sharing the mac experience

the shrine of apple

2011-09-03T22:19:00.001+10:00

This is at once unsurprising and slightly worrying: The Shrine of Apple: our goal – to showcase every product ever made by Apple.

apple hyperbole

2011-09-02T22:23:00.005+10:00

One thing I've noticed is Macheads have a serious problem with hyperbole.

"EVERYTHING Apple does is awesome!"

"Macs NEVER crash!"

"PCs ALWAYS crash!"

"Their typography is ALWAYS brilliant!"

...and so on, ad infinitum. The reason this shits me so much is it's so obviously false, Apple don't get everything right and they cut corners like any other company.

The funny thing is after years of gushing Macheads declaiming the sheer perfection of the experience at every possible level, even the slightest problem is magnified. For example the crappy quality of this graphic tacked onto an ugly survey form:

Does it matter? Of course not, it's just some random survey. But it's what I'll think of next time someone says Apple is the domain of perfect text treatment AT ALL TIMES.

zomg science says apple really is a religion!

2011-03-16T01:11:00.000+11:00

Memex 1.1 � Blog Archive � The Church of Latter-Day Apple

I mentioned Umberto Eco’s famous essay arguing that the Apple Mac was a Catholic device, while the IBM PC was a Protestant one. His reasoning was that, like the Roman church, Apple offered a guaranteed route to salvation – the Apple Way – provided one stuck to it. PC users, on the other hand, had to take personal responsibility for working out their own routes to heaven.

I’ve always thought that Eco’s essay was just a lovely literary conceit. But now, courtesy of Evegny Morozov, I find that there is even a scholarly literature on the subject. Or, at any rate, one learned article. It appeared in 2001 in the Oxford University Press journal Sociology of Religion: a quarterly review under the title “May the Force of the Operating System be with You: Macintosh Devotion as Implicit Religion”.

switching is hard

2011-03-07T00:16:00.000+11:00

Hot on the heels of the previous post, I discovered an unpublished draft from a while ago... quoting Warren Ellis again!

Warren Ellis | And Back: Sometimes I think about buying a Mac laptop, on the basis that it would be such a counterintuitive alien piece of Fischer Price fuckware that I would only be able to write manuscripts on it and would be damned lucky to get on to the internet at all (I don’t think I even have Mac software for my cranky router). I’m sure I would be very productive.

A while back I switched to Windows 7 both at home and work - work after a brief experiment with XP64, from which I can confidently say don't use Windows XP 64 (it always felt like 64 bit support badly bolted on to a 32 bit OS).

Given my company's "choice of platforms", the majority of people are on Macs; so I periodically find myself pair programming and swearing as I try to use Macs. Honestly, those little flat keyboards are really nice to use except none of the fucking command/modifier keys are in the Right Place™. People try to use mine and discover a similar problem with my ergonomic keyboard.

Before my current job I worked at a strictly-Windows shop and watched Mac user coworkers struggle to learn Windows. It didn't help their suffering that the boxes were underpowered crap, desperately short of RAM for the tasks they had to do.

All of this just confirms some things I've thought for a while...

Switching is hard. It doesn't matter what you used to use and what you're using now. That switch will suck. That includes switching to OSX. No OS is intuitive and feel free to tell people to get fucked sideways if they say one or other choice is inTOO-a-TIV! All OSes are essentially random and you just have to bloody learn their weirdness.
Switching input hardware can be as big a hassle as switching OS. I keep a mouse on my machine to avoid the near-total stoppage caused by people trying to use my input tablet for the first time.
Switching OS when you don't have to is essentially pointless. If you employ people, you should understand it makes no business sense whatsoever to force a Mac user onto a PC or vice versa. You pay them to get shit done, give them the tools they want and need. Otherwise you're just paying them to re-learn what they could have been doing already.
Switching from XP to Win7 was a huge change. What strikes me is at first I felt a bit like I do on occasions where I'm forced to use OSX. Partly because it was a big change and partly because MacOS and Windows are very slowly converging. Seriously, whether you like to admit it not, there is cross-pollination and parallel evolution going on.
For me, learning Win7 is still easier than learning OSX fresh - so sticking to a product line seems to help alittle bit. Really though, imagine going straight from OS8 to the latest OSX - that's what a lot of PC users are doing. We skipped Vista, it was crap. Which meant we were on XP for a long time. I suppose some people did suffer along with Vista, but most tech-savvy PC users just put XP back on their machines. After all those service packs, XP's pretty bloody solid - goes a long way to explaining how it can be holding on to nearly half the market.

