Going to MacWorld Expo San Francisco 2010

I was excited about going to the newly revamped MacWorld Expo in San Francisco this February. I say "was" because here in the Bay Area there are going to be more rate hikes. Bay Area bridges are going to raise tolls again and now BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is now going to have a whole bunch of increases and reduce service at the same time.

This is what BART is planning to do;

• Charge a 25 cent "Transbay Tube surcharge"

• 2% increase to fares across the board

• More Expensive parking fees, no more free parking for anyone, those days are gone

• Reduced train service, running less trains.

For the Bay Area bridges, here is an example of the toll hikes for the Bay Bridge; During Commute Hours the toll goes from $4.00 to $6.00, Non-Commute will stay at $4.00, Weekends $5.00, and for the first time Carpoolers will have to pay to go over Bay Area Bridges of $2.50 per bridge.

Combined with this lousy economy and these fare and toll hikes, I'm finding it difficult seeing myself attending this upcoming MacWorld Expo. BART if your listening, you're not helping increase your ridership by doing this. It's pretty simple common sense. Now, I'm not even sure I can afford to go at all! I'm seriously considering finding alternative transportation and it might take some creativity to find transportation that won't cost me an arm and a leg. I suggest you doing the same, even boycotting BART and all Bay Area Bridges if you can. Consider taking one of the different Ferries around the bay. You remember the Ferry don't you? Or take a Transbay transit bus if your going to San Francisco from the East Bay. I think taking a transit bus is cheaper than taking BART or the bridge combined with paying for parking in the city.

These agencies/authorities need a wake up call. They need to understand that the public doesn't have bottomless pockets, especially during this lousy, rotten economy.

Frustration with computer printer manufacturers

Being a computer consultant that sets up a lot of computers systems, over the past few years I have noticed that the printer companies have changed the way they do business with the consumer market. They have really cracked down on their software support. For example, I have an HP DeskJet 970C series printer (pictured left) that I purchased new back in 1999. It's been a great printer and still works great to this day. The problem I'm having isn't with the printer, but with HP. I can't upgrade my Macs to Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard because HP hasn't written the software to support my printer. Instead, I have to rely on a generic third-party printer driver which doesn't support the two-sided page printing capability. Since I use that feature a lot, I continue to run Mac OS 10.5 Leopard which has the HP software with all the options for my printer. With this lack of support, it forces the consumer to purchase a new printer even though the one they already have works fine. Isn't it enough that these printer companies make millions of dollars on selling the ink and toner on all the existing printers already out there plus new printers being sold currently?

A second problem I encountered last night working with a client's Canon MP470 printer (pictured left) was that I was connecting the USB cable to an Apple Airport Express Base Station to network the printer wirelessly. The Canon software was all up-to-date but the Canon printer would not communicate with the Mac connected through the Airport Express Base Station, but only worked connected directly to the Mac. I believe the Canon MP470 is a new enough model to have Apple's Bonjour networking technology incorporated into it, but it seems not to have it and didn't work.

If your tired about how the makers of your printer does business, let them know, because ultimately we all vote with our dollars and they know that.

THE ECONOMY AND US

We have all had a hard time during these tough financial times about the past year and a half or so. Since the Real Estate collapse and the Banks crashing, it's no wonder everybody got scared. Unfortunately, when people get scared people stop spending their money and that contributes to the poor economy even further. I have experienced this first hand. It's been extremely difficult keeping the bills paid and the business running. So, I put it to the people that have money but are holding tightly on to it right now; Please start spending, otherwise this poor economy will extend indefinitely and everyone will continue to suffer for it. The final results will show that Capitalism is a poor system for everyone in general.
A quote from the movie THX 1138 might encourage you further:
"Let us be thankful we have commerce, buy more, buy more now, buy and be happy."

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

It's the time of year when we're reminded to give thanks.

Instead of waiting until next year to be reminded,

Let's make every day one of thanksgiving;

After all, each day is a unique gift.

So, give a hug for no reason;

Say I love you, just because;

Share a smile with a stranger;

Take the time to count your blessings;

Don't take anything or anyone for granted;

And end each day with no regrets.

