Too Smart

I write about using the Macs in the Enterprise, but I don’t actually do it much. We’re a Windows only shop, after all, and I’m not keen to tick off the powers that be. That said…

About a year ago, I went on a little under-cover mission.

I took it upon myself to set my work laptop, an HP nc8430, to dual boot both Windows XP and Xubuntu Linux. Then, over the course of a couple days, I configured Xubuntu’s XFCE desktop to look as much like Windows as possible. I used Thunderbird to attach to our Exchange server, I used Firefox (just as I would under Windows) and OpenOffice 2.x for document creation and viewing. I installed Adobe Acrobat Reader, for consistent PDF viewing. And I relied on the Remote Desktop connection to connect to the servers on which my databases reside. It wasn’t quite as efficient as using MS SQL Server Management Studio 2005 under Windows, but I was able to do the job. Installed a  5250 emulator and attached regularly to our AS/400 system. Set up printing via direct IP.

In short, there was nothing I couldn’t do that I needed to. This was only made possible by the fact that we’d recently moved away from our old SQL based and Windows-only work order tracking system to a web based tool. I kept it up for two weeks, and the only comments I got were from my boss, who happened to wander into my cubicle at one point and comment about my use of OpenOffice - I declared that I’d installed it to see how compatible it was with Office 2003, our standard workhorse for those sorts of tasks.

Now, I could have gone a level above, and tried to install Office under WINE, but never did get quite that far.

Now that I’ve got a Mac at home, however, I’m learning that I could easily do the same thing, and one better, I’ve already got some of the same software installed. We have a license for Office 2004, so that’s an easy conversion, though I also have NeoOffice and iWork installed, so I’m a cross-platform maniac right now. In addition, I’ve downloaded, but not yet paid for, a very nice 5250 client, and have Remote Desktop software installed for those times I need it - like this weekend, when I needed to quickly work on restoring a teacher’s gradebook when he accidentally deleted an entire semester’s worth of grades with a single mouse-click.

The only tool I didn’t have at my disposal was MS SQL Server Management Studio 2005. But as I’d recently installed Sun’s VirtualBox software (emulation! for free!), I decided to put a copy of Windows on my machine and try to run SSMS directly.

Server 2003 installed under virtualization, and pretty quickly for a Windows product. Mouse movement was a little jerky - like using Remote Desktop through a moderately slow connection (say, 10MBbit) but otherwise useable. Networking was enabled by default, and I was able to quickly located the download for SSMS on the Microsoft website (it must gall them to have so many hits from Google) and start downloading.

My concerns at this point - the version of Server 2003 I’ve installed won’t activate correctly - says I’ve installed it too many times. Ah, I didn’t know there was a limit, but as this was a freebie give-away, I guess it was too good to last. I’ll have to probably reinstall Windows from an XP installation CD instead - lord knows I have plenty of those licenses that I’m not using anymore, what with Linux on most every PC we own.

Also, VirtualBox for Mac is still in Beta, and crashes every time I try to shut down the system cleanly, or even tell it to save the system state for the VM. I don’t know that it does the same thing with my Puppy Linux VM, but it might. Also, for whatever reason, Seamless Mode is grayed out. It may only work in XP. 

Since it arrived, I have been amazed at how much I like the keyboard on the Macbook. Not the Pro or Air model, but the base model Macbook. It’s exactly the same as the new external Mac keyboards, where each key is exactly where you’d expect from a full-height keyboard perspective, but is just a little narrower and spaced a little farther apart to compensate.

It’s not the springy tactile feedback that I get from my Key Tronic unit at the office, nor the even more intense feedback I would get from an original IBM keyboard, but for whatever reason, I find myself able to type quickly and with fewer errors than most keyboards. I color myself impressed.

That said, the setup was far from perfect. The Macbook design is a little odd, in that the entire bottom shell of the laptop wraps up all four sides, and the top, where the keyboard and trackpad are housed, is set into that. It leaves a terribly sharp ridge at the edge of the laptop where your wrists hit if you’re letting them rest. People on the Internet have been complaining for some time, but there has, so far, been no change to the design.

That said, I begin to wonder if it isn’t viewed by Apple as a non-problem for one simple reason - if you’re typing the way you’re supposed to type, your wrists are not resting on anything. No, they are supposed to hover over the surface while your fingers find the keys that they’re looking for.

I only really noticed this when we got our new desk in the living room. It’s a little bit too tall for the plain dining room chairs we’ve been using with it, and it tends to make me rest my wrists while I’m typing, causing the edge to cut into my skin. Oh, it’s not breaking the skin, but it is leaving some gnarly indentations.

When I added several inches of padding to my chair so that I’m up at the right height - feet squarely on the floor, knees bent 90 degrees - my wrists never come close to that edge. Oh, I slack a little and let my palms occasionally rest on the spaces either side of the trackpad, but I never do get the painful contact with the rough edge.

It’s a bit of an Apple LOLCat - “typing - u r doin it rong”

I’ve got a new article up at Low End Mac today. This time, I take on the subject of running Windows applications on Apple hardware - one of the keys to building acceptance of Macs in business.

Not sure what happened there, folks. Went away for a while. Got very, very busy at work, and ended up coming home and working yet still more. It wasn’t a fun absence, I promise you.

Since then, however, something interesting has happened - I’ve begun to write columns for a website that collects information about Macs. It’s called Low End Mac and lives at www.lowendmac.com.

My column is called Macs in the Enterprise, and my first appeared last Wednesday, here.

Needless to say, I’m stoked. I’ve read the website for nearly a decade, since they first went live, and have used it as a resource in rebuilding Macs, and deciding which ones are worth saving and which can head to the recycling center. Never mind that I get paid for writing (not a great deal, but I would have done it for free), I’m just excited to have a seat at the table.

