I find it absolutely amazing and unacceptable that Apple can get away with almost a full day (so far) of downtime of their MobileMe (previously known as .Mac) service and there’s hardly any news/blog coverage of the event.

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

Well, the keynote is said and done. We have some good stuff coming our way. Now let’s see how I stacked up against the actual announcements:

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

Why? I’m not sure. I do know that I hatelove to be on top of technology.

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:
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

I’m attempting to create a Hackint0sh. I’ve got kick-ass hardware:

• 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.

Somehow, after all my rhetoric about Apple, I ended up being a Mac user. How?

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.

I’ve decided to dual boot Windows and Ubuntu. This was a tortured decision for me to make, but the right one nonetheless.

While I’ve been able to do 99% of all my work and tasks in Ubuntu, it’s not always easy to do what I want to do. I have found that ease is more and more important to me as I have less and less time. When I want to buy a piece of hardware that will simplify my life, it should be easy to hook it up, install it, and get it running. Any delays, workarounds, and other distractions take away from the overall goal.

For example, I love my Quicken. I use it forecast, budget, and report on expenditures. I have One-Step Update running and all my passwords saved so it’s easy to download all my transactions. On Ubuntu, I have to run Quicken in a Crossover bottle. Yes, it works. But it wasn’t easy. And anytime there’s an upgrade or any issues, it’s not easy to troubleshoot and resolve.

I’ve gone paperless in my house, as much as possible. When bills come in, they get scanned then shredded. We’re also going through and scanning historical bills, statements, and other paper documents. We save everything as PDFs. Our scanners include dual-sided scanning via the ADF. The Windows driver works great with Adobe Acrobat. However, the driver for Linux supports only one sided scanning at a time. There is software to scan one side, then refeed the documents and scan the other side, and it will collate the images and let you save it as a PDF. But guess what? That’s right. It took work. Not easy.

The list goes on, of course. RAW image support in The Gimp takes longer to be released than Photoshop. Any new device may not work in Linux for some period of time. Etcetera, etcetera.

So I was able to install Windows XP on a separate HDD (which was supposed to be a mirror for my Ubuntu installation, but it wasn’t easy and I never figured it out). I did take the time to keep grub as the bootloader and I can successfully boot to either Linux or Windows.

Oh, one last word. Why Windows XP instead of Windows Vista or Windows XP x64? Guess. Not all drivers are available and compatible. That makes it… right… not easy.

I got two iPods actually.  A 160GB Classic and an 8GB Nano.

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.

First off, if you haven’t been playing Guitar Hero II, start now. Second of all, if you plan on playing on your XBox 360, don’t expect to find a wireless controller. Why? Because Micro$oft won’t share their wireless secrets.

Screw you Micro$soft!

I can’t believe you have to buy the god damn XBox 360 Elite to get HDMI.  That’s so lame.  They should have offered it as a connector to those with “legacy” XBox 360s, also.

Hey, I hope you miss my OS business.  And my Office business.  In fact, I don’t need anything from you anymore.