No on Prop 8

October 24, 2008

Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

I wish my company would also make the same statement.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Equal Rights, Gay Marriage, No on 8, Pride, Same Sex Marriage

What was supposed to happen:
7/9/2008 8PM: Shutdown .Mac
7/10/2008 12AM: Startup MobileMe

What has happened:
7/9/2008 10PM: Shutdown .Mac
7/10/2008 ALL DAY: No .Mac, no MobileMe

Imagine if there were Microsoft (the evil bastards):
7/9/2008 8PM: Someone reports they can’t login to XBox Live
7/9/2008 8:15PM: The story is picked up and shows up on the front page of Digg, Google News, and a special alert is issued by CNN.
7/9/2008 9PM: Someone loses their connection to XBox Live
7/9/2008 9:01PM: Reports of widespread connectivity and scaling issues of the XBox Live service make their way around the news and blogging sites.
7/9/2008 10PM: Microsoft issues a press release acknowledging intermittent connectivity issues on XBox Live. Advises users to continue to use the service normally.
7/10/2008 12AM: It is discovered that the person who was unable to login to XBox Live had an expired account.
7/10/2008 8AM: The blogosphere is in arms against Microsoft for “anti-consumer behavior” and an “inability to meet SLAs”. Demands of refunds and class action lawsuits are suggested.

And… MobileMe is $99/year for email, calendaring, PIM, remote storage, and other services. XBox Live is $49/year for gaming.

Now, I realize things don’t always go as planned. But what makes Apple so special that the media is given them a pass on the whole incident?

WTF blogosphere?

Technorati Tags: Apple, botch, botched, downtime, failure, Mac, Microsoft, mobileme, rollout, screwup, Service Level Agreement, SLA, uptime, XBox, XBox 360

iPhone 2.0 (Software) – Finally, ActiveSync support, the long awaited App Store, and search capabilties. Though I thought the launch would be immediate, it is actually July 11th, 2008.

iPhone 2 – 3G, GPS, more capacity (16/32GB) and 802.11n support. Well, I was half right… 802.11n was not announced, neither were any larger capacities.

Unlocked iPhones – only available in some countries (which will then be sold online and distributed free of charge to Apple, compliments of eBay). Whoo boy, did I get this one wrong. It looks like they’re making things worse by requiring activation in the store. (At least my current iPhone will have resale value thanks to this stupid decision).

Blu-Ray Support – They’ve been paying to be part of the BD association, there are drives that can work with their hardware, why not have the OS support the format? Nothing formally announced, though it may be part of OS X 10.6′s Quicktime X support.

A new .Mac – Could it be the rumored Mobile Me? While I’m not sure what the branding will be, I’m sure Apple wants to get into the push email space and drop the newly supported ActiveSync ASAP. Yeah, I was right. And they definitely want to muscle Microsoft out of the market, obvious with the “ActiveStinks” comment.

So, 3 out of 5… not bad for a first time predictor.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, iphone 2.0, iphone 3g, Mac, mobileme, predictions, rumors, WWDC 2008

• iPhone 2.0 (Software) – Finally, ActiveSync support, the long awaited App Store, and search capabilties.
• iPhone 2 – 3G, GPS, more capacity (16/32GB) and 802.11n support.
• Unlocked iPhones – only available in some countries (which will then be sold online and distributed free of charge to Apple, compliments of eBay).
• Blu-Ray Support – They’ve been paying to be part of the BD association, there are drives that can work with their hardware, why not have the OS support the format?
• A new .Mac – Could it be the rumored Mobile Me? While I’m not sure what the branding will be, I’m sure Apple wants to get into the push email space and drop the newly supported ActiveSync ASAP.

I haven’t seen anyone else talk about Blu-Ray support, so let’s see if I’m all alone on this one. If so, perhaps Jobs will have to shut me down.

Anyone cleared their schedule to refresh their page obsessively during the keynote?

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, iphone 2.0, iphone 3g, Mac, mobileme, predictions, rumors, WWDC 2008

And I’ve installed a lot of software. And I’ve removed a lot of software. And some sits around being unused.

Well, here are my lists of Mac software I use, recommend, and why – in no particualr order, just as it comes to my head. Keep in mind, this all on top of the standard Mac OS X software, including iLife ’08.

