The comment came in response to the post “Offline Writing“, I have gotten a comment or two from people I do not know, but this one looked a little too generic to be a real response. The response was

“Well, the post is actually the greatest on this worthy topic. I concur with your conclusions and will thirstily look forward to your upcoming updates. Saying thanks will not just be adequate, for the exceptional clarity in your writing. I will directly grab your rss feed to stay privy of any updates. Gratifying work and much success in your business endeavors!”

The e-mail was from Gmail, the author’s IP address was from France and the URL for their website is from Czech and about money transfers and advances. So I think it is spam, and marked it as such. The reason that is seems to be spam to me is, They commented in December saying they were looking forward to my upcoming updates, from a post in March that I have already made follow up comments on. That plus the fact that the last sentence does not apply to a personal website. The approach is unique and a new way to get the website links up. Just something to be aware of. for those of you out there.

After getting this spam, I decided it was time to update my purging of my Twitter spam followers. I then thought about it, do I want to have it still be public of should I make it private. The main concern is the privacy and security for the physical world by people knowing where and when I am, but then I shoot a big hole in it by having a website with a blog on it. I guess I could simply make my blog password protected, and only have invited people know about it. The thought spoils the aim I had in starting it in the first place, to share ideas, thoughts, events… etc. Then I thought about making it so that one has to register and then once registered the blog is open. I think anyone who has administered anything with a password knows that there will be an additional effort as people constantly lose them. The logic starts to wrap itself up pretty well in a circular form. What to do? I started thinking about perhaps having some blog posts protected, and others not. I wanted to look to see if WordPress can do that, however I am in a place with no internet access as I alluded to previously. (see, a little vague as to where I am; eh?)

I am still trying to figure an easy way to virtualize a LAMP server so I can travel with it and run it as a virtual machine under VMWare Fusion. I do this for the Windows OS I still use for a few applications that don’t work under Mac. I do not want to become an expert at installing and configuring a LAMP server, I want to be able to have a testing server that can travel with me. I do not want to simply turn on the server in the Mac, as there may be some idiosyncrasies between the Mac OS and the LAMP server. It has not been easy to find a simple solution for this one yet, but I have not given up yet. I am going to wander over to the VMWare forums and see if anyone has a solution.

I have both Parallels and Fusion to allow me to virtualize an OS for my Mac, and have found that the VMWare forums have better signal to noise most of the time, however I like the way that Parallels has decided to handle USB Human Interface Drivers a little better. I also do like that when I called Parallels about a work issue I was troubleshooting, Parallels connected me with a real program that worked through the use case process with me and called me back with answers and contact information if I hit the issue again. Then again, I have not had to call VMWare yet. So you may ask, which is better? I can’t tell you, I can tell you to try both and decide for yourself. Mine came down to the fact that VMWare ran a little faster and I knew more people who use it if I get stumped.

These type of questions come up very often and there is often no one answer that applies to everyone. An example I use is a question that came up a few days ago on the Digital Grin Forum, which is better for running Adobe Creative Suite; Mac or Windows? The answer is that of course it varies on your needs and other things to consider, but people often expect there to be a definitive answer. I wonder if people are looking for reassurance or an answer when they post some of these questions.

The Adobe Creative Suite issue is still causing me heartburn, as the speed at which they ran from supporting a product is disappointing. From a technical standpoint, I understand how they decided to not update previous versions of Creative Suite (anything before CS4) to support Mac OS X 10.6; a.k.a Snow Leopard. But the fact that when CS3 was the current version they had some challenges when one updated the Mac OS X to 10.5, a.k.a Leopard. I was patient and waited for them to fix the issue. I was disappointed but understand how it can happen. Under Snow Leopard, I cannot use Adobe Acrobat Distiller, basically the printer emulator, at all. (Acrobat was the package that had trouble under Leopard.) This coupled Couple this with the fact that the “Updater” that Adobe launches each time the application is launched, it is extremely frustrating. Luckily Mac OS X has the ability to create a PDF built in.

I did the searches to try and figure out how to turn off the “Updater” under Mac OS X; as there is not a simple preferences box to check or uncheck; one has to create a custom file and place it in the proper location. The directions are less than helpful. The directions are as follows:

1. Using a text editor or plist editor, create a new file named “com.adobe.AdobeUpdater.Admin.plist” in the folder /Library/Preferences
2. In this new .plist file, create a child at the root named “Disable.Update”
3. Set the Class of this new child to Boolean with a value of “Yes”

I was stumped, so I asked a programmer friend of mine, HanClinto, who is actually doing development of a gaming tool on his Mac. He was stumped as well. even once we got it figured out, it was to functioning, so I once again asked at DGrin and they suggested another location.

