RyanHarne.com

As iPhone push technology becomes ubiquitous, you should consider switching your email addresses over to their IMAP equivalents. Most email addresses set up any time before about a year ago used the POP standard—email stays on a web server and syncing is one-way. However, most new email addresses, including all new Gmail addresses, can be created using IMAP—syncing is 2-way, so you can access exact replicas of your accounts from either your own computer or any computer connected to the internet.

Wanting to hop onboard that train while I still have a chance, I thought to let my main Gmail account transition itself from POP to IMAP today while I was working in the lab. With a few clicks, I had turned on IMAP and started a new account in Mail on my Mac.

Once the new account was created in Mail, the storm began. I assume that those with only a few emails in their account, say 3 or 4 dozen, would transition with ease, probably in the amount of time it takes to carefully roll your eyes. However, my 8,000-strong emails entirely froze in syncing. I was aware that Mail would re-sync all of my email from Gmail and was ready to delete duplicates once they arrived, but server troubles prevented even basic syncing.

It simply wouldn’t complete a sync. Even with restarting Mail, rebooting my Mac, trying to continually click “Get Mail”. The sync would just freeze and the complex arrangement of Rules that I have would turn an otherwise straightforward task into a nightmare. So, let this be a warning to the wise.

And, as the iPhone roars into the market and new technology is either bolstered by its iPhone-approval or destroyed by a lack of interoperability, another casualty must be revealed. One of Apple’s own creations is, in fact, the loser.

iCards are dead.

With MobileMe bringing a slew of super-syncing features on the coattails of the iPhone’s success, the former .Mac iCard (which was, as you might have known, free for all) will be discontinued and forgotten. While Hallmark is the big name for eCards, the iCard was always more beautiful and less filled with hideous flash animations. The first ever eCard I received was an iCard, a Christmas/New Year’s wish from Jeremiah, and I still have the file saved from that 2001 holiday. I will miss the iCard—it truly was the simplest way to send a quick greeting to friends and family while allowing them to save the card for eternal viewing.

While they still have breath, please send someone an iCard. Go to Mac.com and click on the iCard link in the lower menu bar. Random posts are the best and, while brightening someone’s day, also make the world a better place for you, too.

Just eight hours after finally installing Leopard, there are a few things that are obviously beneficial or bloody terrible for my tastes.

Safari - I can no longer read the tabs. The bar is so dark that my eyes have a difficult time quickly assessing what is written in each of my tabs. It’s a similar issue as was addressed here with the replacement of the highway fonts for something that was easier to read at night. This is going to bug me.

Translucent Menu Bar - Puke. Puke. Puke. I hate messing around with important system settings, even though I have tangoed with Terminal in the past, but I hope Apple eventually makes this aesthetic atrocity an option.

Dictionary Widget - I use this thing all the time and they changed the font. For the worse. I simply detest font changes (with the exception of the aforementioned highway sign example) with something I am incredibly accustomed to.

Spell Check - It’s everywhere. In your documents. In your username textbox. Even in your WordPress textbox. At first, I really disliked it, particularly with the username situation (of course “ryanharne” is correctly spelled). But, when I tried to write “accostomed”, it gave me a red-dotted warning and I realized that I will never again have to check my spelling by revision. Imagine that. Even less editing on my part.

Mail - Thank you, Apple. It no longer takes 5 seconds to open any given mail folder. Now it takes about 0.5 seconds. I’m a patient person, but not patient with myself, or my mail.

iCal - Reading about it made me leery of the click-to-edit feature. But I am a big fan of large windows, with lots of white space so I can distinguish one item from the next. Killing the sidebar makes iCal so much better and I can cram my days with more events than ever. For better or worse.

Dock - Speaking of how I love large windows, now I have less room to maximize programs to! Since I always want to see my Dock and the open applications, the minimization feature is not an option for me. However, now the dock extends about 50 pixels higher from the bottom than it did before. Boooo. Programs don’t maximize to the extent that they once did. iCal gets wider hacking off the sidebar, but it also gets shorter. Blast. Just when you thought you were getting lucky.

Stacks - I need to see if I can set up a Stack for any/all screenshots that I take. I typically have 5 to 20 screenshots on my desktop at any given moment - a quick stack to show just what the screenshot looks like would save me a ton of time grabbing the one I want.

There are hundreds more features of Leopard that I haven’t touched yet. But eight hours is barely enough time to sleep, let alone dive into a new operating system. I’m sure some of the new pieces will become manifest as I use my MacBook this week. Plenty of time.