Stuff everyone should have: (Don’t complain, it’s all free, but you should donate)

• Smultron – Free – Text Editor. You have to have a text editor. OS X’s built-in TextEdit is fine, but Smultron gives you code highlighting, indenting, tag completion, and SO much more.
• Quicksilver – Free – Launcher application and much more. Use it to find and launch an application, take shortcuts to common tasks like sending an email, or use one of the myriad plugins to extend your favorite application. (I use it to create Remember the Milk tasks all the time). It can index your entire computer so you can find files. Just install it and definitely go through some of the screencasts – I learned a lot through the screencasts, which really opened my eyes to the power of Quicksilver.
• Adium – Free – Instant Messaging aggregator tool. Yes, iChat is nice, and I love the screen share, video chat, and audio chat. But most of the time, I just need to IM with someone on one of 5 of the networks. Adium lets me connect to all of them, combine multiple listings of a person to a single contact, and it’s actually more intuitive than iChat because all my contacts are in a single list.
• UnRarX – Free – You’re going to have RAR files you have to deal with at some point. If you’re not trying to create RAR files, but just extract the contents, this is a great little app that just works easily and well.
• Skitch – Free (in beta) – Screen capture & image sharing utility. Great options for capturing the screen, including timed shots. You can also quickly share the shots via your mySkitch site, or .Mac site, all from within Skitch.
• FireFox – Free – Web Browsing. Duh. Just do it.
• VLC (Video LAN Client) – Free – Video playback. Great compatibility with every format I’ve come across; pretty reliable. Anytime you go searching for how you should playback a video file (on any platform, really) people will always say VLC.
• Perian – Free – Along the same lines as VLC, Perian adds a bunch of codecs to Quicktime, allowing you to use Quicktime for most video playback. VLC may be more efficient and reliable, but Quicktime (and Front Row) are nice to look at and to use.
• Cyberduck – Free – File transfer utility. Great, just great. Provides all the functionality you want, doesn’t disappoint.

Kinda specific stuff:

• XBMCPlex – Free – Media Center software. A must have replacement for Front Row if you plan to use your Mac as a media center. Works with the Apple Remote. Get xTV, the Apple TV skin for XBMC and you’re all set.
• iWork – $70 – Apple’s office suite. Provides you with a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. Really user-friendly, really easy to use. Great templates out of the box. Nice layout options. Love it. Can’t use it enough. (Mostly because no one else at work uses it)
• MarsEdit – $29.95 – Blogging software. If you blog on your Mac, you’ll love this app. It’s missing WYSIWYG functionality, but it has everything else: it’s scriptable, calls external editors, and works with most blogging sites/software. (None of the blogging software out there has WYSIWYG if it connects with any blogging services)

Truly specialized stuff:

• Parallels – $80 – Virtual machine for running Windows or Linux side-by-side with OS X. If you’re just making the transition from Windows to the Mac, this is a must-have. I found it hard to make a clean, fresh break from Windows. But I was able to transition to all the Mac apps and not lose productivity by using the Windows apps I was accustomed to. See also: VMWare Fusion
• Crossover – $60 – Another solution for running Windows software on your Mac, using the open-source Wine Windows emulation software. Crossover provides a GUI for installing common (and supported) Windows applications. The biggest drawback is usually that the graphics in a Crossover-installed application will not render very quickly. But it reduces your memory overhead from running full-fledged Windows (512MB to 1GB+) to just the application itself (likely less than 100MB). I’m a big fan of Crossover.
• VisualHub – $23.32 – Video conversion. Takes in pretty much any format and spits out a huge array of formats (AVI, MP4, M4V, MOV, WMV, etc.). Gets rid of all the complexity and you just have to choose the output quality you want. See also: Handbrake for DVD-to-AVI conversion.
  Techspansion is no longer developing or selling VisualHub.

Alright. Well that’s it for now. I’ll try to keep this list updated, as life goes on.

Got some favorite apps you think should be on the “gotta have it” list? Tell me in the comments.

Technorati Tags: applications, Lists, Mac, software

The way their software works is that you install it and then it forces an update when it’s opened.  Meaning you don’t have a choice and have to download the latest versions of their software.  However, they know the current Mac software is broken.  And they may fix it “in the next few months”.  WOW!  These guys are almost as bad as the Creative guys!  Don’t advertise shit that doesn’t work!

