journal: mac

Droids, iPhones, and Trolls: An Observation

*Tap tap* Is this thing on?

I guess it’s been a while since anything’s been posted here, so I figure I may as well use good ol’ DT as a personal blog of sorts. Anyway, here it goes!

Over the past few days, while following the iPhone 4 launch coverage it’s occurred to me that the old platform wars are over, Nobody really gives a crap about Mac vs. PC any longer. It may explain why macvswindows has gone quiet as of late.

Instead, the debate has shifted to phones, and Microsoft is nowhere to be seen. It’s Google and Apple duking it out. And fans of those companies too. And not surprising, the arguments for Android are quite similar to those once used to support using Windows. The anti- and pro-iPhone comments are reminiscent to what people once said about the Mac. And it’s remarkable how quickly things have turned too. Even one year ago there was still plenty of chatter surrounding Windows and Mac. After all, Apple was still running its “Get a Mac” ads, and Microsoft was firing back.

Heck, we’re even seeing the same overblown rhetoric! (Google can’t be trusted! Apple is too closed! The iPhone will be dead in a year! Android is too hard to use!)

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but I just have to wonder...what will next year’s big debate be?



Mac Heist 3 Begins

They are offering Process, normally $39USD, for free

Mac Heist three began today. They are offering Process, normally $39USD, for free just for logging in. Beware, the web server is buckling under the load of people. So it may take a long time to get anywhere.

Head over to www.macheist.com to join the fun!

UPDATE: It appears that the next piece of loot is MacDust



My two-day iPhone bill

Or, how to time your cell phone purchases to save some money.

On December 1, I broke down and bought an iPhone after drooling over one since the beginning of time (or June 2007, at least). It’s a great device, and after having it for only a week and a half, I already discovered that it’s a really useful thing to have. Yes, I’ve become an iDrone.1.

At any rate, today I got my first bill--a mere week and a half after getting the phone. It turns out AT&T billed me $123 ($79.99 + activation fees) for a two-day billing period. Do the math, and that’s over $60 a day.

Personally I think it’d make more sense for AT&T to simply count those extra days as part of the next billing period, but so it goes. The moral of this story? Before you buy a new cell phone plan, check with the carrier to see when the billing period starts, and make your purchase on the first day of a new billing period so you don’t end up with a two-day bill like I did.


1They’re all over downtown San Francisco. It’s pretty ridiculous.



Note to Apple: Vista is fixed.

Apple’s relentless anti-Vista smear campaign continues, with its latest round of “Mac vs. PC” commercials accusing Microsoft of spending money on marketing that it could be spending to “fix Vista.”

Here’s a note to Apple: Vista is fixed. It’s called Service Pack 1, a release that, by all accounts, addresses the vast majority of issues Vista had at launch. Windows Vista with SP1 is fast, stable and highly capable, and despite Apple’s relentless smear campaign, people are gradually beginning to realize that Vista isn’t as bad as they’d been led to believe.

It’s time for Apple to stop the smearing and go back to focusing on the positive aspects of Mac OS X.



Adium Adds Facebook Chat Support

Not only is it prettier, but it also gets logged

For years iChat has been the best bet for a instant messaging program on OS X. At least in my opinion, the old Adium lacked in many features, and the new one still lacks some. These are excused by one simple feature that iChat is no where near beating. Facebook Chat support.

Facebook chat is possibly the ugliest thing ever invented. It plagues the bottom part of your Facebook page, blocking links, obstructing pokes, and making me piss blood I am so angry. I mean why in the name of all that is good and holy in the world of technology would Facebook ever think that something like a pop-up chat bar at the bottom of the screen would be anywhere near a good idea? Honestly, I have nothing that relates to any kind of clue as to why they did this. I just know it pisses me off. The chat interface when a window is opened takes up about 400 pixels. So depending on what computer your using to look at Facebook, the chat window may eat anywhere from 20% of your screen to 100%.

Seriously though, this chat interface is possibly one of the worst I have ever…
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