Author: Walt Stoneburner

Harvesters, Where Are You

Harvesters, I have emails for you to chomp on: emails of an evil company that uses spam for marketing.

I happen to maintain a number of pages concerning programming led signs for hobbyists.

And, while I am willing to converse with LED sign vendors about improvements and protocols, I tend to only post recommendations for specific vendors and equipment that I have personally dealt with and feel that the end consumer would be better for the experience. I’ve had companies offer to buy a slot, and I’ve turned them down.

Also on those pages, I’m fairly clear that I am not an LED sign vendor or manufacturer. I’m not interested in LED products just because things have LEDs. I don’t want parts lists.

And, while some companies marketing departments don’t read those pages, almost all are quick to correct the problem after a polite email.

I have to say almost, every day I get one or more heavily graphic filled messages from tianjohn806@hotmail.com, john@vedonltd.com, tianjohn806@vedonled.com in which his template spam says “I … know that you are one of importers about LED products”. [sic.] The domain’s contact is suny@gol.net.cn, with technical contact domainadm@hichina.com. A quick scan of the website reveals james@vedonled.com and sales-trade@jee-jee.com.

As this appears to be a company, I’ve written twice (and got human answers back each time), but as one might expect that only steps up the spam. Very unprofessional. And very annoying. That raises more questions about how they’d treat customers, and by extension the quality of their products.

Walt gives Vendon LED two major thumbs down and does not recommend their products or doing business with them. They are a classic example of what’s wrong with the Internet.

iChat Problems: Fixed

Got Leopard? Find that iChat isn’t working? Do you run Parallels? Guess what, that may be it. What? You’re not running Parallels at the same time you iChat? Not relevant, Parallels has network services active even if the client isn’t. Here’s the workaround to get you chatting…

iChat and Parallels
While trying to iChat using Leopard to a system running Tiger, I ran into a problems that I never had using OS X 10.4 before: bad video quality to downright refusing to connect.

With a little research, I ran across this article and that was enough to resolve the problem.

Here’s how to get iChat working on OS X 10.5
…if you’re running Parallels.

See, turns out that Parallels, I’m using 3.0 Build 5582 (Dec 5, 2007), appears to be running some services, even when the virtual machine is active, that gets in the way of iChat.

Get out of iChat.

Go to Apple / System Preferences…, select Network, and click on Parallels NAT and change the Configure drop down to Off; then go to Parallels Host-Guest an change the Configure drop down to Off. Press Apply.

Get back into iChat and try again. For me, it instantly fixed the problem.

An Outsider’s View of Programming Documentation

Curious to how a non-technical person internalizes introductory technical material? I was.

Size Of Void StarAs a programmer, who works with programmers, writing programs that are primarily targeted for programmers, I find that I’m blessed with the ability to drop into a pseudo-language to communicate complex ideas concisely with my peers.

Occasionally, when I come up for air to deal with the rest of the world, I have to revert back to English. For me, the context switch is effortless, and occasionally I find myself using programmatic terms, like ‘context-switch’, in standard sentences.

The problem is, for a technical person, we don’t grasp what it’s like not to deal with technical information on a constant basis and then be abruptly exposed to it. Today I got to find out, and it was insightful. No wonder so may people fear their computers.

This morning, I was reviewing some basic documentation on Objective-C. Here’s the section (skim it):

Sending Messages to nil
In Objective-C, it is valid to send a message to nil—it simply has no effect at runtime. There are several patterns in Cocoa that take advantage of this fact. The value returned from a message to nil may also be valid:

  • If the method returns an object, any pointer type, any integer scalar of size less than or equal to sizeof(void*), a float, a double, a long double, or a long long, then a message sent to nil returns 0.
  • If the method returns a struct, as defined by the Mac OS X ABI Function Call Guide to be returned in registers, then a message sent to nil returns 0.0 for every field in the data structure. Other struct data types will not be filled with zeros.
  • If the method returns anything other than the aforementioned value types the return value of a
    message sent to nil is undefined.

