Last week, I had to get my laptop re-imaged. I had fouled up either my hive, or the install of Windows, so it had become incredibly unstable. Probably my fault. (ok, almost certainly my fault). It has taken a week to get back to functional. All the key software is installed. The settings are back to where I like them (for power options etc), and I got all the essential drivers sorted (you really...
About 8 months ago, on a whim I bought a Nexus 7. Really to be used for testing websites I work on for how they look on that size screen, a few months ago I decided to give Android a fair shake. Caveat: I have been an Apple person since 2002 or so, and have been with iOS since the original iPhone, so I am clearly a biased opinion. The fair shake involved me using the Nexus 7 for all my media...
Yesterday, while I was waiting for my computer to be reimaged due to some serious funk happening with my outlook mail, I had a couple hours to burn. After I killed a longer than normal walk at lunch, I sat down in the lobby with a good book. Background: my products are reliant on a lot of technology, but one aspect is critical in how they work and are used. This being a PID Servo Control system...
The joy that is Windows. Every so often you need to blow it all away and start from scratch. Today was that day. Outlook had been a piece of garbage for quite some time. Lots of bandaids, duct tape and baling wire was keeping me up and running. But today it finally gave up the ghost. So, back up all my files, and off to IT to reimage, and get me back to a stable state. Alas, a lot of software...
Two days ago, I gave you props for being smart about the “Reply All” function in Gmail. Today, you wiped out that karma credit you earned with your new changes to gmail. I have long been a happy, satisfied customer of gmail. Hell, I purchase a small business account for my main domain, because your service is pretty kick ass. I have been on gmail since it was invitation only back in...
As a longtime Mac person, I have to admit that Windows 7 is a pretty good operating system. Stable, snappy, and not too much of a resource hog, even on questionable hardware. I used it at my last company on a decent Dell Latitude system, and it was quite good. But you can make it suck. I work at a Fortune 500 company. I have an OK HP elitebook (15″ mid sized laptop) that once I got the...
I heavily rely on the various cloud services to keep working documents, and helpful things available wherever I happen to be, on which of my devices. I have a 100G Dropbox account, a 25G Google Drive account, and, being an Apple person, I have an iCloud account as well. All of these do a pretty decent job of keeping files synchronized around my devices. But, the one that I couldn’t live...
Thinking back to 2007, and the launch of the original iPhone, I remember the outcry over the fact that the iPhone didn’t render Adobe Flash content. Lots of predictions of doom and gloom for the device (although no cellphones at the time really supported it). As a Mac person, I have long loathed Flash. The implementation on the Mac was buggy and a huge resource hog. I would have to run a...
Microsoft, Apple, Thunderbird (indeed, all MUA’s): It is time to remove the “reply all” option. I know that there are valid use cases for it, but alas, the general population has failed to grasp the implications of this seemingly innocuous button on their email. Yes, there are times that people really really do want to spam their colleagues like it was a listserv, but this is an...
I have always used the time to upgrade computers to buy the biggest, fastest, bestest computer I could get. I typically keep them for 3-4 years (and use them hard) so skimping on the price is not a really a priority. My macbook pro is getting a little long in the tooth (but by no means giving up the ghost), and I was flirting with the MacBook Pro Retina display. But I took stock of my needs, and...