I’ve had the opportunity to play with the Droid over the Christmas Holiday. And I really like it. I like the UI, the way it feels, the way it works. All that said, I don’t like the keyboard, don’t want the keyboard and, at least on that phone, don’t need the keyboard. One of the reasons I’m watching CES coverage closely this year.

We know that I’ve been using the Blackberry for a bit more than a year. I like the Blackberry because it’s a great communication tool. It has great call quality and for email and messaging, most would agree, it can’t be beat. However, it doesn’t do web. Ok, that’s a lie because it does have a “browser”, but it isn’t any good. It’s slow, barely supports HTML4 and the screen is really too small to be useful.

The only problem I have with this batch of new phones is that I am stuck without the ability for a cheap upgrade until 2011 due to issues with Blackberry Storm. So I’m going to start setting cash aside so I can upgrade when the selection of Droid devices increases at my local VZW store.

Or, do I save that money for a few more months to possibly get an iPhone?. I still don’t see this as happening but really would like to be surprised, which I also don’t see happening. Can you imagine if Apple were to announce a VZW iPhone for the summer? Sales would stop at VZW while people waited. Pretty sure that isn’t going to happen.

So, I’m holding out until March. More as it becomes available.

This could go anywhere

Honestly. I’m sitting at my desk letting my fingers just dance across the glorious Apple keyboard that sits directly in front of my 20″ iMac. There are cables connecting the two that constantly get in the way, but I’m just too damned cheap to pony up the $80 for the bluetooth keyboard.

I’ve mentioned this keyboard many times in the past. I really enjoy using it. I mean, really enjoy it. I actually like this one better than the one that I have at the office, which is about 2 weeks old. Why? This one is all broken in. The buttons finally work as I expect them too. The keys are smooth and silky and have a pleasant feel about them as my fingers press. The action is fluid, quiet and yet, at the same time, slightly mechanical in a very satisfying way.

Yes, I do love my keyboard.

Don’t get me wrong. That old IBM keyboard that came with my 286 back in the early 90’s was a wondrous piece of gear. It was loud, solid and keying on that board was almost the same as using a typewriter back in high school. Connected with a tightly coiled cable that was forever getting in the way of something, it was still an awesome keyboard. You could get a serious rhythm going with that board and once in the groove, man, the places it could take you.

Between the boards, there have been others. I even tried one of the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboards for a spell. While I didn’t dislike it, I’m a lazy typist that doesn’t know where the numbers are without looking, and taking a hand off of that thing to work the 10 pad was inconvenient and really slowed things down.

There was also a slew of Logitech boards with the myriads of PCs that I have used over the years. Not too bad either. Satisfying sounds and feel, wireless, comfortable and good to type on. Hell, most of the posts on this site and this one before ‘07 were made with a Logitech board. And there was some good stuff.

But, and this is just my own humble opinion, not as good as the stuff that came after.

Yes, I do love my keyboard. Is that strange? Maybe. If you don’t love yours, then perhaps you should take some time out of your day today and get to shopping. If your computer is a tool, then the keyboard is the handle and you really should find something that works for you, fits well in your hand and is pleasing to use. Otherwise, you might as well use a pencil. I shudder at that thought.

You should be able to use a keyboard like you use your car. When you reach for something, it’s just there. You didn’t have to look because your hands knew what it would find when it landed. A good keyboard is exactly like that.

And I love mine.

Over the past few weeks I’ve gotten a few question about the Mac, since I was the only one at the office that had one. Many of them think the Mac doesn’t crash. Many of them still think that their files won’t work. In general, just a bit of misinformation.

This is for you Windows users out there that might be a little curious about the Mac. The following observations are from my own experience. Your mileage may vary.

