There are times that being a Mac user drives me crazy. Probably the most irritating thing is when I visit a web site when requires Internet Explorer. It just seems completely stupid these days that there are still web developers who only make their sites work with Windows boxes. I've run into a couple in the last few months but they were ones that I needed to access, and I had to go to my Windows box since I haven't taken the time to set up the Parallels software on my MacBook yet.
The other thing that drives me up the wall is that Mac users still are treated like fringe computer users. This happens in spite of the many benefits of the Mac which usually translate into more productive and secure users. The Mac is a great platform, but I don't think Apple does enough to evangelize the platform. Of course with increasing sales, perhaps no one thinks it's necessary. It's a battle I wish someone would fight.
So what are the things that really make me happy to be a Mac user? The first one is really simple. It's the ability to create a PDF so easily in Mac OSX. It really simplifies life, and it doesn't cost anything. It makes exchanging files with Windows' users a snap.
The next great thing I love a being a Mac user is a little more subtle, but truly one of the great advantages of OS X.
It ends up being a back door fix to one of the things about the Mac that has irritated me over the years. That irritation would be the lack of Apple developed tools to fix problems on OS X. Recently I installed Xcode onto my dual G5. For some reason I couldn't get it to uninstall after I was done with it and needed some extra hard drive space. So I ended up just dragging Xcode to the trash can. That along with the 10.4.8 update turned out to be a lethal combination. My dual G5 Mac wouldn't boot.
I tried reinstalling OSX, but it failed. I tried repairing with Disk Tools but that didn't work. My Diskwarrior was out of date and required me getting a CD from Alsoft so I was beginning to scratch my head. Then it occurred to me that there was a really simple solution that would fix two problems at once.
I cracked open the G5 just to confirm that the rumored SATA cables and screws for the second drive were there. I did some checking on the web and then headed off to Best Buy. I picked up a 300 gig SATA drive and headed home. In less than ten minutes, I installed the new drive.
I booted with my Tiger DVD, formatted the new drive and installed OS X. When OS X rebooted, it politely asked me if I wanted to move my information from another partition on the system. I said yes and after a few more clicks I left to let OSX do its job.
When I came back a few hours later, I re-entered my name and address on the registration screen, then tested some applications. Only Dreamweaver had to go out and be revalidated. After I've done a little more checking, I'll probably format the old drive and just use it exclusively for a new iPhoto library. Not only did I fix my G5 computer not booting, but I also fixed my storage problem
I don't even want to think how hard that would have been to do on Windows. I guess that's why this is one of those times I'm glad that I'm a Mac user.
It has been a while since I wrote an Applepeels, and there are a couple of Apple things on which I haven't had time to comment. I've been busy getting my NC real estate broker's license and relocating to NC.
The first is the Apple backdating options scandal. The WSJ reported the following on Oct. 11.
Apple said last week that its investigation raised "serious concerns" about the actions of two former officers in connection with the accounting, recording and reporting of stock-option grants. At the same time, the company announced that former Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson had resigned from the company's board. Apple said it will provide all details regarding the actions of the two former executives to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Separately, federal prosecutors in San Francisco have begun to investigate Apple's options practices, a person familiar with the matter has said.
It was interesting to see Fred Anderson basically fall on Steve Job's sword. I have the utmost respect for Fred Anderson. He's one of the few executives at Apple that I would work with again. I can understand Fred taking responsibility, but I don't think Fred is actually the instigator of any options backdating. Fred was not part of the group that came in with Steve Jobs. He was a holdover from the Amelio days. He was also a tough financial officer and not prone to giving away company funds. I'm willing to bet that the options backdating involves some of Steve's buddies that came over from NEXT. You can be sure if boat loads of options were given away to some of Steve's inner circle, it wasn't Fred Anderson's idea. I suspect the orders for the options came from the top. I guess ignorance of the law is okay if you're Steve Jobs.
My take is that Fred Anderson is the only one of the Apple people with enough moral courage to take responsibility. He's definitively the kind of executive who would take a bullet for the company.
The other issue that I feel the need to comment on is the MacBook. I've actually stopped using my MacBook temporarily. First, last week I had one of the random shut downs that folks are seeing. It is the first one I had but it came at a really bad time.
Second I've found the touch pad and clicker on the MacBook to be really problematic. It requires so much effort that I having a problem with my left thumb which is what I use since I'm left handed. I'm really curious if others are having a similar problems. As soon as I have backed up my MacBook, I'm going to send it back to Apple since it is a white one which also has the discoloration problem. Hopefully that will fix the problems.
Finally I'm as interested as anyone in the results that Apple is going to report next week. In a July 26 Applepeels on numbers, "The Mac, a different kind of commodity," I mentioned the unit target that I think Apple needs to hit to demonstrate real movement in their computer market share.
Last year I set out a metric of 6,000,000 units to measure Apple's success this year. To get to that number Apple would have to sell 2,307,000 units in Q4.
I'm wondering if Apple actually has a chance to hit 6M units. We will soon know. I've followed some of the stories about Apple's market share dropping based on a survey of web site usage. This is contrary to the information that I see.
I watch the platform stats on a non-Mac specific site which has well over 100,000 visitors per week. Last February which is the first month I have full results for, the percentage of Mac visitors coming to the site was 5.01% .
So far in October, Mac visitors to the site are running at 6.46%.
In the same period, Windows share has gone from 94.25% to 92.86%. This is only one site, but I think we're going to see some good results from Apple next week.
"I'm wondering if Apple actually has a chance to hit 6M units. We will soon know."
We already know, this is utterly impossible. As you said yourself, they would need to ship 2,307,000 units in Q4!
I'm fairly sure they will hit 5 million units for the fiscal year, 5.3 million Macs would be the optimistic high-end of expectations.
Apple's fiscal year ends in September but market share numbers released by IDC or Gartner are based on calendar quarters. With a great fourth calendar quarter Apple could hit about 5.5 million units. Still short of your 6 million goal.
In comparison to calendar 2005, the growth has leveled off. Until now approx. 1 million Macs per quarter was considered a good result, but Apple will need to up the bar to sustain the growth. :-)
Posted by: engrish | October 15, 2006 at 01:04 AM
Regarding the first issue of web sites requiring MSIE, they usually judge your browser by user agent. You can switch Safari's by typing this in the terminal:
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu -bool true
Then you get a DEBUG menu to the far right of Safari on a fresh start. At the very bottom there should be a "User Agent" category. Select MSIE 6.0 Windows and reload the site or before you visit the site and see if that doesn't help.
On Firefox it's even easier with the User Agent Switcher extension:
http://chrispederick.com/work/useragentswitcher/
I use this to access a restrictive local banking web service without issue. Hope this helps.
Posted by: Labrat | October 15, 2006 at 02:54 AM
I've recently moved from a 12" Powerbook to a MacBook, and I had lots of problems with the touch pad. But I've realised the problem is that the touch pad is much bigger than I'm used to and I tend to touch it accidentally with my other hand. Now that I'm paying attention to that, the problems have gone away.
Posted by: Al Lang | October 15, 2006 at 06:34 AM
Holy Cow.. you made it to TUAW.com !
Posted by: one1step1 | October 17, 2006 at 09:15 AM