The problem is that we frequently have to transfer documents between the Windows and Mac side. I had set up a shared folder, but it’s slow in Windows and it means several extra steps. About a week ago I was moving some documents and I said, “wouldn’t it be nice if I could just drag this off the Windows desktop and onto my Mac desktop?” As I said this, I started dragging the file to the edge of the window. If you’re a VMWare Fusion guru, you know what happened next, but it surprised the heck out of me. The icon changed to a Mac icon as I got close to the edge of the window, and I was able to drop it on the Mac desktop. I then saw a message that VMWare Fusion was copying the file.

How did I not know about this before? After discovering this feature, I checked the VMWare documentation and didn’t see any mention of it. I wonder how many other VMWare Tools features I’m missing out on. At least now using Windows has become much more pleasant (and I am no longer tempted to migrate my Windows install).

So two days ago I uninstalled the Safari 4 Beta. The improvement was immediate and noticeable. After the restart (required by the install/uninstall), I could tell things were faster. I have been using Safari 3 for a couple days now and haven’t had a single issue with beachballing or experienced any slowness. I liked some of the new features of Safari 4, but I don’t care how much faster the Javascript performance is if it brings my whole system to its knees.

There are a couple of solutions for accessing files in the multi-computer environment. One solution is to have a central server to which all the computers connect to access work files. This simplifies administration somewhat, but it doesn’t work well in an offline environment (such as the aforementioned laptop). Another solution is to store the files on each computer but use software to keep the two or more computers in sync. This is the solution my wife uses in her practice.

I have been quite skeptical of syncing software for a long time. I don’t have a horror story from my youth that has scared me away from it. But it just sounds dangerous – running a program every few minutes that deletes and updates files based on its own internal calculations. So if we were going to use syncing software, it would need to be bulletproof (or at least make me feel like it is bulletproof).

The first syncing application my wife investigated was DropBox. DropBox seems like a very capable solution, but it has some limitations for the Mac law office. First, DropBox seems to sync a single folder and it has to be the “DropBox” folder. It’s a little clumsy to have a folder named “DropBox” be the primary repository for business documents. I didn’t investigate whether the folder could be renamed because of the second problem: DropBox doesn’t play well with FileVault. Depending upon the kind of law you practice and which state you practice in, FileVault (or something like it) is somewhere between strongly recommended and mandatory. So DropBox was out.

Coming along at exactly the right time was Syncplicity. This little application works great. It supports FileVault without any hitches. You can synchronize any number of folders – named anything you want. This is especially useful in an estate planning practice. Many estate planning attorneys use Windows drafting software. Using Syncplicity, my wife can draft an estate plan in Windows (under VMware Fusion) and have it sync over to the Mac folder almost instantly. Because the drafting folder is a different folder, the entire collection of business documents doesn’t need to be synced onto Windows (which would mean storing two copies of each document on the computer, one copy for Mac OS X and one copy for Windows.

It hasn’t all been roses. A few times, for no reason my wife can ascertain, multiple copies will appear as if someone was editing a file even though the file wasn’t open on any other computers. This is a minor quibble, though, because it only happens about once every couple of months and no data has been lost. The real complaint we have is that Syncplicity won’t sync empty folders to other computers. Empty folders do appear in the online view of your files. But they won’t be synced to other computers (I even asked, and this is the way Syncplicity is intended to work). So, alas, Syncplicity isn’t perfect. But it has helped my wife be productive and kept her documents complete across different offices.

Apple sidestepped the need to add hardware (other than a button) to the shuffle by generating the voiceover on your Mac (one of those, *smack head*, “I should have thought of that” moments). I still can’t see the benefit of speaking the song name. Maybe other people just aren’t as into their music as I am. On the other hand, if you’re going to add playlists and speak the playlist name, you might as well go all the way.

Still, there’s lots to like about the updates. I am most impressed with the changes to the Mac Mini. The Mini has long lagged the iMac in four key performance-related areas: processor, memory, memory speed, and hard drive speed. Now it looks like we’re down to three. The Mac Mini and the iMac both sport a 1066MHz front side bus. Prior to Tuesday’s updates, the iMacs raced along at 800MHz while the Minis were saddled with a 667MHz FSB. Unfortunately, the Minis are still limited to 5400rpm hard drives. That may have made sense at one time, but now 7200rpm hard drives are even available on Macbook Pros. It’s time to let the Mini catch up.

The iMacs saw a nice boost too. The big shock for me was the switch from two 20″ models and two 24″ models to a single 20″ model and three 24″ models. For me, the 24″ model never made sense before. For the price of the cheapest 24″ iMac, you could almost buy a 20″ iMac and a 20″ Apple Cinema Display (this model has since been discontinued but it was still available when I purchased my current iMac). If you’re willing to step outside the Apple Store and buy a non-Apple display, you could definitely have made that purchase. I would much rather have two 20″ displays side-by-side than a single 24″ display. The reason for this seemingly crazy pricing situation is that Apple bundled better processor and graphics into the cheapest 24″ iMac. If you don’t need that extra horsepower, the larger monitor becomes a very pricey upgrade.

