After hours of frustration and failure, I finally set up a USB bootable Linux distribution that worked on both a BIOS-based PC or EFI-based Apple system. Ten minutes later, I repeated the process with a second distribution.

I’ve been perusing this fine internet of hours all day, reviewing and attempting to complete step-by-step tutorials that were supposed to allow me to do this. Unfortunately, none of them would actually work on my MacBook Pro, as they promised they would. After finally acquiring a resolution, I decided to post my own step-by-step set of instructions that also claimed to work for a BIOS system or an EFI system. Hopefully it actually works for you as it did for me :).

My System, My Recommendation, and My Disclaimer

The systems I was trying to get this work was in conjunction with my out dated, 2008, 2 GHz Intel Core Duo MacBook Pro with a measly 2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM. I dual boot between OS X Leopard and Windows 7 using Boot Camp. I plug into a 24” Samsung display and use a Bluetooth Logitech MX 5500 keyboard and mouse set at my desk. Using Slax, all of this was compatible and immediately recognized!! I had absolutely no problems with hardware, so I highly recommend using Slax as your portable Linux distribution. I had success with DSL after initial frustrations (the track pad is not recognized, so I was forced to plug a USB mouse in), and it’s simply not as clean or power of a system as Slax is.

Doing all of this in no way effected positively or negatively the booting, reliability or functionality of OS X Leopard or Windows 7 on my system or Windows XP on any of the BIOS-based systems I ran this on. However, as always, proceed at your own risk.

Setting Up an EFI System

Boot into Mac OS and follow these steps:

1. Download and install rEFIt.
2. Restart your computer.

Complicated, huh? The initial restart after installing rEFIt will not show a boot loader, but all following restarts will display a boot loader if multiple bootable systems are attached to your Apple computer or other EFI-based system.

rEFIt will essentially overtake Boot Camp. Before installing rEFIt on my system, when I wanted to boot into Windows 7 I had to hold down the Alt-Option key when booting. Once rEFIt is installed, the boot menu is shown whenever the computer is booted. After a given number of seconds, it will boot into the default operating system, which is usually OS X.

Setting Up a BIOS System

Your BIOS must support the ability to boot from a USB drive. Follow these instructions on a BIOS-based (any standard Windows-based) computer:

1. Restart your computer.
2. At some point your computer will inform you that you can press some key to enter the BIOS setup (probably some key like F8, F12, or Del). Hold that key down. If you miss it, restart and try again.
3. Unfortunately, every computer is different in the BIOS menu setup. Do not change anything you are unfamiliar.
4. You may need to enable the ability to boot from a USB drive.
5. You will most likely need to change the boot sequence, moving your USB drive higher than your standard HDD.
6. Make sure that you save your changes to the BIOS before restarting.

Setting Up Your USB Drive

NOTE: Generally speaking, the instructions given on a portable Linux distribution’s website will tell you to run some bootinst.bat file that will configure your USB drive to boot properly. This will work for most BIOS-based systems, and may work with some distributions on some EFI systems, but it generally would not work for me. The solution given below, theoretically, works on all systems.

In a Windows environment (it’s just easiest that way, trust me), follow these steps:

1. Download and extract Syslinux. Since we’re in Windows, it’d be most beneficial to download the zip file. Extract it to a convenient location like C:\Syslinux.
2. Download your favorite portable Linux distribution. It has been verified that this works with DSL (I can’t spell it out ... My Mom reads this!), DSL-N, and Slax.
3. Plug your USB drive into your computer.
4. Backup any data on the USB drive you wish to keep! Right-click on the USB drive and select “Format.” Format the drive to either FAT-16 or FAT-32. I recommend FAT-32. A quick format will be fine.
5. Extract the contents of your favorite portable Linux distribution onto your USB drive using your favorite decompression program.
6. In Windows XP, click Start then Run, type “cmd,” then press Enter.
7. In Windows Vista or Windows 7, click Start and simply type “cmd.” Click on the Command Prompt icon to launch it.
8. From the Command Prompt, navigate to the win32 folder of where you extracted Syslinux. So, in my case, type “cd C:\Syslinux\win32\”.
9. From the win32 folder of Syslinux, type “syslinux.exe -ma :” where is replaced with the drive letter of your USB drive. Most commonly this will be E or F (it does need to be followed by a colon), but you can verify this by checking in My Computer.
10. Assuming you don’t receive any errors, your USB drive should now be set up for booting.

Conclusion

In theory, you should now be able restart your system and it will notice that you have a bootable USB drive in the computer (assuming, of course, that you do). If rEFIt opens, use the arrow keys to navigate to your USB drive and press Enter. If your on a BIOS system, you may need to press a key (if it tells you to press a key for the boot menu), but most likely it will pop up with a message telling you to press any key to boot Linux. If you don’t press any key, it may continue into your standard operating system, so you’ll want to strike that Enter key.

I hope this works as well for all of you as it did for me! It’s always handy to have a portable, friendly, and compatible version of Linux in your slacks that you can whip out and use anytime, on any computer.

Tags: Linux, Apple, BIOS, EFI

This is something I’ve been mulling over for the last couple of months, but it wasn’t until hearing the continued “Apple or Microsoft” arguments at camp this week that I was finally moved to write this. So, in a manner of speaking, this one’s for you, Jesse and Joe. Oh, and Erin, I’ll try to make this as witty as possible so, well, you know.

Ten years ago, after being introduced to someone and learning that they enjoyed using these things called “computers,” it would have been absurd to ask them such a silly question as, “Do you prefer Mac or PC?” What a silly question. Who used Macs?! Those things were lame! But in this modern age, where Apple actually holds claim to a portion of the market share worth nodding your head at, it’s a reasonable and quite common question. For me, a student in college studying computers and programming, this question is frequently asked in conjunction with, “What are you majoring in?”
“Computer Science.”
“And you have a Mac?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that a problem?”
“Why would that be a problem?”
“I don’t know. Can’t you, like, not program on Macs or something?”
“Pretty sure Macs still have applications, which means someone obviously must be programming them.”
“But isn’t it, like, easier to program on a PC or something?”
“When was the last time you wrote a program yourself?”
“Well, I haven’t.”
“Stop talking.”

And here lies the biggest error in our existence: we argue things we have no business arguing. You try to convince me that it’s harder to do sophisticated things like program on a Mac when you yourself have no knowledge of programming! This is a high level issue which I don’t really plan on spending much time on, but let me just make it clear that a large percentage of languages these days are interpreted, and nearly all internet languages are interpreted. This means that if an application is written in an interpreted language, it can be run on any platform that has an interpreter for it installed. Languages that aren’t interpreted, C++ for example, can almost always be compiled natively to any desired platform. So no, it’s not harder to program on a Mac, it’s just different, and you’re most frequently taught (in the classroom) to program in the Windows environment.

But let’s flee from such trivial issues as application development and return to the more prevalent flawed arguments that (apparently) plague the average computer user.

People want to compare Apple and Microsoft, but they fail to understand that Apple and Microsoft are two companies competing on two very different playing fields. Microsoft is, for the most part, a software development firm with a few ties in the hardware industry (namely the Zune and the Xbox, two things unrelated to its operating systems). Apple is, for the most part, a computer manufacturer that has developed a proprietary operating system that runs flawlessly on the hardware it manufactures (or at least uses and claims as its own). If we’re arguing the stupidity of Apple as a company, sure, let’s rag on the fact that the MacBook Air doesn’t have an optical drive; to me, that’s a crucial piece of hardware that Apple has left out of the design. However, if we’re ragging on Apple as a company in comparison to what you think is Microsoft’s superiority, you can’t use this argument. Microsoft doesn’t even make a computer, with or without an optical drive, to defend itself, so who cares if the MacBook Air has an optical drive or not ... At least it’s a computer!

People are quick to point out that Apple overcharges their customers. It’s true, an Apple computer costs more than a Windows-based Dell or Samsung, but you’re paying for an entirely different product. Again, Apple is a computer manufacturer. That means you’re paying more for an operating system and the hardware it runs on--the hardware that it’s ensured to run on--the hardware that the company has insured and will repair or replace, if needed. Conversely, a third-party company such as Sony is responsible for ensuring the computers they manufacture will run Microsoft’s operating system. Since this third-party company is not directly affiliated with the software you put on it, they can’t as easily get away with charging more.

Apple absolutely charges more for their products, much more than many would be willing to pay. If you’re unwilling to pay the additional luxury tax for their hardware/software combinations, you’re entitled to purchasing a Windows-based system and living with that. Of course, that’s yet another perk to an Apple computer: you can install Windows on them. This being the case, there is, in fact, absolutely nothing a Windows-based computer designed by Toshiba can do that an Apple manufactured computer cannot do. In fact, Windows-based computers are less compatible for this reason. Yet another reason you’ll pay more for Apple’s.

Additionally, Apple is known as an elite brand. Like Jordan’s, like Porsche. You may not think they’re elite--I think Jordan’s are silly--but your personal opinion doesn’t define the way things are. Because Apple manufactures its own hardware and writes its own software to run on this hardware, it has more of a proprietary right to charge more for its products. Since people like having a more ensured chance of reliability (hardware and software being designed by the same firm), they’re willing to pay more for this assurance. As long as people keep paying, Apple will keep overcharging. I firmly believe Apple charges more than they reasonably should for their computers. That doesn’t mean I won’t pay that price to own one of their products, which I do believe are superior.

Hardware-based comparisons aren’t really part of the Apple and Microsoft operating systems comparison discussions since Microsoft will always lose. It has no hardware that it has designed to defend itself with. If you honestly want to argue hardware, you have to compare Apple to a computer manufacturer such as Dell. Apple still charges more, but Apple also has more hardware/software compatibility and more support since it can run Windows, OS X, or any Linux distro. (This is, of course, assuming legality; obviously you can get an unlocked copy of OS X and install it on your Dell.)

Finally, there’s my favorite argument: the market share. First I would like to say, “Who cares?” Apple certainly doesn’t. Throw out the small, single-digit numbers that are Apple’s market share if you like, but that doesn’t change the fact that Apple’s first-quarter revenue in 2009 was something like $10 billion, which is a continually growing figure. They have $25 billion in the bank and no debt. The company is more than financially stable, and I’m sure if you tried to emotionally stab Steve Jobs or any of the execs at Apple with the market share argument, they would laugh in their face as they pulled away in their Porsche.

It’s interesting that computer manufacturing market share is such a hot topic. Has anyone ever cared to look at market shares in, say, the automobile industry? Some of the largest and most reliable companies, Honda for instance, have single-digit percenteges of the market share. The elite companies such as BMW and Porsche obviously have significantly less than that. But do you think Honda is hurting? Coincidently, the companies that are hurting are the ones with the significant holds on the market, such as GM (around 30%) and Ford (around 15%). Windows-based products hold the majority of the market share, but this statistics doesn’t take into account that many Apple users, myself included, raise this share because I run Windows on my MacBook Pro. Seems like that statistic may be a little misleading then, eh?

Since you’ve forced me to talk about market shares, let’s add one more key factor into the mix. Market share only promises accuracy on newly bought units, not units active. Apple computers are said to be more reliable and to last longer (though I don’t have a source that actually confirms a statistic like this, it’s just hearsay), thus they are more frequently passed down and not upgraded. If a $300 Dell only lasts you one year and you buy a new one, you increase Dells market share. My MacBook Pro is over three years old and still running perfectly fine, even on this “old” hardware, so though I would love to purchase a new laptop, I have no need to. Thus I’m not helping increase Apple’s market share. Yet I am helping to increase the Windows market share over market share, because I will soon be purchasing Windows 7 to install on my MacBook Pro.

Some says Apple’s just aren’t as intuitive as the company claims in their commercials. They really do get viruses, and their commercials give their users a false sense of security. They aren’t as reliable as the company promises. Well, it’s advertising; every company make exaggerated claims. Microsoft is guilty of misleading commercials. Their Laptop Hunter ads, for example, show a price tag for an Apple product of over $2,000, but they then zoom in on an old MacBook (which is around $1,000). Technically, Macs can get viruses. I’ve never even run in to so much as a security threat in my experience. Having never used anti-virus software and having owned an Apple computer for over three years, I feel pretty comfortable advising my friends that they don’t need virus protection on their Mac, at least for now. (Coincidently, you have Apple’s small share of the market to thank for this.)

