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The Road Warrior Mailbag - October 1, 2007
Hotrodding The 12" PowerBook
The 12" PowerBook vs MacBook
Trackpad button of Little Alu vs Aircraft carrier
Re: Is iListen localized in Polish?
Hotrodding The 12" PowerBook - couldn't disagree more!
It finally happened!
MCS Online Petition and Position Statement
From Gary Dailey
Thanks for the excellent article Charles!
http://www.macopinion.com/index.php/site/comments/hotrodding_the_12_powerbook/
The 12" is a long-time favorite for Photographers (most of our upgrade customers), due to its power and portability. We've upgraded (CPUs) a few hundred now with excellent success. Most customers opt to get a larger 7200 RPM drive at the same time. Giving new life to the weakest mechanical part (the drive) and getting a boost in performance at the same time.
We actually use an underclocked 1700 MHz CPU on this upgrade. The end result is a cool upgrade that's fast as well.
Gary Dailey
Daystar Technology - 404-625-7432 cell
http://daystartechnology.com
http://daystar-store.com
http://xlr8.com
Hi Gary;
Glad you liked the article.
Charles
From Jacek A. Rochacki
Hi, Charles:
I absolutely agree with your opinion on Little Alu. I use one myself - it is last model, 1.5 GHz, which is now 24 months old, upgraded to 1.25 GB of RAM. Original HDD, 5400 rpm, with its 80 GB is good enough for me, I still have ca 27 GB of free space.
It is a pleasure to enjoy this small laptop' speed and stability, and I do not regreat that I skipped the MacBook model; my niece uses one, I have been configuring and using it for several days and well, it is nice and fast machine, but I still prefer my Little Alu.
If rumors on caming new aluminum MacBook will became true, then maybe I'll go for it's rev. B or rev. C. Or maybe Apple will offer MacBookPro with screen 12" or maximum 13". Until then my Little Alu, seconded by Pismo and Wallstreet II will remain my front line machine.
As always
Jacek in Warsaw,
Poland
Hi Jacek;
Thanks for your comment. Interesting to get your comparative impressions of the 12" PowerBook and the MacBook.
Charles
From: Jacek A. Rochacki
Hi, Charles:
When in June 2006 I decided to buy next Mac laptop, I have placed side by side:
Pismo G3
iBook G4 12"
PB Alu G4 GHz 12"
MacBook - model which was at that time offered by Apple.
And for two or three hours I have been testing/comparing these machines. I am mostly working with texts, internet and simple graphics, so the computing power of both G4's and Intel is good enough for me, and was not the main factor; the deciding/main factor was and is for me the quality of an internal keyboard, as I can use the external keyboard only when I work seated by desk, not when I type seated in my special armchair. I am not a touch typist, so I expect the keyboard to have nice, firm responsiveness under my fingers, something like the keyboards of PB 1400, Walltsreet or Pismo. The best keyboard of these four was definitely the keyboard of Pismo; the keyboard of iBook that I was using then for more then a year was too soft, and I was tired of too slippery trackpad area, difficulties with keeping this white thing clean plus letters disappearing from the keyboard.
After this couple of hours with MacBook I realized, that its keyboard is also too soft under my fingers and this keyboard is an integrated part of the top case, what would make rather expencive to exchange it for new one if needed be. This left the Little Alu as the best successor of my iBook G4, to second my faithful Pismo. The keyboard of Little Al seems to me more "Pismo or Wallstreet like", to respond more vigorously under my fingers. Unfortunately after several months the letters have also dissapeared from keyboard - like from iBook keyboard that I had before. But in general the body is more solid - sturdy, the trackpad I find much better then in the iBook, and it is much easier to keep clean the Little Al then the white iBook. What I miss for evening typing when I am seated in my armchair is the iluminated keyboard, like in 15" and 17" models, but I use the USB goose neck little lamp.
Months later my beloved niece became Mac user, buying MacBook 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. She had no experience whatsoever with Mac OS, and she was far away, continuing her postgraduate studies in England, but the MacBook under Tiger provided her with uninterrupted service; when she visited Old Country I was asked to "make an order" with this MacBook, so I have been using, testing and configuring it for a week. This experience has reenforced me in my choice of Little Alu, although I can clearly see, that my problem boils down to technique of typing; my niece simply loves the keyboard of her MacBook, but she - like most people of her generation - is a touch typist, typing not like these who have been doing most of their typing on old fashioned mechanical typewriters.
My remarks on MacBook have been published - unfortunately in Polish only - on Wednesday, June 21, 2006 here: http://www.santee.pl/behind/2006/06/mac-book-son-of-pismo-ale-czy-juz.html
With my best
Jacek
Jacek A. Rochacki
PUC - Pismo Users Club
http://puc.santee.pl
Hi Jacek;
Thanks for the detailed comparison of these machines.
Like you, I'm not a touch typist. I'm reasonably fast, although I also depend a lot on dictation software (something you might consider for use in your special chair; doe i:isten work in Polish? I must ask Chuck Rogers).
I'm pretty much in agreement with you about the keyboards. The WallStreet was the best-ever, with the Pismo a close runner-up. The keyboard and trackpad ate the things I like least about my G3 iBook, and based on my exposure to the ones in my daughter's G4 iBook, it's even worse. The keyboard in my 17" G4 PowerBook is not bad, pretty much the same unit in your LittleAl except for the backlighting, but I don't like it as well as the Pismo's, and I really don't like the trackpad, which is worse tha the one in the iBook.
Charles
Trackpad button of Little Alu vs Aircraft carrier
From Jacek A. Rochacki
Hello again:
Well, I was testing the iListen app. after I have read a lot on it in your columns; unfortunately it doesn't work in Polish, and for last couple of years most of my texts, including large elaborations, are unfortunately in Polish. But maybe I did something wrong, so please, when you will find a free moment, kindly ask Chuck Rogers.
The button of the trackpad in Little Alu is really nice to operate and it gives better feeling under my thumb then the trackpad button of the PBook 17", what surprized me much, when I was fiddling with this 17 incher nicknamed in Polish "Aircraft carrier", belonging to one of my Mac colleagues.
With my best thoughts
Jacek
Hi Jacek
"Aircraft Carrier." That's a new one, but logical and quite appropriate.
The trackpad button on my 17-incher is OK, but the trackpad itself is frustrating to use due to a sporadic hesitation in response.
The best trackpad I've ever used was in the WallStreet, but its button was horrible.
I'll drop a note to Chuck.
Charles
Re: Is iListen localized in Polish?
From Chuck Rogers
Charles:
Nope. We do not have a Polish version of the Philips speech engine available to us.
Best Regards,
Chuck Rogers, Chief Evangelist
MacSpeech, Inc.
Hotrodding The 12" PowerBook - couldn't disagree more!
From Trotskiii
I really couldn't disagree more!
Of the 20-30 or so Macs which I've used/owned the first gen 12" Aluminium PowerBook was the worst - an absolute pig!
1 You could fry an egg on the thing!
2 I used to get static shocks off it regularly ie several times a day!
3 It is assembled with more screws than the space shuttle - even the Apple certified engineers didn't want to open it!
4 The screen is poor and dimly lit
5 Memory was initially restricted to 768Mb
6 During my time it killed 2 hard drives 2 power supplies and a superdrive (and no I did not ever drop it)
(Having said all this my Pismo experience wasn't perfect either as it ended up being replaced with a Tibook under Applecare warranty)
I currently use a last generation 12" G4 iBook that really is a great machine and bar the cardbus slot bears a much closer Pismo experience than the 12" Al Powerbook ever did.
Hi Trotskii;
Thanks for your comment, and I'm sorry to hear you had a bad experience with that 12" PowerBook.
Those 1st Gen. 867 MHz units did run hot, although not as torridly and the first-gen MacBook Pro and MacBook. Some folks seem to have trouble with statio shocks with metal PowerBooks, There were a lot of complaints about that when the first Titanium PowerBooks came out. It' isn't something I've heard about much form 12" PowerBooks, though.
The 12-incher incorporated much of the same engineering as the dual-USB iBook, which is a nightmare to open up (they're both made by the same subcontractor). None of the metal-skinned PowerBooks is a treat to work on, but the 12" is no worse than the iBooks.
The screen must have been atypical. The 12", 1,024 x 768 display in my iBook is still lovely and bright after nearly five years of use.
The limited memory was a characteristic also shared with the contemporaneous iBooks, for the same reason. The later three versions of the 12-incher will support 1.254 Ghz of RAM.
The manifold hardware failures you describe incline me to infer that you had the misfortune to get an exceptional lemon. Generally, the 12" PowerBook is well-regarded for reliability and toughness, although the early, 867 MHz units were definitely the least desirable in that context.
Glad to hear your iBook is giving you good service, but it's more difficult to open up than a 12" PowerBook, and uses a similar display (presumably this time you got a good one), but it won't give you shocks!
Charles
Hello Mr. Moore,
Well... it finally happened! My beloved Pismo refuses to charge. I've yet to completely dismantle it but there is a definite, audible "rattling" in the area of the power card. As much as I absolutely love the machine (as you and I have oft lamented) I simply can't justify spending any money to repair a now, almost - eight year old machine. While I may open it up and try to do so some day down the road, it just doesn't make sense to do so now.
I don't know if you'll get this before my decision is made (as it will be very soon), I thought I would at least get your opinion on my availably options. I have the opportunity to purchase an 12" 800MHz G4 iBook that has been upgraded with an Airport card, the maximum 640MB of ram, and a new battery for about $350. My only other option is to go put a new MacBook on the credit card. What do you think of this? Do you know of any particular problems with the G4 iBooks? I've heard that the logic board problems that plagued the G3 iBooks had been largely resolved with the G4s. However... being that the 800MHz was the first of the G4s... would they be considered a first revision machine? I, for the most part like to stay away from Rev. A machines... although I would think that any problems this four year old machine would have had, would have happened already.
From all accounts these current MacBooks seem to be fairly solid... but I just don't know if I would like to make that sort of investment at the time. One thing in the MacBook's favor is the inclusion of its one-year warranty. I just don't know... but I'm going to have to make a decision rather quickly!
As always, you're thoughts/comments/advice is more than appreciated!
I hope that all has been going well for you! I look forward to hearing back from you!
Take care and God Bless,
Adam M. Goff
Hi Adam;
It sounds like maybe the power adapter connection jack has come unsoldered from the power management board. Does the jack feel loose and sloppy? I've seen it happen to WallStreets and Lombards, and of course the old PowerBook 5300, but never a Pismo.
Frankly, Imy advice wouldb e to look around for a 12" PowerBook rather than a G4 iBook.
For example, TechRestore has listed a PowerBook G4/867Mhz Aluminum 256MB Memory, 40GB Hard Drive, CD-RW/DVD Optical Drive, 12.1-inch LCD Screen for $529.99, and it comes with a six month warranty. http://www.techrestore.com/
You might want to check out the stats. in the MacIntouch iBook and PowerBook reliability survey here: http://www.macintouch.com/reliability/laptops.html
The 800 Mhz G4 iBook didn't stack up very well against the later versions, and they've developed a distinctly spotty reputation as they got some age on them. On the other hand, my 700 MHz G3 iBook has statistically the worst reliability record of any Apple laptop since 1999, but the particular example I own has been essentially trouble-free for nearly five years now, so there are certainly exceptions.
On another other hand, the 12" PowerBook actually did worse than the 12" iBook over the span of that survey, but over the longer haul has proved more sustainably durable than the G4 iBook. My daughter's 1.2 GHz G4 iBook has developed the dreaded "sudden shutdown" syndrome, but then it has been used prettty hard.
Another option for you would be to pick up another Pismo and use your current one for a parts mule. Wegener Media got a batch of Pismos in last spring, and still has some in stock. I bought one, and it is in immaculate condition with a perfect screen and looks like it has hardly been used, although I can't guarantee that they are all like that.
They might also be amenable to selling you one "bare-bones", as it were, at a discount if you wanted to swap in your battery, optical drive, RAM, and even your hard drive and processor card from the old Pismo, which could make it a really inexpensive solution.
Prices start at $299.99 for a 400 Mhz unit (128/6GB).
More info here:
All that said, if you can afford the outlay, a MacBook would be great! Have you considered an Apple Certified unit? Same warranty and AppleCare eligibility as buying new, but at a significant discount.
Hope this helps with your deliberations.
Charles
http://www.wegenermedia.com/pismo4.htm
MCS Online Petition and Position Statement
From Lourdes Salvador
MCS America is collecting signatures on our position statement that was published in the October 2007 newsletter via a petition. The signed petition will be sent to US Congress and other recipients as provided for in the petition at the link below. To sign the petition, visit:
http://www.petitiononline.com/MCSAPS/petition.html
Sal
Position Statement: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
Multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) is an environmental illness (EI) in which negative neurological, pulmonary, cardiac, and rheumatic health effects, among others, are experienced from exposure to common environmental chemicals including fragrances, cleaners, pesticides, and other petrochemicals at concentrations that are below regulatory toxicity thresholds and that are normally deemed as safe.1-2 In 1989, consensus criteria were established for the diagnoses and definition of MCS and later revised in 1999.3 The case criteria, currently under revision, define MCS for diagnostic purposes as meeting six criteria: 3
1. The condition is chronic.
2. Symptoms recur reproducibly with repeated chemical exposure. 3. Symptoms recur in response to lower levels of chemicals than previously tolerated. 4. Symptoms appear in response to multiple chemically unrelated substances. 5. Symptoms improve or resolve when chemical incitants are removed. 6. Multiple organ systems are affected.
