Recently I've started thinking about the problems with the security of using "free" email addresses as the main method of personal authentication and control of important / sensitive online accounts. This all started because someone signed up for a match.com account with *my* "free" email address after also attempting to retrieve usernames and reset passwords for a few other accounts using the same email address over the course of two days. (Not including match.com, as I've never had an account there.) I logged in and changed my passwords to my more sensitive accounts, just in case... It didn't seem like a case of hacking, since the person also registered a new Toshiba laptop and was likely attempting to log in to things for the first time in awhile.
I've used the email address in question since at least 2006 as my main email address and have signed up for dozens of accounts with it over those years. The email address is based on my name without any numbers or any filler since I was the first one to get to it.
It appears that the person has a similar name (same first initial and same last name, at least) according to the info contained in the welcome email from match, but he (unfortunately) doesn't know what his email address is. Another thing that was VERY odd to me was that they (match.com) sent both the username and plain-text password for the new account in the initial welcome email. Not like it needs to be crazy-secure, but it's possible there's sensitive information that the user has entered there and then accidentally sent control of to someone else.
In researching how to get rid of my email address on the other person's account, without logging into it, it seems that their policy is to contact support to cancel the account. Which I did, via their website, when I received the welcome email. After 3 days with no response from support and continuing to get emails at least 1-2 times daily from them for three days, despite attempting to unsubscribe from those emails every time I received them, I decided to delete the account.
So, this morning I logged in with the plain-text username/password from the welcome email and deleted the account. Thanks for nothing, match.com support. I didn't want to have to do that, but I also don't want to see the all of the "matches" that he may be eagerly anticipating and not getting... and you probably don't have any way to contact him to actually correct his email address, since all he likely gave you was *my* email address instead of his.
I'm expecting to get another account welcome email today when the poor guy tries to log in again and finds his account deleted and builds another account. Maybe/hopefully he figured out his correct email address by now? If not, at least I know they'll send me the username/password and I can do it all over again.
I had a similar experience with Wells Fargo last year when someone signed up for online banking using my email address (because they forgot one character in their email address, based on their name). It took *me* multiple emails/phone calls to get that straightened out (for them). I'm not sure they had any idea they had entered it wrong and if they did, they didn't try to change it for awhile... Fortunately, that experience seemed a little more "secure" in that they didn't give me enough info to get it on my own directly, however (thinking back on it) I probably could have reset the password, since the confirmation likely would have come to my email address. I didn't want to have anything to do with messing with their bank account, though.
I'm feeling kind of fortunate that I don't have a common name.
I think it's time to take an inventory of all of the accounts I have signed up over the years and clean them up and then find more secure ways to control my own accounts so that I don't have to rely on a "free" email address from a large, for-profit corporation that I also don't trust completely with all of the power I've given them as the (in most cases) sole way to control access to the accounts I've signed up with it.
One more thing: MAKE SURE TO CHECK YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS BEFORE SIGNING UP FOR THINGS!
(Sorry for yelling!)
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Winds of change.
I've been finding myself asking different variations of a similarly themed question a lot more often lately: How did I end up where I am today and where do I actually want to end up?
I've been feeling like trying to decide what you want to do with the "rest of your life" as a teenager has it's drawbacks. I initially thought I wanted to be a mechanical engineer because I had a strong interest in machines such as automobiles and bicycles. I used to love to draw and doodle and think of how things I drew would work in real life. I built model cars and then took them apart and made them "better" out of parts of other kits. I took parts off of all of the spare/outgrown bikes that we had kicking around in our family of four kids and made "better" bikes out of them. I felt like I would love to find a job creating new bicycle suspension designs or cars like the ones I was seeing in mountain bike and car magazines and Popular Science... but on a tour of one of the colleges I got into (I think it was Virgina Tech) I was told that a lot of their graduates work in a "toilet paper factory down the road" designing machinery, which was probably meant as a positive that engineers were everywhere. However, I came to the opposite conclusion that to end up as an automotive or bicycle mechanical engineer was a very slim chance. I also felt that even if I did come to a find a job in the automotive or bicycle industries that I'd really end up making other people's artistic renderings a reality instead of actually doing the designing.
You would think that I would have decided that a career in mechanical engineering wasn't what I really wanted... but I ended up committing to one of the mechanical engineering programs I was accepted into. I attempted to make it work for two years before offically deciding that I liked "computers" better. So, instead of staying at that university and switching to computer engineering or computer science I ended up going back home and getting an associate degree in computer information systems from a local community college, just as everyone was saying that the "tech bubble burst". At that point it seemed difficult/impossible to find a job that was "entry level" that didn't want 5+ years of hands-on experience especially in the area I lived in. So, I decided that at that point I was just going to find some sort of job and figure it out as I went. I felt that someday I'd finish my computer science degree and be a computer programmer. I interviewed around for jobs on the edge of what I wanted to do. I had been working summers at a family friend's fast food restaurant and then ended up working in a supermarket bakery department just before I graduated with my CIS degree. I spent a couple years working there followed by different positions in the same company's headquarters starting with a special project with the Bakery and IT departments. While working on that project I found out that the company had an in-house IT department that had quite a few functions and was encouraged to keep in touch with the people I worked with and apply for entry-level things that came up. So I continued to move around to different jobs in the bakery HQ, the corporate pricing department and eventually ended up in the IT department as a Programmer/Analyst, then a Software Developer.
So, I guess that answers the question of: How did I end up here? However, the question about where do I want to be is the harder question to answer.
How would have my life been different if continued with mechanical engineering? What opportunities would have presented themselves if I was willing to move away from my family, friends and hometown? What would be different today if I stayed in school and gotten a better degree? Would I be in this position right now if I didn't spend 10 years in a company doing different jobs while learning about the industry and systems in it?
What would happen if I decided I wanted to do something different right now? What if I was willing and able to move? What if I could afford to go back to school for something different? What if I'd rather start a business related to something I'm actually interested in? (I'm definitely losing interest in the overall mission of what I've been doing for the past 13 years...)
If I was to "start over" now, though, what would I do? The biggest question I have is that once I'm "there" would I be left wondering the same things on the other side of the fence?
I've been feeling like trying to decide what you want to do with the "rest of your life" as a teenager has it's drawbacks. I initially thought I wanted to be a mechanical engineer because I had a strong interest in machines such as automobiles and bicycles. I used to love to draw and doodle and think of how things I drew would work in real life. I built model cars and then took them apart and made them "better" out of parts of other kits. I took parts off of all of the spare/outgrown bikes that we had kicking around in our family of four kids and made "better" bikes out of them. I felt like I would love to find a job creating new bicycle suspension designs or cars like the ones I was seeing in mountain bike and car magazines and Popular Science... but on a tour of one of the colleges I got into (I think it was Virgina Tech) I was told that a lot of their graduates work in a "toilet paper factory down the road" designing machinery, which was probably meant as a positive that engineers were everywhere. However, I came to the opposite conclusion that to end up as an automotive or bicycle mechanical engineer was a very slim chance. I also felt that even if I did come to a find a job in the automotive or bicycle industries that I'd really end up making other people's artistic renderings a reality instead of actually doing the designing.
You would think that I would have decided that a career in mechanical engineering wasn't what I really wanted... but I ended up committing to one of the mechanical engineering programs I was accepted into. I attempted to make it work for two years before offically deciding that I liked "computers" better. So, instead of staying at that university and switching to computer engineering or computer science I ended up going back home and getting an associate degree in computer information systems from a local community college, just as everyone was saying that the "tech bubble burst". At that point it seemed difficult/impossible to find a job that was "entry level" that didn't want 5+ years of hands-on experience especially in the area I lived in. So, I decided that at that point I was just going to find some sort of job and figure it out as I went. I felt that someday I'd finish my computer science degree and be a computer programmer. I interviewed around for jobs on the edge of what I wanted to do. I had been working summers at a family friend's fast food restaurant and then ended up working in a supermarket bakery department just before I graduated with my CIS degree. I spent a couple years working there followed by different positions in the same company's headquarters starting with a special project with the Bakery and IT departments. While working on that project I found out that the company had an in-house IT department that had quite a few functions and was encouraged to keep in touch with the people I worked with and apply for entry-level things that came up. So I continued to move around to different jobs in the bakery HQ, the corporate pricing department and eventually ended up in the IT department as a Programmer/Analyst, then a Software Developer.
So, I guess that answers the question of: How did I end up here? However, the question about where do I want to be is the harder question to answer.
How would have my life been different if continued with mechanical engineering? What opportunities would have presented themselves if I was willing to move away from my family, friends and hometown? What would be different today if I stayed in school and gotten a better degree? Would I be in this position right now if I didn't spend 10 years in a company doing different jobs while learning about the industry and systems in it?
What would happen if I decided I wanted to do something different right now? What if I was willing and able to move? What if I could afford to go back to school for something different? What if I'd rather start a business related to something I'm actually interested in? (I'm definitely losing interest in the overall mission of what I've been doing for the past 13 years...)
If I was to "start over" now, though, what would I do? The biggest question I have is that once I'm "there" would I be left wondering the same things on the other side of the fence?
Thursday, October 11, 2012
On life changes.
Long time, no post. To catch up, the past couple years have brought some life changes. I'm a year and nine months or so into a career change to what I actually went to college for. I'm actually somewhat of a computer programmer now. (My official title is Programmer / Analyst.) I spend a lot of my time doing user support and ad-hoc SQL queries to create or update one-off reports. I have done some program feature enhancements and bug fixes but nothing too crazy yet. I still work for the same company that I've been at for the past 11 and a half years or so.
I traded in my grey 2007 Subaru Legacy for a blue 2012 Subaru Impreza because the Legacy was approaching 100,000 miles, had a newly diagnosed but somewhat common leaky head gasket and the new Impreza was touting approximately 7 MPG more than I was getting in the Legacy.
Most recently, I've moved about an hour west of where I spent most of my life to an area I could actually see myself staying for awhile.
All of these things have me feeling like I'm growing up... (I know, I know, I should be mostly grown up already at the age of 33) but I seem to find myself becoming more and more restless.
Now that I'm actually paid to be a programmer, I find myself growing less interested in computers and technology. Sure my interest had already faded some in the 10 years since I finished college while I was occupied with other less technology related employment, but it feels like it's continued at a more accelerated pace lately. I haven't built a computer in a long time. I don't know what the best video card is anymore and don't really want to play any games that would need a good video card. To an extent, I still know what's going on in the consumer technology market but can't help but grumble when people ask what I think about things like iPads and the "cloud". I use off the shelf PC laptops and don't bother upgrading the hardware. I recently purchased a new laptop but only because it wouldn't be much cheaper to put a new battery, decent hard drive and some more memory in the old one and even if I did it probably weighed close to 8 pounds and wasn't very portable, so I didn't even like dragging it out to the couch. All I ever do on a computer at home is listen to music and surf the internet anyway. I probably should have just picked up a tablet and put my music on the "cloud" somewhere... but I hate typing on touchscreens.
My Impreza still has the stock 16" wheels and hasn't had it's first detailing and I've had it since May. What's happening to me?
Also, now that I've moved out of the apartment I've been for the past 5+ years (to a place other than the area I spent the better part of the last 3 decades), I want to actually find a house and spend time doing projects around it. I want to have some space around me, a garden and maybe a garage.