At least if you want to switch, it's easier. If you don't want to switch it's hell. Slowly learning the new OS in parallel to your usual OS is probably the least destructive path.

warren ellis on itunes for windows

2011-03-06T15:14:00.002+11:00

From An interview with Warren Ellis : The Setup:

I hate iTunes for Windows. I have to use it to sync my iPhone. iTunes for Windows is why I've never considered buying a Mac. iTunes for Windows should be a glittering example of The Apple Way for Windows users. Instead, it's a clunky, stupid, greedy, ugly shitbox of an application that makes Windows users hate Apple. They make a nice phone, sure, but iTunes for Windows ensures that I'll never let Apple near a critical workflow.

But I'm stuck with it, because I need it to organise, appify and sync my iPhone. Bastards.

("Appify" is a real word that I just made up. I've won awards for writing. Shut up.)

I personally believe that the first step to improving things would be to see to it that, every Monday morning, on arriving for work, the iTunes For Windows dev team were punched in the throat by Liam Neeson.

Note that "buy a mac" is not a solution for the problem. One of the reasons the Mac world is so culty is people accept buying more products as a valid way to resolve problems with the ones you already have. It doesn't solve anything, it just rewards Apple for doing a shitty job.

When the iPhone arrived and started merrily kicking other devices off the network, people said "buy an airport!". When the still-under-contract iPhone 3G got ruined by the irreversible iOS update, people said "buy an iPhone 4".

What? No! When a company has just given you a product that doesn't work or fucked up a product you already own, how does it make sense to reward them with another purchase? When other companies pull that shit, people scream bloody murder.

So anyway. iTunes is many peoples' first exposure to Mac software and it's really pretty annoying (plus it's a really bad guest which incessantly tries to invite its mates in - no, I don't need Mobile Me, quit asking!). I can only guess Apple's apathy towards making it better is a result of the iPod's massive success. Why bother making it better? People keep buying iPods anyway...

imovie's shooting for an all nighter

2011-02-23T00:23:00.002+11:00

I've no idea why it's "optimising", it was just meant to import. It's been chugging for quite a while now - there really is a lot of wiggle room when OSX says "about" a certain amount of time. Can't quit iMovie, can't cancel the import...

At least setting up Skitch was easy.

sharing files from windows 7 to osx

2011-02-19T18:07:00.004+11:00

I've had heaps of grief trying to move files between Mac and PC in the past, but since last time both have been upgraded, to Snow Leopard and Win 7 respectively. So I thought I'd have another go.

Now I'll note first that sharing files between machines has been vastly simiplified by using Dropbox (if you're not using it, seriously stop reading and go download it now. Back? OK, your sharing woes might already be over...).

However I ran into a situation where I wanted to share a file from my main machine to the MBP but I didn't want to pump it through Dropbox.

Turns out now it's pretty easy, and this time actually worked:

Share the folder on the Win7 machine (ensuring the intended user account has access to the folder)
On the Mac, hit (apple)+K or Go → Connect to Server
Enter smb://computername
About the only hassle: you will have to log in with a username and password that exists on the Win7 machine if you haven't enabled Guest access. I just went straight to that option as it's me on both machines so whatever.
Once you complete the login you can see the shared folder(s).

To my great surprise, this worked first go. The way it's supposed to work actually worked. Even for me. WOW.

In the end the file was so big (3.7 gigs) it was too painful to transfer via wifi (not the Mac's fault there); so I dumped it on a USB drive. But, it's good to know sharing works for other files.

reviewing iphone games

2010-12-03T01:15:00.002+11:00

Zero Punctuation reviews iPhone games: Number three on the charts is Fruit Ninja. ... This is about as simple as games get. You're a ninja, fruit is flying up in front of you and FUCK FRUIT!

so, i won an ipad...

2010-11-04T21:13:00.003+11:00

Through a surprising and ironic twist of fate, I've won an iPad. I did always say I'd have one if someone gave it to me for free, but I didn't expect it to ever happen...

