Well....the solution I suggested in an earlier post didn't work out long-term. I happened to be in my local Apple store recently so I decided to ask them what could be done about my iMac's screen condensation problem. They admitted that it was a "known problem" with this particular generation of iMacs and there was no real solution other than to "move it to another location". Great....now Apple is doing my interior decorating. I don't know about you, but this seems an inadequate solution to me. It's certainly not a good example of a vendor standing behind their product. I ended up buying a room dehumidifier and I haven't had a problem since (3 weeks, now). I was not pleased how this problem was handled and I hope it is not typical of the way Apple deals with consumer level issues.

On another note.....I got a new 17" unibody MacBook Pro a few weeks ago. Great machine. Maybe I'll just stick to the Apple mobile line.

About 3 months ago, I purchased a new 24" iMac. I love this computer. Not only is it quite capable from a technical perspective, its design is aesthetically appealing as well. I was disappointed, however, to learn that because of the way it's designed, some of these systems have an unusual flaw. I noticed not long after purchasing the system that the lower right hand quadrant of the display was fogging up. It was like I was looking through a dirty window at the images behind it. This area of condensation would come and go at seemingly random times. After doing a bit of research, I discovered that the iMac's display features a piece of glass that is mounted (by magnets) over the LCD display. This is not an airtight seal, either. As a result, if the humidity and/or temperature in the location of the iMac changes (and, mark you, these need not be dramatic changes), some systems will develop condensation on the interior of the glass LCD cover. I'm one of the lucky guys who owns such a system. I found some recommendations on-line on how to resolve this issue. I was reluctant to try these on a brand-spakin' new system at first, but now that the honeymoon is over, I went ahead and tried it today. The glass pane that covers the LCD is actually quite easy to remove and the only tool you need is a piece of packing tape (the clear cellophane style). I took a 5" length of tape and placed it along the left-bottom edge of the display running vertically. You basically leave about 1/2 an inch of the tape hanging over the left side of the iMac taking care not to tape the overhang to the aluminum frame of the system. With a little careful pulling on the top and bottom portions of the tape, the glass panel's magnet fastening system will release and you can run a finger behind the resulting crack along the bottom of the glass and the whole thing just pops off. Once removed, I cleaned the section of glass prone to fogging up with a lens cloth saturated with 50% alcohol and 50% water. Reinstalling the glass is simply a matter of lining up the pegs on the frame of the glass with the holes in the iMac chassy. The magnets literally pull the glass back into the proper position. Since cleaning the spot, the glass has yet to fog back up. I suspect I may need to repeat this operation every now and then, but it beats taking it back to the Apple store for repair or replacement.

Though the solution is pretty simple, it does involve some risk to the user. If you break the glass cover, I suspect you're SOL as far as Apple is concerned. I also was unable to find any official Apple response to the NUMEROUS accounts of this problem I found on the internet, even on their own support site and forums. That's a bit disconcerting to me. When I bought this system, I did so on blind faith that Apple always turned out quality products that did not suffer from such obvious design errors. I'll do a little more homework before buying another Apple product.

As I write this, I'm wondering if using the word "software" is even appropriate for the product I'm about to describe. I'm thinking that "ripoff" or "vaporware" or "scam" might be more appropriate descriptions of PocketMac for iPhone by Information Appliance Associates. I should have known that something wasn't right when I could not locate an evaluation copy to download. The publisher does not offer one. What they do offer is a 90-day money back guarantee. From experience, I know this is the software industry euphemism for "we know this product is crap and that you'll never buy it if you try it for free". Desperate for a solution to sync my iCal with my Lotus Notes mail store, however, I rolled the dice and purchased a copy. Doh! Snake eyes. The install worked as you would expect a commercial product to work. That's about the nicest thing I can say about PocketMac. After installation, it was all down hill. The first time I launched the application, I got an error message indicating that an unhandled exception occurred and the application quit. I figured "no big deal"...I'll just reboot and it should work. Several attempted tweaks and reboots later, I was no further along than my first attempt to load the app. I then attempted to call technical support for assistance. Low and behold, there is not a single telephone number published on the PocketMac web site (save for the sales number - what a shock - that is answered by a machine which will unceremoniously hang up on you after a few attempts to opt-out for an operator). I soon discovered that technical support is provided only through web-mail unless you want to pay $59 a pop for phone support incidents (bear in mind that the product itself costs only $30 and the little fact that I should not have to pay for support for a product that doesn't work to begin with). I submitted a description of my problem. Two hours later, I sent a ping since I hadn't gotten a reply yet. Two more hours, another ping. And another two hours, another ping. After waiting all day for a reply, it was finally time to pack up and head home from the office. A couple of hours after I got home, I logged in to the tech support site and, eureka! An answer. It was a short and sweet response with a file attachment. I placed the file where I was instructed to place it and PocketMac finally loaded without an error message. Now I had a nice, pretty little window with some attractive icons in it. Woo hoo! I attempted to run my first sync with PocketMac. I dialogue box popped open asking me for my Notes server connection information. I tried several permutations of the connection string all to no avail. I received "path does not exist" error messages each time I tried to run the sync. Again I thought to myself, "no big deal....I'll just look at the manual where they are bound to have an example of the connection syntax they're looking for". But...what's this? No manual? No documentation of any type? That's right. Nowhere in the product download, nor on the PocketMac site, will you find the first tiny scrap of user documentation. It's as though you're supposed to know how to use this crap by osmosis.

