The Apple technology trap

Though you have to know what to look for to pick them out, the nerve center of my office has three operating systems running, OSX version 10.4.11,  Windows XP, and Ubuntu 6.06 LTS.

In addition downstairs my new HP laptop is running Windows Vista and my wife is running OSX version 10.3.9 and in the closet is my Intel based MacBook.

That's pretty good dose of technology when add the three printers here, two at the office and a couple more at our other home.

I pride myself in being able to keep it all humming along smoothly.  I have spent significant time on Vista recently and even have found it to be productive in its own way.

I have also read Leopard is the New Vista, Leopard the new Vista? No, and Leopard and new Mac apps are bumming me out.

I did not upgrade to Leopard because I saw nothing in it that I needed and my upgrade to Tiger was not uneventful.  I bought a HP laptop running Vista because getting a 15" MacBook Pro with 25% less storage than the HP would have cost me $1,150 more than the the $849 price of the HP.

Some Apple folks said some pretty nasty things about me for buying a Vista laptop in spite of what I consider to be some technically and financially solid reasons to get the HP with Vista.  I am a Realtor® and no one makes a native Mac package of real estate forms. That is reason enough it you understand what a real estate agent has to do.

Upgrading the storage and ram on my MacBook along with buying a copy of a Windows OS didn't make financial sense especially since I would have been stuck with the 13" screen on a Mac that was six months out of warranty which based on my experience is not necessarily a good thing.

The one thing I have learned about all this technology is not to depend on it.  While the same goes for Windows, I think Apple can be a real serious technology trap unless you are careful.  I would not want my web stuff only in iWeb on .Mac or all my documents in Pages.

I do everything that I can to not be dependent on one operating system.  Obviously I do not trust one set of hard drives, one set of servers, or even on set of email accounts.   I use IMAP email and Gmail and have at least three local copies of my pop mail.

Almost everything that I have which is important is on someone else's servers.  The really important stuff is on more than one server and probably a CD and/or DVD.

I have been very pleased with Vista.  It does what I want it to do, and some of what it does, it does better than a Mac.  I really like Picasa. It works better for what I do than than iPhoto 08 which just hung Tiger so badly on my dual G5 desktop that I had to do a hard reboot.  Actually what hung the OS was ejecting a memory card in iPhoto which probably passed it to the OS as a task which then hung the OS.

In my world that kind of stuff happens even in the best designed operating systems.  I have found that the new iPhoto gets really confused if I have used one of my SD memory cards in multiple cameras which I sometimes do in a pinch.

I probably would not have been inspired to do this post without this morning Tiger hang, but I was already on a technology tirade earlier at my View from the Mountain blog which if you read, you will learn about my blog called Our technological infirmity. The fact that it exists shows you I have some serious doubts about lots of technology.

Still mostly I love technology from GPS systems to digital cameras and camcorders.  They sometimes bring out my inner geek and sometimes create a lot of pride when you do overcome a number of problems like the ones I mentioned in this post, The Saturday afternoon technologist, electronic hair.

I also like really good software and well designed code that does something that is valuable to me.  When you get something that is put together well, it is a good as a finely crafted Japanese car or a fishing reel that never lets you down.

The most recent piece of code that I have enjoyed actually comes from Plaxo.  I actually installed it on the side panel of my Ocracokewaves blog at Blogger.  It's a scrolling window called "Check my pulse" which shows a variety of things that I do on the web.  Plaxo also allows me to keep in touch with what other friends do on the web.

I have also enjoyed some of the user interface changes which Microsoft has made in Excel. They seem to make the things that I do on a regular basis easier.  I know from talking to some other users that the same changes have mystified them so I guess it depends on who you are and what you do.

Computers have become such building blocks for what we do that I think the Apples and Microsofts of the world really need to focus on rock solid stability and speed without giving us a lot of glitz.

I would agree with what Dave Rosenburg said in his post,

I just wish that Apple would focus a bit more on computers instead of iPods so that the truly devoted can stay that way.

While I don't agree with much of what Matt Asay has to say in his commentary on new Apple apps and Leopard, I think his conclusion is on target.

It may well be that we've tapped out the desktop metaphor and won't be seeing much reason to upgrade, whether on the Windows, Mac, or Linux client. Maybe all the innovation is now happening out in the Internet cloud. Maybe it's time to stop feverishly clicking on "Software Update" to get the latest patches and functionality updates to Leopard (or Vista, if that's your persuasion).

I think that is just another way of saying that new technology is not always the answer.  Sometimes it comes down to figuring out the best way to accomplish what you want to do.

In my case, which is selling real estate, I need everything from my real estate blog to a reliable truck with an assortment of old fashioned tools to my real estate smart card, fancy digital cameras, and the ability to carry on a conversation while I am driving to a destination I might never have been.

When technology is helping me, I love it.  When technology gets in my way, I'm ready for my low tech kayak.

Speaking of technology that could use some revamping.  I managed to get my iWeb working on two computers.  It only requires carrying over 50 megs of files with me.  Now where is that portable home directory that Steve vetoed?

Comments

[Tedious]

And the sound of a million "Wait for x.2" naysaysers smiling smugly into their 10.4.11 machines could be heard from space.

x.0 is bleeding edge beta level.
x.1 is rushed. Often called the "real" x.0
x.2 is smooth sailing for most, but will suddenly start showing NEW bugs.
x.3 - x.5 is an unpredictable rollercoaster followed by a long slow boring spell of whines about longstanding issues and speculation on the next x.0 release.

Welcome to Macintosh - the OS X Years.

If I could pass one message onto the world it would be this: Protect your data.

Use open communication protocols and file formats whenever possible and back up your hard drive regularly.

On Macs: Better is not perfect. Fewer issues is NOT zero issues. Standard rules apply. There is no Santa Claus and Jesus wasn't born in December. Macs crash. Hard drives die. Stuff happens. In spite of all that, Macs are still better made machines (inside and out) and Christmas is still real - just don't expect miracles.