About Mac Clones

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In what can only be interpreted as another sign of gaining market share, the movement to hack OS X onto PC boxes has gone commercial. Psystar promises to sell its “Open Computer” (earlier today it was “Open Mac” but I suspect some lawyers caused that to change) with better hardware at a cheaper price than Apple and even a version with OS X pre-installed.
To be honest, the idea of hacking OS X onto a windows box has about as much appeal to me as eating caviar in an outhouse. The reason I like the Apple echosystem is because it IS an echosystem where everything works together. Spending countless hours trying to keep OS X running on a machine it is not supposed to work on defeats the purpose. Psystar even explains that updates aren’t certain on their Mac clone.
From Psystar’s site ….
Can I run updates on my Open Computer?
The answer is yes and no. No because there are some updates that are decidedly non-safe. Yes because most updates are not non-safe.
What the writer lacks in grammar skills are more than made up for in creativity*
I understand how some argue that Apple shouldn’t keep OS X as an Apple hardware exclusive but after being stuck driving a PC for many years I say keep it locked down with padlocks and thick chains. I have my doubts whether Psystar will be allowed to stay in the Hacintosh business very long but it certainly will be interesting to see how it all develops.
*Credit for finding this gem actually goes to John Gruber.

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Review – Big Bang Brain Games

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I’m what you would call an “old school” gamer which means while I’m generally cannon fodder in Halo, put me on a 25 year old stand-up Tempest game and watch out! So I’ll admit I’m not the most up to date gamer out there but I’m also a parent. When I saw Freeverse’s Big Bang Brain Games I was immediately interested. This looked like something that would be fun for my family to do together.
So we installed Big Bang Brain Games on the iMac and took a crack at it. This software actually includes six games. They are all rendered with 3-D Graphics and have a whimsical sense of humor.
Sudoku is … well … Sudoko. It has over 50,000 puzzles included from “Easy Breazy” to “Diabolical.” I wanted to show my 11 year old some of my Sudoku strategies. Well that was my plan but before long she was showing pity and helping me out.
There is also a MineSweeper clone called NovaSweeper and one called Echo that reminds me of a game I used to play as a kid called Simon. You have these four colored spheres. Each emits a tone in sequence and you have to repeat them. As you get better, the spheres start spinning.
Remembrance gives you a deck of cards with various symbols behind them. You have to flip the cards and look for matches. I used to play this game as a kid with a deck of cards and we called it “concentration.” When I played this game with my kids in Big Bang Brain Games, my six year old beat me. Are we starting to see a trend here?
I thought Reaction was the most innovative game. You have a board full of molecules. The goal is to pop as many as possible with the fewest clicks. If you get it just right you create a chain reaction that clears the whole board. This was much more satisfying to me than it probably should have.
My favorite game, however, was Fallacy, which is a logic based riddle game where an argument is placed on the screen and you have to choose how it logically fails with choices such as “Hasty Generalization”, “Appeal to Fear”, and the “Gambler’s Fallacy.” Well I finally thought I had a game where I could win and then my wife showed up and beat me like an old rug. So I guess it really is back to Tempest for me.
The games tracks your “Brain Usage” which I found a bit intimidating and for those of you who like to brag, it can upload a page of your scores to .Mac. The 3D graphics are very attractive for what are, essentially, 2D games and the dialogue is fun and family friendly. You can download a free trial at freeverse.com. Check it out with your kids but prepare for humiliation.

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The New MacHeist

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This time MacHeist has changed its business plan. For $49 you get Awaken, Cha-Ching, CoverSutra, DevonThink Personal, iClip, Overflow, Wallet, WriteRoom, XSlimmer, Enigmo, Budgom 2, and Nanosaur 2. They plan to release a boxed version at some point. Gone is the tiered system where more purchases gets more software. Also gone is a really stellar title to suck me in. (Last time it was Pixelmator). There are a few of the applications that seem interesting to me (WriteRoom and iClip) but I must admit I’m feeling a bit underwhelmed with this MacHeist outing. I’m not sure if I’ll bite this time around.

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Logic Board #3

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My MacBook Pro is at the Apple Store getting its third logic board and, strangely, I’m okay with that. I first noticed a problem with the right USB port dropping off when accessing a USB Drive or recording. After some diagnosis at the Apple Store, they figured the logic board needed to be replaced. So I turned it in and a few days later got the cal to pick it up.
When I showed up, a very nice Apple Genius explained the new board had a small defect for the onboard battery (the one that keeps time when you shut it down). They had already ordered a replacement but told me to take the Mac home until the new one showed up. Sure enough, they now have the replacement board and are setting things right. This was a great consumer experience. Not because the board was wrong but because they cared enough to figure that out and get the situation resolved even before I knew about it.
As an aside, if you ever get a new logic board, make sure to de-authorize your iTunes account before the replacement. The logic board has the serial number on it so to the rest of the world it is like you got a new computer. It looks like I’m also going to need to restart the Time Machine.

