Tag: Mac

What should they do with the company, Michael?

The company Michael Dell said should be sold off and the money given to its shareholders is kicking his butt:

Overall customer satisfaction with the PC industry is unchanged from a year ago at 74, but changes within the industry give Apple a commanding lead. The PC maker maintains big improvements from 2003 and 2004, holding at 81 for a second year. Apple’s sales are up 33%, net income has grown 300% and its stock price has nearly tripled over the past year. A slew of product innovations and an emphasis on digital technologies and customer service have been very successful for Apple with a high degree of customer loyalty as a result.

Dell is a different story. Based on a strategy of mass customization, the #1 PC maker worldwide has been a leader in customer satisfaction for several years. This quarter, it suffers a sharp drop in ACSI, down 6% to 74. Customer service in particular has become a problem, and service quality lags not only Apple but also the rest of the industry. Customer complaints are up significantly with long wait-times and difficulties with Dell’s call-center abound. Still, competitive pricing as a result of Dell’s direct-sales business model keeps overall customer satisfaction slightly above other competitors, with the exception of Apple. Whether Dell’s declining satisfaction will have a negative impact on the company’s stock performance remains to be seen; however, ACSI history has shown that changes in customer satisfaction often signal similar changes in future financial performance. Apple’s stock price is up 35% for the year-to-date, whereas Dell’s is flat.
[Via MacInTouch, emphasis in quoted text added. –R]

DropDMG 2.7

Michael has released a new version of his disk image creation utility, DropDMG. The big, new features are disc burning and improved progress windows. Very groovy. I may have to revise my own backup procedures in light of this new release.

OS X on non-Apple Intel iron

Jon notes the challenge to get the Intel version of OS X running on non-Apple, Intel-based hardware has been met.
It will be interesting to see how this affects both Macintosh hardware and software development moving forward. It would seem that, since this is a development build of Tiger, it would be relatively easy to pull this off. I’m sure the shipping version of the first for-Intel Mac OS will have appropriate countermeasures in the code to prevent this from happening.

Gmail on Mailsmith

I finally attempted, once again, to set up POP access to my Gmail account in Mailsmith. I used all of the settings found on the Configuring other mail clients page, made sure to check “Leave Mail on Server”, and like any good technology, it all just works.

ATPM 11.08

The August issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available.
Kudos to Lee on the cover art. We were in dire need of cover art, and he stepped up big time. We are always looking for cover art, so if you are graphically inclined, and wish to contribute something, please contact us.
Speaking of contributing, we’re also looking for another copy editor, a publicity manager, and contributing editors to help us with reviews, opinion columns, how-to pieces, and interviews. We’re an all-volunteer publication, but if you’d like to help out in one of these areas, please drop us a line.
Back to the issue at hand, there has been a lot of good news coming out of Apple this past quarter, as Rob reminds us. Wes takes, well, just about everyone involved in the business world to task for underestimating and misunderstanding Apple, as well as sharing bits from all over the Mac blogosphere. Eric, my 3G iPod brother, tells his tale with the little white digital music player in this month’s Pod People.
Ted shares part two of Outlining and Styles in the latest ATPO, discussing, among other things, on-screen readability, font choices, and style sheets. Chuck continues his FileMaking series with Fields and Calculations. If you’re just getting started with FileMaker, be sure to go read his first column, too.
As Managing Editor, part of my job description is to strong-arm columns out of writers subtly hint at a possible column to staffers when they broach interesting technical subjects. Such was the case when Sylvester was having RAM issues with his new G5, and he shares his experiences with memory testing.
Tom has an interview with John Hart, Mac modder extraordinaire. Sorry, John, but I still have severe reservations about embedding my beloved Cube in the middle of a fish tank, no matter how utterly wicked cool that would be. Maybe when I get a G5 we can sacrifice the Cube to the modding gods.
This month’s desktop pictures selection is a melting pot of various submissions from ATPM readers. We thank John, James, Jim, Bill, and William for the privilege of showcasing their work. Frisky Freeware notes App Stop, which is software I’ll have to look in to. Cortland wraps up dinner with his parents and friends, Wieser Graphics rises from the ashes, and Matt pays homage to influential Web comics. Yes, that’s word-for-word from the blurb on the Welcome page and the RSS feed, but I wrote it when the blurber got stuck, so I’m using it. (Michael, take note. I have just created the official staff position of “blurber”.)
Tom and his fiancé, Tiffany, have a review of Backpack, the latest web service from 37signals. I’m really enjoying the free version so far, and my wife and I have used it to track RSVPs for the little phisch’s upcoming birthday party, sharing a page online so both of us can access it. Wes looks at Boswell 4.0, sharing how it helps him keep things straight as he writes reviews about software that helps you keep things organized, like reviews about software that help…
Then there are the reviews which make this “The Issue of Apple Portable Computing Computer Bags.” (See, this is why Michael doesn’t let me declare names for issues.) David hauls around the Brenthaven Pro 12/15, while Lawson bombs about with the MaxSleeve from MaxUpgrades. Frank Wu uses booq’s Vyper XL, and yours truly was underwhelmed with Timbuk2’s Detour.
Savvy readers may notice that Ellyn’s Candy Apple column did not appear this month. Ellyn’s taking a break from the writing gig for awhile, but she continues working tirelessly in the trenches, copy editing for the rest of us. Rest assured, when she has something to say, you’ll read it in ATPM.
Yet another solid issue from the staff. Thanks, gang!

