Quick Thoughts On The Race For The White House

i cannot figure out, for the life of me, why so many people seem to dislike Hillary Clinton.  i admire her skills a great deal, and would very much like to see her in the White House specifically *because* she *is* a politician.  We need someone with her skills to dig us out of this mess George Bush and the republicans have gotten us into.  While i admire Barak Obama tremendously... my gosh, the speech he gave at the Democratic National Convention literally made my spine tingle up and down... i just don't think he can get the job done.  As much as i hate to say it, there is something to be said for someone who is "inside" the "system."  If change is what we want, then we need someone in there who actually knows how to create that change.  i just don't know how Obama thinks he is going to affect change in a system that itself is pretty rigged to be constant and unchanging--especially when he has as little experience as he does.  i have been around long enough to remember the promises made by every president in my life time regarding change... once they get inside that beltway they find that change is far more difficult to affect than they had promised.  

Barak is a fantastic speaker, and appears to be promising not only the moon, but the sun as well.  i fear that by democrats nominating him we may very well be handing the election to the republicans when he implodes under his own rhetoric and inexperience.  As much as i would like to see him in the White House at some point, this is definitely not the time for it.  i can't believe democrats would be that stupid!  Certainly, if he could keep the momentum going that he seems to have created now--which is just fucking amazing--but i just don't think he will be able to do that.  Edwards is a fucking weasel.  The guy is utterly unbearable to watch, much less listen to. i hate his affected southern working class manner of speaking and his $100.00 hair cut as he talks about the "working man" and "getting back" at those ambiguous corporations.  He is a pretty boy without much substance. Just a whole lot of hot air.  Richardson has come great ideas, i like him a great deal, but when he speaks i feel like yawning.  i like him, but he hasn't a snowballs chance in hell.

To be honest, as much as i would hate to see the democrats give the White House to the republicans for another four years (and that is exactly what the situation is--it is theirs to give) i would not be incredibly disheartened by a republican winning the '08 election.  Anyone of those guys is light years beyond and far better than what we have now, and probably far less corrupt as well.  Even Huckabee (regardless of his religious and social conservatism) has shown that he is competent at governance. i would hate to see Giuliani win.  i think that guy is scary and corrupt as hell, however--but still better than what we currently have.  i think McCain is a turncoat and have hated him ever since he became Bush's pussy-boy.  But i merely dislike him on a personal level, i think he would make a good president.  Romney--that guy... lol.  What a fucking weasel.  He would say anything to get elected--out of all of the candidates on the republican side, i think he is the absolute worst.  He IS in all respects exactly what the republicans painted Kerry as being.  While Kerry was not those things, Romney clearly is. Thompson puts me to sleep, but appears like he has some common sense at least.  Duncan Hunter is scary as hell... 

One thing is for certain... the country can't wait to get rid of the corrupt retards holding power right now.  And regardless of who wins the presidency, they are going to have to contend with a democratic congress, period.  And i am satisfied with that... tremendously satisfied.  That, in itself, may be what would, when all is said and done, make an Obama presidency quite successful in the end.

i like much of what Ron Paul says, but he appears a bit contentious to me, just as Kucinich does.  However, i would like to see them on a ticket together... i would think twice about voting for them.

i am, however, still rooting for the most experienced of the bunch, and that is Hillary.  She has spent her life honing her political philosophy and skills.  She would make as good, or better, a president as her husband did.

Verizon, Literally The Most Incompetent Corporation In America!

i was probably one of the first customers Verizon had for DSL service in my hometown of Huntington, WV.  i know i was an early beta tester for the service.  In brief, i had the service for well over six years… maybe since 1998.  However, as of December 31^st, 2007, i am no longer a Verizon customer.  During the entire time i was a Verizon DSL customer, my bill was always paid on time.  i know this because i had it automatically deducted from my credit card.  At first it was around $42.00 a month, then i believe the price for DSL dropped to $39.95 a month during the last two years i had the service.

i am now a Comcast Cable customer.  How did this happen?

