Macs Are Great!

I was among the many people affected by the late Steve Job’s reality distortion field on the day he introduced the original iPod nano. Fortunately I still had mine kicking around in a drawer this past weekend when I got an email from Apple, unsolicited, saying they thought they should give me a new iPod nano because mine has a battery that might do odd things like bursting into flames.

I found it, entered the serial number in a form and it was confirmed that my nano, ordered before the reality distortion field had worn off, was within the range of serial numbers affected by this recall.

Speaking of batteries bursting into flames, a federal agency used a Chevrolet Volt in a side crash test, and 3 weeks later the car burst into flames, a la battery fire. GM has responded that the instructions for handling their electric car include a procedure to discharge the high power battery after a collision like the deliberate crash test. If the feds had drained the battery pack as instructed the car would not have burst into flames.

Bursting into flames is arguably the worst possible failure mode for a battery. I respect the fact that Apple took the initiative in their case, and in the case of the Chevy Volt it highlights the importance of emergency response personnel knowing about the special handling for hybrids like the Volt or all-electric cars.

Battery packs bursting into flames will likely become a more serious problem as we are surrounded increasingly with more and larger battery systems.

written by Steve Rider \\ tags: Apple, first-generation, iPod, nano, recall

There are quite a few innovative and useful features in OS X Lion, the new Apple Mac OS, but the newest version of Apple Mail is not one of them. We’ve never liked the dumbed down interface in the iPad mail client, and when Apple chose to make Mail just as simple it left my heart cold and sad.

I do not wish to be protected from useful information, for example the email address in the To: field. I have multiple email accounts on multiple providers and quite often I’ll receive a terse message sent by a person who has no grasp of context. For cases like that I want to know which of my email addresses the message was sent to in order to figure out what they are going on about.

If you find the new Mail interface as dreadful as I did you might get some relief by selecting Classic view in Mail preferences, but that still left a product that was dumbed down, with ugly, too large fonts in the sidebar, and otherwise a source of constant frustration.

After a few hours of trying this and that I have now settled on a commercial email application called MailMate which is going to save me the hassle of reverting my system back to Snow Leopard.

If you have not installed Lion yet *please* make a bootable total system backup first on an external hard drive using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner (I like SuperDuper) because if there is something you do not like about Lion it will make going back to the way things were just a matter of a few clicks and then a bit of waiting.

written by Steve Rider \\ tags: Apple Mail, Lion, Mail, MailMate, OS X, OS X Lion

This year I received a Canon SX230 HS as a birthday gift from DH. Yesterday we took it out on a hike through world famous Palm Canyon in Palm Springs, CA. I was stunned at the superb job this camera does at finding optimum white balance and exposure settings. Standing among mixed spots of deep shade and Noon sun on white sand in the bottom of the canyon the camera still did a superb job of showing the colors in shaded tree trunks. I have never before used a camera that does such a fantastic job of capturing subtle grades of light between extreme levels of brightness and shade.

The GPS function is a joy to use also. At one point when we were hiking through a narrow canyon passage with limited view of the sky I had to change the battery, this camera will eat batteries like candy whenever the GPS is on, after I had changed the battery the camera was not able to get a position fix right away because of the narrow canyon walls. As soon as we could see a more normal arc of the sky the camera did quickly acquire a position fix. I was carrying a GPS datalogger as a backup in case the GPS function in the camera failed to satisfy, but it was not required.

The other thing that impressed me with this camera was the optical performance of the lens, features are great, but in the end if a camera does not take good photos there is no use having it. The lens in the Canon SX230 HS is the best I have ever seen in a pocket sized camera, and it has a 14X optical zoom to boot. I was using it yesterday on our hike and it did not disappoint. Judge for yourself.

For size comparison I took a photo of the SX230 HS next to my also very nice Canon SX 110IS.

I’m pleased beyond my expectations with this camera. If you buy one get one or two extra batteries. It uses the existing Canon NB-5L battery and I already had a few for use with my Canon SD950.

PROS:

• Built in GPS!
• Surprisingly sharp lens
• Astoundingly clever white balance/exposure
• 14X optical zoom
• Fits in a jeans pocket

CONS:

• Eats batteries like candy
• Costs about $350

RATING:

You can see the entire set of test photos on my accounts at SmugMug, Flickr, Picasaweb or on this server at Steve’s Photos.

written by Steve Rider

Today Time Warner released an iPad App that allows customers to watch certain cable TV channels at no extra charge if they are customers for both Cable TV and Internet access. Since I meet those requirements I grabbed this free app as soon as I heard about it. Once I provided my user name and password for their online billing system I was surprised and very pleased to see that it just works immediately.

