]]> http://www.taborcg.com/2010/02/03/ipad-rant-1-in-picture/feed/ 0 http://www.taborcg.com/2009/12/22/long-standing-annoyance-application-presence/ http://www.taborcg.com/2009/12/22/long-standing-annoyance-application-presence/#comments Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:22:40 +0000 mckinleytabor http://www.taborcg.com/?p=681 Here’s a term that long time computer users may not know, “Presence”. In a multi-tasking operating system like MS Windows or Mac OSX, the active or front most program (know as a “window” on all platforms) is said to have “Presence”. This means that keystrokes and mouse clicks are sent to this program/window.

What has always bugged me about “Presence” is the way the operating system handles it. As a power user I am often apt to start a new program while still typing into another. Even on a fast computer, some applications take several seconds to load. Knowing I will need a slow loading app in the near future, I will go ahead and start that app, then return to complete my pervious task while it loads. The annoying part is when the operating system suddenly gives “Presence” to the new loading application. The REALLY annoying thing happens if my previous app happens to be a word processor or text editor. For a moment when “Presence” shifts I am blinding sending keystrokes into the new application. This has on more than one occasion caused strange things to happen. I’m not quite sure why it happens, but some applications take “Presence” on opening while others do not.

Speed changing applications is one thing that while it annoys me, it’s narrowly my own fault. A very real design flaw is the pop-up error message that takes “Presence”. There have been many times that I have been happily pounding away at my keyboard and see the flash of a dialog box. But because my fingers are outrunning my head, I will hit a key that clears off the message before I have a chance to read it.

A couple of my techs had been quoting lines from an older movie to each other earlier in the day, and not having seen this movie in many years, I thought I might watch it. I am a Netflix subscriber, and one of the features of Netflix is the ability to “watch instantly” on a computer. I surfed over to Netflix and found the movie I wanted to watch, clicked “play now”, and as the film buffered, I unpacked my dinner. Just as I raised the first fork full of spicy chicken to my famished lips, I am presented with this most unsettling of screens:

Shocked and amazed, I followed the two on screen steps, but alas, the same error persisted. Being particularly resourceful (and momentary Sociophobic), I opted not to call the number provided, but rather Google the three key bits of information about my problem, “Macintosh” “Netflix” “Error Code 8151″.

The results from Google while insightful where ultimately unhelpful in fixing my problem. I tried various permutations of reinstalling the Microsoft SilverLight software. I tired updating various Apple kext and plist files. After 45 minutes of trying various things, I realized that my as yet untouched diner was cold, and I had extended my “long and boring lab session” by 45 minutes chasing a problem that should not even existed in the first place. My problem is that I had at some point worked with various sub-sub-sub settings on my Mac, and now the software which playes Netflix could no longer determined if my computer could be “trusted” to play digital content.

After taking the first bight of my now cold dinner, my visceral reaction was to call the 866-579-7113 number and verbally impart my frustration on whoever answered the phone to such a degree that they would go home crying at the end of the conversation, never to return to call center work again. However, my intellect overrode that ideal, because I know that whoever answered the phone would not personally be responsible for this DRM debacle. Then it occurred to me, not even Netflix itself is really responsible. I’m sure Netflix could care less about DRM, they are in the business to rent DVDs by mail, and offer digital downloads to subscribers. The more logical focus of my anger should be on the Copyright Holders who undoubtedly put this DRM requirement on Netflix as a precondition to offering the film for online viewing. (Of course following that logic I should be angry at the government for passing such arcane laws that empower Copyright Holders. Then be mad at the American people for electing the government. But I’ll stop at the Copyright Holders).

It was then I had an Epiphany – the sudden realization of a fundamental truth. That truth was at that moment, it was easier to download that movie from a file sharing site (Pirate Bay, Mininova, etc) than it was to try and fix this issue so as to watch the movie legitimately. Even further in my Epiphany, I realized that this moment I had every moral right to acquire a copy of this film in any manor I chose. (So long as my acquisition did not deprive someone else of the ability to watch the movie.)

Here is my rational.

