512 Pixels

It’s not hard to look at The New York Times’ and wonder what the newspaper’s leadership is doing on the digital front. This 96-page internal report is a hard look at the company’s missteps in the online arena. It’s a fascinating read.

via Vox

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve seen me talking about re-building my home network. I’ve gotten a few questions, so I thought I’d address them here.

I pay Comcast a bunch of money each month for a pretty nice Internet-only package. (As of this writing, I just clocked 56 Mbps down and 12 Mbps up.)

Instead of renting a cable modem, I use my own. Specifically, a Motorola SB6121 DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem.

In addition to saving the $8/month or whatever Comcast is charging these days for a modem, this puts almost every aspect of my network in my control.

While I do worry that Comcast will make troubleshooting connectivity issues more complex because I own my equipment, getting it set up initially was as simple as calling the company with the cable modem’s MAC address.

Next in line is a brand-new (and oddly tall) Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station. My aging Time Capsule finally kicked the bucket, and I decided to go for the simpler AirPort Extreme. They run cooler — and are cheaper — than the Time Capsules, even today.

(Funny story about the Time Capsule: I didn’t buy it. The now-dead AASP I was working for got two in the mail one day, after ordering a single replacement for a customer. I attempted to ship it back to Apple, but the company couldn’t take delivery of it, as there was no record of it being shipped to me in the first place. Essentially, it didn’t exist, so I took it home.)

The AirPort is running DHCP for my entire network. I have a 5 GHz network running along side a 2.4 GHz one. I don’t have any disks or printer running off the back of it, but it does connect to a NETGEAR GS108NA ProSafe 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Desktop Switch that powers my new wired network.

I ran all the drops myself. My house’s floor plan is quite simple, and I have great attic space to the entire house. I installed several drops, complete with wall plates. The front bedroom and pantry both have a single drop, and I installed two behind the TV — one for our Mac mini, and one for an Apple TV.

I was surprised to learn that even the current-generation Apple TV only supports 10/100BASE-T speeds. No Gigabit.

(Turns out, that this is true for most set-top boxes, but I wish I could have the time I spent troubleshooting that cable run back.)

I have one drop left to do, which will run in an underground conduit to our stand-alone workshop in the backyard. That’s going to be … unpleasant.

So, why do all of this? 802.11ac ships on almost every new Mac and is insanely fast. Coupled with the growing presence of iOS devices, Ethernet feels more and more dated for most users.

Both of those (valid) points aside, Ethernet is incredibly fast and stable. For moving lots of data around, it’s impossible to beat.

I know that for most people — even nerds — installing a CAT6 network seems overwhelming or impossible. While it can be frustrating (or even dangerous), it’s not all that difficult. If you want a professional to do it, many electricians can perform the work.

Having an Ethernet network in my house isn’t going to increase my property value or impress my wife, but it does let things run smoother, and that’s a good reason for just about anything.

Seth Fiegerman:

Steve Jobs glanced at the sheet of paper with Apple’s future on it and promptly flicked it away onto the table. Then he uttered one of his trademark criticisms to Eddy Cue, the manager who had handed it to him.

“This sucks,” Jobs said.

This week, I had the pleasure of joining the Cult of Mac guys on their podcast. We spoke about Beats, Apple as a fashion company and the future of OS X.

Fixes include:

• Improves 4K display support on Mac Pro (Late 2013) and MacBook Pro with 15-inch Retina Display (Late 2013)
• Adds the ability to sync contacts and calendars between a Mac and iOS device using a USB connection
• Improves the reliability of VPN connections using IPsec
• Resolves an issue that prevented Font Book from installing PostScript Type 1 fonts
• Improves reliability of copying, editing and inspecting permissions of files on an SMB file server
• Improves reliability of network home directories
• Improves stability when installing configuration profiles
• Improves login speed for users in Active Directory groups
• Includes Safari 7.0.3

You can update now via the Mac App Store, or via the direct links below:

• 10.9.3 Update
• 10.9.3 Update (Combo)

This week, we throw themselves a selfie parade and I read an ancient Apple support document. Federico, Myke and I break down the rumors around Beats and iOS 8 on the iPad.

Don’t miss the After Dark, in which we try to pick a show title. Sponsored by PDF Pen Scan +, by Smile

If the Mac App Store isn’t irrelevant to power users now, the time is quickly coming. Apple’s restrictions have strangled it.

Mark Gurman:

iOS 8 is likely to supercharge the functionality of Apple’s iPad with a new split-screen multitasking feature, according to sources with knowledge of the enhancement in development. These people say that the feature will allow iPad users to run and interact with two iPad applications at once. Up until now, each iPad application either developed by Apple or available on the App Store is only usable individually in a full-screen view.

I’m all for this feature, as long as it is easy to use.

While I think there are issues with split-screen apps on tablets, I think people can adjust. Things like keyboard focus may be weird at first, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been a problem on desktop UIs since the Lisa.

I would love to have a text document open next to a browser on my iPad. One reason I don’t use it much for writing is that moving between apps is slow. Even if iOS 8 doesn’t bring better inner-app communication, being able to see more will let many work faster on their tablets.

