So, in May I picked up a MacBook Pro. I have now added to my apple collection :-> I picked up an iPhone 3G.
Current thoughts - well, so far I am pretty happy with it. I find the phone to be fairly well organized. Making use of the iCal, email remotely, web etc is just great. The mapping feature is quite nice - though I have found that google maps still does not have *everything* on there, but that is ok.
When I started goofing around with the phone I discovered the VPN support. I had honestly not noticed the fact that the phone has built-in support for VPN access. It supports pptp, l2tp and - of course the Cisco VPN. My new employer uses a Cisco VPN solution so I got all happy and fired it up. Works great - was very simple to configure.
It was actually quite a bit of fun freaking out my co-workers. I started loading up an internal-only web site on my phone and they started to freak out :-> When I explained to them just what was going on - the response was akin to the "ok, I gotta have a phone that can do the vpn stuff - that is just great".
All in all, the iPhone has been good. I've had it for just over a week now. I shelled out the extra cash for the 16gig model which I am happy I did. The 16gig, imho, is probably skimpy - but given the costs associated with making the phone 32gb I can understand the 8/16 models for now.
The phone design UI/interface is quite cool. Voicemail ad dialing are all menu-driven from the phone's screen. Adding 3-way calling is much more straightforward than my old cell phone.
There are a few things which I would like to see on the iPhone. It may support it and I just have not found out how to do it yet:
1) The ability to select/copy/paste text.
- and to then 'right click' or whatever and say search this or find this address etc
2) Disk access to the phone. Make the ability to create a space on the phone to store computer data and access it directly.
3) auto sync of things like wireless configuration settings to/from your primary machine. They support it for email/ical/address book, why not wireless network settings?
4) notes synchronization. I tend to use the stickies/notes for ... well, yea - notes! I would like the ability to sync between the phone/laptop. To me, the phone ( because it is a pda ) is a portable extension to my primary machine - the laptop. Maybe I can do this with a web-based application but I want them to remain private/non-web. EG, I won't always have net access and I want to retain access.
More later
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
its about time
Sometimes it is fun to gloat :-> Made the final payment on the XTerra today. About fucking time.
It has been through a lot and has served me well. Will be keeping it of course - no sense in ending a car payment early only to start another one!
This brings to mind an interesting rant I've had in the past. People's obsession with gas guzzling SUV's and their constant complaint that people should drive less. Think about it for a minute - if everyone who currently owns an SUV suddenly decides to sell it off - what is going to happen? Thats right, someone will buy it and re-sell it. That vehicle is going to stay on the road for some time. Yea its great to get more fuel efficient vehicles on the road - and I'm totally behind it. But seriously, its not going to solve much beyond: a) Filling the pockets of whatever auto manufacturer , b) filling the pockets of the bank whom you financed through ( IF you finance - ... hrm ) c) eat into your finances again.
There is this concept of cost/benefit and total cost of ownership. If you have a car payment of 500 a month and then add in gas at $4/gallon - what is your monthly cost?
a) 500 + ( (4*18)*3 ) + 150 = 866 per month
( $4 per gallon, 18 gallon fill-up. 3 fill-ups a month - then 150 for insurance )
b) 0 + ( (4*18)*3 ) + 150 = 366
Naturally, that is not including maintenance costs and such. We'll assume a few hundred over 3 months - it would average out. But wait, what happens if we get a cheaper car?
a) 350 + ( (4*10)*2) + 150 = 580
( Assume I get better mileage, 4-banger and all... fewer fill-ups etc )
b) 0 + ( (4*18)*3 ) + 150 = 366
That is of course assuming I can get an auto loan for $350/month. A lot of that depends on what kind of car I get and how much I put down - I fully admit. Working with simple numbers here. ( What I really want is a hybrid - but that puts me back at the freakin 400-500/month payment! )
It has been through a lot and has served me well. Will be keeping it of course - no sense in ending a car payment early only to start another one!
