I’ve been a happy iPhone user since picking mine up on launch day last summer for the iPhone4.  With the announcement of the much anticipated and then slightly disappointing 4s I’ve chosen to not upgrade, there’s not enough bang for the buck and I’m still tied to my current contract for another 8ish months.  What I did do was upgrade to iOS5 though, curious to get some of the new features and functions; one of which is iMessage.

Even though reports on Twitter and Facebook the night of the iOS update launched were filled with horror stories of users losing all their contacts, paid apps and causing hours of pain, I did the update.  After one last Sync with iTunes (which needed to be updated to 10.5) I ran the iOS update and felt no pain, no problems and no loss of data.  After playing with a few of the features I went to bed as it was late and didn’t think much of it.

That following Friday the 4s was released and a friend picked one up and started to txt me.  I noticed the colors looked a little different but didn’t think much of it.  Then I saw the … bubble indicating he was sending me a txt and realized we were using iMessage, it’s turned on by default.  Cool I guess?

iMessage is kind of creepy in that it knows when two users are both running iOS5, as my iPhone friends updated their phones and bought the new 4s I started to see more and more of them switch to iMessage.  Curious how it worked, I did a quick Google search.  It’s straightforward, a proprietary messaging system that utilizes your existing number or email address when both users are running iOS5; unlike Blackberry’s BBM service which requires a separate number, or those who are old enough to remember using Nextel’s two-way walkie talkie function.  It runs over Wi-Fi or 3g when not available and is only supposed to use a minute amount of data when not on Wi-Fi.

Up until yesterday I had no real issues, that I knew about with it.  The concept is cool, except that I’m sure Apple somewhere along the lines now is seeing our information since it must be going through their servers, right?  A txt conversation with a friend resulted in me seeing something really weird, and I asked what in the world they were talking about, took a screen shot of the conversation and sent it to them, all via iMessage.  Turns out I didn’t understand what was going on in the conversation because the message my friend sent never got to me! That’s a problem.  Who do I complain to about that?  When it was a straight up txt I could complain to AT&T, but not now.

Many are praising Apple for developing this technology, it can / will force the hand of service providers AT&T, Verizon and Sprint to rethink their current text message plans since users can now circumvent them.  I remember reading somewhere that the cost of a service provider to allow a user to send 20 txt messages a month and 2,000 is no different, they just charge us more because they can.  I’d love nothing more than to save a few bucks on what I already consider to be a bill that’s too high by reducing my unlimited txt plan to the next step down, for me that’s 200 from AT&T.  I can’t do it though.

At best 40% of my friends use iPhones, of those less than 10% have upgraded their OS yet or have the new iPhone.  Since there is no way to control or restrict the amount of incoming messages, I know with my current usage (usually between 4,500 and 8,000 txt messages a month) 200 would never cut it. Even if I could, I’d be worried of hitting the 2GB data limit in my plan, I wasn’t grandfathered into unlimited.  Again, I send and receive a ton of photos each month, 5mp camera in my iPhone and 8mp in the new 4s, all as 3g over iMessage woud add up. Apple has now forced my hand to decide.

With a failed iMessage already I have mixed feelings about leaving the service turned on and I don’t want to turn on delivery confirmation to get those notices too.  There’s also no solid information, that I can find, about whose servers these iMessages are being sent through.

I praise Apple for making a service that has great intentions and I hope it really makes the service providers look at the fees they charge their customers because this could be a game changer.  While I’m willing to chalk up this one experience as a it’s new and maybe the system is overloaded or not all the bugs are worked out, my questions may never get answers which will more than likely result in turning the service off.

Please share your experiences, positive or negative with iMessage.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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Mac’s worldwide market share among Web users increased to 6.6 percent in September, compared to 4.7 percent a year ago

It’s been almost a month now since I bought my way into the cool club and ordered a Macbook, my Windows desktop has been fired up I think twice over the last month. There is still some photos and data, along with music and movies I need on it, but I don’t need them on the laptop. One of the primary reasons the laptop is getting more use then the desktop is because I can park my ass on the couch and watch TV and surf the net. Outside of that, it is merely a tool for me to use.

