Even at training (Early 2009) our instructor warned us about ‘Old School vs. New School’ Geniuses. His emphasis was that the needs of the business change.

Today’s Mac Genius are no longer required to have the same deep understanding of the Mac OS, its UNIX roots, or classic past. They can no longer troubleshoot the same impossible set of hardware symptoms with ease while working with multiple customers bar side. Their lack of knowledge into the depths of Apple history and lore is embarrassing for anyone who grew up with Clarus the Dogcow, HyperCard, and the 1.44MB SuperDrive. The Mac Genius who knew all these things have either moved on, or burned out. Replaced by a new generation of Mac Genius every who are eager to take their place every 18 months.

Tasks like replacing a display, swapping a phone, or updating software don’t require the same skills that isolating a failed video card or manually recreating a user in OS X do. As iPhones and iPads continue to fly out the door, the role of a Genius shifts.

The Mac Genius that work the bar today are different from the Mac Genius of the past. They see more iOS than Mac OS X. Their customers are delivered one by one using a reservation system while an assistant holding an iPad keeps order. Their troubleshooting techniques are predetermined, and the proper diagnosis codes must be achieved before parts can be ordered. Today’s Mac Genius work at a faster pace with more monotony, and less time for conversation.

“These customers don’t want to ‘hang out with a genius’ — they want their phone to work. NOW.

Today’s Mac Genius are replacements, excited to fill the role I once coveted until I we all burn out in the end. There is no path of advancement for a Mac Genius. For a long time I was angry Apple couldn’t find a place for more of the great Mac Genius from the past. But after reading the “The New Genius Bar” on Stephen Hackett’s 512 Pixels I began to understand that today’s Mac Genius are just as good at their jobs as my generation was at ours.

The Genius Bar has changed, and by letting the older Genius go, Apple was doing us all a favor. No matter how much we love the company, no one wants to be a Mac Genius forever.

Most Geniuses are emotionally invested in their jobs. Their ability to assess and react to any situation with skill, tact, and empathy keeps customers ranking Apple support so high, year after year.

There are better jobs out their with double the pay, better hours, and working behind the bar at an Apple Store is a great way to start a career.

I always saw the Genius role as a stepping stone into other IT jobs.

When you see a Genius complain about the nature or the business, the retail schedule, the ever increasing assembly line of work it is time for them to go.

Every 3 or 4 months you have to look hard at yourself and the current incarnation of the job and ask, Am I the best fit for this job? Am I willing to deal with the problem of the week and offer feasible solutions? Is my mental health in a state where I can enjoy this? Would I want to work with me with my current attitude? If the answer is no, I hope a manager helps you through that tough time and out the door if need be.

The magic of the position has worn off. I will always miss the good times I had working for Apple, but too much has changed both behind the bar and within myself for me to ever go back.

If you have ever encountered a problem with your Macintosh you might have been advised to zapreset the PRAM, but what is the PRAM and what does it do?

The PRAM, or parameter random access memory, is a small amount of non volatile storage on your Mac’s logic board. It uses a built-in battery or capacitor to retain specific system settings even after the power to your computer has been turned off. Macs with Intel processors use a similar system for storing these settings called NVRAM, or non-volatile random access memory. For all intents and purposes PRAM, and NVRAM are the same thing, and can be zapped the same way.

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. (You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.)
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.

Zapping the PRAM has always been a simple procedure to perform, and depending on your Macintosh the list of system settings saved in PRAM could be rather extensive. The PRAM on a Macintosh running the Classic Mac OS can retain any of the following system settings.

• Status of AppleTalk
• Serial Port Configuration and Port definition
• Alarm clock setting
• Application font
• serial printer location
• Autokey rate
• Autokey delay
• Speaker volume
• Attention (beep) sound
• Double-click time
• Caret blink time (insertion point rate)
• Mouse scaling (mouse speed)
• Startup disk
• Menu blink count
• Monitor depth
• 32-bit addressing
• Virtual memory
• RAM disk
• Disk cache

Back when the Classic Mac OS was more common, zapping the PRAM gained the notoriety of being a miracle cure because it returned so many important system variables to their default values. As time went on and the Classic Mac OS evolved more of these important system settings were moved out of PRAM and retained in preference files stored on the hard drive. By the time Mac OS X came along only a small selection of system settings were still retained in PRAM, and zapping the PRAM lost the miracle cure title it never truly deserved.

• Display and video settings such as refresh rate, screen resolution, color depth
• Startup volume choice
• Speaker volume
• Recent kernel panic information, if any
• DVD region (Resetting PRAM does not allow you to change the DVD region.)

Unlike prior versions of the Mac OS, Mac OS X does not store network or memory settings in PRAM. If you experience a network issue, resetting the PRAM will not help. Many of the memory conflicts that crashed the Classic Mac OS and gave zapping the PRAM its miracle cure reputation are no longer an issue in Mac OS X. Zapping the PRAM on a computer running Mac OS X has no affect on system stability because memory settings are no longer stored in PRAM.

Zapping the PRAM should never be used as preventative maintenance. Recent kernel panic logs are sometimes stored in PRAM and their routine removal could make tracking down a hard to diagnose issue even more difficult.

Zapping the PRAM is best used to diagnose or repair video, sound, or startup issues in Mac OS X.

If your computer is not displaying video, or is displaying a unusual refresh rate, resolution, or color depth, zapping the PRAM is a good first step. Issues with undetected auxiliary monitors can often be corrected by zapping the PRAM.

If your computer stops producing sound, or is unable to detect additional analog audio hardware like headphones, zapping the PRAM is a good first step.

If your computer takes a long time to boot, can’t find a startup volume, or attempts to boot over the network without cause, zapping the PRAM is a good first step.

Zapping the PRAM is an important quick fix for diagnosing certain Mac related issues, but it is not a miracle cure. Before zapping the PRAM know what it does and does not do in order to better target your diagnosis and discover the true remedy to your Mac’s ailment.

Now that 2011 has come to a close, we are able to look back at Apple’s greatest year. Not only did 2011 show record profits and important product updates, but new technologies were released, and brand new versions of all of Apple’s operating systems were unveiled. Customer’s experienced new ways of purchasing products, while taking advantage of innovative cloud-based storage solutions. Developers learned a new integrated development environment for coding applications across all of Apple’s state-of-the-art operating systems. Creatives explored new techniques for editing video, and creating music on Macs and mobile devices alike. And during the midst of it all, Apple became the world’s most valuable company while losing the greatest leader it has ever known. As we look back at the past 365 days it is easy to see why 2011 was Apple’s greatest year.

Mac App Store

The year started off on January 6th with the release of the Mac App Store, a new way to buy applications on any Mac running Snow Leopard. With more than 1,000 free and paid apps, over one million downloads were made during its first day of business alone.

Revealed during the Sneak Peak of Lion event in October 2010, Apple compared the Mac App Store to the ease of purchasing applications on iOS.

The Mac App Store brings the revolutionary App Store experience to OS X, making discovering, installing and updating Mac apps easier than ever. Like on iPad™, you purchase apps using your iTunes® account and they download and install in just one step. App updates are delivered directly through the Mac App Store, so it’s easy to keep all of your apps up to date.

By January 22nd the Mac App Store had received more than 10 million downloads, securing its future as the preferred method of buying applications on the Mac. One of the secrets of the Mac App Store’s success was its prominent position in the Mac OS X Dock. After updating to 10.6.6 users found the Mac App Store icon sitting right next to their favorite applications at the edge of their Macintosh’s screen. Never before had a software update placed a application in such a leading location for users to discover.

The release of Lion as a downloadable upgrade from the Mac App Store in early July only helped to solidify the Mac App Store’s success. Billed as a “tentpole” feature in Lion, the Mac App Store was promoted heavily leading up to Lion’s release. As Apple’s customers upgraded to Lion in record numbers many discovered the Mac App Store for the first time. Physical boxes of software at Apple Stores started to disappear overnight as more and more developers released their applications exclusively for the Mac App Store. By December 12th, Apple’s online strategy for software marketing and sales had become the dominant way to buy software on the Mac with over 100 million downloads.

ThunderBolt

Thunderbolt might be Apple’s most important hardware advancement in the last decade.

Developed by Intel with collaboration from Apple, Thunderbolt enables expandability never before possible on a notebook computer. Featuring two bi-directional channels with transfer speeds up to an amazing 10Gbps each, Thunderbolt delivers PCI Express directly to external high performance peripherals such as RAID arrays, and can support FireWire and USB consumer devices and Gigabit Ethernet networks via adapters. Thunderbolt also supports DisplayPort for high resolution displays and works with existing adapters for HDMI, DVI and VGA displays. Freely available for implementation on systems, cables and devices, Thunderbolt technology is expected to be widely adopted as a new standard for high performance IO.