This brings to mind an interesting rant I've had in the past. People's obsession with gas guzzling SUV's and their constant complaint that people should drive less. Think about it for a minute - if everyone who currently owns an SUV suddenly decides to sell it off - what is going to happen? Thats right, someone will buy it and re-sell it. That vehicle is going to stay on the road for some time. Yea its great to get more fuel efficient vehicles on the road - and I'm totally behind it. But seriously, its not going to solve much beyond: a) Filling the pockets of whatever auto manufacturer , b) filling the pockets of the bank whom you financed through ( IF you finance - ... hrm ) c) eat into your finances again.
There is this concept of cost/benefit and total cost of ownership. If you have a car payment of 500 a month and then add in gas at $4/gallon - what is your monthly cost?
a) 500 + ( (4*18)*3 ) + 150 = 866 per month
( $4 per gallon, 18 gallon fill-up. 3 fill-ups a month - then 150 for insurance )
b) 0 + ( (4*18)*3 ) + 150 = 366
Naturally, that is not including maintenance costs and such. We'll assume a few hundred over 3 months - it would average out. But wait, what happens if we get a cheaper car?
a) 350 + ( (4*10)*2) + 150 = 580
( Assume I get better mileage, 4-banger and all... fewer fill-ups etc )
b) 0 + ( (4*18)*3 ) + 150 = 366
That is of course assuming I can get an auto loan for $350/month. A lot of that depends on what kind of car I get and how much I put down - I fully admit. Working with simple numbers here. ( What I really want is a hybrid - but that puts me back at the freakin 400-500/month payment! )
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Heresy!
I started my 'career' about 10 years ago. Just out of high school, was playing around with this thing called unix. This odd thing called Exploring - post369 to be exact. I was about to head out on a trip when one of the organizers tells me: We need to talk at some point on this trip - I think I have a job for you.
That talk consisted of seeing if I was interested in cleaning up ( eg, I was wearing cut-off jean shorts and wore gritty combat boots :-> ) - to which I said sure. Turns out, that internship turned into a pretty wild ride. Got into Solaris administration which turned into Linux administration which also included learning lots about networking, the ( evil ) hacks you can do with a linux box acting as a router/switch/bridge and many other things. I have pretty much always been a unix geek - well, except for that very! short period I liked windows. C'mon, had to run games somehow. Long live StarCraft!
The last ~6 years or so I've been a big linux geek. I ran mostly RedHat/Fedora for quite a while. About 4 years ago a co-worker said we should switch to CentOS and thus began my permanent switch from Fedora to CentOS.
( Had to look it up :-> ) MacOSX came out back in 2001 and had captured my attention. I had owned a NeXT for a short while - and I liked the interface. I was really bummed it did not work out for them. The hardware was pretty good for the time and the OS had a pretty interesting look/feel to it. The first thing I thought when I saw some of the presentations on OSX was - heh, thats cute, they resurrected NextSTEP! From there I was quite interested in seeing just how well the OS would do given the past attempts.
Thanks to a really neat contract assignment, I had the opportunity to pick up a Mac G4 tower for free as they were refreshing their hardware. I picked up a nice new hard drive and a copy of OSX 10.4 ( Thanks to an un-named store for forgetting to scan the bar-code :->, that was a freebie too! ). I sat down with it, played and found that I pretty much liked the OS. There were a few things missing imho:
With 10.5 and the decision to run to an X86-based platform, in addition VMWare Fusion - most of my complaints have been answered. I went ahead and, for the first time in quite a while, bought software :-> I picked up VMWare Fusion and a copy of Aperture for my photos. Aperture is neat though I still need to learn some of the touchup features - just a time thing really.
VMWare fusion is missing a few things imho:
I have a few minor complaints about OSX 10.5, though they are reasonably minor:
A few handy links for apple-related things I use so far:
All in all, my experience with OSX as an operating system has been pretty good. The UI is pretty much functional to me. I can get most of my work done with little effort. Having VMWare helps, but I do use Terminal a lot. Having QuickSilver really makes it nice for getting around. It checks things like /Applications/foo if I hit ctrl+space and type foo ( or fo even - it looks for matches in various places ). I think apple may want to consider something like QuickSilver as a new feature and integrate that one!
