Weblog of a “Switcher”

Stephen Hargrove posted recently talking about the general trend in Macintosh software where a specific type of software is "done to death". The examples were FTP applications and more recently image editors.

Granted there does seem to be a large choice of FTP clients for the Macintosh. However, is this really a problem? Doesn't this give the Mac user a good range to choose from? I personally use Transmit. I found it pretty early on and like the features it has. So I am happy. I'm sure others would find Transmit not to their liking, but some other client would be perfect for them. With only a few choices, a user would be stuck with something they may not like.

The recent example was of image editors. The article cited 3 new editors either released or soon to be released. Acorn, Pixelmator and Iris.

I recently took a look at Acorn and purchased it within an hour. It does what I used to use Adobe Photoshop Elements for, but now don't have to wait half an hour for Elements to load. (OK, it's not that long, but it does take way longer than I want to wait.) I am also looking at Pixelmator. I got on the beta program a while back, but I'm not willing to use a program in beta for editing that I want to do now. I am more than happy helping out a company clean up bugs, especially since that's what I do for a living. I just wish they would let me know if my reports are arriving when I send them. That and they haven't updated the program since I joined the beta program. One of the other beta programs I am on sees updates as often as 6-8 times a day! I would expect at least one update a day for a nightly build. Ah well.

One type of program that wasn't mentioned is text editors. There is a large selection here too. I own two of them and use those plus TextEdit that came with my Mac pretty frequently. This is one type of application that sees lots of choices across more than just one platform. Windows systems and Mac both have many choices and I would guess Linux/Unix has a lot to choose from too. Maybe it's the fact that pretty much every operating system has a control/object/whatever that is a very basic text editor built right in. So creating a text editor is just a matter of writing the support code to the developers liking.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Acorn, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Beta Program, Beta Programs, Bugs, Choices, Ftp Clients, Half An Hour, Hargrove, Image Editors, Liking, Mac User, Macintosh, Macintosh Software, Pixelmator, Platform Windows, Text Editors, Textedit, Windows Systems

I had a bit of a scare this morning. I was happily reading my news feeds and checking out a few programs I had found through those feeds when all of a sudden I got a "Gray Screen Of Death". The Macintosh equivalent of the dreaded Windows Blue Screen Of Death.

I rebooted a few times and was still getting the GSOD. I was starting to panic myself. I had pretty much finished my migration to the Mac. I have a ton of files on the Mac that I copied over from the Windows boxes and removed from them. I was starting to think I was going to have to waste them to reinstall OS X.

You see, my track record with Linux/Unix systems is not very good. I'm batting just about 1.000 when it comes to killing Linux/Unix systems. It really doesn't matter what they are. TiVo's, routers, installed Linux distro's, etc... If it has something to do with Linux, I'll kill it at some point in time.

So I started the "diagnostic" process. I rebooted with Command-Option-P-R, then just the Option key held down, no joy. I attempted to boot from CD-ROM, but still no joy. I did find that the kernel was panicking before user login. I finally found the process of rebooting with the Shift key held down, bringing the computer into Safe Mode. That finally stopped the Kernel Panics.

So, after about a half an hour of my attempting everything I could think of, I started the process of getting ahold of someone at Apple Care. While waiting on the phone for a tech, I started thinking. Since the panic is occurring before a user logs in, the problem must be something that is getting loaded up before users get logged in.

So I started poking around in the /Library folder and found the /Library/StartupItems folder. I had a feeling that the program causing all this was a CiscoVPN client I had installed the night before. I found a couple of files in the /Library/StartupItems folder and moved them out. I then looked in the /Library/Extensions folder and found a file in there that went with the VPN client. I moved it out of that folder too.

I then rebooted and presto, no kernel panic. I kept testing the system and kept waiting for a tech from Apple just to make sure I was doing the correct thing. Then something even more amazing happened.

