The Technology Human Boundary

Win a free 50gig Dropbox account for life!

2011-10-06T12:19:00.002-04:00

AppSumo is running a contest through October 13th - the winner gets a free 50gig Dropbox account for life!

If you've never heard of Dropbox, it is a well-done way of storing files online. You can access them through a webpage, or if you install the software on your machine you can also access them on a local folder (which is kept synced up). Folders can be shared as well.

CLICK HERE to try to win this from AppSumo.

Internet? What internet?

2011-02-08T14:49:00.000-05:00

here's a video that aired in 1994 - a quick reminder that the 'net wasn't always as ubiquitous as it is now.

When this aired the World Wide Web was only 2 years old!

Online Presentation tools - waaaay beyond Powerpoint!

2011-02-03T10:14:00.000-05:00

I teach Powerpoint as part of Mercer University's CSC125 class, and have studied presenting for a number of years as part of my teaching in various locales and situations.

I find it fascinating how the technology has changed over the years. granted, I'm a bit of a maverick - I selected Astound to use for presenting way back in 1998 because it was cross-platform and way ahead of Powerpoint in terms of animation and video playback. I've used one of the tools mentioned below for a couple of years, and am planning on checking out the other soon.

Both use the "freemium" model - accounts are free for basic functionality, and advanced features are available for a subscription.

Slideshare.net allows you to upload presentation files in several formats - Powerpoint, of course, but also Keynote. Others can easily view them and navigate through the presentation in a web browser. The coolest feature, though, is the "Screencast" - where you upload the presention into Slideshare.net, upload an mp3 file to a web-enabled location, and then use an intuitive interface to link the two together.

Here's an example of quickie presentation I threw together for my Mercer class - I was out sick, but needed to go ahead and cover the material.

Busses And Pointers

View more webinars from Tom Rule.

PREZI.com is something I just found this week. It allows easy creation of ZOOMING presentations, which are visually interesting (as long as they are designed well!).

One of the creators of Prezi has one called Why You Should move Beyond Slides that clearly demonstrated the capabilities and advantages. It is worth checking out.

Barnes & Noble Nook vs Apple's iPad - a review

2010-11-06T18:59:00.000-04:00

I was in Barnes & Noble the other day and was visually accosted by a huge Nook display just inside the door. I had never had an eBook in my hands, so I walked over out of curiosity.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own an eBook nor an iPad, so this opinion is based on some out-of-curiosity online research plus about 5 minutes with an iPad and a Nook. One of my students has a kindle, and I've looked at that as well.

One of things things that struck me about the iPad was the glare from the lights overhead. Although I admire the ipad's funcionality and the elegance of the design, the glare factor on the screen makes it much less useful for reading. The frustration factor would have been exceedingly high trying to read a book on an iPad, especially in sunlight.

The Nook was a welcome contrast in this department [pun intended, of course!]. It's matte screen, although smaller in size, was much more pleasant to use in a variety of lighting situations. I was fairly impressed - plus the fact that it accepts SD cards for additional memory, has software so you can access your purchases on a variety of platforms (Macs, Windows, iPhones, Android.....), and the battery is USER-REPLACEABLE makes this reader very attractive.

According to B&N the number of titles available for the Nook is greater than for the Kindle or the iPhone by a significant factor. Granted, I have no way to check that out, but given that B&N has moved heavily into the education market (i.e. TEXTBOOKS) it's probably true.

You can also "lend" a title to another Nook user, which is pretty cool - and one model is equipped with both 802.11 [wireless] and 3g [cell phone] radios.

They come out with a color version November 19, 2010. That's one tech item the MaconMacGuy is anxious to check it out.

Spencer Katt descriptions of Windows

2008-12-16T13:06:00.001-05:00

These are quotes from what is reportedly the last Rumor Central column by "Spencer F. Katt" from eWeek magazine (December 15, 2008 issue, pages 48 and 49).

Windows 3.0 - the first usable version of Windows

Windows 3.1 - the first of Windows to actually work

Windows 95 - the first version of Windows that anyone would actually want to use

Windows 98 - the first version of Windows that no one actually needed (soon to be followed by many more, including the ultimate unneeded OS, Vista, which would supersede.........)

Windows XP - the first version of Windows that enabled productive work to be done.

Pro Tools vs. Mackie Traktion

2008-12-05T00:33:00.004-05:00

Some quick thoughts regarding the interface on these 2 programs. Pro Tools is probably the "industry standard", and you don't hear much about Traktion. I use both - Tracktion in my home studio, and Pro Tools LE at the college where I teach, in the piano studio.

Now, I used Pro Tools waaaaay back in the mid-90s, so I've watched it "grow up". But still, I find the Traktion way of doing things much more intuitive. Not having to switch screens to mix or edit really helps my workflow as I'm mixing, whereas Pro Tools requires a switch back and forth between editing and mixing.

To insert a plugin - in Tracktion you drag it down to the track - in Pro Tools you have to insert it into an aux bus on the mixer. This means that if you're in the middle of editing a passage and decide to add a plugin, you've got to leave editing, switch to the mixer, insert the plugin, yadda yadd yadda....

So does Pro Tool 8 still bounce tracks in real time? NO! That means that it takes 45 minutes to bounce down a 45-minute track. Tracktion's bounce speed is limited only by your computer system, not the second hand.

Still, Pro Tools is a good thing to know. I still like Tracktion better (and I get more work done faster with it).

What should I do first?

2008-11-18T09:07:00.003-05:00

As someone who tracks a lot of different areas (technology and music are the two top-level categories) I've been struck this morning by the vast plethora of possibilities. So how is a businessperson supposed to decide on a course of action? As a musician and as a businessman, I'm told that I need to be marketing myself - and here are a ton of places where I can do that online. MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn, BrownBook, YellowPages, tons of musician directories, personal website, iTunes, Twitter, Feedburner.... the lsit is essentially endless.... and oh yeah, don't forget about video marketing and podcasting and....... It's probably the same way it's always been (which method of marketing is the most efficient for a given product) - the difference now being that I can do all of this myself given my skills in using online resources (plus some serious html/data manipulation skills - which are not necessary for many of these tools. Writing, however, is an essential skill.) But how do you decide what is a good use of your time? For me, I tend to avoid the "hot new thing" - Twitter being the thing at the moment. Yes, I'm on FaceBook, and linkedin, and mySpace, but none of them are a religion with me. I do a podcast on occasion, and several blogs like this one - but again, none of these are my focus. I do them for research purposes, partly - and partly for business reasons and online visibility - and partly because it's interesting. I've looked at Twitter - but I have work to do, and can't take the time to care what a particular Biz Guru is doing at the moment. I need time to think about what I'm working on, and to interrupt that thought-flow with a 160 character message about how someone is at Starbucks and the line is real long is ludicrous - even if they were Seth Godin (though I doubt Seth would be tweeting about Starbucks). So how do you decide? Dunno. I'm still experimenting with all the online marketing things. It's not boring!

