The Adventures of Systems Boy!

I've been using Time Machine for a while now. And I've noticed some interesting things about its behavior. Of particular note, I've noticed that Time Machine does not back up your data when you are logged out. I found this strange until I figured out why this is the case.

I first noticed Time Machine not backing up logged-out users after setting up the staff computers here at work. Oddly, my work computer did back up when I was logged out, which I realized when I noticed a backup failure due lack of drive space. According to the Console logs this backup attempt had occurred in the middle of the night. Clearly Time Machine was able to backup when users were logged out, but it would only do so on my machine. So what was the difference?

By default, Mac OS X wisely un-mounts external volumes when a user logs out. This makes sense for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it's what users expect, and it's the least likely to break something if a user logs out and pulls their firewire plug without ejecting their disk. It's a very sane default that errs on the side of data protection. But it's not always what you want. For instance, say you have network shares, like external RAID drives, that are connected via firewire (which, in fact, we do). Or say your network backups that run in the middle of night get stored on a firewire volume (which ours do). If you want these drives constantly available you need to be able to keep them mounted even when no user is logged in. Fortunately, Apple provides a method for doing this, though it's by no means obvious.

The trick to keeping external drives mounted after a logout lies in a little .plist file. The name of this file is autodiskmount.plist, and it does not exist by default; you have to make it. In the file should be the following text:



Put this file in:
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

And reboot. (Yes, reboot.)

Now all external drives (firewire, USB, eSATA, etc.) will stay mounted after a logout. If they're shared, they'll always be available. And they'll always be available to Time Machine.

So the difference between the staff machines and mine? My computer is set to never unmount drives at logout. Apparently, Time Machine is perfectly capable of running even when no one is logged in. But it obviously needs the Time Machine drive available to do so. Keeping firewire drives mounted post-logout will allow Time Machine to work all night long. Sweet!

And since I'm so crazy with the Installer Packages these days, I'm including one here that will install the necessary preference file to make all this happen. You know, just to make your lives a little easier.

Download KeepExternalDisksMounted

You're welcome!

UPDATE 1: A reader asked in the comments how I came to have the preference file installed on my system. I'd put it there long ago because I needed firewire drives mounted for rsync backups of staff machines. But I certainly didn't figure out how to create that file myself. Credit for that goes to this Mac OS X Hints hint. It's got all the details if you're interested.

UPDATE 2: One other thing I forgot to mention: Why is this useful? I mean, if you're logged out you're not really capable of creating any new data, so there's nothing really new to backup anyway, right? This is mostly true, indeed. But imagine your boss uses Time Machine for his hourly backups. Now imagine he creates a whole buttload of data — I don't know, emails to the CEO, photos of his kids, whatever — and he creates this data right before he leaves for the day. Then, safe in the knowledge that Time Machine's got his back, he logs out and goes home for the weekend. That weekend there's a power surge or something, and his machine is fried. "No problem," he thinks, "I have my backup." But his most recent data is gone. His photos, his draft to the CEO, gone. And guess who's to blame? Yup. The Systems Admin. Your ass is grass, and Time Machine is the lawn mower. (Uh, this is why I don't write in the mornings.)

Personally, I think it would be smart if Time Machine asked you at logout if you'd like to make a backup, or at least warned you that backups would not be performed after logout. This seems like a bit of an oversight on Apple's part.

The other time this can be useful is when you're creating your first backup. This is typically a lot of data. Here in the office we told folks to let it run overnight. But they couldn't log out. So we dropped them to the Login Window with Fast User Switching. Still, it would have been that much more intuitive if we'd just told them to log out like they always do, and that their backups would be ready in the morning.

So yeah, not earth-shattering, but still potentially useful. And interesting on an academic level to know that Time Machine will run sans login.

I have to go install that preference file on my staff machines now. Bye!

Labels: Applications, Hardware, Lab, Leopard, MacOSX

I don't usually get too excited about firmware updates, mainly because the things they fix rarely tend to affect me, for whatever reason. But the last Leopard Graphics Update from a few weeks ago has actually caused me some problems. Two, I believe, to be precise.

The first problem I've had may or may not be related to the Leopard Graphics Update: occasionally my machine — my brand new, fresh-out-of-the-box machine — just locks up, requiring a force reboot. I don't remember where, but I do remember reading that people were associating this with the Leopard Graphics Update, and it definitely started happening to me immediately after that update, so I'm fairly sure the update was the cause. The second problem has been cosmetic: when typing in the Spotlight menubar the drop-down sheet flickers in and out, causing a really annoying strobe effect until the window stops updating. Very irritating!

The good news is, Apple's latest ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Firmware Update fixes the second problem. Here's hoping it fixes the first one as well. Only time will tell.

UPDATE 3-28-07:
Yep. All fixed. Since applying this update my machine has not locked up. Nice.

Labels: Hardware, Leopard, MacOSX, Systems

Just wanted to quickly post that the complaint I had about Mobile Safari's browser cache being pointless appears to have been a bug.




And, happily, that bug has been fixed in the 1.1.4 update.

Yay!