But still, it did, and now a 64gig 3G iPad has joined my stable of devices.

Much hilarity has ensued. I've been called a 'sellout' at least three times and the usual reaction to the news is a mixture of amusement, envy and a little horror that such a sweet device would end up in my hands. Before you become the n^th person to ask, no I will not give it to you :P

My initial reactions to the iPad...

it has been used basically every day since we got it, and that says a lot
it tends to gravitate to the coffee table
it is light to carry, but heavy to hold
it really definitely is not "crazy powerful" nor is it a computer or a tablet pc - it is a device
we love having it, but it would have been quite hard to justify the cost of buying it ourselves

The iPad is an all-rounder device: browser, email, twitter, video (or at least youtube), ebook, game, app device etc... It's not designed to truly excel at any one thing so much as it is designed to do many things, with plenty of battery life and something that doesn't weigh your bag down like a brick.

The weight does mean you always have to have it propped up, which is why almost everyone seems to buy a case that tilts it.

It's very much a passive consumption device, anything beyond a tweet or short email is about as annoying to write on the iPad as it is on a mobile. It's not impossible but it really isn't my first choice for serious input. Coding on the iPad's keyboard would be a nightmare.

This is not a criticism, just an observation. This device was designed to consume content and the tradeoffs have been made in that direction. It's definitely a niche position in the world of devices - an essentially dedicated browser and content consumption device.

If the iPad has an obvious flaw it's the price vs that niche. At the bottom of the range, you can buy a netbook and a dedicated e-reader for the same money. At the top of the range you're about $100 off buying the new 11 inch MacBook Air; or any number of PC laptops. So you really have to be able to afford the luxury of a dedicated browsing device.

Perhaps iPad will follow the slow price reduction of iPods, which was required for them to earn the 'ubiquitous' tag. But there is definitely a gap in the market for similar, cheaper devices.

Ignoring the cost it is a useful (or at least fun) thing to have. I think the iPad's greatest strength is actually the immediacy of the experience. The flash memory means it's on effectively instantly, so you can pick it up and start browsing wherever you are without any delay.

If you had to wait for the iPad to boot or wake up like a computer, it wouldn't be anywhere near as fun or useful.

People keep asking me whether I'd buy one now that I've had one. Realistically I'd really want one, but it is just too much of a luxury to justify the cost. Plus I think at this stage if you haven't got one, you should probably hang on until the second version comes out. It'll probably have a camera at least, perhaps a little more RAM to make it snappier.

My perceptions of the iPad may change over time, but that's where I'm up to so far.

appholes

2010-04-30T00:40:00.007+10:00

Jon Stewart puts it so well... You guys are busting down doors in Palo Alto while Commandant Gates is ridding the world of mosquitos. What the fuck is going on?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Appholes

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

For a company that promotes a shiny happy image, they really can be horrible bullies. They lost the fucking phone in a bar, then complained to the police as though it was dastardly corporate espionage..?! Come on.

If you think Apple didn't exert any influence on the police... try going to the police with that crap as an individual and see how far you get.

I don't really get why Apple didn't just ride the wave of publicity. It's not like this is going to hurt their sales.

At least they haven't fired the poor kid who lost the phone. Yet.

[Update - comments closed due to excessive amounts of spam. Apparently if you mention ipads you get spam...]

apple fucks up ipads supply, taunts non-US fans

2010-04-14T23:39:00.004+10:00

OK, so actually I think they pretended to fuck up supply. I mean, does anyone really believe this bullshit any more?

Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply ...
Apple Media Advisory

Demand higher than expected? For a product they've spent fuck knows how many millions promoting? This from a company that has had this problem for every other product they've released since the fucking ipod?

A cynical person might think they manufacture scarcity to keep the media machine going longer and jack up the prices some more.

Faced with this surprisingly strong US demand, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the international launch of iPad by one month ... We know that many international customers waiting to buy an iPad will be disappointed by this news, but we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason—the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far.

Why would anyone be pleased to hear they can't buy something because people in another country are having too much fun with it? Seriously, people who line up to buy tech toys are not the kind of people who respond to missing out by being happy for the people who got one.

I swear, Apple's just taunting people to see how far they can push them. It really does stretch the limits of cult-dom to expect your faithful to be happy they can't buy your product.

i'm not the only one...