In the past significant hardware advances have always been implemented on desktop computers first. This was true for FireWire, USB 2.0 and the G5 processor. Starting on February 24th, Apple’s pro line of portable machines were the first to offer the high performance IO and expandability of Thunderbolt.

On May 3rd Apple’s iMacs adopted Thunderbolt with their latest revision, marking the first time a consumer desktop has seen a major hardware advancement before its pro counterpart since the Bondi Blue iMac boldly adopted USB. No fact is more damming to the Mac Pro’s continued irrelevance than its lack of Thunderbolt support.

On July 20th, the world saw the release of Lion and with it came new MacBook Airs, Mac minis, and the Thunderbolt Display. No computer would benefit more from the addition of Thunderbolt than the MacBook Air. Combined with a Thunderbolt Display the new MacBook Air gains all of the ports of a full-featured MacBook Pro, while retaining all of the travel portability of a three pound notebook. Not since the age of the PowerBook Duo has Apple released a mobility minded portable with the expandability of a desktop computer. Thunderbolt made it possible.

On November 4th, Bare Feets performed a speed test of all shipping Macs comparing their ability to run pro applications against a Mac Pro. Bare Feets found that the performance gap between the Mac Pro and high-end Macs was narrowing towards the point of irrelevance thanks to the latest Intel i3, i5, and i7 processors shipping with every new Thunderbolt enabled Mac.

iPad 2

The iPad 2 may have been the most anticipated product of 2011. Steve Jobs made a surprise appearance during his second medical leave to reveal the iPad 2 on March 2nd.

iPad 2 features an entirely new design that is 33 percent thinner and up to 15 percent lighter than the original iPad, while maintaining the same stunning 9.7-inch LED-backlit LCD screen. iPad 2 features Apple’s new dual-core A5 processor for blazing fast performance and stunning graphics and now includes two cameras, a front-facing VGA camera for FaceTime® and Photo Booth®, and a rear-facing camera that captures 720p HD video, bringing the innovative FaceTime feature to iPad users for the first time.

The iPad 2 was later released on March 11th, but Apple has never reported its sales numbers. Analysts put sales of the new iPad in the range of 400,000 to 600,000 units during its first three days on the market, about the same range as the original model sold in its first week. In the most recent quarter Apple reported the iPad 2 contributed 17{493f798df480ad5a2796e65210fbf6e65215ebdcc2070f4d9b100f3865a5d00d} of Apple’s $26.7 billion in revenue, or an estimated 7.5 million units sold from late June to September 24th.

Alongside the iPad 2 came new versions of iMovie and Garageband for iOS. These mobile applications would help creative professionals and curious amateurs create movies and music on the go thanks to the iPad 2’s improved processing power and multitouch interface.

The most unheralded feature of the iPad 2 might be the introduction of AirPlay, a wireless technology that allows you to stream what is on your iPad 2 to your HDTV via an Apple TV. AirPlay would quickly make it to all of Apple’s iOS devices running iOS 5.

Xcode 4

Xcode 4 was a major update to Apple’s integrated development environment, and a mixed blessing for developers who had become accustomed to previous versions. Apple released the final code for Xcode 4.0 on March 9th over the Mac App Store, but many developers were weary to adopt it, citing poor performance and a steep learning curve.

Some of Xcode 4’s biggest changes were in its user interface. For the first time many of the windows and auxiliary applications used to perform development tasks were consolidated into a single application window. This was most likely done to make Xcode 4 more compatible with Lion, which encourages the use of full screen, single window apps. The addition of Navigators and the Jump Bar help Xcode 4 developers navigate the new interface, while the Assistant feature keeps track of what code is being edited across multiple files.

The new Apple LLVM Compiler 2.0 in Xcode 4 means software is compiled quicker and the resulting applications run faster. It also means many existing applications had to be tweaked as new bugs were discovered and compatibility changes had to be made. The new Apple LLVM engine helps by constantly working in the background to understand a developers code. It alerts developers to coding mistakes as they type, and highlights common mishaps and potential fixes without the need to click the build button.

Xcode 4 was a sore spot for many developers who had become accustomed to the previous way of building applications, but thanks to a new versioning system, steady performance improvements, and continued Xcode 3 backwards compatibility many developers were able to make the jump to Apple’s latest IDE on their own schedule.

Final Cut Pro X

Final Cut Pro was another professional Apple application that received a major update last year. Like Xcode 4, Final Cut Pro received both a major upgrade to its underlying architecture as well as a completely new user interface. Creative professionals were stunned to learn that Final Cut Pro X would not open their previous Final Cut Pro Projects. Many snubbed the new iMovie inspired user interface that required them to relearn basic editing skills. And although several reviews confirmed Final Cut Pro to be the fastest nonlinear editor in existence, professional editors were shocked by the absence of so many professional features including support for third-party hardware, tape media importing, and the import or export of content to other editors or finishing systems.

It helps to think of FCP X as not an upgrade of Final Cut Studio, but rather an entirely new application that shares the same name. 64-bit support, a Cocoa foundation, GPU acceleration, and a new rendering engine were all long awaited features that will give Final Cut Pro a solid foundation into the next decade. Many of the FPC X’s deficiency’s can be summed up as the result of 1.0 release, and if you think of it as an entirely new application the results are very impressive.

No one forced creative professionals to upgrade to Final Cut X, but when Apple released FCP X on the Mac App Store they stopped selling the previous boxed version of Final Cut Studio. The lack of professional features, and the abrupt change in workflow caused enough of an outcry that Apple began selling the remaining copies of Final Cut Studio in early September. Update 10.0.1 followed twenty days later, and helped fix some of superficial deficiencies plaguing Final Cut Pro X. Version 10.1 has been promised for early 2012, and I am confident that future updates will only make Final Cut Pro X more compelling as tape-less editing becomes the norm.

Lion

Mac OS X Lion was the most anticipated software upgrade of 2011. Announced during the Sneak Peak of Lion event in October 2010, Apple revealed several new features like the Mac App Store, Launchpad, Full Screen Apps, Multi-touch gestures, and a newly designed Mail application that would be making their way back to the Mac from iOS.

Lion brings many of the best ideas from iPad back to the Mac, plus some fresh new ones like Mission Control that Mac users will really like,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Lion has a ton of new features, and we hope the few we had time to preview today will give users a good idea of where we are headed.

The first developer preview for Lion was released on [February 24th](apple.comprlibrary20110224Apple-Releases-Developer-Preview-of-Mac-OS-X-Lion.html, 2011). Many non-developers participated in the preview because the annual entry fee to the Mac Developer Program had recently been lowered to $100.

Lion was released on the Mac App Store on July 20th, 2011. It offered users 250 new features and sold over 1 million copies on its first day. Reviews for Lion were positive, but many long time Mac fans found issues with Lion’s Resume and Autosave features which took control away from the user. With the release of Lion Apple has made it clear that the future of the Mac is headed towards a convergence with iOS. No one knows when that convergence will take place, but as the two platforms align ease-of-use and reliability will triumph over the customization and extended capabilities of the former Mac OS.

Apple Campus 2

On June 7th, Steve Jobs addressed the Cupertino City Council to present his ideas for a new Apple Campus. If the proposal goes through Apple will be relying heavily on its experience building futuristic retail stores to produce a 2.8 million square foot circular building made out of curved glass. The new campus will be four stories tall, have a diameter of about 1615 feet, and house 12,000 employees on a 175 acre plot down the street from Apple’s current headquarters. Amenities will include…

• an enclosed courtyard
• a cafeteria capable of feeding 3,000 employees in one sitting
• a auditorium capable of seating 1,000 people
• an on campus fitness center
• a 60{493f798df480ad5a2796e65210fbf6e65215ebdcc2070f4d9b100f3865a5d00d} increase in landscaping
• underground parking
• 300,000 square feet of research facilities
• and a natural gas power plant capable of producing all of the campuses power

Apple plans on a 40{493f798df480ad5a2796e65210fbf6e65215ebdcc2070f4d9b100f3865a5d00d} increase in Apple corporate employees going from 9,500 today to 13,000 in 2015 when the new campus is scheduled to be completed. Even though the new campus was not built in 2011, its announcement was a significant milestone for Apple, a company that continues to grow far past anyones expectations.

Steve Jobs

On August 10th, under Steve Jobs guidance, Apple surpassed Exxon Mobil to seize the title of world’s most valuable company.

On August 24th, Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple.

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

He asked to remain as Apple’s Chairman of the board, director, and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

As planned Tim Cook took the reigns as Apple’s CEO. He successfully launched the iPhone 4S, iOS 5, and iCloud before a packed crowd at Apple’s Town Hall auditorium on October 4th, 2011. There was one reserved seat left unfilled in the audience.

On October 5th, Steve Jobs passed away.

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.

After hearing the news Apple’s shares fell less than a dollar.

On October 18th, Apple reported their forth quarter results showing an all-time record for Mac and iPad sales, and the highest September quarter revenue and earnings to date.

