Category: Apple

Time flies when you're having fun.

From Lex Friedman at MacWorld.com:

On Twitter and Facebook, in my email, and through IMs, I keep hearing a similar refrain: Why am I so sad? Why am I feeling such a strong reaction to the death of someone I've never met?

Many of us feel tremendous sadness in light of Steve Jobs's death. I can't speak for my friends about why they feel so affected by his passing, but I imagine their reasons for tearing up mirror my own.

Welcome in my home

I can't tell you the name of either one of RIM's CEOs. Though I know his name, I honestly couldn't pick Google CEO Larry Page out of a lineup, and I don't know that I've ever heard his speaking voice, either. But I know just what Steve Jobs looked like, and just how he sounded. Not every CEO can—or should—show off his company's products. But watching Steve deliver a keynote or host an Apple Event, I wasn't struck solely by his much-lauded showmanship. Part of what made a Jobs-helmed event so exciting to watch was his very real, very tangible passion for the products he was unveiling. Steve didn't just run Apple—he loved it, and you could see that love, that pride, beaming from his face.

You hear people talk about television actors as the people we don't know who we let into our homes, since they show up in our dens each night. Every Apple event, Steve showed up in my home too, wherever my Mac was. I would read the liveblog first, then watch the video as soon as Apple made it available. I've watched countless interviews with the man, too. So part of the reason I think his death hits me hard is because I really do feel like I knew him—even if he didn't know me.

(continued)

I can't tell you how many times I've been asked that at work.  I guess people assume that since I provide hardware support I know everything about anything PC-related.  Trouble is, they never really like the answer I give them:

"Get a Mac."

The usual response? "I meant what kind of Windows computer!"

I tell them I really can't recommend any computer running Windows, and then relate my own story of how, after being a loyal user since Windows 2.1, I reached the end of my rope with the OS.  When pressed, I usually say, "Okay, if you have to buy a Windows box, then go with Dell or HP, but be warned you'll be stuck with Windows 7, a ton of useless presinstalled crapware and 30-day trials that will nag you incessantly when the trial period expires if you don't uninstall them.  The first thing I would recommend if you insist on going this route is to find someone to completely wipe the box and do a clean reinstall of the OS without all the garbage."

"How much would you charge to do that?"

"I don't do any outside work."

At this point they usually get a worried expression on their face and then come the excuses (all of which I used myself at one time or another since I saw my first Mac in 1987 and when I finally made the switch in 2009) and begin with, "I'd really like to get a Mac, but…"

• They're too expensive.
• I'm replacing an old computer and none of my software will work.
• Nothing I do on a Mac will be compatible with Windows.
• My husband/wife/partner uses Windows.

So then I explain that yes, Macs are more expensive than your average PC, but you get what you pay for: beautifully designed hardware and software that always just works.¹

It's true that out-of-the-box, Windows software will not run on a Mac, but you can install Parallels or BootCamp and run the bug-ridden² OS on your Mac hardware if you insist. Or, you can go out and find equivalent native Mac software that does the same thing your Windows software does.  It forces you out of the "I could never live without…" mindset. (Although after two years, I'm still missing Thumbs Plus.)

If by "nothing" compatible you mean standard word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software, that's totally false.  Not only does Microsoft have a fully-compatible version of Office for Mac available, Apple's own productivity suite, iWork, both imports and exports files in Office format.

And finally, who cares if your significant other uses Windows? Do you share the same toothbrush?  If you bring home a shiny new Mac and show him/her how beautiful it is and how easy it is to do things on it, you might convert them.

And did I mention that Mac still remains (for the most part) virus-free? You can't say that about Windows.

So what invariably happens? They go out and buy a $400 piece of shit laptop from Best Buy and wonder why it works so poorly or blows up after only a year of use.

Maybe I should start telling them to go buy an iPad. At least that way they'll get more than a year out of a $400 investment…

¹First release of major upgrades to the operating system notwithstanding.
²Last week when I did a fresh install of Windows XP SP3 on a machine at work, there were 108 updates. ONE HUNDRED EIGHT.

I love Apple. Don't get me wrong. But over the past couple weeks, I've become increasingly disenchanted with Lion, aka OS X 10.7.  The dropped wireless connections were the worst part of it, but the spinning beach balls and the never-ending stream of "The application has quit unexpectedly" messages were really getting to be a pain in the ass.  I never had the spinning beach balls under Snow Leopard like I've had under Lion.

