What have I done that is so great?

Steve Jobs (to a Gawker Blogger): "By the way, what have you done that's so great?  Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations"

Interesting quote.  Arrogant, flamboyant, and in some ways, mean.

I guess the same question can be asked of me, since I've been pretty critical of a lot of others (Microsoft, Apple, Google, The American Planning Association, to name a few).  Well, I have my answer:

• I've built the first part of an activity generator, which is part of a new generation of travel demand models (all on a PC).  The code from this will be shared to others in the state I live in.


• I've assisted many relatives and friends with computer issues.


• I've freely shared my knowledge on several listservs and user support web sites.


• I've built a VOIP phone system in my house.


• I created the theme you see on this website.  In fact, I've built this website and worked on several others.

For still being young, I'd say I've one pretty well.

Thoughts on Flash...and Apple

Wow.  St. Stephen blasts Adobe with a load of arrogance that even Steve Ballmer can't manage.

I wanted to take this opportunity to post my thoughts on all of this.

First there's open.  Apple isn't really open.  Heck, I can't (legally) take my legally-purchased copy of OSX Snow Leopard and put it on anything except a Mac.  If I had an iPhone or an iPad, I'd be limited to the software that they say is okay, not anything I damn well please (like I can with my Blackberry Storm and I hear Android users can do).

Second, there's the full web.  Yeah, I know.  I consume it every day.  I play Flash-based Facebook games.  I view Flash-based videos.  I've tried playing some Flash-based videos on my Blackberry (which also doesn't support Flash...yet).  There's more to say here.  75% of the web's video is in H.264, but it seems that a lot of the videos I want to see are in Flash.  I also don't give a damn that there are thousands of games in the iTunes App Store when the ones I care about are on Facebook.

Third, there's reliability, scalability, and performance.

I don't know what to write here that St. Stephen hasn't already.  Flash is the number one reason that Macs crash.  My work PC doesn't have the same problem.  So why is it that after years of Flash performing poorly and crashing on Macs has NOBODY DONE ANYTHING ABOUT IT?

I'm not going to go on.

Here's the deal, and I think 99% of computer users feel the same way I do.  I want a computer that works and "just works" every time.  I want Flash to work, Facebook to work, I want to install things myself and I don't want to be limited to what Big Brother says I can install.  I know with such great power comes great responsibility, but I also expect that the OS vendor will keep up with security updates to components in their operating system.

My next computer is looking like a PC.  God, I hate to type that, but Ubuntu is looking really cool over Parallels...probably a lot cooler on dedicated hardware.

How I Fixed my MacBook Pro

Last Christmas, my loving wife gave me a copy of Snow Leopard.  After upgrading, my computer started running so slow that it was pathetic.  My hard drive died, and I thought that maybe that was the issue.

It wasn't.

I started surfing through the forums on 9to5Mac and Apple Support Discussions and found very little that I liked, most of it blaming coreaudiod (the core audio services).  I had tried defragging my hard drive before I had to replace it, and I wasn't satisfied with the results.

So, I tried a few things.  First off, I reset the SMC controller (on my MBP, you do that by shutting down the computer, unplugging it and removing the battery, and holding down the power button for 5 seconds).

Then, I booted up, shut down, and reset the NVRAM (on my MBP, you do that by starting up and holding the control+option+P+R keys and holding them down until the second startup sound).

It certainly feels faster.  Time will tell if this is a real fix.

The Next Steps

I a going to boot from my SL CD and Repair Permissions and Verify Disk.  Since I'm fearful that this could have had something to do with my last hard drive's death (although I think my fears should be unfounded), I am going to make sure I'm backed up first.

The 64 Bit Lie

The big issue I have is that my computer supposedly won't support 64 bit.  Until today, I was unaware that I had 32-bit EFI (firmware).  I'm somewhat annoyed by that, since I'm pretty sure a Core 2 Duo is a 64-bit processor.  It seems to me that Apple was a bit short-sighted when they did that.

The Problem with the iPhone App Store

It has been all over the news about the apps that are removed (or denied access to) the Apple App Store.  Porn has been a big deal, as has been fart apps.  Every time it happens, someone has to bring up that the Apple App Store is a private store and they can do as they please.

The problem isn't what Apple is doing by removing or denying, it is that there is no other alternative.

