Howdy, Everybody;
The Mac transition is essentially complete - I use the Mac for pretty much everything now.
The Logitech mouse problem has been interesting. I started using the VX Revolution again after using a wired mouse for a few weeks. The spontaneous reboot problem has not reoccurred. I noticed that the Logitech control panel software does not recognize the mouse. I tried to download the Logitech Control Center program, lcc213.dmg three different times. The Mac gives me a message that the file is not a complete disk image, and mounting it might damage my computer. So now I'm of the opinion that the problem is not the hardware, but the LCC program from Logitech is probably corrupt. They have not to date reposted an uncorrupt file to their website, even though about a week ago I emailed Logitech to advise them of the problem.
I've tried the trial version of Mariner Calc, which reputes to be able to read Excel files. It was able to pull in the data and equations from an Excel spreadsheet, but lost all graphs and formatting. I'm not impressed, so I'm not going to buy this product. Sigh. I guess I can either run Excel emulated, or buy the Mac version.
Y'all have a nice day!
-Pop
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Switching from Windows to Macintosh - Chapter 11
Hi, Everybody!
Yesterday, installed the 10.4.9 update to Mac OS X. This went without a hitch, no problem. In reading the list of changes, I noticed the following under the Bluetooth category:
"Addresses a wake-from-sleep issue for Kensington PilotMouse Mini Bluetooth devices when used with a MacBook."
This is close enough to the problem I've had with the Logitech Revolution that I decided to try it again, so I'm using it now. I'll let you know if my reboot problem reoccurs.
Everything else is still really nice.
Have a nice day!
-Pop
Yesterday, installed the 10.4.9 update to Mac OS X. This went without a hitch, no problem. In reading the list of changes, I noticed the following under the Bluetooth category:
"Addresses a wake-from-sleep issue for Kensington PilotMouse Mini Bluetooth devices when used with a MacBook."
This is close enough to the problem I've had with the Logitech Revolution that I decided to try it again, so I'm using it now. I'll let you know if my reboot problem reoccurs.
Everything else is still really nice.
Have a nice day!
-Pop
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Switching from Windows to Macintosh - Chapter 10
Hi, Everybody!
Regarding the choice of personal information manager, I'm back at Yojimbo. I used SOHO Notes for a while, and just can't get a real comfort level with it. Yojimbo seems more smooth to me somehow.
Regarding the spontaneous reboot problem - it still hasn't happened again since I ditched the Logitech Advantage mouse in favor of a wired Logitech USB laser mouse. Not once. Draw your own conclusions.
Everything else is working well. I downloaded Ecto, which is a blog editor, and this post is being created in it. So far I like it, and if it continues to work as advertised, I'll probably buy it. Much easier editing than the web interface. But to be fair, I have used it for all of five minutes at this point.
Windows is still way more frustrating than OS X, and I now use both side by side all day long.
-Pop
Regarding the choice of personal information manager, I'm back at Yojimbo. I used SOHO Notes for a while, and just can't get a real comfort level with it. Yojimbo seems more smooth to me somehow.
Regarding the spontaneous reboot problem - it still hasn't happened again since I ditched the Logitech Advantage mouse in favor of a wired Logitech USB laser mouse. Not once. Draw your own conclusions.
Everything else is working well. I downloaded Ecto, which is a blog editor, and this post is being created in it. So far I like it, and if it continues to work as advertised, I'll probably buy it. Much easier editing than the web interface. But to be fair, I have used it for all of five minutes at this point.
Windows is still way more frustrating than OS X, and I now use both side by side all day long.
-Pop
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
The Rule of Law
Howdy. How many people in our country actually believe in the rule of law?
When I get in my Jeep to go to work, I set the cruise control at the speed limit for wherever I am. I have noticed for years that, unless I am in an area where there are frequent speed traps, I get passed a lot, sometimes by people going 20 or 30 mph over the limit.
It occurs to me that all of these people (including me, sometimes) have fallen into the thinking that breaking the law is OK as long as you don't get caught.
