This is the list of things I’d like to hear announced at MacWorld, some big, some small:
- Video playlists on the iPod touch and Apple TV. I’ve wanted this for a long time. Last week I discovered that my wife’s nano already has this. So it should be on all “devices/platforms”
- iPhone apps on the iPod Touch. There is no reason the touch should not have mail, weather, stocks, and Google Maps. Having used them on my hacked touch for a month now, they work just how I’d like and the touch is SO much more valuable to me now.
- Microphone add-on for the touch, maybe with a speaker also. Do for the touch what the iTalk did for the earlier iPods. But it needs to be full duplex so it will work with Skype when 3rd party apps are officially supported.
- Ultra small laptop. A small professional laptop would be great. An 11 or 12 inch screen, but super hi-rez (DPI of the iPhone). Touch screen would be nice. My wife’s MacBook would be ok for me to use at work, but I really want a little more and the MacBook Pro’s are a little big for my “on the road” use in the new job.
Over the past two weeks I’ve had two hard drive failures. I have mixed backup setups currently…some things are backed up often, some things are backed up once in a blue moon, and others never. Some things I’ve learned over this experience.
- I had preferred Seagate drives because they had 5 year warrantees. I figure if they had the confidence to offer it, the drives would (statistically) last longer. I don’t believe this anymore, 2 Seagate drives have failed, 2 Maxtor drives and 1 Fujitsu drive. Of all these, only the Fujitsu drive was under a warrantee (and it was something like 4.5 years old).
- Seagate OEM drives are not covered by a 5 year manufacturer warrantee. You have to goto the OEM. Apple in the case of my 18 month old Mac Mini, but I didn’t have AppleCare. The other case it was a bare drive (now 3 years old) I bought which was an OEM drive (not sure I realized it, but maybe I did based on price).
- You need multiple backups “just in case.” Backups copied to other machines, copied to external hard drives, copied to network file servers, internet based backup solutions. We’ll see how Time Machine does on the Mac.
- Disk Warrior worked well for me. It saved my bacon. I had all of my Music, but my pictures had not been backed up (off site DVD) for about 18 months. By booting the Disk Warrior CD, it was able to save most everything. I had to copy it to an external drive, but that was painless…just plug a Mac formatted USB drive in and say “copy all” to that volume.
- SeaTools (Seagate’s diagnostic tool) isn’t very good. I’m not entirely sure, but Seatools seams weak. I took the “failed” drive that had read errors and tested it with Seatools. It failed with read errors, not a diagnostic code. I tried a zero write on the whole drive. I think this said it worked. This is supposed to make the drive attempt a write and read, and if something has problems, deal with it. The drive still failed. I almost threw the drive in the trash.
- PowerMax (Maxtor’s old diagnostic tool before Seagate bought Maxtor) seams to work pretty well. I only have version 1.14 (or something like that) and can’t download 1.46 (the latest) because Seagate thinks SeaTools is the answer. PowerMax was able to “format” the drive and it now passes all of the tests in both PowerMax AND Seatools. Time will tell if it is really fine, or if the problem has just gone underground and is waiting to rise from the dead.
In the end I haven’t lost anything on either computer, but it was close. I need to put a complete backup strategy in place, but I struggle with the right way given the number of computers, the amount of data and my desire to make it very low cost. Perhaps I’m being penny wise and pound foolish. The smartest thing was to spend $100 on Disk Warrior early in the process.
[tags]harddrive, failure, backup, apple, seagate, seatools, powermax[tags]
TidBITS: New iPods: The Worst Ever!
So Joe Kissell writes a bunch of words that amount to “I have no use for an iPod, so why do I keep thinking I want one?” Where the answer I have is “if the shoe don’t fit…”
Over the years that I’ve had various iPods, I’ve gone through phases of little use and great use. My original one (one of the first one’s out of Apple at eh original launch) is still in use by my older son. First there was music, then I didn’t use it much. Then there was Audible support, then I didn’t use it much. Then there were podcasts and I now use it all the time… music, podcasts, even audiobooks.
The key to my using it more is that I have places to listen to it. The car, where the Flexdock makes it so easy. On the golf course, where the shuffle works so well. In the gym or just out and about. But I use it because I can and I’ve accepted it.
Why bother to write WHY you don’t need one. If you don’t need it, don’t get it…move along, nothing to see here.
[tags]ipod[/tags]
I like to get my Verizon phone bill in paper format. Besides the fact that I’m less likely to view it on-line and pay it given the way I manage my bills, I’ve never found their e-mail notices to be accurate, timely, or effective.
But what bugs me here is that they tricked me. The site changes often enough that I generally just “go with the flow” when paying my bill on-line. This time I when I clicked “Submit” to pay my bill a pop-up came up (probably DHTML type, not a browser pop-up). I said “yes I accept” thinking it was the confirmation of my payment request.