Are Students as Techno-Savvy are they are supposed to be?

2008-10-07T09:48:00.002-04:00

I would argue not. There's a myth out there that students are just wunderkinds when it comes to technology - and a lot of adults actually believe that it is somehow genetic - that there is some innate ability to understand technology that adults have grown out of. Hogwash! There are as many ways to approach tech as there are people and students are no different in that respect. I have had numerous students tell me what techno-idiots they are. I believe they cover it up though - don't publicly admit it - until faced with a technology challenge. I'd say a key difference between the kids and the adults is that adults tend to only use what they perceive to be immediately useful, while kids tend to explore more. Perhaps this is a time issue - kids have more time because they don't have a mortgage, car payments, bills, etc. Since th estudents have more time, they can spend the time learning something new - like that new cell phone feature, new computer game, new whatever. Adults tend to only learn it if they have to - or worse, figure they CAN'T learn it because they've been out of school too long. That's just sad.

TubeMogul

2008-06-30T17:09:00.003-04:00

TubeMogul is a service (free) that I stumbled across while thinking about creating a vodcast (i.e. video podcast) for GovAccessMusic.com. It allows you (after some setup work) to upload a video ONCE and publish it on several different video sharing sites. Sweet! For example: ONE upload now shows up on

Google Video YouTube Revver MetaCafe Yahoo Video Daily Motion Veoh ... plus others.

The links to revver and Yahoo aren't available yet.

The service even tracks views and clicks from all these other portals. It's a well-designed site that is easy to use.

the 3g iPhone - so?

2008-06-10T01:18:00.003-04:00

(Disclaimer: I'm not an Apple employee, nor do I write for any Mac magazines/tech publications/etc.)

Steve Jobs announced the 3g iPhone today at the 2008 WWDC (WorldWide Developer's Conference). My reaction? "Well, it's nice, but it isn't going to change my life". (Sorry, Steve! Well, no, not really.) Why? Part has to do with how I use technology. I don't NEED to be texting all day every day. I don't NEED to have web access on my phone (I do however need to take a break from the web!). I don't NEED to be spending $100/month for cell phone service for one phone! (OK - I do spend close to that, but that's for THREE phones - and I pay by the message for texting because I'd rather spend $2.00 a month for the few that I get/send versus $5 or $10/month for a capability that I won't use.) Call me cheap - but I'd rather spend the bucks on groceries...or gasoline. What's nice about the new iPhone?

The user interface - wicked simple to work
Web access, especially using the 3g network.
The flush-mount headphone jack. You gotta admit that Apple at least changes something when they mess it up - the recessed headphone jack in the original iPhone was a mistake.
The lower price

So why won't I be getting one, even at $199?

I don't need it. The little dinky LG phone I'm using has served me well, and it does what I need it to do.
I don't need to spend the money on something that is "cool", but adds little to functionality to my life as it stands.....and would add complexity.

Yeah, it's a nice gadget. But I've gotta go buy milk instead.

iPhone

2007-07-10T16:24:00.000-04:00

Hmmmmmmmm........... This is a piece of technology that I can't decide on. [Disclaimer: YES, I've seen/held/played with one] The user interface is excellent. The phone's construction seems to be solid enough to handle a fair amount of user abuse - the front glass IS glass, though, so I assume there will be a lot of cracked ones before long. I was impressed with the OS - it seems easy to navigate, and the touchscreen is indeed well done. I think the product is hobbled by the strong tie-in with AT&T, though. Their data network is really too slow to be of much use for serious web browsing....... and that's a fair amount of money a year for something you aren't going to use unless you absolutely have to. Here's what I predict most people will do: They will drop the data part of the plan (assuming AT&T will let them!), and use the web surfing capabilities of the iPhone only when newar a WiFI hotspot (where the iPhone works very well, by the way). A lot of other people, though, will just continue paying that monthly fee, regardless of whether they use the capabilities or not. Yes, the iPhone is impressive. All the hype wasn't. For me, though, there is not enough need in my life/career for a $500 cell phone/music player. For $600 I could get a fairly nice large diaphragm condensor mic!

Website Growth chart

2007-03-16T17:34:00.000-04:00

This is a chart I ran across on the web in my research, showing the growth in the number of websites on the WWW. It's interesting for a couple of reasons:

Because of the logartihmic setup, it looks like the growth in the number of sites is expected to slow in 2007. I think this is misleading, IF you don't pay attention to the left scale.
Just think: 100 million websites online, and the web was only "invented" in the early 1990s. That is a LOT of information to search through. That's why it is IMPERATIVE that computer classes should teach search strategies, especially at the high school level.

Finally! Someone agrees with me re: Teaching Computers

2007-03-02T22:45:00.000-05:00

Jakob Nielsen, in his Feb. 26th 2007 Alertbox article, deals with teaching computer skills. I have said for years that we don't need to be teaching buttons in computer classes - we need to be teaching processes. "Schools should teach deep, strategic computer insights that can't be learned from reading a manual." When I taught high school computers, my big frustration with all the texts we looked at was that they ALL were focused on buttons - click here to do this, click there to do that. So what were the kids to do when the user interface changed (as it ALWAYS does!)? Better to teach them how to think, how to learn, and the overall paradigms behind the basic comptuer tasks - word processing, spreadsheets, email, search, presentation design. nielsen adds one I hadn't though of - basic debugging. His point is that spreadsheets have errors, and you need to know how to go about figuring out how to fix them. I agree. The original article is here. Definitely worth reading!

Writing for the Web

2006-12-26T11:05:00.000-05:00

Ran across a fairly decent article on writing for the web. It's posted here mainly so I can go back later and read it in detail:

http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Website-Development/Writing-for-the-Web.html

It isn't the best written article on this subject I've read, but it does a pretty good job summarizing the main points to remember when writing for a webpage.

Pain in the Brain - Scoring and the Answers

2006-09-12T12:43:00.000-04:00

If you haven't taken the exam yet, click here to take it!

Scoring: # of Correct Answers - Rating 12 - Cheater! 10 or 11 - Strong Thinker - You will do well. 7,8, or 9 - Normal - You could do well. 4,5, or 6 - Slow - I hope you do well! 1,2, or 3 - Bonehead - I will pray that you do well. 0 - Brain dead - we will bury you in a well!

1. There are 12 of anything in a dozen.

2. 6 outs in an inning (3 for each team).