My wife came over to see what I was reading.

Curious to know what a non-programmer’s take on this would be, I asked her to read it to me, interjecting her comments along the way. It went like this:

“Sending Messages to nil” (she paused for a moment, internally analyzing what she’d just gotten into)

“In Objective-C, it is valid to send a message to nil—” (pause) “it simply has no effect at runtime.” This sunk in for a second. “Well it it has no effect, when the heck are you sending it messages for?” She resumed composure.

“There are several patterns in Cocoa that take advantage of this fact.” Confusion set it. “Several patterns? You need more than one to have no effect?”

“The value returned from a message to nil may also be valid: …” Her eyes combed the list.

“If the method returns an object, any pointer type, any integer scalar…” She hung on that word, and when I sat quietly, she continued. “…of size less than or equal to size of void star…” This was too much, “What?! Black holes can be different sizes?”

Frustrated, “a float, a double, a long ” (…pregnant pause…) “double, or a long long,…” She stopped again. “A ‘long long’? You’re making this up.” She checked my face to see to see if I was pulling a fast one.

She continued, “… then a message sent to nil returns 0.” By this point it the sentence had no meaning.

“If the method returns a struct,” apparently she liked that, adding, “Oh boy! A struct”, but it was unclear if she was teasing me now.

Resuming, “as defined by the Mac OS X ABI Function Call Guide” (which again meant nothing) “to be returned in registers.” I saw a furrowed brow drop, internally wondering what cash registers had to do with any of this.

“…then a message sent to nil returns 0.0 for every…” and she stopped herself.

“What?!? Zero-point-zero is different than zero? What the f***!?!” At that point she burst into an embarrassed laughter at just how mind boggling her internal monologue had gotten and refused to continue.

I had never looked at documentation from an outsider’s perspective before, it really did seem like techno-babble in that …context.

Why Managers Hate MS-Project

Managers ditch project management tools when they start getting unexpected behaviors. Here’s some things that cause unexpected behaviors and what you can do about them.

Did you hear the Microsoft was making a new Office bundle available? It is designed for specifically for software development planning, including only PowerPoint, Excel, and Project; it’s called MS-Fiction for Managers.



Almost every manager I’ve known shakes their fist at project management tools. And while pretty Gantt charts, views of progress reports, and tasks lists appear in presentations, most of it is trickery. That is, all the real work is done by hand on paper or in a spreadsheet, and once figured out, is transcribed to a project tool to product the pretty charts.

What gives?

Project isn’t a drawing tool; it’s supposed to give and track useful information, not get in the way.

Isn’t project management software supposed to let you enter in your task list, assign resources, and produce an optimal schedule?

Well, yes. And, frankly, most people can get past that part. The problems kick in after that point.

Leveling Issues

Managers ditch project management tools when they start getting unexpected behaviors.

I’ve identified several problems that crop up frequently. Here’s some things to be aware of to help reign in the gremlins that like to scramble your projects.

Loss of Historical Information


If your project tool moves a completed task to a new point in the timeline, then it’s broken. You’ve found a bug. Completing a task anchors it in time.

Mysterious Chronological Task Reordering


When you list tasks, unless you explicitly state otherwise with a direct dependency, the software is allowed to reorder when a task begins. The software you’re using may have a different take on what makes sense.

I often see this problem happen when a time estimate is replaced with a more discrete breakdown of the task. For instance, deleting a 3 day task and replacing it with three 1 day tasks. Because project tools often assume you plan today and do tomorrow, you can sometimes end up with a hole in the schedule you want backfilled and that’s when the trouble starts.

In some cases, the software may decide to move one task from the end of the task list up to the front to fill in the hole; the justification is that it’s better to move one task than shuffle the whole schedule back. This may, or may not, be what you want.

