Macintosh

Several sites are predicting October 26 as the release date for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), which I think is pretty accurate. That date fits in nicely with Apple’s usual release schedule, which always seems to be the last Friday of the month.

My MacBook Pro ordeal is finally over. After a huge fiasco attempting to sell my old MacBook Pro on eBay, I sold it to Mac Of All Trades. Although I got less than I might have been able to at eBay, selling it directly to them was a lot less trouble. I already received (and deposited) their payment.

Trying to sell it on eBay was one of my worst online experiences ever. Selling something fairly expensive like that seems to bring out the worst of the sleaze that infests eBay.

I listed it for 5 times without a successful sale. The first time, the winner decided he didn’t want it because he thought it was a new MacBook Pro (even though I stated very clearly that it was an old model). The next two times I relisted it I had no bidders. Someone offered to trade a Rolex for it, which I turned down of course. If he had offered a Canon or Nikon DSLR, I might have reconsidered, though 🙂

The next time I added ‘buy now’, which a Nigerian scammer used to end the auction. I had stated in my listing that I would ONLY ship to North America, so I told that person I would not sell it to him. He then sent me a fake payment on Paypal.

I listed it one last time, reduced from $1400 to $1200. This time there were several bidders and it sold for $1350. The buyer then told me he won a different one and didn’t want it. None of the other bidders took my second chance offer. At that point I decided to give up on eBay completely. I will never sell anything large like a computer there again.

A few days ago I bought Hazel, when MacUpdate offered it as their daily promo. After trying it for only a few minutes I was hooked.

Hazel watches any folders you specify and automatically applies rules you create to items in that folder. Rules are defined almost exactly the same way as in Apple Mail, specifying properties to match and what to do with the items it matches. One use is to watch your download folder and automatically move music, pictures, and movies to the appropriate folders.

I upgraded the RAM in my MacBook Pro to the maximum 4GB today. I find that it makes a huge difference when running Windows, which often slowed my entire system down to a crawl. Parallels was especially painful with only 2GB, but in 4GB I see no speed difference between Parallels and VMware.

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I discovered today that VPN connections don’t work with my new Airport Extreme 802.11n base station. It turns out this is a known problem that still hasn’t been fixed. One weird thing: I can open a VPN connection from Windows XP running under Parallels, but not from OS X on any of my Macs.

I’ve used QuickSilver for a few years and I always considered it one of my essential applications. A few days ago I took advantage of MacZot’s deal to buy LaunchBar 4.

After using LaunchBar for a few days, I found that I prefer it. It’s a lot faster and more responsive than QuickSilver, which often gave me 10-15 seconds of spinning beach ball. I do miss QuickSilver’s hotkey actions which I used to control iTunes, so I had to go back to using Sizzling Keys for that.

I went to the Apple store today to get new earbuds for my iPhone. Since it’s still covered by the warrantee, they replaced it free of charge.

While I was there I got an Airport Extreme base station, since my new MacBook Pro can take advantage of 802.11n. Since my TeraStation has gigabit Ethernet, my local server performance is even better. The faster wireless speed doesn’t really affect internet performance, since my DSL connection is only 6 Mb. Accessing other machines on my local network is many times faster, though.

My TeraStation is happy with the gigabyte ethernet

I expect Apple to release an iPhone software update with tomorrow’s media event in London. Most likely, a firmware update will be needed to support international carriers, so Apple will probably take that opportunity to enable the WiFi Music Store and other features such as iPod Touch style home button operation in the same update.

I paid for SoundConverter when I had my old MacBook Pro. It turns out my license is no longer valid on my new MacBook Pro because it’s tied to the Ethernet address of my old one. Furthermore, the license is non-transferrable.

This is the height of boneheadedness. No other piece of software I own wouldn’t allow me to transfer it to my new system. I could deauthorize iTunes on my old MacBook Pro and re-authorize it on the new one. Even PhotoShop let me deactivate my license on the old system and reactivate it on the new one.

SoundConverter offers no such option and no discounted registration. My old registration is now useless since I’m not using that old MacBook Pro (which I’m still trying to sell, by the way). He’s not getting any more money for me. I’ll look for different software to use instead of SoundConverter.

To quote their FAQ:

I’ve moved to a new machine, can I transfer my license?

I’m sorry if it wasn’t clear, but as described on the license purchasing page, the license you purchased is only for the machine it was purchased for. This is why the cost is so low.

My logic-board was replaced, can I transfer my license?

Yes, if you send me the service receipt and the ethernet address of the new machine (as shown in the application’s license panel).

Why should I have to pay for a new license if my logic-board went bad or Apple replaced it?

Computers destroyed in a fire, lost, broken from technical failure, etc are the responisibility of the owner. I have no automated way of verifying these claims and since my software costs so little, I cannot afford to investigate them. In the future, if Apple provides a URL which I can send an ethernet address to in order to verify that the logic-board is no longer in use due to techincal failure, then I would be happy to support automated license transfers from those machines.

Why do you use a machine specific license?

Because this the only practical way, short of spyware, to ensure that the license isn’t being pirated – potentially on many thousands of machines, which is very common (ISV who have looked into this report more than 50% piracy rate).

Sorry, but this is bullshit. Congratulations, you just lost a customer.