i shared a house with a close friend of mine who owned the home.  When we decided to get DSL, i decided that i would pay for, however, since the phone bill was in her name, the DSL was attached to her phone number, but that portion of the bill was always automatically deducted from my credit card.  Additionally, i was the contact person for the DSL account and any time there was an issue, it was me who called Verizon to resolve it. In April 2004 i moved from the home where i had initially had DSL service to live with my partner several blocks over from where i had originally lived.

i phoned Verizon at that time and asked if they could transfer my e-mail address and the DSL account to the new residence.  My partner had DSL service at his home already, so all i really wanted to do was maintain my long held e-mail address.  When i spoke with Verizon at that time, they said that they could not transfer my e-mail address to a new account as the e-mail address would have to not be in use for six months before it could be used on a different account.  Attempts to get my partners DSL account shut down and the DSL account from my previous residence moved to the his home to replace it met with a great deal of confusion and bureaucracy from Verizon billing and tech support.  Because of this, and due to the fact that it was, i thought, crucial to maintain my long held e-mail address, we made the decision to simply pay both accounts.  In other words, my partner would not use his account excepting for the access itself.  We would connect to the service through the use of my passwords and account information. 

So, for the last three and a half years, my partner and i paid for two DSL accounts, one of which was never even used, essentially, and phone service from Verizon.  Including the phone, we paid over $120-140.00 a month for these services.  Again, these bills were never late as they were automatically deducted from our credit cards.

In early December i got a phone call from my old roommate who told me that she was selling the house where we had lived and that she was having the phone transferred to a new home.  i felt that i should do something about the DSL account, finally, so as to ensure uninterrupted access to the account.  i phoned Verizon billing, the obvious choice, to address changing the DSL account from the initial address to my current one, and to shut down the DSL account in my partners name.

That is when the nightmare began.

Verizon has an automated troubleshooting answering service.  You speak what you want to the automated voice, and it is supposed to get you to the service that you need.  It starts out by repeating back to you the phone number you are calling from, to ask you if that is the number you are calling about.  If you call the Verizon from a cell phone, it gets even that number wrong nine times out of ten.

i was transferred to billing, then to tech support, then to wireless service… in between i was connected without warning to this automated voice where i would have to start all over again.  In brief, i couldn’t seem to get a single person at Verizon to understand how to complete my request, or to get me to someone who could complete my request.

i was on the phone with Verizon for well over three hours in attempts to resolve the issue.  This is no exaggeration.  My cell phone counts the minutes i am on a call.

i had to repeat my request to every customer service representative to whom i was transferred, only to be transferred again… and typically, i was not transferred to an actual person, but rather to the automated voice… to start all over again, with only the department i was supposed to speak to given to me by the previous rep.

After the first three hours of this mess, i was finally told that i needed to speak to my local Verizon Company who handled transferal of services and disconnections.  So, i was again transferred.  Finally i thought i was going to get what i needed and all would be well.  The customer service representative who i spoke with from my local company appeared to totally understand my request.  However, she said before she could disconnect the service to my residence, she would need to speak with my partner in whose name the other DSL account that we wanted totally disconnected was in.  She attempted to contact him at work, but to no avail.  With her still on hold, i actually got into my vehicle and drove to his place of work, where he then waited for Verizon to call him.  Before i knew it, i was transferred to some Verizon office in Georgia.

Finally, completely exasperated at this point, i phoned back.  Speaking to a Ms. Exum, i related that either the situation be fixed, or we would drop all services with Verizon.  Ms Exum seemed to understand what to do and promised to have the problem fixed.  She said that a Ms. Nicols would phone me on 12/12/07 to confirm that the account had been transferred correctly.  i was given the confirmation number of 175176139.  Ms. Nicols was to phone me between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. on the 12^th. 

The phone call never came.

Now i was furious.

i phoned later that day and detailed my problems to the tech support person.  This call took over 45 minutes, as i was transferred from rep to rep, automated voice to automated voice.  Each time, i had to repeat my request in full again and again.  Finally i told them to “fuck it!” i ordered Comcast Digital Cable on 12/12/07.  Total cost for cable television and Internet access:  $66.00 for the first year, thereafter, $100.00.  In addition, i would receive a free cable modem and router. An overall savings if you ask me. They related that the cable service would be installed on December 21^st, 2007.