Many of the channels I prefer to watch are included, among these the Comedy Channel, CNN and MSNBC. Local channels are not offered at this time, but I can watch those using EyeTV via an IP tuner and my Mac Pro anyway.

It seems to me that my DirecTV account is in jeopardy of being cancelled now that Time Warner has this very welcome new FREE feature for their customers.

I’m giving the Time Warner Cable TV iPad App a very enthusiastic five star rating!

written by Steve Rider \\ tags: apps, cable TV, iPad, iPad TV, Time Warner, TV

In June of 2009 I purchased a 15″ MacBook Pro. I have used it virtually every single day since then, going through two batteries and one replacement mother board all under the Apple extended warranty. It has been very good overall, but recently it began locking up when warm as it had once before when the graphics chipset failed.

I decided I need to replace it with something newer and more reliable. For the longest time I could not decide if I should get another MacBook Pro or go with a MacBook Air. I kept comparing prices and build configurations between Apple, Amazon and MacMall. I knew the MacBook Air was pretty nice because I gave my husband one for Seasonal Holiday Gift Man Day in December. He loves it. But i wanted to be able to edit websites and use graphics applications on my portable too. It came down to a choice between a 13″ MacBook Pro or a 13″ MacBook Air. Because the MacBook Air uses an SSD and the 13″ model sports the same 1440 by 900 pixel display resolution as my 15″ MacBook Pro it was the leading contender, but the MacBook air is so expensive!

Then I found a MacBook Air that was maxxed out option-wise for sale as a refurbished item on the Apple Store. That was the deciding factor.

I have had my MacBook Air about a week now and I love everything about it. It is definitely faster than my MacBook Pro was, disk access is blindingly fast as one might expect from a solid state drive, and the higher speed RAM no doubt helps too. My website editor of choice, Coda, loads and runs faster.

I was able to migrate my MacBook Pro to my MacBook Air by using SuperDuper to backup the MacBook Pro, then using Migration Assistant to bring it all in. I still have over 100GB free space on the amazingly fast SSD.

I see no dead pixels or any other reason that might explain why this piece of techno-art was sold as refurbished, but I saved big bucks.

I am completely satisfied in every way. It is lighter, faster, has a better keyboard and has much longer battery life than my much more expensive MacBook Pro. It does not get as hot, it rarely uses its fan, and when it does it is much more quiet. I recommend the MacBook Air with no reservations whatsoever.

written by Steve Rider \\ tags: Apple Store, MacBook, MacBook Air, Migration Assistant, Refurbished, replacement, Reviews, SSD, SuperDuper, upgrade

I’m dictating this review using the software that I am reviewing. It’s called MacSpeech Dictate and it was a birthday gift I received this week. Having grown up in the 1950s and 1960s I was never taught to type in fact that was women’s work when I was growing up. Maybe that’s just an excuse, but for whatever reason, I’m probably the worst typist I know. I pretty much always know what I do want to say, but when I have to type it it takes me a really long time because I’m constantly correcting typos. I never learned to touch type and even when I look at the keyboard my hand eye coordination is so poor that I often hit a key next to the one I intended to press. The bottom line is I hate typing, but I love using computers.

Years ago when I was still using another operating system that I need not mention I tried a different dictation software package. The state-of-the-art has changed dramatically since then. Apart from occasionally saying the words scratch and that together to correct the word it did not understand I’m finding this dictation software is far more accurate than what I can accomplish using my fingers. It’s fun as well.

Last night I was using it in an online chat session and the performance was fantastic. People used to wonder if I’d gone away in chat sessions because it took me so long to type, now they can hardly keep up with me.

If you have been considering using dictation software I honestly can recommend MacSpeech Dictate as having exceeded my expectations by far.

written by Steve Rider \\ tags: audio transcription, Dictate, Dictation, MacSpeech

After installing iTunes 9.1 yesterday I found that it was trivial to import my existing eBooks that were in Epub format.

I’ve been using the Amazon Kindle products, a 1st generation Kindle and a Kindle DX, for some time and have been gathering books from sources other than Amazon so I can read them using Stanza on my iPhone or Macs. I’m very much looking forward to the 3G iPad I ordered, and now I have a few books already loaded into iTunes (larger image) ready to sync to my iPad as soon as it arrives.

Apple does seem to be positioning the iBook store to compete with Amazon, and as is also the case with the Kindle they have wisely arranged it so that users can add their own Epub files gathered from public domain sources as well as other vendors.