1. In the 1980s I paid (well my parents paid, i was only a kid) to see this film in a theater.

2. I have purchased two copies of this movie over the years, once in VHS, then in DVD.

3. I have a Netflix account, with which I pay to have access to ANY AND ALL films in their digital download catalog.

4. I made a good faith effort to abide by the frame work to obtain this film via a method approved by the copyright holder.

so therefor…

5. Having personally perviously paid for a license for a Analog copy (VHS), a Digital Copy (DVD), and Digital Download Availability (Netflix), and in light of the failure of that Digital Download Availability, I am not morally, or ethically, bound to abide by artificial restrictions put into place by the Copyright Holder to protect their digital rights.

Simply put, the protection of the copyright holder’s rights is not applicable, because I otherwise have the “right” to have and view the content. So if the copyright holder’s rights are not applicable, then I can obtain and view the content in the manor of my choosing.

After thought…

This train of thought that lead me to realizing that I had a moral right to get that movie anyway I wanted might simultaneously seem complicated to the layperson, and overly simplistic/naive to a copyright attorney. I think there in lies the problem. You see, copyright law is an immensely complicated affair. Copyright law touches each of us in profound ways everyday. We normally think of copyright law when it comes to “big” things like movies, tv, or books. But it is all pervasive in our society, from the labels on soap cans, to the background music at the grocery store, even to the logo’s imprinted on the tags of our clothing. When you have such a integral part of our existence governed by incomprehensible laws, the people will simply ignore those laws in favor of a more reasonable path. No amount of law suites, congressional lobbying, or advertising campaigns can stop or change that.

The lesson to the MPAA and anyone else who supports the current Copyright model is this: 1. If you fail to make your content available, 2. Available in a manor which works any/all the time, and 3. Available at a price which is competitive in the market, others WILL make your content available. MPAA, your competition makes YOUR content available, universal, and free. Good luck fighting that… my torrent just finished and I’m going to watch a movie.

]]> http://www.taborcg.com/2009/10/07/an-open-statement-to-the-mpaa-andor-anyone-else-who-supports-the-current-copyright-model/feed/ 0 http://www.taborcg.com/2009/09/11/aldelo-for-restaurants-a-hassle-to-set-up/ http://www.taborcg.com/2009/09/11/aldelo-for-restaurants-a-hassle-to-set-up/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:02:04 +0000 mckinleytabor http://www.taborcg.com/?p=125 By shear coincidence I’ve been working two cases involving software with really draconian copy protection systems. As it turns out, my biggest problem with BOTH these peaces of software was not some technical issue, but rather it was navigating the burcracy they had erected to insure they got the maximum revenue from their software. As a result, I can’t say that I will be working with these software products again. So here’s a lesson to all the small and specially software developers out there: If you make your copy protection PART OF THE PROBLEM, you will LOSS MONEY in the long run because IT CONSULTANTS like me wont recommend your product a second time.

The first case involves a Food Service Management System from Aldelo Software. These guys are classic case of “what not to do” when it comes to software. There business model seems more based around forcing you to purchase their yearly maintenance contract. Now this in and of itself is not necessarily a “bad” thing, there are quite a few companies (me included) that encourage their costumers to commit to service contracts. What make Aldelo so bad is the brutal nature in which they enforce their maintenance contract. Basically, if you do not have one of these agreements, then there NO support after 30 days, even on issues which are clearly driver, database, or other wise low level software related. The funny thing is that Aldelo wanted me to purchase a maintenance contract before they would even confirm if a problem was software related.

In most cases when a software vendor pushes this hard for annual maintenance agreements the front-end cost of the software is kept low to encourage a high rate of adoption. But Aldelo’s font end costs are still highly elevated ($900ish per station).

Aside from the maintenance contract foolishness. Aldelo also has some pretty harsh “Software Activation and Registration” hoops you have to jump through. To it’s credit Aldelo does offer a 30 day demo of it’s product, but you have to provide them with quite a bit of personal information (so that can market/harass you later) before you can download the demo. The demo version is a complete running version, except it’s impossible to tell how your receipts and kitchen chits are going to look because they have “DEMO DO NOT MAKE” and “DEMO NOT A REAL RECEIPT” plastered over everything and on EVERY OTHER LINE of the receipt. Also, do not attempt to load a backup of your database into the demo version, because when you do that all bets are off, and the software locks down waning you to activate it. (so much for testing or having a back up system on standby should something crash)

The software activation is pretty straight forward if you have an internet connection. There is an on “over the internet” registration and activation scheme. However this convenient system only works once or twice, after which you are force to call Aldelo and registrar and activate manually. This means that if you have hardware failure (which is common in a food service environment) then your stuck having to call them. The manual system involves A LOT of very long alfa-numeric codes and of course messing up a single digit in that code means you have to go back and do it all over again. Not something you want to do from a touch screen only terminal. In my one case of having to do this without internet (so far) it took over 40 minutes to register and active manually. Not something that can be done during an dinner rush.

