December 27, 2003

OneWord: Sabotage

I just downloaded the demo for Uplink tonight and played it a little bit… It’s a fake hacking game basically. You are given missions by the corporation you work for and you have to spoof IP addresses, break passwords, bypass proxies and firewalls, delete log files, decrypt files, delete files, edit files, change databases, etc. Sometimes you have to sabotage someone by taking away their degree in the educational database, or you can steal someone’s identity by taking their Social Security number after they die. The interface is pretty slick with lots of animations and stuff. It looks like computer interfaces that they always have in the movies… Completely unrealistic but still pretty cool looking… The only thing I would have appreciated being added to it would be keyboard shortcuts to a lot of the different menus and stuff. Though I guess that is part of the excitement in the game, trying to click everywhere to run programs before you get traced and fined or arrested…

OneWord

December 23, 2003

Macs Love RAM

I just added a 512mb chip of RAM to my Powerbook, for a total of 768mb now. Wow does it ever make a difference! Everything is faster from loading web pages to running a Photoshop filter. I had Safari, Mail, iChat, NetNewsWire, Photoshop, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and Preview all open, and could switch between them instantaneously with no lag at all, even if a filter was rendering or something in Photoshop. I also played a simple little game that I have on here with all of that going on and there was no lag in the game at all. Before it would occasionally lag when I just Safari, Mail, and iTunes open, which isn’t much of a load. If you have a Mac, definitely get as much RAM as you can, at least 512mb, it makes a huge difference!

December 22, 2003

OneWord: Why

Why does anyone use Windows? That’s what I’ve been wondering since I got my Macs. I recently visited my dad and his computers, and heard him tell me how the computer repair shop had completely rebuilt his computer, trying to figure out why it was constantly slow and crashing frequently. They formatted the hard drive, causing him to lose a lot of data. Then they installed some anti-virus software on the computer that made it too slow to use. After a couple of weeks of downtime and lost productivity, they finally got it running decently enough to use, and it’s actually quite speedy at the moment.

Then this weekend when I was visiting the in-laws, I logged on to their brand new Sony desktop, only to be greeted with approximately 50 Windows Messenger spams that you have to click “OK” on to get rid of. Luckily I knew how to disable Messenger to stop that from happening, so I did.

Then we visited another friend’s house, where we found that his dad’s computer was constantly kicking the entire network offline somehow every time Internet Explorer was opened on it. It also had about 45 processes running in the background constantly, even though there were no programs or even system tray icons going. Most of them seemed to be spyware… After running about 3 different anti-spyware/adware programs, they were still there. When I was using the computer for about 2 minutes to try to see what I could do, a window came up saying something about a virus, then the whole screen went blue. It wasn’t the blue screen of death though, just a solid blue screen. My friend ran a few different anti-virus programs, only to have one of them destroy some files that Windows needed to operate, so he spent the rest of his weekend reinstalling Windows.

Meanwhile I’m happily laying on my bed typing away with my Mac on my lap, without wires, without anti-virus software, without any worries of someone spying on me or attacking my computer just because I looked at a web page. Sure Macs are still vulnerable to attack, but there are still no viruses at all for OSX, and only a few known security flaws, all of which Apple has already patched before anyone can take advantage of them. It’s so nice to just be able to use your computer, not maintain it.

Meet Ronin

Things are still busy at work but I thought I’d post and notify everyone that my new 12” Powerbook finally arrived last week. I named it Ronin, because it’s small and agile like a ninja! And I couldn’t find any ninja names that I could pronounce so I went with Ronin which means a Samurai with no Master.

Look at some pictures of me opening it

As you can see I was pretty excited about it…

So far it has been perfect. The battery life is great (over 3 hours with normal use I think, though I haven’t put a stopwatch on it), and the screen has no dead pixels or the dreaded white spots (though that was never a problem on the 12” anyway). It seems very speedy overall, a little faster than my 1ghz eMac, since the eMac has more programs and files on it at the moment. I’ve used Photoshop on it however and it is quite speedy, though it slows down considerably when other programs are open, since it only has 256mb of RAM. But tomorrow another 512mb chip comes from UPS, so then it should be flying along without any problems at all.