3. If you take away two, then you have, duh, 2!

4. Of course they have a 4th of July in England. It's just no big deal there.

5. If a man has a widow, then he must be dead to begin with.

6. Everyone only has one birthday. Kinda hard to be born on 2 different days.

7. 60 minutes. You take the first one now, the 2nd one in 30 minutes.......

8. All of them. Some have MORE than 28!

9. 70. Divide by a half is the same as multiply by 2.

10. Nine still stand. Go back and reread the question.

11. None. It was Noah, not Moses. 12. Because seven ate nine!

Information Overload

2006-08-08T10:27:00.000-04:00

Ran across this on Guy Kawasaki's blog:

Ten Questions with Seth Godin Question: Why don’t you check your Technorati ranking? Answer: Because the data won’t change my actions. Getting data for no good reason just drives you crazy. The secret is to get very flexible in the face of data you care about—changing your x every time you see y changes—and incredibly inflexible in the face of data you don’t care about.

The inside joke here is that Guy made a hobby of getting into the Technorati 500, and then the 100. He succeeded, too. In my case, doing such a thing wouldn't help pay any bills. It might have in HIS case, though. I love how Seth phrased it - "Getting data for no good reason just drives you crazy". We are bombarded with so much information that it can drive you into a state a paralysis. My personal problem - given I have a tendency to want as much information as possible before acting - is figuring how when to begin ignoring additional input, and just do something. Seems to me that you have to learn to decide when enough is enough, cultivate quality sources of information, and keep your eye on the prize - the goal.

Get A Freelancer observation

2006-06-23T09:08:00.000-04:00

I joined getafreelancer.com a few weeks ago - I've placed a couple of bids, and have won one job so far. It has been fascinating watching the projects that come up on my 5-times-a-day emails.....and the bids that come through. Quite a few of the projects are from people who apparently think that having 1500 articles that are keyword rich will make their site successful......but they are willing to only pay $50 for 1000 articles. There are also a lot of obviously pre-fabricated bids on projects - often with terrible grammar. I wonder if those companies ever get any work. Why would anyone assume that you could get quality copywriting - articles - by paying $1 a page? I've also seen projects where someone wants a Flash intro page plus a 35-page site - and it has to be modern, high quality design, mind you - but they have a $100 budget. Maybe I should start thinking of getafreelancer as a flea market instead of a project area.

Flash and small biz websites

2006-06-16T14:55:00.000-04:00

As a long-time web designer for small businesses in the mniddle Georgia area, I've been watching the growth of Flash (from Macromedia - oops, now Adobe).

When Flash started appearing on the scene, it was hailed as the end-all be-all, and was used for all sorts of goofy things. Then there was a backlash - search engines didn't know anything about Flash, so designers decided to use Flash for just some bells and whistles.

Now, it seems the industry has matured to the point where Flash is - as it should be - just another tool in the web designer's arsenal. (There's a corollary in music and the 12-tone music of Arnold Schoenberg, and how it started out as a musical philosophy, but has ended up as a tool in film composer's arsenal for getting a certain sound - but I digress).

I'm aware of the huge number of things Flash can do - but at this point have had no need for most of the, - especially the back-end database capability. I have been taking advantage of the new video capabilities in Flash 8 - that has been nice for a campaign website I'm webmastering (Dale Washburn for State House, Georgia district 137).

One of the things that attracted me to web design is that there is always something new to learn - and for me the key is keeping track of what the capabilites are. I can always go learn how to do something new - heavens there are tons of tutorials on the web, if you know how to search - but you've got to know something is possible first!

Well, back to the websites.

HIPerWall - wow!

2006-06-14T01:09:00.000-04:00

From a newsletter that just arrived from Small Dog:

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the HIPerWall is an array of no fewer than FIFTY Apple 30-inch Cinema Displays. These units are in a grid ten wide by five high. There are 25 Power Mac G5 Dual Core towers, each with two displays attached, and an extra Power Mac G5 just for coordinating the graphics and managing the high-level display functions.

The Apple 30-inch Cinema Display is a perfect fit for this application due to its extensive resolution capabilities, and narrow border design. If you haven't seen one of these brilliant displays, you need to get to an Apple location and see it in person.

The Mac platform provides the robust UNIX-based operating system that's integrated with the open source components used by so many research teams. The machines are fast, the video capabilities provided are outstanding, and the hardware is plug and play.

The goal in building the HIPerWall was to provide a tool that allows researchers to view and manipulate data sets at extremely high resolutions.

Be it terrain visualization, disaster simulations, or a large digital microscope, the HIPerWall allows researchers to seeks solutions to problems as never before.

For more information on this topic: http://www.apple.com/science/profiles/hiperwall/

Observations from the Knee-Deep South

2006-04-13T13:22:00.000-04:00

Observations from the Knee-Deep South So true, So true.....

A company's online persona is important!

2006-03-08T10:04:00.000-05:00

OK, so that title is probably an obvious statement. What may not be so obvious is that there are two basic schools of thought regarding setting one up. Think about the online versions of a particular company - there might be one or several websites, some blogs, forums, entries in a usergroup, emails - all of these work together to create the virtual company. For the virtual version to be effective - or at the very least reflective of the flesh-and-blood version - these elements need to be coordinated to some degree. This is where too many compnies, especially Small companies, miss the boat.

I have been involved with a small company where there was little recognition of the "fabric effect" created by having multiple online presences. As webmaster it was my responsibility - I thought - to make sure there was some coordination, or at least some crosslinking going on (plus a mdoicum of SEO work done). Sadly there was little recognition of the need for this, and those duties were given to some else who has few if any web skills. As a result the organization will not get the full benefit of those sites they have labored to create, and they will be of use only for those people who are already part of the oprganization.

To me this is a waste - sites should not only be sources of information for those already involved (for a business, the customers, for a nonprofit, the members), but also serve as a resource for those who stumble across it....and you increase the "stumbling odds" by cross-coordinating the virtual fabric created by these multiple threads.

There are 2 organizing principals I have seen at work in the virtual companies. The first says that everything should spring from some central location - perhaps the primary company website. The theory here is that one central location makes it easier to find, and from there a potential customer can locate just about anything.

This version requires significant search engine awareness when designing the primary website - and even much MORE awareness when looking at the online fabric that makes up the virtual version. If there is only one entry point, then there MUST be some effort and time put into making the site search engine friendly, and some effort spent marketing the site in some form.

The other school of thought what I call the "Cast your bread" model - a biblical reference that is particularly appropos. The original quote reads "Cast your bread upon many waters......". In this case I am referring to the idea of having multiple online presences, each cross-linked and referring to each other. IF all of the resources are search engine friendly, then you increase the odds of an online browser stumbling across your resources.

So what's a webmaster to do when cast aside? In my case, go find some other clients!

