Should I get an iPad?

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This certainly falls under the category of ‘has been covered elsewhere a thousand times,’ but it also falls under the category ‘top ten questions to ask Michael.’ So here’s my answer:

Depends!

And you thought this was going to be short and sweet.

First, if you love gadgets and are made of money, there’s no point in waiting around. Get one today, and buy an extra for me as well.

On the other hand, if you aren’t made of money, you have some questions to answer about yourself. How do you primarily use a computer? People tend to fall into two broad categories:

1) Write email, check email, surf the web, view Microsoft Office documents, play music, look at pictures.

2) Creating relatively (or very) complex documents, editing files of all types, five bajillion songs, six bajillion photos, and simply must use program X.

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Steve Jobs, bicycles, and other things I get cranky about.

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Let’s pretend, for a moment, that you live under a rock. Or perhaps you are a particularly happy person in a particularly remote portion of Borneo. If that is the case, then you probably don’t know that a fellow by the name of Steve Jobs has died. Otherwise, you would know.

Because of that (knowing), and because my interactions with Borneo Rock Dwellers are limited, I didn’t see a reason to write anything about it. He was dead, you knew that, and chances are all the topics would be covered five or six times over.

As it stands, I feel there’s a topic that hasn’t been covered.

This thought was inspired by reading an article by Maria Bustillos over on The Awl titled ‘Less Human than Human: The Design Philosophy of Apple.’ Ms. Bustillos’s point seems to be that Apple’s design aesthetic – and by extension, that of Jobs – isn’t human. It’s impersonal, it’s cold, it lacks good human values. This dovetails into other things that frequently start to crop up whenever people talk about Apple’s former CEO: Apple is trying control us, the machines are our enemies, there is no soul in this technology, and the only thing of value that Apple has brought to our lives is, well, nothing. They make expensive crap that has turned us all into zombies. Zombies, man! Zombies that don’t even like brains, but just shiny things! And oh, Steve Jobs was a jerk! And didn’t give money to charity! And I’m a unique flower who doesn’t buy into the hype!

On a personal level, I feel that there are so many logical inconsistencies in the article that my toes start to curl just reading it, but I found myself wondering why I cared. After all, people aren’t logical all the time and you don’t see me walking around with curled toes. I disagree with most of the human race on one topic or another, and don’t feel compelled to write anything about it. What was the difference?

Being misunderstood, cliche though it may be, is a trigger point for most of us. When someone starts saying things about us that just aren’t true, that, then, is what gets our goat. I don’t mind that you disagree, it’s that you are making up the topic of disagreement!

So, before I can start frothing at the article in question, it might be helpful to explain a few things about those of us who do like Steve Jobs, to clear up misunderstanding. Why do I care? And not just I, but a great many people in the same position as me; people working in the technology field, passionate about technology? At the end of the day, the reason is really simple:

We agreed with him.

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Why is my Mac slow?

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What is the number one technological hurdle of computing? What problem plagues people more than anything else, despite massive leaps in hardware and software in the past twenty years?

“My computer is just so sloooooow.”

Ironic, really. Think about it – the one thing that vendors incessantly bombard us with is how fast their new product is. That alone is a clue, I suppose, that something is amiss – if someone is constantly yelling at you that the reason it’s better is because it’s faster, obviously being slow was a problem in the first place. And the more people are yelling about it, the bigger a problem it probably is.

The catch, though, the great reveal to this particular magic trick, is that the reason our computers never seem any faster is because they aren’t actually slow in the first place.

Nope, I’m not about to pull some zen mystical “it is what you want it to be,” although if you can pull that off, more power to you – go do that and stop reading this. For those of us who can’t do that (raises hand) we’ll be better suited by applying a staple of troubleshooting: if a problem hasn’t been solved by trying the same thing 500 times, perhaps we should try something else.

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How to Be Efficient, or: the Blind Leading the Blind

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It’s ironic that computers, whose very purpose for existence is to increase your efficiency, are so very incredibly efficient at making you waste time. Like any good tool, if you decide to make it do something, they will do it quickly and well – get my work done? Sure! Find ways for me to get loads of dopamine by obsessively checking social websites, email, and various other time sinks? Absolutely! With great power comes great responsibility and all that, and if you aren’t too careful, you’ll find yourself where I have been, far too many times – wondering how you got derailed from the middle of your project about 20 minutes ago.

Rather than gnashing your teeth and spending another 20 minutes reading up on the benefits of Neo-Luddism, turn all that great power towards defeating the time-sink beast. 

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Creating Symlinks to shared folders and volumes

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I like to keep resources for current projects organized in specific folders on my hard drive, but for projects in which I’m collaborating it makes a lot more sense to keep them on the server, where everyone working on the project can pool their resources.

Creating an alias to something mounted on an AFP shared, however, won’t work that well. It’ll work from within the Finder, but if you use some other application that is setup to automatically pull up the project folder (like, for example, Transmit) it will just error out. 

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iPhone Error 3014: Just because I’m panicking doesn’t mean you should.

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Udate: It’s come to my attention that a number of people are wondering what, exactly, it means if your phone DOES give you an error of 3014. 

In my case, it was caused by Apple’s servers being overloaded, and iTunes couldn’t complete a connection to verify the update – IE, if iTunes can’t talk to the server, you won’t be able to update your phone. The other thing to note is that even just a slow internet connection can muck up your update, or any firewall issues. Bottom line, make sure that your computer has fast, unrestricted access to the internet.

A couple of days ago I, like many other millions of iPhone wielding techies, gleefully downloaded the latest update to the operating system, iOS 5. And it promptly bricked my phone.

I knew something was wrong the moment iTunes informed me, with clinical detachment, that an error of number 3014 had occurred and to please try again.

This is the sort of thing that makes ice trickle down my back when I’m at a client’s house – interrupted installs are never a good thing, in the same way that half-baked meatloaf is never a good thing.

But this wasn’t a client’s phone. I was in the inner sanctum of my office, so to speak, where computers go to be healed, not corrupted. So I spent a few moments frowning and poking and only then did the ice start to trickle on the spine.

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Should I upgrade to Lion?

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It’s not so surprising that I get a lot of questions about whether or not one should upgrade their computer to Lion, Apple’s latest offering for folks with a qualifying Mac. Presumably, one of my very reasons for existence would be answer questions like that. But it is interesting (to me, at least, and I’ll admit to being easily interested) how many clients ask that question with a sense of excitement in their voice. This includes a pleading undercurrent that over the years I’ve learned to recognize as needing the subtitle of: I really really really want this shiny new toy, please please please?

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Copying DVD’s to your computer – or iPhone, or iPad, or whatever

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I get a lot of questions about how to get videos onto your iPhone or iPod or iPad or iMac or what i-have-you. There’s actually a really easy way to do this, and it has an added bonus of letting you get your current DVD library stored on your Mac. Outside of potentially saving space in your house, it has the benefit of having all your movies instantly available, and if you connect to a large display or a TV, well, that’s pretty darn convenient. Movies, much like music, are one of those things where a strong argument can be made for letting your computing devices take over. Saves you space, and makes it a great deal easier to find what you want.

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Security basics

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Lets be clear: if you have a computer, security is an issue. I could go further and say that if you are alive security is an issue, but lets stay out of any such lofty philosophical attempts.

Instead, let me explain – I say this because one of the most common questions, and one of the most temperature raising debates in geek gatherings, is the good old: Do Macs get viruses? (One could say: ‘Do Macs get virii?’ but while sounding cool they would also be wrong.) Laying aside the literal answer for the moment (no) allow me to point out that what’s really being asked there is: Is my Mac secure?

Hence the first sentence of this piece.

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