My Constant Companion

Without any conscious intent, AppleKory has become my constant companion in my work area, despite the fact that I use it for virtually none of my client-based work (yet, anyway). At first this was due to the whole "new thing" thing (must touch, must caress, must keep in sight, etc.), however the more I configured and shaped AppleKory to reflect my personal cyber tastes the more I came to rely on my marvelous MacBook for all-digitalness-connections-and-communications.  Now, after scarcely a month, my work area is not complete unless AppleKory is at the immediate left of my primary keyboard, ready for action.  Email, instant messaging, RSS, Dashboard information...it is all right there at the ready, handled off-work-system. And dare I say it, but my work focus is much improved as a result, as I no longer deal with intruding notifications of the social sort in the middle of completing tasks. 

Days Away...

For the past two (2) days I have been away from AppleKory -- I have also been away from my Missus and the Boy, but this blog is only about the two of them in a tangential sense -- and I haven't liked it one little bit. Not one bit. Hours spent crunching on a Dell Latitude D620 to make a Monday deadline (often applying two fingers to the track pad and sliding them towards me, only to find the experience sorely lacking), or fiddling about with a Dell Latitude D505 -- yes, there are far too many Dell laptops in my life -- that serves as my work environment for a different client, etc. etc.  Enough!

For logistical reasons, AppleKory remained at our home in Normandy with my Missus and the Boy when I returned to Paris on Sunday night. Sure, I had to take the D620 back-and-forth to Paris for work reasons, but carting two laptops ain't no thang, right? No, it was because I also needed to bring the D620 back to Normandy, AND in-between the flat and the train tonight also had to take the D505 on-site for a client that I opted to leave AppleKory behind.  The visual: had to cart two Dell laptops from home this morning...couldn't imagine lugging a 3rd, even if that 3rd was AppleKory, despite the fact that I always planned to leave the D505 with the client for safekeeping.

So, cue "Reunited".  SO glad to be back in AppleKory's warm embrace...and that of the Missus and the Boy, of course. ;-)

AppleKory goes to Normandy!

Tonight I will take AppleKory to our house in Normandy for the first time.  No big deal, really, as the place is fitted out with wifi and I have been cyber working/playing there since we bought the place in Oct '06, but it is as good an excuse to blog here today as any other I have at the moment.

EVERYTHING is work right now, and -- yes -- all work and no play makes Kory a dull boy...hence this dull blog entry...

Missing AppleKory

Smack-dab in the middle of the proverbial "Week From Hell" (too many of mine these days fit the moniker, unfortunately), I find myself currently bouncing between three PCs to do my work.  

So many computers, so much computing, cyber-madness abounds, and what do I want to do with the few moments I give myself for respite?  Put my hands on AppleKory's supple keyboard and dive into the wonderful world of Leopard...that's what.

I've Been Workin on the Railroad...

Well, I hesitate to call it 'work', because even doing real work on AppleKory feels a bit too much like 'fun' for that.

Early Saturday afternoon finds me sitting on a train to Bourges with the Missus and the Boy...and AppleKory. Having yanked the computer from its cozy case I was surprised and delighted to see that despite a 90-minute nap AppleKory is up and rarin' to go at 99% power. Now I don't have a lot of experience with Windows PCs put into Sleep (or, rather, "Hibernate") mode, so I cannot make a true comparison energy-wise.  The reason I don't have that basis for comparison, though, is noteworthy...the worthy note being that in all of my time with Windows laptop PCs I never once was able to wake one from its nap without having to either (a) suffer interminable wait-time waiting for it to wake up, or (2) do a hard reset/shutdown and reboot.  AppleKory, though?  A "light tap on the shoulder" -- opening the screen -- and she is in-the-world-and-of-the-world...and at virtually the same power level as when I put her down for her nap.

The Missus has closed her eyes and settled in for her own nap, the Boy is watching "Inspector Gadget" (the 1999 movie, with Ferris Beuller...er, Matthew Broderick...not the cartoon) via iPod Nano (rented from the iTunes Store for $2.99), and I am left to futz around with AppleKory.  No Internet access -- will post this once that is re-established -- but plenty of time to fine-tune configuration, get dirty with new software (been looking for time to work out more of Quicksilver), and generally cyber-goof before we arrive in 90 minutes.

Train, train...sixteen coaches long...

