Category: Technology

Let it Snow…

Snow Leopard

I’ve spent nearly a straight week poking into an operating system to a degree and intensity that I never have before. Yes, many of the things I was poking at I’d done before, but rarely had I so intensely poked, pushed, and prodded to see what broke.

Honestly, rarely have I had to push and prod so much to find things to break.

Word of warning. I am fully certain I will be recommending this update to every client that has an intel based Mac. I’m already getting questions on it.

Yet.

I can NOT recommend this in good faith right this second to anyone with an established workflow in mission-critical software that has not yet been certified and updated specifically to run on Snow Leopard. Wait a few weeks. Try a test platform.

That said. Wow.

Installation on my laptop was less painful than installing Leopard onto my wife’s MacBook Pro. Or my old iBook. Or my G5. Since I didn’t run into the blue screen (thank you again Logitech. Your hardware is great, your drivers uniformly create a perfect vacuum… on every platform), it was far easier than my last major upgrade.

Starting up and shutting down, among other things, are both faster. So is time machine. Mail hasn’t flaked out in any weird ways, and is also much faster (and can now incorporate hyperlinks within signatures. I can hear the text-only purists grinding their teeth). Most programs are noticably snappier, and many, despite apple releasing ahead of schedule, already had verified their software was compatible. Thus my list of stuff that was broken was very, very short.

Most of my programs worked without hiccups. Predictably, almost every non-apple program was 32 bit. Surprisingly, among the tiny handful of Apple programs that are not 64 bit are front row and the DVD player.

The first category of programs I looked at were those with only PowerPC code. While I expected this from my copy of Office (I still run 2004. Anything newer I translate into Pages or NeoOffice…), I didn’t realize that Zterm, Disk Inventory X, Pic2Icon, or the graphical version of NetHack had never been rebuilt as intel-native programs. While most non-techies could care less about most of those programs, and can get a newer version of the office suite – MS or not – Disk Inventory is a useful tool for us crazies and for normal people that lets you very easily hunt down where space is getting used up on your hard drive, by giving you a nice, graphical, color-coded mapping.

I may have to bit the bullet and either get by without it (I don’t need it that often), or hope somebody updates it, and the rest of the powerPC programs. Office, I’ll just have to work in NeoOffice and Pages until I decide it’s worth ponying up for the Microsoft product. I’ve taken NetHack in an even _more_ retro direction by downloading and installing the text-only version.

Let’s get to what broke, shall we?

Cooliris, a wonderful web plugin for navigating pictures in sites like Flickr and Facebook, still works in Firefox, but the Safari version is broken, and now pending.

NeoOffice did not work – would not even start up, but has been patched and will now work after the update. There are still a couple bugs related to the image browser and networked file saves, but those are survivable. Once Apple gets the x.1 round of updates out of the way and the stable release of NeoOffice 3.1 arrives, we should be good to go.

I expected OnyX to fail – it’s a very version-specific cleanup utility for nuking corrupt caches, etc, and I would not expect the 10.5 version to work safely on Snow leopard than I would expect the 10.4 version to. Winclone surprised me a bit – I would not have thought it would be affected.

Another geeky program, nmap – used for security and network analysis – had an oddball issue properly scanning the local network. There is a workaround for it.

Predictably, the Cisco VPN software broke, just like many OS updates – even minor ones – have done in the past. Fortunately reinstalling the latest version worked great. A lot of other programs I use had minor updates and seem to work great (haven’t run into any obvious bugs) in 32 bit mode.

Interestingly, while Tweetdeck runs fine, it’s predictably enough in 32 bit mode as it’s based on Adobe Air. The Tweetie client is actually a full 64-bit app. This has shifted me even more to the point where I’m using that for quick posts, and tweetdeck when I’m doing serious searching and monitoring – which is rare.

Many apps got updated, and work fine. Of the ones that haven’t been updated, I’ve not noticed anything wrong with the vast majority. Even Microsoft’s Silverlight – their answer to adobe Flash and Air which netflix uses for their movie streaming service – worked great once updated.

Video playback and preference panes got hit the hardest. As of this writing, neither Microsoft, nor Flip4Mac (which is where MS has pointed people for several years now) have a version of their windows media codec that plays on my system without significant issues. Fortunately, VLC does, and plays flash video files as well.

Several third party preference panes (Perian, Weathercal, Hazel) have been updated to full 64-bit status, and don’t force the preference pane to restart. Most third-party preference panes still force a restart of system preferences as of this writing. While my WMV playback only seems to work in VLC, Perian seems to be handling everything else just fine even in Quicktime Player X.

