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Tag Archives: osx

OSX Mountain Lion – wake from screenlock

28 Jul

It has been 24 hours since I installed mountain lion and I have not seen anything “new and interesting”. There have been some “new and uninteresting” and then the FAILs.

I keep my laptops powered up and running 24×7. The screensavers are running on a short leash in order to preserve the screen and save some energy, however, since I’m a professional I never know when I’m going to be asked to do something and I’m much too impatient to wait. Also, I run backups 24×7 and I need to make certain that the backups are performed at night when I’m offline in order to preserve bandwidth.

My screensaver engages at the 15 minute mark and the screen is turned off at the 20min mark. What is currently bothering me is that when the screen is sleeping (powered down), and I click a key or move the mouse, the laptop display flashes white for just a second and then restores the previous image… and it’s annoying.

I have not debugged the video driver and I certainly do not know what the design details are. Whether it’s time to startup the backlight or the difference between the LED and fluorescence backlights. It’s just plain annoying.

 
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Posted by on 2012/07/28 in Bugs, FAIL

 

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OSX Mountain Lion – Notification = FAIL

27 Jul

This completely defies logic. Growl does a good job of alerting the user. I just cannot understand why Growl was not acquired. Sure they added a notification panel that probably required access to the kernel code in order to implement… but in then it is uneventful. The worst part is that I have not determined which to use although it’s probably growl… but then there is the individual bias that the Apple apps are going to have instead of playing nice in the sandbox. I also hate that something in my system is trying to email me using mail.app. I want to specify the mail app and that’s that.

 
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Posted by on 2012/07/27 in Complaint Depatment

 

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OSX Mountain Lion – iCal = FAIL

27 Jul

iCal is a disappointment.  I know that it’s pretty and a little refined from the last version… but it sucks! Or more succinctly it fails to integrate with my Google apps calendar. I’m not even sure how to describe the failure.  All I know for sure is that it could not sync my calendar completely. It was missing so very many of my events. It was missing so many that I’m not interested in even trying to make it work. Google simply works and that’s all I need.

 
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Posted by on 2012/07/27 in Complaint Depatment

 

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The Perfect Sandbox

31 Oct

I’ve been writing software for over 20 years… and while I’m no longer allowed to call myself a programmer, as a marketing ploy, that what I do. Recently I started having troubles with my primary OSX machine. This straight on the heals of some problems with my backup OSX machine.

The backup works fine standalone but when I plug it into my monitor the sync seems off and it bothers me and my productivity. The primary machine is starting to show lowres icons on the dock and the task switcher. I followed the first set of repair steps and it has not improved.

I have a third system I can use but what I hate most about this is that the 6-Sigma curve is blown and my development environment is ground zero.

So I’ve started thinking about what’s next. Clearly I could put my desktop in the cloud. While google has accomplished part of this it is incomplete and does not address the “programmer” use-case. It also does not take into consideration the local developer only the remote. Then I see my wife’s shinny iPad. All of the software and the OS is sandboxed. Any interaction between applications is “managed”. The applications and it’s data is in a sandbox and they can work with remote servers.

So here’s what I want. I want a semi-desktop version of an iPad with keyboard and mouse. Applications that run in sandboxes. Most of all, when my machine dies I want to place an order for a replacement that comes exactly the way the current one was configured and installed. I want it’s basic behavior to be more like a desktop/laptop instead of an iPad but I want the structure.

PS: I also want some of the benefits from a platform like VMWare and running complete remote desktops… in yet another sandbox.

 
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Posted by on 2011/10/31 in Uncategorized

 

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Cut the Cord!

31 Oct

Depending on who you talk to or read they pretty much say the same thing. “One big reason that OSX succeeded where other failed is because they cut the cord and started fresh”. And if you talk to the insiders at Microsoft they’ll say pretty much the same thing about Windows. “It’s [Windows] missed shipping dates and quality goals because of the deep seeded need to be completely backward compatible.

Well, Linux is about to or has already branched to version 3. And with vendors like Ubuntu, Red Hat, and others contributing to the kernel and other subsystems… everything has been in “add more code” mode. Much the way that Microsoft has been running it’s ship for the last 20+ years.

With Virtual technology like VMWare, Parallels, and others. it’s time to move on. The need for backward compatibility is over. The desktop needs to be more reliable and stable.

 
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Posted by on 2011/10/31 in Tools

 

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