A few days ago I mentioned that I was going to be changing my driving habits a little bit. Well today @ work, I learned that I will get to feel the full effect of this come July 8th. You see, currently I live a whopping 1-½ miles from work. Come July 8th – when I transfer stores – I will be about 17 miles from door-to-door. Yikes. Let’s put that in perspective:

Say I average 10 mi/gal right now. Let’s round up and say the trip is currently 2 miles (I like easy math!). OK, so that’s 5 trips on a gallon. So if gas is $4/gal, that means that every 5 days back & forth to work, it costs me $8 in gas. Not bad!

OK so I get better gas mileage going the 17 miles down the freeway. Now let’s say that driving the new route, I’ll average 17mi/gal. WOW. OK so now we’re looking at $8 a day for gas. Holy f*ck, that’s a 500% increase in gas expenses, people. Now these numbers aren’t quite exact. For instance, I’ll probably average between 20-25 miles a gallon in reality, but up here, whereas the rest of the US is averaging $4/gallon, I haven’t seen it less than $4.60/gallon. Yes, it’s that much more than what you’re paying (unless of course you’re reading this from Europe, in which case… I feel your pain).

This is going to put a dent in my pocketbook for the next 6 months or so before I rotate back to town. Sh!t I’d say we should move if it weren’t for the fact that in 6 months I’ll probably be right back in here… it’s hard as hell finding a place for the pups too, so since we have a place, we’ll probably keep that place, you know? It’s secure at least. What if we move and the landlords there suck? What if in 6 months we can’t find another place in town? Yeah, I think we’ll have to stick it out. Especially since if we move, that just means The Girl would be driving back into town for work the same distance.



Apple WWDC 2008 Notes of Interest
Apple today did a few interesting things: One, they introduced the next-generation iPhone, which will have massive price cuts associated with it (at&t is subsidizing apparently). Sorta makes the iPod Touch look… well, overpriced. I hope they drop that a few pennies. Maybe I’d get one if they did. I’m in the market for a new iPod anyway, sh!t. C’mon, Apple!

They also announced that they will be distributing a new version of Leopard next year, dubbed “Snow Leopard.” The similarities in name are signal that there are no major feature changes between the two. No, Snow Leopard is supposed to be a stability release more than anything, and all signs point to them dropping support for PPC chips with this release as well.

I’m looking forward to it. We could use a stability release. I’m cool with that.



Funny moment of the day
It was beautiful day when I left for work this morning, and indeed stayed that way pretty much all day, until about an hour before I got off of work. I got outside, and it was misting a bit, and really it was kind of a cool atmosphere outside; the mist was coming in sideways and it almost looked like a heavy fog but you could see far. It looked like the ground was steaming, and though it was coming off sideways, there wasn’t really a breeze that I could feel. I can’t really explain it.

Anyway, when I got home, I opened the back gate and saw a bucket and sponge. Which means… The Girl washed her truck today.

That is… just too damn funny. HA HA!

Peace.

Tags: Apple, women

I’ve been creating & posting my website in RapidWeaver Version 4 for the last week or so.

For those of you stuck at version 3.6 or abouts, there’s some good reason to come up to the latest & greatest:

• A generally much-sleeker interface throughout. It’s easier to find your way around now.

• Redesigned page info inspector. Most of the tabs are the same, but now it’s easier to pick out what they are!

• If you’re using .Mac to host like me (what’s wrong with us?) and using the personal domain feature, RW4 allows you to post directly there. No moving it back and forth to the Homepage folder, no slow-as-dirt Folder exports & syncing, just straight to the .mac personal domain folder (the same that iWeb uses to host).

• There’s now a real, honest-to-goodness toolbar across the top that has buttons for often-called features, such as the snippets window!

• If you actually use RW to compose your pages’ text (I write in Pages and then drag the text to RW myself), you’ll be glad to know that they put actual font controls across the bottom! Yep, bold, italic, underline, font, color… all the basics are there now! No menu-hunting!

Tags: Apple

The major stability enhancements were to be with Time Machine & Time Capsule, Apple’s backup software, and the feature I wanted was also related to that: The ability to have the system backup automatically while on battery power.

See before, Time Machine would only initiate backups automatically while you were plugged in. That’s fine for desktop machines that are always plugged in, but a laptop user? I wrote in on Apple’s support forums that I thought they needed to make it so that Time Machine would back up even on battery Power, because it’s conceivable that a laptop user could have the right stuff, but their work habits preclude backups from ever happening.

For instance, let’s say that a user always uses their laptop unplugged away from a power source, and they only plug it in while they have it closed and off. Well, they unplug it, open it up, and Time Machine never runs. Then they close the lid, plug it back in, and of course Time Machine isn’t running. This user NEVER gets a backup.

A lot of people read that and want to scream “Just run it manually” or “Don’t turn it off when you plug it in,” but the problem is that’s not what Time Machine is about; it’s billed as the everyman’s backup solution; automatic backups that you don’t have to think about, the computer takes care of it. Well, if I have to change my habits to accommodate it, then it’s not very effective at its task, now is it? Sort of defeats its own purpose then, and I might as well just use some different backup utility if I am going to have to remember to do it and do it on its terms, eh?

Well I’m happy to say that now indeed, Time Machine will back up on battery power. They created an option in the Time Machine System Preferences Options Tab, that allows you to select whether or not you want to back up under battery power or not. I selected yes of course, and I would say that unless your hourly backups take 4 hours apiece, it’s wise for everyone to have it selected.

