Applepeels

A Mac user's conclusion that Vista is a quagmire

I am six months into my Vista experience.  Today I reached the tipping point.  While I have to continue using it, I am going to say flat out that Vista is not worth the effort.

My efforts at liking Vista go far beyond what I would normally do for any piece of software.  I have used Vista ever day for over the last six months.   I have let Microsoft do whatever it wanted to do to my system through automatic updates.

I have intervened once and that was only when the wireless networking on the my Vista HP laptop was so bad that I was ready to throw it into the water behind the house.  I searched out some new drivers for my wireless card.  That improved wireless performance to the point where the system became usable.

Still I struggled through the stupid situation where every time I put the system to sleep I had to deal with a distorted screen once the system wakes from sleep.  The only solution seemed to be rebooting the laptop. Any Vista user can tell you that takes far more time than any computer in recent memory.

My guess and the guess of others is that I have graphics driver issue.  So I went to the nVidia website.  After I finally got it to figure out what system I was using, I was told that I could only get driver updates from HP.com.

When I got to HP.com, I found that there were over 40 systems with the name of HP Pavilion dv6000.  So I looked on the back and found another model number HP dv6451.us.   I made a mistake typing and put "Pavillion dv6451" instead of Pavilion dv6451.  At that point I was told that over 400 products claimed the name.  I finally got the name right only to find out that HP has no recommended driver update.

While I was on HP's site, I decided to see why my system has not been updated to Vista Service Pack 1.  First I found HP Notebook PCs  - Update to Vista SP1 Frequently Asked Questions and then the even more scary HP Notebook PCs  - Precautions to Take Before Updating to Vista Service Pack 1.  After reading that I decided that I did not even want Vista Service Pack 1, but I still wanted to fix my problems with the video.

I have been a little suspicious of HP Update program anyway since it has failed to install updates recently so when I saw this paragraph I decided to roll the dice and see if I could shake things up on my system.

The HP Update utility will check for updated drivers and software, however the older versions of HP Update (v4.000.005.007 or earlier) will not work properly after upgrading to Vista SP1. To install the latest version of HP Update, open the Control Panel and uninstall the older version of HP Update. Then go to the hp.com web site and search for the softpaq SP38202 HP Update and HP Software Update - Critical Security Update (English only).

I uninstalled my HP Update software and managed to get the new version working after a number of tries. When I finally ran the new HP Update, I got a message that no updates were available for my system.

So at this point I was beginning to think there was no hope for the driver update that nVidia hinted that HP might have available for me.

I decided to run Windows Update just for the heck of it.  Windows told me that there were no critical updates available for my system.  However, when I looked in optional updates there was a new graphics driver update for my system.  I installed it, and just gave my system the sleep-wake from sleep test.  Much to my amazement, I no longer have a distorted screen on waking from sleep.  Tomorrow we will see if that was chance or it is really fixed.

One would think that I might be making some type of convoluted progress, but it was just the appearance of progress.  If you have perhaps read my On the eve of Apple's Leopard, I buy a Windows Vista Laptop post, you might remember that the overriding reason for me, a user of Apple products for 26 years, to buy a Vista system was so that I could do real estate forms.

This afternoon I once again needed to send a PDF form to a remote customer so they could renew their listing with me.  Last week I had a problem doing PDFs with the forms package that I had installed to get around the one which had become very flaky on Vista.  An older program seemed to work once I retyped the client's information.  When I tried to do that tonight, I got an error and could not create a PDF. I tried the first program, and it wouldn't work either.

I resorted to the help menu only to get this message. It is amazing to me that Microsoft would not build some sort of mechanism to read old help files.  After all Apple figured out how to run non native software on Intel processors.  I decided that it was time to punt on the two forms packages on my Vista machine.

This was a two page document so I decide to save the file to my Sony USB thumb drive which I have never used in my Windows Vista machine.  I inserted the thumb drive and Vista started searching for a driver.  It actually hung the machine, and I had to reboot.  At that point I decided to print the document to my upstairs office where my old XP machine is.  I did that successfully and entered the information on the real estate forms package on the XP machine.  The PDF file was created successfully, and I emailed it to the client.

I had carried my USB thumb drive up to perform a test.  I stuck it into my Zonbu Linux computer.  I was not surprised when it automatically was able to use the USB drive.  I took this screen snapshot and actually sent it to my Windows Vista box.  First it went as a PNG file.  I tried to upload the image to Typepad.  Typepad didn't recognize it.  So after checking to make sure it had an extension, I went to my Mac and imported it to iPhoto and emailed it again as a JPG file to the Windows Vista machine.  Once again I tried uploading from the Vista machine and Typepad refused to recognize it.