On October 19th, Apple closed all of its retail stores for several hours as Apple employees gathered at Apple’s headquarters to celebrate Steve’s life. Memorials were erected on the windows and sidewalks outside of every Apple Store, and at Steve’s home in Palo Alto.

On November 15th, Arthur D. Levinson became Chairman of the Board.

Steve Jobs will always be missed, but his vision will live on in the company he founded. Apple will forever be his greatest product.

iOS 5

iOS 5 was first announced at Apple’s annual WWDC keynote address on June 6th. iOS 5 includes more than 200 new features, but the highlights of the keynote were Notification Center, iMessage, Newsstand, and PC Free Activation.

Notifications Center was a long-awaited feature that replaced the stacked dialog box notifications found in previous version of iOS with a pull down sheet that resembles the notifications on Android.

The introduction of iMessage was unexpected by customers and carriers alike. With it Apple hopes to reproduce the popularity of the BlackBerry Messenger service by creating a cost free communication network Apple customers can enjoy across all of their iOS devices.

Subscriptions made it onto the App Store early last year on February 15th, but iOS lacked a centralized place to browse, purchase, and collect periodicals. Newsstand brought the bookshelf interface and integrated store of iBooks to newspapers and magazines, and allowed the delivery of new content overnight as a background process. Apple may not have the same selection of Amazon’s Kindle service, but starting with Newsstand they have all of the pieces they need to build a powerful competing readership.

PC free activation is the most important feature from iOS 5. It sets the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad apart as independent devices free from the cables of personal computers. Android has long benefitted from PC free activation, and the abundance of Google cloud services. Now with the introduction of iOS 5, and iCloud Apple’s users will benefit from a similar liberation. The Post-PC era has begun.

The improvements in iOS 5 were significant, because they matched the long heralded strengths of competing platforms with an attention to detail and polish only Apple could provide.

iOS 5 was released alongside iCloud on October 12th.

iCloud

iCloud was introduced on June 6th by Steve Jobs. It was the last product presentation he would ever make, and arguably one of the most important for Apple’s future success. iCloud is a collection of free and paid services that aim to preserve a single set of data across all of a user’s Macs, PCs, and iOS devices.

“Today it is a real hassle and very frustrating to keep all your information and content up-to-date across all your devices,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iCloud keeps your important information and content up to date across all your devices. All of this happens automatically and wirelessly, and because it’s integrated into our apps you don’t even need to think about it—it all just works.”

As a replacement to MobileMe, iCloud includes all of the basic personal information services a user might expect from an online platform including contacts, calendar, and email. These free services directly compete with the online offerings of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! without subjecting the user to unsightly ads.

iCloud include the automatic downloading of media, books, and apps to all of your iOS devices and computers running iTunes.

The automatic backup of iOS devices including purchased music, apps, books, photos, videos, device settings and app data is the iCloud feature that makes the PC Free Activation in iOS 5 possible.

iCloud Storage seamlessly stores all documents created using iCloud Storage APIs, and automatically pushes them to all of a users’s devices. When a user changes a document on any device, iCloud automatically pushes the changes to all of their devices. The iCloud Storage API will become iCloud’s most powerful feature as soon as more developers start taking advantage of it. We are already starting to see cross platform applications that are replacing the filesystem with iCloud’s Storage API, but more applications are needed if iCloud is to be considered a success.

The Photo Stream service automatically uploads the photos users take on their iOS devices to iCloud so they can be streamed or imported to any iOS device or computer. Photo Stream might be the best example of iCloud’s ability to keep a single set of data across all of a user’s devices.

For $25 a year iTunes Match scans the songs a user’s music library, including music not purchased on iTunes, and matches it to the more than 20 million songs available on the iTunes Store, offering them high-quality, DRM-free 256 kbps AAC encoding. Any unmatched songs are uploaded to iCloud so users can play any song, album or playlist from their music library on any of their iOS devices without syncing. iTunes Match may not replace the convenience, or low cost of tethered syncing, but geeks love it for the upgrade in quality it gives their music.

iCloud is more ambitious than services like Dropbox that rely on comparing files in the filesystem to synchronize data. With iCloud, Apple wants to replace the filesystem with a single destination for user’s data that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. For iCloud to be successful more developers need to take advantage of its services. Apple is doing everything they can to make iCloud popular by releasing it as a free service, but developers are proceeding with the same caution they used to support iCloud’s inconsistent predecessor MobileMe. Only time will tell if iCloud can overcome developers fears and become the future of data storage, or another just entry in Apple’s long list of online failures.

iPhone 4S

The iPhone 4S was unveiled by Phil Schiller on October 4th just one day before Steve’s death.

Apple today announced iPhone 4S, the most amazing iPhone yet, packed with incredible new features including Apple’s dual-core A5 chip for blazing fast performance and stunning graphics; an all new camera with advanced optics; full 1080p HD resolution video recording; and Siri, an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking.

At the time of its announcement many people on the internet were expecting the new iPhone 5 case design they saw on rumor sites. When the rumors failed to materialize these same people felt disappointment regardless of the new iPhone’s dual-core A5 processor, advanced optics, or intelligent voice enabled assistant Siri. The disappointment didn’t stop the iPhone 4S from selling over one million pre-orders in the first 24 hours, or over 4 million units during the first weekend. The success surrounding the iPhone 4S shows that Apple no longer needs to impress people with flashy new form factors to sell products. Gone are the days of the candy colored iMac. Apple’s new approach is a timeless elegance that does not need to be updated every year. Not a single Apple hardware product saw a significant redesign this year, and yet Apple still showed record profits. Today’s Apple relies less on being seen, and more on being heard.

One way Apple is being heard is with Siri. Siri is the new voice enabled digital assistant that ships with the iPhone 4S. It listens to a user’s natural language and performs simple tasks based upon their instructions. Siri was released in beta, a rare move for Apple, because it needs to learn from a large sample size of users speech patterns. As Siri improves and changes the way we control our computers it might prove to be the most important advancement in 2011. The introduction of the mouse changed personal computing in 1984, The scroll wheel change portable music in 2001, and multitouch changed the mobile phone in 2007. What will Siri change in 2012?

The Mac App Store, Thunderbolt, iPad 2, Xcode 4, Final Cut Pro X, Lion, Apple’s New Campus, Steve Job’s Life, iOS 5, iCloud, and the iPhone 4S all helped make 2011 Apple’s greatest year. And even though we will probably not see the record number of amazing advancements in 2012 I am still looking forward to it just the same.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. — Steve Jobs (August 24, 2011)

NetNewsWire Lite is an almost perfect app. It does one thing, and one thing well, deliver RSS. Released on March 3rd of this year, NetNewsWire Lite has become my favorite news reader not because of the features it includes but because of the features it leaves behind. Rewritten by its creator Brent Simmons from the ground up to be fast, NewNewsWire Lite is the lite version of NetNewsWire for Macintosh. It doesn’t have features like Google Reader sync, browser tabs, or the combined view found in its full featured big brother. Instead NetNewsWire Lite concentrates on reliable delivery, and pristine presentation. It is available for free in the Mac App Store.

System Requirements

One of the first facts I discovered about NetNewsWire Lite was its peculiar system requirements. NetNewsWire Lite requires a Mac with an Intel 64-bit processor. This is not because RSS delivery is a CPU intensive task, but because of Adobe Flash.

When Flash crashes on 32-bit machines, it takes down the app with it. When Flash crashes on a 64-bit machine, it's just Flash that crashes.

This behavior is not Adobe’s fault, but a benefit of the way Mac OS X Snow Leopard sandboxes 32-bit processes running inside a 64-bit application. Flash or not, NetNewsWire will not run on PowerPC Macs, or the earliest Core Duo Intel processors.

NetNewsWire Lite is lite by design, but it will surprise people what that really means. Instead of eliminating the power features that only Pro users want, Brent has removed many of the features unnecessary to feed reading that normal only think they need.

Syncing

The most controversial feature removed from NetNewsWire Lite is Google Reader syncing. Brent calls this the non-synced feed advantage. NetNewsWire Lite gets the news faster than a application that relies on Google Reader. This is because NetNewsWire Lite gets its news directly from the source while other feed readers must wait for Google Reader to get it beforehand. NetNewsWire Lite supports an automatic fast refresh rate of 10 minutes. A impossible feat for feed readers that rely on Google as the middleman. The “Non-Synced Advantage”‚ provides more than just speed. Because NetNewsWire Lite does not sync with Google Reader it can support features like authenticated feeds that Google Reader does not.

Removing syncing from my feed reading experience has given me more time to concentrate on RSS. Instead of recklessly plowing through my subscriptions at irregular intervals throughout the day, I take the time each morning to sit down and read the news that is important to me. RSS on mobile devices is a distraction that should only be endured if you are away from your desk for days at a time. Try reading your subscriptions at one place during a set time each day. You will soon see how much more enjoyable feed reading can be.

