Jenmenke

Road Warrior

Tech

Mac Lion OS, iCloud, Quicken, 3 Computers & 4 Mobile Devices. Oh My!

So this is one of those posts. [A tech one.]

I know, I know, most of you don’t care. But remember: my tag line is “the dichotomous life of a Mac Geek Farm Girl.” To know me is to love me? And Macs are a big slice. I must feed the beast.

I left Lion to languish since it’s arrival in the App Store several months ago. I did not have the time, nor the inclination to tackle a new operating system on top of everything else. OS updates never — I mean never — go without a hitch. It could be your printer drivers. It could be some element of your main programs that don’t play nice. Eventually you get it figured out, but only after spending hours researching the fix. Most of the time it comes in the form of “trash your preferences.” Or, “uninstall Windowshade.” And you find yourself thinking, “if I had only known that ahead of time!”

My decision to upgrade usually hinges on some small thing. In this case, it was iOS 5. I simply cannot resist the temptation to update my iPhone. It’s so fun! And never as scary as my Mac OS. So I upgraded.

And was faced with iCloud.

…And the constant reminder to transfer MobileMe (contacts, calendars, mail, etc.) before June. The clock was ticking! But first you had to upgrade to Lion. *sigh*

Having had my head in the iSand for months now, I didn’t recall ever hearing about iCloud. And for the life of me, I could not figure out what the fricken difference was between it and MobileMe. A serious head scratcher. And frankly, it still is. I was irritated that I had to move everything when it was all working fine. But it was now in my head. iCloud, iCloud, iCloud… “I wonder if it’s better. Maybe I should switch to Lion… I wonder if…” And so it goes. I’m hooked.

My guess is, that just like taking on a simple home project, iCloud morphed out of Apple’s not being able to fix MobileMe the way they wanted to. From what I can tell, the benefit of iCloud is for NON MobileMe users. I can’t really see any improvement with iCloud — unless of course Back to My Mac starts working reliably, or cloud storage and back-up starts working like Dropbox (my all time favorite program/backup system/syncing system/file sharing system EVER!). But I don’t see that happening yet. I like the idea of all Mac device users getting mac.com or me.com accounts. I like free back up, but I don’t like having to make the move. I do like saving $100 on a MobileMe subscription.

So anyway, starting on Monday, I spent two days cleaning out our Macs. To listen to me cleaning out the three user profiles on the iMac, going through the kids’  downloads folders, the TV seasons folder, and the messy desktops would have been indistinguishable from listening to me clean up my kids’ rooms. There are a lot of similarities. They are both packrats and digital packrats.

After that, I backed everything up. Time Machine is good for that, but I only trust it so far. It seems a little flaky to me. I use SuperDuper for big back ups. Next I read as much as I could about the update. The big Lion deal-breaker for me was it’s incompatibility with Quicken 2007 for Mac. I truly believed Intuit would update Quicken and all would be good. The more I read about Quicken, however, the more insane it became. Turns out, no, they aren’t going to update Quicken. All Intuit’s Mac-eggs are going in to the Quicken Essentials basket — a watered-down version of Quicken. No more online bill pay being the biggest issue for me. (No more export to TurboTax and no investment tracking being the big issue for other people). So, I researched the other options. I thought I had settled on iBank and downloaded it. But after reading about troubles importing Quicken Classes (all my job numbers were recorded as classes) I got nervous. In the end, I rolled over and bought Quicken Essentials. I’ve committed to using my bank’s online bill pay instead of through Quicken and having reconciled four accounts for two months, I can say it is just fine. Nothing great, but transferring and getting up and running was effortless. And that’s what mattered most to me.

I installed Lion on the MacBook Air first, then the iMac, and last night I took a deep breath and updated my MacBook Pro. I’d read so much whining and complaints about Lion, I was pretty nervous. But I have to say, so far I really like it. I’m trying hard to get used to the backwards (they call it “natural”) scrolling. Working on three different hardware devices, I have this to say: natural scrolling on a screen makes perfect sense. On a trackpad it makes some sense, but is less intuitive. On a magic mouse it is one step removed from a trackpad, but doable. On a scrolling button mouse, it is insane and borderline impossible.

My biggest loss is the App Switcher. I simply loved it and now it is gone. I’m trying hard to embrace its replacement: LaunchPad. I’m also embracing full screens and moving between apps that way. So far I love it.

The mobile OS, iOS, doesn’t seem too much different to me. I have to say I do LOVE the way notifications stack on the screen now instead of piling up on top of each other.

