really mad!

2002-11-16T09:29:00.000-08:00

Small Dog Electronic dissects the Gateway vs. iMac myths (link via Inluminent). Good stuff.

Also, I found it interesting that in the Mac Observer comparison of laptops I linked to below, the Apple laptops came out, at most, about $50 more than the PC laptops. And those were laptops that, by MO's analysis, the Mac bested.

So, again, it looks like the "Macs cost more" myth is deflated.

My belief about this myth is that it stems solely from the fact that you can get a dirt cheap knock-off PC and you can't get a dirt cheap knock-off Mac (anymore). However, it's entirely unrealistic to compare a computer from one of the most respected companies in the business to some fly-by-night company that's just slapping boxes together. Or, god forbid, a box a user put together.

2002-11-14T15:52:00.000-08:00

The Mac Observer has done another good side by side comparison (link via BoingBoing) of Apple's latest crop of laptops (which, by the way, are "all that") and competing PC laptops. Scroll down to the bottom for the list of comparisons.

Video is largely where the Apple machines pull ahead. It certainly isn't processor speed and it ain't bus speed (holy crap, I had no idea PC bus speeds were up to 400 MHz!). The only quibble I have is that while 5 hrs. might be the maximum battery life under OS 9, it's quite a bit less under OS X. Still, though. It's probably higher than the other laptops listed and when you throw in the fact that you can boot into OS 9 to watch a DVD or something, the Mac comes out ahead. And, as I suspected, the PowerBook is the lightest of the bunch. I've seen the behemoths the other "kids" at school tote around and no thank you.

This was rather timely information as I just ordered a 1 GHz PowerBook. Not that I was remotely considering a PC, but I like to know how it stacks up (for when I get into arguments with my family). For just $40 extra, I was able to max out the RAM at a gig. With a 60 GB hard drive, I'm

I went through some soul-searching because my theory about laptops has always been that they should be as small as possible, a lower-powered version of what you use on the desktop.

Airport has changed that.

Because I can be connected to the Internet in any room in the house, I use my laptop now far more than I used to. The only thing we still use the Power Mac for is iTunes and iPhoto. I also wasn't convinced that the 800 MHz G3 iBook would be faster than my 400 MHz G4 TiBook, and while I'd like something a little lighter, I really like the screen real estate on the TiBook.

In the end I opted to upgrade the PowerBook and leave the Power Mac where it is, at an increasingly lowly 400 MHz. But it does what we want it to do perfectly well, it was the PowerBook's speed that was bothering me. At some point the Power Mac will get replaced with an iMac most likely, but for now I'll be the owner of the bitchinest laptop on the planet.

2002-11-12T07:53:00.000-08:00

My no-sleep problem is back. It came back when I restored my PowerBook. It's actually never gone away on my Power Mac. People on Apple's support boards seemed to indicate it was related to having Personal File Sharing on, but I turned it off and trashed the prefs and the damn thing still won't go to sleep.

Also, I'm not iSyncing anymore. I don't know what was going on but I got onto my PowerBook one day and all my contacts were gone. Fortunately they were still on my iPod so I synced again. That worked once. Then when I went to restore my contacts when I was restoring the PowerBook, it wouldn't sync any of them over. I had to drag them over manually.

I finally just decided it's not good to play around with beta software on something that would be as much of a pain to re-create as my list of contacts.

2002-11-11T20:19:00.000-08:00

Apparently there's still a big to-do going on over at Low End Mac about Charles Moore. Some guy named Rick Bauer has been contacting LEM's advertisers and telling them they should pull their ads.

While I totally disagree with Moore's views, I think at the end of the day, it's Knight's site and if he can make a living with an Old Mac Religion site, well, go for it. I just won't have anything to do with it.

But Bauer must have a fair amount of time on his hands. He says he's a Presbyterian who finds Moore's views offensive. What I find particularly amusing are the people who write into LEM going off on "liberals" trying to censor LEM or even outrightly saying they don't believe Bauer is a Christian. Now THAT'S narrow-minded. Someone who decides someone against something that they're for can't possibly be like them.

2002-11-11T20:11:00.000-08:00

Oh, boy. My PowerBook started taking on signs of normalcy again on Saturday morning. I had to reformat the OS X partition and even now it's not completely the way it was.

