My dad knows nothing about computers. Well, that’s exaggerating, but to say he is a novice would be exaggerating as well. He has gotten in trouble before with sending information he has not supposed to. So I told him never to do stuff like that. Most websites will never ask for personal information. So, yesterday he gets something on his computer saying he has a virus, and this program called Wireshark Antivirus is saying it will remove the threat. Turns out this “antivirus” program is in fact the virus or malware. He is not able to use his browser as everytime he tries this “antivirus” program pops up and says he needs to remove a threat. To remove the threat though, he needs to “pay for the full version” and thus enter in his credit card stuff.
What a pain in the ass. I spent much of my evening trying to get rid of that crap. I put people who write these viruses and crap in the same level as thieves. Get a freaking job like everyone else instead of scamming and stealing from others. What a joke. I always find it funny that all the tech sites I read blame people for being dumb and opening attachments and such to give themselves viruses and such. Well, let me break some news to you folks. Not everyone is as tech savvy as you. My dad has no clue what an attachment is. He knows that he can get files sent to him through e-mail from friends and such, but I don’t think he knows that is what at attachment is. I tell him, but its just another language to him and he has no clue. Its like me trying to learn Chinese or Russian at my age. I can attempt it, but it would be very difficult.
And you know what? I guarantee my dad is not alone. All the viruses that exists on people’s computers are proof enough. The number of anti-virus programs and companies that exist are proof enough. The news stories that come out every week are proof enough. We lock our door at night and secure our cars and such, but generally we are a trusting people. If someone tells us something, we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt even if we don’t know them, until it bites us in the ass. And that’s how so many people get scammed out of things everyday. Its quite sad and I wish that there was something that could be done about it. Teaching people tech stuff is one thing, but them actually learning and picking them up is another. I consider myself decent when it comes to that stuff, but I guarantee I will come across another virus at some point in the future. I use a Macbook pro now, but I wouldn’t be surprised when these malware/virus writers target Apple users. I always hear the argument that these writers don’t target Apple users because there are not enough of them out there. I might agree with that…maybe. However, I can tell you that I get so annoyed sometimes at Apple fanboys who act as if their Mac is superior this and that and act like Steve Job is a god even though they never met the man. I’m surprised that some of these malware writers didn’t just write some crap to shut them the hell up. Unless it really is true that when it comes to virues and malware Macs really are more secure…..I kind of doubt it but who knows.
I downloaded some spybot program for my dad’s laptop as well as some free anti-virus program, but not sure if that will prevent things in the future. I have no idea how well that stuff works. His other anti-virus program apparently did nothing. I told him not to download things from people he does not know, so hopefully that doesn’t fall on def ears.
I downloaded the game Plants vs Zombies over the weekend. Played a quick demo of the game on the web, thought it was fun, and felt the gf would like it so just punched in the credit card. It was 15 bucks. The web version of this game is very slow, as they make you wait between each level, whether its to load or just on purpose so that you buy the game. I was up until 2 am on Saturday night playing it. Its so simple, but just fun. Its basically a very simple tower defense type game. You need to protect your house from zombies, and you do so by planting seeds for various types of plants that have different attacking/defending abilities versus the zombies. Stop all the zombies, then pass the level.
So far, I’ve only played the adventure mode, which appears to be just a bunch of increasingly difficult levels. There are also puzzle, mini games, and strategy modes that I’ve yet to try out, but it seems pretty self explanatory as to what those modes entail. I don’t know how long I will play this game for, but I’ve already played it for more than 5 or 6 hours and I’m still into it. Even if I stop now, at $3/hour, its not too bad. If you like a simple tower defense game, casual games, then at least try this game out on the web and see if you like it. That was my downfall, and after I finish posting this, I will be right back to playing it. Just not until 2 am as a little something called work gets in the way. Dang them, they ruin everything.