MobileMe’s transfer to iCloud went OK. Not 100% smooth, but I got lucky. It turns out that if you had a POP Mail account set up in MobileMe before the transfer – and my DSL Frontier is POP, iCloud could choke on it. The mail transfer hung up 1/4 of the way in. I forced quit, found the user library (now hidden in Lion, but found it by choosing “go to folder” from the Finder and typing in ~/library/) and trashing com.apple.mail.plist from the preferences folder. I rebooted and then mail was able to transfer to iCloud. Some have not been as lucky and have had to reinstall Lion.

I guess the best advice is to always back up, but to ALSO read up before an upgrade. Search “Lion problems”, “Lion troubleshooting”, etc. And don’t put too much stock in to online reviews. I swear, they seem to get worse and angrier with each passing year — which I suppose makes sense. Most unhappy customers voice their experiences while happy customers don’t take the time. That certainly applies to me.

This was probably the easiest I’ve ever had it for a major upgrade.

How I solved my Macbook Air battery problem

Just a quickie to let you know — if you didn’t already — how brilliant I am.

I made an appointment at the genius bar to bring my new Macbook Air in to have the battery looked at, since I couldn’t seem to squeeze more than a couple hours out of it.

I’d googled “Macbook Air battery drain” and every other imaginable iteration of that type of string that I could think of. All I could find were these solutions:

  • dim the screen
  • keep open Safari windows to a minimum
  • install ClickToFlash (highly recommended, btw)

None of it made any difference. In all cases, the next step was “bring to the Genuis bar.”

But while I was couchbound, babysitting Mom and Dad’s dog, Pippi who is recuperating from spine surgery (more on that later), I had a sudden brainstorm: ACTIVITY MONITOR!

Activity Monitor is the coolest little utility that comes installed on all Macs. It is helpful for seeing what applications are chewing up memory. But it also shows you what is dragging on your CPU, which equals battery use. You can find it in: Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.

Since I had copied everything over from my Macbook Pro using Migration Assistant, I knew there were things that I didn’t need. I wasn’t initially too worried about much extra crud being brought over from the Pro because it is only a year old. Plus, I’ve not had any weird problems with the Pro that I was concerned about. It is worth noting that I don’t usually use Migration Assistant when I get a new computer since I always feel that fresh installs are better. But I was under the gun to get the Macbook Air up and running quickly for my trip. I couldn’t take any chances that, “dang it! i forgot to install XYZ plug in.” In fact, come to think of it, this was my first-ever time using Migration Assistant. I have to say, it worked great and is quite easy.

But I was wrong when I thought there wasn’t a lot of junk.

I found several things I haven’t ever used on my one year old Macbook Pro, like EyeTV helper. How did that get on there?? There were, in fact, lots of “helpers.” All of these load at start up and cause some level of battery drain.

Printopia was something I installed and uninstalled at one point when I was trying to get something to print from my iphone. And yet, there it still was in the Activity Monitor on the Macbook Air?!

Anyway, here are some folders to check if you suspect similar issues:

Library/StartupItems
Library/LaunchAgents
Library/LaunchDaemons
System/Library/StartUpItems

I found and deleted:

  • Printopia helper
  • FlipShare helper
  • EyeConnect (inc. EyeTV helper)
  • ProTech6 ( installed with Nik Software and unnecessary)
  • Wacom tablet driver (won’t be using with this computer
  • some old Adobe CS4 version cue plist files

About 6 files deleted, and I watched in utter amazement as my battery time went from a fully charged TWO-hour status to SEVEN hours! Is that amazing or what?!

It does fluctuate, depending on the number of windows and programs I have open. But I’ve been working on the computer now for over an hour, watched a lengthy flash Bravo TV video and still have 5 hours and 30 minutes displayed.

Ahhhhh. I love solving a mystery. I also love being brilliant.

(Sorry for all you non-techy people. I just had to share this in case there are other poor souls googling futility like I was. I want to be their new hero… I’ll be back more soon with Morgan’s The Kid’s Cook Bang Bang Shrimp recipe!)

Why the MacBook Air is the “Tablet” for Me!

Crazy times call for crazy measures.

I bought an 11″ Macbook Air last week. I just did it. I researched and backed away. I made the rational decision to “wait.” Then I went back to work.

Then, before I could stop myself, I was researching some more…

The funniest part of the whole episode was when I finally came clean with my kids. I had kept my plans a deep dark secret until only moments before I had to make the decision to buy or not to buy.

