Mac.LTL

I just want to rant a bit about my iPhone 3G. I bought it the day it came out. It’s been quite a headache. I’ve already returned it for a new one, hoping that would solve my problems. I’ve been updating the firmware and iTunes as soon as they’re available. I’m experiencing dropped calls. My iPhone’s screen will turn black as I’m using it. It had a problem with frequently restarting, but that doesn’t seem to be happening anymore. I’ve experienced a problem where none of the apps I’ve installed will open, even after turning the phone on and off. I’ll just have to do a restore. I think this has happened three times. On the note of restores, I’ve done that about a half dozen times so far. For me, backing up the iPhone takes hours and I have no idea why. I’ve done the restore, I’ve removed apps, I’ve deleted and reinstalled iTunes. Much of the troubleshooting I’ve done was from the instruction of Apple’s tech support.

And of course, there’s the recent discovery that you can get by the locked phone screen by making an emergency call and double pressing the home button.

I’ve been showing the iPhone to people and suggesting they also get one because it’s such a great phone. The hardware is great. Perfect size. Lots of features. Great applications. But at this point, it’s just not stable enough for me to recommend to people. In fact, I realized that when I’ve been showing the phone to people, I’ve been trying to avoid indicating to them that it has problems. It will shut down as I’m showing it to them and I’ll just keep talking and describing the features as I turn it back on. At this point, I’m just not recommending people get it. I tell them it’s not very stable right now and there’s been a lot of problems and they may wish to wait for future updates and revisions.

In all honesty, I feel like I’m back working on the Windows platform. I have a Windows laptop from work and I hate it. Although I’m venting about my iPhone experience, while I’m at it, I might as well also note that 10.5 hasn’t been the most stable experience for me, either. And I understand Mobile Me has been a problem for people.

Oh, and on top of all that, when I returned my iPhone at the Apple Store, they had me scheduled for 6:00, but I ended up having to wait 45 minutes longer because they were backed up.

I was much happier with my Mac experience two years ago.

I sometimes like to try and support the underdog in businesses if it’s not too much out of my way. I worry about monopolies and want to promote competition. But I think this search on Ask.com really exemplifies why other Search Engines aren’t always quite as good as Google and even Yahoo! and Live.

Awhile ago, I wanted to go to the Ubuntu website. Silly me, I forgot what the Ubuntu website address was. Did it end in .com or .org? Was it just “ubuntu” or “ubuntulinux”? So, like any other web surfer, I went to the search engine to type in Ubuntu, figuring it would be the first search result and I could just give it a click and go straight to the site. I figure, Ask.com could probably handle this; no need to expand the Google monopoly. Well, Ubuntu.com was not one of the search results for the first page and there was even an adult-oriented picture that was being displayed as one of the image search results. (Though, that image is still related to Ubuntu.) I took a screenshot, actually.

This was awhile ago when I did that search, so of course I thought I’d give it another try.  TheWikipedia entry aside, Ubuntu.com has managed to climb to the number two search result at Ask.com.  Not sure if I should be congratulating Ask or Ubuntu.  However, it does seem that the Ask.com search does still yield two particularly adult-oriented images.  Ask.com shows the results of the image search in the sidebar.

I should note that Google’s filter does also display those same two images in a search, but apparently Google favors breasts over butts.

I recently had a terrible experience with AT&T getting internet at my new apartment. I was interested in getting internet as quickly as possible and they just happened to be the first people I was able to get in contact with. I called AT&T. I ended up getting their most expensive internet service and a cheap land line. I was told my phone line would be active by Thursday and my DSL modem would arrive by Friday. I purchase a phone and plug it in on Thursday and I get no dial tone. I call AT&T on Friday at 5:00PM and they tell me my line is active and I should try it again and that my DSL modem could still arrive in the next three hours. They tell me their call center is open for another hour after that. (Experience getting transfered around on the phone and giving the same information several times was frustrating. I was told their was a 24 hour tech support I could have called, but apparently when I called back at 8:05 they weren’t open.) So anyway, I check my phone again and I don’t have a dial tone. Not receiving my DSL modem, I called back and couldn’t get in touch with anyone.

This is when I got a little frustrated. When I don’t have internet, I can’t get work done and I don’t have any entertainment. I spent the evenings playing single player video games and staying afloat with my iPhone.

So that very night I ended up getting in touch with Astound. They were incredibly responsive. They told me they could have a tech out by Monday to install everything for me. Considering there was a weekend and they were getting me this in shorter time than AT&T, I was quite pleased with that. Moreover, they had much better options for getting a cable modem. They came out and set everything up that Monday perfect. I came home from work and had internet. Ran a speed test and everything was just as it should be.

