Suffice it to say it was incredible.  Using just my external hard drive, it read my backup, asked me what I wanted to restore (it found 4 things: Users, Network Settings, Applications, and “Files and Folders”).  I checked them all.  After a few simple questions, it told me that it would take just shy of 4 hours to complete.   Surprisingly, it was done a scant 150 minutes later.  When I booted up, I was amazed. Not only did everything come over, it was almost as if it was my exact machine.  Barely a noticeable difference, save speed and size.  

A few things slipped by, for example, I had changed /System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg to a custom image, which it did not preserve.  I had changed some system icons, and those new icons did not preseve, but, for example, my external time machine drive had a custom icon, and it did remain.  The new install also required many updates I had already applied to my old OS X installation. 

Time Machine Restore: Incroyable!

All in all, though, I’ve never seen a smoother or faster migration.  The power of UNIX - everything living in predictable directories and segregated into “Library” folders, means that both backing up and restoring have a power that the Windows Registry simply can’t match.  In fact, in wading through all of this, it has a severe handicap when it comes to system migration due to the fact that data is mashed into so many inconsistent places.  

Apple has pissed me off quite a bit recently.  But - oh boy! - did they re-energize me with this one!

Update: worth noting, here is a great article on restoring from a time machine backup.

It was actually hosted on whitehouse.gov, so this is not a Photoshop.  How did someone convince them this was for real?

Howard Stern

Apple needs to stop dicking around with these updates. Stop adding in things that are completely superfluous, and focus on the core functions: phone, SMS, email. Give us individual SMS timestamps and deleting, a unified email inbox, lock screen email notifications, more reliable email fetch, user profiles (for sounds and network settings), etc.

CrzyCanuck72, on forums.macrumors.com, discussing iPhone firmware version 2.2

But Apple offers no phone support for MobileMe.    When you dial and tell the comoputer you want to discuss “Mobile Me”, it says “Our support is now available online at me.com/help.  Thank you.  Goodbye.”  Then it promptly hangs up on you.  Fail. 

My solution? Call and just ram through any menu prompt until I get to an operator and force them to help me.  Apple support is generally pretty decent, but aside from the fact that Mobile Me is priced about 5 times too high, they have the audacity to provide no real manner of support other than the massively un-realtime web.  

Boo, Apple, boo!  You’ve let me down a lot recently.  I hope my new iMac makes me happy, or it may be my last Apple product (for awhile, at least).

I should start by saying that MMS, or lack thereof, is the one things that bugs the crap out of me on the iPhone.  I’ve detailed before how useless and silly viewmymessage.com is. I can’t believe it’s not even something that can be accessed via a clicked URL.   But I don’t think the iPhone will ever have true MMS.  If Steve Jobs wanted MMS on the iPhone, it would be here by now.  No, they are phasing it out, which is arguably good in the long run, but at the expense of its usefulness today.  I don’t mind paying the extra few pennies each month for MMS.  Even just to receive the messages, but not send them.  But stop making the decision for me. 

I hate to say that the iPhone, a device that literally converted me from a mobile phone carrier to a smart phone carrier, as someone who sold more of these puppies in the last year than most Apple employees, is doing more to turn me off to Apple than anything else.  The iPhone and AppleTV both have let me down.  A lot.  So much so that even though I recently bought a new iMac (the 24″), I considered a nice new PC at a fraction of the cost, as prep for Windows 7, which looks to be really cool.  

Apple’s arrogance and inability to listen to its customers didn’t matter nearly as much when they were a tiny niche company.  But they play in the big leagues now, and I suspect that now that they have serious market share in the laptop and education market, they will find a mass defection in a few years as people start to get wise to their control tactics.  

I find the new iPhone firmware, even before I get my hands on it, a let down.  My iPhone can’t do what phones from 3 years before the iPhone existed does without sweating.   If Apple doesn’t start delivering, I suspect that the odds are very high that by the end of 2010 I’ll be carry an Android powered phone.

"Nom Nom Nom"

Tell me, little bunny… is there anything a good oatmeal cookie can’t cure?

• If your candidate wins, you are alloted 60 days or until the next major holiday to leave a bumper sticker on your car. You are allowed 5 days for lawn signs.
• If you candidate loses, you are permitted a mere 48 hours to get the signs out of the ground, and just a scad longer at 72 hours to get the bumper stickers off, unless it’s a weekend sooner, in which case, by Saturday.

I think you look like an idiot with campaign stickers on your car any more than 3 months after an election. I still see people with “W 04″ stickers on their car. Aside from the fact that I can’t believe there are actually people who think that this country is better off than in 2004, I think it looks so tacky to leave them on your auto. I saw a car the other day that had a “Clinton/Gore ‘96″ sticker on it - I swear. I couldn’t believe it.

So, please, do us all a favor: if you’ve got lawn signs in the ground, go ahead and remove them this weekend. If you were a McCain/Palin supporter, please remove your bumper stickers tomorrow, the 8th. If you were an Obama/Biden backer who adorned your car, congratulations, go ahead and celebrate until, say, Thanksgiving. But please, don’t let us catch you with those stickers after New Years, okay?

President Elect Obama

America chose HOPE over HATE.  As rabid Sarah Palin supporters chanted “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!”, Obama calming chided us to be above the name calling.  As Obama painted a picture of peace, neighborly goodwill, and hope, the opposing candidates painted a picture of war, terror, hate, and fear.  They spoke about Obama instead of what their actual plan was.  They spoke about Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright instead of about the issues.  They tried to convice us that Obama is anti-American and that he “pals around with terrorists.”  But it failed.  And their lies and hate became their downfall, as America promptly told them “Yes we can!” 