I've recently put some books about gardening and sustainable living on my Amazon wish list and thought about what it would take to grow all the ingredients needed to brew beer. I've debated opening a brew pub. I've had moments where I had a fleeting thought about quitting my job and being a landscaper.
Recently I've actually even caught myself daydreaming about becoming a farmer while driving past various farms on my commute to work. I don't actually think I want to be a farmer... I think I just want to do something different than what I'm doing now. I've been sitting in various office chairs for almost 12 years now and it's getting boring and feels less rewarding than when I first worked my way into the office world.
I don't actually dislike what I'm doing now. The actual programming is fun. The problem solving and analysis is interesting and rewarding but I'm still just keeping the wheels turning. I rarely work on anything new or exciting and when I do get to work on new things they're almost always rushed. I spend a majority of my time solving problems that could have been avoided if a little more care was put into the planning and getting everyone in the same boat before setting sail... but I don't have a say in that part, so I just sit in my chair and figure out how to undo what I was asked to do... but the "undo" has to happen more quickly than the "do" and the "do" was expected in less time than it should have really taken to get done. So it's a never-ending cycle of chasing my tail.
The problem is, I don't know what I'd rather do.
I traded in my grey 2007 Subaru Legacy for a blue 2012 Subaru Impreza because the Legacy was approaching 100,000 miles, had a newly diagnosed but somewhat common leaky head gasket and the new Impreza was touting approximately 7 MPG more than I was getting in the Legacy.
Most recently, I've moved about an hour west of where I spent most of my life to an area I could actually see myself staying for awhile.
All of these things have me feeling like I'm growing up... (I know, I know, I should be mostly grown up already at the age of 33) but I seem to find myself becoming more and more restless.
Now that I'm actually paid to be a programmer, I find myself growing less interested in computers and technology. Sure my interest had already faded some in the 10 years since I finished college while I was occupied with other less technology related employment, but it feels like it's continued at a more accelerated pace lately. I haven't built a computer in a long time. I don't know what the best video card is anymore and don't really want to play any games that would need a good video card. To an extent, I still know what's going on in the consumer technology market but can't help but grumble when people ask what I think about things like iPads and the "cloud". I use off the shelf PC laptops and don't bother upgrading the hardware. I recently purchased a new laptop but only because it wouldn't be much cheaper to put a new battery, decent hard drive and some more memory in the old one and even if I did it probably weighed close to 8 pounds and wasn't very portable, so I didn't even like dragging it out to the couch. All I ever do on a computer at home is listen to music and surf the internet anyway. I probably should have just picked up a tablet and put my music on the "cloud" somewhere... but I hate typing on touchscreens.
My Impreza still has the stock 16" wheels and hasn't had it's first detailing and I've had it since May. What's happening to me?
Also, now that I've moved out of the apartment I've been for the past 5+ years (to a place other than the area I spent the better part of the last 3 decades), I want to actually find a house and spend time doing projects around it. I want to have some space around me, a garden and maybe a garage.
I've recently put some books about gardening and sustainable living on my Amazon wish list and thought about what it would take to grow all the ingredients needed to brew beer. I've debated opening a brew pub. I've had moments where I had a fleeting thought about quitting my job and being a landscaper.
Recently I've actually even caught myself daydreaming about becoming a farmer while driving past various farms on my commute to work. I don't actually think I want to be a farmer... I think I just want to do something different than what I'm doing now. I've been sitting in various office chairs for almost 12 years now and it's getting boring and feels less rewarding than when I first worked my way into the office world.
I don't actually dislike what I'm doing now. The actual programming is fun. The problem solving and analysis is interesting and rewarding but I'm still just keeping the wheels turning. I rarely work on anything new or exciting and when I do get to work on new things they're almost always rushed. I spend a majority of my time solving problems that could have been avoided if a little more care was put into the planning and getting everyone in the same boat before setting sail... but I don't have a say in that part, so I just sit in my chair and figure out how to undo what I was asked to do... but the "undo" has to happen more quickly than the "do" and the "do" was expected in less time than it should have really taken to get done. So it's a never-ending cycle of chasing my tail.
The problem is, I don't know what I'd rather do.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Simplification
Every year around this time it seems like I go through a period of feeling like I want to weed out some of my belongings that I don't ever use and try to simplify my life.
I don't like the feeling of clutter so I wander around the apartment and look for things that I don't use, don't need and wouldn't ever use again. I generally make a pile of stuff to go to charity, stuff to give away to friends or family and stuff to sell.
I'm putting a little dent in the stuff I've managed to accumulate over the years. I sold off my netbook that I used for one week when I was on vacation over the summer and a couple miscellaneous computer parts. I'm working on getting rid of an old cell phone, more older computer parts, possibly my old PowerMac G4, one of my guitars and an amplifier, miscellaneous guitar stuff, etc. I have some clothes and household type stuff to give to charity.
Over the past few years I've realized just how much stuff I have that I don't use or don't need but wanted really badly at one point in time. My guitars are a prime example of this. At one point I had 3 guitars, 2 amplifiers and tons of other miscellaneous guitar related stuff. I messed around on the guitar a little bit but never took lessons or teaching myself how to really play all that seriously and I haven't picked up any of my guitars in probably at least 3 years.
I think part of the reason I go through this is the realization of just how much Christmas is focused on buying stuff and another reason is that when the weather is cold and gloomy I tend to stay in my apartment more and seeing stuff around that is little more than a waste of space and money is kind of depressing.
I'm going to work more on trying to decide whether I'm really going to use something enough to make it worthwhile to purchase more in the future...
I don't like the feeling of clutter so I wander around the apartment and look for things that I don't use, don't need and wouldn't ever use again. I generally make a pile of stuff to go to charity, stuff to give away to friends or family and stuff to sell.
I'm putting a little dent in the stuff I've managed to accumulate over the years. I sold off my netbook that I used for one week when I was on vacation over the summer and a couple miscellaneous computer parts. I'm working on getting rid of an old cell phone, more older computer parts, possibly my old PowerMac G4, one of my guitars and an amplifier, miscellaneous guitar stuff, etc. I have some clothes and household type stuff to give to charity.
Over the past few years I've realized just how much stuff I have that I don't use or don't need but wanted really badly at one point in time. My guitars are a prime example of this. At one point I had 3 guitars, 2 amplifiers and tons of other miscellaneous guitar related stuff. I messed around on the guitar a little bit but never took lessons or teaching myself how to really play all that seriously and I haven't picked up any of my guitars in probably at least 3 years.
I think part of the reason I go through this is the realization of just how much Christmas is focused on buying stuff and another reason is that when the weather is cold and gloomy I tend to stay in my apartment more and seeing stuff around that is little more than a waste of space and money is kind of depressing.
I'm going to work more on trying to decide whether I'm really going to use something enough to make it worthwhile to purchase more in the future...
Friday, September 11, 2009
The lazy days of summer...
Note: This post is going to be a quick recap of my summer. Repeat, this is just a gratuitous catch up post. There is nothing really deep here. I hope to revive my interest in this blog and trying to come up with more thoughtful ideas for it in the not too distant future, but until then, this will have to do. ;)
It always seems that even though I love the summer, I end up being pretty lazy for the majority of it. I end up sitting in the air conditioned splendor of my apartment and not wanting to do much of anything once I get home from work.
Even though it seems like most of my summer was spent sitting on my comfortable couch, with my girlfriend and our laptops, TV shows and books -- we did manage to do some fun stuff.
We went to the Seattle area for a week in the beginning of July to visit my girlfriend's brother, his wife and their son. We had a blast which involved a decent amount of fireworks, drinking, shopping, eating and attempting to stay cool. For a place that has the reputation of being drenched in an almost constant rain, it barely sprinkled only the last morning we were there. It was hot, humid and sunny the entire rest of the week. I learned that if a toddler says "I have idea." to make sure to hold onto the fireplace lighter that you've been using to light fireworks because it will be snatched out of your back pocket. Also, if said toddler comes down from upstairs with his hands behind his back, that there's probably something that he shouldn't have in those hands.
I also turned 30 at the end of July! It was nice and low-key, just like I wanted. My girlfriend cooked me a nice dinner on my actual birthday, her mother took me out to dinner at Brown's on the day after and my family had a BBQ on the day after that. So it was three nice days of birthday celebration, but nothing too crazy.
I purchased an Acer Aspire One 8.9" netbook as an early birthday present for myself and to bring on our trip to WA. It was nice to be able to check mail, pay bills, look for things to do, check plane schedules at the airport, and more all in a tiny, portable little package. I think it was well worth the money I spent on it, even though the battery life (with the 3-cell battery) isn't great and I tend to use my Dell Vostro as my main computer when I'm in the apartment. The display seems bigger and usable than the 8.9" size suggests and it's been trouble free, so far!
I also read some decent books. I picked up a couple books by Christopher Buckley, No Way to Treat a First Lady and Little Green Men: A Novel after reading Boomsday last year. I recommend all three. They were all well written, funny and sarcastic. I also read Steve Wozniak's book iWoz, along with How Walmart Is Destroying America (And the World): And What You Can Do about It by Bill Quinn and Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom. I'm not sure if I'd recommend any of them to people unless they're interested in Apple and/or personal computer history, retailing or marketing and advertising, respectively... ;)
Last weekend we went to The Clark to see the Dove/O'Keeffe: Circles of Influence exhibit. There were a lot of interesting oil paintings, watercolors, pastels and collages there (between Dove and O'Keeffe) with one of the most humorous pairings being Arthur Dove's watercolor Happy Clam Shell next to Georgia O'Keeffe's pastel Slightly Open Clam Shell. The pictures linked above are from this review of the show by Judith H. Dobrzynski on the Arts Journal website. There is also another review for Wall Street Journal by the same author that was interesting.
I also spent some time last weekend doing maintenance on my car that I've been neglecting for a little while. I washed and waxed it and my brother and I put on Akebono ProACT ceramic brake pads, Centric rotors, McGard SplineDrive lug nuts, NGK Iridium spark plugs and NGK plug wires. Next it's getting new Bridgestone Potenza G019 Grid tires as soon as they are shipped to Firestone. (The size I need is on backorder.) The brakes are feeling good so far, the lug nuts are much higher quality than the ones they replaced and I seem to be getting a few more MPG with the fresh spark plugs and the reset computer. (Side notes: I didn't like the BF Goodrich Super Sport A/S tires that I put on last spring/early summer. They wore out extremely quickly and weren't worth the money that I paid for them. I also didn't have good luck with Gorilla spline drive style lug nuts. They only lasted one winter before the chrome was peeling off.)
I also decided to finally kill my MySpace account. I found that I hardly ever logged on and I decided not to keep it around for no reason...
There was some other fun stuff sprinkled in there but those were the big highlights... all in all it was a good summer.
It always seems that even though I love the summer, I end up being pretty lazy for the majority of it. I end up sitting in the air conditioned splendor of my apartment and not wanting to do much of anything once I get home from work.
Even though it seems like most of my summer was spent sitting on my comfortable couch, with my girlfriend and our laptops, TV shows and books -- we did manage to do some fun stuff.
