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My review of the Macbook

I realize I’ve not put down my thoughts on my new Macbook so here they are.

It’s ok.I’m coming from a Macbook Pro. I figured I didn’t need a Pro since I’m not writing code daily, and I don’t game, so I didn’t need a beefier video card. Also since I have the Macbook Air I wanted to swap out my Sprint ExpressCard for a USB model. So Macbook it was.

I got the Macbook just before Adobe MAX, and took it with me, to break in and play with :)

Exterior:

The unibody is awesome. Dodge did it, it sucked, Apple did it, it worked sweetly! There’s not even the slightest flex when you pick it up by a corner, which I experienced often with my MBP. There’s no creaking or anything. No screws to be seen, which is simply prettier :)

ports:

I like the Optical drive slot being on the side. The few times I ever used the bay on my MBP it was on my lap and I had to shuffle the machine and myself around since the slot was front facing. Side facing is nice.

The ports being on a single side is nice. Previously it seemed like there was little rhyme or reason to where ports were on mac laptops. I kinda wish they were on the right since, most of us are righties, corded mice (I know, so 2002) have to go around. Oh well. My main gripe with the ports, is the closeness, they’re almost on top of each other! the two USB ports are so close that anything that isn’t a USB cable, requires an extender if you plan on using the other port. My new Sprint broadband device, is thin enough to work with the Macbook Air, but too wide. USB drives, too wide. So sadly a USB hub or extension cable is required. I carry both in my bag now.

Screen:

Glossy is ass! I don’t know what Steve and company are thinking. They obviously never leave the mothership and see daylight, or have a conference room with windows. My Air has a glossy, and now the MB, so I’m essentially stuck to one side of our main conference room. Sitting with my back to our windows, out of the question. I have noticed that cranking the brightness up all the way helps to counter act the daylight (Yeah I’m a day walker, but I can’t help it), of course that also gives me a good 38 minutes of battery life… Call Col. Carter! I’m hoping to find a matte screen cover, kinda like a privacy filter, but with out the privacy, since I don’t care about that, really.

Trackpad:

It’s alright. It sounded revolutionary when Steve talked about it, but really it’s just a track pad. I find myself messing it up, since for years I’ve rested my thumb on the place the button would be, but now that’s part of the trackpad, so it whigs out once in a while.

I haven’t figured out a consistent or useful use for 3 and 4 fingered gestures. I’ve tried to use it for expose, no good, since it seems to catch the gesture only 3 out of 4 times. So other than having more drag room, it’s not really doing anything for me.

So overall

I really like the new macbook, it’s got more power than my MBP so all things being equal it’s better, and the too close USB ports, are an annoyance at best. I’ve been doing a lot of video editing for work, and it’s handled it all like a champ. It’s a good machine, I give it 3 snaps in Z formation.

Tags: Apple, Macbook

Solution: iCal, gCal, and iPhone. A happy threesome

If you followed my previous post about wanting to trade my Kingdom for a way to sync my iPhone, iCal, and gCal, you know that the current situation for an iPhone owner, with a gCal account is pretty much W.E.A.K.

the blackberry definitely one ups the iPhone in this category.

While I’m not 100% happy with my current solution (Thanks commenter Toby), it’s the best solution I’ve come up with so far. My environment is convoluted for sure, but can’t be unique.

Toby pointed me to nuevaSync, which let’s you sync a gCal account through an exchange gateway, which you can then sync to the iPhone. Unfortunately the iPhone can only handle one exchange sync, no idea why.

So I’ve got 2 way Sync from gCal to the iPhone through nuevaSync. Then since I like using iCal when on my mac, or not connected, i use Google’s new calDav support to have 2 way communication between iCal and gCal.

ok mostly there. gCal is my hub, and iCal and the iPhone can talk to it, and get updates back and forth.

Unfortunately since I’m using my single exchange connection for nuevaSync, I had to disconnect from my EUI account. Solution, just as convoluted.

I connected my iPhone directly to the mail server via IMAP, and have entourage (blech) syncing to iCal in an Entourage, which then, mostly, sometimes, will make it up to the cloud that is MobileMe.

I can only imagine what kind of trouble I’d have if I was trying to sync contacts across all these services.

So there we have it. A mostly good solution, to a really stupid problem to have. Thanks Apple, this kind of stuff reinforces why RIM is the business choice still.

Tags: Google, iPhone, Mac

iPhone app - get your music on! Ocarina

I probably played a total of 6 hours of any Legend of Zelda game, evar. But Ocarina for the iPhone is damn fun! Fun isn’t really the right word, since Ocarina isn’t a game, it’s a social music…. experiment? App? Experience?

