I pitched an idea to someone and they liked it so I’ll probably start something new here shortly.

More on that later…

* * *

Networking is important no matter what you do for a living.  Meeting new people, making connections – it can be the difference between something happening or not.

You are more likely to [...]]]> /begin random thoughts

I pitched an idea to someone and they liked it so I’ll probably start something new here shortly.

More on that later…

* * *

Networking is important no matter what you do for a living.  Meeting new people, making connections – it can be the difference between something happening or not.

You are more likely to say yes to someone you’ve met face to face versus someone you’ve never even heard of before.

I was once offered a job simply beause I knew someone working for the company who said to The Boss, “Hey – you know who we need here?  Patrick.  He’d be a great fit.”

* * *

Skype really doesn’t like wireless connections.  Learned that last night.  We had Mike Resnick scheduled to be on the Functional Nerds podcast and I really didn’t want another evening full of Skype dropping calls – seriously, you one of the folks who complain about AT&T?  Skype on wifi is 100 times worse.

I sent them an email a while ago about the issues I was having.  Let me dig that out for you…

Ok – here’s what I sent to Skype Customer Support:

“Well, I went through your troubleshooting scenarios and it lead me here, where none of the choices for Topic or problem have anything to do with my problem, which is frustrating.

Once a week, I make a skype to skype  call. Sometimes I have 3 people on and we do a conference call. The call lasts between one hour and an hour and a half max.

I either have: silence from call participants every five minutes for about 30 seconds – like clockwork-

or

At exactly 55 minutes into the call, whoever initiated the call has their sound distorted and cannot be understood – we call this ‘cyloning’ because the person starts to sound like an old Cylon from BSG. Sometimes, this causes the call to drop completely and the person initiating the call has to close Skype completely and restart it before they can be part of the call again.

I’ve started the calls and had this happen to me – I’m running a dual core iMac with Leopard. I’ve also had someone running Windows Vista initiate the call and have the exact same thing happen to her, so it doesn’t seem to be platform specific.

It’s very frustrating. I’ve been considering purchasing an online number and going on a month to month plan, but as near as I can tell – these issues we’re having are related to your service and not to our hardware or connections – not if we can predict it down to the second when the problems are going to occur.

Do you have any solutions for this?”

Here is the response I got back from Skype:

“We are sorry to hear that you are experiencing difficulties with Skype.

The primary reason for robotic sound, dropouts in sentences and sound delay is poor network performance. In the context of Skype this means networks that have a high rate of packet-loss and long packet round-trip-delay.

Below is a list of suggestions which should address the problem that you are experiencing.

These steps can be carried out separately and in any order, so if you are unable to complete any one of them, just move on to the next one.

1.First, please make sure that you are running the latest version of Skype. The latest version of Skype can be found here: http://www.skype.com/download/”

(Note: I am running the latest version for Mac.)

“2. Next, ensure that the following are up-to-date:
- Windows with the latest Service Packs and updates, available from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
- DirectX – the main multimedia part of Windows. The newest version can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.aspx”

(Note: I am running a MAC, not Windows.)

“3. Please follow the simple suggestions here that resolve many call quality issues: http://www.skype.com/help/guides/callquality/”

(Note: I ALREADY DID THAT – IT’S WHY I FREAKING SENT YOU AN EMAIL!)

“4. Please follow our visual sound setup guide to make sure your audio settings are correct: http://www.skype.com/help/guides/soundsetup.html”

(Note: What part of I’VE BEEN THROUGH YOUR TROUBLESHOOTING STEPS AND THEY LEAD ME TO EMAIL YOU do you have trouble understanding?)

“5. Now, check that your firewall is not interfering with Skype. You can find our firewall guides at http://www.skype.com/help/guides/firewalls/ Even if it can connect and you are able to use chat it is possible that your firewall is still blocking some connections that Skype needs for a reliable voice or video call. Please refer to your firewall manual if you are not able to find the required information on our website.”

(Note: Already done did it.)

“6. In the Skype top menu go to Tools > Options > Advanced > Connection please tick the option to ‘Use port 80 and 443 as alternatives for incoming connections’. In the ‘Incoming Connections’ box you can chose any port between 1024 and 65535. It is not necessary to change the port number though.”