This system of registration and activation presumably prevents someone from installing 3 terminals when they only have license for 2. But if you ADD additional terminals to your network, then you MUST go back and re-registrar and re-activate EACH of the terminals to accommodate the new ones.

Needless to say, I have not been impressed with Aldelo. It is hard for me to recommend a product that frustrates it’s legitimate users in a draconian (and ultimately futile) effort to stave off piracy. What makes this completely bizarre is the MASSIVE hole in their “registration and activation scheme”, which makes sealing the product much easier than dealing with the headaches Adelo puts you through when you try and do the right things.

The ONLY number Aldelo asks you for on a new installation is the “serial number” that can with the software. In fact, it is the ONLY number of note and differentiation when you purchase the software. When you are talking with Aldelo you give them this serial number. If this number is unused they will then “bond” that number to you in their registration and activation system. The ludicrous thing is that this number is printed on the OUTSIDE of the retail software box. Twice now, I have had situations were I have purchased copies of Aldelo new-in-box still with the shrink wrap on it, only to discover that someone else had used the “serial number”. I’ve been lucky. I both cases I was working with a software vendor who worked with Aldelo to fix the issue. In one case I know the software vendor had to buy a new license from Aldelo then resell that license to me at a loss so he could honor our purchase agreement.

Now I DO NOT condone software piracy. But is seems a little disingenuous of Aldelo to make the end users suffer in a effort to “fight piracy” (i.e. squeeze every last dollar out of their software market), and yet do something as inane as put the most important number on the outside of the box.

Other than the registration and activation nonsense, and the constant badgering for a maintenance contract, the software does a pretty good job. It uses a Microsoft database back-end, so it is subject to needing constant reworks and compressions, but the Back-Office part of the software allows for that. Back-ups are also a must when using the MS databases because they are not very crash tolerant.

The Menu building in the software does have a learning curve, but once your done a couple of items with multiple modifiers, it becomes easier.

Back-Office reporting is about what you would expect.

At the end of the day, Aldelo is not a “bad” program, and the service staff who use it seem to like it. But the vices of getting it up and running outweigh whatever ventures it has in daily use. All the more annoying because those vices are artificial introduced on top of whatever normal problems occur when you are setting up a new point of sale system.

Digital Mobile phones communicate with the cell towers in various ways and frequencies that all boil down to some method of Code Division. Code Division cuts up digital radio traffic into small chunks (sometimes called “frames”) that allow many devices to share the same frequency space. This is why each cell phone does not have its own “channel” like analog TVs, CB, or police radios do. There is a lot of “non-voice” traffic that get exchanged between a mobile handset and the tower(s) it is hooked to. Most of these “non-voice” digital communications involve the handset telling the tower it signal strength, location data relative to other towers, call status, etc, etc, or the tower telling the handset things like the exact time. Your phone exchanges many of these “non-voice” digital messages per minute, each of which is transmitted or received in a Code Division chunk/frame. Even when there is no “non-voice” data per-say, your phone may still be transmitting empty frames just as part of the protocol.

Soon after the first deployment of a digital cell phone system in 1982 it was realized that after you packed in all the mundane “non-voice” signaling data there was still empty space left in the frame. The ideal was proposed to allow “extra” data to be packaged in this empty frame space, the phone was sending up the data anyway, why not use all the available bits? The “extra” data could be composed by the user of the mobile phone as sort text messages, or as text alerts from the network, and thus SMS was born. Later, in 1985, a full specification of using partial and spare frames was created. The ubiquitous 160 character limit comes from the space limitation of a single Code Division Frame, including the overhead of routing data (to and from numbers). The first SMS message as we know them today was sent in the UK on December 3 1992 by Neil Papworth to Richard Jarvis on the Vodafone network, it read “Merry Christmas”.

