I couldn’t bring myself to rent from iTunes
Published on 25 Jan 2008 at 12:48 am.
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Filed under dvd, hd, itunes, movie, rental.
I’ve been planning to rent and watch a DVD tomorrow. My usual way of doing this is heading down the street to Hollywood Video, paying $4.50 or so, coming home to watch the movie, then returning it at some point in the next five days. I figured now would be a good time to try out iTunes rentals.
Let me back up a little first. I’ve never actually bought anything from iTunes. Never even considered it once. When iTunes plus was announced my feelings went from “I will never buy anything from iTunes” to “I might consider considering buying something from iTunes.” Then Amazon MP3 came along and I was back to the stance that I’ll never buy from iTunes.
I currently have a Product (RED) 4GB Nano, a black 80GB iPod and a silver 160GB iPod Classic. I’ve owned countless iPods before these as well. I have over 700 CDs on my shelf and over 8,000 tracks in iTunes (all ripped from these CDs.) I’m not adverse to paying for music. I’m adverse to paying for something that isn’t really mine (read: DRM,) and I also like having a physical disc as back-up.
I’ve had a $25 iTunes gift card sitting on my desk for a few months with no real plans to ever use it. When iTunes movie rentals came along I thought “I’ll finally get to use this gift card.” And since something I rent was never going to be mine, the DRM shouldn’t bother me. And really, it didn’t. This is essentially a free rental since the gift card was free (thanks Apple!) But what it came down to, and why I’ll be renting the movie from Hollywood video tomorrow, is this… features and flexibility.
With a rented DVD I get extra features such as commentary, bloopers and deleted scenes. With iTunes I’ll get just the movie. Hollywood Video also gives me five days to watch it. With iTunes, once I start, I get just 24-hours. With my job, and my own inability to stick to something, the 24-hour limit worries me. I don’t anticipate it being a problem, “but what if it is?” I’d rather pay for a “full” rental, than get a free, but more “limited” rental.
The iTunes movie rental proposition isn’t a bad one though. In fact, had just one thing been different I’d have rented from iTunes. That’s if they had it in HD. Why would HD have been worth it you may ask? Basically just for the experience. I’m pretty sure that I will rent from iTunes when the right HD movie comes along.
I did realize one thing while writing this. iTunes movie rentals are designed to compete with Pay-per-view, another something I’ve never spent a single cent on.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with MacBook Air
Published on 23 Jan 2008 at 4:58 am.
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Filed under apple, macbook.
I think each of us saw MacBook Air and began to come up with things we’d change about it. My list was long. Replaceable battery of course, replaceable RAM, larger hard drive, lower price, smaller bezel, more USB ports, and on and on. But what did I end up with? It wasn’t MacBook Air at all. It was my own version of a Mac subnotebook.
Back to MacBook Air — it’s perfect! It’s exactly what it aims to be. It may not be what I want, but that’s because it’s not targeted at you or me. It’s targeted to people with a very strong sense of style (rightfully or wrongfully so) and way too much money. This is a very succulent market for Apple.
Think Paris Hilton (ugg, I know). Apple’s goal here may very well be to put Macs in the hands of high visible and highly emulated people. What’s that computer Paris is using? A Mac? I think I’ll get one too. Although I think a diamond encrusted iPhone would have worked just as well. OK, maybe not…
About my switch to Vista
Published on 17 Jan 2008 at 1:10 pm.
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Filed under Uncategorized.
As I expected, Apple replaced my iMac with a new model. I’ll have a review up later but let me just say this much now — the glass is a mirror. It is horrible and at the same time beautiful. When not enjoying gorgeous reflections of myself, I experience deep black… sharp contrast… in a word it is “stunning” or “distracting.”
Now on to Vista. You know, the OS I threatened to switch to. I can sum it up pretty quickly as well.
- Best version of Windows ever!
- Worst operating system ever!
I can hear you now; asking “what about Linux?” I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but, Linux is an absolute joke. Even the best end-user distribution (that’s Ubuntu) is a pile of mis-matched code. And the best developer-centric distribution (Slackware) may very well require a computer science degree.
All told, I’d much rather have FreeBSD.
Oh, right, I was talking about Vista. Let me tell you an old joke I once heard.