Luckily, I was able to get through my remote update needs by starting up Parallels and running the Logitech software in Win XP in Parallels.  Not horrible, but not a good experience.

What about the guy who changed DVRs and now has a basically useless remote control?  Logitech is basically making him go back to multiple remotes because they’re fucking stupid-ass developers don’t know how to QA something before releasing.

Imagine if others had this type of “QA” before release… “Sorry, OS X (or Windows) can no longer connect to the internet.  We’ll have it fixed in a few months.” or “Sorry, iTunes can no longer play music.  We’ll try to have it fixed in a few months.”

Logitech – get your shit together or get out of the game.

Technorati Tags: customer service, dickheads, Logitech

All caught up? Good. I played with RTM a bit more and decided I’m going to give it a try. It seems to work really well and lots of people have written integrations for it.

Add to this story that I’ve decided to use Entourage instead of Parallels & Outlook at work. Unfortunately, Entourage’s task management is abysmal.

Starting to see where I’m going with this?

While I found lots of integrations available for RTM and other applications, I couldn’t find anything for Entourage. AppleScript to the rescue!

Without getting into all the gory details, the script (see link below) will allow you to highlight a message in Entourage and create a task in RTM based on the message. The message’s subject will be the task name and the message’s body will end up as a note.

Instructions:
1. Unzip and save in “~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Script Menu Items”
2. Rename “Create Task from Message\cT.scpt” to “Create Task from Message.scpt”
3. Start Entourage (you do not need to restart if its already running).
4. Highlight a message and hit ^T.
5. Follow the onscreen instructions.
6. Get organized!

[Updated 2/24/2008] Added more steps for clarity.

(More information after the jump)

Create RTM Task\cT.scpt.zip

[poll=3]

Some requirements, also included in the script:

Script requirements (basically, my configuration… your milage may vary):
- Mac OS X 10.5.2
- Microsoft Mac Office 2008 w/Entourage
- XMLLIB osax by Satimage (Smile companion), available here: http://www.satimage.fr/software/en/downloads/downloads_companion_osaxen.html
- XML Tools 2.9 by Nate Night Software, available here: http://www.latenightsw.com/freeware/XMLTools2/

FAQ:
- Q1: What if I want to change the email address associated with my RTM account?
- A1: Open a terminal window and run this “defaults delete com.apple.Entourage-RTM”. You will quickly go through the authentication process again and be asked the email address you would like to send to.

(send me questions and I’ll expand the FAQ)

There are also some user-configurable settings:

User configurable variables

Use email or use the API to create RTM tasks?
Pros of API: not dependent on email transmission, instant notification of failures.
Cons of API: Not very robust, cannot handle large notes.
Pros of email: Assuming you’re using this for entourage, you already have email open. Very robust, can send in any variable for the task (see http://www.rememberthemilk.com/help/answers/sending/emailinbox.rtm). Even if the connection is temporarily lost, the email will queue and will eventually show up as a task.
Cons of email: You have these emails in your Sent Items. Clogging up the internet with email.

default setting: true
available settings: true, false

IMPORTANT!! If you plan to use the API, make sure this file exists at ~/Library/Application Support/Entourage-RTM.
The file should be named “encodeurl.sh”. You can copy this text and paste it into a new file.

#!/usr/bin/tclsh
package require http
puts [::http::formatQuery [lindex $argv 0] [lindex $argv 1]]

property useEmailToCreateTasks : true

Parsing is only relevant to the API calls. If set to 1, RTM will attempt to find a due date in the task subject. Probably not really useful, but I don’t see a big downside to it, either.
default setting: “1″
available settings: “1″, “0″

property chooseParse : “1″

ADVANCED USAGE ONLY. Will display a whole lot of popups during the task creation.

default setting: false
available settings: true, false

property debugOn : false

Good luck!

Technorati Tags: Applescript, automate, Entourage, Remember the Milk, RTM, Task

Oh wait, you didn’t get the question? Why am I upgrading my perfectly working Windows XP Pro to Windows Vista?

We all caught up now? Good.

I actually tried this earlier today and failed.

My pre-work was creating a snapshot, shutting down, and copying the entire Parallels VM folder to my external HDD.

Also, I’m upgrading to Windows Vista Ultimate. I would like to upgrade to Windows Vista Home Premium, but apparently you can’t upgrade Windows XP Professional Windows*Home*. Stupid Microsoft.

