Mavericks, Bootcamp and Windows 8.1

Upgraded my MacBook Air to both Windows 8.1 and OSX Mavericks.

First updgraded my Bootcamp partition for Windows to 8.1.

Then I used Winclone to resize the hard drive to give myself more space for Windows -- 95% of my time is spent on the Windows side, rather than the Mac side.

Next I upgraded to OSX Mavericks.

Everything is running perfectly except ... on Windows, my Quickbooks shows an error and needs re-registration. But that's simply the result of the hard drive resizing, not 8.1 or Mavericks. Not a coincidence, I suspect, that of all the software I use, Intuit is probably the one that's most monopolistic.

Thinkpad vs. MacBook Air: all in the boot times

As of this morning, you can start ordering the new Lenovo Thinkpad X1, supposedly a competitor to the Apple MacBook Air. I'm currently on my fourth Lenovo X series, which is in some sense the original MacBook Air. It ditched a CD drive many years ago, offering a 3 pound device with its a style all its own (al beit black) when MacBooks (nee PowerBooks) were still 4-5 lbs at best and saddled with a build-in CD drive.

Unfortunately for Lenovo, the MacBook Air can't be beat because it has something even the new X1 doesn't have: the instant-on functionality of flash storage, just like a iPhone or iPad. That alone may be enough to get me to switch. The ability to flip open and start working on your laptop anytime can't be beat, certainly not by Windows which seems to randomly decide how long it's going to make you wait before it wakes up from Sleep or Resume.

Lenovo does offer "Enhanced Experience 2.0" which supposedly beats other Windows machines in start-up time. And there's some promise that the X1 will ship with an 80gB SSD with Windows loaded as well as a standard 320gB HD, allowing boot off the solid state drive. But Apple with flash memory is hands down a better offering. My switch to Mac may end up being all in the boot times.

No Vista woes but Windows 7 woes. Programs won't connect to Internet. Caused by new MacBook Air in the house?

It is a weird coincidence that the day my wife's new MacBook Air appeared in our house was the day Windows 7 started acting up on my "original Air" the Lenovo X Series.

I went through about two years of Vista very happy. Few crashes, no problems. Windows 7 has been great, until last week. Then inexplicably I was unable to access the Internet from most programs other than a browser--Adobe Air programs like Yammer, Evernote etc couldn't connect.

I tried everything, trolling through Google search results based on phrases like "Windows 7 won't allow programs to connect" but found nothing that worked. Finally I resorted to using my Lenovo Rescue and Recovery program to roll-back my machine to a month or more ago. Now it's working fine.

Any ideas anyone as to what happened?

@verizonwireless doesn't seem to know that Windows 7 is available

Quick overview of 4 file sync services: Memeo, SugarSync, Dropbox, LiveMesh.

I realized I'm used four file sync services. And this doesn't even include Google Docs or the miscellaneous Microsoft products (Sharepoint etc). Consolidation anyone?

MemeoConnect. Advantages: a nice interface for viewing of Google Docs. Particularly helpful if you want to "double-click" on a native Office file stored in Google Docs, edit it, and then seamlessly re-save it into Google without having to download and then re-upload.

SugarSync: Advantages: BlackBerry program that allows you to seamlessly sync folders with your BlackBerry and then using DocsToGo, view or edit documents.

DropBox: Advantages: Ubiquitous. Seems to be the most common file sync system.

LiveMesh: Advantages: Nicest interface, in my opinion. This is what I use the most. Even though it's Microsoft, there's a Mac client version. I haven't yet spent much time with the new www.docs.com versions of online Microsoft Office, but it's a different product than LiveMesh. Microsoft alone needs some consolidation among their confusing offerings. LiveMesh. docs.com. Sharepoint. Sharepoint Communicator. SkyDrive. No where on their site is simple explanation of why you'd want one versus the others. Egregious. 

What do you see as key advantages? I'm sure there are ones they I've missed?

Microsoft, thanks for Excel 2010 and please keep me

People I meet are frequently surprised when I pull out a PC rather than a Mac. Because I wear black t-shirts occasionally? I don't know. I suppose it's a compliment.

Microsoft captured me years ago for the Windows platform when Excel became unusable on the Mac after the switch to Intel. Running Excel on a Mac under emulation was too slow and it frequently crashed.

Just yesterday I sent an Excel spreadsheet to a client who runs a Mac. We couldn't get cell formats to stay fixed.

Further, even if the 2011 version of Office for Mac returns macro capability and works perfectly, Macs will still drive me crazy because I can't click and button and pop a particular window to fill the screen. They're always floating on the Mac. Plus, the ability to run two instances of a program like Excel is essential.

So, Microsoft, continue to make Excel work beautifully, flawlessly, as in the latest Office 2010 version, continue to make the Mac version not quite as good and you'll continue to keep me on Windows.

