blindsquirrel.org

I’ve been fighting an issue with OS X’s Mail application and it has finally driven us apart. You see, I have a bunch of friends that like to send me email with various jokes in the form of video attachment and the problem is that once I open the email, Mail takes the CPU on my MacBook Pro to the ceiling and the fan kicks in. Eventually the only way to stop it is to force quit Mail and restart it.

But lately even that isn’t taking care of it. I’ve tried rebuilding the mailbox that I use via imap with gmail but that only lasts for a short while. So until I get this one figured out Mail and I are on a break. I have turned to Microsoft Entourage and things seem to be fine. I know many really dislike Entourage, but I’ve had pretty good success with it in the past as I used to use it to connect to an Exchange2003 server with work.

Back to the internets to see if I can find the solution.

I haven’t updated in a while because there really hasn’t been much I felt like talking about, but with the iPhone 3G coming out in less than 2 days I figured I would give my unsolicited reasons why I’ll be sticking with my iPod Touch for now.

My issues aren’t so much with Apple as they are with AT&T, but in the end I guess they both get some of the credit equally.  For example, I like the following items:

• 3G performance.  I live in the Pittsburgh area and the AT&T coverage maps show us just dripping in glorious high speed bandwidth.
• GPS.  This is a pro and a con with me.  I like that the phone can figure out where I am, etc., but it is still lacking in what I really want when we say GPS.  I’ll get to that in the items I don’t like below.
• Price.  Hey, I can live with the extra 10 bucks a month for higher Internet performance, but I have a couple huge issues with the pricing that I’ll discuss below, but the price to purchase an iPhone is very attractive at $199 and $299.
• Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.  Huge pro in my opinion.  I have used cell phones based on Windows Mobile and I now have a BlackBerry Curve.  Overall I feel the BlackBerry kicks Windows Mobile’s ass, but you can’t deny that Exchange ActiveSync is a better, faster, more seamless solution for accessing Exchange.  Don’t get me wrong, you’d have a hard time getting the BlackBerry Curve away from me, but I like Exchange Active Sync better than the BES solution.
• Apps!  OK, this one may be a wash as I have (well, had) a jailbroken iPod Touch and having access to all of those 3rd party applications made the Touch a lot more valuable to me than the factory default model.
• Push email with MobileMe.

But along with the good comes the reasons that I don’t really see the new iPhone 3G in my near future.

• Consumer vs Enterprise data plans?  Come on AT&T, I’ll take the extra $10 a month for unlimited access to your 3G network, but charging enterprises an extra $25 a month, or $15 a month more than the consumer plan is just lame.  It is purely greed and is inexcusable.  There is no reason for this enterprise penalty.  Carries need to stop using the tern “unlimited” unless they really mean unlimited.
• No SMS messages included with the data plan?  None?  Come on.  Actually, all of you carriers out there need to listen up, the fact that you have the balls to charge us for SMS messages when we already have a data plan is ridiculous and is nothing more than another example of pure greed.  We have the data plan, there is no need to hit us for texting on top of it.
• GPS.  So I am hearing that the GPS antenna is too weak to work as a true turn by turn GPS, and I’ve also heard that Apple have stated in the SDK that 3rd parties may not implement turn by turn navigation systems as well.  What gives?  How useful will the GPS be if I can’t get turn by turn directions out of it?  I was hoping to eliminate a device.  Actually, I’m still hoping that Apple will acquire either Garmin or license their technology as I like the Garmin much better than any of the other GPS’ I have used.
• No improvements to the camera or software to control it.
• No video.
• Still no MMS!  Come on, what technical reason is there that the iPhone still does not handle MMS messages?

So the new iPhone 3G is not (yet) for me, but I will keep watching the technology to see if Apple makes improvements to the things that I think are weaknesses today.  I remember when the original iPhone came out last year everyone kept saying that the great thing was Apple could do anything they wanted with the iPhone just by making software changes.  That’s great for some things but that’s not going to fix an underpowered GPS antenna.  Will software magically improve the camera or enable video?  Maybe, we’ll see.

For now, as I write this, I am restoring my iPod Touch back to factory defaults to get ready for the 2.0 software release and the Apps store.  I think those 2 items are the bigger news to me.  I’ll get to play with most of the new applications from the comfort of my home wireless and the iPod Touch.  Maybe some day the timing will be right and the features will exist that put a new iPhone in my hand, but for now I’ll stick with my Touch and the mighty BlackBerry Curve.