In fact, mine’s selected by default.

The only unfortunate thing about the new update? It doesn’t automatically seek out and destroy any windows boxes within a 5-mile radius. Guess I’ll have to pay for 3rd party software that does it. Damn.

Peace.


UPDATE:
Being a MacBook user, I had noticed that when video chatting with other MacBook Leopard users, there was a recurring, high-pitched echo that royally sucked. Well according to the release notes, that’s one of the specific issues that they tackled in this release: echoing in iChats on certain mobile Macintosh Computers.

So if that’s you, really, 10.5.3 is your baby.

Tags: Apple

Awhile ago I blogged about the reasons that I stayed with Aperture, Apple’s “Pro-Level” photo editing application even though I’ve moved back to a Point & Shoot, consumer Camera and no longer needed its editing capabilities. The main reasons centered around iPhoto’s lack of hierarchical keyword structure, and the fact that it creates duplicate files for each edited image, which could theoretically double the size of your library unnecessarily.

Well I brought this up in another photo-related blog, and someone turned me onto a program aptly named Keyword Manager, which is a plugin for iPhoto that organizes the keywords hierarchically, and applies the entire set of parent keywords to any photo that you select any child keyword manually to be applied. I have played around with it and it ain’t so bad honestly. It’s not as smooth as Aperture’s handling, which doesn’t really apply all the keywords in the hierarchy, but manages them so that even if you have applied “Redwoods” under Tree>Redwoods, even though “Tree” won’t show up when you inspect the file, searches for “Tree” will generate that photo. But who cares, right? I keyword to make them easier to find later, so I don’t care whether the image “technically” has all the keywords applied or not, so long as it turns up when I search for the right terms. So hey, this little plugin makes iPhoto more legit.

There is of course still the problem of file duplication with regards to any edited photos. Unfortunately, there is no solution for this as far as I can see; iPhoto will create a duplicate and keep the “original,” which is smart for most people that way they can always get back to the original file if they decide they have royally messed it up. The editing engine under Aperture handles this much better, so you end up with just a simple, low-size set of instructions to create the edited image, without actually creating it and thus the duplication.

I can sort of work around this in two ways. First is even though my new camera shoots more “full-frame”, as in “square,” it does have a 3:2 mode, which creates images in the standard 4x6 size parameter, which I tend to prefer. So simply using this mode on the camera I can cut out a lot of edits I would normally have done. I don’t like “square” photos; our field of vision is naturally wider than taller, and the 4x6 ratios or 16x9 ratios (as found on HDTV’s) is simply more pleasing. OK, I can do that though there is the drawback of losing potential room for crops and edits, but these are the limitations, right? And I can always turn that mode off if I chose.

The other workaround isn’t so much a workaround as it is a realization of fact. My Aperture Library is composed mainly of RAW image files, which take up considerably more room than equivalent jpeg images. For instance, a RAW file of a scene might take up 9MB of space, but a jpeg equivalent – shot on the same camera – would only take up 2MB. That’s a substantial difference! So moving my library to Aperture, exporting all the images as jpeg, I would actually shrink my library initially. Sure there will eventually be file duplication, but even duplicating a 2MB file and ending up with 4MB dedicated to that image is far less than the 9MB that the RAW image would have taken, so the growth will still be under control.

I think I can do this. But there’s some problems…



Lots of tools to migrate; none in the “right” direction
I have looked high & low for ways to migrate an Aperture library to iPhoto. I have found nothing detailing how to go that direction. Apparently this idea I’m having, this epiphany, is not supposed to happen. Anyway. It can be done, I have done it recently, but I had to work through it a couple times to get it right, and there’s things that will simply not come over like you want. Period. So if you’re looking to move an Aperture library to iPhoto, I can show you how best to do it that I have come across, and the issues you will encounter.


PREPARING YOUR APERTURE IMAGES
OK the crux of the matter revolves around how you’re going to get the images into iPhoto. There’s two options: you can export your Aperture Library, or you can go to iPhoto and show your Aperture Library and bring them over that way. There are drawbacks to both approaches. If you try to export the images (at least out of 1.5; 2.0 might behave differently) out of Aperture, the files – either the masters or the versions – will lose all the data you’ve applied to them. Therefore, you’ll have the full-quality image, but you will not have any of the ratings, keywords, or other data that you applied via Aperture, as that’s all stored in Aperture’s database, not in the image itself.

The other option as mentioned was to go to iPhoto, and under File, select “Show Aperture Library. From here, you can drag over albums, projects, whatever, and when they come over, iPhoto will inherit all the information from the Aperture database as well, with one exception. You will not have the ratings come over. But that’s OK, I’ll show you how to work around this. The #1 problem with doing it this way is that Aperture & iPhoto do not work together to import the actual file, but rather just the previews you created in Aperture. So if, like me, you created small, lower-quality previews to further save space in Aperture’s database, you’re going to have to do some work to get better-quality images. This is handled through Aperture’s Preferences pane, so first we need to go to Aperture and recreate all your previews.