At that point I saved my post as a draft, turned around, and climbed on the stool by my Mac.  I took the same file that had been sent by the Linux box and uploaded it to Typepad without any problems.

While all this might seem like enough to chuck the Windows Vista box, it really isn't the straw that broke the camel's back.  That actually came earlier in the day.

I have multiple email accounts from a variety of providers since I live by email.

This morning I noticed that two of my email accounts were unresponsive.  Since I used to work for the company hosting those accounts, I chatted with their Director of Infrastructure using my Adium instant messenger client.  He admitted they were having "bandwidth" problems.  I did not think much of it as my Mail app on OSX just put those two accounts offline.

Unfortunately I had something to do on my Vista laptop and happened to click my Outlook email client which was running and trying to download messages. Those two unresponsive IMAP accounts hung Outlook completely.

All of this taken together shows me that Microsoft has done a terrible job with Vista.  The Linux from Zonbu works better.  The forms packages that I bought the Vista system to use barely work and certainly do not have the promised functionality. And if two unresponsive email accounts are going to lock up my email package, I need another email package.

The amount of lost productivity due to Vista is amazing.  Now there are likely people out there whose Vista systems work perfectly for them.  Mine doesn't.  It was a brand new machine, and is only six months old.  While I am getting a few problems fixed, worse ones are cropping up.  The machine is scanned regularly, and the worst thing that has ever shown up is one tracking cookie.

It all boils down to this. Windows is a time sink. This morning we were having a debriefing on a promotion that our company recently did.  Someone happened to mention that it would have been a better promotion if he had been able to get to his files off his crashed Windows machine.  Apparently our support person has been trying to recover them for a couple of weeks.

I just smiled to myself since the head of our company had told me that the flyer I produced recently was one of the best he had seen.  It had taken less than an hour on Pages.

It is clear to me that if you are an independent contractor like I am, you might have to use Windows for some Windows specific things, but if you are trying to produce high quality work with a minimum effort,  a Mac is the only way to go.

Otherwise consider yourself in the never ending quagmire of Vista.

It might be easy to say that the problems with Vista are to be expected since the OS comes from one company and the hardware is thrown together from a variety of companies who have lived in a world where no one has taken responsibility for the user's problems for years.

However, it is not easy to be that Vista user in an environment where you have to support yourself.

It is much easier being a Mac user.  Apple certainly isn't perfect, but using OS X is an order of magnitude better than fighting with Vista.

There lots of things to do here on the Carolina coast that are more fun than trying to use a Vista computer.  Tomorrow, I plan to not torture myself with Vista.  I might even go fishing again.

My mostly Apple workflow

It seems that it might come as a surprise to some readers that I actually spend more time on a Macintosh than I do on a Windows machine. 

When I am not working with clients, I am usually writing or taking pictures.  Both the writing and the pictures help me get clients.

I use the pictures and my words to describe the extraordinary scenery and relaxed life along North Carolina's Southern Outer Banks. 

While I wander from Cape Lookout to Swansboro, I am mostly concerned with the area from Beaufort to Swansboro which happens to be the area most newcomers like.

I have several tools that help me get my work done.  If you have been reading my blog for a while, you probably know that I use my HP Vista laptop to do my real estate forms and access the few real estate sites that require Internet Explorer.

Beyond that I use my Vista laptop for storage of photos which I take every day. The cheap portable storage is one of the reasons that I bought it.  Other than that and SnagIt to make some custom maps with captions for clients, Windows is not my OS of choice.  There are some things that SnagIt does very well and sometimes I wish I had a Mac version.  I cannot say that of Vista.

As a Realtor® I do not take many interior home pictures.  That is typically done by listing agents. I do list properties, but with the whole world already listed, I have found bringing buyers to the area is far more likely to make me successful.

The unique challenge for our area is that it is mostly a secret that has been passed from visitor to visitor by word of mouth.  There are tourism sites that bring lots of people in each year and some of those people decide to stay.

However, there has been little concerted effort to use the web to attract people to the area.  About eighteen months ago, I used Dreamweaver to develop my first Southern Outer Banks site.

