Barrett

The Art of Inaction, Part 2

To Lion or not to Lion? I’ve already pressed the button. Here we go!

Previously on At Home with Tech…
Barrett blogs about finally upgrading to Apple’s Lion operating system so he can use iCloud as a replacement to MobileMe to share his pictures and movies.

He admits his jealousy towards new tech adopters.

He explains his fear about his iMac losing its ability to edit on its old Final Cut Pro platform with Lion.

And he reveals his unrequited love towards Apple.

Barrett sits down to press the Lion “Install” button. The sweat drips off his forehead. He hesitates for another moment.

Close up shot of Barrett’s finger clicking the white wireless Magic Mouse. Shot cuts immediately to black, and we hear the piercing click. The final word of his blog is cut off without explanation.

And then silence.

His readers are left without resolution.

They immediately move on with their day without giving it another thought. There are a trillion more pressing problems to occupy their brain space.

But the smallest morsel of concern is left behind.
Buried deep, the struggle for technology survival at home lurks in all of us.
Finally, their tech curiosity emerges, forcing his readers to return.

Inception achieved.

And now…

Episode 2, Scene 1
We see total black for another three seconds.

Finally, the black slowly dissolves to a fuzzy white. The white starts to come into focus as the shot zooms out slowly to reveal the screen of a 27” iMac.
And we see the little logo.

Joy.

Barrett’s computer is rebooting. It takes its sweet time. An eternity.
Finally the Milky Way Galaxy appears as the desktop background.
Lion has arrived.

Roll opening credits and theme song!

After the Commercial Break
My precious iMac still has a heartbeat. I begin breathing again.

I immediately begin checking the functionality of all my software.

Word- Check.
Entourage- All there. (I know I now need to upgrade to Outlook)
QuickTime- Good.
Safari- No problem.
Aperture- All photos present and accounted for.

Final Cut Pro 7-
I look at the FCP icon. This is the moment of truth.
I wait as it loads.
And wait.

Then…
IT’S THERE!
My family history timeline. Still intact.

To celebrate, I think I might listen to a little music. Click it.
…and then… NOTHING.
Instead, an error message pops up.
“iTunes cannot open, because it was created by a newer version”

Newer version? What does that mean?!
Usually the problem is having an older version of software… not newer!
I start to panic.
My music! My videos!! OMG!

What should I do?! The room starts spinning.
Life is so fragile.

And then I remember to check Software Update to see if my new Lion needs any updates to the other programs in its kingdom.

I check Software Update and see there is indeed an update to iTunes standing by -10.6.1.(7). Plus a couple of other ‘improvements’ like a firmware update.

I immediately perform the downloads, and my iMac automatically reboots.
All good so far.
I click iTunes again and cross all my toes.

THERE IT IS!
As if nothing had ever gone wrong.
I think I hear my iMac say, “What’s the problem?”

Never mind.

I continue the functionality check and notice the batteries on my wireless Magic Trackpad are a little low. So I reach for my Magic Mouse to take over cursor control. My mouse often lies dormant, because I love my trackpad so much, and…

…NOTHING.

Here we go again.

The good news is I don’t panic again.
This is more of an inconvenience than potential disaster.
I’ve found Apple’s Bluetooth devices to sometimes act a little glitchy. It’s one of the reasons I originally bought both the mouse and trackpad. And yes, I even have an older wired mouse that serves as a triple back up. (I don’t mess around!)

I jump online and see a whole bunch of people with Lion and Magic Mouse problems. And there are multiple home remedies offered.

So I get to work.

I try re-pairing the mouse to the iMac. Nope.
I re-verify disk permissions in Disk Utility. No go.
I delete the mouse in Bluetooth and re-introduce it to my iMac. Nada.

Then I reboot my iMac and go back to Bluetooth. The mouse is still listed. Strange.
I thought I had successfully deleted it.
Should I just reconnect it? Maybe third time’s the charm?
BINGO!

Don’t ask questions. I tell myself to just move on.

While the going is good, I run Time Machine to capture all the goodness.
It is curiously a huge back up, since I ran it right before the upgrade. But I’m not sweating the small stuff.

Happy Ending
So that’s pretty much my Lion tale.
With the exception of a couple skips of my heartbeat, I’m still here.
Not so horrible.

But my adventure is just beginning…
Remember, the end game is get to iCloud. And the clock is counting down on that one. Plus, I’m planning on upgrading Office for Mac 2008 to the 2011 version, which includes Outlook. Stay tuned…

Oh yeah… and how does it feel to be running with the pride of cool current operating system users?