You’ll just have to try it out.

The app has two modes. musical instrument mode (play the Ocarina) and listen mode, (listen to others play their Ocarina).

Both modes are absolutely incredible. In make music mode, you blow into the mic of your iPhone, you hear the music out the speaker. The UI is 4 buttuns, pressing any combination of them, is the same as covering the holes on a flute.

The music is rather eerie, to me at least, almost like a durge, but also kinda mesmorizing, I could probably just sit it on my desk an listen while I work.

The visual representation of listening to the music is simply awesome. Rather than just a stic indicator of where the person you’re listening to is, you actually ’see’ their music. These cool green rings, and blue spirals, leave the location of the person playing, and shoot off past you into space.

Don’t like what the person is playing, jump to another person.

What amazes me, is that this is one of those apps that you think, “How many people will be using it, when i want to listen?” thinking there’ll be one dot at

any given time. That couldn’t be farther from the reality, I fired it up right before writing this post to screen shot it, and just look at how many people were playing their Ocarina on a Sunday around noon MST.  Each dot is an Ocarina being played, truly a world symphony.

Apps like Ocarina really reveal the social power of the iPhone. Sure we can calculate our split of the bill at a dinner party, we can tweet, we can manage our netflix queue, etc, but how cool is it that we can make AND share music with no infrastructure requirements beyond the internet. Hearing the music someone on the opposite side of the planet is making, while sitting at their desk or on their couch.

I don’t know who Pacman186 is, but their music was nice, and I enjoyed being able to listen.

Tags: Apple, iPhone

Earthscape for iPhone, Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup

Tuesday (election day) was a busy one; it was the last day of Defrag ‘08, was election day, and was also a denver meeting of the Boulder Denver new tech meetup.

After Defrag Rob, Adam, Fraser and I spent some time in the bar in the lobby of the Hyatt, talking about twitter, glue, communities, etc. One of the best conversations I’ve had in a while.

After a few drinks, we caught the last two presentations at the meetup. One was a phone thing, that I didn’t quite understand, since we missed probably the first 2 minutes of the 5 alotted per company. We did see all of Earthscape(iTunes Link).

Think google earth, with community photo sharing. it’s pretty cool, and easy to use, photo’s appear as you pan through the map.

There’s two view modes; pan mode (looking straight down on the map), and 3D mode (right there to the right).  Both modes are very fluid and easy on the eyes. Initially I was worried that the graphics would kinda suck, but I had to admit Earthscape (and google earth, since it looks like Earthscape uses google earth) has very good graphics. Looking down on my house, it’s funny to see how old some of Google’s images are. I think I can see straight into the 2nd story of the town home, since there’s no roof.

users can, of course comment on photos, you can see all photo’s from a specific user, etc. You can even see Wikipedia entries, which is really cool! It’s cool to see the pictures people are taking of the places they are. Sure it’s a touch voyeuristic, but that’s human nature, and one of the under pinnings of social media :)

The blue circle thing, that’s my house in the middle, I was watching “The Happening” on Amazon unbox. Good flick.

You can see in this pic that some of the map doesn’t always un-blur. At first I thought I had glaucoma, but realized that some times the maps just don’t fully rez.

It’s a free app, I DL’ed it right there in the meetup, and took my first pic of it’s creator talking about it.

iPhone app aside, I’m definitely hooked on the new tech meetup. I don’t know if it is always Boulder, and the “Denver” part is name only, though I suspect that’s the case. Definitely worth the 20 minute drive into Boulder.

Tags: Apple, iPhone, Mac

The Story of the Macbook pro with bad wireless

My Macbook Pro is first generation. Core Duo, no 2.

It’s a great machine, still a work horse, but the wireless card doesn’t work. Never has. When I got the machine, we didn’t have wireless in the house, so I never used it, there were network drops in every room, and hub in the living room. I first noticed the wiress trouble at a conference; I’d connect but the connection would drop, or I’d never see the network my friend in the next seat could see, and connect to. I then bought a sprint card, so wireless was un necessary, EVDO to the rescue.

Early on I swapped out the Super Drive for a second hard drive, from MCE. 160GB drive, trumps a rarely used DVD drive.

Jump forward two years, i’m at EUI, my work laptop on one side, my MBP on the other, one on the network, going strong, the other (guess which) getting not more than a blip of connectivity.

I decide that since I’ve got the Macbook Air, I can be with out my MBP for a few days, so off to the Cherry Creek Apple Store for my Genius appointment.

