Glenn's Daily Script » OS X

Snow Leopard – First Impressions

Glenn — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:06:50 +0000

I received Snow Leopard yesterday. We currently have 5 Macs. I have a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro (15″). Each of the boys have an iMac. And lastly, I have a MacMini connected to our Home Theater setup where we can replay movies that are on a very large Drobo with 4 drives that are 1 1/2 Terabyte drives which gives about 4 1/2 terabytes for actual storage due to redundancy.

I quickly updated 4 of the Macs (the MacMini isn’t done yet – hopefully today). Setup went great and I had no issues with any of the setups. I guess I don’t have any software that doesn’t run under the new 64-bit architecture that is Snow Leopard.

It’s not a high impact update though. My systems all seem pretty fast to me so I’m not sure I’m observing a “snappiness” increase that has been bandied about on many blogs. I’ve noticed some of the UI changes including stacks and the darker overlays. They are nice. I am looking forward to playing with the updated spaces and expose. Those seem like smart changes.

I haven’t yet touched Quicktime though this afternoon when I practice my Guitar, I should use it then.

On my kids systems, I am putting Bootcamp partitions for Windows. They use their Mac’s using OS X for web browsing and homework but they still like to play the occasional PC game and so need Windows to do it. I’ve got Xander’s system working and need to spend some time on Mitchell’s after I do my morning workout. Of course, this opens the door for all those PC games they haven’t been able to use for a while which means “Dad, can you install…” over and over again.

I did go through and explore using system profiler to see what runs 32-bit versus 64-bit in the app space. I also verified that the reports are true that it’s running a 32-bit kernel. At this point, since I use VMWare’s Fusion, I will be glad to wait a bit till VMWare updates their kernel extensions to 64-bit before trying to run a 64-bit kernel. I hope the wait isn’t too long.

Overall, it’s a good update and worth the $49 for the family pack (which as you can see, I use all 5 installs).

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Snow Leopard – First Impressions

Vista and Fusion

Glenn — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:36:12 +0000

I’ve just setup up a new virtual machine under VMWare’s Fusion. Since Kathy has been having good luck with Vista, I decided to take the plunge too and used Vista SP1 for this new virtual machine.

My purpose for this installation is to run a few simple programs that I have yet to shed myself of.

1) MS Money is what Kathy and I use to manage both our daily money and validate and sanity check our financial planners work. If I found something that could replace it on OS X, I probably would at least for the long term planning work. NOTE: If there is anyone out there using something that might work, let me know.

2) Alarm programming and control using HAI’s software only works under Windows. This is not likely to change.

3) UPB home automation software, like UPBStart, is currently only Windows compatible. This could change though maybe not. People have to have a motivation and mostly that is about making money so I’m not sure OS X is a target market for home automation.

4) I’m the treasurer for our kids’ school’s PTSA and so I use Quick Books. I could go to a OS X version but Intuit does a lousy job for transferring the files between OS X and Windows. Also, after I serve my second year, the replacement would likely be using Windows so keeping it there makes sense.

I’d go nearly instantly to OS X versions for the first 3. Maybe someday!

Apple’s iPod Touch and Mobile Me

Glenn — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 08:25:34 +0000

Like many users of an iPod Touch (or iPhone though I don’t have one of those – because of AT&T) and Mac computers, I’ve been waiting for some updates.

For the Mac computers, we’ve been waiting for Mobile Me updates which will allow for push updates of mail, calendar, contacts across multiple computers and updated iPod Touch’s and iPhones. I have 2 computers that I use – one is my laptop – and this kind of functionality sounds perfect and better than anything out there if it works.

Apple really horked the process on this one. They took down .Mac services to update to .Me services which took more than a day when they initially advertised it taking about 4 hours. Also during this time, no one could get the update for OS X 10.5 Leopard. Lastly, they even had to do a patch update to fix issues.

Now as to how it works, it looks pretty good now that it is up. I’ve seen the stuff pushed and synched between all the devices. I’ll keep an eye on it but I’m generally happy with it.