9:00PM – At the Agree To the Terms blah blah blah window. Yes, of course. I don’t have time to say No right now.

9:01PM – The installation window says this may take “several hours”. Stupid Microsoft.

9:25PM – Apparently its done “Copying Windows files”. Now its 60% done “Gathering files”. WTF did it copy if it hadn’t gathered ‘em yet??

9:57PM – “Please wait a moment while Windows prepares to start for the first time……………………………………………………………..”

Gonna be playing Rock Band with Specks1 for a few hours.

7:12AM – Played till 1:30 or 2:00 AM. Came back to the upgrade this morning and its asking me a few questions about where the computer is located (Home, Work, public) and whether I want all the auto-updates. Um, no thanks, Microsoft.

7:15AM – Now its checking my computers performance.

7:20AM – I’m at the welcome screen for Vista, but I still can’t do anything… still the first time startup stuff I’m guessing.

7:22AM – OK, it’s at the Personalized Settings window, where its setting up personalized settngs for: Microsoft Windows Mail 7 (the name here should keep changing, right?).

7:25AM – BLUE SCREEN of DEATH!!

7:26AM – Is it just me or should those Microsoft engineers figure out a new way to present total system failures? I mean c’mon. The BSOD is so old now.

7:27AM – Back at the Welcome screen. I wonder if I should go back and increase the VM RAM to 1GB… XP has been working just fine with 512MB, though.

7:32AM – OK it is clearly in a BSOD loop. Hmmm…. back out the changes (thank goodness for Parallels!!!!) or try safe mode? I hate Microsoft so much right now.

7:38AM – I love virtual machines. Restored to my XP state. Bumped RAM to 1GB and video RAM from 16MB to 32MB. None of this should matter, mind you, but we’ll try it see what happens… of course now its gonna take “hours” again to complete the upgrade…

7:45AM – Upgrade is starting up again… starting to wonder if I should just try a fresh install.

7:48AM – Chose not to get the latest updates online this time… hopefully that helps, at least from an install-speed perspective.

8:54AM – Still going….

9:40AM – Checking my computer’s performance again…

9:42AM – “Preparing your desktop”… I think the Personalized Settings window is next… hopefully no more BSODs.

9:46AM – Uh-oh, I wasn’t watching and Windows rebooted… dunno if there was a BSOD.

9:47AM – The Personalized Settings window is up now. Fingers crossed…

9:55AM – Should I be worried? The Personalized Settings window is still up and it still says “Windows Desktop Update”.

9:56AM – Yeah the mouse and keyboard are not responding. I’ll give it another try. Stopping the VM and restarting.

10:08AM – Its still on that window.

Forget this!! I’m going to revert back to WinXP and maybe I’ll try installing Vista separately, some other time.

Windows Vista Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
Yes, zero stars. What other rating can you give software that doesn’t even install??

Technorati Tags: Mac, OS X, Parallels, Upgrade, Vista, Windows, XP

• P5B Deluxe Mobo
• 2x300GB SATA Drives
• 2GB 800MHz RAM
• 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo (E6600)
• 256MB GeForce 7600GT PCI-E
• Plenty of I/O ports in front and back (kick ass Antec case)

I don’t use my old Ubuntu config anymore, sadly. I’ve still got Windows running on the secondary drive, but I can convert that to a Boot Camp or Parallels machine, if need be.

I prepped by reading this article on Lifehacker, which really simplified this thread on OSX86Scene. While it all looked daunting, it was really quite simple (simplified from the Lifehacker entry):

• Make an image of my Leopard DVD (using Disk Utility, simple)
• Download any one of the files at the top of this thread. (Some links don’t seem to always work, but there’s four possibilities)
• Unzip the files from the download to your desktop.
• Edit the indicated files (see the Lifehacker thread)
• HIt F8, use -x -v when beginning Leopard install
• Use Disk Utility to create a MacOS partition.
• Install!
• Follow post installation instructions.