Once you get the prefs pane opened up, you have to tell Aperture to give you full-quality previews. This is done by telling it to set “No Limit” in the Preview Size Limit box at the bottom. And we also want to select the Highest Quality setting on the slider just above this. This way, Aperture will essentially be creating high-quality export jpegs as previews, the kind you’d be proud to have in you iPhoto library. Unfortunately, we’re not done yet. Aperture will not apply this change retroactively to the photos in its database, so we have to tell it to regenerate previews for all the images in the library. This is easiest done by selecting “All Images” in the library, and then selecting all the images (Command+A). If you make use of stacks, be aware that these changes will not apply to non-visible images in a stack. So, if you want bring over all your images, even the stacked ones – at highest quality, first select “Open All Stacks” from the Stack menu, then select all images.

The next step is to force Aperture to rebuild all the previews. We have to do this in a special way, as the normal procedure will not work on images that already have previews, even if they are not the newly-specified size. We have to hold Option while clicking on Images, and the second-to-last menu item should be Generate Preview. Now Aperture will get busy rebuilding all the previews at our specified size.

I wish I could say Aperture will fly through this process, but unfortunately on my library – only 5,000-strong & a “paltry” 22GB – it took about two hours. So select this option, go to a play or something, bed the wife or husband, get all showered, and sit back down to continue.


KEEP THE RATINGS
Even though importing them like we intend will bring over all the exif data & keywords, it will not – for whatever reason – bring over the ratings as well. So to get this taken care of, we’re going to do a few steps in Aperture to prepare us to regain them once the images are imported to iPhoto.

It will seem like such a “duh” moment once I outline what we’re going to do, but it took me a day or so to think it through, so I’ll save you the hassle. Create a library-wide search, and select “Rating IS 5-star.” Since this will show stacks, you can either “Open All Stacks” which isn’t wise since you may not have the same rating applied to every image in a stack, or rather you can check the box at the bottom of the search box that says “Ignore Stack Groupings.” This will bring up any image that meets the criteria, regardless of whether or not it’s in another stack that does not meet the criteria. OK, so once all those come up, we need to select all, and then simply apply a new Keyword, something like “5-star.” Yep, it’s that simple. Then you just need to do that for all the other levels of ratings.

The goal here is to have that keyword applied to the images, since it will be brought over in the transfer to iPhoto. Once you’re in iPhoto, you can simply search your library for all of a specific-rated keyword, apply the correct ratings. This very easily done by creating a search for the keyword in question – say, “5-star” – and then selecting all the images, then going to Photo>Rating and applying the correct rating. Then once you’ve done this, you can simply throw away the “-star” keywords.


BRINGING OVER THE IMAGES ORGANIZED: THE REAL PROBLEM
The real issue is not getting the images into iPhoto, you could easily do that by just showing the entire Aperture library and dragging it all at once. But the problem is that iPhoto will create one “event” out of this. The other issue is that iPhoto will not automagically bring over your albums as well. You can either import the albums you have, or the projects. You can even bring them BOTH over, but they will not be linked, but duplicated. i.e., if you bring over a project that contains image 1234.jpeg, then bring over an album that also contains this image, iPhoto will not simply link the photos, it will duplicate them and create a new project.

This can again be gotten around by using the keyword trick in Aperture first, selecting your albums and applying some code or the whole name so that you can search and then drag to recreate the albums in photo. Unfortunately, there’s simply no other way.

I do not recommend bringing over the albums, just the projects. Chances are not all your images are in an album, but all of them are in a project, so concentrate on dragging over your projects and recreating your albums. This is the best way to tackle the issue that I have found, I promise you.

The other minor problem is that when you do bring over the projects into iPhoto using this method, the will all be “untitled Project;” iPhoto does not respect the name of the project in Aperture for whatever stupid reason, so be prepared to rename your projects as well as recreate your albums.


THE OTHER WAY
I recommend doing it through iPhoto rather than exporting your Aperture library and bring it over. But there is one benefit to doing it that way: when you export your aperture library, you have the option to respect the file’s location in the folder hierarchy. Aperture will create folders and subfolders that are the project names, and when you import this data in folders into iPhoto, it will respect the name of the projects. However as stated before, at least & especially on version 1.5 of Aperture, you will lose all of your keywords.


THE OTHER OTHER WAY
Alternatively, you can try to simply download a copy of Aperture 2.0 as a trial, and use that to export your library. Apparently (though I cannot test this), 2.0 will append the information to the file on export. The downside is that I do not think that even though it appends the keywords to the file, that importing them will bring that keyword data into iPhoto’s database, so then you’ll have to recreate and reapply all of your keywords.

So essentially, it’s six of one, half-dozen of the other. You’re either going to be recreating lost metadata, or recreating lost albums. For me it makes more sense to use the metadata engines to recreate the albums & whatnot. I type fast enough, I can rename the projects if I desire, and the albums too. But having to go back through your entire library and recreate the metadata seems much too menial and time-consuming. I think you’re better off doing as outlined, so that you keep your metadata, and just think through how you can put that metadata to use before the transition, so you can apply it to overcome some of the obstacles to the move (ratings, albums, etc). This is the better way in my opinion.

Good Luck!

Tags: Apple

Last night while at work, I had eaten all of the snacks & dinner that I had taken with me, and was still hungry. So I grabbed a snack. Heard of Junior Mints? Yeah well someone had purchased some Junior Caramels from me, and I was curious, so I bought some of my own. They’re pretty good! How to describe them? Well, you’ve had Milk Duds, right?