For the iPod Touch, the update was promising the ability to add applications from a store on iTunes. On the iPhone, they have some additional things depending on whether you keep an older iPhone or go for the iPhone 3G. I’m not getting an iPhone so I only care about the iPod Touch features. In addition, this update works with Mobile Me.

Apple really horked this process too. The update was supposed to be available Friday morning but it wasn’t really up till Saturday during the evening. For a user, this is very frustrating and lowers loyalty.

As to the update, it’s nice to get apps but none of the apps that are really for the iPod Touch are great. They are fun and simple but no app truly adds the functionality that says it’s the new killer app for the device. As Apple opens up the store to more apps, maybe we will see one but not yet.

MacJournal vs Ecto

Glenn — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:58:49 +0000

Well, I’ve used MacJournal for about 100 posts and it’s a nice application. It has the benefit of allowing you to have a �Blog� and a private journal.

In my view, the weaknesses include the lack of synching a designated number of posts from a blog site which could include download all posts. I like my blogging software to have a complete record of what I posted.

Another weakness is the lack of simple use of HTML tags. Photo’s, audio, video use it’s own mechanism which requires these to be uploaded to your blog but if you just want to link to something, you can’t do it – at least I couldn’t find it.

A strength of MacJournal in addition to the private journals, is the ability to freeform tag. I like this though it could be improved by showing a list of the tags set up in the blog itself.

Ecto has once again become my default blogging software. It has the ability to do or at least work around the weaknesses of MacJournal.

Mac Network Setup Issues

Glenn — Sun, 25 May 2008 15:17:56 +0000

In working with our new Mac Mini for a while now, I remembered an issue that seems to pop up every time I have a new system. I agree that this doesn’t happen often but still the issue does exist.

To the issue: When I set up a new Mac, I can immediately network with the other Mac’s on my network but when I try to use a share from a Windows PC, I can’t do it. It’s solvable because I have solved it before but I have to google the answer or compare working systems to the new system before I can get it to work. The reverse issue is also true in that the Windows PC doesn’t have the ability to get at a Mac share on a new Mac system.

We all hear that OS X/Mac’s have such great usability and while I generally agree with this, it is not always true.

Update: After going through hundreds of threads via google searches, I found out the one thing that worked and unfortunately, I can’t give attribution as I closed everything and lost my cache/undo. Here is the steps I took on the Windows Vista system that made it work:

The issue turned out to be in the following policy in Windows Vista:

Start>Run>secpol.msc [enter]

Click on “Local Policies” –> “Security Options”

Navigate to the policy “Network Security: LAN Manager authentication level”
and double-click it to get its Properties. By default Windows Vista sets
the policy to “NTVLM2 responses only”. Use the drop-down arrow to change
this to “LM and NTLM ? use NTLMV2 session security if negotiated”.

Mac Games

Glenn — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:53:43 +0000

A month or so ago, I replaced an Intel desktop running Windows (XP) with a new Mac Mini. I find that the benefit of running OS X and Windows on one machine is a great thing.

That being said, it is my kids machine so it is much easier to have application run natively than have to run Windows so I’ve been out looking at what games are available on the Mac.

I’ve found a few that the kids want but I have seen a problem that has been reported on all over the net. Mac games are behind what has been released for Windows.

The games that the kids like that I have found include Civilization IV (a sim about creating and growing civilizations), Zoo Tycoon (they used this under Windows though the version is slightly older), Age of Mythology (another game that is a version behind the Windows version).

The games work great on the Mac Mini even though their requirements seem to include a higher end video card. I’ve even spend some time playing Civilization. It’s a pretty normal sim type game that includes elements from the historical world though you get to define the world and empire you start with. One of the games I played, I had the German empire evolving in a small island (think south pacific) world. Since it was small, I only had 2 other competing civilizations that the game played which included the Indian empire and the Russian Empire.

If any readers out there have other suggestions for kid friendly (ages 7 and 9) games on the Mac, please leave a comment.