Stars

Stars are another feature removed from NetNewsWire Lite that I never miss. There are just too many ways to flag, star, heart, rate, like, +1, or approve items on the Net these days. Instead of starring my favorite articles in NetNewsWire Lite I send them to Instapaper where I read them later, and share them with friends. NetNewsWire Lite supports sending any article or link to Instapaper, my mail client, my browser, Twitter, or blogging software like MarsEdit. All you have to do is right-click.

Scripting

AppleScript is a feature pro users want, but normal people could care less about. If you are using NetNewsWire Lite in an automated workflow to do something other than reading your feeds you are not doing it right. Enjoy NetNewsWire Lite for what it is, a feed reader, and leave scripting to the other apps.

Search

These days information is everywhere and search is how we make sense of it all. The lack of search in NetNewsWire Lite took me by surprise. How will I find a particular article I read last week if I can not search for it in NetNewsWire Lite? It turns out losing search is not a big deal. If I am looking for something I read last week I can usually remember who wrote it and either manually skim their previous articles or search their website. NetNewsWire Lite does not archive your news feeds. It only remembers what is currently being published by the sites you visit. This makes search less important, and not a required feature for regular feed reading.

Subscriptions

Subscription management is a feature many feed readers leave out out that NetNewsWire has always done well. NetNewsWire Lite is no exception. It handles the import and export of OPML files flawlessly while allowing you to create static folders to manage your feeds. Because there is no search, NetNewsWire Lite does not include customizable smart folders to intelligently categorize your feeds. This could be a problem if I was using NetNewsWire Lite to archive my subscriptions, but I am not. I am only using NetNewsWire Lite to read the news, and the default “All Unread” and “Today” filters are the only smart folders I need.

Presentation

If there is one thing I have always loved about NetNewsWire it is design of the app, and the polish it gives my feeds. NetNewsWire Lite continues in this fine tradition while removing many of the buttons, options, and extras not required for feed reading. On your left you have a column listing the name of each subscription and its favicon. In the middle you have a column that contains the feeds for an individual subscription. The last column contains the news complete with multimedia and Flash videos. The presentation of articles is controlled by user selectable stylesheets. You can create your own using the examples in ~/Library/Application Support/NetNewsWire Lite/StyleSheets. You can easily navigate NetNewsWire Lite’s interface using the the arrows keys. Selecting an article with the right arrow or a double-click expands the last column into the second, and displays a browser view of the item. I have never found a feed reader that loads a page faster than NetNewsWire Lite. The left arrow, or command + W brings you back to the three column view. I have always appreciated NetNewsWire’s three column design for its simplicity. I you have ever used Apple’s Mail.app will you immediately feel at home in NetNewsWire Lite.

Future

On Jue 3rd, 2011 Black Pixel acquired NetNewsWire, and since then I have heard very little news about the fate of my favorite feed reader. I am sure NetNewsWire Lite is in good hands. Brent Simmons say so. I am just eager to see some progress.

NetNewsWire Lite is still on the same version 4.0 from when it was released seven months ago. Bugs like the scrollbar disappearing from the subscription list and commands in the browser going unanswered still exist. Requests for full screen mode in Lion go unanswered. NetNewsWire Lite may be the give-away version of the NetNewsWire product line, but any update to any of the NetNewsWire products would be encouraging. I am willing to wait. Despite a few nuances, and missing features NetNewsWire Lite is an almost perfect app that puts feed reading first.

Should you buy AppleCare? Every Apple product comes with 90 days of complimentary telephone technical support and a limited one year warranty. AppleCare for Mac extends your service and support coverage to three full years from the date you purchased your computer. It gives you global repair coverage, and direct access to Apple experts for questions on a wide range of topics.

But at up to $349 per computer, AppleCare for Mac can be a considerable investment. That is why you should know what AppleCare for Mac covers, and what it does not.

AppleCare for Mac covers:

• All included hardware and accessories.
• One compatible Apple-branded display if purchased at the same time as your computer.
• An Apple-branded mouse, Magic Trackpad, Apple Battery Charger and keyboard if included with the Covered Equipment (or purchased with a Mac mini or Mac Pro).
• An AirPort Express or AirPort Extreme Base Station, AirPort Time Capsule, Apple memory modules (RAM) and Apple USB SuperDrive if used with the Covered Equipment and originally purchased by you no earlier than two years before the Covered Equipment purchase.
• Apple will provide technical support for the Covered Equipment, Apple’s operating system software and Apple-branded software applications that are designed to operate with the Covered Equipment.
• Apple will also provide technical support using the graphical user interface for server administration and network management issues on Apple’s operating system server software.

In short AppleCare for Mac covers everything that comes in the box, and a number of Apple peripherals you may already be using with your Macintosh. AppleCare even gives you basic support for Apple pro applications like Final Cut, Logic, and Mac OS X Server.

AppleCare for Mac does not cover:

• Installation, removal or disposal of the Covered Equipment.
• Damage caused by a product that is not the Covered Equipment.
• Accident, abuse, misuse, liquid contact, fire, earthquake or other external cause.
• Operating the Covered Equipment outside the permitted or intended uses described by the manufacturer.
• Service (including upgrades and expansions) performed by anyone who is not an Apple Authorized Service Provider.
• Covered Equipment with a serial number that has been altered, defaced removed, or modified.
• Covered Equipment that has been lost or stolen.
• Cosmetic damage, preventative maintenance, or defects caused by normal wear and tear.
• Issues that could be resolved by upgrading software to the then current version.
• Modification to the Covered Equipment, the Mac OS, or Consumer Software in a manner for which is not intended to be used or modified.
• Third-party products or their effects on or interactions with the Covered Equipment, the Mac OS, Mac OS Server, or Consumer Software.
• Apple software other than the Mac OS, Mac OS Server, or Consumer Software as covered under the applicable Plan.
• Mac OS, software or any Apple-branded software designated as “beta”, “prerelease,” or “preview” or similarly labeled software.
• Damage to, or loss of any software or data residing or recorded on the Covered Equipment.
• Recovery and reinstallation of software programs and user data are not covered under this Plan.

In short AppleCare for Mac does not cover accidental damage, loss, theft, or normal wear and tear. You must use your computer and its software as intended. If you manage to deface your computer so that it is no longer identifiable, it is also not covered. AppleCare requires you to upgrade to the latest version of the software, but does not cover “beta”, “prerelease,” or “preview” releases of that software. Finally it is your responsibility to backup and reinstall your data and system software.

So should you buy AppleCare?

It depends on what kind of person you are, how often you replace your computer, and the price of the individual plan.

Are you a technically independent person, who always turns to an online forum before picking up the phone to ask a computer question? If the answer is yes, half of AppleCare’s value goes straight out the window.

However, even if you are a technically savvy individual, no online forum, pirated repair manual, or iFixit set of screw drivers will help you repair your computer if you don’t have the parts.

Today computers aren’t fixed with soldering irons and bails of wire. When computers fail, their faulty parts need to be replaced. And with Apple’s computers becoming smaller and lighter more functionality is riding on fewer parts. Replacement parts are even more expensive and proprietary than ever before.

You can’t get replacement parts by walking into an Apple Store, or ordering them on Amazon. You have to go to an Apple Authorized Service Provider, who will charge you labor to install them. AppleCare is the only affordable option to get genuine Apple replacement parts.

When to always buy AppleCare

• If you are purchasing a new Mac with a compatible Apple-branded display, or have a lot of eligible Apple accessories. AppleCare will cover them.
• If you can get the educational discount. AppleCare can be discounted by over $100 if you work at or are attending an educational institution.
• If you live far away from an Apple Store and plan on asking a lot of technical support questions after the first 90 days.
• If you are buying a MacBook, and battery life is important to you. AppleCare now covers MacBook batteries that retain less than 80-percent of their original capacity within the first three years.

When to never buy AppleCare

• If you are prone to accidents or theft. AppleCare does not cover loss or damage.
• If you have a credit card insurance plan that doubles the manufacture’s warranty of electronic goods like computers.
• If plan on replacing your computer once a year. You can buy AppleCare anytime within the first year.

What about iPhones, iPads, iPods, Apple Watch, and the Apple TV?

AppleCare for these devices only covers your purchase for an additional year. It does not cover accidental damage without additional cost, and does not cover theft. If you get a new device every year, do not buy AppleCare. And even if you don’t, seek out alternative insurance programs that cover theft and accidental damage.

I have had a Mac.com email address ever since I had a Mac that could send email. iTools, the predecessor of .Mac and MobileMe, has been part of my online identity since the summer of 2001. I remember when the only way to access my iTools’ IMAP email was through Outlook Express. When sending files to iDisk’s 5MBs of storage required AppleShare. When one of the perks of owning a Mac was the ability to send tasteful electronic greeting cards with Apple’s branding all over them. Before 2002 Apple’s online offerings were less about features and more about exclusivity. iTools was free, but only if you owned a Mac.

iTools was replaced with .Mac in the summer of 2002. Suddenly my mac.com email address cost something, my online storage size got a little larger, and my iCard electronic greeting cards? Well they stayed the same.