Labels: Applications, Hardware, Internet, iPhone

I love my iPhone. It is increasingly important to me for getting things done. I use it for everything: appointments, reminders, fact-checking, contacts, text, entertainment and, of course, as a telephone. It's boosted my productivity immensely, yet made my life easier and better in so many ways. I'm not sure how many products I can say that about.

Nevertheless, I have one persistent gripe when it comes to the iPhone, one thing that just pisses me off and confounds me every time I encounter it: Mobile Safari's cache is simply too small, to the point where it almost seems pointless to have cache at all. Case in point: I open a web page. It gets cached. I open a new window, and a new page in that new window. It too gets cached. Unfortunately, this new cache invariably wipes out the previously cached page, so that when I navigate back to the other window, the first page has to reload. And, just for the record, these are mostly text-based blogs, sometimes with a picture or two. It doesn't always go down this way, but more often than not it does. This defeats the usefulness of both cache and the multi-page interface available in the browser. I'm not sure what the point is.

I'm sure the browser cache equation rides a fine line between usefulness and unnecessary disc overuse. But for anyone who uses the Edge network on any kind of regular basis, I think they've got that balance wrong. And I can't help wondering why they don't give us a setting — just like in any other desktop browser — for cache size, within a sensible range, of course. Or, if not that, simply make the default a bit larger. The current one is pointlessly small.

UPDATE:
Fixed!

Labels: Applications, Hardware, Internet, iPhone

Labels: Hardware, Rants

It seems I only have time for these brief posts. Tons in the pipe; time for none. Life must be... I dunno... Good or somethin'...

Anyway, I just updated my iPhone to the latest 1.1.3 firmware. You know, the one with all the goodies. It's pretty damn hot, I must say. The most useful thing will be the ability to send text to multiple folks. But the faux GPS is pretty damn cool too.

The other thing I updated was my iTunes, wherein I discovered this little nugget:


Looks like you can finally drag and drop music right into your iPhone and create iPhone-specific playlists — ones that live right on the phone and nowhere else. At this point I'm so used to the old way of doing things that I'm not sure what to do with this feature. But something tells me this new found freedom will be a boon at some point in the very near future.

Just as soon as I have some time to use it.

Labels: Applications, Hardware, iPhone

The MacBook Air came out today. It's tiny. It's light. It's as beautiful as anything Apple has ever made. But it's just too damn expensive. Knock off about $600 clams and I think they'd have a hit. But at $1800 bucks, I think I'll take something with a firewire port, thanks. Or I'll just use my iPhone.


I am, however, getting one of these. This week if possible.


Goody!

Labels: Hardware

I've heard that the WACOM company's name is supposed to be pronounced "wack-em." But I don't care. I'm saying "way-com." 'Cause let's face it, you just sound stupid saying, "Hey, can I try your wack-em?" Or, "Your wack-em is huge. Much bigger than my wack-em." Or, "Wow, I just love my new, giant wack-em."

Oh yeah, and I say, "OS Ecks" as well.

Deal with it.

Labels: Hardware, Humor, Rants

I promise this won't become a link list blog, but damn if this isn't a great critique of some of Apple's recent policies and practices:
iPhone & iPod: contain or disengage?

G'wan then... Get readin'!

Labels: Applications, Hardware, Internet, Systems

I'm still swamped, buried under the avalanche of work that is the direct result of endless delays to the renovation of our department. Nevertheless, I find myself with little to do today. Or, I should say, little I'm actually able to do. Today's delay, from the "I can't catch a break to save my life" department: Keyboards. In Spanish!

Today I finally got a chance to start unboxing and building my new Macs. Opened up the first one and noticed that the keyboard said "Ayuda" where it should have said "Help." Uh... Shit...

So now what? Will I have to send the entire box back for exchange, or just the keyboards? Until I know the answer to this, I can't build my systems. And I won't know 'til Monday, because purchasing is closed this week.

So I blog.

Hola.

Labels: Hardware, Humor, Lab, Systems

Here's the thing: two months ago, people like myself — early adopters — put our faith in an amazing company and plunked down $600 clams for a completely new, completely revolutionary and completely untested product. That company is Apple Inc. and that product is the iPhone.

Yesterday — a mere two months later — Apple dropped the price by $200. Some of us were outraged. Some of just said, "Hey, them's the breaks." And some of us — and this is where I find myself — some of us felt not outrage, nothing so dramatic, but we did feel slightly cheated. We felt like we'd paid a premium for a product because we just couldn't wait to get our hands on the damn thing, and now it turned out that that product wasn't really particularly rare and precious after all. Rather, we got burned to the tune of $200 for our love of technology, and if we'd had it all to do over, we'd have waited. Two months of early access did not feel long enough to justify the extra $200. We felt vaguely exploited. Like lab rats. We felt we'd lost out on the deal, and that people were laughing at us.

Steven Riggins says we're just pissed because we're no longer special. And I think that's true, though I don't see that as a bad thing. When folks like me bought the iPhone we did feel special. Hell, let's face it, in some circles we were special. And we worked it. We showed that phone off like it was nobody's business. All of which was great for Apple. Now they go and drop the price, and yup, we look like schmucks. And I'm suddenly far less proud of my iPhone. (Okay, I'm not — I can't stay mad at you baby! But you get the idea. I no longer feel like bragging.)