Mac Genius FTL

Right away he can see that there’s something odd with the machine, identifying the second drive right away, impressive. He can see that the airport isn’t working, that’s good. He goes back and talks to his boss, and returns to tell me, that since the Optibay had changed the electronic signature of the machine, he could never guarantee it was 100% back to working when giving it back.  LAME. He suggests I return to the Mac Outlet, where I had the Optibay installed. They’re Apple Authorized so it’d still be under warranty (I have an AppleCare contract).

Since it took longer than promised to install the drive, I wasn’t looking forward to going back to Mac Outlet. I fired off an email, letting them know what the deal was and got a reply letting me know they could do the work, and that they were looking at a 3 day turn around.

I drop it off on a Wednesday around 1pm, confirming with the guy at the counter, 3 days.

I Call on Saturday, it’s still about 15 machines back in line, Ok, no problem, depending on your count Saturday might not be day three. I call back on Tuesday, it’s about 4 machines back. GRRR ok lame.

I call back Wednesday around the middle of the day, “It’s on the tech’s bench right now” so I leave him a voicemail, letting him know if it ain’t gonna be fixed, I’ll need to take it unfixed. The MB Air is great, but it’s not the machine for compiling (is that the right term) iMovie projects. Plus the single USB port makes doing stuff at home a PITA when I need my iTunes portable drive, etc, etc.

He calls back Wednesday night about an hour before they close to tell me it was the Airport card and that it’s ready for pick up. I go in Thursday morning to pick it up, right when they open.

No payment needed, it’s a warranty repair so I grab my trusty MBP and head to the office.

I get there, fire it up, connect to the wireless network, Nada. same bad connection, as a week ago. LAME.

Not only did my expectations as a consumer not get managed, but my problem wasn’t solved. Now I’ve got to have a friend at the office, pull the second drive out, replace the old Super drive, just so I can go back to the Apple Store, and have them fix it, or send it to the Depot. Joy.

Apple store Service for the loss :(

Tags: Apple, Macbook

More browsers than I can count

So sure, Google gave Mac users the finger with Crown, fine! Google, you be that way!

I’ve been playing with a few browsers, and wanted to offer my thoughts.

Minefield is a Mac optimized Firefox. Not to be confused with Mozilla’s own alpha app Minefield (supposed to be faster than chrome).

It’s basically Firefox, but compiled specifically for Intel Macs. I haven’t had any problems with it, and have been using it a few days now. So far so good. Plugins all work, etc, so that’s nice.

I came across Cruz, just this morning (and am writing this post in it), and really like it. It’s not ready for primetime yet, if for no other reason than there’s no clear/easy way to import bookmarks. Importing bookmarks, FTL.

What I do like is that it seems incredibly light weight, and is very user extensible, with scripts from userscripts.org. I’ve already stripped ads and reformatted gmail, and have friendfeed running, as an iPhone site in a left pane, seperate browser. Cruz comes with left and right pane browser plugins by

 default, so you can run another site, or two (Not on the screen real estate of a Macbook Air!) in seperate instances. You can even control the user-agent of each pane, which is cool since most iPhone friendly sites, make awesome sidebar apps.

Of course there’s still regular old Firefox, and Safari, but there’s not much need to discuss them, we all know about those two browsers. I’d totally use Safari as my every day browser, but some of the Firefox plugins are just too useful. Camino is an option, and I tried it for a while a year ago, there weren’t enough plugins to make it compelling. That might have changed, I’ll take a look.

Fluid is a choice too, it’s by the guy who created Cruz. I just don’t get the point of a webpage, as an application. Sure you get seperate instances of each page, so one bad script doesn’t kill your browsing, but really, that’s it? I suppose if you only have 1 tab open, then Fluid would make sense, since it’s lighter than FF and I think even safari, but who only ever has one site open? Not me.

As much as I like choice, sometimes it’s too much. I wish one or even two companies could figure out how to make a stable browser, that doesn’t suck memory, doesn’t crash, and is fast. 

I came across (this morning, also) a cool tool to help with “too many browsers to choose from” syndrome. Choosy is a pref pane (sorry windowz people) that sets itself as your default browser. After that, clicking links in email, IM, etc, can either open your default browser, or offer a cool graphical, “Which browser” dialog so you can divert links where you’d like them.

This is especially useful to me, since Minefield doesn’t seem to get “open as tab” when clicking links in Twhirl. Now I can choose, which does handle new tab. 

It’s also nice since sometimes if I’m just looking at something quick, I can open it up in Safari, to load fast, read it, and close. BAM!

So far so good, Firefox hasn’t opened in about 3 days.

Tags: Browser, Macbook

Well of course there’s an Apple Tax!

