That Stings

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Forbes ranked Memphis the #2 most miserable city in the nation:

Sandwiched between Stockton and Chicago is Memphis, Tenn. The home of FedEx has an incredibly high rate of violent crimes, with only Detroit faring worse. The 1,218 violent crimes per 100,000 residents is more than twice the rate in the New York City metro area. The city’s sales tax and rate of government employees committing crimes also fall within the 10 highest in the U.S. Pro sports has been a mess in Memphis in recent years as well. The city’s lone major franchise, the Memphis Grizzlies, has lost 74% of its games during the past three years, the worst in the NBA.

Ouch.

Six Years On, Still Looking Good

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Macworld’s Rob Griffith, on his original 23-inch Apple Cinema Display (the “Aqua” one), which just turned 6 years old:

The plastic case itself is fine, not showing any scratches at all. When I bought the monitor, it had one dead pixel (thankfully, in an out-of-the-way location and one that only shows on black backgrounds), and as of today, that’s still the only dead pixel.

The monitor’s brightness seems to be right where it was when new, too—I leave the brightness slider in the middle of the range, and I find that makes the display more than bright enough for my eyes.

So given the monitor is still going strong after nearly 20,000 hours of use (and three moves to new homes), I think it’s been well worth the cost. Looked at one way, the monitor has cost me about 11 cents per hour of use over six years, which seems a very reasonable price to pay.

I love those displays.

Google Announces ‘Sync’ [Updated]

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As soon as I do my bring write-up of using Google to replace MobileMe, Google goes and makes things a whole lot easier:

Today, we’re offering more people easy access to their information on the go with two-way calendar and contacts sync for iPhones and Windows Mobile devices, and two-way contacts sync for mobile devices that support SyncML. This will be a particularly handy improvement for people who regularly use Google tools, like corporate employees, university students, and busy families.

[…]

For iPhone and Windows Mobile devices, Google Sync allows you to get your Gmail contacts and Google Calendar events onto your phone. Sync uses push technology, which means that any changes you make to your calendar or contacts from the browser or phone will be reflected on your device within minutes. For phones that support SyncML, the tool will allow you to get your Gmail contacts onto your phone. For all of these devices, synchronization happens automatically over the air, without having to manually sync your phone. The connection is always on, which means your information is always up-to-date, no matter where you are or what you’re doing.

Here’s how to set it up on an iPhone or iPod Touch – but there are a few known issues. 

This shouldn’t hurt companies like Spanning Sync, (as Google Sync just works Google Cloud <–> Mobile Devices) but Google Sync only pushes contacts to the phone (not back to the Cloud) so NuevaSync still seems to be a better option for now. but NeuvaSync’s team may be drinking.

Update: I set it up on my iPhone, and the syncing seems fast and accurate, but it does not support multiple calendars – all my events are lumped into one calendar. Not cool.

Update 2: Nevermind. This page explains how to set it up. I don’t understand why the service doesn’t automatically sync all calendars, though.

Update 3: I’m back with NuevaSync… I need contacts to sync both ways.

Update 4: After several emails stating that Google Sync syncs contacts both ways, I tried it again after lunch, and behold, contacts do sync both ways. Sort of. It’s not perfect – Google’s Cloud overwrites the device if there’s a difference. NuevaSync still seems to be the best choice.

The High Cost of Print

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Alley Insider:

…we thought it was worth pointing out that it costs the Times about twice as much money to print and deliver the newspaper over a year as it would cost to send each of its subscribers a brand new Amazon Kindle instead.

[…]

Are we trying to say the the New York Times should force all its print subscribers onto the Kindle or else? No. That would kill ad revenues and also, not everyone loves the Kindle.

What we’re trying to say is that as a technology for delivering the news, newsprint isn’t just expensive and inefficient; it’s laughably so.

As expensive as print media is (paper, ink, delivery trucks, etc…), I think paper newspapers will go away, especially in a world where the bottom line always wins. However, I don’t think it will be any time soon – people like the feel of a paper or a magazine.

Print and Web ‘Colliding’

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The New York Times:

This is where the print newspaper and the digital newspaper are colliding. The traditional once-a-day cycle allows more time for reporting and thoughtful discussion about how a story should be framed. What happened in this case is that normal news reporting, in which a story changes in content, tone and emphasis as more is learned, played out in front of the whole world, instead of in the newsroom before publication. In the process, Kennedy took an unfair hit.

[…]

The Internet is The Times’s future. But the Kennedy saga is a sharp reminder that a newspaper that prides itself on getting things right must exercise great discipline before pushing the button on a fast-breaking story.