(Note: That’s how you get there from Windows. I’m on a Mac, remember? Did you even read my email?)

“7. The problem that you are experiencing might also be related to the connection type that you are using or the connection speed availability. Please ensure that when making a call there are no additional programs running that can be taking a lot of bandwidth and also that the internet connection speed is fast enough to support a call. We cannot guarantee that Skype will be working at 100% when there are other programs running which might be interfering with Skype. Sometimes you might also experience this type of problem during a Skype2Skype call when calling a destination where there are known network problems or the connection speed on the other end is insufficient.”

(Note: Tried that. Closed every other internet accessing program on the machine – no difference.)

“8. If the above does not help, please try a clean installation of Skype. Please completely remove Skype via Add/Remove programs and then install again.”

(Note: That’s Friggin WINDOWS! Sigh. You are stupid, aren’t you? please don’t breed…)

“9. For this step showing hidden folders and files has to be turned on. Please navigate to My Computer > Tools > Folder Options > View. Once there, please make sure that the option ‘Show Hidden Files and Folders ‘ is enabled.”

(Note: See the note under #6 – same applies here and I’m tired of retyping it over and over…)

“* Close Skype with a right click on the systray icon (next to the Windows clock) and selecting ‘Quit’
* Locate the shared.xml file found in C:\Documents and Settings\your_windows_username\ApplicationData\Skype\
* Delete shared.xml
* Start Skype (shared.xml will be recreated)”

(Note: Mac! I’m on a Mac! I told you – hey, I’m on a Mac - and you didn’t friggin listen, did you?!  No!  because you’re stupid and you don’t have any trouble shooting guides for Mac, do you?  Please, for the love of God and the good of the gene pool, tell me that you have been fixed!  That you can never spread your seed on an unsuspecting world!!!)

“Last, if you are using a wireless connection, please try connecting your computer to your modem or router using a standard cable.”

(Note: Huh.  Okay, might as well give that a shot.)

Which I did.  I ran a 50ft cat 5 cable from the corner of my living room where Comcast installed the freaking thing, along the wall, passed the front door, up the stairs, around the corner and into my bedroom where my computer and desk are currently setup.  I taped the wire down along the way so it wasn’t a trip hazard.

And we had the best Skype call in the history of the Functional Nerds podcast.

Sigh.

Guess I’m gonna have to make that a permanent thing.

/end random thoughts

~P

Make me famous:

THE RETURN OF THE PODCAST IS HERE!

Episode 9 of the All Things From My Brain Podcast is here.

In this weeks massive, DOUBLE SIZED, MAXI-PODCAST, I am joined by a special guest on his very first podcast [...]]]> I said I’d do it, I warned you – you didn’t listen, did you? Well, now it’s TOO LATE!

THE RETURN OF THE PODCAST IS HERE!

Episode 9 of the All Things From My Brain Podcast is here.

In this weeks massive, DOUBLE SIZED, MAXI-PODCAST, I am joined by a special guest on his very first podcast appearance as we discuss the iPad, about Apple, Google, Blizzard, Doctor Who, Dollhouse, Torchwood – and the fact that his youngest son may be stalking me via iPhone.

With Episode 9 I am dumping Podbean and everything is going to be hosted here on atfmb.com. If you’ve subscribed to the podcast via iTunes, that link is in the process of being changed and you’ll have to resubscribe – I’ll let you know as soon as that’s ready and available.

In the meantime, click below and stream to your hearts content or you can download via this link by right clicking and choosing ’save as’.

~P

[podcast]http://www.atfmb.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/AllThingsFromMyBrain009.mp3[/podcast]

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I’ve been around computers and technology for as long as I can remember. I cut my teeth on the Apple Color Computer II, then the TRS-80 (Trash80) from Radio Shack. I recall BASIC and DOS, played Pong, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sony Playstation and the XBOX-360. I’ve fond memories of dialing [...]]]> Faxiophiles

I’ve been around computers and technology for as long as I can remember. I cut my teeth on the Apple Color Computer II, then the TRS-80 (Trash80) from Radio Shack. I recall BASIC and DOS, played Pong, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sony Playstation and the XBOX-360. I’ve fond memories of dialing into a friends BBS for text based interactions long before there was such a thing as ‘Instant Messaging’ (or ‘text messaging’), and not so fond memories of dialing into something called ‘AOL’ (to get a busy signal all day and night) followed fairly quickly by the bliss that is ‘broadband’. I even remember sticking my finger into a plastic circle on a rotary phone in order to ‘dial’ it, and the heady sensation of the first time I ‘beamed’ a contact from my Palm Phone to a friends Palm Phone using LASERS (pew, pew).