This is operating at the maturity level of a child. Threat of punishment is the only deterent, and it only works if the threat is immediate and current.
What we should be doing instead is to live within the law whenever morally possible. We should do this because we live in a country where rule of law is the framework by which we are protected from each other and the government, and we should support this as something we need and want. It's our laws, and we should obey them. It follows that we should also be actively involved in controlling our government, as well, just out of self defense.
-Pop
When I get in my Jeep to go to work, I set the cruise control at the speed limit for wherever I am. I have noticed for years that, unless I am in an area where there are frequent speed traps, I get passed a lot, sometimes by people going 20 or 30 mph over the limit.
It occurs to me that all of these people (including me, sometimes) have fallen into the thinking that breaking the law is OK as long as you don't get caught.
This is operating at the maturity level of a child. Threat of punishment is the only deterent, and it only works if the threat is immediate and current.
What we should be doing instead is to live within the law whenever morally possible. We should do this because we live in a country where rule of law is the framework by which we are protected from each other and the government, and we should support this as something we need and want. It's our laws, and we should obey them. It follows that we should also be actively involved in controlling our government, as well, just out of self defense.
-Pop
Switching from Windows to Macintosh - Chapter 9
This is a short entry. I have gone back to trying SOHO Notes. It works pretty much the same as Yojimbo for notes, but has one additional ability that I missed in Yojimbo - the ability to nest collections (or folders). Yojimbo has not got the ability to put a folder in a folder, and my projects can at times be pretty complex, so I need this feature.
In trying all this software, in most cases, the software doesn't leave crap littered all over the disk. One notable exception is DevonThink which did not clean up some menus it had installed- after searching the documentation I found out how to do it manually.
Regarding the spontaneous reboot problem - it still hasn't happend again since I switched to a wired mouse. I'd really prefer the Logitech Advantage - it really is a nice mouse, and wireless is good. But I'm sticking with the wired one until the system spontaneously reboots again. Absense of an event doesn't prove a correlation - but the longer you go, the higher the probability that you have found the problem.
Still loving the Mac. It's not perfect, but it's an order of magnitude better than XP. And the interface is more polished than Vista. One of the things I am liking more and more on the Mac is the fact that programs you use all the time - you just leave running. Access is pretty much instantaneous.
Have a nice day!
-Pop
In trying all this software, in most cases, the software doesn't leave crap littered all over the disk. One notable exception is DevonThink which did not clean up some menus it had installed- after searching the documentation I found out how to do it manually.
Regarding the spontaneous reboot problem - it still hasn't happend again since I switched to a wired mouse. I'd really prefer the Logitech Advantage - it really is a nice mouse, and wireless is good. But I'm sticking with the wired one until the system spontaneously reboots again. Absense of an event doesn't prove a correlation - but the longer you go, the higher the probability that you have found the problem.
Still loving the Mac. It's not perfect, but it's an order of magnitude better than XP. And the interface is more polished than Vista. One of the things I am liking more and more on the Mac is the fact that programs you use all the time - you just leave running. Access is pretty much instantaneous.
Have a nice day!
-Pop
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Switching from Windows to Macintosh - Chapter 8
Howdy, All;
The Mac is still being good to me. I've learned a few new tricks and tried some more software.
New Trick: You can use Disk Utility (part of OS X) to create a partition in a file, password protected and encrpyted, so that it acts like a file until you mount it (which requires the password). After you open it, it acts like any other drive. So I did this and put my accounting files and other secure items in it. If somebody steals my laptop, not only are they going to have to get past my login password, but they're going to be seriously hampered in their ability to do identity theft. If you want to learn how to do this, it is here: http://www.macworld.com/2006/10/secrets/decmobilemac/index.php?pf=1
About the mouse. I mentioned before that I had bought a Logitech Revolution wireless mouse for the laptop. The Mac has spontaneously rebooted, oh, probably six or seven times since I put that mouse on the system. The system has never done this unless the Revolution was involved. I noticed over time that every single time this happened, I had just done something with the mouse, either just starting to use it (waking it up) or disconnecting it or plugging it in. So something in the Logitech drivers for the Revolution wireless mouse can reboot OS X, and I think it happens if anything causes the radio communication between the mouse and it's little USB receiver to glitch. This issue does not appear to be an OS X problem or a Mac hardware problem.