The size is just perfect. I knew the 17” would be too big, but I liked the size of the 15” when I saw it in the store. However now that I have the 12” at home and on my lap, I really think it is the perfect size. It’s small and very lightweight, and fits comfortably on your lap. The relatively small screen size is not a problem, especially thanks to Expose’. I do keep a lot of programs full screen that I would normally have in a smaller window on my eMac, but like I said, Expose’ makes switching between them a breeze. I can also plug in a second monitor when at my desk at home or work, for when I am doing some serious Photoshop work or have Photoshop and a text editor open to work on a site.

I really like the keyboard as well, it’s solid but “soft” at the same time. I love typing on laptop keyboards since the keys are closer together and you don’t have to push them as far. It’s almost like typing on a flat surface but you can still tell where the keys are.

The wireless reception seems terrific. I just received my new Netgear 802.11G wireless router this morning and hooked it up when I got home. All I did was plug it into the power and the cable modem, then woke up the Powerbook and it was already online. I get 4 bars (full strength) all over my house, except on the couch in the living room where I get three bars. I walked down the street about 150 ft. and finally lost the connection. I could easily share my internet with the neighbors, assuming their computers picked up the signal as well. But I won’t do that, because my neighbors suck. The old lady anyway. Her and her freakin’ terriers don’t get to share my internet! So anyway I’m typing this on my kitchen counter right now. Wow! I really love wireless!

I haven’t had a chance to try out the DVD burner yet, since I don’t have any blank DVD’s. I’ll try to find some cheap somewhere though so I can start burning some of our videos to DVD. My wife Jenee’ has really been enjoying iMovie, and created a quite good and exciting video tonight of some footage we took at her parent’s house this weekend of her riding horses. I’m hoping to have enough good footage so that next year we can send out Christmas DVD’s to the family of our activities during the past year. Should be a fun project!

The left side wrist rest gets warm when you do some processor intensive tasks like playing a game or working in a graphics application, but it isn’t enough to really notice. It’s warm, but nicely so. The fans also rarely come on, and when they do, I have to put my ear right up to the keyboard to hear them. It’s a virtually silent machine. Very stealthy, just like a ninja!

This is definitely the nicest computer I’ve ever owned. I highly recommend them to anyone who is interested in a laptop.

December 14, 2003

Saddam and his Powerbook

So yeah they found Saddam and everything, but this is by far the funniest thing I’ve read all day…

From AP:

Hussein told capturing forces that his only regret was that due to the timing of his apprehension, he would never have the opportunity to play Halo on his 17” Powerbook. Soldiers were able to capture Hussein by following a power cord running to Hussein’s laptop from a neighboring structure. Hussein told U.S. forces, “Although I was stuck in a whole, couldn’t bathe, and have pooped on myself on numerous occasions while down here, the Powerbook’s backlit keys made computing easy.”

That gave me a good long chuckle this morning, picturing the bearded, filthy Saddam in his hole with his Powerbook on his lap… hahahahaha.

(Quote taken from this thread on MacDailyNews. It’s the second one down, before it turned into a big flame war.)

December 10, 2003

A Fandango Ate My Baby!

Thanks to the magic of Fandango.com the wife and I already have our tickets for the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, coming out a week from today. Do you have yours?

After writing the title for this post… I wondered where that “A dingo ate my baby” quote comes from. I did quite a bit of searching but couldn’t find anything. I’ve seen the quote used all over the place, but does anyone know the origin? The Internet Movie Database says the movie A Cry in the Dark contained the quote, but I don’t know if that’s where the mainstream quote comes from. Oh well.