This paper will support the position that MCS is a disorder of organic biological origin induced by toxic environmental insults, and requires immediate recognition in the workplace, medical community, school system, and public places across America; and that it is crucial that environmental toxicants are identified and reduced or effectively regulated and enforced through legislation to prevent additional injury to citizens.
Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM
Where has Marc been? Part 4
For the past few columns I've been discussing Getting Things Done, a terrific book on increasing personal productivity by David Allen.
David's key principle is to get planned tasks out of your head and into some kind of organized system and therefore free your subconscious from worrying and remembering things to do. Unlike gimmicky productivity solutions, David doesn't care what system you use: it can be paper or electronics. The specifics aren't important: what's important is that it's convenient so you'll use it, and that you are using some kind of system.
I liked David's ideas and as I thought about my own life structure, I pondered what kind of system would work best for me. Working from home I don't travel as much as most people, but I do get out occasionally and thus I wanted my system to be portable. I also knew my system would have to be electronic, since my handwriting's unreadable and I'm comfortable with software. I thought about a PDA but PDAs are limited and I don't want to have to carry one around all the time. Also, for extensive editing, a computer's far superior to a tiny handheld.
Of course this summer I've gotten hooked on my Apple iPhone: it's similar to a PDA, though lacking many PDA features, but because it's a phone I tend to always have it with me. The problem was, how could I edit lists on the iPhone?
If you're familiar with the iPhone, you probably know that one of its most severe limitations is that it doesn't support any kind of document editing or creation beyond its built-in Notes application and email. There are some websites that offer document editing features, but those require Internet access and tend to be slow.
The iPhone's Notes application has no Mac counterpart (yet) and thus Notes are not synced to your computer, meaning that I'd only be able to view and edits lists on the iPhone. More serious, people report that Notes are not backed up on your computer when you sync, so if you ever had a problem with your iPhone and had to restore the software, you'd lose those Notes. For my critical need, that's not acceptable.
What I wanted was some kind of system that would let me edit my lists on either device and have them automatically sync.
Now other than websites, the only tool that auto-syncs on the iPhone is IMAP mail. IMAP mail is cool: you can check the same account on your computer and on the iPhone and changes on one device (read, moved, or deleted messages, for instance) are immediately reflected in the other.
The problem is that Apple's mail program won't let you edit existing messages. You can create a new To-Do list but once it's saved and closed, it's no longer editable. What good's a list you can't modify?
Then I remembered something interesting. There is one circumstance in which the iPhone's Mail app will let you edit emails: messages in the Drafts folder are still editable.
So I gave this a try. I created a new IMAP email account via my web host. I then enabled access to this email account on my iPhone and in Apple Mail on my desktop Mac.
Then I created some "To Do" lists as Draft messages. When I checked on my iPhone, these messages showed up!
I can edit these lists on my iPhone, though the interface for doing so isn't the most intuitive. For instance, there is no "Save" button on the iPhone. An email message has Cancel and Send buttons instead. So after making changes to a Draft message, I have to click the message's Cancel button. That generates a Save/Don't Save dialog box. I then click Save to preserve the changes.
Since the email account is an IMAP account, changes to any of the messages are stored on the mail server so I'm free to edit the "To Do" lists on either the iPhone or my desktop Mac (or any web browser via my mail account's web access). This is exactly what I wanted. Now I can check and modify my task lists either on the iPhone or at my desktop Mac. The lists themselves are merely plain text, which is ideal.
I've been using this system for several weeks now and so far it works well. However, there are some disadvantages and cautions.
The biggest drawback is that email support requires Internet access, meaning that working with your lists can be problematic if you're out of cell range or on an airplane. You can read the lists without Internet access (apparently the iPhone does cache the messages), but the lists may not be the most current if you haven't consolidated the lists recently. Unfortunately, you cannot make changes to your lists: while the iPhone will offer you the "Save" button nothing is saved. Your changes vanish.
Generally this isn't a problem if you're careful and plan ahead, but you could run into an issue where consolidation between the IMAP server and the iPhone have gotten out of sync. For instance, I once ended up with two copies of the same message in my Drafts folder. I have never been able to duplicate this again, but I think I had the message open for editing on my iMac and then modified it on the iPhone: in effect editing it simultaneously on two different devices.
Another issue is that consolidation can take a few minutes, depending on the extent of the changes and your Internet connection speed. Via a poor Edge connection it can take a while or even fail. But if you plan ahead this isn't a problem.
For instance, say I've just made a bunch of changes and additions to my lists on my iMac. Before I leave the house, I'll browse my "GTD" account on my iPhone, forcing it to download the latest versions of my lists. This is at home via WiFi and takes just a few seconds. Later, when I'm out and about and using Edge, the consolidation is quick because I've already got the latest version. This will also ensure that if I'm out of Internet range I at least have the latest versions cached and can read my lists without Internet access.
It is nice to note that the iPhone shows you the date and time you last refreshed the Drafts folder (the last time it consolidated with the server) and the date/time of the most recent change to each message. It's good to keep an eye on both these, because it could be a disaster to have a list missing changes you think you made.
Now this is potentially just an interim solution. Mac OS X Leopard apparently includes some "To Do" list functionality and many are speculating that once Leopard is out Apple will update the iPhone to support To Do lists (I hear Notes are also supported in Leopard). This would make sense, since Outlook on the PC supports both lists and notes, but Apple's waiting to add that iPhone functionality for when the Mac also supports it.
But in the meantime, this is a pretty cool way to handle your GTD lists. It's fast, syncs automatically between computers and handheld, is available via iPhone or any web browser (assuming your IMAP email account has web access), and is simple plain text.
While I've been vacationing the past week and haven't had a chance to really incorporate GTD into my life fully yet, my early tests show this is an excellent system and really love having my tasks available on my iPhone for easy modification whenever I think of something I need to do.
macopinion@designwrite.comHotrodding The 12” PowerBook
Now, I still love the Pismo. I have two of them, and I don't anticipate that I'll be retiring them any time soon. Suitably hotrodded with 550 MHz G4 processor upgrades, FastMac SuperDrive modules, RAM upgrades, extended life batteries, and so forth, the Pismo is still an impressive machine, but the handwriting is on the wall, so to speak. The Pismo will not be supported by OS 10.5 Leopard, even with the maximum 550 MHz G4 processor upgrade installed, and while it runs very nicely under OS 10.4 Tiger, I'm noticing lately that mine are struggling a bit when multitasking with a lot of applications open. I guess my work habits have evolved after two years of using a faster 17" PowerBook as my primary production computer.
The Pismo's greatest shortcoming, however, and one that has never been hotroddable, is its mediocre graphics support - a puny by today's standards ATI RAGE 128 Mobility gpu with just 8MB of video RAM. It manages Tiger's demands fairly satisfactorily so long as your software doesn't demand Quartz Extreme support, but I don't think I would really want to run Leopard on it, even if it turns out to be possible to hack an install. The Pismos are also not getting any younger, with the newest examples now closer to their eighth than their seventh birthday.
Consequently, while I still recommend the Pismo as a good choice in a cheap PowerBook, and I anticipate using my Pismos for a good long time yet, it's with those caveats attached, and it's coming time to pass the king of the low end Mac laptops baton to a newer machine.
To my way of thinking, the most logical successor is the 12" PowerBook, which like the Pismo has a reputation for better-than-average reliability, and is a fantastic little package. Other G4 Aluminum PowerBooks (like my 17" unit for instance) can also be a great choice for a low end Mac notebook, but in general, I think the 12-incher has the edge, and at a lower price.
The 12" PowerBook was on the market for nearly 3 1/2 years, so there is a pretty good selection available used and refurbished, and they are my first-choice recommendation for anyone looking for an inexpensive Mac laptop who can’t quite pony up the $1,100 for a new MacBook (although refurb, MacBooks should also be considered). Prices for the early, 867 MHz 12-inchers have been pushed down to the $500 range, and not much more for a 1 GHz DVI unit, which is what I would recommend for the minimum spec. machine to look for. Happily, all 12" PowerBooks satisfy (just) the expected minimum Leopard requirement of an 867 MHz G4 CPU.
Compared with a Pismo, 12" PowerBooks in addition to the faster G4 processors, have a much better video card, and four to eight times the video RAM, and the screen on the 12-inch model is superb - brighter and sharper than the Pismo's display while offering the same resolution of 1024 x 768.
For a bit more money, the 1.33 GHz and 1.5 GHz G4 12" PowerBooks are especially well-equipped. Along with with USB 2 that was added with the 1 GHz model and at least a combo drive, the faster models come with 64 megabytes of video RAM, Apple’s Sudden Motion Sensor and Scrolling Trackpad technology, larger capacity hard drives, and a NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 graphics cards with 64MB of VRAM.
The 12" PowerBook has some shortcomings to be sure. The 1024 x 768 display will feel cramped to widescreen addicts, although I don't find it a major hardship. There is no PC Card slot, which won’t bother a lot of users, but its absence is a pain if you need it for feature expansion. Another drawback is that even the final 1.5 GHz models (which were incidentally the last PowerPC Mac of any sort to be sold) have just 256MB of RAM soldered to their motherboard, which means that these machines are limited to a RAM ceiling of 1.254 GHz, and thanks to having just one RAM expansion slot it will likely be necessary to remove and discard a lower capacity card if you're upgrading.
Compared with the Pismo, the 12" PowerBook is a lot less amenable to hotrodding, so it's a big plus that it came so well-equipped out of the box. However, you definitely can hot rod a 12-incher.
The first phase should definitely be RAM, and I recommend maxing it out with a 1 GB expansion module from the get-go, especially if you plan on installing Leopard, for which 1.254 GHz of system memory will be no more than adequate.
For available PowerBook RAM upgrades, a convenient place to check out availability and compare prices is at RAMSeeker:
http://www.ramseeker.com/
Other World Computing also has a comprehensive selection of PowerBook RAM here:
http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Models.cfm?stype=Memory&0509
OWCs' one gigabyte RAM modules for the 12" PowerBook start as low as $72.99.
A lot of the G3 iBook models and even some of the early revision G4s came with plain-vanilla CD-ROM drives, which is a nuisance if you need to install software (such as OS 10.4 Tiger) that ships on DVD media, or just want to watch DVD movies or access archived files stored on burned DVDs. Or perhaps you have a Combo drive equipped iBook and would like to be able to burn DVDs.
Happily, several vendors supply SuperDrive upgrades for the 12" PowerBook:
Fastmac offers an 8x dual-layer unit for $179.95. I have FastMac SuperDrive upgrades in both of my Pismos, and they've been excellent performers.
http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?products_id=76
MCE Technologies also offers 8X DVD±R/RW SuperDrive upgrades with both Double Layer AND Dual Layer support for the 12" PowerBook G4 that allows users to author professional-quality DVDs as well as create, store, and share their collections of videos, music and photography, priced at $99.00 or $149.00 depending upon your machine's optical drive configuration.
You can check it out at:
http://www.mcetech.com/products.html
TechRestore offers 8x Dual Layer Superdrive Self-Service Upgrade For PowerBook G4 Aluminum 12", 15" and 17" Series at $119.99.
For more information, visit:
http://www.techrestore.com/xcart/home.php?cat=256
A higher capacity, faster hard drive can also give your 12" PowerBook a new lease on life. The three vendors mentioned above all offer hard drive upgrades for the 12-incher.
See:
http://www.mcetech.com/products.html
http://eshop.macsales.com/
http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?products_id=76
The downside of that is that getting at the LittleAl's hard drive (unlike with the Pismo in which it's a 10-15 minute easy job) involves substantial disassembly of the computer. If you think you have the skill and patience to tackle the job yourself, or want more information to help determine whether you do or not, check out iFixIt.com’s free illustrated teardown guide for the 12" PowerBook here:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/
IFixIt also has a selection of parts and upgrade items for the PowerBook here:
http://www.ifixit.com/cart/catalog/
The 12" PowerBook had an advertised battery life of up to six hours, but you can do better than that these days with a high-capacity battery replacement.
FastMac offers extended life batteries for the 12" PowerBook for $99.00:
http://fastmac.com/laptop.php
Newer Technologies' has two different extended life batteries for the 12" PowerBook at $119.99 and $149.95.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/powerbook/battery/g4-12inch-aluminum/
The ultimate hot rod tweak for the 12" PowerBook will be a processor upgrade. Daystar Technology's latest PowerBook upgrade offering of the XLR8 MAChSpeed G4 Aluminum upgrade for some Aluminum PowerBook G4 systems can take you up to 1.67 GHz delivering up to 40% faster performance.
According to Daystar's Gary Dailey, the 12" PowerBook is a long-time favorite of Photographers (a large proportion of their upgrade customers), due to its power and portability. Daystar have upgraded a few hundred 12" PowerBook CPUs now with excellent success, Dailey says. Most customers also opt to get a larger 7200 RPM drive at the same time. The CPU used in this upgrade is an underclocked 1700 MHz G4, resulting in a relatively cool-running upgrade that's fast as well.
This is a factory installed upgrade only. The Daystar XLR8 MAChSpeed G4 Aluminum CPU upgrade is available worldwide. The base price of $359.00 includes all parts and labor.