So I bought a $15 USB wired mouse (also a Logitech, by the way). Problem solved, so far. Two weeks, no reboots. I'll let you know if this should change.
I've tried several different personal information management programs for the Mac. My primary need is for note storage - it needs to be very quick to enter a new note, and very quick to find it again. The programs I tested include Devonthink Pro, Yojimbo, Notebook by Circus Ponies Software, SOHO Notes by Chronos, OmniOutliner Pro and VoodooPad by Flying Meat. I'll devote a short paragraph to each one. Disclaimer: What follows is based on purely subjective opinion of one person playing with a program for an hour or so. None of these programs has been rigorously tested and this is not a formal report.
NoteBook is a very good program if you want to keep notes in a notebook format. It has a lot of neat features, such as automatically building indexes and tables of contents. This is really peachy if you plan to print out the entire notebook and use it as hardcopy, but the index and table of contents feature is not really needed in a computer environment where search capabilities exist. For me, although I like it a lot, it is not a great fit, but it is a high quality program if you like what it does. I did buy a copy and will use it for some things.
SOHO Notes - has a pretty interface but I found it very clumsy. Linking contacts to a note involves selecting a note in one window, then opening a special window, finding a contact, and telling it to link. I would really rather just drag & drop to add a link to a contact to a note. I don't find much value in the pretty contacts interface that is not in the Address Book that came with the Mac, and it's less compact. I can see some power there, but it's just too clumsy for me. I removed it from my system.
Devonthink Pro I actually tried twice, because they released a new version after I had checked it out the first time. There are things I like about this program. It can automatically classify information once you have sufficient entries in the system to act as a baseline. It offers a tree-structure of collections with items in them that could be very powerful, but I found to be unintuitive. It is possible to create notes in the tree and then not be able to find them immediately. This program would be my choice if I was primarily looking for a document control system, but it is not a great fit for me at present.
VoodooPad is a really interesting program. It is based on a Wikki concept and is very good at that. It's less good as a note manager, so it is not my primary choice, but I did buy a copy because I can see it being very useful as I create a wikiki of work-related information. It has the ability to publish a wikki as HTML, so when I get enough information in it, I will publish it to our intranet so others can easily access this data.
OmniOutliner can produce some very nicely formatted tables, and I like how it looks on screen, but it isn't really made for taking phone notes, and I do a lot of that. It is great for tabular data and lists, though. By the way, it comes 'in the box' with the Mac.
Yojimbo is the program I have settled on to use for my daily note taking. It has a clean, uncluttered interface that is easy to use and understand. I can create collections, and create notes in the collections quickly. It is easy to color code a note so you can easily see when you are done with that particular problem. If you sort it by modified timestamp, whatever you are currently working on will stay at the top of the list, and things you are finished with naturally fall down the list, so it's almost like an automatic prioritization. It is just right, without being too much, like some of the others. I haven't bought a copy yet, but I'm going to. The only feature I'd like to have that it doesn't is the ability to link contacts in Address Book with a note, preferably with drag & drop, so that when reading a note, you could click a link, and get the phone numbers of the contact. Other than that, it seems to be the best fit for me personally.
That's about it for personal information managers in the world of Mac.
Y'all have a nice day!
-Pop
The Mac is still being good to me. I've learned a few new tricks and tried some more software.