Gurman continues:

The feature is said to be designed with the 9.7-inch iPad display in mind, and it is unclear if the feature will work on the smaller-screened iPad mini. The feature is said to work exclusively in landscape mode, which allows for increased screen space. The feature may also be key to a larger-screened iPad, which Apple is actively developing for a launch either later this year or in 2015.

Differentiating iPad models by software would be new for Apple.

All Macs can run the same software, with the same functionality, except at the very high end of things. It is important to remember that iOS does fragment across devices of various ages, but a move like this is unprecedented. I’m not sure making the iPad mini a second-class citizen is the best idea.

Richard Padilla at MacRumors:

Apple is gearing up to incorporate Near Field Communication (NFC) technology in the iPhone 6, according to a report from BrightWire citing sources familiar with the matter. The report also notes that Apple has struck a deal with China UnionPay to integrate the banking company’s services into Passbook and elsewhere.

Here’s Eric Slivka in March 2013:

China Times reports [Google translation, via Mac Otakara] that Taiwanese chip firm Chipbond has been selected to provide a number of components for the iPhone 5S, including the touch display driver as well as chips to support fingerprint sensor and near field communications (NFC) capabilities. The report suggests that Apple will use the fingerprint sensor functionality to enhance the security of NFC features such as mobile payments.

…and in June 2012:

9to5Mac reports that it has reanalyzed the previously-obtained hardware code dump for Apple’s next-generation iPhone prototypes and discovered that the code makes reference to hardware components supporting near field communication (NFC) capabilities.

…and in November 2011:

Following conflicting rumors about whether the iPhone 4S would include near field communication (NFC) technology (rumors that were eventually decided in the negative), Digitimes reports that Apple is indeed one of the vendors still expected to introduce NFC-enabled operating system software (and thus hardware) in 2012. Apple’s inclusion of NFC in next year’s iPhone would appear to come as part of a tipping point for the technology, with the technology’s prevalence in the smartphone industry set to increase from about 10% to over 50% in the span of two to three years.

Here’s Arnold Kim in January 2011:

According to this source, Apple has already made prototype payment terminals intended for small businesses to scan NFC-enabled iPhones and iPads. These terminals could be subsidized or even given away to encourage adoption.

Apple has been hiring NFC experts as well as applied for several patents on the technology. A couple of previous reports have also pegged the next generation iPhone as having NFC technology built in.

…and in November 2010:

Apple’s interest in Near Field Communication (NFC), the short-range wireless technology that supports such services as “tap and go” credit card payments, has been well-established, but a new report claims that Apple maybe be planning to include the technology in the fifth-generation iPhone to allow Mac users to essentially keep a portable version of their Mac on their iPhone and wirelessly allow any compatible Mac to run as if it was their own Mac.

How marvelous is the tiny marble on which we live and die.

I’ve written about the week our son was diagnosed with brain cancer a couple of times.

In 2011, I outlined the two years of treatments Josiah received after his diagnosis. A month after publishing the piece I trespassed to visit his old hospital room, an event that will forever be linked to my longterm battle with depression.

Josiah finished chemotherapy almost four years ago, and his MRIs since then have been stable.

Stable is a funny word. Unlike some cancer patients, Josiah’s tumor can’t be shrunk by treatment. It’s more or less the same size as it was after his initial operation five years ago.

In fact, today marks the five-year anniversary of Josiah’s tumor being found. His pediatrician sent us for an ultrasound after voicing a concern about his head circumference, and the next day we were told to drive to across town to the children’s hospital without taking the time to go home and pack a bag first.

That frantic drive kicked off not only a weekend of MRIs and surgery, but a journey that our family is still on.

Five years is a big deal. When people talk about survival rates in cancer circles, five years is the timeframe usually in question.

When Josiah was diagnosed, the doctors weren’t able to give us a survival rate. What he has is just too rare, they said. There were too many unknowns.

In a way, this lack of information provided a type of freedom. While Josiah’s cancer is certainly life-threatening, but not having a number to think about all the time is a weird blessing. Coupled with how well he’s done over the last couple of years, I sometimes forget about the whole thing.

I don’t know what the future holds. While the last half-decade has been full of mostly (relative) good news, I know that may not always be the case.

For now, however, I can look back over the five years and lose count of the ways Josiah has surpassed every estimate and projection doctors have made. The boy who wasn’t supposed to walk can ride a bike. The boy who wasn’t going to be able to see out of both eyes can run and jump. The tumor that was supposed to grow again hasn’t yet.

The anniversaries keep rolling around, and we keep getting years with our son to treasure.

I know we’re the lucky ones. I’ve seen way too many child-sized coffins over the last five years. Josiah has lost too many friends to this thing. So, while today we celebrate, I always come back to the old mantra:

Fuck cancer.

While Apple is clearly trying to make Macs work more like iOS devices, I hate the way that OS X Mavericks changed the way the Mac’s power button works on most machines.

If you want to keep the power button from immediately putting your computer to sleep, this article should make your day.