You’re a smart guy, figure it out!

Mike Grushin’s thoughts on everything tech-related and more…

Archive for November, 2008

Firefox Vs VMware Fusion: CPU

Posted by mikeg on November 18, 2008

I probably don’t understand something, but it just doesn’t sound right:

200811180325.jpg

VMware Fusion which is running WinXP/IE6 takes up consistently less CPU than Firefox. It seems to me that “virtualization” is somewhat more complex than HTML parsing… but that’s probably just me.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection for Mac is reporting strange system specs

Posted by mikeg on November 17, 2008

I am pretty impressed with Microsoft Remote Desktop client, but it still crashes (not very often). When looking through the error report I noticed strange values.

Specifically RAM looks very much off.

200811170547.jpg

Posted in Mac | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »

Switching to Mac: Entourage 2008

Posted by mikeg on November 17, 2008

Outlook is (was) an essential tool for communication and one of the core requirements of moving to Mac is to find a suitable email client. My requirement is around connecting to Microsoft Exchange and the only option available is Microsoft Entourage.

I’ve been using it for a few days and while it is no Outlook, it is “workable”. A few things that made i found very useful to help with migration:

  • My Outlook was setup in such a way that I had 2 PST files: Archive and Personal. Archive was populated automatically by Outlook Archive functionality to make sure that I do not exceed my quota. Personal was where I kept all the emails that I needed/wanted to keep
  • Entourage does not provide built-in functionality for importing PST files (I guess it’s a way for Microsoft to discourage migrating to Mac). There are a number of ways you can find on the internet to achieve this. I decided to pay and it worked out great: Emailchemy offers a tool that imports PST files into RGE (Entourage supported archive format)
  • You point to Emailchemy to PST files (multiple if you need to) and it creates RGE file that Entourage is able ti import. Once you import it into Entourage it looks something like this:
Picture 3.png

From here you just drag the folders where you want them. I moved messages from Deleted Items/Sent Items into appropriate folders to enable Searching.

Note: I saw a mention that Entourage 2008 doesn’t have a size limit, but has a limit on a number of records in the internal database: 1,000,000. Developer explained that most emails generate 2 records, so you are looking at a limit of 500K emails. He also promised that Entourage will worn before you reach that limit.

Other things:

  • There is no Archive functionality in Entourage so I am planning to use the following product: ???
  • Under Preferences : Mail & News Preferences : Reply & Forward — choose “Place reply at top of message…” under Mail Attribution. This is more inline with how Outlook works
  • There is no built-in functionality for “permanent delete” (useful for spam or emails you don’t want to keep), but there is a script that you can add to enable this functionality. Steps are below

How to add “permanent delete” functionality:

http://nik.me/node/90

Keyboard Shortcuts

Posted in Mac, Switching to Mac | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Switching to Mac: Software

Posted by mikeg on November 13, 2008

In order to be productive you need to find “matching” software. Below is the list that worked out for me. Development Software is outlined in a separate post.

  • Outlook — Entourage 2008 (see my previous post)
  • Windows Live Writer (blogging software) — Ecto. Very capable alternative with a few nice features, but issues with multi-level bullets. All posts about “Switching to Mac” are created using Ecto
  • Remote Desktop — Microsoft developed Mac version
  • Roboform (password manager) — 1password
    • You can read reviews here
    • It is also able to import most of Roboform data
  • Evernote is available on Mac
  • SnagIt — Jing. Free product from the same vendor. Simple and handles most tasks.
  • ZoneAlarm (or any other firewall) — Little Snitch.
  • http://www.transmissionbt.com/

http://www.johnhaney.com/backdrop/

http://freelanceswitch.com/working/35-absolutely-essential-mac-apps/

http://smileonmymac.com/TextExpander/

http://osxdaily.com/2006/12/04/mainmenu-mac-maintenance-made-easy/

http://www.koingosw.com/products/macpilot.php

http://www.opendoor.com/DoorStop/

http://macrabbit.com/cssedit/

http://www.flip4mac.com/

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/think_freeverseinc.html

http://www.donelleschi.com/stickywindows/

http://iweinfuld.blogspot.com/2008/08/update-svn-on-leopard-to-play-nice-with.html

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/08/16/enhance-productivity-multiple-monitors/

http://www.usingmac.com/2007/11/21/mac-os-x-leopard-200-productivity-booster-hotkeys

http://www.naschenweng.info/2008/04/12/microsoft-project-plans-on-os-x

http://www.pocketmac.com/blackberrydownload.php

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Switching to Mac: General Annoyances

Posted by mikeg on November 13, 2008

This post will probably be updated pretty frequently as I run into issues and hopefully find solutions