Here’s how I thought of it: I think Milk Duds are re-boxed Junior Caramels, with a caveat: When Junior Caramels get too old and turn stale and hard, then they go back and get re-boxed as Milk Duds. This is how it is, I am sure.



Finally got my Time Capsule
So last week, I got ahold of my Time Capsule finally. I know I said I’d have it by February, but it just didn’t happen quite as I had planned. Mostly because I was buying it through amazon, whom I had a $50 gift card through. And they were out of stock until recently.

And it’s not like we didn’t back up in that time. I have an old 160GB Firewire drive that we were using. But we were using it only occasionally, hence the beauty of and desire to get the Time Capsule: wireless, thought-free, automated backups.

It’s nice, though I just today got it working just right. It was working, just not "just right." See, I had set it up in the office, but since that’s in the far corner of the house (where the laptops rarely – if ever – are), the data transfer speeds were suffering. Then I had the thought that I could set up the TC in the living room (where the laptops spend 90% of their time), and use the old routers to hook up the internet from the office and sound system in the living room, and “bridge” the two networks via the TC LAN port. Did I lose you? Yeah well don’t feel bad.

It took me the better part of two days to figure out why I couldn’t get it to actually work. To bore you more with details you probably don't understand, it was rooted in the fact that the old router in the living room that I was bridging the new TC to was in WDS remote mode, and for whatever reason, it would not pass the internet connection to the TC. Once I redid the old network and set it up as a WDS Relay, all was right with the world.

I actually stumbled across this thought while I was working out, strangely enough. Just sort of hit me to try that. Still not sure why it worked. Think maybe it has to be set up as relay so that all nodes hooked ot it see the network as "one device" basically. Might have been because I was all pumped up when I came in from the workout. Might have just scared the routers straight.

Ha ha, yeah that was a good one.

Peace.

Tags: Apple

Problem was, it was hard/difficult/impossible to edge any area that (a)the grass was lower than the sidewalk, so nothing “laid over” it to cut, or (b)there was no sidewalk to walk it along. I did the scissors/shears thing for a while, but as I recently hoed the back to give it a break betwixt grass & fence, I had much, much more area that fell into category (b).

I haven’t tried to yet. It’s raining. But I’m so happy already. I play tomorrow.



Movie for the night: Michael Clayton
I keep getting lucky with my Netflix Queue. Last week I got pushed ahead to see No Country for Old Men, which was a ‘Long Wait.’ This week, I get Michael Clayton, another well-received flick that was listed as a ‘Wait’ title.

Well at least I hope I’m getting lucky. I mean, I didn’t particularly care for No Country, so I’m trying to lower my expectations for Clooney’s outing here.



Edit:
Actually I should say that I did not break down and buy a week wacker; rather, I sent The Girl out to to get me one. So I caved and she bought. That’s more correct.



Edit:
Someone on the web pointed out to me a typo on my Miles Bio page yesterday. I was missing a period (oh no I’m late!) at the end of the first paragraph. I thanked this person, and they requested that I give them proper credit. So here it goes:

The random bob, a.r.c. Miles Bio Page Proofread & edited by Action Jaxan, WEE (Web Editor Extraordinaire). Real name redacted to protect the innocent.

Personally I just like having made up the 'WEE.' Makes me laugh every time. I imagine a wee little tyke going down a slide. WEE… How fun.

Oh and I also took the time to add some more pics, since I was there fixing typos. Added some to the Family Album, as well!

Peace.

Tags: Apple

First is its keyword structure. In iPhoto, each keyword is its own keyword and its own keyword only, whereas with Aperture, there’s a Hierarchy. So for illustration, say you have a Keyword called Redwoods. Redwoods are trees of course, and suppose you also have Trees as a keyword. So you put Redwoods under Trees, but Trees is already under Nature, which is itself under Outdoors. What this means is, when you apply the Keyword Redwoods to that shot you got of The General Sherman during your Summer vacation, that photo automatically inherits all the keywords above Redwoods. Make sense? See, this way when you go and search for Outdoors (or Nature or Trees for that matter), the shot of that magnificent General Sherman will pop up, even though you didn’t apply that keyword directly to that photo; since it was a Parent in the hierarchy of the keyword you did use (Redwoods), it’s applied automatically, or assumed.

Second, is the fact that I still do tend to tweak my photos. Yeah it’s not as much as when I was shooting RAW, but since this camera shoots a little more “full-frame,” instead of a more widescreen format, I find I like to spend some time cropping some pics here & there to add a little more ambiance to them. In iPhoto, when you edit a picture, the program keeps the original, but then creates a copy of the picture with the edits you made. This means, if you change the brightness of a picture, now you have two almost identical files, with two almost identical File Sizes, essentially doubling its drain on your Hard Drive space (if the original was 2MB, you make an edit and now you are taking up 4MB for the edited & original files).

Aperture doesn’t do this, it instead displays onscreen what the commands you input for edits will produce. In this way, the original file is kept, but no ‘duplicate’ is made, rather just the instructions for creating it, which take up far, far less room (orders of magnitude less).

So yes, iPhoto is more friendly by a smidgeon than Aperture (especially 1.5, the original version that I own), but it would also lead me to expanded disk usage, and I’d also have to be much more Johnny-on-the-spot with my keywording. Hey, maybe the next iteration of iPhoto will inherit the “non-destructive” editing of Aperture and the keyword hierarchy too, but until then I think I’ll be sticking with Aperture.

Peace.