More realistically, if you find tasks being shuffled out of order, the problem has more to do with when a task starts. Some software will force a task to start at a particular date in order to coerce the schedule; the problem is, if you’re unaware it’s done that, and you change some tasks, it might have imposed a schedule requirement upon you that isn’t real. You need to be diligent about such conditions.

Very intelligent schedulers will recognize the difference between a start constraint that you mandated, versus one that it derived.

Around the trouble spots, make sure that the tasks are set to be scheduled as soon as possible, depending on their assigned resources, and not an arbitrary date.

Never Trust Undo


While undo is supposed to put things back the way they were, it can be tricky to get right. Some operations may affect the properties of the tasks on your schedule. When you undo, it might undo what you’ve done, but keep the changes and constraints that it made.

A mature product will implement undo perfectly, but it never hurts to save a historical copy.

Put another way, just because the tasks return to their original positions after an undo, does not mean that new dependencies and criteria were properly cleared from the task properties.

Too Many User Supplied Dependencies


A dependency should only reflect inter-task dependencies, and that means you should use only the minimum required.

If you are using dependencies to force an ordered sequence to tasks that have no relationship, just to get them done in a certain order, you’re doing it wrong.

If you are using dependencies to coerce the software into producing a schedule ordering you want, you’re doing it wrong.

The problem with these two hack-it-til-it-works approaches is that when the schedule changes and you need to re-level it again, some dependencies are real and others are bogus. The software will account for all of them, and that will cause the scheduling algorithms to make bad decisions.

Any others spring to mind? Please write me.

The Most Sublime Hot Dog

Explosive food, little old ladies, and an empty bucket on a train.

The other night I had the most sublime hot dog. I don’t mean it was good, I mean it turned straight to gas.

The place was the MCI Center, and I got to see the Wizards play the… oh, who am I kidding. I was trying to make out the cheerleaders from four stories up while eating 6 oz of cotton candy from a plastic $5 bucket. Which, I might add, I refused to throw out since I paid so bloody much for it.

Wizard Game

The most enjoyable part of the evening was not the game, but the ride home. As we were waiting for the metro train to arrive, an old lady sat down next to my friend Mike and started to listen in on our conversation.

“So, Walt, we’re thinking of having you over for Christmas. Have you ever had lamb before?”

“Yeah…”

“Oh. What’d you think?”

“I didn’t care for it that much,” And as I noticed the old lady listening in, I quickly added, “but the Bar-B-Que kittens were delicious.”

This prompted the look I was after. And she instantly engaged Mike in conversation to check the veracity of our conversation. At least enough to ascertain that we were good friends.

As the conversation took a turn to prior places lived, it turns out Mike and the old lady had both been to Germany. And, much to the confusion of those around them, started speaking in German. And they did quite well, I must say.

Too well. Cutting me out of the conversation, along with every other eavesdropper in earshot.

I informed Mike that this was America, and that we spoke English here; then I asked to see his legal status. Normally, I don’t engage in this kind of bold maneuver with an armed officer of the law, but by now the overpriced confections instilled a bravery that only spun sugar can do.

Naturally I backed down as he has more ways to kill me in his little finger than a pissed off villain in a James Bond movie.

At this point the train arrived, and I sat down next to the nice little old lady. And her friend. And some other chick who thought it might be the wiser move to ignore me.

“So,” asked the little old lady, “how do you know each other?”

“Him?” I glanced to Mike. “He’s my parole officer.”

Mike over heard enough to flash his handcuffs at me. The little old lady looked mildly uncomfortable and changed the topic.

“Where were you seated?” she inquired.

I explained we were in the 400’s. She then wanted to compare ticket prices (like that mattered now). And then we compared how many times we’ve been to a game at the MCI Center.

There’s a lot of promotional stuff going on at these events, whether it’s Chipotle throwing burritos into the crowd or t-shirts being dropped from parachutes to lucky winners below.

“So,” she continued, “have you ever caught anything at a game?”