Think about grocery stores.  If you go through one with your young child and it prominently displays porn right when you walk in the door, you're likely not going to return (with your child, at least), are you?  You would go to a different grocery store.  Depending on your values, you may NEVER return to that store, or you may return only when you don't have your young child.  Heck, if you have certain values, you may return (likely without your child), and buy some of it.

That scenario above is exactly why the Apple App Store should NOT be the only store.  iPhone users should have the power to choose a different store if they want a different selection.

Will it happen?  No, of course not.  Apple wants the profits from the App Store.  They want control over the iPhone.  Unfortunately, people aren't voting with their dollars on this one.

Uneducated Journalism: Why Apple's Porn Purge of Sex-Themed Apps isn't a Smart Move (ABC News)

This is the epitome of uneducated journalism and pandering to stupidity.

First off, the uneducated part.  Evidently the author hasn't read around at the thousands of news articles discussing apps that were removed from the App Store that were not used to deliver porn, but to, say, sell swimsuits.  The author also didn't look at another article from the same magazine, PC World, that brings up the fact that Sports Illustrated and Playboy are still available as apps in the app store.  If Playboy isn't within their criteria of "sex-themed", then I would question what criteria they are using.

Second off, the pandering to stupidity.  Sometimes people must understand that in the wild world of life and the Internet, there is going to be porn and smut.  It isn't Apple's job to police that, mostly because everyone's values are different.  Apple SHOULD compartment questionable apps, like Playboy and the SI Swimsuit edition (perhaps by using age controls and a special section of the app store).

I know the big argument to this is "Apple is hosting the App Store and therefore can control what's in it".  That argument has a few flaws which I will discuss in a future post.

iPad = Crap

I wasn't going to do it, but I will.  I think the iPad is crap.

No Storage

Looking at how much of my hard drive is devoted to my iTunes Library (40 GB) and thinking about what I would actually do with something that I don't have to squint to look at, I would want more.  More Movies, probably.  More 1.5 GB movies, likely (I looked at the three movies I've ripped to my hard drive, and they range from 1.3 to 1.67 GB).  I could run out of space on even the 64 GB (most storage) model pretty quickly.  So why, then would I buy something with such limited storage?  Hell, I can get an iPod with 160 GB of storage!  Why can't I even get half of that on the iPad?

Unreplaceable Battery

Why does Apple keep creating products that have batteries that are damn near impossible to change?  Does Stevie really expect us to buy more stuff when the batteries go bad?  This is probably going to be like the iPod and the Mac Mini that are extremely difficult to open?

App Store?

I'm guessing that most apps on the app store were written with the iPhone and iPod Touch in mind.  That being said, why then, would I want an app designed for a screen that is something like 1.5"x3" on anything larger than maybe 2"x4"?  Heck, FB for Blackberry is great... ON MY BLACKBERRY!  It would completely suck on my MacBook Pro.  This "feature" isn't one at all - it basically says that there are no apps for this thing (other than a few that Apple brought out) and it isn't going to get better for a while (if it ever does).

No Card Reader?

When I heard that Stevie was showing photos in the media event, I figured that he would have the wherewithal to put a minimum of a CF and a SD card slot on the thing.  Guess I was wrong.  Not even a USB port for those that have their camera cable.

My Expectations

I EXPECTED an Apple tablet to be similar in form (but with a reasonably easy to replace battery) running a special version of Snow Leopard that would allow me to run programs like Safari, Mail, iPhoto, iMovie, Quicktime+iTunes, iCal, Address Book, and iWork.  I EXPECTED something that would have plenty of storage for all my music, movies, and pictures.  I'm not expecting something that could run Parallels, or have a Terminal interface... basically not a desktop replacement, but something better than an overpriced e-book reader.

10.6 falsely reports service battery? ... POSSIBLY!

Ref: 10.6 falsely reports service battery? ... I think not.

This is another example of piss-poor tech writing.  This retard author tries to claim that there is no way that Snow Leopard can cause battery problems.  There is proof on the Apple discussion thread that he could be incorrect, and even in my case, with my 3-year-old MacBook Pro with a 14-month-old battery, it appears that those that claim that Snow Leopard could be causing battery problems may be on the right track.

Consider this:

15 minutes ago, I checked Coconut Battery against System Profiler.  They match.  I'm only bringing this up to establish that Coconut Battery reads correctly.