“So why does Apple make such negative ads towards Microsoft, but Microsoft, for the most part, doesn’t defend itself? Does this make Microsoft a more mature company?” Not really. These ad campaigns from Apple and lack of ad campaigns from Microsoft are for two main reasons: firstly, Microsoft is huge. They don’t need to spend as much on their advertising because everybody already knows who they are and uses them. Secondly, if you purchase an Apple product, Microsoft most likely won’t lose anything. I still boot into Windows XP (and soon to be Windows 7), and I still run Microsoft Office (on both the Mac and PC side, so Microsoft has actually made two sales from me). However, if you purchase a Windows-based machine, you will not be unable to install OS X on it, therefore Apple will have lost a sale. This is why Apple is so much more aggressive in the advertising campaigns.

In conclusion, are Apple computers better products? Not necessarily. Are Macs virus free? Not necessarily. Does Windows crash more than OS X? Sort of. Windows XP crashed a whole lot more for me than my OS X has, but OS X crashed on me just yesterday. It was low on battery and should have gone into sleep mode--instead, the screen just turned grey and it froze and I was forced to do a hard shutdown. Are Macs easier to use and more intuitive? Well, that’s entirely a personal decision. I’ll tell you this though, if you don’t like the OS X operating system on your Apple computer, all you need do is install the Windows operating system (or any other operating system) that you’re familiar with on your Apple computer. So Macs are more reliable and will never break? Not necessarily. If you throw your laptop at the ground, it will most likely shatter. Just a few months ago, my optical drive quit working. Two days later, it started working again. I have yet to find reasons for either it’s random breaking and miraculous healing.

The fact of the matter is, a decision to buy a Windows-based machine or an Apple computer is an entirely personal decision. If you’re willing to pay more for a computer that’s proven to be more reliable and satisfactory to according to Consumer Reports, that is more compatible because it will run any operating system, and that is more secure (every top security analysts agrees that you don’t need virus protection, and the Unix kernel is proven to be more secure), I’d say go for a Mac. Otherwise, settle for a Toshiba that, in all likelihood, will last you half as long.

But when I hear such staggeringly ironic reports that the initial benchmarks for Windows Vista scored highest on Apple hardware than they did on any computer that was designed to optimally run it, well, you can be the judge of the companies you think are superior and inferior.

Tags: Operating Systems, Microsoft, Apple, Observations

Just over two years I wrote what essentially amounted to be a research paper on Apple. You can read the entire article here.

This week, I was officially cited in a paper written by Gabe Pyle as a reliable source on the subject! In fact, he portrays me as quite a scholarly fellow in his paper, if I do say so myself.

Also, I’m planning on writing a second article dealing with the recent rise in internet stupidity, especially relating to failed attempts to converse in a civilized conversation and the continuing debate of Mac vs. PC. I have an exam tomorrow, but once that is over I should start on it.

Tags: Friends, Operating Systems, Apple, Microsoft

That’s right, I know everything. But don’t worry, I won’t turn you in for it. I do it all the time.

Who was in chapel this morning, can I see a show of hands? Well, someone was texting in chapel this morning; someone who uses AT&T, and I can almost prove it.

AT&T has got a few things going for them these days, namely the iPhone and their amazing 3G network. While 3G is awesome, here’s the biggest problem with it. It has such high bandwidth data transfer that the signal frequently interferes with surrounding signals. I’ve also heard, though this is not confirmed, that AT&T text messaging uses some sort of an interface that interferes specifically with Bluetooth devices, which your laptop and most computers probably have.

My roommate has a phone that is powered by AT&T. I can predict, almost with perfect accuracy, when he’s going to get a text message before his phone even buzzes. We’ll be sitting in our room, he watching TV, me at my desk doing who-knows-what, and the speakers to our dorm computer will start to sputter, making a staccato style “daaaa-ta-ka-daaa-ta-ka-daaa-ta-ka-daaaaa” sound over and over. “Dave, you’re getting a text.” Seconds later, his phone buzzes.

So, remember that loud and obnoxious “daaaa-ta-ka-daaa-ta-ka-daaa-ta-ka-daaaaa” that we heard blasting over the sound system this morning, interrupting Dr. Brown as he was recognizing our Grandparents? There’s an extremely high chance (I’d say ... 90%) that the cause of that was someone in chapel receiving a text message on the AT&T network.

Tags: Cedarville, Apple

Sorry, I know, this is the second blog post about mostly the same thing. But I’ve found a better way to do it, and it didn’t seem beneficial to simply erase my old blog post. But this one won’t include pictures, it’s just a general overview of what I think is a far more simplistic way to combine your Cedarville email address with your personal email address. I’ll use Apple Mail as the third-party client of choice this time. (I know, it’s not cross-platform like Thunderbird ... Deal.) You’ll also need a Gmail account.

If you already have a Gmail account, skip this step.
You’ll need to register for a Gmail account here. Under the Accounts tab of Settings in your Gmail account, you’ll need to import your other email account via POP3. (Instructions for your POP3 settings should be provided by your email service.)

Now, after you’ve got a Gmail account (or if you already had a Gmail account), you’ll need to import your Cedarville email account as an additional POP3 account to your Gmail Inbox. You can do this the same way listed above, using the following POP3 information for Cedarville’s mail server:

Username: myusername@cedarville.edu
Password: mypassword
Server: pop.cedarville.edu
Port: 110

I shouldn’t have to say this, but obviously you should put your own username and password in ... Not the above. For convenience sake, you can check “Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server” and “Label incoming messages: myusername@cedarville.edu”.

You now have all your email accounts in one place. However, it’s in a browser-based environment; you can only get to it when an internet connection is present. If you would like to retrieve it all through Apple Mail, all you need do is open Apple Mail and add an account. The newest version of Apple Mail knows instinctively how to setup a Gmail account, so all you’ll need to do is provide your Gmail username and password. The rest is done automatically.

Back in Gmail, if you want to be able to send mail from you Cedarville account through Gmail (only in browser mode ... Not from Apple Mail ... Sorry), you’ll need to add yet another server through Settings-->Accounts in Gmail. All you need do in this case is add your Cedarville email address as a “Send Mail As” account, check your Cedarville account, follow the link provided in that email, and voila, you can send email from your Cedarville account through your Gmail account.

And all this is free :).

There’s one more treat. In Apple Mail, your email will always be sent from Gmail, not Cedarville. There is a way to send mail from your Cedarville account the Apple Mail, but it’s kind of pointless. But guess what, you can get the GroupWise address book via LDAP into your Apple Addressbook. Here’s how:

In Apple Mail, go to Preferences. Click on the Composing tab. Click “Configure LDAP ...” Add a new LDAP server with the following information:

Name: Cedarville
Server: imap.cedarville.edu
Port: 389
Search Base: o=cedarnet1
Scope: Subtree

Now, when composing a message, you can start typing any name (you’ll need to wait a bit) and it will search the GroupWise address book and return any matches. It works pretty well :).

Enjoy.

Tags: Apple, Cedarville, Mail

There’s a lot of commotion over Apple’s newest line of MacBooks, MacBook Pros, iMacs, Cinnema Displays, etc. But there’s something that seems severely lacking. Where are the Blu-Ray drives, Apple?

Sure, you gave us a Wireless n card. You gave us 39% more on our touchpad for the MacBook and the MacBook Pros, made of wear-resistant glass and added more advanced finger gestures. You gave us a Solid-State Hard Drive for over $1,000 less than it was in the initial MacBook Air (told you ...). You gave us a sleeker, even more aesthetically pleasing (and I thought that wasn’t possible ...) design for the casing. You gave us faster processors (we like that)! You gave us two graphics cards--one integrated for better battery life, one discrete for ultimate performance. You even somehow managed, among all these things, to squeeze in a bigger battery, boasting up to five hours of life!

But ... First let’s talk about ports. I’m pretty excited that you moved to a single standard for display ports. On the MacBook AND the MacBook Pro, you are given a Mini DisplayPort; no DV and Mini-DV depending on your laptop. Though, annoyingly, Mini DisplayPort, as you may notice, is Mini DP, not Mini DV, so it’s a standard we have to switch to before it’s universal. Why they ever thought that was a good idea, I’ll never know, since there’s no difference in performance. We now have a gigabit ethernet port ... Awesome! Quick question: Where did my FireWire port go on the regular MacBook? It’s ... gone.

Jobs has only responded with the statement, “Actually, all of the new HD camcorders of the past few years use USB 2.” I love Steve Jobs, but that doesn’t actually answer the question. And a significant number of camcorders still use FireWire, though he’s right when he says most new ones use USB, or at least allow for both. However, here’s the strangest part. Do you know who invented FireWire? FireWire is Apple’s IEEE 1394 connection, created in 1995 and implemented on the first Macs somewhere around 1997. Even more ironically, FireWire officially became part of the IEEE Std. in June, 2008. If you’ll notice, that wasn’t too long ago ... And all of a sudden, it’s parent has abandoned it and accepted the more universal standard of USB (which appropriately stands for Universal Serial Bus)? That doesn’t seem right.

Also, my external hard drive uses FireWire.

But, most significantly, what about Blu-Ray? That is, after all, why you’re reading this, right? Well, here’s what Jobs had to say about that. “Blu-Ray is just a bag of hurt. It’s great to watch the movies, but licensing of the tech is so complex, we’re waiting till things settle down and Blu-Ray takes off in the marketplace.” Read “licensing of the tech is so complex” as “it costs way too much money.” That’s really what he means.

For some reason I can’t understand, Apple went out on a limb and incorporated $1,700 SSD drives in the MacBook Air ... A drive that costs over five times as much for less than half the space of a normal Hard Drive. A price that would be ridiculous to pay, but Apple understood that if they didn’t incorporate it into the marketplace at an expensive price, it would never be able to come down in price. Strange that they aren’t willing to do the same for Blu-Ray. Also, Apple and Sony are chums. Incidentally, Sony owned HD-DVD ... Which was the competitor for Blu-Ray and lost because it was far inferior, though much priced much friendlier.

That’s really all the answer we have from the guys at Apple as to why Blu-Ray is lacking in this line. And, from the several people I’ve talked to on the subject, that was the only reason they were going to buy a new MacBook this year. Now they aren’t. Way to go, Apple.

As just a bit of encouragement, here’s a fun fact about Blu-Ray: It’s highly encrypted. Those of you who like to rip-’n-return, as we say, are going to be in for a surprise. Blu-Ray discs are encrypted, in fact, all the way to the monitor. (Can you say “paranoid”?) So, get this, in order for Apple to actually include Blu-Ray drives on their laptops, it’s not as simple as you ordering a Blu-Ray drive and doing surgery on your MacBook Pro; you would need a new display to decrypt the discs. Apple included the decrypting technology in the displays for their newest MacBooks, MacBook Pros, Cinnema Displays, and iMacs. Maybe in the next generation, then ...

Tags: High Definition, Apple

After Al Gore invented the internet for us, we realized we needed a way to walk around the thousands upon thousands (and now billions upon billions) of sites that were out there. Meet the browser. To the best of my knowledge, Al Gore has never claimed part in inventing the browser, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

Just for fun, and before we start to really rip apart the benchmarks of Google Chrome, let's look at some old, failed browsers so we can scoff at them (by order of appearance).

WorldWideWeb (1991-1994) - I actually can't call this pioneer a failure. After all, it was the world's first web browser. By the way, it was only released for NeXTSTEP OS. The operating system created by NeXT Computer, a company that was founded by none other than Steve Jobs. The NeXTSTEP OS was quite literally the parent of Mac OS X, and it was also the very first object-oriented and multi-task-ready operating system. (Boy, it's amazing what that Steve Jobs can do ...) However, in 1993 the developers released the source code, thus making the program freeware and allowing for the development of it's children, ViolaWWW, MidasWWW, MacWWW, and their big brother Mosaic.