• Yes, Macs crash. Not as often as Windows, but they do.
• The Mac does not have a BSOD. Instead you get a Kernel Panic, and much less often. In 2 years, I’ve seen 2 on my Mac.
• Yes, applications of the Mac crash. Yes, just as often as they do on Windows.
• The Mac, just like your Windows machine, benefits from the occassional reboot.
• The Mac, unlike a Windows PC, works. Wifi works. Networking works. Plug and Play works.
• Just like the ad says, the Mac works out of the box. When I turned on the iMac for the first time, I ran through the initial set-up. Once Leopard was running, I started Garage Band and mixed a podcast.
• The Mac costs more. You definitely can’t go to Walmart and get one for $400. But, if you want to spend a week removing all of the software that is subsidizing the cost of that machine, go right ahead. If you want to compare a Mac to a PC based on price, then at least look at comparable equipment from Dell, HP or Lenovo.
• Anything you create on your PC you can open and edit on your Mac.
• The Mac is easier to use for most tasks. Some things that you can do on Windows easily, however, aren’t as easy on the Mac.
• The Mac will run Windows. You can install Windows directly so you can boot into Windows like you do now or you can install it virtually so it runs like a program on your desktop.

You have probably heard this a million times already, but if you are thinking about a new computer for home, you should take a few minutes to research the Mac. You can get them at BestBuy now, so you don’t have to be intimidated by the Apple Store snobs.

On Customer Service

More and more I’m surprised by the level of service, or at least perceived service, that I have been getting. For example, last month I posted to Twitter a problem I was having with Acorn. That night I received an email from Gus and he got me sorted out right away. That is an awesome use of Twitter!

Recently I made a purchase at MacMall for the 4gb memory upgrade for the iMac. I know, I know. But they are local and I was hopeful that I wouldn’t have to wait too long for the memory to arrive and I was trying to save a few bucks on shipping. Ordering was simple and the memory was a good price, so I was happy.

Until the next day.

Apparently, when you order anything from MacMall, you are automatically put into their SpamBot 5000 email list. I say this because over the course of 9 days I received 9 emails from them. That’s correct, an average of an email per day, some of those were doubled up.

Besides that, they sent me 2 kits. Not 2 chips, 2 4GB memory kits. Idiots.

Then I got a survey. Sweet! In which I proceeded to skewer them on the email issue.

About a week later my phone rings and it’s a CS rep from MacMall calling about the survey. He double checked to make sure my name was removed from the email list and will be following up on the extra RAM. I was impressed.

I doubt I will get a call back from Apple after taking the “you bought a new mac” survey, but it’s worth a shot. I went a little easier on them, but still left a comment about the overall price, lack of USB ports and/or a memory card reader on these machines.

I’m not saying I will order from MacMall again by any means. However, after what has happened, I won’t give them a bad review if someone asks. And that’s all it took. Just a little paying attention by someone and a little follow-up. Sometimes it does pay to complain.

Yes, there is a new Mac on my desk

Yes, I bought a new iMac, the upper end 20″, and it’s a fine machine.

I know I have been complaining about Macs, mine in particular. But I have a feeling that those issues are because it’s a first gen MacBook and it is terribly underpowered for what I’ve been trying to do with it. I also think it might have a few port issues.

I even went so far as to price out a Dell system. Turns out the costs was about the same as this (granted for more machine), but I would have been stuck with Vista until Windows 7 comes out sometime in ‘10 (or so I’m hearing). And I have software for the mac that I own. Quite a bit too. I really didn’t feel like going through all of that again on the windows side.

If you haven’t had the chance to see a new iMac up close, it is really nice. The screen is very bright and crisp. While not HD, watching a DVD movie on it is completely acceptable. Even the sound from the built-in speakers isn’t horrible, on par with television speakers, maybe a little better.

I’m almost completely moved in and have already done a few things on it to break it in. So far, I can’t really tell how much faster than the MacBook it is, but I do know it feels faster.

Here are some thoughts.

Pro

• The screen is outstanding
• The config right out of the box is usable (2GB RAM, 320GB hard drive)
• I got an upgrade coupon for iLife ‘09 so it will only cost me $10 when it comes out.
• Whisper quiet. No, it’s quieter than that. Makes almost no noise
• New Apple Keyboard in the box
• It has 3 USB ports. Nice to have the extra.
• It drives my 20″ display no sweat

Con

• The screen is very shiny and refects pretty much everything. Worse than the gloss screen on the MacBook. It’s slightly distracting.
• New Mighty Mouse in the Box. I actually tried to use it. What a horrible little device that is.
• It seems to run pretty hot. I’ve read about this and it doesn’t cause any problems that I am aware of
• It only has 3 USB Ports. In the day where PC’s have as many as 10 on board USB ports (plus a card reader), this is really unacceptable.