But back to AT&T. Now that I had found a solution with Astound, I had to call and cancel service with AT&T. They put me through to some “customer retention department” or something. I explained I wanted to cancel my service. They asked why and I explained it was because I wasn’t getting any service. (It’s not my intention to hassle these poor phone operators, so please don’t misunderstand my tone. It was very calm and constructive.) The young lady offered me a month of free service or something like that. I explained that the cost wasn’t the issue and I would gladly pay $100 a month of I could be certain I would receive reliable service. I told her I would like to cancel everything unless she could somehow guarantee that my future experiences with customer service would be responsive and ultimately satisfactory. She agreed to continue with canceling my order. She then proceeded to tell me I would be charged $40 for AT&T activating the line. I had to explain to her several times my unwillingness to pay because I never got a dial tone and did not want to pay for service that I never received. She told me there was some sort of FCC thing that said they had to. I’m certain she didn’t know what she was talking about.

She ended up sending me to a supervisor, but as that was going on, she told me her supervisor had noticed that charge was waved for me when I first ordered the service. So this wasn’t even an issue. I did end up speaking with the supervisor, but she was incredibly rude and self-righteous. In speaking with her, all I wanted to do was to confirm the situation and ensure I would be receiving no charge. Even when I tried to repeat what she had just told me to make sure I understood, she would interrupt.

And here’s the other thing, the DSL modem ended up arriving late. They told me to just refuse to accept it when it arrived so it would be returned to them. It did not arrive on Saturday as they had told me it should, since it didn’t arrive on Friday.

I really am annoyed enough with AT&T to want to ditch them on my cell phone. If I weren’t locked into AT&T with my iPhone… ugh…

But much thanks to Astound. I can’t speak for all customers and I don’t know them very well as a company. But I had a very positive experience with them thus far and wanted to note that.

So, you have an Intel Mac and want the best of both worlds.
Sure, you can use Boot Camp, if you don’t mind restarting your computer when
you need Windows. Now for myself, I did try Boot Camp with Windows XP,
but then it also wanted updates, and I was not able to go online via
Windows, so that is where my experiment stopped. Then I had heard of
trying a demo copy of Parallels from their website, so I gave that a
try. Parallels did the trick! I was able to get online, I did not have
to do anything. Plug and Play, that’s for me. This is why I own a Mac,
right? So, if you have a need to run Windows along side the Apple OS,
this could do the trick. Be aware that this will also be sucking up
your RAM, and Windows may also want updates, so no bootlegs kiddies!
So, you are looking at the cost of Parallels along with the cost of a Windows disk.
I only tried out XP, so I can not say what fun Vista may bring.
I did also use the Windows version of Yahoo messenger while trying out Parallels, and that was much more fun then the Mac version. I then tried a web cam, but did not get too far on that. So, if you need two worlds in one computer, this can be a solution.

Dear Apple. Where is our webcam?
Yes, Apple does now have built in webcams on many models,
however, several models have been left behind. Abandoned.
With Apple discarding the iSight camera, the Mac Pro and Mac Mini
have been left behind without a replacement by Apple.
What is Apple’s strategy here? To get customers to buy other models?
Who cares? I do! I have a Mac Mini and would like to buy another, but can not
understand why Apple would stop production of the one camera they make,
without making a new replacement. Well Apple, where is it?

So what do I find underneath a power strip behind a desk all dusty and forgotten… a Palm Vx from 3com. I wanted one of these so badly when I was in high school. Having an amazing mobile device just seemed so cool. I ended up getting a far less expensive and less feature rich DaVinci. (Copying a certain older brother. You know who you are! Not the best tech investment.)

Now of course, I’m keen on my iPhone and even my slim and sleek Nintendo DS to compliment it. But nonetheless, this was an incredibly nostalgic moment. I immediately looked up all the old specs for the device. I recall there is still a big following for the Apple Newton. In fact, I know of at least one T-shirt you can buy supporting it. This has got me thinking about how tempting it would be to look into some old mobile devices that I can pick up for cheap that are incredibly hackable. I’m too scared to do anything to my iPhone. $400 is an expensive phone to break. And even if I can restore it fine, this is my main line of communication to the world. As soon as I start tinkering with it, I lose that connection while I’m hacking it.

I’ve got my Nintendo DS setup to play ROMs and games like Doom. It’s also setup to be an MP3 player. Which isn’t of much use with the iPhone.