New Trick: You can use Disk Utility (part of OS X) to create a partition in a file, password protected and encrpyted, so that it acts like a file until you mount it (which requires the password). After you open it, it acts like any other drive. So I did this and put my accounting files and other secure items in it. If somebody steals my laptop, not only are they going to have to get past my login password, but they're going to be seriously hampered in their ability to do identity theft. If you want to learn how to do this, it is here: http://www.macworld.com/2006/10/secrets/decmobilemac/index.php?pf=1
About the mouse. I mentioned before that I had bought a Logitech Revolution wireless mouse for the laptop. The Mac has spontaneously rebooted, oh, probably six or seven times since I put that mouse on the system. The system has never done this unless the Revolution was involved. I noticed over time that every single time this happened, I had just done something with the mouse, either just starting to use it (waking it up) or disconnecting it or plugging it in. So something in the Logitech drivers for the Revolution wireless mouse can reboot OS X, and I think it happens if anything causes the radio communication between the mouse and it's little USB receiver to glitch. This issue does not appear to be an OS X problem or a Mac hardware problem.
So I bought a $15 USB wired mouse (also a Logitech, by the way). Problem solved, so far. Two weeks, no reboots. I'll let you know if this should change.
I've tried several different personal information management programs for the Mac. My primary need is for note storage - it needs to be very quick to enter a new note, and very quick to find it again. The programs I tested include Devonthink Pro, Yojimbo, Notebook by Circus Ponies Software, SOHO Notes by Chronos, OmniOutliner Pro and VoodooPad by Flying Meat. I'll devote a short paragraph to each one. Disclaimer: What follows is based on purely subjective opinion of one person playing with a program for an hour or so. None of these programs has been rigorously tested and this is not a formal report.
NoteBook is a very good program if you want to keep notes in a notebook format. It has a lot of neat features, such as automatically building indexes and tables of contents. This is really peachy if you plan to print out the entire notebook and use it as hardcopy, but the index and table of contents feature is not really needed in a computer environment where search capabilities exist. For me, although I like it a lot, it is not a great fit, but it is a high quality program if you like what it does. I did buy a copy and will use it for some things.
SOHO Notes - has a pretty interface but I found it very clumsy. Linking contacts to a note involves selecting a note in one window, then opening a special window, finding a contact, and telling it to link. I would really rather just drag & drop to add a link to a contact to a note. I don't find much value in the pretty contacts interface that is not in the Address Book that came with the Mac, and it's less compact. I can see some power there, but it's just too clumsy for me. I removed it from my system.
Devonthink Pro I actually tried twice, because they released a new version after I had checked it out the first time. There are things I like about this program. It can automatically classify information once you have sufficient entries in the system to act as a baseline. It offers a tree-structure of collections with items in them that could be very powerful, but I found to be unintuitive. It is possible to create notes in the tree and then not be able to find them immediately. This program would be my choice if I was primarily looking for a document control system, but it is not a great fit for me at present.
VoodooPad is a really interesting program. It is based on a Wikki concept and is very good at that. It's less good as a note manager, so it is not my primary choice, but I did buy a copy because I can see it being very useful as I create a wikiki of work-related information. It has the ability to publish a wikki as HTML, so when I get enough information in it, I will publish it to our intranet so others can easily access this data.
OmniOutliner can produce some very nicely formatted tables, and I like how it looks on screen, but it isn't really made for taking phone notes, and I do a lot of that. It is great for tabular data and lists, though. By the way, it comes 'in the box' with the Mac.
Yojimbo is the program I have settled on to use for my daily note taking. It has a clean, uncluttered interface that is easy to use and understand. I can create collections, and create notes in the collections quickly. It is easy to color code a note so you can easily see when you are done with that particular problem. If you sort it by modified timestamp, whatever you are currently working on will stay at the top of the list, and things you are finished with naturally fall down the list, so it's almost like an automatic prioritization. It is just right, without being too much, like some of the others. I haven't bought a copy yet, but I'm going to. The only feature I'd like to have that it doesn't is the ability to link contacts in Address Book with a note, preferably with drag & drop, so that when reading a note, you could click a link, and get the phone numbers of the contact. Other than that, it seems to be the best fit for me personally.
That's about it for personal information managers in the world of Mac.
Y'all have a nice day!
-Pop
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