I started paying for .Mac because I saw the value in developing the online identity I started under iTools. Additional services like Apple’s miserable Backup application, and McAfee’s unwarranted virus protection never enticed me. .Mac’s early appeal was always its email address, and how it set me apart from the subscribers of Hotmail, Yahoo!, Comcast, and Earthlink. On the Internet your email address is your identity. It is the one account that connects you with all of the services the web has to offer. You can’t experience most of the web’s opportunities unless you have an email address. By purchasing my .Mac email address I was securing my online presence in a way only a professional email address could provide.

Over the next few years .Mac’s value would grow to include services like webmail, dynamic DNS, and the ability to sync data between Apple’s computers. In 2008 .Mac was replaced with MobileMe and iCards were a thing of the past. In their place were online galleries, 20GBs of storage, and the ability to sync email, contacts, calendars to an iPhone without a corporate Exchange account. I continued to pay for Apple’s online service for the freedom it provided. Instead of being tied to a business account, or a Internet service provider’s email address I could take my MobileMe email, contacts, calendars, and storage with me wherever I went.

Apple’s online services have always faced more affordable competition. From Microsoft’s free Hotmail to Google’s powerful web applications, MobileMe has never been considered inexpensive, or feature-rich. But if you lived inside Apple’s ecosystem and used all of the services MobileMe provided, the $69 discounted annual fee was not unreasonable. The difference between MobileMe and the competition is the respect Apple gives paying customers.

Google recently lost one of its best customers for undisclosed reasons. They canceled his account without telling him why. Google took 7 years of correspondence, over 4,800 photographs and videos, his Google Voice phone number and voicemail, all of his saved reading lists, bookmarks, contacts calendars, and more. He lost his online identity. He lost his blog. He lost his ability to be contacted by the outside world during a time that he needed his established methods of communication most.

Until you pay for your Google, you are not its customer, and even then Google’s primary responsibility is to its advertisers who spend millions of more dollars than you do. When you trust your online identity to free services like Google, you are trusting Google to make the right choices for its customers the advertisers. I would rather pay Apple, a company that makes products and services for people like me, then base my online identity on the profitability of ads.

Today MobileMe is now iCloud, and is free to all of Apple’s customers. As long as Apple is putting its customers first, I will continue to trust iCloud with my online identity. Apple is positioning iCloud as a feature that comes with Apple hardware. The price of new Macs, iPhones and iPads, will secure iCloud’s future. Nothing is certain in web services, but as long as iCloud remains part of the purchase price of Apple products, I can rest assured my online identity is safe.

Apple may be adding 250+ new features to Mac OS X Lion, but just like Snow Leopard before it some features are scheduled to be taken away.

Early Intel Macs

Lion’s aggressive system requirements excludes early Intel Macs without a 64-bit compatible processor. This includes the first few versions of Intel powered iMacs, MacBook Pros, Mac minis, and MacBooks equipped with “Yonah” processors. (All versions of the Mac Pro contain 64-bit Xenon processors capable of running Lion.) Even the first 64-bit Core 2 compatible Macs that make the cut will require additional memory to run Lion. The base system requirement is 2GBs, and that is enough to max out those early 64-bit machines. It has been more than five years since the first Intel powered Macs were introduced and it comes at no surprise that they will not be supported by Lion. Snow Leopard made the logical cut of dropping support for PowerPC powered Macs, and Lion is making a similar break from the 32-bit machines of the past.

PowerPC Software

Snow Leopard dropped support for PowerPC powered Macs, but continues to run software written for PowerPC processors by way of Rosetta a lightweight dynamic binary translator distributed by Apple. Lion will drop support for Rosetta and with it support for all PowerPC applications.

Lion’s refusal to run PowerPC applications may be a political move or it may be technically unfeasible, since Lion is adopting a strict 64-bit only architecture. Whatever the reason Lion can not run PowerPC applications, and installing the Rossetta binary included with Snow Leopard makes no difference. PowerPC compatibility has been removed from all of Lion’s Mac OS X Frameworks.

Users with legacy devices and applications that require PowerPC compatibility will feel the sharpest sting from Lion’s move away from Rosetta. But even the latest Intel compatible applications that include PowerPC compiled components will experience reduced functionality while running under Lion. Microsoft Office 2011’s MSQuery tool, and Adobe CS5’s pre-compiled droplets and scripts are just two examples of major Intel compiled applications with PowerPC components incompatible with Mac OS X Lion.

Adobe Flash Support

Thanks to the iOS’s inability to play Flash video Apple’s reluctance to include Flash support in its products is world renowned. But up until Lion, Mac OS X has always included the Flash plugin by default, and at one time Flash playback was even part of QuickTime. Say what you will, Apple hates Flash, Apple is moving towards HTML5, Apple wants to control the experience, or Apple is concerned about Flash based security vulnerabilities. No matter the reason Flash Support will not be included in the default installation of Lion, but will continue to be available as a third-party plug-in from Adobe.

Java Runtime Environment

In 2001 Java was an important development option for porting existing applications over to Mac OS X, but as time went by Apple’s Java runtime became less important to the future of Mac OS X development. By 2005 Java bindings for the Cocoa frameworks proved to be unpopular by developers and were depreciated before the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. In 2010 Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard saw the depreciation of the entire Apple produced Java runtime and the introduction of the Mac App Store where Java apps would not be permitted. The writing is on the wall, the Java Runtime Environment will be removed from the default installation of Mac OS X Lion and replaced with an on-demand download. Security concerns and the continued cost of development are most likely the reasons behind this dropped feature. Look for an Oracle maintained version of Java for future versions of Mac OS X starting with Java SE 7.

Samba

Apple began integrating [the open source software] Samba into its operating systems in 2002 with the release of Mac OS X v10.2 “Jaguar.” With Samba, Mac OS X’s ability to interact with Windows has grown over the last several years, evolving from everyday file sharing between co-workers into Mac servers capable of hosting account profiles and entire home directories for Windows users to access from their networked PCs.

As Mac OS X adopted more of Samba’s tools, the team behind Samba gradually transformed the open source licensing for its software. The latest version of Samba is offered only with General Public License Version 3 (GPLv3) licensing, which includes restrictions that essentially prevent Apple from incorporating it into commercially packaged software like Mac OS X.

Samba’s disappearance from Lion will not herald the end of Windows networking technologies in Mac OS X. Instead Apple is hard at work building a new suite of built-in tools that will allow Mac OS X Lion to continue communicating with Windows networks.

Front Row

Front Row, the TV-oriented media center playback system for Mac OS X, was first added to Macs in 2005. It provided a simple 10-foot user interface suitable for displaying photos, music, and videos in a living room settings. Apple stopped bundling Front Row compatible IR remotes with its computers in the end of 2007, and the last update to Front Row was made in 2008. Since then the Apple TV and AirPlay have taken over the role of a Mac compatible media extender for the living room. The only customers sad to see Front Row go are Mac mini enthusiasts who continue to use their pint-sized Macs as an entertainment center.

56k Modem

The last Mac to have a built-in 56k modem was the legendary PowerBook G4 John Gruber documented in his review Full Metal Jacket. Since then Macintosh users who rely on dial-up internet or telephone faxing have had to purchase an optional USB Modem from Apple.

The decision to drop the built-in dial-up modem is reminiscent of Apple’s decision to drop built-in floppy drives. With the rise of broadband Internet and the general availability of wireless networking, it is likely that Apple felt that it was of more use for people to have default wireless instead of default dial-up.

With the release of Lion Apple is dropping support for 56k modems entirely. The previous USB modem driver emulated the design of Motorola SM56 and will not be rewritten for 64 bit. Alternatives such as the USRobotics 56K USB Faxmodem, and Zoom Model 3095 V.92 USB Mini External Modem do exist, and are reported to work under Lion.

The seven major features left out of Lion will be missed most by the people who used them, but a forward thinking operating system like Mac OS X can only keep evolving when legacy runtimes are left behind.

With the absence of easily obtainable installation media Mac OS X Lion looks like it might make for a difficult clean install. Not so, Apple was hiding the official installation media disc image under our noses the entire time.

1. Purchase and download Lion from the Mac App Store on any Lion compatible Mac running Snow Leopard.
2. Right click on “Mac OS X Lion” installer and choose the option to “Show Package Contents.”
3. Inside the Contents folder that appears you will find a SharedSupport folder and inside the SharedSupport folder you will find the “InstallESD.dmg.” This is the Lion boot disc image we have all been waiting for.
4. Copy “InstallESD.dmg” to another folder like the Desktop.
5. Launch Disk Utility and click the burn button.
6. Select the copied “InstallESD.dmg” as the image to burn, insert a standard sized 4.7 GB DVD, and wait for your new Lion Boot Disc to come out toasty hot.