Daystar PowerBook 12" Upgrades Available include:
• PowerBook G4 12”: 867 MHz, is upgraded to 1.4 GHz (MP7455 CPU)
• PowerBook G4 12”: 1.0, upgraded to 1.67 GHz
• PowerBook G4 12”: 1.33 upgraded to 1.67 GHz
• PowerBook G4 12”: 1.5 is upgraded to 1.67 GHz
Software Compatibility:
Apple Mac OS 9.2.2 Classic Mode
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The 12" PowerBooks are going to be around for quite a while yet providing excellent service to their owners. The 12" form factor pretty much hits the sweet spot between “big enough for serious work” and portability, and with a bit of upgrading, they should still be able to hold their own quite nicely, even running OS 10.5 Leopard.
12" PowerBook Models In A Nutshell
The PowerBook G4 (12") Aluminum was first introduced in January, 2003, and continued in production through four distinct models until May, 2006. The 12-incher's motherboard design included Double Data Rate (DDR) RAM, internal Bluetooth, and support for Airport Extreme, Apple's implementation of the 54 Mbps 802.11g wireless standard.
PowerBook G4
Original
* CPU: PowerPC 7455 - 867 MHz
* RAM: 1 - PC2100 for a maximum RAM of 1152 MB
* Hard Drive: 40 or 60 GB
* Optical: Combo Drive or DVD-R/CD-RW SuperDrive
* Optional Airport Extreme Card, Integrated Bluetooth
PowerBook G4 (DVI)
DVI
* CPU: PowerPC 7447 - 1.0 GHz
* RAM: 1 - PC2100 for a maximum RAM of 1.25 GB
* Hard Drive: 40 GB
* Optical: Combo Drive or DVD-R/CD-RW SuperDrive
* Optional AirPort Extreme card, Integrated Bluetooth
PowerBook G4 12-inch (1.33 GHz)
1.33 GHz
* CPU: PowerPC 7447 - 1.33 GHz
* RAM: 1 - PC2700 for a maximum RAM of 1.25 GB
* Hard Drive: 60 or 80 GB
* Optical: Combo Drive or DVD-R/CD-RW SuperDrive
* Included AirPort Extreme card as standard, Integrated Bluetooth
PowerBook G4 12-inch (1.5 GHz)
1.5 GHz
* CPU: PowerPC 7447A - 1.5 GHz
* RAM: 1 - PC2700 for a maximum RAM of 1.25 GB
* Hard Drive: 60, 80, or 100 GB (with Sudden Motion Sensor)
* Optical: Combo Drive or DVD±RW/CD-RW SuperDrive (SuperDrive became standard equipment at the base price in October, 2005)
* Included AirPort Extreme card, Integrated Bluetooth
***
cmoore@macopinion.com
Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM
The Road Warrior Mailbag - September 24, 2007
Kensington si750m Notebook Wireless Laser Mouse
Smelly computers
MCS Computing Solution Sought
Rumors on new aluminum MacBooks
From Jacek A. Rochacki
Dear Charles:
Rumors on new aluminum MacBooks published here:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/index.cfm?newsid=19173
http://9to5mac.com/apple-to-release-new-aluminum-macbooks-7456543
Seem to be of real interest for my colleagues active at the Polish Mac Users Group Macplug discussion forum - http://www.macplug.org , not to mention myself.
Therefore if you know something more on this matter then we, on "antipodes"know - please, maybe rise up this subject in one of your caming columns.
As always
Jacek in Poland
Pismo Users Club - http://puc.santee.pl
Hi Jacek;
I have no knowledge of an imminent MacBook subnotebook release, but I'll be surprised if there's not one between now and Christmas. A TheStreet report on Friday says:
"...people inside the company and those close to Apple's plans say there will be a big announcement regarding a so-called subnotebook Mac. The ultra-thin device will have a 10 inch-to-12 inch screen, sleek rounded edges and weigh less than 2 pounds.The subnotebook's introduction is planned for next quarter, and the product is expected to be available for the holiday sales season."
If there's any actual substance to TheStreet's report, it sounds like it might be the "iPhone MacBook" with possibly solid state memory, but what do I know?
Charles
Kensington si750m Notebook Wireless Laser Mouse
From nike lover
Hi, Charles.
How to buy the Kensington si750m Notebook Wireless Laser Mouse?
Hi nl;
If you're in thr U.S., the Kensington online store page is here:
If you're in another part of the world, go to: http://www.kensington.com/ and select your country from the pull-down menu on the spalsh page, and then find the store link
Charles
http://us.kensington.com/html/9645.html
From Jay;
My mother in law struggles with MCS. Her (and her husband's) home based insurance business is becoming more computerized. Right now they have an MSN TV based Internet browser that doesn’t bother her, but also doesn’t allow any actual storage or applications.
They also have a Dell Axim X51 PDA for running some applications that is OK, but that is really not a substitute for a PC. I’ve been looking at Tablet PCs a bit thinking that the lack of fan may help. I’m trying to get as close to a home PC as possible without ruining their home.
Any helpful suggestions? Just seeing this article was uplifting. I’ve been looking for days and thought I was all alone in this subject.
Jay
Hi Jay;
Personally, I've found that externally-force-vented isolation cases have been the best solution for me. While laptops are more amenable to this because of their small physical size and self-containedness, there's no reason why a desktop machine can't be segregated in the same manner. As long as you have a powerful enough exhaust fan and adequate air intake, cooling should not be a problem.
As for tablet computers, I have no first-hand experience. In general cooler-running machines will be a better bet than hot ones, and having no fan blowing chemical fumes out into the work environment is a plus, but even fanless equipment can be impossibly smelly. I've found some keyboards to be especially problematical, due to the close proximity on is obliged to keep with them. A disadvantage of the tablet would be that you have to keep it close to you to use it as well, and all those internal circuit boards are going to warm up and stink, fan or no fan.
Another alternative is to use older computers that have thoroughly gassed off. My first Pismo PowerBook, which I purchased used in October, 2001, was still too smelly for me to tolerate at first, but after about three years in the isolation case it had gassed off to a degree that it was no longer problematical for me, and I've been using it up close and personal for several years now with no ill effects. My second Pismo, which I obtained last spring, was fully gassed-off when it arrived. While these old machines are well short of the cutting edge, they've both been hotrodded with more RAM and processor upgrades, and still acquit themselves respectably running Mac OS X 10.4.
On the other hand, the rate of off-gassing is neither dependable or predictable. My G3 iBook spent 2 1/2 years in the isolation case before it had gassed off to an acceptable degree. My 17" PowerBook G4, which was originally manufactured sometime between September, 2003 and April, 2004, and which was purchased as an evidently unused Apple Certified Refurbished unit in February, 2006, is still emitting too high a level of chemical fumes for me to tolerate outside the case without a charcoal respirator on, compounded by the fact that its internal cooling fans run frequently. I'm becoming less optimistic about its gas-off potential.
Hope this helps a bit.
Charles
From David;
Hi Charles,
I hope that this post finds you well. Thank you for your excellent and helpful articles. My wife suffers from MCS, and her condition seems to be getting worse, to the extent that she can no longer use our computers or tolerate them being used in the house. She was greatly heartened to read that she was not alone in her adverse symptoms resulting from exposure to our computers (Apple Quicksilver tower and PowerBook G4 aluminum), as she has had similar reactions of disbelief to the ones you described.
Your isolation cabinets inspired me to design one for the Quicksilver, but which would also contain two printers which may also be causing reactions. This cabinet would be approximately H 62” X W 24” X D 24”, with slatted shelving, on casters and open at the bottom. I plan to build the cabinet from (neutral) spruce lumber, with solid sides and double access doors at the front and rear. I wonder if you would be willing to describe the process and materials (exhaust fan and ducting) you used to vent your cabinets. Your pictures are helpful, but a little more detail would help this novice.
In our case, we cannot vent anywhere within our house, as that would still cause my wife distress. The window option does not seem very practical in our case either, just because of awkward locations. Our house has double-brick walls, so venting that way would also be problematic. The best solution would seem to be to vent through the roof, especially since we are about to have our roof covering redone.
I have found a roof dryer vent which looks promising. A flexible hose would run as straight as possible up from the exhaust fan in the top of the isolation cabinet, through the ceiling, and out through the dryer vent—a distance of about ten feet.
Do you have any recommendations, based upon your knowledge and experience, about what power/capacity exhaust fan would be appropriate? If you think there might be a preferable solution, do not hesitate to offer your thoughts about that.
With thanks for the guidance you have already provided.
David
Hi David;
Sorry to hear about your wife's MCS.
I think you;re on the right track building an isolation case for your computers. It really has been a great solution for me - literally the facilitator that has allowed me to continue working.
The only limit to what you can do in terms of building custom isolation cases is your imagination. What you're proposing for the QuickSilver sounds fine. I built a fairly large case back in '91 for my G4 Cube and a hulking great NEC CRT monitor. Unfortunately I never took any photos and disassembled the case after I traded the Cube for a Pismo, but it was basically constructed on the same principles as my laptop isolation cases - seasoned spruce and lots of glass panels.
Venting upward through the roof would in many ways be ideal, since you should get a degree of chimney updraft extraction effect. It really doesn't take a very powerful fan to keep the chemical fumes at bay; all you need is any movement of air at all in the right direction, however, for adequate cooling you'll need a substantial volume of air movement, especially with a large desktop machine like the QuickSilver.
I use 12 volt fans scavenged out of old desktop Macs, and have found that my laptops run cooler inside the case with hot air being scavenged and exhausted by the ventilation fan than they do outside the box. Ideally, a slow-turning, large diameter fan would be preferable for quietness.
As for ducting, whatever works in the particular situation. One of my installations uses a length of rigid plastic (ABS) 3" plumbing pipe exhausting into the basement, I've found that square-section ducting custom fabricated and glued up (using non-smelly white paper glue) from moderately light cardboard (Bristol-board weight) works well for me and is adaptable to a variety of configurations, is cheap, and doesn't have off-gassing issues like some plastic ducting does. Metal ducting is good as well. Really, it's what works best for you in your particular circumstances.
Hope this helps.
Charles
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM
Where has Marc been? Part 3
For the past few columns I've been discussing Getting Things Done, a terrific book on increasing personal productivity by David Allen. For years I've felt frustrated by my disorganization and feeling like I was swamped with work but not seeing much in the way of results. This feeling peaked recently and inspired me to buy and read Allen's book, and the book has inspired me to clean out the cobwebs in my life and get organized.
I'll begin with a confession: I have a disease. I'm not sure of the official name, but it's informally known as Junkitis. I inherited this disease from my grandfather, who was severely infected. Neither of us can throw anything away.
I've moved a half dozen times in the past two decades and with every move I bring boxes and boxes of miscellaneous junk. I keep thinking I'll sort through the stuff, but never do, and it just accumulates. My garage was filled with hundreds of boxes, and so was my house. I moved to Oregon nearly three years ago and still have dozens of unopened boxes.
As long as I'm confessing, I might as well admit another problem, one which Allen's book has helped me realize the cause: a tendency to leave clutter everywhere simply because the items serve as reminders of things I need to do. Under Allen's program, these things are put away and you add the reminder as a task in your management system. In the past I've occasionally cleaned and reorganizd, but clutter soon returned because I did not have a system in place to keep things organized. It was half of a system.
Reading Allen's book inspired me, but his revelation that I need to close all the open loops in my life -- every single unfinished task nagging at the back of my brain -- made me realize I needed to begin by processing all the junk in my house. Not just some of it, but all of it. Every single scrap. I resolved to do a complete clean-up, a complete home reorg.
Now I knew that my cramped office needed serious revamping. I work from home so a structured office is critical. But when I moved here I barely had time to get settled before I had deadlines looming and had to get work done, so I never really finished my office. Then, when I took in my grandfather, my spare bedroom became his room, so I had no place for guests. I tried fitting a small loveseat-bed in my office, but the room was really too small: with the bed unfolded there wasn't even room to change clothes!
Inspired by GTD, I decided as long as I was planning an office redo, I might as well do an office swap: move my office to the larger spare bedroom and make the smaller back room a guest bedroom. The new, larger office would have room for the fold-out bed if I needed it for additional guests.
That was the beginning. I knew this was going to be a huge project, but I didn't realize just how much time it was going to take. I think at first I said "two weeks" but really was thinking of a week or so. In reality this massive home reorg has taken three weeks of dawn-to-dusk labor, working on little else.