CNet Interviewed Brad Brooks, and in that interview he says that Mac buyers pay an “Apple Tax”

DUH

Apple owners have long known about the Apple Tax, we joke about, nothing new Brad! He seems to think we (Apple product owners) think that Apple really pays 500 dollars to build each 16gb iPhone, and 2500 dollars for each Mac Pro. We don’t!

You’re not going to get things like Microsoft Outlook, you’re not going to get the games that you’re used to playing. There’s a technology tax–Apple still doesn’t have HDMI, doesn’t have Blu-ray offerings, doesn’t have e-SATA external disk drives that work at twice the speed of FireWire. And so you’ve got all of these things that are truly taxes.

We don’t want Outlook Brad, It’s a crappy app. He seems to attribute a lack of choice, to being a lack of choice in M$ apps. That’s hardly the case. Aside of a good SQL Server client, there’s nothing I miss from my PC days. Entourage is as crappy as outlook, so nothing there. Mail.app suffices, but hello, Gmail with IMAP anyone? Why have a landlocked desktop mail client? Sure it’d be nice to have blue ray options, but mmm not a deal breaker. I mean when I travel I’ve got iTouch, iPhone, and iTunes to watch video in, why waste Battery spinning a drive to watch a movie? e-SATA? what for? THere’s plenty of Firewire and USB options, why have one more? One more port to get gunk in it, one more thing to buy to keep up with the ever changing PC landscape.

Brooks: You know, I think it’s a good point. I think the question is, though, do customers really know what they’re getting into? I don’t personally believe that customers really know that a copy of Parallels is going to cost them $80, or that when they really look at what they’re going to have to pay in terms of another $200 for a (full boxed copy of Windows), that they’re going to pay for another $149 for MobileMe to put on there, Internet services, which they can basically get all the same functionality when they have Windows and Windows Live working together.

Brooks also thinks consumers are stupid. I’m not sure what Windows Live is, but Mobile Me is optional and a vast majority don’t use it. I do, because I have three macs and want my data all in one place. There’s cheaper options, but Mobile Me is baked in so the integration is nice.

Those who need VMware or Parallels, etc need Windowz for work for the most part, so the casual Mac owner, won’t ever pay that “Tax”. Every Mac buyer doesn’t buy a copy of VMware or Parallels, most are looking to leave Windows behind and not look back.

A funny statement:

Just the fact that we’re having this long of a conversation about Apple, it seems to reflect a shift in Microsoft’s thinking that Apple is more of a threat on the PC side. I mean, how do you guys view Apple in terms of a competitive threat on the desktop?
Brooks: The conversations that we’re having really started back around our partner conference in early July. And I came out and said, right there onstage in front of tens of thousands of partners, “we’re drawing a line in the sand.”

A line that many are running as fast as they can right up to, stepping over, and never looking back.

I won’t keep posting tidbits, of M$ non sense, read the entire article.  I want to get back to my point. Yes there’s an Apple Tax. I paid it when I bought my Macbook Pro, that is now three years old and not likely to be replaced any time soon. Where as my wife’s Inspiron is in dire need of either a re install from all the Crapware (wait, crapware on a PC? No way according to Brad, oh wait, she’s XP), or just a new machine. My iPod Photo, still running, the Apple Tax I paid nearly 7 years ago, well earned in my opintion. I wonder if a Zune will last that long…?

However to insinuate there’s no Windows Tax is just plain silly. Sure it’s not paid on the hardware Windows runs on, that’d be the Dell Tax. It’s paid in time lost rebooting, waiting for outlook to load, waiting for the wireless network to figure itself out and get working, waiting for the newest 20+ software updates to download. It’s also paid in having to run Anti Virus software, having to re install the OS every 6 months to a year just to get some performance. For Vista users, it’s my understanding (thanks to Tom) that it’s paid in waiting for it to reboot after you put it to sleep or changed wireless networks.

There’s a Windows Tax, to be sure, to say otherwise is plain disengenuous. Brad is no doubt your typical mud slinging marketing wonk, but really, CNN why waste time even talking to him? Especially when it’s clear he thinks the reason Apple is doing so well is that consumers are stupid and un aware of the choices they’re making. Brad, I hate to break it to you, but we know, and we’re ok with it.

And it is not a question of whether they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the experience, it’s a question of whether they really know what they’re getting into when they choose to embark upon that path.

To close another funny. Brad might not be the best person for interviews since even Ina picked up on it.

Is there risk in the way you guys are doing this that some of the messaging sounds like “you, the consumer, just don’t get it?”
Brooks: That’s far from the message that I want to deliver.