We went to the Seattle area for a week in the beginning of July to visit my girlfriend's brother, his wife and their son. We had a blast which involved a decent amount of fireworks, drinking, shopping, eating and attempting to stay cool. For a place that has the reputation of being drenched in an almost constant rain, it barely sprinkled only the last morning we were there. It was hot, humid and sunny the entire rest of the week. I learned that if a toddler says "I have idea." to make sure to hold onto the fireplace lighter that you've been using to light fireworks because it will be snatched out of your back pocket. Also, if said toddler comes down from upstairs with his hands behind his back, that there's probably something that he shouldn't have in those hands.
I also turned 30 at the end of July! It was nice and low-key, just like I wanted. My girlfriend cooked me a nice dinner on my actual birthday, her mother took me out to dinner at Brown's on the day after and my family had a BBQ on the day after that. So it was three nice days of birthday celebration, but nothing too crazy.
I purchased an Acer Aspire One 8.9" netbook as an early birthday present for myself and to bring on our trip to WA. It was nice to be able to check mail, pay bills, look for things to do, check plane schedules at the airport, and more all in a tiny, portable little package. I think it was well worth the money I spent on it, even though the battery life (with the 3-cell battery) isn't great and I tend to use my Dell Vostro as my main computer when I'm in the apartment. The display seems bigger and usable than the 8.9" size suggests and it's been trouble free, so far!
I also read some decent books. I picked up a couple books by Christopher Buckley, No Way to Treat a First Lady and Little Green Men: A Novel after reading Boomsday last year. I recommend all three. They were all well written, funny and sarcastic. I also read Steve Wozniak's book iWoz, along with How Walmart Is Destroying America (And the World): And What You Can Do about It by Bill Quinn and Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom. I'm not sure if I'd recommend any of them to people unless they're interested in Apple and/or personal computer history, retailing or marketing and advertising, respectively... ;)
Last weekend we went to The Clark to see the Dove/O'Keeffe: Circles of Influence exhibit. There were a lot of interesting oil paintings, watercolors, pastels and collages there (between Dove and O'Keeffe) with one of the most humorous pairings being Arthur Dove's watercolor Happy Clam Shell next to Georgia O'Keeffe's pastel Slightly Open Clam Shell. The pictures linked above are from this review of the show by Judith H. Dobrzynski on the Arts Journal website. There is also another review for Wall Street Journal by the same author that was interesting.
I also spent some time last weekend doing maintenance on my car that I've been neglecting for a little while. I washed and waxed it and my brother and I put on Akebono ProACT ceramic brake pads, Centric rotors, McGard SplineDrive lug nuts, NGK Iridium spark plugs and NGK plug wires. Next it's getting new Bridgestone Potenza G019 Grid tires as soon as they are shipped to Firestone. (The size I need is on backorder.) The brakes are feeling good so far, the lug nuts are much higher quality than the ones they replaced and I seem to be getting a few more MPG with the fresh spark plugs and the reset computer. (Side notes: I didn't like the BF Goodrich Super Sport A/S tires that I put on last spring/early summer. They wore out extremely quickly and weren't worth the money that I paid for them. I also didn't have good luck with Gorilla spline drive style lug nuts. They only lasted one winter before the chrome was peeling off.)
I also decided to finally kill my MySpace account. I found that I hardly ever logged on and I decided not to keep it around for no reason...
There was some other fun stuff sprinkled in there but those were the big highlights... all in all it was a good summer.
Labels:
advertising
,
art
,
books
,
cars
,
computers
,
family
,
social networks
,
vacation
Monday, August 25, 2008
Scented laptops?
Here's another product for the list of "Do we really need this?" products. ASUSTeK is rolling out a line of scented laptops.
Um... yeah. What will they think of next?
Um... yeah. What will they think of next?
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Cuil - Not so cool.
I've read a few stories about the new search engine, Cuil, which is supposedly pronounced cool. Cuil's creators seem to believe that it is already poised to take on search giant google.
I've tried it out a couple times now and I'm not quite so sure that it's going to challenge google anytime soon.
My first attempts last night were met with error messages stating that the servers didn't return any results because they were too busy. I attempted again this morning by searching for "tour de france winner 2008" (without the quotes) and the first result on google was: "Sports News: Carlos Sastre 2008 Tour de France Winner" which was a good result. All of the other results on the first page were similar results.
Cuil gave me results about scandals, the 2006 winner twice, the 2007 winner twice, the 2004 winner, etc. I didn't see anything on their first page about Sastre or the 2008 Tour.
I also like the way google search results are just a simple list of links with descriptions. Cuil looks more like a newspaper page with results in blocks spread over three columns. I found it hard to look at compared to google.
While this isn't a definitive test, it's enough for me to not waste my time with Cuil for the time being.
I've tried it out a couple times now and I'm not quite so sure that it's going to challenge google anytime soon.
My first attempts last night were met with error messages stating that the servers didn't return any results because they were too busy. I attempted again this morning by searching for "tour de france winner 2008" (without the quotes) and the first result on google was: "Sports News: Carlos Sastre 2008 Tour de France Winner" which was a good result. All of the other results on the first page were similar results.
Cuil gave me results about scandals, the 2006 winner twice, the 2007 winner twice, the 2004 winner, etc. I didn't see anything on their first page about Sastre or the 2008 Tour.
I also like the way google search results are just a simple list of links with descriptions. Cuil looks more like a newspaper page with results in blocks spread over three columns. I found it hard to look at compared to google.
While this isn't a definitive test, it's enough for me to not waste my time with Cuil for the time being.
Friday, May 16, 2008
More thoughts on fewer choices
Earlier this year I read a book by Barry Schwartz called The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less and gave a quick overview of it.
I've been thinking about this book (and some of the main ideas in it) more and more over the past few weeks and I wanted to write down a few more thoughts on the whole concept of simplification and having fewer choices.
Like most people I have things that I care about and want to have tons of choices and things that I just want to be simple that I don't have to put a lot of thought behind.
I looked at reviews on hundreds of different tires before I picked the set I wanted. However, walking down the cereal aisle in the supermarket and being presented with plain Cheerios® in three different sized boxes (8.9, 14 & 18 oz.) just seems a tad ridiculous to me. How much of a waste is it to have three different package sizes, three different cases that have to be shipped to the store, three different spots on a shelf that have to be stocked, three different UPC's that have to be maintained in computer systems and on and on... all for the SAME EXACT product. Now expand this thinking to all of the other cereals... and then on to all of the other products available in a typical supermarket.
Do stores really need to carry a half dozen or so different brands of pasta? (I've never had pasta that tasted any different than any other pasta.) How is "pizza sauce" different from "pasta sauce" or "tomato sauce"? Aren't they all just basically tomatoes and spices? I'm not going to lie and say that I don't have preferences or favorite products and foods but I'm usually so overwhelmed when I walk in the supermarket that I don't pay attention to different prices or sizes and just grab what I'm used to eating but I can spend many hours spread over a few months researching tires for my car beginning months before they're even ready to be replaced.
I don't really know how to justify what I'm thinking and I'm sure that Cheerios®, pasta and various sauces are important to some people in the same way that tires are important to me. I wouldn't just walk into a tire store and say: "I'd like to buy some tires." the same way I walk into the supermarket and grab a random box of rotini and jar of Prego®. However, I think I'd have a meltdown if I tried to compare Prego® to Ragu® to Bertolli® to Classico® to Emerill's® to Hunt's® to Newman's Own® to Muir Glen® to Gia Russa® to the store brand (and I could go on and on and on here...) the same way I obsessed about tires.
The whole concept of having too many choices is such a tricky situation that we've gotten ourselves into in pursuit of the almighty dollar... everything is a balancing act. Retailers don't want to piss off customers by taking away their choices and they want to keep adding new products to their lineup to relieve you of some of your cash while you're picking up your necessities but at the same time they want to save money and increase their profits. New brands pop up to take a share of your pasta sauce budget. Retail stores just keep getting bigger and more overwhelming. At many Wal-Mart stores you can have your car's oil changed while you purchase Miller Lite, shrimp, boxer shorts and a big screen TV.
I know there are other people out there that feel a lot like I do. The same simplification argument applies to pretty much everything from the supermarket example to computer software user interfaces. Sometimes having too many choices is overwhelming and wasteful... but how do we go back to a more simple existence? How do we remove choices without taking away a person's freedom to choose?
I've been thinking about this book (and some of the main ideas in it) more and more over the past few weeks and I wanted to write down a few more thoughts on the whole concept of simplification and having fewer choices.
Like most people I have things that I care about and want to have tons of choices and things that I just want to be simple that I don't have to put a lot of thought behind.
I looked at reviews on hundreds of different tires before I picked the set I wanted. However, walking down the cereal aisle in the supermarket and being presented with plain Cheerios® in three different sized boxes (8.9, 14 & 18 oz.) just seems a tad ridiculous to me. How much of a waste is it to have three different package sizes, three different cases that have to be shipped to the store, three different spots on a shelf that have to be stocked, three different UPC's that have to be maintained in computer systems and on and on... all for the SAME EXACT product. Now expand this thinking to all of the other cereals... and then on to all of the other products available in a typical supermarket.
Do stores really need to carry a half dozen or so different brands of pasta? (I've never had pasta that tasted any different than any other pasta.) How is "pizza sauce" different from "pasta sauce" or "tomato sauce"? Aren't they all just basically tomatoes and spices? I'm not going to lie and say that I don't have preferences or favorite products and foods but I'm usually so overwhelmed when I walk in the supermarket that I don't pay attention to different prices or sizes and just grab what I'm used to eating but I can spend many hours spread over a few months researching tires for my car beginning months before they're even ready to be replaced.
I don't really know how to justify what I'm thinking and I'm sure that Cheerios®, pasta and various sauces are important to some people in the same way that tires are important to me. I wouldn't just walk into a tire store and say: "I'd like to buy some tires." the same way I walk into the supermarket and grab a random box of rotini and jar of Prego®. However, I think I'd have a meltdown if I tried to compare Prego® to Ragu® to Bertolli® to Classico® to Emerill's® to Hunt's® to Newman's Own® to Muir Glen® to Gia Russa® to the store brand (and I could go on and on and on here...) the same way I obsessed about tires.
The whole concept of having too many choices is such a tricky situation that we've gotten ourselves into in pursuit of the almighty dollar... everything is a balancing act. Retailers don't want to piss off customers by taking away their choices and they want to keep adding new products to their lineup to relieve you of some of your cash while you're picking up your necessities but at the same time they want to save money and increase their profits. New brands pop up to take a share of your pasta sauce budget. Retail stores just keep getting bigger and more overwhelming. At many Wal-Mart stores you can have your car's oil changed while you purchase Miller Lite, shrimp, boxer shorts and a big screen TV.
I know there are other people out there that feel a lot like I do. The same simplification argument applies to pretty much everything from the supermarket example to computer software user interfaces. Sometimes having too many choices is overwhelming and wasteful... but how do we go back to a more simple existence? How do we remove choices without taking away a person's freedom to choose?
Labels:
books
,
cars
,
computers
,
cynicism
,
environment
,
food
,
simplification
,
work
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Oh, Apple... Where did you go wrong?
I saw this headline today "Apple Backs Off Slightly on Aggressive Software Update Tactics" on Wired. Information Week is also running a similar story.