Then, I read the life in Coconut Battery... 37% (2087 mAh)

Then, I shut down the computer, reset the SMC, and re-read the battery... 41% (2287 mAh).

Proof:



Now, if the battery was indeed going bad, I shouldn't have gained an extra 200 mAh by just resetting the SMC.  A bad battery is a bad battery, and its capacity would continue to decline.

That being said, I'm not pleased at all with the quality of Apple Laptop Batteries.  The battery currently in my computer was acquired around 2008-11-12.  In the 1 year and 2 months since then, the capacity has dropped from 95% to 41% (or 37%, hell, I don't know anymore).  Who knows, maybe Snow Leopard EXACERBATES an existing battery problem.  Maybe it CAUSES a new battery problem.  Regardless, the 48 pages of comments on Apple's own discussion forum are probably a lot more than what happened after Tiger and Leopard were released, and since the last comment was today, I'm willing to guess that there is a problem in both the batteries and in Snow Leopard.  We should expect 3 years or so out of a battery, not a >50% loss of capacity after 1 year.

As I was writing this, I saw my remaining time jump from 40-something minutes to an hour.  Maybe Snow Leopard isn't eating the battery, but it certainly is confused by mine, and probably many others.



Cupertino, we have a problem.

Getting back to the reason for writing this, 10.6 Falsely Reports Service Battery?  I think so!  Whatever is going on, SL is obviously not doing something right.  I imagine that it isn't eating the batteries (as is suggested by some of the posts on Apple's discussion board), but it definitely is flawed in the reporting of the information.  I don't buy the thought that it was intentional by Apple to do something to cause batteries to go out to get more revenues from batteries.  I imagine that there is some very questionable manufacturing (after all, these are Sony batteries, which have been known to catch fire in Dells) and that SL can't read it right.  Probably a combination of the two.

Apple Will Feel The Pain From Windows 7 Launch?

This is what happens when a blundering idiot is allowed to write technology news.

Apple Will Feel The Pain From Windows 7 Launch - Software - IT Channel News by CRN.

Let's go through this in stages.

"Here's what I believe will happen: The Windows 7 launch will take those market-share gains Apple has seen over the past several years and make them disappear."

Really?  So the fact that a lot of Macs were bought when XP was still out has no bearing on the fact that Apple has been gaining market share?  Granted, Vista was the best thing to happen to Apple, but do you think that people aren't wondering why they would purchase 'fixed Vista' in the first place?

"How frightened is Apple that its about to be whammied by Windows 7? Well, BusinessWeek is reporting that Apple is planning to launch a marketing blitz aimed at convincing PC buyers to instead choose a Mac."

And MS didn't do the same thing leading up to Snow Leopard's release?  Remember those "I'm not cool enough to be a Mac person" ads last summer?  Microsoft is planning their own advertising blitz, too, and it is even advertised on your site, and it involves a full "commercial free" episode of The Family Guy.

"BusinessWeek says that Apple will likely make the case that Macs are more susceptible to viruses. A flat-out false claim. There are a bunch of Mac myths. And better security than Windows is the biggest one. Security experts say that if Mac users are less susceptible to attack, it's simply due to the fact that there are fewer viruses written for Macs than for Windows."

Yeah, some of the security stuff is myth, but a lot of the "Mac Myths" were based on user intelligence, something neither MS nor Apple can do anything about.  There are still less viruses out for Apple compared to MS, just like less attacks on FF and Opera than IE.

"BusinessWeek also claims Apple will make fun of Microsoft for making Windows XP owners go through what is by all accounts a cumbersome process to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7. Talk about a canard. That duck just don't fly. No one in their right mind would even think of upgrading a Windows XP system to Windows 7. That's an exercise for unemployed nerds with too much time on their hands. It simply doesn't make sense. Windows 7 is a cause celebre to look at buying a new system. It is not a reason to look at upgrading a well-running Windows XP system. You wouldn't upgrade a well-running Mac system either. Get a life."