Netscape Navigator (1994-2007) - Mosaic/Netscape rose to power and popularity much faster than Internet Explorer did, and since it was owned by Netscape Communications, a succesfull company that was pivotal in getting internet readily accessible in every home, the browser had plenty of funding. However, Microsoft was simply a bigger, more powerful company, and the beneficial wars between Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer were eventually won by Internet Explorer. While Netscape failed miserably by allowing their poorly coded browser to get disgustingly bloated with features, their ultimate failure was in 1999 when they allowed America Online to buy then. Who cares if they offered you ten billion dollars! Immedietly following Netscape's acquisition by AOL, they lost over 30% of their market share in less than one year.

HotJava (1994-1999) - A very customizable, extensible browser that was built around Java in order to easily execute Applets. The ingenuity of HotJava is that it's a browser coded entirely in Java, thus making it extremely portable. The downside to HotJava is that it's coded entirely in Java, thus limiting it to the JRE and leaving it a fairly slow memory hog, and with the presence of Java so readily incorporated into more recent browsers and the growing popularity of Macromedia's Flash, the project was terminated.

Internet Explorer (1995-Present) - It doesn't need much introduction or explanation. But Internet Explorer has always been interested in integrating (not outsourcing to extensions) functionality at the expense of ease-of-use, security, and speed. And, let's be honest, it's Microsoft ... Therefore, a failure.

OmniWeb (1995-Present) - Wouldn't you know it, it's another NeXTSTEP OS browser! That being the case, it graduated, along with it's OS, to Mac OS X, and that is where it resides today. Unfortunately, this is a limit for it. While it was a good browser in the area of speed, and very minimalistic, it lacked key functionality and compatibility with some of the most recent web innovations, so it falls short.

Internet Explorer for Mac (1996-2005) - Wow. It was simply horrible. Probably the worst maintained browser of all time. It went through three updates in one year, went silent for three years, released it's fourth update in 2000, then was untouched until it's termination in 2005. It was incompatible, buggy, crashed more than anything, and incredibly slow!

Opera (1996-Present) - I've always felt that Opera failed when it came to honesty in advertising. They used to claim to be the “fastest browser” ever made. Well, they’ve since revoked that claim ... It claims it’s “faster” on their website now. Faster than what? I’m not sure, because until the most recent release (9.5) I’ve never been pleased with the speed of the browser. Though, even with 9.5, I still think Firefox is faster, and you can’t argue with the speed I get from Safari. Around version 7, Opera bloated the browser beyond belief, thus slowing it to a crawl. They’ve since revamped the interface and it the newest release it’s actually quite efficient. However, compatibility has always been an issue with it.

Gzilla (1997-1999) - The developer was last heard from on August 16, 1999, pleading for help on his very own site. Apparently he could get his browser to compile on anything other than Linux/x86, so he was begging for outside help. It's rumored the browser emerged a few months later as as Dillo, but that's just probably not true. I'm guessing Mozilla felt threatened by the last five letters of his browser's name, so they took him out.

MyIE/Maxthon (2000-Present) - Maxthon’s clincher is that it’s extremely customizable. It advertises itself as an adaptable alternative to Internet Explorer. The negative clincher is it’s only for Windows. On top of that, it crashes too frequently. It’s not slow, but reliability is a big factor when writing a browser, and if your browser crashes on me too often, I’m not going to use it.

Firefox (2002-Present) - The most successful browser to incorporate extensions. Since Netscape completely fell of the face of the planet somewhere around 2003, Firefox has been the most used cross-platform web browser. It boasts speed, elegance, and integrated functionality. Even better, you can add basically any functionality you desire through extensions; this is what has made Firefox so well known. Unfortunately, Firefox loses a lot of security when they allow third-party extensions. More than that, extensions are impossible for the creators of Firefox to maintain, so when the browser is updated, there’s always the risk (and it very frequently happens) of losing compatibility with extensions. Not very convenient for the extension programmers or their users.

AOL Explorer (2005-Present?) - It’s AOL ... We already know why it fails: Overpriced, slow, inefficient, and unstable. Apparently the browser is still around, but it’s now a part of the AIM package.

Flock (2005-Present) - Flock’s biggest asset is that it’s multi-platform. On top of that, much like Maxthon, it boasts customizability! It integrates beautifully with many popular websites, including Facebook, iGoogle, Flickr, Digg, Twitter, etc. On top of that, it does allow extensions. It has a main page that keeps all of your favorites and information organized and easily accessible. Unfortunately, it still is rather buggy, and speed is also a bit of an issue with it. It enjoys freezing on it’s users.

Now, read my review of Google Chrome!

Tags: Apple, Operating Systems, Browsers, Google

I ordered a new iPod. Which, normally, would be the most significant aspect of this blog post. Alas, it is not. The more exciting story is how it got here.

I ordered the iPod, with a case, on Tuesday. They informed me the items would be shipped separately depending on availability, which was fine by me. I got a shipment confirmation email later that night saying the case had been shipped from Memphis, TN. I checked my email the next morning to find a second shipment confirmation saying my iPod had been shipped from Shanghai CN. In my naivity, I assumed this was Connecticut, which I now realize is CT. At this same time, my case was leaving Memphis, TN.

I checked later that night and found my iPod case had successfully made it to Chicago. My case, on the other hand, was in Anchorage, AK. If AK was Arkansas, this would be closer than Connecticut, but AK is Alaska ... this was when I realized my iPod was coming from China, not Connecticut. In which case Alaska was progress.

I checked my email yet again on Thursday morning to find, to my great surprise, that my iPod was “at the local FedEx facility” in Cedar Rapids already! Apparently overnight it had gone from Alaska, to Indianapolis, to Cedar Rapids. One thing I found ironic was that it didn’t get an International Shipment Release until it went from Alaska to Indianapolis ... does that mean Alaska isn’t a part of the US according to FedEx? Anyway, back to my case ... it was still in Chicago for some reason. It hung out there for a while until it was finally shipped to Ottumwa, IA and loaded on a truck for delivery.

I was pretty excited; two days later and both my packages were going to arrive on the same day. Now if I could only get my paws on them before anyone else did and made me sing for them ... :P. (In case you don’t know, if you receive a package or three letters int he same day at the camp I work at, you have to sing or tell a joke in chapel for it.)

Ben, Jesse, and I were in the shop working on ... *cough* ... something. And we saw Mr. FedEx man pull in. Though, strangely, he didn’t come all the way to camp. He stopped at the house at the front of the lane. That’s Ben’s house. Definitely not 1433 F52 Trail, which is the shipping address I specified. Ben’s house is 1426, I think. The camp is 1433. This is clearly marked with numbers on Ben’s house. Even still, Mr. FedEx man insisted on delivering to the wrong location. I jumped into the truck and drove down the lane to snatch my package from the delusioned delivery men.

I got to Ben’s house just as they were about to pull out of the driveway and leave. “I have a package here for Alex,” said Mr. FedEx man after I waved him down. “I think you’re supposed to be delivering this to 1433, which is just down the lane from here.” He looked at me for a little while, unsure of what to say, and finally said, “Are you Alex?” I took his electronic thingy and put my John Hancock on it. I traded him his electronic thingy for my package and double-checked to make sure the delivery address was, in fact, 1433. It was. Shame on you FedEx.

Sadly, this package was just the case. The iPod itself was coming on some bigger and better truck, all the way from China! I figured it would come later in the afternoon, and I knew Joy was in the office to sign for it, so I felt safe taking a nap at 2:30.

I awoke from my nap at 4:30 and wandered dizzily over to the chapel to see if my package had come. “Not yet,” Joy informed me. I sat down at the computer to look at my tracking number. To my frustration, it said, “Delivery exception: Customer not available or business closed - signature required.” 4:24. Sarah came back from her house at this time, holding up one of those door hanger things they leave if you’re not home. They had just been there and delivered to the wrong place again!!

Needless to say, I was frustrated ... two seperate FedEx men tried to deliver my packages to the wrong address. What if that house hadn’t been Ben’s house? Someone else might be holding my iPod right now! Joy called FedEx Customer Service immedietly and tried to get the truck to turn around, but the lady on the phone was rather rude and mostly just wanted to get Joy off the phone, so the call was to no avail.

To redeem the second FedEx man, he came back on Friday while Joy, Jesse and I were sitting in the office, this time he came all the way to the camp and delivered my package. At least I have both of my packages now. Still, something about these deliveries seems very unprofessional ... if you pulled up to a house that was in the driveway to a camp and the owner wasn’t home, wouldn’t your first thought be, “I’ll bet he’s at the camp ...” No. Your first thought probably should have been to look at the house number :p.

Tags: East Iowa Bible Camp, Apple, Mail

Remember back when NBC got a little too full of itself a while back and decided to yank its shows from iTunes? They pressured Apple to increase the prices of songs and shows that were more popular in order to make more profit; thankfully, Apple refused to cave. NBC threatened to not resign their contract renewal with Apple for their Digital Media. Apple one-upped them; they pulled all NBC shows and music immediately, proving they didn't need NBC to survive (though NBC does hold a large portion of the television side of the iTunes Store.

I've been waiting for NBC to come crawling back like a baby. Of course, NBC had to think of a way to do this without looking like a complete idiot. Coincidently, NBC didn't even try to bring up the pricing problem again. This time they said they would be OK with Apple's pricing policy, but before they would return their programming to iTunes they wanted Apple to incorporate some form of anti-piracy measures.

This could be both good and bad, as I see it. NBC wants to take advantage of the DRM Apple already incorporates, except they wish to expand it. They would like everything in your iTunes library to have the DRM written to it, which could get really frustrating and, to me, is a huge invasion of your own music rights. However, I don't deny that I think Apple will probably agree to this.

After all, I think it's only a matter of time before the FCC and RIAA crack down like mad on the internet. It will be the day when all internet freedom disintegrates and Big Brother constantly watches over your shoulder; a day I shudder to see come. Since the internet is most frequently viewed in the comforts, and privacy, of your own home, I believe their shouldn't be any type of ISP or government restrictions on it. Sure, if a corporation or parent wants to add filters for various things, that's completely legitimate. But we want the internet, our music, movies, and all types of media (yes, I'm talking to you, Adobe) DRM FREE!

Tags: Television, Apple, Internet, Music, Movies

We all can easily agree on the fact that the MacBook Air, released at Macworld this Tuesday, is an incredible feat of engineering. Let's just look at the specifications for it quickly:

Dimensions:
0.16-0.76 inches thin
12.8 inches wide
8.94 inches deep
3.0 pounds

Hardware:
1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor (upgrade to 1.8GHz)
80GB 4200 RPM ATA Hard-Disk drive (upgrade to 64GB Solid-State Drive
2GB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Multi-touch trackpad
Micro-DVI port
One USB 2.0 port
Audio out
Up to five hours of battery life

To fit these things into 0.16 inches at the smallest point, Apple has really outdone itself. Here's my complaint, and the disappointment of many at the Macworld conference at all. While this Notebook is, indeed, extremely small, how practical is it really? I'm pleased that Apple didn't sacrifice the overall processing speed when shrinking all the peripherals (it still has a faster processor than the original PowerBook), but the biggest flaw with this MacBook is that it has no Optical Drive! Where do you put your CDs and DVDs?

Apple has a solution for you. For an extra $100, you can add a USB Optical Drive to your MacBook Air package. That's all well and good, but you only have one USB port. Ethernet port? You can add USB Ethernet port as well, if you want one. You can also add a USB modem port (um, who uses those anymore?). I also have a USB mouse, iPod (which plugs in through USB), USB GamePad, and an External Hard Drive, which plugs in through FireWire. The ironic thing is, even though Apple only gave us one USB port on this, when going through the ordering process, they don't offer the option of a USB splitter!

That's all well and good that it has built-in wireless and Bluetooth technology, but I've thus far found wireless and Bluetooth mice, keyboards, and GamePads to be unreliable. And who's to say FireWire isn't a necessity?