Apple needs it's early adopters. We are its best marketers, and without us there is no product launch. And for a company whose reputation rests so heavily on its end-user experience — that is, on how its customers feel about their products — it behooves Apple to treat us like we're special, at least a little bit. I don't see that as childish. It's the game Apple is playing themselves. They appeal to our emotions and we respond. Emotionally. I don't want to feel like Apple made a fool of me. I want to be able to brag.

Steven Riggins might not get that, but fortunately Apple does. They're giving us $100 store credit (which, I can tell you, is going straight towards a set of iPhone A/V cables). Perfect. That's exactly what makes Apple an amazing company. They understand the emotional side of technology. They don't poo-poo it. They don't belittle it. They embrace it.

Someone just came to my office, and the first thing they said was, "So, are you mad about the iPhone price-drop?" I just turned my laptop around, showed them Steve Jobs' open letter, and said, "Nope. I'm fine with it."

Addendum:
Saturday, September 08, 2007
There seem to be two camps forming on this issue. There are those who completely understand the backlash and feelings of misgivings held by iPhone early adopters (among them, Steve Jobs), and there are those who think we're assholes, bitches or crybabies for ever having had the gall to show off our $600 iPhones. You know what? From where I sit that's total bullshit.

We showed them off — or at least I did — in large because people asked us to. But also because we were excited about being a part of this cell phone revolution. This was not done cynically. We never said, "Nyah, nyah! I have an iPhone and you don't!" If anything, we said, "I have an iPhone, I love it, here's how it works. You should go buy one as soon as humanly possible." We evangelized. For Apple. And now we feel a little screwed by them. Emphasis on feel. This is completely unscientific, and completely subjective. But we feel taken advantage of. I think it would have been different if it had been even three months. Three months is a quarter of a year. It's some kind of milestone. But two months? What's that? It's nothing. It's a joke. This is not about money. It's about how early adopters were made to feel. And the fact is that many of them were made to feel shitty for being early adopters. And I say again, for a company whose reputation lies so squarely on making it's customers feel good, the timing and size of the iPhone price cut was a tacky, insensitive move. The $100 rebate, however, will go a long way, I think, towards helping folks like me — folks who weren't outraged, but who did feel a bit burned — feel good again about adopting early. I think that's important for both Apple and its customers.

Labels: Hardware, iPhone

Well, I can't say too much because I'm under non-disclosure and I'm not sure what's fair game to discuss, but the Leopard client I've been playing with has some geekably great features — stuff I've been waiting for Apple to make easy for a long time. One of those features is something I alluded to a long time ago, when Boot Camp first hit the scene. I'd said:

...I remain hopeful that this utility is indicative of possible future utilities that would allow for more flexible, less destructive partitioning.

While I can't really say anything definitive, I will say this: looks like I was right.

Neat-O!

Labels: Applications, Hardware, Leopard, MacOSX, Systems

Apologies to any readers who aren't interested in the iPhone. It's my little obsession for the time being, so please just bear with me. Exploring it has been a seemingly endless journey, but I believe I will have soon plumbed the thing's depths. Also, with the semester starting soon, and all our cool new goodies in the wings, I should have some other, more network- or desktop-systems-related articles to post in the near future (I am still a SysAdmin, after all). But until then, here's yet another iPhone post (as if the thing needed any more press).

Briefly, I wanted to mention that I did attempt to return my iPhone, using as a pretext the camera's white balance issue, from which mine certainly suffers, and for which I'd heard replacements could be had.


I was persistent (read: pesky but polite) enough to have a Genius take a quick look at the problem. He told me that his did the same thing, and that the issue would be corrected in a software update. That was Tuesday evening, July 31, 2007. Lo and behold, the next day Apple released their first iPhone software update.


Yesterday I installed the update, and I'm pleased to say, though the white balance issue has not yet been addressed, a number of other issues have. Firstly, the phone (mine anyway) is much, much more stable. My iPhone was getting to the point where I almost could not surf the web with multiple pages open without a crash. I mean it was bad to the point of me really not wanting to look at the internet at all anymore on the iPhone. Now, however, I find myself able to open several pages at once (including TUAW, which would consistently crash the browser before completely loading) without a crash. In fact, after a day of heavy use I have not had a single crash, where two days ago I was crashing on a very regular basis. This newfound stability is delightful.


Secondly, MobileMail, which had previously only showed the top-level folders of my IMAP account, now properly shows all subfolders. This is excellent. I get a lot of server messages automatically sent to me, and without subfolders I had no way to file them. Now, though it can be tedious, it's possible.


There are apparently a whole host of other undocumented improvements. iPhone Atlas has a partial list. They claim that the earpiece and speaker volume has been improved. I cannot verify this as I haven't made or received a phone call since the update (because I am an asocial loser). But if it's true, it would take care of one of my top 5 issues with the iPhone.

With this update — particularly with the improved stability — I find myself less concerned about my dropped, cracked iPhone. It seems to be undamaged and working quite well. At this point I've pretty much made the decision not to make another attempt to get it replaced. Aside from a few scratches and a small crack, which I hardly ever notice anymore, and a fairly troubling white balance problem with the camera, the phone is perfectly fine. So I'll stick with it for now. If Apple does not fix the white balance issue with next software update, however, I may have another crack at it.

