Another Day, Another Year Older

8 Comments Thursday, Mar 20, 2008, 7:15 am

Today is indeed a depressing day. Another mile on my odometer. The striking of my biological clock, lets out a sad groaning tone - it’s my Birthday!

“Personally I think birthdays and anniversaries are like menstrual cramps, a regular pain in the ass that’s somehow connected to birth.” - Hugh Elliott

Apple’s New Keyboard Design Has Won Me Over

4 Comments Monday, Mar 17, 2008, 6:36 pm

Folks, I am pecking out these words on Apple’s innovative new low-profile desktop keyboard, and having a marvelous epiphany in the process. This is without doubt the best desktop keyboard I have ever had the pleasure of fondling. The keys are responsive and well spaced. I find myself making far fewer accidental keystrokes and typos. And now I am so completely hooked on it I can’t fathom going back to traditional scissor-switch style keyboards, which seem antiquated in comparison. It’s that good. read more »

Robert Scoble Needs a “Twittervention”

2 Comments Friday, Mar 7, 2008, 12:54 pm

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Apple Trots Out More MacBook Reruns

5 Comments Tuesday, Feb 26, 2008, 8:30 am

Let me say straight off that I am imbibed with as much Mac fetish as the next fanboy. When it comes to notebooks, the MacBook Pro still remains the standard by which all contemporary laptops are judged, in my feigned humble opinion. But today’s “new” MacBook rollout left me feeling as though I’m watching reruns of early 1950s sitcoms. Did Apple’s hardware design team go on a writer’s strike? Was Johnny Ives shipped away in a crate to some Chinese manufacturing plant? Why is Apple prolonging the life of these tired designs? read more »

Bento: iWork’s Missing Database App?

2 Comments Thursday, Feb 21, 2008, 8:10 pm

When it comes to business applications, nothing is more banal and boring than database software. My gastrointestinal tract contorts into many painful geometric shapes when I recall the times I was forced (usually at gunpoint) to use Microsoft Access at work. Sitting in front of my PC with eyes glazed over, staring at a sea of grey dialog boxes and blank fields. Much Pepto-Bismol was consumed during working hours, I can tell you.

Needless to say it’s no fun. And outside of a niche market for data crunching geeks and masochists, the average home user has little interest in spending their Sunday afternoon learning the fundamentals of fields, forms, and recorded lists. Wouldn’t it be great if some daring company were to forge a rich database application so easy to use and visually intuitive that even common peasants could learn?

Well someone did, and the shocking part is it wasn’t Apple! Well, not directly anyway (FileMaker is a subsidiary of Apple). read more »

How I Became a Mac Snob: The Journey of A “Switcher”

6 Comments Monday, Feb 18, 2008, 9:46 pm

To look at my blog and read my rapturous Apple exalting posts, you might assume that I am a long time Mac fanboy who gets teary eyed in the presence of an Apple IIc, or screams like a giddy teenage girl at the mere mention of SCSI drives. Nope. That was all long before my time. The truth is that I am a “Switcher”; A Windows user who converted to Mac. And even then only recently. My affinity for Apple grew over a number of years, culminating in the final decision to move to OSX as my primary platform, supplanting Windows. It didn’t happen overnight, and it almost didn’t happen at all.

How did I arrive at this point, you ask? Read about my long journey after the jump. read more »

[Update] Harmony Restored to My Ivory Tower

No Comments »Saturday, Feb 16, 2008, 7:51 am

As a follow up post to my earlier Leopard lament, the lovely and luscious Christina Warren of TUAW fame refered me to a thread in the Apple Support forums regarding a similar problem stemming from a corrupted input plugin found in App4Mac’s RapidoWrite. As it so happens, I did have RapidoWrite installed once upon a time, but later banished it from my system (thank you AppZapper), never to be seen or heard from again… or so I thought.

It seems RapidoWrite left me with an unwanted parting gift that was the cause of my despair. Heeding the advice in that aforementioned Apple forum thread, I reinstalled RapidoWrite - rebooted my Mac - then relaunched all previously afflicted applications, such as Journler and Address Book, and voila! No more gibberish text. Thank you, Apple Support forum, and thank you Christina.