It seems that the Windows version of iTunes was pushing downloads of Safari to unsuspecting iTunes/Windows users as a "software update".
I can't believe that anyone in any software company would think this is a good idea, especially Apple, which I used to hold in high regard.
Apple, you were just knocked down another peg in my book...
It seems that the Windows version of iTunes was pushing downloads of Safari to unsuspecting iTunes/Windows users as a "software update".
I can't believe that anyone in any software company would think this is a good idea, especially Apple, which I used to hold in high regard.
Apple, you were just knocked down another peg in my book...
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Website stats and Dell Vostro update
I just pulled up my statistics on my website (as I have a tendency to do on occasion) and I found that quite a few people that have looked at my blog in recent history are coming here for problems with the MacBook Pro. I've had people hit my website in the past couple weeks by searching google for: "macbook pro not charging", "why is my macbook pro not charging", "macbook pro issues with trackpad while charging", "macbook pro screen not coming on when opening it", "macbook pro cd dvd rubbing inside" and "stop importing cds on macbook pro".
So, it seems to me like there are other people out there that are having the same problems with their MacBook Pros that I did. It's sad because they're such nice looking computers. It's my feeling that Apple put form way too far above function on the MacBook Pro and at the prices people are paying for them, they should be damn close to perfect. (Which, in my humble opinion, they are not.)
This leads into a a quick update on my Dell Vostro 1500.
It's still big and it's still heavy. Since I usually use it around the house it doesn't bother me too much. However, I found out that it doesn't fit in my awesome Timbuk2 laptop messenger bag that my sister got me for Christmas a few years ago. It's not even close. So, that's a little disappointing.
The matte black finish does show fingerprints pretty easily... but again, this isn't too big of a deal.
As far as functionality, though, I've ran into one glitch with it so far. Just for the hell of it I tried to play a DVD on it over the weekend and I couldn't get the DVD to play. The media player software that it came with kept asking me to switch the region on my DVD player to Region 1 for US/Canada. I attempted to, but it still wouldn't play and it said it was still set to "Free". I didn't really care enough to try to fix it since I was sitting in front of my TV. I just popped the DVD in the DVD player and went on with my day. I'm going to figure it out sometime, though... I just haven't cared enough to yet.
I purchased Need for Speed: Pro Street a few days ago and while the graphics aren't that awesome on the game, the Dell runs it with no problem at full native screen resolution with all settings on high. Even playing with the laptop sitting on my lap it doesn't get uncomfortably hot on my legs like the MacBook Pro did under less load.
I do find the trackpad to be a little "twitchy" sometimes... but not very often. It's more responsive and seems to not have the issue of my MacBook Pro's trackpad where I had to swipe my finger a few times before it picked up that I was touching it.
Overall, though, I've been happy with the Dell so far. I've been much more pleased with it than I thought I would be and especially knowing that I saved $1,300 or so on it compared to the MacBook Pro...
So, it seems to me like there are other people out there that are having the same problems with their MacBook Pros that I did. It's sad because they're such nice looking computers. It's my feeling that Apple put form way too far above function on the MacBook Pro and at the prices people are paying for them, they should be damn close to perfect. (Which, in my humble opinion, they are not.)
This leads into a a quick update on my Dell Vostro 1500.
It's still big and it's still heavy. Since I usually use it around the house it doesn't bother me too much. However, I found out that it doesn't fit in my awesome Timbuk2 laptop messenger bag that my sister got me for Christmas a few years ago. It's not even close. So, that's a little disappointing.
The matte black finish does show fingerprints pretty easily... but again, this isn't too big of a deal.
As far as functionality, though, I've ran into one glitch with it so far. Just for the hell of it I tried to play a DVD on it over the weekend and I couldn't get the DVD to play. The media player software that it came with kept asking me to switch the region on my DVD player to Region 1 for US/Canada. I attempted to, but it still wouldn't play and it said it was still set to "Free". I didn't really care enough to try to fix it since I was sitting in front of my TV. I just popped the DVD in the DVD player and went on with my day. I'm going to figure it out sometime, though... I just haven't cared enough to yet.
I purchased Need for Speed: Pro Street a few days ago and while the graphics aren't that awesome on the game, the Dell runs it with no problem at full native screen resolution with all settings on high. Even playing with the laptop sitting on my lap it doesn't get uncomfortably hot on my legs like the MacBook Pro did under less load.
I do find the trackpad to be a little "twitchy" sometimes... but not very often. It's more responsive and seems to not have the issue of my MacBook Pro's trackpad where I had to swipe my finger a few times before it picked up that I was touching it.
Overall, though, I've been happy with the Dell so far. I've been much more pleased with it than I thought I would be and especially knowing that I saved $1,300 or so on it compared to the MacBook Pro...
Saturday, April 5, 2008
New lappy (again)...
I ended up getting a Dell Vostro 1500 to replace my problematic MacBook Pro. I had my choices of replacement laptops narrowed down to the Dell Vostro line or the Lenovo ThinkPad T61 or R61 but Dell just happened to be running a HUGE $500 off promotion on the Vostro if you optioned it up from the base configuration to over $1,299 before the discount. So I built a computer with the specs that I wanted:
Windows XP Pro
Intel Core 2 Duo T8100
2 GB RAM (very easily upgraded someday)
NVidia 8600GT 256MB Video RAM
120 GB 5400RPM HDD (also, very easily upgraded someday)
15.4" Matte Display
Webcam
Bluetooth
Intel Wireless N
My first thoughts on the Dell are that it's definitely bigger, slightly heavier and much less sleek looking than the Apple. However, it is much quieter and the performance seems to be very good so far.
I've also noticed that it runs nowhere near as hot as the MacBook Pro did. I haven't done any really "heavy lifting" with it yet but I'll be sure to report back on my future experiences if I notice anything funky. So far, though, it's more of a "laptop" than the MacBook Pro was.
I've said before that I prefer Apple's OS X to Windows but XP Pro is kind of like an old friend. I've been using XP for so many years at work, occasionally at home and on friend's computers that I have grown accustomed to it's quirks, weaknesses and strengths and I know what to expect. XP might not be the best looking or most solid OS ever... but it seems to get the job done. Plus I already have a lot of XP compatible software that I never re-bought for OS X.
The speakers sound pretty good. The display quality is good. The resolution is slightly lower than on the MacBook Pro (1280 x 800 compared to 1440 x 900) but for what I'm going to be using the computer for (basic internet surfing, big spreadsheets and occasional games) it's going to be fine. If I need some more screen "real estate", I could always hook it up to my 20" Dell widescreen monitor that I have my PowerMac G4 and the Rosetta running Dell on now.
The keyboard feels nice and solid and is comfortable to type on. I did like the backlit keyboard of the MacBook Pro but I can't say that I actually ever used it, so I don't think I'll really miss it that much. The front edge of the laptop is rounded so it's not so harsh on my wrists. The trackpad is responsive and the scroll areas at the bottom and side of the trackpad seem to work pretty well.
The build quality seems good. I haven't noticed any flexing or creaking sounds anywhere and I'm able to pick it up one handed from the corner without feeling any flex.
But... the best part of all is that the Dell was about $870 including DHL shipping, tax and the $500 off offer. I went to pick it up today at the DHL location by me because I was too impatient to wait until Monday for it to be delivered. Anyway, $870 compared to about $2,150 for the MacBook Pro for very similar specs seems like a hell of a deal so far. I'm not sure I would have picked this laptop if it was over $1,300 (at "regular" price) but for the $870 it seems pretty much unbeatable.
So, the bottom line is: If the Dell proves to be not as problematic as the MacBook Pro it's a HUGE win. However, even if I do have the occasional minor issue with it or gripe about it, I still saved a TON of money for very a very similarly spec'd machine. I'd still grant it a slightly less (but still HUGE) win over the MacBook Pro.
Windows XP Pro
Intel Core 2 Duo T8100
2 GB RAM (very easily upgraded someday)
NVidia 8600GT 256MB Video RAM
120 GB 5400RPM HDD (also, very easily upgraded someday)
15.4" Matte Display
Webcam
Bluetooth
Intel Wireless N
My first thoughts on the Dell are that it's definitely bigger, slightly heavier and much less sleek looking than the Apple. However, it is much quieter and the performance seems to be very good so far.
I've also noticed that it runs nowhere near as hot as the MacBook Pro did. I haven't done any really "heavy lifting" with it yet but I'll be sure to report back on my future experiences if I notice anything funky. So far, though, it's more of a "laptop" than the MacBook Pro was.
I've said before that I prefer Apple's OS X to Windows but XP Pro is kind of like an old friend. I've been using XP for so many years at work, occasionally at home and on friend's computers that I have grown accustomed to it's quirks, weaknesses and strengths and I know what to expect. XP might not be the best looking or most solid OS ever... but it seems to get the job done. Plus I already have a lot of XP compatible software that I never re-bought for OS X.
The speakers sound pretty good. The display quality is good. The resolution is slightly lower than on the MacBook Pro (1280 x 800 compared to 1440 x 900) but for what I'm going to be using the computer for (basic internet surfing, big spreadsheets and occasional games) it's going to be fine. If I need some more screen "real estate", I could always hook it up to my 20" Dell widescreen monitor that I have my PowerMac G4 and the Rosetta running Dell on now.
The keyboard feels nice and solid and is comfortable to type on. I did like the backlit keyboard of the MacBook Pro but I can't say that I actually ever used it, so I don't think I'll really miss it that much. The front edge of the laptop is rounded so it's not so harsh on my wrists. The trackpad is responsive and the scroll areas at the bottom and side of the trackpad seem to work pretty well.
The build quality seems good. I haven't noticed any flexing or creaking sounds anywhere and I'm able to pick it up one handed from the corner without feeling any flex.
But... the best part of all is that the Dell was about $870 including DHL shipping, tax and the $500 off offer. I went to pick it up today at the DHL location by me because I was too impatient to wait until Monday for it to be delivered. Anyway, $870 compared to about $2,150 for the MacBook Pro for very similar specs seems like a hell of a deal so far. I'm not sure I would have picked this laptop if it was over $1,300 (at "regular" price) but for the $870 it seems pretty much unbeatable.
So, the bottom line is: If the Dell proves to be not as problematic as the MacBook Pro it's a HUGE win. However, even if I do have the occasional minor issue with it or gripe about it, I still saved a TON of money for very a very similarly spec'd machine. I'd still grant it a slightly less (but still HUGE) win over the MacBook Pro.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
MacBook Pro is gone
I've written about my less than stellar experience(s) with the MacBook Pro a few times on this blog but I haven't written about it lately mostly because I have been having more issues with it and was working with Apple on a resolution. I've been a fan of Apple computers for a few years now and I wanted this computer since they were announced. I finally talked myself into to purchasing one when my girlfriend's laptop started to die and I gave her my iBook. I started to have issues with it as soon as I took it out of the box, though.
* Sometimes there was an unbearable amount of heat generated and transmitted through the bottom of the laptop. (This concern was never really addressed.)
* Annoying fan noise from the fans that ran consistently at 2,000 RPM at idle and much faster and louder when playing games or even using Google Earth or Street View. (Was told this was normal and that I'd get used to it.)