For one thing, it's got 10.2.2 on it.

But Disk Warrior didn't fix the problem. Over 300 overlapped files was just too much for it to handle, I guess.

2002-11-07T22:06:00.000-08:00

OK, first off, you have to see this. It will change blogging as we know it. So long, Blogger!

Second, I did finally get Disk Warrior after clicking incessantly on .Mac to get through. It's now in its FOURTH HOUR of examining the drive. Speedy on a 400 MHz machine it ain't.

The good news is, though, the wife and I went out to dinner and I managed to convince her that I should get the green light to buy a new PowerBook should I choose! Whoo-hoo!

The week's suddenly turning around.

Just for the record, I can do whatever I want. I don't have to get her permission, y'know.

Particularly because the new PowerBooks look just like the old ones. I mean, how the hell's she gonna know?

2002-11-07T18:29:00.000-08:00

Well, this could fucking be going better.

After numerous attempts to repair the drive with Disk First Aid and Norton, the drive is no longer readable. So, I head over to the local CrappyAssedDumbShitCompFrickingUSA to find out that their ever-dwindling Mac section no longer contains Disk Warrior.

Then it's back home to see if it's downloadable. I'm in luck! It is! I place my order and Alsoft gladly takes my money... it's just the actual giving of the software that they apparently have a problem with. The download window spins a blue and white barber pole for 15 minutes without downloading a single bit.

That's OK. You can click a link to manually download.

Which takes you to a page that says "Sorry! Something was wrong with your download!"

As if I didn't fucking know that already. These are the guys who are going to repair my drive?

Well, never fear. You can choose to have the software emailed to you. I'll just log into my .Mac account and get the order number they just sent me...

Oh. No I won't. .Mac is down.

This has really been a shitty week, I'll have you know.

2002-11-07T13:57:00.000-08:00

Here's a lesson for you folks playing at home. Never ridicule someone who backs up more frequently than you do.

I'm sure the Incan Jaguar gods were not amused by my ridicule of Bob Levitus' need to be back up and running in 15 minutes, for surely they have made me pay for my insolence.

I believe my troubles began when I installed Chimera 0.6.0. Particularly when it asked if I wanted to run the auto-response thingy that would send email back to Mozilla's evil minions when the thing crashes so they could see what porn site I was looking at. I stupidly said "Yes, I want to be a good net citizen and send them info related to tracking down bugs. I also happen to be a moron."

As Chimera was setting that up, my screen did something I've never seen it do before. The desktop and all the apps I had running went gray and a window came up that said I had to reboot. I thought "Hmm… That… doesn't… look… good…"

Things seemed to be OK after I rebooted, but the machine would no longer sleep automatically. Finally, it locked up last night and when I tried to reboot it would not bring up the login screen. Norton, predictably, did squat, and while Disk First Aid did find a whole mess of file allocation problems, it could do nothing to fix them. My only recourse now is to get a copy of Disk Warrior, which some folks on Apple's support site said would/could/might take care of it. I hope my local CrapUSA has it.

I was able to boot into OS 9 and copy off my files, so not all is lost. Plus, I've been meaning to reformat that hard drive anyway, although my reason for doing so was originally to get rid of my OS 9 partition. Not so fast, schleppy.

2002-11-06T11:37:00.000-08:00

Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhh... new PowerBooks... glaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.....

I'm now outgunned by 600 MHz on the top end. Is enough enough? Will our hero try to talk his wife into authorizing the purchase of a 1 GHz PowerBook with a SuperDrive?

The educational discount on that isn't too bad, either, although it's still cheaper for me to drive to Oregon and get one. No sales tax.

Time to check eBay for what I can get for my 400 MHz PowerBook.

2002-11-05T09:03:00.000-08:00

I've been using Chimera as my default browser recently and I've really been liking it a lot. It will crash now and again, particularly on ESPN's baseball page, but with tabbed browsing, the ability to file bookmarks right into the folder you want, speed way and above that of Mozilla and better JavaScript support than OmniWeb, it's pretty good.

Release 0.6 is now out.

2002-11-04T18:06:00.000-08:00

Apparently there's a big stink going on at Low End Mac concerning their decision to continue to publish Charles Moore's conservative religious diatribes. I only noticed it today (I try to keep up on the Mac web, but it can be a full-time job).

