Tagged as: Mac, Rant, Ridiculous, Seen-Around
Oct
16
While there are many advances in mobile technology, there is none more prominent (nowadays anyways) than the Apple iPhone. Subsequent to its release in June 2007, it has made a definite mark on society. It has created huge lines, buzz in media, envy in people’s eyes, and a huge increase in revenue for the companies involved. Despite much hype and doubt, it has been a game-changing device for the smartphone world.
It has a user interface that is the standard to which all others are (now) compared, it is sleek, it is expensive enough to stay out of the hands of the less privileged (like Coach purses for girls), and it has an entire fanatical subculture to support it. There are some people who use it for its useful features, others who just want it so that they can be hip with the times, and others who will probably say that it’s an essential part of their life.
The thing is, I think that we need to help these people. Their iPhones are taking over their lives. Here we thought that Attention-Deficit Disorder (although this has been replaced by Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in psychology as of DSM-IV, but I could not apply the hyperactivity to iPhone users) was something that we could treat. Unfortunately it seems like we are inducing it in people. And while I am talking specifically about the iPhone, the general principle still stands that people are getting worse at maintaining their concentration on tasks at hand. They have instant messaging that they’re always connected to, text messages that encourage deplorable grammar, and the ever annoying Twitter (dumb as far back as 2007), which combines all of these things at one time.
Most people with iPhones seem to have an incessant need to check them. People need to stop this. They need to start living lives that do not involve the Internet. Let us move onward from our digital slavery!
I am slightly amused that I am writing such a thing for a couple of reasons:
- Hello this is a blog, which is an entirely digital medium.
- I am in front of a computer at least 8 hours a day as a software engineer. Usually more like 10, including off hours personal time.
Tagged as: Geek, Mac, Software
Sep
25
Well after Unboxing My MacBook Pro, I got right on getting my new computer setup the way that I wanted it. A big part of this is downloading and installing applications that I want to use. Macs are often purported to be ready to use out of the box. While generally true, there are many areas where I already knew of a application that I preferred to use over the installed one (if the installed functionality even existed). For those interested, I’ve included a list of the programs that I installed. Check it out and maybe you’ll find something useful for yourself!
Oh and I grouped the applications into categories so adding up the number to 17 might take a little bit of mental math on your part. Then again, you could just take my word for it.
- Utilities
- Quicksilver – A very popular application that allows you to access a lot of things through a single interface. It allows you to treat things as objects, which is very cool and very useful.
- Virtue Desktops – A virtual desktop application that has cool effects. Unfortunately this project is no longer under development because of the impending Spaces feature of the next version of Mac OS X (Leopard). It’s still a good one, though.
- smcFanControl – Monitor and increase the speed of your fans. This is pretty useful to use on my MBP because even though it seems stable, it can get hot. I raise the fan RPM for higher load situations.
- Monolingual – On suggestions, I realized that there was unnecessary space taken up by localization files. Found this easy-to-use program that will remove the localization files for all of your applications! Saved a couple of GB.
- AppCleaner – When you delete things on a Mac, they give you the impression that you’re completely done. That there’s no hassle of “uninstalling” programs like in other operating systems. But that’s not entirely true. They will actually leave things behind. Use this free application to completely remove applications when you want to get rid of them!
- Productivity
- Open Office – This free cross-platform suite of office programs is great! This requires that X11 be installed as well, but in truth this is an excellent substitute for purchasing Microsoft’s suite. Check it out at least before purchasing MS Office for a large amount of money (compared to free).
- Web
- Firefox – The (now) ubiquitous open-source web browser is a must. I would try Camino (and I still might), but I love the extensions on Firefox too much at this point.
- Adium – The Mac OS X port of the popular Gaim (now Pidgin) chat client.
- CyberDuck – A great FTP and SFTP browser. If you don’t know what FTP and SFTP are, then you won’t need this, but if you do then this is absolutely a good application to look into.
- Programming
- Xcode Developer Tools – A necessary first step if you want to develop applications for Mac OS X. It’s an Integrated Development Environment that I’ve only tinkered with to make some sample apps but with which I fully intend to use in the future.
- Aquamacs – My favorite text editor (Emacs) lives as a fully native port to Mac OS X. Nice. Really, really nice.
- iTerm – Some nice features (tabbed sessions, bookmarks) to have on top of the default Terminal.
- Media
- GIMP for Mac OS X – The best full-featured, open-source image modification program I know. Needed to install X11 from the Install DVD, but that’s no big deal. Don’t think that they’re going to make a Cocoa version of this, but I just found GTK+ for Mac OS X so that GTK+ apps (like GIMP) can run the apps without X11. Maybe I’ll try to see if I can help out with that project…
- VLC Media Player – This media player can handle anything and everything (okay almost) that you throw at it.
- iRecord – Going to (haven’t yet) use this program to schedule and use my MBP as a Digital Video Recorder through my cable box. What does that mean? Hopefully being able to record HD content to my MBP! VLC is necessary for this task as well.
- Audacity – An excellent program for recording and modifying audio. Pretty necessary for me right now since I’m in the process of digitizing a good-sized vinyl record collection.
- Handbrake – A DVD ripper. Never used, but have heard lots about. Will be useful if I want to watch a DVD without taking the DVD with me.