Legacy Email to AppleKory...part 5

For my legions of followers, I offer this dramatic end to the fine tale I have been spinning regarding the movement of my email life to AppleKory:

After trying virtually every combination of convert-this-and-use-that-to-port-this-to-configure-that I threw my hands in the air, took 4 ibuprofen (oh, the headache the whole thing left me with!), and test drove O2M (Outlook To Macintosh).  What O2M was able to do in mere moments was everything I have been spending ridiculous hours trying to get done in ways far more klugey and convoluted.  O2M moved 5 of my emails into an .mbox format lickety-split, and AppleKory's Mail program swallowed it right up and spit out true converted goodness.  Intoxicated by success at long last, I spent the $10 for the O2M license faster than you can say the product's name, and at this very moment I am delighted to have O2m on the case, converting the remaining 40,000+ emails...life is GOOD.

Legacy Email to AppleKory...part 4

Thunderbird-to-Apple Mail effort No. 3 has gone belly-up, with the same Temporary Directories error described in an earlier post...this despite my best efforts to pre-chew the experience for all software/OS involved.  

Time to change gears.  The O2M product is out there on the far reaches of my imagination (and $10 really isn't much to solve such a thorny problem...especially when you instead regard it as 6.29 Euros), but I am determined to exhaust all of the klugey-but-fun homemade methods out there before forking over my hard-earned not-even-enough-to-see-Iron-Man money.

Next...a method involving .pst-->Outlook Express-->Thunderbird! Pray for me!

Two Fingers, So Simple

As I come to the end of my 3rd week with AppleKory I continue to be amazed at how quickly and seamlessly my Little 'Puter That Could (CAN!) has worked its way into my digital heart.  Just this morning, in fact, I sat down at one of my PC laptops -- the one I have had churning the import process between Outlook .pst and Thunderbird (which once again didn't work, despite my simplifying it to the atomic level) -- and I mindlessly found myself trying to scroll down the page by placing two fingers on the Track Pad and sliding them towards me.  Uh...er...hmmm...didn't work BECAUSE IT IS A WINDOWS XP SYSTEM AND NOT APPLE LEOPARD.  

Something so intuitive, so practical, so elegant in its design, so...right.  So right that I now have global expectation of the feature, and will henceforth -- at least until Windows swipes the idea and integrates it (get on the stick, Redmond!) -- come up disappointed when using a PC laptop.

And I haven't even mentioned two-fingers-on-pad-click method for calling Context menus (right-click functionality in Windows world)!

Legacy Email to AppleKory...part 3

My effort continues to replicate my email work on AppleKory.  

After failing to surmount the insurmountable Temp folder problem on my main PC, I opted instead to start afresh using a virgin Outlook installation on one of the PC notebooks I have laying around (currently numbered at 5...a story for another time, though hints of it have already crept in should you, Dear Reader, choose to look for them).  And to give the latest effort the absolute best chance of succes, I chose to consolidate my many Outlook .pst files into one large (HUGE..3.6GB) one, which I have just turned over to Thunderbird for import.  In the meantime, I just installed Thunderbird on AppleKory, so at least this time I have made it as far as step 3...

I'm free...and freedom tastes of reality!

I am performing a monthly ritual this morning -- that being a meeting with my lawyer/accountant to fill out/file my TVA report for the month previous -- and as is also ritual I am passing the hour before our 10AM meeting in a nearby café soaking in some coffee.  As usual, there are a few people sitting with open laptops, and while this is far from uncommon -- heck, in the US it seems to be almost illegal these days to inhabit a coffee joint WITHOUT your laptop -- it is not something I typically find myself doing unless absolutely necessary.  This is true for numerous reasons:  the non-portability of my previous so-called "portables" (refer to previous blog entries -- and likely future ones, as well), the pain of waiting for a Windows machine to boot-up, and -- chief among my lack of enthusiasm for European café surfing -- the scarcity of free wifi (in Paris, anyway)...or, at least, the scarcity of free wifi that my systems could detect.  In fact, the obstacles to pain-free café computing were such that I have not considered it for quite some time...until today, that is.

When preparing my various documents and such for the afformentioned monthly meeting I though, "Hey...instead of just stuffing this stuff into the little book bag I usually cart it around in, why don't I instead put it in the front pocket of AppleKory's case and take my new pal on the road (or into the café, as it were)?  It's so easy to use at home, perhaps AppleKory can get me over my computing-in-cafés hump."