A terabyte for less than a grand

OWC announced today it is now offering 1 Terabyte (TB) of RAID storage for $979.99. Wow.

Arlo’s revenge

What do you do when you perceive a major computer company has totally ripped off your software and tout their version as a major feature of their latest operating system?
Why, you sell out, of course.
MDJ publisher Matt Deatherage, ever the trooper, offers this bit of analysis on the MacJournals-Talk list, even though he’s laid up with an illness:

Kind of a “widget wow” moment. Anyone think there will be about six billion more new Konfabulator widgets in the next 3 months? Apple just got trumped on the “we’re making our widget format available for free to more users” strategy; now Dashboard may be the underdog in the long-term.
(Just for the record, my original notification of the sale came from Matt’s post to the list.)

Types of Windows users and I wish we’d bought a Mac Mini

Wil Shipley, in a DrunkenBlog interview:

The two types of Windows users I’ve identified at my café are:

a. I use Windows to run Word and Excel and browse the web (and read e-mail in my web browser), and
b. I’m a programmer and I spend all my time in a Windows IDE or hacking around with my system.
I’m sure there may be a third category of user out there, but this has been my observation as well. My wife and parents clearly are the first type of users, and could just as well be served on a Mac. The SuperToad falls in to the second camp; he makes his living as a Windows programmer, but he does so with a Mac on his desk as well. Plus, he’s still getting mileage out of a decrepit, original orange iBook.
Since my switch to Macintosh over a decade ago, one of the reasons we have kept a PC or two in the house was due to my wife’s work. She’s a corporate attorney, and could always work from home, if need be. After our move to Dallas, the firm she worked for here had a VPN system set up, and she could work on items in the firm’s document management system from home, just as if she was sitting in the office.
Her new employer, however, being tied in to the stock market and the myriad regulations therein regarding insider trading, etc., does not have such a system in place. You work at the office, or you work on a company-provided laptop, or you don’t work. Also, my wife’s position also is not as intensive in outside-normal-business-hours work as her former firm life was. She doesn’t need a PC at home any more.
Last year, when her old desktop PC was giving up the ghost, and I set out to build her a new one, if we had known then she was going to change jobs, I wouldn’t have bothered. I would have milked the old PC until after she moved in to her new career, then replaced it with a Mac Mini. Hindsight is always 20/20.

iChatting

Chat on iChat

iCal Day

Today is iCal Day. Like Erik, I use iCal for my scheduling needs, because right now anything else is overkill. Plus, it syncs easily with my iPod and Sony Ericsson T616.