I bought the Moshi ClearGuard Keyboard Protector for my Macbook Pro on Amazon for like 20 bucks. Don’t really know if I need it, but don’t think it’d hurt, would it? What do I think? Firstly, I’ve never had a keyboard cover, so I have no reference point. However, I did look at other versions on Amazon and decided on this one because it was the thinnest one. Most of the complaints I read about the other ones was that it was too thick that it made typing more difficult and also it was think enough that when the laptop closed, the cover pressed into the screen. Thus, bought this one.
The first thing I thought when I bought this was, “I paid 20 bucks for this???” Seriously, its a flimsy looking piece of plastic. I put it on easily. It fits well enough. It definitely does not feel the same when you are typing with it than when you type without it. The plastic feel takes getting used to, and I’m not quite there yet, but I’m sure I will be so long as I keep it on. The edges sometimes seem to come up, but that doesn’t really affect much. Its clear also, so the backlit keyboard can still be seen. That was one reason I chose the clear on as opposed to a colored one because I really like the backlit keyboard of the Macbook Pro.
Is this protector really needed or worth the 20 bucks? Well, off the top of my head this is what the protector will do. It is supposedly washable, so will keep your keys from being sticky or such in case you ever type with less than clean hands. If you own it long enough, then the keys will not fade as some older keyboards do when you type on the enough. If you spill a few drops here and there of your drink, it will get on the protector rather than inside your laptop, which is always a plus. However, if you full on spill your drink, it will seep though all around the edges and get under. So, I guess it will partially protect from a fullspill, but by no means is this going to make it water proof.
I don’t know what a new laptop keyboard costs, but I’m sure its more than 20 bucks. I think that if you want to keep your keyboard from fading or getting dirty or to protect from minor spills, then its probably worth it. If you are careful with your laptop, always type with clean hands, then like any other type of insurance product, its probably not worth it to you. As long as you can get used to typing with this plastic feel on the keyboard, then go ahead and get this product. I can’t speak for other products out there, but the fact that this thing is so thin was a real plus for me. I take decent care of my stuff, so don’t know if this is really a necessity for me, but I got it so will use it.
I am trying to learn objective C so that I can help write some programs/applications for the iPhone. I don’t have much of a programming language, so when I was reading documentation on it, well, it literally was a foreign language to me and I was totally lost. I downloaded some sample assignment and was attempting to do it. However, I just was not able to, even thought probably anyone else out there with half a programming brain could do it in a few minutes. I tried searching for help online, but when you don’t know what to search for because you don’t know the vocabulary, it makes it hard to search.
So, I finally gave up and looked for a book online. I downloaded it (no I didn’t steal it, it was free) and I also printed up a lot of documentation and bound them like books. So, now I have hundreds of pages to go through to learn. Whether or not I actually learn it or become proficient, I believe these hard copies on paper and books are my best way of learning, not by reading things online. I don’t know why, but for me, reading online is not as effective for me as it is on paper. Why? No clue. Is it because there are too many distractions on the computer? I don’t know. I just know that when I sit at my desk and just read a book, it sinks in that much better. Its funny because I actually enjoy reading a newspaper more than I do searching news sites online. Is it the same effect?
I think that when I actually get down to learning this new language, I will sit at a desk or my bed and just read, with my laptop on in case there is an assignment to do. Then I can look back and forth. That to me is just the most effective way for me. I wrote earlier that I had taken some online classes, and while the teacher was good, its just not the same for me. I cannot learn online. I have to do it in person, in the class. Am I just old school? Probably. But, there are a lot of people my age who can do things online, so its not strictly a “I grew up that way” thing. Guess some people are just different than others and for me, old fashioned books on paper and teachers in person in a classroom is my cup of tea. That being said, I think outside of actually taking an actual class at a school for objective C, I am giving myself the best chance I can in learning it with this hard copy documentation. That and with the help of my friend, let’s hope I succeed and do not hold back my friend!
So, as you all know by now, I got a new 15″ macbook pro and have had it for a month or so now. I had been carrying it around by hand whenever I left the house with it, and got sick of doing so. Thus, I decided to get a bag for it.