Another cool feature is Remote Disc. You can put a CD or DVD into another computer on your wireless network, select Remote Disc from your MacBook Air, and view the CD over your network. This is how Apple says the software of the future will be installed. It's a great idea, I really do think it is. I just don't think it's really going to catch on. Apple is assuming you have a desktop or another Notebook somewhere in the house which has an Optical Drive, and why would you, instead of offering it pre-installed, assume the customer already has one? That just doesn't seem very practical or professional.

In my final two paragraph, my overall opinion on the MacBook Air? Overrated and overpriced. There's a point where you must draw the line and say, "Wait, how small do we need this to be? 0.16-0.76 inches? I feel like it would snap in half! Sure, you can carry it around in a manila envelope ... but who's going to do that? I'll still put it in my full-sized briefcase or laptop carrying case.

Congratulations, Apple. You've created the worlds thinnest Notebook! It really is astounding. And I'm loving the 64GB Solid-State drive. But there's no way I would ever buy a MacBook Air. However, I am extremely excited about it. Why? Because of the technology it's paving the way for! (It is worth mentioning the 64GB Solid-State Drive is an additional $1200 to the price of the laptop.) The large Solid-State Drive is starting to make my dreams of a 30GB (or larger) iTouch to become available! That's what I'm really waiting for ...

UPDATE 1/22/2008:

Compared to other Ultra Thin Notebooks, the MacBook Air is much more practical, efficient, and competitively priced, instead of comparing it to other starter MacBooks or MacBook Pros. For a fancy comparison chart, check out THIS website.

Tags: Apple

Well, the 2007 benchmark tests are in. They have been for a while, I've just been slow in posting this article. Ironically, the fastest laptop tested as of 10/25/07 was a $2,419 (plus the cost of Windows Vista) Apple MacBook Pro. The tests were run using WorldBench 6 Beta 2. Granted, the MacBook Pro came in only one point (at 88 points) above Gateway's E-265M (at 87 points). It's even more laughable that Apple doesn't even specifically design their computers to run Windows, they just allow it, and Apple couldn't care less if you run Windows or not.

Read the PC World article for yourself here.

Tags: Microsoft, Apple

Honestly, it may not actually be my first complaint. But it's definitely my first significant, "What were the designers thinking when they implemented THIS?" complaint.

Last week, I lost all audio in my Lappy speakers. Maccy the Lappy was completely silent. I plugged in headphones, and the sound came through clearly. I unplugged them; silence. I plugged in my stereo speakers; sound! I unplugged them; silence. Needless to say, I was puzzled. I plugged in and unplugged my headphones over and over in a fury, but nothing would make the sound come out! I double and triple checked the volume, but for some reason it said the volume was set to full, but at the same time, nothing was coming out of the internal speakers.

I was very confused.

I consulted my loyal friend, Dr. Brian Jones. The Doctor informed me that Apple's come, surprisingly enough, with Optical (Digital) Out! Usually you have to buy a separate card for something like this, but it's fancy that it comes standard with Apple computers, I guess. Unfortunately, Dr. Jones didn't know how to enable or disable Optical Out, he just knew it was in the computer somewhere.

I leaned over and glanced at the side of my computer, looking at the Audio Out port. Sure enough, a red LED was glowing out of the hole; that was strange. Apparently when the headphones were NOT plugged in, my Lappy was confused, thinking the audio was being sent to a set of Optical speakers, so it was muting my laptop speakers. This was a problem ...

I looked online and found out that sometimes if you jiggle a headphones plug around in the port, it might switch it off. So I tried that. Nothing.

It was time to bring in the big guns. I IMed David and asked him to come over and help me out. I explained the situation to him. "Do you have a paper clip or something small?" I didn't. We were in the SSC right by the Admissions office, so I popped in there.

"Can I help you?"
"Um hey. Yah, I have a small request of you."
"Yes?"
"I need ... a paper clip. And just so you know, I probably won't bring it back."
"Oh, I can handle that!!"

(Thanks, Admissions!) The lady behind the desk was really nice. I thanked her and ran back to David, handing him the paper clip. He shoved it into the port and wiggled it back and forth for what seemed like eternity. Finally, as I was watching, the red glow stopped coming out of the port.

I pressed the volume button my Lappy.

*POP*

SOUND!!

You've got to be kidding me, Apple. You mean to tell me you put the switch for Optical Out INSIDE the port? That's potentially the worst design I've ever heard of. Granted, if I had a pair of Optical speakers, they would probably flip the switch on and off for me when I plugged them in. But if that's the case, why is it so easy for the switch to accidentally get switched on with a pair of regular headphones?

That's just lousy. Lousy, I tell you. Give the average human a simple switch to turn it off if it accidentally gets turned on. I asked around, and apparently I'm not the only person with a Mac that has had this problem.

Tags: Apple

The retail release date of Microsoft Windows Vista was January 30, 2007. Over the first week, Vista sold less than 200,000 copies.

Apple OS X Leopard was released on Friday, October 26, 2007. Over the weekend, Leopard sold over 2 million copies.

'Nuff said.

Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Operating Systems

I was perusing my favorite News Feeds this afternoon on the wonderful iGoogle, when I came across a topic I hadn't heard about for a while. How many of you know about about NBCs little money tantrum? (Show of hands, please.) Allow me to summarize ...

In late August of 2007, NBC declared it was going to break up with Apple (a.k.a., not renew their video contract with them for their TV Shows, etc.) because they couldn't manage to come to an agreement about pricing policies. The contract was due to end in December of 2007, if I remember correctly, but it may have been the first half of 2008. Instead of waiting out the rest of the contract and selling NBCs TV Shows until the contract ran out, Apple pulled the plug early, yanking all NBC shows from the iTunes store the same week NBC made their harsh statement. This was Apple's way of saying, "We don't need you anyway, NBC. We're going to define the next generation of audio/video, whether you side with us or not."

Apple is already paving the way for the next wave of audio/video communication, especially with the iTunes Music Store and the newly released Apple TV.

So, what was the problem exactly? NBC wanted to try out some "experimental pricing" strategies with Apple. Instead of charing $1.99 for each episode, NBC wanted their shows to cost $4.99. They also wanted users to pay more for "more popular programming." Apple's answer? Nope! Why make our customers pay more for something than they absolutely have to?

This brings us to today, when Zucker states that, "We know that Apple has destroyed the music business -- in terms of pricing -- and if we don’t take control, they’ll do the same thing on the video side." Right. Apple has destroyed the music business. He doesn't actually explain how Apple has done this, which seems pretty crucial to me. The way I see it is, unlike Napster, SpiralFrog, Connect, or Rhapsody, Apple offered a user-friendly alternative to these music stores, while taking down the hyper-aggressive DRM all of those other music stores force you to live with. Apple is currently in the process of transitioning into the same thing with video.

According to Zucker, “We wanted to take one show, it didn’t matter which one it was, and experiment and sell it for $2.99,” he said. “We made that offer for months and they said no.” He makes it sound like he's trying to us (the consumer) a favor! The show to which he was referring was "Heros," the very popular NBC equivalent to Lost ;).

Zucker stated that it wasn't a tough decision to remove their content from the Apple Music Store because they only had made about $15 million from the deal. I'm sorry you escaped with such little profits, greedy NBC.

Another thing I found very interesting was that NBC claimed it should get a portion of the hardware sales Apple was making off of the iPod and iPhone. Um, hello? Your content is strictly software. If someone watches your show on a Sony TV and DVD player, does Sony then owe you a portion of their earnings? Just ... please, stop talking, Zucker!

If you ask me, Zucker is being ridiculous ... I don't think Apple ruined the music business OR the video business, I think Apple actually gave the consumer what they wanted; cheaper, more reasonably priced products!

Well, I have only one thing to say in conclusion. NBC, as a member of the demographic to which you are selling, I would rather purchase your content off of the iTunes Music Store for a lesser price than from any other location from which you jack the prices like nobody's business. So Apple didn't ruin the music (and video) business. I would say they correct music (and video) pricing schemes.

Tags: Apple, Internet, Music, Television

Remember before the iPhone was released, how Cisco sued Apple for using the name iPhone? Cisco said they already had a phone called the iPhone, and the name was copyright. True enough, they did. But Apple won the lawsuit and was still allowed to use the name iPhone.

Apple and Cisco meet again, this time after the release of the iPhone. Cisco makes more than just phones. They make pretty much anything electronic and wireless.

The weekend after the iPhone was released, Duke University started having trouble with their network. Duke, being the prestigious college that it is, of course has the entire campus blanketed in wireless Internet access. Apparently, the weekend after the iPhone was released, the Duke network kept jamming. Many reports were published saying that the iPhone was to blame. A likely guess was that the iPhone was requesting to log onto the wireless network, and when the request was denied, the iPhone kept trying anyway. Over and over again, hundreds of times, thus jamming the network and making it stall for 10-15 minutes.

Duke said they were going to do a full investigation of the network to find out why exactly this was happening. And who should help them with this investigation? Cisco! It turns out Duke's network is maintained by Cisco, and all of the wireless routers are Cisco routers.

After an investigation into the situation, it was revealed that the iPhone was actually not to blame. Oops. The problem was finally traced to a deployment of a Cisco-based network.

It looks like the iPhone is off the hook.

Tags: Apple

Just the other day I went out to eat at the Olive Garden. It happened that the wait to get in an eat was about 45 minutes, so we decided to go over to Office Max to buy a few things. I walked in the store and realized, "Hey, Windows Vista just came out!" (This was several weeks ago.) I made my way over to the software isle and found the section of Microsoft goods. I was quite taken back. Seriously. I think I fell backwards. I shoved my hand in pocket and brought out my phone to call Joey. "Joey, you're not going to believe this! Have you seen the prices for the 2007 line from Microsoft?"
"No. What are they?" I relayed the following information to him.

Windows Vista Home Basic: $199.99
Windows Vista Home Premium: $239.99
Windows Vista Business: $299.99
Windows Vista Ultimate: $399.99

Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student: $149.99
Microsoft Office 2007 Standard: $399.99
Microsoft Office 2007 Small Business: $449.99
Microsoft Office 2007 Professional: $499.99
Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate: $679.99

Microsoft Visio Standard 2007: $259.99

Ironically, Ultimate, which is supposed to be the complete package, doesn't actually include Microsoft Visio. I don't know why.

Now that we have the prices laid out, I would like to point out that I actually used Windows Vista the other day, so I can finally speak from experience! Here's my first impressions of Microsoft's new Operating System.

I sat down at a Vista laptop and was impressed with the new visuals. Pretty icons, shiny new taskbar; everything had a water-like reflective appearance, making it look very appealing. I opened the Recycle Bin and the Help Center, just to see what the windows looked like. I like the new shape of the minimize, maximize, and exit buttons in the upper-right corner of the windows. I liked the animation that was shown when opening, closing, and minimizing programs. It did seem a bit jerky when maximizing a program, but I could live with that.

As you roll over icons, they start to glow, which looks very nice.

The PC I was using had 2GB of RAM, and with that amount everything seemed to open and close fairly quickly.

Microsoft has really improved on the behind-the-scenes matters of their OS. Security is greatly improved, and integration with networks and other devices in your house, such as your cell phone, PDA, Xbox, and TV is nearly seamless. Microsoft still has the hold-your-hand notifications that it's known for to alert you of every little change you make, just in case you didn't mean to make it. I think it would make me feel better if my OS didn't assume I was an idiot. I want it to protect me from things like viruses, spam, worms, and such. But I don't want it to alert me every time I open a pop up, or change a simple setting.

All of your most imoprtant information is immedietly delivered to you with the new Sidebar that is implemented into Windows Vista. It's not annoying. It doesn't jump out at you too much and distract you from the important things you're working on. It's just there if you want to look at it for the weather, news, or whatever you have it configured to show you.

Visually, I was very impressed with my Vista experience. But the interface just still isn't intuitive! Not only that, but why is that someone who has been using a Microsoft Operating System for over, including DOS, for all 18 years of his life is confused and lost in the new Windows Vista? Continuity is your friend, Microsoft.