“A cold.”

While I got a polite chuckle for quick delivery, she had enough and said, “get your friend; I want to talk with him.”

I yelled over to Mike, who was standing by the door. “She wants to talk with you, apparently I said something again.”

The chick to my left had vacated at the prior stop, so I slid into her old spot, and Mike took mine in front of the old lady.

And immediately, she switched into German again. Clearly, she wanted to practice.

I leaned over and said, “excuse me, you’re talking in code again.”

Mike turned to me and said, quite loudly, “I’m sorry. She said you had a nice ass.”

Without missing a beat, I addressed the old lady, “It’s true. You may be wondering why I’m covering my lap with a bucket.”

Mike, it turns out, wasn’t the only person to bust out laughing, seems a lot of people were riding our conversation, not just the train.

BAD IDEA: “Wanted C++/Java Programmers”

It really bugs me when a company looks for candidates based on what programming language they “know.” There’s a better way.

I’m frequently the recipient of recruiter emails that are looking for C++ and Java programmers. And, while I know both of these languages very, very well, I tend to avoid offers that words things in terms of just programming languages.

Consider a help wanted sign that said: “Wanted English Writers”

In this context it’s more obvious what’s wrong: just because you write in a particular language doesn’t mean you’re a particularly good author. And, even if you are a master at words, you might be unable to convey complex ideas to the common man very well. And, even if you can communicate with technical precision, you might not be mentally engaging. And, even if you are able to keep a reader, you might not have an interesting topic to address the masses.

There’s a reason television shows have writers, there’s a reason comedians have joke writers, and there’s a reason why books that you really enjoy are done by a small circle of authors that resonate to your liking. Mastery of a written language doesn’t necessarily make you a writer.

And that’s the fallacy that many technical companies make: they assume that because you can write in C++ or Java, that you must be smart, and clearly smart means good. Right?

Problem is, learning a computer programming language isn’t all that difficult. Learning to program well, takes experience.

Consequently, when I perform an interview with someone for a position, I’m more interested in the problem solving skills and interpersonal communication than how well they know a particular language.

And when I say problem solving skills, I don’t mean the Microsoft “why are manhole covers round” brain teasers. No, I present real code and real problems that’s representative of how my team works together.

What I’ve found is that there are actually three types of candidates that make excellent programmers, regardless of language:

  • Mathematicians – these are people who clearly have a solid grasp of data structures and algorithms.
  • Philosophers – these are people who really, truly, and deeply grasp the intricate details of logic, notation, and language.
  • Musicians – these are people who intuitively see patterns and are extremely creative.

Whenever I’ve hired from these three groups, and the person has solid communication skills, and the person had demonstrated a personal passion for software development, we’ve always had resounding success.

And the funny thing? Those talented people know other talented people.

The Most Addicitive Wii Game

I can’t tear myself away. Here’s the most addictive Wii game that I’ve encountered yet. And, I explain why – the game builds an addiction feedback loop, making it very difficult to quit.

Geomerty Wars: Galaxy for the WiiIt isn’t often that a game comes along that is:

  • Instantly Playable.
  • Wonderfully fun.
  • Loaded with eye-candy.
  • Highly addictive.

Hmm, make that:

A-d-d-i-c-t-i-v-e.

Don’t let the two dimensional Asteroid-like vector graphics on the box fool you. Geometry Wars: Galaxy is not an Asteroids rip off.

If you got a Wii, you need to buy it now for your collection. Before the holidays.

Deep inside we all want a game where you shoot everything with total disregard, you’re loaded to the hilt with fire power, you amass incredible scores, and you cause all kinds of explosions and manipulate the environment to destroy your enemies. That why we seek cheat codes. This game found out how to do it without ruining playability! You get everything you ever wanted, without relying on cheat codes to make it happen.