Probably six months after that I settled on RapidWeaver as my main web development tool.  My Southern Outer Banks site went through a major renovation and ended up much as it is today.  I might have stayed with Dreamweaver, but it only comes with two licenses, and I use three or four systems.  I also like the the modern templates and reasonable price on RapidWeaver.  I haven't upgraded my Dreamweaver since December 2004 so it may be a totally different beast at this point.

In addition to the main Southern Outer Banks site, there is also a clone of part of the site with somewhat out of sync content and no advertising in order to stay with the rules of City Data forum where I often participate in discussions concerning our area.

There are also a number of feeder sites done with RapidWeaver.   My Carteret County Blog would be one example. 

Processing and choosing the right photos to match my content is key to my efforts.  I use three digital cameras and many days take over 200 photos.  The cameras are a Nikon D50 SLR, a pocket Nikon S9, and Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2.

As soon as I come in from chasing sunsets and capturing the area scenery, I often download the pictures using Picasa and my HP laptop.  Once that is done I take the same SD memory cards and suck the photos into iPhoto 08 on my Dual G5 which has a couple of large internal hard drives.

If I have some photos that I want to place on the web for individual reference, I usually do that in Photoshop.  This a sample of a sunset on Bogue Sound which I took this past Sunday and put on the web with Photoshop. 

The only adjustments which I do are typically sizing and getting the image back to what my eye remembers that I actually saw.  That's always a challenge but I am pretty good at it, and mostly know just enough Photoshop to get in trouble so I try not to waste a lot of time on that part of the process.

These days I have been very successful at getting images shown during the weather broadcast on one of our local television stations.  I have usually identified those by a quick look in Picasa and will often send them directly from iPhoto with just some basic cropping and sizing.

I will also size a few images to use with my numerous blogs, Ocracokewaves at Blogger, Squarespace, and Wordpress.  I also have to feed my main blog, View from the Mountain and a couple that have sprouted off from it, Once a Reston Resident, and Roanoke with some sea salt.  I also have a real estate blog at Active Rain.

With the exception of the TypePad blogs, all of the other blogs have little photographic quirks which sometimes require some special sizing.

Once I have a few photos that I am happy with, I'll usually pick something to write.  As you can tell I rarely add a photo to Applepeels, but I seem to require it before I can write for the others.

I do almost all my writing for the blogs in Firefox using whatever tools the blog software offers.  Of course my main Southern Outer Banks site and Carteret County Blog are written directly in RapidWeaver.

Usually after finishing the writing in RapidWeaver, I export the site changes to a folder and upload using Fetch.  There are a few pages that I watch with Google Analytics so once I have uploaded with Fetch, I open the files from the server with Dreamweaver and insert the correct analytics code in it.  Sometimes I also correct any minor errors with Dreamweaver instead of republishing the whole site.  So far that has worked well.

Sometimes like last night I am working on a slide show.  I use ShutterBug exclusively for doing web slide shows.  Last night I did one of the beach village of Emerald Isle during the winter.  I also took a slide show that I had done in January of a new subdivision, Cannonsgate, and added a link to active MLS listings.

The slide shows like those and the ones I did of Swansboro in December or boating last summer help people figure out if this area is right for them.

Sometime I also write for one of the local magazines or create other articles.  Normally I will use the writing tool in GoogleApps so I can access the files from anywhere.  I am working on a book in my "spare time." I typically slip into Nisus Writer for that.  I have been trying to use NeoOffice more and more since I find it very comfortable.

In addition to using the pictures for the blogs, I also use them for postcards which I use both as something to mail and as a business card.  About once every six months, I have 1,000 postcards printed professionally using five or six different local images.  I place those in local restaurants and hand them out at shows.  I use InDesign CS to create the postcards.  I do print some small batches on my HP Photosmart 6180.

I have a couple of mailing lists that I manage using Filemaker.  I use a Dymo LabelWriter Turbo 400 for most of my client letters.  When I do the small batches of postcards, I hand address and write the message with a fountain pen.

Once in a while I will do a mail merge letter for some potential clients.  Then I am stuck using MS Word.

About once a quarter for a week or two I will spent twenty minutes each morning collecting statistics from all my spots where I have an online presence.  I total up how many people touch my websites.  I use Excel and often post a graph on the web that I share with our sales management.  It produces a hard number which validates that my web traffic continues to grow.

In addition to the blogs that I mentioned, I play with a Mac one done with iWeb.  It suffers the most from inattention because I have to lug around over 50 megs of files from one system to another. Mostly I just work on it from one spot. Unfortunately that just doesn't work for me.