I’m usually the one to give the technical help, but now I turn to everyone for my own technical help as I can’t find this answer anywhere – but I’m still looking.

I am using Firefox to access Outlook Web Access and everything works just fine.  But I noticed somewhere along the line, I think with the beta of Firefox 3, that the cursor goes to the bottom of an email when I click on reply.  It used to go to the top, which is where I want it.

I don’t want to get in to a debate on top posting vs bottom posting, as I understand the history of usenet, etc., but Outlook has conditioned us that use it to post replies at the top of the reply instead of the bottom.  I’ve been digging through Google looking for how to get FF version 3 to let me reply at the top of my email but I have yet to find anything.

Anyone?

UPDATE:  I failed to mention that this works as expected when using Safari, but I am testing Firefox.

Since VMWare Fusion has worked out so well, I was finally able to get rid of the last remaining Microsoft Windows computer in our house by installing WindowsXP on our shiny 20″ iMac.  We still need Windows for Quicken since the Mac version of Quicken is not even close to the Windows verion and can’t even import all of your Quicken for Windows data.  Since we’re giving our old Dell PC away I thought I would completely wipe the hard drive, boot from the WindowsXP CD and give them a nice, clean computer to start with.

I forgot how long this process takes when starting from scratch.  I had to load WindowsXP, then I had to use another computer to find any 3Com NIC drivers that would work, then I went straight to Service Pack 2 to reduce the amount of updates needed.  SP2 took quite a while to install, especially since it forces you to backup all your system files in case it has to revert back to them.

Then I ran Windows Update.  91 updates.  Wow.  After they completed and the system rebooted, I ranWindows Update again.  10 more updates.  Rebooted.  Installed IE7.  Windows Update.  More updates.  .NET.  Windows Update.  More Updates.  Might as well grab Silverlight while I’m there.  Oh, can’t forget Adobe Reader, Flash Player, and Shockwave Player.

It looks like I’m finally finished as I am watching it go through its (hopefully) last reboot now.  No way can there be any more updates for this thing.  Total time, somewhere between 4 and 5 hours – and I have Verizon FIOS – 15Mb of glorious bandwidth delivered over fiber to our home.

So thankfully it’s over.  Maybe I’m done building WindowsXP machines now.  The machine is too old to run Windows Vista, but I know from experience that Vista SP1 took somewhere between 1-2 hours to update on a brand new Dell computer.  That’s still a long time to me.

What did you do with your Saturday?

While at home, I’ve done a fairly successful job of not using many Microsoft technologies for my Internet experience.  At work I’m locked in to all things Microsoft, at home I can use any technology I choose.

I use Gmail for my email, Google for my search engine, Adium for my IM client, Safari, Camino, or Firefox for my web browser, Google Reader for my news feeds, and Flikr for some of my photos.  But the most important page I hit every day is my personalized My Yahoo! page.

I’ve never been impressed with MSN.com’s pages and the new Windows Live sites don’t do much for you with an alternate browser or operating system.  I was not happy with Yahoo when they released the new version of their home page because I was so used to the old plain text look, but over time it has greatly improved, added Safari browser support, and is finally performing like the old version.

When Yahoo first released the new version I decided to try to make the move to iGoogle.  It wasn’t even close at the time.  We use the Yahoo Finance pieces a lot and Google’s instructions to import that data over to iGoogle sounded easy enough – just highlight all the data, including headers, and paste it in to the import field.  It almost never worked, and when information finally did import it never brought all the information I needed over.  Very disappointing.

So I went back to the new My Yahoo and that’s when things started getting better.  It’s become a great home page again – except for the massive ad that you can’t get rid of, but I worry that Microsoft’s influence would ruin the experience.

So I took another shot at iGoogle and was happy to see that things have improved a bit and they now have themes as well.  It is still not as nice as my My Yahoo page, but my iGoogle page is pretty darn close and I’m ready to make the switch if necessary.  After all, if Microsoft really got all the Web 2.x stuff they would never be bidding on Yahoo.

From the outside it sure looks to me like Microsoft needs Yahoo a lot more than Yahoo needs Microsoft.