Of course pictures speak louder than words for something like this, so I'm going to share some photos of my recent experiences. Unfortunately, I don't have enough "before" pictures for you to see the true magnitude of the changes, but hopefully there's enough you can get the idea of what I've done.
| This is my bedroom before the change. As you can see, I had stuff "to get to" piled everywhere. I don't have a shot of the "before" closet, but it was floor to ceiling boxes and full of clothes that didn't fit me (since I lost weight). |
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| The transition was chaotic as you can see by the top picture, but the transformation was well worth it. I now have plenty of free storage room in my closet! |
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| This is the new guest bedroom that used to be my office. It's not large, but nice for overnight guests. The old closet was floor to ceiling storage boxes -- you couldn't hang any clothes. I installed some shelving in the closet and the closet now houses extra bedding, blankets, pillows, and such for guests. I also put up a full-length mirror. |
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| In three rooms I replaced three ugly "faux gold" ceiling light fixtures with new dual-bulb brushed nickel finish lights that are brighter and much better looking. |
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| I spent a lot of my time revamping the office. There's a lot you can't see under the surface, for everything inside the cabinets and in boxes is also well-organized. That desk holds two computers and four printers and unbelievably there's room for more storage for the future! |
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| A key aspect of my magazine business is fulfilling orders for back issues or CD archives, so now I've got an incredible mailing center with easy access to all my magazines, CDs, CD cases, envelopes and mailers, packaging tape, etc. This pegboard system is brilliant -- totally customizable and expandable for my future needs. |
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| In my old office I had four 11x17 boxes of nothing but cords and cables all so tangled together it took you twenty minutes to extract one! Finding the right cord was next to impossible. It was easier to buy a new one. Now I've got an amazing storage system in my closet: I built shelving for office supplies and historical information (all carefully boxed and labeled) and I sorted through all my cables and organized them into plastic bins by type. Even more important, each table is wound and tied so it won't get tangled! |
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| I used to have a "tool drawer" in my kitchen, but it was much too small and I always had tools scattered all over the house and it made doing home improvements frustrating. Now I repurposed this plastic six-drawer storage container into a neat tool box. The drawers are even labeled so I can find things and know where to put things back. I even took a few hours to organize all my loose screws, nails, and little bits of stuff into a divided organizer. |
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| My garage was a mess of storage, junk, empty boxes, and chaos. (Fortunately, a good portion of the stuff here belongs to my mom. I'm going to help her go process her stuff next.) |
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| I'm still working on the garage, but I've made huge progress. One entire wall is nothing but garage sale stuff, so next spring I'll be able to get rid of things and in the meantime, as we sort through items, we'll have a place to put things for the sale. Other areas are at least more organized and more efficiently packed. |
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| There's a small storage room at the back of my garage and there I've got my magazine archives and I installed several new shelves for accessible storage. |
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| I even organized my little pantry shelf so like items are together. |
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| My living room was filled with clutter and I've mostly gotten it cleaned up now (I'm still working on a couple areas). A couple of weeks ago you couldn't even see that coffee table. |
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| The top photo is a stack of a few of the boxes I emptied in this process. This is only about a quarter of the boxes I actually emptied. The other photo is what I set out for recycling in one week. I took one load like this to the recycling center myself and had another similar load for pickup (our recycling is every two weeks). I also took one load of trash to the dump. |
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Well, that's my adventure for now. I've still got more to go as I have yet to fully implement GTD into my life, but I would say this is a great start, don't you think?
Next Time: Marc reveals the electronic side of his GTD reorg.
macopinion@designwrite.comWhere has Marc been? (Part 2b)
David Allen himself admits his system is in no way revolutionary or extraordinary. It's merely practical, pure common sense. Get organized and stay organized, that's all.
But he does have some extremely helpful tips and techniques for getting organized, so once you've made the decision to become organized, your next step is use some of his ideas to help.
Now there's a lot more to his system than what I'm describing here, but these are the concepts I found most helpful and insightful:
If a task will take less than two minutes, just do it
I'm somewhat taking this particular tip out of context. This is Allen's suggestion for dealing with items in your inbox (physical or email). When you process an item, you immediately either delete it, defer it (assign it to someone else to handle), archive it (into long-term storage), or add it to your Next Actions list (assign yourself a task). However, if the task can be completed in just a couple minutes, instead of adding to your Next Actions, just go ahead a do it right then instead.
I've expanded on Allen's idea and I'm using it throughout my daily life. For instance, now when I'm in the kitchen fixing supper and I see that the microwave has some food splatter, instead of thinking, "Oh, I need to remember to clean the microwave at some point," I just grab the sponge immediately and wipe it down. It just takes seconds, but in the old days I'd put it off because I wasn't in "cleaning mode" right then, and of course, by the time I got around to it, the mess would be harder to clean and I'd have lived with a dirty house in the meantime.
It's a simple technique but I'm impressed at what a difference it makes. Just invoking the two-minute rule means I'm getting a lot more done!
Separate date/time sensitive "To Dos" from general tasks
One of the worst habits most of us get into is using our calendar as a "To Do" list. Allen points out this is bad because most of those tasks are not date or time sensitive.
Have you ever written a "To Do" list and then rewritten it day after day, moving the incomplete items to a new day? That's because you no doubt put too much on your plate that first day and had to move the unfinished items.
According to Allen, only date- or time-critical items should be put on your calendar. When a phone call must be made at a certain time because that's when the person's available, you can't miss it. If you clutter your calendar with non-critical events, you'll miss deadlines.
Break "To Do" into Categories
The next important concept from Allen is to break your random "To Do" list into categories of tasks. This is simple but brilliant. You categorize the tasks based on your location and physical ability to do the work. How many times have you had your "To Do" list with you and thought, "Oh, I can't do that now, I need to be in my office at my computer."
Under Allen's system, you put work office-specific tasks into an "At Office" category. Telephone calls are in the "Calls" category. To remind you to clean the gutters at your house, put that in an "At Home" category. You can create as many categories as you need.
One important category is an "Errands" category. I love this one. In my system I have a "Groceries" subcategory, where I add grocery items as I think of them, as well as subcategories for other places I might need things, like the bank, post office, or various stores. Many of these things are not time-critical so I can add items as I think of them ("Ink for printer") and when I'm out and about I can check the list and see, "Oh, I need packing tape at Staples and I'll be right across the street so I'll also do that while I'm out."
By grouping your errands all together you can be much more efficient and you'll have an ideal place to put things you need to do that aren't date critical.
Break "To Do" into Specific Actions
One of the biggest mistakes I made with my old "To Do" system was not being specific on the tasks I need to do. Allen has the simple (but again, brilliant) idea of breaking tasks into physical actions. "What is the next physical action to move this project along?" he asks repeatedly. For such a simple thing, it's a concept with revolutionary reverberations.
Most of the time the "next physical action" is something simple, like a phone call, an email, finding some information, or taking one little step out of a long walk. When a huge project is broken down in such simple steps, it suddenly appears manageable. No, the whole project can't be done at once, but if you can do a little bit, move it forward a step, you've accomplished something, and you feel better about the project and your life.
This is an approach I am eager to apply in my life. I have too many vague tasks like "Do Taxes" or "Work on Z-Write" that give no indication of what the next step will be. That means that just to get started on the project I've got to sit down and do some analysis just to figure out that next physical action, and most of the time that's overwhelming and I end up doing nothing at all on the project. There are always other things that seem more urgent and suddenly months (or even years) have gone by with little or no progress.
Weekly review
The final important concept Allen demonstrates is the weekly review. It is here that you double-check your system, making sure you are following through with everything, that your lists are up-to-date, that your inbox is processed, that you haven't dropped the ball anywhere.
I will admit that there have been times in the past when I've tried to get organized, but it has never lasted. I realize now that the reason was because I never had a weekly review period. I'd decide something, like how my books were to be organized, but a few months later I'm just randomly throwing books wherever there's space and everything's a mess again. Multiply that times my entire office and everything in the house and after a short period of organization I'm back to chaos. Now, with a weekly review, I can catch bad habits forming and stop them before they take over. I can make sure that my system is in place and continuing to function properly.
Another key benefit of the weekly review is that it allows your system the flexibility to grow and adapt to changes in lifestyle. As you examine your system each week, if you see an aspect that isn't working well for you, you can change it. So you're not stuck in some rigid, rule-based system that dictates your entire life -- instead you're in a system that helps you life your life without stress and chaos and problems.
Conclusion
Allen's book is excellent for anyone suffering from life overload. While his individual ideas are not revolutionary, the system as a whole is brilliant, and I love the way he explains the reasoning behind his advice. He gives examples and demonstrates the practical benefits, and his ideas are flexible, so it's not a "my way or no way" approach.
I'm still learning and attempting to put into practice the concepts of Getting Things Done. In my next article I'll reveal some of what I've done, and I think you'll be impressed. I've accomplished more in the past few weeks than in the past two years!
Next Time: Marc applies GTD principles to his life and reveals the incredible results.
Where has Marc been? (Part 2a)
Last time I wrote about the chaos of my life and how I discovered a book, Getting Things Done, by David Allen. Today I will give a brief review of the book. In the subsequent part, I'll cover my own experiences putting GTD into practice.
I will begin by revealing that though I was hopeful the book would help me in some way, I was also skeptical. Like that "really awesome" movie your friends are all talking about that turns out to be a disappointment, I didn't see how Allen's book could live up to the hype. I expected his "system" was some sort of gimmicky thing that would be too convoluted to actually implement or perhaps wouldn't even apply to my life. I wasn't too hopeful. But I figured that if I came out of the book with even one practical concept that would help me get organized and more productive, that would still make it worth reading.
But right off, Allen had me intrigued. In the introduction he writes, "No software, seminar, cool personal planner, or personal mission statement will simplify your workday or make your choices for you as you move through your day, week, and life."
That seemed to diss the whole gimmick idea. So what is Allen proposing? He sums it up with, "I've uncovered simple processes that we can all learn to use that will vastly improve our ability to deal proactively and constructively with the mundane realities of the world."
Now that sounds pretty good. But I still wanted specifics. Just what, exactly, is his system?
"The methods I have uncovered have proved to be highly effective in all types of organizations, at every job level, across cultures, and even at home and school."
Arrgh! More vagueness. Just tell me the methods!
Well, that's the cool part. There are no methods. They are more like strategies or concepts you can adapt to your specific lifestyle. That's why GTD isn't a gimmick and can work for anyone.
The two key concepts of Getting Things Done are:
The methods I present here are all based on two key objectives: (1) capturing all the things that need to get done -- now, later, someday, big, little, or in between -- into a logical and trusted system outside of your head and off your mind; and (2) disciplining yourself to make front-end decisions about all of the "inputs" you let you into your life so that you will always have a plan for "next actions" that you can implement or re-negotiate at any moment.
In other words, have an organizational plan and stick to it. Not exactly an earth-shattering revelation there, but of course there's more to it.
The most important thing I learned early in the book is the benefits of having a physical "to do" system outside of your mind.
I've always kept everything in my head. Though I've tried making paper lists, whiteboards, and software list managers, the process has never worked well for me, and I always end up back to using my brain to remember things.
The problem, of course, is that the brain is not the best tool for this. The brain reminds you at the wrong time. Right after you lock the door and shut it your brain will say, "Hey, your keys are inside!" Nice timing. When you run to the hardware store for particular sized screw you need, I guarantee that when you get home you'll remember you wanted to get weed killer while you were there. That's just how the subconscious operates.
I knew this, though I hadn't really thought it through, but Allen goes even deeper with his analysis, showing that every unfinished task in your head is remembered by the subconscious. The subconscious constantly worries and frets over this. It has no concept of time and thinks you should be working on that task all the time until it's done.
It is this part of the subconscious that generates the guilt, frustration, and despair we feel when we're overwhelmed with "stuff to do." The thoughts are vague, the tasks undefined; all we know is that we feel like crap. I've been feeling like this for years; suddenly I knew why and it made total sense to me.
According to Allen, the key to removing the guilt isn't finishing all the work. There's always more work. In fact, as you become more efficient at work, you'll probably be given increased responsibilities and take on new challenges for even more work! No, the key isn't finishing the work, but removing the burden of the work from your mind.
You remove the burden on your subconscious by putting all your tasks into a trusted management system (either paper, PDA, or computer based). The key is that it must be trusted: it's useless if it's not reliable or actively used. You can't fool your subconscious. That's what I'd been doing. I'd write stuff down, but it was so unreliable my subconscious would try to track it also, filling my mind with guilt and pressure to get the task done.
An important aspect of this is that your subconscious can't tell the difference between tasks. To your subconscious, picking up orange juice on the way home from work is just as important as refilling that drug prescription or that big client meeting or that trip to Italy you'd like to take "someday."
By writing all these tasks down -- every single one no matter how small -- you free your brain from having to manage all these details. The result is freedom, peace of mind, mental creativity, inspiration, motivation, relaxation, and happiness.
Next: Marc finishes his review by revealing some of his favorite productivity tips from the book.
macopinion@designwrite.comThe Road Warrior Review : COOLdock Laptop Stand With Fan Forced Cooling System
Most notebook auxiliary cooling solutions work on a passive convection principle by elevating the computer from the work surface, allowing air to circulate underneath carrying away heat and letting the machine cool more efficiently. However, a few products take a more proactive approach to cooling, using powered cooling fans to suck heat away from the computer's underside.
The COOLdock Laptop Stand is one such device, with two cooling fans built into the computer support tray to suck heat away from your computer. The fans draw their power from a USB port on the computer, but no worries about using up a precious USB port - the COOLdock unit also includes a four=port USB 2 hub in its base.
The COOLdock is also a full-featured adjustable height Laptop Stand to get that display up to an ergonomically sound elevation to help reduce back, neck and wrist strain, by improving user body English. The COOLdock Laptop Stand has eight levels of adjustable screen height tilt, so you should be able to find a comfortable height for you,
The COOLdock stand is made of ABS-type black plastic, in a fairly conventional front-hinged tilt-tray configuration measuring 12.75" x 11.5" x 1.75" (lowest elevation setting), with the two horizontal axis cooling fans embedded in the tray, exhausting downwards.
The computer is held in place by two vertical tabs at the front/lower edge of the support tray, and are generously-sized for secure support, but do block the optical drive slot on 15" and 17" MacBook Pros and PowerBooks, although are no problem for side-loaders like the MacBook, iBook, 12" PowerBook, or my Pismos. This is an issue with a wide variety of notebook stands.