Well, needless to say that I am leading up to yet another story of AppleKory triumph.  I started this blog entry with AppleKory on my lap at the Starbucks at St. Lazare, where I was able to piggyback on a local hotel's free wifi (my Dell laptops would've never picked that up) and jump right into my blog. 

Could it be any easier with a MacBook?  Perhaps if I was talking my words into pixels instead of typing them. (Or perhaps not.)

Legacy Email to AppleKory...part 2

So here is where I am with porting my Outlook email life into AppleKory's Mail environment...

At the suggestion of a fellow recent Mac migrant (macmigrant.com, plug plug), I am attempting to achieve my chose square-peg-round-hole task using Mozilla's Thunderbird as a go-between.  This method involves 5 simple-sounding steps: 

1. Load Thunderbird (for Windows) onto the PC
   
2. Import Outlook .pst files into Thunderbird (Windows)
   
3. Install Thunderbird (for Mac) onto the Mac 
   
4. Transfer the Thunderbird (Windows) data to the Thunderbird (Mac) installation, and finally...
   
5. Import the Thunderbird (Mac) data into AppleKory's Mail environment

Oughtta be simple, right?  There are even websites that Google up that say so, right!  Rotsa ruck.

In my initial attempt I managed to get all the way to the second step before hitting a roadblock.  Got Thunderbird (Windows) installed on my PC, and started the Import procedure for Outlook files.  After a few minutes...ERROR.  And an unrecoverable one at that (had to Task Manager my way out of it, in fact).  Turns out there was something in my Temp folder that was hanging the process up...and though you'd think it would be an easy fix -- just empty the darn thing, right? -- no matter what I did, I couldn't get over that obstacle.

Just knew it wasn't going to be THAT easy...continued in part 3.

Legacy Email to AppleKory...part 1

For a couple of days now I have been trying to wrap my head around the concept of moving my email life onto AppleKory, and I have to say I am a bit surprised at how difficult it has been (and continues to be).  Of course, my problems have virtually nothing to do with my lovely, shiny, new cyber-friend (enabler?), and everything to do with...Microsoft.

Since 2000 email for me has meant Outlook. And not just using it to read and respond to emails, but to manage them, configure their backup and easy access, and every other thing a semi-technical person can think of to make email a useful tool and a pleasure, and not a headache. Fair play.  What I didn't know until just recently, though, was that I had been led down a dark path into an oh-so-proprietary communications system. Of course, this didn't matter so long as I didn't have any need for my emails outside of my comfortable prison, but now that I want to port it all over to AppleKory...anybody got a file they want to slip into a cake for me?  Perhaps a rock hammer?

Taking BIG Steps Now: Importing Outlook Information into AppleKory

Thus far I have climbed many hills and a few small mountains in my quest to bring AppleKory fully up-to-speed on my cyber-life, however tonight I start the scale up K2 (c'mon, any "mountain" metaphor would simply have to be that one...Everest is for trendy posers) and begin the task of moving all-things-K²-Outlook into my newest and bestest digital pal.  Clear eyes, full hearts (Can't Lose)!

Someone's in the kitchen with Kory...someone's in the kitchen I know...

...and it's AppleKory!

Picking back up on the portability thoughts of last night, I am sitting in my kitchen at the moment, discussing tomorrow's lunch menu with my Missus (her youngest sister's family will join us), and whipping out a quick blog entry via the Blogger Dashboard widget. Easy, pleasant, right...not like the very few times I have worked on one of my Dell laptops in the kitchen, when I felt much like I imagine a bullfighter would feel at a Horiculturist convention.

One of the perils of being in the kitchen, enjoying and passing a little boy-in-the-other-room time with my wife...I now have a shopping list in my hand, and the market won't wait. C'est la vie...

There is portable...and there is PORTABLE

Though I have been using laptops since 1993 -- my first was a PowerBook 160 -- I have to say that up until recently I have never been fond of the form.  Until now...until AppleKory.

My typical laptop experience before now? Sweaty-lap systems that make too much noise, suffer from wobbly construction, are typically too heavy, and that do nothing to inspire use beyond what is absolutely necessary.  Not computers I would ever think to spend an evening with on the couch...or in bed prior to lights-out.