* Keyboard and trackpad intermittently not responding. The keyboard on a couple of occasions required a reboot of the machine because it wouldn't respond. The trackpad took a few swipes of my finger to recognize that I was touching it. (The keyboard issue seemed to be resolved with Software Updates but the trackpad problems persisted.)
* MagSafe adapter failure at about 1 month old. (Resolved with a new MagSafe adapter.)
* Fans surging and running very fast when the laptop was plugged in. This usually happened most when the battery was almost dead and was first plugged in while running.
* Speakers crackle a few times when I wake the computer from sleep.
* The squared off front edge of the palm rest was sometimes uncomfortable on my wrists. (Which was not a functional issue that I brought up as a problem but it did diminish the amount I liked the computer.)
* SuperDrive issues which included grinding noises when the laptop was held even slightly off level while a CD was spinning and it also randomly spit out CD's as soon as they were put in.
* Scratched CD's crashed iTunes with no warnings or errors just a solid freeze of iTunes while the SuperDrive spins up and down.
* Random program crashes (iTunes and Firefox mostly) plus the screen saver preference pane crashed every time I tried to open it. (The screen saver issue might have been caused by BOINC but since I never tried to open it before I installed BOINC, we might never know.)
* Boot Camp install of Windows XP Pro crashed and burned. It went through the initial stages to the first reboot and then booted to a black screen where it hung. I ended up having to reboot, hold the Option key to get a list of drives to boot from and pick my Mac HD and then reselect that as the Boot Drive as well as remove the botched XP partition. I had XP running previously with VMWare Fusion but I wanted to be able to run Windows natively because I work with HUGE spreadsheets in Excel, I wanted to mess around with Visual Studio again and I wanted to play the occasional PC game.
* Display not waking from sleep intermittently at about 1 1/2 months old.
I was finally prompted to contact Apple to let them know how unhappy I was with the computer after the MagSafe and SuperDrive issues (which were logged with my third Case number) but the Boot Camp and display not waking from sleep issues finally brought me to my breaking point. I contacted the person that I had previously been in contact with and asked for a refund. Before those I was just attempting to let them know I was unhappy but not asking for or demanding anything in return...
I was VERY impressed at how polite and professional the person who contacted me was. Outside of the emails that went back and forth I had a couple phone tag voice mails and a couple phone conversations that were VERY non-confrontational and apologetic.
It ALMOST restored my faith in Apple until I had to go back to the Apple store today and deal with the as... (*ahem*) associates there to claim my refund. I waited behind another customer for a few minutes to speak with the manager who, I felt, treated me like a criminal from the very beginning.
I told him I was there to return my laptop and that I had a case number. (The person I was in contact with at Apple had already contacted the store and they knew to expect me... but he gave me a hard time, anyway.)
He looked at my receipt and said I was out of my return period. I said I knew that and repeated that I had a case number and that someone from Apple was already in contact with a store manager who authorized the return. He asked me what my problem was. I explained and then he grudgingly gave the laptop an look over and focused on, examined and wiped with his finger on a smudge on the screen that he probably made opening it. (I gave it a nice cleaning and inspection last night before packing it back up.) He gave me a dirty look while cleaning it with something that he pulled out from under the register. He powered it up to the welcome screen to the fresh OS X install that I did. He (again) asked me what my problem was and politely explained that the computer had been in there three times for various issues (which I listed) and that I kept having more problems with it the latest being that the display would intermittently not wake from sleep and said that all of this should be listed in the case number which I provided to him. He excused himself and went into the back room and came back out in a couple minutes and continued to give me a hard time.
I (again) told him that I had been in contact with someone from Apple (I did drop a name and department) and repeated that the person had contacted a (different) manager at the store (who I also named) and that they had already authorized a refund. He asked if I had brought it in to the store before contacting Apple directly. I told him that I did, three times, two of which were within the return period asking for a refund or exchange. (The third was only to replace the defective MagSafe adapter.) I was only offered a return or exchange with the $199 restocking fee on the first two trips because they deemed my computer "non-defective". Both times I (hesitantly) objected to the fee and decided to just attempt to stick it out.
The manager kept giving me a hard time saying that I was past the refund period and just generally being unpleasant. I kept telling him to check my case number if he had any more questions since everything was noted in my case (which I was instructed to say if I had any problems). After a little while of this back and forth he went into the back (again) to "check something" and came back with a SLIGHTLY better attitude and processed my return with little more drama. I thought it was funny that he had the nerve to ask if I wanted to exchange it after all of that...
So it's gone. (I just have to keep checking my credit card to make sure that they post the refund, once that's done this whole saga will be over.) I miss having a laptop right now but I'm really not that sad to see that particular one gone.
I really do prefer OS X to Windows but the MacBook doesn't appeal to me. (I don't like the keyboard, glossy screen or integrated graphics.) The MacBook Air isn't functional enough plus it doesn't appeal to me. (It has integrated graphics, non-upgradeable memory and no internal CD-ROM plus I don't like the keyboard or glossy screen.) The MacBook Pro is obviously out... so I think my time with Apple is (unfortunately) coming to an end. I'm going to continue to use my old (but stable) PowerMac G4 until it expires but it probably won't be replaced with an Apple unless the MacPro comes down in price. The only issue I've had with the PowerMac is that I can't leave my iPod, printer or external hard drive powered on and plugged into the third-party add-on USB card when the computer goes to sleep or it won't wake from sleep. That's it. Other than that it's rock solid.
As far as a laptop goes: If I don't get a (Dell) laptop from work in the next couple months I'm thinking about a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p or a Dell or HP laptop will become my main machine. Anyway, I just thought I'd share my experience.
* Sometimes there was an unbearable amount of heat generated and transmitted through the bottom of the laptop. (This concern was never really addressed.)
* Annoying fan noise from the fans that ran consistently at 2,000 RPM at idle and much faster and louder when playing games or even using Google Earth or Street View. (Was told this was normal and that I'd get used to it.)
* Keyboard and trackpad intermittently not responding. The keyboard on a couple of occasions required a reboot of the machine because it wouldn't respond. The trackpad took a few swipes of my finger to recognize that I was touching it. (The keyboard issue seemed to be resolved with Software Updates but the trackpad problems persisted.)
* MagSafe adapter failure at about 1 month old. (Resolved with a new MagSafe adapter.)
* Fans surging and running very fast when the laptop was plugged in. This usually happened most when the battery was almost dead and was first plugged in while running.
* Speakers crackle a few times when I wake the computer from sleep.
* The squared off front edge of the palm rest was sometimes uncomfortable on my wrists. (Which was not a functional issue that I brought up as a problem but it did diminish the amount I liked the computer.)
* SuperDrive issues which included grinding noises when the laptop was held even slightly off level while a CD was spinning and it also randomly spit out CD's as soon as they were put in.
* Scratched CD's crashed iTunes with no warnings or errors just a solid freeze of iTunes while the SuperDrive spins up and down.
* Random program crashes (iTunes and Firefox mostly) plus the screen saver preference pane crashed every time I tried to open it. (The screen saver issue might have been caused by BOINC but since I never tried to open it before I installed BOINC, we might never know.)
* Boot Camp install of Windows XP Pro crashed and burned. It went through the initial stages to the first reboot and then booted to a black screen where it hung. I ended up having to reboot, hold the Option key to get a list of drives to boot from and pick my Mac HD and then reselect that as the Boot Drive as well as remove the botched XP partition. I had XP running previously with VMWare Fusion but I wanted to be able to run Windows natively because I work with HUGE spreadsheets in Excel, I wanted to mess around with Visual Studio again and I wanted to play the occasional PC game.
* Display not waking from sleep intermittently at about 1 1/2 months old.
I was finally prompted to contact Apple to let them know how unhappy I was with the computer after the MagSafe and SuperDrive issues (which were logged with my third Case number) but the Boot Camp and display not waking from sleep issues finally brought me to my breaking point. I contacted the person that I had previously been in contact with and asked for a refund. Before those I was just attempting to let them know I was unhappy but not asking for or demanding anything in return...
I was VERY impressed at how polite and professional the person who contacted me was. Outside of the emails that went back and forth I had a couple phone tag voice mails and a couple phone conversations that were VERY non-confrontational and apologetic.
It ALMOST restored my faith in Apple until I had to go back to the Apple store today and deal with the as... (*ahem*) associates there to claim my refund. I waited behind another customer for a few minutes to speak with the manager who, I felt, treated me like a criminal from the very beginning.
I told him I was there to return my laptop and that I had a case number. (The person I was in contact with at Apple had already contacted the store and they knew to expect me... but he gave me a hard time, anyway.)
He looked at my receipt and said I was out of my return period. I said I knew that and repeated that I had a case number and that someone from Apple was already in contact with a store manager who authorized the return. He asked me what my problem was. I explained and then he grudgingly gave the laptop an look over and focused on, examined and wiped with his finger on a smudge on the screen that he probably made opening it. (I gave it a nice cleaning and inspection last night before packing it back up.) He gave me a dirty look while cleaning it with something that he pulled out from under the register. He powered it up to the welcome screen to the fresh OS X install that I did. He (again) asked me what my problem was and politely explained that the computer had been in there three times for various issues (which I listed) and that I kept having more problems with it the latest being that the display would intermittently not wake from sleep and said that all of this should be listed in the case number which I provided to him. He excused himself and went into the back room and came back out in a couple minutes and continued to give me a hard time.
I (again) told him that I had been in contact with someone from Apple (I did drop a name and department) and repeated that the person had contacted a (different) manager at the store (who I also named) and that they had already authorized a refund. He asked if I had brought it in to the store before contacting Apple directly. I told him that I did, three times, two of which were within the return period asking for a refund or exchange. (The third was only to replace the defective MagSafe adapter.) I was only offered a return or exchange with the $199 restocking fee on the first two trips because they deemed my computer "non-defective". Both times I (hesitantly) objected to the fee and decided to just attempt to stick it out.
The manager kept giving me a hard time saying that I was past the refund period and just generally being unpleasant. I kept telling him to check my case number if he had any more questions since everything was noted in my case (which I was instructed to say if I had any problems). After a little while of this back and forth he went into the back (again) to "check something" and came back with a SLIGHTLY better attitude and processed my return with little more drama. I thought it was funny that he had the nerve to ask if I wanted to exchange it after all of that...
So it's gone. (I just have to keep checking my credit card to make sure that they post the refund, once that's done this whole saga will be over.) I miss having a laptop right now but I'm really not that sad to see that particular one gone.
I really do prefer OS X to Windows but the MacBook doesn't appeal to me. (I don't like the keyboard, glossy screen or integrated graphics.) The MacBook Air isn't functional enough plus it doesn't appeal to me. (It has integrated graphics, non-upgradeable memory and no internal CD-ROM plus I don't like the keyboard or glossy screen.) The MacBook Pro is obviously out... so I think my time with Apple is (unfortunately) coming to an end. I'm going to continue to use my old (but stable) PowerMac G4 until it expires but it probably won't be replaced with an Apple unless the MacPro comes down in price. The only issue I've had with the PowerMac is that I can't leave my iPod, printer or external hard drive powered on and plugged into the third-party add-on USB card when the computer goes to sleep or it won't wake from sleep. That's it. Other than that it's rock solid.
