Hmmm. From all the "Lion whining" I'm hearing on Twitter, I have to wonder: is Lion the Windows Vista of OSX?
Posted 11:59AM, Jul 28 on twitter
Hmmm. From all the "Lion whining" I'm hearing on Twitter, I have to wonder: is Lion the Windows Vista of OSX?
Posted 11:59AM, Jul 28 on twitter
I hear people are paying $29 to download a multi-GB file that screws up their scrolling. You kids ... gramps is fine with 10.6.
Posted 10:08AM, Jul 22 on twitter
It was recently discovered that iPhones and iPads track your location (or perhaps, the locations of cell towers & wifi points near you, to split hairs), and store it in a file that is backed up to your computer upon syncing. This generated much tut-tutting and fretting about the potential danger of that (i.e., none, unless someone takes possession of your phone and/or computer, and then you likely have other problems).
Playing the "Ignore It and It Will Go Away" game with Adobe Acrobat Updater. AGAIN.
Posted 1:35PM, Feb 10 on twitter
So VERY sick of Acrobat Updater. Why a "document viewer" needs biweekly security updates that require a reboot is simply beyond me.
Posted 12:25PM, Oct 15 on twitter
Adobe brings HTML5 to Illustrator? Isn't that like Ford bringing an outboard motor to the Mustang? What about Fireworks?
Posted 10:39AM, Sep 13 on twitter
Dear Adobe: How come you can update 9 complex apps in CS5 like it's nothing, but every freaking tiny update of Acrobat requires a reboot?
Posted 1:07PM, Sep 03 on twitter
“The reason I didn’t use PowerPoint is, I am convinced PowerPoint makes us stupid.” General James Mattis
Posted 11:16AM, Jul 10 2010 in Software · War
This article confirms my personal experience after upgrading my iPhone 3G to iOS4. Battery capacity not only seems lower, it drains the most when it is sitting on standby doing nothing.
Posted 10:30AM, Jun 29 2010 in Software ·
I got a new black MacBook last week. However, this will not be one of those photo tours of the first unboxing and ritual bowing before the new Apple product. Heck, I’ve owned it five days and have yet to take one photo of it.
I am not one of those MacPeople.
You know, the ones who believe Apple can do no wrong … until they slightly change the appearance of the Dock or Menubar in Leopard, and then, well, you’d think The End Is Near.
Dear Gmail,
I’m sorry to have to write you publicly like this, but you have left me little choice, and I have a couple of bones to pick with you.
1. Look in the bottom right corner of your logo. It says “BETA.” We won’t get into the argument that being in “BETA” since April of 2004 represents an underlying fear of commitment. We’ll just say that an app that presents itself as in “BETA,” even for 3.5 years, ought to have clear and simple ways for their “BETA” users to provide feedback about problems with the “BETA” application. You do not. I looked and looked, clicked and clicked. The closest thing I could find was a form for “Got a feature suggestion for Gmail?” So I suggested several things, including get out of “BETA” in less than one presidential term, or have an “easy to find” form for submitting problems.
This is a remixing of a template set, Web Writer, that began quite some time ago. In September of 2004, there were very few templates available for Textpattern, which was on Release Candidate 1 back then. I made a few available, including Web Writer v1 and Web Writer v2. Later Alexandra used it as the basis for an updated Textpattern 4.0.x template named Coffee Bar [demo].
I’ve had the new computer a little over a month, and I told you it’s Not Your Daddy’s Dell, as well as wrote about loading it up with My Essential Software, 2007. And since then, judging by this site, I went away for a while.
It’s been a month shy of three years since I wrote “My Essential Software.” Much has changed since then, both in my life and in the world of software. And the process of setting up a new computer seems a perfect time to update the list of software that matters most to me. In fact, let’s go through this in the actual order that I loaded them on the new computer, as that’s the true definition of what’s “essential.”
At the very end of a long rant I’ll link below, Walter Mossberg says “The first day of owning an expensive new gadget should be a pleasure, not a hassle.” Indeed, Reid said with a satisfied smile. While I’ve had my new baby (see How Reid Buys a New PC) for over a week now, first I was out of town several days, and then otherwise too busy using it productively to blog. Yes, I said that. Blogging does not equal productive.
That’s also why I haven’t yet written my promised update to the three year old “My Essential Software,” since loading a new computer is a textbook run through of what’s essential, i.e., what gets loaded first. As opposed to what still isn’t loaded (“Printer drivers? Who needs’ em, we live in a paperless society now! With flying cars!”).
But my article about how to buy a Dell without Vista is already garnering hits from people searching that for just that phrase. That and my experience buying this PC sort of ties in to a recent article about what often comes loaded on them, as well as the reported slowness of Vista boot times. And my comparison has been fairly strikingly different.
I woke up today, walked into the living room, and proceeded to laugh non-stop for about five minutes. Quite literally.
On my desk was a box with a note on top from Susan that said: “Bitch and Ye Shall Receive.” The box was from Macromedia, delivered overnight and at my door at 8:30am, one would assume as a result of my little rant yesterday about the missing manual.
Gosh, was it only 3 months ago that I wondered “if there’s any way software manufacturers could possibly give me less physical product for my hard earned dollars”? Yes, it was. And it has happened again, magnified by about a factor of four.
I finally got around to ordering the upgrade to Macromedia Studio 8. Download it? No thanks, I like to get the whole hard copy package, so I plopped down my $447.50 to have it brought to my door. Yeah, it’s a steep upgrade.
I know I’m fighting a trend here, and in some ways, a good one, but I’m wondering if there’s any way software manufacturers could possibly give me less physical product for my hard earned dollars. You know, real physical things I can wrap my fingers around or lay my eyes upon. Given recent experience, I don’t think they can, but they’ve surprised me before.
As Dean says, “What’s in a number?” For several months now, interest has been heightened and poking sticks have been wielded over the offical release of Textpattern. But it turns out there will be no Textpattern 1.0.
It sounds a bit clichéd to ask “what did we do before Google?” But recent events caused me to pause and wonder … how did they ooze into my life as much as they have?
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