Archive for the 'Apple' Category

The Killer Feature of iTunes 8

Published
by
Richard Mondello
3 weeks, 3 days ago
in Apple and Tech
. 2 Comments

My tweets for the night tell the story:

  • I can’t believe everyone missed the biggest feature of iTunes 8.
  • Podcast controls have been moved out of iTunes Preferences (cmd+,) and into their own window from the Podcast view.
  • In that podcast view, one can see the how often iTunes checks for new episodes and how many to keep.
  • The killer feature is that these settings are now able to be applied to podcasts individually, not all-or-nothing. This is amazing.

  • Personally, I’ve been asking for this feature for a very long time. It’s handy.
  • Moving the prefs out of iTunes Preferences signals that podcasting isn’t a focus of Apple’s anymore, though. It’s separated from novices.

What do you think?

Mac Users, Don’t Buy from CyberPower Inc.

Published
by
Richard Mondello
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Apple, Rants and Tech
. 2 Comments

Please digg this story.

I recently purchased an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) from CyberPower Inc. It’s the CP550SL, and it looked pretty good in the store. The box said it was PC and Mac compatible, had a comfortable number of outlets, and had standard shutdown features that worked out-of-the-box with Mac OS X. Great!

For anyone who doesn’t know, a UPS is a glorified power strip, a device that takes one electrical outlet and makes several. In addition, it has a built-in battery to power attached devices in the event of a power failure. Using a usb cable, a UPS connects to a computer so the computer can shut itself down before the UPS runs out of electricity.

I plugged in all of my devices, attached the USB cable from the UPS to my Mac, and plugged the UPS in. After cycling the power on all of my devices, I booted my Mac. Excited to configure the automatic shutdown options (the real reason anyone buys a UPS), I went to the Energy Saver prefpane of System Preferences.

Much to my surprise, all of the UPS options were grayed out. I couldn’t configure anything!
CyberPower UPS in Mac OS X Leopard

From here, I did the technical thing. I cleared out the user and system caches on my MacBook Pro, rebooted, and tried again. No luck.

At this point, I did the responsible thing - contacted tech support. I sent this email:

I just took the UPS out of the box and installed it with my Mac by plugging the USB cable into my Mac’s USB port. In the System Preferences panel, Energy Saver, I can see the UPS under the drop-down “Settings for:”. When I click that and go to the UPS tab below, I can see the battery level and model, but all of the UPS options (what make the UPS useful, like shutting down the computer after a certain period of time) are grayed out! The UPS is useless unless those options work. I’m an administrative user and the panel is unlocked.

I’m a poweruser, and I’m puzzled as to what the problem could be. Normally these things “just work”. Any help would be appreciated before I have to take this unit back.

This morning, I got this two-sentence response:

The grayed out option is a bug in the latest version of Mac. You can check for an update from Mac.

This response is unacceptable. First and foremost, “the latest version of Mac” doesn’t make sense. The Mac is a computer, the Operating System it runs is Mac OS X, and the company that ships both of those products is Apple Inc. A tech support person would never say,

The grayed out option is a bug in the latest version of Windows. You can check for an update from Windows.

Obviously, he or she would recommend that I check for an update from Microsoft or from Windows Update.

Moving on, there’s no update available from Apple! I’m running the latest version of the Mac OS; the next version, 10.5.5, isn’t expected for some time (more than two weeks). A responsible tech support agent would have told me that CyberPower Inc. is working with Apple to correct the problem and I should expect a fix on a certain date or time-frame. Due to his or her lack of detail, I will likely return this product to the store I purchased it.

The Apple market-share is a small fraction of the computer market. However, we’re a vocal fraction. Until this is resolved, I unequivocally urge Mac users not to purchase any products from CyberPower Inc.

Bitten by DRM on iPhone Applications

Published
by
Richard Mondello
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Apple and Tech
. 0 Comments

Although this is a very bitter blog post, I won’t make it angry. I’m just disappointed in one of my favorite companies. Continue reading ‘Bitten by DRM on iPhone Applications’

MobileFail

Published
by
Richard Mondello
2 months ago
in Apple, Productivity, Rants and Tech
. 0 Comments

Fail Whale, MobileMe - Image Credit: The One More Thing blog at CNET.A week ago from today, I bought my first cell phone. Using the money I worked for this summer at the Computer Academy, I was able to justify buying, arguably, one of the greatest cell phones on the market. While putting down the cash for the iPhone, I decided to buy a one year subscription to MobileMe. My justification was off-site backup for my precious college work; everything else was a bonus.

I hate MobileMe for one reason and one reason only. Although it’s a great service that I’m finding useful, I’ve had to readjust my entire workflow and calendaring system to accommodate its greatest flaw. While using an iPhone or iPod touch without MobileMe, the user may choose individual iCal calendars to sync to the device. While using MobileMe, in great contrast, calendar sync is all-or-nothing.

I depend on my calendaring system to keep me alive. It’s the hub of my events and small reminders of things I need to do. I use one main calendar, “Events”, to remind me of places I need to be or deadlines I need to meet. Then, I use one called “Alarms”, to remind me to do my Getting Things Done Weekly Review or to do household chores like checking up a water softener. Those calendar events are set up with an alarm that I’d like to see while sitting at my Mac - not while I’m on-the-go with my iPhone.

MobileMe’s system of forcing users to sync all calendars without any way to stop it makes the calendaring feature useless for me. It ruins one of the most important aspects of Getting Things Done (GTD), contexts. In Getting Things Done, David Allen writes that grouping tasks by context (often location) is more appropriate than priority. Having my phone vibrate to remind me to do my weekly review is useless while I’m away from my computer. I’d much rather just have the notification sitting on my Mac for when I return.

Apple, please fix this.

Image credit to the One More Thing blog at CNET.

Finder Version 10.5.4

Published
by
Richard Mondello
4 months ago
in Apple and Tech
. 2 Comments

Apple released Leopard update 10.5.3 earlier this week. Interestingly, Finder.app reports that it is version 10.5.4, which has yet to be released. Very interesting.

iTunes Review of the Mac Observer’s Mac Geek Gab

Published
by
Richard Mondello
4 months, 1 week ago
in Apple, Links, Social Media and Tech
. 2 Comments

If you’re a mac person and like fixing stuff, check out this quick review I wrote up on the iTunes Store earlier. It’s really a wonderful podcast.

Time is scarce, knowledge isn’t. Today, in an ever-decreasing timeframe, we need to know more about our computers. Although the Macintosh is worlds ahead of the PC, it has its problems. The Mac Observer’s Mac Geek Gab tackles these problems and explores new uses for our macs in an entertaining and informative way.

Its greatest asset? The podcast is divided into chapters so that listeners can quickly scan for questions that they’re interested in. Sick of hearing about networking? Skip it and move onto hard disk problems! A very well-done show, worthy of subscription.