As far as a laptop goes: If I don't get a (Dell) laptop from work in the next couple months I'm thinking about a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p or a Dell or HP laptop will become my main machine. Anyway, I just thought I'd share my experience.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Rosetta@home redux
In my last blog post I talked about past hobbies and I mentioned that one of my past hobbies was messing around with computers. I was always updating my PC and working on computers for friends and family. In turn, I always had spare hardware and hand me down computers from friends and family kicking around.
In the tail end of my switchover to Apple a few years ago I had my last personal PC running Ubuntu Linux and the only thing I was doing on it was running Rosetta@home. Eventually, though, I ended up parting out that PC and forgot about Rosetta. (I know I can run Rosetta@home on Apple computers, too, but I don't really like to run my main computers all the time and I weeded my computers down to my day to day laptop and my iTunes library computer.)
Last night my sister gave me her old Dell Dimension desktop since she upgraded to a new laptop so she could get rid of her large desk setup in what is now her son's play room.
I updated her old computer to XP Pro and put Rosetta on it. I think the research that Rosetta is doing is a worthy cause and I really don't know what else to do with the computer right now.
If anyone out there knows of other worthy projects that I can donate some distributed computing time to please send me your recommendations.
In the tail end of my switchover to Apple a few years ago I had my last personal PC running Ubuntu Linux and the only thing I was doing on it was running Rosetta@home. Eventually, though, I ended up parting out that PC and forgot about Rosetta. (I know I can run Rosetta@home on Apple computers, too, but I don't really like to run my main computers all the time and I weeded my computers down to my day to day laptop and my iTunes library computer.)
Last night my sister gave me her old Dell Dimension desktop since she upgraded to a new laptop so she could get rid of her large desk setup in what is now her son's play room.
I updated her old computer to XP Pro and put Rosetta on it. I think the research that Rosetta is doing is a worthy cause and I really don't know what else to do with the computer right now.
If anyone out there knows of other worthy projects that I can donate some distributed computing time to please send me your recommendations.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Apple praise (but more new gripes).
I have one piece of praise for Apple... but a few MORE gripes about my MacBook Pro (and one HUGE one about Apple in general).
First for the praise. I brought my MacBook Pro with the non-functional power adapter into the Apple Store for my "Genius" appointment on Friday night and I was in and out in less than 10 minutes with a brand new power adapter. The "Genius" I got wasn't one of the two I've seen in the past... but he plugged in the adapter, connected it to his MacBook Pro, said "Hmmm... that's not right... How old is your computer?" and went and got another one off the shelf after I said it's about 1 month old. I plugged my computer into his power cord and it fired right up so I don't think anything was wrong on the laptop side of the not charging issue. I was pleasantly surprised how quickly I was in and out. (Although they really couldn't argue that the adapter wasn't working... and it wasn't abused... the laptop has never left our apartment except for in it's original box for it's two previous (return/exchange attempt) trips to the Apple Store.)
Anyway, moving on to the new gripes, first I'll give you all some background: I was ripping a bunch of CD's into iTunes last night for my girlfriend's brother who just purchased a new iPod Classic but doesn't have a computer capable enough to house his iTunes collection. The plan was originally to use my old iBook G4 which is now my girlfriend's computer. I took all of her music off and copied it to a spare hard drive in an external USB case. (Hard drive space on the ol' iBook was a limiting factor.) We then started to import CD's. We were then planning on syncing the iPod, backing up his music library to another external hard drive and then putting her iTunes back together.
When I realized (last night) that she'd never have it done by the time he left to head back to Washington (today) I chipped in on my MacBook Pro. I created a new account so I didn't mess up my iTunes library and started ripping when the new gripes started happening. We'll get to those in a minute, though. The rest of the plan was that I'd rip until we were done, copy the stuff I ripped to a data DVD and then import them into the iBook's iTunes and sync the iPod on that as planned. I'd then delete the account on my computer that I created to do this task with all of the music and back up all of the music from the iBook to an external hard drive (again, as previously planned) just in case we ever needed to resync his iPod again.
Here's what I noticed:
1) If I tip the computer even SLIGHTLY off level while a CD is spinning it sounds like the CD is rubbing on something inside the drive and sometimes it doesn't stop even if I level the computer back out. A couple times I had to stop the import, eject the CD and then put it back in and start again. (For the sake of comparison, the iBook did not do this, I tipped it at a 45 degree angle and it didn't make any unusual noises. I miss my iBook... well I did until we get to number 4.)
2) While importing certain CDs in iTunes, iTunes was freezing while the CD spins up and down endlessly and wouldn't respond to attempts to stop the import or eject the CD. I had to Force Quit iTunes probably a dozen times last night on 2 CD's that I remember specifically. The first time it happened the last track wouldn't import at all after a few attempts. I ended up trying just that track in my old iBook G4 and it worked fine. The second one, after trying a few times, I noticed that it was scratched pretty badly which is probably the reason for all of the drama. I understand that CD's get damaged and I don't expect the computer (or any CD player) to read them properly, the issue I have here is that there was no error message, there was nothing to indicate that something was wrong other than the fact that the CD drive was spinning up and down, up and down but no progress was being made with the import. After waiting unsuccessfully for anything to happen I ended up having to Force Quit iTunes multiple times before the application actually quit and I could eject the CD which was just spinning up and down, up and down. I've VERY RARELY had to Force Quit applications on my two previous Apple computers.
3) A few times when I put a CD in it would get spit back out immediately and wouldn't stay in until I took it completely out, pushed the eject button (which made a noise like it was ejecting a CD even though nothing was in the drive) and then tried again. Sometimes this happened more than once with the same CD... I gave up on one and then went back to it later and it worked.
4) After all of the iTunes importing was finally done (around 2:30 - 3:00 AM since he was leaving to head back to WA today while I'm at work) I burned all of the mp3's that I ripped on my MacBook Pro to a DVD and moved the songs to my girlfriend's laptop as planned. To refresh, my girlfriend's laptop is my old iBook G4. My old iBook is still running Panther (10.3.x) because I never felt the need to upgrade to Tiger (10.4.x) which I have on my PowerMac G4 or Leopard (10.5.x) which is on my MacBook Pro. Around 3:00 AM my girlfriend plugged in the brand new iPod Classic and we were met with an error message that the new iPod wouldn't work with anything before some version of Tiger (10.4.x). Seriously, what reason is there to not allow a brand new ~$250 iPod to work with an operating system that is only a few years old? I know that Tiger and Leopard are good... I use them both... but my iBook ran great with Panther.
So sometime after 3:00 AM I plugged in an external drive, copied all of the iTunes library off of the iBook, created yet another account on my MacBook Pro, copied the music from the external hard drive onto the MacBook Pro, realized that the music my girlfriend tried to import to her iTunes from the DVD I burned wasn't in the iTunes library, logged out of the third account and back into the second, shared the music folder, logged back into the third account and imported the music from the second account to the third. I then deleted the second account after making sure all of the music was in the newest iTunes Library on the third account and then finally somewhere around 4:00 AM I finished syncing the new iPod.
How user friendly was that ordeal, Apple? If I was a typical person with one slightly older iBook and no other computer in the household and I bought a ~$250 iPod and couldn't get it to work with my computer how do you think I would have reacted?
Do you think I would have run right back out to the Apple Store for a copy of Leopard? (Wait, it's 3AM the Apple Store is closed.) Would I have hit up the online store to purchase Leopard? (Wait, I won't get it for a couple days and then I still have to install a new operating system before I can get my new iPod to work.) Then what if I DID decide to upgrade to Leopard and purchased a copy but my iBook had a sub 867MHz G4 processor and the Leopard update didn't work? Do you think I would have run right back out to upgrade my fully functional computer (aside from not being able to sync a new iPod) to a new computer (A new APPLE computer?) after JUST buying an iPod and a useless copy of Leopard? (Mine was a 1GHZ model, so I would have been OK a few days later after I shelled out some more money for Leopard... but... come on!) What reason is there that the iPod wouldn't work with Panther?
I know if I didn't have other computers in the apartment I probably would have been PISSED! (As it is I'm not too happy even though I was able to solve everything that came up...)
First for the praise. I brought my MacBook Pro with the non-functional power adapter into the Apple Store for my "Genius" appointment on Friday night and I was in and out in less than 10 minutes with a brand new power adapter. The "Genius" I got wasn't one of the two I've seen in the past... but he plugged in the adapter, connected it to his MacBook Pro, said "Hmmm... that's not right... How old is your computer?" and went and got another one off the shelf after I said it's about 1 month old. I plugged my computer into his power cord and it fired right up so I don't think anything was wrong on the laptop side of the not charging issue. I was pleasantly surprised how quickly I was in and out. (Although they really couldn't argue that the adapter wasn't working... and it wasn't abused... the laptop has never left our apartment except for in it's original box for it's two previous (return/exchange attempt) trips to the Apple Store.)
Anyway, moving on to the new gripes, first I'll give you all some background: I was ripping a bunch of CD's into iTunes last night for my girlfriend's brother who just purchased a new iPod Classic but doesn't have a computer capable enough to house his iTunes collection. The plan was originally to use my old iBook G4 which is now my girlfriend's computer. I took all of her music off and copied it to a spare hard drive in an external USB case. (Hard drive space on the ol' iBook was a limiting factor.) We then started to import CD's. We were then planning on syncing the iPod, backing up his music library to another external hard drive and then putting her iTunes back together.
When I realized (last night) that she'd never have it done by the time he left to head back to Washington (today) I chipped in on my MacBook Pro. I created a new account so I didn't mess up my iTunes library and started ripping when the new gripes started happening. We'll get to those in a minute, though. The rest of the plan was that I'd rip until we were done, copy the stuff I ripped to a data DVD and then import them into the iBook's iTunes and sync the iPod on that as planned. I'd then delete the account on my computer that I created to do this task with all of the music and back up all of the music from the iBook to an external hard drive (again, as previously planned) just in case we ever needed to resync his iPod again.
Here's what I noticed:
1) If I tip the computer even SLIGHTLY off level while a CD is spinning it sounds like the CD is rubbing on something inside the drive and sometimes it doesn't stop even if I level the computer back out. A couple times I had to stop the import, eject the CD and then put it back in and start again. (For the sake of comparison, the iBook did not do this, I tipped it at a 45 degree angle and it didn't make any unusual noises. I miss my iBook... well I did until we get to number 4.)
2) While importing certain CDs in iTunes, iTunes was freezing while the CD spins up and down endlessly and wouldn't respond to attempts to stop the import or eject the CD. I had to Force Quit iTunes probably a dozen times last night on 2 CD's that I remember specifically. The first time it happened the last track wouldn't import at all after a few attempts. I ended up trying just that track in my old iBook G4 and it worked fine. The second one, after trying a few times, I noticed that it was scratched pretty badly which is probably the reason for all of the drama. I understand that CD's get damaged and I don't expect the computer (or any CD player) to read them properly, the issue I have here is that there was no error message, there was nothing to indicate that something was wrong other than the fact that the CD drive was spinning up and down, up and down but no progress was being made with the import. After waiting unsuccessfully for anything to happen I ended up having to Force Quit iTunes multiple times before the application actually quit and I could eject the CD which was just spinning up and down, up and down. I've VERY RARELY had to Force Quit applications on my two previous Apple computers.