Bummer Brad, that’s the message you did deliver.

Tags: Apple, CNET, Mac, Steve Jobs

Great Steve thinks we all want to look at ourselves while we code

Apples new gear is pretty neat, mostly.

I dig the track pad thing, even though gestures are pretty much limited to Apples’ own products. The 4 finger thing might be cool for espose, etc.. The instant on LED backlight will definitely be a nice touch!

The glossy screen, SUCKS. Damnit Apple! why can’t you leave well enough alone? Why do do you think we want laptop screens that are useless? I can’t use my macbook air in well lit rooms, like our main conference room, the reflection pretty much blocks out the screen. I mean look at the pic from Engagdet, you can see the guy taking the picture for crying out loud!

I do dig the keyboard, I’ve gotten very used to the contrast on the keys, though they stick out like a sore thumb amid all that shiny aluminium. But the gray keys, with the lights on underneath hard sometimes hard to see.

Over all this wasn’t a completely lame announcement but I don’t think I’ll be running out to buy a new latop just yet. My current MBP is doing just fine, and since I don’t game, at. all. the fancy new video chips don’t do a thing for me, sorry.

I’m glad Apple has standardized on yet another display plug type, so when I do get a new machine, if I have any of my old ones, I’ll need to carry yet another adapter, yippy skippy!

I certainly am not looking forward to having two tanning mirrors on my desk in a bright room :(

Tags: Apple, Macbook, Steve Jobs

my First real (well sorta) iPhone app

I gotta say, Apple does make being a developer easier. I guess maybe they see it as a jedi thing? Like building your light saber as your rite of passage, i dunno.

I still haven’t gotten my iPhone provisioned for my apps, so it’s still simulator for me. Maybe tomorrow.

I’m so glad the NDA is lifted! I downloaded the Pragmatic Programmers iPhone SDK dev book. It’s “beta” and they’ll update the PDF as they go, but at least you don’t have to wait.

The button simply drops 100 pixels each time you click, but come on! First iPhone app, and it’s not ‘hello world’!

I did find that it’s rediculously easy to have it support rotation, which is nice.

I’m excited now that I can actually get tips and tricks and such for iPhone dev.

It’s almost like a real developer community finally! w00t!

I’m hoping to get my POC project of a scheduler for 360|Flex done and in beta. Maybe I can do a limited Beta for 360|MAX? mmmm first 100 people.. ha ha. well 99, so I can have it too. :)

Tags: iPhone

Finally selected my new laptop bag

I’ve been on the look out for a while now for a new bag for a while now. I’ve got a few; A targus bag with more pockets than a mutant kangaroo, but that’s heavy and hurts my back/shoulders no matter how I hold it. The Macromedia Man Purse from Devcon ‘01 (I think it was), which is great for my Macbook Air, but has no padding whatsoever, since “laptop bags” weren’t as en vogue as they are now.

Neither of which really “did it for me”

I had only a few requirements.

1. Rolly luggage pass through

2. good shoulder strap

3. enough pockets to hold my shiz

4. doesn’t weigh 3-4 pounds, empty.

I did a lot of googling, asking friends, etc. The most helpful site I found was someone else on the hunt for a bag.

I narrowed my search to what he had found since his requirements very closely matched mine, at least in part. The bag he chose wasn’t a good fit for me. I need a few more pockets and storage. I don’t need to carry a home office, but since Tom and I travel a fair bit, I like to have all my cords, cables, adapters, etc. so I need some room. But don’t want one of those laptop bags that requires wheels.

Once I narrowed my search to the manufacturers he had selected, i expanded beyond messengers. The Tom Bihn Zephyr fit the bill!

The Tom Bihn site while attractive could use some work, as far as UX. Most bag sites, don’t give enough information really.

Pictures of the pockets, as well as the main compartment, etc would defintiely help in narrowing the search.

One thing I really liked was that the rolly pass-through, has a zipper allowing it to become a back pocket, which is nice, since when not traveling, a rolly pass-through isn’t super useful, LOL.

Tom Bihn defintiely charges a premium on bags, which is understandable, they’re very nice. One thing I don’t so much dig, is that everything is an ‘optional add on’. Like shoulder straps, main compartment dividers, special laptop sleave, etc. Kinda weird.

I will say, the shoulder strap feels like they grabbed a cloud, stitched it to a nylon strap and sold it, it’s very cushy and comfortable. We’ll see how it does with travel later this week, when I head to New Jersey!

I could defintiely use 1 or 2 more larger pockets, for my power strip, eyeglass torpedo, and yo-yo. but I can make due easy enough.

Tags: laptop