Now 17 years on, SMS and text messaging is a multi billion dollar a year industry with some messages costing as much as $1 for 160 charters of data. In fact, text messaging charges are bankrupting families who fall into the trap of “over texting”. The internet is filled with stories of families that get $1,000 invoices from Cell phone companies who then seem to think there is nothing morally wrong with that amount and expect the subscriber to make prompt payment. The cost to a subscriber of sending text messages is at least FOUR TIMES the cost NASA pays to get images off the Hubble Space Telescope. To put this into perspective, to transmit the King James Bible (without annotations) over AT&Ts text messaging network would cost $12,400.00. If you converted a single music file to text and sent it over AT&T is would cost about $6,000.00.

It’s outrageous and here’s the truly sad (and I think criminal) part, IT’S ALL FAKE. The text message system is simply part of the Digital Cell Phone Protocol. Those tiny text messages are being squeezed into otherwise blank areas of Code Division Frames. Transmitting those frames, blank or not, are essential for the cell network to function. It costs the cell phone companies the same to send your text message as it does to simply leave your phone turned on. Yet these companies are making ungodly amounts of money on nothing more than perceived value and empty space. IN FACT is costs the Cell Phone Companies MORE if you ask them to turn off Text messaging on your phone. If you ask them to turn it off, the signally protocol still requires that you transmit and receive text message frames, but the cell phone company has to proactively block those messages at many points on the network. What a completely upside down scenario, over charging people for nothing vs. spending money and effort to implement something for which cannot be invoiced.

I’m have cried and moaned over Quickbooks before. My last issue was in converting my Company data file from Quickbooks for Windows to Quickbooks for Mac. Apparently there are people at Intuit who do care somewhat about their companies image, because a few weeks after posting that whine, I received an unsolicited email from a support person inside Quickbooks asking if they could help me. I exchanged several emails with them about my issue, but it all boiled down to them saying “Send us your company file” (not an option) and me saying “Please provide logging and errors codes so people like me can diagnose there own problems.”

See, that was my problem in a nut shell. Quickbooks would not convert, I had NO ideal why and no ideal where to start looking in my 15 MB data file because all the conversation program would tell me is that it “failed”.

Then months later, I received another email from a certified genius named Marc Druijts who suggested that I look for Manufactures Part Numbers in my Items list. Sure enough, I found a single obscure part where someone had put in a MPM. I removed it and the conversion to Mac fired off without a hitch.

I decided to hold off doing a total conversion to QB for Mac until January 1, 2009. It is now almost the end of January and sadly I have yet to make the change.

The issue now is Online Banking and downloading transactions. It would seem a couple of my chosen Finical Institutions are “incompatible” with Quickbooks for Mac. This is shown out by error messages like:

General Error
The message from your bank was:
[ofx.unsupportedClientApplication]Client application or version is not supported by this server.

Now unlike my last error, this one has some nice words that I can put into Google. After reading several dozen pages of posts there seems to be many people having this problem, and a massive finger pointing match going on between Intuit and “X” (Where “X” is the name of any number of Financial Institutions). Intuit claims that the problem is that “X” has not update their side to allow for QB for Mac to Work. “X” seems to always claim that the problem is with Quickbooks. I can see both sides of this argument. But I think in the end I have to blame Intuit, and here’s why…

A Financial Institution’s job is not to write and keep track of consumer accounting packages. I think that if they want to provide electronic access to their customers finical data, they have an obligation to provide such data in reasonable and standard way. There is such a reasonable and standard way already in use around the world called Open Financial Exchange. Which Intuit help start in 1997, and seems to have sense walked away from.

As long as the Financial Institution provides their data in a reasonable and standard way, and does not change that reasonable and standard way, then I feel that it is the responsibility of the software maker to get that data into their application. Now, I’m sure that Intuit will argue about the finer points of the “reasonable and standard way”, and cite any number of reasons why Financial Institution “X” is not being complainant. All of Inuit’s finger pointing and well articulated resonating falls flat on its ass in the face of this single statement: “It works on the PC”.

When you deal with online transitions of any type, be them financial or simply browsing the web, your computer makes a request of a server and receives a response in a highly scripted dialog called a “Protocol”. This protocol is supposed to be agnostic, meaning that two machines, of any type, can exchange data. For some reason, Quickbooks feels a need to tell Financial Institution “X” what version of the software is being used. Why can Quickbooks simple take the SAME data and processed it to fit either Quickbooks for Mac or Quickbooks for PC?