I have found its nfs support to be ... meh :-> Its got issues, but so does the linux nfs implementation. The changes they made for autofs make automount config pretty much a snap. I have had issues with nfs-related hangs ( sleep the laptop and go off-network, it pretty much hung the laptop until I powered it off and rebooted... not good imho :-> )
I have managed to crash OSX a few times which is kind of frustrating. Operating systems do crash from time to time and that is nothing I would go screaming it sucks! but I would like to think there are ways around the gui crashing - eg, switch virtual terminals and kill the display manager. They may be a way to do it - I just have not found it :->
All in all - well, the fiance's mac book is in the plans. She used to have a mac and she really liked it. I've have to fend her away and kick her upstairs ( I know, I'm so nice :-> ). I dig it - at least for my user interface, I'm staying on OSX. The back-end for the house is still linux :-> And probably always will be.
That talk consisted of seeing if I was interested in cleaning up ( eg, I was wearing cut-off jean shorts and wore gritty combat boots :-> ) - to which I said sure. Turns out, that internship turned into a pretty wild ride. Got into Solaris administration which turned into Linux administration which also included learning lots about networking, the ( evil ) hacks you can do with a linux box acting as a router/switch/bridge and many other things. I have pretty much always been a unix geek - well, except for that very! short period I liked windows. C'mon, had to run games somehow. Long live StarCraft!
The last ~6 years or so I've been a big linux geek. I ran mostly RedHat/Fedora for quite a while. About 4 years ago a co-worker said we should switch to CentOS and thus began my permanent switch from Fedora to CentOS.
( Had to look it up :-> ) MacOSX came out back in 2001 and had captured my attention. I had owned a NeXT for a short while - and I liked the interface. I was really bummed it did not work out for them. The hardware was pretty good for the time and the OS had a pretty interesting look/feel to it. The first thing I thought when I saw some of the presentations on OSX was - heh, thats cute, they resurrected NextSTEP! From there I was quite interested in seeing just how well the OS would do given the past attempts.
Thanks to a really neat contract assignment, I had the opportunity to pick up a Mac G4 tower for free as they were refreshing their hardware. I picked up a nice new hard drive and a copy of OSX 10.4 ( Thanks to an un-named store for forgetting to scan the bar-code :->, that was a freebie too! ). I sat down with it, played and found that I pretty much liked the OS. There were a few things missing imho:
- Virtual Desktops ( Spaces in OSX 10.5 )
- Better game support
- Less expensive hardware
- The ability to run some other me-isms ( virtual machines, run a few X-based apps and automate some things which I had not yet had a chance to figure out )
With 10.5 and the decision to run to an X86-based platform, in addition VMWare Fusion - most of my complaints have been answered. I went ahead and, for the first time in quite a while, bought software :-> I picked up VMWare Fusion and a copy of Aperture for my photos. Aperture is neat though I still need to learn some of the touchup features - just a time thing really.
VMWare fusion is missing a few things imho:
- On start, auto load some of my vms for me in the background ( ala VMWare Server )
- The ability to have my linux guest work under Unity ( which is just cool! )
I have a few minor complaints about OSX 10.5, though they are reasonably minor:
- I really like the ability to have a window follow me when I change spaces. EG, if I have an Adium window up on space 2 and switch to space 3 it should stick with me
- If I click on the finder icon I want it to make a new one - not take me to another one!
- If I click on the terminal app in the launcher, I want it to start a new one!
- If I start an X application, I would like to have a Documents-style pop-up with all of my X applications/windows to choose from
- I would like to have a config option for power management such that when I close the lid and I have the power adapter plugged in - don't sleep the laptop!
A few handy links for apple-related things I use so far:
- Adium
- QuickSilver
- Warp
- Fink
- MacVim
- ... probably a lot of others, those are just off the top of my head ( eg, the ones I use most )
All in all, my experience with OSX as an operating system has been pretty good. The UI is pretty much functional to me. I can get most of my work done with little effort. Having VMWare helps, but I do use Terminal a lot. Having QuickSilver really makes it nice for getting around. It checks things like /Applications/foo if I hit ctrl+space and type foo ( or fo even - it looks for matches in various places ). I think apple may want to consider something like QuickSilver as a new feature and integrate that one!