Labels: Applications, Hardware, iPhone, Systems

So I've had my iPhone for a few weeks now, and I've had a chance to travel with, accidentally lock and drop it. Thought I'd report on the state of the iPhone after long-term, heavy use.

AT&T and My SIM Card
One of the most common questions I got after my initial iPhone review was how AT&T was compared to Sprint. Mind you, I have grown to absolutely loathe Sprint and their treatment of long-term customers, of which I had been a member. Pretty much as long as I could ignore AT&T I figured I'd be happy. And if I did have to call them for some reason, as long as they weren't complete assholes to me and didn't try to charge me for stuff I didn't buy, again, happy camper. Well, I did have to call them.

At some point, while fiddling around with my iPhone's settings, I decided to try locking the SIM card. Locking the SIM is a security precaution: Should your iPhone wind up in nefarious hands, the SIM card is password protected. What I didn't know was that, out of the box, the SIM card is already password protected with a password known only to AT&T, initially. So when I tried to change the password, it asked me for the existing one. When I provided the wrong one, it locked me out as it's meant to do. Shit.

From then on the phone refused to let me make any calls or use the Edge network. I had to go onto a regular old computer to go to AT&T's website. Here I tried to log into my account, which I apparently had not set up yet. I had sort of assumed this had been set up for me when I activated my phone, but no. Setting up my AT&T web account required going to the site and doing so. Unfortunately, this didn't get me very far, though it did get me to a forum article that described the problem I was having and its solution. In the article was a link to an AT&T utility that would reset or send me the SIM card password. This tool worked perfectly except for one fatal flaw: It sent my SIM card password to my phone via SMS text. Uh, guys... That's not gonna cut it...

Loathe as I was to contact AT&T over all this — or customer service in general, for that matter — looks like that's what I was going to have to do. So I gave them a call (on a friend's cell phone, of course). After navigating the inevitable voice-based menus, I was told that my wait-time to speak to customer service would be two minutes. Not bad considering Sprint was usually upwards of twenty. In about a minute, though, I was speaking to a human. Not only that, but said human knew exactly what I was talking about, and how to fix it. He stayed on the phone with me while I entered the old password and set a new one, and after that everything was right back to normal. The whole call took under five minutes. Amazing!

I've heard AT&T has been making a great effort to improve customer service. And, while I still hope to avoid them in the future, I'll be a lot less resistant to giving them a call based on this recent experience. I can't say the same for their website, though. Finding info there seemed to be quite a painful affair. But, so far anyway, we're light years ahead of Sprint.

Travel
Over the last few weeks I've also had the opportunity to do some light traveling and testing of AT&T's cellular coverage in remote areas. I drove to the farmlands of upstate New York this past weekend, and I used Google maps for just about everything. I had taken along a paper map as well, in case I couldn't get cell phone reception, but I rarely needed it. Google Maps just freakin' rocks, and even in farm country, the AT&T network seemed to hold up pretty well. Not perfectly, mind you — there were certainly a few spots where I had spotty coverage, or none at all. But considering where I was, I was pleasantly surprised at my level of coverage.

Drops
One major bummer happened along my travels: I dropped my iPhone for the first time. I had gone swimming and brought the thing along with me. After my dip I went to pick the iPhone up off the pool chair where I'd left it — with a shirt to keep it from getting wet — and it slipped out of my hands and landed on the concrete, face down. The indestructibility of that glass is near-legendary at this point, and I'd only dropped it from a height of maybe three or four feet, so I honestly wasn't even worried. Imagine my horror when I got back to my hotel room and discovered not only scratches, but a small crack in the lower right hand corner of the glass. Yup. A crack. Fortunately, this is nowhere near the touch-sensitive areas of the screen, and the phone continues to work perfectly.


I've since managed to drop it from full standing height face down onto a hardwood floor, and it has emerged unscathed, so I don't think my first drop was typical. Still, dropping the iPhone can indeed crack the glass, so if you're worried, or prone to dropping phones a lot, and you want to keep your iPhone in pristine condition, you may want to consider getting a case for it. Me, I'm trying to just accept the fact that the phone will not stay perfect forever, and that shit happens. After all, what's a few scrapes and scuffs, right? Builds character!

Yeah... Okay... Whatever...


Anyway, I still love the damn thing. In fact, I have to say, maybe the most frustrating thing about it is how much I like it. It's the reason I bring it to the pool. It's the reason I drop it so much. Hell, it's even the reason I locked up the SIM card. I just can't seem to leave it alone.

So, yeah, still happy, cracks and all.

UPDATE:
iPhone Atlas has posted an article on options for cracked iPhone screens. It's pretty much what I'd expected, but what I didn't know is that Apple has a repair program for the iPhone, and they'll reportedly repair any iPhone for a flat rate of $199 for the 4GB model or $249 for the 8GB model. Why the price is different for the 8GB model is beyond me, but there you have it. Thought I'd let you all know.