It seems I’ll be staying with Quickbooks for PC for a while Longer….

I though this was an off way to organize this information. I mean it’s quite obvious that Google cannot photograph EVERY street in the world right away, and it makes sense to start with highly populated areas first. However the notion of squaring off these ares seems to be sort of counter intuitive. Because as I will show, the is most likely data being collected by Street View cars that is not being shown.

Just some FYI, Google uses cars with cameras that take a series of photographs, and then those photographs are stitched together to form the pan-able view you have in Street View. Rather and taking a view of the vehicle in motion, Google Cars take one of these omnidirectional images every so many feet.

(Google seems to be in a hurry to finnish this project )

I’m sure that there is some short of cohesive master plan for the paths of these cars. But in the end all the drives really have to do is to wonder down every road in America, and looking at the street view maps, it really does seem like “wonder” is the appropriate word.

Have a look at the Knoxville, TN Street View availably.

Here the South-East and North-West corners of this square are sparse. This is because there are few if any roads in those areas. If we have a closure look at the North-West corner, we can see where the Google Car went down some side roads, but in down so seemed to cross the invisible line that marks the top of this square.

Here is the live data view from Google

It’s pretty obvious that the Google Car Followed Stoney Fork Rd through Sheam, then made a right onto Clinchmore Rd before stopping. What’s odd about this is that all the data from north of this inviable line is not on Google Street View.

This posses a couple of questions. Do the cars stop collecting data when they pass outside of the defined box? This is unlikely, because in the is example, if Google expanded the Square, then the cars would has to retrace this part of the road. So in all probability, Google Cars are collecting the data, but it is not being displayed. Why Not? It understandable that it takes time to Process a Street View section of Map. The Car Camera images have to be stitched together, the routines setup in Google Maps, etc. But this just begs the question, did Google just not process the data north of this line? This also seems unlikely, given that again in the case the car drove south of the line at two points. So why skip over data to process if it was coming off the car in a linear fashion.

In all likely hood there is probably some sophisticated geo-taging going on with each set of images these cars take. I would not be surprised if the omnidirectional images are not assembled on-the-fly by computers in each Car as they are taken, the the geo-taged with high resolution GPS. These data blobs can be dumped like a hand full of marble into the Street View databse. Software at Googles end can then assemble the “chains” and “connection points” each of these blobs have with other blobs based on the geo-data. I’ve not done the research to see just how google is doing this, but this seems the logical away to put it together.

That just leave the question of the inviable line. If it’s likely that Google Cars took the pictures, and those pictures have been processed, then why is the data not up? Google seems to be cutting it off at an arbitrary point. Also, why use Squares? Circles seem to be easier to do than squares. If Google really is artificially suppressing some of the street view data, why not do it using a Circle vector. With a square you have to define four points (or four lines), basically 8 units of data. A Circle is can be defined by a single point and a distance factor, 3 units of data. As you are ready to replace more street view data, Google simple ups the distance factor to include more space.

Finally, the most convincing part of the artificially suppressing argument, is the lack of Interstate views. It’s unlilky that Google Cars are based in every metro area in the us. They seem to drive around. So, do they have the cameras turned off while on the Interstates?

If you look at the separation of the squares between Dalton Ga, and Adairsville, GA, which is only about 8 miles, you can’t tell me that bit of I75 has not been photographed or processed.

It’s also clear that GA136 was traveled by a Google Car because there’s yet another orphaned bit of road. Why is GA136 between Vihanow and Sugar Valley not on Street View?

Perhaps Google has a reason for doing this, I’m just cannot seem to understand why.

For the past three weeks I’ve been using Google Apps to run Email and Scheduling on TCG. I have to admit, Google’s Web App concept really lives up to the hype. For Email and Calendar I can use my Mac and be just as happy as I want to be.