Tags: Apple

I had created a blog entry and had a movie to go along with it, and went to post the combo to my site. BUT, I always, always double-check online after I finish to make sure everything shows up as I planned it. Well the movie would not play! I checked my work, everything seemed to be OK, and I could play the file locally on my drive, but getting there through the website wasn’t working for me. Hell, I could even play the movie off of my iDisk (where I host my site), but just not through the worldwide web!

So I did a whole bunch of troubleshooting. It was very frustrating, I spent probably 6 hours trying to figure this out, removing plugins, reloading QuickTime, flushes caches, nothing seemed to alleviate the issue.

So this morning, I called Applecare. Hell, maybe they’ve seen it before, maybe they can point me in the right direction.

Turns out, no. They pretty much had me walk through all the steps I had already tried. With one important difference. I had checked all the accounts, all accounts on my machine behaved similarly, so I knew it was a system-wide issue. I pulled all the plugins out and that didn’t help. BUT, I had pulled all the plugins out of the plugins folder only. I DID NOT remove or even check the Quicktime Folder within my system library. Skipped it. Didn’t even think of it for whatever reason.

Well the tech had me open that folder, and I saw a file called “perinian.component” that didn’t jive with me. I checked a test machine that was working fine, and sure enough, it didn’t have this component installed. Bing! Removed the component, restarted machine, and wouldn’t you know it, suddenly the files were playing like they were supposed to. Sweet.

And that’s not all, either. Removing that component also made Safari – my browser of choice – much much faster, especially when loading multiple tabs. I have no idea quite why, as it doesn't make total sense that it would impact these things, but...? So if Safari seems sluggish, takes a long time to load pages, you have issues with avi files – like not playing at all, or only playing video with a white screen and no audio – then perhaps you have that component in your QuickTime folder as well. And perhaps you should trash it and restart.



What is it, anyway?
Well I had it in my folder because I just migrated my old machine to this new machine when I bought it back in November. It’s a Quicktime plugin that aids in the playback of certain files within Quicktime (at least it used to…)I had probably installed it long before, when QT couldn’t natively play as many avi codecs are it now supports, and the plugin was necessary to see/play certain files. Probably d/l’d I trying to support & play youtube videos, one of its more popular features (that it turns out I didn't ever use).

I’m pretty sure that anymore, it was just butting heads with QT over the files, and hence QT couldn’t figure out quite what to do with them. It’s probably an issue with compatibility with Leopard, the newest Apple OS, if nothing else.

A quick look around the intarwebs, and you can see that others have had problems, too. I just hadn't gotten that far along with my troubleshooting to have pinpointed perian yet.

Though now I have. Problem solved!

Peace.

Tags: Apple

Sadly, it only helped me to prove a point. Check out this page it linked to. See the weekly tips? For Leopard as I write this, there’s about 6 tips for Leopard. Now I’m no math whiz, but since leopard’s been out for 4 whole months, shouldn’t there be 16 tips of the week? Not 6? What the hell.

But it gets worse. Apple also recently released new MacBooks & MacBook Pros. Little speed bumps, not a bad update overall, except for one glaring shortfall: Apple’s laptops have been equipped with a remote for about the last two years. That’s great and all, I don’t use mine because it’s sort of useless to me, BUT –

They went from making it an included peripheral, to charging you an extra $19 for it with this iteration of their MacBook lineup.

Know what? F*ck you, Apple. F*ck your remote. F*ck your muther-f*cking remote control, no one really cares about it anyway. It’s got like 6 buttons, and most of them are completely useless anyway. I hope your remote burns in freaking fruit-hell. Not even sure if that exists, but damn I hope it does, just for your stupid $19 remote control. So it can rot there, alone. Maybe with a Zune for added punishment. What the hell were you thinking? Know how many you’re going to sell? 2. One for Steve Jobs, one for Walt Mossberg. That’s it. A**holes.

There, I feel a smidgeon better now.

Tags: Apple, hate

When their Tiger OS came out, one of the features it held was built-in support for RSS feeds in Safari. And by default, one of the RSS feeds was Apple Hot News. When this first debuted, it featured a lot of helpful hints, weekly tips and tricks, and other information to keep you up to speed on what was new in the Apple realm. And way back then, if you had iTunes going for you, once a week you got an email notifying you of their weekly free track. Wow, that’s awesome, right?

Except that somewhere along the way, those emails stopped. And what’s more, somewhere along the same way, that RSS feed went from being full of useful, helpful information for mac owners, to basically just being a collection of Press Releases, touting how awesome Apple is, and why you should go and buy everything they’ve ever made.

Where before they’d show you how to make use of things like Spotlight, now we get to hear about how awesome to use the AppleTV is, and how we should totally buy one. Before you’d get a tale of how certain businesses put Apple products to work for them, now it’s all about how you should just buy the very next consumer device they unveil the product they just released so that you can buy the upgraded version as soon as that comes out, too.

I know they’re a business and they have things to sell, but at what cost? It seems to me they’re starting to more quickly erode the karma they have, that idea that Apple is more than a for-profit company, but a company with a mission and a vision, that being to provide efficient, intelligent computing devices that we don’t have to be sold on, we just desire as they are. I’ve been rooting for them. Now I wonder if I’ll just have to accept them. As in, they’re there, they make computers, and I use them. Ho-hum, now go away. They used to have helpful, informative RSS feeds, now you can’t tell the difference from their Apple Hot News feed from their Press Release feed which is just a crying shame.