I probably won’t do a full review, but I will say that even with those minor issues, it’s a great machine and I’m glad I bought it.

For now at least I’ll behave myself…

Actually a quick introduction, I’m Michael and db has had a link to my irregularly updated site in his sidebar for a few years now.  I met db through the MINI community (you’re stunned I’m sure) and have somehow managed to become a semi-regular host over on White Roof Radio.  According to the Personnel Directory here I’m also the Chief Plumber – again possibly not one of db’s better decisions.  Then again I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express on New Years Eve…

Elsewhere I’m the Chief Photographer and Behind the Scenes Person over at www.mycruiseplanner.net (a position I just made up) as well as producer and co-Presenter with Patricia of The Mail Buoy Podcast.  I’ve also got two Flickr streams that I post to, one for the Cruise Planners site and the other is my personal one that’s not cruise related.  If you look hard enough there’s also a few other places on the web you can find me.

Anyway, until I can come up with something interesting to post I’ll solicit some input from the donburnside.com audience.

What are your tech predictions for 2009?  Will there be chaos as the digital TV transition occurs in February?  Will Steve Jobs leave Apple this year?  Will Best Buy or Circuit City survive the year? What cool gadgets are coming this year?  Leave a comment and let me know what you think….

Interesting. I haven’t seen the new ad yet, but at least it says Microsoft more than the quirky Seinfeld ads.

A terrible product and user experience: Their products are the Achilles heal Apple is shooting arrows through left and right

Sure it’s bad, but if you’ve been using Windows only since Win98/WinNT4 it’s really not. It’s what you know. When I switched to Apple, I was going crazy trying to figure out the things I did on Windows with a few keystrokes and still have a hard time with the crazy symbols.

Convoluted systems: The user must constantly adapt and relearn, rather than having a system built and adapted to them and what they’re trying to do.

I’ve been using Windows since 3.11 and I don’t remember constantly relearning or adapting to anything. If anything, the way applications act on Windows is way more consistent than on the Mac in some respects. And Windows has, essentially, worked exactly the same since Win95. Vista I’m sure is different, but not too much from what I have seen.

I will say the primary reason for my switching is I got tired of fiddling. I’m a fan of “It Just Works”.

Corporate inertia: When was the last time Microsoft did something truly new?

There is the Surface thing, which is promising. Too bad nobody is really pushing it or coming up with a cool use for it.

I’m in no way a Microsoft/Windows fan boy, but I have been using it for almost 20 years (and DOS before that). I haven’t used Vista yet, but I can say that Windows XP for 99% of it’s users is a great OS, very stable and (as long as they are running IE7), fairly secure.

One thing everyone seems to forget is that while Microsoft was booming with Windows 95/98, Apple had System 7/OS9. While I have heard System 7 was ok, I know from a little experience (and what I have heard) that OS9 was horrible. Microsoft had ME, but as long as your hardware supported it, it was as good as 98. Apple didn’t start getting praise until they released OS X on a wide scale. Before that, they were relegated to hobbyists, print shops and (I wish this would come back) education.

Windows has been around for a while. Crappy ads or not. People will continue to use it as long as that’s what they have in the office. Offices will continue to use it as long as they have software developers that can’t/won’t ditch DOS, IE6 or INI/batch files. And, as long as one can go to Best Buy/Walmart/[enter local electronics store here] and pick up a Windows PC for less than $500, it’s going to be here to stay.

To be honest, I almost didn’t switch. The community surrounding the Apple and it’s products (including the iPod) are a little to enthusiastic for my liking. But I was able to get past that and see the quality of the product, which then justified the price.

I prefer the Mac by a longshot and try to get others to switch every chance I get. You just can’t discount Microsoft because they don’t know how to sell themselves or do anything revolutionary.

It seems several different companies have renamed their iPhone games to begin with either a space, a quotation mark, or some other symbol so that they appear first in the list of 197 games on the iPhone portal to the App Store.

Really? It’s good thing they don’t advertise in the yellow pages.

I’ve actually worked with people like this. Had a domain name that started off with 3 A’s because he thought it would help him get to the top. Idiot.

And, this is no different than the way iTunes handled podcasts when it first started. Before there were categories or any organization, you would pull up a list that was complete rubbish at the top with all of the silly names starting with all manner of punctuation, the letter A and spaces. Most of those shows are gone now, as you can imagine.