The one truly colossal failing to that there is no good way to synchronize Apple’s Address Book with Gmail Contacts. In fact it’s almost impossible to sync Gmail contacts with ANY thing. There is a klugy way of hacking iTunes to allow an iPod to sync with Google Contacts, but that date is VERY minimal, and does not include contact photos. Google DOES provide an API for contact access, but despite a flurry of rumors, Google has not opened up Gmail Contacts to SyncML clients. There is a third party service called Goosync that is supposed to do this. But Google should not have to rely on hacked third party applications to do something that is a valid web standard.

I would have thought someone would have built a module into Apples Sync Services Framework or iSync.

But aside from the Mac’s inability to sync with Gmail Contacts, there is another issue, mobility. With Exchange, I have Outlook in the Palm of my hand via my Windows Mobile Phone. At his time I am unable to conveniently make Google Apps work with my phone. I have the mail application going out an checking my IMAP account every five minutes. But Calendar and Contact integration are not there. This is practically sad, because with Exchange, I could enter contact data on my desktop, and by the time I got out to my car, I could use Voice Command on my phone with my bluetooth headset to dial the number. My phone never even had to leave my pocket. Exchange and Activesync worked that quick.

Now Exchange was no bed of roses. The Outlook Web Access interface was unrefined to the point of being unusable. So if I did not have my desktop, laptop, or phone, I was out of luck. Exchange also necessitated me having a Windows Server, not entirely a bad thing, but costly.

Back to the mobile front, I’m hopping that Google’s release of Android will step up and provide total online and offline integration with Google Apps.

At the moment my HTC Dash is dyeing. I hope to limp it along for the next 30 days till we get a good look Android.

Realistically there only needs to be 1 address book/contact system on a computer. Think of it as a central repository of data. The notion that Quickbooks and other software packages have about “syncing” your contact data across programs on the same machine is completely insane when you think about. Why not just use the same data base for all contact data?

There have been quite a few times I have sent invoices to a wrong address because I updated my clients new address in Outlook, but forgot to update it in Quickbooks.

In order to have a truly centralized contact database, it would have to be flexible. There are certain elements of contact data that is universal, Name, addresses, phones, etc. However there is also a need for programs to have additional and specific data for each client. For example, while a Mail Program and Quickbooks both might need Name and Email Address, Quickbooks might also have the need to store contact specific data such as payment terms or credit card information for which an Email program would have no use.

In this case the central contact database could be a flexible framework to allow extra “fields” to be added to each record. Programs like Email would just ignore data is does not need. If the software maker is particularly security minded, they could maintain there own database of sensitive information, but only use hooks and associations to link central contact data back to the program. Or even easier, just encrypt the data in the program specific fields. This would allow a much easier backup model.

In cases were removal of a contact by one program might “break” another. The software marker could keep a realtime backup of the data within it’s own data framework for restoration, or flags could be set for each contact set to warn the user that they should not completely delete a contact because some other software requires the data. The central contact database could also have a management program (Like Address Book), that would allow the user to set visibility for a contact to a particular software package.

Finally, all of this data should have some structure to synchronize with a server ether in the office or in the cloud. This would allow mobile applications to use and change the data. I have a larger concept of a synchronization framework, but I’m still forming the ideal.

To it’s credit, I think Apple is trying to open up it’s contact database more so that third party software can use the data.

If you think about it, you can separate out the tasks you preform with a computer into a couple of different broad categories. My challenge this week was to compare MY work experience on a Mac to that I had with Windows.

Here are some of those broad categories:

Web Surfing and RSS Reading

Accounting and Bookkeeping

Communications

Scheduling

Entertainment

Creation of Information or Data

Management of Information or Data

Web Surfing and RSS Reading. For both Mac and Windows I use Firefox as my web-browser. So using a Mac this week was not that big of a change. The interface was about 90% the same, and my favorite add-ons and plugins still worked. The big difference was RSS reading. On my Windows system, I use Feed Demon, on the Mac, NetNewsWire. Of the two I found NetNewsWire to the easier program to use.

Accounting and Bookkeeping. I use Quickbooks for doing my business financial management. When I first started it was hard for me to get used to the ideal that Quickbooks was JUST a bookkeeping software package, and NOT a comprehensive consulting firm management solution. So my use of Quickbooks is straight forward. However, while there is a copy of Quickbooks for the Mac, I was unable to move my data from Quickbooks Premier 2008 to Quickbooks Pro 2007 for Mac. In the end I still have to use Quickbooks on Windows.

