OSX Mavericks

the good: much quicker launch & shut down

the bad: behaviour of power button changed! simply pressing it only makes machine sleep. to have more options, it needs to be pressed between 1.5 sec to 5 sec. don't press longer than 5 sec or everything does not save will be lost due to force turn off. (ref: apple support)

written on osx mavericks

apple mac os x lion on mid 2009 13” macbook pro

one of the greatest things for apple inc this month should be launch of latest osx, lion. there is no need to introduce it here as apple’s site does a better job.

today the curiosity has driven me to the app store & bought the latest os x. download was not long for over 2.7gb stuff. before installing, un-mounted boot camp partition and stopped running non-apple default applications to make sure installation going smooth. around half hour later, the installation was complete and it is rebooted.

i love the new login screen, the background is simple & also showing the machine is connected with wireless or not and how much battery is left. first time running was a bit frustrated, speed was a bit too slow. and the new multi-touch gestures make the old geeks unconformable. two-finger scroll does the different way as it was in slow leopard.

the biggest problem i hit was related to boot camp. unlike others, i don’t have problem to get boot camp partition mounted. but since there is no more disc for lion, latest windows drivers for boot camp 4.0 are needed to download instead. but the download does not support wireless lan! i needed to unplug the connection to router and plug it directly to the macbook… anyway windows experience index increases by 0.1 point with update of display driver.

launchpad, the idea from ios, doesn’t impress me much for those new functions i tried. maybe i’m out-dated. the old presentation is enough. but mission control rocks, it’s much better than the old expose. and lion runs smoother later. seems something was fine tuning at first one.

more on vba problems in excel for mac 2011

there are problems related to vba being found after i installed excel for mac 2011 on my machine. not 100% excel coded in excel for windows 2007/2010 with common features (i.e. not include active-x or ribbon change) is accepted in excel for mac.

there’s a bug in instr function which makes excel for mac out of memory. when you use an if function & one of its criteria is based on result of instr function, it fails. the code is like below:

if instr(1, cells(x,y), zzzz, 1) = 0 and cells(a,b) = “ccc” 
  …
end if

another scene is if the cells are filled with date, the date format is affected & overridden by mac os x language setting. vba cannot detect those fields either or make excel out of memory.

and when you make changes in excel for mac, digital cert included in the spreadsheet is lost & you need to mount it back in windows version again before you can make the code live again.

new wave of ms stuff on mac

messenger for mac 8:
good: supporting video call; file & photo sharing; new contact request not shown every time after you don't add that contact

bad: not supporting multi-login with clients on other computers at the same time; not supporting other social features

office for mac 2011:
good: return of outlook; support of vba; use of ribbon; faster respond time; nice templates; quick search in document; support of office web apps
bad: still missing other apps like visio, access; not fully compatible of vba written for office 2007/2010 (at least i got some problems for fields with dates & said overrun...); too simplified macro/add-on security control than windows version

temp fix for ipod detection error after upgrading to itunes 10 in win xp

1. uninstall every apple software per instruction in apple support site.
2. install previous version of itunes (i.e. don’t remove setup file asap or simply use auto update function)
3. install latest version of itunes
4. done!

Mar 6 2011: itunes problem should be finally fixed in 10.2 by asking user to reboot the machine after installation

tp-link & macbook

i may know the wireless connection getting crappy between tp-link wireless router & macbook.

there are two factors, one is temperature of macbook. if the heat is not exhausted out, the temperature is directly proportional to the interference of the wireless signal. the connectivity in winter is much better than that of summer.

another is the boot camp. it seems either mac os or windows doesn’t disconnect / release the original connection well enough the next connection in another os sucks. but i still need to use windows as latest office for mac doesn’t support vba.

apple keynote

1. steve jobs is still a bit thin and kept coughing.
   
   
2. it's too bad that genius is useless in hk unless music store is ok to work.
   
   
3. another ipod nano. it comes one model every year! this one is pretty awesome. the only bad thing is the lock button on the top. at least i don't need to take my fat nano completely out from the socks to lock the it.
   
   
4. how about the new in-ear headphones? not many like the old one. is the new much better and not behind the one outside?

P.S. it rocked when jack johnson, the most selling artists in music store, performed at the end.

ipod nano 3rd gen update

latest 1.1.2 fixes some bugs as per apple description for ipod nano 3rd generation. the most important for me is making sound much louder! i think the power has been doubled. that means i need to reset volume control but i forgot the password. so i have reset whole machine completely.

and the sound quality has been improved to a level i think it is much more acceptable. i cannot listen obvious noise but it is still worse than 1st generation shuttle.

what i got from special shopping event

© Apple Inc

white notebooks & beta software

recently one of my friends wanna buy a notebook in white, but in the market only few choices can be chosen, like benq, toshiba, fujitsu, and apple. if you don't care about where it was made or what os bundled into the book, macbook is the best for price over performance and design. but obviously my friend is a normal user, she won't choose mac anyway.

but as usual, not all apple products are as cool as you think. like ipod, you may suffer from battery time, poor bass, or not supporting radio directly. and recently apple pushes their own broswer, safari beta, to windows. i think i will never use beta programs on windows again (except boot camp which my friend is using on his macbook). maybe it can only be run on english interface. it's missing stuff. please don't ask it to save and open bookmarks...

on the other hand, those open beta products from windows live are ok. from messenger to writer, they perform normal and can run nearly all functions. and they are kinda stable.

some betas from google are ok, like toolbar for both browsers. those web applications are also cool, like reader (still far from graduation, like more options for starred items, some keyboard shortcuts bug for IE. but better than those desktop ones).

24 & iPhone?

24 is now on fox again (tvb pearl will show on April 25 from unconfirmed source) and first four hours have already made many viewers excited.

this season ctu has replaced their dell displays into apple cinema displays. is there any chance to further using apple products in the series? like bauer using iphone? (o... is year 2012)

but the timeframe setted is after n years (few presidents have been replaced but in real world is still bush). so iphone used by bauer should be n generations later. and can power of apple portable products support 24 hours continously operations...

anyway someone did this in flickr

wed is kinda important

1. i will start job rotation starting from that day for coming two months. will know the products much deeper from different angles.
   
2. apple will deliver new products in macworld, maybe new ipod/iphone, new software, or upgraded mac mini (any chance for core 2 duo?) / mac pro (quad core?)... if new product line is out from ipod/iphone, i need to think to have one since my shuffle is gonna pass its peak. (hk time)
   
3. it's last microsoft's patch tuesday before windows vista & office 2007 selling to general public officially (hk time)

p.s. 2nd book from that series also sucks. obviously the author wants to have more money for marriage!

iTunes Music Store @ New Zealand

how come only a country having 3 million people can have iTunes Music Store but not in HK? learnt from macgrass, apple opens music store & online shop together.

but hk has lots of advantage compared to nz in online market area. 1st is population. 7 million vs 3 million, more people means more chances to have business. many hkers are owing ipods and using apple products.

2nd is cost for internet, hk is smaller, more choices to get online. in nz, land is too big compared to population size which means setting up online is not so efficient. besides only 2 monopolies (xtra, telstra clear) provide online service there compared at least 4 here (monopoly had been gone in hk in early '90s).

for those saying trouble putting local categories into the store, japan's store can kick their ass from everywhere. From technical supporting asian characters, getting local music industry support...

hk already has online shop, why don't we deserve a music store?