I live a schizophrenic life. For work I am coerced into a PC world. Windows, AD Domains, MS Exchange, and all that lot. But for my home and personal work, I am a devotee of the cult of the Mac. My wife and I both are Mac users, and here are some observations from a long time use perspective. Work – HP Elitebook 2560P My work laptop was issued to me when I joined in 2012. It is an HP small...
Remember a few years ago (was it really 2008?) when the iPhone was hot, Android was beginning to take root, and the big argument was … Flash support in internet browsing? Yep, I was just thinking about how much outrage that Steve Jobs dared to say that Adobe Shockwave Flash was awful. At the time the number one brag that all my friends who were on the Android bandwagon waved in my face was...
I have been using the latest OS on my MacBook Air for about a week now, and in general I really like it. Not Earth shaking, but solid, and the improvements really add up to a better experience all around. The UI – briefly The first thing that you notice is the flat visuals. Bowing to the contemporary design trends, the windows, the visuals, and all the other decorations are devoid of...
Last July, I splurged and bought me a Macbook Air. The product line was refreshed, and brought faster, more energy sipping processors. I had been using a monster MacBook Pro (still have it) 15″ that was loaded. Max memory, SSD boot/spinning rust extension disc, and the high resolution screen. But lugging it around was tiring. The factor that tilted me in favor of the air was the lightness...
My work laptop got wonky and my copy of Office 2010 was corrupted. Really weird stuff happening, but the icing on the cake was it saving corrupted files. I used all my ninja mojo, ran out of ideas, and then turned to our internal desktop support group, again to no avail. The last ditch effort before re-imaging the laptop was to try Office 2013. Office 2013 with the release of the first service...
I felt a little bad in my last post ragging on Comcast. Apart from their tech whiffing on connecting the cable last Friday, and the snafu’s until their technician was here on Tuesday, it really wasn’t their fault. Today, I have more awesomeness to report. We had far too much stuff in our small apartment, so until Thursday, I hadn’t even unpacked our Plasma TV. Naturally, I...
A week or so ago, I raved about the in store experience with Comcast cable, our tv and internet provider here (yes, I know their reputation, but what I am going to use instead, fucking AT&T U-Verse?!?) I connected immediately with a great customer service rep in their store, who set me up proper. One of the issues was that they needed to visit sometime the day after to hook up cable, as it...
At work, we are being split into two companies. A week ago, my computer was supposed to be migrated to the new domain. So I followed the directions to the letter, and naturally it failed. That night, I had a nightmare. That instead of just switching domains, that my laptop automagagically upgraded to Windows 8. Metro interface and all. <shudder> Fortunately, when I woke up, I found that I...
Not quite yet, but the winds are blowing that Apple will end support and sales of Aperture, their “pro” photo application. A recent story on Wired gives a brief outline. “Photos” will take the lead, and it will be all about getting all your images into iCloud, and managing them there. I had smelled this stink coming for a while. The updates to Aperture have slowed down...
When we first moved to Arizona, I splurged and bought a Tivo. It was an old one, and it was wonderful. Worked great, super intuitive interface, great integration. Back then it had to call Tivo every day to get the latest listings. In 2006 or so, we went HD, and upgraded to a Series 2 HD, with the cable cards. With the exception of a failed HD in 2012, replaced via Weaknees, it has been wonderful...