I’ve yet to see how well the Adobe Creative Suite programs work, and I’m disappointed that Mailtags is broken and will be a paid upgrade, which brings me to the last point.

Mailtags is an awesome plugin for mail that allows you to apply arbitrary tags and metadata to mail messages. Incredibly useful in association with smart folders – and in principle similar to what Google mail does even though most mail programs present Google mail’s labels as traditional “folders”.

As extensive as the backend changes were to the Mac OS, I am saddened, but hardly surprised that Mailtags broke. My regret is that getting the functionality back will involve a paid upgrade for a program I’ve already paid for, or I lose the functionality utterly due to my system upgrade. Being fair, I’ve had two years of use out of it already, and they will be doing a lot of work getting it improved – it’s well worth the money.

Textmate – which is neck in neck with BBedit as my favorite coding and plain text editor, has hardly improved in forever. While only a few bugs cropped up – none showstoppers – and I’m glad to see some new updates and life on the website, it’s high time we see some progress made.

I am less forgiving of Adobe. I understand many of the technical difficulties involved, and am sympathetic. I also get the distinct feeling that getting their products in sync with the roadmap of technology changes for the Mac has been lacking in dedication and sincere effort. This ironically echoes the position Quark was in with their page layout program QuarkXpress – resting comfortably on their laurels with no competitors in sight – before InDesign swooped in and stole the mindshare, and the majority of the marketshare, from them. Intel was on the roadmap long before CS3 – even before CS2. They had a lot of time to deal with the reality of 64-bit Macs as the norm (It’s hard for even me to remember how long the Mac Pro’s have been out already). It’s one thing to prioritize getting the current shipping product, CS4, debugged before putting major efforts into supporting CS3. It’s another to make customers who bought CS3 as a current product just under a year ago feel like they’re being left out in the cold if they don’t pay up for the new software instead of skipping a version. Many shops didn’t consider the new features in version 4 enough to justify the ever steeper upgrade costs – and in the past, Adobe software was usually good for several years. Worse, Adobe’s initial statements regarding CS3 strongly implied you were on your own if anything broke. Period.

I haven’t seen how the backend changes affect Video editing tools dependent on Quicktime, how Filemaker, et
c. are affected, and how some business-critical programs like PowerCADD that have proven notoriously sensitive to changes (in one case – to differing version numbers between the 10.4 and 10.5 (unicode) versions of the Helvetica font )

I also can’t wait until this view in the activity window is all Intel 64…..Activity Monitor

Fusion vs. VMWare

There are three main options for people who wish to run Windows on the Mac. The first is “Boot Camp,” the second is “Fusion” from VMWare, and the last is “Parallels.”

Boot Camp is Apple’s method of partitioning (splitting up) the hard drive so that a separate section of the drive is used to run Windows. Pros? Runs as fast as any other Windows computer with similar hardware. Cons? It requires a total reboot into Windows, and another total restart to get back to your Mac.

Parallels and Fusion instead create a little sandbox that runs in a window while the rest of your Mac is running. This little sandbox pretends that it’s a whole separate computer. Cons? Not as fast as Boot camp, especially if trying to play games. Pros? More than fast enough to run Quickbooks, etc., much easier to switch in and out of (including copying, pasting and file transfers), And you can easily back up your entire virtual windows machine with all your settings intact by copying a disk image.

Which is best? Well, Parallels, from the newer kids on the virtualization block, tends to have the niftiest features first. It tends to run a bit faster. Fusion tends to be slower and more staid. When it catches up features-wise it tends to be implemented smoother and more mac-like. Finally, it tends to be more stable and deal better with any updates that Apple throws around.

I have at least one client actively switching over to Fusion with every computer they buy a copy for or as they update past version 3, because of two issues. One – a time where an Apple update kept them from printing to USB printers out of Paralells for three days. Worse, the fact that two sets of automatic updates have been corrupted and required workarounds to download a valid updater. We discovered the updating issue when trying to get a fix for video display problems within Parallels. I can understand the USB issue – it was in part a matter of timing as Apple had released an almost simultaneous update. The video issue is less forgivable, but also understandable. The problems where two sets of updates failed at different times because the downloaded updater was corrupt is just embarrassing.

Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic

Q: When I get my Mac is do I really need MS Office to survive in PC land or will iWork suffice?

Yep, a friend asked me his question, and after I responded I realized that it made a pretty decent post topic.

I’ll get the first item out of the way right now. If you HAVE to work with an Exchange server directly for shared contacts, calendars, etc, you’re stuck with buying a full version of office 2008 for the Mac, as opposed to the student edition. Otherwise identical, exchange accounts are disabled in the version of Entourage that ships with Mac Office 2008.

