Another reason to love Verizon DSL
Posted on May 16, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Right now, my only choices for broadband are Verizon DSL and Comcast. Rock, meet hard place.
I stick with Verizon DSL only because I’d rather pay $29.99 a month to be treated like dirt and have bad service than $60/month (which is what it would cost us for a Comcast cable modem since I want to stay with DirecTV for the televisions and Verizon for the landline phone).
I have my Aircard modem which gives me speeds comparable to DSL from home, but that isn’t going to help the rest of my family that wants to get online. So Verizon DSL it is.
I’ve been a longtime fan of OpenDNS, which serves as an alternate cached name server. Sometimes I have to turn it off because I have difficulty getting on certain hotspots with it on. Last night, my connection to the ‘net was slow and in troubleshooting, I turned off OpenDNS. This morning, I tried to check my tasks for the day and was greeted with this:
Say whaaat?
Turned OpenDNS back on and the site loads without a problem.
This started happening with the Verizon DSL DNS last week. I’ll report this to the great folks at Remember the Milk (by giving them a link to this post) and will let them fight it out with Verizon. I shudder to think of the conversation I would have if I called their support to report it.
C3 has a new website!
Posted on May 15, 2008
Filed Under Blogging, Design | Leave a Comment
Considering that I’ve been waiting over a year to be able to post that headline, you think I wouldn’t have waited nearly a week to write this blog.
A bit of an improvement over the old one:
The new site was well over a year in the making. Not because it’s all that complex, but it’s been difficult to focus a very small organization on all the moving parts that had to go into a ground-up rethinking of a website on a small budget.
Some details…
Finally upgraded to Leopard
Posted on May 5, 2008
Filed Under Macintosh | 1 Comment
I know, I know…a little late to the party.
It’s been about 7 months since Mac OS X 10.5 was released. More than enough time for all the apps I use to update to Leopard-happy versions. More than enough time for Apple to fix the big bugs. And more than enough time for the early adopters to document everything that could possibly go wrong for those of us who decided to sit back and wait a while.
Last night, I took the leap to the bigger cat on my MacBook Pro. Why now? Well, for starters I’m now not running anything that doesn’t say it’s Leopard/10.5 compatible. And I was starting to notice developer interest in 10.4 waning. I may be imagining this, but there comes a time with the small Mac developers who make the best Mac goodies where supporting the older OS becomes something they have to do and nothing more. New versions only run on the new OS, and updates start to include features that only work on the new OS. I’m not naming names, but my sense is that time had come.
After reading site after site debating the best way to upgrade, I decided on the easy-but-time-consuming path of:
- Clone entire hard drive to external disk (in my case a 250MB Firewire drive) using SuperDuper (time: 3 hours)
- Erase and Install upgrade to Leopard (time: about an hour)
- Migration Assistant to move all applications and files back to drive (time: approximately 4 hours…I let that part run overnight)
When I woke up this morning, the migration was complete and I was able to start right into OS X 10.5.1 with no problem. Another hour or so dealing with upgrades to 10.5.2 and its associated upgrades and I think I’m done.
Even though the total upgrade took over 8 hours, 95% of that didn’t involve me doing anything. So I think that’s the path I’ll take in the future.
Quick thoughts:
- I knew Spotlight was faster in Leopard. Wow! That’s like saying a bullet train is faster than a bicycle. It’s actually usable now.
- I like that Software Update now does the restart then it installs files. I’ve learned over the years not to open/move files around when Software Update is installing. This now makes the related problems a non-issue for users who don’t realize the trouble that may happen if you write data to the drive in the middle of a major install.
- I was having wireless issues before the upgrade. My Mac wasn’t recognizing my home router as a preferred location, requiring me to manually select it each time. Even then, it would take a few tries before I could log on. Since upgrading to Leopard, my network is recognized immediately. Not sure if that’s directly related to Leopard or just that a nice, clean install was necessary.
- I love Quick Look. I’ve already installed a few third-party plug-ins, such as one to view CS3 files , Zip file contents and contents of folders without opening them. In fact, if it wasn’t for all the speedy Finder searches I’ve been doing today, Quick Look and the changes in Preview, I would almost forget I was running a different operating system. I live most of my working life in Firefox these days.