Thank you, for the opportunity to be of service to

you all, along with your continued support

to keep MacMobile Services going all these years.

I am very fortunate to have such great clients in my life.

And I am thankful you have allowed me

To be a part of yours.

May you and yours have a safe and memorable Thanksgiving.

Mac OS X:10.6.2 Update Released This Morning

Apple this morning released a very important update for Mac OS X: Snow Leopard; version 10.6.2. A fatal flaw in Snow Leopard that some users experienced when a user turned on the Guest Account and logged-in, then logged-in to the Administrator Account would loose saved files in that account. Version 10.6.2 fixes that flaw among other fixes in other Apple software titles too. You can obtain the update by running Software Update under the Apple menu, but I recommend installing the Combo update to insure a more thorough installation. Click Here for all the details that the update addresses and to download the Combo update.

Apple Magic Mouse

Last night I stopped by the Walnut Creek Apple Store to check out the new hardware that Apple announced this last Tuesday. They had both 21.5 and 27-inch iMacs on display with the included wireless keyboard and the new wireless Magic Mouse.

I picked up the Magic Mouse and the first thing I noticed is that it does have one whole clickable button (I incorrectly called the Magic Mouse a buttonless mouse in my previous blog entry) which I thought worked fine. The Magic Mouse is very sleek, curvy, and slim. It feels good in the palm of my hand, but I do prefer a mouse with

more of a higher rounded area toward the rear of the mouse, for example the Kensington ThinkingMouse (pictured left) felt great in the hand, it fits in the palm of your hand better than any low profile mouse.

I tried out the multi-touch surface and it's very accurate. The different finger gestures worked as advertised. Moving your index finger vertically up and down scrolls a page up and down in Safari and moving your index finger horizontally scrolls the page horizontally side to side. The right-click also worked fine. I was however unable to try the two-fingered gesture that allows you to for example, page through a multiple page document or browsing through pictures in your iPhoto library, but after playing with the mouse I'm sure it works fine based on how accurate the multi-touch surface is. I was only able to test the Magic Mouse on the Apple Store's display table because they had a cable tethered to it, so I couldn't test how good it tracked on different kinds of surfaces.

In comparison to the previous Mighty Mouse, the Magic Mouse is an improvement, hardware-wise, meaning it's electronics are solid state with no moving parts with the exception of the clickable top surface. The problem with the Mighty Mouse was that in a short period of time, the scroll ball would either start malfunctioning or stop working altogether. So, because of that, Apple's solution to the scroll ball is the solid state multi-touch surface technology borrowed from the iPhone and iPod Touch.

I hope that Apple will come out with a wired version of the Magic Mouse because unless you are using rechargeable batteries, batteries could become quite costly over time.

The Apple wireless Magic Mouse retails at the online Apple Store for $69.00 US.

New Apple iMacs Today!

Apple has released the next generation iMac line this morning. New LED backlighting and screen sizes, 21.5 and 27-inch and more pixel depth, 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440 respectively make watching and editing High Definition content amazing. The new iMacs come with a new buttonless wireless bluetooth mouse called the Magic Mouse along with the Apple Wireless keyboard standard. Ports on the back now include the MiniDisplay port which replaces the mini-DVI. These new iMacs do include FireWire 800 for connecting an external hard drive for video capturing when doing video editing for example or for a Time Machine backup drive. All the other ports, USB, Gigabit Ethernet, etc. are included also. Apple mentions the new iMacs have better sounding speakers too!

The 21.5-inch model has a 500 GigaByte hard drive, 4 GigaBytes of RAM, 3.06 GigaHertz Intel Core Duo 2 processor, and a NIVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated video processor standard for a base price of $1,199.00 US. Available now at the online Apple Store. Build to Order options are also available.

The 27-inch model has a 1 TeraByte hard drive, 4 GigaBytes of RAM, 3.06 GigaHertz Intel Core Duo 2 processor, and an ATI Radeon HD 4670 dedicated graphics video card with 256 MegaBytes of Video RAM standard for a base price of $1,699.00 US. Build to Order options are also available. This model will not be available until November.