Later that evening, i called and made the request that they close the DSL account effective 12/31/2007.  For the termination, i received the confirmation number of 175366444.  Directly after the call, i changed the e-mail address to all the sites that i had accounts with over the years under my Verizon e-mail account.  i sent e-mails to all my friends telling them of my new e-mail address.  i attempted to change my credit card on the Verizon site so that the account would not be billed to it any longer, but the site would not allow me to do so unless is substituted some other payment option.  So, i called my credit card company and reported my credit card lost.  That’ll fix’em.  So, the only thing left to change now, is my business cards…

Luckily, i had spent the tedious hours changing the e-mail address immediately that night.  On December 13^th, i awoke to find that i did not have any access to the Internet.  i had been very clear with Verizon that Internet access was crucial to my livelihood, as i receive and send information related to my job over the internet on a daily basis.  i phoned Verizon again.  Again i was on the phone with them for over 45 minutes.  By the end of the call i was promised that my internet access would be reconnected by 12/18/07… as once it was turned off, it would take three days for them to reconnect it.  Irritated, but being as there was little i could do, i acquiesced.  i knew, bottom line, that cable access would be installed by 12/31/07.

i waited patiently.  But, come the 18^th, guess what?  No connectivity.  Calling Verizon back, and again, after being transferred from one rep to automated voice to another rep… eating up another hour of cell phone service, i finally told them that i couldn’t believe how utterly incompetent the company was and that not only would they be losing two internet accounts, but we would also disconnect our phone service with them as of December ’07 as well.

The cable guy came at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 21^st, 2007 and installed everything.  Speed is comparable to DSL.  When i call Comcast, i speak directly to a customer service representative who addresses my problem competently. 

My partner and i will not be paying any further Verizon bills.  They have utterly, and completely lost our service forever.

i write this out of complete and utter astonishment that a company blithely allowed one of their best customers, (for what is a “best customer” if not one who paid regularly for a service for over seven years?),  to go to their direct competition.  i am astonished that a company as technologically savvy as Verizon does not have a system in place whereby more expert customer service can be delivered.  i am astonished that the left hand of the company does not know what the right hand is doing.  Had this company invested in a simple computer system that allowed representatives to detail phone conversations with customers, then i would not have had to repeatedly retell my story to each rep i spoke with.  Furthermore, the reps would have known what i was calling about, and would have resolved my issue less painfully.  The company is fragmented into so many disparate cells that there is no way they can deliver the services they offer competently.

All i wanted was to simply close one account and replace it with another so that i could keep an e-mail account that they were too SNAFU oriented to be able to provide seamlessly in the first place.  

Over the course of three and a half years, Verizon made $6, 300.00 from my household, at minimum.  $1, 800.00 a year.  Because of their incompetence, Comcast will now make just a little under that from us.

i sincerely worry for the business of this country when it is clear that our corporations operate so inefficiently.   

My Building Frustrations With Apple Computer, Inc.

i have not really written a blog before... so who knows if i will keep this up.  But, i have had the idea lately of sharing a few of the things that pass through my mind.  So, periodically, i will do just that.

 

Today it is Apple Computer, Inc.

 

Writing negatively about Apple is just not done.  We Apple users tend to be incredibly loyal to a fault.  We do not abide negative criticism of our god.  i, myself, have responded harshly to some slob writing about the Mac as if they actually knew what they were talking about, when it was clear their only purpose was in trashing the platform in favor of that convoluted OS churned out in Redmond.  We Mac users tend to anthropomorphize our computers far more than WinTel users tend to.  So, if our Mac is criticized it is akin to saying something bad about our dearest loved one.

 

On the other hand, Apple should be criticized more often.  While the company may enjoy tremendously high brand loyalty, the company needs to know that they need to keep up their end of the bargain.  They need to continue to make the best product for us to continue to be loyal to.  And they need to back that product up with the best customer support available.  One could certainly argue that we PAY for it. Although i may keep the Mac's that i purchase longer... even if they are buried deep within some closet, i have found that i tend to purchase a new Mac on the same three to five year cycle that i would purchase a PC.  And regardless of all the number crunching hype and argumentative articles to the contrary you may find out there... i will pay almost a thousand dollars MORE for my Mac than what i would pay for a PC.  Of course, i think PC's are shit, so i wouldn't waste my money.  But, the reality is still there.  In fact, everyone that i speak to about the potential purchase of a Mac, it is the price tag that always comes up as the decisive factor (another irritant, but that is not the purpose of today's rant).

