GracefulFlavor

A new MacBook Pro release, a new rash of forum posts across the internet in which prospective buyers agonize over whether they should get a glossy or matte screen on their new MacBook Pros. I see it everywhere: ArsTechnica, SA’s SH/SC, Digg/Slashdot comments.

From where I sit, I think this discussion has taken a life of its own, a life created by community zeitgeist. What that means is that there’s a very prevalent opinion out there (which is: avoid glossy because the reflection is so bad it will (a) kill your baby, and (b) render you blind), but largely, the opinion feeds itself because a few people hear it, perhaps believe it, and then repeat it to others, and from there it grows. It’s a tipping point of sorts.

It’s a lot like the love ThinkPads get. Yes, they’re nice laptops, but not that nice. Still, if you read around people will wax downright religious about ThinkPads. I had one, a top-end T60p with every conceivable option, and it was nowhere near as nice as the 1st-gen MacBook Pro that replaced it. But hey, that’s just me. What the hell do I know?

Going back to the screens, I like the glossy. Side by side, the glossy blows the matte away. Colors are richer and deeper, and blacks are blacker. The reflection issue isn’t a big one for me. If you’re about to buy, I would seriously go to an Apple Store and check each out, preferably side-by-side. It’s a matter of personal taste to be sure, but assume that matte being better is some sort of holy doctrine: it isn’t. It depends on what you do with your machine, where you use it, and, most importantly, what you happen to like better.

Technorati Tags: mac, apple, osx, displays, glossy_vs_matte, macbook, macbook_pro

Bruce Schneier, security guru and CTO of CounterPane Internet Security, Inc., explains why you should renew your passport right now, whether its due for renewal or not. In a word, it’s because of RFID, and Bruce says you do not want an RFID chip in your passport:

By itself, this [ed: RFID] is no problem. But RFID chips don’t have to be plugged in to a reader to operate. Like the chips used for automatic toll collection on roads or automatic fare collection on subways, these chips operate via proximity. The risk to you is the possibility of surreptitious access: Your passport information might be read without your knowledge or consent by a government trying to track your movements, a criminal trying to steal your identity or someone just curious about your citizenship.

The State Department has assured everyone involved that there are effective countermeasures in place to prevent unauthorized access and data/identity theft, but Schneier argues that they don’t go far enough.

Regardless, RFID in passports smacks far too much of a new world order, and I don’t feel that the government fully understands the consequences — both intended and unintended — and risks of moving to such a technology.

I’ll renew and hope that the next seven years or so bring better lockdown technologies to insulate RFID from surreptitious access.

Technorati Tags: RFID, technology, security, passports, hackers

“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”
– Albert Einstein

You won’t find many non-tech-related articles on Graceful Flavor, but this one deserves attention. Partially because I consider myself an agnostic of sorts (the worst label of all, right?), but also because it strikes in me a chord that I consider to be the ultimate flaw of not merely god, but faith in god.

Wired has a very thought-provoking article on traditional religion versus atheism, but not in the context you might expect. It’s not about common religion versus the philosophy of atheism; it’s not about which concept with which you more closely align. Instead, it’s a call to arms by three luminaries — writer Richard Dawkins, scientist Sam Harris, and philosopher Daniel Dennett — to not only shun the delusion of god, but also faith in god as exhibited by others.

The aspect of faith, they argue, isn’t merely a spiritual/emotional avenue to whatever god in which one believes, but instead downright evil.

That’s right: faith itself is evil. It is not good nor benevolent nor neutral. It and its effects on humankind are, in fact, evil. Dawkins et al don’t just disagree with religious myths — they disagree with belief in these religious myths, myths that belief often helps colonize in the unwitting minds of children. What about bringing children up to believe manifest falsehoods, viral memes? At what point does intelligent society step in? Bad ideas foisted on children are moral wrongs. We should think harder about how to stop them, Dawkins argues.