My pitfalls/warnings:

• My P5B Deluxe uses a JMicron IDE Controller. Both my DVD-ROM/RW drives were connected to this controller, and it was not allowing me to boot to the patched DVD. I tried a $27 E-IDE to SATA adapter, but that didn’t solve my problem. I had to buy a SATA DVD Drive ($45 for a DVD-/+ RW) for the disc to boot.
• I couldn’t keep my USB Drive inserted when rebooting for the PostPatch. I had to insert it after I had booted back via the DVD. Also, my front USB ports wouldn’t work for the USB Drive, I had to use the rear ports.
• I had to go through the Post-Installation (PostPatch) twice.
• I rebooted a zillion times, but after I did a power off/on and left the disc in the drive I was finally able to boot to Leopard. Let the timer run out on the Darwin Bootloader screen. Hitting buttons put me into the setup loop.
• I don’t have network connectivity for some reason

Now I am tired. I will have to figure out the network piece another time.

Edit: Updated 10.5.1 using the same Lifehacker instructions. Basically, update and re-do the post installation patch.

As an aside, I also installed VMWare Fusion. Awesomely (if that’s a word) enough, it found my “old” Windows partition and immediately let me start that up as a VM.

Update: It works fine now that I updated to the latest Parallels, MSN Messenger.Mac, and Growl.

After trying everything I could think of, I remembered that I had made a snapshot not too long ago. And since all my data was in the shared profile (i.e. in the Mac file system), I wouldn’t lose anything important. So I simply restored to the last snapshot, and Voila!, everything worked perfectly. My biggest pain after that? Re-syncing MS Outlook’s ost file. And I could live with that.

Well, I went to pick up my Lenovo T60p from our help desk. It took almost a month to arrive, and I was excited to get it. When I get there I noticed a whole row of Macbooks getting configured. I was surprised to see so many Macs, because as far as I knew our company didn’t support Macs as corporate computers. So I asked if we were now supporting Macs. The help desk guy actually went on and on telling me how much better they are, easier to maintain, more reliable, faster, etc. He showed me Parallels in Coherence mode (which rocks) and we talked about Boot Camp. By the end of our conversation, I wanted a Macbook Pro. He mentions that they’re the same price, and he has a 15″ MBP not allocated to anyone else. So I traded him. He gave my T60p to someone else and configured the MBP for me.

And I like it. I really, really like my Macbook Pro. So much so that I bought one for Neela. We were able to consolidate her iBook and her IBM R52 pieces of crap into one Macbook Pro running Parallels, too.

The only reason the Mac works for me is Parallels. Though, now, after using my MBP for about a month I only use Windows on my MBP for MS Office (primarily Outlook). Everything else works just fine in Mac OS X.

So yes I’m a convert. And it’s all easily explained by my earlier post about simplifying. Anything that makes my life easier is more than welcome. iLife and iWork simplify so many things, as does Automator.

Whoa, let’s back up first.  Why is this such a big deal to me?  How is this me “breaking down”?

Well, for many years (as far back as I can remember), I’ve pretty much hated Apple.  Why?  I don’t like their business practices.  People complain about Micro$oft’s proprietary and evil business practices.  They get mad when MS embeds their browser in their OS.  Hmmm.  But… when Apple does it… “It’s the best thing ever” and “It just works”.

So, here’s the thing.  I’ve tried Creative, SanDisk, iRiver, and Archos.  No one has anything even close to an iPod, in terms of form factor and usability.  Even the “competition” (the Zune) isn’t even close.

Unfortunately, the iPods are very compatible with Ubuntu.  Too bad Apple doesn’t really support Linux, even though it’s built on BSD Linux.  I guess older iPods worked with YamiPod, gtkPod, and other OSS Linux software.  But the newest iPods don’t work (yet?).

So.  To all my friends who have been listening to my rants and raves against Apple for so many years: Go ahead.  Leave your comments.  Get it out of your system.

Good thing Apple stuff “just works”, huh?

But, really. Who the frack gives a flying frack about the stupid fracking iPhone? I mean, really.

I know who. The sheep who have been brainwashed into thinking that whatever Apple produces is the next thing they must buy. It’s the mentality that all of Apple’s stuff “just works” and it’s the best thing out there. Which isn’t true, but don’t try telling them that.

iPoop. Same poop as everyone else’s poop, but branded white and it came out of Steve Jobs’ ass.  Gotta have it.

iCondom.  Same as a Trojan, but used by Steve Jobs.  Gotta have it.

iCar.  Slower, less gas efficient, and smaller than equivalent cars.  Only comes in white.  Steve Jobs just revealed it.  Gotta have it.

What is it with Apple fanboys?