The learning curve for me has been pretty mild, simple stuff, keyboard shortcuts, working in terminal, stuff like that. Outside of that, most programs I use operate the same for me. I don’t love my Mac the way others told me I would, I enjoy the speed it has and the ability to do what I need when I need it, it is stress-free, that is what is important.

This recent spike in Mac users, like myself, is only likely to grow though. I’ve had my sticky fingers on Vista enough to know I don’t like it. I have to support it for work, but I still much prefer XP or even win2k. Most computer users now-a-days are not buying their first computer. They have time vested, programs they are used to using, things that work and don’t work and ways of working around the hardware not living up to what they thought it would be. In my case, buying a Mac was a matter of getting the most from a computer with the least amount of money. To equip a Windows powered laptop with the hardware to match that of my Macbook, the price was only dollars apart, for me it was a choice of operating systems and expandability, most of which I covered several articles ago. I still couldn’t imagine spending $2,500 or more on a Macbook Pro or even $1,500 on an iMac.

Apple could continue to grow its user base if, and only if, they continue to offer products that are financially viable for most users. The fact that Dell and HP offer desktop units that do what most home users need, email, internet, photos, etc for half the price of an entry level Mac desktop will mean that they will continue to dominate the home market. Not until someone has specific needs do they start to look elsewhere. It is also my belief that, with Vista being as shitty as it is, more average users will start to look into other operating systems like Ubuntu. Ubuntu offers what the vast majority of home users want and need, even though mine is currently dusty, as soon as someone figures out an affordable way to offer support and get some marketing behind it, it will grow.

For now I am a content Mac user who also utilizes Windows and likes to play with Ubuntu now and again.
Similar articles that might also interest you:

• Dell to ship computers with Ubuntu installed
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• I bought my way into the cool club
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• Finally! Streaming Netflix on my Mac

With all the updates done and my lunch coming up soon, I looked forward to configuring the system and installing software. First thing I did was install Firefox, this proved to be a bit more of a hassle than I was anticipating. One of my first computers was a Mac Classic II back around 1990, about 5 years ago I had a G3 iBook for a while but got rid of it and I use Macs on occasion at work, but I’m not nearly as proficient in using software as I am with Windows. So I go on to download the .dmg file onto my desktop and double click it. I’m shown a funny screen that is the familiar Firefox icon and the Applications folder, a plus symbol between them. I click on the Firefox logo and it launches Firefox, but it’s still not installed. Not after some poking around did I come to figure out that I needed to now drag the mounted image into the Application folder in Finder. Great, first thing I do on a Mac and I feel like an idiot, and I’m a network admin. Now that I feel dumb, I move onto some other quirky things about the Mac that are, well they are quirky for a Windows users.

Now I’m not saying one is better than the other, but there are some really funky things to get used to. For me, I’m very dependent on the CTRL key in Windows for several things, the Command key in Mac does nearly the same things but is in a different physical location on the keyboard. While my touch typing hands are very used to striking the CTRL key with my left pinky, I now must figure out how to efficiently strike the Command key with my left hand, curling my thumb in seems to give me the best results thus far.

There is a lot of shit installed, nearly 18 gigs of data were installed upon first boot. Only two pieces of trial software, those are now ditched, tons of stuff that I’m still trying to figure out what exactly it does and what I’m supposed to do to work it into my daily routine. A co-worker tells me that he can clean a lot of this out, mostly the foreign languages and printer driver crap that I’ll never use

Turn the bloody screen brightness down! Holy shit, this is really bright, I feel like I need suntan lotion on my eyeballs from looking at the screen. I have every intention of doing a color calibration on the screen when I have some free time at work, until then I have some minor tweaking done and the brightness turned down to about 40%.

On a positive note, there is lots I’m very happy with.