But, really, make good software. Promote it on your web site. Link to it on your website. Encourage your customers to spread the word. Something.

Just don’t get all pissy because someone is thinking they are being clever because they are faking out the system. Sheesh. Pull your skirt up already Alice.

Besides that, I just checked the app store and I didn’t see any of that silliness. Maybe the good folks at the apple store decided they didn’t want your panties to get in a bunch so they fixed it for you.

via

I haven’t had that. Not since my PC died in early ‘07, shortly after I got the MacBook. And, while the MacBook is a great little mobile machine, it just doesn’t have the horsepower I need for doing other things. As it turns out, there are a few other issues I have with it as well.

So I’ve been watching the refurb shop at the Apple store for a 20″ iMac (the good one, not the low-end model), a 24″ iMac and a 15″ MacBook Pro. After my last trip, I’ve made my decision.

15″ MacBook Pro.

This came to me as I was trying to edit video on the road on the 13″ MB screen and watching as iMovie brought the machine to a smoking, screeching halt and declared 200+ minutes to export a 15 minute long video. No good that. Also I got the chance to check one out in person at that ginormous Apple store in Boston. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it.

So, when the time comes, I will get a 15″ MBP for my desk. Run it off the juice with the battery removed (if I can) and use it mobile when I need the extra power.

Something else that I discovered after last week was just how cool the iPhone was. Every day during MTTS it saved our asses no less than twice, and some days more often than that. Whether it was finding the nearest Starbucks or giving us directions from point a to point b, just have access to Google Maps, even as slow as it is over EDGE, was a godsend!

Now, I’m not going to do anything foolish like drop Verizon and go to AT&T. Besides not liking AT&T, the coverage, where I spend most of my time, is crap. And, since it’s the only phone I carry, I like it to work all the time.

What I’m actually hoping to be able to do is get my MBP sometime before Apple stops that student special so I can also get an iPod Touch. Um, sure, it’s, um, for teh lad. Yea, that’s the ticket!

All of which hinges, directly or not, on my getting work. Don’t forget, I am for hire! Feel free to pass along my contact info and whatnot to anyone that you think could benefit from my skills.

Ok, back to processing one more video. Then, and only then, will this round of MTTS be done!

Before I began, I purchased a second external hard drive. CostCo has the WD dual interface (firewire and USB) 500GB drive for $149 if you are looking for one. First step, copy everything from the old 250GB to the new. Time: 4.5 hours.

Then, it was SuperDuper!’s turn to back up my user folder and whatnot. Time: 3.5 hours*

Then, and only then, was it time for Leopard. Erase and install for me thankyouverymuch because I had a ton of cruft, crap and misc. whatnot that I didn’t want anymore. Time: 1 hour

Then, install apps time. This time around I’m really going to make an effort to only install apps that I will be using on a regular basis. For the others, I am not going to install them until needed. Here is what I have so far.

• iLife ‘08
• iWork ‘08. Yes, I’m going to try this for 30 days before reinstalling office.
• SuperDuper!
• Skype
• VMWare Fusion
• Adium
• Flickr uploader

I have a few left to go (MAMP, Smultron, Acorn/Pixelmator), but those I will leave for later today.

Thoughts so far?

It’s faster. Noticeably faster. I’m not sure where, but it is.

Safari is smokin’ fast. So, I’m going to try it for a while before I put FireFox back. 2 things that are killing me on this so far are the ability to set all new links to open in a new tab (I know, cmd-click does this, but FF has a setting so I don’t have to) and to highlight the menu bar with a single click. Plus extensions. But, I’m going to give it a week and see what I can do.

Dock on the bottom sure is pretty. Dock on the left is pretty ok too. Although the change from black arrows to blue lights will take some getting used to.

Spaces seems awesome. As soon as I play with it some more I’m sure it will be.

Spotlight doesn’t suck anymore. I’m going to try to use that instead of Quicksilver for launching apps (the primary use of Quicksilver for me anyway).

Preview is great. It’s that Windows feature that I have been waiting for and they did it right. Try it with a multi-sheet spread sheet. You can actually look at all of the sheets in a workbook. Awesome.

So far it’s only been about a day with it, but I can say that I am glad I did the upgrade.