Jim Dalrymple, to RIM’s co-CEOs:
Guys, you are not changing the world — the world is laughing at you. The only reason you birthed a tablet in a year is because you are so far behind Apple, you had no choice but to come out with something, and that wasn’t very good.
Editor’s Note: I wrote this back in college, when I was working at The Daily Helmsman. Quite wisely, my editor didn’t publish it, but he just emailed me a copy of it he found on his laptop. I couldn’t pass up the chance to share it.
Dear IT Helpdesk,
You don’t know me. You probably don’t recognize my name, so I’ll start by introducing myself.
My name is Stephen Hackett. I am a student here at the U of M, and for the last 3 1/2 years, I have designed the pages of The Daily Helmsman.
My job basically entails taking our reporter’s stories, accompanying photos and graphics and putting them together using some fancy page layout software.
It’s really not too bad.
The printer in our newsroom, as you can imagine, is one of the most vital pieces of equipment we own. When it doesn’t work, everything here screeches to a halt.
I walked into the newsroom Tuesday morning to check on things, only to get bombarded by the advertising design team about why they can’t print to the HP 5000, which is the only printer in the room that prints 11 x 17 pages. Instead of printing their ads, the printer simply sat there, showing an error code.
In the middle of our conversation, our ad manager informed me he had called 8888 for help.
My heart stopped.
We have had run-ins with IT people before, and the staff (myself included) is usually blamed with whatever is wrong, and are treated like small children.
But I try to be a pretty positive person most of the time, so I decided it was time for me to give you guys a break.
So, about 45 minutes later, 3 guys show up to “work on the printer,” but instead of looking at the printer, they went straight to one of the Macs in the newsroom.
For this particular letter, I will not touch on your incredible lack of support for — or the knowledge of — the Mac platform, which major fields (like journalism or art) use the Mac everyday. Even our internal IT guy looks confused when he sees an Apple computer, and I can usually fix things around here myself much faster.
But this letter is not about that.
After fiddling with the printer preferences (to a point where we had to re-enter them later), the group of 3 guys (they always come in packs) go to the printer and unplug it, then plug it back in.
After printing a successful test page, they declare it fixed, and leave.
Less than 30 minutes later, the error code popped back up, and this time, the simple powering-down-the-machine remedy did not work.
At this point, we simply reset the computers to print to another printer for the time being, and we all went about our day.
That evening, when it came time for me to print our pages, we had to use the broken printer again, so I could print the pages at full-size.
As expected, the printer worked for a little while, then the error code popped back up on the display.
After several minutes of cursing from the editorial staff, I decided to take a stab at it.
I went to hp.com, clicked on support and typed the error code into the search field.
After searching for about 2 minutes, I came across a solution for the exact problem we were having.
The fix involved moving the JetDirect card from slot 1 to slot 2. A few turns of a screwdriver later, the issue was fixed.
Total time: 10 minutes.
Helpdesk, tell me why that was so hard that your 3 IT guys couldn’t figure it out. A quick search online for the error code would have produced the same results I got, but instead your guys poked around settings (and actually messed them up from what they were)and unplugged the printer.
Assuming you know everything is a horrible idea. Technology rapidly changes, and anyone who is to prideful (or too dumb) to realize this and use tools like support pages have no business fixing other people’s equipment.
I’m not looking for a job, but if you hired me, I would expect to make 3 times what one of those guys make.
_Stephen M. Hackett
_
News Editor, The Daily Helmsman
GigaOM’s Darrell Etherington on Lion:
The new operating system is the first to leave some Intel-based Macs out of the party, and even with the minimum specs, you won’t be getting the full experience.
I think this is the case with most OS releases.
[RAM] is the easiest place you can make an improvement with almost any Mac.
True. And it’s a cheap upgrade. But Apple hasn’t posted what the RAM specs are for Lion, so it’s not a stretch to believe it will be 1GB — just like Snow Leopard. Since Snow Leopard is required to update to Lion, no one will have to add more RAM to meet Lion’s requirements.
Note that some Mac mini models and MacBook Airs make upgrading the RAM yourself very difficult or impossible, in which case you might want to consult with an authorized Mac service provider.
Every single MacBook Air ever shipped has the RAM soldered to the logic board.
RAM is easier to upgrade, but for Lion, a hard drive change could make the biggest difference.
[…]
There are a few options available to you here. Like Dave Greenbaum, you could choose to go with a solid-state drive. This is the best possible option, but it’s also the priciest, and you get relatively little storage space for your money.
I’m in love with SSDs in my Air and in my work machine, but on my iMac, with an old-fashioned spinning hard drive, Lion runs great. SSDs have barely made a mark on the hard drive’s market share. And while it’s an great upgrade, an SSD is by no means a reasonable way to enjoy Lion more.
Please remember that DIY modifications to Apple equipment is done at your own risk, and voids your AppleCare warranty.
DIY upgrades do not void AppleCare. Apple allows users to install hard drives in these models:
RAM can be upgraded in these models by end users without voiding AppleCare:
With a little research, Etherington could have really helped users looking to update to Lion later this summer. Instead, he just muddied the waters.
This photo gallery combines two of my loves — Legos and how things are made. Amazing.
[via @jdalrymple]
Cody Fink has written a must-read for tech writers.
Myke and Terry were kind enough to invite me to be on this week’s episode of The Bro Show.
This time around, we discussed in-app purchasing, Lodsys, the Apple/Twitter relationship, WWDC and more. Be sure to stick around to the end for a special announcement by yours truly.
What if our home was destroyed and we lost all our belongings? Or what if someone were to break in and rob us? Apart from one another, the only irreplaceable things in our house are the priceless memories, work, and other information that we keep on our computers.