I’m actually pretty amazed with how thin the Palm Vx was. I hadn’t held one since my hands weren’t fully grown. Soon as I get a chance I’m going to see about getting one and tinkering with it. Although, I’ll have to make sure it will work with my computer as best I can.

I remember considering my TI-86 graphing calculator as one of my awesome mobile devices. I use to program games for it with the scripting language they had for it. I could only view five lines of code at a time. That was pretty hardcore. Paradoxically, spending all my time programming using pretty advanced math for my age is the reason I received a D grade in my algebra class. “Hmm… as Adam’s teacher, I really need to get him to return to doing materiel that he finds remedial and not encourage his gift. Who cares if he’s acing all the tests? He needs to be doing his homework! Programming video games is no different than playing them.” Okay, I never actually heard my teacher say that, but I’m sure that’s what she was thinking.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my nostalgia.

Let me first state that professionals do, in fact, use Windows. That’s just a catchy title. Or rather, a controversial, flame inducing title. But people that use their computers at home and techs that repair PCs with Windows will tell you that everyone uses Windows. Very not true. Home users needing something for internet and E-mail and word processing use Windows. And sure, maybe it’s 90% of the market. But we professionals are a little different. We need something more. We have specialized tasks that Windows may not be best suited for.

My inspiration for writing this was an experience I had at Best Buy. I was looking to purchase a USB wireless network adapter for an older Macintosh still running 10.2.  The gentleman helping me proceeded to tell me that everyone hates Macs and nothing is compatible with them. I laughed and shrugged and said I liked them. As we spoke more, he asked me why I liked Macs. I shrugged again and said modestly, “Well, I’m an IT guy so I use it for a lot of things and so it’s kind of technical…” He said, “Oh no, go ahead…” I explained to him all the rich features of OS X and told him some of the applications I run and how much better it is on the Mac. He wasn’t all too familiar with what I was talking about, but nodded and conceded his unfamiliarity with that stuff. Later that day, I thought more about it and I speculated what he was probably using his computer for. And of course, I came up with gaming, internet, E-mail, word processing, and some media apps.

Now you take a look at the workstations from IBM, Sun, Novell, and Apple and none of them run Windows. But let’s also take HP as an example. They sell Windows PCs from HP at Best Buy. What they don’t sell at Best Buy from HP is their workstations running Tru64, HP-UX, OpenVMS, and Linux.

Scientists, graphic designers, architects… are they committed Windows users? A lot of them are needing some serious workstations that are good for people doing CAD/CAM, GIS, high performance technical visualization and defense application.

And this isn’t just the case for workstations. In the world of servers, super computers, and mainframes Windows is not king. When people need to do serious work, they do not necessarily rely on Windows.

I’ve found the only people telling me how Windows is better are PC technicians. Ones that spend most of their time piecing together PCs and formatting them to reinstall Windows in their professional life, and most of their time gaming and downloading pirated software from torrents in their personal life. Now, once again, professionals do use Windows. But professionals disproportionately use other operating systems.

Let’s look at some numbers. I’ll start with financial figures I grabbed from Wikipedia. Microsoft’s revenue from 2007 was $51.12 billion. Let’s compare that with Sun, Apple, Novell, and IBM. Sun had revenue of $13.873 billion in fiscal year of 2007. Apple was $24.01 billion. Novell was $1.2 billion from 2005. And IBM is listed as having revenue of $98.8 billion during the 2007 to 2008 fiscal year. Now of course, this doesn’t say much about Windows verses other operating systems. These companies sell a lot more than operating systems. But I think it’s food for thought, taken with a grain of salt, when considering these competitors sell operating systems other than Windows, and they’re doing quite well.

So let’s now look at some figures for Windows usage.

How about servers? Let’s look at web servers. (I’m going to make an assumption here and not bother doing the research. I’m going to assume that most computers running Apache are not running Windows. After all, why spend all that money on Windows with IIS, just to install Apache?) Currently, about 60% of the internet is Apache and only about 30% is IIS. Well below the oft quoted 90% of average users that use Windows.

Of the top 500 super computers as of November of 2007, only 6 were running Windows. (Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003.) Linux is at the top of the list with 381 super computers using it. Redhat beats out Windows with 13. Mac OS X is even being run on 2 super computers. IBM’s AIX is running on 26 of them.

Ultimately, what I think I’m trying to get at is Microsoft with Windows does not control the world.