I also use Flickr uploader to get my photos to my Flickr site.  In spite of the ease of sending the photos directly from Picasa to my Picasa Web Albums, I will often use a web tool and send them from my Mac.

While I have toyed with Microsoft's new web authoring tool which I like, I mostly stick with Dreamweaver for maintenance on my homepage and my main photography page. 

I have created a few special pages like this one on the White Oak River and this area photo archive.  I have done all those in RapidWeaver which I find to be a very capable tool.

While I do write some of my posts on my Windows machine, it has more to do with disliking the trackpad, screen, and keyboard on my MacBook than it does with any love of Vista on my HP.  The HP just has a better keyboard, trackpad, and a very readable 15" inch screen.

When I have a choice, I will write from my Mac desktop.  This post has been done on my Mac desktop.  Part of that is because it is in my office where it is quieter.  I have a XP desktop and my Zonbu system both in the same office so I could and do use them once in a while, but mostly I use my Mac desktop.

I also use VueScan to scan some documents and photos from my Mac.  It works very well hooked up by USB to my HP6180.

Once in a while I will do an iMovie, a podcast, or use iDVD.  I haven't used them nearly as much as I though I would, but I wouldn't even attempt the same thing on my Windows or Linux boxes.  I have one flyer that I have done in Pages, and I probably would use Pages again for the same type of thing.

I have given up loading photos onto my Linux machine since I have to use a cable plugged from the camera into the computer to get things to work.  I do like to write on my Zonbu since it is so quiet with no moving parts and the fancy keyboard that I bought for it.

I use Google calendar so it get updated from whatever computer I use. It does sync with Outlook.  I do use iCal to grab tide tables which are pretty important for a guy who loves to fish and always has his boat ready to go.

As far as email, I use Apple's Mail app, Outlook, and Gmail.  I like a few things in Outlook, but I don't ever see myself becoming addicted to it.  It's too flaky for my taste. Email is just email, and I will use whatever I need in order to access it.  I have a couple of my IMAP accounts with Webmail.us which has become Mailtrust.  They have a very good webmail interface and when I worked there I got used to it so dropping into that is not a problem.

So while I might enjoy the technical challenge of having to live in a Windows world, using a Mac is like coming home.  I get the same feeling when I work on my Mac as I do when I spend some time in my kayak.  Appropriately I did my most recent kayak photo album using .Mac.

So the next time you read one of my post about my struggles on Windows, remember I am a Mac user and have been using Apple products for almost 26 years continuously.

I also would recommend a Mac to anyone who does what I do.  Though I have had my share of Mac laptop problems, my Mac desktops have mostly been models of reliability.

Also know that if the real estate market turns around, maybe I will get far enough ahead that I can hire someone to do my real estate forms on their Windows machine.

That way someone else can worry about Vista.  Did I tell you about my forms package crashing three times on Saturday night?  Surely people can build better software than that.

A Vista perspective from a Mac user

Actually I like to think that I am more than just a Mac user.  I have been using Windows XP for over four years, and Linux for nearly the same amount of time.  I have also seen operating systems come and go since 1982 when I got my first Apple II+.

First off I suspect that Microsoft will work hard and eventually get Vista to be the operating of choice for most of the planet.  The reason that it will have that honor has more to do with inertia than engineering prowess.

The inertia comes from two sources, Apple and end users.  People do not like to get out of their computing comfort zone, and switching operating systems is a sure way to get a few headaches no matter how good the new system is.

After a few months of using Vista, I have some opinions on the product. 

It is almost deadly slow when it comes to booting, shutting down, and waking from sleep.  A Powerbook running OS X is an instant on machine compared to a Vista machine.

Second wireless networking on Vista is a work in progress.  While I will admit that my Airport Express network needs replacing, a number of laptops visiting us including multiple XP ones have had no trouble using it.

in the mornings I often get to the point of having to reboot my Vista laptop before it will connect to the wireless network.  In its defense, I do not have that problem at our office or at our other home which has a standard Airport network.

I have found Outlook to be a fairly capable email client, but it also is slow and somewhat prone to stopping if I click once too many times.

I have seen far fewer 'Firefox has stopped working" problems on Vista than I do on the Mac.  I still do not like Internet Explorer though the 64 bit version seems fast.

I also find Google Desktop search integrated into Outlook by far the most productive search engine that I have used.  I like Google Desktop search better than Apple's Spotlight, but I am only speaking from OS 10.4 Tiger experience.  I have not used Leopard (OS X 10.5).