Graphite iMac G3 Gets Reviewed

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ForkBombr reader John H. sent me this link to CNet’s product page for the 400Mhz Graphite iMac G3. Check out the manufacturer’s description:

iMac is, quite simply, an outrageously attractive, surprisingly affordable, and extraordinarily easy-to-set-up-and-use system. It comes fully loaded, but brings along none of the hassle you might associate with the word “computer”. Get ready for the excitement of swift, simple Internet access – your passport to a world of information. And the thrill of playing a game so richly detailed you actually feel like you are in another world. Then consider the fact that iMac delivers significantly more power than you would expect from a computer at such a great price. Whether you are a first-time computer user or a highly experienced one, iMac – with its powerful, state-of-the-art (and beyond) features and simplicity of setup and operation – is the ideal choice. It will let you do the things you want to do with a computer, and many things you may only have dreamt about.

For the record, this was my favorite color iMac G3 by far.

We’re All Doomed. Wait, What Was I Talking About? Damn It, I Can’t Remember

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Wired has an interview with Maggie Jackson, author of Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. Here’s some of what she has to say:

Our society right now is filled with lovely distractions — we have so much portable escapism and mediated fantasy — but that’s just one issue. The other is interruption — multitasking, the fragmentation of thought and time. We’re living in highly interrupted ways. Studies show that information workers now switch tasks an average of every three minutes throughout the day. Of course that’s what we have to do to live in this complicated world.

[…]

In our country, stillness and reflection are not especially valued in the workplace. The image of success is the frenetic multitasker who doesn’t have time and is constantly interrupted. By striving towards this model of inattention, we’re doing ourselves a tremendous injustice.

We’re all screwed. 

MacBook Pro: Back in Matte

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When Apple announced the revamped MacBook Pro line in the fall, arguably the biggest issues people complained about was the glossy display.

Apple argues that many users prefer glossy – for good reasons. The colors are richer, the blacks are darker, and the screen looks sharper. 

But as will all good debates, the other side – the matte camp – has some very good points as well. Matte displays show colors closer to how they are in real life. The also look cleaner, since there’s no glass to smudge. Then of course, there’s the age-old issue of glare* – glossy displays have a nasty habit of showing awful reflections. 

Personally, I’m on the fence. My MacBook Pro (Early 2008 – the last one before they got all shiny) is matte, but my iMac at home is glossy. I like both. I guess I’m not really forced to make a choice like some people as I am doing very little actual, physical output – meaning that the colors on my iMac aren’t really an issue, as I’m not printing anything important. 

For people who purchase a new 15-inch MacBook Pro, the glossy screen is the only option. But a company named TechRestore is offering a $200 service to convert a new MacBook Pro’s glossy display to a matte one. Macworld takes a look:

If you saw the stock and modified unibody machines sitting side-by-side from anywhere more than a foot or so away, it’d be difficult to tell them apart.

[…]

It’s not until you get really close that you can see evidence of the actual screen replacement process. Replacing the screen in a MacBook Pro isn’t a trivial exercise, and our test unit has some very minor damage on the bezel and the interior of the screen frame.

[…]

If you’ve seen an older matte-screen MacBook Pro, you’ve got a rough idea of what you’ll get in a TechRestore-modified unibody MacBook Pro. However, when you place those two models side-by-side, using the same color-calibration and brightness settings, the TechRestore screen is notably brighter. In short, the screen is wonderful; the increased brightness is really noticeable and makes anything with a white background look much better.

The service shows that there’s a number of people who want the matte option on the 15-inch machine, but I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable having that type of major surgery done on a brand new machine. The biggest question that comes to mind is: Does this void my AppleCare? TechRestore’s FAQ page doesn’t really answer the question well:

We provide a 1-year warranty on your new screen. Our technicians have performed tens of thousands of repairs on in-warranty laptops since 1994 and we have never had a warranty declined by the manufacturer due to our service. Of course, the manufacturer will not cover any parts we install on your laptop, we take care of that for you. In the unlikely event that you have a problem getting warranty service on your laptop after we perform any repair or upgrade, simply give us a call so we can provide you with assistance. We are here to help.

 

*One thing Apple has done (perhaps accidently) is overcome most of the glare issue by switching to LED backlights in their notebooks. With LEDs, the screen can get so bright that any reflections get lost in the bath of light.

 

Update: Macworld has posted a video of the “MatteBook Pro.”

 

‘Recreating the Button’

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Douglas Bowman, on the new buttons inside Gmail and Google Reader:

The buttons are designed to look very similar to basic HTML input buttons. But they can handle multiple interactions with one basic design. The buttons we’re using are imageless, and they’re created entirely using HTML and CSS, plus some JavaScript to manage the behavior.

It’s a lengthy read, but it provides a fascinating look into the care these guys put into simple buttons.