The US and Russia (I’m sure at the time I was told this joke it was the CCCP) have a car race. The US car wins, barely. The next day in the papers the headlines are… in the US: “US wins race, Russia finishes last.” and in Russia it’s “Russia comes in second. US finishes next to last.”
Where was I? Vista? OK. Vista is the Russian car. I’d love to just go on with the car analogy, but it would become far too esoteric. All told, Vista is a great OS but it’s not Leopard. I just thought of a great way to describe Vista… someone hits me in the knee with a bat and gives me a really shiny hat. Hey, the hat is nice, but now I can barely walk.
In the end my decision was easy. Learn Vista or get stuff done with Leopard.
AppleCare is ridiculous
Published on 10 Jan 2008 at 3:16 am.
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Filed under apple, applecare, rant, repair.
I’ve pretty much had it with Apple. I love Mac OS and all, and in general I find Apple’s hardware designs are elegant. That’s not enough to keep me as a customer any longer. The machines are over priced and AppleCare is, well, bullshit.
My iMac which has worked flawlessly for just over a year recently developed some display issues. I took it to my local Apple Store for repair. It’s been there for two weeks now:
This is unreasonable. Apparently, they’re “waiting on parts.” I’d really like to know which parts. Because if this were a Dell, I could quickly and cheaply get a new graphics card and new display. But since it’s a Mac, I have to wait for Apple. Ridiculous.
And Bob… I’ve never dealt with a stupider genius in my life. Completely unrelated to my iMac issue, my wife’s MacBook, the most recent revision, is having the well known keyboard issue (where it stops responding for several seconds to minutes). Apple has released a patch which did not fix the issue on her MacBook. So, we take it to the store (having an appointment and all) Now, the genius that was helping us was new so he asked Bob for some help.
He tells Bob what we told him about the keyboard and asks Bob “Have you ever heard of this?” Bob’s response was insulting. Bob says “I’ve heard of everything. I’ve heard the moon is made of cheese.” He goes on to list five other ridiculous things he’s heard. Let me tell you what I heard “What you say your machine does is as ridiculous as the moon being made of cheese.”
Thanks Bob, but how about trying to fix the problem instead of telling us how ridiculous it is. In an effort to help, Bob tells us we have several options and asks “Do you have a back-up.” I respond “yes, we have a back-up and we’ve already tried restoring the system from the discs.” But no, that wasn’t what Bob was getting at, so he cuts me off to tell me that his plan is not to restore the system. He tells us to “go home and call AppleCare.” Excuse me? “They’ll give you a box to ship it.” Well how convenient. I wish I had thought of that before I drove to the AppleStore, that’d have saved me the annoying experience of dealing with you.
I could go on about Bob and how awful dealing with him was. I had really hoped to avoid him. I’ve been in that store several times buying things and overheard him dealing with other customers. He talks to everyone like they’re five years old. I know some customers need that sort of thing, but part of customer service is identifying your customer. I overheard him help one woman with a problem having iPhoto find her camera. He went on about all kinds of crap, such as telling her not to put icons on her desktop because they take up RAM. I have no clue what that would have to do with her camera. But that wasn’t enough. He started to explain what RAM was, and then he went on to something about the System folder and how some icons aren’t really icons they’re aliases and on and on and on and…
At any rate. Given the shoddy service and recent increase in hardware problems (the iMac was my last Intel-based Mac that hadn’t had a repair) I’ve had, I don’t see myself buying more Apple computers. I find Vista to be a very good OS to spite what some people may say about it. It may not be as nice as Leopard, and the hardware it runs on is mighty ugly. But, it’s cheap, and when there’s a problem it’s quickly fixed without dealing with Bob. As my Macs start to break down and need replacing, I’m pretty sure I’ll be replacing them with PCs.
Thoughts on Think Secret
Published on 26 Dec 2007 at 3:41 am.
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Filed under apple, rant, think secret, thinksecret.
Think Secret is finally gone. I can’t say that I’m surprised or that I’ll miss it.
There seem to be quite a few people out there arguing whether or not the publisher, Nick Ciarelli, was a journalist. I don’t think that’s the point really. For argument’s sake we’ll just say he was. Then the question becomes whether or not he published information knowing his sources were breaking an NDA. Let’s just say he didn’t. In fact, let’s just say he’s completely innocent of anything illegal.