Here’s my take on what gives this game its incredible hook:

Visually Pleasing


There isn’t a moment that there isn’t some color explosion, spray of sparks, swirl of color, or special effect going on. Some thing’s always moving or blowing up, and when it does, it looks like the best fireworks show you’ve ever seen. Effects are not boring, the tend to interact, and don’t seem redundant. Those watching will be treated to an impressive spray of color and particles.

“Every time you finish a game, the next carrot is just withing reach — if you play just one more time.”

Simple Controls


The simple synopsis is that you’re a ship in the middle of a grid in the galaxy. With the nun chuck you steer, with the Wii-mote you point.

You don’t need to read any rules to start playing instantly.

Enemies Fear You


As you point, you emit a red laser that directs where you’ll fire; enemy objects see the red laser and run from it.

Unlimited Firepower


Unlimited, constant, fast, ever improving unlimited firepower — just push the button or squeeze the trigger.

Enormous Colorful Bombs


If enemies get too close, push either button on the nun chuck and a kill-everything bomb will go off, taking out all your enemies.

Points for Everything


Whenever you destroy an enemy, you get points. If it moves, shoot it. If it doesn’t move, shoot it. If it disrupts the fabric of space itself, shoot it.

As you play, you get awards, in addition to the high score list, which is easy to get on and bump off the default scores; no one wants to look at scores from the game designer anyhow.

Cumulative Score Multipliers


Destroyed enemies leave behind little golden bits which you simply have to zoom near, accuracy doesn’t matter, and you’ll consume them; doing so gives you score multipliers. You can have very big multipliers.

Money Does Buy Happieness


Earning multipliers is like accruing currency, you can save up between games. Currency unlocks different playing fields, new enemies, and more wonderful things.

A.I. On Your Side


In addition to your ship, there’s a totally hands free drone.

Your drone stays near you, and using some very basic artificial intelligence, it helps you.

You can buy different skills for your drone. The more currency you have, the more skills you can purchase. And, get this, one of the drone’s tasks can be to collect more currency. Clever.

Longer Play


Think back to how many times you’ve played an arcade game and lost a life because you missed something trivial or committed a dumb mistake.

You may have your drone shoot, defend, snipe, or do one of any number of a selected set of tasks. You pick which, making compensates for weakness in your play style or leverage your strengths.

If you miss something during play, aren’t playing attention, or aren’t looking where you’re going, there’s a really good chance that the drone will take care of it for you. Play lasts longer and is more enjoyable because little accidents don’t matter.

The Addiction Feedback Loop


The more you play with a drone using a particular skill, the smarter it gets. The better you play, the faster that it gets smarter; it literally accumulates experience. With enough experience, the drone levels and plays even better, helping you even more.

Meaning, that after you finish a game, the drone is more capable, and you’ll do better in the next game at the same level of effort. So you do.

But then your drone levels, so now you want to play again to see what the new capability is. So you do.

You get more kills with a better drone. That directly translates to higher scores and more currency. And, more currency means new drone skills and more experience. Which, gives you a better drone. That takes you back to more kills.

Every time you finish a game, the next carrot is just withing reach — if you play one more time.

Pure evil. The best kind.

Features, features, features


Aside from the ton of worlds and surprises you can unlock, the disc has more.

Yes, you can play with another player. Even more surprising, if they have a Nintendo DS, your Wii will go WiFi and connect to it.

There’s also a Retro version as part of the game as well.

The game experience itself is fresh.

Plus the game itself comes in at about $10 cheaper than other main titles, it’s so affordable it’s not worth resisting.

Walt gives the Wii’s Geometry Wars: Galaxy two carpel tunnel thumbs up!

OS X 10.5.1 Finder Crash – repeatable

Found a very simple way to crash the Finder in OS X 10.5.1 – while repeatable for me, do other people’s desktops do the same thing? (No data loss, just Finder windows close.)