I agree with Jonathan Crowe - I think it's a mistake. It's always a bad idea to mix politics with business, particularly when you're only representing one side of the story. I've certainly done my fair share of linking to LEM in the past, but I'm certainly less inclined to do so now. I couldn't agree with Moore less, so why would I encourage people to go over and read his articles? Granted, people can make up their own minds about him ("nut" or "kook"?), but there is some implication that I support the sites that I link to.

Unless, of course, I'm mercilessly making fun of them.

This issue is exactly why I separated this site from CARS. Occasionally my biases will leak into a CARS story, but I know for a fact that all kinds of people read the site, so I don't think I'm alienating anyone.

I think the whole thing is somewhat telling about Dan Knight. Dan's certainly got a great basic concept with LEM and has amassed an unparalleled collection of content concerning older Macs, but he's goofy on his relative importance to the world. This whole scene is somewhat reminiscent of his appeals for contributions after he quit his day job to run LEM full-time. He quickly ran into trouble when the Internet advertising bubble burst, but seemed to feel that because there were people out there using the site that they owed him a living.

They don't owe him anything, and his threats to make the site pay-for-content (exactly Slate and the WSJ get away with that), I believe, displayed a real lack of understanding of how much people value LEM.

I use the site from time to time, but I'd never pay for it. There's always some other way I could get that info, either Apple-History, Apple's support pages, or just Googling. It's harder, it takes more time, but it's free. Ask Apple about how much success they've had charging for .Mac, and people are a hell of a lot more loyal to Apple than they are to LEM.

2002-11-02T08:59:00.000-08:00

Dan also speaks the truth about the Microsoft verdict. The only thing I think he got wrong is the headline. It should be "Bush Administration Publicly Blows Microsoft."

2002-10-31T15:56:00.000-08:00

Dan is the man. (Link via BoingBoing.)

And not just because he reads CARS.

Although that certainly helps.

2002-10-31T08:12:00.000-08:00

Where I'll be spending my weekend: Building Mac Applications using REALBasic 4.5 for Mac OS X (link via Studio Log).

I had a valid license to REALBasic a few years ago and toyed around with it, mostly making humorous apps for my friends and family and compiling them for the Mac and Windows. It is VB for the Mac, which is fair praise. Curse VB if you will, but it's simple and gets the job done. Five years ago, people were clamoring for Apple to create a Mac equivalent and REALBasic has resoundingly silenced them.

I've downloaded the most recent demo and expect I'll probably renew my license.

2002-10-30T09:05:00.000-08:00

Forwarding Address: OS X has a link to PathFinder which I just downloaded. Definitely has potential. This could replace the Finder as we know it. Or it could just replace the Finder. Cause... that's what it's designed to do.

2002-10-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

So, someone wrote to me at CARS and proclaimed that because OS X 10.1.5 was slower than 9.2, that meant OS X was not ready. Here's my response:

Um, OK. Did I say it was really fast or something, or are you just lettin' everyone know?

But now that you've brought it up, I do have to point out that just because it's slower than 9.2 doesn't mean it's not ready. I use it everyday and, yes, it's definitely slower, but I like it more. If it's any help, Jaguar's faster than 10.1.5, although not 9.2.

Or maybe this is a Wednesday question...

Regards,
John

I don't get it. Ever since I started buying opering systems, lo these 12 years ago, each successive OS has been slower than the previous. Regardless of platform. Sure, some dot releases will speed an OS up, but never has an OS I've had to pay for been faster than the previous one.

That's because they're enhanced. They do new things. They add features. Those things take up cycles. There's no such thing as a free lunch and you're just kidding yourself if you think software is going to get faster from version to version on the same hardware.

2002-10-19T12:25:00.000-07:00

A very good InfoWorld article from a very good series on Apple. Glenn Fleishman's article in the Seattle Times on almost the same subject gets off track on the subject of hardware support (link via Ranchero). I can't speak for Linux users, but I bet that while better hardware support and longevity is interesting, they're grooving to the services and applications that come with a real desktop operating system.

2002-10-17T18:27:00.000-07:00

Her name is Momoko Kikuchi, and she is the Japanese Ellen Feiss.