I normally walk around with a small bag, what my woman calls a man purse, and carry various things in there like my DS, a book to read whenever I need to pass time, my camera, etc. However, its too small to put my laptop in. I did some searching on the internet to see what was out there. I decided that I did not want a backpack, and I also did not want one of those bags that look like a work briefcase. I wanted something that I can wear on one shoulder, similar to my current bag but obviously bigger.
Went to Best Buy and saw a few, but didn’t like how any of them looked. Looked on Amazon, and I came across the Brenthaven Switch Messenger bag. Why is it called the Switch? Because the flap can be replaced or flipped around so that it looks like you have an entirely new design on the bag. The costs $99.95, however, I found it on Amazon for $60, so bought it. I love Amazon.
I’ve had the the bag a couple weeks now, and what do I think? Its quite a bit bigger than my other bag, both in size and in weight, even when the Macbook is not in it. So, I’m not used to it and not really liking that at the moment. My laptop fits nicely in there, and its surrounded by some cushioning all around. Probably enough cushioning to protect it from bumps and such, but doubtful that it would help with a flat out dropping of the bag. I am using the gray flap, which I think looks better than the black one on the other side. There are also quite a lot of pockets and spaces to put things, like my aforementioned book, DS, and camera. Plus more. Within the flap there is also a rain cover you can take out to cover your bag and protect your belongings from getting wet, which is kind of cool.
Carrying it around, I need to get used to the extra size and weight of my bigger bag. However, I like the bag and would recommend it to anyone who wants a messenger bag to carry their laptop around. If you do not carry your laptop out very often, then I’d probably say that you would be more comfortable carrying around a smaller bag when not having your laptop and then using this bag when you are. Go to Brenthaven’s website to see pictures of the bag as well as the flaps you can guy with it. They say that they have a lifetime guarantee on it, but who knows what that is good for.
It has now been a couple weeks with my new Macbook Pro. For the most part I am all transferred over from my Windows desktop. I only turn it on now when needed. One of those needs? I use Microsoft Money for to keep track of how much money I have in all of my accounts, how much my stocks/portfolios are worth, and also for recurring transactions. I don’t use it for reports or even much care about the categories and such. Its easy to use, and I don’t need most of the stuff that comes with any of those other personal financial software programs. So, when I got my Macbook, I needed to find another program to do these simple things. I tried a few things and contemplated other ones.
The first thing I tried was Gnucash, a free open source program that according to most reviews is well received. I downloaded it and followed the instructions on how to import my Money accounts. I did so and things just did not look right. I tried messing with it, but I think Gnucash was made by accountants or something because its way too complicated for me. All I want is a simple checkbook register. Its so confusing that an accountant considers everything an account, like actual bank accounts, credit cards, loans, etc. I tried messing, but it was just too much for me.
I next tried Moneydance, which has a free trial and if you like it, costs 40 bucks. Importing your Money is pretty similar to Gnucash. After importing everything, it was like Gnucash in that a lot did not match up. I figured that I had to pretty much start from scratch. I decided that I would just enter everything myself from 2009 going forward, and everything before 2009 I would just put as my opening balance. I entered all my stocks and downloaded the extension which updates stock prices. I got that to work okay. I started entering my stuff for my bank accounts, but I ran out of free transactions. You get 100 transactions for the free trial. So, I couldn’t get all my stuff in. Oh well. No big deal, so I just tried some of the functionality like the recurring transactions and stuff. It seemed to work okay, but honestly I liked Money better. Just thought it worked better. Did I really want to pay $40 for something that might be better, and well, honestly I couldn’t even try completely since I ran out of free transactions?