America chose PEACE over WAR.  Both literally, as we gaze towards Iraq and Afghanistan, but also as we realize that Obama’s television ads - at least here in Florida - were all about repairing the US and what Obama would do about it, while the McCain/Palin ads were almost exclusively negative ads about Obama.   I still know nothing about Sarah Palin other than the pre-packaged crap they wove together for the convention and what we pieced together from her string of embrassing interviews.

America chose COURAGE over FEAR.  Because, although right-wing brainwashers will try to convince you that wanting peace is weak, it takes a much bigger man to say it’s time to end the war in the name of security and bounty for our nation.  Because the enemy you know is always safer than the enemy you don’t.  Because while the Bush administration tried to scare you in conformity and constantly glancing over your shoulder, we know better.  We know that fear will destory us.  

And best of all, America chose HONOR over all else.  It’s no secret that the USA is now hated in many areas across the world.  And frankly, I began to believe that our best days were indeed behind us as we embarked on an impossible mission to “spread democracy,” themed by pre-emptive strike and racial profiling.   But the US is a powerful entity, and we’re not only aiming to reclaim our spot of the #1 place in the world, but also to inspire.   To give people faith. 

We’ve elected a leader who has, I think most will agree, has led one of the most faith-inspiring campaigns in history.  Whether you like his policies or not, he spoke to all Americans and asked them to have a little faith as we seek to rebuild over divided union.  There’s little doubt that his campaign of hope has been incredibly effective and resonated with people who have never voted in their lives. 

I believe Obama will change the world in unbelievable ways.  I believe that we have a charismatic leader the likes of which we haven’t seen since JFK.  I believe the US is ready to put aside the hatred and work together to restore our dignity in world view.  And I hope.

I hope.

My Friend Laura

Seriously, what the hell is going on here?  Old car.  Outdated siding.  Blue Poncho. Cat’s ass. Eating something crunchy enough to require the first bite to be via molars.   And someone thinking “this would make a good picture.”  

I LOVE it.

If you perouse the internet, you’ll see - pretty much everywhere - that Vista sucks. You’ll also see a super harsh, super successful Mac compaign aimied squarely at the PC and Vista, and you’ll see Microsoft abandoning the name “Vista” in their marketing initiatives in favor of their new “Windows, not Walls” slogan.  Lastly, you’ll see Steve Ballmer telling you that waiting for Windows 7 is okay by him.  So Vista, by pretty much all accounts, is a flop.

When I first began using Vista in February of this year, it was killing me.  Application after application wouldn’t install.  UAC prompts were bombarding me faster than I could “ok” them.  The system couldn’t copy across the network faster than I could retype my documents (it seemed, at least).   It was absolutely unusable.  

Almost a year later, I have to say, I’m really at home in Vista.  I’ve only ever seen 1 blue screen event, and, ironically, it was due to Apple’s iTunes 8 Vista USb driver fiasco.  Service Pack 1 fixed the network copying issues, pretty much every app has goten situated so that it works in Vista, the icon previews are nice, and there are only a few remaining annoyances; but XP has plenty of those too.  

I’m a Mac guy at heart, but truthfully, Vista is the prettiest Microsoft OS ever to come out of Redmond.  Whereas with XP I had to disable Luna just to not want to poke my eyes out, Aero is smooth and comforting.  The ribbon has grown on me, and the system doesn’t gradually become slower and slower, at least as fast as a naked XP box will.  

So there ya go - Vista is a decent product, albeit, after 2 years in the market.  I’d still recommend people wait for Windows 7 - no point in training users and getting them comfortable if Windows 7 will be a fraction of what the E7Blog is suggesting.  But the Vista/Windows 2008 combo is a good one.  I’m not suggesting it beats Leopard, but it’s certainly better than XP/2003.

Picasa Web Albums, even with their incredible face-recognizing people tagger, is so sub-par compared to every other photo album out there. Its feature-poor interface lacks so much that it makes using it a chore for me. I’ve tackled this before: Picasa Web just ain’t cuttin it.

Firstly, Peter, Sylar, and Parkman’s dad, at a minimum are all extremely powerful, yet none of them really “use” their powers, even when it would make sense.  Sylar, for example, didn’t hear something whispered just 20 yards from him, yet it was explained in season 1 that he had super-hearing. Hiro makes the dumbest mistakes in the world, and doesn’t use his power to fix them (like going back in time to just not open the safe, or better yet, putting a fake version in his hand before Daphne swiped it.)

The entire story arc often feels like a bunch of ninth graders writing a “wouldn’t it be cool if” story, without really laying out the entire storyline.  Peter is impetuous and rarely thinks before acting - not in a realistic way, but in an “it’s a good plot device” kind of way.  Nathan’s family just… evaporated.  Hiro digs up Adam Monroe rather than just zapping him out of the coffin, which, by the way, is how he got him in there.

The truth is, the massive cast, which includes useless Mohinder, pointless Maya,  and  wants-to-be-interesting-but-just-isn’t Parkman needs to be trimmed down.  And why ignore cool characters like The Haitian? The last truly great episode was “Company Man” in season 1.

Although I’ll still watch it for now, Heroes is just, sadly, not that good of a serialized drama.

First of all, extensions such as Stylish and Firebug are invaluable.  In fact, scratch Firebug, the default Firefox error console alone is aces to me.

Is there anyone who can tell me why no browser besides Firefox has a “View Background Image” link even as an option? How come no other browser has developer friendly stuff? I know that the Web Inspector in Webkit browsers is really cool - I love Webkit - but ultimately, it’s Firefox I often resort to when I’m doing real work.