This morning, I realized that if I've had this much difficulty just trying to get the software to run, let alone perform fairly complex data synchronization, that I would very likely not be happy with this product in the long run. I submitted a request for a refund in accordance with their money-back guarantee. I have yet to get a response from them. I don't anticipate a problem getting a refund based on the many complaints about this product I've seen posted elsewhere, but I suspect it will be a while before I see that thirty bucks again.

If you're looking for a reliable data synchronization tool for your Mac system, I suggest you avoid PocketMac like you would an Amway salesman. If, however, you are looking for a hemorrhoid wrapped in a .dmg file, go ahead and lay down your money and take PocketMac for a spin.

So I'm sure by now you've seen the new Microsoft commercials featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. The one commercial I've seen aired about 10 times during the opening day of the American football season (which was today). Quite frankly, I'm not sure what to take from it. It seemed more like a 30 second episode of Seinfeld ("the show about nothing") than a spot for Windows or Microsoft technologies. Perhaps I just answered my own question...

I've been using Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac since its release sometime around the date of the MacWorld convention. This software epitomizes everything bad about applications that are released before they're ready for prime-time. For the first couple of days, it seemed as though it was working just fine. Then, I started trying to open documents attached to email messages. Two out of every three attempts to do so would lock up my entire Mac system (particularly when the attached document was an Excel file) forcing me to use the power button to reboot the system. I've been using a MacBook Pro for approximately 8 months now and MS Office is the ONLY application that has ever caused my system to behave in this manner and, believe me, I've downloaded and tested ALOT of shareware and open source software for the Mac. It truly bothers me that a company like Microsoft can release and actually demand money for an application that is clearly substandard.

I just installed SP1 for Office 2008 and I'm hoping the application will stabilize a bit. I'm not holding my breath, though. I suppose anything Mac will be treated like a red-headed step child by Microsoft so I should have expected no more than what I received.

I've been using a Mac PowerBook now for about 6 months. I love most things about it. The one thing that consistently frustrates me, however, is the ability to integrate stand-alone Macs into Windows networks. And, as one might expect, Microsoft and Apple point the finger at one another saying the other is to blame. I've had various levels of success getting my Mac to talk to a Windows Active Directory. Printing works great, domain login works great, resource enumeration works great (most of the time), but that's where it turns ugly. Accessing Windows file shares is essentially a hit or miss proposition. If you've got administrative access to the network and you're able to map an administrative share to a server (C$ on a remote resource, for example) this will generally work well. But....how many of your users have administrative access? The answer to that should be a VERY low number. Accessing conventional Windows shares is problematic. I can generally map the share, view volume contents, and even open files to which I have access. The problem comes when you try to save or copy files to the share. I've seen at least a half dozen strange and inconsistent error messages that all end with the same result.....a 0KB file "ghost" on the share. I've literally spent about 12 hours in total researching and attempting to employ various fixes to the problem with mixed results. Today, I downloaded a product from Thursby software called "DAVE". It has promise. It immediately fixed some of the major problems I was having with file transfers and saving to shares, but it seems to have broken some networking functionality that was working. I'm going to continue to evaluate this product and I'll let you know how it goes.

Back in the mid-to-late 70's, I can remember as a kid what soaring gas prices did to the country. I lived in California at the time where we were used to paying about 75 cents a gallon when, it seems like overnight, prices shot up to $1.25 a gallon. Auto parts and hardware stores actually ran out of supplies of locking gas caps and the local news frequently ran spots on how to avoid having gas siphoned from your fuel tank. I think we're going to be seeing a very similar situation between now and the end of summer, and possibly beyond that. I've heard that some oil companies are expecting prices approaching $5 a gallon over the next few months. God help us all when/if that happens. It's going to have a domino affect like nothing this country has ever seen. It's certainly affected my life already.