I started thinking, and asked myself what I really wanted done. Like I said above, I just wanted something to keep track of how much I had in all my accounts, keep track of my portfolio, and also my recurring transactions. I honestly didn’t care about anything else. So, I began thinking that I could do all of that myself in Excel, which I already have installed on my Mac. I Googled a quick checkbook register sheet so I could copy the format. Did so and spent some time pretty much making it look and function like what my Money program does. I can go to each individual account and enter transactions, set up drop downs where you can select categories that I determine myself, keep a running balance, keep track of buying/selling stocks, etc. After my stocks were in, I created another sheet with my entire portfolio and set it up so that I can automatically refresh the stock prices and thus keep track of my net worth. I also can keep track of which ones are making me money or losing (its not exact as the formula I created is probably not the way its officially done, but I don’t need it to be exact). I have another sheet which summarizes the balances of all my accounts and puts them on one sheet so I can see my overall net worth. And finally, I set up a recurring transactions table where I can enter credit card payments and direct deposits that occur regularly. This function is not quite what I’d like in that in Money the dates update automatically after I enter a transaction. For this, I manually update the date, and then set up some rank and vlookup functions so that it always automatically sorts by date so I know what is coming up.
So, I will use this new excel sheet for a bit and if it will suffice, but I think it will. Whatever doesn’t work, well, I’m proficient enough in Excel that I think I can change it to fit what I need. Honestly, the part that took the longest was manually entering all my 2009 to current data. But honestly, I figure even if I paid for Moneydance or used any other program, I’d have to do the same since it looked like my imports weren’t really working all that well anyway. I guess looking down the road, the biggest drawback I’d have if I ever decided to use an actual finance program is that I’d not be able to import anything since this is my own creation. But, I think this will work. On a side note, I don’t think I like using Excel on Mac as much as on PC. Maybe its just that some of the short cuts are not the same, I can’t use keys like F4 when locking cells in functions (I gotta look up how to do this), or use the end key and arrow key to get to the end or bottom of a sheet, etc, etc. Also, in Windows, if I highly a bunch of cells and then hit delete, it deletes all those cells. In Mac, when I do that, it only deletes the cell of the first cell selected. What?? Its probably just a matter of learning the new keys and such, but as of now, it just doesn’t seem to work as well. Oh well, I got what I need, and I think I’m happy for now.
I have now had my new 15″ Macbook Pro for about 4 days now. I wrote about me ordering it in a post a few days ago. As I said then, its my first ever Apple product, and thus first real experience with a Mac. Just wanted to write really fast here my first impressions so far.
Firstly, its a nice looking laptop. It just looks sexy, like most Apple products are. They are just good at making their products look nice and sleek physically, and this laptop is no exception. The screen looks nice too. And I really like how the keyboard is backlit. I don’t really need it to be as I don’t look at my keyboard when I type, but it just adds to that sexiness.
What about the actual Mac OS? Its not as completely different as some would make you believe, at least that’s what I think so far. I was reading how people need to just use their Mac for a good 2 weeks straight before they get used to it and such. I don’t necessarily disagree, but when I read that, I figured it would be totally different and there would be a steep learning curve. But, its not too difficult. When I first started my laptop, it asks for my name, couple simple questions, it automatically searched for my wireless router and then asked for my password, and just like that I was connected to the internet. Rather simple.
The printer was a little more complicated, but I figured it out. Our printer is connected to our router and so we need to know our IP address to connect to it. I thought that the laptop would just search for it and then let me choose that printer like my Windows desktop did. However, it didn’t work that way. I actually had to enter the IP address in and then it found my printer. Not as simple as Apple says all their stuff is. Also, my driver wasn’t installed even though Apple always has those commercials of “It just works.” I have a Canon printer so its not a small printer company. Not upset or anything, just observing. I just went to the Canon website, downloaded the Mac driver and then that was it. No big deal.
I have a gmail account and when I opened up Apple Mail, it was easy to enter my gmail address and password and I was set email wise. The calendar was just as easy, entering my google account and password and it synced with my Google calendar just like that. The address book took an extra step in that I had to export my Google contacts and then import them into the Address Book.