• The keyboard, although slightly off-center, is really a joy to type on
• The mag-charger is such a stupidly simple design, works so well
• Although bright, I’m very impressed with the resolution of the monitor
• Software installs are fairly quick, once I figured out how to do it
• I’ve only bogged down the system once, got to love Core-2 duo
• After installing the CS3 suite, I opened it all at once, it all opened!
• 1GB of RAM is actually very impressive
• The hinge. I’ve loved the hinge design since the original iBook, it makes so much sense
• Spell check built into everything by default
• Bluetooth works great with my cell phone, although I haven’t tried to sync with iCal
• Touchpad has right click! Granted it is not the traditional way of doing it, but it works. Two finger scrolling is also pretty dang nice

There are also a few things that I’m still scratching my temple about.

• Dashboard. Yes there are a lot of cool applications, not sure how often I’m likely to use it though
• TextEdit, the program I”m writing this in is nice, but I think I’m going to look into Open Office or another rich text editor
• It’s so white. I’m almost afraid that I’ll have to carry hand wipes with me just to keep it clean
• It’s so soft – the case that is. I’m very afraid that this thing is going to scratch, badly. My G3 did the first day I had it.
• Is a remote really needed? Yes, very cool and seems to work well, but I doubt it will get any use outside of showing non Mac users what it does.
• The Delete key really is a backspace key, there is no dedicated Delete key, which I often do use in the Windows world.

Overall, I have about 2 hours logged in actual time on this. I’m writing this article from my couch, in front of my TV with Bella, my dog, trying her best to snuggle on my lap under my arms between me and the Mac to sleep. Hopefully I can start to utilize some of the other features and functions that are in this laptop, I didn’t buy all this extra power just to surf the web. Until then, it will be sitting comfortably in the Crumpler Considerable Embarrassment messenger bag (full review coming soon) that I bought to transport it in.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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My hardware requirements are:

• Intel Core 2 duo
• At least 1GB of RAM installed
• At least a 120GB hard drive
• DVD burner – double layer doesn’t much matter to me
• Extended battery
• Bluetooth
• Under 5lbs

Looking at a refurb site, I thought I found a 13.3” Vaio that fit my needs and an older 1.83 core 2-duo processor. It had everything I wanted and a few things that were nice add-ons, but only came with a 90-day warranty. The company selling the laptop offered a 3-year on-site warranty for an additional $99, but it was done through a third party, something I’m not fond of. I was still very interested in it though and asked some co-workers their opinion on the hardware setup. All agreed that it was a lot of computer for the money, but asked if I looked into the Macbook refurbs, there was one that was about $50 more but had a 1-year warranty.

Reluctantly I went to the Apple site and clicked on the refurbished section. Sure enough, they had a 13.3” Macbook with a better, 2.15 Core 2 duo processor and everything else on my want list. Black would have been my first choice, but they only had white in stock. The next 2 hours really had me pondering what to do. A co-worker has been running Tiger on his new (refurb) 15” Macbook Pro with VMware Fusion, allowing him to also run Windows and Ubuntu all at the same time without rebooting. This sounded great, although I can only think of one application that I have that is Windows specific that they don’t have a Mac version for. At least the option to have Windows is there.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not a fan of Macs, most don’t understand why though. I think OSX is a great operating system but I don’t like the overpriced hardware one needs to buy to run the operating system. Up until this point, one can almost always buy more hardware for the money and run Windows than OSX, I still feel this is true with most of the desktop units that Apple offers. In my case, laptop to laptop, the refurb Macbook is in the same price range with the same features as Windows based ones and the ability to run Windows and Ubuntu on it is very attractive.

The laptop is supposed to arrive tomorrow, we’ll see if FedEx ground comes through or not, but several of my friends that know its coming are more excited to me. In telling a few Mac using friends that I ordered one, their first question back to me has been nearly identical, to the word, do you love it?