So why would Apple pick on an innocent? The answer is simple, they owe it to their shareholders.
Imagine if Think Secret continued to publish Apple’s product plans in advance of Apple’s official announcements. Shareholders will lose faith in Apple to maintain it’s trade secrets. Apple will lose the benefit of it’s own marketing buzz. And let’s not forget that when Think Secret gets something wrong, Apple suffers as well for not living up to expectations.
In short, even if Think Secret weren’t breaking the law, Apple had to do something. Apple owes that to its shareholders, and that is a law.
I think what bothers me most is how people often referred to Mr. Ciarelli as a “college freshman.” As if that’s some excuse to break the law. What if Nick were a elderly grandmother living on social security? Should Apple say “well, she’ll die soon so we’ll just let it slide?” Of course not. If anything, being a student at Harvard should have instilled an increased respect for the law in Nick, not given him an excuse to break it.
As if you couldn’t tell, I believe Think Secret and Nick Ciarelli guilty of illegal activity. It’s unfortunate that he was probably paid to stop publishing, instead of being sued in to the poor house. Paying him off was probably cheaper and faster than a lengthy court battle. Apple lived up to its obligation to its shareholders, and that’s what matters in the end.
My article submission for Gizmodo
Published on 14 Dec 2007 at 3:24 am.
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Filed under gizmodo, humor, offensive.
It looks like it’s pretty easy to get an article on Gizmodo — just pay them! Since I don’t have any money, I propose Gizmodo ask AMD for some money to publish my submission. I’m only asking for 25% of whatever they can get from AMD.
Title: Whatever you do, don’t get a Core 2 Duo!
Core 2 Duo processors are in a lot of computers these days, including Apple’s Macintosh line. There really are plenty of good reasons to hold off on getting one — I’m not just a sellout.
- Intel is going to come out with new processors next year. The new ones will be a lot faster, trust me, I know.
- They just released new compilers and your current software isn’t optimized with those compilers yet.
- You don’t want to fry your motherboard trying to overclock your new Core 2 Duo.
- Wait for a new competitor to show up. Other companies are always trying to make new chips and those could be faster and cheaper.
- Just get a Celeron.
- Wait for IDF, there could be a new heatsink specification… or something.
- No matter what, visit my site, it runs on a Core 2 Duo.
I realize that my headline may not meet with Gizmodo’s editorial guidelines if these recent gems are any indication:
T-Mobile’s Hotspot@Home is Like an Awkward, Pimply Teen that Can’t Score
Polarized Mirror LED Watch For the Self-Obsessed
Wii Attracts Roaches Like Week-Old Pizza, Your White Trash Cousins?
Anti-Social College Kids Build Autonomous Foosball Table
Canadian Hoser Runs Up $85,000 Mobile Phone Bill
Should my headline not meet to Gizmodo’s high standards I offer up this alternate: “Only socially-awkward, egotistical, acne-laden losers that can’t even get a hand job from their incestuous trailer-trash cousins buy Intel processors.”
And if AMD won’t cough-up some cash see if Intel will. I can easily re-work my article to trash AMD instead. First bullet: “AMD can’t be found in any Macs. Macs are really cool, trust me, I know!“
Gizmodo (or Nokia?) trashes iPhone.
Published on 13 Dec 2007 at 10:08 pm.
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Filed under gizmodo, iphone, rant.
I first noticed that Gizmodo trying to pass off ads as content a few days ago when they were pushing an old, possibly discontinued, TomTom GPS.
Then today they post this little ad telling you why not to buy an iPhone.
It is almost indistinguishable from the two actual stories below it (in all honesty, I’m not so sure that last one isn’t an ad as well.) While mixing ads and content like this is dubious at best, in this case Gizmodo has been paid to trash another product — a product that their associate editor has written a book about — and pass it off as a story!
That’s pretty sleazy considering how much content they have thanks to the iPhone. They’ve tagged more than 1,000 stories “iPhone”, whereas Nokia (the sponsor of the iPhone trash-talk) manages around 400.
And take a look at their reasons for not recommending buying or wanting an iPhone, basically “they’ll have a better one at some time in the future.” Can I infer from that that Nokia is standing still and that the Nokia phone I buy now won’t be improved upon anytime in the next year?