That’s a harsh condemnation, and no doubt will cause endless controversy among those inclined to seriously debate such things. And the article goes on, suggesting that a Rational Religion be formed to combat the notions coming forth from traditional religions.

For me, 9/11 was a flashpoint that finally pushed into my consciousness what I had always thought all along: religious faith has caused more blood to be shed, wars to be fought and lives to be lost than any other single impetus in history. Following 9/11, The Independent in London said that 9/11 proved it was time to outlaw religion. Veteran observers of Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Gaza and everywhere else that extremists claimed that God was telling them to kill innocents, or steal land or commit whatever horror said it was time to end religion, citing centuries of horrors from the crusades and Inquisition to suicide bombers and the 9/11 pilots. Evidence is literally everywhere to support a notion such as this.

So, is the call to arms by Dawkins, Harris and Dennett close-minded reactionary extremist horseshit, or is it a lucid call to mankind to wake up and stop living in the shadow of a myth that perpetuates judgment, violence and conflict?

My problem with this warcry is that it seems to be extremism in response to extremism. I don’t feel that gets anyone anywhere. I think a religious mini-reformation is in order to help better moderate and mediate behavior (and, as a precursor, moderate thinking), but calling for an outright ban on religion is a bit strong for me to stomach, no matter how much I might agree with some of the underpinnings of the movement.

Anyway, interesting article. I’d like to know where others stand on this.

Technorati Tags: religion, christianity, atheism, faith

If you’re still thinking Apple is an also-ran, marginalized, on-the-verge-of doom technology company, think again.

Apple’s 4Q financial results are nothing short of stellar, both on the iPod and Mac fronts. No longer should Apple be viewed as “the iPod company.” Macs, the computers, are poised for something of an explosion, and here we see the beginnings. Dig:

• Apple sold 5.3 million Macs in fiscal 2006, which makes 2006 Apple best year ever. In this past quarter, they sold 1.61 million Macs. This is what’s known as “not shoddy” in professional jargon.

• Listening to the conference call, Apple says that greater than half the Macs they sold in their retail locations were to customers who had owned a Mac before, presumably Windows users. This is an amazing datapoint, because in the past, naysayers of Apple’s Mac sales strongly voiced the opinion that Macs are sold to the Mac already-faithful who are compulsive about their upgrades and insistent upon having the latest-and-greatest Apple kit.

• 61% of the Macs sold were notebooks, so roughly 1 million total. This begs a larger question: are Apple’s laptop sales up because Apple’s desktop lineup needs a do-over, or because the larger trend is for laptop purchases over desktop? I’m betting the latter, because these days, you give up almost nothing by going to a laptop, and it seems everyone in the industry has sad desktop sales and burgeoning laptop numbers. Also, the power divide between laptops and desktops has never been so small. (Storage, of course, is another question, but that’s what FireWire drives are for).

• iPod gross margin was >20% but lower than the previous quarter due to various price manipulations (reductions). Still, awesome.

Also, Apple now has $10.1 billion cash in the bank (and zero debt). Again: zero debt. This isn’t being highlighted much, but it’s very impressive.

Here’s how some other fairly recognizable names fare along these lines:

Dell: $8.7 billion in the bank, $500 million debt
Intel: $7.6 billion, $2.3 billion debt
Microsoft: $31.1 billion, no debt

Lastly, Apple’s United States market share is now approximately 5.8%. For comparison’s sake, this is up from around 3.3% in 2004.

Worldwide market share is now hovering around 2.8%. This was at 1.8% in 2004.

So, yes, Mac market share is on the rise, and will only go up higher in the coming quarters. Will it ever topple Windows? Hell no. Come on. I mean, let’s be real. Still, any way you cut it, 4Q was an amazing quarter for the kids over in Cupertino.

REALLY lastly, MacNN had an interesting piece on Princeton University Mac sales. This year 45% of all computers sold at Princeton were Macs, compared to 15% in 2003. If that’s not some sort of zeitgeist indicator, I don’t know what is.