Labels: Hardware, iPhone

I bought one on opening day. I hadn't intended to, but sometimes the hype gets the better of even me. Well, hype and a burning hatred for my then-service provider, Sprint. So I bought one on opening day, over a full week ago. And I can honestly say I haven't been happier with a purchase since I bought my first Powerbook. In fact, this puppy basically is my new laptop. But it fits right in my pocket.

(A side note: A few days ago I got a bill from Sprint. Not for the early cancellation fee like I expected, but a bill for service that I'd paid several days earlier on a phone number no longer under their purview. This will not be the first time they've tried to charge me for a phone that's no longer in service. When I first moved to New York, it took me three months to cancel my previous phone. Their service has gone steadily downhill ever since. Sprint, this is why people hate you and will spend hundreds of dollars to switch to another service. Assholes!)

A lot has been said about the iPhone thus far. And I pretty much agree with most of it: the iPhone, with the exception of a few forgivable oversights, is a revolutionary, market-changing, life-altering device, and easily the best cell phone ever.

This sort of praise has been near-universal among iPhone owners. And for good reason. The iPhone is all those things. But it's the little things that people love and hate about the iPhone that vary from person to person. So I wanted to add my two cents, my voice to the chorus as it were. And I wanted to see if I could do it all (or most of it) on the iPhone itself. So, for a week I've been taking notes on the iPhone on the iPhone. And I'm typing this entire article on my trusty iPhone, between meetings and lunches, totally on-the-go style and shit, using the Mail application.

So far so good.

Google Maps
What probably surprised me most was how endlessly useful and well-integrated the Google Maps feature is. My first day with the phone I had dinner plans. I knew the name of the restaurant, but no one could tell me the address. Did I fret? Did I worry? Did I complain? Heck no! I just Googled it. On my cell phone! But not only was I able to easily retrieve the address, I also got the phone number and URL for the restaurant's site, and this information was easily added to my contacts for later easy retrieval — calling, browsing, want have you. Now I find myself looking up every place I ever call for take-out and adding it to my contacts because it's so damn easy and downright fun. Nearly everything about the iPhone works as easily and seamlessly. It's one of the true joys of owning this phone.

Camera
The next surprise for me was how good the photos look. The camera on the iPhone may not have many (ANY!) features, and the images may not hold up to a dedicated digital camera, but it comes a lot closer than any phone I've ever had.


Color and contrast look quite nice under normal lighting conditions. I've actually managed to get some really nice shots — shots that on my other phones would've looked like total crap.

And of course those shots can easily be assigned to contacts or wallpaper with the press of a few virtual buttons.


Contacts and Syncing
And speaking of contacts, all my contact information transfers seamlessly between my Mac's Address Book and my phone now. Windows users may be used to this, but it's another first for me. Synching my phone and my Mac now is not only doable but fairly easy and trouble-free. My only complaint is that, while Address Book syncs are two-way and multi-computer aware, most of the other sync functions hinge on the typical iPod paradigm, in which one computer is the master to which the iPod syncs. This is unfortunate — I have a bunch of computers I'd love to sync up — but not terribly surprising. And as long as the contacts can sync with multiple machines I can live with it.


Oh, one other complaint: locating a contact is a fairly straightforward affair — go to your contacts and scroll the list. Not bad. But I have hundreds of contacts, and this glut of contacts cries out for a search function. Apple's Address Book application has search capabilities. The iPhone's version of Safari has it too — start typing a URL and Safari makes appropriate suggestions based on history and bookmarks. Indeed, my previous phone — a Samsung A900 — even had this capability. It was just dog slow and a total pain. I was really hoping Apple would improve upon this functionality. Instead they chose to leave it out. Not a deal-breaker, but a bit disappointing. I do find myself wanting this feature on a regular basis.

While we're at it, do the same for the Calendar application.

Mail, Folders, Drafts
Mail syncing is not what it sounds like either. That is, account settings get synched but not the mail itself. In fact, the mail client is a stripped down version that (with my IMAP server, anyway) only shows top-level folders — Inbox, Sent, Drafts and Trash. No subfolders are visible. No rules are applied. No spam is filtered. Nevertheless, it's handy as hell to have constant access to my latest mail, and to anything I might be working on — like this article, for instance. In fact, the more I think about it, I'd rather save the organizing for my computer, so this is totally fine, and probably a good thing in the end. Typing in Mail, as throughout the iPhone interface does take some getting used to, but I'm already pretty proficient with two fingers after only a week. The only weird thing in Mail is that saving drafts requires a press of the "Cancel" button, after which you are prompted to save the draft. There is no "Save" button. (Though there does appear to be an auto-save, which I just learned after my first Mail crash — yikes!) I find this behavior very unintuitive and more than a little scary.

Notes
Another pleasant surprise has been the Notes application. I'm a big note-taker, and I find myself using it constantly. It couldn't be much more bare-bones — or much uglier — but I use it all the time. And again, typing is generally quick and trouble-free.

Safari
Having real web access has proven pretty damn handy as well, though without WiFi it's kind of painful. In fact, surfing the web is probably the least satisfying thing about using the iPhone. For one, Safari crashes on me with a fair degree of regularity. (And by the way, the other apps almost never do.)