I have found its nfs support to be ... meh :-> Its got issues, but so does the linux nfs implementation. The changes they made for autofs make automount config pretty much a snap. I have had issues with nfs-related hangs ( sleep the laptop and go off-network, it pretty much hung the laptop until I powered it off and rebooted... not good imho :-> )
I have managed to crash OSX a few times which is kind of frustrating. Operating systems do crash from time to time and that is nothing I would go screaming it sucks! but I would like to think there are ways around the gui crashing - eg, switch virtual terminals and kill the display manager. They may be a way to do it - I just have not found it :->
All in all - well, the fiance's mac book is in the plans. She used to have a mac and she really liked it. I've have to fend her away and kick her upstairs ( I know, I'm so nice :-> ). I dig it - at least for my user interface, I'm staying on OSX. The back-end for the house is still linux :-> And probably always will be.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Its killing her!
Ok, so Ohio had our voting primary back in March. At the time I had not yet transfered my voter registration to the current address so they made me fill in a provisional ballot. I'm sitting there filling things out in one of the voting booth/cubicals and my phone starts ringing. Its the GF looking for me - thinking I got lost or something. The provisional ballot is actually a paper ballot which you fill in with a pencil so it took me a little longer.
By the time I got done filling it out and dropping it in the box she was standing outside the hall thinking I had managed to beat her outside - but no, I am just fucking slow :->
She poses the question: "So who did ya vote for?" - "no one" is my answer :-> It was my own polite way of saying none of your business ( even though I don't care if she knows :->, its a game - we all play games and I relish in keeping non-critical trivialities from her :-> ). She of course gets rather upset and starts the process of trying to determine who I voted for. Its so fun, she is so damned cute - oh and has little/no subtlety.
It has been about 3 months. The primaries are all but over ( http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/3/205916/1276/191/528667 , http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/03/election.democrats/index.html , http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24944453/ , http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7434791.stm ) she poses the question: "So who did ya vote for?" - did I tell her, nope :->
It is probably an understatement to say that I am a liberally minded individual. I don't call myself a democrat nor any of: Republican, Libertarian, Socialist, Green Party - or any other political association. I think the idea of political parties have become something of a problem in our culture. Political parties have turned into a fairly divisional entity. If you are Pro-Christian, Pro-Gun, Pro-Capitalism then your party seems to be the Republican party. If you are pro-Environment, "Anti-Christian", "Anti-Gun", "Anti-Family" ( as some would call it - grossly over-simplified I admit ) then you are one of Democrat, Libartarian, Green party etc. We seek to classify far too much.
I think that generally speaking, assigning ones self to a given political group in a way means you volunteer yourself to also get behind an array of ideologies which may or may not be of your own mind-set.
Heh - wonder if she will ever figure out who I voted for anyway. Some day I suppose I may tell her but we'll see.
By the time I got done filling it out and dropping it in the box she was standing outside the hall thinking I had managed to beat her outside - but no, I am just fucking slow :->
She poses the question: "So who did ya vote for?" - "no one" is my answer :-> It was my own polite way of saying none of your business ( even though I don't care if she knows :->, its a game - we all play games and I relish in keeping non-critical trivialities from her :-> ). She of course gets rather upset and starts the process of trying to determine who I voted for. Its so fun, she is so damned cute - oh and has little/no subtlety.
It has been about 3 months. The primaries are all but over ( http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/3/205916/1276/191/528667 , http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/03/election.democrats/index.html , http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24944453/ , http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7434791.stm ) she poses the question: "So who did ya vote for?" - did I tell her, nope :->
It is probably an understatement to say that I am a liberally minded individual. I don't call myself a democrat nor any of: Republican, Libertarian, Socialist, Green Party - or any other political association. I think the idea of political parties have become something of a problem in our culture. Political parties have turned into a fairly divisional entity. If you are Pro-Christian, Pro-Gun, Pro-Capitalism then your party seems to be the Republican party. If you are pro-Environment, "Anti-Christian", "Anti-Gun", "Anti-Family" ( as some would call it - grossly over-simplified I admit ) then you are one of Democrat, Libartarian, Green party etc. We seek to classify far too much.
I think that generally speaking, assigning ones self to a given political group in a way means you volunteer yourself to also get behind an array of ideologies which may or may not be of your own mind-set.
Heh - wonder if she will ever figure out who I voted for anyway. Some day I suppose I may tell her but we'll see.
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