It is important that you burn your Lion boot disc or backup the Lion installer prior to installing Lion itself. If left in the Applications folder the installer will be removed after the Lion installation is completed. If you are reading this article after upgrading to Lion all is not lost. A fresh copy of the Lion installer can always be re downloaded from the Mac App Store by clicking on the Purchased tab with the Option key held down.

With the Lion boot disc you can boot any Lion compatible Mac, and install 10.7 just like you installed previous versions of Mac OS X. You can even use Disk Utility’s Restore function to image your Lion boot disc image onto a external drive suitable for performing a clean install on a computer without an optical drive. Clean installs with Lion are easy once you find where Apple has hidden the secret boot disk.

With the unveiling of Lion just days away it is easy to look back at past releases of Mac OS and see how we arrived at Apple’s latest system software. Over the last 27 years Apple has introduced more than 17 major releases of its premier desktop operating system. Some releases such as System 7, and Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger brought revolutionary changes to the Mac while making the transition between hardware architectures. Evolutionary releases like System 6, and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard consolidated features while improving stability. The entire history of Mac OS says more about Apple than any other product, and it is the best of Mac OS that says the most about Apple’s future.

When considering the best version of Mac OS you must compare releases that offered the greatest number of new features against versions that clocked the longest up time. You must reference the classic system software of yesterday’s Macintosh against the latest breaking developments in Mac OS X. Your answer might be swayed by the first version you ever used, or the operating system that shipped with your first Mac. The best Mac OS is as much a personal question as it is a technical comparison. There is no right choice and it is often our own experiences and requirements that dictate our answer.

It is popular to assume that the latest technology is always the greatest, and this is often true for operating systems where the most recent versions have the most features. But features alone do not make great operating systems, and all Macs cannot run the latest OS. So instead of picking the most stable Mac OS with the most features I choose four versions that span the entire Macintosh product line and provide the best user experience Apple has to offer.

System 6

System 6 was the first widely available Macintosh operating system to be given a unified “Macintosh System Software” version number. From System 6 forward, the Finder would have a version number closely matching that of the System, alleviating much of the confusion caused by the often considerable differences found on earlier Systems.

System 6 oversaw the introduction of the Motorola 68030 processor, the 1.44 MB SuperDrive, and the legendary Macintosh SE30. Later, it would include support for the first specialized laptop features with the introduction of the Macintosh Portable. System 6’s most remarkable feature was cooperative multitasking by way of a optional system extension called MultiFinder.

Multifinder gave each application CPU time, it provided a way for windows from different applications to co-exist by using an application layering model. When an application was activated, all of its windows were brought forward as a single layer. This approach was necessary for backward compatibility, but MultiFinder combined with System 6’s limited 24 bits of addressable RAM introduced many of the memory management problems that would plague Mac OS until the introduction of Mac OS X.

Despite the memory management issues it introduced, System 6 is a favorite among 68k Mac fans for its small memory footprint, and minimalist appeal. It installs from two floppies, uses 600k of RAM, and doesn’t require an additional hard disk. 6.0.8. the final version of System 6 not only consolidated the existing Macintosh System Software, but incorporated important features from System 7 like TrueType fonts, andQuicktime. With MultiFinder turned off System 6 was easily the most stable operating system for classic Macintosh and became a important comparison against the instabilities of System 7.

Mac OS 8

Codename Tempo, Mac OS 8.0 began life as Mac OS 7.7 but was renumbered 8 to exploit a legal loophole shutting down the Macintosh clone market. Mac OS 8 saw the introduction of many new features such as a customizable appearance, contextual menus, pop-up windows, spring-loaded folders, live scrolling, WindowShade, a multithreaded Finder, and desktop pictures. Despite all of these significant usability advances, Mac OS 8’s most important improvements came in later point releases.

Mac OS 8.1 introduced a new file system known as HFS+, which supported large file sizes and made more efficient use of larger hard drives by using a smaller block size. Mac OS 8.5 focused on speed and stability by eliminating 68k support, and requiring a PowerPC processor. Mac OS 8.6 added a new nanokernel making it the most stable classic Mac OS for PowerPC machines.

Mac OS 8 oversaw the introduction of the G3, the iMac, the iBook, and the Power Mac G4. It added a number of features from the abandoned en.wikipedia.orgwikiCopland_(operating_system text: Copland) project, and kept Mac OS moving forward during a difficult time for Apple. Mac OS 9 might be commonly remembered as the last classic Mac OS, but it was a transitional release that traded stability for features and Mac OS X compatibility. Mac OS 8 was the Mac OS that saved Apple.

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

I had a tough time picking a best Mac OS between Jaguar, Panther, and Tiger. Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar brought Mac OS X’s feature-set up to par with Mac OS 9 making Mac OS X usable for a wider audience. Mac OS X 10.3 Panther improved upon Jaguar with faster speeds, while retaining Jaguar’s minimal system requirements. Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger ushered in a new era for Mac OS X by implementing exciting new features, and moving the Mac from PowerPC to Intel based processors. If Tiger wasn’t also the best Mac OS for modern PowerPC Macs I would have a hard time recommending it. I am weary of OS upgrades that try to do too much, and the transition from PowerPC to Intel would have been a monumental leap for most OSes, but Tiger pulled it off with ease. I will always have a soft spot for Panther, the last Mac OS before Apple’s popularity exploded, but Tiger is the undisputed favorite on Twitter.

Tiger removed support for the original iMac and iBook, and required 256MBs of RAM, twice the memory as previous versions of Mac OS X. All other system requirements were the same, although to take full advantage of Core Image a graphics card with 64 MBs of video RAM was required. Tiger didn’t ask a lot from its users but it gave a lot in return.

Automator, Grapher, Dictionary, Quartz Composer, AU Lab, and Dashboard were all brand new applications introduced in Tiger. iChat AV, Safari, Mail, and Quicktime all saw significant updates. With Tiger scripting became easier, graphics transitions and effects were more fluid, real-time audio processing was possible. Definitions, weather, stock market information, flight tracking, and built-in RSS were available at the push of a button. Spotlight, Tiger’s new contextual search engine, brought the contents of your hard drive to the forefront with only a few simple keystrokes. And Quicktime 7 combined with H.264 and iChat AV made video conferencing available for the rest of us.

Almost all of these features were made possible by architecture changes first implemented in Tiger. A 64-bit aware kernel allowed for more memory to be available for individual processes running on a Mac with a 64-bit processor. Launchd modernized Mac OS X’s Unix underpinning and allowed for faster startup. Core Image, Core Video, and Core Audio made all of Tiger’s whiz-bang graphical and audio effects possible, while Core Data made it easier for developers to handle structured data in their applications.

On top of all these new applications and technologies Tiger made the transition from PowerPC to Intel in less than 30 months. It took System 7 almost 7 years to make the switch from 68k to PowerPC. It comes at no surprise that Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is one of the best selling versions of Mac OS X to date, and one of the best versions of Mac OS ever.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard is my favorite version of Mac OS X not because of the features it added, but because of the ones it took away. Snow Leopard only runs on Macs with Intel processors. It was the first Mac OS release since System 7.1.1 that does not support the PowerPC architecture (although PowerPC applications are supported via Rosetta , an optional install. Shedding all of those Universal Binaries), and adopting an advanced application compression scheme means Snow Leopard saves 6 GBs of disk space over its predecessor 10.5.

Among Snow Leopard’s select new features are a updated Finder rewritten in Cocoa. A new version of Safari that includes a 50{493f798df480ad5a2796e65210fbf6e65215ebdcc2070f4d9b100f3865a5d00d} increase in JavaScript performance, and support for Microsoft Exchange in Mail, iCal, and Address Book. Under the hood Snow Leopard is the first Mac OS to ship with a 64-bit kernel that can take advantage of greater amounts of memory. QuickTime was completely rewritten to take advantage of audio video codecs in 64-bit, and Grand Central Dispatch was invented to ease the development of applications with multi-core support.

Visually 10.6 Snow Leopard is not much different from 10.5 Leopard. The operating systems looks and acts the same, but in addition to PowerPC support some features have been removed. AppleTalk, Creator Codes, and Classic HFS write access are the most glaring omissions for long time Mac users, but I wouldn’t have Snow Leopard any other way. By making the tough choices and trading features for stability, Snow Leopard is more than a best of breed operating system it is the foundation for the future of Mac OS.

Lion is right around the corner. Built from the best of Mac OS it combines the stability and refinement of Snow Leopard with the usability innovations first seen on the iPhone. It has yet to be determined if the multitouch gestures and full screen apps will be a success on the desktop, and if Lion will be one of the best of Mac OS. All that is certain is that Apple is not standing still, and Lion for better or worse is the future of Mac OS. Let’s hope it will be a good one.

Stacey is a framework for building simple websites.

