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…however, strangely, my Windows is all doom-and-gloom.

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Yesterday, after realizing I was running out of drive space on my trusty MacBook Pro, and knowing that I’d need a Windows machine for certain upcoming school requirements, I decided to wipe my Windows XP Boot Camp partition from my MBP, and went out and bought an Acer Aspire X1200 desktop PC. I was attracted by its quietness, small form factor, decent specs, and great price.

Now, this computer looks fine on paper. Maybe everyone was right, I overpaid for both Macs that I’ve bought in the past 4 years. Looking at the specs, it’s hard to argue that for $450, this looks like a fantastic deal, and sure beats paying $600 for a new Mac Mini, right?

Wrong.

My short amount of time with this PC has done nothing but remind me why I will pay just a little extra (and sometimes a little less, depending on your research) for a Mac, rather than suffer through a PC hell again.

First off, setup of this little bugger took about 30 minutes. That includes unboxing, plugging everything in, and first boot-up, where Windows Vista ran some sort of “speed test” on the machine to check its performance, and install its bloated mess onto the machine. 30 minutes. I could have been actually USING my computer in 1/6 of the time had I bought an Apple computer. I know from experience.

And that doesn’t include the time I took uninstalling all the crap software that Acer decided to include with the machine.

Oh yeah, this computer didn’t even come with a recovery/restore disc. I had to burn my own.

My old Mac Mini (which I no longer have) took 5 minutes for me to set it up and be up and running. And that was in 2005. I paid about $600 for it.

“Cheap” does not equal “Value”.

Fitting that the embedded ethernet adapter died after only one day. From looking at the customer reviews on BestBuy.com, I’m not the only one that’s had that problem. I’m returning this machine tomorrow for a refund, rather than try to deal with Acer Tech support, who would only tell me to do everything I’ve already tried to troubleshoot the problem.

So, the next time someone tries to say things like “Macs are so expensive, why pay that much for a computer when you can pay so much less for a PC?”, I say again, “Cheap” does not equal “Value”.

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Hi.

So, most people who read this probably know I broke my leg on September 8th, while visiting some friends in Oklahoma. I’ve told the story too many times. You’re gonna have to read it over and see the pics yourselves. (more…)

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Interesting price comparison of a MacBook Pro and a Dell Inspiron E1705

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Yestrday at Macworld Expo 2006, Apple announced a new Intel-based iMac and MacBook laptop, and may I say, I’m starting my Xmas wishlist extra early this year.

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Google has finally released a beta version of their pretty cool Google Earth app for Mac OS X. Sweet.

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OK, Microsoft, why does it take you so long to patch major holes in your operating systems? I know no software is without bugs, but you’d think a company like Microsoft would be able to fix a widespread vulnerability such as this WMF thing (which was first reported December 27, 2005), before it mutates and screws-up even more people’s and businesses’ computers. And for God’s sake, man, you’d think they would be able to fix it before third parties start making “unofficial” fixes, which are just that - UNOFFICIAL. Microsoft is now reporting they won’t have a patch available until January 10, which is when they were planning on putting out their monthly Windows updates anyway. Way to sense the urgency, Microsoft. UPDATE: On January 5, Microsoft (to their credit) released a patch for Windows Update, available here.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to watch this disaster from a safe distance, upon my goodship Mac Mini. Ah… these seas are calm…. I bet you anything if such a vulnerabilty were to arise in Mac OS X, Apple would patch that sucker within days, not WEEKS.

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Real quick… I just got my laptop for school, and now I have three computers at my home desk (my Mac mini, my SuSe Linux 9.3 box, and now my little 13″ Windows XP laptop). I don’t have a KVM switch (nor do I really want one), but I still wanted to find a way to share my one keyboard and mouse with all 3 machines when I’m at my desk.

I found this KILLER little program called Synergy. It allows me to actually share my keyboard and mouse between the 3 screens at my desk. Just by moving my mouse cursor off one screen, it automatically appears on the next display/ monitor over, allowing me to use the mouse and keyboard on that machine, until I move it off the edge of that screen to the next. Confused? Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
(Quicktime format - right-click and “save as”, please)
Synergy example 1
Synergy example 2

These were shot using my little camera phone, so the quality ain’t all that great (and it only allows me to shoot 15-second clips), but it works in a pinch… Hopefully you can see what I’m doing in these shots… basically moving from screen to screen without effort!

The other super SUPER handy feature is the ability to carry over clipboard contents from screen to screen as you switch! I’m seriously amazed by this program. It was a little work (actually not too hard really) getting it set-up on my Mac to act as a “server”, but after configuring it, it works like a charm. I even setup a little Automator app to start and stop it at will on my Mac. Love it!

Now if only I could drag and drop between screens/systems, that would be the King King of features…

If you have more than one computer at your desk, give it a shot: http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

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Sooooo… a few weeks ago I went out and bought a Mac Mini…. I absolutely love it. So many cool things about it that I will share over time here… in the meantime, read this paper I recently wrote for a class I’m taking…
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The following is from a paper I had to write for my English class the other day… Keep in mind I didn’t want to go into too many technical details in the paper, I needed to keep it short. It was supposed to be a “persuasion paper”, so that’s why it’s really just so very pro Mac and anti Windows….. But I do love my new Mac!

