Last night the Modern Family episode “Game Changer” had a plot based almost entirely around the release of Apple’s iPad. Today people are talking about the ups and downs of this sort of large scale product placement.

In this case it worked out because the show was about things real people do and events that actually happen. If people were waiting in line for Microsoft products it wouldn’t work, because nobody would ever do that.

While it was quite a day yesterday, by the end of it, I managed to find some practically revolutionary features that the United States Post Office is offering now.

Let me tell you first how the day started out, which will make you see why I would do almost anything to never go to a post office again. I had a package to send so I went to the post office closest to my house. There was a line blocking traffic out into the street and it wasn’t moving, just to get a parking space. After waiting ten minutes will little progress, I left.

Next, I went to the next closest post office, which did have parking, but the line inside was long and not moving. The same thing happened, ten minutes and the only movement was people in front of me in line leaving out of frustration. I decided to join them.

I had heard some things about how the post office will allow you to print postage at home, so I looked it up. I have a scale, so I could weigh my package, and the rest is fairly easy. I love it. But you still have to go to the post office to send it, right? No! There’s another feature called “request a pickup” where you tell the post office where you left the package and they will make a special trip to come pick it up for you, at no charge. I don’t even have mail delivered directly to my house (I have to walk to my mailbox) but they still came to my front door to pick up the package. You can tell them in detail where you leave it so you could potentially even hide it someplace sneaky, or if you know you’ll be home, they will knock on your door.

This basically makes the post office, as a place, obsolete.

One trick though, if you have a Mac. Even though the post office just needs you to download and print a PDF file to print your postage, and there’s not really a security issue (because if you don’t pay for it, it won’t work), they have messed up the process. For Macs they should just give you link and say “download and print this file.” Instead they say you need Adobe Acrobat Reader (you don’t, and it doesn’t work even if you get it.) But for some reason you do need to use Firefox for this step. From Firefox follow the post office instructions. When it asks you what to do with the file, say save it, and select a convenient location. Next find this file and give it a .pdf extension. Then print it and you’ll have your postage. Then say that everything worked fine so it will charge you for the postage and activate that particular postage. Save the file because if you mess up taping it to the box you can print it again to get it right.

So that part needs to improve, but the rest is awesome. They picked up my package and left a note saying they did. Good luck!

Tonight TiVo greeted me with a message that there had been a channel line up change and a whole bunch of channels have been removed, including MSNBC HD. But here’s the thing, they haven’t been removed. They’re still there and even show up in the guide. I can even watch them, but since TiVo won’t acknowledge them they get no programming data and even show set to record by time and channel won’t record. Don’t think I have the wrong programming guide chosen, I have already spent plenty of time on the phone with a rep to get the right one.

In contrast, I recently purchased an Apple TV. Unlike TiVo its interface is in full 1080p HD. It defaults to 720p but you can upgrade it in the preferences. Unlike TiVo, it shows pretty slide shows of my favorite pictures when I’m not watching anything. Unlike TiVo it has access to my entire iTunes library including the movies I’ve ripped into h264 format using Handbrake. This means all my movies are just available to me, no DVDs to deal with at all. Unlike TiVo, it will download podcasts.

In short, unlike TiVo somebody actually cares about Apple TV, has the skills to make it a great product, and then actually makes it a great product.

I could list out all the annoyances I have with TiVo, but there are just too many. It would take forever. But they all stem from the same issue. TiVo has stopped caring about quality, and seems to not have the skills to remain a product for much longer.

One example is the crazy TiVo Search. This is supposed to be the HD version of Search by Title only it searches by everything. The only problem, it just plain doesn’t work. Try to find a show with it, it just won’t find it. If you do find it, it will only allow you to select the standard definition version of it, not the high definition version of it. Isn’t the point of TiVo Search to support HD?

And why has an HD version of TiVo been out for years now but still with no HD interface? These people are clearly idiots.

I hope that a new Apple TV comes out with DVR functionality, because even though I just bought a new TiVo HD this year with a lifetime subscription, I’m ready to throw it out the window.

I used to be the biggest supporter of TiVo ever, but now they just don’t deserve to have me, or anyone, as a customer.

I’m more excited than I thought I would be. I got my new Apple Magic Mouse delivered from Amazon today. It was actually delivered way be for the expected delivery date even using the free shipping option.