Why is it that there is no longer the "Start" button? It's now just a circle with the new Windows logo on it. You can figure that out pretty quickly by knowing that the "Start" button has always been in the lower-left corner of Microsoft's Operating Systems, but an OS shouldn't assume things about it's users.

I right-clicked on the desktop and a menu dropped down. I looked to the bottom of the menu, and yet another change had been made to the simple desktop options menu. Where Microsoft used to call the bottom button "Properties," they changed the name to "Preferences." Again, why do we need to change something if it already works and people are already used to it? We can assume it does the same thing as the "Properties" button did in Windows XP, ME, 98, and 95, but our eyes are trained to look for "Properties" not "Preferences."

When I clicked on the Start Menu, I was lost... where were all of my programs? The "All Programs" button did a terrible job of jumping out at me, and it did a fabulous job of blending in all too well with the Start Menu. And since this was a fresh install of Windows Vista, I didn't have any favorite programs yet. When I did click on "All Programs", I glanced right, waiting for the Start Menu to expand and show me a list of all my programs. It didn't. Microsoft condensed the Start Menu, and now when you click "All Programs" it displays all your programs over where your "Favorite Programs" used to be. That was a bit annoying, I thought, because it was just one more step then to get back to my favorite programs. It also was a hassle because instead of spreading everything out for me to see all at once, I had to scroll through everything.

Microsoft has been bragging about Instant Search since they announced that they were making a new OS, oh... six years ago. I wasn't impressed. Instant Search isn't actually "instant." I mean, once you press Enter, it searches. But to me, an "Instant search" should search AS I type for the letters I have typed thus far. When I did press enter, it didn't work! I typed in "Control Panel." I pressed Enter, a blank dialog popped up for less than a second, then disappeared. That was the end of it. I tried again. I typed "Adobe" and pressed enter. Again, blank dialog opened and closed, but no Adobe. I don't know if this was a glitch or if I was doing something wrong, but if I was doing something wrong then I must state my main pointa gain: An OS should be intuitive, user friendly, and painfully obvious.

Easily my FAVORITE part about Windows Vista: I apologize, but the only thing I know to refer to them as is "Smart Folders." I don't know their official name in Vista, but they're amazing! Finally, Microsoft has done away with "My Pictures", "My Videos", etc. We now simply have "Pictures", "Videos", "Music", etc. Here's where it becomes truly genius. You never have to add any files to these folders! That's why they're smart. The sole purpose of these folders is to keep a list of every type of file that would be associated with that folder. Of course, this is customizable. Pictures scans your hard drive and will present to you every file type found that could be a picture of some kind. Music looks for any audio format. You get the idea. If you think about this for a second, these amazing Smart Folders eliminate third party organization software like Picasa, iPhoto, and Adobe Photoshop Album. Granted, Picasa is still a wonderful tool for enhancing your photos. But now, even with Picasa, you can just point Picasa to your Pictures folder and Windows Vista already has everything organized! You can now enhance your photos all you want in Picasa without worrying about losing them or anything tragic like that.

On that note, this is great for people like my Grandpa. It's perfect for helping avoid the, "Junk, where did I put that file?" feeling. Yes, there is a "Documents" folder as well. It's like having a default search built in to the OS, except every time you want to see every single picture you have on your hard drive, you don't have to run the search again, because it's already run itself. All you have to do is click on the folder where it compiled the list of all these files. It's brilliant, I tell you!

But how much is brilliance worth? Granted, I love a lot of things about Windows Vista. And there are several things that frustrate me about Windows Vista. But, of course, if you know me, I'd have to get the Ultimate edition. I'm not willing to fork out $399.99 for the next OS. And I haven't even begun to talk about the hardware upgrades that are almost always required, and are going to cost you even more money.

I'll let you decide for yourself whether Vista is worth it or not. Microsoft was kind enough to compile a list of 100 reasons to switch to Vista. I'll be sticking with Windows XP, personally.

Click here.

(Grandpa, you CAN'T upgrade!)

Tags: Microsoft, Operating Systems, Apple

It's no surprise that when PC World Magazine did an article on who the top 50 most important people on the web were, the three executives over at Google ranked in at #1. They deserve that spot.

Before I go on, please realize this is PC World magazine. Not MacWorld. PC World IS Microsoft biased.

Ranking in at #2 was none other than Steve Jobs.

Sadly, Bill Gates didn't even make the list.

And neither did Al Gore, for that matter.

PC World Magazine Article

Tags: Internet, Apple, Microsoft

Wednesday, February 28th, 2007, marks the first day my MacBook Pro has completely crashed on me. It didn't choose a convenient time to crash either. No, it couldn't have chosen a time when I was at home listening to music or something. It chose the time when it was in the middle of a sideshow in front of almost 100 people... TWICE!

The first crash was before Church had started. I was getting the slides ready for the night. All of a sudden, my screen turned dark grey and a message popped up saying, "A fatal error has occurred and Mac OS X needs to restart. At this point, your Mac becomes completely disfunctional. You cannot do ANYTHING, click anything, type anything, or communicate with your computer in any way except to hold down the power button and restart it. Hopefully your documents are saved...

Someone, who will remain anonnymous to save his humility, came over to poke fun at me and my computer. "Ha, did your computer just crash?" He asked. "Yah, it happens." "It's because it's an Apple." He stated blunty. I covered my computers ears. I turned to him and said, "Oh, really? Is that a fact? Do you know why it crashed?" "No." He said. Brian finished my thought for me and said, "He was opening a Microsoft product... PowerPoint to be exact."

Later in the night, in the middle of singing, I pushed the down arrow to switch to the next slide and all of a sudden... BAM! PowerPoint disappears. My computer didn't freeze this time, and it didn't make me restart. PowerPoint just closed for absolutely no reason!!

The fact that "Microsoft products aren't meant to run on a Mac," which he claimed, is absolutely no excuse. So if I take my P.O.D. CD and put it in your car, it should still play the music I love, right? It's the same concept. You can't just take a Microsoft Office CD and put it into your Mac and install it. No, Microsoft had to specially design the suite to run on Mac OS X which, you guessed it, it WAS meant to run on a Mac. If it crashes, that is asbolutely, without a doubt, a sign of poor programming. Sure, you can claim that it wasn't supposed to run on a Mac anyway, but that doesn't excuse your bad programming. So, Microsoft can't make a product that runs well on a Mac. How about Apple? QuickTime runs on Windows and, for the record, Microsoft used QuickTime as the default player of .mov and .mpg files for a while... I think until XP came out. Also, iTunes is made for Windows. I've never had either one of those programs crash on me using Windows, and QuickTime has been around on Windows since Windows 95. iTunes hasn't been around nearly that long, but still, at least Apple can make a product that will work wherever their users want it. (Disregard the latest issues with iTunes and Windows Vista... they're working on that one.)

But don't you try to blame a programming crashing on my Operating System when I've never had that happen until Wednesday. It was due to the fact that I'm running a Mac. But it was Microsoft's error.

Funny how that works, huh? Nice try though, Tyler.

Tags: Apple, Operating Systems, Microsoft

When I first saw the iPhone, my jaw was almost on the floor. Then I heard the price. At $499, I'll never get one, but it's still an amazing technology breakthrough. But I read an article on CNet News the other day that reported the price of the iPhone should be dropping significantly pretty quick after it's release.

The 4gb model is currently listed at $499. However, estimated assembly costs are only $245. The 8gb model is listed at $599. The estimated assembly costs for that model are only $280.

Once Apple realizes it's competition, currently LG, it should drop the price significantly to compete with the other companies. Although the current LG KE850 is priced at a hefty $899, so LG needs to shrink it's big head before it really becomes a competition for Apple.

One advantage to the LG KE850--it's unlocked. Apple's iPhone is restricted to Cingular. That will make a lot of people buy the LG KE850. But what sounds better?

"Hey, what kind of phone do you have?"
"I have an iPhone."
"Sweet. I have an LG KE850. It's basically the same thing..."

Yah, except it just makes you sound like a nerd, while Apple's iPhone allows for you to keep some of your dignity.

$250 or even $299 is a very reasonable price to pay for an iPhone. The phone I carry in my pocket costs $149 without a 2-year contract, but I got it for $49. It's just a phone. The iPhone is much, much more. And at $299, it's competing at the same price as an iPod. That's a good deal considering all of it's functionality.

Tags: Apple

I've found a solution to the HD DVD or Blu-ray debate: Apple TV.

I don't know if you've kept up with the argument, but regular DVDs are almost out of the picture. Everyone is switching to HD DVD, or the new (and debatably better) Blu-Ray Disc. So the question everyone (in the nerd circles at least) is asking is, "Which disc will win?" My personal opinion: HD DVD is going ot win the battle. But let's think of an even better idea. One that will be a little more permanent. After all, it wasn't too long ago that we were all on the VHS. The VHS became the DVD, the DVD is now becoming the HD DVD (or Blu-Ray Disc), and the never-ending search for the unscratchable disc will probably be the next thing to throw itself on the scene. My point is, the media scene is constantly a changing one. New technology is always presenting itself. As soon as you get the latest player, a new technology will come out to out date the player you have. Of course, the new HD DVD players will also support older, non-HD DVDs... but they won't support VHS unless you add an entirely separate interface to it. But will the next latest-and-greatest technology support the circular DVD format? Or will it be something even better and smaller, like a plug-in device such as a Flash Drive? That would make your DVD players obsolete then.

Let's get back to the current argument though. HD DVD or Blu-Ray? I say neither. What if you didn't even need a disc? What if you didn't even need a physical entity of the movie you wanted to watch? Imagine this:

You sit down with a group of your friends to watch a movie. You argue for a while trying to decide what movie is the greatest movie of all time and thus should be watched. Finally, someone chimes in, "Hey, what about that new movie that came out yesterday with Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller in it?" The arguing stops and someone says the name of the movie. Finally, you all agree that it sounds like a fabulous movie... of course it does, it has Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell in it! You can't get much better than that!! You reach for your Universal Remote and click the "Search For Movie" button. A search menu appears and you enter the title of the movie. You wait a few seconds as the online database is searched. A screen then pops up with the name of the movie, a brief description, a picture of the cover, and an option to watch the trailer. Over on the right there's a "Similar Movies" box with movies that are of the same genre. Near the bottom of the screen you navigate to the "Purchase" button for $9.99. The screen fades and you see the spinning circle informing you that the next screen is loading. After about 15 seconds, the movie starts playing.

So let's break this down. You just used the technology of the future. The fool-proof technology of the future. The Apple TV. You also just purchased a new movie that you can watch anytime you want, as many times as you want, without fear or scratching or damaging a disc that the movie might be contained on.

The Apple TV is a very small device, about the same size as the new Nintendo Wii, that has two cables. One plugs into your TV. The other plugs into the outlet to provide the box power. The rest is done wirelessly. The Apple TV wirelessly communicates with you PC or Mac anywhere in the house via Wi-fi 802.11 b, g, and/or the soon-to-be-standard n. It currently comes stands with a 40gb hard drive built in. Using the Apple TV, you can view almost any media file on your computer, whether it be music, photos, or a video. Basically, if it can be viewed using iTunes, and it transfers to your iPod, you can view it using Apple TV. Using a remote about half the size of your palm (which is probably a downside because it'll be super easy to lose), you can navigate all of the media you have on your computer. After browsing through your movies, or whatever, you select the one you wish to watch. As soon as you click on it, a file transfer is initiated, transferring the entire movie file to the Apple TV's hard drive. After a good portion of the movie is transferred to the Apple TV, the movie should start playing--probably after just a few seconds. The rest of the movie file will continue to transfer over as you watch the movie. This is going to be the same with any file you choose to look at, but it would be most significant with a movie file because they are the largest.

The optimal connection to use will be the 802.11n, because it's about ten times faster than the g. And the b... well, that's not even really worth discussing anymore.

Now check this out. You didn't even have to worry about finding the disc. You don't have to worry about ever scratching it. You didn't have to worry about leaving the comfort of your couch (lazy Americans) and going out and buying or renting it. And you just paid $9.99 for a new release, which is a pretty good price!