What truly irks me about this situation, is it is not an inexpensive software suite. I have been a customer with them since Aldus Pagemaker, Macromedia Freehand, and Adobe Type Manager – early 1990’s. I have tried to keep up when I can afford to. However I have not seen any real reason for going up to CS4 and a very steep upgrade price. Couple this with the fact that in my opinion Mac OS X going from 10.5 to 10.6 is not a major revision, that would be going from 10.5 to 11. This is akin  to a service pack in my mind. One should not expect this to be such a faster turn over rate nor so expensive. I believe that Adobe, as is many other software developers, to a subscription approach, keep updating the software to keep the revenue coming in. That is understandable; however the pricing structure is not. It is more expensive for me to upgrade my existing package (Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium) to the current version of it, than it is to purchase the Complete Package (Adobe Designer Premium) as a student.  So I am very much stuck. Being that I don’t use these tools professionally (I do use them at work under Windows XP SP 3 and a different license) I have a hard time paying as high a fee for an upgrade. The reason I got the suite is that I want to work in the same software environment at work as I do at home. It is advantageous in both directions, I hone my skills and can apply what I learn in my personal time at work. Our official graphics artists and I have even been trading tips and tricks, so it does work.

I will say that I do like how similar the environments are in both OS’s for Adobe’s products. Microsoft among others could learn a lot from them. I have stopped using Microsoft Office for Mac as it is so different from the Windows version. I am still disappointed with iWork under Mac, there are some features (pivot tables for example) that just aren’t there. I even tried to do the trial of the updated version iWork 09; however I could not see if it addressed just the basic thing of working with Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows better as I am some what of a power user in there. However that even failed. It can open an Office 2007 format document, but it can not save into one – you have to export it. If I do the same thing in Microsoft  Office 2007 opening a 2004 document, it allows me to save it in the older format and tells me what the problems will be, it allows me to work with it just fine.It also does not support many features I use often. So I can’t really interchange my work easily with others from Mac and once again, a different environment. Good thing I got Appzapper, time to get rid of iWork ‘09.

It seems cranky, I know, but these are the things that have been kind of irksome over the last few weeks to me. Aren’t computers supposed to make things easier? I have no problem with people making a profit, I have a problem with people gouging. I have no problem with wanting things to be a little different and unique between application, but if you advertise that one can exchange files with other applications, do not have some many problems; make it transparent to the user.

So I had decided to upgrade the operating system on my Mac Book Pro to Snow Leopard. When I did that I received a warning on the battery being in need of service. So I checked the Apple site and was prepared for it not to be supported and having to buy a new battery. However since I have AppleCare, which is still in effect, after answering a few questions over the phone they indicated that it would be covered. The downside was that I would have to go into a store to verify it and find time to do that. With all the traveling I would be doing, I would not be able to do it for a few weeks. They indicated that as long as I kept it under 300 cycles on the battery it would still be covered – I was at 179 so it was not a problem. I made my appointment with the Genius Bar for last Friday, I showed up, was greeted at the door and signed in. About five minutes later I was talking with a Genius, explaining my challenge, and getting a brand new battery as well as instructions on how to condition it. I also got a few minutes of Snow Leopard questions since I was done early…. I was figuring I would not have that option I would have to do a 1:1 appointment but they volunteered. It was very easy and fast.

So the other challenge was my Jawbone headset, and replacement parts not being available. I sent the e-mail and got a response on Sunday, one day later. The response was very generic so I was not excited:

Hi there Brad,

Thanks for your e-mail!

While the accessories for the Original Jawbone are no longer available for sale, we would like to try and find a solution for you.   Please call us during the week at 1-877-254-7426 and press 2 to discuss further options.  Any of our Customer Service Representatives will be happy to assist you with this — we open to take calls from 6am PST to 9pm Pacific Standard Time.

Thanks!  Have a nice day.

So I got around to calling today, the person was very apologetic and explained how the parts were obsolete because their supplier stopping building them. However they were going to send me a demo set of the suggested replacements (a $10 value on their website) that should fit but are not a direct replacement. No charge. They even sent me a confirmation e-mail indicating what we talked about and closing the loop. Completely different than I expected.

Hi Brad,

Thanks for calling! It was a pleasure speaking with you today.

Your accessory replacement has been initiated and you should receive it within a week.  If you do not receive your package in a week, please reply to this e-mail and let me know.

Thanks again, Brad. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week!

So maybe Customer Service isn’t dead. I know that SmugMug proves it isn’t dead, but then again based on a friend’s experience Comcast is proving that it might be hiding.