BULL SHIT.  I have upgraded my MacBook Pro once, and I'm going to do it again once I make it to my computer store of choice and get Snow Leopard.  A new OS should NOT be a reason to drop $2k on a new computer.  Of course, my MacBook Pro is working as well as day 1 at 3 years old.  I can't say the same about my quad-core Dell desktop until I reloaded XP on it.  If we can't upgrade a perfectly good system, then why even give Windows 7 the time of day?  Oh, I get it.  We're supposed to go out and buy a $400 junk PC with Windows 7.  I guess you can't upgrade one of those, just like you can't polish a turd.  Dell, HP, Sony, etc. all have $2k laptops and desktops.  You COULD upgrade those from XP to W7, but yeah, I guess that process will be too cumbersome, thanks to MS.


Additionally, the upgrade process that I did to go from Tiger to Leopard was quick and easy and resulted in no data loss.   It has been YEARS since I messed with upgrading a computer with an MS system, partly because 8 out of the last 10 computers I owned or used were so terrible to begin with that they were replaced instead of upgrading to a new OS and had to be reloaded on a yearly basis (not MS's fault, of course).

Speaking of reloading every year, even my bad-ass Dell Quad-Core had to be reloaded after a year (with XP, of course, no way I'd even think about Vista given what I do).   Computers should not become so painfully slow or error prone that they need to be reloaded regularly.

EDIT (2): Take a look at this page from the Washington Post where tech writer Rob Pegoraro calls the XP -> 7 upgrade process a "Destructive Install". Mr. Pegoraro has a pretty good assessment of Windows 7 in his article.

"Yes, the Mac has had a great run for the past couple of years. Gartner says Apple's share of the U.S. computer market for the third quarter amounted to 8.8 percent, up from 8.6 percent in the year-ago period. My bet is that market share is going to drop below 5 percent by the end of 2010."

That is an awful strong statement considering the reduced liklihood that people will purchase new computers just to get a new OS in the current economy.  You can consider 2009 dead - the holiday season is about to start and the US unemployment is at 9.8% or so.  There may be some purchases at tax time, but I wouldn't hold my breath for the expectation.

What about the market share of dual-boot computers - such as a Mac running both OS X and Windows 7 under Boot Camp, Parallels, or Fusion.  Is this even going to be measured correctly?

"Apple CEO Steve Jobs has done a great job of exploiting the shortcomings of Vista for some significant market-share gains. Windows 7 has none of those shortcomings and all the advantages of the Windows brand at its best."

And Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer didn't attempt to exploit the price-point of Apple Hardware?  Of course, he also poo-pooed the iPhone and the iPod, both of which have outsold their MS counterparts so much that you don't hear much about Windows Mobile or the Zune.

All in all, I think Windows 7 will be a great OS.  I will probably purchase it and run it on under Parallels or on Boot Camp (or both, even).  However, unless major changes happen, my next computer will be a Mac... whenever I buy that computer.

Let's be realistic, though.  Windows 7 will not be a cure-all for MS.  Bing is more or less a failure, Windows Mobile is looking like a failure, Zune is a failure, Office for Mac is a failure (probably part of Microsoft's business plan), and Vista was a failure, to name a few.  Steve Ballmer seems to be delusional, having been associated with a number of articles where he laughs at the iPhone, calls Vista an "unqualified success", and the "Vista Capable" lawsuit.  Office for Windows is the only software product that Microsoft makes that can be competitive, and it is under assault by free online services like Google Docs.  Microsoft's innovation has been surpassed or matched in EVERYTHING THEY DO.  Windows and Microsoft will not die, and that is great.  We need them.  However, Microsoft would do better to refocus and make sure that I'm not wrong on that.

EDIT: In addition to above, Microsoft acquired "Danger" in April 2008.  In 1.5 years, they didn't learn to backup their server or store things like photos locally on a device.  Instead, it appears that they had them on a server.  I'm not too familiar with the T-Mobile Sidekick, but not storing pictures to local memory?  Bad news, and a bad move by Microsoft to not do something better.

Now, back to the author and article.  The linked article was the most biased and uneducated crap I have ever read.  This reads as if it was written by a business person that thinks they know a lot about technology... a person that thinks their PocketPC is cool because it has built-in Wi-Fi... a person that thinks they know a lot because they have 2 GB of RAM in their computer... a person that thinks they are smart because they setup a wireless network in their house and it has 128-bit WEP security.  Get with the times.  Blackberries and iPhones have replaced PocketPCs a long time ago.  2 GB of RAM is nothing.  WEP security is crap, try WPA, and it is pretty easy to set it up.  Let me know when you've figured out a program that does more than:

10 PRINT "Hello World"

20 GOTO 10