The project is based around two core ideals:

• Separating textual content & assets from your HTML
• Keeping ugly PHP-style logic out of your templates

Stacey accomplishes this without a database, or installation files. Simply drag the application onto a web server with PHP installed and Stacey starts runing. “Content is managed by creating folders and editing text files.” Templates are generated by authoring HTML with a special set of tags. You have complete control over every piece of markup that is generated. All of the dynamic parts like breadcrumbs, navigation lists, and embedding images are handled for you automatically.

I start a new note in Stacey by copying the folder for the last note I have written. Each folder contains all of the note’s assets. Text can be written in plaintext, markdown, or HTML. Images can be .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, or .png. Stacey also supports videos, sounds and PDFs.

Each note’s folder receives a unique name and number. The number determines the note’s position in the blog. Older entries have a lower number. Newer entries have a higher number. The name determines the note’s URL (slug). Categories are notes separated into folders. The text in each note can be tagged with metadata including title and date. New tags can be created as needed.

I do all of my editing in VIM on the same server that hosts Egg Freckles. Some people sync what they write from a local computer using Dropbox or rsync. Because everything I write is in plaintext, I can edit from a Mac, Newton, or mobile phone.

Even though Stacey is old, and no longer being maintained, I still use it. I like that Stacey doesn’t use a database, and every edit I save is published instantly without pressing a button. I started Egg Freckles with the goal of writing a blog that looked like a Newton on a Newton. Stacey isn’t the only CMS I can use from my MessagePad, but it is the closest I have come replicating the Newton experince.

Apple released four distinct Newton form factors containing eight different models between August 1993 and February 1998. Each form factor was an evolutionary step forward for the platform, and introduced design considerations and features that were different from past and subsequent models. Choosing a Newton requires understanding each models benefits and weaknesses and applying that knowledge towards selecting the Newton that best meets your needs.

Original MessagePad & 100

The OMP was unveiled and released on August 3, 1993 at MacWorld Boston. It’s release was somewhat premature and it is referred to by some of the Newton faithful as the ‘grand public beta test’.

Despite having similar technical specifications as later Newtons the OMP is limited to the kind of personal information management we attribute to yesterday’s PDAs or today’s most rudimentary mobile phones. Names, Dates, To Dos, Notes, and the ability to send simple faxes and emails are the OMP’s killer features, but its premature software and inadequate cursive handwriting recognizer Calligrapher, limit its usefulness as a MessagePad.

Unfortunately Calligrapher the word-based handwriting recognition engine in the Newton which was developed by the Soviet programmers at Paragraph International Inc. got more attention for what it couldn’t do than what it could.

Being a word based recognizer Calligrapher can only decipher words that are in its dictionary and even then it has to be trained for several weeks before it gets proficient. Using an Original MessagePad for taking notes often requires adding unknown words to the dictionary and rewriting them several times before the OMP can decipher them correctly. Things got better one year later with the release of the MessagePad 100 which added individual character recognition, but both MessagePads are limited by their early system software that can’t ran many later Newton applications.

The golden screen color, graceful curves, and soft touch casing of the Original MessagePads make these two models some of the most attractive Newtons ever made. But real work on a MessagePad requires real character recognition, and these original MessagePads just don’t offer the versatility or the recognition to make them anything more than collector’s items.

MessagePad 110, 120 & 130

In March of 1994, at the same time the MessagePad 100 was released, Apple updated the Newton form factor with the introduction of a new model. The MessagePad 110 allows for improved portability over the Original MessagePad by offering a slightly smaller display and flip over screen protector that resembles the front cover on a reporter’s notepad. The stylus was redesigned into a more familiar round shape, and internalizing the holster started a trend that made all subsequent MessagePads thinner and more comfortable to hold. The 110 shipped with the same limited Newton OS 1.3 software as the MessagePad 100.

Although all second generation MessagePads look identical, they were produced during a transition period in Apple’s Newton platform and have different specifications. The first models like the MessagePad 110 and the initial release of the MessagePad 120 shipped with the same 1.3 software that makes the Original MessagePads unsuitable for daily use, but later models like the second revision of the 120 and MessagePad 130 shipped with Newton OS 2.0 and its new printed handwriting recognizer Rosetta.

The printed recognizer in OS 2.0 was flawless and required no dictionary or learning period. It worked with familiar and strange handwriting styles alike. It only required separated printed characters to analyze. Even today, its recognition system is unmatched in the computing industry.

Other additions that made it into OS 2.0 include Ink Text, the ability to write and format natural unrecognized handwriting. A text expand feature that allows predetermined shortcuts to be automatically expanded into full length text. The ability to rotate the display into a landscape orientation, and compatibility with external keyboards. Even the the most basic applications like Notes gained custom stationary, and Names gained user defined fields. So many improvements came with Newton OS 2 that I can’t recommend choosing a Newton without it.

The MessagePad 130 is my recommendation for a Newton from this generation. Not only does it sport the comfortable form factor of the 110 and 120, but it is guaranteed to ship with Newton OS 2.0, an extra 512k worth of memory, and over 78,000 new words in its Calligrapher dictionary. It may not have the soft touch casing of the Original MessagePads, but it does have a textured screen with a backlight that is more pleasurable to write on, even in the dark.

MessagePad 2000 & 2100

The MessagePad 130 was just a taste of things to come. The introduction of the MessagePad 2000 brought a true revolution to the MessagePad hardware.

The 20002100 series has an ECL backlit screen like the MP130 but with twice the number of pixels (480 x 320 vs. previous model’s 320 x 240) in a 20{493f798df480ad5a2796e65210fbf6e65215ebdcc2070f4d9b100f3865a5d00d} increase in screen dimensions resulting in a high resolution display (100 dpi vs. 85 dpi). It also propelled the newton from being just black and white pixels to 16 level grey scale pixels.

Starting with the MessagePad 2000 the Newton was no longer just a personal information management device with messaging capabilities. It could now perform basic multimedia tasks including displaying greyscale photography, and playing music over its internal speaker. Of course all of these additional capabilities require a large improvement in performance, and the MessagePad 2000 got it with a 162MHz StrongARM 110 RISC chip that puts out 150 MIPS (@400 MIPSwatt).

The previous Newtons all had 20MHz ARM RISC chips that ran at 15 MIPS (110 th the speed) and 100 MIPSwatt thus using 4 times as much power. The net result of the StrongARM chip is an unbelievable ten fold increase in speed with 14 the power usage.

In addition to the high-res greyscale screen, the multimedia capabilities, and 10x improvement in performance the MessagePad 2000 offers twice as much memory as the 130, and the MessagePad 2100 offers almost twice as much memory as the 2000.

Although both MessagePads shipped with Newton OS 2.1 and greatly improved performance, a 2100 or upgraded 2000 is the Newton to get if you want to experience the most of what the platform has to offer. The additional memory is practically a requirement for web browsing and multitasking, and because these were the last MessagePads released they have the hardware specifications required to experience the entire back catalog of Newton software.

eMate 300

The eMate 300 is Apple’s first and only non-MessagePad Newton with a built-in keyboard. The eMate 300 was designed to take the rugged lifestyle of a K-12 education. For example the eMate’s keyboard has no circuitry hidden underneath to avoid damage from liquid spills, and its protective casing is designed to withstand drops from a student’s hands. If the screen or keyboard is damaged, both are designed for easy removal and replacement.

The screen on the eMate 300 has the same number of pixels but is slightly larger than the MessagePad 2000. And its built-in keyboard adds a row of function keys along the top which replace the button bar and provide one-touch access to built-in applications and common commands such as Close and Backlight OnOff.

The eMate 300 makes a great first computer for a child, but its underpowered 25MHz processor and traditional clamshell design offer few benefits over an older model laptop.

My Choice

My first Newton was a MessagePad 130 and I fell in love with its ease of use, character recognition, and slender form factor. In my opinion no other Newton is better for quick, portable note taking. Later models such as the 2100 are far more versatile, but their features pale considerably when compared to modern devices like the iPad. If you are looking for a first Newton that will do everything the platform has to offer get a 2100. But if you are looking for the optimal MessagePad to do what a Newton does best Note taking, a MessagePad 130 is the smallest device you will find with real handwriting recognition.

A Newton MessagePad, the grandfather of all PDAs, is a funny thing to carry around with you when most people are sliding super slim, constantly connected, application-rich smartphones into their pockets. Compared to the iPhone a Newton MessagePad looks like a green brick, and I have been accused more than once of stealing the rubberized signature pad from a UPS delivery man. Despite what my Newton lacks in portability, connectivity, and applications it makes up for with a unique set of features no other mobile computer can match.

Battery Life

MessagePads have a battery life that can be measured in weeks and not days. While most modern smartphones struggle to make it through a twenty four hour period, my Newton keeps on ticking due to an energy conscious design that continues to impress more than ten years later. Best of all, when my Newton runs out of juice a simple AA battery swap will get it back on task while a modern smartphone must wait three to four hours before going back to work. Sure my Newton might not be able to do as much as a smartphone in the same amount of time, but when it comes to writing and note taking my Newton’s closest competitor is the longevity of a pad of paper — not your smartphone.