2010-04-09T23:23:00.003+10:00

...who gets problems with Macs that nobody else will admit to getting! The esteemed Jeffrey Zeldman has been documenting his Mac (mis)adventures for years. The latest? Safari and MobileMe conspiring to eat his bookmarks.

The dog ate my bookmarks – Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report: It’s been years (or is it weeks?) since something odd, implausible, and inexplicable happened to one or more of my Apple computers that doesn’t happen to anyone else’s. ... My old bookmarks are gone, but the new ones I created on my laptop have not been sync’d. I have no bookmarks. I start re-creating them from scratch, and as I create them, they disappear.

He has also experienced the Apple Stony Silence. OS X 10.5.7 update: unsafe at any speed – Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report: Twitter and the Apple forums contain the complaints of users whose computers have gone blooey after installing the update. Apple, of course, does not respond to these complaints.

Macs have problems. Apple products are not perfect. However Apple will not acknowledge this if it suits them to ignore you.

Don't take my word for it...

how to fix an ipod when itunes can't restore it

2010-03-28T22:54:00.005+11:00

I've recently had to resurrect my ipod. Since Apple's support resources didn't cover how to fix it, I thought I'd share the solution here.

The problem: Fifth Generation (G5/5G/gen5) iPod Classic was caught in loop where it constantly restarted. The iPod would show the Apple logo, then briefly go dark, then try again, until the battery ran out.

How did it happen? No idea, I unplugged it - working - from my work PC, walked to my car and plugged in my iTrip only to discover it was in a loop. I couldn't get the loop to stop and it was basically sitting there frying itself - it got really hot. Before you ask, yes I tried a hard reset.

It was only when I got home that I could look up the instructions and get it into disk mode, which at least meant it stopped rebooting, cooled down and could be seen in the file system.

I tried letting the battery go completely dead. I tried recharging it to full before plugging it back in. I tried plugging it into different USB ports. I checked that iTunes was up to date (v9.0.3.15 on Windows 7). None of these solutions worked.

So why not restore it, being one of the five Rs? Because iTunes could detect the ipod and tell me it was stuffed:

...but then iTunes would crash:

At this point, you're on your own. It's pretty much what pisses me off about Apple support: they tell you one single solution method, with the assumption that single solution will always work for every one of the millions of customers they have. I call it faith-based support. At any rate, what Apple suggests hasn't worked.

I tried installing the ipod updater, even though it's outdated it supports my ipod so I figured it was worth a shot. Unfortunately it crashed immediately the same as itunes.

I put the ipod back into disk mode; ran the Windows error checking tool over the ipod (that's chkdsk, or Properties→Tools→Error-checking). The quick check found and fixed some errors (although I didn't dig into specifics, which I should have - but I was sleepy); while a full scan checking for bad sectors returned zero errors.

It still wouldn't boot.

So, finally, I formatted the drive via the Windows file explorer, setting it to FAT32. Remember this deletes all data off the ipod so don't do this if you don't have a backup).

Boom! Works again. iTunes starts happily and immediately offers to restore the ipod. Done, apart from the long slow sync putting all the music back on.

It's kind of frustrating that it literally only took seconds in the end, but Apple don't seem to suggest it anywhere. They just assume that restore will always work, despite the many many people reporting issues with Ipod Classics - it might even be linked with Windows 7, but who knows?

There are a couple of Apple discussion pages that mention third party sites about formatting drives, chkdsk etc but they tend to have alarmist messages on them like this:

Disclaimer: Apple does not necessarily endorse any suggestions, solutions, or third-party software products that may be mentioned in the topic below. Apple encourages you to first seek a solution at Apple Support. The following links are provided as is, with no guarantee of the effectiveness or reliability of the information. Apple does not guarantee that these links will be maintained or functional at any given time. Use the information below at your own discretion.
Apple - Support - Discussions - kipod: If Windows displays an iTunes.exe corrupt file/chkdsk message

...keep in mind, this is on Apple Support. "You're here, but don't trust what we say here, look up what we say here." That doesn't really make sense. If Apple say don't do it; they should just say so. If they do say you should do it, there should be a knowledge base article to link to.