Technorati Tags: apple, osx, mac, business, investing, financial

Apple just announced that they shat the bed pretty badly and shipped a small number of iPods with the Windows RavMonE.exe virus. Whoops. That’s a fairly significant mistake no matter how you cut it.

On one hand, Apple caught the mistake quickly (or fairly quickly — the affected iPods were available for purchase after September 12, 2006), and admitted it on their support website. Good move.

On the other hand, Apple takes cheap shot at Windows security, which yes is an obvious problem and yes is a source of constant ire for Windows users, but should not be mentioned in a technical correction bulletin like this. Observe:

As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.

So yeah, good catch and fessing up, Apple. Too bad you got all shitty and took a dig that’s pretty unbecoming of you.

Technorati Tags: ipod, itunes, virus, apple, osx, windows, microsoft

I haven’t been this excited for a new app, no matter how pedestrian the functionality, in a long time. To me, this is a perfect example of how the Mac showcases some of the neatest and most brilliant application development out there, on any platform.

It’s not just about functionality — it’s about how the user gets to the functionality that matters. You just don’t see this too often on Windows, Picasa 2 and a few other notables notwithstanding.

I’m getting in on this beta, that’s for sure.

Technorati Tags: apple, mac, osx, software

You would think that being a technology advisor means that you understand technology, know how it works, and search for possible solutions to problems before posting a massive error-filled rant about an Apple G5 that is a piece of garbage despite the fact that it’s working perfectly.

Or, if you’re Larry Bodine, maybe you just rant away, truth-be-damned, and then get all indignant when the Mac community interrupts your carefully-constructed world of anecdote and error with, like, facts and stuff. As if there’s no justifiable reason to respond to published falsehoods.

Of all the things Larry bought when he got his G5, he missed (and misused) the biggest: the Apple community. This is a group of folks who can be insanely helpful with new Apple adoptees, and equally vitriolic when someone comes along and openly slams the Apple platform with no real information to backup their dime of opinion. Most people not named Larry should be bright enough to realize that an Apple with OSX does not equal a Dell with Windows, and so yeah, there will be some learning curve there. Not everything will work the same way you’re used to. Not all the software will be the same. All the menus and shortcuts might not be where you expect them. If that’s what you want — if you truly expect no learning curve, or for the computer to magically animate itself, recognize your Windows-centric behavior, and politely correct you while it brews you a double espresso — then why did you look at a Mac?

Real quick-like, let’s take a look at some of Larry’s best points. As a legal professional specializing in IT within the legal vertical, no doubt he knows how to construct a persuasive and bulletproof opinion. Off we go.

I was suckered in by the hype about freedom from viruses, simplicity of computing and versatility.

No suckering, Larry. Saying you were suckered means that the hype isn’t true, and in this case, it is. But sometimes hype still requires some independent reasoning on your part, especially as a consumer of new technology that you’re not familiar with.

Did you fall for the hype and fail to engage yourself with the notion that you might need to experiment a little before the hype lived up to its expectations? Sure. Were you suckered? Not one bit.

I bought a boat anchor that can’t view Web sites properly, is not compatible with Microsoft Word and can run only dumbed-down versions of regular software.

The opposite of hype is bullshit, and that’s what this is.

These last two points are the kickoff to your rant about how Macs are running civilization into the ground and you’ve started with nothing even remotely accurate. Sweet job.

A modern Mac comes with Safari installed, and that renders web sites just fine, thank you. If you experience the occasional glitch, install Firefox, Camino, Shiira, OmniWeb, Opera, whatever. If those all fail as well, quit expecting ass-backwards sites that are IE-only to work properly. It’s a world of open standards and technology agnosticism these days Larry. If you were a technology advisor you’d know that.