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Revisiting Microsoft Word

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I have not always been kind to Microsoft Word on the Mac. Put simply, Office 2004, was a slug on intel Macs. It was slow to load, slow to type, and clunky. It was also a resource hog since its not inconsiderable code had to be ground through Rosetta. I simply found it easier to use other applications.
It has occurred to me recently that this has changed. I’ve been using Office 2008 for a few months and have found it serves an important role in my day job once again. A lot of the work I do is collaborative. I write agreements and contracts all the time and, sadly, I can count the number of Macs on the other end of that process on one hand. So it is a given that I’m dealing with Microsoft Word on the other side of the table just about every time.
Word 2008 cures a lot of its predecessor’s sins. It loads pretty snappy and doesn’t get in your way when typing. I think the Microsoft Mac:BU has also made some significant strides in making it feel . . . well . . . more Mac-like. I met several of the Office developers at Macworld and a lot of those guys really “get it” with the Mac experience. For me, it was real eye opening. Microsoft Word is legendary for having every imaginable feature. The Microsoft Mac engineers had to retain all of that stuff and still make a pleasant to use Mac application. That is not exactly easy. Nevertheless, they did a good job of containing it all.
Most importantly for me however is compatibility. Microsoft Word on the Mac is rock-solid compatible with that “other operating system.” I can send complicated pleadings and forms and nobody ever knows they were made on my Mac. While Pages can do the same for simple documents, on more complex documents, things break down.*
Another thing I like about Word is the way it has embraced automation. Built in automator scripts and plenty of Applescript support make Word an attractive option for me on a lot of my transactional forms. I already blogged this once but plan on following up on this in the future.
So without really thinking about it, I’ve found myself going directly to Microsoft Word increasingly often. Put simply, Word is back on the team.
* This doesn’t mean Pages is out of the rotation. It also certainly doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped using my “precious” Scrivener. When it comes to detailed research or long documents, you’d have to pry Scrivener off my my cold, dead hard drive.

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Mac Roundtable 37 is Up

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Once again I added my dulcet tones to the Mac Roundtable with the episode that just published today. I can’t really give myself very high marks this time. I went in fully prepared to talk about my experience setting up a syncing process for multiple macs but upon listening to it, my well thought out ideas came out as an endless string of gibberish. Oh well. Guess that is one more reason to read the blog. Everyone else, however, sounded brilliant. Check it out.

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Going Deeper with SugarSync

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So as the readers know, I’ve been obsessing over synchronizing files lately. I had a pretty good solution figured out using my .Mac iDisk and even made a nifty little Applescript to deal with that pesky Bento.
For the last week however, I’ve been trying a new online synching service called SugarSync. I’ve even been talking about it on some of the various podcasts. SugarSync gives you a local client (either PC or Mac) in which you plug in your account information and tell it what data gets Synched. I’ve got big chunks of my Documents folder going up along with my OmniFocus datafile, Bento database, and several other items I want to have everywhere. I then log in on the other computers and tell them what parts I want synched locally (you can also leave them in the cloud). Once that is done, you are good to go. If I make a change to that little text file that keeps my grocery list, it goes up to SugarSync and then back down to my other Synched computers lickity split. I even have the PC version loaded at work and keep some of my forms synched. I haven’t got to the point where I feel comfortable sending client files up into the interweb.
In summary SugarSync does a few things the iDisk solution doesn’t:

1. It is faster, much faster.

My iDisk solution involved a second step that included a Chronosync pass. Put simply I was afraid that if the iDisk went nuclear, so would my data. With SugarSync it is not necessary to add that extra step but even if I skipped that and just used the iDisk solution, it still can’t keep up with SugarSync. I can close out OmniFocus and then walk ten feet to the other computer and open OmniFocus. By that time it will have already grabbed the database file from SugarSync.

2. It is Multiplatform.

The PC Sync works. This makes it really easy for keeping things working between the Mac and PC. My PC sync is very limited but it works just fine.

3. It works on your Phone.

They have Windows mobile and Blackberry software. They also have an iPhone friendly site that allows you to see all of your files. You can access some of the files directly and email just about all of them from your iPhone.

My Concerns

SugarSync has some nice benefits but comes at a price. The revised pricing plan is 30 gigs for $5 a month. The price just doesn’t come from your wallet. It also costs a few clock cycles. As I sit here working on my MacBook Air with 7 applications open, SugarSync is using .1%. I’ve seen it higher though. Earlier it was at 7% and when it is actually syncing it ramps up higher.

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My other two big concerns are security and reliability. The developer explains that the transmissions are all done on a secure connection and the data is also kept secure on the SugarSync servers. I need to investigate further to see exactly what that means. I frankly don’t care if someone figures out how to access my grocery list or MacSparky ramblings. Client documents are, obviously, a different question.
Likewise stability is critical. Last week David Pogue and Walt Mossberg gave SugarSync positive reviews and their servers were understandably slammed. Regardless the system was down so it was pretty much useless for a day. If that trend were to continue, I’d lose interest pretty quickly. They have a free 45 trial so if you are interested, head over and try for yourself.

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