Handwriting Recognition

Randy Murray makes the argument that In Meetings, Pen & Paper, Not Glass and Fingers help him connect with his clients and keep technology from getting in the way. He points to the iPad as being a distraction while taking notes, and I agree it must be hard to concentrate on your client when your eyes are focused on a virtual keyboard. The Newton alleviates that problem by recognizing your handwriting, and letting you take notes in the time honored fashion we all grew up with.

Want to start a new note? Just draw a horizontal line across the page. Add bullet items and hierarchy to your thoughts the same way you would on paper. Because you are concentrating on the speaker and not your Newton note taking comes naturally. And because your Newton is a computer those notes, bullets, and hierarchy can be reorganized as many times as you like without crossing out lines or throwing away paper.

Searching through your Newton is far easier than searching through a Moleskine. And when you are done no transcription necessary. Just print, email, fax, or sync your notes back to your computer. Show your client what you captured from the meeting before leaving the room. A Newton allows you to preserve the natural habits of note taking, without the adapting to technology, or the transcription required for traditional handwriting.

Document Centric Workflow

When you turn on a smartphone you are presented with a grid of applications that represent tasks your phone can do. When you turn on a Newton you are presented with your content. On a Newton their is no workflow to follow to get back to your writing because you are already there. There is no file system past a simple index. No open or save dialog boxes because what you write and read is always in front of you. A pad of paper never gets in your way because there is nothing between you and the content. In this respect a Newton is the same as a pad of paper.

Share Everything

If you have ever created something on an iOS device you know your data is stored in the app you created it in. You know how to access it by tapping on the app, but do you know how to get it out and share it with other applications or the rest of the world? On the iPhone sharing your creations is different for every single application. Not onl the methods of sharing, but the process of sharing as well. On the Newton everything is sharable, and shared in the same way. You can fax, email, beam, and print anything from the routing button. As new methods of sharing are installed they too are added to the routing button. Because the process is the same for any type of data you create, sharing on the Newton is almost as easy as ripping a page from your notepad and handing it across the table — and the best part is you get to keep the original.

Expandability

The only reason the Newton is still with us today is because it has managed to keep up with the times. Introduced before the popularity of the World Wide Web, the Newton community has developed both a web browser and and an email client for its users. No small feat for a device that was designed without the ability to network past infrared beaming and analog faxing. Later MessagePads have even gained the ability to print via IP, connect to Wifi hotspots, beam using Bluetooth, and in limited cases communicate through cellular modems. These achievements might sound like old news compared to modern smartphones, but the real message behind a Newton’s expandability is the community that brought it this far.

Community

The Newton is a great note taking device with a long lasting battery life, that puts your content first and allows you to share it with the world. Those features alone might sell you on the platform, but the Newton is no wonder device. It is over ten years old, and far past its prime. The reason I still carry a Newton is because of the community that makes the Newton great. NewtonTalk is a mailing list of passionate users that embrace a Newton’s philosophy of putting your data first while expanding the platforms capabilities for another generation of users to discover and enjoy.

If it wasn’t for the Newton’s community I would never have found the Newton in the first place. I still carry my Newton not only for what a Newton does for me, but what I can do for the community of Newton users that embrace technology in the same way I do. Egg Freckles is my way of celebrating the Newton’s unique capabilities, and the community of users that are responsible for pushing the Newton forward.

iTunes can tell you a lot about a song. It can tell you the title, the artist, the album, and the genre. It can tell you the year a song was released and when it was added to your iTunes library. iTunes can even tell you the bit rate of a recording, and how many times you have played or skipped a particular track. What iTunes can’t tell you is what a particular song is worth to you. iTunes can not place value on your music, and provides only clues when it comes to deciding which songs get synced to your iPod. Unless you are happy auto-filling your iPod randomly it is time to give your music value.

Enter Ratings

iTunes 3 gave us ratings. A chance to evaluate our music with a six point scale. To most people the idea of rating all of their music sounds tedious, and if you have several thousand songs it is certainly more of a chore than auto-filling your iPod. But the rewards are real. By telling iTunes how you value a song you can have it make smarter decisions about syncing your music. For instance you could have iTunes only fill your iPod with songs rated four or five stars. Or you could choose your top rated songs from a particular genre, or artist. Rating your music teaches iTunes its value, and the process of awarding stars becomes simpler when you look at the clues iTunes provides.

★★★★★

Let’s start with the easiest rating five stars, the best of the best. Finding your favorite tracks should be simple, but give iTunes the chance to help out by displaying the music you listen to most. Under the View menu while in iTunes choose the View Options command and make sure Ratings and Plays are both checked. Next click the header of your newly established Plays column to display the songs most played in your iTunes Library. If these aren’t your favorite songs you must have an ear for punishment. Finish by visiting your favorite artists and albums and rating the five star songs iTunes might have missed.

★★★★☆

Four star songs are still songs I would choose to listen to. Songs I would play at my party. Songs I would keep on my iPod. They may not be the best in my collection, but not every song can be my absolute favorite. Often these songs can be found within albums containing five star rated songs and within the works of your favorite artists. I try to keep my four and five star rated music within the capacity of my iPod. Rating too much music four stars only means you need to buy a bigger iPod.

★★★☆☆

Three star music is filler. The songs that sit between the four and five star tracks completing the album. On their own they might sound good, but you won’t ever go to them by name. It takes a decision to determine the difference between a three star track and a four star song. The three star rating is the divide between what goes on my iPod and what stays at home.

★★☆☆☆

A rating of two stars is bestowed on unfavorable music, that although listenable, isn’t something I need to necessarily have in my collection. A rating of two stars or less denotes music I wouldn’t choose for myself, and wouldn’t miss losing.

★☆☆☆☆

A one star rating describes an unenjoyable listening experience. In my collection that includes artist interviews, album intros, and hidden bonus tracks full of noise. One star rated songs would normally be deleted from my computer if they weren’t part of a complete album.

☆☆☆☆☆

All media in iTunes starts off with zero stars. A zero star rating in my iTunes library means a song’s value has yet to be determined, and not that it is without value. If sorting through your iTunes Library turns up a lot of songs with no rating it just means you have a lot of listening to do. Luckily the Potion Factory is here is help with their free utility I Lover Stars. No, it won’t rate your music for you, but while you are sitting in front of your computer listening to music I Love Stars gives you the chance to rate the currently playing song in the Menubar before going onto the next track. Listening to music is the best way to get started rating your collection.

Putting it in a Playlist

My iTunes Library has playlists for all of my star ratings, but the two most important are my 5 Star, and 4 Star Plus smart playlists. My 5 Star smart playlist contains just what you think it does, songs whose rating is five stars, in the playlist of Music. My Four Star Plus smart playlist contains songs that are rated in the range of four to five stars, also in the playlist of Music. Neither playlist has any limits, and both are live updating in anticipation of new music I will rate favorably in the future. With my songs rated and my smart playlists generated the only thing left to do is sync my iPod. By telling iTunes to only sync my Five Star and Four Star Plus playlists to my iPod I am telling iTunes to make a smart choice based on the ratings I have given my music. That is how I sync my iPod.

My backup strategy is simple. I have two computers, in two different locations, synchronized in real time over the web using Dropbox. Each computer is backed up hourly using Time Machine on two separate external hard drives. Time Machine keeps hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months.

• If I mistakenly delete or overwrite a file on either computer I have thirty days worth of revisions on Dropbox, and twenty four hours worth of hourly revisions on both Time Machine backup.
• If Dropbox fails to synchronize or inadvertently deletes files on both computers and the web, I still have two Time Machine backups in two different locations.
• If my house burns down I may lose a computer and a Time Machine backup, but I will still have all of my files backed up to the web via Dropbox, and my second computer with a working Time Machine backup.
• If the city of Boston burns down I may may lose both of my computers and both of my Time Machine backups, but I will still have all of my files backed up to the web via Dropbox.

Keeping an updated clone of either computer’s hard disks is not important to me. If either computer fails, I have a second computer. I keep my software needs simple so I can restore either computer from backup in under two hours.

Maintaining my data on a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is not the same as having a backup. When files are deleted from first drive n a RAID they are deleted from the second drive. There is no such things as revisions in RAID, and it is not uncommon for the RAID controller to fail and data to be lost on both hard drives. If a RAID protects you from anything it is a single hard drive failure.

If I wanted to strengthen by backup strategy I might include a separate off site backup made at regular intervals independent of Dropbox. I might perform my Time Machine backups on a more redundant backup media like a RAID. No backup strategy is failure proof, but having your data in three locations, on two different mediums, and at least one offsite location is the goal. This is called 3-2-1 backup, and it is how I backup my data.