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A few weeks ago, I was writing a paper for a homework assignment in one of my college classes. As I have been doing for many years, I was using my home computer, which was running Microsoft Windows XP Operating System. Right in the middle of writing my paper, the computer just froze. I could not type anything or move the mouse cursor; I could not even turn the machine off unless I unplugged it! I immediately started to panic with the fear that my assignment had been lost, with the possibility that other saved documents and programs I had accumulated over the years were destroyed as well. Sweat formed on my brow, as if I had just learned that my house was on fire and I was about to lose everything I had owned. My fear came true; I did lose all my important files on the computer. It just died on me without warning. It was truly a sad moment as a computer user. After mulling about for the next few hours, I decided I had enough of that old PC and I went out shopping, in search of a suitable replacement. After much internal deliberation and conflict (as a PC user for nearly two decades), I decided to take a chance and buy an Apple Macintosh Computer. The result was a realization that I made the best computer-related decision I have ever made as an avid computer user. Only one hour into using my new Mac, I understood that I made the right choice, and was only disappointed that I had not made that choice sooner. I had realized that because of the sheer usability, stability, security, and power of the Mac Operating System (Mac OS X), it is a much better operating system than Windows for the home user.

I used to be one of those “anti-Apple” computer users. After all, I’ve been using IBM PC-compatible computers regularly since I was about 11 years old – nearly 20 years now. I taught myself some simple programming at a young age, and became enthralled with the inner-workings of PC computers – how they worked inside and out. I had an excellent knowledge of Microsoft Windows, and understood how to make it work like a well-oiled machine. If something broke, I knew how to fix it. I always thought of Mac computers as “below me” in terms of power, usability and stability. I used to think that Macs were for people who didn’t know anything about computers. Besides, Windows has so much going for it: hundreds of great software packages, a revered history of computational power, and the ability to run it on just about any PC compatible machine within certain specs. Windows is great for so many things, and for the longest time, I figured it would be the only operating system I would ever use at home, or at least the main OS. That all changed when I brought home my new Mac and set it up.

The first thing I noticed about OS X that made me happy was the ease of use. I am very much a “tinkerer” when it comes to computers. I like to tweak things here and there on the computer to make it faster and easier to use for me. I used to always tinker around with Windows to make it work as well as it could for me. This required much research and trial-and error to get it “just right”. This is not the case with the Mac. Right out of the box, the OS X operating system was easy to use in every sense of the term. I didn’t need to look for third-party software applications and deep-seeded tips to get the computer to do what I want. Like Apple’s OS X catchphrase says, “It just works”. Also, many times I have had to search for applications that work well in Windows, such as a calendar program, music “jukebox” software, robust address book, and home movie editing software, that not only work well, but also work well with each other. OS X has all of these things included. The included applications are so well engineered and integrated, worry-free computing is finally a part of my life.

Since my old PC died on me, stability is a very big issue with me as one could imagine. Many times over the years, Windows “crashed” in some manner: locking up the computer, freezing programs, and corrupting data. Countless times, I have had to actually re-install the Windows operating system, just to get my computer to work like it used to when I bought it. With the Mac, not only have I had absolutely no program crashes in the 3 weeks I’ve had it, but I also have not once had to re-start the computer for any reason. This is even with daily use of the Mac, several hours per day, running several different applications. Now that’s stability! This is mostly due to the fact that OS X is designed to only run on Apple Macintosh computers. This nullifies the chance of hardware incompatibilities, which is very common in the Windows world, since Windows will run on a gigantic selection of hardware from hundreds of different manufacturers around the world.

Security is a major topic in today’s computing world. Computer viruses, “spyware”, and other nasty annoyances are running rampant amongst PC users, many times rendering a home PC useless. It has gotten so bad, that in the last few years I had felt like I was spending more time trying to keep my computer protected from all these bad things than actually using my computer for something productive. With OS X, virus threats are non-existent, and the foundation of Unix – a top-level operating system backbone – provides a rock-solid secure computing experience that gives me a kind of peace of mind I had not yet experienced in all my years as a computer user.
The amount of third-party applications available for the Mac has increased dramatically in the past decade. Almost every major application available for home Windows users is also available for OS X. Not only that, but there are many fantastic unique programs available exclusively on the Mac that add to the attraction. I wrote this paper using Microsoft Word, the highest-selling software program for the Mac. It works just as well, if not better, than its Windows counterpart. The best part is I don’t have to worry about my Mac crashing and losing my hard work.

Now that I’ve been a “switcher” (a fond term in the Mac community) for almost a month, I can soundly say that Mac OS X is an incredible piece of software engineering; designed for people who just want their computer to work, and work well, while providing a slew of extra features and excellent bundled applications. Combine magnificent timesaving usability, Fort-Knox-like security, and awesome stability, and you have Mac OS X – the best choice for home computer users.

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So, apparently Apple’s head-honcho Steve Jobs has banned books from Wiley - the publisher probably best known for it’s hugely popular “Dummies” series - from Apple stores.

story link (Red Herring)

Apple received an early copy of the book, iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business, written by Jeffrey Young with William Simon. The book is not yet on sale to the general public.

“My understanding is that Wiley requested or asked if there were any factual changes to be made in the book or errors and that’s when they [Apple] said the only thing satisfying to [them] would be not to publish the book,” Mr. Young told Reuters. “Obviously there’s some relationship between seeing the book and pulling the Wiley books, but I don’t know what it is.”

So let me get this straight. Jobs apparently see’s a book titled “Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business” and he BANS the publisher from his stores? that doesn’t add up. Crazy Steve..

I’m wondering what my good buddy and Wiley “Dummies” editor Steve Hayes thinks about this…

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