I can’t say that there is any proper way to answer that, even after I get it and start using it on a regular basis. I’ve never said, Wow, I love Windows! Nor can I say that about nearly any product I use on a regular basis. What makes Mac addicts so into their hardware? Some of these friends who know it’s coming bought a Mac because it looks pretty, which in most cases, it does, some are programmers and designers who have been using Macs so long that they are just more proficient with them. Where does all this supposed love come from though? Why do Mac fans get all excited in the pants at the announcement of a new keynote speech by Steve Jobs?

My main computer uses are

• Internet
• Email
• Photoshop (most RAW processing digital photos and adjusting for output)
• Minor coding (usually in Dreamweaver or Scite)
• Writing / blogging
• Bittorrent

My hope is that none of these tasks are drastically affected as I make the transition to a Mac. I have no intentions of moving entirely, my XP based desktop is still plenty fast and will serve for grunt work with specific Photoshop work that requires a higher resolution than my laptop will provide me with.

Expect updates on how my introduction into OSX goes as well as other learning curves, widgets, and other Mac anomalies go. Wish me luck!Similar articles that might also interest you:

• Mac users taking over the world
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• Dell to ship computers with Ubuntu installed
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Since that day, the computer has not been booted up, four and a half months later. I just can�t find a convincing reason to switch totally and my efforts for building a standalone PVR have been put on hold because my Internet connection is garbage at my home.

As it stands, I still really like the operating system and think it has a place, just not in my home right now. I will be pulling the hard drive from that computer and installing it as a slave on my main Windows computer to use as a secondary place to store files and will re-explore PVR options when I have a more stable connection to the internet.

On a brighter note, my work is slowly upgrading some of our workstation computers; the older units in some case are 7+ years old and just can�t function in productive ways for our company anymore. Some of these older units are running Pentium II and Pentium III processors, 256mb of RAM and 20GB hard drives, nothing to be proud of. The company does have a need to run a simple terminal piece of software and browse the internet in certain locations of the store, this is where Ubuntu comes into play. I will be installing Ubuntu on at least one computer sometime in the next month for the sole purpose of running terminal software and browsing the Internet. Ubuntu tends to run faster than Windows based operating systems, like Windows 2000, on these older pieces of hardware. This will hopefully get my fingers using the operating system more frequently and get me to possibly consider dual booting my home machine.

I�m interested in feedback from anyone who has either:

• Made the switch from Windows to Ubuntu (or other distro of Linux)
• Is in the process of switching
• Tried to switch and went back to Windows

Please share any speed bumps, hassles, workarounds, etc. that you have dealt with in your decision making process and final switch.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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I�ve played around with Ubuntu and really like it, but admit that I haven�t fired up my Ubuntu box since installing it close to a month ago already. What this should mean for everyone though is a lower priced, rock solid computer from Dell, even if the customer support is a bit wishy-washy.

Without having to pay the bloated price for Windows (Ubuntu is free), it should drop the price of an average home computer by at least $75. This is also a great solution for people who want to get their parents or grandparents who need to do nothing more then email, get on the Internet and look at their digital photos.

Ubuntu isn�t the answer for me yet; no Photoshop, no Dreamweaver and a few other programs I use are still Windows only, so I won�t be making a full switch anytime soon. This is really exciting news though and should really make Microsoft wake up and figure out some of the Vista bugs that still exist.

Source: GizmodoSimilar articles that might also interest you:

• Mac users taking over the world
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So what do you do when Windows isn’t enough? Someone has decided to take a brand new Dell core duo laptop and load it up with 6 different operating systems, simply boot into whichever you prefer. Are six really necessary though? What on earth can anyone try to accomplish with one version of a Linux distro that they can’t in another? Whatever, to each there own.

eBay auction here.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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Most computer users need to:

• Browse the web
• Use email
• Store files
• Create text based documents
• Edit images
• Chat on instant messenger

Ubuntu does all of this, right out of the box. It includes some of the most popular applications:

• Firefox
• Open Office (very similar to Microsoft Office)
• Gaim (chat client, similar to AIM)
• Gimp (similar to Photoshop)
• +even more fun stuff

I won’t bother linking you to the Wikipedia pages for each of those items, you can find the information on all of them on the Ubuntu homepage.