December 09, 2003

iTunes Music Store

I really like the iTunes music store, and have purchased one album and one song from it so far. But one thing that really annoys me about it is when the albums are incomplete or only for sale by song. What is the reasoning behind that? Why would the artist or label say, “You can sell all of our songs, except this one”. I guess there are a lot of licensing deals to work through with different companies, but still it seems silly to me for there to be just one or two songs from an album that didn’t get put on the store. The only reason I could think of is perhaps one of the songs is a coversong, and the owner of the copyright or whatever doesn’t have a deal with Apple for the song to be on there… But I really have no idea how that works at all.

I just know it is frustrating to want to actually buy an album for the first time in 3 years, and then be able to get all but one song of it. Granted the iTMS is still great and encouraged me to make my first album purchase in forever, but I’d still like to see some more complete albums on there.

Also, where are the Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead? Two of my favorite artists that are absent from the store, though there is a Billy Corgan Celebrity Playlist, so I assume it is his label that is holding the songs back, and not him. But again, I have no idea how it all works.

The album I did purchase from the store was the new self-titled POD album. The process was extremely easy, perhaps too easy. It’s a little scary to press a button and know that $10 just disappeared from your bank account. But after that the downloads start immediately and the tracks are downloaded one by one. Then they were automatically added to my iTunes library, sorted into the “purchased music” playlist, and then easily synced with my iPod. Perfect!

The Second Precious

Wonder of wonders, I ordered my second Mac yesterday, less than a month after I got my first one! When it rains it pours I think they say. After two years of wanting them quite badly I finally get not one but two of them! This one is being paid for by work, and then I will apply my overtime hours to pay it off. Not a bad deal if you ask me.

So anyway, here is what I got:

12” PowerBook with SuperDrive

• 1ghz G4 Processor
• 256mb Ram (we will purchase another 512mb from someone else. Apple RAM is way overpriced)
• Upgraded to 80gb Hard Drive
• Airport Extreme added on
• Bluetooth
• Superdrive (DVD Burner)
• And of course all of the great pro-apps and software that comes with it.

I also got a few extras:

• Logitech MX500 mouse (I love my MX700, but didn’t want to lug around the base station and the mouse, so I figured just a cord would be easier, but other than that it is identical)
• Epson C84 Printer (free with rebate, hooray!)
• Lacie 160gb external Firewire hard drive

And later this week we will be purchasing a Minolta DiMage Z1 camera, 256 mb Memory card, the extra RAM for the PowerBook, and a Wireless Router for home so I can post to my blog from the toilet if I want to. Or the couch, if you prefer a not-so-graphic scenario. :)

So this has turned out to be a very nice Christmas as far as material possessions goes… But I’m not complaining! We didn’t have much of a Christmas last year because of money problems, so it’s nice to have some nice things under the imaginary tree this year, even if we will be paying it all off until next summer.

And I made sure to pay the extra $20 to get the 2-3 day shipping this time, so I don’t have a nervous breakdown waiting for the FedEx man to get here.

But yeah, no Christmas tree for us, with a huge male doberman in the house most of the day we don’t want him to get the wrong idea and start marking his territory on the new tree that just sprouted out of the floor in his room.

Busy Busy Busy.

Been really busy at work lately with the holidays and everything. We have several retail web sites and they are all getting a lot of traffic and sales so I have been working 12 hour days most of the last week or two. Then going home, eating, and going to bed when I get home only to start it all over the next day. I’m sure a lot of people are working similar schedules this time of the year though. So anyway, that’s why I haven’t been posting much. But at least I’m still posting the Ass of the Week regularly!