NOPE! It was me accepting that I was requesting paperless billing. That is just crap. To make it worst, after saying “thanks for saving us money by going paper free,” it returned my to the same payment form and I had to click “Submit” again to process my payment.
It was a total trick. They didn’t even alter the workflow in the trick, they simply intercepted my click. Just like a virus, Trojan, phisher would. Very lame. I’m half tempted to call up and ask for my paper bill turned back on. Of course, I’m sure that will imply a monthly charge.
[tags]verizon, bad+ui[/tags]
In order to distribute my TiVO signal throughout the house I have a ChannelVision modulator. To get this modulated signal to co-exist with my cable TV service, I have a ChannelVision powered amplifier (CVT-2/8PIA II).
Everything worked great for many years. About 6 months ago, the signal on the TVs (not just the “TiVO channel” but all channels) got weak. It took me a while, but after switching cables and fiddling with just about everything, I noticed that the dimmer the power light was, the weaker the signal. I put a volt meter on the power supply and it looked ok.
I eventually called ChannelVision and explained the situation. It clearly wasn’t under the two year warrantee, but I was really looking for suggestions. The best I came up with was that to replace the power supply would be a cheaper attempt than the whole unit. At this point the nice guy at ChannelVision took all of my information and sent me a replacement power supply.
It came yesterday and BINGO… perfect picture! So it was the power supply. And thanks to the nice folks at ChannelVision it cost me nothing 
[tags]channelvision, splitter, modulator[/tags]
So at around 5:45 tonight my cell phone stopped working. While the phone appears to work fine, I can’t make any calls (or use data). It has been an hour, and the whole trip from the office to home (15 miles) and all I get on my phone is the “Emergency calls only” or SOS symbol.
Even tried my old RAZR. Cursed. Guess I should have stopped to get the iPhone on the ride home. It was a sign. I’m sure all the new iPhones will fire right up. Perhaps it is an evil plot… block all non-iPhones so that all iPhone people are happy and don’t say negative things about Apple or AT&T.
[tags]iphone, att[/tags]
I fear the iPhone launch will be painful. Not because I’ll be standing in line waiting to get one in Clarendon (which is not inside) and a thunderstorm hits. No, I fear the traffic jam. Not the traffic jam getting to the mall, but the EDGE network jam.
AT&T’s network has been called out as the weak spot in the offering. I’m on that network with my new Blackberry Curve. When 1-2 million people jump on with their new iPhone, do you think they are going to be trying out the Intenet features over the air? Yep. And do you think they will do it a lot in the beginning, especially this weekend and holiday as they play and show their friends? Yep.
So my already slow web browsing will be painfully slow as millions more people play with their new toy on “my” network.
Maybe I’ll turn off my phone and go outside and play some ball.
My iPhone Review:
“I love Steve. I love Apple. I’m even open to spending more on a phone than a computer, but AT&T? The slowness of its data network is only exceeded by its lack of customer service. Can I just buy an iPhone to use as a PDA to impress my friends, listen to music, watch video, and access the Internet via Wifi while not having anything to do with AT&T? Can you hear me now?”
While I think all of the phone features are neat, and I would love to have an iPhone, I REALLY want a widescreen iPod, and the WiFi w/Web browser would be icing on the cake (for example: the times I’m watching TV and want to look up something simple like an actor’s name).
(Via Bona tempora volvantur–by Guy Kawasaki.)
[tags]iphone, apple, ipod[/tags]
Macs ‘snap-crackle-pop’ after 10.4.10 update: “Apple’s update to Mac OS X 10.4.10 last week is driving some users crazy from a new popping sound.”
I’ve been bugged by this popping. In fact this morning I was just about to unplug all of my USB devices to see if it was caused by some short or electrical interference of one of the many devices connected to my Mac Mini.
Reading this article just saved me a hour of wasted time (and further frustration). Now hopefully a fix will be on its way.
(Via InfoWorld.)
[tags]apple, audio, problem[/tags]
This is the kind of article I would have expected to come out of Robert Cringely.
Scott Adams has an idea and, unless I’m missing the sarcasm, I think he is serious about and it is a good one. Ride sharing made easy (and practical) through the use of technology. It is a little mashup betwene the Zipcar idea and a taxi. It doesn’t actually demand that anyone change what they do or own, and even has an economic marketplace component. Perhaps the only challenge is getting some critical mass, but I’m sure there are some ways to jump start the idea. For example, in the DC area, you could start it at the Pentagon where the “slug line” is well established. You could probably also prime the pump around some college campuses.
On a side note, I’m a firm believer in his problem solving process of “sitting and thinking about stuff.” While I don’t actually practice the “sit” part. I prefer any of the following activities to allow my mind to do some background processing and solutions to pop out:
- Standing in a shower
- Mowing the lawn
- Shooting baskets (by myself)
- Playing golf (by myself, and only walking)
- Waiting in an airport for a flight (without my computer on)