.Mac Questions

After the keynote. I checked out Apple’s website. I reviewed what was posted regarding Leopard. The redesigned website takes a little getting used to. If you look at the bottom of the site you will notice there are quick links to a bunch of different items on the site. A screen grab is below.

I have circled the .mac link and if you visit the Apple site you will notice that it is the only text that is not a hyperlink. Steve Jobs at the D5 conference made a quick mention that .mac was do for an overhaul. Maybe there is more to the .mac overhaul than just adding the back-to-my-mac feature for .mac users. I’m hoping that there are more changes in store for .mac.

MacWorld 2007

Well, MacWorld is over the big announcements were the iPhone, Apple TV, Airport Extreme – a new base station with 802.11n, and a name change for our favorite computer company, Apple Computer is now Apple Inc.

iPhone – I want one, sort of. From what I’ve seen of the keynote and read on the internet. I agree the iPhone has the possibility of revolutionizing the cell phone industry. The iPhone is what I want a phone to be. Commentary predicts that Apple will also release less expensive versions of the phone like they have with the iPod line. I hope this happens as things are now the iPhone is too expensive for me. Also, I want to be able to purchase an unlocked phone so that I can use it with my current service T-mobile. All that said when do I get mine.

Apple TV – The iTV is finally released in its final form. The only surprise here was the include 802.11n wireless networks. Apple also announced that the latest round of computers with the Core 2 Duo chips have the 802.11n chip sets in them. Also announced was a new version of the Airport extreme base station that is also has 802.11n networking.

Missing in action – Leopard – no mention of the new version of the operating system. I was expecting at least something even if it was a minor mention of the new release. With Vista due out to the public at the end of the month. I figured that Apple would at least do something. Maybe we will see a special announcement before February. Also missing was any mention of iLife 07 or iWork 07. Overall I think MacWorld 2007 was a great success. I look forward to see what Apple has in store for us in the future.

MacWorld 2007 Approaches

It is almost December and almost time for MacWorld. What is Steve going to bring us this year?

Here are my thoughts.

Leopard – with Microsoft having released Vista to manufacturing already and saying that it will be in the hands of consumers Jan 31st. I believe Steve will beat them to the punch.

iPhone with all the rumors and hype surrounding this product. Apple needs to do something soon or lose the momentum around this product.

iTV – I don’t expect this to be released until the 802.11n specification is finalized. But Steve may not wait.

iLife 07 – I expect and update these programs.

iWork 07 - There is still plenty of features that Apple could put in these two apps to improve them. And hopefully the rumored spreadsheet app (Numbers) appears also.

Other possibilities include the rumored touch screen iPod, and a tablet Mac. Whatever gets released I’m sure that the keynote will be interesting to watch. Stay tuned.

Computer Purchasing advise

I was visiting a couple of the forum sites that are in my routine and I cam across a posting complaining about Apple and the fact that they had just released the new MacBookPros and can the poster get an upgrade since they had just purchased a MacBookPro.

Here is my advise. By a computer when you need the computer.

Apple and other computer companies will always bring out something new, way sooner than you are ready for. One thing that I recommend is do your research. First research which computer will best meet your needs and in what configuration. Next find discussion boards and see what the rumors are. Are new laptops due next week? Can you wait a week to find out? If the answer is yes then wait a week. If you have to have a laptop to take with you on your business this week then by a computer this week. Something new is always going to come along. Be able to make an informed decision.

Here is my situation, I purchased a 1.83GHZ MacBookPro in August of this year. Apple was already selling the 2.0Ghz and 2.16Ghz models and wasn’t officially selling the 1.83 models from it online store. My local computer store still had 1.83 models at $1799. I can purchase a computer through work and the amount available is $1800. So I went ahead and purchased the 1.83 Ghz MacBookPro. At the time I had already heard rumors that maybe new MacBookPro would be coming out by the Christmas shopping season. My old computer was an aging Powerbook g4 (Titianium 550mhz) it was about 5 years old. And had seen better days. Do I wish that I had wait sure. Am I sorry that I didn’t, a little. Would, I change what I did no. I needed to replace the computer that I was currently using with something faster and newer so that I could take advantage of the new technologies. (Try doing 3D graphs in Pages or Keynote on a TiBook 550mhz or burning a DVD of a iPhoto slide show)

One last piece of advice, max out your hard drive size and your RAM if you can. Buy as much as you can afford. I have found that you will end up using your computer a lot longer than you had planned to, and eventually you will need more disk space and more memory. Remember the best time to buy a computer is when you need a computer.