In every instance, I saw technology grow and evolve, become something different, better, more advanced and, in most cases – more effective and useful. As something evolved, I didn’t hang onto the past, I embraced the future. I haven’t had a ‘land line’ phone in nearly a decade, for example. So many pieces of what were, at their time, technological marvels, have been tossed upon the midden heap throughout my lifetime and have simply become ‘worthless’ technology to me (and so many others) now.

For example – the fax machine (I realize that you may not consider these to be ‘worthless’ just yet but, read on).

The most revolutionary contraption of its day, the fax machine let people send information to other people instantly (more or less) that they would have normally sent via mail; letters, purchase orders – even marketing materials and fliers. I remember fax machines that v – e – r – y – s – l – o – w – l – y – c – r – a – w – l – e – d – a – l – o – n – g – a – s – t – h – e – y – s – c – a – n – n – e – d – a – d – o – c – u – m – e – n – t, and onesthatzippedrightthroughsofastyou’dmissitifyoublinked.

But, to be honest with you, I haven’t actively used a fax number since the late 90’s. I had one of those EFax numbers for a while (still do for work), but I rarely used it and just let it go away (and I rarely use the work efax either). Why? Well, because technology evolved again.

Along came the PDF. With the PDF or portable document format from Adobe, just about everything that someone could possible want to fax to me, can be sent vial email and PDF. It especially became viable when other companies started coming up with their own versions of ways to CREATE PDF’s – like the ability to save any document on a Mac as a PDF, or push a button in an Office doc and create a PDF – that sort of thing. Once you didn’t have to have anything particularly fancy to create one, PDF’s became the thing.

Which is why I am shocked when I talk to people who want things faxed to them or that they want to fax something to me or that we should fax together as if faxing is the pinnacle of technological achievement, the end all, be all of technological nirvana.

It feels like going back to DOS to me.  (I once walked uphill, in the snow, barefoot, across broken glass to get to school… or something, and you try to tell the kids today…)

“Wait – Fax? Seriously? You want to -fax- something to me? Um…”

With most people (I think), email has replaced the fax (right?), an email does just fine (Right?!). Email is simple enough (you can get one in a snap). Someone sends you an email and it can come to your phone or your laptop or your desktop or wherever you want it to show up. You’re not tied to a desk and a land line when you use email versus a fax and really, it’s not an additional charge – with a fax machine, you have an extra phone bill and who wants that?! It seems like a no brainer to me.

But then, there are people who are not so enamored of emails and PDF’s as I am. We’ll call them ‘Faxiophiles’.

Faxiophiles love their fax machines and their steno machines and their rotary phones and their #2, non-mechanical pencils because they are easy; plug them into power and a phone line and, for 99.9% of the machines out there, they are good to go (and the average #2 pencil just needs to be sharpened…). For the Faxiophile, email is the devils work (Or George Bush. Or Bill Clinton – depends on which side of the aisle you prefer). You have to ‘pop things’ with email, and figure out ‘maps’ and there are passwords and web things and and and – it’s just all so difficult and evil like Republicans or Democrats (again – whichever aisle…)!

I feel the pain of the Faxiophile, I really do. They like their world to be very simple, very easy, very black and white – square peg in the square hole. You need something typed up? Use a typewriter – no one has ever stolen your identity on a typewriter before. You need to make a phone call? That’s what that thing on the wall with the tangled up cord and the big buttons is for – never given -anyone- cancer, nor caused a car accident nor been banned by a local or state government. And when you need to communicate something that’s been written out, you send a fax.

Faxiophiles.  They’re out there.