I'm pretty sure there are no Apple Support pages that suggest formatting the ipod. If the five Rs don't work, you're stuck taking it to Apple for help. But if you have the iPod at the stage where it simply doesn't work, and you don't need any data off it, you may as well give it a shot.

Update: this has happened again a couple of times now. It appears that you can't safely eject an ipod from Windows XP 64bit (which is what my work machine runs). Apple don't release iTunes for XP64 so there's no itunes helper service; and you can't use the OS eject as that's what triggered my ipod's second crash. Most of the time it works if you just unplug it without ejecting anything, but at least sometimes that will pooch your 'pod. I haven't yet tried to install a hacked Windows 7/64 itunes installer, in fact I probably won't do that since it's not worth risking my work machine with hacked software.

iphone therapy

2009-12-07T21:16:00.001+11:00

From i hate my iPhone:

I loathe my iPhone. I left it in hotel rooms throughout Europe hoping someone from housekeeping would steal it because then I wouldn't feel as guilty as I would if I'd given it away, thrown it off a bridge or simply stopped using it. It would've been 'out of my control'. No-one would steal it.

See! I'm not the only one who has bad experience with Apple products ;)

iphone worm in the wild

2009-11-10T22:36:00.002+11:00

Jailbroken your iphone and installed SSH? Make sure you change the password!

The worm is able to infect [jailbroken] phones if their owners have not changed the default password after installing SSH.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Worm attack bites at Apple iPhone

avoid the dreaded mac droppings

2009-10-27T23:36:00.001+11:00

Macs do have a distinctly antisocial habit when it comes to sharing drives with other machines: Mac Droppings. Also known as Mac Leavings or Mac Dust, for those with excessively easily offended sensibilities.

PC users can tell when you've borrowed their USB drive, because your mac left ds_stores and trashes everywhere it went. Actually the resource forks are more annoying, since that means there are (what look like) duplicate copies of everything.

You end up having to clean up after the mac every single damn time. It really is quite irritating.

However you can avoid the wrath of your network drive administrator! There's software to clean up the problem: BlueHarvest: DS_Stores, ._Resource Forks, .Folders. Keep it clean.. It's kind of like those dog leashes with plastic bag dispensers built into the handle.

Talk about niche software! :)

Snow Leopard bug: auto-deletion of primary user profile

2009-10-15T21:44:00.001+11:00

BBC NEWS | Technology | Data losses in Snow Leopard bug:

Users of the new Apple operating system Snow Leopard are experiencing massive data losses when logging into their machines under a guest account.

The problem appears to affect those who had a guest account enabled before upgrading to Snow Leopard.

Users have in some cases lost their entire main profile, including sites, pictures, videos and documents.

Ouch. Be careful if you're upgrading to the chilly kitty.

another hacker conference, another mac hack

2009-07-31T08:07:00.002+10:00

It seems to be turning into a minor tradition that someone at Black Hat or Defcon hacks a mac.

New Machiavelli hack attacks scrambled Macs | News.com.au Top stories | News.com.au

Dai Zovi, a security researcher and co-author of The Mac Hacker's Handbook, said once hackers start to put substantial resources into targeting Apple's computers, they will be at least as vulnerable as Windows machines.

'There is no magic fairy dust protecting Macs,' he said.

No fairy dust? SAY IT AIN'T SO! ;) Love that quote.

the iphone does not play well with others (on wifi)

2009-05-25T04:08:00.002+10:00

So... the owner of the macbook pro decided to join the iphone cult, grabbing a 16gig 3G iphone. Brought it home, connected to the home wifi - no worries, right?

Then she connected the mbp, and things just went to hell. The mbp refused to connect to the wifi at all... Pretty much anything connected to the network got booted. Every device on the network had to be restarted or reconnected to the network. The router itsef had to be unplugged and hard rebooted.

None of this was happening pre-iphone; and everything works as normal so long as the iphone isn't connected.

So, WTF? She googles a bit and finds a bunch of - as she put it - "infuriating" posts where people ask for help with this problem and just get the reply "oh... that's weird". For extra points lots of people suggest throwing away your perfectly good router and buying an airport, because, hey, the apple hardware you have already isn't working so why wouldn't you want to buy more of such quality product? Surely, all problems must reside in the non-apple hardware?