Maybe I just can’t find the old one, you say? Nope. I tried to look up all of Apple’s RSS feeds. That’s all there is, folks.

Yeppers, Apple may have begun the process of selling themselves out. That sucks. Maybe I’ll get a Zune now instead of that iPod. HAHA, OK I’m not suicidal or anything, so yeah never mind that!

Peace.

Tags: Apple

As featured on ABC, apparently “legginess” is a trait whose desirability cuts both ways. So women prefer men with longer legs as well as vice versa.

So that’s why I can’t keep the girls off me. Now I know!



Atkins, you’re a genius
Studies prove that protein makes you feel less hungry.

Now I’m not saying a diet high in meats only is ideal. People seem to think that since I agree with statements like this I must simply despise fruits & veggies. Nope. I believe in a balanced diet, and also I believe that vegetarians are nucking futs!. Seriously, we’re supposed to eat meat. Our digestive systems, dentation, & organs are all designed to have meat. We eat meat. Get over it, and have a cow. For breakfast, lunch or dinner.

And also I despise fruits & veggies a little. OK just kidding. I love fruit. :-)



Starting to see room for improvement
At my work, I am starting to see where they could really stand to streamline certain things, and make the whole process more efficient. This of course, is what I’m best at: finding ways to make things more efficient.

And tt should come as no surprise to any of you that most of this efficiency gain revolves around switching to Macs.

But yes it’s actually true. I watched the Store Manager show me how she reviews orders for just cigarettes, which is only 100 upc’s of the 30,000 we carry, and modifies what the system automatically orders (which is always too much). Using this antiquated DOS-based system we have, it took her 20 minutes to perform a 3-minute task. All because there was no mouse and the system/program was designed to be futuristic in the 1930’s or something.

Time to get with the program and get a Mac, eh? Methinks, methinks. Less time spent pressing an arrow key over & over and more time actually managing the store seems like a good thing. But hey, what do I know? I’m just a genius.

Hey Atkins, wanna hang out sometime? Oh right, I forgot..

Peace.

Tags: Apple

MACBOOK AIR
No it’s not the Michael Jordan Edition with the “Air-ness” logo instead of an Apple, it’s Apple’s latest, smallest, most ultra-portable laptop ever. Ever.

For all it’s coolness, I just don’t see it. And I don’t mean that I can’t see it literally, but that I can’t see it being a worthwhile purchase. No optical drive (that means no CD’s, DVD’s, etc). Non-replaceable battery. Only an 80GB hard drive. Slower processor than what’s otherwise available. For me (and I am guessing many others), losing less than ½” in thickness and two pounds of weight over the MacBook “Normal” (is that what it’s called now?) just doesn’t compute, what with all you lose. Faster processor. Larger hard drive. Optical drive (yay DVD’s!). Plus, for the privilege of having Apple remove all the nicer stuff, they’ll let you pay them an extra $500? Seems like a sore deal all around to me.

Not to take away from its innovation, however. I mean, technically? C’mon! It’s a half-inch thin! Runs for 5 hours on a charge with wireless ON! Weighs three whole pounds! Comes equipped with software to allow you to control optical drives on other machines on the same network! It’s amazing! And I’m glad Apple released it, as it will drive innovation in everything else. We’ll see some of this tech, some of that same R&D come to other lines as well. And for that, I’m very happy.


ITUNES MOVIE RENTALS
About damn time. Too bad they’re overpriced. Look, you’re getting less than a DVD or less than an HD-DVD or BD disc if you try their HD content. Yet you’re paying about the same as you would at a video rental shop, but with more restrictions?

Let’s put this in perspective:

They are competing with Blockbuster, Netflix, and any other similar competitor. If you rent a movie one at a time from any of them, it’ll run you on average about $4-5. The new iTunes movie rentals are no different. Same cost.

On the side of convenience, iTunes wins. Hey, it’ll never be checked out when you get there, guaranteed. Compare to the rental shop, that you have to drive to in order to check and see what they have, and hope it’s not checked out once you actually get there. Netflix? Well kiss spontaneity goodbye, huh? You better have what you want picked out a week or so in advance. But of course, Netflix has no late fees, you can keep it as long as you want it, and watch it however many times you want to when it's in your possession. iTunes? Well, you have only 30 days to view it (better than the store, worse than the Netflix), but once you Do start watching it, you only have 24 hours to actually do so, then it's gone. Oops, accidentally hit Play when you didn't want to watch it until tomorrow evening? You're screwed, sorry. Oh and don't try to rent any new releases within 30 days of wide release. They won't be on iTunes until 30 days after the DVD has gone on sale. So we see that here is where iTunes excels, if you only care about a "need something right now, I don't care what" kind of night. Otherwise, it still loses to the entrenched veterans.

Content. Well, here iTunes loses. The question is how bad, and the answer depends on how much you inlcude in the argument. If we restrict it to just what material is actually viewable, then it loses quite handily, as there’s more room on disc than what they are going to send you, and you get special features, etc. But if we include everything, then it loses handily times 10. If you are still on a Standard Def TV doing DVD’s, now you only get stereo as opposed to Dolby Surround on the disc. But in reality, you're not losing as much as some... If you are in the new Millenium like me and are watching HD content, you’re limited to 720p which is inferior in quality to 1080p, what is otherwise available on Blu-Ray discs, and you don’t get the same high-quality audio options, either.