We were on the way back from our dentist in the cities and I was eager to get the kids back to school for at least half the day, but I knew I would be driving right past the mall… In 24 hours, I would be hopping on a plane to meet Dave for a couple days of skiing. I thought if I was going to try the Macbook Air, I might as well plan it around some travel so I could really test it out.

I needed to fish or cut bait, so much time had I already spent in limbo.

So, a mere 3 miles before the exit to the Apple store I fessed up. “Well, I might need to make one more stop.”

“Where?”

“The Apple Store.”

“Oooooooh… Why?”

“To get a Macbook Air.”

It was at this point that my children’s true natures were revealed to me.

Morgan’s reaction, abridged here for your convenience was this: do it. do it. do it. do it. do it. do it. do it. do it. do it.

Charlie’s reaction was delayed, as usual, because he only caught the last few “do it’s” of Morgan’s, followed by my waxing poetic on why I should not “do it.”

“Do what?”

By this time, I had exited the highway. Morgan clapped with glee, assuming the decision was made.

“Why are you so happy about this? It won’t impact you.”

“I can have your old computer.”

NO YOU CAN’T! This will be used in conjunction with my computer (a 15″ Macbook Pro) which I will eventually sell on ebay along with my Cinema display and replace with a less expensive iMac.

(pouty face)

Then, the voice from the backseat: “WHY would you even CONSIDER buying a NEW COMPUTER. You JUST BOUGHT one not that long ago. You don’t NEED one. Mom, don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

Isn’t that funny? It’s the proverbial devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. He’s right, I thought. And I decided not to do it. I drove past the entrance to the mall. I felt good. Really good. I am truly growing up to be a mature, rational 45 year old woman, thought I.

Then I remembered. I had to stop at the bank. I had checks to deposit. And all that time at the window… made me rethink my decision: “Why not? You have nothing to lose. Try it. You know you won’t be happy till you do…”

And so it was that I bought the computer. And I felt good. Really good. Besides, who was I kidding? I’m a 45 year old toddler, and everyone knows it.

I estimate the whole thing (iMac + Macbook Air – Macbook Pro – Cinema Display) will likely cost me a total of $300-800. The cost of an iPad, not coincidentally, as it happens to be the whole reason I started on this crazy journey.

Because here’s the thing: and I’m just gonna come right out and say it.

I don’t get the whole iPad thing. I’m a huge Apple lover. I usually want one of everything. I’m an original Mac PowerUser, going way back to 1984. To have complete newbies telling me how great their iPad is just… kills me!

Don’t they get it? For only slightly more, you can buy a Macbook Air. It’s only slightly larger. And it runs real software! It does everything! Well, almost, if you don’t count the missing optical drive and ports.

I realize I am in the minority. iPad love abounds around me. Every single person I know who has one, loves it the way I love my iPhone. (Deeply.) And, oddly enough, after 20 years of marriage — every one of them with me touting the greatness of Apple and why Dave needs a Mac — I started overhearing him say to people that he was thinking of getting an iPad.

AN IPAD? SERIOUSLY? YOU? WHY?! SERIOUSLY?! WHEN?!

And then he tucked his head back into his shell and I haven’t seen him since.

So I did what any toddler who loves her husband would do. I bought him one. And after a rocky start on a train with “free wifi” somewhere in Washington D.C., it has been love ever since. So, I’m starting to get the iPad thing. It’s perfect for him. He absolutely loves it. (And he hates computers.) But it’s not a computer. At least not yet. The iPad is for light duty email/browsing and media consumption. It is beautiful. And simple. And fun.

But it would drive me mental. I’m all about consolidating devices. For me, the iPad pretty much duplicates my beloved iPhone. I simply can’t see the benefit to carrying the two devices around together.

What I could see was shrinking my MBP so that my shoulder doesn’t fall off when I travel. And when I saw that 11″ MBA? I completely lost my mind. I had to scratch the itch.

I bought it “on trial.” With the understanding that if I didn’t like it, I’d return it within Apple’s 14 day cutoff. Like any good salesperson — who I was totally upfront with — they encouraged me to do it, knowing full well I’d very likely keep it.

And I probably will.

I’ve got 5 days left to decide. I got the highest end Macbook Air 11″ with a 1.6 GHz core duo and 4 GB of DDR3 Memory.

I was worried it would not be snappy enough to run my Adobe CS5 Suite. And Aperature. And Safari and mail and…. I’m spoiled and like to have many applications open at once.

Not a problem. It is surprisingly snappy. I’m very happy with the whole thing. I am having some issues with the battery, though, that will require a trip to the Genius Bar. Users all say the battery gets 4-7 hours of use, while I can only seem to squeeze out 2, even with ClickToFlash installed (an application to stop Adobe Flash from loading unless you OK it. Flash is a known Mac battery killer.)