A couple days ago I resolved to return to Snow Leopard (aka OS X 10.6.), where I knew that everything would work.  Once again I performed due diligence, not only having a complete Time Machine backup on hand, but I'd also manually transferred my profile onto a different external drive…just in case.

I wiped the drive, reinstalled Snow Leopard, and applied all the patches.  Everything transferred from my backups except my emails.

Seriously, Apple?

I tried importing through Mail.  I'd get back all my folders, but they'd all be empty.  I tried transferring them manually.  Same issue.  Did Apple change their mail format?  I don't know, but after a couple hours of this nonsense I said fuck it, and wiped the drive a second time, in preparation for doing a fresh install (not an upgrade) of Lion, hoping this would also solve the other, myriad problems I'd been having.

I knew full well I'd probably lose the ability to use my Verizon air card, but at this point it was either that or my emails.  I chose to lose the air card.

The install was fairly painless, and everything (including iTunes) transferred back from my manual backup without incident.  I had tried to use the Migration Assistant, but apparently you can't overwrite an existing profile with one of the same name. Seriously, Apple?

Whatever.  I got everything back.

On a lark, I plugged in the Verizon modem.  It worked.  Fuck me in high heels and call me Sally, the proprietary software wasn't even needed.  Good thing, too, because they still haven't gotten an update out for Lion.

If I'd known this when Lion came out I would've done a clean install from the very beginning.

Since Ben is having the same wireless issues, I'm now trying to talk him into doing the same thing…

Yeah, I jumped back into it yesterday. For some unknown reason everything works as it should. Very pleased with the outcome this time. No more robopsychosis.

…is why I stick with Apple, despite that recent bump in the road.

Exhibit A: Wireless setup

Left and center, Windows setup instructions. Right, Mac OS X instructions.

Nuff said.

It was my own fault.

I'm what the marketing types call an "early adopter." I like to get my hands on new tech as soon as possible, so it was understandable that I immediately scooped up the latest version of the Mac OS, OS X Lion, thanks in no small part to an iTunes gift card my sister had gotten me for my birthday a couple months ago. (Yeah, this was all premeditated.)

I performed due diligence: I made sure all the necessary patches were in place on my existing system and did a complete Time Machine backup. I downloaded Lion and held my breath as it installed.

About 35 minutes later the machine rebooted and I was greeted with the new welcome screen. I logged in. Everything seemed to be working just fine. All of my apps, emails, addresses, and calendar items were right where they should be. Surprisingly, even the Verizon air card software (which supposedly wouldn't work under Lion) was working fine. As the day progressed, and reports started coming in from folks who were having some very serious problems, I counted myself among the lucky ones whose system was running normally.

Then a day later I made a critically stupid mistake.

I uninstalled the Verizon aircard software in an attempt to utilize OS X's built-in WWAN capability, something I had successfully done several times under Snow Leopard.

Firstly, the built-in WWAN wouldn't work. It wouldn't recognize the modem when it was inserted, even though the connection was still listed under Networking in System Preferences. Secondly, when I attempted to reinstall the VZAccess software, it balked. Kept telling me I needed administrator privileges (which I already had). No matter how many things I tried, it could not be cajoled into installing. And of course, this was the most recent version of the software available, and according to the VZAccess forum on the Verizon website, "there is no timeline available for Lion support."

WTF? I mean seriously, have the engineers at Verizon been asleep the last six months?

In the day or so that had passed since installing Lion, I'd done a lot of cleanup on the drive, as well as adding addresses and organizing email folders, so I was pretty happy living with things as they were until Verizon got their act together. But late Friday afternoon, WiFi started randomly dropping, requiring a total reboot to reestablish the connection. Then the machine wouldn't automatically reconnect after coming out of sleep mode. Suddenly a lot of little things started happening that told me perhaps I should not have jumped on the Lion bandwagon quite so quickly. I was now faced with several options, none of which were especially attractive.

One: I could restore my pre-lion backup to retrieve the Verizon application and settings and then reinstall Lion. In doing that, however, I knew my Adobe CS3 installation would get hosed (because of a funky enterprise licensing thing), rendering it useless. (From prior experience with this issue, I know that reinstalling CS3 does not solve the problem.)

