3:28 pm | Comment (5) | Print | Categories: Apple, Bizarre

4:17 pm | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Apple, Technology

Tomorrow, you will no longer be able to buy a boxed copy of Windows XP at most retail stores. Microsoft is stopping sales of XP, leaving buying a copy of Vista and "downgrading" the only legal way to obtain Windows XP.

But even as Microsoft has made some concessions (the "downgrading" concession was significant), there is a full-scale mutiny online and in the Windows community against adopting Vista. Why?

Largely, Windows users are disgruntled because of how Vista works. Vastly incompatible with the majority of XP software, the last six years of productivity and business applications have to be rewritten or replaced for the Vista platform. Adding insult to injury, Vista itself requires higher level hardware, meaning that for the cost of the operating system you have to invest in completely new hardware and software. Not a cost effective measure for business.

New technology always brings challenges. But Microsoft is asking the business community to adopt entirely new hardware and software, along with the costs and incompatibilities in deploying this operating system. In contrast, when Apple phases out an older technology, like they will do with PowerPC chips in Snow Leopard, it will be done five years after they shipped the last PowerPC-designed machine, and it's being done because there is no other way to accomplish the enhancements they are putting into Snow Leopard.

It is likely that Windows will continue to sell to begrudging customers who simply don't have any other options. But the high cost of the new operating system is driving customers to consider other platforms, and not just Mac (some users are switching to the free but powerful Ubuntu OS). Still, Microsoft's reign may be ending - and that wouldn't be at all bad.

6:56 am | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Apple, Technology

Here's a math problem for you...

What happens when you take a $399 device and subtract $199?

If you expected to save $200, and you're talking about the iPhone, you'd be wrong.

Let's use a nifty comparison chart:

	Original iPhone	iPhone 3G
Phone Price:	$399	$199
Cheapest Voice Plan	$39/450 min	$39/450 min
Data Plan:	$20/mo	$30/mo
Text Plan	200 free	$5 for 200
Price After 2 Years:	$1,815	$1,975

This means that after you pay for your iPhone and your service, your actual total cost is $160 higher at the end of the two year contract.

Sneaky.

8:13 pm | Comment (1) | Print | Categories: Apple, Bizarre

When a computer crashes, it's difficult under the best of circumstances. Usually they don't crash under the best of circumstances, though, and my hard drive failure yesterday was no exception. Still, it was the best hardware failure I've ever had.

It started with my computer freezing, totally, with the spinning wheel of death. Then a power off, then a flashing folder with a question mark, then a cryptic error message about "mack_kernel not found." Obviously this wasn't good.

I hopped online, found an Apple store, made an appointment for 20 minutes after my crash (this is a fluke; don't expect this to be normal!) and headed off. That's when the real magic started.

To say the customer service experience was amazing is an understatement. From the time I got there to the end of the ordeal, I was treated well, professionally, and with empathy and compassion. Apple had to replace my failed drive, and they agreed to do it while I waited - a deviation from normal policy but done because I was in a special spot and needed the machine for work. They also replaced my cracked top case, all under warranty, and reinstalled the OS for me.

All of this would have been for naught without backups. A year ago, Apple instituted Time Machine, which backs up every hour (provided you tell it to do so). Lucky for me, I had this system configured and my last backup was 6:21 AM the morning of the crash.

Still, I wasn't without data loss - I backed up my home folder but not my downloads, so I lost 3-4 GB of downloaded data, but it can be recovered. All of my MySQL databases are stored in the /Applications folder, which was not backed up, meaning I lost the structure of any databases that I didn't already have somewhere else. I also lost a few un-backed-up applications, though I had copies of most of the ones I did need. Still, my music, photos, documents, websites and such were recovered. Those are the important parts - the other things I can recreate or find alternatives for.

Time Machine wasn't flawless, and I had to use some command line tools to recreate my computer as it was before the failure. Still, Time Machine and it's automatic and incremental backups allowed me to get as close as possible to the state of my machine before it failed - an accomplishment to which no built-in Windows product could ever hope to achieve. And with Time Machine running in the background, raising errors only on abject failure, there was little investment done on my part to ensuring Time Machine would work properly. It just worked - the way it was supposed to work.

The reality is that hard drives and computers are mechanical devices and they are prone to failure. The question is not if a computer will fail, but when. And while technology has begun to mitigate and limit the extent of the damage done when devices fail. Apple has certainly excelled in this area, and the preservation of my data alone was reason enough to validate my choice of Mac as my primary machine.

7:49 am | Comment (4) | Print | Categories: Apple, Technology

Highlights since March 1st - enjoy!

1. The worst plan. Ever. Why charging tolls to drive in the city is a bad idea.
2. Cheap Eats Food for $5 per serving? It's possible even with rising prices.
3. The Death of Customer Service Good customer service is hard to come by these days. An experience worth reading.
4. Obama Wins Texas! Maybe? Sort of... Not really? A look at the Texas "primus" (primary + caucus).
5. Mac Secrets A look at exciting new software from the makers of Quicksilver.

1:03 pm | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Apple, Blog Roundup, Business, Economics, Election '08, Maryland, Northern Virginia, Pet Peeves, Politics, Technology, Traffic, Travel

For those Mac users (I know I have a few): the maker of Quicksilver has released a beta version of something called Secrets. What this does is it reveals ALL the hidden features in Leopard. This is pretty cool considering that it takes the command line out of managing your operating system.
Continue Reading...

9:20 am | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Apple, Technology

One of the tasks I've been given at work is taking a good look at the server operating systems and making recommendations for improving our technology infrastructure. After convincing my supervisor to purchase a new copy of the server application produced by Apple (we're an all Mac environment) I brought one of the servers home to install the application on it. But little to my knowledge, Apple requires 1 gigabyte of RAM on the computers, and the box I was building only had 512 megabytes!

*sigh*

7:51 pm | Comment (6) | Print | Categories: Apple, DC PHP, Technology

A couple of months ago I bought a Macbook, which meant that I had my iBook that wasn't doing much. Solution? I installed a copy of Mac OS X Leopard Server on it. The experience was a lot of fun because I got a chance to learn how server services operate.
Continue Reading...

10:44 am | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Apple, Continued Learning, How-To, New Features, Technology

6:33 am | Comment (3) | Print | Categories: Apple, Technology