~P

Make me famous:

In the fifth episode of the All Things From My Brain podcast, I talk about the Palm Pre losing it’s iTunes sync functionality, how India plans to issue biometric ID cards to its 1.2 BILLION citizens, how the Kindle and Amazon are once again in the news with BAD [...]]]> Episode #5: All Things from My Brain

In the fifth episode of the All Things From My Brain podcast, I talk about the Palm Pre losing it’s iTunes sync functionality, how India plans to issue biometric ID cards to its 1.2 BILLION citizens, how the Kindle and Amazon are once again in the news with BAD PRESS, about Galaga coming to the iPhone in both retro and new forms, how Farragut films is bring Star Trek back to animation, how the family of Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkein are suing New Line Cinema cuz they ain’t been paid, about G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Iron Man 2 & Green Lantern: First Flight, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Buck Rogers in the 25th century, Flash Gordon, and The New Universe book projects currently on my plate.

[podcast]http://www.atfmb.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/AllThingsFromMyBrain005.mp3[/podcast]

Make me famous:

Tech Update

iPhone 3GS sales/news: Wall Street Journal  http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090622-710455.html

Information Week: http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/iphone/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218100710

NY Times Online: http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/the-real-cost-of-an-iphone-3gs/

Apple Insider: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/06/22/12_of_early_iphone_3g_buyers_report_ditching_their_blackberry.html

Kindle News The Atlantic: http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/06/rethinking_the_kindle.php

Gear Diary: http://www.geardiary.com/2009/06/19/kindles-drm-rears-its-ugly-head-and-it-is-ugly/

Games

Mass Effect: http://www.macworld.com/article/141325/2009/06/masseffectgalaxy.html?lsrc=rss_main

Cnet: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10270870-17.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Penny Arcade: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/9/26/

Tom’s Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sims-piracy-bittorrent-game-sales,8126.html

Transformers 2

Wired:  http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/06/blowback-does-transformers-2-blow-moviegoers-weigh-in/

Roger Ebert; http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090623/REVIEWS/906239997

Scifi Wire: http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/review-transformers.php

Rotten tomatoes: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_revenge_of_the_fallen/

SFSignal.com http://www.sfsignal.com/

Publishers weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6666456.html?nid=3329

Tor’s online store: http://store.tor.com/ & http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200926/3910/Sci-fi-publisher-launches-online-bookshop

Dan Brown: http://www.thelostsymbol.com/

http://twitter.com/lostsymbolbook

[podcast]http://www.atfmb.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/AllThingsFromMyBrain002.mp3[/podcast]

Guess what I did this weekend?

I created a podcast!!

I decided that I have a face fit for radio… Or Podcasting…

Anyway, spent the weekend working on this – hoping that I’ve worked the kinks out and it’ll be much much easier to do these moving forward.  We’ll have to see about that.

There’s lot’s of ways to [...]]]> So.

Guess what I did this weekend?

I created a podcast!!

I decided that I have a face fit for radio… Or Podcasting…

Anyway, spent the weekend working on this – hoping that I’ve worked the kinks out and it’ll be much much easier to do these moving forward.  We’ll have to see about that.

There’s lot’s of ways to access the podcast at this point:

• You can click this link and it’ll take you to the feed.
• You can click the podcast player in the right sidebar and play it in the browser.
• You can click the link in the left sidebar to the feed.

I’ve submitted it to iTunes so as soon as I have a link for that, I’ll put it here somewhere.  In the meantime, you can add it to your iTunes by clicking on Advanced, then Subscribe to podcast and just paste the feed link in.

I’m really excited about this!

In this inaugural episode of the All Things From My Brain Podcast, I introduce myself and then talk about: the podcast and the blog, I also talk about reboot mania gripping Hollywood, the new iPhone 3GS and the new 3.0 OS, Tweetdeck on the iPhone, the new Ghostbusters game released this week, Microsoft’s new .NET Firefox addon that you probably didn’t know about, Torchwood: Children of Earth, Primeval, Doctor Who and the new Spaceport America.

If that sounds interesting to you, then what are you waiting for?  Click the link!

~P

Make me famous:

Die hard Mac haters are cheering.  “See,” they say in a chorus of sneering.  “Mac’s aren’t so safe after all!  You can get infected too!”  They’re toasting each other on what they have believed is the inevitable destruction of [...]]]> So.  Big news on the net this week; Mac’s have a malware program running around the Internet.