This isn't limited to just movies. This could be applied to anything, like TV shows. Anything that's currently on the iTunes Music Store can be viewed on the Apple TV via the wireless connection to your computer via the internet connection your computer gets from whatever ISP you have. From your TV remote, the entire iTunes Music Store is at your fingertips. (Just a side note, this is also true with the iPhone, minus the remote part.) In the near future, anything available on a DVD now (and then) could very easily be made available online to download as well. Apple currently only has the rights to Disney movies and some of Paramount's older releases, but nothing new from Paramount. Apple also has a lot of TV shows, both popular and unpopular, available. I think as soon as this technology catches on the online database of movies is going to grow tremendously... right now all the movie producers are freaked out about the DRM. But as soon as they calm down about that, they should release their movies for download as well.

This of the possibilities for ease of use and the ability to make America even fatter... yet another convenience for us! Now we don't even have to leave our house to purchase a movie!

Quit arguing about HD DVD or Blu-Ray for the new standard. I choose Apple TV for my entertainment system when I get my own house and a few million.

For more specs on the Apple TV, check this link to Apple. Apple TV

Tags: Apple, High Definition

History was made on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007, by Apple, Inc. It was:

115 x 61 wide x 11.6mm
3.5 inch multi-touch display screen
320 by 480 at 160 ppi
4gb or 8gb storage
Wi-fi (802.11 b/g), EDGE, or Bluetooth 2.0
2 megapixel camera
4.8 ounces
Up to 5 hours of battery for talk/video/browse
Up to 16 hours of battery for audio
And yes, it does run Mac OS X.

Introducing the new iPhone from Apple.

When Steve Jobs stood on the stage at Macworld on Tuesday and presented the iPhone in all of its glory to the masses, he wasn't just selling us a new phone--he was selling us the future! A future where the iPod, phone, internet, and essentially a PDA all come together on one OS X platform in a handheld device!!

Also released on Tuesday was the Apple TV, though it's significance was severely dwarfed with it being released next to something as spectacular as the iPhone. But I'll cover the Apple TV in all of it's glory in another post.

Apple is known for the effort they put into the design and simplicity of their products. The iPhone is no exception. But the iPhone is more than a pretty phone. Much more.

You navigate the iPhone using multi-touch technology. That is to say, you simply apply pressure to the screen to make the device perform various functions. Tap to click, slide to scroll, two fingers down and pinch to zoom in and out, etc. I would love to get my hands on one of these just to experience it, but the day where that might happen seems very far away at this point.

There was a lot of speculation as to what Apple was going to release at Tuesday's Keynote. Some people said a widescreen iPod. Others said an iPhone. Others said other things, like a wireless internet device, or a newer model of the laptops or desktops. Apple took three of those rumors and made them reality, but instead of three separate devices, they have put them perfectly into one handheld device.

The iPod is, of course, a widescreen, touch screen iPod that piggy-backs off of the phones 4gb or 8gb memory. The iPod feature now supports CoverFlow, which is really neat to see. The videos are such high quality as well, they look fabulous on the little screen.

The phone has many more features than even the smartest of smart phones. Of biggest note (I think), the iPhone syncs with your computer in the exact same way your iPod does... even the same cable, I believe. It also syncs through iTunes. Every time you plug your iPhone into the dock, it will charge and update all of your music, contacts, calendar events, movies, photos, favorites, mail, and more... And you don't even have to click anything!

To make a call, simply click contacts, scroll through your list with the flip of your finger, and click on the name you wish to dial. It's that easy! Now calling... place the phone next to your ear and a sensor automatically senses a close object (your face) and turns off the display to save battery. Bring the phone back down in front of you and the display with turn back on automatically.

As I said, the phone runs OS X, so all of the main features from your Mac will also be on the iPhone. For instance iCal, Mail, and Safari. iPhone is the first portable device to support a fully featured web browser. The entire browser runs natively on your iPhone, which is truly amazing. If you can't read the text on the page after it loads, simple place down to fingers and push them apart to zoom in... or just double tap on the area and it will automatically zoom in where you tapped. The phone will automatically detect a Wi-fi or Bluetooth internet connection, if present. If not present, it will automatically (if it's in your plan) log you on to the network's (Cingular) wireless internet via the cell phone towers. As soon as you move back into an area with Wi-fi, it will take you off of the network's wireless internet and place you on the free Wi-fi without even bothering you with a notice dialog.

There are three main sensors in the iPhone. One senses if objects are close, to turn off the display when the phone is held up to your face. The other senses ambient light, to dim the screen when lights are turned off to conserve energy. And the third is a motion sensor. In any application on the iPhone, simply turn it on it's side and the phone goes into widescreen. Turn it back upright and the image is readjusted properly.

Mail. A fully functional mail client is also provided with the iPhone, and it will read from any POP or SMTP server. Popular email clients which support POP and SMTP are Yahoo!, Gmail, AOL, and I believe Earthlink. No, not Hotmail or MSN. Not without a charge, of course... what do you expect? It's Microsoft!

The phone supports Google Maps, so if you're lost, or just want to know where the nearest Starbucks is relevant to your current position on the globe, never fear... your iPhone is near!

Of course the phone supports SMS text messaging. I'm not 100%, but I also believe SMS can be a chat client, so if you're on a wireless network it won't charge you for a text, it will simply IM for free.

All typing is done with an onscreen QWERTY keyboard that you simply touch with your fingers. I've heard that it takes a bit of getting used to, but what phone doesn't? I've also heard that's the only thing on the phone that takes some getting used too--everything else is so simple it's astounding.

Basically, the iPhone is way, way, way, WAY more than just a phone. It's an iPod, a phone, an internet communicator, and Jobs doesn't refer to it as this, but I do: A PDA. Because it essentially does every function OF a PDA... and then some! All for a reasonable price of $499 ($599 for the 8gb). It seems a bit steep at first glance, but if you think about all the functions it has, it really is a reasonable price.

Of course, the biggest downside to the entire phone is the exclusive service provider, Cingular. I don't have a problem with Cingular except that I don't use them. My Grandpa does, but I won't be able to talk him into getting an iPhone. I think it would have been a smarter choice on Apple's part to make the phone universal, but they didn't ask me. And I'm sure they had their reason. Another problem with the phone is Apple's insistence, once again, to make the battery as difficult as possible to get to. Apple strives for simplicity in every way... their are three, and only three actual buttons you can click on the iPhone. The rest is touch screen. But their batteries for all iPods and most of their devices are always obscure and hard to get to. You basically have to take it in to a shop to get it replaced. But the phone is still impressing me, even with those two bummers.

Imagine the possibilities of a device this powerful... and portable! The sheer thought of it blows my mind, and I haven't even got to hold one yet, I've just seen one in use and read many articles on them. Infinite information at your fingertips. The possibilities are endless. What is Apple going to amaze us with next in the near future? Apple has reinvented the phone and completely changed the way we look at communication and the limits we had placed on it.

(For the record, and just to clear this up for all of you out there, if Microsoft had come out with a phone of this magnitude, yes, I would be writing an article on it. The fact is, Microsoft doesn't have anything like this. Apple does, so I'm covering it. End of discussion.)

Tags: Apple

2009 UPDATE: Some of you insist on believing (or so it seems) that this post was written yesterday. It wasn’t. It was written three years ago, though it still gets more hits than most other pages on my site. Understand that some of my opinions have changed, some of the facts have changed, and my writing style has improved immensely since I wrote this. There’s no need to post harsh comments or email me to inform me of how I wrong I am. I am well aware of the recent changes and improvements in technology.

2007 UPDATE: Some have express that they feel all of my so called "facts" are Mac biased. First of all, facts are facts; if they have a bias, whatever they're biased towards is superior because they're facts, and therefore indisputable. Yes, a few of my facts are Mac biased, and a few of my facts are Microsoft biased, but you wouldn’t go to an Apple news sites to get information on when the new Microsoft Zune is coming out, you'd go to a site that covers Microsoft technology information for that. Finally, what source of information doesn't have a bias? Give me one. Even the supposedly unbiased National Public Radio, paid for with your tax dollars, has a severely liberal bias.

DISCLAIMER: Before reading this post, please lighten up and relax. This is meant to be satirical and light, as any opinionated discussion on technology should be. A member of the Facebook group “I don’t hate Macs - I hate arrogant mac users” decided to post a rebuttal to Apple’s fourteen promotional points in order to show them all false. Since a lot of his "facts" were merely opinions stated as facts, I felt compelled to shed some more light on the situation from the point of view of someone who has used and owned numerous operating systems and computers and is open to all options. I use a Mac and PC at home and a PC at work, and the rest of my family also uses PC. I understand there are pros and cons to both platforms, but my personal preference depends on the job I’m performing. I boot Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux through Boot Camp for programming purposes. Before you fall out of your chair and shake your fist in furry at anything I’ve said below, remember that most of this is my opinion. You don't need to scream and swear at me back in a comment. There's no need for harsh words or name calling ...

Now sit back, open your mind, and smile, because this is meant for fun, not to start a nuclear (or verbal) war.

Alright, that's all for the disclaimer. Below I have listed the fourteen taglines Mac gives for its computers. Below those are Creston’s responses to those taglines. Below that is my opinion from my experience using both a Mac and a PC. Below that are links to some sites that will provide facts to prove my opinions (if possible). Enjoy!

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#1—It just works
Hmm … Just about every PC in the world works fine out of the box too. This may have been a point back 26 years ago when PCs were kits, but now, it’s standard. As it turns out, the Windows kernel is very reliable, all Windows crashes are caused by people installing bad software. The same thing will happen to a Mac, for the record.

Opinions:
Well, that actually depends on what you plan on doing with your system. Personally, when I used Windows previous, as soon as I ever bought a brand new machine, straight out of the box I always did a fresh format. Especially if you ordered your PC from Dell or some such company. It's just sick how much extra crap comes loaded on the machine. A few extra programs come with a Mac too, however, unlike a Windows PC, all of the programs that come pre-installed on any Mac OS are made by Apple. On top of that, the software that comes on a Mac is actually the full version of the program, not an annoying 30 day trial. You know that if you don't do a fresh format of you're PC as soon as you get it, you probably never will. That 30 day trial will run out and the program will just stay on your PC. Obviously, you can't use it without pay the $150 to get a license, but taking the 5 minutes out of your day to uninstall it is just too much work! Thanks to Apple's integrated apps, however, if you don't want that program on there (GarageBand for instance), all you have to do is drag and drop it into the recycling bin. It's gone in less than 5 seconds. If you think there's still fragments of that program left somewhere on your hard drive, you can install AppZapper and confidently uninstall all yours apps... but you really don't need to.

You're way out in left field in stating that "all Windows crashes are caused by people installing bad software." If there was one thing I learned in Economics class, it's that if event A precedes even B and C, even A may or may not have caused events B and C. Not enough information is provided. You can't drop a statement like that and blame every single crash on the Windows OS from this point forward on the user. Granted, I think a great deal of crashes and errors and lock-ups on a computer are user related, but I'm not taking all of the blame off of the OS. You have no idea how many times my Windows programs would crash in the middle of my work, for no apparent reason. All I was doing was typing! Or maybe you do have an idea... I'm sure it's happened to you too! A friend said to me the other day after hearing I had switched to Mac, "Is it true that Safari is really unreliable and crashes all the time? I've heard that about Macs." I said, "Safari has crashed on me once since I got my Mac. It was mostly my fault too. Mac apps crash on occasion, true enough, but I wouldn't say that they crash 'all the time,' or that they crash anymore than Windows programs. How many times do you see 'The program has closed unexpectedly. Would you like to send Microsoft and error report?' in a day? Too many for me, that's why I switched to Mac." So, to state it properly, you should probably say "most Windows crashes are caused by people installing bad software." But what would a world be like if that bad software didn't exist in the first place for us to accidently (or intentionally) download? Welcome to Mac OS! False advertising is against the law; Apple speaks the truth!