December 02, 2003

iPod’s only weakness

I love my iPod as much as the other million plus people that own them, but one thing has been bugging me lately…

Operating the iPod without looking at it is nearly impossible. I listen to my iPod the most in my car, hooked up with a cord to the audio input on my car CD player. I normally sit the iPod in the passenger’s seat, because it slides off of my lap, and I don’t have a holder for it. But there are quite a few problems with this arrangement…

When I’m driving I of course can’t be looking over at the passenger’s seat all the time to navigate the menus and pick albums or songs or artists. So I have to instead blindly reach for the iPod to change a song. But because it is sitting loosely on the seat, many times when I am just trying to grab the iPod, I hit one of the buttons and it will either pause the song, or skip to the next/previous one. This normally wouldn’t be a problem on most electronic devices since you can “feel” the button before you actually press on it, but because the iPods buttons are so sensitive, just lightly brushing one of the touch-sensitive pads as you pick it up will change one of the settings. Yes, of course I am aware of the hold switch, which deactivates the buttons to avoid this problem. But the hold switch is not that easy to turn on and off with one hand, and I frequently just want to skip a track, and flipping the hold switch on and off every time I do that seems like too many steps for something so simple. So instead I have adopted the technique of dragging my hand from the far side of my seat to the near side, until my fingers touch the iPod. Then I slide my finger down the right side of the device until it hits the next track button. Seems kind of silly to have to do that doesn’t it?

I’ve also had trouble with “double-clicking” the iPod buttons accidentally. Again, this is only a problem in the car. I generally don’t pick up the iPod to press the buttons, instead I just leave it sitting on the seat and press the buttons from the top while it’s sitting there. But if I hit a bump at that moment and my arm briefly shakes, I press the button twice and end up skipping a song. Then if I wanted to hear that song, I have to run my finger down the left side of the iPod until it hits the previous track button. Again with most devices this wouldn’t be a problem because the buttons have some resistance and movement, so it would be much more difficult to accidentally press a button twice.

The last problem is the jog-wheel on the front of the iPod that is used to navigate all of the menus, control the volume, etc. Because it doesn’t actually move, it is impossible to “feel” where you are in the menu system. For instance with most devices I’m pretty good at memorizing complex interfaces and operations so that I can operate it without looking. Like maybe a watch that I’ve owned for a few months, I can probably skip through the different modes and set the stopwatch automatically without looking. I memorize how many clicks it takes to get to that mode, then what button to press to start/stop the stopwatch, etc.

But on the iPod there is no way to feel when you have changed to the next menu item. I’m not sure if the original iPod wheel clicked, or if it just smoothly turned and still relied on the audible click to let you know when a menu item changed, but in my opinion it would be best if the wheel itself “clicked” into position, rather than just having an audible sound. If this was the case, it would be easy to memorize the steps to change the album or artist.

• Press menu a couple of times to return to the root menu
• Scroll counter clockwise for a turn or two to make sure you are at the top of the iPod’s menu tree (normally Artists)
• Press the enter button to enter the Artists listing
• Scroll clockwise three clicks to select Blink-182
• Press enter twice to start playing the first song

Similar steps would let you easily change artists or playlists or albums, after you had memorized where your favorites were. But since the jog-wheel on the new iPods doesn’t move at all, you really have no way of knowing when you have clicked down to the next menu item. Sure there is a soft click sound, but when you are already playing loud music in the car, you can’t hear it anyway.

Now of course perhaps this could all be avoided if I made a “on the go” playlist of the albums I wanted to listen to before I left the house, and just let that play, but I would never remember to do that and by the time I get halfway to work, I might not want to listen to the same albums anymore. So I have instead started putting the iPod on shuffle, playing through all 1,300 songs, and just hitting skip until I find a song I want to listen to.

These are minor annoyances, and there are probably some relatively good ways to work around them like getting a carholder for the iPod, or buying one of the remotes so I can just use that to control the iPod instead of the interface on the device itself, but I will likely never spend the money on either of those things. And I understand the reason for making the wheel solid and unmovable, after some complaints of getting dust or debris in the bearings of the original iPod and causing it to lock up and not turn anymore, but it seems like there must be a way to make it easier to use without having to direct all of your attention and concentration at it.