Boingboing linked to these Japanese switch ads and in looking them over I was pretty surprised by the one with the girl in the green shirt. Her story is strikingly similar to Ellen Feiss' and so is her telling of it. She talks about how she's working real hard on her PC on this email in English to her friends and then the computer loses all her text. And, of course, she's a student, too.

Her reaction is certainly more emphatic than Ellen's and I'm sure they probably were looking for something similar to Ellen (because she's been such a hit here), but it does make one ponder how staged these things are.

2002-10-14T22:22:00.000-07:00

For what seems like the past month, fricking Blogger has been burping loudly whenever I've gone to post an entry on this site. It doesn't happen on CARS (good fucking thing, too) and it doesn't happen on my personal web page. I go to publish and it starts to but throws up an error message. Annoyingly, the message says "We're working on this. Please try back later."

The post shows up eventually, but what the fuck?

Note to self: download Moveable Type at earliest convenience.

2002-10-14T22:19:00.000-07:00

I think Bob Levitus has lost it (link via PowerPage). Does he also use that application that lets you see the status of Homeland Security in the menu bar?

Now, if I did serious programming of some kind of application, like PhotoShop or something, I might feel compelled to back my system up every other day and not let any of my documents or non-Apple applications come into contact with OS X, but I don't. If I ran the nation's vast network of nuclear missile silos on my PowerBook, I might feel compelled to make sure I could be back up and running again in 15 minutes or less, but, of course, I don't.

I guess Bob does, though.

2002-10-11T21:36:00.000-07:00

I think I've finally reached the limit of my PowerBook's 10 GB hard drive. It's partitioned into two 5 GB drives and I can't even install the latest security update because it wants more than 340 some odd MBs. Over the years I've heard varying rationales for partitioning and not partitioning. I partioned mine because I was an OS X early adopter and I wanted a completely separate logical drive to play around with it on.

That has long since become my regular drive.

MCE has a PowerBook hard drive enclosure for $139 and a 30 GB drive for $169. So, the idea is to put the 30 GB drive in the PowerBook and put the 10 GB drive in the enclosure. A nice little backup drive and a brand-spankin' new hard drive for $308. It's not cheap, but that and a little more memory and my PowerBook gets a new life.

2002-10-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

One thing that drives me absolutely insane about .Mac's reliability problems is that Mail treats them as password rejections. So it's constantly asking me to re-enter my password. It's fucking doing it right now. The god damn Mail icon is bouncing away in the Dock and I don't know if you've ever tried to ignore that but you can't.

2002-10-09T20:32:00.000-07:00

Several good links on Hack the Planet today. Rather than re-linking them, you should just go take a look. The Fortune article is good and, oh, hell, they're all good.

2002-10-07T10:47:00.000-07:00

At first I thought Cory Doctorow was having a little fun with Photoshop when he put up this Sharing preferences panel Easter Egg, but I got it this morning when I woke up my Power Mac and tried to connect it to my PowerBook.

That is very odd!

2002-10-05T08:49:00.000-07:00

Anyone else remember when Byte was a magazine? I actually used to subscribe to it, although I only understood about a third (actually, I'm probably being generous to myself). I was attracted to it because it covered every platform, and I really liked Jerry Pournelle's column which was always just about getting things to work. I got Macworld and MacUser, of course, which was like getting two local newspapers and Byte was like a national (and not USAToday).

Anyway, I haven't read it online, for some reason, but this article on OS X was linked to via Studio Log and I had a blast from the past. It looks much the same. Even Pournelle's still writing his column (quite frankly, I thought he'd be dead by now...).

Some people say most of the people switching to Mac OS X are Unix geeks, so Apple isn't really gaining any marketshare from Windows, it's just hurting Linux. Perhaps, but what is it the Unix/Linux crowd is looking for? A desktop environment. Some of them are probably using Linux on the desktop but I'll bet more of them are using Windows. OS X gives them the ability to have a gorgeous, Unix-based desktop environment and rid themselves of Microsoft. They're still running Unix/Linux on the server, but a PowerBook is on their lap.

2002-10-02T20:04:00.000-07:00

Confirmed my iSync problem. For some reason, my work calendar comes over empty.

Huh.

2002-10-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

First Dan Gillmor rocks, then he rocks again.

2002-10-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

I arrived to work today to find none of my work calendar items got synced to my iPod. Not sure what happened, but I was pretty annoyed.

