I own two Logitech Harmony remote controls (the 880, for the family room, and the XBox 360 for the room with the games and PS3).  Up until recently I had no problems updating the remotes with my MacBook Pro.  However, this past week I wanted to update the XBox 360 Harmony remote with some new commands for the Mac Mini (more to come in another posting).

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

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 don’t know how, but somehow this weekend I got some horrible adware/spyware/virus on my Windows XP running in Parallels on my Macbook Pro. It removed my company issued and maintained Trend Micro virus client. It would not allow me to install my Norton AntiVirus client. And it wouldn’t let me install/run SpyBot Search & Destroy.

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.

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.

…even Windows XP!  I’m installing Windows XP Home in a VM on Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy).  Instead of taking hours to install (OK, at least half an hour in the past) the whole installation was done in less than 10 minutes.  Pretty cool!

I’m still bummed out about my lost data, but I’m coming to terms with it as quickly as I can.

For some reason I’ve been itching to get rid of Windows and start using Linux. There are a multitude of reasons why this is important to me, here are a few highlights:

• Why I gotta ditch Windows:
  • The only reason I’ve been able to keep up with Windows is MSDN. I haven’t bought a Windows license, ever, except with a PC.
  • I’m certainly not going to upgrade to Vista (which is a different story on its own).
  • Windows is slow and bloated. A fresh install of XP seems to run OK, but with any service packs and patches, performance turns to sludge.
  • Microsoft (and vendors) have made Windows XP x64 a PITA as a desktop OS. Printer drivers, scanner drivers, everything is missing or incompatible.

• Why (I think) Linux is the way to go
  • I’ve been running my websites on LAMP (Linux, Apache, mySql, PHP) for over a year now, using only open-source software, and I love it.
    • (As a side note, at this point I’ve easily donated more to the software I use than I’ve actually spent buying software in more than 10 years.
  • No licensing fees, no crap-tacular activation “features”.
  • Most of the Linux distros have spent a lot of time on their UI and driver support to make sure Linux can be used a desktop OS.
  • I can still run Windows in a VM if I need particular Windows functions or applications.
  • I’m a geek – and geeks use Linux.

My biggest issue with this transition has been my extensive use of Quicken for the past five years. I’ve explored a few possibilities, which I will be blogging more about as I try, learn, and evaluate over the next few days, weeks, and months:

• KMyMoney – Free, open source, money management software for Linux.
• GNUCash – Free, open source, money management software for Linux.
• Mvelopes – Online budget management software (requires Flash 9)
• MoneyDance - Commercial money management software for Linux, Windows, and <ugh!> Mac.

Due to my experience with Quicken, the following applications were deemed not good enough for me, for various reasons:

• jGnash – Free software, no bank integration (QIF import only)
• Buddi – Free software, no bank integration (QIF import only)
• Yodlee! – Online bank & bill aggregator. Doesn’t help me budget and predict income & outflows.

I’d love to hear anyone else’s suggestions of what I can use to replace Quicken.

For now I’ve settled on Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy) 32-bit. I can run 64 bit with my CPU, but there are a few things that don’t seem to work well, like the Flash plugin for Firefox.

Enough for now. I’ll publish more when I have more to say.