Die hard Mac haters are cheering.  “See,” they say in a chorus of sneering.  “Mac’s aren’t so safe after all!  You can get infected too!”  They’re toasting each other on what they have believed is the inevitable destruction of the Mac users smug arrogance when it comes to Internet security.  They are moving through fits of ecstasy at the thought that so very soon, the Apple store’s shelves will be filled with box after box of anti-virus and firewall software to protect the foolish masses of Mac computers out there in the world soon to be raped by malware designed to zombify them and/or give over precious private data.

They blog and report on websites around the world, reminding us once again, about their theory that the only REAL reason Mac’s have been ’safe’ for so long is due to their unpopularity.  If only more people bothered to use and purchase Mac’s (and why would they when there is so little software available for Mac’s?), they have said for decades, then the worms and Trojans and malware would come out of the woodwork’s in droves.  But right now, they have always said, it’s just not in the interest of the people who create such things to do so for such a small user base.  They write stories with titles like, “Paradise Lost” to really hammer home the concept that the party is over.  No longer are we Mac users safe, they say.  Time to become slaves to the Internet Security Behemoth Windows has built over the decades.

We’ve heard it for so very long.  It’s utter bullshit.

Yes, Mac has a malware attack out there in the ether and yes it can zombify your machine.  If you’re stupid. Let’s take a look at the differences between how a Mac computer can become infected with something like this versus how a Windows machine becomes infected.

On the Mac, you must actively download and install the program.  In the case of the one going around right now, it’s inside/attached to a pirated, trial copy of iWork.  How do you stop it from infecting your computer?  Um, don’t download the pirated copy of iWork?  Since the majority of Mac users in the world probably won’t do that, the chances of this thing becoming a huge big deal are pretty slim.  Install anti-virus?  Um, no.  Why would you?  The only way for this piece of malware to infect your computer is for you to download and install it.  It won’t come through your browser.  It won’t come through your mail.  It won’t simply find you on the web, download and install itself and then run rampant.  You have to choose to become infected.

As a side note – the key to all of the anti-virus software out there is that once your computer is infected, the anti-virus software will clean the infection off your machine or quarantine it so it can’t do any more harm.  You didn’t actually think it proactively protected you, did you?  Cuz it doesn’t.  It waits for the damage to be done, then it reacts, so it wouldn’t help you unless you’re already infected, which again, unless you’re stupid, won’t happen.  So don’t worry about it.  You don’t need any of that crap for your Mac.

So, all in all, there’s a mac-specific malware out in the wild that can’t hurt you unless you invite it in, ask it to sit down and hand it the keys to your house.  Are there people out there who will invite it in because they want the pirated copy of iWork?  Sure.  And they’ll always be at risk of things like this because they are being stupid and there’s nothing that can be done about that except to hope that they don’t breed.

Let’s compare that scenario with how a Windows machines becomes infected.  First up, I feel that it in the interest of good faith disclosure that I inform you that the chances are, during the time it took you to read the text above, several attempts to infect your machine were tried by various bad people all around the world.  I am not one of them.  Hopefully they failed.  On an unprotected XP machine, it’s something like 4 minutes on the web before the damned thing is infected with something.  4 minutes!  On Vista… why the hell would you be on Vista?  Are you just looking to be punished?  Do you have some sort of narcissistic need to cause yourself pain and frustration?  You probably beat yourself with one of those studded belts across the back like in ‘The DaVinci Code’, don’t ya?  But I digress…

See, the fundamental difference is that the Windows user doesn’t really have to do anything to become infected by something nasty.  Just being connected to the Internet means they can find you and infect you.  That’s why you have firewalls and anti-virus, and user credentials and closed ports and a slew of other stuff to try and make that Windows box ’safe’.  Unlike the Mac malware attack above, you aren’t really a part of the equation in your Windows box becoming infected, it’s not a choice that you have to make – the bad stuff out there doesn’t really need your permission to run or install.  They run in the background, while you’re playing Bejeweled or surfing porn or whatever else you enjoy on the web, and they do so silently and quickly.  Like Ninjas!  Wait, does that make them sound cool?  They’re not cool.  They are anything BUT cool.

