October 28, 2003
More Bushisms
Slate has a list of Bushisms. One of my favourites:
Short Memories
It was with shock and awe that I read this quote from a Newsday.com article:
Apologies to Lexmark
Boy, is my face red. In a stunning example of partial-competence, Lexmark support has provided me with a set of instructions which while not perfectly clear nor entirely accurate, did allow me to eventually create a connection to my printer. I'm surprised I couldn't figure it out myself considering the fact that the instructions contained intuitive steps like "force-quit the printer selection pane". I'm happy now. Well, maybe not happy -- I still have a laundry list of beefs with Lexmark (102.6% CPU, anyone?), but my annoyance level has dropped by a couple of notches. Yay Lexmark!
October 26, 2003
The Weakest Link
Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Panther's great. No, really... I installed it and have used it for awhile now, and it's just fantastic. Apple's really done it again. Exposé, new Finder, all of it. it's great. But that's not what I want to talk about. Today I want to talk about something that has been a problem of mine for what seems like years, and it just keeps getting worse. I am, of course, talking about the decidely un-Mac-like experience of using a printer with a Macintosh these days.
See, the problem started when Apple stopped making printers years ago, relying instead on third parties for whom manufacturing printers is their "core competence" to supply us all with printing technologies. The problem with that is that although these companies like EPSON and Lexmark indeed do make great printers, their ability to produce decent software is feeble at best, and their ability to write Mac software is non-existant. They just can't do it. They don't get it. They don't understand. Both of these companies suck so bad at producing Mac software that it amazes me that Apple features them promiently on their 'Store' web site. Apple should be ashamed.
Let's take Lexmark for example, since they're the ones I'm currently most annoyed with. I'm sitting here with my Panther system purring along nicely. In a terminal window I have top running and as I type this I can glance over there and see the "Lexmark X83 Monitor" application's CPU usage vary between 2% and 80%, probably averaging out to the 10-20% range. That's 10-20% of my CPU being used to manage a printer that's not printing anything. It's just sitting there, attached to the computer. If I disconnect the USB cable, the Lexmark Monitor freaks out and starts consuming a great deal more CPU, up to 102.6% (and I swear I saw it over 116% one time). It's a good thing I have two CPUs.
But it gets better. The printer doesn't even work under Panther, or rather, the driver doesn't work under Panther. If I was going to be charitable, I'd maybe give Lexmark a chance to update their software, but the last time I did that it was with EPSON and I waited for a year after OS X came out until I threw away the printer and bought a new one, swearing I'd never buy another EPSON product. Everyone in the world knew that Panther was coming out and if Lexmark can't have updated drivers ready on time, then... well... they suck.
"But wait," I hear someone saying, "your printer has been discontinued, so you can't expect Lexmark to provide support for an ancient product." I've considered that, and I don't buy it. It's widely believed to be the case that we're in a Gillette situation these days with printers - printers are dirt cheap so that they can sell you pricey ink. If Lexmark doesn't provide me with an updated driver, how can they expect me to keep buying their viciously overpriced ink cartridges? The only way that can happen is if I go out and buy another Lexmark printer, and why the hell would I do that?
Some might say, "But Brent, it was Apple that broke your printer driver, not Lexmark. You should blame Apple." This is true to some extent. But my take on the issue is that Apple's motivation (and it's working really well) is to improve their products in order to make me happy and keep me as a customer. As a strategy, that's working for me. Over my lifetime I've owned so many Apple computers that I can't remember them all -- at least ten -- and that doesn't count all the software, books, clothing, accessories, my iPod, my Newton, and ... yes... the printers that I've owned with a little Apple on them -- the ones that worked with every system software update. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that I've spent $50K on Apple products so far, and I don't feel bad about that number. I think I've got my money's worth. That's not how I feel when I buy ink these days, and certainly not how I'll feel when Lexmark support replies and tells me that I'm s.o.l. if I want to use my printer with Panther.
To paraphrase Chuq, my take on Lexmark is they want my money, not my business. Well, screw them. They're on the blacklist with EPSON and the RIAA.
October 09, 2003
October 02, 2003
Ahhh, That's Better
They called.
They called and said "Your G5 has arrived." I hung up the phone, slightly dazed, not really believing it after waiting so long -- months really. "Something will go wrong." I thought. Perhaps they made a mistake, or they forgot to put in the extra RAM, or a moth will have been fried on the motherboard causing some malfunction. Something about writing software for practically my entire life has turned me into a dismal pessimist. Murphy's law and all that. I calmly started a backup and drove over to the store.
That's right, I took the car, despite the fact that the Mac store is about three blocks from here. Good thing too, 'cause a dual-processor G5 is freakin' heavy. It's like they make those things out of solid metal or something. As it was there was no parking right out front, so I had to park about a block away. I lugged the box out to the car and jammed it into the trunk. It didn't fit. The box was just too big. I was overdressed for the weather, and was getting really sweaty. I successfully maneuvered the box into the back seat and chauffeured the G5 home.