Monk-e-mail???????

2006-02-28T14:15:00.000-05:00

Ever heard of monk-e-mail? http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/ You can have a (customizable) monkey either read a message to a recipient (using text to speech technology), or you can record your own voice via microphone or regular land line/cell phone. A very cool technology demonstration "brought to you by careerbuilder.com"......and a potentially good marketing tool in the right circumstances.

Software Features: is a plethora a good thing?

2006-02-23T11:14:00.000-05:00

In class today I talk about some of the collaboration features that Microsoft put into Word - specifically the change tracking options. That got me thinking about software, features, and the tree falling into a forest (does it make a sound if no one is there to hear it?) My answer to the question is yes - it makes a sound. The real question is: does it matter if no one is there to hear it? In the same way - if there is a really cool feature in software, but no one uses it, does it really matter? So the developer has to find some way of informing people about the feature (that's marketing), and training people in how to use it - or even WHY they would want to (that's training/education). Case in point: Apple, a few years back, incorporated Publish/Subscribe into Clarisworks (now called Appleworks and dying). It was a really cool feature that I used a fair amount. The idea was that you could create, say, a logo in a draw document, and publish it. Then you could subscribe to the logo in a WP doc. The logo was a live link back to the original logo - make a change, and the changes automatically propagated to the WP document. It worked much better than what Microsoft came up with (OLE), which is to say it actually worked all the time, and was really easy to use. But Apple did a lousy job of telling people about it - and teaching people how and WHY they should use it....and so the feature was dropped after a few years. That should probably start another thread about feature bloat in Microsoft Office.......but I'm tired of typing, and now have some papers to grade anyway.

There IS hope for the future...but not from textbooks

2006-02-09T08:52:00.000-05:00

I am again teaching a beginning computer class at Mercer University - focusing more on Office than anything else. The class gave self-designed powerpoint presentations, and I have to admit I was fairly impressed. A few students had taken my teaching to heart and had gone way beyond the builtin stuff - several didn't use a single bullet point (which was WONDERFUL). I stated that my goal for the module was to insure that none of them were responsible for any deaths by Powerpoint. The text we are using, while it is full of graphics, screenshots, and handholding - really bothers me. I don't see my purpose - or even the purpose of the class - as teaching buttons. If I teach buttons, then additional training will be needed every time a new version comes out. But if I teach concepts and paradigms, then the student has already learned how to learn, and can teach themselves. It goes back to the old homily about giving a man a fish versus teaching him to fish...... Is there a textbook out there that gives the underlying paradigms for the Office-type activities? I have not seen one. Perhaps it is time to write one.

The wonders of modern technology

2006-01-21T17:05:00.000-05:00

As a kid, I dreamed of sorts of techno-toys that I'd be playing with.....mostly revolving around music and recording. I figured I'd never be able to afford anything, or ever get into a studio because of the expense. Well, as I sit here in the "outhouse" - my name for the little building out back that has my workshop and studio - I have 3 computers in the room, an 88-key synth, aKorg DW8000 that I use for analog sounds,plus some outboard gear hodge-podged together. I'm typing this on an old windows 98 laptop a friend gave me, which is hooked up tot he internet through a Mac mini,connected to the 'net via dialup. The mini is mp3-encoding a 30 minute audio file, downloading a systemupdate, sharing it's internet connection with this windows laptop, AND I'm using it to edit some audio. What have all these toys given me?No, not satisfaction, or happiness. Capabilities. They give the possibility of doing pro-level work in the outhouse. ........that is, IF I know what I'm doing, and how they should work.

People aren't as tech-savvy as the press makes them out to be

2006-01-10T11:48:00.000-05:00

Perhaps a better title would be "The press is more gaga over new technologies than regular people are". Hmm, that would qualify as an obvious statement. My Mercer classes started today. Becuase of the research I do, and the things I read, I am very aware of many of the technology trends happening. I've read all the hype about RSS and blogs and how they are going to change the world yada yada yada yada. In my first class this morning, not a single student of the 12 present had even heard of blogging or podcasting. Interesting! So much for that urban myth that all students (i.e. teenagers) are very tech-savvy.

What a difference 1 character can make

2005-10-26T15:07:00.000-04:00

One of the fundamental problems with computing is that it requires us humans to be less than human. 'Course, that true in life as well, oftentimes.

Maybe I should rephrase that - the problem is that too often to go through a day PROBLEM-FREE requires us to be less than human.

Two examples:

I've heard a story about NASA losing a Mars Lander because of a misplaced comma. Now, you would think that something that simple would either have beebn caught before the satellite was a tad out of reach, but it wasn't. (Granted, the story could be apocryphal, but let's assume it's relatively true for the purpose of illustrating my point.)

For the machine to work properly, it required the programmers to work like a machine - something that is impossible for humans to do on an extended period of time. (Humanity has some significant advantages, don't get me wrong!). This causes problems for both the machine and for the humans trying to get work done. Work gets lost, machines lock up because of human error, etc. etc.

Second example:

I sold the 8500 on ebay. The website - the machines - everything required me to work like a machine and not make a mistake for the transaction to go smoothly. Unfortunately, the 8500 was advertised as a PowerMac 8600 - related to the 8500, but different!

....and in all my proofreading I never caught the error.

Unfortunately I shipped the thing off. Fortunately, the recipient let me know about it, and has given me a chance to fix the error.

**sigh** There are days I ***WISH*** I could be a machine!

Studio update - part 3

2005-10-11T21:25:00.000-04:00

The mac 8600 died - a moment of silence, please.

Well, it didn't EXACTLY die. I had decided to simplify my setup, so I pulled the external hard drives out of the setup after copying the data and system to one of the internal drives. After getting things settled, naturally, the 700 meg drive died rather catastraophically - and with no warning, of course.

It took every app I had with it. The larger drive I had reserved for data storage (lots of audio files), so I put all the apps on the smaller dirve. Oh, well!

So, again, the setup changes. I'm trying to sell the 8600 on ebay - the machine is still good, there is just no hard drive with it. I now have a mac G3 desktop (233 MHz machine) to go with the mini. The plan is to get my old sequencing software running on it, plus some editor librarian for my synths. This will act as the master clock for Garageband / Soundtrack / Reason.

What is simply wonderful is that the modern-day machine (the Mac mini) will transfer files over to the old-style machine (first the 8600, ow the G3 running either mac OS 8.6 or 9.1).

I could even have the mini dial up the 'net, share the connection, and have the G3 on the 'net through the same connection. Gotta love it! - though that does sound like one of those things you COULD do, but ti doesn't really make sense to actually do it!

When the Human needs the Technology to tickle the funnybone.