New Years day Windows 7 64 bit conversion tale (not much to tell, fortunately)

Upgraded my Lenovo X61s to Windows 7 64 bit. Had to do a complete reinstall rather than a simple upgrade because I was running Vista 32 bit. Everything went smoothly. A few points that might be useful:

1. I went out and bought a new harddrive. The Lenovo makes it simply to replace the harddrive and BestBuy had a 320gB version running at 7,200 rpm for just over $100. Great preventative maintenance.

2. Installed Win 7 Pro on the new hard drive. Took a surprisingly short amount of time to do this. Closer to 30 minutes than an hour.

3. Installed Mozy and downloaded from my most recent Mozy backup the essential files I needed.

4. Installed my copy of Office 2007. Again, no issues.

5. Found, to my great surprise, that it was easy to reinstall all the programs I use. The only disks I needed were for Office. Other programs included:

Google Chrome
Google Picasa
QuickBooks 2010 (way faster than 2009)
Fasttrack Schedule
MindManager
Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Dreamweaver
Skype
iTunes
Microsoft Mesh
BlackBerry Desktop
Postbox
and Evernote!

Only the Adobe products required deauthorization from the other computer, which is really just the other harddrive. Because I'd kept the old drive intact, it was a simple matter to switch it in again and reboot.

Still more files to take down from Mozy as needed but I think I'm good to go.

I had been quite happy with Vista, but Win 7 is so much faster on startup, shutdown and in operation.

Update: Quickbooks wasn't as easy as I'd thought. Of course I need to get a code from the company and you have to phone them for that. And of course they weren't open on Friday, January 1. And they aren't open weekends either. Adobe, as noted above and in contrast, simply lets you deactivate the previous version of the machine so that you can reactivate the software on the "new" machine. I guess Intuit likes that cost of a human touch.

HP is utterly bizarre too

Following up on my last post about how bizarre Dell is, I went to the HP website for the first time in a while.

Who are the children running that company?

Its website is such a complete mess I found it impossible to figure out which computer I could possibly want. It appears that there are five models but in fact, clicking on any one of those choices unveils an undifferentiated variety. Amazing. And the pictures are so small you have no idea which computer to explore further.

And then I got an e-mail from Amazon this morning offering me a choice of HP laptops. But the e-mail just makes me want to run away screaming. There are 10 laptops listed. I can't tell them apart. It's like a used car flyer in a newspaper. These people think they have any hope of competing longterm with Apple? Amazing.

Dell is utterly bizarre

Dell has a gorgeous new laptop . . . almost out. Pictures are on various blogs. The thing is thinner than a MacBook Air and has an intriguing and showy way of folding open. So, you'd think there'd be mention of the product on Dell's website? You'd think, but no!

Who are the people running these companies?

Another example: everyone knows the new BlackBerry Storm2 is launching. Vodaphone has it on their website. It will obviously launch with Verizon in the United States. The Verizon CEO wanders around Manhattan showing off the phone to random people. So, you'd think there'd be mention of the product on Verizon's website? You'd think, but no! Pictures are in obscure place on its website but are impossible to find.

Who are the children running these companies?? Do they really think they are capable of going up against an adult company like Apple? It boggles the mind . . .

Microsoft Mesh vs Microsoft LiveSync

I've been a longtime fan of Groove, the peer-to-peer file sharing software invented by Ray Ozzie, also the creator of Lotus Notes and now Microsoft's Chief Software Architect.

Microsoft bought Groove and Ray came along with it--or rather, it bought Ray and Groove came along with him. He's been moving Microsoft in the director of cloud computing. It's about time and the next year should see lots of public results of those efforts.

I was also a fan of the little utility FolderShare which allowed peer-to-peer file sync between computers, including Macs and Windows. Microsoft bought that company too and it became Microsoft LiveSync.

The challenge with LiveSync and with the standard, small workgroup implementation of Groove is that peers have to have their computers on at the same in order to sync.

Microsoft has a new product in Beta called Mesh and it provides sync to the cloud and then back down to devices--Macs, Windows and Windows Mobile. Because of the cloud, peers don't need to be on at the same time. There's a light little app that installs on your desktop and provides a helpful little info window, including messaging updates. And Mesh will allow you to fully access your computer remotely from another computer, provided your computer has been left on and connected. Mesh looks like a winner.

I'm not sure where this leaves Groove. The extra security of Groove file sharing may no longer be enough of a value proposition. It will be interesting to see where this lands with Office 2010. Groove will be renamed "Sharepoint Workspace". News is supposed to be forthcoming soon, according to the Sharepoint Workspace Team Blog as of September 2, 2009.