Issues:
- The only application that appears to have not cleanly survived migration is VMWare Fusion. On first launch I got a cryptic “Failed to connect to peer process” error. A quick Google found a thread related to the problem. An uninstall and reinstall of Fusion cleared it right up. This is why I wait months to upgrade.
- This is nothing, really, but I prefer the deeper red for the close button in a Tiger window to the candy-red in Leopard. Every time I go to close a window, the color change is a little jarring.
- Since I originally installed Office 2008 in Tiger, I’m having some trouble getting Quick Look to work on .docx/.xlsx files. I’ve downloaded the Office.qlgenerator file and placed it in Library/QuickLook as I think I’m supposed to do, but it’s still not working. Not a big deal. I’ll track that one down eventually (hopefully without needing to reinstall Office) unless someone has any ideas?
- When I restart in Leopard, I had about 2 GB less disk space and it seems that the new OS is eating more RAM than Tiger did. But it’s eating it quietly, as I don’t feel as much of a drag when I’m hitting the disk for memory as I did before.
The best coffee maker I have ever owned
Posted on May 4, 2008
Filed Under Misc. | Leave a Comment
It’s so rare that I like a coffee maker that I own for more than a few weeks it’s worth blogging about one that I still like 6+ months later. This will probably read like a paid review. It’s not. I’m just talking about a kitchen appliance that has given me a lot of satisfaction.
I’m the only one in my house who drinks coffee and I’m not a huge fan of the instant stuff made in a microwave. I never liked most carafe-based coffee makers because 1. the coffee was never hot enough, 2. I’d end up pouring out more coffee than I drank, and 3. clean up was a pain.
I love the coffee that comes out of pods, but the cost per cup is ridiculously expensive.
Late last summer, I found this in a local store and bought it on a whim:
Hamilton Beach 3-in-1 Hot-Beverage Center
Love it!
The top part lifts up and you can either put in a pod or a single serving of drip coffee in one of those permanent filters. Then you slide out the drawer underneath and fill with a cup’s worth of water. Place the mug underneath the spout and a few minutes later you have a piping hot cup o’ Joe.
The only thing that needs immediate cleaning is the filter which is easy to dump & rinse off (in addition to the less regular cleaning that you should do with any coffee maker).
Why I’m still not interested in the MacBook Air
Posted on May 4, 2008
Filed Under Macintosh | Leave a Comment
Om just posted his impressions of the Lenovo ThinkPad x300 on GigaOm.
He linked to a funny Lenovo video which shows exactly why I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to buy a MacBook Air, even if I had an extra $2000 burning a hole in my pocket (which I don’t):
My 2.33 GHz 15″ MacBook Pro is starting to get creaky and it’s barely 18 months old. I’m on it for so many hours a day, some of the printing on the keys are worn away.
If I was able to replace this machine right now, I don’t think I’d buy another MacBook Pro as Apple currently offers them. It’s heavy and bulky.
The Air’s footprint is too big and it requires way too many compromises for someone who wants to use just one computer and not buy it to supplement a desktop machine.
I would probably look at a top-of-the-line MacBook first, as the form factor/weight is a little closer to what I want, and it’s still a performance upgrade over my current 2.33 GHz machine.
My dream portable:
- Mac OS X as its primary operating system
- 4 lbs. or less
- at least 4 GB RAM
- High performance CPU, whatever the flavor of the month is…I can never tell the difference between chips
- at least 200 GB hard drive. I want to keep everything I need with me without worrying about carrying external drives to get to essential data (but use external drives as well as online services for backups).
- 13″ display and the form factor to match. I don’t necessarily need a full size keyboard, but not a cramped one either
- CD/DVD drive. Doesn’t have to burn anything, just want to install software and play movies.
- at least 4 USB ports, Ethernet, external video port and external audio port. That’s it. I don’t care about Firewire or PCMCIA.
- Built-in EVDO modem
- At least 3 hours battery life (in reality, not what the manufacturer says)
Sad thing is, I think I could probably find this machine if I didn’t insist on the “OS X” part. This Sony VAIO gets pretty close. I have no desire to go back to Windows fulltime, certainly not to Vista.