If that’s not a problem, here are some alternatives:

  • NeoOffice
  • iWork

As the link notes, don’t bother with OpenOffice – it’s for geeks like me who’ve installed the programming tools that come with OSX, and doesn’t “fit” with the aesthetics.I haven’t heavily used NeoOffice in a while, before they made some major speed improvements and added MS Office 2007 compatibility (Office 2007 uses a new file format), but I can say it’s usually pretty transparent in handling word/excel/etc. files, and unlike Mac Office 2008 and iWork, it has an access-like database. If you need a database, you’ll know. It’s also free – though donations are appreciated.

As I mentioned earlier, Mac Office 2008 Teacher and Student edition won’t let you directly connect to an Exchange server (though IMAP, POP, and other standard methods of connecting will work), but is otherwise solid and complete. Many people are screaming Entourage fanatics but I much prefer the simplicity and integration with addresses and such that the OSX Mail app gives. This has been ameliorated somewhat by allowing entourage to sync calendars and contacts with the iCal and Address book.

iWork? Love it. Don’t write in it much because I usually do my writing in a project/data composition tool called Scrivener that helps you collect related info and snippets, but Pages is great for dumping pretty output, and doesn’t rearrange things in the weird ways that any version (including Windows) of Word does when you add pictures, mess with columns, etc. – especially if doing multicolumn newsletters and such.

Numbers is a killer spreadsheet with some truly nifty features when it comes to creating sums without typing, etc. and organizing and laying out tables. I use this for tracking my current household budget re: expected and forcast expenses and how much I have free for groceries/etc. No, it doesn’t have all the formulas and features, but covers 99% of what most home users will ever need. Like the rest of iWork, it’s lovely to look at.

I don’t use Keynote, but that’s because I haven’t done any presentations lately. I’m not using Powerpoint if I can help it. Having messed with it, it’s at least as easy to use and MUCH prettier.

A note on exporting/importing: Word documents go in and out pretty smoothly . You will see some things you need to clean up because nothing is PERFECTLY compatible (this is true to a much lesser extent with NeoOffice, and even a bit between windows and Mac versions of office due to fonts, etc.) , but is pretty solid. Your biggest headaches are going to be with Excel spreadsheets. With complicated spreadsheets, things can get rearranged and demand some cleanup time, while the completely different layout paradigm of Numbers can make for some strange spreadsheets when exporting. Powerpoint and Keynote actually get along very well but at times there are obviously going to be issues there as well….

UPDATE: Instead of NeoOffice, I’d go with the current version of Libre Office these days.

.Mac, most hardly knew thee.

With a recent announcement by Google, you can almost hear the air getting sucked out of .mac’s sails.

Say what?

OK. .mac is Apple’s much touted, and honestly, underdeveloped mail hosting service/sync service/online disk space/remote access service that was recently rebranded as mobileme/.me. Frankly, it’s a bastard stepchild. While I’ve had legitimate uses for it and it’s premium pricing (just wait, I’ll explain), most users have never needed most of what it offers, or could easily get it for free. The biggest thing going for it lately was .mac-based syncing for the iPhone, that offered a compelling reason to shell out the bucks.

Well, Google is now offering exchange-server based syncing called Mobile Sync that works with a number of smart phones – including the iPhone. With it, you can keep your gmail-based contacts and Google calendars wirelessly synchronized with your iPhone. And it’s free.

OK. It’s hardly the end of the world. There are still a number of advantages that .mac has, but Google sync just made it a lot less compelling.

Pro’s for Google Mobile Sync:

  • Easy to share calendars with other people and fairly easy to see other people’s shared calendars as long as they’re on Google. Google calendars has it all over iCal here.
  • Reliable. You don’t have to deal with the vagaries of Apple’s built-in syncing services. Google has the server, Google keeps the calendar. Any changes you make to it after using the calDav tools like Calaboration to give you direct access to your Google calendar in iCal will be reflected within minutes no matter where else you look at your calendar. The calendar and contacts are synchronized over the relatively tried and tested (yes, I’m grinding my teeth saying it, but credit where due) Exchange activesync services. Since the current Apple Address Book app in Leopard natively syncs to any specified Google Mail account, this gives you a completely different channel to keep your mail and contacts and calendars synchronized on your phone and desktop. It also makes them available via the web, while letting you use the interface (web or local) that best suits your way of working.