(Two criticisms. First, Microsoft please, if you're in Beta with a product, the #1 news item on a Google or Bing search should not be an article from mid-2008! What is with your PR folks? Second, please, I can't stand the ads you guys run within products like MS Messenger and even within the Mesh Beta. Can't you drop those for the Beta? And I sure hope there's a for-fee option to get rid of those ads in the final Mesh. Messes badly with your nice and pretty interface.)

Please use "thousands" formatting when doing Excel models

Drives me crazy when entrepreneurs create financial models with "/1000" in order to create a format to show a worksheet in thousands.

Don't do that! Makes editing the modeling really risky because it's hard to trace where this formula has been applied.

Just use a custom number format to show the numbers in thousands as necessary. Here's one that works:

_($* #,##0,_);_($* (#,##0,);_($* "-"_);_(@_)

Ok?

Good overview of MobileMe

From Pogue, NYTimes: LINK

MobileMe and Google Contacts Sync

NOTE: This link continues to get some of the highest traffic on my blog. This post was written in 2008 and the information contained below may therefore be dated.

No one seems to have figured out a good sync for Google Contacts until now. I haven't yet tested it thoroughly but Apple's MobileMe does seem to successfully sync Google Contacts, even my "Google Apps" contacts.

(See my post about another good Google Contacts sync, with Salesforce LINK.)

I am using a PC not a Mac. Downloading iTunes 7.7 puts a new item in Control Panel called MobileMe Preferences. That utility gives you the option to sync your MobileMe contacts with one of: Google Contacts, Outlook, Yahoo, or Windows Contacts. Trying it out of course requires you to pay the $100 a year subscription for Me.com (formerly Mac.com). Also, because Google captures every one of the addresses you e-mail to as a contact, you'll have a lot of "No Name" contacts in your MobileMe contacts. Looks to me like it would take me years to sort through my list of those . . .

AND once, you've done this, who cares? Well, you would care if you use Google and have an iPhone, but otherwise, for a PC user, does it really matter that you can sync Google Contacts over to .Me? They are both in the cloud rather than otherwise accessible.

And no calendar sync for Google Calendar! Only option is Outlook!

UPDATE for Mac users

As far as I can tell, on the Mac there is NO Google Contacts Sync! Does this mean that if you (1) temporarily set up .Me on a Windows machine, (2) set Google Contacts to Sync with .Me contacts, (3) set it to happen automatically, that you'll be all set or does that Windows machine have to be on for the sync to be activated even though all the sync is happening in the cloud (.Me <> Google)?? Is the ONLY way to get your Mac Addressbook to sync with Google contacts to have a Windows machine producing this protocol?

UPDATE 2

Apparently there IS an option for Macs, located within the OS X 10.5.3 Address Book application. See here LINK and LINK

Turning an iPhone 1.0 into an iPod Touch

After you buy your iPhone 3Q (via the Apple Core LINK):

AT&T has confirmed that owners will be able to deactivate first generation iPhones to be used as Wi-Fi iPods.

“If the [original] device is not re-activated as a wireless phone after you’ve upgraded to iPhone 3G, it will still work as an iTunes player and can access Wi-Fi,” the spokesperson said.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server for the Rest of Us

I've posted before about the new .Me sync-to-the-cloud offering from Apple. It will give you push e-mail, contacts and calendaring to and from your iPhone, Mac and PC.

BlackBerry has just announced their BlackBerry Unite! product for the United States and other countries. They began a test marketing of this product in Spain in 2007 and in Canada earlier this year. Now at the BlackBerry Unite! website (LINK) you can download what is effectively BlackBerry's answer to .Me.

But what a difference. Apple's .Me is from 2008. BlackBerry's Unite! is from perhaps the year 2000.

Unite! must live on your own PC, that you've got keep constantly on. It is essentially a stripped down version of BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) without the need for Microsoft Exchange. Intended for families and small business, it doesn't appear to provide any of the ease of use that such customers require. I downloaded it and tried to get it to work but failed. The product uses MS Explorer as a front-end but despite excessive tinkering with my security settings on Explorer, try as I might I couldn't get the thing to load.

Apple's .Me, I'm sure, will be simple to configure. Launching in about a week (early July), it doesn't require you to install it on your own PC (how radical!) because it lives in the cloud (LINK). It's essentially BlackBerry Enterprise Server for the rest of us. And will continue to erode RIM's hold on businesses as well as individuals.

Related:
IntoMobile LINK

Location aware task lists for iPhone!

An application from Omni Group for the iPhone shows amazing promise (LINK via the Apple Core LINK). It's a task list that not only will sync to your desktop via .Mac (take THAT BlackBerry) but also has location aware lists! So, if you're near a grocery store, for example, it will create a list of items relevant to that location (and THAT BlackBerry).

RIM's stock was juiced by the success of the BlackBerry Pearl (one of which I just bought, but that's another story). Will the Pearl prove to be a one shot success in the consumer market, much like the RAZR for Motorola? I'd seriously consider a short of RIM stock . . .