Word works just fine, especially on G5 PowerPC-based machines. The interface isn’t the same as Windows because, um, you’re not running Windows, but once a wise technology advisor like you comes to grips with that, you’re off and running. Questions of document compatibility are often nil, but there’s this huge-ass button that says “Compatibility Report” so you can make sure your formatting and embedded objects (or whatever) are indeed compatible with the Windows version of Office. It’s very deceptively worded, that huge-ass button. I know. Goddamn Apple for not making this clearer, despite the fact they didn’t write this software, Microsoft did.

And “dumbed-down software”? No, different software that’s not a carbon copy of the Windows equivalents. Is that what you meant? Yeah? Good.

This time, I’m buying from Hewlett-Packard Co. or Dell Inc. — anything that runs on Windows.

Actually — and not to be a pedant, really — these don’t run on Windows, they run Windows. They run on electricity.

I’ll be lucky to get half of the $4,552.71 I paid for the Mac on May 21, 2006.

Yes. We call that depreciation.

Aren’t Macs supposed to be intuitive and easy to learn? My mistake.

And they are, but here’s the tricky rub: they don’t run Windows. So, like, you won’t have Windows, and things might not be exactly as you’re used to on your super-fantastic ThinkPad. Which means there’s a learning curve. Which means that maybe you might want to open your mind to a way a new OS does things, an OS that endears itself to so many technology professionals across the web and instills in them a fervent preference for the platform. Which might require you re-learn a few things. Which might lead to the occasional frustration. Which, in the right mindset, leads you to a learning experience. Which, given that you are indeed a technology advisor, might be useful, as we’re talking about technology here, and your job is to advise people on technology, and inherent in that is the implication that you know what you’re talking about and have done your homework.

With a former PC, I had to have my hard drive wiped clean and formatted — several times — after catching nasty viruses. So I was enticed by the thought of being online without fear of viruses.

And that thought remains enticing, and is one of the key value propositions for a Mac. Regardless of what you think, Macs are immensely safer in this regard, and that shows no sign of letting up anytime soon.

I don’t know about you, but had I a computer that I needed to flatten and re-format multiple times due to viruses, I’d be looking for better alternatives too. A Mac, say. So at least your heart was in the right place; your impetus was pure.

I was encouraged to make the switch by artists, ad agency employees and junior high school kids, even though I don’t really create graphics, listen to iTunes or make movies. They all used Macs and were intractable in their support.

You don’t create graphics? How about manipulate them? Do you like photos? Do you have a digital camera? How about a digital camcorder? Surely a technology advisor like yourself has a reasonable complement of digital lifestyle devices to drive data into and out of your computer, right? Do you like music? Do you listen to music on your computer? How about your iPod?

Or do you just spend all of your time in Word and Powerpoint? Because if that’s the case, you’re even less qualified to speak on the general virtues of technology than I originally thought.

I pretended that I liked the one button mouse. I quickly started using click + command keys (and other keyboard shortcuts). I really missed the little scrolling wheel in the center of the mouse.

Your G5 should have come with the Mighty Mouse, which is indeed a multi-button mouse with a little ball in the middle that allows scrolling along two axes. If it didn’t, and Apple screwed you, take the mouse from your ThinkPad or PC and simply plug it in and use all the buttons to your heart’s content. Scroll too. Scroll like crazy.

I noticed it was slow; I saw that stupid spinning colored wheel a lot. The Mac would hang up; the TV ads said Macs didn’t do that.

A few things here.

How much RAM did your G5 have? Apple is notorious for under-specing RAM on its machines, and I’ve always faulted them for that. You should have had at least a gig.

The stupid spinning wheel is equivalent to the hourglass on Windows. I see that with fair frequency on my work PC. That is, when the machine isn’t frozen for minutes at a time with no visual cue.

And the TV ads? They’re ads, Larry. Now’s not the time to get all literal on me, because the last time I drank Coors Light, shit didn’t get all cold and gorgeous bikini models didn’t start dancing to the O’Jays “Love Train” and a giant silver train didn’t come around and wreck shit.