I also use a program call Stamps.com to print my postage. Sadly, stamps.com is Windows only.

#### BIG EDIT #####
(this is why I love visitor feed back )

I’ve just been told that there IS indeed a postage system for Macs, http://mac.endicia.com/. It’s priced on par with Stamps.com ($15 per month plus postage). I’ll be downloading this and giving it a try. It also has a Windows Version as well.

Thanks William!

Communications. This is a big category. To me communications is everything from E-mail, to phone, to VOIP, to Blogging.

I’ll start with VOIP. I use Skype to communicate with my clients and friends in Europe and Africa. Skype is about the same on both Windows and Mac, but the Mac hardware make Skype so much easier.

Blogging on Windows was done with Word 2008, which has a simple “post to blog” feature. On Mac I used Mars Edit. It’s hard to compare the two, Mars Edit is a comprehensive blog management tool, while Word is a VERY powerful text editor. In the end, Mars Edit wins out because while Word is great at editing text, you cannot use those features on a blog site.

Phone, Contacts, and Email are touchy subjects, and perhaps (along with Quickbooks and Stamps.com) is the largest single failing on the Mac. In Windows with Exchange and Outlook, my Contacts and E-mail (with schedule) are all kept well synchronized. There simply is not a comparable solution on the Mac side. While there is the up and coming “Mobile Me” from Apple, it is not doing well, and requires an iPhone, which does not have all the features I need on a phone. I am hoping that Google’s Android platform will address this failing VERY soon. If I can get a truly open smartphone platform that supports syncing my Contacts, Email, tasking, and Schedule with my phone, an online source, and my computers, I’ll jump on it.

In the end I still have to use Outlook on Windows.

Scheduling. As I said, on Windows I used Outlook. However on my Mac there is iCal, which I am now using with Google Calendars “CalDev” feature. My website also is current with my Google Calendar via WordPress Plugin. I like iCal a lot, and want to use it as my primary Scheduling system.

Entertainment. For me, the Mac wins hands down. I do not do a lot of high end computer gaming (I have consoles for that). However, simple games and quick diversion are great on my Mac. I can also play my old emulated games on my Mac (which I can do with my Windows system, but it’s so much nicer on my Mac). But with my Apple TV and iPod, the true Media entreatment winer is Mac, hands down. Yes, I know Apple TV and iPod will work with iTunes for Windows, but the integration is so much cleaner and nicer on a Mac.

Creation of Information or Data. This is anything from Word Processing, to Programing, to Photoshopping, to Web design.

I have office for the Mac, which is pretty much like Office for windows, except Entourage is a poor reflection on Outlook. So the spread sheet and word processing experiences are petty much the same.

Ironical, I’ve been using a port of a Mac product on my Windows Box for Years. In WIndows I have use an editor call “e”, which is just a clone of a really good pseudo IDE (Integrated Development Environment) called Text Mate. I do not really do any hard core programing, so I cannot comment to those.

Photoshop is photoshop.

On Windows when I needed to to a quick HTML page, I would use Front Page, (later the awful Expression Web), then cut out the bits I needed with e. I’ve not really found a good WYSIWYG html editor for Mac. I’ve played with Nvu, but I was underwhelmed. Oddly, I am moving away from webpage editing in favor of using Content Management systems like WordPress. So my days of coding HTML may be on the decline anyway.

Management of Information or Data. Here I found Macs to really come through. The default way Windows Manages data files is very klugy. With Mac, Images are managed by iPhoto, Media by iTunes, general files go in Documents, however you want. I never really understood how Windows Media Player managed music. There are even some great plugins to allow me to upload and publish data to the “cloud”, like Picasa, Youtube, and my Blog. There is also very little “support” files cluttering up the place. In windows an application gets installed into Program Files, but bits of it can get put all over the system. On a mac, 99% of the time an application is a single file (yes I know it’s really of folder), in the Applications Directory. Need to move it to another Mac? Just drag and drop the file.

In the end, I still have Windows XP running in Parallels on my Mac. I simply cannot operate without Outlook, my Phone, and Quickbooks, and at the moment to keep all the features I have now, those have to stay on Windows. The first 4 days of the week were spent trying to find alternatives to Windows on the Mac. Next week I will try living with BOTH Mac and Windows side by side, and see how that goes.