And, though it's a fairly full-featured browser (I for one am glad there's no Flash most of the time), pages not designed for the phone can still be difficult to read. The New York Times, for instance, which sometimes uses a fairly wide column for articles, almost must be read in horizontal mode. Fortunately — brilliantly — the iPhone provides just such a feature. But surfing the web is just generally not the rich media experience I was hoping for. It has been useful for cheking our network and the status of certain servers. And it will be great for when I want to read sites that consist mainly of text. But really, who has time to read these days anyway?

Battery
I've also been quite happy with the battery life of this phone. I haven't actually talked on it for any length of time (that will require a call to Mom), but I use it for notes, mail, Google and checking the weather all freaking day (I can't keep my hands off the damn thing) and my battery seems to consistently last a full two days, though barely. My old phone would die in the middle of any call over a couple hours and needed to be recharged nightly. 'Course my old phone couldn't check mail, weather, Google or take notes either — at least not without jumping through some major hoops and incurring some major charges. I guess when I think about it, one of my favorite things about this phone is that it's not my old phone. Doing anything on that phone was a chore. Most everything on the iPhone is either dead easy or downright fun. Who'd've ever thought you'd hear a cell phone described as "fun?"

But I digress.

The Phone
The phone part of iPhone is fine. Nothing to really write home about, but fine. The nice thing about using iPhone as a phone is, of course, the interface. There is no talk button. When receiving a call, as everywhere else on the iPhone, you're presented with a list of contextual options — "Answer" or "Decline" if you're using other features of the device. I actually wasn't sure how to answer my first call. The phone was locked, so I unlocked it and then panicked a little. "Now what?" Turned out, I had already answered by the simple act of unlocking the phone. Nice!

Sound quality, as reported elsewhere, is clear but a bit quiet, especially given that I live in a big, noisy city. It's much better with the earbuds, but I'm not usually in a position to use them, especially when I'm out and about. I do hope they fix this with a firmware or software update. I have a feeling they will. Still, sound is clearer with less background interference than my previous phone. So overall I'm pretty pleased with the phone portion of my iPhone.

Improvements
The iPhone is by no means perfect, of course. Though I'm about as happy with a version 1 device as I think humanly possible, there are just a few things I would love to see improved. Everyone has their priorities. My list goes something like this:

• Contact and event searching
  Like I said earlier, this would be really nice if implemented well.
• Better backspace placement
  I am always hitting the backspace button inadvertantly (though I am getting better).
• Cut/copy/paste
  This a given, and probably the number one complaint about the iPhone. If Apple could provide this with a software update, everyone would be pleased as punch, I'm sure.
• Disk access
  I was pretty bummed that I can't use this iPod/iPhone as a hard drive. It's the one thing even my old phone can do. Give me access to that 8 gigs, please. (There is now iPhone Drive, though I'd rather not have to pay to access my own hard drive, thank you very little.)
• Volume increase
  It would really be nice if we could turn the iPhone up a bit for calls. Plenty of volume for the iPod, though.

That's about it. I'm really a pretty happy camper.

Final Thoughts
All kinds of new, mind-altering experiences have come my way since getting this phone. For one, people actually talk to me at parties now. The iPhone is actually so cool it spills over onto me. It has a surplus of cool. Cool to spare. And for the first time ever, though I've never been an iPod person, I've actually put on headphones and used the iPod functions of this phone (I may now be hooked like the rest of the world). I'm not sure why I tried it, really. I guess I just like the thing that much. It's just so damn touchable!

But the most telling event happened the other day while I was using my computer, actually. I was looking at a web page and wanted to scroll down. And for just the briefest of moments it was all I could do to keep from using my finger.

This is big, folks. Really big.

This article written on my iPhone
(but edited on my computer)

Labels: Hardware, iPhone

Just got done watching the iPhone Activation Video — 'cause with the announcement of the very reasonable service plans I've pretty much decided I'm getting one of these puppies — and I noticed a bit of an error in the video. The demonstration iPhone in the video is apparently an 8 GB model and starts off with 7.27 GB of storage.




But by the end of the video its capacity has increased tenfold!




Well, that cinches it. If the iPhone's capacity magically grows as you add data, it's surely the most wondrous device ever, and certainly worth having.

I'll take three!

Labels: Hardware, Humor, iPhone

The new ModBook, from Axiotron and OWC, finally realizes a dream long held by Mac lovers: the tablet Mac. But seeing this Franken-computer in action only makes me realize that it's a product that's doomed to failure.

As cool as the idea of a tablet computer seems — and make no mistake, these ModBooks do look pretty cool — all I can think about when I see them demoed is how incredibly inconvenient they'd be to use for most regular work — for most anything I use my laptop for. What do I use my laptop for? Email, billing, troubleshooting, surfing, writing. Almost everything I generally do on my laptop requires text input, for which a WACOM is poorly suited. What do I not do on my laptop? Draw! Let's face it, the WACOM is a drawing tool, and I just don't think most people use a laptop for drawing. And I don't think they want to either.