[…]
If there ever were a situation where grabbing the external drive on the way out the door wasn’t an option, or if it were destroyed by a tornado, or if it were stolen, then we would I lose year’s worth of photos and music as well as access to much of our livelihood, including the documents and passwords related to our business, finances, etc.
If what’s on your computer is important and irreplaceable, you should have an off-site backup.
If this gives you pause, you really need to get a backup plan in place.
Shawn’s system is great, but if the cloud isn’t for you, check out what I do to keep my data safe.
And yes, we rewind and talk about eWorld.
For the last several years, my basic computing setup has been the same: an iMac at home and a work-provided MacBook Pro.1
I’ve always had the luxury to use my work notebook as a personal machine, which makes life a lot more convenient.
However, over the last year or so, I’ve developed a growing hesitancy about taking my work notebook home. Bringing it home means I was bringing work home — something I don’t like doing, especially with two young kids.
Back in December, I wrote that I was eyeing the MacBook Air as a personal machine, in place of my iPad. I really wanted to have my own laptop again. I was looking at the Air because it’s minimal form factor was attractive as an ultra-portable writing machine. As great as it is, the iPad is a terrible device for getting a lot of writing done.
While I still have the iPad, a few weeks ago, I pulled the trigger on the $999 MacBook Air model. Here are some of my thoughts on the smallest modern Macintosh.
The first thing most people say when I show them the machine is “I would be so afraid I would break it.”
In reality, it’s not a concern of mine. Apple’s unibody design, precision construction and use of aluminum makes this little machine feel just as sturdy as my 15-inch Mac Book Pro.
It really is wild just how thin this thing is. It’s amazing Apple squeezed a whole Mac in a package just 0.68 inches thick.
It is crazy light. I have to double-check that it’s in my bag some days.
It makes even the 13-inch MacBook Pro look bloated and ancient.
The lid opens very easily. It’s weighted just right — opening the display won’t make the machine rock back on its hinge. The feet are thicker than on most notebooks, helping not only cool the machine, but making typing a little more comfortable.
The built-in speakers are shockingly good for a machine this size. I’m clocking about 5 hours of battery life, and the charger is tiny.
In many ways, the 11.6-inch Air is technically more impressive than the iPad. Having taken apart hundreds of Macs, I know how Apple designs the insides of its machines, and as good as they are at it, this notebook still seems impossible.
The 11.6-inch Air’s LCD is not tucked behind a sheet of glass, so it’s not as reflective as modern MacBook Pros. It seems about on par with the original MacBooks’ LCDs, in fact, in terms of reflections. Brightness and viewing angles are great.
Clocking in at 1366 x 768, the screen is more dense than what I’m used to. I’ve had to bump up my default text size in a few apps, but overall, OS X looks fantastic on this screen. I’ve had no real problems with the smaller display.
At 1440 x 900, my MacBook Pro makes OS X look comically large.
The thick aluminum bezel is a little cheesy, though. It looks way more childish than the aluminum bezel on my matte MacBook Pro. And because the lid tapers around the edges, the iSight camera had to be shifted just below the horizontal center across the top portion of the bezel to fit.
It drives me insane.
The trackpad on the MacBook Air is great. While smaller than on other MacBook models, its feel and travel — despite the thinness of the case — is just like the trackpad on other modern Apple notebooks.
Apple didn’t skimp on the keyboard’s feel either. The keys have the same feel and travel as Apple’s other chicklet keyboards. The function keys have been shrunk down — and a power button added where F13 should be — but the whole thing is great. Very un-netbook.
The lack of a backlit keyboard is a little annoying. While many people have conjectured that the feature was dropped for thickness, I suspect it was a heat issue. Even on the 15-inch MacBook Pro, the backlit keyboard can get warm after a while, and my thought is that the Air’s thin frame just couldn’t deal with the added stress.
Of course, it may just be Apple differentiating its products.
One big issue to consider when looking at the low-end MacBook Air is the measly 64 GB SSD.
The limited storage space is a great way to keep this machine minimal. It really is refreshing to run a stripped down system. I wanted this machine for writing and browsing, so the list of apps I’ve installed is actually pretty short, and mostly related to words:
As of this writing, I have 42.4 GB free. I have no music or movies on this machine. The few dozen photos I keep in my Dropbox are the only images around. My iPhone is always in my pocket, and it’s loaded with media, so why duplicate it on a machine I want to keep lean?
With a 1.4 GHz Core 2 Duo and just 2 GB of RAM, the MacBook Air doesn’t look a speed demon on paper. In reality, though, this machine is crazy fast. Having put an SSD in my work machine , I have no doubt that SSD is the key to this machine’s speed. SSD is the future, and the MacBook Air is the proof.
With just a headphone jack, two USB ports and a Mini DisplayPort, I/O isn’t exactly abundant on the little machine. But despite the lack of ports, this thing is a real Mac.
I know that the rumored refresh is supposed to bring Sandy Bridge processors, but frankly, I don’t mind it too much. I probably won’t be too upset if Thunderbolt makes it into the next MacBook Air either.
Why?
Because it’s my favorite out of all the Macs I’ve owned.
Currently, my wife and I share a 27-inch Core i3 iMac, and I have a 15-inch 2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro. ↩︎
My first week with iOS 5 hasn’t been earth shattering, but it has been ground breaking. What Apple has accomplished is reducing friction in the user experience. They prove time and time again that they can repeat this action, which is more than competitors can claim.
I totally agree.
I learned a good bit reading this article.
I’m proud to announce that Forkbombr has joined the excellent Carbon Ads network.
Carbon delivers high-quality, relevant ads on some of the best websites in our corner of the Internet. Needless to say, I’m excited and honored to be a member of such a fine fraternity.