So tonight I am typing this blog entry from -- you guessed it -- my bed, prior to lights out (actually the lights ARE out now...my Missus has gone to sleep and I sit here in the dark, unable just yet to put AppleKory away and settle in).  No sweaty lap, no sound other than the comforting sound of my wife steadily breathing to my left (and, of course, the sound of my fingers hitting the keys), and it all feels...right.

Channeling Madonna...

...or, at least, her 1985 hit "Crazy For You", which I am currently humming to AppleKory's Dashboard.  

It seems that I have been reading about widgets almost since my computer screens when from monochromatic to bilyuns-n-bilyuns of colors, and a few years ago I even gave 'em a go (Konfabulator, anyone?), however only now -- with AppleKory -- am I seeing the sheer beauty of the concept (and not just because a good many of them are, in fact, beautiful).  I remember that in my previous attempt to swallow widgets I simply couldn't get past the way they seemed to clutter things up...simply put, they made my workspace feel messy.  Now, though...I have Dashboard, and anyone who wants to take it away from me will have to come at me with a blowtorch, a mason jar full of kerosene, and the will to use 'em in tandem.

So.  My Dashboard?  Well, remember that I am still quite new at all of this -- AppleKory nd I celebrate our 2-week anniversary tonight --  and that I have a lot of other Mac fun to process, OK?  Now, having softened the critical eyes of audience, this is what I am currently running on my Dashboard:

• Doonesbury
• Chicago Cubs News
• MLB Central Division Standings (National League, of course)
• Chicago Cubs 5-day Schedule/Results
• Currency Converter
• Calculator
• Amazon Search
• Language Translator
• Weather (set to Paris)
• Gmail
• Blogger (writing in that widget right now, in fact)
• Jack-of-All-Widgets (An ASTOUNDING search tool)

Now if anyone out there is actually reading this and has suggestions or recommendations for cool widgets I have not yet found or installed...bring 'em on!

More on widgets later...like how Dashboard has led me to seek out a like Windows experience (and to find it!)...

To Slam or Not to Slam...

Everything in Windows feel so...rickety now that I have two weeks of Leopard under my belt.  Tonight I am working on my PC, crunching to get a 300+ page document put together for morning delivery, and Microsoft Word 2007 has already crashed 4 times since I started building the master document an hour ago.  I haven't attempted the tasks on AppleKory -- simply don't have the time right now to cross the necessary thresholds between work (PC) and fun (MacBook) -- and yet I am certain that had I done so I wouldn't currently be waiting for Word to reboot...again.  Some awfully large tectonic activity happening upstairs between the ears these days...feeling a massive shift on the horizon.

All this and Citrix too!

So here is the so-cool-it-hurts entry for the day...using the Citrix client for the Mac I am able to log into my decidedly-Windows-centric work account with a hardware-company-that-shall-not-be-named-here (can tellya, though, that they don't make Mac-able computers...yet)!  And not only can I log in, but I can use my entire application set as well (again, all Windows-centric stuff)!  

Whodathunkit?  (Whodabothered to thunk it?)

At long last...LOVING RSS!

I never really had the time or the patience to work out building a library of RSS feeds in Windows.  But with Leopard's Mail program it is so easy and so useful...I feel like the last person on earth to actually taste a truly good milkshake!

Coming Soon (or not)...AppleKory.com!

So just for kicks I did a domain search on "applekory", and lo and behold it was available. No longer, though...

Change-of-Address cards to come...assuming I can work out the hosting-your-own-blog thing, that is.

Starting in with Quicksilver

Installing Quicksilver this morning, an application that has been suggested to me by two completely different and unrelated people over the 13 days of AppleKory.  I haven't managed to suss it out yet, but I will say that the installation itself was a thing of beauty and worth the price of admission.

Howzabout them Apple(Kory)s...?

I have lost count of the number of times I have started a blog, and perhaps this effort will fall on deaf eyes too  (including my own), but so be it.  A new MacBook has inspired me to give it go once again -- the first Macintosh computer to weasel its way into my life since I gave 'em up for Windows and higher paychecks back in '93 -- and not only because the darn thing is more fun than basket of kittens, but also because it provides a point of focus...a theme of sorts...wait for it...

My Personal Experience in Returning to Mac-Land after Years Spent Wandering the Wilderness of Windows (a mouthful, no doubt)!