Two: I could leave things as they were (including having a working CS3 installation) and live without access to my aircard until Verizon got around to updating the software, continuing to pay $50 a month for internet access I couldn't use.

Three: I could wipe everything out and do a clean install of Snow Leopard, reinstall the Verizon application, upgrade to Lion and then reinstall all my other apps from scratch (including CS3).

I decided on a variation of Option Number Three yesterday, and spent most of the afternoon reinstalling. It was a needed learning experience and that cut down on my growing antipathy towards Apple; I had to figure out where OS X stored addresses, mail, and calendar items as well as how to get Lion to display the now-hidden Library folder where all these items had to go.

I successfully got all my addresses, emails, calendars, and documents transferred back, leaving only iTunes and about 20,000 pictures to pull off the last Time Machine backup.

While I got the pictures transferred last night without a hitch, the same could not be said for iTunes. One thing I've learned about Apple's philosophy for file organization over the past couple years it that it seems as far as they're concerned, it doesn't matter where the data is located on your drive as long as it's presented to you in an organized fashion. iTunes especially is notorious for importing a single album and splitting it into several folders for no reason whatsoever. I think that's why I could never get into iPhoto; same type of bullshit. I prefer my photos organized in folders by date, not organized by "events."

But I digress.

First I tried simply copying all the folders in the Music folder back from the Time Machine disk manually (90 minutes; I have a lot of music). When I fired up iTunes it told me it couldn't start because it was on a locked disk. WTF? The Google was of no help, other than suggesting that I move the iTunes folder to my desktop, restart iTunes, and then manually add the music back in.

Uh, no. While yes, that worked (iTunes started up just fine), reimporting all my music would take hours, and in all likelihood I would lose album art, playlists, and all of the "corrected" info about the songs I'd entered into the database.

Next I tried doing a proper restore of the iTunes folder from within the Time Machine application itself. Maybe it did something that manually copying the files didn't; 90 more minutes.

Same error when starting iTunes.

By this time I was frustrated to the point of tears. Everywhere I turned I was getting fucked by this Lion upgrade. Visions of Microsoft Vista kept dancing in my head, and I thought, this is Apple, damn it! This shouldn't be happening. This is supposed to be easy!

At that point I decided I'd had enough. It was time to return to Snow Leopard.

Right before I went to sleep last night, I erased the drive and began the Time Machine restore to its pre-Lion state. This morning, after everything was up and running again, I deleted all the extraneous programs I was no longer using, as well as all of CS3. I opted not to reinstall CS3 because of the licensing issues, instead going with the retail version of Photoshop Elements 8 that I'd purchased about a year ago. For the rare times I need Photoshop, Elements has enough functionality that I can accomplish what I need, and the version of Bridge that comes with it doesn't crash nearly as much as the one that was included with CS3.

I just read online that Apple has already seeded OS X Lion 10.7.2 to developers. No word of 10.7.1, undoubtedly indicating that a bug fix to 10.7 is on its way.

Even if a bug fix is issued, I may still hold off a while before attempting this again—and make damn sure I have a full clone image (not just a Time Machine backup) of Snow Leopard in case I have to put everything back the way it was.

I have a little—and let me stress a little—new Mac envy right now.  Like many other people, the new MacBook Air has captured my imagination.

I went over to the local Apple Store today and played with the 13-inch model (the 11-inch is just too friggin' small as far as I'm concerned).  My initial list of the two things that need to change before I would buy one remain: more storage and a backlit keyboard, but damn…it is still one sexy beast.  And despite its older processor, it's fast! Applications opened almost instantaneously—or at least notably faster than on my MBP.

I've only had my MBP for a year and still love it to death, so I'm obviously not in the market for a new laptop right now, but when it comes time to retire The Precious (and assuming the two items on my Airbook wish list have been put into production) I'll definitely be looking at the Air line when the time comes.

While I was there, I had the opportunity to check out Office 2011 as well.  I was not impressed; at least not impressed enough to want to upgrade.  One of the biggest hurdles I had to get over when switching from Windows to Mac was the loss of Outlook, and while I was glad to hear that Microsoft was bringing it back in this release, I don't even need it any more, having happily moved on to Postbox.

…how I'm getting on with the new Mac, having left the Wonderful World o' Windows behind last Friday night.