I’ve just discovered that I can crash the Finder, not that this inhibits anything in that it instantly restarts…

  1. Pick any FOLDER that’s on your desktop. Press Command-I to get info.
  2. In the bottom right is a pad lock, click it, and enter your password so you can change permissions on the folder.
  3. To the far left of the padlock is a plug sign. Press it.

For me, I instantly get an error on the console that the Finder exited abnormally with a bus error; this is usually a pointer trying to access memory that it’s forbidden to. The CrashReporter logs the event, and Finder restarts, closing the Info window that was just open.

While I can reproduce it effortlessly, can any one out there?

Comments on: Leopard is the New Vista

PC Magazine’s Oliver Rist has a harsh observation: Leopard is the New Vista. And what’s worse, he may be right. Here’s the Waltomatic take on each of his five points. Who’s the winner?

Today I was forwarded a review of OS X entitled: Leopard is the New Vista, and It’s Pissing Me Off.

LUV OS XI think it’s safe to say that I’m a fan of Apple, in general, as I find their hardware, environment, and tools far more productive for my development, office, and home needs than I ever did using Microsoft or its products.

I think it’s also fair to say that I’m willing to also point out when things don’t work:

Oliver Rist, raises some very good points in his treaty on Leopard’s recent similarities to Vista’s screw ups.

Here’s my take on his five points.

Vista Similarity 1: Wait for a Service Pack—Perpetually


Rist is right in saying that “[With Tiger] Everything. Just. Worked. Period.” I’m also quite in agreement that with Vista, even “a year after its shrink-wrapped release” it still has problems, driver issues, and “doesn’t work with 50 percent of new software.”

But I wonder how far back he’s actually recalling. Historically, I recall that each early version of Apple’s OS had serious kinks. Is comparing Tiger 10.4.9 with Leopard 10.5.1 actually a valid Apple to Apple comparison? (excuse the pun)

I’m with Rist if he thinks it should be, but accept the reality it isn’t. In my mind, Apple changed a number of things about the OS that they didn’t have to. Stability, size reduction, and additional hardware support will always earn high marks on my reviews. Unless the new glitz is functional, it doesn’t do much for me; but more on this in a moment.

At the moment, I’m tolerant because historically Apple has made right in reasonable time. By 10.4.3 and 10.4.4, I was quite happy. Given that I suspect Apple’s real purpose was not to make GUI fluff, but to pave the way for resolution independent graphics and new Core Animation, I’m surprised how well things held up.

Microsoft, Direct X improvements aside, gets no such pass, because as a whole, I still have problems with the OS, and it’s been around longer, and had more people working on it.

That said, I’m also aware that a good number of the Microsoft blue screens of death aren’t Microsoft’s fault — directly. When drivers do bad things, it can topple an OS. Of course, this leads me to wonder why Microsoft didn’t manage their kernel layers a bit better.

Knowing this actually provides some insight for Leopard as well. Everyone understood how Tiger worked. Too well, perhaps. There were quite a number of OS resource tweaks that delivered amazing integration and features. I was certainly one of the advanced users.

However, Apple assumes, and I think rightly so, that if you intend to do an upgrade in place, then if you’ve changed the operating system out from underneath them, you roll the dice. A number of people were bit by Unsanity’s Application Enhancer that didn’t upgrade at the last moment before installing Leopard.

Keeping up to date with OS X third-party applications is just as hard as it is on Windows. That’s why I eventually plopped down the money for Version Tracker Pro. Had I not, I would have been one of those that the new install would have taken out. Diligence is king.

Even so, my problems with an Upgrade was slightly broken features, like the password working after a screen save (despite the settings to the contrary), and performance. I later learned that the former was a permission problem on the preference, and the latter was a library extension that didn’t work with Leopard and just tried to keep reloading itself.

My solution was to do an Archive and Install. All of my options were preserved, just like an Upgrade in place, but because the OS was virgin fresh, my system behaved wonderfully.

I give Apple this round, simply because a “fresh install” with Microsoft is so destructive.