The other thing I was (and am) worried about is how best to operate with two different computers. I’ve never had to sync before. So I’m like a little baby, trying to figure it all out. –Wait. Make that a greedy toddler who wants to have her way.

After much research, I’m using a free 2GB Dropbox account, which gets rave reviews by absolutely everyone who uses it. It is very simple to use, but I don’t want to pay $10/month for the extra space I would need to have my whole documents folder synced. They advertise free extra space when you get someone else to sign up for an account. So, if you are inclined to try it out, use this link and solve this crybaby’s problem!

What frustrates me, is that I already pay $99 a year for MobileMe and 20GB of storage. The trouble is, MobileMe’s iDisk just doesn’t work like it should. Frustrating indeed. So for now, Dropbox is the star of this show. We are even using it to share files around the house. I’m so easy to please…

But really, who am I kidding? I doubt I can return my little friend. She’s like one of the family now…

…and yes, as you can see if you look close, I’m still on the couch. Still in my jammies. Still sick. Someone told me I probably have strep. ???

Stay tuned.

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

This is Minnesota, folks.

…Despite those 70 degree October temperatures that somehow, unbelievably, made it in to early November.

We reveled in it. We wore flip-flops in November! The decadence. The sheer thrill!

It’s basically what every other state in the nation gets to do on a regular basis, except us. I bet they wear flip-flops (which I call thongs, but get harassed by the younger set for calling footwear by the now ubiquitous term for a g-string) in Kansas.

Well, no more. We got about 10″ of heavy wet snow on Saturday that is still sticking around on Monday. […and Tuesday, and now Wednesday]

So this post is an ode to Fall. I never got around to posting some of my favorite pictures of late fall. And now the snow went and wrecked it all. It smashed my beautiful Miscanthus grass and the pretty asparagus fronds. It covered up all my shovels in the garden that I was lulled into thinking I would use again. It dashed my hopes for a Christmas photo (no, I still don’t have one yet) in the golden light of a daylight savings savings sunset (at about 3 pm).

If I could embed music, I would choose something sad from The Mission.

None of these have been edited in Photoshop. They are straight out of the camera. Not a credit to me as a photographer, but to God’s majesty and the beautiful colors of fall!

I suppose that could be in focus better, but isn’t it pretty? The color?

I’m a spaz with the focus. It’s true. But this one is better.

This is the perfect picture to show the season: Peegee Hydrangeas caught between Fall and Winter.

Another lesson on how not to focus, but pretty none-the-less. This is the asparagus fronds in the dewy rain of late October.

And then I looked up from my tendency to go “macro” all the time and saw this one lone birch tree.

So pretty.

And now it’s all gone. Including — again! — my sweet meat squash that got froze-to-death and turned to mush. I’ll probably never get to taste one of them.

I do love snow. But I hate the mess. The mud before it really freezes. The cold. The heating bills. The grey skies.

Snow is the only bonus prize of winter.

Macro Garden Delights

I screwed my Canon 52mm Close-Up Lens on to my camera (Canon T1i) today and went out to the garden. I’m too lazy to ever think about a tripod, so I don’t really go about macro photography the correct way. But then, I don’t really go about anything the ‘correct way.’ This is as close to a macro lens as I am likely to get for a long while. And I’m a total spaz with the auto-focus. I’ve still got a lot to learn, I know that.

But it was fun to lay on the ground and take these close up shots of my itty-bitty goings on in the garden. Nights have still been dipping into the 20’s here in my neck of Minnesota, so only the hardiest things are in yet.

YES, the shriveled red potatoes sprouted! Almost each little divot where the bulb planter did its work shows a little green tuft like this:

The next thing I planted were the peas. Not the sugar snaps (those are in now, too, but were planted about a week after the shelling peas). I neglected to soak the pea seeds (because I’m both lazy and impatient), so they took their sweet time sprouting. I think the snap peas are going to catch up to them. Aren’t they pretty?

This is that tenacious Johnny Jump-Up (violet) that was blooming the first time I did a garden walk through at the end of winter. I can’t help but wonder if it survived all the -30 nights and sub-zero days and was blooming under the snow? So cute, even if a little blurry.

The Black Seeded Simpson lettuce seeds have just sprouted. The red lettuce variety, not at all. And now, my very faded memory is remembering that none of my red lettuce sprouted last year. Why do I never throw away bad seeds? Only to continue to plant the damn things and waste my time?!