Opening up Internet Explorer and visiting websites can infect your machine.  That’s because they like to specifically target the security vulnerabilities inherent in IE to infect your machine and again, you don’t know that it’s happening until its way too late.  That’s why and how ‘Patch Tuesday’ evolved; as vulnerabilities were identified, Microsoft had to address them through weekly patches to combat whatever nasty thing was floating around that week.  Occasionally, something will come along that is particularly nasty and they will issue a special security patch on a different day.  Same goes for other entry points – all you have to do to become infected by certain email bugs is view the infected email.  Open the email, you’re infected.  That’s why these types of programs try to send themselves to everyone in your address book first thing, because your friends, colleagues and family are more likely to trust and open something from you versus some random piece of junk mail or spam.  Neat huh?  Nothing to run, just open it and you’re screwed.  Then your computer tells two friends.  And they tell two friends.  And so on.  And so on…

Better close that preview pane in Outlook.

They even came up with a way to infect your machine by viewing an image.  That scared a lot of people last year.  Open an email or a browser with an infected .jpg on it and you were infected.

All of these things hit Windows machines through vulnerabilities in Windows and other Microsoft software products.  These vulnerabilities can be innocent in inception, a port defaulted to ‘open’ because some legitimate piece of software or a driver or something, somewhere needed it to be.  But in the wrong hands, it suddenly becomes something much more sinister and a way to enter in and do bad things to you, your computer and your private data.  Is the Mac OS more secure?  Yes, it is.  So is Unix, but you don’t want to use Unix.  Command prompt bad.  BAD COMMAND PROMPT!  NO!  NOT ON THE CARPET!  NO!

*cough*  Is the Mac OS invincible?  Of course not.  But it is better protected thanks to how it is developed and because of the thinking behind it and the new versions of the OS as they are developed  - Apple is not trying to support legacy machines from 10 years ago with each new OS released, which I think makes a huge difference.  They don’t have all of that baggage and they don’t have to try and please every Tom, Dick and Harry manufacturer of BLAH in the world who is trying to create the next, cheap piece of crap hardware to go into the Windows box.

Is it less of a target because of the smaller user base?  I really don’t think so.  It could be, but I don’t believe that it is.  I don’t think that is the motivation behind the attacks and the development of this stuff.  Given that a lot of this crap specifically targets Mircosoft software and vulnerabilities in various versions of the Windows OS, I’m actually inclined to think that this is more likely a war against Microsoft itself.   Glee is taken by those who find and exploit each new vulnerability or in finding out that old ones once thought patched are now open again (happened last year or maybe it was the year before).  even as Microsoft tries to release new things that are intended to be more secure, like IE7 and Vista, these folks crack their knuckles and set about finding out just how secure they are and where they can break in and do bad stuff.  It’s like a vendetta.  A jihad, even.

So.  What does all of this mean?  Yes, there is a malware threat out there for Mac.  No, it does not signal the end of the Mac users warm and fuzzy feelings over Internet security.  Nor does it signal that the time has come for Mac users to load and mess with anti-virus bullshit.

I think it comes down to being a non-event and a non-issue.  We can only wait and see if things change, if more and more stuff comes out that attacks the Mac platform, and how Apple reacts and combats those attacks.

IF they happen.

~P

Make me famous:

I don’t deny that Mac’s cost more – [...]]]> Microsoft is running these cute new commercials offering to pay for a laptop for some twenty-something who is computer shopping, if they can find what they want for under $1000.  The point of the piece is to highlight the difference in pricing between Mac computers and Windows computers.

I don’t deny that Mac’s cost more – never have.  Or that you can pick up a Windows machine cheap.  I think the commercials are putting the spotlight on a valid point: price does affect who buys a Mac and who doesn’t.  The kid going off to college looks at the price tag on a Mac laptop vs a Windows laptop and thinks, ‘Damn – I could get this and this and this with the money I save…’ and they’re not wrong.

But there’s an old saying, “You get what you pay for.”

I was and continue to be willing to pay more for the Mac platform because of the time I save that would otherwise be spent on total and utter crap.  Case in point: I inherited a laser printer, color and a bit old but still a really decent printer all the way around.  I’ve got a cable modem and router combo from Comcast, so it’s a pretty standard wifi network setup with three computers on it: 2 iMacs and 1 Vista machine (not mine and I rarely touch it unless I absolutely have to).  I wanted to hook my printer up on the wifi network so that all of the printers could print to it.

