About a year ago, I thought my company would have to start doing integration work with Vista, so I installed it on my MacBook Pro to familiarize myself with it. Unfortunately, I was not impressed with it due to the fact it bugged me way to often to authorize something trivial, like copying a file and other things. I must admit it was prettier than XP, but the benefits certainly did not outweigh the negatives. I eventually (after about three weeks of fighting Vista) reinstalled XP on my laptop for my Windows only work.
Now one year later and Service Pack 1 has been released. In the meantime we have had exactly one customer ask for Vista. After installing Vista again along with Service Pack 1, it seems a bit nicer, but I will have to wait again and see.
It seems incomprehensible that Microsoft could have screwed this release up so badly. I hope Server 2008 works out better for them.
Well the dates for the Apple WWDC are set and I suppose I will be making reservations soon.
This is always the best Apple Event of the year for me as I get into the keynote without a lot of hassle and see a lot of old friends. You can spend a lot of time discussing products with the Apple Product Marketing Managers and Engineers.
Now with the addition of the iPhone development track, I’m sure it will draw an even bigger crowd. I just hope it doesn’t get too big. I usually get a lot of answers for problems that I have been running into from both Apple people and other end users and administrators.
It is always a well spent week.
I was playing with a program today and became frustrated that many things were not intuitive (at least to me). The program did have a built in help menu, but I got tired of going back to it over and over.
This was a home finance program that I was trying to show to my kids in the hope that they would keep track of their money. Unfortunately, I thought if I need to read something to get it working it will never work for my kids.
I hope this is just an aberration and not the rule. It was a highly rated program. I have always thought that manuals are only for advanced features and not for getting stated with a program.
Did you ever walk into an office and hear the whirring on fans from all the computers running.
I would like to know how many people think about how much energy they are using by leaving their computers on overnight.
I know some use them for running load sharing programs like Folding @ home or SETI. A lot of people just don’t like to wait for the computer to boot up in the morning.
I purchased a Kill-A-Watt Current measuring device last year and saw how much the computers and monitors around me used. My 23″ LCD monitor used 120 Watts at full brightness, 70 at half brightness, (still quite readable) and 2 in sleep mode. A 20″ White iMac uses 115 Watts at full brightness but only 4 in sleep mode.
A random Dell PC in the office used 80 Watts (no monitor), unfortunately sleep mode for XP on the Dell never seems to work.
Think about your electric bill and turn off the unneeded computers when not in use. Also bug your congressman to make it easier to start construction of more nuclear power plants
As I watched the Apple iPhone SDK presentation on Thursday and noted the gaming section at the end.
I recalled when I used to burn hours at a time along with some all nighters playing computer games during the 90s. I finally quit playing them because I was having trouble controlling myself. About 5 or 6 years ago, I started playing Starcraft trying to get through all the levels and then it’s sequel, Brood Wars.
I am very interested in investigating Starcraft II when it comes out, but that is the only game I have looked at seriously since Starcraft. Maybe that’s why I have never understood the PC gamer’s fascination with higher end video cards and frame rates.
I would rather spend (my wife would say waste) my time embarrassing myself on the golf course. I wonder if I will be interested in the games released for the iPhone. Perhaps just to pass the time when waiting in line.
The Macintouch Web Site runs a column called Mac marginalization about internet sites that require a PC for certain features.
Today, I went to the Netflix web site to update my queue and noticed a watch instantly button next to some of my selections. Of course, I clicked on it and noted the systems requirements required Windows. No Mac support.
Then I read an article that the BBC has released iPlayer for the Mac enabling viewing of BBC TV shows on the web with a Mac. Unfortunately, this can be only done if you are in the UK.
I guess in this case if your in the US, it’s one step forward and two steps back.At least we have the iTunes movie store.
I just watched the rebroadcast of the iPhone Press conference today. Wow. They seemed to have done everything right. Games. Shareware. Exchange. I imagine when the iPhone 2.0 software ships there will be an incredible spike in iPhone and iTouch sales.
Imagine companies buying the iPhone by the thousands for Exchange and salesforce.com support. How about multiplayer games connected by wifi.
Using the accelerometer as a game controller. As a pilot, I can imagine some real good flight simulators, etc.Along with the App store to distribute and vet the applications so they can be checked that they don;t screw up the phone. (I have plenty of stories on how apps screwed up my Treo)
Again, Wow!!!!
With the release of Time Capsule, I think that it will definitely help families like mine (multiple Mac laptops) keep their computers backed up. I have dealt with customers that have bad hard drives with no recent backup at least 15 times in the past year.
It seems to me that a product like Time Capsule could prevent these problems with one exception, the iPhoto library.
In iLife ‘08 the storage for the iPhoto library was changed to a package from individual files. This means that if you add or even edit one picture the entire library must be backed up again. In my case that’s 32 GB of data.
It’s unfortunate that pictures are usually something that can’t be replaced easily, unlike emails, spreadsheets etc. I will be playing with Time Machine to see if there is a way around this. I have seen some comments on the web on procedures to change the storage format, but I have to wonder why this change was made in the first place.
If you control or right click on the iPhoto library and select Show Package contents it gives you the individual files, but Time Machine insists on backing up the entire package. If this persists I may be checking out the new Aperture 2.0 to see if it stores files differently.
I saw a report from the Apple stockholder meeting today. One of the questions asked of Steve Jobs was if a product like an Xserve mini was in the works.
The collaboration services like wikis, and blogs as well as the new calendaring server in Leopard server break new ground and are much easier to set up than a comparable Windows or Linux server.
I know a few of people are already doing this with a Mac Mini and Leopard server, but if Apple was to offer a Mac Mini with a 3.5 inch hard drive and include a version of Leopard server that could not upgrade to Advanced mode for under $1000 it would be successful.
Apparently a lot of people. It is listed as the best selling computer at the Apple online store. Amazon lists it as the 16th best selling computer behind the MacBook and MacBook Pro.
I don’t think it will fail like the Mac Cube, but instead create a new niche for Apple.