"It's just a beta. It's just a beta..."

2002-10-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

So here's my dilemma. I started taking Discrete Structures on Tuesday and found that we will need to use a mathematics package called Maple. There's an older version for OS 9, but the most recent version is only available for Windows and Linux ("We expect tangible results on our Mac OS X version some time this year!" Huh?). I guess I have a few options.

- Try to buy the OS 9 version (if they will even sell it) and risk it not being compatible with the latest Windows version used on campus.
- Buy a used PC laptop and install either Windows or Linux on it to run the latest version.
- Get VirtualPC for $110 and install Windows for another $100.
- Get VirtualPC for $110 and install Linux for maybe $40.

I'm seriously leaning toward the last option as I've wanted to try Linux out anyway. On the other hand, I've wanted a laptop that's teeny tiny that I can take around to write CARS stories on. Could this be an opportunity to get an ultra-slim PC laptop and run Linux on it?

As you can tell, running Windows is not really an option for me. I've listed it above for the sake of completeness, but it'll be a cold day in hell before I send my hard-earned cash off to Redmond. Like they fucking need it.

Anyway, the final option I didn't mention is just using the damn software in the computer lab at school. But if you think that's viable, you're clearly missing the point of the whole exercise.

2002-10-01T09:59:00.000-07:00

After using iSync for a while now, it occurs to me that this is exactly the app that would have made the Newton killer. The biggest pain in the ass with the Newton was the lack of any good syncing software.

Admittedly, it was too big and too expensive for the average user, but those of us who had one (have one) were just looking for a good way to move data back and forth from our computers. The state of web apps is significantly more advanced now than it was then, and iSync will revolve heavily around a web app. Already you have to have .Mac to even get it to work, but I'm really talking about the ability to edit and view your calendars and contacts online.

Grant Hutchinson has a nice graphic of what might have been with the Newton. My vote for a MacHack attempt.

2002-09-28T23:49:00.000-07:00

As you probably know, the iSync public beta is out now. Of course, they never said it would be a beta, but what the hell...

It gave me an error message when I synced with my iPod but it appears to have worked (unless I'm missing some stuff and just don't know about it).

As you'd imagine the user interface is quite intuitive. It's a little slow, compared even to syncing music to my iPod, which is odd because music files have to be a little larger than addresses, dontcha think?

2002-09-27T19:40:00.000-07:00

I need an EyeTV. I'm going back over some video tapes I made last TV season and two of them (TWO!) do this weird thing where they seem normal for a while, then they speed up real fast. Grrr...

There's nothing worse than realizing half a season of Buffy is toast.

2002-09-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but I'm somehow fascinated by people's workspaces. This site starts (another) collection of photos of various workspaces. (Link via Splorp.) You can see mine in the "recent submissions".

2002-09-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

I've noticed since updating to 10.2.1 that my PowerBook now sleeps when it should. Good PowerBook. Goooooood.

Today I downloaded the god-awful late release of Palm Desktop for Handspring Visors. Works like a charm! Better than the old dog chow.

Now I'm re-contemplating my plans to pitch my Visor. Since my iPod now handles both contacts and calendars, which was all I ever used my Visor for, what good is it?

Well, what if Palm Desktop is twice the calendar iCal is? Don't get me wrong. I actually like iCal. But it's not ready for prime time yet. There are a host of things I'd have to work around to get it to do what I want. I can either choose to put up with its problems until they update it, or I can use Palm Desktop. I could still use my iPod for mobile access - I never updated anything directly on my Visor anyway. I don't think the iPod reads vCal files, only iCal files, but I could go through iCal to get there.

The way I see it, I'm going to carry around my iPod no matter what, so why the heck would I want to also carry around my Visor?

2002-09-23T17:42:00.000-07:00

I still read the occasional tirade about how Mac OS X is an inferior user interface than OS 9 was. I'll agree there are some things that need to be fixed. This morning, for instance, I launched Mail and then immediately launched OmniWeb. When both applications had loaded, I was left with OmniWeb purportedly in the foreground as it should have been but, strangely, the Activity Viewer window in Mail had superimposed itself over the lower left hand corner of OmniWeb.

