Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat

Here’s a surprise benefit from the iPhone 2.0 Exchange ActiveSync ability: I was able to finally move my iPhone’s “home” sync from the PC to the Mac!

I’m a long-time iPhone user and new Mac switcher, but since I use the phone for business (read Exchange) email, contacts, and calendars, I was stuck syncing it to the (work) PC instead of the (home) Mac.  This really wasn’t optimal, as it meant I needed to load all of my songs and movies on the work machine, which is a serious no-no for my “keep ‘em separated” computing preferences. But the iPhone has to be synced to a single machine, and since I needed to be able to keep my contacts and calendars up to date, I was stuck.

All this changed with 2.0’s over-the-air sync ability, though. Once you enable Exchange ActiveSync (or MobileMe, for that matter), you no longer have to tie the iPhone to Outlook. So now I am able to sync my work contacts, email, and calendar to Exchange and my songs, ringtones, apps, and movies to my Mac! Joy!

I first noticed this shortly after my 2.0 upgrade and ActiveSync activation. I docked the iPhone to the Mac to download some photos with iPhoto, and I noticed that iTunes would let me “sync” it there, even though it was “paired” to the PC. Although I had selected “manually manage music”, I couldn’t drag and drop songs or videos, but I noticed that the calendar, contacts, and mail sync settings were now grayed out. This got me thinking, so I decided to take the plunge and blow away all of my content in order to really sync the phone to the Mac. Sure enough, my mail, contacts, and calendars remain connected to Exchange, but everything else now lives on the Mac.

I wonder if Apple considered this implication when they released Exchange ActiveSync. After all, it would seem to tie the phone more strongly to Microsoft but actually has the exact opposite effect. I don’t need a Windows PC at all anymore!

I’ve now been a Mac user for two months. Since I switched primarily to get access to Apple’s excellent hardware, I thought I would issue an update on my observations about it at this point. I should note that I’m limiting this post to the hardware (maybe I’ll cover OS X some other time), and that I’m using a maxed-out Late-2007 2.2 GHz MacBook Pro.

Although some shortcomings have appeared, I’m pleased with the Mac overall. It definitely met my expectations and continues to meet my needs, mixing portability and performance in an excellent package.  I am impressed by Apple’s hardware design and component choices, especially when compared to other computers with similar specifications that I have used.  And, as noted by Tom’s Hardware, the specification of the machine was reasonably priced, especially since I purchased it at a substantial discount and upgraded it myself.

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As I transition to the Mac, I often find myself needing to transfer a file back and forth quickly. I could create SMB shares on both systems, but this requires both to be connected to a wired or wireless Ethernet LAN. Luckily, both Vista and OS X offer functional Bluetooth sharing technology for quick, easy file transfer on the fly.

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I’ve been very pleased by Apple’s integrated backup application in OS X, Time Machine.  It cleverly removes many of the barriers to backup, and makes restore both simple and fun.  But I’ve noticed that it’s not quite perfect out of the box.  Two default settings in particular bother me:  It is set to back up everything, including OS files and caches, and spotlight needlessly indexes your Time Machine drive.  Luckily, both are easy fixes.

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Ed Bott asked how one could buy Apple computers at discounted prices.  I myself recently faced this same question, and I’m pleased to say that it is possible to buy Apple computers for below retail, despite the company’s strict attempts at pricing controls.  I bought my own 15″ MacBook Pro last month for a full 25% less than the retail price.  I learned a few things during my hunt - read on for my advice!

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It turns out that Apple made at least a few errors in designing the hardware of the MacBook Pro.  After living with it for a solid week, I can report that, along with the useless ambient light sensor and wimpy power cord, both of the ‘Pro’s USB ports are compromised!  The left side doesn’t have the power to spin up a disk drive, and the right side shares bandwidth with the iSight camera built into the lid.  Why would Apple make this kind of mistake when PC vendors get these things right?

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I know I’m not the first to do this, but it does make me chuckle to have upgraded a brand new machine less than a week after buying it.  That’s right, my brand new MacBook Pro now has 4 GB of RAM and a massive 320 GB of disk space.  If you’re thinking of upgrading your disk, whether you have a Mac or PC, now might be a good time, as prices have recently hit a new low point.