As noted, there are eight levels of elevation adjustment, and the unit should be able to accommodate all sizes of Apple notebooks. My Pismo fit just fine.
The USB hub is located in the base of the unit at the back, and connects to the computer to draw power via a supplied USB cable. There is a blue indicator light to confirm that power is being supplied, although it can't be seen from the front of the rig when in use.
I would prefer the USB ports to be located at the side for easier access, but rear facing ports are quite conventional. And happily, there is an AC power adapter jack socket so you can also power the fans and USB hub from a 5 volt power brick, although the latter is not supplied with the unit. I tried is with a power adapter from another product and it worked fine in this mode, freeing up the USB port on the computer for other things.
There is an on/off switch for the cooling fans, which turn at a fairly energetic 3,500 RPM, and can circulate 30 cubic feet per minute according to the specs., which is a fair volume. The downside is that the fans are not particularly quiet (advertised less than 23 dBA), although not as noisy as the high-RPM internal banshees in Apple 'Books, but not nearly as quiet as the low-RPM fans in the Targus Chillmat product for instance. On the other hand, they presumably move a lot more air than the Chillmat's unobtrusive fans.
One other note about the COOLdock's fans that could be a concern for persons with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities is that at least on the brand new unit I tested the fans emitted a moderately strong plastic odor when running. Hopefully this will gas off and diminish after the unit has been used for a while, but it was not an issue with the Targus Chillmat I reviewed here a while back, which is also made from hard plastic and has two fans, so given that chemical sensitivity seems to be in the rise, the COOLdock's manufacturers might consider reformulating their plastic material.
However, if you're looking for a laptop stand that can make your 'Book run significantly cooler, the COOLdock will do the trick, and the USB hub is a major bonus.
Specifications
• Product Dimension : 327x281x46mm
• 4 USB 2.0 ports
• ON/OFF power switch
• Fan Dimension: 60 x 60 x 10 mm
• Rated Voltage: 5V DC
• Power Current: 0.18 A
• Rated Consumption: 0.9 W
• Rated Speed: 3500 ± 10%RPM
• Airflow: 30 CFM
• Static Pressure: 2.01 mm H2O
• Noise Level: < 26 dBA
Some additional tips to help improve posture when working with a notebook and stand include:
• Use an external mouse and keyboard and keep them at the edge of your desk.
• Adjust your chair so your desk is just a little below your sitting elbow height.
• Raise the laptop so the top of the screen is just below eye level.
• Don't lean on your desk while typing and keep your elbows in line with your shoulders, hanging loosely at your sides.
• When using the laptop keyboard, try not to drop your wrists onto the "wristrest". Instead, move your hands freely across the keyboard and keep your hands in line with your elbows.
The COOLdock Laptop Stand sells for $74.00 is offered in the U.S exclusively by The Bad Back Store:
http://www.badbackstore.com
Product page:
http://www.badbackstore.com/COOLdock_Notebook_Stand_p/u-11114.htm
With increasing numbers of people suffering chronic back pain and seeking solutions, badbackstore.com is committed to providing information and resources to help ensure sufferers receive informative data enabling them to make informed decisions.
Laptop Laidback Revisited
Also offered by the Bad Back Store is the LapTop Laidback, which is my all-time favorite solution for computing while reclined on a bed or sofa. I don't know what I would do without mine.
The Laptop Laidback, which is actually made about 50 miles as the crow flies from where I live here in eastern Nova Scotia, is designed for use in relaxed postures, such as lying on a bed, sofa, the floor, or whatever. One of the things that's different about the Laptop Laidback compared with all other laptop stands I've tested is that it's made mostly of wood - good, honest, Nova Scotia maple, lovely to look at in a natural finish, and immensely strong. It's literally a fine, hand-crafted piece of furniture.
The Laptop Laidback consists of a 1/2" thick solid maple tray platform for
the computer supported by four articulated wooden arms, is quite ingenious and disarmingly simple. The angle of the arms in relation to each other is quickly and infinitely adjustable by way of knurled bushings that allow "knee-style" angle adjustments in five degree increments and are secured with large thumbscrews.
The tray elevation is also adjustable via two angled slots at the back containing captive sliding anchors for the robust, user friendly, strong and attractive thumb screws that fasten the legs to the tray. The whole rig folds flat for storage and convenient portability. When disassembled, the Laptop Laidback's legs store neatly and securely fastened with Velcro patches to the Velcro strips on the unit's tray module.
In addition to satisfying comfort-seeking computer users, Laptop Laidback can enable individuals with certain long term disabilities as well as those recuperating from surgery or undergoing rehabilitation.
Once assembled an adjusted to the user's preference, Laptop Laidback is a solid and stable platform. It easily accommodates my WallStreet and Pismo PowerBooks, which are relatively heavy portable computers by today's standards. Included with the Laptop Laidback kit are self-adhesive Velcro strips that can be affixed to the bottom of the computer to secure it to corresponding Velcro strips on the tray's facing surface, however, I have found these unnecessary.
I find it very easy to set the Laptop Laidback to provide a comfortable typing angle with wrists flat, and the inclined support tray actually places the PowerBook's display at a much more ideal elevation relative to the keyboard than when using the machine on a table or on your lap. I've had no problems with neck, eye, or wrist strain when using the Laptop Laidback daily for over a year. Using a Laptop Laidback lying down is much more ergonomically friendly than laptopping in a sitting position.
Price: $99.00
For more information, visit:
http://www.badbackstore.com/LapTop_LaidBack_p/u-11000.htm
***
cmoore@macopinion.com
Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM
The Road Warrior Mailbag - September 17, 20
Fumes from my MacBook
Globilization Sucks! - Soy Allergy And Computer Plastics
Professional iBook Video Chip Repair Company
From Robert Eye
Charles,
I don't know if you are aware of this company or not, but I thought I'd pass along the info to you.
There is a company called First Phase Technologies in Tempe, AZ (USA) that does board-level electronic repairs. Specifically, they do re-flow and re-balling of the video chip on white iBooks for a very reasonable fee.
http://www.firstphasetech.com/ibook-repair-g3-g4.html
There was a lister on the LEM Swap List who offered 2 iBooks for sale recently who had this repair done to both units; he seemed very happy with the results. This is how I heard of the company (I have had no personal dealings with them, and I am not affiliated with them in any way).
You might wish to pass this along to your readers. Getting an otherwise working iBook back up to speed for a reasonable cost (especially if they can do the logic board removal themselves) might be worth the investment.
Regards,
Robert Eye
Dallas, TX
Hi Robert;
Thanks muchly. I hadn't been previously aware of this service. :ooks like a good alternative to scrapping a misbehaving iBook or paying through the nose for a new logic board.
The sticking point of course for most people would be getting the logic board out. iBooks are mean to work on. However, someone reasonably handy and with the assistance of iFixIt's teardown guides should be able to do it with care and patience.
Charles
Dear Mr Moore
Please forgive the long delay in thanking you for all the articles and for all of your advice.
Before replying to you I have been waiting see whether my solution for dealing with the fumes from the MacBook would be effective for a sustained period of time. We couldn’t face making the isolation boxes and I really wanted a portable solution. I do believe that I have had a qualified success. This is my (rather long) saga to date......................
I told the Mac Store that I needed time to try to find a solution to my problem and asked whether they would extend the two-week refund period. They were really nice and told me not to worry and that I could bring the MacBook back if I couldn't find a solution. That was a real relief, as I really needed time to try to offgass the MacBook and also to do some research.
My new MacBook went across to my friend's house. He downloaded the 'smcFancontrol' application as recommended in one of the MacForums. He ran the MacBook at his house continuously for 4 weeks. I took it back after the 4 weeks.
Meanwhile, he had lent me his two-year-old MacBook, to which I was also allergic, but not quite so virulently (he calculated that his use over the two years would amount to one year’s intensive use). I determined that I would use those 4 weeks to try to find a solution using my friend's MacBook, as I wasn't confident that my MacBook would be OK when it came back.
You will recall that I was going to try the IQAir Professional Dental Air Cleaner (see http://www.naturalsolutions1.com ) with a hose to suck the fumes directly from the back of the MacBook. However, it was priced at over £1,000.00 and was enormous. I declined the offer of a free home demo with a 30-day return agreement and looked for a cheaper version.
I found the 'Siesta Flash Streamer' (see http://www.healthy-house.co.uk ) at £359.00. It had no hose, and was the size of a small radiator, but it also offered a 30-day return agreement, so I sent off for it. Despite running it at top speed, and placing the air input vents directly behind the MacBook, it soon became obvious that it would be necessary to direct the fumes into the air input vents. So my husband secured a plastic bag loosely around the vents at the back of the MacBook and connected a number of drinking straws to reach the air intake. This worked OK, but only with the Air Purifier running at top speed and sounding like an express train. Despite the manufacturer's claim that I could easily carry it upstairs, it was awkward and very heavy. So, after all that effort, I had a rather noisy, non-portable, Heath Robinson solution.
I did some more research, but found that not many of the other Air Purifiers had charcoal filters to deal with fumes. Then my husband saw an advertisement for an 'Oreck XL Tabletop Professional Air Purifier' (see <http://www.oreck.com>www.oreck.com) on a TV shopping channel. It was the size of a large fan heater; it cost £189.00; had a 30-day return agreement and a ‘free’ gift – a portable Vacuum cleaner. So I sent off for it.
It worked much better than the Siesta (the same deal with the plastic bag and the straws), at a vastly reduced speed and much more quietly, so I sent the Siesta back. The only drawback was that the Oreck also wasn't a very portable solution. OK, it could fit onto a LARGE side table, but I had no intention of lugging both a table and Air Purifier around the house.
Around this time, I remembered that I had bought a small Roomaid Air Purifier (see http://www.healthy-house.co.uk ) some years ago to deal with the fumes from a new car, but for some reason, I had never used it. My husband found it in the garage and it really was a neat tabletop size. Unfortunately, we couldn’t use the straw system as it sucked air in through the large, outer, HEPA Filter. It also blew the clean air out of a vent around the base of the machine, which had the effect of blowing the Mac fumes back into my face! So we dismantled the Roomaid, and my husband organised the plastic bags and straws to go directly through the carbon and zeolite filter. But this was a very unstable arrangement, as the fan was loose on the base of the Roomaid, and it still meant lugging something awkward and rather heavy around.
It was then that we got our own MacBook back. It was as I feared. It was still offgassing, although not quite so much, and I was still reacting.
However, by now, my husband had devised a flexible tube system (instead of the straws) to go directly into to the Roomaid filter; he had managed to get an airtight seal and had ducktaped the filter to the base of the Roomaid. So, it was only a matter of attaching the plastic bag to the back of the new MacBook!!
Unfortunately, the vents on our new MacBook were in a completely different place to the vents on the older one, and they were almost impossible to seal off.
However, he persevered, and eventually did it. We set the smcFancontrol to maximum and switched the MacBook on but…………………. POUF…………………the MacBook nearly exploded and just expired! I was convinced we’d killed it, so we quickly removed the plastic bag from the vents and switched it on again. It was OK, but I certainly needed resuscitation!!
It was back to the drawing board. I couldn’t use my new MacBook, so I went searching the Net again on my old PC.
By now I really was determined to find a truly portable solution. I noticed various portable Ionisers hanging around people’s necks but try as I might, I couldn’t see how they could help, as they only deal with particles. Then I saw one photographed next to a white MacBook on the ‘Healthy House’ website (see http://www.healthy-house.co.uk ). It was called ‘myairZone’ (see http://www.myairzone.com ) and it claimed that it could clear the ‘outgas’ from photocopying machines. I phoned the Healthy House to ask how an Ioniser could possibly deal with a gas. They didn’t know, so they gave me the number of the manufacturer ( 01425 638169 ).
I spoke to a gentleman called Julian Laws and he said that the Healthy House blurb was misleading, as the Ioniser dealt with particles produced by toners used in photocopying machines which were then commonly referred to as the ‘outgassing’ of the photocopier. He said that he would get the Healthy House to alter the blurb.
We then fell into conversation about particles and gases, and the point at which a gas becomes a particle. We talked about the use of carbon and zeolite filters for the effective removal of gases. He said that his company really manufactured large Air Purification systems for Industry and Commerce and that Companies seemed to find that his Ionisers also dealt with chemical odours, although he never made any claims that they would, and that he always gave a trial period and money back guarantee. He said that the ‘myairZone’ was only a small part of their business.
I asked why the website showed a photo of the ‘myairZone’ with a MacBook, and he said that people with electrical sensitivity to computers seemed to benefit from using the ‘myairZone’, and that it also seemed to be effective in combating ‘sick building syndrome’. He said that he had received a few enquiries from chemically sensitive people and had told them that he couldn’t say that it would help, but that he offered a two month return agreement if it didn’t. He said that he had never had any returned, but neither had he had any report on their effectiveness on chemical sensitivity.
All in all, I was impressed by the manner of his conversation, and the testimonials on the Website, so I decided to try one. However, my memories of the pyramid-shaped 1980’s Ionisers which had given no benefit at all, made me extremely skeptical that the ‘myairZone’ would have any effect.
I was very cautious at first, and used it in conjunction with the ‘Oreck’, but when I got up the courage to try it on its own, much to my astonishment - it worked! I can do about two hours on the MacBook now with no ill effect. Any longer and I feel a bit tired, but am OK after a short break.