After speaking with the managers at VT’s official bookstores, they have decided to sell Mac OS X Leopard for the $69 price instead of the $116 educational price. Us poor people can now take a sigh of relief.

This week was too busy for me to go through the 300+ New Features page for Leopard. But, now that the Friday rain is keeping me inside, I have had two chances to cover the full web terrain. Watch me geek out at the small things.

Boot Camp: When the Leopard website received its overhaul this past summer regarding features, one of them was that you could click on Apple and then beside “Restart” there would be an option of “Restart into Windows”. Then, a week later, the feature (and screenshot of this) was pulled from Apple’s website. Now, it’s back. I loathe having to wait to hold down the option key. Windows takes a long time to boot, so I would rather the leave the room and refill my glass of water than hold Option and wait.

DVD Player: It can now float above all windows even if you need to be working on another document while watching. Great. Now, this feature needs to be added to both iTunes video windows and Quicktime and I’ll be set. Also, what’s this “Scratched Disc Recovery” that’s mentioned?

iCal: Unfortunately, none of these new collaboration features make any sense unless all of the people you are working with are using Mac (as far as I can tell) and are also as obsessive compulsive as you with your calendar. I live by my iCal, so the new interface might assist me. I just wish I could get more out of the program but most other engineering colleagues #1) use PCs, #2) barely maintain any calendaring in Outlook, and #3) typically rely on their memory to make it to an event. Such a pain.

iChat: Tabbed chatting takes all of the fun out of Exposé. I will resist it, if it is an option. And “Hide Local Video”: Thank You, Apple. I’m sick of always sneaking a peek at my mug and then wanting to flex my neck muscles to look cooler. Seriously, it’s an issue.

Instruments: I don’t even understand what this is, but, oftentimes, the strangest technical apps in OS X are the most useful (see: Grapher, an application so wonderful but forgotten that it can’t even be located on Apple’s own website apart from hearsay).

Mail: Finally, To-Dos and Notes! I am the token forgetful person that Steve Jobs spoke about at this year’s WWDC, one who emails himself quick action items and notes. Whether this was successfully incorporated into iCal or Mail, I never cared, as long as it can happen. The current To-Dos in iCal are miserable to access and make the iCal window even smaller in month view.

Printing: Printer Drivers via Software Update. This should make the Leopard installation take half the time of Tiger. I’m sure of that.

Quick Look: I think CoverFlow is neat, but it is very inconvenient for the way I assess files (lots at a time, in detail view). Browsing through my PDFs without fully opening Preview is going to be a blessing.

Spaces: Yeah, I used Virtual Desktop for about a year. Hated it. I always want to see the edges of application windows behind my current workspace so I have a basic impression of what’s going on. I am a lover of Exposé and Apple+Tab, not jumping around workspaces.

Spotlight: “Calculations in Spotlight” - this was the headline that literally made me smile. I hope it recognizes things like “sqrt” and “abs” and “log10″ because I use those all the time in Excel.

TextEdit: The new features are ok. I just wanted to reiterate how much I am dependent on TextEdit. Want to know why I love TextEdit? Restart your Mac. Spotlight “texted” and it will appear fairly quickly. Then select it. Watch how long it takes to open. Then, close TextEdit. Now, Spotlight “word”. Open Word. Watch how long it takes to load. Pages isn’t that much better than Word in this respect. TextEdit fulfills my requirement for a super low system resource-using word processor. I’m just weird like that.

Time Machine: Speaking of low system resource using, I have waited for an auto-backup feature like this but have always been concerned about how it is updating its catalogue of files. If this kills your performance when open (and using intense stuff like Photoshop or my iPhoto library), then forget it. I’ll go back to manual backups.

Universal Access: I sense that the auto-header/table/link discoverer will make moving through my daily list of blogs a lot easier. The “Hot Spots” idea sounds very interesting. It took me a while to figure out how to use Automator to my advantage; I wonder if I can get anything out this.

It’s exhausting being a geek.

Somewhere back there in generation four, I lost interest in iPods. The click wheel never appealed to me - though, I always agreed it was a great feat of interface design. Now, iPods are either debilitated iPhones or portable servers for music, the latter I’m sure Adam appreciates.

My ideal iPod has a measurable mass, has an LED-backlit display with contrast controls, contains a small harddrive (flash or HDD, doesn’t matter), and has distinct buttons for play controls. You know you’re out of the technological loop when you desire to step back in time, not simply to reminisce but, in order to feel comfortable and in control. For working out, I want an iPod that is a lightweight tank; strangely enough, there has yet to be any iPod design that I have appreciated as much as the first generation iPod shuffle, which meets and exceeds the toughest, sweat-drenching demands of my gym workouts.