It’s an ad. For technology. You, a technology advisor, of all people should know that not everything you see in ads is 100% true.

I can’t believe I actually have to write this.

I did like the Finder because it was quick in locating files, but it would turn up a lot of false hits. It was comparable to the Google Desktop searcher on my PC.

You mean Spotlight, not Finder. Finder is Apple’s equivalent to Windows Explorer.

What drove me nuts was that I would open Word for Mac and couldn’t delete files while I was in Word. There is no File | Delete option. So the documents took up space on my hard drive, until someone told me I had to find the document in Finder and then move it into the trash from there. This seemed stupid to me; I just wanted to highlight a file and tap “delete.”

I’ll give you this as a legitimate gripe, but here’s the bummer for you: you’re bashing Microsoft developers, not Apple. Whoops.

A more valid gripe would be for you to complain about how, in many Apple Open/Save dialog boxes, you can’t do file manipulation (rename/delete) like you can in Windows. That’s one of my gripes too, and something I miss from Windows. But since you’re not a technology advisor or anything, I don’t expect you to know these nuances.

Wait.

Word files transferred from the Mac were missing pictures. PowerPoint files transferred from the Mac would lose their formatting. PCs and Macs are not compatible, regardless of what they say.

Uh, yeah they are. Go back and re-read the part I wrote earlier about the huge-ass “Compatibility Report” button.

And who’s “they”? The ads? Don’t get me going down that road again, Larry. Boy howdy don’t get me started.

The multiple clicking to accomplish simple tasks was a constant annoyance. Things I could do with a PC in two keystrokes took four or five clicks with the Mac. To do a “fast print” required clicking File, Print, find Copies & Pages, click Paper Type/Quality, click Normal and finally clicking Fast Draft. And there was no way to leave the setting as the default. I had to do it manually every time.

I click menubar print buttons all the time on my Mac and it sends the job to my Brother MFC printer with no other clicks involved whatsoever. Weird.

Of course, if you go the longhand route and select “Print” from the File menu, then yes, you will get the print dialog box. But there’s no need at all to manipulate anything in Copies & Pages or Paper Type/Quality unless you want to change default settings, which Apple conveniently set in accordance with a user-centric version of the 90/10 rule, so 90% of the time there’s no need to change anything. Just click print and off you go.

There. Worst case scenario, two clicks. Best case, one. Shaazam.

Doing a simple screen capture was an immense chore. On a PC you just press Alt and tap PrtScr. With the Mac I had to download and launch special programs to accomplish this simple task.

You didn’t need to download shit. Command-Shift-4 would have worked just fine, but you threw a hissy fit when your Windows way didn’t work on a Mac. You could have looked in System Preferences –> Keyboard and Mouse –> Keyboard Shortcuts, but nah. Better to rant like a donkey instead of learning about your new computer and OS.

Fuck you Steve Jobs for not making ALT-PrntScrn the screen capture hotkeys!

I didn’t even bother with the Mac’s iCal or Mail, which required me to buy an @mac.com address.

Patently, unmitigatedly, unqualifiedly, flat-out wrong, my man. You do not need a .mac address whatsoever. What you do need, however, is the slightest inkling of a clue as to how this software works, as clearly you never even tried it. But thank god you wrote about it! That’s journalism baby!

Instead, I went straight to Outlook for Mac. A lot of the software for Mac — such as AOL for Mac OS X — was dumbed down and missing may features of the current PC versions.

Why you bypassed Apple’s Mail.app client and went to Outlook is beyond me. Is it because you’re the type of technology advisor who can’t see past Microsoft software? Is that it? I have a crisp hundy right here that says that’s exactly your problem.

And AOL? For real? You’re a technology advisor who uses AOL? Is this the same AOL I’m thinking of, the one that newbies and grandmothers use and that’s losing marketshare and struggling mightily because the internet isn’t so scary anymore and shit, people are running browsers on their phones these days so, like, AOL has totally lost its identity in the market? That AOL?

