Nothing Really Poignant - James in Taiwan

So this weekend I sold my black MacBook. This was maybe one of the few machines I did not hate by the time I sold it. Surprisingly it also held it’s value. In June it will be 2 years old and it only lost 1/3 of the original total value. For a well-used laptop, this isn’t bad.

Over the years I have had quite a few laptops. Of course my first laptop was a PowerBook 145, but after I got a PowerBook 520c and it was in the shop for 6 out of 9 months I owned it I started thinking Apple products were lemons. Apple eventually gave me a new and faster machine, the Powerbook 1400, but by that time I started using NT 4, and let’s face it - OS 8 was never as stable as NT 4.

So eventually I sold the 1400 and didn’t buy another laptop until Sony came out with the Vaio Z1. This was sure a beauty, however it had some defects - the biggest being the lack of a global warranty and the paint chipped off the mouse buttons. This was replaced by an IBM X40, which was an overall great, if underused machine since I had the same machine at work and rarely used my home machine. During this time, OS X 10.3 came out, and I was starting to look at Apple again, but this was for a “Fun Machine”. We eventually bought an iBook G4, but I wasn’t sold and this was used for just web browsing.

Next we go to Apple’s Intel announcement and the soon released MacBook. When they came out I was so happy. For one, it wasn’t white so it wouldn’t get dirty like the iBook G4 we had. Secondly my brother-in-law recently bought an Intel iMac and I was sold on going all-Mac. I went out to the Portland Apple Store and picked up this beauty (seen here).

So now Steven has a white MacBook for home use, we still have the iBook G4 running as a iTunes / print / web server and I have my office machine, so I figure it was time for this machine to find a new home. I hope the new family is happy with this and the little son doesn’t pound the keyboard with his sticky fingers too much.

So what’s next for me? Well I see a MacBook Air in my future, but the true question is when should I buy it. I am not really in a rush, so maybe I will get it in the summer when I am on vacation.

I guess I should not be too surprised that Adobe isn’t supporting the Mac platform to the fullest. The thing I don’t understand is how they were unprepared for the Leopard 10.5 update.

When Leopard was first updated Adobe released a notice concerning their support for the latest version of Mac OS Leopard. Interestingly enough this report was published as an Acrobat file. Now why is this interesting? Well, one of their comments was that Acrobat 8.0 will encounter issues on OS X 10.5. Well how could you view this support article? Well, acording to Adobe you couldn’t use Acrobat, but don’t take my word for it:

[Adobe Acrobat Professional] Requires update to 8.1.2 for full compatibility. Expected to be available in English, French, German, and Japanese in late January 2008. Additional languages expected shortly thereafter.

Adobe had a similar comment for their free Adobe Reader application:

[Adobe Reader] Requires Adobe Reader 8.1.2 for full compatibility. Expected to be available in late January 2008.

Well January 31st came and went and there was no update from Adobe. Sure, the press gave a pass to them, but what about the “Creative Professionals” who rely upon these tools? Well, I guess Adobe has been giving similar signals for the past few years and it seems like they would rather all of the Mac users just switch over to Vista because the 12% of the market Mac users will have by 2011 is too small of a market for them.

The thing I do not understand is how MacWorld can claim that Adobe is one of the closest developers to Apple and they don’t cry foul when Adobe was unprepared for the stealthy and minimal release of Mac OS Leopard. I guess Adobe thought that no-one would upgrade, and I guess MacWorld was worried about losing advertising dollars from Adobe. That’s journalism for you.

About two months ago my apartment experienced water damage due to remodeling going on to the unit above me. Nothing really serious happened, but I did find a constant dripping into my old inkjet printer and about .25 liters in the printer chasis.

The very next day I contacted the remodelers and they apologised. They said we can get a new printer and they would pay for it. I wasnt looking for something expensive, just something that was like my old printer and I found the Epson C90, which even had Mac drivers.

We uppacked the printer, attached it to the Airport router, ran a test print on XP and went to install it on the Macs and low and behold I find out that there is a printing error. I go online and find out a lot of people are having problems with networked ink jet printers and I give up - until I find someone who uses Linux and see how they solved it.

Well many Linux users use CUPS printer drivers, and it just so happens Apple owns CUPS and licenses it to the opensource community. I found the driver in the most recent release of Gutenprint and select the driver, and printing is now A-OK.

I can’t really blame Apple for this problem, but I do blame Epson. You would think a printer company would QA the drivers properly before releasing them.

Yes, I have OS X Leopard Fever. For the past few weeks I have been waiting for it’s release, even counting down the hours. Why you ask? Well for one, I will be installing it on a newer notebook that I don’t use as often (and that machine will become my primary machine). Two, I will re-organize all of my files in the process and be able to back them up with Time Machine (a much neglected task). Three, it is a non-beta copy of boot camp that I am looking forward to.