I went to Macworld again this year. The MacBook Air is incredibly nice. It’s very portable and it’s something you have to pick up and hold to fully appreciate. I was always very happy with my 12″ iBook G4. I thought the size of that was just perfect. I was a little hesitant about a portable laptop with a 13.3″ screen, but it’s still surprisingly nice. Being so slim and light weight really makes up for the other dimensions.

I’d say there are a few good criticisms of the MacBook Air and what was announced, however. With the MacBook Air, Apple also released an external USB Super Drive. It seems that drive exclusively works with the MacBook Air. I was told by the Apple gentleman showing the laptop to me that the USB port had an additional line to provide more power, thus preventing the drive from working on other computers.

I thought the Remote Drive seemed pretty cool. I typically just use disk images on a file server that I mount, but I could see the benefit of having a mounted physical drive from any other networked computer. Asking about that, I was told that the Remote Drive software would only work for the MacBook Air. I can imagine scenarios where that software would be very convenient for me to use.

I have mixed feelings about gesture pads and I’m not certain how much success Apple will have with it. Looking at the MacBook Air, the trackpad button is much smaller and the trackpad itself is 20% larger than the MacBook. If Apple has a lot of success with gestures, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just remove that physical button altogether.

This probably only effects a small group of portable users. But many people buying these ultra-portable laptops are doing so because they’re doing a lot of moving around and field work. As a result, opportunities to plug into an outlet and charge your battery may be few. The MacBook Air does not have a user replaceable battery. So unlike many other laptops, you can’t carry around an additional battery to pop in once you’re running low on battery life. I personally have never needed to do that. Speaking anecdotally, I can think of only one person I’ve ever met that carried around a second battery. But I’m sure there’s some people out there that take long flights and need the additional battery while working on a plane, for example.

In addition to seeing the MacBook Airs, I also had a chance to browse the exhibit hall and for the first time used the ModBook. It’s a MacBook that is modded to be a tablet with the keyboard removed and touch screen added. This illustrates to me a demand for this kind of mobile Mac. I’d really like a computer that is something between my iPhone and my MacBook. I frequently walk around my workplace and could benefit from a Mac that is as easy to hold and use as a clipboard. My iPhone doesn’t have the software and my MacBook requires me to hold it in an awkward way and sometimes balance it on my knee to type.

I was told the ModBook also works with the Tablet Edition of Windows. The ModBook only comes in white, which is a shame, because the gentleman at Macworld had one specially made for him that was black and it actually looked really sleek.

Well, I am officially starting a trend, every month, I will put out a new edition of “My Top 10 ‘Hard to live without’ apps”. These will be apps for the Mac I cannot ever live without. Let’s see… 

1.) Safari (OSX 10.2+)-I could not live without this app, I do all of my web browsing in it! And, it’s easy to use, fast, and for the most part, supports many standards.

2.) Adium (OSX 10.4; older versions for 10.2-10.3)-I do all of my instant messaging through this app, and it can be configured easily and without hassles.

3.) Word 5.1 (System 6+; runs in Classic)-Yes, I do use this app for all of my word processing demands 99.999% of the time, for the .001%, I use NeoOffice for compatibility.

4.) Colloquy (OSX 10.3.9+; older versions for 10.2)-I do all of my IRC in this app, not much more to say.

5.) Apple Mail (OSX 10.4; also bundled with 10.0-10.3, albeit older versions)-I do all of my email in this app, so yeah.

6.)  iTunes (OSX 10.3.9+; older versions for 8.6/9-10.2)-Music/iPod, not much to say.

7.) QuickTime (OSX 10.3.9+; older versions for 6.0.0-10.2)-I do my TV show watching here.

8.) Perian 1.0 (OSX 10.4+; older betas for 10.3)-Without this, I’d shoot myself, literally, Perian is so useful.

9.) AppTrap (OSX xyz; I don’t know what version is needed, sorry)-Say you want to uninstall an app, with AppTrap, just drag the .app to the trash and pops up a screen asking if you want to delete the support files. Very useful app!

10.) Finder (System 1-10.4)-There’s always that one app that you take for granted, the Finder is one of them. I’d be so lost without it.

Anyway, there’s my list, stay tuned for next month’s!

Also, feel free to comment! 

The recent update to iTunes, 7.4.1, has been reported to block some third party iPhone ringtones that were hacked for use with the iPhone in previous releases, to circumvent Apple’s 2$usd pricing on ringtones. It is starting to become evident, in my opinion, that this will turn into a mini-cat and mouse game, between Apple and the ‘homebrew’ ringtones.

More information can be found here.