2005-10-11T21:14:00.000-04:00

http://www.infonegocio.com/xeron/bruno/olympics.html

A great Flash movie. Prepare to laugh - cartoon humor in the best tradition of bugs bunny!

Cell Phones, Ringtones: Why and how to get new stuff for your cell

2005-10-07T10:30:00.000-04:00

The downloadable cellphone ringtone industry has created a huge buzz among a certain segment of the internet industry. Although you don't yet see reports of this stuff on the broadcast network news reports, there is a lot of money changing hands.

One big question: Why?

I asked my teenaged son this question: Why do kids like to customize their phones? After getting the typical "Dad you just don't get it look" that I get quite often (!), the answer boiled down to "It's just cool".

Bottom line, if I may be permitted to extrapolate the rest of the story, ringtones allow you to personalize a gadget that has become a part of your everyday workflow. Ringtones have the advantage of being cheap, and very easy to deal with as well.

So how do you download some new material on your phone? The answer varies a bit with the capabilities of your phone. Some phones can only play one note at a time, some phones can only play modified MIDI files, others can do samples of one format or another. It can be a bit confusing.

Help for the confused

Enter ringtone.2tunes.com. This is a ringtone site that keeps track of what your phone can use. All you ahve to do is select a tune you'd like, and then select your phone model. If you don't see your phone model listed, your phone can't use that type of file!

The site has thousands of ringtones available. It also offers wallpaper (for changing the backgrounds on the cell phone screen), pictures, and even videos (for the latest phone models). The inventory is constantly being updated, and is very easy to use. Downloading is quick, easy, and secure - not to mention cheap!

How to download ringtones to your phone

First, swing over to ringtone.2tunes.com and select a ringtone, wallpaper, or video. Click on your selection to preview it. This will create a popup window, so if you have popups blocked you may have to CTRL-click the link (command-click for you Mac people).

After you listen to it, select your cell phone service provider (i.e. Verizon, Cingular, AT&T, etc), then your phone manufacturer (Motorola, Samsung, etc.) and then your specific phone model. Only those phones that can use your selection will show up in the list - so you can't buy something you couldn't use!

Simply click the "Buy" button, and the window will be replaced with instructions on how to finsih the download. generally, use your cell phone to send a specific text message to a specific number, and the material you ordered will be automatically downloaded to your cell phone.

Prices are low - somewhere in the $1 to $2 range, and the site is available internationally as well.

It's fast, easy, simple, cheap, and secure. So check it out - it's a lot of fun, actually. They have a wide selection of tunes available, and it's all legal.

ringtone.2tunes.com

Programming ain't what it used to be......neither is music.

2005-08-08T12:43:00.000-04:00

A bit o' background:

You might say I'm young old-school. I was first bitten by the technology bug in the 70's, in my teens.The first personal computers came out, and I was fascinated by them. I was never able to actually AFFORD one, but I followed the trends and read articles about everythign computer-related that I could find. I even did a paper on what a system-analyst did!

I took a couple of programming courses in college at UTC (Tennessee-Chattanooga) - PL/1 and Fortran. The Fortran class was done using punched cards - the jobs were sent up to Knoxville and we waited hours for the results of our little programs.

(There was something satisfyingly organic about punching cards. I still remember the feel of the CLUNK when the card was punched as I hit a key on the keyboard.)

Back then, programming was on a much lower level language-wise. Great programmers could do assembler so their stuff would run faster or have additional features not easilyimplemented in the upper-level language they were using. I knew people did that, but I never got into spending hours twiddling bits so a routine would run faster. I had music to make!

Nowadays, things are different. I read a piece a few years back about how programming was becoming just connecting pieces of pre-existing code together, and lamenting the loss of "real" programming". Modular coding is a great thing overall, because it allows many more people (and talent types) to create code. It also allows a developer to easily add features to a project. For example, I don't really care to learn Javascript in-depth - but because of the modularity of the language when used in a webpage, it is easy to grab a script off some website and pop into my html. A few tweaks here and there and poof - added functionality!

There is also a parallel in music production. It used to be normal for composers to write their pieces line by line - making sure one line fit with the previous line, or one part with the other. Now, so much music is created by loops - let's use this loop, mess with it a bit, then add this other loop to it, etc etc.

This has the benefit of allowing mroe people to create music. The downside, just as with programming, is that the music created is often not very good - or at best is merely derivative. This is ok if that's what you WANT, but it isn't a long-term viable thing - people get bored listening to the same mediocre stuff after a while.

Any conclusions to this? Hmmmmmm.........I'm willing to bet this is just a phase we're going through. The techniques - both programming and in music production - being used today will spark yet another way of working - and the creative people (no, the REALLY creative people - the ones willing to work at it) will take what we do now and make up something new.

Some of them might actually do it away from the computer!

What will IT look like in 2010?

2005-07-18T08:22:00.000-04:00

From eWeek, July 11 2005 edition, page 42, in an article looking at what IT will be like in 2010:

"Are these people a reinvention of the systems analysts of the 60s and 70s? Or is there something more sophisticated there?

Rosen: I think one of the key things you'll need is people who know how to learn - not so much people who know language X, Y, and Z, but people capable of learning a lot of different kinds of things."

So this member of the eWeek Roundtable thins IT will by 2010 find it more important to have people onboard who know how to learn than to have people who already possess a certain pool of knowledge.

It makes a lot of sense - and always has. Knowledge is relatively easy to gain with some effort (it's called training, people). The ability to learn (and even the desire....) can take years to develop.

Where does this type of person exist?

Liberal Arts programs.

------------------------------------------------ The MaconMacGuy Putting the Pieces Together Mac etc. Tech Support Macon, GA

Basic info | www.tomrule.info/mac The MacGuy Blog | maconmacguy.blogspot.com ------------------------------------------------

Quit wasting time searching the web

2005-07-08T15:46:00.000-04:00

Ever been looking for something specific on the web, and just had a frustrating time finding that one fact? Here is a process you can follow to quit wasting time searching the web - developed out of a compuiter training class I taught for several years at mount de Sales Academy and Mercer University:

Step 1. Know EXACTLY what you are looking for.

You can't vaguely look for "something about cars" and expect to get anywhere - unless you are in "just browsing" mode, the on-line version of mall windowshopping. You need to be looking for something - MPG rating of a Toyota Camry, or used car lot in Atlanta, for example.

Step 2. Phrase your search in the form of a question - either on paper or in your head.

I suggest on paper the first dozen times you do this. For eaxmple, "what is a current value of a 1967 Volkswagen squareback?".

Step 3. Underline the important words in that question.

current value 1967 volkswagen squareback

This gives you the keywords you'll use in the search engine entry box.