I used to have the Apple Mighty Mouse, which was fine except for the fact that the track ball stopped working. I was so happy to see that Apple had decided to forgo the trackball altogether. So far the mouse is great.

Here are the things that have surprised me:

• The mouse is surprisingly comfortable.

  A long time ago, before switching to the Mac and working at Microsoft I though nothing could out-do Microsoft’s comfortable mice. They were a little big, but that was actually good. Well, this mouse did it. It’s still a small Apple mouse, but it’s just the right weight and size. It’s hard to describe, but your fingers fit perfectly on the sides of the mouse and your hand naturally sort of hugs the mouse while you’re using it. For instance, when you need to pick up the mouse, your hand doesn’t have to grab it tighter, it’s just in a natural position to keep holding on to the mouse. The engineers did a wonderful job of working with the human hand here without making the mouse look creepy.

• The scrolling works great.

  At first it’s something to get used to, because there’s no wheel so it feels a little foreign to be moving our finger around on a surface. But very quickly it’s awesome. It takes so little effort to scroll and the scrolling momentum is very nice and feels very natural.

• The mouse moves with ease.

  It’s surprising to say this, and I don’t know exactly what they did, but moving the mouse around or from side to side is a lot easier. If you think about it, it doesn’t feel any different, but when you don’t think it sort of hits you that moving the mouse has become easier. It might be changes to the tracking or just the weight of the mouse, but it’s nice.

• The look.

  What I noticed from just looking at the mouse in the store was that it seemed a little bigger. But it isn’t wider or longer than the mighty mouse, and it’s a lot shorter (doesn’t rise up from the surface as much). I think that’s why there’s the illusion that it’s bigger. Then once you get it on your desk, it’s like all of a sudden the mouse draws so much less attention and seems smaller.

  Also, the mouse just looks clean. It’s white, but not gleaming bright white, just clean white and out of the way.

If you own a Mac, it’s a must have item.

Buy from Amazon: Apple Magic Mouse

Add to that the fact that I would be buying this computer at some point anyway. And the fact that when I go to visit clients I didn’t have a notebook and would often actually have to take notes.

My life is so much about multitasking. I need to be able to blog and watch TV at the same time. Many of my blog posts are about what’s on TV. And I need to be mobile because sometimes I just need to be outside the apartment, because I’m here too much when there’s work to do.

It just kind of struck me yesterday that I didn’t need to get this computer because I wanted it, but because I really and truly needed it. I kept trying to come up with excuses not to buy it, or to postpone it. But I need it. It’s kind of a bummer, because it doesn’t feel like the fun new computer, it feels like the new pencil. It does the same things as the last pencil. But it’s great to have a pencil.

And I’m so thankful for a couple of technologies. Syncing with my iPhone will keep all my bookmarks, contacts, and calendars up to date on both machines. I’m backing up to a drive connected to my Airport Extreme and it backs up so fast of 802.11n. And I’m thankful for Subversion repositories which will keep all of my work related stuff in sync between the two computers. I’m thankful for gmail and aol mail for using IMAP which will keep all my email for way to many email accounts in sync. I’m sure my syncing technologies will get even better very quickly. And for that, I am truly excited.

But here’s the problem. While in recent years Apple was actually competitive on price if you compared feature for feature, now they are sort of not. I mean there’s a lot of stuff these notebooks have that you can’t get elsewhere, that’s good. But a basic starting price of $1,299 for the 13″ version? That’s the price for a very luxurious laptop these days. And the 15 inch MacBook Pro starting at $1,999? Um it’s hard to find any notebook from anyone else at that price.

Yes, Apple does have the “old” MacBook design available for $999, but who wants the “old” thing? Probably a few people, but the Mac faithful want the new hotness.

Apple sells cool. I’m not being sarcastic when I say that what’s currently cool about notebooks is how cheap they are. And during an economic crisis Apple raises prices? And raises their low-end prices??

Need proof that buyers will pause? I’m in the market for a new Apple notebook. I would have a lot of use for one and I don’t have one currently. I was literally waiting for this announcement to buy one. But my stocks are down (especially Apple) and I just don’t need one badly enough to buy one at these prices right now. I know my stocks will go back up, but even then it’s hard for me to spend more that $1,299 on a laptop when I can get one for $600 elsewhere. Would I buy a PC laptop? No, not for serious use, Apple is still too much better. But I’ll make do with what I have as long as I can.