That's stupid. Windows does shit like that all the time and I hate it. Windows is far worse, actually, as Internet Explorer has this way of jumping in the foreground no matter what. I'll launch IE, switch back to Outlook, and IE will invariably pop itself back to the front. "Surely, you want to look at me, don't you?!"

No! But thanks for asking, you piece of useless shit!

Anyway, where I was going with this is, the people who complain about OS X being inferior to OS 9 invariably ignore the whole host of stuff that OS X does better, and I'm not even talking about the technical aspects. Scream all you want about not being able to add 27 different aliases to the Apple menu anymore, but menus make sense in OS X now. No more "Special" menu. Why is restarting so "spay-cial" anyway?

The other thing I always thought was an anacronism was the toolbar/powerbar (what the hell was that thing called?). People bitch and moan about the dock being a catch-all - how about that thing? What a crock. I never really liked it, although I understand people loved it. Of course, it was better than not having it, particularly for PowerBooks, but to me it didn't exactly exude a feeling of being well thought out.

2002-09-22T19:31:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are the pictures from my stint as a guest groundskeeper at Safeco Field. Enjoy!

2002-09-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

John Gruber provides an excellent explanation why, like MHz, you can't rely solely on marketshare numbers. (Link via Studio Log.)

The article he links to is the second deliberate troll for angry Mac users I've seen in as many days. I've declined to link to the first one and I encourage you not to click on the link Gruber provides. These guys don't care how much they contribute to the FUD surrounding the Mac, they're interested in hits.

Don't give them to them.

2002-09-20T10:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight I will be working the grounds crew at Safeco Field. The woman in the office next to mine is the wife of the head groundskeeper and I have managed to score a spot as a guest groundskeeper. So I will be on the field while the Mariners play the Angels. I'll be bringing both my cameras for batting practice (although I can't use them during the game), so I'll post some pictures.

2002-09-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

I had always thought of the Pacific Northwest as being devoid of any Mac development, outside the Microsoft Mac Business Unit (which I think is actually in California...), but I've since learned a thang or two. First, CARS advertiser the Omni Group is located in the U District, and now I find that Ranchero, makers of the way cool NetNewsWire Lite, are in Ballard.

Then I read Jerry Kindall's blog today and found there was a Weblogger Meetup at Sit and Spin in Ballard last night and, it seems, most of the attendees were Mac users of some serious repute. I've been intrigued by the thought of meeting other bloggers and am more intrigued by the thought of meeting other Mac-using bloggers. There's a smattering of Tacoma registrants on the Meetup site and I'm tempted to add my name to the list, but I think what I really want is to meet the folks in Seattle.

At the same time, maybe I'd be the guy to meet at the Tacoma meeting.

And are these meetings thinly veiled singles meetings? I don't think so by the look of it, but I have so many questions and so few answers.

2002-09-19T17:47:00.000-07:00

Sigh. (Link via MacNN.)

After the release of that crappy-looking Gateway, I have backed off on my "Macs are no longer more expensive" position, but here's another "industry analyst" who clearly isn't thinking things through.

Her comments on speed seem fairly well aimed at trying not to get flamed into the next century while also saying she thinks the PC is faster. I don't have access to the machines she does, but I have no reason to doubt her assertion that the Windows machine was a few seconds faster than the Mac. That seems reasonable. Still, if you don't have the slightly faster machine right next to you, you're probably never going to notice the difference, unless you're a gamer.

Anyway, I don't have a huge problem with her comments on price and speed. Also, Apple someday needs to do something about the mouse. I haven't used an Apple-supplied mouse in years. I have a trackball on my Power Mac and a mini 2-button scroll wheel mouse attached to my PowerBook. An upgrade option seems a good interim solution. Sell grandma the one-button mouse, sell Joe Publishing the 87-button mouse with the scroll wheel for $50 more. A better solution would be to top the mouse. Glove? Retina? Butt-driven interface? Something.

The next two "issues" she notes are laughable. "I'm used to using a 21-inch CRT monitor." Get a Power Mac, then. And if you're using a tower-style PC, why doesn't the Mac get any extra credit for form factor? And the floppy? Puh-leeze. Get over it.

Finally, the truely aggregious part is neglecting to give Jaguar its due as the best operating system out there.

And, yes, for the thousandth time, I use XP, too. It chews chunks compared to Jaguar.