Running a business on a Mac

I’m a software junkie, I’m constantly downloading and trying new software. While I am not running a business from my Mac I’ve always wondered how convenient it would be to run a business using only Apple products. My software lineup that I am thinking of is: Mail, iCal, Pages, Keynote, Address Book, iLife suite. I’m purposely not include Apple’s professional software because it is specialized to a specific type of business. Here is my example; Suppose that I am going to start up a typing service. This typing service will mainly focus on typing up term papers for local college students. Now, that is a business with no special needs. Now I know that I could purchase extra software to enhance my business but can I get by with just what Apple provides and how easy is it to run a business on only Apple.

I guess it comes down to how many small/medium business owners run just with Apple software?

I guess this comes from the idea that I should be able to use whatever software package that I feel best meets the needs of my business. I shouldn’t be forced to use a software package because everyone else does. Sharing Microsoft Word files would be one example. Now, I’m a technical person and I can figure out how to convert this file to that file and so forth but I help a lot of people that either don’t care or just want to be able to double click a document (word processing or otherwise) and then just be able to edit the document. They don’t want to have to figure out how to import that powerpoint presentation into keynote so that they can make changes. My wife often says, I don’t care how it works just make it happen. I have to believe that my wife isn’t the only person out there with that feeling. While, Apple’s products are intuitive and easy to use, if the user has to constantly figure out how to import documents they receive, they will end up changing what software they use to what the masses are using.

Leopard — My Thoughts.

I have some questions about some of the new features in Leopard.

Time Machine is one feature I have a lot of questions about. I’m currently using a MacBook Pro with an 80GB drive in it. I only have 13.5GB of free disk space left. I can’t afford to keep lots of information in Time Machine to revert back to if I need to. Also, will this information be compressed or is Apple just including the changed information, not the entire file.

Also, I had a friend that had her laptop hard drive crash. Of course she had no backup and besides replacing the drive she had the cost of recovering the data. The only Mac configuration that can include multiple hard drives when you purchase it is the Mac Pro. So what are all the other Mac users going to do if their hard drives crash. Now if I use that as one possible scenario, Time Machine isn’t going to help me in this situation either. The keynote at WWDC 06 mentioned that Time Machine was going to help us backup our data so that we don’t lose critical items. Great idea but there has to be a way for time machine to backup the data to a different location. One of my guesses is that TM will be able to backup to .Mac accounts. That is wonderful with one gotcha! With the current drive space allocation for the standard account ($99/year) you only get 1 Gig of disk space. I figure that I would use that up just for TM files in about a week or so. Hopefully Apple has thought of some of these situations and is planning accordingly.

Spaces is another feature that I am looking forward to. My questions here are: Can I assign keyboard shortcuts to switch to different virtual screens? can I set the number of screens that I have access. The quicktime movie on Apple’s website shows only 4 screens, can I have more or less than 4?

The updates to Mail and iCal look promising also. Overall I think Leopard is going to be a solid update. Apple’s implementation of Time Machine and Spaces will determine if those features become great or ‘just another’ feature. Both of the features have lots of potential. I hope Apple takes advantage of that potential.

What’s Apple coming up with next?

Well I’ve been hearing the rumors that you have. Apple’s new cell phone, the iPhone, or something similar is around the bend. I think that people are missing the boat here. Apple has a great track record with cool/intovative industrial design, so I’m not worried about what a Apple phone will look like more what it will do. I’ve been carrying around a Palm for years now and I find that I don’t use it much. I’m currently using a nextel phone for cell service and I find that I don’t use many if any of the special features. If Apple is going to be successful with a cell phone of some sort they have to go to the next level. What that next level is I’m not sure but I’m thinking along the lines of merging what we currently use together in a way that no one has thought of and can’t live without. If Apple does that then I think they can have another iPod success story on their hands. I’m looking forward to Macworld 07.