Now if you noticed, I live in Taiwan. The good thing for Taiwan is that 6 PM on October 26th comes earlier than a majority of the world. This means that I could reasonably purchase it earlier. Also, I live right next door to an Apple Authorized Reseller, so theoretically I can just go home, swing buy the shop, hand over my credit card and go home happy.

Now there is a snag though. Apple’s launch plans in Taiwan are different from the US. Only one reseller, will receive stock on the 26th and the rest will receive stock on the 29th. Lastly, they will only have limited stock of the single license and they are not selling the family license.

Why do I care about the Family license when it is more expensive? Well, I have multiple Macs at home. I don’t want to buy too many copies, and I already have the family license for iLife 08 and iWork 08. I am willing to shell out for this, but they arn’t selling it. The thing that gets me is that this is just an OS. Sure, I have Leopard Fever, but I am looking for a quick, satisfactory business exchange, not a T-Shirt, not a single license. Is Apple hoping that people who REALLY want the product will buy the single license and then buy another family license later? Is it that expensive to print out the 3 page piece of paper that says the software can be used on 5 computers (thats the only difference). I guess I dont get it, this is just a DVD, there are no moving parts and there is no reason they can’t release the software in both license flavors (or have an online upgrade).

I’m not complaining about the higher cost of the family pack, instead I am complaining that I cannot buy it on the same day. Also, historically Apple has had troubles with piracy in Taiwan, you would think that they would bend over backwards to make it easy for paying customers to buy whatever they want.

“iBook G4 and USB Bluetooth” by James in Taiwan

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FYI, the new version of Skype for Mac now has Video!!!! Not only that, but it looks much nicer on the Mac and they have a unique mac view.

Download Skype 1.5 with video support

If you dont have a camera, fine. If you want one, but dont want to spend an arm and a leg, get a cheap camera from Amazon and install the MacCam component:

Cheap camera that works on OS X

Drivers for OS X

I just found two tools today that lets you sync your iTunes library with any MP3/ACC player. This means essentialy any device can now use iTunes.

I have a Sony Walkman phone, so now I can copy my music from my phone to it. If I still had my iPaq PDA, I could sync music to that too.

These programs can only be used with unprotected music, anything you purchased in the iTunes Music Store will not play on your device.

To find out more, check out the following links:

• SyncTunes for MacOS X
• iTunes Agent for Windows

My sister just got a new iMac and I wanted to share with her the “must-have” applications she should get. Instead of just emailing her, I decided to list them all here.

1) NeoOffice – This is a 100% replacement for the M$ office suite. It lets you open edit and save all Word, Excel and Powerpoint files.
NeoOffice

2) Firefox – Apple comes with Safari, but it isnt the best browser. Firefox is by far one of the best out there and is available for almost every major operating system.
Firefox

3) Fire – So you want to chat will all your friends on Yahoo, ICQ, MSN or AIM? You can do it all from this program.
Fire

4) Freemind – You are an organised person, and organised people like to map out all of their ideas. A good program to help you do this is Freemind.
Freemind

5) Skype – You have friends, and they live far away. Youd like to keep in touch, but you are too cheap. Skype is just for you. Your friends are a free-call away.
Skype

6) Konfabulator – You dont have enough $ to upgrade to 10.4, but you want the nice widgets. Konfabulator is the origional widget program and will give you all the functionality for free.
Konfabulator

7) Mplayer OSX – You want to watch the latest movies that a friend gave you, but you cant play the video format they gave you. Mplayer is the swiss army knife you need.
Mplayer for 10.4: Tiger MPlayer
Mplayer for 10.x: 10.2 / 10.3 MPlayer Gmail Notifier – You have a free Gmail account, but you would like to know when you receive some email. Go download the Gmail notifier today.
Gmail Notifier

… and older versions of OS X.

Yes you heard it correctly. You see all those widgets for OS X Tiger? You would like to have them too? Well look no further than Konfabulator (For Mac OS X and Windows). This is not “exclusive technology” to OS X 10.4.

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C|net news announced this weekend that Apple is switching from the the PowerPC architecture to the Intel architecture. What does this mean for the Mac faithful? Here are my insights:

• Apple will be able to lower the price of a Macintosh further, allowing more people to use the software
• Tools like Wine for Linux can be ported to the Mac OS, allowing many Windows applications to run INSIDE OS X without any modification. A open source project is currently developing this, however there are some problems since they need to emulate the Intel processor which will slow it down.
• Legacy applications will benefit from the recent releases of PearPC. Apple can incorporate the PearPC code into the Intel version of OS X allowing Power PC applications to be run on the Intel platform.
• Some smart student in Russia will find a way to install OS X on a Dell or a Vaio. I am sure that Apple would also lose some hardware sales, however their OS sales might someday be increased meaning that Windows has a true competitor for the Intel platform. This means you can no longer say WinTel.