 

Of course there are many arguments to be made about devoting ones money to quality rather than... well... cheap headaches... but the fact remains.  Unless i go for Apple's bottom line Mac Mini (around $600.00--and a very good buy, by the way) i will spend twice as much for the advantage of owning a Mac than i would pay for a PC.  i can go to Dell and get a laptop for the price of the Mac Mini.  The Mac mini does not even come with a keyboard, a monitor, or a mouse... Even the iBook is what, base $1100.00? At Dell you can get one for $500.00.

 

i recently purchased a new Mac Pro.  Total cost?  Close to $6,000.00.  i love it.  And, it is true the machine is tricked out.  Of course, i purchased most of the additional features from other sources as Apple charges a premium for those as well.  Check out the ridiculous price they are charging for RAM, or even their hard drives and compare those against the going prices.  You will pay twice, and in some instances practically three times as much for the same from Apple.

 

i digress.  Back to the Apple product itself.

 

i have an iBook, a Power Mac G4, and a Mac Pro.  i also have an iPhone.  i love them all.  They have, for the most part proven themselves quite dependable, and i have considered them well worth the investment.  Prior to this, i have had a Motorola Clone, a Power Mac G3, two Special Edition Clam Shell iBooks... well... hopefully you get the picture.  i am a Mac Zealot.  i am one of Apple's loyal customers. And i think it is about time for Apple to start listening to its base.  We are not idiots.  So it is about time for Apple to STOP treating us as if we were.  If they are going to charge a premium price, then they need to give us a damned premium product.  Right now, i am more than a little disappointed in Apple.

 

Here's why...

 

Firstly, let's take the iPhone—A beautiful product.  i love mine.  i also paid $600.00 for it about a month before they decided to drop the price by $200.00.  Afterward, Steve Jobs was gracious enough to give us morons who fell for the hype and went rushing out to buy the thing a $100.00 credit at, guess where?  Yeah, the "Apple Store."  Well... that was better than nothing i guess.  But, the RIGHT thing to do would have been, A.) Sell the damn thing for $400.00 to begin with, or B.) Give a refund, in cash, to those of us who purchased the phone at the original price.  If Apple chose to go the path it did, which was to refund us through the "Apple Store,” then they should have done something along the lines of offering us either $100.00 in cash back, or the full amount of the over charge (and it was an OVERCHARGE) at their store.

 

Apple is kind of like the stereotype of the average liberal.  They prefer total control.  They not only want to tell you what to do and how to do it, but how you should think as well.  (No, i am not some frothing republican (ugh!), and this is not a political rant, so don't get yer knickers in a twist).  But Apple, unlike Google, apparently, refuses to allow anyone else to create additions to the iPhone by way of applications.  Of course, they have said they will do this next year, but come on.  Look at how they are turning thousands of iPhones intobricks because people are trying to do what the overly expensive phone should have been able to do in the first damn place! No, they want to tell you what you can and can't do on the phone and how you can do it.

 

Why can't my iPhone read a text or PDF file just straight up rather than having to read it ONLY through the web browser?  Why can't i download something from the Internet onto my iPhone?  Why doesn't my iPhone have the same capacity as my iPod (yes, i have one of those too!), which is the ability to act as a hard drive so that i can transport files on it?  Why is there not the capacity to store documents on the phone and an application to read the documents outside of a web browser?  How damn difficult is this?  And if they are not going to do it, what is their hang up with allowing someone else to do so?