Facts:
InfoWorld.com - It Just Works
MacNN.com - Consumer Reports for Mac
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#2—You can make amazing stuff
This advertises iLife ’06, Apple’s suite of software. Most venders will include similar software, if not more powerful applications. Many new PCs include Nero, Pinnacle, photo editing apps, and various other applications that do much of the same tasks as iLife ’06. Windows Vista has all of the functionality of iLife ’06 included in the Premium versions.

Opinions:
You can do amazing stuff! iLife '06 is a beautiful package that comes standard with any current version of Mac OS. Most vendors will include similar software, if not more powerful. Unfortunately, they only include a 30 day trial. It's also 3rd party software. iLife is made by Apple, so you know it's good. It's all a full version for FREE! I can't speak for Windows Vista, I haven't seen it yet because... oh, right, it's not out yet. So it's really not fair to compare an unreleased OSs features to the features of an OS from last year, is it?

Facts:
I don't need facts on this one. Go onto your Windows machine and open any of the software that came with your OS. It will say "you have 0 out of 30 days remaining on this trial period." Point and fact.
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#3—Design that turns heads
Apple computers have interesting designs. However, these designs have major shortcomings. Apple notebooks use soldered processors, preventing upgrades. Socket based CPUs have been the norm since the P4 came out in late 2000. Also, Apple hardware like the iMac have limited space for upgrades and integrated components are more likely to fail compared to independent subsystems. Apple’s design can be compared to some car designs—such as the DeLorean DMC-1 (the famous car from the Back to the Future Trilogy). This car had an amazing exterior design, but the car was an ultimate failure due to it’s lackluster performance and high performance to price ratio. Anyone without unlimited funds would chose something more utilitarian than a Mac.

Opinions:
Are we even talking about the internals right now? I was aware this statement was talking about the beauty of the externals on the machines. Even someone who hates the Mac OS and hardware that comes inside the machine will admit that they look beautiful. Anyone who appreciates computers can appreciate the beauty of the sleek, rounded design of the apple laptops and desktops. The perfect white, black, or even silver now.

If you wish to talk about internals, OK, I can do that too. It's true, Mac's aren't as customizable as PCs. Choose your arguments though. Some people claim they just want a computer that will do simple school-related tasks for them and get on the internet. Then they say they don't want a Mac because it's not possible to upgrade the hardware. Well, that's simply not true in the first place. It is more difficult to upgrade a Mac, but it is hardly impossible--especially on the Mac Pro's. I like to put it this way: "A PC is like a Yugo you can soup-up with lots of extra add-on parts. A Mac is like a Porsche that comes loaded from the factory." Who doesn't want a Porsche? If you want to know more about the design of any Apple machine, the bullet proof material they're made out of, the genius thought put into the exterior and interior design of them, click on the link to the Apple site below. I would like to point out that a downfall to all laptops, Apple or not, is that they are highly integrated. The Mac Pro is quite a different story. As luck would have it, PCs have limited space as well--5 PCI slots...

Integrated components aren't actually more likely to fail, they're just harder to replace if they do fail. So I guess that's where Murphy's Law's could come in, right? "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." I haven't had anything go wrong with my Mac yet though...

Facts:
MacOSXHints.com - Quote
Apple.com - Design that Turns Heads
Murphys-Laws.com
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#4—114,000 viruses? Not on a Mac
This argument is flawed. The reason there are few viruses on Macs has to do with issues of user share. Less than 2% of people use mac compared to over 90% for Windows. This is a matter of logistics rather than security. Systematic, a leading computer security provider, states that OS X is less secure than Windows XP. Apple gives its users a false sense of security. Apple users often neglect basic security practices, such as running a firewall, using caution when opening emails, and running antivirus software. Apple computers ship with the built-in firewall disabled, while Windows XP ships with it on by default. Windows also advises users to run security software. As the Apple user share grows, there will be more and more threats and Mac users will not be prepared.

Opinions:
The statistic has actually risen to 5% of the world using the Mac OS, and predicted to rise more in the near future due to the release of the Mac Pro. In fact, according to Steve Jobs in his Keynote Address at WWDC in 2006, Apple laptop sales have had a 50% increase this year! I did a search but couldn't find that statement by Systematic anywhere. To be perfectly honest, there are viruses for Mac just as there are for PC. They're different viruses, but they still exist. I've never actually run into any, and most people using a Mac probably never will, but they're out there! So to say "there aren't viruses for a Mac" would be a lie. But the ad clearly states "Mac's don't get viruses." So, obviously, while they are there, you just don't get them unless you do something completely ridiculous... which I can't think of anything right now. As the Apple user share grows, there will be more and more threats to Mac users. Thank goodness they do make Norton for Mac. I don't use it, but maybe someday I'll actually need to! Right now I'm free to run my OS without an antivirus programming hogging all my memory running in the background!

Facts:
TheRegister.co.uk - 90% Windows, 5% Mac, 5% Other
MacNewsWorld.com - Allure of Mac Pro May Move Windows Fans to Convert
Apple.com - Apple WWDC 2006
TheAppleBlog.com - Hardly Any Viruses on a Mac
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#5—Next year’s OS today
I cannot help but laugh at Apple’s argument here. First off, their widgets are stolen from an application known as Konfabulator, which is available for both Windows and Mac. An RSS reader? IE7 has this as does Mozilla Firefox. Apple did not invent RSS either. Tabbed browsing? IE7. Video conferencing? AIM or Windows Messenger. Parental Controls? I don’t support that kind of software but there are plenty of applications around and Windows Vista will have it included. Easy DIY scripting with Automator? Windows Scripting Host is much more powerful and has been included since Windows ’98. Mail with built-in spam blocking? Outlook Express has this as well. So all of Apple’s “innovations” are just rip-offs of other applications.

Opinions:
Konfabulator (now called Yahoo! Widgets) was a program invented in 2000 by Arlo Rose. Ironically, it was originally invented for Macintosh (hmm... ). Later, a Windows version was created. First off, I don't even know why you brought this up. Mac did not claim to be the original creator of this idea. As a fact, Mac simply popularized it. More importantly, Mac actually integrated it into the OS, that way it wouldn't be a memory hog running in the background constantly. (It does run in the background constantly, but it's not a memory hog. So I guess that's a contradiction... ) If you want to play that game though, what are these Gadgets I hear about that are apparently coming with Windows Vista?

You're correct in stating IE7 supports RSS, just like Apple's Safari. But let's go back to the original statement. "Next year's OS today." Right. Well, IE7 was released on... oh wait, it actually hasn't been released yet. Just a Release Candidate. That was released on January 31st, 2006. Safari 2.0, the first version to include the RSS feature, was released on April 29th, 2005. Well, not quite a year, but close. The final release of IE7 is expected by the end of 2007. Mozilla Firefox? Well, Mozilla isn't owned by Windows or Apple, so it's really not fair to compare 3rd party software when we're talking about the OS right now. Firefox is made for both Apple and Windows. Nice try though. So if Apple had it first... who's ripping who off?

(Fun fact: People can argue about whether it was Mozilla or Opera who had the first tabbed browsing system, but it was neither. It was a no-name browser (Netscaptor) who first put the idea onto the web in 1997. Mozilla supported the capabilities in 2000, I believe, and Opera didn't get around to it until 2001. Safari released their tabbed browser in early 2003, and IE7, finally released in late 2006, has tabbing capabilities. Interesting that, once again, Apple released theirs 3 years prior to Microsoft. So, yes, even though Apple and Microsoft have the same features NOW, Apple released it first (but they in no way claim to be the original creators). That's another reason Reason #5 makes sense.)

Funny that you should bring up NetMeeting. That program is so frustrating! It's hideous and lacking in features. Not only that, it's a video client... that's all! It isn't meant to be a chat client, so don't compare it to one. iChat includes the features of an audio/video/chat client. It's very reliable and user friendly. You're right, Windows Messenger also includes these features. I can run both Windows Messenger and Microsoft Messenger on my Mac though, so I'm at no disadvantage there. AIM is made for Mac too, but I despise AIM, and it's even crappier on Mac than it is on PC.

If you do a little bit of research you'll learn that Apple Mail evolved from a program called NeXTMail. This program ran on the NEXTSTEP OS. NeXT Computers, Inc. was owned by Steve Jobs at the time. Sound familiar? In 1992, Steve Jobs announced the release of NeXTMail. Microsoft release Outlook Express with the release of Windows 95. You do the math, that's 3 years after NeXTMail. NeXTMail became Apple Mail in 1997 when Apple purchased NeXT Computers, Inc. and also won Steve Jobs as their CEO in the deal.

As you may have noticed, Windows is trying to imitate Apple's slick design of Tiger OS with Windows Vista. They're doing a pretty decent job too. It only took them 5 years to release it.

Facts:
Yahoo.com - Yahoo! Widgets
Apple.com - Dashboard (Widgets)
Wikipedia.org - IE7
Wikipedia.org - Safari
WordPress.com - Steve Jobs Shows off NeXTMail
Wikipedia.org - NEXTSTEP
Wikipedia.org - Outlook Express
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#6—The latest Intel chips
WHAT? Core Duo is hardly Apple only. Every major vender carries it. Nice try, Apple.

Opinions:
True, but Apple didn't claim to be the only company with Intel chips, did it? No, it claimed to be the company with the latest Intel chips. You must recall back to 2005 when Apple was the first company in history to release a Intel Core Duo processor. Apple had a deal with Intel. Windows machines didn't come out with the Intel Core Duo chipset until after Apple had released theirs. Of course, now Core Duo's come standard with almost any machine. The point is, Apple started the trend. That's where that little word latest comes in. But I see where you were coming from.

Facts:
Wikipedia.org - Intel Core
Wikipedia.org - Processor Architecture
Wikipedia.org - Apple Intel Transition
Intel.com - Intel Duo Core Processors
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#7—Instant Video Chats
iChat AV isn’t the only application that allows video conferencing. It’s not the first either. Windows has had NetMeeting, a
video conferencing app since Windows 98SE (1999) and Windows Messenger has this functionality as well. Many notebooks have built in webcams. Apple forces people to buy a webcam though, even if one is not desired. Users should have the choice if they would like to have one.

Opinions:
I already said this, but I'll just say it again.

Funny that you should bring up NetMeeting. That program is so frustrating! It's hideous and lacking in features. Not only that, it's a video client... that's all! It isn't meant to be a chat client, so don't compare it to one. iChat includes the features of an audio/video/chat client. It's very reliable and user friendly. You're right, Windows Messenger also includes these features. I can run both Windows Messenger and Microsoft Messenger on my Mac though, so I'm at no disadvantage there. AIM is made for Mac too, but I despise AIM, and it's even crappier on Mac than it is on PC.

Many notebooks do have webcams... ALL Mac laptops have webcams built it! I do agree about the choice, however. It'd be nice to have that customizable. You might save $50 or something. But I wanted one, so I don't mind.

Facts:
None needed for this one.
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#8—More fun with Photos
iPhoto is the application being advertised in this point. Again, many venders chose to include this type of software, so Apple is hardly alone in this. One can also download Adobe Photoshop Album for free. Also, a cross platform program is available called the GIMP, which is many times more powerful than iPhoto or Adobe Photoshop. Again, much of the functionality of iPhoto is included in Windows Vista.

Opinions:
iPhoto is far superior to Adobe Photoshop Album, but it is far inferior to Picasa (unfortunately only made for Windows currently). I don't use iPhoto, I just open up my Pictures folder when I want to browse my pictures, but it is a decent program. Considering it's free and if you don't want it you just drag it to the recycling bin, it's not that big of a deal. It's worth nothing that Adobe Photoshop Album retails at $89.99.

Again, many vendors include this type of free software as a 30 day trial version. After those 30 days all the software does is hog your disk space--not that big of a deal with today's hard drives, but it clutters the start menu.

Facts:
Adobe.com - Adobe Photoshop Album
Apple.com - iPhoto
Google.com - Picasa
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#9—One Click Websites
Computers running Microsoft Office, which nearly every Windows user owns a copy of, include both Microsoft Word and Microsoft Frontpage. These powerful WYSIWYG applications are vastly superior to the included Apple apps. Popular blogging sites such as blog.com and livejournal.com have web-based tools to accomplish the same tasks. All webcams come with easy to use software that records the video to a standard file which can be uploaded. Sorry, Apple. If you need additional functionality over the online blogging tools, then you are an advanced user and likely do your own coding and wouldn’t desire an HTML generator.