3) A few times when I put a CD in it would get spit back out immediately and wouldn't stay in until I took it completely out, pushed the eject button (which made a noise like it was ejecting a CD even though nothing was in the drive) and then tried again. Sometimes this happened more than once with the same CD... I gave up on one and then went back to it later and it worked.
4) After all of the iTunes importing was finally done (around 2:30 - 3:00 AM since he was leaving to head back to WA today while I'm at work) I burned all of the mp3's that I ripped on my MacBook Pro to a DVD and moved the songs to my girlfriend's laptop as planned. To refresh, my girlfriend's laptop is my old iBook G4. My old iBook is still running Panther (10.3.x) because I never felt the need to upgrade to Tiger (10.4.x) which I have on my PowerMac G4 or Leopard (10.5.x) which is on my MacBook Pro. Around 3:00 AM my girlfriend plugged in the brand new iPod Classic and we were met with an error message that the new iPod wouldn't work with anything before some version of Tiger (10.4.x). Seriously, what reason is there to not allow a brand new ~$250 iPod to work with an operating system that is only a few years old? I know that Tiger and Leopard are good... I use them both... but my iBook ran great with Panther.
So sometime after 3:00 AM I plugged in an external drive, copied all of the iTunes library off of the iBook, created yet another account on my MacBook Pro, copied the music from the external hard drive onto the MacBook Pro, realized that the music my girlfriend tried to import to her iTunes from the DVD I burned wasn't in the iTunes library, logged out of the third account and back into the second, shared the music folder, logged back into the third account and imported the music from the second account to the third. I then deleted the second account after making sure all of the music was in the newest iTunes Library on the third account and then finally somewhere around 4:00 AM I finished syncing the new iPod.
How user friendly was that ordeal, Apple? If I was a typical person with one slightly older iBook and no other computer in the household and I bought a ~$250 iPod and couldn't get it to work with my computer how do you think I would have reacted?
Do you think I would have run right back out to the Apple Store for a copy of Leopard? (Wait, it's 3AM the Apple Store is closed.) Would I have hit up the online store to purchase Leopard? (Wait, I won't get it for a couple days and then I still have to install a new operating system before I can get my new iPod to work.) Then what if I DID decide to upgrade to Leopard and purchased a copy but my iBook had a sub 867MHz G4 processor and the Leopard update didn't work? Do you think I would have run right back out to upgrade my fully functional computer (aside from not being able to sync a new iPod) to a new computer (A new APPLE computer?) after JUST buying an iPod and a useless copy of Leopard? (Mine was a 1GHZ model, so I would have been OK a few days later after I shelled out some more money for Leopard... but... come on!) What reason is there that the iPod wouldn't work with Panther?
I know if I didn't have other computers in the apartment I probably would have been PISSED! (As it is I'm not too happy even though I was able to solve everything that came up...)
Friday, February 29, 2008
MacBook Pro not charging again
I hate to sound like I'm complaining all the time about my MacBook Pro but I'm tired of the issues I'm having with it.
If you've read my other posts about my MacBook Pro you'll see that I like the display, the sound quality (for a laptop), the backlit keyboard and the battery life... but that I've been frustrated with noisy fans, a touchy trackpad that sometimes takes a few wiggles of my finger to register, the keyboard not responding and requiring the computer to be rebooted, the heat when used on my lap and now the MagSafe power adapter not working.
I've also noticed a few other odd things such as the speakers crackling a few times when I open the laptop and wake it up from it's sleep and the fans surging up to 5,000 RPM for at least a few minutes when I plug in the adapter while the computer is on. (For me who finds the 2,000 RPM baseline fan noise annoying, you can only imagine what I feel when they're revved up to 5,000 RPM.)
I called their phone tech support again today about the MagSafe adapter not working and I have an appointment at 7 PM tonight. So hopefully I'll at least be able to charge my laptop again...
If you've read my other posts about my MacBook Pro you'll see that I like the display, the sound quality (for a laptop), the backlit keyboard and the battery life... but that I've been frustrated with noisy fans, a touchy trackpad that sometimes takes a few wiggles of my finger to register, the keyboard not responding and requiring the computer to be rebooted, the heat when used on my lap and now the MagSafe power adapter not working.
I've also noticed a few other odd things such as the speakers crackling a few times when I open the laptop and wake it up from it's sleep and the fans surging up to 5,000 RPM for at least a few minutes when I plug in the adapter while the computer is on. (For me who finds the 2,000 RPM baseline fan noise annoying, you can only imagine what I feel when they're revved up to 5,000 RPM.)
I called their phone tech support again today about the MagSafe adapter not working and I have an appointment at 7 PM tonight. So hopefully I'll at least be able to charge my laptop again...
Saturday, February 23, 2008
More MacBook Pro issues
A few nights ago when I plugged in my MacBook Pro's MagSafe connector it didn't light up and it didn't start charging. I unplugged it, waited a couple seconds and tried it again. It took a couple tries of plugging it in and unplugging it before the connector lit up and started charging. I was a little worried but didn't think too much of it.
Then on Thursday night the same thing happened but this time it took unplugging it from the wall 3-4 times and unplugging it from my laptop (ahem, I mean notebook...) probably 50 times before it lit up and started charging.
I was ready to toss the thing out the window and head to Best Buy for anything but another Mac on the way home on Friday but last night and this morning it seemed to be working absolutely fine. (I was actually going to bring it back to the Apple store again if it was still being flaky...)
I'm a little annoyed with this computer. (Actually, I'm beyond annoyed. Thursday night while unplugging and replugging in my MagSafe connector I was wishing that I paid the $199 restocking fee to return it when I was still in my 14 day return period and I was just pissed off at the noisy fans.)
I think that if it was a sub-$1,000 PC laptop I'd be a little (very tiny bit) more tolerant but for a $2,000 Apple that's supposed to "Just work." I'm frustrated that the fans are noisy in a quiet room. The power adapter is now being flaky. The trackpad sometimes takes a few wiggles of my finger before it picks it up. A couple other things have popped up here and there such as Firefox randomly freezing up a couple times and ONCE my keyboard not responding until I rebooted that have popped up that are less annoying than the fans, trackpad and power adapter issues.
Honestly, though, if I was shopping for a laptop again I would not purchase a MacBook Pro.
It's sad to say... but I think my days as an Apple fan are coming to an end. Once I get my laptop from work sometime in the next few months I'm thinking about selling the MacBook Pro for whatever I can get for it and just working my PowerMac G4 tower until it's dead and then I think I'm (sadly) headed back to PC-land even though I prefer Mac OS X to anything else that I've used in the past...
Then on Thursday night the same thing happened but this time it took unplugging it from the wall 3-4 times and unplugging it from my laptop (ahem, I mean notebook...) probably 50 times before it lit up and started charging.
I was ready to toss the thing out the window and head to Best Buy for anything but another Mac on the way home on Friday but last night and this morning it seemed to be working absolutely fine. (I was actually going to bring it back to the Apple store again if it was still being flaky...)
I'm a little annoyed with this computer. (Actually, I'm beyond annoyed. Thursday night while unplugging and replugging in my MagSafe connector I was wishing that I paid the $199 restocking fee to return it when I was still in my 14 day return period and I was just pissed off at the noisy fans.)
I think that if it was a sub-$1,000 PC laptop I'd be a little (very tiny bit) more tolerant but for a $2,000 Apple that's supposed to "Just work." I'm frustrated that the fans are noisy in a quiet room. The power adapter is now being flaky. The trackpad sometimes takes a few wiggles of my finger before it picks it up. A couple other things have popped up here and there such as Firefox randomly freezing up a couple times and ONCE my keyboard not responding until I rebooted that have popped up that are less annoying than the fans, trackpad and power adapter issues.
Honestly, though, if I was shopping for a laptop again I would not purchase a MacBook Pro.
It's sad to say... but I think my days as an Apple fan are coming to an end. Once I get my laptop from work sometime in the next few months I'm thinking about selling the MacBook Pro for whatever I can get for it and just working my PowerMac G4 tower until it's dead and then I think I'm (sadly) headed back to PC-land even though I prefer Mac OS X to anything else that I've used in the past...
Saturday, February 9, 2008
It's official... MacBook Pros are noisy.
I've had my new MacBook Pro in the Apple store twice in the past few days complaining about the fans that run constantly.
The first time the Mac Genius said that she was not able to duplicate my concern. (Which I took to mean that I was just being overly sensitive.) I took it back home and messed around with it for another day and it was still irritating to me so I called the store directly and asked if I could exchange it for another one without having to pay the $199 restocking fee. I was told I could just to bring it in and they'd exchange it with no problem. When I got there said that whoever I talked to on the on the phone was wrong and that they had to have the Mac Genius look at it again. The second kid I got was extremely friendly and said that he could hear the fans but that my laptop wasn't any louder than his MacBook Pro and basically that they were somewhat loud laptops because of the amount of technology that they cram into the slim form factor requires the fans to run constantly. He said that he thought that it was going to irritate him at first, too... but that he got used to it. (NOTE: This is me paraphrasing his comments not EXACTLY what he said.)
So, again, I took it back home and messed around with it again this morning and in a quiet room it was irritating. So I called the Apple tech support phone number and waited on hold for less than 5 minutes. (Which was MUCH shorter than most of the other tech support lines I've called in the past.) I got a friendly guy who when I asked if MacBook Pros tend to be louder than many other laptops said. "Yes." He said pretty much what the kid from last night said that they cram a bunch of high end technology into a slim package and they tend to be noisier than other laptops since the fans have to run constantly to keep them cool. (NOTE: Paraphrasing again.)
Anyway, I guess it all comes down to the fact that MacBook Pros are noisier than other typical laptops. That combined with the fact that I might just be a bit more sensitive to noises than your average Joe makes me one frustrated guy when it comes to sitting in a quiet room with my laptop.
Aside from the fan noise I AM in love with this laptop. The display quality is great. It boots up and shuts down quickly. The battery seems to last for awhile. Plus I love OS X. I was VERY tempted to pay the $199 restocking fee to return it and get a $999 HP dv6780se from Best Buy. I don't want a computer with Vista, though, so I'd have to go through the trouble of installing XP, finding all the correct drivers, etc... and then I'd still like it less than OS X. On top of all of that, the Best Buy by me is sold out of the HP, anyway.
So... yeah. If you tend to be sensitive to noises and you like to use your laptop in very quiet places you might want to look to other computers... but if you're like most people you probably won't be annoyed with the noise as much as I am.
The first time the Mac Genius said that she was not able to duplicate my concern. (Which I took to mean that I was just being overly sensitive.) I took it back home and messed around with it for another day and it was still irritating to me so I called the store directly and asked if I could exchange it for another one without having to pay the $199 restocking fee. I was told I could just to bring it in and they'd exchange it with no problem. When I got there said that whoever I talked to on the on the phone was wrong and that they had to have the Mac Genius look at it again. The second kid I got was extremely friendly and said that he could hear the fans but that my laptop wasn't any louder than his MacBook Pro and basically that they were somewhat loud laptops because of the amount of technology that they cram into the slim form factor requires the fans to run constantly. He said that he thought that it was going to irritate him at first, too... but that he got used to it. (NOTE: This is me paraphrasing his comments not EXACTLY what he said.)