Apple’s newest operating system, Mountain Lion is due out this summer.
Here we go again!

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April 23, 2012

The Art of Inaction, Part 1

Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard have finally been shown the door by Apple. Lion rules. Losers get to stick out their tongues.

Some people just absolutely have to have the newest gadget. And for many of them, they go through great effort to wait on line to be among the first to own it.
(Apple products tend to generate this level of enthusiasm.)

It is a badge of honor for these new tech adopters to be on the bleeding edge of consumer tech. (if only for a few days)

Remember when your friend or colleague came in with that first iPhone a few years back? It didn’t matter that it cost $500 for the entry-level 4-gig model, or how slow it was by today’s standards.
These consumer tech trailblazers flaunted their status as near demigods, and for anyone slightly interested in technology, we marveled at their status. And we all drooled with envy. (Well, at least I did.)

Hedge Your Bets
There is an irony with this approach to buying consumer technology, because common tech wisdom says to never buy the first of anything. And you should also wait a while till new software or updates are proven to operate properly. Who really wants to be a guinea pig?

A lot of the time, new tech has glitches. And if you’re one of those who must own it immediately, you’re really not more than a canary in a cage deep in a mine.

But if there’s new OS or IOS system software available for your Mac or iPhone/iPad, some folks sprint out the door, or press the download button without thinking.
Who cares if it’s still a little buggy?

The hedge says, wait a few weeks. That’s all.

The Tao of Total Caution
But there’s another tech wisdom that lives on the completely opposite side of the spectrum of caution.
It says, don’t upgrade unless you absolutely have to.

I know some techies who live by this rule, and they do make a compelling argument. If you’re happy with your tech, why mess with a good thing?
So don’t do it.

Period.

The web is filled with horror stories from people who failed to get to the finish line with their software upgrade. And if it’s an entire operating system, that means big trouble.

Love and Fear
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m no tech slouch when it comes to computing.
I’ve got my 2-year-old iMac and iPhone 4S. My wife has the new Mac Book Pro and an iPad. I feel we’re reasonably current at home with tech.

In an early post, I confessed my inaction towards the necessary iCloud switch over.
Maybe I didn’t use the proper word, but I’ll admit to it now.

It’s fear.
I’m afraid I’m going to destroy my happy home-digital-homeostasis.
This fear has kept me in the camp of total caution.

See, it’s not only about losing MobileMe and my photo/video sharing functionality. It’s something much more critical.
I feel a very real primal threat to my precious iMac and all its contents.

I love Apple, but I don’t feel the stability of the relationship I really want. Apple has always had a focus on the next big thing, and they are a wildly successful company. Part of that success requires them to cut loose products and functionality that don’t fit into that vision.

My Leap of Faith
When MobileMe goes away in June, the only way to sync your data between devices will be through iCloud . And you’ve got to upgrade to Lion to use iCloud. That’s it. Everyone else on Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard- it was nice knowing you.

I’ve been very happy with Snow Leopard as an operating system on my
2.93 GHz Intel Core i7 iMac (That’s what it calls itself.)

There is always a risk when you upgrade to a newer operating system that not all of your software will be compatible. And there is also the risk your computer won’t reboot after the upgrade.
There are a thousand reasons why.
(Again, the web is filled with stories…)

But Lion has been out since last July, and the reviews are all positive. The vast majority of Lion users are seemingly doing just fine.

I knew I really had no choice.
So yesterday, I decided I had procrastinated quite enough.

Beyond the fear of wondering if my iMac would survive the upgrade, I was particularly concerned about one program making the transition. Final Cut Pro.

FCP X’s New Brain and Lost Heart
A few years back, I made the jump from iMovie to Final Cut Express, and then to Final Cut Pro.

My story is hardly unique, but with the new version of Final Cut Pro X, I know I can’t continue to use my current editing projects from Final Cut Pro 7.
FCP 7 is a dead platform that Apple abandoned when FCP X premiered last summer. You can’t up convert your old project files to the new platform.
(See you later, lover, and please leave your keys on the table on your way out.)

There’s been a lot of chatter on the web about how horrible FCP X is.
For now, I’ve decided not to make a decision on that dilemma.
(And no, there was never a FCP 8 or 9.
Apple skipped over those two numbers.)
The real problem I’m stressing about is whether FCP 7 works with Lion.

I know that FCP 6 and Lion don’t play together at all, but the web didn’t offer a unanimous perspective on FCP 7 and Lion. That said, my research suggested it would probably work.

Probably.