BlackBerry Bold live at AT&T? NOT!

Everyone in the blogosphere who is at all a RIM fanboy is talking about how AT&T has gone live with a BlackBerry Bold website page. They have NOT. They've allowed a messed up, partially complete page to exist out the wild for days. Look at this thing (LINK) on the left. The page is a complete mess! The idea that the executives at AT&T would allow what is their most important phone launch to languish for DAYS with an unfinished web . . . I'm speechless. The most junior Internet wannabe mogul working out of his parents' basement would fire himself if he allowed himself to let such a thing out in the wild! Shows the complete and utter chasm between a company like AT&T and Apple. Steve Jobs must be just dieing for the day when he can separate himself from these amateurs! An intern from a community college could do a better job of management.

OK. Correction. The page loads fine in Explorer. But Firefox 3.0 produces the above mess. My comments above still apply.

Folder Sharing Options, Mac and PC

There are an increasing number of folder sharing options out there, it seems. And with the announcement yesterday of the new Apple .Me offering, which is launching in July, the opportunities for platform independent computer use increase greatly.

In my opinion, the most significant announcement by Apple yesterday wasn't the iPhone 3Q (aka iPhone2) but .Me. It will allow for wireless syncing of Macs, PCs and iPhones (running 2.0 software). More about that in a subsequent post. For now, here's a quick review of three of the other options available for synchronizing files between computers.

First, the old standby, Groove (LINK). Purchased by Microsoft and now part of the Office suite, it's a program that I use daily but unfortunuately is likely to be eclipsed by other offerings in the future.

Also purchased by Microsoft is FolderShare (LINK). It's been expected for a while that they would be subsumed under the Microsoft Live banner, and indeed they finally have. Their old site interface is gone and a new monicker is attached, "Windows Live FolderShare". Happily, it continues to offer Mac/PC file sharing. It will be interesting whether the .Me offer supplants and supercedes FolderShare.

A new offering, about which I was unfamiliar until today but which just got my attention via a BlackBerry blog is SugarSync (LINK). Also Mac/PC, it's no surprise that they stepped up their campaign after the launch of .Me. Perhaps this is, to some extent, the option for users who don't use iPhones and are still commited to BlackBerry. Haven't used it yet but I'll be taking a look.

Apple .Me is BlackBerry Enterprise Server for the Rest of Us

The new Apple .me application has been dubbed by Apple "Exchange for the rest of us" as in Microsoft Exchange. Launching in mid July, it is aimed at users who have a Mac at home, use an iPhone and have a PC at work and want to sync calendar and contacts between those three platforms. But really it's also "Enterprise Server for the rest of us" as in BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

Enterprise Server, if you don't know, is a piece of software that sits on top of an Exchange Server and manages BlackBerrys within the enterprise. It is the only way that you can get wireless sync of calendar and contacts between desktop machines and your BlackBerry.

But with .Me, finally without the use of either Exchange or Blackberry Enterprise Server, you're able to sync your calendar and contacts wirelessly. Not being able to do this with the previous iPhone seemed to me a painful omission. To be able to now accomplish this through a simple web-based system as the link between Macs, PCs and iPhones is a nail in the BlackBerry coffin.

BlackBerry has made a minimal attempt to create a small business (as in really small business) or home version of its Enterprise Server with a product called BlackBerry Unite! (LINK) but it still requires the use of a dedicated, always on desktop machine. And they've only launched it in Spain and Canada (though if you're really tricky you can download the software and apparently it does work on other carriers, outside those two countries). The idea that BlackBerry is requiring small business or home users to set up their own server for the cloud is crazy!

I love my BlackBerry and want to get a BlackBerry Bold but this wireless .Me option sorely tempts me. It should tempt any small business user as well.

"Apple will continue to penetrate the small and medium business market much more heavily and aggressively than it has been able to do so previously with this Exchange integration, but as far as larger enterprise, we still see RIM as the standard,” said Mike Abramsky, an analyst with RBC Dominion Securities." Globeinvestor.com LINK

Sure RIM is the standard for now, but iPhone is going to be a highly effective wedge that will, I suspect, rapidly penetrate upwards, from the sole proprieter and small business user on up.

MacBook and cellular modem

I'm sitting here on the train and working on my lovely lovely lovely Lenovo X61s running it's cellular modem. Yes it's bloody expensive, but it's life blood! Worth every drop of the $60 a month I pay. And I'm wondering, WHAT besides Mac OS X does this give up to an Apple MBAir? Nothing. And it's a 4 year old design at least.

Apple HAS to launch a MacBook with built-in cellular modem or at least a slot on June 9. HOW can it be called the Air if it has to use a modem with a dongle??!!