Apple has missed the boat. They need at least three notebook models between the $499 and $999. This is what people expect to pay for notebooks these days. I went to the websites of dell, hp, and gateway, and this is what I saw:

click to view larger images in lightbox album

Well, improving performance is always good thing. And considering Windows is growing like crazy, it would be good for marketing to have OS X decrease in size. But while Apple is totally the type of company to do this type of thing, there is always more than one reason for any Apple move. So I’m going to guess at their motivation.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve seen there’s a relatively new trend toward ultra cheap small computers and laptops. From the OLPC dream of the $100 laptop, to the hugely popular (at least in idea) Asus EeePC which is priced as low as $299. We also know that Apple often makes software updates to take advantage of new hardware. Apple loves to use flash memory in its devices, and their cheapest laptop starts at $1099. So Apple’s next move is rather obvious, right?

I believe Apple will come out with either a new laptop or device priced around $500 using flash memory for storage and with a good processor, but with an emphasis on battery life over processor speed. Because of Snow Leopard Apple will be able to make up for the smaller storage (due to flash memory being more expensive) and the fair performance of the processor. It may even exceed previous fast models running Leopard even though they have faster processors and more storage.

I say “laptop or device” because a while ago one of the Apple executives gave some conservative advice and justified it due to an impending “platform shift”. This was after the Intel switch, and there hasn’t been a shift since. I honestly have no idea what Apple would have up its sleeve, but I think it’s going to be different. I don’t know about a tablet, and I don’t know about the “big iPhone” concept, because I can’t right now imagine any really good versions of those. But maybe Apple can. We’ll just have to wait and see.

She was very good at keeping the food for herself, and even growled at Kody once. But then was more than happy to run around and play with him. Flex was a little nervous I think because he wasn’t quite sure what to make of a female. He would hide from her which isn’t like him at all. About a half hour in, Kody really started to pick up on the fact that she was a female and was fascinated by her. We had to keep an eye on them, not that anything much would have happened at their age. It made me think more about getting Kody neutered because I can see he would be quite the Casanova.

I am just loving the Mac folklore stories. It’s such an interesting look at tech company politics. It gets pretty juicy. I think it also tells a story that is going to be true in the majority of tech companies. The question is, once you accept that truth, what do you change in your choices or behavior to avoid the negative aspects of it? Highly recommended.

And it just relates back to what I said on my last post on the subject. Big companies are at such risk for bad decision making. All of the people with vision leave and it’s just the executives left to make a mess of things. Some of the stories have covered absolutely horrendous deeds by the middle management on the Mac team. It’s a testament to how great the ideas of the original people are that they can last so long though bad management. I remember Macs always being so expensive but apparently someone was buying them.

Around 1994 I helped my friend Tia buy one of the new Power Macs. And my friend Tara got one as a graduation present (I think.) They were somewhat affordable then, but I loved going to the ACC (Academic Computing Center) at the University of Washington and using the Unix machines or Macs or NeXT machines (or *gasp* PCs if I had to, PCs were horribly slow still back then). The ACC was open 24 hours which I thought was so cool. I didn’t want to own a computer because it was too fun to go there.

It’s interesting because the stores are first person accounts of the creation of some of the most basic computing concepts we use every day. There was of course some influence from Xerox Parc, but many of the ideas were new in form or new in general because they were made to fit the idea of an affordable personal computer. The thing is, these are all the same ideas we are still use today on our computers. It’s overwhelming to think that in a few short years, most of the ideas were done. And more interesting, many of the ideas actually regressed as Apple and Microsoft grew larger. Now Apple at least is finally getting back to them.

What’s clear is the importance of truly good leadership. Steve Jobs did what no one else would have been able to do. That’s not an exaggeration. He was successful in large part because he was actually leading. He had an idea of what needed to be done, he wasn’t just making decisions as situations came up. And the luck of who was on the team and what they brought was like a perfect storm. I’m just entranced by the stories.

Interestingly, most of the people left Apple or were bizarrely kicked out shortly after the creation of the Mac, including Steve Jobs! Basically the most significant event of personal computer history so far. It really makes you think about the way companies are structured and the inevitable ignorance of executive management that happens in every large company.

As a person who’s really looking to make a difference, I find this fascinating. Trying to figure out how to create an environment where amazing things can happen, profit can be made, and the whole thing doesn’t implode. I’m beginning to think the implosion is a very important part of the process.