I reckon that it’s the equivalent of the charcoal mask, just a lot more comfortable and convenient. I set the ‘smcfanconttrol’ to 3795 and make sure to keep the Mac book plugged into the mains (I find the long leads on the Mac give me sufficient freedom in the house). I’m certain that I’m reacting to the flame retardant on the battery. It comes flooding out when I use just the Battery, and even the myairZone can’t cope with that. I haven’t yet tried using it on battery with the fan set at its highest speed.
The MacBook is still offgassing somewhat, so I want to rig up a fan system to put at the back of it when I sit at a desk to use it for long periods. We’re going to use a combination of parts from the ‘Roomaid’ (see above) and an Airpod ( http://www.airpurifiers.com ). I’ll let you know if it works!!
As for the ‘Oreck’ I’ve kept that as has it proved very useful in assisting me to cope with the offgassing of a new Sofa (my 30 year old sofa just couldn’t take any more renovating!!). I am also wearing the ‘myairZone’ constantly in the house and the combination of the two devices has ensured that I have escaped the usual horrible reaction to the flame-retardants in the new sofa!! The ‘myairZone’ also allowed me to spend more three hours in the Sofa shop!!
Would you consider trying a myairZone?? I know that I haven’t imagined its efficacy. You see it has a flashing orange light at the side to tell you that the emitter has clogged up. It can’t be seen as you are wearing it around your neck, but if I suddenly start to smell the fumes, or sneeze, I quickly check to see if the orange light is flashing. It inevitably is, and a quick flick to the emitter solves the problem. (Alternatively, I have disconnected the lead to get up out of my chair and have forgotten to reconnect it, so I'm running on the battery!!)
I had run-in with an HP Laptop on a job whilst all this was going on. It was about two years old, and someone else was using it. It was totally unexpected, and I couldn't get out of the situation, as a report had to be done there and then. It was the same dreaded smell, the same effects. It was the first time that I had worked with these people (very high profile), a brand new job, and I didn't have the 'myairZone then. I couldn't avoid the situation. I had all the windows and doors open and was hopping in and out of the corridor, with my hanky clamped firmly to my face, agreeing very important decisions whilst generally behaving like a lunatic!!
I’m sorry that this is so long and rambling. It’s been a long haul. What do you think??
anonymous
Hi Anonymous
Thanks for this report, which I read with interest.
I'm not sure that building an isolation box or two might not have been easier (and less expensive!), but I apppreciate the reasons for your reluctance to take that route.
I will be interested to hear of your further adventures.
As you've discovered empirically, this is not a problem peculiar to Apple. Most notebook computers, Mac or PC are manufactured by the same three subcontractors in Taiwan and China, using the same materials.
I use my G4 PowerBook, which was originally manufactured in 2004, refurbished in 2005, and was first used (to the best of my knowledge) in February 2006 when I purchased it as an Apple Certified Refurbished unit, about 98 percent of the time inside my isolation case, however I remain hopeful that it will someday gas off to a degree that I can use it in the open.
I'm getting less optimistic though. After 22 months of intensive use, I still get a nasty reaction to it, unfortunately even with a charcoal mask on if it's in an enclosed area like my car. However, aside from the chemical smell issue, it's the best computer I've ever owned.
I checked out the myairzone Website, and it looks interesting. The little movie demonstration with the smoke was especially impressive. My niece, who is also chemically sensitive, used to have a little battery-powered ozone generator and ionizer that she could wear around her neck and she said it helped.
Charles
Globilization Sucks! - Soy Allergy And Computer Plastics
From Joseph
Hi Charles,
My wife has allergies to among other things, soybean derivatives. A week ago, I poured a glass of soy milk and she got sick.
I have bought 4 USB hubs in the past few months. All of them gave her an allergic reaction. But none affected her like the one I brought home yesterday from the Apple store. It was a Belkin that I paid $30.00 for. She had to flee the house.
My wife is still recovering after the disaster of yesterday.
What is happening is that the Chinese are using soybean to make soft molded plastics. The shiny plastics are petroleum based, like in computers. The opaque plastics are many times soybean based. The reason is that petroleum is more expensive than soybeans in China.
In 1946 when there was a scarcity of metal, Henry Ford made a few cars with the exterior made of soybeans. So it is quite feasible.
God help us if the Chinese start using peanut oil to make plastics. People will die just going to the mall! Luckily, my family wouldn't be affected by that.
For someone even more sensitive than my wife, it could be life threatening.
Best regards,
Joseph
Hi Joseph;
Terribly sorry to hear about your wife's sensitivity to plastics. Soybeans, eh? I had never thought of that, and to my knowledge I'm not allergic to them, or at least I wasn't the last time I ate tofu.
But I am drearily familiar with the concept of fleeing the house when the airspace gets contaminated with things I am sensitive to.
It's certainly plausible, and I've seen a famous photograph of Henry Ford, who was a big soybean-products booster, wailing on the soybean-based plastic trunk lid of what looks like a '39 or '40 Ford car to demonstrate how tough it was.
And yes, peanut allergy can be especially lethal it seems.
As I've mentioned in columns on the topic, I would be interested to know the respective provenance of the circuit board plastics used in the first generation '98 WallStreet PowerBooks (made in Ireland), and the second generation (made in Taiwan). The former gave me no problem; the latter made me quite ill.
Charles
Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM
Where has Marc been? Part 1
You may have noticed that I've been absent lately. Well, I haven't gone anywhere, I've just been busy. What have I been up to is an interesting story which I'm going to cover in a series of articles over the next few days.
I've written before a little about my daily life, but not in the detail I'm going to reveal shortly. I'm certainly not doing this out of ego because I'm not proud of the bad habits which I'm going to reveal, but because I think it'll be valuable for you to learn and benefit from my experiences. For you to understand my situation, you need to understand my life.
First I'll begin with a little background. As many of you know, I'm a graphic designer and writer by trade. (My long-term goal is to be a novelist.) Along the way I became a programmer and shareware author (Z-Write). For the past five years I've been publishing a bimonthly programming magazine for REALbasic users (REALbasic Developer), which has been my primary occupation. I also write for MacOpinion and AppleLinks when I can find the time.
The past few years have been chaotic, to say the least. In 2004 I moved from California to Oregon, in part because I could afford a larger home there, and also to be closer to my elderly grandfather. Just a couple months after moving, Grandpa's physical condition worsened and it looked like he'd have to move into a home. Instead, I volunteered to care for him at my new house, so he moved in with me. While that added some stress to my life, it was also a blessing, and it was wonderful to share that time with him. Last June, he passed away at the age of 91.
Just a few months after that, in September, I ended up in the hospital myself. I had a severe bout of pancreatitis and learned I was diabetic. Since then I've completely reinvented my life, learning to eat healthy, exercise more, and develop a healthier lifestyle. I'm pleased to report that I'm about as a cured as you can be (off all the medications). I've lost 75 pounds and I feel better than I've felt in decades.
Now during all this chaos I somehow managed to keep my businesses going and life continuing. Though we did postpone an issue of the magazine while I was hospitalized and recovering, it was just a one-time delay.
I used my medical situation as a motivation to get back on track with many things in my life, but unfortunately, not everything went as well as I'd hoped. I still found myself endlessly behind on projects, slow to respond to emails, and constantly scrambling at the last minute for things that should have been organized months earlier. And that doesn't include my lack of progress on the ambitions and goals I had when I moved to Oregon.
For instance, when I moved I really hoped I'd have more time to devote to programming and my shareware business. When I launched Z-Write in 1999, it was a unique application. Today there are dozens and dozens of similar programs (though none with quite the same focus) and it really needs to be updated. But I've been so busy and so distracted I've found it difficult to keep focused and work on multiple major projects at once.
I knew that I needed to get better organized. I needed a plan, but everything in my life was so overlapped and overwhelming I wasn't even sure where to begin. One of the key disadvantages of working for yourself is that there's a total blend between personal projects and "work." Everything felt like work to me, even watching soccer games so I could report on them on my weekly soccer podcast.
I found I wasn't enjoying things I should, like watching movies or reading or TV shows. I constantly felt guilty, because I knew I should be working. Yet I felt like I was working all the time. Didn't I deserve the occasional break?
Financially things have been sucky, too. I've had a beta version of Z-Write out for two years and still haven't finished it, and since it's free, it brings in no income. I'm in the middle of two book projects right now that could bring in some income -- but I must finish them.
The bottom line is that things in my work life have not been good. I'm tired, depressed, frustrated, and unmotivated. I just feel overwhelmed and guilty at all the commitments I'm dropping. So I knew something had to change, and soon.
Now for the past year or two, I've been hearing mention of a particular book that's supposed to help with some of this stuff. I read some programmer blogs and many of these guys have talked about the book. In fact, the book is so common many just refer to it by the initials GTD. There's even a category of software called "GTD Software." The whole Inbox Zero movement which is catching on is based on the book's theories. I'd seen this and had the book on my "check this out someday" mental checklist, but of course I never got around to actually doing it (ironic, considering the book's title).
A few weeks ago I decided it was time. It was such an impulsive decision, I wanted the book right then. I couldn't even wait for Amazon to overnight it (they wanted more for the shipping than the book cost), but drove to a local bookstore and bought a copy in person.
The book is called Getting Things Done by David Allen, and next time I'll have my review of the book.
Next Time: Marc reviews Getting Things Done.
macopinion@designwrite.com
The iPhone Pricing Conspiracy (Part 2 of 2)
Some have speculated that iPhone sales have cooled or were never that hot to begin with, and that this price cut is evidence of that, but I don't agree with such thinking. Hype does not necessarily translate into sales, but it does show interest, and interest and awareness are huge in business. Just in raw public relations the iPhone has been a monster hit for Apple, even if they didn't sell as many as they or others expected. There isn't a company on the planet that wouldn't want to be in Apple's shoes right now.
As to actual sales numbers, until this week we didn't know how many iPhones have been sold (Apple hit the millionth mark in 74 days), and we don't even know how many Apple expected to sell, so it's impossible for those outside Apple to gauge whether sales are good or poor. The only numbers Apple has stated is a goal to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008 and that they would sell one million by the end of September 2007 (a goal already reached).
The one truth we do know about quantities is that Apple never expected to sell ten million iPhones at $600 each. From the beginning the plan was to set the initial price at $600 and lower it as component costs dropped.
We don't know how many Apple expected to sell at the high price -- perhaps it was a million. Perhaps that happened earlier than Apple had anticipated and now Apple's lowering the price as component costs have gone down. For all we know, Apple had an internal goal of selling a million by the end of the year.
Remember, it does not matter what the public or "analysts" or others think or projected about Apple's sales. The only thing that matters is what Apple thought, because Apple made decisions based on those numbers.
What we do know is that the sudden price drop of the iPhone feels unplanned and unexpected. If it had happened in November, I don't think anyone would have complained. But just two months after release? Anyone with any sense at all would know that would create waves.
So this was not scheduled like this. Something happened to change things. Either Apple's sales numbers were dramatically higher or lower than expected, component prices took an unexpected dip, or Apple obtained some new information (like a survey that showed 90% of all teenagers would buy an iPhone if cost $400 instead of $600).
My theory is that the reality is a complex mix of all these factors. The iPhone price was initially high, ready to drop if needed to spur sales or if certain sales targets were reached. The iPod Touch was planned, but waiting in the wings to see how the iPhone test project went. Component prices were based on certain sales estimates, which were either missed or exceeded.
Whatever the reasoning, you can look at the current pricing of Apple's media player line and see how elegant it fits together. At the high end we've got the 8GB iPhone, which sells for $399. For the same price you can get a phoneless iPod Touch with 16GB, or save $100 and get the 8GB model and not have to pay for the phone components. If you need more storage than is available on a flash memory-based player, you've got the hard drive-based iPod Classic which hold either 80GB or 160GB of media and sells for $249 and $349, right in the middle of the low-end iPod Touch pricing. Then in the smaller devices category, you've got the $149-$199 iPod Nano or the screenless iPod Shuffle for $79. Basically, every price point is covered, and you make your decision not on price but on form factor and capacity. It's really brilliant.
Now Apple probably could have priced the iPhone $100 more. It seems that the phone aspects would be worth a bit of a premium. But there is an 8GB difference in memory to distinguish the two, which presumably covers the cost of additional phone components. But by dropping the iPhone's price to match the similar iPod Touch, Apple is encouraging buyers to see the iPhone as merely an iPod variation. There's also something about the $399 price point: $500 is a major purchase, but under that it could merely be an expensive splurge. In the past we've seen people buying $300-$400 iPods for Christmas, so I've no doubt that's Apple's goal.
Finally, there's one more thing we need to remember. Back at last quarter's press conference when Apple projected earnings for this quarter, they indicated that earnings would take a hit due several things including, to quote Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, a "product transition I can't get into."
No one knew exactly what this meant and it wasn't explained, but usually this means that a new product is released with an initially lower profit margin. In light of the recent products introduced, I suspect that both the iPod Touch and the iPhone have tighter margins than Apple usually has. Apple expects to make up the difference in volume and marketshare gains, and over time, as component pricing goes down, Apple's normal margins will return.