And these are the shallots that should have gone into the ground last fall. A few are up. Many are not. I suspect I will have many holes to fill and that this bed will irritate me all year…

And this… This is a… Maybe I should have contest and see if you can guess! Should I give away an iPad? No, that is so unoriginal. Everyone is giving away iPads. I will give away my love. — for that is a much rarer and precious gift. Just ask my family.

Free Valentine Cards Output

I’m a little late for this, but if anyone else is scrambling for a school Valentine Party at their kid’s school tomorrow, here is what I just did.

You probably won’t think it’s as funny as I do, since they aren’t your animals. But it might do in a pinch!

Click on this for the link to the higher resolution image at flickr, download the file to your computer, open up and print. Set your printer to “borderless” or “scale to fit” and then trim the white edges.

Do let me know if you use them, because then I will know there is someone even more more unorganized than me.

[If it makes you feel any better, I’ll be stopping at the grocery store on the way to school and Charlie will be armed with a stapler to staple the candy to the card. Nothing like being prepared, is my motto!]

Enjoy!

Here’s my Vote for Mac and Why

This is just a blip on my blog map to sing praises for Apple Macintosh computers.

First, you must understand that I am, indeed, a fanboy (girl). Always have been and always will be. With that out of the way I want to take this opportunity to explain why I finally can stand up with some hardcore facts to back up my otherwise foolish obsession with all things Mac.

My MacBook Pro died on Sunday night. I know that isn’t the best way to start a post saying how great Macs are. However, I’ve been working on Macs for the past 22 years. And I am very hard on them. I push them to the max with memory, applications, dragging them around everywhere I go, occasionally dropping, etc. I usually replace my machines every 2-3  years. In all those years, with all those computers, I have never, ever – even once – had to send a machine in for service. Yes, I’ve spent endless hours tweaking software, resetting the PRAM, the SMC, reseating memory, etc. Endless hours. But never, ever, have I had something go bad in my computer that required service. That’s amazing, isn’t it?

Well, my streak came to a screeeeeching halt on Sunday. After blaming everyone in my family for wrecking my Mac, and generally freaking out, I finally accepted the obvious and made an appointment online at the closest Apple Store with a tech person (aka the ‘Genius Bar’). That, in and of itself, is an amazing service. You make an appointment online, 24-7, for a specific time and get instant answers. The answers might not always be what you want them to be, but you do get them.

I arrived at the store and met with someone about my MacBook Pro. It definitely needed to be serviced. And I wondered: has anyone ever broken down in tears at the Genius Bar? I don’t remember exactly how long they said it would be gone because I was in shock. Seven days? Ten days? It doesn’t matter. Even one day is too long.

[Update on 12/11/09. I got it back in THREE DAYS! I was astounded. And happy. Happy. Happy. Still happy.]

But here is where I think Mac gets amazing. We have an iMac at home for the kids. I have a .mac (now mobileme account). I’ve always thought $99 seemed high for the mobile me services. Not anymore. Within minutes I had synced all my emails, contacts, calendars, bookmarks and Lord knows what else to the iMac.

I also use Time Machine on an external drive (a Drobo). It backs up without me ever doing anything. Time Machine is simply the greatest. It has saved my butt more times that I can ever remember. Yes it can be a space hog, but who cares when a client calls about a job that you swore you backed up and can’t find and just go back six months in Time Machine and drag it to your hard drive. Honest to God it almost seems magic.

Which brings me to today. I hauled the Drobo over to the iMac. And dragged all the files I needed over to the iMac from Time Machine that would have been otherwise unavailable to me or even lost.

And I’m suddenly in business. Without more than a half hour of set-up.

I am amazed.

My files.

My bookmarks.

My calendar.

My email.

Everything.

Well… except my log-in passwords on 1password 3. I had to download the desktop software to the iMac and set it up to sync with my iPhone. Then I had to find the license key in my old (unsynced) mailbox. It took me a few minutes to find it, but there it was in my user library in the Time Machine back-up. I imported it to Mail on the iMac, found my registration key and now I don’t have to look up any passwords. 1Password is great.

I also use SuperDuper as a clone backup system. Double peace of mind. But honestly, Time Machine just keeps coming through.

Anyway, I just had to share my Horror-Story-turned-Fairy-Tale. Well, fairy tale is pushing it, I’ll admit. Still. I challenge anyone to beat this story. I was overwhelmed beyond words for the last 48 hours, only to find out everything was just fine, thanks to Apple.

The only bummer is, I no longer have a good excuse for my clients as to why their job is late.