Now things are entirely different. The cheapest 24″ iMac comes in at $1499 with a larger hard disk and more memory. But I can see lots of people wanting to upgrade to 4GB of RAM (a must in my opinion!) and 640GB hard drive (320GB is becoming “small”). Upgrading the 20″ iMac to comparable RAM and hard drive brings the price to $1374. In my opinion, $125 is a small price to pay for the larger screen real estate.

I don’t have much to say about the Mac Pros. My last true desktop was an 867MHz Mirror Drive Doors PowerMac. I can get so much done on a laptop or iMac that I would be wasting my money to buy a Mac Pro. Still, I enjoy pricing one out occasionally to see what kind of ridiculous specs and prices are available. A dual 2.93GHz, 32GB RAM, 1TB HD model currently rings up at just over 12 grand. At least there is free shipping.

ps. I tried desperately to find a way to make this law-related, but I just couldn’t. I’m sorry, and I apologize for the distraction!

The second piece of news is the release of the Safari 4 beta. There are lots of changes in this release, including a new tabs paradigm and a new Top Sites page. I won’t say the “c” word (”copied”), but both features are very reminiscent of Google Chrome. I downloaded Safari 4 yesterday and have been using it ever since. Its fast, and I like the new Top Sites page (pretty and functional). I’m not sold on the new tabs, though. I like them in theory, but a few quirks keep me from being sold entirely. The small font size in the title bar is distracting. I have been using Mac OS X for a long time now and I am used to the title bar font being a particular size. The smaller size may be necessary to fit in the tab titles, but it puts me off.

My real problem, though, is how it’s now possible to accidentally switch tabs when switching windows. Before, I could click anywhere on the title bar to bring a Safari window to the front. Now, if I click on one of the other tabs, the window comes to the front but the tab changes. So the area I have to click on is smaller. It’s something of a small ergonomic disaster for me. Thankfully, this problem can be fixed without changing the tab paradigm. All Apple needs to do is put in an option allowing clicks on a background Safari window to no longer change tabs. Then I would be happy.

Mail Merge

Pages 2008 supported mail merge, but only from Address Book data. Address Book is a good application, but I have yet to meet anyone that keeps all of their business contacts in Address Book. It’s just not an advanced CRM application – nor is it intended to be. Pages 2009 now supports using a Numbers document as the data source. That addition opens up a world of opportunity. Virtually every CRM application, including Infusion CRM which we use, allows for exporting data as a CSV file. It’s now a simple matter of loading the CSV file into Numbers and choosing the Numbers document as a data source in Pages.

Mail merge in Pages is a little awkward at first if you’re used to Microsoft Word. But its fairly easy once you learn where the buttons and menu options are located. The only drawback I initially saw was that Pages doesn’t visually distinguish the mail merge placeholders from the surrounding text. The placeholder will appear as the name given to that field in the Numbers document. Using every ounce of my creativity, I realized that adding extra characters to the field names in Numbers would solve the problem. In other words, use ##Name## as the column header instead of just Name.

For a long time I had been using Microsoft Word for many documents simply because it was annoying to have to switch to another application to handle the mail merge. Now that Pages has this important feature, it will open the door to potentially using Pages for much more than just lightweight desktop publishing (its current role in my everyday life).

Linked Numbers Documents

The previous version of Pages supported the embedding of a Numbers chart or spreadsheet. The problem was that embedding a Numbers chart or spreadsheet in this way would make a copy of it. So any changes to the original Numbers document would not be reflected in the Pages document. I admit that I wasn’t aware of the deficiency until Macworld this year. But as I am doing more and more advanced things with Pages, I expect that I would have stumbled across this little surprise sooner rather than later. Thankfully, iWork 2009 solves this by allowing Pages to link to the Numbers document rather than simply embedding a copy.

Other New Features

There are many other iWork features that have gotten quite a bit of press. Of those, iWork.com is probably the biggest one. The Apple Blog has a pretty good review of iWork.com.

Ever since I have owned a Mac, I have always considered Macworld to be like a second Christmas. I can’t wait to find out what goodies Apple has for us under the tree. Even though we knew we wouldn’t get to see the showmanship of Steve this year, expectations were still pretty high. 17″ MacBook Pro? Mac Mini? Time capsule turned into some kind of home server? There were more misses than hits in the predictions, but we made out pretty well. This is what caught my attention:

• iWork 2009. I use Pages for quite a bit, and have been looking at Keynote and Numbers more and more. Even incremental updates are much appreciated. Status: Ordered and already shipped!
• iLife 2009. iView Media Pro (now Microsoft Expression Media) was one of the first programs I bought for Mac OS X when switching. Back then iPhoto seemed little more than a toy. It’s been making progress now, though. And, while it still doesn’t seem to be a “serious” photo database, it’s starting to have enough toys that I am getting interested. On top of that, my pile of miniDV tapes is growing, so iMovie has some appeal also. Status: Still thinking.
• FileMaker Pro 10. Okay, this one slipped out a little before Macworld, but it’s close enough to count. I am excited about this update. Script triggers. SMTP mail. Themes! (a 21st century interface - if you’re a close reader of this site you’ll know how much that means to me) Status: Ordered, but hasn’t shipped yet.

Hopefully we’ll see the Mac Mini updates in a few days. Historically Apple hasn’t announced minor updates like that at big events like Macworld. So we still may see a Mini bump soon. Has anyone come across third party announcements at Macworld that excited them?