If true, this means Apple is setting price points based on what will sell, not on profit margins, which is intriguing. It tells me that either iPod is weak and Apple is desperate to revive the line (extremely unlikely given steady sales of iPods), or that Apple sees Christmas as a big opportunity to sell a boatload of product if the pricing is correct. I suspect the latter, and Steve Jobs himself as much as said so in his Open Letter to iPhone Customers:
"iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to 'go for it' this holiday season. iPhone is so far ahead of the competition, and now it will be affordable by even more customers. It benefits both Apple and every iPhone user to get as many new customers as possible in the iPhone 'tent.' We strongly believe the $399 price will help us do just that this holiday season."
Doesn't that sound like a company trying to take advantage of the extraordinary publicity surrounding the iPhone to build some terrific marketshare?
Think of this from Apple's perspective: they planned and released the iPhone on schedule this summer, but possibly moved their iPod Touch plans forward to take advantage of the iPhone hype. I can imagine that last spring Steve said, "Man, this iPhone is so hot, we've just got to jump on it and get that iPod Touch out for Christmas!"
Of course doing that meant adjusting the planned iPhone pricing because the iPhone couldn't be too much more expensive than the iPod Touch as they are such similar devices (dramatic differences in price cause sales cannibalization). But this was decided just a few months ago in the spring -- it was "too late" to change the well-publicized iPhone's pricing. So the iPhone launch went off as scheduled and now, in the fall, Apple introduces the iPod Touch and drops the iPhone price.
Now Steve was awfully quick with the $100 Apple Store credit idea, wasn't he? No doubt that was planned as a contingency. As all this was being figured out, there was concern about how early buyers would react. Steve's answer was the Apple Store credit and I like how quickly he pulled it out when he heard the negative publicity. It was a brilliant strategy, turning a negative into a positive and garnering even more publicity in the process. Apple could have just dropped the price of the iPhone prior to introduction, but doing it this way generated Apple more revenue and more publicity: they are now the company that "listens" rather than a merely greedy corporation.
That brings up another point: if Apple was really all about the profits, or if iPhone sales have been so disappointing Apple needs to drop the price already, would the company be so eager to give out $100 store credits? Come on, that's the action of a company rolling in dough with a huge hit product on their hands. Apple wants to keep the ball rolling and not allow any negative publicity to spoil the atmosphere.
The bottom line is that on the issue of the iPhone pricing fiasco, there really are only two possible scenarios. In Scenario One, Apple and Steve Jobs really were out to gouge the early adopter market for an extra $200 profit. If so, dropping the price by the full $200 two months later seems like a silly and obvious way to reveal your greed. Surely the geniuses at the company could have come up with a better plan to disguise their evil plot!
In Scenario Two, other factors were involved in cause this particular sequence of events. In other words, this was not planned.
Obviously I favor the latter explanation. I have no confirmation of what really happened, but I think that things just happened at a faster pace than Apple expected. Either the iPhone was a bigger hit than Apple had thought, or component and manufacturing costs dropped earlier than Apple planned and that gave them a chance to move forward sooner with the iPod Touch.
Either way, what's done is done. Steve has spun the negatives into a positive story and gotten even more publicity out of the controversy. iPhones are now $200 cheaper, making them an incredible value -- and the new iPods are all awesome. It's genius!
The iPhone Pricing Conspiracy (Part 1 of 2)
In my previous column I wrote that I am not disappointed by the iPhone price drop. Early adopters must have a thick skin about these things and I fully expected such a move. It came earlier than I thought, however, and the price drop was larger than I expected. But of course the issue of iPhone is now all the rage on the Internet with everyone wondering what happened, what's going on, and why Apple handled the situation the way it did.
Here is my theory on things. Please note that I have zero credentials. I don't work for Apple or have any inside information. I merely have a brain, a vivid imagination, and decades of Apple fanaticism.
Imagine with me the course of iPhone development. From what we know, several years ago Steve Jobs was shown some secret Mac touch-screen prototypes. It was some cool technology, but Steve saw that the form factor was all wrong: instead of making a laptop with a touch screen (like those dud "Tablet PCs") he envisioned a tiny handheld for iPods and cellular phones. Over the next two years, all the details of the device were developed: the mobile Mac OS X operating system, the Multi-Touch interface, Cover Flow, etc. Partners like AT&T and Google were courted and brought in. Everything was done under typical Steve Jobs "Seal of Silence."
Now during this development, Apple was already working on market research, pricing decisions, and other aspects of the roll-out. These may seem like afterthoughts to most of us, but Apple has to think of all these details years in advance. Imagine the many questions: Is there even a market for such a device? How large a market? How much would people be willing to pay? How much would it really cost Apple to build such a device? And so on.
Remember, we're talking about an extremely complicated, advanced device that by its nature requires cooperation with other companies (i.e. AT&T). Apple engineering was trying to finalize the hardware inside, securing the best possible pricing for components.
My feeling is that the original price of $599 was decided early on in the development. Perhaps there were other prices, but this at least was a key target. The only question was, could Apple build the device and make a profit at that price?
As development proceeded, the answer seemed to be yes. Remember, we're talking about at least a two-year development process. Electronic component costs vary dramatically over such a period: just look at the pricing of memory, hard drives, processing chips, and other items. Probably when Apple started building iPhone prototypes they -- even at bulk quantities -- were going to cost over a thousand dollars in parts. But Apple was projecting that the component prices would drop in the future and by the time iPhone was ready to ship, the parts would cost much less.
Now by last January, when iPhone was introduced, Apple had pretty much finalized the hardware design. Component pricing was probably still somewhat up in the air, but close to final. So at that point Steve probably knew the iPhone could be sold for less than $599 and still make Apple a decent profit. But why take that risk?
If you've ever worked in product pricing, you know that you can cut but you cannot increase. It would be much better for Apple to drop the iPhone price than to sell it at a razor thin margin and just hope that profits would come via component pricing drops.
The other unknown factor in all these calculations is the public's reception of the device. Would people be interested? Would they understand the truly revolutionary nature of the device? Would the pricing be intimidating or only attract Apple fanboys and fangirls?
Obviously Apple -- and Steve -- believed in the product. But that's not a guarantee of success. Once the iPhone was unveiled, I'm sure the hype shocked even the most ambitious at Apple. It took the world's imagination by storm and everyone was talking about it. Do you really think Apple expected such a reaction? I'm sure they wanted it, but I doubt they planned for it.
Reaction like that means something. I'm sure the internal market research numbers within Apple skyrocketed and continued to change through the spring as launch day approached. You and I might just see those numbers as theoretical and meaningless, but those numbers are hugely significant to a manufacturing company like Apple.
If you remember back in the dark days of the Performa Macs in the 1990s, Apple lost millions betting wrong on market demand. Apple bought too much RAM and when the price dropped, Apple was stuck trying to sell it at a much higher price than it was available elsewhere. At various times, Macs were thus much more expensive than comparable PCs. Apple had excess computer inventory as well, miscalculating how much they'd sell. It was a disastrous time for the company and one of the first things Steve Jobs did when taking over was to reduce inventory to days instead of months so that they company could take better advantage of component price drops (and today component pricing is a key source of Apple profits).
Obviously Apple had plans for a phoneless iPhone (the iPod Touch) from Way Back When. But the iPhone had to come first, for several reasons. For one, a cellular phone must get FCC approval which would publicize the secret device. For another, many of the iPhone's parts were initially rare (like the Multi-Touch sceen) and cost more. iPods, being a known comodity, must sell within a certain price range. If Apple had come out with a $600 iPod people would have been like, "What? That's outrageous!" So Apple's plan was to release the iPhone first to seed the market. Sometime later the iPod Touch, using many of the same components, would be released at a much more iPod-like price range.
Now perhaps Apple had planned for that to happen this fall all along. I have no idea. It seems early to me, considering the iPhone hype -- I had written a column a while back that predicted that Apple would wait for Christmas 2008 before they released a phoneless iPhone.
But Apple's got information we don't: the specifics of iPhone and iPod sales, for one, and private market research for another. Perhaps their research says that if the iPhone cost a little bit less or if there was a phoneless model the sales would be staggering this Christmas so Apple decided to bump up the rollout.
In Part 2: Marc argues against those who think the iPhone isn't selling well and analyzes the reasons behind the price cut.
macopinion@designwrite.comThe Road Warrior Review - iPodding On The Road
Fortunately, there are lots of third-party in-car solutions available that can help make iPodding on the road more convenient and enjoyable, including the troika of products from Proporta I'm checking out in this review.
First up is the new Proporta Magnetic Dashboard Mount which fastens to your vehicle's dashboard using tough 3M self-adhesive backing and magnetically positions your iPod (or other mobile device) where it's easy to reach and control without taking your eyes off the road.
Proporta Magnetic Dashboard Mount includes the car mount itself, two magnetic sticky pads and a lint-free cleaning cloth.
A small magnetic wafer-shaped pad is applied to the back of your 'Pod also using 3M self adhesive, which in turn allows it to securely attach itself to the mount, creating a safe but accessible car kit. The magnetic wafers are just the right size to fit my wife's second generation iPod nano, and they should work fine with third gen. nanos as well. With the nano's light weight, the magnetic fixture seems plenty secure, although I didn't have an iPhone or iPod touch to try it with.
I'm pretty certain the weight of my old first generation iPod would be too much for the magnet to hold securely, but that's academic anyway because this product, with its strong magnets, is not to be used with any device containing a hard disk, at peril of data loss or corruption due to the magnetic field. For devices with flash memory like the nanos, iPhone, and touch, this is not an issue.
Here is the Proporta Magnetic Dashboard Mount affixed to the dashboard of my truck where it's conveniently accessible from the driver's seat.
And here it is with the iPod in situ. In this shot I have a Proporta iPod FM Transmitter attached. To read my recent review of that product, click here.
The 3M sticky stuff seems to form a secure bond, and indeed the instructions warn to take care and attach the self-adhesive components in the right place, as changing its position after it's bonded would implicitly be an iffy proposition at best. The other downside of this is of course that it's not a practical proposition to used the Proporta Magnetic Dashboard Mount in more than one vehicle or transfer it to a different vehicle if you change cars. However, two magnetic sticky pad attachment wafers are provided, so you can use the mount in your car with more than one device.
The Proporta Magnetic Dashboard Mount sells for $25.95
For more information, visit:
http://www.proporta.com/F02/PPF02P05.php?t_id=3626&t_mode=des
If you're on a road trip, your iPod's internal battery may not have enough playback life between charges to last for the whole journey. An ideal solution would be Proporta Car Power Supply with USB Socket.
With your iPod or other device safely attached to the car mount, you can charge it in place with the Car Power Supply.
You can charge any USB device (iPod/GPS/PDA/Smartphone/Game/etc.) from a standard car cigarette lighter outlet with this handy adaptor.
The Proporta Car Power Supply with USB Port is also compatible with the USB cable supplied with your iPod or other device. However, the review unit we received was the very similar Proporta Mini USB In Vehicle Charger, which instead of the Car Power Supply with USB Socket's female USB socket, has a stretch coil cord with a mini USB plug hard-wired to the unit. Aside from that, it appears to be identical to the USB socket unit.
Here it is plugged into the cigarette lighter socket in my truck. The red LED lights up to indicate that the charger is supplying power.
The problem was that the iPod has no female USB mini-socket. If you're main interest in this sort of charging device is to charge your iPod, then the model to get is definitely the Proporta Car Power Supply with USB Port, which sells for $8.95
For more information, visit:
http://www.proporta.com/F02/PPF02P05.php?t_id=318&t_mode=des
However, the review Mini USB In Vehicle Charger worked just fine with the Proporta USB Mobile Device Charger, another Proporta solution for for extending iPod portable runtime which is essentially a 3400 mAH lithium Ion (LiIon) rechargeable battery pack that charges from a USB port on any computer, from an optional AC power adapter, or from the Proporta Mini USB In Vehicle Charger via its Mini USB socket, and which delivers 5.5 volts through its USB output port to recharge and/or run an iPod or other USB device. Proporta claims that it will triple your iPod's battery runtime
I was able to plug the iPod into the Mobile Device Charger, and recharge that from the car battery via the Mini USB In Car Charger.
Full-sized iPods have OEM battery capacities of around 850 mAH to 1,200mAh capacity so 3400 mAH is a lot more juice than your 'Pod's internal battery supports, the mobile device charger could more than quadruple your runtime between charges if you start with both batteries fully charged.
With its white livery and a form factor and footprint roughly the same as a traditional full-sized iPod, the Mobile Device Charger harmonizes nicely appearance-wise, and will fit in a soft iPod sleeve for carriage. It comes with high-quality in and output USB cables, also in white, and a selection of USB device adapters for iPods and other machines.
The Mobile Device Charger is simple to use. To charge, just connect it to any standard USB port. The charge indicator LED on top of the Unit will glow red while the battery is charging, then green when it is fully charged.
Then you just plug your iPod or other USB device into the output port for hours of power and/or a recharge of the music player's internal battery.
I also tried the Mobile Device Charger with a rechargeable Bluetooth mouse, with which it worked just fine. It even powered the cooling fans in my Targus ChillMat laptop cooler, which could be handy when the computer's USB ports are needed for other purposes. However, it didn't have enough juice to power my i-Rocks external USB hard drive enclosure, but that's not a criticism; that drive needs power from two USB ports on my 17-inch PowerBook to spin up, although it does work through a single port on other machines. I digress. And of course, this USB device is no help with my old FireWire-only antique iPod.