  • (very high) No Alt+ accelerators which makes navigating dialogs using keyboard impossible. Very frustrating as I try to use keyboard as much as possible. This is spell check dialog and on Windows I can completely control it using keyboard

Picture 4.png

  • (low) I really like the idea of applications being packaged up as a single file, but the process of installation is not very clear (until you do it a few times). You usually download a DMG file (think of it as a “virtual hard drive” that Mac OS will mount). In most cases you will see something like this and you have to figure out that you need to drag Skype icon onto Application icon.
mac-instal-dialog-skype.png
  • These applications are handling this process much better than many others:
mac-instal-dialog-emailchemy.pngmac-instal-dialog-adium.png mac-instal-dialog-evernote.png
  • (low) No hibernate support — I found hibernate very useful when traveling and wanting to preserve all my open apps, but at the same time not waste battery in “sleep mode”
  • (very high) Completely insane selection mechanism using Shift key. Watch this first. Here is what you are seeing: I have selected “Picture 8″ and while holding down Shift Key, I use Down-Arrow key to select files below (9, 10, 11). Then I realize that I don’t need number 11 and I press Up-Arrow, but instead of deselecting 11, it selects 6. Bizarre… being a software developer things like this always make me wonder what business case they were trying to solve by implementing this behavior…
  • (very high) Delete behavior in Finder: let’s say you are looking through pictures using Quick View (Command+Y) and decide to delete one of them. Instead of jumping to the next picture (which sounds very logical to me), it jumps to the top of the folder and I have to find my place again. Very frustrating
  • (medium) Application centric window switching — probably the first “computer productivity” habit that people learn on Windows is Alt+Tab. On Mac you also have to master Command + ~ which will switch windows within the application. I am pretty good with the keyboard and I still have to remind myself that I need to use different keys, can’t imagine that this is a very clear concept for regular users.

    Finally I then discovered Witch, a utility to set up window switching in a quite flexible way. Currently I retain the Mac style application switching on Cmd+Tab, and have Witch set up to switch the windows within an application with Alt+Tab. If you want to remap Cmd+Tab to switch between all windows, then haha, you can’t, OS X doesn’t allow that, unlesss, you use another tool, called PullTab,  which in turn requires a framework called APE to be installed. With this Cmd+Tab gets available for remapping by Witch as well.

Posted in Switching to Mac | Leave a Comment »

Switching to Mac: Mac, BlackBerry, Verizon, Tethered Modem

Posted by mikeg on November 13, 2008

I pay Verizon for an option to use my BlackBerry as a modem and was very surprised that a brief google search and a phone call to Verizon data support lead me to belief that I will not be able to use this option with my new MacBook Pro. Verizon support told me that only Motorola Q is supported on Mac

At the same time I was pretty sure that I would be able to figure out as Windows uses BlackBerry as a modem by sending certain codes/strings to it. Turned out that it is easier than was expected.

After a few hours of searching forums and discussion boards there was a recommendation to install “Verizon Access Manager” that you can download for Motorola Q. That worked out great.

Here are the steps:

  1. Not sure if this is necessary for VZAM to work, but I installed PocketMac to charge my BlackBerry from USB port (explained here)
  2. Install VZAM
  3. Connect your BlackBerry
  4. Connect through VZAM

I am getting very good speeds — Skype voice calls work great and I can watch most of the videos on the web without buffering.

Posted in Switching to Mac | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Switching to Mac: Charging BlackBerry through USB port (PocketMac)

Posted by mikeg on November 13, 2008

When I travel I usually bring my laptop and with my Dell D830 I only had to bring a USB cable in order to charge my BlackBerry. I expected to do the same with with my MBP, but BlackBerry complained about “insufficient voltage”.

Turned out a pretty easy fix: download and install PocketMac. It automatically detects that BlackBerry is connected and adjust voltage on the USB port.

A few notes:

  • Think of PocketMac a Mac version of Desktop Manager
  • If you are using Exchange and over-the-air synchronization you will most likely want to disable all the synchronization features of PocketMac
    • I turned off all syncs excepts Photos and Music
  • At one point you had to pay for it, but it is free these days — looks like RIM is either sponsoring it or purchased the rights

Posted in Switching to Mac | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

IE6 “tax” — interesting point of view

Posted by mikeg on November 6, 2008

http://pingv.com/blog/laura/2008/internet-explorer-6-tax

…when you’re spending 35-50% of your theming time just trying to get a cool new design to work on one rather archaic browser, it’s no small matter.

It’s a ≈40% tax on web theming

Posted in Development, Web Development | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »

 
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.