LOL.

For me the killer was the Web browser. Safari simply cannot read Flash. It is, quite simply, a second-rate browser.

Actually, the verb you’re looking for is render, not read. I guess read is correct on a very elemental level, but at the user/presentation level the browser renders Flash to the user. I’m a highly-paid legal technology advisor so I know these things.

I even called Apple headquarters and asked when a better version would be available and was told that Apple is in no hurry to improve it.

Yes, OK. I’m sure that’s how it went down.

YOU: Hi, I’m a technology consultant for lawyers. Yeah, I know I’m calling Apple headquarters instead of my local Apple store or Apple technical support, but I’m angry. Very angry. What’s with your shitty Safari browser? Are you working on a better version?

APPLE: Of what?

YOU: Your Safari browser.

APPLE: Oh no man. Jesus. That thing is garbage. We actually released it as a joke, and it just sort of took off on us. I mean, all of us here had bets on whether it would be found out we were just kidding, and man, people LOVED it. We had no idea. So to keep the joke going, we revved the Safari something like seven times, and we even had our lead dude, a guy named Hyatt, start his own blog about Safari. Imagine that! A blog about a browser that was supposed to be a joke!

YOU: So will it ever be improved?

APPLE: We’re in no hurry, man. Like, at all. We’re staring at this little spinning beachball, in fact. Lates.

On the suggestions of friends, I downloaded Netscape and Firefox, which were no better.

Amazing articulation of your findings. Thank you.

I scraped along with Internet Explorer 5.0 for Mac, and then discovered in 2006 that Microsoft would no longer support the Mac version. You can’t do WSYWIG on Typepad (where many folks create their blogs), which you can on a PC.

Oh hey. Good stuff. IE 5.0 for Mac is — what? — nine years old or something? MS announced its intention to desupport in 2003, so I can see why you’re so taken aback, what with such short notice and all.

As for Typepad, did you try other browsers on the Mac? Such as Firefox, perhaps? I dunno, but it sure seems like the folks at Six Apart (makers of Typepad) have you covered if you’re on a Mac with Firefox, and will add Safari support soon.

Dude, seriously. You need to do some fact-checking and even basic research before you post stuff. This is literally embarrassing.

Then the hard drive croaked on me after only three months of owning the machine. I couldn’t tell what was going wrong and had to hire someone for $125 an hour to come over and tell me what the heck was happening. Apple replaced it for free, but I became leery of what other hardware would fail unexpectedly.

Seeing how Apple uses hard drives from mainstream manufacturers, this could have happened with HP, Dell or whoever. You just had a bad unit, which sucks and definitely indicates the universe is aligned against you, but man, at least Apple treated you well, which isn’t a given with PC support anymore.

I let the repaired shiny Mac sit on the floor for weeks, and instead used my reliable IBM ThinkPad, and rediscovered how much I enjoy it. Wish me luck on selling the Mac.

Honestly, enjoy your IBM. Go back to Windows, because that’s what you know, it’s what you’ve come to expect and (let’s be honest), you’re really not interested in learning anything about a new (and, in many ways, superior) computing platform. You have your very compartmentalized tasks you want to do, and you want to do them the way you’ve always done them, period. That’s cool.

Why you looked at an Apple is anyone’s guess, but whatever. But what I don’t get is why you published an article so completely wrong on just about every level, with such poor reasoning and evidential backing, and then went on to complain about the Mac community on your Typepad blog. I really don’t get it, brother.

Yes, the Mac community has its share of arrogant jerks, but no collection of people escapes that fate. Unfortunately, you deserve most of what you’re getting, because intelligent technology aficionados have little patience for under-researched rants that not only contain no facts, but that are patently wrong on a zillion levels.

It’s not often I say this, but really, sell the Mac and keep on keepin’ on with Windows. You deserve it. And drop me a line the next time you have to flatten and reformat due to viruses or spyware.

Technorati Tags: apple, osx, rant