 

Then there is the iTunes Store.  Apple says they have to build DRM into the songs.  Even their DRM "free" songs have YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION stored in them for ALL THE WORLD to SEE. i have noticed that when i burn the songs i purchase from iTunes onto a CD (which i then re-import into iTunes so they are not DRM) the volume is far lower than any of my other songs (i like to make compilation albums to listen to in my car). Then, if you want, of course, you can purchase songs at higher bit rates than 128k and DRM free.  But there again, Apple charges a premium price.  For what?  i have pretty much given up on the iTunes store.  i get all my tunes from Amazon.com now.  And so should YOU.  They are not DRM, they are higher than 128k, and there are many songs that are much cheaper than $0.99!  And, they have quite a good selection going for them... The album covers are there as well.  Apple needs to wake the hell up on this as it is surely an issue that could come right around and take a bite out of the ole' Apple.  The iPod might be great, but i don't need tunes from the iTunes store to use it. And if i did, guess what, i wouldn't have one, would you?

 

Then there is customer service.  A few years ago i purchased a Power Mac G4.  It was the "Mirrored Drive Door Bay" model, AKA, "The Wind Tunnel."  It sounded like a 747 landing near my workspace!  "Loud" hardly even described this computer.  i had so attenuated to this monster that i had actually forgotten just how loud this thing was until i got my new, oh so quiet, Mac Pro.  i can literally hear the G4 several rooms away when it is on. 

 

i digress again.  The above issue aside, i remember when i purchased the G4 how happy i was that i had not purchased it from the Apple Store, but had bought it from Mac Zone instead. Why? Well, in addition to the horrendous noise issue, the G4's also had the flaw of overheating. i have owned a multitude of Mac's. Since OS X came along they rarely crash. If you have a constantly crashing Mac with Kernel Panic's you can pretty much bet your booty that it is due to a hardware issue. Surely software can crash OS X (yes, even OS X crashes occasionally), but if the Mac has Kernel Panics, this is most assuredly a hardware issue.  i am certain there are tech heads out there who would argue this point.  Let them. All i can say is that in the entirety of my experience with every OS X capable Mac i have had, and every OS X capable Mac i have come across that anyone else has had, this has in every single instance proved to be the case.

 

So what is my point? Well, my point is that when i phoned Mac Zone to inform that that i had a faulty computer (out of the box it continuously had Kernel Panics) and wanted a new one sent out to me, they wanted, instead, to repair it. Now i ask you. You spend three thousand dollars on something and when you get it, the product does not work according to the way it is supposed to. Do you want a refurbished product in its place? Or do you want a new product that works the way it is supposed to work? After all, if the refurbished product is good enough for you, then why the hell pay full price for it? Why not save several hundred dollars and buy the refurbished product straight up? This is not to mention the amount of time that it would take for the computer to be shipped back, worked on, and sent back to me: Two weeks, minimum. No one has ever used my name in connection with patience. Ever. So despite the refurbished issue, the weeks of waiting for it to be fixed before i even get to use it is a deal breaker!

 

So you might be thinking that my issue should be with Mac Zone rather than Apple. Well, wrong. This is not Mac Zone's policy, but Apple's policy. Apple repairs. They do not send out new. Needless to say, after a great deal of cajoling, i was able to get Mac Zone to replace the defective computer, something Apple Computer would never have done.

 

So, after getting my Mac Pro i noticed that i consistently experienced cross linked files and other hard drive malfunctions. Every time i called Apple they told me to "reformat the hard drive and reinstall the OS. But then the issue was occurring every other week. Finally, i figured it out. The hard drive was failing. So, i called Apple.

 

The first customer support representative (the Jerk) hung up on me before i got three words out of my mouth… this after being on hold for fifteen minutes to even speak to the Jerk. The Jerk did not even call me back. So, i had to wait, on hold, again for fifteen minutes to speak to another guy. This time, i got one with that all too familiar, but hardly understandable, Hindustani accent—obviously their call center in India was not as busy as the one in the States that night.

 

He started out with the same line i had heard before about reformatting and reinstalling the OS. It took another fifteen minutes for me to convince him that this was not working. It took another hour (on my iPhone cell phone bill, btw) to convince him to send me out another hard drive. Half of that time was devoted to trying to convince him that, yes, like any five year old, i could slide the hard drive into the slot of my Mac Pro and did not need to transport my computer over an hour away to have a "technician" do it for me. Of course, this is not to mention that before the guy even began to address my issue, he tried to sell me "Apple Care." Now recognize what i am saying. Before he even addressed and even attempted to resolve my issue, he was trying to sell me another product! i completely lost it. Poor guy. Certainly there is nothing wrong with Apple making a sales pitch. But, surely the apropos time to do so would be AFTER resolving my issue!The issue that was keeping me from using my computer to begin with and from doing real work.  You know, the work that allows me to buy more Apple products!