I laughed so hard when he popped out with it in his mouth just like it was the most normal thing. It’s always fun to watch him go into his kennel like that because you can kind of see he knows what he’s looking for. I don’t know why, but I find that very charming. Maybe because it’s one of the few times you might actually know what your dog is really thinking.

Anyway, it’s especially funny because Michal and I were talking about how sneaky Kody was today. I guess he really wanted to show us.

Since the Airport Extreme has been updated to support hard drives attached to it as Time Machine backup drives, I bought a 1TB drive at Costco today and hooked it up. My computer is now backing up but the initial backup goes pretty slow since my iMac only has 802.11g. But it doesn’t really matter, it’s not like I’m waiting for it.

Barack Obama’s speech about racism and his pastor was the only inspiring thing I’ve ever heard from a president or a presidential candidate in my lifetime. He won me over. I am actually a fan now. I may be in love.

Kody is not giving in to his paw injury. He kept waiting by the door all day and I knew what he wanted. So we did a quick walk at Grass Lawn Park. Some teenagers screamed out to me that they loved my dog. And then a little kid later exclaimed, “That’s a hot dog dog!!!” Kody is an attention getter, which is perfect for an attention whore like me! (Blog every day, anyone?)

Apple released an update for the Airport Extreme so I can now do my computer backups wirelessly with my had drive attached to the router. I think it will also back up multiple computers. Terabyte drive, here I come!

Tara and I had lunch yesterday and she said something like, “When you like something you get really into it. Like the whole Mac thing, you think everyone should have a Mac.” To which I replied, “Well, that’s just true. Everyone should have a Mac.” I wasn’t joking. It’s just plain true.

I think this is why I’ve had no cell coverage for the last couple of days. How could this happen in such an upscale neighborhood as Bridle Trails?

When Apple started selling the iPhone some people complained that it didn’t support SMS picture messaging. My response was, why would you use that when you can just email it and then get better quality pictures and have them on your computer or any other device as well?

The iPhone means no more lame “phone” technologies that pale in comparison to computer technologies. And the iPhone SDK is the final nail in that coffin. Oh, and the iPhone games look awesome!!! Spore and Super Monkey Ball look like so much fun, and just tilt the phone to play!

Flex is going to be spending four days with Kody and me. I’m looking forward to it, but my biggest concern is giving both of them enough love. (Awww!) I bought Flex a dog tag with my cell phone number on it for the visit. Should be fun!

I’m really not a fan of QuickBooks. It’s really quite bad. I mean, it’s bad in ways that shock me. For the search engines: QuickBooks sucks. So last night I found a new program made only for the Mac called Billings. It’s much better and creates beautiful invoices. It has all the hallmarks of a Mac-only application: looks nice, easy to use, focused, creates great output. I think I may return QuickBooks and just use Numbers (Apple’s spreadsheet application) to track all the other stuff. I spent all last night re-entering data and don’t want to have to go through that again.

Last night I also had a difficult time activating my business credit card. They wanted my business’s birthday and I informed them there was no such thing. Luckily he gave me the month which after a while allowed me to guess at what they thought my business’s birthday might be. They also wanted my business’s social security number. Again, a hint allowed me to figure out what that meant. Crisis!

I just watched the special on the British Monarchy. It’s fascinating. The Americans in the special come off as so… American. I won’t mention names but some of us keep flying to Europe and taking fun pictures. I’m envious.

I’m putting a lot more tags on my posts now. Ted recommended the Simple Tags plugin for WordPress and I like it. It’s actually sponsored now by Google, which is odd since it doesn’t work with their blogging system.

It seems like Apple didn’t even know that at first when they tried to sell them. But I only want to watch movies once so renting is perfect. Music I want to listen to way in the future, but movies are a one time only deal for me. I can only imagine how this is going to confuse the MPAA and RIAA groups.

I bought a nice floor lamp for my apartment, it gives it such a warm glow. I think the effect of lamp shades is underrated.

Oh yeah, Blades of Glory and Mean Girls.

358bf0bd1f1024ed25fa69ced23dab90

For the non-techies who read my blog that is a number, it’s just in hexadecimal instead of base ten.

Anyway, basically third party developers are literally attacking the iPhone, and it will only help it. But Apple needs to accept that there will be no closed source software anymore and just open up the iPhone. This war is already over, it’s just up to Apple to realize it’s over.