So, expect to see periodic links to new articles as they go live. Even if you’re not technical, I’d love to have you pop over and read them, and let me know what you think.

Given that I don’t have the qualifications, currently, to be a University professor, I guess I’ll just have to look for more interesting work. Anyone want to give me a job? Something fun, but challenging, and hopefully with a reasonable pay rate.

I wonder just what it takes, really, to teach at the University level. I’m not sure just what I’d want to teach…whether it be computers or history is hard to say for sure. But I suspect a Masters’ is the first step.

Okay, one of the companies involved is in Japan, but the other one looks utterly western. Surely one of them ran the name through their public relations people?

Aciphex, a drug from Eisai Inc. and Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., is a heartburn and acid reflux medicine. On paper, it looks fine. But they keep running ads for this on television, and you pronounce "aciphex" as "ass effects" which immediately makes one think that, rather than an antacid, this is an anti-gas medicine. Am I right?

As a follow-up to my rant about the Macbook Air, let me throw out an example.

My boss’s boss recently decided that she wanted to try out our demo model Thinkpad X41 convertible tablet PC. My boss set her up with the base unit and got her started, using both keyboard and tablet features. She adores this little notebook, and will not give it back, much as our Superintendent did when he tried out the same model. People love how lightweight it is, how portable and how easy to use in meetings. What she does not realize is that my boss did not give her the base station that goes with it. She’s missing an optical drive, additional ports and the like, and she doesn’t even care.

My boss, on the other hand, found that he could not use the tablet features. No computer could be made to read his handwriting. So he got into a small (and I mean small) Fujitsu notebook to use for note taking and presentations - as befits a man on his way to CIO status. When he needs to do some real crunching of numbers, he goes back to his desk and uses a full-power desktop to do so.

So, if you, like me, are a huge Mac fan, then the MBA could fill the same role - either you’re not a power user, and the MBA will do nicely for everything that you need it for (Office suite, browsing, etc), or you are a power user, and you have a 24" iMac or a Mac Pro on your desk for everything else.

When we went into the Apple store last, they finally had their demo models of the Macbook Air out for everyone to play with. The wife was immediately intrigued, until I told her all the things that weren’t included for the 150% pricetag over the Macbooks we both owned. She was immediately sobered and decided that she didn’t want one after all.

And that was a good decision for her. She has no desire to keep, in addition to her laptop, a full-power desktop. And that’s where the Macbook Air finds it’s best niche - the power user that also wants some portability.

Every review is quick to point out what’s missing from the Macbook Air (MBA from here on out):

• It has no optical drive. So you can’t watch DVDs on it, and you can’t rip CDs on it, and you can’t install software that’s on CD or DVD on it, without some help.
  • Apple is in the business of letting people rent and/or buy video content from the iTunes Music Store, so they’re not exactly bummed about the notion. Not to mention, many people are ripping their DVDs into QuickTime to watch them on their iPods as it is, so doing the same for an MBA is not that far out of line. You can, if you feel the need, purchase an external DVD-RW unit for $99 to allow you to do all of these things when you have it plugged in.
  • That said, you can also use Remote Disc to access a CD or DVD drive on another computer on your network, Mac or PC, when the need arises.
• It has no built in Ethernet jack. So you can’t plug it into the network. You absolutely must use WiFi if you intend to be on a network.
  • Very few people in the MBA target audience lack for wireless network access. They have it in their homes, in their places of work, and in nearly every cafe and airport they might visit. The only reason I have ever plugged my own Macbook into the network is that, when I have it at the office, I have yet to successfully get it onto the wireless network - we have one hostile network, I must say.
• Limited disk space. The MBA is designed with a very small (capacity), very small (physical size), very slow hard drive. It’s the same sort of drive that they put in iPods.
  • True again, but 80 GB ought to be enough, if you’re talking about a machine that is used on the road, for presentations and the like, and not your main, workhorse desktop machine.
  • Also, if you’re hip enough to want an MBA, you are also hip enough to have an Airport Extreme or an Apple Time Capsule, the first of which allows you to hook up USB hard drives and printers, and the second which does the same in addition to having a 500GB or 1TB hard drive installed. Space concerns, out the door.
  • I’ve yet to find out if you can do this or not, but I’m curious what would happen if you hooked up a USB DVD-RW to the Airport Extreme or Time Capsule - would you then not even have to worry about the intermediary PC or Mac with Remote Disc?
• The SSD (Solid State Disk) option is overpriced and even smaller.
  • That’s absolutely correct, and in fact, has been shown not to be all that much faster or better than a conventional hard drive. As such, I just recommend that, for now, you stay away from that model.
  • Some have tried to argue that the price is right because they never have to worry about a hard drive head crash - a common problem with dropped laptops. I say, my 160 GB SATA hard drive has smart motion sensing, and any fall that might damage it, should be detected and the heads emergency parked.
  • Others argue that the SSD is quieter, and that their MBA’s are entirely silent. Well, that’s great. My MB is the quietest machine I’ve ever owned. Only when the CPU is under great strain does the fan kick up to a hearable volume.
  • I’m not sold that this will be a viable option for some time to come.

In the long run, you’re never going to convince some people that this is a good idea. These are the same people who pooh-pooh the iMac as being impossible to upgrade, the Mac Mini as being too underpowered and difficult to upgrade, and the Mac Pro as being too expensive. They’re also probably the same folks that thought Apple was crazy when the iMac came out, and it had no floppy drive. Sacrilege!

The MBA has a place. In fact, if you’re not a power user, and you share a house with one, you could probably get away with using it as your sole computer, so long as they were willing to share network resources with you at need. I couldn’t get away with it as my primary computer - no firewire = no camcorder connection - but I do admit that, were I merely an executive, I would want one with all my heart.