So in the end, you pay the same price, gain a debatable amount of convenience or lose a lot of convenience or both, and lose quality of content. To me, that’s the recipe for a loser. I’m sorry, but if you want me to shell out the same amount of money (oh yeah, you have to buy the Apple TV too, at the minimum of $229), you either have to up the convenience factor that I already have going, or up the quality factor I already have going, or both. You can’t charge me the same or more, then take away quality and give in return a minimal amount of convenience or none really at all. Sorry, I’ll wait out the Microwaved Burrito and opt for the slow-cooked steak on this one, guys. Especially if they’re the same cost, am I right?


Apple TV
Ah, the Apple TV. Tied closely to the aforementioned iTunes rentals, I give it a thumbs down. No DVR? What? Still? Still can’t play discs? No slot? Can’t output anything above 720p resolution? What?

Wait, what’s that? It’s the same exact Apple TV from last year, but with a new software interface? Yeah OK you lost last year, you lose again. What. The. Hell.

I want 1080p, full audio quality, I want cheaper rentals for everything and TV shows included, and DVR functionality. I want it to be a cable/Blu-Ray replacement, not an overpriced kiddy toy. It’s too expensive for what it offers, and honestly if they gave me what I wanted, I’d say that they could justify a $150 price hike on it. It’d be worth it then. But not now, not even at the “low” price of $229. Not with that content.

Such great potential. Such lousy execution. Sigh. Get it right next go around, Apple.


IPHONE 1.1.3
The iPhone is great in concept, it really is. Again though, not for me. I have a laptop, and when I want to compute, I’d rather work on a full keyboard and have a mouse, as well as a 14” or so screen rather than a 2.5” or so screen, and real horsepower. Call me crazy.

Anyway, the 1.1.3 update added some good functionality. However, it should be mentioned that it was functionality that was sorely missing in the original release. Should have been there from the get-go, but at least now it is there. This is good, even if late (and luckily, not that kind of late, ha ha).

Unless you’re an iPod Touch owner. They want to gouge you $20 for the same additions. Yikes. I’m not going there…. Sorry for ya.


TIME CAPSULE
An addition to go along with Time Machine, Time Capsule allows you to back up your Leopard-Equipped Mac Wirelessly. It was pulled from the features list shortly before Leopard was released, but now apparently it’s back in!

I’m on board for this. I’ll be putting down money for the Big One. Yes indeed. Well worth it, it could be cheaper, but it’s not and it’s still reasonably priced considering all it has and that it’s a one-trick pony that is going to be covered by Apple because it’s their baby. Buy one now. No joke. If you have Leopard, buy one yesterday.

I’m buying mine in a few weeks :-). So much for taking one’s own advice. Hey, gotta make sure the January finances are looking alright, no?




This concludes our Emergency Macworld Blogging
That was fun. Yes I still love me my Apple MacBook. Yes I still think their OS implementation is right most of the way. It’s better than the alternatives, even if it’s not perfect. Hey, they haven’t hired me to do consulting, so that’s the price, apparently.

But criticism is what’s going to keep them moving forward. If everyone drank the koolaid, there wouldn’t be much reason to innovate, huh? And that’s what it’s about: they release some good stuff, it’s not quite perfect, we tell them why not, they make it what we want. Such is the circle, when it works right. Let’s keep the circle going around.

I want my Full-HD Apple TV sooner rather than later, after all.

Peace.

Tags: Apple

But the black isn’t without fault. Yes, it hides the dirt discoloration, but it shows grease spots. It’s a more matte finish, as you probably know if you own one and want to clean it :-), and as such greasy fingers leave shiny spots that don’t come off all too well. The outside edges where I close it and the palm rests (and the keys, too) all started to look rather shiny, and I felt a good cleaning was in order.

I came from an old PowerBook G4, which were aluminum. Those were easy, I just got some hot water and a soft cloth, and went to town alternately cleaning & drying the surface. But since this plastic was absorbing the grease & since water & grease don’t mix (science is fun!), something needed to be devised. You may have read elsewhere online about people cleaning it with the Magic Eraser. Now I don’t know exactly what’s in it, but I know enough to know that if I don’t know what’s in it – or more precisely if they don’t want to tell me what’s in it – I don’t want it rubbing up against my high-priced electronics. Call me crazy, I know, but it’s just not worth it in my estimation.

Anyway, something was devised. So without further ado, here’s how random bob, a.r.c. Keeps his machines clean.


MATTE EXTERIOR
As an owner of a Wireless Mighty Mouse, I have seen on the web multiple ways to clean the scroll ball on the top. Many have had it gunk up on them (myself included), and one solution I came across was to douse the whole thing into a solution of Ethanol or 91% Isopropyl Alcohol. Well it got me thinking that since that works so well at attacking oils and drying them out, why wouldn’t that work on the oil/grease spots my fingers were leaving on the shell?

Turns out it does work. It’s not a miracle cure and it won’t evaporate set-in stains or anything, but if you start to see shiny spotting on the matte case, put some 91% Isopropyl Alcohol (Rubbing Alcohol) on a soft cloth and lightly polish the area. I find that then going over that area with a dry portion of a soft cloth works better than just wet-rubbing then air-drying.