Step 4: Decide on the search engine and search type you need to use.
Most people, of course, like Google and Yahoo. I prefer Metacrawler, because it searches several engines for you, and returns the top results.

There are 3+1 search types: AND (require the presence of all the keywords on the webpage for it to be counted as a hit), OR (any of 'em will do), and PHRASE (has to have the words in that exact order to be counted). The "plus 1" refers to NOT (don't count a page as a hit if it contains this word).

Example: ford wagon "Oregon Trail" NOT car NOT engine NOT michigan

Step 5: Do the search!

One little Thing: Computers are like 2 year old children

2005-06-21T08:05:00.000-04:00

How often do we use these machines, trying to get some work done (or what passes for work in this information economy of ours) - and are stymied by one little thing......that one little checkbox left unchecked, or one setting left not set, or one button not pushed.....

Case in point: I've been trying to send in some blog entries for three weeks, but nothing was posting. It turns out that there was one checkbox in the blogger settings that needed to be checked - and asn't.

Never mind that there was just one word - "Publish" by the checkbox, and no explanation anywhere on the page. (You had to really dig in the help area - incidentally, one of the bettter written help sections out there - to find out what the checkbox did).

Which brings up the point of this entry: Computers are like 2-year olds, in some respects. No, I'm not going for the obvious "garbage in garbage out" analogy - that would be way too easy....and obvious.

No, somputers are like a two in that they are very literal. I once told by oldest son - who was two at the time - to go ahead and "hop into the tub". Fortunately I managed to catch him before he whanged his shins against the tub trying to jump in.

He took the statement literally - as do computers. There cannot be a situation where there is a diconnect between the commands given and the result. I am, of course, blatantly ignoring the plethora of malfunctions, bugs, and errors of unknown causes by making this statement - but the point remains:

The computer does what is it told to do at some level.

This creates a problem, though - we don¹t work that way....and this permanent disconnect between the human way of expressing ourselves, and the machines need for precision in instructions is what causes all sorts of frustration.

If you think about, the need for higher level programming languages, the graphical user interface, etc etc are all attempts to bridge the gap, so that the human can stop trying so hard to adjust to the machine's world.

Go back to the 70s, when I was a teenager (oops, I just dated myself. Oh, well). At one Boy Scout area-wide event, one Explorer troop had a little microcomputer of sorts running. I remember it had several blinking lights, a keypad, some chips on a breadboard - and the guy was programming it by typing in assembler code. I can't remember what the program was supposed to do, but I remember thinking it didn't look like much fun.

The human had to adjust to working like the machine.

The same is still true, but to a lesser degree. How many times do we modify a preferred workflow because the machine works better if we follow process B instead of the preferred process A?

When will it get better? Only God knows!

In the meantime, keep yourself out of trouble body-wise. Don't adjust your body to fit the machine - adjust the machine to fit your body.

Rephrased: Don't move your arm to grab the mouse. Move the mouse to where you don't have to move your arm!

------------------------------------------------ The MaconMacGuy Putting the Pieces Together Mac etc. Tech Support Macon, GA Basic info | www.tomrule.info/mac The MacGuy Blog | maconmacguy.blogspot.com ------------------------------------------------

Mac OS X Advantage

2005-06-13T22:44:00.000-04:00

Don Mayer, from SmallDog.com, wrote something incredibly concise and apropos:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are about 20 thousand things that distinguish Apple's OS X Tiger from the "operating" (using that term very loosely) systems found on PCs. Here's an overview of some of the important ones:

Reliability and Stability

1) Beneath the surface of Mac OS X lies an industrial-strength UNIX foundation hard at work to ensure system stability and performance.

2) If an application should ever crash, the Mac OS X memory protection prevents it from taking the rest of the system down, isolating the effect of misbehaving applications (see Tiger Recovery below for even more enhancement to this feature in Tiger).

3) Preemptive multitasking and multithreading lets a system do more tasks at the same time, safely and independently, which minimizes the impact of one application on another, improving system stability and performance.

Ease of Use

1) The Finder, Expose, and Spotlight make it easy to use, navigate, and find files and applications, eliminating frustration and increasing productivity.

2) You can quickly switch between users without quitting running applications by using Fast User Switching and it has really cool visual effects!

3) Mac OS X goes well beyond the U.S. government's Section 508 Accessibility statute to provide smooth, elegant features to those with difficulties using computers.

Applications

1) There are over 10,000 Mac OS X-based applications in areas such as education, digital media, professional design, productivity, web production, video editing, business, scientific research, and others.

2 There are Mac counterparts to popular Windows applications like Microsoft Office, Adobe InDesign CS, Adobe Photoshop, Intuit Quicken, Macromedia Dreamweaver, and Quark Xpress, to name but a few.

3) In addition, there are thousands of games available on the Mac, including titles such as Star Wars Jedi Night, Halo, Doom, Medal of Honor, and Myst.

Cross-Platform Interoperability

1) You can add a Mac to any environment with support for major file formats and network file services, as well as major peripheral and digital devices.

2) Mac OS X is compatible with every major file server protocol on every major server platform on the planet today, including AFP, SMB, WebDAV, NFS, and FTP. Mac OS X works well in Active Directory environments.

3) If you use Microsoft Exchange, you can sync your email and contacts with Mac OS X's Mail and Address Book applications automatically.

Security

1) Mac OS X's reliability, stability, and performance come from its industrial-strength UNIX foundation, which has more than 30 years of time-tested capabilities.

2) Apple's technology and open source business model allow Apple to respond more quickly to security issues when they arise.

3) Apple doesn't like to toot this horn, but there are fewer viruses and spyware for the Mac.

Even Intel recognizes this. During this week's Wall Street Journal "D: All Things Digital" conference, Intel chief executive Paul Otellini was pressed by Walt Mossberg about security on the Wintel platform, to which he offered a startling confession: He spends an hour a weekend removing spyware from his daughter's computer. Asked whether a mainstream computer user in search of immediate safety from security woes ought to buy a Mac instead of a Wintel PC, he said, "If you want to fix it tomorrow, maybe you should buy something else."

Mobility

1) Mac OS X keeps users connected to their work no matter where they go, allowing them to move effortlessly between networks and keep their communications and documents secure.

2) Business travelers can connect to their office networks using a standards-based VPN client.

3) You can connect to Mac, UNIX, and Windows file and print servers over wired and wireless networks using standard protocols.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Another site to check out, comparing Mac OS X and Windows XP, is:

http://www.xvsxp.com

More reasons why I use and endorse Macs!

Email - 8 ways to keep it from being a complete waste of time

2005-06-11T13:59:00.000-04:00

http://www.softlab.ece.ntua.gr/~sivann/pub/swf/may02-smilepop-soapbox4.swf

The above is a link to a flash cartoon that everyone who emails should watch - ESPECIALLY those people who insist on forwarding every "funny" or "interesting" thing that crosses their inbox.