Now, having said that, let me also say this: the Vista machine has a color printer attached to it.  I’ve shared the printer, I’ve made it so that the Vista machine is supposed to be ‘visible’ inside the network to other computers, but the Macs can’t see the Vista machine and vice versa, nor can they see the printer that it’s sharing.  They can see each other though, and can share files back and forth – not so with the Vista machine – except for iTunes, which can see both libraries on the Macs.  makes no sense, right?  Right.

I remembered seeing something about a wireless print server from Apple a while back, so I did a little research and found the Airport Extreme which, among other things, let’s you share a USB printer, create a wifi network of its own and will stream music from your iTunes directly to speakers that you can hook right into it.  All in all, a pretty cool thing – and it’s small; plugs right into a wall outlet and is out of the way.

I headed out Saturday to pick one up (that was an adventure and a story for another time. Maybe.), came back to the house, took a look at the instructions, which were fairly straight forward, and proceeded to install it.

Took five minutes to plug the printer into the Airport, then the airport into the wall, walk to the first iMac, install the software, download the drivers for the printer, setup the device, then install the software on the second iMac and do the same stuff.  Both computers saw the printer, added it, and I was able to print test pages – everything worked so beautifully.  I was jazzed.

Went to the Vista machine.  Went to download the drivers for the printer, Vista asked me if I really wanted to download the .exe and I said yes.  Installed it.  Put the disc in and went to install Bonjour for Windows, needed for the computer to print to the printer over the Airport Extreme.  That went okay, but then it popped up and said that my user settings were insufficient to complete the installation and kicked me out.  Since there’s only one user account on the machine, and it’s set to ‘administrator’, I tried again – this time it let me complete the installation, but asked me several times if I really wanted to do what I was doing, which is really, raelly annoying.

I followed the instructions to setup the printer, only it couldn’t see it on the network.  I walked in the next room to make sure the Airport was still good – it was, went back to the Vista machine, canceled out of that setup, and started again – this time, it found the printer.  Started going through setting everything up, it error’d out saying that the ‘parameters were unset’ and kicked me out.  Okay.  I was a frustrated, but I continued on.  I tried again – it got to the point where it recognized the printer, saw it on the network, but wouldn’t accept the Vista specific driver I’d -just- downloaded for it.  I tried it with a different one that it had on its list and it took it, but then error’d and told me that it wasn’t the correct driver so I tried the Vista driver again and it accepted it.  Got through the entire setup process and hit ‘print test page’.  Error.

Tried again.

Error.

Tried again.

Error.  It could not print.

So I deleted everything and started over, rebooted and went through setting up the printer, driver, blah blah blah – said it saw it, said everything was fine, hit ‘print test page’ – Error.

Forty-five minutes of this crap.  To get this going I was going to have to start trolling the web and find out if other people have gone through the same thing and if they found any solutions.  I don’t want to have to do that.  I want it to work right the first time.  So, I gave up.  I quit.

This is just one of the reasons why I don’t miss Windows, why I try to stay as far away from it as possible – stupid shit like this.

It shouldn’t be that hard, it shouldn’t take so much of my time.  This isn’t counting the annoyance of all the damned things popping up telling me that I had to approve this or that and did I really mean to do this?  What a load of bull crap!

So yes, little twenty-something’s in M$’s commercials – go, purchase your Windows machine, save a little cash, then spend the rest of your days with that computer toiling away, trying to get things to work rather than doing your work.  And don’t forget the money you’ll spend on virus protection and firewalls.  Money well saved.

~P

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My trip to Blizzcon rekindled my interest in the World of Warcraft, among other games.  I’ve been doing a good job of balancing my time playing video games with doing other, non sitting around on my ass stuff.  Not [...]]]> Well, to quote Michael Corleone: Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.

My trip to Blizzcon rekindled my interest in the World of Warcraft, among other games.  I’ve been doing a good job of balancing my time playing video games with doing other, non sitting around on my ass stuff.  Not enough, of course, but at least I’m trying.  Still, I find myself logging in more than I have in a very long time.