Graphics people tend to use desktop systems as their main rigs. There are a lot of reasons for this: they need a faster computer; they need a larger viewing surface; and, perhaps most importantly, they just don't want to draw or design on-the-go. Ever try to draw something in your sketchbook in the car? Or on the train? On a plane? It sucks. Drawing is not a portable activity.

So, the scenario goes, you buy this ModBook, and not only do you have to draw on this small screen, on this underpowered machine, but you also have to handwrite your emails, your terminal scripts, and your blog entries. The ModBook cripples both the functionality of a portable computer and that of a drawing tablet. It flies in the face of both these products' very reason for being. And it costs a bundle to boot.

I'm not sure what the intended market is for these machines. But I can say with almost 100% certainty that they will fail, because I don't think that market is very large, if it exists at all. The ModBook adds either a layer of complexity or a lack of functionality to everything you might want to use a tablet or a laptop for in the first place. I predict that graphics users will find it underwhelming, and regular users will find it frustrating. Who does that leave? Um... People with a lot of expendable income for electronic toys they'll never seriously use. A novelty market at best.

It's almost too bad the ModBook was released alongside the iPhone. The iPhone shows us real and good reasons to use a touch-screen interface on a portable device, and some really brilliant and innovative ways to implement this. It totally shows the ModBook up. Compare the two, and the ModBook comes up looking like a product without a purpose.

Apple was right when they said that no one would want a tablet computer. Seeing the ModBook only drives the point home. With a vengeance.

Why did we want that again? I forget.

Labels: Hardware, iPhone

That's all I really have to say about it. I totally, unreservedly want an Apple iPhone. It will most likely replace my aging 867MhZ PowerBook. And my cellphone. And my wireless provider. And my iPod. And my portable hard drive. And... And...

Yeah, I want one.

Labels: Hardware, iPhone

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the perception that Macintosh computers are more expensive than comparably equipped computers from other manufacturers persists to this day, despite the fact that this has not been true for several years now. Steven Frank recently wrote:

"Despite recent dramatic price drops across Apple's line, I still hear from beloved but uninformed relatives that Macs are "too expensive". It's a stigma that they seem unable to shake, even with raw numbers in your face demonstrating that the Mac is equal to or cheaper than a similarly equipped Dell."

Most Mac users — and non-Mac users in the know — can tell you that Macs, for what they offer, are very reasonably priced. Yet the stigma remains.

I believe the reason for this is that Macs just look damn nice. People take one look at a Mac and just instantly assume that it must be expensive, because no computer — hell, no product — could look that good and cost the same as something less beautiful.

If Apple is ever going to shake the perception that their computers cost more, they're going to have to build them uglier. Actually, I think they should come out with a whole new budget product line. Encase everything in cheap, shiny, silver plastic — you know, that chromed shit that just looks and feels awful and flimsy. This should cover 90% of the machine. Some flashy lights and extra, useless buttons would be a good touch too. Latches and ports should also feel cheap and sport gaudy colors. Display hinges on portables should be stiff and unyielding. Maybe the Mac OS X interface should uglied-up a bit too. The display itself should, of course, be ultra-glossy.

Call it the UglyMac.



Of course, the price points for this budget line would be pretty much the same, because Macs are already sold at an average market cost. But the perception that they cost more would almost certainly dissolve. Finally.

There you go. Problem solved.

Labels: Hardware, Rants

Everyone's talking about Adobe's Photoshop CS3 Beta release. In a day and age when paid betas are all the rage among smaller developers, a big developer releasing a free (though time-limited) beta of a flagship program is exciting in and of itself. But this beta has legs. It's good stuff. I'll go over some of the more significant features that everyone's buzzing about. But I also want to spend a little time talking about some things that no one in the mainstream press seems particularly interested in, 'cause, you know, I'm funny like that. And 'cause there are some real gems, from my particular perspective.

The Installer
I wanted to briefly mention the installer for Photoshop CS3, because it's pretty nice, particularly in contrast to the Acrobat Reader installer. No, it's not an Apple Installer, but it does offer a great deal of control (and some features not available from Apple Installers), and from a systems perspective, this is wonderful. Most notably, the Photoshop CS3 installer (called Setup.app) contains an uninstaller. Awesome! Yes, it may be hard to believe, but there have been times I actually wanted to completely uninstall Photoshop, and I couldn't. Now I can.



The uninstaller even gives you the option to delete application preferences. Wow. That's pretty thorough.



Secondly, the installer allows you to choose which Photoshop components get installed, or to reinstall or uninstall specific components of the suite. Don't use Camera RAW? Don't use Bridge? Fine. Don't install 'em. Change your mind? Fine. Go reinstall 'em.



I can't believe I'm saying this, but Adobe has really gotten this installer right. If I can't have drag-'n'-drop or package installers, then this is what I want. The only problem is, I'm pretty sure it won't work with Apple Remote Desktop (but then it never did anyway). Otherwise, I'm pleased as punch.