It is truly amazing how durable some of the material floating around the 'net is. (This would probably be a good subject for a psychology doctoral dissertation). I have seen some material come in that I saw 10 years ago - in the Web's infancy!

....and then you have all of the urban myths and online hoaxes that are still floating around.

It is amazing that we get ANYTHING done via email.

So, how do we get anything done? Here are some suggestions.

1. Don't forward any funny/thoughtful stuff/rumors, unless it's to your best friend and you have already talked with them about it. We're all busy, and more than half the stuff out there is old anyway.

2. Keep answers short and sweet. Good, concise writing is at a premium online, and will get you noticed. (Yes, your high school English teacher was right all along).

3. Organize your incoming mail. Use the filtering and rules built-in to your email program to file your mail based on source or destination.

4. Don't leave your email program up all the time. Specify a time period every so often (maybe one an hour, maybe once a day, etc.) to deal with the incoming email.

You pay a huge brain-time penalty when switching from task X to checking email, and then switching back again. Leave the email program off until you actually need it.

5. Delete Delete Delete. The electronic equivalent of cleaning out your shelves - get rid of the stuff you don't need. If you are in a regulatory environment where everything needs to be archived (like the financial services or healthcare industries) create a separate mailbox for stuff to be stashed - out of the way of your regular in-box.

Don't keep it if you don't need it!

6. Attachments - don't leave them in your inbox. They bloat your in-box, and can create problems if the box takes too much space on your hard drive. If you don't need them, delete them! If you do, save them in a standard location on your drive (say, inside an "attachments" folder in your standard documents folder.)

7. Be ruthless when it comes to deleting suspicious looking emails. There's no free lunch available when it comes to relationships, cheap commercial software, or Nigerian bank accounts.

8. Do I even need to mention keeping your anti-virus stuff up-to-date, and your spyware database as well? This is ESPECIALLY critical for Windows users.

So there you have it - 8 ways to make your email use more productive. Do you have some more? Add a comment!

------------------------------------------------ The MaconMacGuy Putting the Pieces Together Mac etc. Tech Support

Basic info | www.tomrule.info/mac The MacGuy Blog | maconmacguy.blogspot.com ------------------------------------------------

Macs in the Business world?

2005-06-06T22:29:00.000-04:00

Here is a link to an article with some food for thought, for those who say the Macintosh does not belong in business.

http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2005/052305schwartau.html

...and here is a great blog regarding the Mac's inherent security advantage.

http://securityawareness.blogspot.com/

Today's announcement that Apple will transistion to using intel processors should have no affect on Apple's security advantage, because Window's security weaknesses are the result of bad coding and design practices - and have nothing to do with the processors used.

What do YOU think? Add a comment!

------------------------------------------------ The MaconMacGuy Putting the Pieces Together Mac etc. Tech Support

Basic info | www.tomrule.info/mac The MacGuy Blog | maconmacguy.blogspot.com

------------------------------------------------

Studio Setup: The Next Chapter part 2

2005-06-03T03:51:00.000-04:00

I am typing this on the Mac Mini now comfortably ensconced in the "outhouse" (the outbuilding where my studio is located). It was a bit of a challenge to get the KVM working with both the Mini and the 8500. It turns out that the 8500 - since it has an added USB/Firewire PCI card, doesn't power up the card until after the OS is loaded - which means that the KVM switch doesn't receive a full-powered monitor signal until that point. So while the machine is booting up, you get a dim, flickery image on the monitor. VERY distressing the first time it happened! The KVM is working nicely, but the Mini keyboard doesn't have a NumLock key, so there is not way to switch between machines. That isn't currently an issue, but it may be at some point in the enar future. I may swap out the keyboard from the iMac up at the house (which has a numlock key) to see if it will work. That would be a shame, though - I really like the feel of the Mini keyboard.

Studio Setup: the next chapter

2005-05-25T14:29:00.000-04:00

I am a firm believer in using things - especially technology - as long as it is practical. That's why I have been using a powerMac 8500 for my writing and transcription work for a good long while.

I bought it off of eBay for $150 to replace a Mac clone that got fried by lightning. I use it for digital audio work, sequencing, and Finale stuff.

I purchased my first ever new Mac in February - a Mini. For a long while it has stayed in the living room, perched on top of a 10 year old IBM 17 inch monitor that was absolutely huge - it was quite funny looking, but very functional.

I don¹t' want to lose what I have with the 8500, so today I moved the mini down to the "outhouse" (it's a 12x16 ft little house out back with my studio and workshop). I'm using a KVM switch (the 8500 has a usb/firewire card installed), and the 2 machines are networked together (with a crossover cable, of course. Why spend $ on a switch when I already have the cable?)

So I'm working with one machine running MacOs 8.6 - running Finale, EZ Vision, and assorted audio utilities (like Soundmaker from Micromat) - and the other running MacOs 10.3.

Gotta love it! A Very functional studio using a blend of the old and new.

Is this a good place to mention the Mac Classic running MacOs 7.1 that I use in the piano studio at the store? (I use it for basic sequencing in my piano lessons). It brings new depths of meaning to the word "slow"!

--------------------------------------

The MaconMacMusicGuy

http://www.tomrule.info/

http://www.tom-and-co.com

http://www.youngamericamusic.com --------------------------------------

Training: What it can save

2005-05-18T11:38:00.000-04:00

So what could training save a person, department, or organization that would make it worth the moeny spent? Time! One of the things I train on is using the Web effectively - especially search techniques. Teaching a handful of people in a department more effective uses of the Web - especially search techniques - can DRAMATICALLY reduce the amount of time wasted looking for some specific piece of information. There is also the matter of the best way to transfer information from one office to another. Developing workflows that fit department member's learning styles can reduce the amount of time spent figuring out how to get file A to person B. Then there's the matter of file formats. Too many people don't really understand them, how they impact their workflow, and how to take advantage of that knowledge to get their work done better. These are several areas in which some basic (i.e. inexpensive) training can make a quick and palpable difference in the bottom line (or at least the frustration level!).

Training - a little used antidote to problems

2005-05-07T21:09:00.000-04:00

I have worked in several organizations now that were heavy computer users, or were trying to be. In every single case there was a dearth of training for the users of the machines. This is (surprisingly, I think) even more true for the educational institutions (both secondary and colleges).

What management - and even the eventual users of the machines often did get, was that comptuers are fundamentally different from anything else we use in business. They are multifunctional things that can perform so many fundamentally different tasks it is mind-boggling if you think on it too long.