An American answered the phone! I was almost shocked speechless. Apple hasn't outsourced it's tech support to India! So I asked the tech about the problem I experienced and my procedure on solving the problem. He assured me that he would have walked me through the same process trying to track down the problem. So I thanked him for his time and hung up.

What did I take away from the experience. One: I'm pretty darn good and solving problems with computers. Even ones I haven't used in over 5 years and more importantly, Two: Apple's tech support has to be the best of all the computer manufacturers out there. Finally, Three: Mac's ROCK!

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Ahold, Blue Screen Of Death, Command Option, Gray Screen, Half An Hour, Kernel Panics, Library Extensions, Library Folder, Macintosh Equivalent, News Feeds, Option Key, Os X, Point In Time, Safe Mode, Scare, Shift Key, Tivo, Unix Systems, Vpn Client, Windows Blue Screen Of Death

So, thanks to Microsoft Windows, I was finally able to convince my parents to switch to a Mac as well.

Why? Well, my Dad mistakenly used Internet Explorer to go someplace on the web. Apparently, that place wasn't very nice, and the next thing he knew, windows were popping up left and right. Later, when my mother tried to use the computer, Internet Explorer windows started popping up all over the place for her too. There were two processes running that were suspicious looking. "isamini" and "isamonitor". Looking these up on Google, I find that one is a trojan and the other was just malware in general. Aparently both do bad things to the system.

So this weekend, I spent 6 hours backing up their data, wiping out their HD and re-installing Windows. The backup/re-install/restore didn't take that terribly long. It was the freaking UPDATES that took forever. First, there was the fact that Windows Update thought we were not using a Genuine copy of Windows. That was utterly ridiculous. I used the "Re-install" disk that came with the freaking computer. I had to go through some bizarre set of webpages that identified the little certificate on the side of the computer. Once I did that, I was allowed to start the update process.

There were 10 updates in the first set. That took about a half an hour, then came SP2, that took about 45 minutes, then after SP2, there were 49, count them, 49 more updates that needed to be done. I stopped at this point. Enough is enough.

So to try to combat future problems, I set up both my parents accounts as "limited users". This works great. Now, they are not allowed to change the Power Saving features in the Display options. I also forgot to install some printer drivers they need for the printer they have. So back to their house I went tonight to make those adjustments.

Tomorrow afternoon, on my way home from work, I'm buying a MacMini for them. I'll get it setup and bring it over to them when I finish. If they don't want the Windows box, I'll probably bring it home and install a Linux distro on it.

There was a time when I really though that Winows was not all that bad. Between Vista being as useless as Windows XP when it comes to security, (I'll explain) and XP being useless, it wasn't really all that hard to convince the matriarch of the family that the switch was necessary.

I make the claims about XP and Vista that I am making due to the fact that Vista seems to have a similar security model to XP. A "Standard user" can't do much (apparently they can change the power saving features unlike XP). I suppose this is a good thing. However, in order to do anything with the system, you have to log into an administrator account. XP is the same way with it's "Limited user" accounts. I take part of the above statements back... I tried to change a setting somewhere else, and it asked to put in the password of the admin account. So they did make some improvements. Maybe the other places it doesn't ask will get fixed before it's released.

I am writing this post under Vista as a "Standard user". Basically, I want to see how Vista fairs compared to OS X and the way it handles changes to the system by non-admin accounts. Windows XP just doesn't deal with Limited users at all. From what I can see with Vista, at least it has the ability to make some changes as a Standard user. My opinion, it doesn't stack up at all. Apple got it right with OS X and the way it deals with standard users vrs admin users.

Thank God I was able to convince my parents to switch. :whew:

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Computer Internet, Dad, Genuine Copy, Google, Half An Hour, Hd, Installing Windows, Internet Explorer Windows, Isamini, Isamonitor, Macmini, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, Parents, Printer Drivers, Sp2, Tomorrow Afternoon, Trojan, Windows Box, Windows Update