Opinions:
Actually, this is talking about iWeb, but you wouldn't know that if you didn't use a Mac, and I presume you don't and haven't. Microsoft Frontpage is evil and hardly powerful. Go with Macromedia Dreamweaver, a cross-platform WYSIWYG editor. iWeb is alright, but you have to have a .Mac account to use it and I didn't want to pay for that. I did a drag and drop and uninstalled it from my machine... that was easy! iWeb's source code is rather hideous, much like Microsoft Frontpage, so I don't recommend it.

I'm not sure why you decided to compare a blog to a website, but there is a difference. This is a blog. A website is like Microsoft.com... content, not opinions and journals. If you're using Microsoft Frontpage to create a blog you might want to ask for you money back :). It was also a bad choice to compare iWeb to Microsoft Fontpage, but that's ok, you didn't know. Check your facts before you report :).

Facts:
Apple.com - iWeb
Microsoft.com - Microsoft Frontpage
BusinessLogs.com - iWeb Generated Source Code is Awful
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#10—Amazing Podcasts
Apple is flaunting their GarageBand program, which is cool, but utterly pointless to the average user. This is a classic case of “Bloatware”—pre-installed software which only slows down your computer. Windows comes with a much smaller application, Sound Recorder, which allows for simple recording. A free alternative is Audacity, again available to many platforms.

Opinions:
I don't use GarageBand ... I went into my apps and moved it to the Recycle Bin. It took me a grand total of 5 seconds to erase it from my hard drive. If you forget to erase it, it's only 100mb, it's not that big of a deal with today's hard drives. All that crappy trial software that comes with Windows should be something to worry you if you're worried about GarageBand. At least GarageBand is a full version of the software that comes with the OS. You want to talk about "bloatware"? Go turn on an eMachine or a Dell and open up the start menu. There's your bloatware. How much of that pre-installed software are you actually going to use? How much of it do you uninstall as soon as you get the PC in the mail? Most of it.

Audacity is a beautiful program. It's open source and cross-platform. I use it on my Mac. Sound Recorder is one of the crappiest programs of all time. It has no functionality what-so-ever! You should get on that, Microsoft. If we're categorizing, GarageBand and Sound Recorder are not even close to being in the same category ... No comparison, buddy. But here's something Windows has one-upped Mac on: Mac doesn't even come with a sound editor built in to the OS! As terrible as Sound Recorder is, Microsoft would have saved a little face if they didn’t include it at all.

Facts:
Apple.com - GarageBand
SourceForget.net - Audacity
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#11—Rock star tunemaking
Is tunemaking a word? Again, this is about the GarageBand program, which also allows mixing of various loops. A much more powerful (and easier) application is Cakewalk Kinetic, which retails for approx $20. Again, this application would not be used by most people, so including it serves very few.

Opinions:
Apparently you couldn't find much wrong with this one since you had to go after the grammatical aspect. Sometimes we as Americans do that. As you may have noticed, Toys R Us does not use the word "are," but instead puts the letter R on the sign, backwards! It makes things a little bit more fun :).

Again, I don't really use GarageBand too often, so I don't relate to this reason for wanting a Mac. Once again though, GarageBand comes with the OS and is a full functional version. Cakewalk's Kinetic 2 retails at $79.00. I can tell you which one I'd rather have.

Facts:
Cakewalk.com - Cakewalk Kinetic
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#12—Hollywood style movies
iMovie is the application being discussed in this area. A very similar application, Windows Movie Maker, has been included in Windows XP since 2001. Free upgrades have been released over the years, making WMM into a very useful application for the novice. With the Apple solution, as one moves up in skill and desires more features, they are forced to buy Final Cut Express, a powerful, but difficult to use application for the hefty sum of $299. Software venders developed many video editing applications for Windows ranging in price from $20 to upwards of $10^5! Many applications in the $50-$100 range are very powerful and much more intuitive than FCE.

Opinions:
Actually, they're probably referring to Final Cut Studio, which costs $1,299 for the fully functional, fully licensed version. iMovie is great for home movies, but it doesn't even start to compare to Final Cut Studio. iMovie is far superior to Windows MovieMaker! As one moves in skill and desires more features, I promise you, Windows MovieMaker won't provide! There are no programs that compare to Final Cut Studio for Windows. It is the supreme software for video editing. There are several programs for Windows that compare to iMovie, and they range from $30-$150. (Final Cut Express HD can be purchased for $299.)

Facts:
Apple.com - Final Cut Studio
Apple.com - Final Cut Express
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#13—No hunting for drivers
Both Windows and Mac come with a large driver database, but there are far more drivers available for Windows. Both platforms use PnP technology, allowing for automatic installation and configuration of the drivers. What Apple fails to state is that many devices simply do not work with Mac. A large number of printers, scanners, and modems will not be recognized by Mac, and Mac needs to have Apple firmware on a disc burner in order for it to function. Only the Airport Extreme card works with Macs, other PCI cards will not, so if one needs 802.11a, they would need to buy a (very) costly Ethernet adapter. The process of manually installing drivers can be rather tedious for the average user, but most manufactures will include an installer program to simplify the process. Yes, there is no hunting for drivers on a Mac, simply because there are no drivers for a Mac! Which is the bigger trade off?

Opinions:
What you fail to state is that most devices do work with a Mac. What devices don't? Most things these days are Plug 'N' Play! Most things that you plug into a Mac will be recognized, just as they are on a PC. The "No hunting for drivers" comes in as soon as you plug it in! When you plug anything into a PC, a little dialogue pops up and tells you a new device has been found, it tells you it's looking for the device, looking for a driver, installing the driver, then finally the device is ready for use. This usually takes 30 to 60 seconds. When you plug anything into a Mac, you never even realize it searches. A new device appears on your desktop and is all ready for use! The process of manually installing drivers is rarely tedious because I have yet to confront it. I've never had to install a driver on my Mac. If a driver somehow cannot be found it will use a generic drive for the device so the device is still at least functional. These are the facts of life. It's no more difficult on a Mac than on a PC. In fact, it's easier.

Sadly, you are correct about the Airport Extreme card. However, 802.11a, b, and g cards are expensive for Windows AND Mac--they just come with (most) Windows machines. Furthermore, I've never needed an 802.11 card... I'm happy with my Airport Extreme.

Facts:
None needed for this one.
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#14—Awesome out of the box
Read the previous 13 points. Any newly purchased system works perfectly out of the box.

Opinions:
I agree. Check out my previous 13 rebuttals and I'm pretty sure you'll be sold on Mac! I am!! After using a PC for 17 years of my life, I haven't regretted adding Mac to the OS list one bit!

Facts:
None needed for this one.
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In closing, I hope there are no hard feelings. This was all just fun and games anyways, right? I had a lot of fun compiling this list.

I did find it interesting to note that even Microsoft uses a few Mac's. Check it out!

I'll leave you with a few more sources of interesting information about Mac vs PC, or just general information on Apple.

An article from back in 2000 by Eric DeStefano comparing Mac machines to Windows based PCs. Written with a bias towards Mac, but from the viewpoint of a previous PC user, much like myself. (LowEndMac.com)
A very interesting site chuck-full of comparison charts and tables. No bias, just raw facts. (SystemShoutOuts.org)
An interview-type article that takes several key areas of computer use and compares Windows efficiency with Mac efficiency. The interview seems to switch back and forth between favoring Mac or PC. (TechBuilder.org)
A very useful article that disproves the myth that Macs are more expensive. Overall, yes, they are. But when you consider the efficiency of software and hardware products you're getting with your money, you'll very easily realize you're getting a better deal. (TechNewsWorld.com)
An article written in 2006 to persuade that everyone should use a Mac. (KenRockwell.com)
A site filled with information on the Intel chipset in all Mac computers now. (MacOnIntel.com)

Finally, a quote I liked a lot from a forum on MacOSXHints.com.
"People usually work on PCs because they have to. People work on Macs because they want to."
I’d tend to agree with that. In all honesty, anyone willing to limit themselves to one operating system is clearly just a fanboy and guilty of the same arrogant fanaticism they berate Mac users for. Prefer what you will, but be versatile and don’t be ignorant.

Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Internet, Operating Systems

It appears as though it is. Recently, there has been talk of a September release. Unfortunately, this release is yet another test version for developers--still no final for the general public. So what has Microsoft been doing in the six years it's been developing Windows Vista? I decided to take a little look at the progression of Windows Vista, starting at the 2004 WWDC in San Francisco.

"Two years ago at WWDC we thought we'd poke a little bit of fun at the folks in Redmond. So, we hung in the hallways of the conference some big banners that said 'Redmond, start your photocopiers.' It was only a joke, but they actually took it seriously." - Bertrand Serlet, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Apple

After watching Steve Jobs' Keynote speech just a few weeks ago, I picked up on a lot of the similarities between Mac OS X and Windows Vista. Microsoft apparently was feeling a little left out after Apple's release of Spotlight, an extremely powerful and useful tool implemented in the Tiger OS. It's basically a search of all documents, folder, emails, IMs, applications, and even servers and other computers. Not only does spotlight search your computer for a file named what you type in, it also searched within the file for results. Vista took a little different approach...instead of Spotlight, they call it Instant Search. And instead of it being in the upper right corner, it has moved to the lower left. It seems to replace the Programs Menu as far as I can tell. That's an improvement, because the Programs Menu was extremely unorganized and very unappealing in all of Windows Operating Systems. Search is much more efficient.

Vista is kicking some serious butt in the eye-candy field. Honestly, Windows has never looked better. Microsoft is finally taking advantage of your video card, and this is good! Unfortunately, base requirements for Vista are at least 512mb of RAM. That's ridiculous. Tiger, on the other hand, requires only 256mb of RAM, and it runs just perfectly. That's a whole lot more reasonable.

A very impressive feature of Vista is the thumbnail view of your open programs. All programs open in your task-bar can be viewed in a thumbnail without actually opening them. All you have to do is roll over them! Tiger has a similar, although admittedly not quite as good, version of this, where your open programs, when minused down, are shown in the lower right hand corner, live. So if your iTunes is minused down and the song changes, you can see it change in the dock. It's too small to make anything clearly out, however.

Vista is kicking some tail in the 3-dimensional realm. Changing apps has never been more beautiful. A viewing window of a nearly full sized preview of all of your open applications appears, laying them out one in front of another. You can then select which one you wish to go to.

Vista is really trying to impress with their glassy effect, and they're succeeding. Windows and menus look beautiful with their reflective and see through appearance. The task-bar and Start Menu have these looks as well.

Good work on the Gadgets. It seems like a serious take off of Apple's Widgets, but at least Microsoft is catching up.

In the visual department, Windows Vista is coming along beautifully. I'm very impressed with that. The biggest draw backs are the RAM issue as I mentioned, and with that the registry and DLL files. Windows will not be able to advance further in the efficiency and overall speed of their operating system until it rids itself of the registry. DLL files are just terrible to keep track of and mess with! The beauty of Mac is the self-contained applications it runs. Few, if any, external files. Most applications are entirely self contained in a .app file. I believe it's probably also understood by most of you that 90-95% of all viruses write themselves TO the registry in Windows. Funny...Mac doesn't have any viruses, does it?

A recent news release has stated that Vista is the "last of its kind." Microsoft has admitted that Vista, after being in development for the past 6 years, has become too complicated. The OS is so confusing (programming) and complicated that 3rd party developers are having a difficult time writing software for it. Microsoft has also stated that it's having a hard time finding a way to create updates to release for the OS because the programming is so closed. That's a big issue.

Good work on the visuals, Microsoft. Next OS, ditch the registry and DLL files--go for simple! Next OS, get your nose out of the air; their are other Operating Systems out there besides Windows. Recognize them. Be compatible. They are.

Tags: Operating Systems, Microsoft, Apple