Saying Goodbye to MobileMe

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I’ve been a .Mac/MobileMe customer for 6 years… all the way back when Homepage was the most bad-ass thing I’d ever used. In fact, Homepage is what brought me into the .Mac fold. Since then, a lot has changed with the service –  what I need out of it. For years, I used Homepage and Backup – that was it. The online portion – email and contacts – was nice to have, but I didn’t rely on it. In addition, I was a one-Mac man: my trusty old Titanium PowerBook was my only machine.

But things changed. These days, I use an aluminum iMac at home, and have a MacBook Pro that work lent me, not to mention my iPhone and my HP Mini 1000 running Ubuntu. I move from one machine to another several times throughout a normal day, and need my core data (email, contacts, calendars and “common” files) on each of them. 

MobileMe got the job done. Even with the disastrous start, it worked. But I wanted to move to a solution that:

1. Had a cleaner, faster web interface 

  1. Better up-time
  2. Better integration and usage in Ubuntu
  3. Cheaper

I’ve had a Gmail account since the service was by invite only and liked the interface, but I thought I was stuck. Since the iPhone can’t sync over USB when there’s an Exchange account, or sync two exchange accounts, I was stuck using MobileMe along side my work’s Exchange server.

This week, I discovered that our company’s mail server could dole out messages via IMAP, which freed my one Exchange setup on my iPhone, as long as I incorporated my work contacts and calendars with my personal stuff. Which I wasn’t thrilled about, but could tolerate.

So after two days of setting things up, this is how my contacts and calendars get around:

Spanning Sync allows me to sync iCal and Address Book with Google Contacts and Calendars. While it doesn’t do push syncing, it will sync every ten minutes, which is good enough for me. It’s $25 per Google account per year (so I can use the same license on two machines legally) – $75 cheaper a year than MobileMe.

So that gets my stuff up to my Google account. But what about the iPhone? Well, I stumbled across a free (!!) service called NuevaSync that will push (over the air using SSL) Google contacts and calendars to a variety of mobile devices, including the iPhone. 

So, in a nutshell, I can use the native apps on my Macs and iPhone, but use the web if I’m on my Ubuntu machine or on a random computer that doesn’t belong to me.

But what about the other features of MobileMe – such as iDisk, which allows file syncing between multiple computers and the web? Dropbox fills this void (again, free, but only up to 2GB) and even works in Ubuntu and on the iPhone via MobileSafari:

The only thing I’ve lost in this transition is my cool @mac.com email address and bookmark syncing. I’ll survive. [Update: I can still sync bookmarks via USB with my iMac.]

Wozniak’s New Gig and the Media’s Obsession with a Sick Steve Jobs

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The New York Times describes Fusion-io, a start-up Steve Wozniak has joined:

The company relies on high-speed flash memory, commonly used to store data on an iPod or digital camera. Fusion-io takes many flash chips and packs them together on a module that is a bit bigger than a deck of cards. The module slides into certain slots inside servers. That gives the main computing chip quick access to data stored on the flash chips. In traditional systems, servers must hunt for data on separate storage systems linked to the processor by a slower connection.

Pretty cool stuff, considering flash memory is quietly showing up on scenes once dominated only by traditional spinning hard drives.

The story is good, but then the writer drags this up again:

Mr. Wozniak expressed support for Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and chief executive, who took a leave of absence from Apple in January to deal with unspecified health issues. Asked about public concerns over Mr. Jobs’s health and lack of public disclosures, Mr. Wozniak played the matter down.

“I am kind of glad that it subsided quickly and has been rather low-key,” he said.

Someone tell me: what the hell does that have to do with Woz or his newest company? I’m disappointed they just tacked this onto the end of the piece.

They Just Don’t Get It

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Infoworld:

In an interview at a New York City event Tuesday to mark the extension of Microsoft’s collaboration with EMC to help IT pros improve virtualization, security and content management, Ballmer touched on the progress of Windows 7, stressing that its faster performance, longer battery life and simplified security settings will be “a pretty good step forward in terms of what users care about.”

For these reasons and others, Ballmer warns, enterprises that stick with Windows XP too long they will hear about it from impatient users who have been using newer computers running Vista and Windows 7 at home.

Says Ballmer: “If you deploy a four or five-year old operating system today, most people will ask their boss why the heck they don’t have the stuff they have at home.”

What planet does Ballmer live on? I think most everyone agrees that XP is far better than Vista. Windows 7 looks promising, but rarely do IT departments role out a new OS as soon as it hits the shelves. I think XP will remain dominant for several more years. 

Also, XP is already 8 years old, not “four or five” years old, Ballmer. Time flies, doesn’t it?