I wrestled the box out of the car, up the elevator and into my office, then changed into some less-sweaty clothes. In a few short minutes I had cracked open the box and hooked the new Mac into the slot on my KVM switch previously occupied by our Wintel box. I gingerly touched the power button on the front of the case. Nothing. I pressed harder. Still nothing. Whoops! Forgot the power cord. Relief.
After providing power, the computer started. Hmmm. The startup sound is a little tinny, but I'll probably get some external speakers anyway. The mouse lights up -- things are working -- the monitor comes on. But instead of the grey apple on a white field, I see a scattered twitching mess of pixels -- the unmistakable hallmark of bad video RAM. Arrggghhh!
I shut the system down, pull out the phone and call Apple. While I'm on hold with AppleCare, I remove the cover and fiddle a bit with the video card. Seems to be seated solidly. Ahh whatever. I'm so pissed off -- not so much because the computer is busted, because that just leaves me with the status quo, and what's another few days in the greater scheme of things? No, I'm pissed off because I'm going to have to get dressed again, pack this behemoth back in it's box and drag it back to Mac Station to get it fixed. My mood sours. I replace the cover, and start the machine up again as the helpful guy from Apple asks me for the serial number of the computer. I don't have it handy, so I swivel in my chair and turn to look at the box. I read off the serial number and turn back to see the Mac OS "Welcome" application in perfect, non-garbagy video. I fixed it. Ahhh, that's better. I babble at the AppleCare guy for a while and then get started with my reinstall.
Luckily, I had had a couple of months to prepare, so I had all my backups and software ready to go. The install process was the least painful of any I have done. Why? 1GHz frontside bus, baby. I have never seen software install so fast. Even that viscous "optimizing" step that installers sometimes do is greatly shortened. I installed CodeWarrior 8 plus both sets of updates in less than 5 minutes.
This machine is so fast, it was confusing. I'd drag multi-megabyte files from one hard drive to another and there'd be no copy progress dialog. Busted? Did it copy? I open the window. Yep, it's there. I do a little experiment. You have to move about 8MB of data before a progress bar shows up.
I drag the hard disk icon into the dock and open it's menu -- something I never would have attempted with my G4/733. No sweat.
I launch iCal -- my all time favourite for lousy performance. It's fast. I'm starting to think I've achieved my goal: OS 9 speeds. But I've been saving the biggest test for last: iPhoto and our library of... (how many photos do we have? Hey, I'll just launch iPhoto and see)... two thousand and four 3.3 megapixel images. Here we go... I pick the "Italy" album which has 400 photos in it, and I drag the image size slider. The photos change size instantly, as if their size was actually controlled by the slider. No spinning rainbow. I drag the scroll bar. The field of photos scrolls. I can't believe it. Not a hiccup. I'm getting braver, so I select the Photo Library and unselect 'Film Rolls' from the view menu. iPhoto shows me 2004 photos. Drag the size slider back and forth -- a tiny bit slower, but still works fine. I make the photos really small so the window displays about 430 at once, and then drag the scroll bar. Here it starts to slow down some, but then it gets everything into memory and bang, just like nothing, I'm scrolling back and forth over gigabytes of image files. I make them as large as possible and drag the scroll bar again. This is stupid. Will nothing I do summon the spinning rainbow? I feel as though I have entered an alternate universe, one where iPhoto is responsive and Macs aren't intrinsically slow.
Even Stella's impressed when I show her this. "That's actually pretty fast," she says.
Fine, so it's fast. What are the numbers? I pull out XBench and give it a whirl. My old G4 scored an aggregate 64.68, the G5 is 170.52. You want to be wary of benchmarks, but this thing is -- on average -- two to three times as fast as my old machine, and as much as 6 times faster on XBench's memory test. It sure feels like it.
Ahhh, that's better.
Downsides? So far, I've noticed the 'beeping' sound that the machine sometimes makes, often when it's animating something in the dock. I can live with it. The machine is quieter than my G4 and quieter than my external hard disk, but the hum is a little higher-pitched and might get annoying. And it's huge and heavy.
Finally, the fun bit. I install the Bluetooth antenna and pair up the Mac with my phone. A few moments later, all my address book contents are living on my phone, along with my iCal tasks and appointments. Well, that couldn't have been too much smoother. I impluse-buy Salling Clicker and spend the next ten or fifteen minutes playing. Changing iTunes tracks and manipulating photos from your phone is kind of cool -- as is using your phone as a mouse -- but not something I think is exactly a killer app. But it's neat and fun.
Tomorrow's my first day really working with the new machine. I'll let you know how it goes.