Raible Designs

My Love-Hate Relationship with Apple

I admit that I have a love/hate relationship with Apple. I love iPhoto and how well it works with my Canon Powershot G2 (digital camera). Same goes for iTunes/iPod and iMovie/our Sony DV camera. I hate how slow my Powerbook is (667 MHz, 1 GB RAM). I hate that iTunes and iPhoto will just "quit working" sometimes and I have to backup/re-import in order to get things working again. I love the look of OS X and hate the fact that the machine has a 1-button mouse. Don't get me wrong, I love/hate things about Windows/Linux too, but I have an intense desire to really love Macs. Mine just keeps disappointing me.

Twice now, I've thought I lost all my photos and music - errors like "we've lost all your data" and "can't read file that was working 2 minutes ago" stare at me with a smirk and a middle finger. The data I have in iTunes and iPhoto is the most valuable data I have. I could lose the hard drive on my Windows box and not be that disappointed, but the Mac - whoof! Pictures of Abbie, all my CDs I've imported, we're talking 10 GB of kick ass data!!

Last night, I hated OS X since iTunes flipped me off and I spent an hour+ getting it back. This morning, I fell in love again as I bought my first album (Def Leppard, Hysteria) from the Apple Music Store. Man that was easy. I've been meaning to stop by Best Buy and get a couple new CDs. Now it's possible in under 30 seconds without leaving my keyboard monkey role. Sweet!

I'm going to have to leave Mini-me at home during vacation though - I don't want to have a fight while I'm trying to enjoy Montana. Our flight leaves at 8:30 tonight, so don't expect any updates until next Tuesday. I'll be taking lots of pictures (the 512MB flash card that Abbie got me for Christmas will be a big help). Happy 4th - don't blow off any fingers.

Digital Music: Things I want

I've come up with a few product ideas. I think these are awesome ideas, and hopefully someone has already come up with them. I doubt I'm the first one to think of these, but if I am, let's hope I get credit. ;-)

1. I want an MP3 Server in my car. Similar to the iPod, in the sense that I can sync from a PC or a Mac while my car sits within 50 feet of my house. How slick would that be to pick your playlist for your roadtrip while you're cutting a new release! It'd have to be fairly inexpensive (~$200) to be profitable I think. Competitors: XM Radio.

2. I want to hook my MP3 collection up to my home stereo. I believe this is already possible, but I want more. I want to be able to sit on my patio and control my home stereo with my iPod. iPod = remote control. Of course, we don't have a home stereo, nor a patio - but I do plan to purchase these luxuries someday, and I'd love to switch from Bare Naked Ladies to Jimmy Buffett when Julie goes to change a diaper. ;-D

Apple Rocks!

Actually, the credit probably shouldn't go to Apple, but rather to the guy at "the Bar" that hooked me up. My iPod quit working last week. Zilch, nada. It literally quit showing signs of life - wouldn't start whatsoever. I tried all the tricks on Apple's support site and discussion groups, but nothing helped. I even called Apple Support and a gentleman helped me troubleshoot the thing for a half hour. At the end of the conversation, the guy gave me a URL and said to try all the tips, and if they didn't work - then send it in. I asked if I should stop by the Apple Store and have it looked at? He said, "nope, they can't help you." Not believing him, I visited the Store today with my dead iPod. They verified it was dead and gave me a new one.

That's right - in and out in 15 minutes with a brand spankin' new iPod - now affectionately named "Whitey." Life is good in Apple land. Of course, after hearing all the G5 propaganda in the store, I might need to seek some professional help. Thank God they didn't have any in the store - I might've actually bought one!

New Apple Stuff

The new G5's are cool - and I'm almost inspired to buy one. However, I read the following comment and I think it's better to wait:

IBM is working on next generation "that will knock your socks off" [vowe dot net]

iChat AV looks very cool - especially if I can use any DV camera (esp. since I already have one). Of course, I can already see the problem with this software - you'll have to have a Mac on the other end - right?! That sucks, there's no way my PC-loving family is going to buy a super-spendy Mac (and I don't blame them).

RE: WWDC Keynote

Keep an eye on the WWDC Quicktime Keynote Stream page later this afternoon. [Matt Croydon]

Let's hope they announce 2 GHz G5s. I was thinking that if they gave them to us cheap, I might be willing to combine my 2 1.5 GHz Dells into dual-processing Linux beast - and just go for a dual processor G5 as my new desktop machine...

iPod Update 2.0.1

Mini-me prompted me to download the latest iPod software update (v 2.0.1) tonight. It's the first time I've received an update, so I thought it would be easy. I was disappointed to find that it gives me two choices: Update and Restore - where Restore erases everything. The problem? Restore is the only choice. I'm guessing that I have to erase everything to update the software?! Sounds like a load of crap to me, but since I have all the songs stored in iTunes, I guess it's not that big of a deal. Is this the usual procedure for iPod software updates?