Cons:

  • Privacy. Well – there are some who worry about Google and privacy. I understand these concerns, but don’t worry enough to not use them where they’re the best tool for the job.
  • Five Calendars synchronized. You can have more than five calendars, but only five of them can be synchronized to your smartphone. I solved this by grouping what used to be separate calendars together.
  • Ease of setup. If you have a new computer and iPhone – great. No problem. However, if, like me, you have a bunch of contact and calendar information already, then .mac is still the clear winner here. Between consolidating calendars, backing up data on the phone and the computers, exporting out individual calendars to import into Google cal, importing them, etc… it’s hardly a painless synchronization or one-click export. If, on the other hand, you already use Google and never used iCal anyway, then you still have the option of viewing the calendars in iCal. This is useful because a lot of programs in OSX are aware of the address book and the iCal calendars.
  • .mac plays better with mail programs than GMAIL. Especially the built in Apple Mail.app. Go figure. That said, this is true because Google does a few non-standard things to make tags work within the folder paradigm that most mail programs use.
  • Doesn’t replace the “Back to My Mac” functionality. – though as I recall LogMeIn now has a free mac program that allows you to get some of that (remotely controlling your computer) for free.

So… getting all this to work can be a little harder than .mac, and you still don’t get to synch bookmarks, but it’s free, and it works. For people like me who’ve had a .mac address for years, well, we’re not giving it up. At this point though, I can’t really point to mobileme sync as a compelling reason to push .mac/.me/mobileme.

It May Be an Edge Case, But It Shouldn’t Even Be an Issue…

I’ve taken to joking that I love my Macs, but Microsoft does more to give me business… fixing problems.

The latest? Installing an upgrade from the student/teacher version of Office for the Mac to the full version. The installer never asked me for the new license key, which should have been a sign of something going tremendously wrong, but I missed it.

The first sign I caught was not being able to open the existing email libraries. It turns out the S&T version had been updated to 12.1.5, and the version on the installation disc was still 12.0.0, so the libraries could not be opened by the “older” version of Office 2008. Not a huge deal, just run the updates, right?

Well, unless the updates won’t run. I tried running the built-in updater, and downloading the updates separately, but I kept getting the error that there was no software to update, or that the update could not run.

For whatever reason, either the key not being checked against the software version, or the patchers seeing more recent files spread across the computer not affected by installing a fresh copy, would NOT upgrade the older version until I not only uninstalled the application with the built in uninstaller, but deleted all references and preferences in both the system and user directories.

A completely clean install later, and the updates ran, and everything worked. Getting there only wasted five or six hours of working time for two people as well as my time fixing it for a process that should have only taken thirty minutes.

A Year With the iPhone

Well. It has now been a whole year since I got my iPhone.

Insofar as changing my life, well, I’m not making millions in Hollywood, and I don’t have hundreds of devoted followers.

All in all, I’d say that’s a good thing.

It definitely has been a boon though. The ease of email, texting, keeping my calendar on me, etc. has made it much easier to keep my life in order. My wife called it the first phone she didn’t want to throw across the room. It definitely is the first phone she knows how to use everything. Of course, I would not be as happy if the iPhone were still stuck with its original capabilities, as the added software has made all the difference in the world. Google maps and street view have helped me get directions and verify them. Facebook has let me keep in touch with friends. Remember the milk has made todo lists that I can keep with me EASY. I can even read ebooks from Baen and other publishers, IM, check bank balances, keep up on Twitter, or write entries like this to my blog. And then there are the games.

All is not perfect. While most places had better coverage under AT&T, my home coverage continues to be flaky at best. It’s an awkward shape for a phone (though no worse than many Blackberries), and sometimes you trigger something you don’t want to because of the touch screen.

But I’m glad I have it.

–fixed some typos due to my fat fingers while punching it in on my iPhone

2.0 Screenshots (or, Your Flash Web Site is Useless on an iPhone)

One of the new features that has been added that’s a no-brainer in retrospect (though none of my previous phones had it) is an ability to take screenshots of your iPhone screen. This means documenting iPhone features, showing off how cool your game looks, etc. all are much easier to do.

This also makes it very easy to note one thing that many people “know” but don’t give much thought to. If your website is Flash heavy, or worse, almost exclusively Flash, here’s what it looks like to an iPhone:

Screenshot of iPhone looking at a flash-centric website.

That little blue building block? That’s the “I don’t know how to play this content” icon where a website decided to have everything Flash-driven.

Yes it’s true that Google has arranged with Adobe to index flash files. This mitigates, but does not eliminate the argument that Flash-heavy content hurts your search rankings, even in Google. Nevertheless, creating Flash-heavy sites, especially sites that have no easy way to bypass the Flash, means that anyone without access to a full desktop is unlikely to dig up any useful information about your company, such as phone numbers to contact you.

Just a thought.