I have to say it, macheads: as a community you are incredibly unhelpful trying to bugfix things. If the machine deviates from the script, people throw up their hands and mumble things about going to see a genius or just buying some more apple products. I wonder occasionally if that's just to appease the great god stevepjobs in the hope the devices will spontaneously start working again.

Just another day, sharing the mac experience.

So it goes back and forth, and it seems that what happens is that the macbookpro and the iphone boot each other off the network whenever they connect. Even worse, they manage to start booting off the PC which was minding its own business on ethernet; and pretty soon we're having trouble finding a device that can still connect to the router to try to run some diagnostics.

Near as we can tell, the iphone and the mbp are just so aggressive in their search for connectivity that they kill existing connections. For some reason adding the iphone into the mix was the trigger to really mess things up.

A couple of reboots and some restrained profanity later, we seem to have found a fix: reserve IP addresses for every device you have. At the router level, that is. We started by setting the iphone to a fairly high address that hadn't ever been used, and manually setting the iphone to that fixed IP - not sure if that made a lick of difference, but we did it.

So far, so good. Wish us luck, we'll see what happens tomorrow.

upgrading macs

2009-04-15T07:23:00.002+10:00

You can't say it's not true! ;)

time machine is a fussy eater

2009-01-21T09:09:00.002+11:00

A quick trick/trap discovered by Roger Johansson: Reformat and repartition hard drives before using them with Time Machine | 456 Berea Street

Basically the problem is that the majority of external hard drives on the market come preformatted for use with a PC. This means it uses the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition map scheme, which Time Machine chokes on (technical term).

Formatting the drive prior to use will only fix this problem if you know to dig around in the settings tabs and specify the partition map scheme. Roger's post includes step by step instructions on formatting a drive so that Time Machine will work properly, head on over there if you need the info.

Roger then ponders the same question that occurred to me when I read about his woes:

A question I asked myself after going through this trouble with reformatting, repartitioning and cloning hard drives is why Time Machine didn’t tell me that it doesn’t fully support the drive I connected. I hope there is a good answer since most hard drives you buy will use the unsupported MBR, and changing it when you’ve been using the drive for a while and start noticing problems is very frustrating and time consuming.

Why indeed? Macs are supposed to reap the benefits of a relatively controlled platform. But even though there was an easily detectable problem, Time Machine wasn't set up to actually check that it had the type of hard drive it needed. Given how fundamental that is to its purpose, that really seems short sighted.

It is consistent with the problems I had installing things in the wrong place though. Mac software often seems happy to let you go ahead and fuck up, blissfully unaware that your backups aren't actually working properly. Windows would probably fail immediately with an unhelpful error message, but at least you'd know something was wrong.

Bloody computers.

apple aluminium keyboard = not user serviceable

2009-01-02T04:54:00.002+11:00

Mustard Hamsters: How To Take Apart Apple’s Aluminum Keyboard... it's a cautionary tale!

Apparently if you spill stuff on that keyboard, the solution is to throw it away and buy a new one.

tips for mac users who have to use windows xp

2009-01-01T09:33:00.002+11:00

I work in a PC-only office, with some dedicated Macheads who've been forced to transition to Windows XP. Not an unusual scenario, really.

Subsequently I've grown to appreciate the sadness and almost physical pain this can cause, particularly for people who've never used a Windows machine before. Just like the other way around is hell for Windows users ;)

So although this blog is usually about transitioning to mac, I thought it might be nice to share my common tips for people transitioning to Windows XP.

Now, I can’t make your windows machine deliver The Love Of Steve Jobs but co-workers have found these tips helped keep their sanity a bit.

So... in no particular order...

1) Microsoft Outlook's search tool sucks, you should replace it.

If you are lumped with MS Outlook, you will no doubt have noticed the built-in search tool just doesn't work. Thankfully there are two easy options here.

First, you can install Lookout: Install Lookout On Outlook 2007 - Lifehacker Australia.

Install it, then you'll see the extra search tool in Outlook. Click Options next to the Lookout search box and make sure your archive folders are ticked. Allow time for it to index your email, then after that you have real, functional email search.

A second option is Xobni: Xobni - Search Your Outlook Email Inbox, which does a whole lot more than just search.

2) The default alt-tab isn't especially pretty. You can replace that if it bothers you.