I’ll probably have another post about getting interested in setting myself up with programs that will help in utilizing cross-platform applications. Let me know if you have any others to add, and I’ll consider using it if it suits me. Found any of these to be useful and you hadn’t heard of them before? I’d love to hear (and I’m sure the developers of the applications would too!).
Tagged as: Mac, Pictures
Sep
23
After following the MacBook Pro’s progress from before it even came out to the first edition with its problems aplenty to the future iterations that got better and better, here is the culmination.
I initially started to get interested in the MBP once I realized that Mac OS X was much more than I had thought. It had pieces of BSD (a Unix foundation) and that seemed to me to be worthwhile. I wanted to see what it was like, and the MBP just became more and more attractive as I looked at it more.
Hopefully my waiting will pay off and my MBP will be trouble-free. Now by this time these kinds of things will not be very exciting to most people. there have been countless people who have done such posts and have tread this ground. But that is all by design because I don’t want to be one of the first (and almost by definition get all of the problems). In any case, here are the pictures. They’re not too interesting, but rest assured that I have some future related posts that may be more so.
It looks so normal!
I’m glad that they make it as shock-resistant as possible.
Goodies, goodies.
And we’re off!
Tagged as: Geek, Mac, Money, Shopping
Jul
22
Well first off, it’s not totally all-inclusive and definitive to say that only geeks want Apple computers or that all girls want coach purses. But you know what, for now that will be the title.
Secondly I took this idea from those old SAT analogy questions. Sick as it may be, I rather enjoyed the SAT. It was challenging without being impossible. Plus every time I took it (I only took it once “for real”), it was different. Whether that meant different passages to read and answer from or different math questions, I enjoyed that it was a new challenge that I hadn’t exactly encountered yet.
Anyways, those were definitely unimportant asides. I really want to just say that I think that Apple is keeping their prices artificially high in order to appeal to a certain part of the market. They want to be the ultimate that everyone desires. They want to be what Coach purses are to girls. Okay okay you can choose any of the myriad of popular expensive brands of purses, but I just needed an example. And that seems to be a popular one nowadays.
Coach is a company that produces leather goods and sells them on a very high profit margin. Economists have hypothesized that they are selling “affordable luxury” that is both recognizable as a luxury product while also being reasonably within the budget of many people. That is to say that it’s thought to be “nice” and it’s also well-known to everyone.
Apple is the same thing to geeks (and artists and movie makers and perhaps even all computer users).
Despite your opinions, I’d say that you must admit that Apple has a well thought-out business model. They customize software (including the operating system) to work very well on their devices. I’m mainly speaking about their computer here rather than their other devices, but I suppose that it holds for those as well. So they are determined to do something and do it well. They will sell very few product lines, and they are not determined to be able to support everything under the sun like Microsoft is with their Windows product. Have you ever thought about how much easier that makes their job? They know exactly what they must do while Microsoft has to build a product that is so good that it can conquer “the unknown.” If Apple were unable to get something to work just right with their goal, they could just say “forget it” and be done with it.
And upon this business model, Apple has kept their prices high. They sell good products, but they charge a premium for them as well. And seeing as how they have increased their market share from 3.2% to 7.6% in 3 years (reference), something is working for them.
Personally, I’ve been keeping an eye on the Macbook Pro for the entire time that it’s been out (and probably even as soon as rumors started circulating that it was going to be produced). I was eager to see what Apple was going to do with that platform. I knew that there would be problems with such new technology (and I was proved correct with the plethora of reports from the first few generations but I digress). I do intend to still buy one. But just for curiosity’s sake I recently priced laptops from both Dell and Lenovo. I was able to get hardware that was as good (or better) and at cheaper prices. It was fairly dramatic to say the least.
What does that mean? It means that Apple laptops are also “affordable luxury.” It means that you don’t need one. You could get a very usable functioning laptop for thousands less. Or similarly you could use the same amount of money and get a laptop with more cutting edge components. But because Apple keeps their prices high, people will always hold them on a pedestal. They will be the ideal instead of just a choice. And that works out just fine for Apple. But just like I don’t understand the whole deal with buying fancy purses (saying “it’s quality” just doesn’t cut it all of the time), I’m not sure if I’m totally comfortable with Apple all of the time. I think that on a case by case basis I would advise people to honestly figure out what they need. And i think that many times that will lead to the conclusion that Apple is not the place for them. Yeah, if I were a girl I might just be that one with the homemade bag on her shoulder.
Tagged as: Mac, Rant
Jun
23
Is it just me, or is it tiring listening to things getting hyped up? More specifically, I’m rather tired of reading and seeing the iPhone everywhere. If you don’t know, the iPhone is the new upcoming cellular phone that combines the media and ease of use of an iPod with the web browsing and touchscreen of a smart phone.
Sounds good doesn’t it? Well I’m sure that it will be nice, but it’s not going to be the end all to everything. I don’t even get why there is such a tremendous amount of hype! Everyone is completely enamored with Apple products all of a sudden even if they’re simply a good-looking product that does not even have anything new to offer (look up Apple TV). Sure they have some real nice products, but not everything that they touch is going to turn to gold.
Smart phones have existed. Touchscreens have existed. Phones that can play music and video have existed. Devices that can access the Internet have existed.
So the only new thing is something that does these things from Apple. How novel. How worth $500. Coming this upcoming week to an Apple fanatic near you.