The Pain in the Net

Is anyone else as sick of Apple dicking around with the FireWire ports on laptops ?

• I had a 17″ powerbook - it had FW400 and FW800
• I had a 15″ original MBP - it had only FW400
• I also have a MBP Unibody - it has only FW800 in a weird non-standard socket!

How many f’ing cables can you carry around …

Now my problem is that I simply cannot buy a cable for my Unibody … none in stock even at Apple stores. Hard to get and snapped up by other people like me. I have plenty of FW800-400 cables but not with the weird little FW800 plug.

Apple, FFS stop pissing around, pick a damn plug and standardise …. or include an adapter.

Lately all I seem to do is bitch at Apple, I really don’t want to but “real world” product use seem to have departed their product development and testing regime. Guys, the hardware is priced at a premium - it should not be this damned hard!

Grunt!

written by Pain Man \\ tags: Apple, Apple Stores, Bitch, Cables, Firewire Ports, Grunt, Hardware, Ing, Laptops, Mbp, Pissing, Powerbook, Rant, Real World, Regime, Stock, Weird

Please save yourself the trouble and DO NOT purchase this crap!

It’s selling point is that you can synch tasks - a big glaring missing feature on the iPhone, however be warned that Missing Sync does this in one of the most ham-fisted and annoyingly useless ways possible.

You sync Tasks via a manual process that requires both iPhone and target Mac to be on the same WiFi network. When you open the iPhone Tasks app it automatically starts trying to sync over the air ….

All your other apps sync via iTunes as per normal! So you get two sync processes using two different mechanisms. One of which is manual and unintuitive - think about it …

if you are NEAR your mac you would manage tasks in iCal/Mail. So the only time you are likely to open the iPhone Tasks app is when you are away from your mac … and then it WILL NOT sync!

This is absolutely useless.

Also the tasks application is an example of clunky, hard to use and non-standard UI.

Forget it.

written by Pain Man \\ tags: Apps, Crap, Iphone, iPhone 3G, Itunes, Mac, Mail, Mechanisms, Missing Sync, Rant, Target

Steve Job’s goes on sick leave and Apple’s designers put their heads up their asses.

Look at the crap they just announced at the WWDC!

• Mac Book Pro 13″ and 15″ lose the ExpressCard slot! Oh well there goes everyone’s mobile data cards … coincidental that they have enabled tethering on the iPhone? Bad luck for North Americans where tethering is disabled, or for people who have spent hundreds on ExpressCard modems! Oh you do get an SD card to read from your camera though - wow as if USB and FireWire were not enough!
• MacBooks and MacBook Pros join the Air in having a non-removable “built in” battery that is promised to be “better”. Just like the “great batteries” in existing MacBook Pros that struggle to get 2.5hrs with the best settings? Oh well bad luck mobile users, Apple is saving a few dollars on batter removability, and you will get what you get

If this is a taste of things to come when Job’s is really gone, then heaven help us.

These secretive, dictatorial twits need a reality lesson! Wake up and actually use your products!

I will NOT be buying any of these new laptops (and I go through laptops like sox - I have 2 x MBP, 1 x MB and 1 x PB).

Disgusted!

written by Pain Man \\ tags: Apple, Asses, Bad Luck, Batteries, Crap, Data Cards, Expresscard Slot, Firewire, Iphone, Laptops, Mac Book, Macbook, Mbp, Mobile Data, Mobile Users, Modems, Rant, Sd Card, Sick Leave, Steve Job, Steve Jobs, Twits, Wwdc

I’m having an “Apple moment” in trying to print to a printer shared by my sister’s iMac. This problem has been ongoing for ages, but today I finally decided to sort the damned thing out once and for all.

I mean printing and all is such a technical challenge for any Operating System vendor, and network printing is even more challenging.

The problem is simple. Here’s the config basics:

• Both the iMac and my MacBook Pro are running Leopard 10.5.6.
• The iMac is sharing a Canon Pixma MP520 on USB with the latest drivers, and
• my MBP also has the same drivers installed locally.
• The printer works perfectly locally on the iMac.
• The systems are connected via Airport WiFi using std private IP via DHCP - all is good.

The problem description is equally straightforward …

Whenever I try to access the printer via the network, I can see it shared via BonJour and I can connect to it and specify the driver. However when I try to print using the printer, I see the job being submitted locally and it stays on “printing” until it times out with the following IDIOTIC and equally useless error message:

Apple have surpassed themselves with this one! How pathetic can you get? It is impossible to diagnose or fix system errors without meaningful system messages.

In the meantime I will continue to try to sort this problem, flying blind as usual.

written by Pain Man \\ tags: 311, Apple, Canon, Canon Pixma, Config Basics, Dhcp, Error Message, Error Number, Flying Blind, Imac, Job, Mbp, Message Error, Nbsp, Network Printing, Operating System, Private Ip, Problem Description, Rant, Rror, System Message, System Messages, System Vendor, Technical Challenge

I’ve been a dedicated user of Netgear’s products for years.And I’ve noticed that the quality of the products and the support they offer has steadily declined.

Well today it finally reached boiling point. I’ve been trying to trackdown some intermittent VPN problems, and I wanted to use the log files for information. Anyone who’s tried to configure logs on a Netgear product will be familiar with the “next to useless” log viewer built-in to the web admin client - you can only see 6 or so lines, and the width is never sufficient to see the whole entry.

So my plan was to just have the router export and mail me the log files hourly.

Ah but not on the Netgear! The standard and un-editable Inbound Rule has logging set to “on”. You cannot change this rule, or delete it. Nor can you add a prior rule one and ANY to ANY basis - you are forced to specify a unique target host IP, and define each service.

The result is that the Netgear churns through the log file cache in a matter of minutes - and each time the log is full, it forces an email to purge the cache. Net result? Your email box gets 300+ emails per hour! Great Idea Netgear!

So I’ve decided to dump both my FVS318v3 routers, as well as my DG834 modem and several Netgear gigabit switches. I’m going to replace them with a Cisco PIX front end, and a Cisco managed Gigabit switch. It will cost me a lot more but (a) it will actually work and (b) not drive me mad with useless/incomplete documentation.

Netgear = CRAP. Avoid it like the plague!

written by Pain Man \\ tags: Boiling Point, Cisco, Cisco Pix, Crap, Editable, Email, Gigabit Switches, Host Ip, Incomplete Documentation, Logs, Lot, Matter Of Minutes, Modem, Netgear Product, Plague, Pos, Rant, Target Host, Trackdown, Vpn Problems, Web Admin