 

So, finally, after over an hour (not kidding, i have the phone bill!) to simply convince Apple to send me a new hard drive, (i think the guy had to call Steve Jobs at home that night to get it to happen), i then had to wait another two weeks for the thing to actually arrive! The customer support rep. had told me that it would be at my home within three days after taking my credit card number to ensure that i would not keep the defective hard drive (the cost of keeping the defective 500 GB hard drive? $477.00—go to newegg.com and price an internal 500 GB hard drive by Seagate or Western Digital please…) When the drive had not arrived within the promised three days, i called Apple. The representative told me that my hard drive was on hold waiting for me to send them my defective hard drive! Go figure! Apparently, communication between call systems in this technologically savvy company is not what we would be led to believe. After being transferred to another rep., i was finally told that the hard drive would be sent out the next day. After all, that was why they had taken my Discover Card number, wasn't it?

 

When did the drive actually arrive? Two weeks after my initial call. To me this was very telling. This is how much Apple cares about its LOYAL customer base. This is how much Apple cares for the people who bought their product when the company was at $7.00 a share (or lower)! i use my computer for work. Without a functioning, stable hard drive, my work cannot be done.

 

So then, there is Leopard.

 

How many negative articles have you read about Leopard? It is almost as if each article written on Apple's new OS was authored by the same robot. And each article goes on and on about how damn great the OS is—how shiny, how fast, how revolutionary and easier to use…

 

Bullshit. It is all bullshit.

 

Is it faster? Well… perhaps if you run it through some statistical benchmarking program it will prove itself to be. But as an every day user does my OS actually seem faster?   Hardly.    But, really, who cares.    My computer is pretty fast as it is.    The thing needs more RAM that is for certain.

 

Is it shiny?    Well, Leopard is proof that beauty is only skin deep.    So what if the finder is translucent.    i prefer a nice black interface—Something completely soft on my eyes.   That is why i have used Unsanity's Shapeshifter (now broken under Leopard).    The cover flow view?    Yes, pretty.    But, again, hardly really useful and only one layer deep.    Click on a folder in cover flow view and you have the same old ugly finder file system glaring back at you.    Well… actually, that is not entirely true.    You have to move, yes, move, the finder window with the pretty cover flow out of the way to get to the folder that was opened.    Why?    Well, because it opensbehind it.    Yes, that is right.    You click on a folder and the folder information appears BEHIND the folder it is in.    Really useful, huh?    Very easy, right?  About as useful as a fish to the head!

 

Then there is the fact that every single folder has an atrocious pane containing every drive, folders Apple finds useful, etc., on your system within it (yes, just like in Windows).    Like Windows is what i want my OS to emulate?    This makes every single folder window that you open take up far more screen real estate then it should, not to mention, it is uglier than HELL.

 

Regardless of whether you change the background color of your folder window, you cannot change the color of this ugly pane.  You can't get rid of it.   In the previous OS 10.4, the user could merely click twice on the divider bar and this ugly pane would disappear.    Now, there is no way to rid oneself of it unless one collapses the entire menu button bar of the folder window, thus getting rid of the really useful options it contains. Then, even if this is done, the pane has an irritating way of reappearing, again and again.   So, the problem with Apple comes down to one of control.    Rather than allow the user to define their computing experience based on their habits and tastes, Apple thinks it knows best for how i should work, and how the space in which i work should look.

 

Nothing reveals this better than the "Downloads" folder.    Now i ask you, what complete moron does not know how to create a folder and then direct Safari or any other web browser for that matter, to download files into that folder?    i have done this since OS 8 (and before, i think).    Yet, this is a feature?   Please.    It is a "feature" that supposes that we are blithering idiots!    And, it places all our downloads into our home documents folder. i preferred to keep my downloads on a separate hard drive just in case i downloaded something nasty... you know, like a virus? But, who cares.    So they want to create their own "Download" folder.    Fine.  i can still create my own "Download" folder where ever i want to... i guess until the next OS comes along at least.