Mac Mini

Glenn — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:38:59 +0000

A few days ago, I bought a new Mac Mini (it will be quite upsetting if Apple suddenly, in the next 2 weeks or so comes out with a new version!) for my kids to use.

Mitchell has been primarily using my old Powerbook so he’s already familiar with OS X and likes it (though most of that might be due to the small mouse that he really loves!).

Xander has been using an old Sony desktop so I thought this would be a great opportunity to get him familiar with OS X as well as being able to run Windows via VMWare’s Fusion.

First thing I realized is that I didn’t get enough memory for the system. Kathy is potentially getting that today so the system will get faster right away after install. It’s dog slow right now so it will make it much more usable.

Second, I have some issues with some of the Windows games he was using. VMWare’s Fusion has a video driver but it shows up as SVGA and with a limited set of features so not all games are happy with it. The games he generally plays are not super graphic intensive but they do have some needs. This is frustrating because I certainly don’t want to keep a Windows system AND a Mac system so that he can run games. This should just work. I guess there is an outside chance the memory increase might help since not all error message are truly accurate so maybe it is really telling me something other than the graphics won’t work – like inadequate memory.

Xander and Mitchell like the ability to see movie previews. The browsing has some hiccups but that is because parent control is set up and you have to add things as you go. Other than that, the web stuff he gets at (Club Penguin, Cartoon Network, …) seems to work now.

If I can solve the Windows issues, I will have a great solution. Now if I only had some time to work on this.

Applescript and MacJournal

Glenn — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:46:21 +0000

I’ve never done any Applescript but I thought I would give it a try. I still had some work to do to finish off my migration work that Applescript sounded like the perfect tool for (the migration for my blog history from Ecto/Wordpress to my new blog tool MacJournal).

In looking at Applescript, I’ve discovered the dictionary portion which may be useful but for a beginner the language is very “archaic” and hard to understand. I’ve written specifications for API’s and know what they look like (I’ve mentioned in the past that I worked for Microsoft) so what I’m getting at is that there are often subtleties that are in using an API that need to be described that specifications don’t give a programmer. The dictionary seems to be nothing more than a regurgitation of the API specification so is useful to a small degree but not to the uninitiated.

In my case, a sample winds up being immensely more useful followed by the dictionary. Unfortunately, samples are very hard to come by and essentially non-existent for MacJournal uses. I’ve gotten one or two of the interfaces to work but not the key ones I wanted and need for my purposes.

That means I’m dead in the water and will proceed manually which will take a long time to get the material cleaned up.

New MacBook Pro

Glenn — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 06:43:09 +0000

Well, I returned the old model and ordered the new model and now it’s here. I’ve been installing apps and setting up apps. I’m nearly done. It’s very peppy.

I hope to use it for some work that I do with the boys school (PTSA stuff) and also my guitar work. I’m also going to use it with VMWare’s Fusion because some of the apps that I use need to be done at other locations in the house. After I get the system set up, I hope to test the Windows part – that’ll be tomorrow.

I still haven’t had a chance to test the multi-touch part of this system. The updated system did come with the latest version of OS X 10.5 (I think it was 10.5.2) so the number of updates was pretty minimal which made the first part of setup easy.

All in all a good upgrade from my old Powerbook.

MacJournal – Update

Glenn — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:29:25 +0000

I’ve been playing/using MacJournal’s trial for about 12 hours now. It seems to do everything I want including updates, tags, separate journals for Blogs, private diaries, and even imports. The imports are difficult and take a lot of work but they do happen. The imports do lose some information like tags but the data that is important is the posts.

I’ll try it for a few more days and if I continue to like it then I may transition to it from Ecto which is a big deal for me since I’ve been using Ecto for quite a while.

MacJournal – using with WordPress

Glenn — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:44:48 +0000

I saw a blog post about an updated version of a software package that sounded interesting. The reason that it sounded interesting over what I’m using right now (Ecto) is that you can have multiple “Journals”.

I love having a blog to share thoughts with the world but I know that the thoughts that I share are not my most private and personal thoughts. I would love to have a true and private journal to write down my own private thoughts. I know that this would only work if it were the same tool though and this sounded at first glance like an interesting approach where you switch between your private journal and your public blog.

