It Just (doesn’t) Work(s)

Let me start this post by saying I love my MacBook. I use it every single day and am not disappointed in my purchase in the least. In fact, unless the next Windows blows me away (or the current version of Linux out there) my next desktop computer will probably be a Mac. That being said, I just love how Apple’s mantra is (or was) It just works. I’ll give you an example that I came across yesterday of it not working.

We all know that OSX Leopard update 10.5.2 came out on Monday. I upgraded, welcoming all the new fixes and updates. They changed Stacks a bit, which is good, but I still wish they would make Stacks how it was originally supposed to be. I want to create a stack on the dock for, say, all my communication apps: Adium, iChat, Colloquy. I want to click on that stack and have it expand to show those apps. The video for stacks before Leopard came out did exactly that, then the feature was removed. This post isn’t about that though. Stacks worked for me, even if it isn’t how I want it to work. My problem was with Time Machine.

I don’t keep my MacBook hooked up to the external drive at all times. In fact, I only hook it up when I want to make a backup. After updating to 10.5.2 on Monday I decided to make a Time Machine backup. The only changes that really occurred since the last Time Machine backup were adding maybe two files to the Documents folder. So I run Time Machine and it said Preparing backup. 30 minutes later, it still said the same thing. After about 45 minutes I decide to cancel the backup and try again later. Tuesday (on my snow day) I try again. It sat at Preparing backup for an hour before I canceled it. I go do some searching on the Apple forums and find numerous other people having problems backing up since 10.5.2. One solution that a user found was erasing the drive and starting over. I figured, why not, everything is still on here, it won’t hurt to erase the disk so I can backup again. So, I do it and what do you know? Time Machine works again. So, Apple, you release updates to fix the broken and you wind up breaking more stuff. Seems like a lot of Apple things don’t just work lately. Keep it up and I’m going to start calling you Microsoft. ;)

Quick Launch with Launchy

Ever since I got my MacBook I’ve fallen in love with the Quicksilver feature of typing control and space then typing the first few letters of the application I want to launch to launch it. This keeps the desktop and the dock clean and is quicker than going to your applications directory and running the app from there. I got so used to this that when I was on my Windows machine I missed having a feature like this. That’s when I found Launchy. This is a free Windows program that does just that. I type alt space then the first few letters of the program I want to launch.

I’ve been wanting to get rid of Windows Sidebar for a while but kept it because of a quick launcher I have on there. I didn’t want to overload the standard Windows quick launcher with programs and I didn’t want to clutter my desktop with shortcuts. Also, I think we all know how painfully slow the Windows Start menu can be at times, so that was out of the question too. So I kept Windows Sidebar just for the Quicklauncher Gadget I had. Now I can finally get rid of it. Here are some screenshots of Launchy in action on my machine. (Click the screenshots for larger versions).

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Here I am launching Photoshop. I type the first few letters and a drop down list pops up with suggestions. When I find the one I want I simply click it. Launchy is also fully skinnable so I can get one that matches my desktop.

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Here I am adding a directory to the Launchy options. Not only will it look for programs, but files as long as you add the directory in which you want Launchy to search. Here I’m adding my Music folder.

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Now I’m adding what extensions I want Launchy to index in that folder. Since I added my Music folder, I added .mp3. You may want to add other formats too, such as .m4p, .m4a, .acc, .ogg, etc.

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Finally, we have my search for “Tupac” now that I’ve added my Music directory.

Launchy works quite well and was the perfect solution to what I was looking for. It doesn’t hog system resources and is extremely fast at bringing up results when you start typing. If you’re looking for a quick launch solution, make sure you give Launchy a try.

Why Dell Sucks, Part 2

So, Dell finally called me back Friday night. That’s three days after they were supposed to call. Three days after they said they would call. Guess what the outcome was? Well, the “tech” told me to do the exact same things he told me to do on Monday. I told him no, because we already did all that and the buzzing in the monitor was still occuring and I wasn’t going to waste my time doing it when the buzzing was still there and it would get us nowhere since he was going to tell me “he’d call back the next day” just as before. So, he says he was going to look for possible solutions with his supervisor or whatever and call me back in 10 to 15 minutes. I guess 10 to 15 minutes in India is the same as three days, because I still haven’t heard back from him. This is unacceptable.

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Dell’s Customer Service Sucks

I’ve been happy with my two computer and one mp3 player (1st gen Dell Jukebox from a long time ago) purchases from Dell. I’ve never had a problem with any of their products. I’ve never had to contact their customer service, and I’ve recommended them to others. That has all changed this week. On Monday night I contacted their support via the live chat on their website. The problem I’m experiencing is an audible buzzing that my 22 inch wide screen monitor is making. Googling for a solution to this I found some people say turn the brightness down under 75. That made my buzzing worse, so I went the opposite direction. When I got up to about 91 the buzzing stopped, but wow, what a bright screen. Since the computer and monitor are less than a year old I decided to contact support. I don’t want to go a few months and have my monitor go out on me right after it’s out of warranty. So I chat with the technician. They have me do all the same things I told them I’ve already done. Move the speakers away, plug it into a new outlet. Check to see if the buzzing is there when the monitor is off. I answered all these questions before they ever told me to check it, but they told me anyway and I did. Well, the tech told me he’d follow up with me the next day with a phone call. Guess what. No call. So I respond to the ticket via email on Tuesday night after not hearing anything form the technician. No response to that email. I emailed support again this morning and I have yet to hear anything from them. I should call, but do I really want to spend 5 hours on the phone with someone in India, only to have them hang up on me several times and put me on hold forever as well? I guess if it means getting a product that’s not defective it’s worth it.

Backing Up With SyncToy

Not long ago I bought a 500 GB usb external hard drive. I wanted to keep backups of all my documents, music, and pictures on it. I partitioned it so I could also back up my MacBook using Time Machine. I’ve been searching for a program to sync any new documents and music and whatnot on my Vista machine onto the external drive when I’d add it to my primary hard drive. I couldn’t find any decent free program that would do this and copying all the files manually just wasn’t efficient. Windows Vista has a backup solution built in but it wasn’t what I was looking for. In the Vista backup utility you can select types of files but not specific folders and directories. I wanted something that would allow me to select which files to backup and where to backup to. I posed the question in #habari and h0bbel gave me a suggestion, SyncToy. It’s a free download from Microsoft and does exactly what I want. As you can see in this screen shot, I was able to tell what directories to sync on my machine and which directories I want to sync them with.
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It has a great, easy to use interface that is quite intuitive. You add folder points on each drive then click sync. It worked perfectly when syncing up all my files. The only thing I wish it did have was a schedule so it would perform syncs daily, weekly, or monthly. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a feature that’s added in 2.0. Maybe sometime in the future that feature will be added.