Up until this weekend, I proudly drove a Ford F150 pickup truck with a Triton 5.4 Liter V-8 engine. I got about 17.5 miles per gallon (I could literally watch the fuel gauge move as I drove it). Given that I commute about 640 miles per week, my gasoline bills were getting a bit out of hand. It was not uncommon for me to put about $160 in the tank EVERY WEEK. I'm sorry.....that's just insane. I'm now the proud owner of a Toyota Prius and my guess is there will be a rush on (and shortage of) these vehicles, and cars like it, very soon. As it stands now, I had to visit 3 dealerships to even find a new Prius on the lot. Most dealers appear to be backordered for 3 to 4 months and have actually started waiting lists. While I was negotiating the deal for my Prius (don't waste your time dickering....dealers know they can get full price for these cars right now and they won't budge a penny) I heard at least a half dozen phone calls come in asking if the dealer had any Prius's on the lot. If you do a lot of driving and you have an opportunity to get your hands on a hybrid, you might want to jump on the chance sooner rather than later.

My wife and I together make a pretty decent living. It's not that I couldn't afford the money I was putting in my tank every week, it's just that it made no sense to do so any longer (I'm a cheapskate at heart). I have to ask myself, though, how is the average working guy who might only make $12 to $15 an hour able to afford to fill up his tank every week? Keep your eyes open on this one, folks. I think it's going to get ugly.

I heard several weeks ago (during MacWorld, I believe) that VMWare would be releasing a version of VMWare Fusion that would allow you to run virtual Mac OS X server images. I think they even demonstrated an early version that was actually running OS X server at their booth at MacWorld. I haven't seen or heard a word about it since, not even on the VMWare site. Has this idea been abandoned? I'm anxious to evaluate the Mac server platform and this solution would allow me to do so without spending a small fortune on equipment. If you know anything about this, please leave me a comment.

Those of us who work in the world of corporate IT all have amusing (or befuddling) anticdotes about the users we support. I'd like to share one. The company for which I work recently updated its corporate logo as a part of a rebranding effort. I sent out instructions detailing the steps required to incorporate the new logo within an email signature block. One of the steps was to "copy the text portion of my signature so that a consistent font, layout, and color scheme" could be applied to all employee email signatures. The next step of the instructions was to "change the name, phone numbers, and address to your own information". I guess that last step wasn't so clear because over the last few days, I've received several (dozen??) email messages with my own address, phone, and mobile number published in the signature block. I may have to change my extension and possibly move to another state.

Seriously....The title of this blog entry sounds a bit harsh and it truly is only a joke. The folks we support every day are not paid to be the computer experts and, in every sense of the term, they are our paying customers. I will, however, be more careful the next time I send out instructions. Live and learn....

I'm probably the laziest programmer on the face of the planet. As such, I am habitually looking for shortcuts and the fastest ways to accomplish things within the scope of all that I consider "acceptable" programming practices (a shockingly lax set of self-imposed development guidelines). For this reason, I spent the better part of the day customizing some Illudium PU-36 Code Generator templates to produce CRUD components for Flex development. Why would I do this, you ask? Because the ColdFusion Application wizards are not supported on the Mac platform and I spend at least 30% of my coding time writing the CFC interfaces needed by my Flex applications. The templates essentially create the same type of CFC files that the Windows version of Flex Builder generates. The resulting components are nearly identical to the default components that Illudium supports "out of the box" with a couple of exceptions. They have been slightly modified to support Flex RemoteObject calls. The code also instantiates objects in a slightly different way so that Flex can run everything through the Service CFC that Illudium creates. If you've used the CF application wizards on the Windows version of Flex Builder, the Illudium generated version is very similar (but better, I think) to the components created by it.

The enclosed zip file contains a folder that you should copy to your xsl\projects folder at the root of your Illudium directory. A new Template type entitled "FlexRemoting" should appear in the drop down box when you run Illudium. Point Illudium to your database table, choose the FlexRemoting template type, enter your dot notation to the CFCs (as they will be referred to in the RemoteObject function in Flex) and click the "Generate" button. Four files will be created (Bean, DAO, Gateway, and Service). Once you save these to the appropriate folder in your Flex project directory, open the Service CFC file and go to the bottom of the file. Find the function named "initCRUD" and replace the DSN place holder with the actual DSN you'll want to call with your components. Then, simply point your Flex RemoteObject (get, create, save, delete) functions to the appropriate function in the Service CFC.

Illudium appears to be a great tool and it has the potential to save substantial time when coding Flex applications if you, like me, don't have access to the full suite of ColdFusion extensions within Flex Builder. The FlexRemoting templates are my first attempt at customizing Illudium since I've only been working with it for about a day. If you have any recommendations as to how the templates could be improved, I'd love to hear them.