Now, there are some interesting questions such as how do you “Tag” a blog post when you post it to the blog.

UPDATE: Tags work. Do special characters like “quotes” and ‘apostrophes’ work?

UPDATE: Yes special characters work. Last question is can I import my entire blog history into the package?

Impatience got the best of me

Glenn — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:47:04 +0000

Ok, even though there were some rumors floating around I discounted them. I mean, when isn’t there an Apple rumor floating around about some new Mac or iPod or new piece of software or update or some such? This year there has been something delivered every Tuesday but I guessed that Apple was pacing themselves.

After giving my Powerbook to the kids (Mitchell is the primary user), I decided that a Macbook Pro 15 inch would be a good replacement. I debated on waiting and which model but impatience got the best of me.

The new model arrived late Monday afternoon. Of course I wake up to the news that an updated model is available on Tuesday morning so my first thing was a call to Apple. It took about 30 minutes on the phone but the folks at Apple were very pleasant and are taking the Macbook Pro back so I can get an update (even waived the restocking fee).

I’ve been instructed by the finance committee (meaning Kathy) to wait till March 1st to order the new model because of the way Apple is crediting the money back but that is something I guess I can live with.

I want the computer to be something that can last us for a while so getting the most up-to-date unit is important. P.S. The model I spec’d out is actually $150 cheaper too – WOW!

Mitchell’s using a Mac

Glenn — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:51:00 +0000

At first I had Mitchell using an old Windows laptop but, man, it was painful. He was having a lot of problems and they were all due to the fact that the laptop is really slow and the websites today all have increased requirements on a system, it seems.

I’ve been thinking about upgrading my Powerbook (a Mac laptop) which is a fine laptop for web activities. I’ve set it up and it’s working well. With Leopard’s parental features, it’s very cool for this purpose.

I do have a few issues that are about networking but they are probably because of an external 802.11n card I’m using with it that needs to be plugged in and out to be reset. Other than that, it’s all good.

Now it’s on to figure out what I need to get to replace it. That’ll be another post.

VMWare’s Fusion

Glenn — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:45:32 +0000

In using VMWare’s Fusion (and before that Parallels), I have been using a Boot Camp partition but only because I had initially set up a Boot Camp partition. I think I kept it because I thought to myself if there was some compatibility issues, I could just boot into Boot Camp and run the s/w that didn’t work but I never did it because everything just worked (for me at least though I have heard of other stuff not working).

Anyway, a Boot Camp partition is something that needs to have a separate backup strategy where a virtual partition for VMWare’s Fusion (or Parallels) will get backed up by Time Machine or SuperDuper! which are my backup solutions of choice. The virtual partition just seems simpler.

I will have to try this and verify it over time and see that I can get this to work and even restore if necessary. If anyone has comments on this setup, let me know.

OS X vs Windows

Glenn — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 10:31:27 +0000

As a OS X user and recent switcher, I’ve found lots of things to like about OS X. Applications install simpler. Lot’s of built in features. Usability and security are more integrated and easier to use in a way that I don’t have to think about things – just do them.

There are a few things that don’t work as well though. Uninstalling applications require external tools. I’ve found networking to be more complex though this may be because I’m trying to talk to Windows machines and if you were just talking to other OS X machines it may be simple.

One thing that many old time OS X users just gloss over though is that there is a lot of maintenance that makes the system perform well. Many of these maintenance items are made easier by using external apps like Onyx. Also some of the maintenance items are bad if done too often and bad if not done often enough. Also, you should do them after certain tasks (installing certain items like system updates).

These maintenance items are neither worse nor better than Windows but knowing that you need to do this changes the perspective on the overall system. Windows has lots of things that are good to do once in a while to that improve stability and performance but mostly, tech or geeks are the only people who know to do them. That’s why I put OS X on par with Windows for this point.

Of course, I’m still using OS X and that says a lot. I like the OS and I like the boxes that Apple makes. There are issues but I think that they are less than I get with other systems – at least for now.