It will be interesting to see how many eBooks are available through the iBookstore at roll out in a few days.

written by Steve Rider \\ tags: ebooks, epub, ibooks, iPad, itunes, itunes 9.1

Two and a half years ago I bought a 15″ Apple MacBook Pro. It was the first model released with an LED backlit display. I’ve had very good results with the notebook until recently. About 2 weeks ago it began locking up after being used for a while. At first I thought it might be just overheating so I started using a laptop cooler with fans. But just a few days later it failed again and would not work properly since.

In this failed state the Apple logo shown during bootup appears much larger than usual, as does the rotating gear, as if it did not know the resolution of the display. Once the MacBook Pro reaches the point in the bootup process where the splash screen with the login dialog box should appear the display goes dark and stays that way. Connecting an external display brings no joy, as it never displays anything. Resetting the PRAM did not help, nothing seemed to help. Booting from the Snow Leopard DVD did not help. Booting from a bootable external backup drive created with SuperDuper did not help.

Fortunately for me I did buy the AppleCare Extended Warranty when I bought this MacBook Pro, and it is still in effect until June of this year. The Apple Support rep quickly agreed with my conclusion that there is a problem with the video hardware, and a ship it back to us box is on its way here to my remote desert physical location.

I had a concern, though, about all of the personal and business data stored on the machine. While no doubt Apple hires trustworthy people with no criminal intentions, there was data on that computer that could be used, for instance, to log in to this server as root (I own this server). And there was source code for some of my ~130 websites too, some of which had secret key information for certain APIs that I use. I’m a stickler for security so this was a troubling issue for me. However, because Macs Are Great it was easy to resolve these concerns. Here is what I did.

I connected the MacBook Pro via Firewire to my Mac Pro, and booted the MacBook Pro into Target Disk Mode, and used SuperDuper to completely back up the hard drive to yet another external drive connected to my Mac Pro. Then I started Disk Utility and used it to zero out the entire hard drive in the MacBook Pro. Next I used my Snow Leopard DVD to install Snow Leopard on the MacBook Pro while it was still in Target Disk Mode (you can do this and it does work) rendering it very much like a brand new out of the box unit – except for the being broken part.

I’ll be pleased when I get my MacBook Pro back, in the meantime I still have my cute little MacBook, and tomorrow I’ll be ordering my iPad.

UPDATE: Less than 48 hours after I dropped off my MacBook Pro at FedEx I had it back, repaired, with a new mother board to correct the video problems. I’m quite pleased!

written by Steve Rider \\ tags: AppleCare, Broken Mac, hardware problem, Install Snow Leopard, It's dead Jim, MacBook Pro, no video, Target Disk Mode, zero out hard drive

Recently our trusty old HP laser printer began displaying a cryptic series of blinking lights instead of printing pages. Since the printer was already 7 years old and was cobbled onto our wired LAN using an unreliable print server module, we decided it was time for a new printer. I wanted direct Ethernet support and a price under $200.

It came as a surprise when I saw a Samsung printer listed as not only having built in Ethernet (as well as USB) but also duplex printing. The next question in my mind was whether it would work with a Mac. Well, not only does it work with a Mac, it nearly installed itself.

The printer arrived with a cryptic sheet with visual-only instructions for inserting the toner cartridge and attaching the included duplex adapter. Then it was just a matter of plugging in an Ethernet cable and a power cord, and finally turning on the power. That was the hard part.

On my Mac Pro two rooms away I brought up the Add Printer dialog in system settings. My Mac asked me if it was the Samsung printer it saw that I wished to add (yes, I do love using OS X). The Samsung printer uses Bonjour to announce its presence to Macs. We were also able to use IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) to setup a PC running Solaris to use the new printer. It is a PostScript printer.

Of course for those who have not yet escaped from using a Microsoft operating system there is also a CD with drivers and you can play the reboot game.

The printer supports automatic two-sided printing without any options or difficult setup. On the Mac you simply select the Two-Sided checkbox in the print dialog and it handles everything else.

I’m completely satisfied with this printer, and was very pleased to pay less than $200 including tax and shipping. Woo hoo! Poor HP.

[tags]Laser Printer, Samsung ML-2851ND, Duplex printing, under $200, Mac friendly, Bonjour printer, Network printer[/tags]

written by Steve Rider

I received Snow Leopard today and have upgraded an older MacBook, a MacBook Pro, and my Mac Pro with no problems at all. It was the easiest operating system upgrade I’ve ever done. I now have a lot more free hard drive space on my two notebooks, making room for more movie and TV files in iTunes.

As expected Snow Leopard is much faster, especially Safari. I also notice it is faster in Mail when I switch from one mail folder to another. Even my Mac Pro is notably faster.

I’m very pleased
[tags]Snow Leopard, OS X, Apple, Mac OS, upgrade, Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, MacBook[/tags]

written by Steve Rider