This is kind of bling, but kind of useful too. Grab the alt-tab replacement powertoy, which gives you a preview of the windows when you alt-tab.

3) When you stick in a CD or thumb drive, that autoplay thing is annoying. Yes, you can kill it.

Click Start → Run
Type: gpedit.msc [enter]
Go to: Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → System
Double-click the item "Turn off autoplay"
Select "Enable" (yeah the wording is arse-forwards)
Select which drives to disable autoplay from the dropdown, I went for "all drives".
Click OK

4) Get a leaner, meaner file system search.

The XP file system search sucks, what with the hyperactive dog animations and all the extra clicking. The one in Windows 2000 Pro looked utilitarian but it was much better. You can enable that in XP.

Install the Tweak UI powertoy
Run Tweak UI (you'll find it under the start menu)
Go to: Tweak UI → Explorer → Use classic search in Explorer

While you're there, check out the Group Policy editor as it gives you access to lots of settings.

5) Got two monitors? Get Multimon.

Multimon is a neat little UI extension that lets you easily move applications between your two monitors, and extends the Task Bar across both screens.

6) Want a really fast graphics viewer?

Get Irfanview (and install the "all plugins" extra). Let it take over all of your graphics formats in the file associations (you might prefer to disable PSD if you're a designer, of course).

Irfanview loads really fast and has useful batch tools, lets you edit the IPTC metadata and so on. Basically I find it quicker and easier than using XP's film strip or thumbnails or whatever.

7) "I can't drag a file onto the Taskbar!"

While you can't drag and drop a file onto an application on the Taskbar, you *can* drag the file down and hover over the application on the taskbar (don't let go of the mouse button), then the application you want should open up, then you can drop it onto the application. Yeah it'd be nice to just drop it on the app, but XP doesn't do that.

Note that this tip works for apps that are already open/running, it doesn't apply to dropping a file onto a shortcut icon for an app that's not currently running.

8) Yes, the keyboard shortcuts are different.

Some basic keyboard shortcuts that you should know:

Use alt-tab to switch between applications. Use alt-shift-tab to switch in reverse order.
In most apps (particularly browsers) ctrl-tab will switch between windows/tabs. ctrl-shift-tab will switch in reverse order.
Use windows-m ("Minimise all") or windows-d ("Desktop") to minimise all the open apps and take you to the desktop (there's a subtle difference in what they do, but unless you have multiple monitors you'll probably never see it).
Use windows-e to launch Windows Explorer.
Use windows-f ("find") to launch the Windows Explorer search tool.

9) "I need to open a zip file..."

Zip files are supported natively. Just use your context menu - right click and hit "Extract all".

You can also compress things this way by right-clicking on a directory and hitting Send To → Compressed Folder.

Formats other than .zip do need a third party addon like 7-zip.

10) I miss (insert OSX feature here)

Honestly someone else probably does too and made an app to reproduce the effect. Without wanting to sound flippant, whatever it is you can probably just search for it on Google.

For example you can re-skin Windows XP to look like OSX and there are various Expose replacements:

DExposE2 Like Mac Expose but Better - Lifehacker Australia
Get the MS Mouse software and map something like your scroll wheel's click to "Instant Viewer"
Search for windows xp exposé and you'll find heaps of results

Like it or not, the user base for Windows is truly massive; so no matter what's going on you'll probably find someone has already fixed/changed/hacked things the same way you want.

This goes for fixing problems too: search for error messages verbatim and you'll probably find some guy on a forum who went through the same problem six months ago.

If you maintain the machine yourself...

If you've never maintained a PC before and you have to do it yourself, keep in mind that you are now in a whole different target group for malicious attacks. You might enjoy unprotected internet on your Mac, but if you do that with a PC you'll regret it fast.

You need:

Firewall, like Zone Alarm (or you can use the default Windows firewall - but personally I like Zone Alarm)
Anti-virus, like Symantec Antivirus or a free option like AVG Free
Anti-spyware/anti-malware, like Ad-aware, Spybot or Malwarebytes Antimalware

Once you've got it, you need to actually update and run the antivirus and spyware software. A good routine is a full scan monthly and enable the memory-resident autoprotect options. If you buy the software you'll find most programs have scheduling features - it's really only the freebie versions that don't.