Google Desktop as a side panel hangs regularly on Vista usually after the machine awakes from sleep.

I have had far fewer problems than I anticipated using Vista to hook up the wide variety of printers that I have access to at home and work.

I am not particularly fond of Windows Live Messenger, and I try to use Pidgin when chatting.  I find that I keep wishing for Adium on Windows.

I have the latest version of Microsoft's Office Suite.  I have had little trouble with it, and it seems to do whatever job that I throw at it.  Here I have to admit that I am no longer someone who is a power office suite user.  I have used Excel more than the other applications.  The new user interface took some getting used to, but now I find it more productive.

I also miss Fetch, the FTP Client that I use on the Mac.  I use FileZilla but it is not as nice as Fetch.

One of the best applications that I have found on Vista is SnagIt which does screen capture and a lot more.  I certainly do not mind paying for it.

On Vista I miss the ability to turn something into a PDF from any application at the operating system level.  I think it is a huge feature advantage for OS X.

In general most of the applications done for Vista do not look as good as Mac applications.  However, there is so much flexibility in Windows, that you can build a very productive work if sometimes painful work flow.

The combination of a built-in photo memory card reader, Picasa and SnagIt do almost everything that I need in the world of graphics.  I find it faster than iPhoto and  Photoshop.

I  have yet to do much web work on my Vista machine.  To be fair, I think I will wait until I have some more time with the Vista products.

So would I recommend Vista as a main operating system to anyone who had other choices?  The answer is probably not.  It just doesn't have the high quality feel that I thought it would after all those years of development.

Vista is not unusable, it is just disappointing.

But I am also disappointed in Apple.  It continues to amaze me that a company with Apple's financial resources and popularity cannot seem to fight its way out of the paper bag of Windows.

Bill and team have done everything possible to hand over the market to Apple, yet Apple does not seem to want the opportunity.  Back when XP was having unbelievable security problems, Apple was so insecure about their own security that they would not market it.

Apple has changed chips, and Macs can run Windows natively and in virtual machines.  Still Apple's market share even in the US is barely half way to double digits.  As we have heard  from some international visitors to Applepeels, Apple is not exactly rolling over the competition selling and supporting computers in other countries.

Apple might have a few bumps with Leopard, but I seriously doubt it is the anything like the pain in the rear that Vista is.  With Vista languishing while waiting for a service pack, the best Apple can do is a few funny commercials.  Even with the best retail chain in the nation and  a stock price that is headed over $200, it looks like the majority of the computing world will remain Windows centric for the foreseeable future.

I guess there is not enough pain in the Windows environment or enough innovation in the Apple world to get consumers moving on their own.  Steve Jobs apparently was serious years ago in his concession to Bill over desktop operating systems.  He certainly does not appear to be interested in winning that war even with his superior weapons.

I would love to see the innovation of the Zonbu computing  model married to the better than anything else user interface of Apple and the nearly unlimited choice of the Intel hardware world.  If you could integrate it into better bandwidth and a choice of server providers that would store and protect our data, we might get people to try something else.

Right now I guess I am stuck with Vista for my real estate world,  and Macs for my website work with whatever computer I am using being the repository for my photos.

I managed to get a batch photos into my Zonbu machine, but I do not see me using it for the 100 photos or more a day that I do until we take another leap in bandwidth.

So maybe Apple will surprise me and take the next leap forward at MacWorld this year.  If it is iPhone II, pardon me if I yawn.

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A Real World Update

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I had to work this afternoon so I lugged my Vista laptop into one of our offices.  The wireless network was down so someone rebooted it.  The Windows XP machine on my desk connects immediately.  The Vista laptop which had successfully connected to this network several times before, cannot see it either before or after the wireless reboot.

So I decide to reboot the Vista machine.  I joke to one of the administrative assistants that the best thing Microsoft can do is to buy OS X from Apple and replace Vista with it.

While my Vista machine is still in the process of rebooting, I pull out my spare computer, a MacBook, and bet that I can be surfing the net before the Vista machine is done booting.

I count out loud and in eight seconds from the time of opening my MacBook, I am surfing the web.

While I am logging into Typepad, the Vista machine finally gets to the point of needing a password for login.  Even with the reboot, I still cannot see the network which the MacBook sees and the Windows XP desktop beside it also sees.

I would be embarrassed in the year 2007 to ship an operating system that cannot reliably and without failure hook to wireless networks.

As I said long ago, Windows, This is nuts.