In the last 30 minutes of playing around I’ve installed most of my favorite Firefox extensions, played with Gimp and been browsing the web. I should also mention I am on computer that is nearly 5 years old, an AMD 1.2ghz box with 256mb of RAM and everything is running smoothly. This box is my test bed and over the next week or so will become my PVR.

So why am I not running Ubuntu as my primary operating system? Simple, there are still many Windows based applications that I need that are not yet available to Linux based computers, such as Photoshop, which is essential for post processing RAW files from my DSLR camera. My mother wants a computer to pay bills online, surf the web and look for recipes, a prime candidate for a Ubuntu as she isn’t computer savvy. She is getting a similar setup that I have laying around and I’m pretty sure that I’ll be installing Ubuntu on it instead of Windows 2000. I won’t have to worry about her getting a virus or any of the other things that can be quirky in Windows. At this point, I am extremely pleased with how it runs and the functionality that it provides.

I’d recommend that anyone looking for a Windows alternative check it out, download and burn a CD, you can run it on it’s own without installing it (called a Live CD) and play around with the setup. There are a few quirky things once it is installed, however the documentation is amazing and there are a good number of forums dedicated to Ubuntu fans.

Ubuntu Desktop
Ubuntu ForumsSimilar articles that might also interest you:

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First and foremost, I�ll complain, that�s what everyone always does anyway.

• It needed an Internet connection to do anything
• I can�t control the user account Administrator at all
• It locks computer after about 30 minutes of being idle, requiring a password to be entered
• Stupid pop ups asking if I really want to create a new folder on the desktop
• Using 800mb of ram just to sit idle
• Dumb way it handles logging into the box itself or a network domain

I�m sorry, but it is a memory pig. This one has the Business flavor installed, which comes with Office 2003, but it is not active. It�s just there and wants you to call and get a registration code for a fee. The logging in thing is stupid. At work we have a domain, we log into it. Traditionally on Windows you will hit Ctrl + Alt + Del and enter a username and password and from a drop down menu select the network or the local computer. For Vista, if you want to log into the local box you must type it as COMPUTERNAME\user and then your password. Dumb! It also seems to lock the computer after about 30 minutes of being idle, requiring reentry of a password.

There are some good things about vista, I�m not sure what they are yet, I�m still getting used to it, but if I find them I�ll do a follow up post. This may put a damper on my plans for a new notebook; I�m not overly thrilled with the power consumption or the idiosyncrasies that are vista as of yet.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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Vista is supposed to offer several new and grand things to the end user, however I have no reason as of yet to upgrade from my XP machine. All the fluff that is coming with Vista is also confusing the hell out of consumers, including myself. Which version do I need, how many versions are there, do I need to find my XP key, What if I want to do a fresh install of Vista, do I really have to install XP first? These are all valid questions; sadly most did not have a clear answer until a few weeks ago. To make it worse, the Apple ad campaigns are making it seem like Mac is the best solution, more simple if you will. My opinion of Mac has been the same for years now, great operating system with bloated hardware costs.

Personally, I have no plans on upgrading my home computer to Vista, not even long term yet. I do however plan on buying a laptop in the next 6 months, but will be waiting until service pack 1 comes out to fix whatever holes need fixing in Vista that couldn�t be done prior to the rollout. My recommendation to others would be the same. Give it a few months, wait for some updates come and then consider making the move. If your computer is more then 2 years old, I�d highly suggest buying a whole new computer. Vista will cost you between $125-300 depending on what version you get, a quality, fully loaded Dell desktop costs around $600, including Vista and bigger and better everything.

For no nonsens answers on what the different versions of Vista are, what minimum requirements are needed and just about everything else, check out this computerworld.com article.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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