Tagged: apple

To each his own


Russell Beattie (via Planet Apache) has a post on [[http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1008631.html|why he might switch back to XP from OS X]]. I won’t judge the post here — lets just say that not all of the points he makes might seem valid to you. Nevertheless it spawned off a good discussion and infact some of the comments make more sense than the original post itself.

The general feel (and I agree with this) is that religion apart, all of the big 3 desktop competitors out there (M$, Apple, Linux and friends) are not too different when it comes to functionality. What works best for you is a personal choice. If you are more productive in OS X, stick to it. But if not, then make the switch. There’s no reason to stick around with Apple believing that they simply //are// the best when it comes to building a highly productive yet good looking and user friendly desktop environment.

I’ve often been tempted to buy a Mac, and I usually give up in the hope that some day I’ll get a Mac without having to pay for it. Heh heh :-) Well, I am allowed to dream, ain’t I?

Of mice and apples


I have often run into arguments with my Apple loving friends over various Apple design decisions, such as [[http://www.gearlive.com/index.php/news/article/why_apple_makes_a_one_buttoned_mouse_01280820/|why they make]] a single button mouse. And one of the most heard defenses was — well of course because the [[http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf|Human Interface Guidelines]] say so; or because we don’t need a two button mouse, it confuses users and adds clutter to the user interface, or you can always //simulate// the two button behavior using the Command key.

Well, what do you have say [[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050802-5158.html|to this]], my Apple loving friends? How do you justify this new [[http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/|mighty mouse]]?

Meanwhile, Apple is planning to [[http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/01/0421248&from=rss|embed DRM right in the kernel]]!! Naturally, this has a [[http://www.osx86.classicbeta.com/wiki/index.php/In_The_Press|lot of people worried]]. From reading the stories, I get the vibe that most commercial operating systems will ship with some kind of DRM support built in.

Not a chance


It is because I keep coming across stories like [[http://www.yepthatsme.com/2005/07/24/apple-mail-in-tiger-can-kiss-it/|this]], that I don’t think I will ever be able to embrace Apple. I just don’t understand — here you have a [[http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/mail/ | nice email app]] (or so I’ve heard) and email is one of the few things that has been standardized to death on the Internet due to the simple fact that people like to read their email //anywhere, everywhere, all the time//.

So why, oh why does Apple has to go around inventing proprietary formats for storing local mail? Why can’t they use the excellent [[http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html|Maildir]] format, when almost every other email client in the world does it? The excuse that this format is //optimised// for [[http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spotlight/|Spotlight]] is bullshit. They brag so much about their API for enabling Spotlight support in applications, then why couldn’t they just write a backend for Maildir files (the way [[http://beaglewiki.org/Main_Page|Beagle]] does!)

Also, apparently this change is new to Tiger, and so old Mac OSX users are affected too. Even if they decided to change the format, is it too much to ask that the software confirms with the user before doing the upgrade, or atleast //informs// the user that something drastic is happening to his/her files? So much for desiging good user interfaces. Sheesh! Why don’t these people ever learn?

iPod Shuffle sucks

Hey I’m not saying it, but I saw it myself.

Ragesh bought an iPod Shuffle, and got it two days back. Poor fellow, he was so excited in his anticipation, but it turned out to be the greated anti-climax. Beat this — he has not been able to use Shuffle with his laptop yet!

It seems that the Shuffle has not really been designed to run in a plug-n-play fashion with all laptops. And Ragesh’s is a very regular laptop — a Dell Inspiron 8600 running good old Windows XP. The problem? Nothing happens when he puts in the Shuffle, nothing at all! Hell even my laptop (running Debian) recognizes it as an iPod and automatically mounts it as a storage device. But his Windows just sits there, as if nothing had happened.

And its not just his laptop. First we thought maybe something was wrong with his USB or something. But then we tried it with my old laptop too, and same result — no recognition. And bear in mind that all this is after spending 15 minutes installing all of the iPod software and rebooting twice in the process. (for comparison, on my laptop, it worked out of the box. And it seems the latest version of gtkpod and gnupod-tools are going to support Shuffle)

Eventually, Ragesh had to go to a friend and use his Mac to the damn thing working. So now he has uploaded some songs, but he has to keep listening to those same few songs over and over again (which perfectly suits him by the way) until he goes to some Mac again; or finds a better solution. Oh, and did I mention: the first time Shuffle didn’t work, we thought it was broken and so Ragesh went to the Apple store and got it replaced, and even they didn’t have a clue!

Bottomline: iPod Shuffle sucks!

Apple’s new toys


Everyone’s raving about Apple’s new toys — the [[http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle|Apple iPod-Flash]] and the [[http://www.apple.com/macmini/|Apple Mac-Mini]]. My reaction? Big deal.

The mini is probably a good idea — atleast now people can plug in their own monitors and keyboards and save up a lot on the crappy keyboards that Apple ships (the monitors are great, but still expensive IMHO).

The iPod shuffle is reasonably priced and stylish, but if I’m getting 20Gig upwards for 100-200 bucks more, why wouldn’t I got for it? Also, I don’t think its a good idea to tie the iPod flash so closely to the iTunes software… I mean, I should always be able to use it as a USB key right?

Work was slow today (read no new progress). Our machine room A/C crashed so a lot of my machines had to be taken down and so I’m stuck without any machines to run my stuff on. Besides, I don’t have any new leads on how to solve my current problem either. Its highly unlikely that we’ll have the requisite work done before the paper deadline, but still there’s no harm in trying.

I also spent some time thinking about designing my own wordpress theme. Played around with Inkscape and Scribus a bit. Also installed Drupal and playing around with it. I think there’s a niche for a personal website management system — which would combine a blog, a photo gallery and static content creation all rolled into one.