 

But then this dummied down    is taken to an entirely new level with another much-applauded feature: "Stacks."    Is it pretty?    Yes.    It is pretty.    Is it useful?    Like a blithering fish to the head!    Stacks actually remove a feature, puts on a glossy face, and calls itself "enhanced."    This is another word for "Bullshit," by the way.

 

See, before "Stacks" came along, the user could pull a folder, the hard drive… anything they wanted to the Dock and access what was inside that folder, and subsequent sub-folders, by way of navigating through them to reach that specific file you wanted without actually opening all the previous folders.   Now, with the advent of "Stacks," you can only go one layer deep.

  

Then, you have to navigate through each sub-folder, one by one, to get to the file you want.    What moron at Cupertino thought this was an enhancement?    Sure, make things pretty, make things pop out, scroll, blah, blah… but don't take away tried and true features to do so!    And if you MUST do this, at least leave the user with the capacity to turn your "feature" off!

 

Then there is Time Machine.    A great idea, but really, is this the best Apple can do?    Here is a program that you can tell what you do not want it to do, but hardly what you want it to do.    You can tell it not to back up certain folders or hard drives, but you can't tell it to watch a specific folder and back that up.    Doesn't Apple know that you get more by advancing what you can do rather than what you can't?    Why can't i tell the program to simply back up my system, and there after back up any changes made to that system, and to watch specific folders to back up what is in them?    What i mean by this is that i have four hard drives on my Mac.    One hard drive is allocated almost purely to Mp3's.    However, after backing up the system, and a secondary hard drive, and then the Mp3's, the program fails in any attempt to make further back up's because there is not space on the drive for a full and complete back up of all files again… like this is necessary?   Once it is backed up, certainly a remaining 370 GB is surely enough to back up any files that are changed.    But the program is not smart enough for that.

 

 

Then, there are the bugs... such as the utter implosion of Windows XP after updating to Leopard's Boot Camp due to the "hal.dll" error.  (Boy, was this a time when the Beta software was far better than the Final). And mail continuously asking for the same password again and again to check e-mail if you leave the program open in the background, or addresses losing their search capacity in Address Book... the newly found and rather significant issue where data can be lost when trying to back up over a network... And we waited three additional months for this?!!!

 

So there you have it.    i could go on, but i have hit on what i believe are my most salient irritations at Apple in the moment. The company is beginning to play to the lowest common dynamometer. Mediocrity is beginning to reign supreme once again in computer land. Do i have to switch to a WinTel PC so that i can have options that are useful rather than forcing me to interface with my computer from the perspective of a two year old? i continue to be a loyal Mac Zealot. But there is a huge difference between "ease of use" and making a product so limited and dumbed down that only a fucking moron can find use for it.    Granted, one of the downfalls of Windows is its myriad of useless options.    But, i am not talking about useless options here.    i'm talking about usability and keeping the options we have had for years.    i'm talking about leaving features alone, or if they must be fiddled with, at least actuallyenhance them rather than put a glossy finish on them and take away truly useful features.    i'm talking about freedom and liberty.    i'm talking about being able to think and do for myself without having some smart ass trying to tell me they know what is best for me and over charging me to do it.    i want a stable OS that is transparent and allows me to workthe way i want to work.   i mean, what's next at Apple, a "Registry"?  i want an OS that moves out of my way and allows me to work.    Leopard is a step in the wrong direction… it is an OS that gets in the way, that stifles the creative workflow rather than enhances it.

 

This, i fear, is what is becoming of Apple today.    It needs to pull its head out of the clouds and get back to reality.    It needs to stop trying to tell the rest of us how to think and start to actually "Think Different" like the majority of its loyal user base already does. Thinking Different is not trying to emulate your competition—We don't use Window's because there is OS X.    If OS X is just trying to be Windows then why the hell bother? After all, we could just all save a bundle of money and just go straight for the crap straight out of the gate if that is to be the case.    At least then we know we are overpaying for what we are getting without any hopes to the contrary.   Right?