Apple G5s - 1.8 MHz

From Slashdot (via Erik of course):

Apple Insider is reporting that Apple will announce computers based on IBM's 64 bit PPC 970 processor in the upcomming WWDC and will market them as G5. The new Power Mac G5s will sport a completely new motherboard design utilizing DDR 400 RAM as well as AGP 8x graphics, FireWire 800, and USB 2.0, sources said. "In the box" connectivity among the news systems is based on Hypertransport which provides 64-bit addressing and will replace Apple's multilevel bus architecture found in current systems. Initial offerings of the Power Mac G5 are said to boast 1.4 to 1.8GHz, single core PPC 970 processors, with the possibility of a dual 1.8GHz chips shortly thereafter.

Sounds good, but how long will those processors take to put in the PowerBooks? My advise - just go Intel - you'll get more customers and it'll be faster! How sweet would it be to buy a new Dell laptop and be able to run Windows, Linux and OS X on the same machine?! That would rock - and I'm willing to bet you'd get a lot of folks buying OS X. But then again, OS X is cheap - it's Apple's hardware that's spendy and it's probably a good revenue driver for them.

iPod Goodies

Erik hooked me up this morning with a link to Haiko's blog this morning - where I found the lovely ephPod software as an alternative to MusicMatch (the Windows software that comes with the iPod). I actually don't mind the MusicMatch software, though I did use ephPod to make and synchronize a playlist this morning. ephPod definitely looks better, but I like the organized-by-artist feature of MusicMatch.

I also found Outpod for quick-and-easy synchronization of Outlook contacts. This software worked very well - though I have no clue why I need my contacts on my iPod. They're already on my phone thanks to iSync and Bluetooth. What would be really cool is if my phone (T68i) had the iPod's capabilities and I could just listen to MP3's on my phone.

All in all, it was a great ride in this morning with a fresh batch of hand-picked songs - not to mention that the iPod is very light. I couldn't even feel it in my pocket - where as my old Sony Walkman would flop all over the place.

Snookered at the Apple Store

They got me tonight... those bastards. I walked in and handed over MiniMe. They're sending him off and will call me in a few days to tell me if the damage is covered by my AppleCare Warranty. It damn well better be ;-) If any of you have ever been to the Apple stores, and had them do anything, you'll know it takes forever for them to complete the paperwork. The last time, I went in to get a new powercord, and it took them 20 minutes to type everything in. I have a sneaky suspicion that they're doing this all on a webapp that is slow like molasses.

So while waiting for them to complete the paperwork, I went to buy an iPod. I wanted the cheapest one - $299 for 10 Gigs. 2500 songs is plenty when I only have around 700. But the salesman sneakingly let me know that the $399 model came with over $150 in accessories (Wired remote, Carrying case w/ belt clip, New iPod Dock). I knew the dock was good from reading James's new iPod experience. So I asked, "How much is the dock?" The swindler told me, "60 or 70 bucks, something like that." I fell for it, and now I'm the proud (and poor with a pissed off wife) owner of the 15 GB (3700 song) iPod. I'll be stuffing this sucker in my pocket and riding to work as long as I'm in Colorado this summer - shouldn't take me long to scratch it up real nice.

First impression: it sucks - I was stuck trying to do stuff in German for the first couple of minutes. :-) I had to reset it to get back to English. All my downloaded songs have many different names for the same artist, so I have 3 different "Eminem" and 4 different "Greatful Dead" artists. Only 1 Garth Brooks though. From these artists, you can see I like it all - music is one of my favorite things in this world.

I'm guessing I'll get used to my iPod (reminder to self: name it) after a few days/weeks of using it. As most things Apple makes - it takes me a while to fall in love with their toys.

Dr.'s Appointment for Mini-Me

I'm taking my laptop (mini-me) to my local Apple Store today. I've got a couple of hardware issues that I'm hoping they'll fix.

• When I press on the bottom right corner of the keyboard (near the corner of the panel), there's a clicking and I can press down about 1/8th of an inch.
• I tripped while carrying mini-me a couple of nights ago and broke one of the hinges to the screen.

I hope they'll fix these issues as it's still under warranty, but don't know if they will. Has anyone else had similar hardware problems that they've gotten fixed (through Apple or via other means)?

I hope I can beat the crowd and maybe even get an iPod.