Oh, and yes, once you’ve touted something as a “new” feature, like 64 bit, you can’t do it again for the next release. That’s cheating.

Vista Similarity 2: Needless Graphics Glitz


Leah, my iPhone girl.I love eye candy as much as the next guy, and in my operating systems too.

However, I question the real value one gets out of it. As long as it doesn’t get in the way, that’s great. If it communicates more information subtly, that’s great too. Incidentally, what I mean by that is effects, like Genie, which show where your Window is going when you minimize it, is useful.

All these different preview modes, sliding covers, and non-sense, I could really care less about.

Though, I have to admit I’m a closet user of them. Sometimes it easier to quickly view an image to make sure I’ve got the right one, or scan the contents of a document because a poorly chosen filename was used. I’d like to think Apple could have done this without the big production.

What really gets my goat, however is that Tiger had transparent Windows. Then it went away! That really made me mad, because I was using them since I had a small desktop.

So, that made me go find Virtue, in order to have multiple desktops. My gosh, I loved that product. Where else could you have different backgrounds, on a 3D cube, and get to them by keystrokes, mouse maneuvers, or tilting or laptop or waving your hand over it and triggering the ambient light sensors!

But then Apple went and created Spaces. With no real future, Virtue is going away – – and killing off a fantastic sales tool for me. With no competition, I don’t see Apple adding these things back.

And, only now, are we starting to talk about the transparency I had before. Argh!!!

So, while Vista is pretty, and Apple is pretty, Apple got by for having slightly more than fluff for fluff’s sake. Apple gets to take this round, begrudgingly.

Vista Similarity 3: Pointless User Interface “Fixes”


I’ve got to say, again, I agree with Oliver. The new dock may look pretty, but Apple had an uncanny way of letting me know what was going on with those nice, readable from a distance, black, unobtrusive triangles.

Do I have a way to get them back?

Can I switch an put the dock on the side and get something more acceptable looking? Yes, but then again I don’t want it on the side.

It’s crappy decisions like this that cause people to write utilities to hack the operating system which cause the initial instability problems in the first place.

Using Vista as the example, just because something is pretty doesn’t mean it’s enjoyable to use.

Having said all of the above, I have to admit that many of the things I initially didn’t like, I quickly grew to use. They bother me less.

Let’s just say in this round, the bell rang, and there was no winner.

Vista Similarity 4: Nuked Networking


I groan when I see Microsoft operating systems splinter over stupid artificial limitations like how many network connections can be concurrently inbound or outbound. I shake my finger at any operating system which can’t handle jumbo packet sizes or let me switch between 10/100/1000 ethernet speeds.

But I do accept that Windows shares, using Samba, can be difficult with Microsoft deliberately sabotaging protocols to force a homogeneous network with them being the vendor. Embrace and Extend. Anti-Trust. Bogus interoperability. Halloween Memos. I just can’t take the message that Microsoft is out to help me seriously anymore; too much bad history; too little progress. DRM, WGA, poison pill updates, spying – that’s the reason I left Microsoft.

While I recognize that Apple and Microsoft are in a cat’n’mouse game for accessing Windows resources, I do have a complaint to put on Apple’s shoulders.

And that is: just because I have a network, doesn’t mean I want to network. Unless I’m trying to comb my network’s machines, don’t bring them all to my Finder. I don’t need that. I know what kind of network traffic Microsoft generates.

On the other side of the coin, VNC is now built in. And, well, wow. Apple, you did well there. It’s almost as if Apple knows I’m slowly expelling Microsoft and replacing it with Unix systems.

But that doesn’t change the fact that when I do need access to a Windows box, and I’m using my Mac, I want it to be just as seamless. Just the other day, I tried to copy a file from a Windows share to my local desktop to work with a local copy. Locally. (Sense a theme?)

The Windows box said “that file is in use” (because someone had the network Excel file open) and wanted to know if I wanted a read-only copy. The Mac, however, simply said Permission Error and never told me why.