Add on the issue that most software has a TON of features, along with the time pressure felt in most businesses ("I don't have time to figure this out, I've got work to do!"), and it is really no surprise that training is a needed item.

Good technology training is the single most advantageous thing an organization can do for it's employees. By "good" I mean training that enables employees to think for themselves, and goes beyond the typical "push this button and the comptuer does that" approach I have seen in way too many textbooks and computer courses.

Good technology training should also take into account the various learning styles that have been delineated by the learning researchers. Some people learn by doing, some by hearing, some by seeing....etc.

A good trainer should also be able to integrate the training into the organization's current workflow - this is something that can produce immediate results.

It's is also amazing that so many organizations purchase equipment, get it installed - and never give a thought as to who will figure out how to work the fool thing. For example - and I realize that this is a minor thing - when a new laser printer shows up at the office, how will anyone figure out how to work it? Especially in terms of what to do when thigns go wrong.

It is critical that there be someone who is [at least partially] technically capable, that has been given the time to figure out the new machine [or has been trained!]. That way the organization loses less time and productivity for small technical glitches.

Obvious statements? Perhaps. But it is interesting how much productiviy and time is wasted becuase people aren't trained and training procedures aren't developed.

Computers: Macintosh - Apple is STILL here?

2005-04-28T12:57:00.000-04:00

I've been using Apple computers since around 1990. I remember when I first saw a Mac - it was in the fall of 1984. A buddy who had gone to another college came back home with one, and I was immediately smitten with the idea of graphical computing.

In between then and 1991, when I received my first Mac at work, I did a fair amount of programming and work with DOS and Windows - especially programming Lotus1-2-3 spreadsheet macros, and dealing with data flow between a PC where I was copy-writing, and the compugraphic machine, where the typesetters got teh copy ready for the catalog. (This was at Ellett Brothers in Chapin, SC). I have heard for a long time about how Apple is going to die as a company - and have heard it multiple times. As I write this, the industry pundits are (once again) real high on Apple's prospects, given a leading market share in the digital music player arena. Give the pundits a few weeks - they'll change their tune.....they always do! By all rights the company should have ceased to exist in the mid-90s because of poor marketing, bad pricing policies, and several really bad design decisions (anyone remember the 5200? Boy, I wish I didn't.) So why do I use a Macintosh? Why am I such a fan? (Remember, I use Windows just about every day - I used to manage 2 labs full of Windows machines, plus a whole campus of Macs of various vintages - from LCIIIs to PowerMac G4s, and 3 sets of iBooks). 1. The OS works much better for getting work done. Case in point: When I need to make a graphic web-friendly, on my Mac I can get it done in 2 commands using graphic converter (by LemkeSoft). On the Win2000 box sitting on the same desk, it takes wading around 3 sets of menus plus 2 sets of adjustments just to crop and resize the graphic. Changing the dot resolution down to 72 is an excersize in frustration. There are tons of other examples - why does XP remember so few window settings? Why is there no keyboard shortcut to cloe the currently open window when I double-click a folder? Macs have had that feature since 1986. 2. Macs last longer. I have a vintage 1994 PowerMac that I do digital audio editing with - yes, multiple tracks. There isn't a single Windows machine on the planet from 1994 that can do that. I'm running Pro Tools Free, by the way. 3. Macs come with more features than your standard Windows machine, and the bundled software is better. I would put the iLife suite up against ANYTHING bundled with any Windows machine anywhere. The software is absolutely phenomenal. 4. From 1984 - 2003, there were fewer than 100 Mac viruses developed. None damaged hardware. NONE! Max OS X has been out for a few years now, and there have been ZERO Os X specific incidents of malware developed. Yes, there have been some BSD attacks, but none nearly as serious as you see for Windows, Internet Explorer, et al. (So why does the Mac version of the Symantec Security Suite cost so much more than the Windows version? It should be EASIER to develop it!) There will be more to come........make some comments. What do YOU think?

What, Apple isn’t dead yet?

2005-04-28T10:00:00.000-04:00

Part 2 of semi-random thoughts about Apple, the Mac OS, and computing in general. My experience with the Mac dates back to around 1991, when I, as head of a college music department, purchased a Mac Classic. That was the start of a budding music technology center that eventually expanded into the James T Bass, Jr. Center for music Technology - a 12 station netwroked music technology lab complete with digital audio recording, sequencing, music theory software, and the like. It turns out the concept was ahead of its time, and was at an institution not prepared to support it - but it was fun while it lasted. At the same, Windows started making real inroads into what is now called the enterprise market, and i was able to compare the two systems in a networked environment. Granted, much is different nowadays - then it was Windows 95 vs. MacOS 8, now it is Windows XP vs. Mac OS X. It is surprising what is the same, though. For example - I watched a crew of FIVE people take a full week setting up a networked Windows lab - networked printing, networked file storage, access to the internet. Midway into the next semester, fully half the lab didn’t work - there was ALWAYS something going wrong in there. The Mac labs I have worked with (include the above-mentioned music lab, plus 3 sets of iBooks doing the wireless netowrking thing) have all been a dream to setup. No major hassles - real consistent setup, consistent operation - things just worked. It only took me 2 days to get the music tech lab fully up and running - by myself. I have seen it where 2 examples of the SAME MODEL Windows machine running the SAME OS required different settings to get up on the network. It was ridiculous! That’s one reason why the Mac is still around. They are easier to work with. Doesn’t seem like a big deal, does it? A lot of the Macintosh advantages are, at first glance, not a big deal. Fore xample - it has long been a Mac hallmark to remember window settings (position on the screen, sixe and shape, what the view was last set to). The OS has done this for every window opened on the machine - even for removable media like floppies/zip disks/ removable hard drives/etc - since, oh, Mac OS 2.......? Windows XP STILL has a limit on the number of windows settings it remembers. Doesn’t seem like a big deal - UNTIL you begin to track how many times you resize a window, or change the settings, of the various windows you use. That can add up to significant time - and aggravation. It costs you in another way as well. When you are creating something (this could be a graphic, or writing, or aduio or video - anytime your are creating SOMETHING on the computer) - you have activated the right side of your brain - the creative side. Moving a window around is a left-brained activity. Windows requires you to interrupt your creative flow to resize windows and such - this costs you brain processing time (there is a significant processing penalty for “switching mdoes” as it were). I call it “the creative groove” - when creating you get in a groove where things are just flowing and then........interrupt the flow to resize a window or adjust a setting. That’s costly....and may cost you the idea you were working on. It can be difficult getting into that creative groove to begin with (depending on the day!) - and it can be even more difficult getting back into it. This is a small example of why the Mac allows you to get your work done - you spend less time futzing around with the system, and more time on your work. More to come. Leave a comment!