One other thing to note about the beta installation: Adobe requires you to produce a valid Photoshop CS2, Creative Suite 2, Production Studio, Adobe Web Bundle, or Adobe Video Bundle serial number to use the beta for longer than the 2-day trial period. Supply this serial number and you'll be given a new serial number for the beta. The new serial number can be used to activate the software until the beta expires, ostensibly some time around the official release date. The software gets activated online via a connection to Adobe, and it keeps tabs on how many machines you've installed the beta on. The limit is two computers. I installed it on two machines, but then, after installing it on the third I received this alert when trying to activate the software:



This seems relatively fair to me. The only thing I find somewhat irksome is that we have a 20-seat volume license. So, to my way of thinking, our serial number should be good for 20 installs of the beta. Apparently Adobe feels differently. I also wish I could deactivate machines remotely, via this interface (like you can with iTunes music, for instance). But no, unfortunately I'll have to go over to the machines in question, log in and deactivate them locally. Oh well.

The Icon
The first thing I noticed after installing the Photoshop Beta was the strange, minimal application icon. I kind of like it, but it seems somewhat inappropriate to me that Photoshop — an image editing application that's always had pretty fancy icons — has such a plain one. I'm assuming that this is just the icon they'll use for the beta, and that a more sophisticated icon will come with the shipping version.



The Hot New Features
One item of significance — in fact, according to the scuttlebutt, it's a big reason the beta was released — is that this is the first version of Photoshop to run natively on Apple's latest Intel hardware. Amazingly, this comes off as a footnote in most of the reviews, overshadowed by the fact that this also happens to be the first major revision of the photo-editing powerhouse to actually be packed with exciting, new and useful features. In fact, after trying it out, it's the first time I've been impressed with an Adobe release other than Lightroom in years. And it's Photoshop, man. Frickin' Photoshop!

One of the most discussed aspects of Photoshop CS3 is the interface, and it's certainly worth a mention here. It's been quite extensively overhauled, and yet still feels completely familiar. Everything is right where you'd expect it, but there are numerous productivity enhancements throughout the app. Little touches, really, like a toolbar that is one tool wide, giving you more room for viewing your image. Palettes are more logically (and attractively) presented and unified, instead of floating around all over the place. This seems to be the trend with a number of apps, and if AfterEffects 7 and Lightroom are any indication, Adobe is following it. This is a good thing. I truly hate moving windows and palettes around. And with today's big screens, there should be little need to.



My one big beef is that there still seems to be no key command to switch between open documents. Almost every other application on the Mac nowadays uses "command- `" to switch between open docs. Yet Photoshop CS3 still not only fails to adhere to this standard, but apparently lacks the ability to switch between open docs with the keyboard at all. This seems like a strange oversight for such a significant interface overhaul. I also wish Adobe would use standard Apple key-commands for things like hiding the app ("command-h" on the Mac, generally) but at least the ability exists to do this from the keyboard, and it's configurable.

Finally, the Refine Edge tool is quite the talk of the town. And for good reason. Anyone who's ever tried to select a color range and then tried to tweak the selection has longed for this tool, which basically allows you to interactively refine the edges of your selections. And it's finally here!



Video (Yes, Video!)
But there's another fantastic new addition to Photoshop CS3, and it's one no one's mentioned, maybe because no one's quite as weird as me: Animation. For years I've wished Photoshop — with it's powerful layering capabilities, selection tools and brushes — could be used as a 2D animation tool. I always wanted to be able to import and draw on video in Photoshop. You could always fake this with ImageReady, which came with basic Quicktime import/export functions and a pretty useful Animation palette, and which I've demoed in my class numerous times. But it was clunky and confusing. ImageReady was not well equipped to deal with large numbers of relatively large images — it became painfully slow — and it lacked WACOM touch-sensitivity and the full range of brushes found in Photoshop. Plus, it was just plain inconvenient to use ImageReady when Photoshop was sitting right there. Well, my wait is finally over. Photoshop CS3 now includes the very same Animation palette formerly found only in ImageReady. It's there, and it works exactly as it did in ImageReady. Only now we get all that Photoshop goodness and the familiar interface we all know and love (or at least are accustomed to). Hooray!



There are a few new video-specific features too, though you might not know it from the coverage. There's a "Video and Film" Workspace, for one, which highlights all video-related menubar items and brings forth video-related palettes, including the Animation palette.



And now, since Photoshop CS3 does video, it only seems appropriate that it should have the ability to preview that video to a monitor, which in fact it now does.


All these new video capabilities were a huge surprise to me. And a hugely pleasant one. There was a time when I got pretty excited about new Adobe releases, but it was a long time ago. It's great to see Adobe, once again, release a really compelling version of Photoshop. I'm amazed at how much thought and care they've given "the little things," from the interface to the installer to, of all things, video. And yet they've still managed to keep all the good bits. This version has something for everyone. I, for one, am truly impressed.

UPDATE:
Looks like I was wrong. The new Photoshop CS3 icon featured in the beta is here to stay. Not only that, lots of people are buzzing about it. Personally, my favorite comment on the "issue" so far (I haven't had time to read them all — Help! I'm on dialup!) is one from John Nack:

[Not dismissing your opinion at all, but isn't it nice that in this world, at the end of 2006, it's computer iconography that constitutes our nightmares? We are very lucky to have literacy, intelligence, and leisure enough to give a damn about this stuff. --J.]

Totally agree. Still, I've decided to add my voice to the already huge compendium of opinion on the matter.

Labels: Applications, Hardware