Read on for details on swapping a disk in a MacBook Pro, finding a great deal on the drive, and how to get Boot Camp and VMware Fusion to work again after you do it!  Surprisingly, this was the hardest part… Continue Reading »

Just a quick tip tonight about something that’s been nagging me.  I love my IOGear MiniView Micro GCS632U KVM, but I’ve had a weird problem since hooking it up to my new MacBook Pro.  See, the IOGear uses a double press on the Scroll Lock key to switch views.  But every time I type this while connected to the Mac, the screen dims two notches.  Pretty quick, it’s completely black!

I just solved the problem.  The old Apple Extended Keyboard, as revered by Apple fans as my IBM Model M, continued the function key mapping past F12, adding F13, F14, and F15 where Print Screen, Scroll Lock, and Pause/Break is on an IBM 101-key layout.  Then they mapped F14 and F15 to dim and brighten the screen, respectively.  See the problem?  Yeah, the IOGear hotkey is “dim dim”!

It turns out that this is easy to fix.  Leopard’s Keyboard & Mouse Preferences panel includes a tab to remap Keyboard Shortcuts.  Down at the bottom of the list is “Display”.  Expand it and you’ll see the two mappings in question - just un-check them and you’re good to go!

While you’re there, marvel at how none of the other function key shortcuts match up to their functions on the pre-2008 MacBook uses!  It’s a really bizarre oversight on the part of Apple to map bright/dim to F14/F15 and to F1/F2 on the same computer at the same time, depending if you’re using the built-in keyboard or not!  Apparently, the company shifted all the mappings around for the late 2007 desktop and early 2008 portables, too.

By the way, about that KVM - it’s pretty good, especially for the money.  I previously used a GCS62, which is a PS/2 in and out model with no audio, but the GCS632U is more suited to weirdos like me that like to use a PS/2 keyboard and mouse with a modern computer.  It takes PS/2 in but sends USB out to the connected computers, and includes audio, too.  It’s rock-solid, unlike the Belkin Flip I tried before, but I do wish the audio cable wasn’t captive to the video like it is - it’s just not long enough for the Mac.

The lowly computer keyboard is so ubiquitous that it can seem unchanging, but nothing could be further from the truth.  It is one of the most important components of any system, and has survived all assaults by new technologies from the mouse to the pen to the microphone, yet its evolution is marked by legacy functions and terminology that can leave computer users scratching their heads.  Today we deal with an issue that has faced many over the past decades:  How to use a PC keyboard with a Macintosh and vice versa. Continue Reading »

So the Mac has joined my replacement work Dell - two new computers in two days!  Here are my first thoughts on the hardware:

• The MacBook Pro is much sturdier than the average PC notebook, and even somewhat better than the high-end machines I’ve used (like my replacement Dell XPS M1330)
• The machine is hot on the bottom when using it a lot, and even pretty hot on the top!
• The fan is really loud - much louder than I was expecting
• The MagSafe power cord is cute but very delicate - I’m not surprised at all that they break and burn right and left!
• The screen is gorgeous - I got the matte model rather than the glossy since I hate the bright reflections I always fight with on my other machines
• I wish the 15″ model I got had more than two USB ports - I just know I’m going to be swapping a lot more than I used to.  But the new Dell has only two ports, too - my old XPS M1210 had four!
• Since I got the older model, it included the Apple remote, which is cute
• Everything about this machine is classier and more elegant than any PC I’ve ever used, from the packaging to the case to the documentation to the power cord
• I hate the auto-dimming screen - it reacts WAY too fast, constantly dimming and brightening as my shadow falls over the left-side speaker grille. This was the first Mac feature to be disabled!

• Anyone who complains about UAC on Windows should try OS X - it interrupts just about as much but forces you to type in your password, too!
• I love the packaging system - everything is self-contained so you can just drag and drop or delete
• It took me the longest time to figure out how to be able to shut the lid and use the computer with an external monitor - turns out it always sleeps when you shut the lid but then wakes up again when you click the mouse or type on the keyboard
• The included applications look much more useful than the ones that ship with Vista, which themselves are far better than anything Microsoft bundled in the past - I can’t wait to use iMovie and Garage Band, and iPhoto seems just as good as Google’s Picasa
• I’m loving the included UNIX utilities - ssh and scp should be part of every operating system out of the box!
• It’s ridiculously hard to change the hostname - apparently you have to edit /etc/hostconfig by hand!  Do they expect that no regular people want to name their computer?!?
• Network setup beats Vista hands-down!  It correctly suggested that my wireless router was filtering based on MAC address, while Vista just said “can’t connect”
• I already installed Boot Camp and VMware Fusion with a Windows Vista partition - talk about easing the transition!