In a word, fabulously!

In all honesty, it was a little touchy "the morning after." I had a brief, "My God what have I done?" moment Saturday afternoon while attempting to do something that was rote, second nature to me on my Windows box and it was causing me no end of frustration. Ben, sensing my mounting aggravation, suggested we go to Borders and see what kind of books might be available to help ease me through the transition.

I picked up Switching to the Mac, and it has been incredibly helpful in navigating the familiar, yet strangely back-assward-to-what-I'm-used-to way of life on the new machine.  I know I have to be patient with myself; I've been on Windows for the last 20 years; I've been on the Mac only 4 days.

But I have to say, now that I've calmed down and have a decent reference book at my fingertips (so I'm not constantly bothering Ben with "How do I…" questions) I'm back to totally loving it. I'm using Entourage for email, and while it was a bit of a pain to bring all my data over from Outlook and its feature set is nowhere near as rich, last night I was doing something on it and caught myself thinking, "Why doesn't Outlook do this? (Microsoft is supposedly returning Outlook to the Mac platform in their 2010 Office for Mac release.  Go figger.)

It was also a very rude awakening on Monday when i went back to work and had to deal with Dell again. For the first time in my life their construction (which had always impressed me, especially in relation to other manufacturers and the slew of home-brew clones I'd lived with over the last two decades) now really seemed flimsy and hacked together.

Last night I found a free VNC server application for Mac, and while I haven't had a chance to test it from the office, I have used it successfully on my local home network, so if I can verify that it will allow me to connect to home from work, my old Dell Inspiron can be retired and given a much needed rest. (I'm not going to get rid of it; I bought it from Ben about a year ago and it does have a certain amount of sentimental value.)

The only thing I had been outright missing from my Windows box until this evening was ThumbsPlus, an incredibly full-featured graphics cataloging/editing program that I've been using for at least the dozen or so years.  But Adobe's Bridge comes close, and since I just learned how to change the default image viewer from Photoshop to the built-in Mac Previewer in Bridge, this may not even be an issue any more.

No, I'm not becoming a Republican.

Last night, after nearly twenty years of supporting Windows on the PC platform, I finally had a come-to-Jesus moment and bought a Mac: a sleek, sexy MacBook Pro to be exact.

What caused this paradigm shift in my computing universe? To be honest, it was a combination of things. Until about a month or so ago I was extremely excited about the new version of Windows that officially went on sale a few days ago. I'd been running various iterations of it on my Dell Inspiron laptop since the first public beta was available, and my initial reaction was that Microsoft had finally gotten it right. But one Sunday afternoon, all of a sudden it simply stopped displaying my chosen wallpaper. An admittedly small issue, but it was nonetheless profoundly annoying. After extensive troubleshooting and finding no answers through the Google, I wiped the drive, pulled out the RC-1 installation CD and began reinstalling. Immediately after typing in my license number (taken directly from my email from Microsoft) it refused to proceed. "Invalid Registration Key" or some crap. I double-checked the number and typed it in again. Same thing.

Fuck me.

This was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. I turned to Ben and said, "This is bullshit. I've had enough. I'm getting a Mac!"

"Yay," he said! "My first convert!" (He's had a Macbook since 2008.)

My first impulse was to get an iMac to replace my rapidly aging Dell GX270 desktop unit, and after playing with a one of them at the Mac Store, I fell in love. (In the interest of complete disclosure, we were actually in the Mac Store because Ben had to take his MacBook for service because of a power problem.) But as the days drew on, the more I realized how foolish buying a desktop unit would be. 90% of my computing time was now happening wirelessly in the living room, and if I got a Mac desktop unit I'd be glued to it (and away from my Bubba) way more than I think either of us would like. So deciding on a laptop was a no-brainer.

I'm still getting rid of the GX270. It's way beyond its expiration date, and my laptop is a much better unit to keep around until I can figure out how to remote desktop from my work PC to the new Mac.

So what do I think of the new machine?

Love it. I know that Macs are not trouble-free, and when they crash they tend to crash spectacularly, but it's worth living with that risk for the sheer joy that has returned to my online life. It's sort of like how I viewed living in San Francisco near the major fault line in the United States for 16 years. The earth could shake at any moment, but until that time…damn what a ride.