Still not playing much Horde, though.  I want to, I’m nearly there – seriously, I am.  Lots of drama happened there, lots of stupid people being petty and blaming everyone else for all sorts of crap.  Bleh.  It’s no wonder I stay away.  There are some truly fantastic people over there, though, and I am closer to going back and getting into the groove of things again than I was, say, a month ago.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on my Alliance side Paladin – arguably my first main character.  Pretty well developed RP-wise and when I played him every night, I had it down really well and as long as I had mana, I survived.  Playing him again after so long has been a challenge, but I’m getting the hang of it again.  I’m looking forward to the Lich King expansion, everything I saw at Blizzcon really looked interesting and the latest patch with all the new stuff has been a lot of fun.

Logging into him for the first time in a long time, I had to redo all his talents, spells, etc.  I also had to deal with the fact that he had no money – I’d sent it all to Morticai Horde side long ago.  So I set to work on getting him some money, working the Auction House (and doing a damned fine job of it), upgrading his armor and finally breaking level 60 after three years.

The funny came when I was going through my bank and found my tuxedo pants.  This reminded me of those early days, playing in a tight group and doing really well.  RP-wise, my Pally was engaged – hence the tuxedo pants.  When the call came to head to an instance, he was wearing said pants and I totally forgot to change them out for his plate.  So, I tanked Uldaman in tuxedo pants.  And I didn’t die.

If you know anything about the game, this should be amusing to you

~P

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No, seriously.  I love Mac.  I love Apple.  I’ve had some issues with their retail stores, but it looks like the one closest to me is under new management or something and it’s like being in a different store, so I think those issues are fading fairly quickly.

So, when I tell you [...]]]> Hello, I’m a Mac.

No, seriously.  I love Mac.  I love Apple.  I’ve had some issues with their retail stores, but it looks like the one closest to me is under new management or something and it’s like being in a different store, so I think those issues are fading fairly quickly.

So, when I tell you that I hate the Mighty Mouse, I want you to understand that this comes from a love of the products and a disappointment over the piece of shit mouse they’ve created.

The love affair with the Mighty Mouse didn’t end overnight.  I mean, to be honest, I thought the little mouse looked and acted really sweet.  Very sleek and stylish – exactly what you’d expect from Apple.  The fact that I could scroll not only up and down, but also left and right – phenomenal.

But then, one night, I went to scroll and nothing happened.  I scrolled some more – still nothing.  I clicked the little scroll buttons in the browser and they worked fine – but the scroll on the mouse – not so much.  It would go up, but not down.  I thought this odd.n  If I pushed really hard as I scrolled, it would work a little.

I noticed that this happened on not just one mouse, but two.  This was curious, so I bitched about it to a friend who told me there was a fix for it: Turn the mouse upside down and rub the scroll wheel back and forth on your jeans for a while.

I was justifiably skeptical.  I even accused him of making that up just to see if I’d do it.

“Mary?” he called to his wife while I was staring at the chat window.  “I told him to run his mouse on his jeans!”  “Oh my god – you did not?  Is he doing it?”  “I think so!”  “What a dork!”

…I have no proof that this conversation ever actually took place.

Still – can you blame me for being skeptical?  Take it apart, clean it with a can of air – these are the types of things I associate with a mouse malfunctioning and that’s the older style, trackball mice – I haven’t had a logitech laser mouse go bad on me yet.  Rub it on your jeans?  Seriously?

I looked it up.  Apparently, that really is the official solution for the problem.

I admit that it does fix the problem for a short time, a VERY short time, but COME ON!  What the hell?!  This is the best that the company who brought us the iMac can do?  This is the best that the makers of the iPod, the MacBook and the iPhone can really put on the market?  A mouse that has to be rubbed against your jeans for an hour to work properly for the next two weeks?

Where’s the quality control?  Where’s the product testing?  Obviously they know that the problem exists because they’re telling people to rub the damned things on their pants all day and night.  Where’s the fix for it?  Where’s the generation 2 Mighty Mouse?  “New and improved Mighty Mouse – won’t gunk up and stop working in the middle of your Photoshop creation!”

*sigh*

It’s very annoying.  This is not what I expect from an Apple product.

~P

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