Installing things on a Mac takes a little bit getting used to only because it is difficult. Everything has to be mounted before it can be run. Once you install it, you just put it in the trash and then your stuff is installed. I have 3 or 4 applications installed that I got for free from a promo that ran last week. One of them is a game, an Ogre Tower Defense game that’s pretty fun. Not great, but addicting as all Tower Defense games are. I have not really use any of the iLife products like iPhoto. I still don’t know how I will handle that. I may or may not set up some hard drives that are connected to a router or something and then my laptop can just access that stuff there instead of actually putting it all on my hard drive here since I only have 250 gb. Not sure yet, so we’ll see.
Overall, I’m having fun with my new toy. I think I got most of the stuff I want transferred already transferred over. I still need some type of financial program as I use Microsoft Money on my desktop. Other than that, I think I’m set. Some things that still need to be addressed or worked on: what to do with my photos and mp3′s (as discussed above), learning the keyboard shortcuts (for one thing, I need to find out how to get to the beginning and end of a line. In Windows, there is a Home and End key that I always use), and last, buy definitely not least, learn some Objective C so that I can do what I got this laptop for, and that is to attempt to do some iPhone stuff! I’ll continue to let you guys know what I think of this Mac as I use it more.
So, I have ordered a new 15″ Macbook Pro laptop. I should be getting it later this week or at the beginning of next week. Why did I buy it? My friend and I are going to attempt to create some iPhone apps, and well, you need a computer with a Mac OS to do so. Now, I could of just gotten a cheap laptop and created a hackintosh out of it, but I decided to go legit, and spend well over a $1,000.
Prior to making this purchase, I did go around on the web seeing what everyone said about the mac. After doing so, its almost impossible to get an objective opinion. Apple fanboys are as defensive about their product as osteopathic doctors are about defending their degrees. You say one bad thing about it, and they defend it to the end, and cry as if you insulted their mom.
Now, before I actually get this little laptop in my hands, I wanted to put in writing what my pre-owning thoughts are. Firstly, I have never owned an Apple product in my life. No former mac, no ipods, nothing. So, I have no good or bad experiences. I use my computer primarily for surfing, chatting, watching some videos/movies, music on occasion, and maybe some browser based or simple games. Nothing too intense.
After reading all the stuff that I did regarding the mac, I find it impossible to believe that it is superior to Windows, at least to the extent that I’ve been reading. I’ve read stories about how people no longer spend half their day maintaining their computers once they switched to Mac. I don’t know what these people once did with their PC’s, but I never ever spend that much time fixing and maintaining my computer. I also read things like everything you can do on a PC you can do on a Mac, to which I always want to ask, “Why switch to Mac then if everything you want to do you can already do on a PC?” My computer never freezes anymore is something else that I read a lot. My computer does not freeze all that often, but it does on occasion. I also find it hard to believe that a Mac NEVER freezes up on you. I mean, my friend’s iPhone freezes sometimes, so why wouldn’t a Mac?
The amount of money I spent on this laptop is literally twice as much money as I could of spent on a Windows based laptop with the same hardware specs. I am actually finding it difficult to believe that this computer will be twice as good. Now, everyone always says that you have to use your new Mac completely for a few weeks or a month to get used to it and then you will be a better judge of how you like it. Being as how my work is Windows based and I am there 40 hours/week, that is not entirely possible. However, seeing as how I spent so much money on this, you can bet that during my personal time, I will primarily be using my Mac to get accustomed to it.
Now, that all being said, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little excited waiting for my new little toy to get here. On top of never owning an Apple product, I’ve also never owned a laptop either. Would I be as excited if I was just getting a Windows laptop? I don’t know, but I’d suspect not as excited because the newness and novelty factor wouldn’t be there. But, I would still be excited as I always am when I get a new gadget. I’m excited to see how this new and foreign OS works, the apps on it, and to see if what all the fanboys say is correct or not. I’m pretty sure that the Mac will do somethings better than Windows, and vice versa. Once I get it though, and play with it, I will let you all know what I think, whether I think a Mac is really worth twice the price, etc., etc.
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