For its primary intended purpose - extending the battery-power runtime of iPods and other portable music players, mobile telephones, PDAs, SmartPhones, GPS navigation devices, and digital cameras, the Proporta USB Mobile Device Charger works just fine.
To charge and/or run your mobile device, connect it to the Proporta USB Mobile Device Charger using one of the supplied cables and the appropriate cable connector, press the button surrounding the charge indicator LED, which will glow green if the unit is charged and you're away to the races. When the Mobile Device Charger's internal battery is almost discharged, the LED indicator will begin to flash red, indicating that it needs to be recharged.
With a fully charged Proporta Mobile Device Charger, the company says you should be able to charge most mobile devices between three and five times from completely empty. HOwever, note that he Proporta USB Mobile Device charger is not compatible with the Microsoft Zune.
The included white cable with a standard USB on one end and a mini USB on the other is used to charge the battery of the unit. Simply plug the standard USB plug end into a computer's USB port or a USB AC adaptor and the mini USB into the battery pack and charging will commence. When the charging is complete the light will turn green.
The battery comes with four connectors (a Sony Ericsson, two Nokia, and an iPod connector head) as well as a USB to Mini USB cable to charge any Mini USB compatible devices. The connector heads are to be used with the retractable cable that is also supplied. If you have any other product that you wish to charge using the portable battery then you will need to have a USB cable which is compatible with your device (i.e. a USB connector on one end of the cable and a suitable connector to fit into your device on the other end).
Once the correct cable has been identified it needs to be inserted into the battery and into your device (device needs to be on when charging), you should then press the green button to turn the charger on. Your device should then begin to charge.
Features
• Charge anywhere, recharge anything - standard USB input and output
• Comes with USB to Mini USB cable, and a retractable cable which is compatible with the following inter-changeable connector heads: 2 x Nokia, 1 x Sony Ericsson, 1 x iPod
• Compact, slim and lightweight (measures just 100 x 62 x 15mm or 3.9 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches and weighs 120g or 4.2 oz)
• Impressive 3400 mAH storage (recharge your devices several times)
• Powerful 5v, 700mA output (enough for even the most power-hungry mobile devices)
• Environmentally friendly (rechargeable)
• LED charge and discharge indicator
• Microswitch on/off selection
The Proporta USB Mobile Device Charger sells for $ 44.95
For more information, visit:
http://www.proporta.com/F02/PPF02P05.php?t_id=2725&t_mode=des
Shipping worldwide for any of these products is $4.95, and there's the charming Proporta signature touch that orders ship with complementary packets of real British tea, such as English Breakfast Tea, Earl Grey, or Darjeeling by Taylor's of Harrowgate (Family Tea Merchants; est. 1886) that came with each order Excellent tea!
***
cmoore@macopinion.com
Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM
The Price of Being an Early Adopter
Within a day of Apple's announcement of new iPods and a $200 drop in the price of the iPhone, I had people asking me if I was upset. To my surprise, I was not. That puzzled me. Shouldn't I be upset? After all, I'm always out for a good deal and that iPhone cost me a lot of money and I could sure use a $200 refund.
Almost immediately Steve Jobs responded to the complaints with a $100 Apple Store credit -- a nice gesture that I'll certainly take (it'll pay for my Leopard upgrade). But I still wasn't upset by the whole thing. Why?
Then I realized two key things. First, I'd debated with myself long and hard over an iPhone purchase. After all, we knew the price as announced last January, so I had plenty of time to ponder the value. For me the only sticking point on the cost were the wireless fees, and once those were announced and I figured out it was affordable, the device cost wasn't such a big deal. I'd much rather pay for a device up front than pay varying unknown costs on a monthly basis for the long-term.
Second, and perhaps more important, I love my iPhone. It has been integrated into my life. Although I've only had it for a couple months, I've grown to depend on it, and the ability to have Internet access anywhere is addicting, to say the least.
Originally when the iPhone was announced, I wrote that what I wanted was an iPhone without the phone. I basically described the iPod Touch, which Apple just introduced. At the time I thought I didn't need a cell phone and I certainly didn't want the expense of one. I thought that WiFi access would be enough for me. But I must confess to a change of opinion.
Having an iPhone for the past few months, I've come to realize just how amazingly convenient is to have the Internet available even when you aren't near a WiFi hotspot. Several times recently -- before Apple announced the iPod Touch -- I had thought to myself, "Wow, I'm really glad I have the Edge network and I don't have to bother finding a WiFi location." I had purposely been keeping an eye on this feature and had decided that a WiFi-only device would have severely limited my mobile Internet experience.
The truth is that WiFi is not nearly prevalent enough, and in many places (like Starbucks), WiFi is not free, something I never realized (I'm not a coffee drinker and assumed the WiFi was free). Most of the time my mobile Internet needs are minor: checking for an important email I'm anticipating, sending an email, using Google Maps to find something, or using Safari to look up some information or read some news sites or blogs. Edge does well for most of these things. It gives me freedom to roam without having to worry about where I am. At minimum, I can use to Edge to find the nearest free WiFi hotspot!
The problem with the iPod Touch is that I would not be able to incorporate it fully into my life. The iPhone, because it's a phone, automatically takes center stage. I carry mine on my hip via a belt clip and it's always with me -- I'm listening to music while I mow the lawn, I have my grocery list on it while I'm shopping, and I read email or websites while waiting for my lunch at a restaurant.
Perhaps I'm the exception, but after an initial fascination, I never carried my old iPods with me everywhere. The hassle of finding and carrying the earbuds, hoping the iPod's battery wasn't drained, and the iPod's weight and size meant that I rarely bothered. If I knew I'd be in a situation where music would be convenient, maybe I'd bring it, but too much of the time I never used it, and after a while I stopped bothering.
The iPod Touch's WiFi access means I might want to carry it with me more often, but with WiFi hotspots so limited, I can imagine myself becoming discouraged: I'd lug the thing around with me with thinking I might be able to surf the 'net only to find I can't so often that after a while I hardly bother taking it with me.
No such problems with the iPhone, because these days we're used to carrying phones constantly, and with the iPhone's additional features -- PDA, email, Google Maps, web surfing, etc. -- I have even more reasons to use it and incorporate it into my life. Even my mom's doing it with her iPhone: she's using the Notes feature for lists of things to do and she told me recently she loves the calculator. Now she's been a mobile phone user for years and all her phones had calculators built into them -- but the feature was so hard to find she never once used it! With the iPhone, you have the ultimate marriage of convenience and ease-of-use.
In short, I truly believe the iPhone is worth $600. It's a fantastic device that can revolutionize your life. It's also just the beginning of a new platform with a huge future and will just get better and better via software upgrades.
All that said, if I could have one bought for $400, I would have. I'm certainly not going to pay extra if it's not required! But I'm not the least bit upset by the price drop. I'm surprised, yes. I expected a price cut, but not one quite so dramatic (say $100) and I thought it wouldn't happen until closer to Christmas. Coming so soon after the iPhone's launch is what upset most people.
But more on that in my next article....
The More Wondrous Machine? - From The Road Warrior Archive
I'm always pleased when reading something I wrote years ago when it holds up well over time, and this one does I think. I'm probably even more computer integrated in my work today than I was five years ago, and I surely do not have any more free time. So without further adieu, here's:
The More Wondrous Machine? - From The Road Warrior Archive [July 9, 2002]
It's kind of an unlikely turn of events that finds me making part of my living writing about computers. As a kid, I was never an electronics or technology buff. I was more into cars and boats, and a bit of a Luddite even in those categories. I wasn't into amateur radio, had only a casual passing interest in science fiction, and found the passion some of my friends expressed for Star Trek a bit, well, odd.
I remember sometime in the mid to late '70s when one of my Trekkie friends got hold of what must have been a pretty high end Texas Instruments calculator. He was totally stoked. "You can program this thing" he enthused, delightedly. My response was more or less a polite yawn.
A couple of years later some of my friends started messing around with the very early consumer personal computers. Again I was nonplussed. They seemed like an expensive and complicated platform for playing video games on, and I never cared much for video games. The fascination escaped me. I couldn't figure out what a personal computer could actually be useful for. Balancing my checkbook?
The first time I actually used a computer must have been in 1983 or 1984. I was part owner of a small sail yacht dealership, and my business partner, whose day job was as a mainframe programmer for a large international tire manufacturing firm, decided that we should computerize our bookkeeping. He bought some sort of primitive PC with a crude dot matrix printer and a cassette tape data drive. You could type on this thing, and it could do math, but it seemed a lot more trouble than it was worth. My old Remington manual typewriter and Radio Shack pocket calculator were quicker and more efficient for what we needed to do, and the Remington turned out better looking hard copy. I wasn't impressed.
I got out of the boat business in the mid-'80s, and became a full-time writer - at least as full-time as I could manage, markets-wise. I continued to hammer away on the old Remington, until my cousin, who is also a computer programmer, asked me if I would like one of the Wang word processors his company was retiring to replace with IBM PCs. Never one to pass up a freebie, I accepted his offer. That Wang was (is, I still have it) even larger than the PC rig my boat business partner had bought, standing nearly 3 ft. tall, not counting the monochrome CRT monitor. It had a daisy-wheel printer, that turned out much nicer copy then my buddy's awful dot matrix unit, and incorporated two disk drives that ran 5 1/4" floppies, one for the System Disk and the other for the data archive desk.
That Wang was of course a revelation. It had a very nice, menu-driven, word-processing program with short command line prompts which worked a bit like Mac Finder menus without the GUI. I still find it quite intuitive and pleasant to use when I occasionally fire it up. The facility to cut, paste, copy, and otherwise edit text on screen finally convinced me that yes, computers could be practically useful. My productivity increased overnight. The Wang could also do math. Shazam.
However, the publishing world was rapidly computerizing, and the Wang wasn't very compatible. Most of my editors were using Macs, and my main market in the early 1990's, a publisher of several marine-oriented magazines, was a big Macintosh fan and booster. He wanted me to get a Mac so that I could submit articles and artwork on disk. A university professor friend of mine wanted to sell his Mac Plus rig complete with ImageWriter printer, and, well, the rest is history, Here I am, writing on the Mac Web.
What sparked this reverie was contemplating my WallStreet PowerBook the other day as an object rather than as a tool that I'm working with and generally take for granted without thinking about it too much conceptually. I was carrying it outdoors at the time, out of its usual workstation environment, and it occurred to me how amazing it is that in just a bit more than a decade, computers have gone from being, at least in my perception, a gadget that seemed to have little practical relevance, to the facilitator and repository of a substantial - perhaps even alarming - proportion of my activities.
My PowerBooks are now the principal tool with which I make my living, having displaced my typewriters and the word processor, and my complete journalistic work output from the last 10 years is archived on their hard drives, readily available for reference at any time. The computers are also my principal tools of communication, having displaced for the most part letter mail, fax, and much telephoning, (and even fax messages are now sent and received with the computers). They have displaced the public library and to a large extent my own private reference book collection as my main avenue of research, via the Internet, and I also have three encyclopedias on CD-ROM or DVD.
I now do most of my banking and a fair bit of bill-paying with the computers, and also derive most of my investment information from the Internet - my local newspaper no longer even publishes daily mutual fund closing prices at all.
Most of my music listening is done on the computers these days. My dabbling in photography - once one of my main hobbies - is increasingly focused on the computer screen. My film photofinisher even puts photos I get developed on their Website for download, and with a digital camera, film now gets dialed out of the equation entirely some of the time. A lot of my newspaper and magazine reading his also now online.
This little machine has, in short, gone from being a curiosity to being indispensable. PowerBooks are appropriately named. It still amazes me that so much power and potential can be packed into something this small. The compactness of my first PowerBook, a 5300, blew me away back in 1996, my current WallStreet and Pismo are a bit bigger than the 5300, but they're still amazing.
However, all this has a downside. It concerns me a bit that I've become this dependent on the machine. It allows me to get a lot more done, but I don't seem to have any more free time - indeed the opposite obtains. Days seem shorter than they ever did, and I always seem to be scrambling to catch up. While email and Internet access to information are supposed to be time savers, the fact is that they have expanded our potential reach - and the reach of others to connect with us - to the extent that they have become net time-burners.
The powerful computer has ratcheted up our expectations of ourselves, so that no matter how much we accomplish in a day, we - or at least I - tend to feel that I could've done more.
Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the PowerBooks and the window/connection with the rest of the world that they provide, as well as of course being the tools of my trade. Email is a wonderful communication facilitator, and it, for instance, allows me to keep in touch with my flown-the-nest children at a level that would not have been possible in pre-computer days. That's worth a lot. I just wonder if, in the greater scheme of things, we really are all that much better off because of computers.
One of the great conundrums for me is the tremendous creative productivity of so many artists, musicians, writers, intellectuals, and scientists of the pre-technology era--The polymaths and Renaissance men (and women) who excelled in some cases in what would be half a dozen or more highly specialized fields in today's context, and this in the days before electronic communication, recorded music, or even typewriters, and, perhaps most amazingly, electric lights. The output of some of these people was astounding - monstrous oeuvres of novels and poems, all handwritten; vast collections of chamber music and orchestral works, insightful treatises on philosophy; expansive diaries; thousands of letters; and scientific exploration and experimentation in multiple fields.
I keep wondering if I might not have been much more productive, at least in a substantive, a lasting sense, were it not for all the conveniences distracting me.
***
cmoore@macopinion.com
Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.
Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.
If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.
CM