2002-09-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

I spent part of the morning updating to 10.2.1 and, if you haven't done it yet, I had to resist the urge to kill the update when it got the optimization stage. I think there used to be a progress bar for the optimization process - looks like it got dropped in Jaguar, which is a problem on my 400 Mhz PowerBook, because optimization takes a long time. I thought maybe it had croaked but decided to let it run for a while. Sure enough, it finished fine. So, if you have a slower Mac, give it a chance.

2002-09-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

Ooh! I just got a perpetual spinning color wheel in Jaguar. I had put my PowerBook to sleep and then went to my Power Mac and tried ctrl-click on the PowerBook's attached hard drive. The color wheel spinned and spinned and spinned...

Finally, I woke the PowerBook back up and, voila, the contextual menu on the icon for its hard drive on the Power Mac popped up, allowing me to eject it.

Hmm.

2002-09-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

It turns out you can import from an iPhoto database. The only problem was, it brought over everything, including the original, unrotated versions of certain pictures and thumbnails of all of them. It worked, but I had a mess of cleanup afterwards. Still looking for a better way.

2002-09-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

Whew! Back from the Canadian Rockies! And, let me say, it is beautiful out there!

Two points of note: I think I screwed myself by deciding to download all my digital camera pictures daily to my laptop using iPhoto. I prefer to keep all of my pictures on my Power Mac and I don't see how you can transfer pictures from one iPhoto database to another without exporting them as jpegs. That's fine, but it loses the original date info and uses the date of export instead. That blows.

Second, I was having trouble figuring out why Mail wasn't deleting emails on my CARS server when I downloaded them. Turns out it's not the settings on the Special Mailboxes tab, it's the settings on the Advanced tab. I needed to set it to delete when I moved items from the mailbox.

It's good to be back! I've downloaded iCal and will be playing around with that all weekend if I can get away with it!

2002-08-31T12:30:00.000-07:00

Hmm. Trouble.

I'm trying to install Jaguar on my PowerMac but it's going slower than shit and my CD drive is making a strange noise. The installer keeps coming back and saying "There were problems trying to install - please try again!"

"Please try again"?

What, like it's just going to magically clear up?

It's possible I missed some sort of firmware update, so I'm rebooting back into 10.1.5 to run Software Update.

2002-08-30T05:27:00.000-07:00

If your one of those types who likes to tweak icons, you might like Candy Bar. Personally, I spent a number of years way into tweaking icons back when I first got a color Mac.

It wears off pretty quickly. The minute you get a new machine or reinstall the operating system you've got to tweak them all over again, so what's the point? These days I just stick with stock icons - my time's a little more important to me.

Although, I apparently have the time to discuss the issue so it's still not that important.

2002-08-29T15:40:00.000-07:00

Not only did I misspell "anachronism" below (which is not unusual for me), I said "outdated anacronism" [sic], which is redundant.

Sigh.

On the bright side, I didn't make a complete fool out of myself on Your Mac Life last night. You can check out the archive if you missed it. I'm riveting.

2002-08-27T21:10:00.000-07:00

Dammit, I need some new friends. I've had iChat running for hours and no one logs in. What, are they out living their lives or something? Please.

2002-08-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

Apple's Ken Bereskin has a weblog (link via giles.hn.org) and he talks about OS X. Useful stuff.

2002-08-27T17:50:00.000-07:00

Far be it from me to cricize Jaguar in any way (I loooooooooove Jaguar - I luh-uh-uve it), but why won't my PowerBook go to sleep anymore?

Hold that thought - small digression. I'm sitting on my porch and this guy just drove by in an El Dorado with an American flag in the back window.

He was drinking a can of Miller.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

Truth be told, certain members of my family think it's OK to drive around drinking a beer or a scotch. Now, I like a drink as much as the next man, even if the next man is W.C. Fields. As a matter of fact, I'm drinking right now. But driving around guzzling down some alcohol is just not OK.

I'd be interested in hearing a foreign perspective on this. Anyone? Anyone? Buhler? Buhler?

ANYWAY, my PowerBook won't go to sleep on its own anymore. It's like a 3-year-old. I have to put it down every night.

What gives? I've had the same problem with my Power Mac since upgrading to OS X, but my PowerBook was fine until Jaguar.

2002-08-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

Y'know, maybe the Gateway's what David Pogue knew about before hand.