MATTE INTERIOR / KEYS
The same solution seems to work OK on the inside as well. The palm rests and the trackpad seem to respond quite well to the alcohol solution and promptly come clean with a little bit of cleaning/polishing. (Hint: turn the computer OFF before attempting to clean the inside portion) The keys, however, are not the same type of material. And though I was able to get them to clean up a little, it’s still rather apparent where my fingers rest most often, as well as which thumb I use to press space bar :-). So don’t expect perfection on the keys is what I’m getting at, though you can expect to see a little bit of general cleanliness all around.


THE SCREEN
So of course since the alcohol trick works so well everywhere else, you should go ahead and get with that program here too, right?

Stop right there. The alcohol will NOT work so well on your shiny screen. Instead of streak-free clean, you will see a foggy mess. I can attest from experience on this, you want to avoid alcohol on the screen. It’s not that it necessarily damages it, but what I think happens is it dries so fast that you don’t have a chance to polish away any grime; instead it just dries in place in a cloudy formation.

No, rather, the best way to clean the screen I find is the same way I used to clean the screen on my PowerBook: Clean, hot water and a soft (very soft), non-abrasive cloth. I like to use an old T-shirt – spots without logos or seams – or other similar cloth. But you want to make sure it’s soft, as scratching the screen is not something you want to do, as that mistake will stare you in the face every time you use your computer.

The trick is to dip the cloth into the hot water, then immediately start polishing – lightly– the entire screen surface. Since you’re not putting much water on the screen, it’s going to get cold fast, so it’s important to move with some amount of haste to make sure that the heat has a chance to work on the grime. Re-dip the cloth as necessary to keep it warm. Then, grab a dry spot and go back over it in a polishing motion to pick up the moisture, and polish any remaining residue away.


CLEANING REGIMEN
After a little practice, you’ll find you can get through the cleaning process, inside & out, in well under 15 minutes. Some may ask whether it’s a good idea to use a drying agent such as alcohol on the plastic parts of the computer. I understand the concern, but the way I look at it, is that we’re not doing this at excessive intervals & it’s just to rid our machine of the overly-built-up amounts it has amassed. It’s still going to be getting a daily dose

I turn my computer off at two-week intervals and take the 10-15 minutes necessary to clean it. To some of you this may seem a bit absurd, but I like to look at it as an investment on a future return. I recently sold my 3 year-old PowerBook for $1100. You read that right, it’s not a typo. And not only that, but the person buying it didn’t even feel a bit ripped off over the deal.

I can pull this off because of the cleaning regimen I put into action. It’s not much to ask, it doesn’t take that much time, your computer will look like it’s worth every penny for the lifetime it spends with you, then when it comes time to upgrade, you can count on getting a little something back for you efforts. The sale of my PowerBook covered all but the upgraded component costs of acquiring a new machine. Think about that. I have a brand new machine I didn't pay for in all essence. Think. About. That.

Peace.

Want to know how to properly clean your black MacBook? Here’s the easy How-To steps to cleaning your new Apple Black MacBook, from the matte exterior and interior to the glossy screen.

Tags: Apple

OK so it turns out that while Leopard is mighty, it’s not going to rewrite my computing experience. Hmm, how best to put this?

It feels a little half-baked. They had some great ideas to increase usability, but they didn’t really put it through the paces from an end-user’s standpoint. And in other arenas, it would seem that they gave up on increasing usability to add flash. The Dock springs to my mind, though honestly I don’t think that it’s nearly the bother that everyone else makes it out to be; I think by and large there’s a lot of people that are just resistant to change. I kind of like the new looks, honestly, though I would agree they went flash before substance on it.

My biggest complaint is how it connects to other computers on the same network. Wait wiat wait, let me rephrase that: how it doesn’t connect to other machines on a network. Yeah, that’s better.

On our old machines with the older OS, it wasn’t as easy to see other machines on a network, but you could connect to them even if they had firewalls up for safety reasons. In the new OS, even though it’s easier to find the machines to connect to, if they have a firewall up for protection, absolutely cannot connect to them.

Seems Apple farced something up somewhere. To me, that’s kind of a big booboo. We tell people that they should have the firewall to protect themselves on the internet, but then when they set that up, we break functionality they were expecting… They need to fix this!



So, uh, Yeah, got the little beast
Might have forgot to mention it earlier, but I both ordered & received my new laptop. Decided on the black model of the MacBook because I figured it would wear better, as well as have a higher resale value later. They’re fast, they’re sleek, but MAN! Do I wish it was easier to move things over just the way you want. I spent the better part of last night moving everything and making it just the way I wanted – Fresh, but with all my old documents, mail, music, etc.

It seems they make it easy enough to start fresh, and easy enough to keep all your old stuff, but not easy enough to do both.



Almost sold the old Big Beast
So the nice thing about a laptop & wireless internet is that I can go about anywhere to do these things. So last night as I was getting hungry, I decided to drop into The Girl’s work and have her serve me some free food. I do this often.

No point telling you about much else, other than I was computing on newbie, getting it all set up, and The Girl comes and asks how much I want for the old one. Yay, right? Well not really.

The guy who wanted it has a background which I will share a bit of. He’s a freaking drunk (guess he didn’t used to be, but we’re all here & now, baby) bartender, and about 3 weeks ago decided it would be a good idea to stick a finger in MY Fiancé’s mouth. Yeah. So needless to say, once I find this out, the Big Beast is no longer for sale. I’m not one of those people that forgives & forgets.