Category: Technology

Apple likes and annoyances

I’m writing this post on the Mac. I’ve come to like and dislike things about the Mac.

To sum it up, I do not understand the fascination with Apple. It seems to be driven by a misguided response to Microsoft Windows Vista. I really feel Vista is overall a superior OS.

Mac likes:

  • Better apparent hardware quality than PC. The essential chips and wires are the same. It’s the packaging and fit and finish that’s better. But it’s not night and day. For example, Lenovo’s laptops aren’t “pretty,” but they are well designed.
  • Pretty. Except perhaps for Sony, PCs just don’t look great. But then again, I don’t, either. So this is a weak plus.
  • Very fast boot and shut down. Start up is less than a minute, shut down is just seconds. I guess that Apple must be able to massively optimize its code since, unlike Vista, it doesn’t need to run on varied hardware configurations.
  • One version of OS X. Microsoft screwed up with its confusing flavors of Vista. Apple was right to include everything in one version at one price. The only valid counterpoints I can think of are support and enterprise reluctance to install everything. But tools already exist to address both problems.
  • Freeware enthusiasm. Those developing freeware for the Mac see more enthusiastic about developing well-running, easy to use applications than comparable efforts for the PC or especially Linux.
Mac dislikes:
  • Safari is surprisingly buggy, insecure, and is prone to UI glitches, incompatibilities, and stalls for no apparent reason.
  • The kernel panic I induced without trying.
  • Sometimes crashes when awakening from sleep. When this happens, the laptop stops responding, and the “on” light doesn’t even light. The only way I can get it back on is to hold down the power button for 5 seconds (like a hard power off when it’s on) then power it back on. This sometimes happens to Vista, too.
  • No second mouse button. Come on, how long have PCs had 2 button mice? Control-click? Whatever.
  • Touchpad is too big. I keep sliding other fingers on it because it’s so huge. Somehow I change Safari’s font size when a finger slips. (And searching on Safari gestures still hasn’t explained why that happens.)
  • Menu bar stuck to top of screen. Windows does it better: menu bars are attached to the application window. Actions that require lots of menu use really get annoying on OS X.
  • No concept of multiple instances of an application. OS X has strictly one copy of an application open, and if it has multiple windows, they all share the same menu bar. That means you cannot Command-Tab between windows of the same application; you have to switch to Command-`. Binding task switching to application affinity sure seems arbitrary. It’s like the old days where you had to open an application before opening the document.
  • Because of prior problem, too easy to close out all windows/documents of one application. Command-Q and hitting the wrong button does it.
  • The knowledge that I am indirectly supporting an unusually smug, proprietary, sue-happy corporation. In my opinion, Apple to computing is like Prius to automobiles: the social statement seems to take undue weight, bordering on arrogance. But what is this social statement for?
    • Despite their use of BSD, Apple is highly proprietary.
    • Even though it’s compatible with clone hardware, Apple makes it quite difficult and illegal to run OS X on non-Apple hardware.
    • Apple sues bloggers.
    • Apple is a profit-loving company just like Microsoft.
    • Apple sells its stuff at well above market prices.
  • Apple menu, application menu, File menu on every application. Windows does it better with a master Start menu and the application-specific menus neatly attached to the application.
  • Errors often get buried with no indication. Only on some errors do I see the bouncing icon on the dock. Many errors go unnoticed if the “erroring” application isn’t in the foreground.
  • Poor busy notifications. The cursor only occasionally indicates that the computer is “working.” The application’s icon in the dock only bounces for a smallish portion of its load time. There’s no hard drive light, and Safari has no “working” indicator like all other browsers.
  • The dock. Pretty but poorly executed. The “running” indicator is hard to see. Windows again got it right:
    • Start menu contains both “pinned” items, most frequently used applications, and all the rest of your applications are just a click away.
    • Running applications are clearly visible in the Taskbar.
There was a time that I thought I may be interested in an Apple. But now that I have one, I think it’s going to be a toy more than a workhorse.
Why am I still on this Apple? My Lenovo X60 developed a hardware problem. I received it back from Solectron today (contract repair company), and it developed a serious “power on” problem, and the tablet functionality stopped working. I should get my Lenovo back on Thursday. I cannot wait!

So much for “it just works”

I was issued an Apple MacBook Pro at work today. We are about to deploy some Apple servers, and apparently server administration works better if done from a Mac OS X client.

Construction, aesthetics, fit and finish, and design seem more refined than typical PC laptops.

However, after I installed an AirPort update, I ran Safari and then installed iTunes. Safari crashed HARD. I couldn’t even force quit it. Because of that, I couldn’t even restart the computer. It just refused to close out the OS.

So I had to power the thing off by holding down the power button for 5 seconds.

Powering back on, I get this nasty error:

Yeah, that’s right, kernel panic! As in, “you’re gonna reinstall from scratch.”

One hour later I’m back up–after reinstalling from scratch! With some help, I learned how to hold down Option to force the equivalent of pressing F8 in Windows. I erased the old image and installed a whole new OS.

For all of Windows’s faults, Vista has never left me this stranded!

Industrial Boulevard poll = Dallas City Council looks like dummies

Dallas City Council members have traded entertaining barbs over a recent poll about renaming Industrial Boulevard. The winning choice was Cesar Chavez.