Apple: I need error messages to not be so abstract. Give me a way to Option-Click on them or something and dump the error.h code; in short, if I’m smart enough to fend for myself, let me. Or, just make it work.

I assume people have already heard that if you Move (not copy) a file from one resource to the other, if the destination is full and aborts the copy, the source file still gets deleted (the other half of the move). I hope that’s fixed.

Now, the sheer fact that Microsoft has a horrible time with other OS’s (and depends on them playing by their rules), the final score for this one goes to Apple. Though Apple got lucky.

Vista Similarity 5: Bundled Apps as New Features That Suck


Oliver and I may start to part ways at this one, although not that far.

All the standard home and media applications Apple bundles with their OS are really top notch in my opinion. In fact, I buy iWork in addition to iLife. It’s Apple’s Pro applications that use a interface that I find very dated. And ugly.

But the feature we all seem to gripe on is Time Machine.

My first experiences with Time Machine were horrible. The system would seize up, and, well to be fair, I have to admit that this all went away after I did an Archive and Install, rather than the Upgrade in place over my existing patched OS Tiger.

And, while I applaud the concept of Time Machine, I don’t like that I can’t force it to kick off when I want. Or that I can’t easily point it at a common server. Or use it wirelessly.

But my biggest beef is why in the world Apple just didn’t hold off, wait until ZFS was working the way they wanted, and delivered something that managed things directly with the filesystem itself.

In addition to Time Machine, I find myself using SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner to make quick, efficient backups, that are also bootable.

What I think Oliver might have missed is a subtle difference.
– With Time Machine, everything is backed up.
– Not that Time Machine backs up everything.

Let’s cover that a little closer. Time Machine does do a full backup, but then everything from then on out is incremental. And intelligently so. In fact, you can even go wandering around the files on the backup disk directly, should you choose to.

The way I’m reading things is that the review gives the impression everything is always backed up. That’s just not so.

Would I like to be able to tell Time Machine to only back up what I want it to? Yes. Please.

Would I like to only delete the things I intend to? Of course. But, realistically, it’s when I delete an important system file, and Time Machine has a copy, that I’ll suddenly become more forgiving of why it does what it does.

All his GUI gripes with Time Machine are dead on. However, when you get Time Machine working (via a clean Archive and Install – which keeps your preferences, data, and applications, btw), it does work as advertised.

It’s close. Time Machine’s integration is trivial. But over all, I think Vista’s backup, is better in the long run. Vista wins this round.

Oliver, I think, in this case was guilty of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. To be ticked off at the first version of a new application that could have been better, is justified. To extend that assessment to all bundled apps, as he does in his title, is not.

What the world hates is that after buying the OS, you still can’t do much with it. With Apple you can. And, with most Window machine purchases, you get a lot of crapware. Apple, you don’t.

In fact, I think Apple misses the mark. QuickTime Pro should be bundled with the OS, and if they were really on top of things, iWork as well. I’d gladly even pay the full retail price rolled into the cost of the machine. Why? Because can you image if everyone’s machine out of the box shipped with software that could do Office related stuff? You’d have a killer do-all platform from time the machine was powered up. There’s no way Microsoft could do that.

So, while Vista won this round, I’m gonna give Apple half-credit, since I think it was an unfair contests.

Walt’s Final Score


Apple 3.5 / 5; Vista 1 / 5.

I’d still rather use OS X Leopard than Vista any day of the week.

Walt gives OS X Leopard a thumbs up, even though it still needs some work.

“I’ll Have My Cell Phone On”

My wife said the sweetest thing to me today….

T-Mobile Sidekick 3Here’s a tip for the ladies that is sure to drive any man wild when delight.

For the record, when a woman is departing and says to a man “I’ll have my cell phone on and with me”, we get the same warm, happy, and loved feeling as you do when we notice and compliment you on your hair.