So what’s so important about preserving my ongoing editing projects on FCP 7? Two family history videos.
I’ve been working on one with my father for the past four years. (It’s amazing stuff. You all should be doing this to bridge family history detail across generations.)
And I’ve been documenting the first years of my wonderful two-year-old son.
Say no more.

How would you feel at the prospect of losing all of that?
I call that fear.

Making the Go/No-Go Decision
But I had everything backed up. As a worse case scenario, I figured I could always throw myself down at the mercy of an Apple Genius and hope my digital world could be restored.

So with the knowledge that I really had no choice, I prepped my iMac in disk utilities by verifying the integrity of my hard drive and disk permissions, did a final Time Machine backup, and then downloaded Lion from the Mac App Store.

$30 and 30 minutes later, it sat there on my desktop.
The Lion icon stared at me. I think it was angry I had waited this long.

I move the cursor with my mouse to hover over the word, ‘Install.’

I hesitated for a moment more.

And then I clicked the bu

April 18, 2012

Is It Time to Stockpile Light Bulbs?

Behold! The new award-winning LED bulb from Philips. This 21st century tech may save the world. But there’s a catch.

How many Americans does it take to screw in a light bulb?

The 133 year-old answer used to be – 1.
And that was Thomas Edison.

Not any more.
Now, the number seems to be more like 4,815,162,342.

Edison was Wrong
Thanks to The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 signed by President Bush, incandescent bulbs aren’t cutting it anymore and need to get 25% more efficient or else. As we approach Earth Day you might say that’s a good thing.

The problem is the law creates a mandatory phase out of many incandescent bulbs, beginning with the 100-watt bulb this October. The kill dates for other bulbs all the way down to 40 watts continues through 2014.

Now, the targeted bulbs can get a reprieve if manufacturers can improve their efficiency numbers, so maybe there’s no cause for alarm.

Maybe.

As far as I’m concerned, this is all pretty complicated, and I’m feeling a bit in the dark on what’s really going on. I just want the lights to work.

I’m not yet ready to hoard light bulbs in preparation for the new green Dark Age to come, but I’m not glowing either.

The $10 million Light Bulb
One bright spot in this dim tale is the news that our government also wants light bulb manufacturers to innovate. Just fixing the old filament model isn’t enough.

Also in 2007, the DOE announced their $10 million Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize (L Prize) competition to spur the development of a 60 watt equivalent LED bulb with strict standards to replace incandescents.
Philips Lighting North America was the only entrant, and after much nail biting, (drum roll please) Philips took the prize last August with their new
L Prize LED bulb.

And this weekend, the wait for consumers to illuminate their bright and efficient future is over. The L Bulb goes on sale this Sunday at retailers like Home Depot.
You might want to be the first in line, because I bet there’s going to be a stampede to snap up this new bulb of the future.

It will sip only 10 watts, last for 20 years and offer a natural, dimmable light.
Plus, there’s no mercury in it like those icky compact fluorescent bulbs.

Don’t get me started on the promise of expensive CFLs and how burned I felt after I bought into all of that hype a decade ago. (Anyone else?)

And the price tag for the new darling L Bulb?
$50

Cancel the trip to Home Depot.

I don’t care how efficient or how long lasting the bulb is.
How can $50 compete with your warm and cozy $1 incandescent?

Philips says discounts will bring prices down through sales via utility companies.

I’ll be patiently waiting.

Look, I totally understand that as a country we have to become more energy efficient.

Our old light bulb tech is bleeding energy. I get it.
So our government takes a tough stand for the greater good and eliminates a lot of standard light bulbs, as we know it.
You now need new tech to light your home or you’ll be breaking out that box of candles from your closet.
Then the government hosts a little $10 million contest. And only one player enters. And then the one winning entry costs $50.
Do you see a little problem here?

I’m just a little unsettled about how I’m going to be turning on the lights next year.

Waiting for the Light Bulb to Go Off in the DOE’s Head
The whole thing seems half-baked.
(Not that LED bulb tech isn’t cool. Wired Magazine did a great cover story on it last September.)
The timing of this tech sea change is simply too quick. Get us a bulb that can serve as an energy efficient replacement bulb that people will actually buy.

If Uncle Sam could put a man on the moon in the ‘60s, I think he can do a little more on Earth today to help keep the lights on at an affordable cost.

New tech is supposed to make your life easier. Not force you to go broke, because an update to a hundred year old technology isn’t ready for prime time.

Plus, there’s no argument here that says you can just “do without.”
This is not a nice-to-have item at home.

We’re talking about light so you can see at night.
Remember, that cool nineteenth century invention?

Aren’t you a little bit worried?

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