The problem is the poll is complete bunk. In no way could it accurately represent the voice of Dallas citizens.

The poll allowed people to vote over fax, email, and phone. How do you ensure that voters only vote once, and how do you ensure that voters are actual Dallas citizens? You can’t!

The Dallas Morning News says that city staff attempted to “weed out vote-stacking” by eliminating “more than one vote … from the same computer” Also, “a three-vote maximum was allowed per phone…” (link)

First, there is no way to accurately enforce one vote per computer on this poll. Since the site did not let users log in (and reference some kind of credential), there are only two ways to ensure uniqueness:

  • One vote per IP address. I doubt they chose that; it would effectively block most users of ISPs that proxy users behind few IP addresses, such as AOL.
  • Set a cookie. The cookie can easily be discarded. As soon as that is done, the vote server would have no idea it was the same old browser!

Second, there is nothing preventing someone from calling, faxing, and computer voting (several times). It’s impossible to accurately cross-reference computer votes to phone calls!

Third, without some kind of pervasive, city-issued ID system, it is utterly impossible to validate that votes came from Dallas residents. Without advanced techniques well beyond the scope of this survey, it is utterly impossible to link computers to specific cities. And even if phone numbers were validated, how do you know the person on the other end of the line isn’t a commuter from the ‘burbs?

City council: please stop. You’re making yourself look like idiots.

With way it was conducted, this poll is only good for entertainment value. Nothing else!

Nutty inter-blog linkage

On the top of my Google Mail (which I highly recommend), I see a headline reading Engaged – Refurbished iPhones are an excellent source of previous users’ data. I click.

Obviously that’s not the article source, so I click on the source link and come to The Unofficial Apple Weblog’s Refurb iPhones still contain previous users’ data.

That’s not the original source! I follow a link to iPhone Atlas’s Refurbished iPhones may contain other users’ personal data.

That’s not the original source! I follow a link to another iPhone Atlas article: Warning: iPhone “Restore” does not delete personal data.

That’s not the original source! I follow a link to a blog named Jonathan’s Grits ‘n Butter.

Finally, the source!

Lazy, amateur journalism! This is the internet. Linking to the source is easy. Why make it so difficult to find?

Web host comparison

I host all my sites at 1and1.com using its Linux “Beginner” hosting. Even though it’s called “beginner,” I am barely using my package’s limits. My disk utilization is about 15% of max, and my monthly bandwidth utilization is at 0.5%. At $4 per month, this package is a steal.

It still has several downsides:

  • No announce or discussion lists. Only 1and1’s $10/month and $20/month packages support these but are arbitrarily limited to 5 lists.
  • Arbitrary limits on some resources such as subdomains (25) or MySql databases (10).
  • Slooooooooooooooow. Sometimes pages on my blog or other sites take several seconds to load. It’s probably because of overwhelmed MySql servers.
  • Incompetent support. Level 1 is outsourced to foreigners who barely know what they are doing.
  • Intransigent support. Sometimes it’s like pulling teeth to convince level 1 support that, yes, I really do know what I am talking about. I’ve lost email thanks to this.
  • Missing features. For example, no SSH shell access or Image Magick.

Can I improve by going with another shared hosting service?

Probably not. All inexpensive shared hosts operate on the overselling model, meaning they intentionally overbook resources, sometimes badly. All the major overseller-model hosts, including Dreamhost, AN Host, Hostgator, GoDaddy, Bluehost, etc., all have plenty of “x sucks” Google results. E.g., dreamhost sucks.

If you are going with a shared host, just go with the cheapest one that doesn’t suck too badly. 1and1.com foots that bill for now.

The next step from shared hosting are virtual private servers (VPS). This is where a powerful machine emulates many complete computers, and you rent one of those virtualized computers. We use this at SMU for a growing percentage of our servers.

Several of the shared hosts offer VPS. However, how can I trust these hosts not to oversell VPS, too? Plus, the resource allocation is pitiful. You can’t get 512MB RAM on 1on1’s VPS until you pony up almost $60 per month.

The next step up is dedicated hosting. This is even less price efficient, understandable since you are renting actual physical machines. And since these are physical machines, you get the added complexity of discrete machine management, a real pain during hardware problems.

CoreNetworks.net has apparently inexpensive dedicated hosting by a long shot, but you know what they say about the lowest bidder…

Suppose I was to get a dedicated or VPS hosting plan? I know enough to hack together a Ubuntu server, but I would have trouble being a true server administrator. I need a trusted individual who can administer it for me.

Amazon.com’s Elastic Cloud Computing could be a solution. It goes back to the VPS model, but Amazon’s reputation for reliability and (relative) inexpensiveness is enticing. They just a feature called elastic IP, which mimics a static IP.

My mind is spinning on alternatives. I know a guy who has CoreNetworks.net’s $50/month midrange MR28 package. I’m willing to pay him much higher than $4/month if he can host my sites. The biggest limitation is only a 120 GB hard drive. However, since I am only using 1.5 GB right now, would that ever really be a problem? But Amazon.com’s Elastic Cloud Computing sure is tempting…

Likely outcome? Analysis paralysis, meaning I’ll do nothing!