Hang in there Yahoo, you can right this ship on your own.  If not, I’m sure there are better suitors out there that would make better partners.  Microsoft will take your best technologies, rebrand them, and you’ll be but a distant memory 5 years from now.

Hey, whatever happened to Excite anyway? ; p

There has been something that drives me crazy about using Safari to access Outlook Web Access for Exchange email on the iPhone or iPod Touch. Whenever I reply to a message it is always a surprise where the cursor will land and I found that if I just press in one location and move upwards the magnifying glass will popup and it will slowly scroll to the top of the message where I want to reply. The longer the email the more patience this move takes.

Then I ran across this post that discusses two-finger scrolling in Safari on the iPhone. Although it doesn’t specifically mention Outlook Web Access, it does work for what I needed.

When you reply to a message in OWA on the iPhone/iPod Touch just tap inside the message area and the keyboard will popup. Press Done and the keyboard will then go away. Now scroll in the message area using two fingers to the top of the message, tap, and the keyboard will now let you reply where you expected it to. I never knew you could scroll in a text box like that with two fingers. That should take care of Safari Mobile’s lack of scroll bars in certain text boxes.

So thank you to Brett Peters at http://nobodywantsastyl.us/ for teaching me something new, and valuable, today.

Is anyone really surprised that Apple has pushed back the release date of OS X Leopard to October?  Rumor sites have been saying for a while that the releases they have received were still pretty buggy and that they expected Apple to miss the “end of Spring” release date that Steve Jobs announced.  This doesn’t bother me a bit, as I would rather see a stable OS than a bug-ridden one that needs followed up with a couple quick patches.  On the surface Leopard doesn’t really look to offer all that much different from Tiger, but I guess we’ll see what the “top secret features” are when it finally ships, but Time Machine isn’t enough to pull the $129 upgrade fee from me this time.

Don’t kid yourselves, writing operating systems is not an easy thing.  Timelines slip, priorities happen, things change.  I hope all the Vista bashers out there remember how they beat the hell out of Microsoft for Vista’s release date slipping.  What comes around goes around and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of web sites out there beating the hell out of Apple for letting Leopard’s release date slip.

I sure hope the iPhone is worth it.

Ran across this while trying to find anyone that may have the same problem. I like to have the Desktop Alert display the Subject and From when I get a new email. I lost that functionality when I got my new MacBook Pro. Thankfully Microsoft has written a support tip on how to get it back.

You can find it here. Thanks Microsoft. Now let’s get Office 2008 for the Mac out the door (or at least let me know if you need a beta tester). I’d still rather have a real Outlook client, and now the Calendar Items in Outlook2007 look like they were done by the MacBU, but entourage has worked out pretty well so far.

Dear former Microsoft UltimateTV developers,

Things used to be so good between us. I was a happy DirecTV customer using your UltimateTV DVR back when the only real competition was Tivo. I thought you had the product that would take Tivo down from number one, but you guys had other ideas. The small population of UTV users just wasn’t enough for you I guess.

Then came HD and all the amazing picture clarity that I could want. Life was going to be great. But you couldn’t record HD. I hoped, as did many, that you might have an upgrade to support HD, but it never happened. When DirecTV didn’t offer my local channels in HD I had to make a tough decision – either I stayed with DirecTV so I could keep using you at the expense of no HD, or leave DTV and go back to Comcast after 9 1/2 years. I followed the prettier picture, thinking that any DVR can do what you used to do. Boy was I wrong.

The Comcast DVR is a disaster, and the Tivo Series 3 that does HD is pretty expensive and I’m a little nervous about it handling the change in how Comcast may deliver channels later this year. So here I am, hoping that you’ll take me back. I’m sure you guys must have moved your interface somewhere that I can buy? What about the rumors of the XBox360 doing TV recording later this year? That sounds like something right up your alley.

So please former UTV developers. Please. Give me something that I can use that will give me what I had with UTV, but add the ability to handle HD. The shine has worn off the Comcast solution and I’m looking to make a move. Did I mention I make a great beta tester?

While heading for the gate at the Phoenix airport today I saw this AT&T Public Internet phone with a screen sitting at the dreaded Windows Blue Screen Of Death.  Stop 0x7b – Inaccessible_Boot_Device.  Have fun with that one.

Sorry for the crappy picture, I’ve never been able to get a good picture with the cell phone.