Frankly, I don’t listen to music that frequently outside of my place here in the house. Even the Apple TV rarely plays anything other than episodes of The Office. iPods have long been just another expense that I don’t feel like keeping pace with. They’re neat, yes. But not necessary.

My half-pound 2G iPod, my infrequently touched 3G, and my shuffle are a family that I am proud to have residing under my roof. A new, video-playing nano would only turn my comfortable community into a Green Acres catastrophe. I was simply thinking about iPods tonight.

I think iLife ‘08 has some amazing potential, particularly that I finally have a reason to take simple movie clips with my point&shoot camera, but iWork ‘08 caught my attention. Read: Numbers, the application I have been waiting for. My copy is in the mail, at the moment, so the 30-day trial version will have to do.

I write a lot of technical documents for various technical courses and the research, requiring a hefty amalgam of charts and graphs. The first chore is always organizing the data and then making sure Excel translates it correctly into a graphical form. Then, the second chore is formatting it to no end to make sure it is not instantly distinguished as a generic, default Excel graph. But, Excel formatting is terrible, atrocious, and as generic-looking as faux table flowers at a 3-star Italian restaurants. People see Excel graphs and must glean the data. That’s simply the wrong way of consuming a graph.

So, let me take some quickly manufactured data that could supplement this type of inquiry and throw it into Excel for a basic 3-D bar graph. Whiz-bang, here we go.

The remarkable thing about that graph is that it’s not even 3-D. It uses parallelograms to make the bars look like they have a depth, when in fact shadowing, lighting, and textures define a third dimensionality. Numbers will take the same data and create something beautiful for me to throw into a report.

Sigh! What took Apple so long to get this in my hands?! Oh, wait, of course… iPhone. Somehow, Numbers was also able to spot my favorite font, Helvetica Neue, and made it my default. I’m not sure if other people come across this anomaly, but it made me grin. All-in-all, a graph should be formatted so that the data is digested and not excavated. The default formatting of Excel is so elementary that I might as well print my report on a dot-matrix system and retain the same quality of presentation and expect the same efficiency for those consuming my product. Numbers takes the pain out of formatting.

The true test of graphing is the pie chart - true, a dying form of plot, but nevertheless still popular and easy to digest. Here, Excel will take my previous data and make a pie chart. All default here…

Can’t you just hear Excel vomiting? Excel is not made for presentations outside of your cubicle, but for office pranks and medicinal subscription spam. Numbers knows the ropes, though.

While Excel was vomiting in the master bathroom over its attempt at a pie chart, I had to rush to the guest half-bath in order to not wet my pants from seeing the inspiring beauty of Number’s first pie chart plot. And check this out…

An explode slider bar! You haven’t lived until you manually explode a pie chart. Even better, clicking on an individual slice allows you to explode it separately. I can see myself using these types of chart-formatting options in lab reports or whatnot, screen-shotting the space and then drag-dropping into a report. So what if the chart lines are still visible? Instant Alpha in Pages & Keynote can instantly eliminate that stuff! Even leaving the lines there puts a peer’s Excel-based report to shame.

This is not what I was anticipating from Numbers; I actually had more conservative hopes. I use Excel frequently and understand its limits, often hitting them and, consequently, lowering my head in frustration, asking how long I care to troubleshoot the problems. The transition from Excel to Numbers seems to be analogous to my purchase of a semi-luxurious queen mattress after having lived for years on campus-owned twins. I have room to stretch and can land from the wrong direction and still be comfortable with the results.

I have wanted to say something for weeks but was never sure whether the issue deserved its own spot or just a minor reference. It is deserving, I have concluded.

The Apple Remote is great and purely simple. I was immediately in awe the first time I used it - a full-featured remote with an interface simple enough to complement the other Apple products out there. But even on my first try, something seemed amiss.

Then, another leery feeling. And another. And WHAM! it dawned on me.

The Apple Remote has a terrible, haptic flaw. The Menu key is fully flush with the rest of the remote body. While the ring of the other buttons provide a lifted surface to interact with without the need of a glance at the unit, the Menu button always requires that you - ok, at least me - look at the remote to make sure you are touching it. The gap around the button is insignificant enough, too, that the average thumb - again, mine - cannot distinguish its locale.

Solution: the Menu key should be given a slight concavity inward to provide a tactile capacity to locate the button without the need of visual confirmation. Why inward? The ring above is convex out. An inward button is the perfect yang to the ring’s ying.

I already submitted my Apple feedback form. Und du?