So, again, I took it back home and messed around with it again this morning and in a quiet room it was irritating. So I called the Apple tech support phone number and waited on hold for less than 5 minutes. (Which was MUCH shorter than most of the other tech support lines I've called in the past.) I got a friendly guy who when I asked if MacBook Pros tend to be louder than many other laptops said. "Yes." He said pretty much what the kid from last night said that they cram a bunch of high end technology into a slim package and they tend to be noisier than other laptops since the fans have to run constantly to keep them cool. (NOTE: Paraphrasing again.)
Anyway, I guess it all comes down to the fact that MacBook Pros are noisier than other typical laptops. That combined with the fact that I might just be a bit more sensitive to noises than your average Joe makes me one frustrated guy when it comes to sitting in a quiet room with my laptop.
Aside from the fan noise I AM in love with this laptop. The display quality is great. It boots up and shuts down quickly. The battery seems to last for awhile. Plus I love OS X. I was VERY tempted to pay the $199 restocking fee to return it and get a $999 HP dv6780se from Best Buy. I don't want a computer with Vista, though, so I'd have to go through the trouble of installing XP, finding all the correct drivers, etc... and then I'd still like it less than OS X. On top of all of that, the Best Buy by me is sold out of the HP, anyway.
So... yeah. If you tend to be sensitive to noises and you like to use your laptop in very quiet places you might want to look to other computers... but if you're like most people you probably won't be annoyed with the noise as much as I am.
Friday, February 1, 2008
VMware Fusion
I installed Windows XP Pro on my MacBook Pro tonight. I decided to go with the trial of VMware Fusion for now.
I have 30 days to decide if I want to buy VMware... so far it seems promising.
VMware pretty much took charge of the installation of Windows and it was probably the easiest Windows install I have ever done. I installed VMware on my mac, set up my Virtual Machine and told it I wanted to install Windows, popped in the XP install disk and next thing I know I'm playing with a Windows desktop in a window on my Mac!
So far I installed an old game (Need for Speed Underground) and I just finished installing an old copy of Visual Studio.
I"m going to keep messing around with it... but I think it's going to be good to be able to do things that I need Windows programs for again while still being on my Mac.
I have 30 days to decide if I want to buy VMware... so far it seems promising.
VMware pretty much took charge of the installation of Windows and it was probably the easiest Windows install I have ever done. I installed VMware on my mac, set up my Virtual Machine and told it I wanted to install Windows, popped in the XP install disk and next thing I know I'm playing with a Windows desktop in a window on my Mac!
So far I installed an old game (Need for Speed Underground) and I just finished installing an old copy of Visual Studio.
I"m going to keep messing around with it... but I think it's going to be good to be able to do things that I need Windows programs for again while still being on my Mac.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
New lappy...
I bit the bullet and purchased a NEW 15" 2.2GHz MacBook Pro last night. My girlfriend's 800MHz iBook G4 is on it's very last legs (endless beach ball while doing nothing, random freeze ups and taking forever to restart) and I told her she could have my slightly newer 1Ghz iBook G4 when hers died.
I had been eying the MacBook Pro for quite awhile but didn't really have a reason to drop the $2,000 on one since I had a perfectly good iBook to do the around the apartment web-surfing and email duties and my G4 PowerMac to do the heavier stuff like holding my iTunes collection, running Photoshop and the very rare web site stuff that I don't really do much of any more.
As far as first impressions go: It doesn't feel as solidly build as I thought it would be for the money. It feels a little bit flimsy to me. The left side fan sounds a little noisy and display doesn't fold back as much as I would like. It also gets pretty hot sitting on my lap!
I do love the display quality, though! I'm a huge fan of the widescreen aspect ratio, too... so it's a huge step up from my 12" iBook's display! The sound is pretty good for a laptop and the battery life doesn't seem too bad with the brightness down kind of low and the Bluetooth turned off. I also like the silver color MUCH more than my white iBook and the backlit keyboard is pretty awesome. Leopard doesn't feel all that much different from Panther or Tiger to me, so far... I haven't really had all that much time to dive into it yet, though. I've just been doing the initial setup things like cleaning off software I won't ever use and starting to add on software I like (Firefox, TextWrangler or BBEdit and Photoshop).
Over the next couple months I have to find (or buy) a copy of XP Pro so I can try out Parallels and VMWare Fusion and hopefully play some of my old PC games that I haven't been able to play in a long time. I'm also hoping to put my old copy of Visual Studio on it so I can mess around with a few programs I've been thinking of throwing together for the past couple years!
So, in short, I love this computer but I just wish it would run a little cooler, feel a little sturdier and have a quieter fan! I think the noisy fan is the thing that is the most irritating to me. My iBook was almost silent compared to this one and I paid $1,400 less for that one (albeit, very slightly used). I'm debating dropping by the Apple store to see if the other MacBook Pros are this noisy or if I got one with a bad fan.
PS: If you're a Firefox user check out Speed Dial. This is the one feature of Opera that I loved and missed in Firefox (even though I still preferred Firefox overall).
PPS: If you're into ambient pop/downtempo music check out Ambient Popsicle on iTunes radio or on their website. Sometimes I get in moods where I need to listen to something other than metal/hardcore/punk/screamo and this is a good alternative. ;)
I had been eying the MacBook Pro for quite awhile but didn't really have a reason to drop the $2,000 on one since I had a perfectly good iBook to do the around the apartment web-surfing and email duties and my G4 PowerMac to do the heavier stuff like holding my iTunes collection, running Photoshop and the very rare web site stuff that I don't really do much of any more.
As far as first impressions go: It doesn't feel as solidly build as I thought it would be for the money. It feels a little bit flimsy to me. The left side fan sounds a little noisy and display doesn't fold back as much as I would like. It also gets pretty hot sitting on my lap!
I do love the display quality, though! I'm a huge fan of the widescreen aspect ratio, too... so it's a huge step up from my 12" iBook's display! The sound is pretty good for a laptop and the battery life doesn't seem too bad with the brightness down kind of low and the Bluetooth turned off. I also like the silver color MUCH more than my white iBook and the backlit keyboard is pretty awesome. Leopard doesn't feel all that much different from Panther or Tiger to me, so far... I haven't really had all that much time to dive into it yet, though. I've just been doing the initial setup things like cleaning off software I won't ever use and starting to add on software I like (Firefox, TextWrangler or BBEdit and Photoshop).
Over the next couple months I have to find (or buy) a copy of XP Pro so I can try out Parallels and VMWare Fusion and hopefully play some of my old PC games that I haven't been able to play in a long time. I'm also hoping to put my old copy of Visual Studio on it so I can mess around with a few programs I've been thinking of throwing together for the past couple years!
So, in short, I love this computer but I just wish it would run a little cooler, feel a little sturdier and have a quieter fan! I think the noisy fan is the thing that is the most irritating to me. My iBook was almost silent compared to this one and I paid $1,400 less for that one (albeit, very slightly used). I'm debating dropping by the Apple store to see if the other MacBook Pros are this noisy or if I got one with a bad fan.
PS: If you're a Firefox user check out Speed Dial. This is the one feature of Opera that I loved and missed in Firefox (even though I still preferred Firefox overall).
PPS: If you're into ambient pop/downtempo music check out Ambient Popsicle on iTunes radio or on their website. Sometimes I get in moods where I need to listen to something other than metal/hardcore/punk/screamo and this is a good alternative. ;)
Friday, August 10, 2007
What should I do?
I've decided that I hate my job completely and that I'm not going to get anywhere by sticking around here any longer. I was due for a review and a raise in June and it still hasn't happened yet, mostly because I haven't pushed the issue because I'm not looking forward to another shitty review saying that I'm not doing a good job at doing other people's work on top of my own. I'm going to wait a few weeks until my review is done and I get my back-pay for my raise before I decide to leave for sure, though. I'm going push for a decent raise this year. If it doesn't happen I'm definitely gone sooner rather than later.
My MAJOR issues are that I haven't found a job that:
* pays what I'm currently making or more.
* I'm interested in AND well qualified (on paper) for.
* I'd enjoy doing more than the boring office work that I'm currently doing.
* is "entry-level" but doesn't require experience. (Don't get me started on this one.)
I don't want to do any call center or help desk type jobs. I'd consider tech support stuff as long as it didn't entail TOO much travel. I don't have the experience that employers are looking for when applying for programming jobs or the art-school education for creative jobs. After all is considered, I basically think I'm pretty much limited to stupid office type jobs.
I did find ONE job that seems interesting and appealing to me as computer recycling tech. It appeals to my desire to do something that's a little more "green", it's ONLY about a mile from where I live and it is related to computers. The issue is the pay SUCKS VERY MUCH, even more than my current job.
I currently make about $27K/year and I have to drive about 12,000 miles a year JUST to get to and from work. With gas at it's current high prices and the likelihood to stay that way, would it make sense for me to take a job that's interesting to me and only about a mile from my apartment that only pays around $23K to start (with some sort of a bonus after 120 days)? 12,000 miles at a rough average of 25MPG with gas at around $3.00/gal. equals roughly $1,500 spent on gas for the year that I wouldn't have to spend. I'd be working basically the same Monday - Friday hours I'm currently working but I'd be taking apart computers and sending them out to be recycled instead of dealing with all of the office politics at my current job.
I guess I'll have to see if it's possible for me to even live on the lower pay. I'm sure I could if I sold my car and got a beater but I don't know if I want to do that.
I hate making decisions related to big life changes. I just wish I didn't hate my current job more...
My MAJOR issues are that I haven't found a job that:
* pays what I'm currently making or more.
* I'm interested in AND well qualified (on paper) for.
* I'd enjoy doing more than the boring office work that I'm currently doing.
* is "entry-level" but doesn't require experience. (Don't get me started on this one.)
I don't want to do any call center or help desk type jobs. I'd consider tech support stuff as long as it didn't entail TOO much travel. I don't have the experience that employers are looking for when applying for programming jobs or the art-school education for creative jobs. After all is considered, I basically think I'm pretty much limited to stupid office type jobs.
I did find ONE job that seems interesting and appealing to me as computer recycling tech. It appeals to my desire to do something that's a little more "green", it's ONLY about a mile from where I live and it is related to computers. The issue is the pay SUCKS VERY MUCH, even more than my current job.
I currently make about $27K/year and I have to drive about 12,000 miles a year JUST to get to and from work. With gas at it's current high prices and the likelihood to stay that way, would it make sense for me to take a job that's interesting to me and only about a mile from my apartment that only pays around $23K to start (with some sort of a bonus after 120 days)? 12,000 miles at a rough average of 25MPG with gas at around $3.00/gal. equals roughly $1,500 spent on gas for the year that I wouldn't have to spend. I'd be working basically the same Monday - Friday hours I'm currently working but I'd be taking apart computers and sending them out to be recycled instead of dealing with all of the office politics at my current job.
I guess I'll have to see if it's possible for me to even live on the lower pay. I'm sure I could if I sold my car and got a beater but I don't know if I want to do that.
I hate making decisions related to big life changes. I just wish I didn't hate my current job more...
Labels:
cars
,
computers
,
environment
,
goals
,
simplification
,
stress
,
work
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)
Posts