Sure, this isn't convenient but the sad fact is that it's required. There are millions of Windows machines out there and endless thousands of people and scripts trying to break into them. You can feel smug and superior about Mac security all you like, but you should do it after you've protected your Windows machine ;)

Thankfully if you follow these tips you should be ok, assuming you don't do anything daft like click on attachments from spammers.

Updates

Obviously you also need to keep Windows updated, just as you do with OSX. Run Windows Update and in the settings enable automatic downloads.

Note that if you are installing Windows from scratch, do it offline (unplug the network cable!). During installation the system is still unpatched and hence extremely vulnerable. Burn the service packs to a DVD ahead of time or at least install your firewall before you go online to install them.

Overall tips...

Just as macheads regularly criticise me for "wanting the mac to work like a PC", I have to remind you it works both ways. If you try to use a PC like a Mac, you'll get frustrated. The two platforms are just different and each has its own random quirks and tricks. Don't fight it, you won't win ;)

I should also note that for a couple of the tips I've mentioned here, if you're in a super-locked-down corporate environment you might need admin access or a friendly tech support guy (bought them a beer lately?). That's not about Windows, that's about your work environment, ok? :)

Anyway, these tips have helped people at work. I hope they're helpful for you too.

a quick note about wordpress

2008-05-14T08:08:00.005+10:00

[NOTE: as you can probably guess, this was posted before I eventually moved the blog from Wordpress to Blogger ;) Wordpress was ok but ultimately it was too much hassle to go between different blogging engines.]

I just thought I'd throw in a quick note about Wordpress. When I decided to write this blog I thought "hey, it's all about trying new things..." (I run other blogs with Blogger).

Man, Wordpress has some seriously annoying quirks. I mean, what's with the line break thing? This line won't wrap in the inline editor. I haven't done anything differently from the first paragraph, yet here we go... Switching to the code view doesn't help, either. [This was where it would finally wrap to a new line.] Oh look, a new line finally.

The stats tracking is nice, the comment handling is ok, although a little verbose. Having to pay to customise the CSS is irritating, but I guess they need to make money somehow.

I can't truly evalutate WP without installing it myself or ponying up the cash to edit the CSS... which is a catch-22 since without giving it that test drive I don't know if it's really worth the money. I don't really feel like paying just to satisfy my curiosity ;)

So I guess my advice would be: if you're thinking about Wordpress for your blog, either plan to install it on your own server; plan to pay; or plan to use a default template with zero design mods. Depending on your needs it might be totally fine.

In general, WP's interface feels a bit more polished than Blogger; it has some better features out of the box. But it doesn't offer as much customisation - Blogger is free with near-total control (the limits are still annoying).

...and can anyone tell me how to fix that bloody line-wrap problem? So far I've only found posts about code formatting problems. Not plain text problems.

why the mac can't write to your external hard drive

2008-05-14T07:25:00.002+10:00

I've seen this problem a couple of times now - someone trying to write onto an external hard drive with a mac. The mac can read files off that drive, but not write to it. PCs can read and write to the drive with no issues. It doesn't matter which user account you try, it still doesn't work on the mac. It makes no sense!

You can waste many many hours trying to fix permissions, which seem like a likely culprit. But first you should check the formatting of the external drive. Particularly if the drive was initally formatted for use with a PC.

If the external hard drive is NTFS, you're out of luck. Macs can read files off an NTFS drive, but they cannot write to an NTFS drive. You will have to reformat your external hard drive, or create a FAT32 partition for the mac and just write to that partition.

This does indeed suck.

Actually there's on last hope before you embark on reformatting. Some people report success using NTFS-3G Stable Read/Write Driver (also see the wikipedia entry: NTFS-3G | wikipedia), which should let you read NTFS drives using an OSX system. However I can't personally comment on this as I'd already reformatted my drive before I heard about it.

So give the NTFS drivers a go. But if that doesn't work, you're stuck reformatting to something like FAT32. Depending on the system you use to reformat the drive, you might need to use a third party hard drive formatting tool like Partition Magic to get around FAT32 size limits. Have fun doing a round trip to your system drive with your backups...

Of course there are plenty of other reasons why your mac might not write to an external hard drive, but you should eliminate this one first.