I’m sorry Mr. Chen but I won’t be buying your book or visiting Gizmodo anymore either.
Update on that .Mac security thing
Published on 10 Dec 2007 at 1:46 am.
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Filed under Uncategorized.
Regular readers should remember my little post titled “My Mac’s security is being compromised by .Mac.” If you don’t remember it, go ahead and read it now. After reading the comments and some other posts on the web about similar issues I began to think it might be expected behavior, but I always questioned it…
Who would expect adding an email account would cause file sharing not to ask for a password?
And I concluded that even if it were expected, it was boneheaded. Before I ever posted the issue here I sent it to Apple. I admit I didn’t give Apple much time to fix it but I felt like it was a very minor issue. I knew it only happened on a local network (Bonjour) so I wasn’t worried that anyone would use this information to exploit a remote machine in any way.
A few days ago I received a reply from Apple. The reply reads in part:
Regarding the issue you reported, after further investigation it has been determined that this is a known issue. We take any report of a potential security issue very seriously. It is being addressed, and we would like to thank you for taking the time to pass it along to us.
So there you have it. Its a known issue, and its being addressed. I hope to see the fix sooner than later because it still really bugs me. Of course in February I won’t be .Mac member anymore and I’ll once again be safe from myself or anyone who happens to commandeer my MacBook.
Macs really do cost more
Published on 10 Dec 2007 at 1:37 am.
12 Comments.
Filed under cost, dell, mac, price comparison, prices.
There’s an unfortunate trend in the Mac community to lie or bend the truth when talking about Macs. A common claim is that Macs and PCs cost the same… or that Macs include more so they cost more. The truth is that a PC configured identically to a Mac will almost always cost less than the Mac. Take a look at these two configurations.
All those yellow items are configuration changes I had to make to the Dell machine to make it comparable to the MacBook Pro. For the MacBook Pro I only had to change the hard drive — increasing it to 250GB (at a cost of $225) because Dell doesn’t even offer the smaller 120GB drive that the MBP ships with. The Dell has twice the display RAM (and possibly a higher resolution webcam), this is the only place where these two machines don’t have hardware parity.
It’s worth noting that the price difference is most pronounced when a Mac configuration is old (such as the MacBook Pro) since Apple doesn’t lower prices during a product’s life cycle the way Dell does. Also, Apple charges the most for Macs (they do offer a free-after-rebate printer with any Mac purchase) where as Amazon and other resellers often offer rebates, free memory upgrades and such with their Macs.
Software is a completely different story, and something that cannot be easily compared. I chose Windows Vista Ultimate on the Dell for two reasons. First, I wanted to choose the most expensive option to close the price gap as much as I could. Second, Steve Jobs himself has said that Mac OS X comes in one version — Ultimate.
So, as Mac users, let’s be honest. Let’s start out by admitting that Macs do cost more. Then we can move on and talk about what you get for that extra money. Here are three of the most obvious (to me at least) benefits of choosing a Mac:
- Mac OS X — It’s elegant and intuitive. Dells are stuck with Windows, with a Mac you can choose to also run Windows.
- The shell — A MacBook Pro is light weight yet durable and solid. Even best looking Dell can’t match a Mac’s design.
- The Genius Bar — It’s always free to talk to someone and get help at a Genius Bar. Dell has nothing that compares to this.
I’m sure you can think of plenty of other great reasons to choose a Mac. Please leave a comment to let me and others know what makes the Mac worth more to you.
Dells being advertized with OS X wallpaper
Published on 8 Dec 2007 at 2:24 am.
3 Comments.
Filed under ad, dell.
For a while Dell has been showing it’s screens with an image strikingly similar to a background provided with Mac OS X.
In a recent Costco ad they’ve just gone ahead and used Apple’s image.
In all fairness to Dell, I doubt they produced this artwork. It was likely produced by Costco’s art department… on a Mac. They probably should have just stuck Dell’s logo on the screen, but instead decided to appropriate Apple’s well-recognized Aque Blue image.
For a few years screens were often shown with a grassy field and blue sky. More recently they’ve gone with this blue motif. I think it’s indicative of an increasing admiration of Apple’s near-timeles designs.