Snow Leopard is here... but it is not here :-(

Apple (India) - Mac OS X Snow Leopard - The world’s most advanced OS

Grrrr.... (hope that sounded like a Snow Leopard expressing dissatisfaction!)... I am so disappointed that Indian users of Apple / Mac products have to wait for the OS X to become available. I understand that India is not yet a large enough market for PCs and software, and Apple may not have India anywhere on its priority, but if you are present in a market, then don't treat them differentially. Particularly if you have any plans to address that market... when it becomes large and attractive enough.

I can understand delayed launches in some markets when it comes to hardware products: there could be issues of production capacities and logistics of shipping them to various global markets. But software...?

The least Apple could have done was announced a date when Snow Leopard would be available in India, and put a price for the upgrade. I contacted Apple India call center twice during the last fortnight, and all they had to say was that they had no information and would let me know when they heard something. Come on, Apple should be able to do better than that!

I have friends and colleagues in the US, UK and elsewhere who can easily put the dmg on an FTP server for me to download, but... that's exactly what I don't want to do. For too long, India has been blamed for piracy of software and entertainment products; perhaps, the producers need to examine the role they are playing in driving Indians to piracy...


Update: I finally got my Snow Leopard Family Pack in London when I was there last week, obviously more expensive than what it might have cost in India, but, what the heck!

How to Sync Two Macs?

ChronoSync | Perform File and Folder Synchronizations and Backups Like Clockwork | Econ Technologies

Having got my new iMac at home, I am now faced with this difficulty of keeping my desktop and laptop synchronized. I obviously want to work on the iMac because it is faster and has a better screen, but I need to ensure that my documents (at least) are constantly updated on the Macbook Air so that I can seamlessly work on the laptop when I go out for meetings or travel.

I used an external hard drive for a very long time, storing all my documents on it, irrespective of which computer I used, at work or home. However, it was a bit cumbersome, and also there was the danger of the hard disk getting lost or being accessed by someone else.

I have read a few good reviews of ChronoSync which promises to sync and backup two Macs, but comes at a modest price of $40. I have just got myself the Demo version of the software to see if it is as good as others claim it is. Then perhaps I will shell out the 40 bucks.

Any other suggestions or ideas?

My New iMac is here!

I added to my list of Apple gadgets with the acquisition of the 20" iMac last evening!!!

Am I pleased or what?

My first impression after I opened the box was, damn! this is big!!! It did not fit my old computer table, and I had to rearrange furniture in my house to create an appropriate table for the iMac.

I did not get much time to play with the new toy since it was too late last night and I had an early morning trip. Traveling tomorrow too, so it will be a while before I can fully test the new machine's capabilities.

One issue that I now need to think about: How do I keep my Macbook Air and the iMac synced so that I can seamlessly work across the two devices, particularly when I am traveling?

Updates soon.

Will Outlook for Mac in 2010 matter?

Microsoft: Outlook Will Replace Entourage in Office for Mac - Business Center - PC World

Entourage on Mac has in general been a disappointment; it reinforces one's view that Microsoft does not really want to offer a good Office product for Mac users. Imagine you spend $350 (!!!) for a software package and get a sub-standard email program that cannot even open PST files and is considerably different from its Windows equivalent (on the other hand, the other Office applications: Word etc. are not very different from the Windows experience). Finally, Microsoft has announced that -- about 15 months later -- they will replace Entourage with Outlook. (Of course, I expect that moving to Office 2010 will entail at least an additional $150 upgrade cost!)

Would it really matter? Why did Microsoft make this (almost) pre-mature announcement?

One can guess that the imminent release of Snow Leopard is a major reason for this. Snow Leopard adds Exchange Server support to the Mail and iCal apps; so many Exchange users would be more than happy to dump Entourage (which serves no other purpose than as an Exchange client today) and shift to the native Mac apps for mail, calendar and address book. These offer much better integration (& sync) with other mail providers (Gmail etc) and devices (iPhone).

In a year's time when Outlook is launched as a replacement to Entourage, perhaps there would be very few Mac users that would have any reason to welcome Outlook. And perhaps, in order to prevent this migration, Microsoft is trying to provide a glimmer of hope to Entourage users... wait for 15 months and your problems will be solved. Well, I am hoping that a good solution is just about 15 days away, and will cost just $29...

Will share my experiences with Snow Leopard / Exchange support later...

Office for Mac 2008... Prefer Entourage 2004

I will share my views about Microsoft Office 2008 (good for most parts, except graphs in Powerpoint) in detail later. This post is to discuss about the major change that has happened between Office 2004 and Office 2008 with regard to Entourage (the Outlook equivalent email application), particularly if you use it to access your office Exchange mail.

Like me, if you don't want to spend almost twice as much for the Office Standard Edition Upgrade ($240) as the Home&Student Edition ($130), you will be in a bind. Entourage 2008 in the Home edition does not support Microsoft Exchange Server; you can only use it as a regular mail client for POP3 and IMAP access. This is a major let-down from the 2004 version where even the Home edition Entourage supports Exchange.

So what do you do:

The improvements in other Office apps (Word & Powerpoint mostly) are so major that investing in Office 2008 is a no-brainer. However, installing Entourage 2008 is meaningless (the native Mail app can offer those capabilities). So, I have now both versions of Office running on my Mac: 2008 for Word, Powerpoint and Excel, and 2004 for Entourage. This can be achieved by not opting for the standard installation procedure but by excluding Entourage in the 2008 installation and 2004 uninstallation activities.

In any case, this is a temporary fix. Come September, with Snow Leopard, we will have Exchange support built in to the Mail, iCal and Address Book apps on the Mac... so hopefully, goodbye Entourage!!!

Cleaning the Apple Keyboard!

I use a Wireless Keyboard for ease of typing as well as for greater mobility at my desk (when my MBA is tethered to the power source and various other USB extensions). The Keyboard is a couple of years old and white in colour... at least, it was white when I bought it. Over time, it has gathered dust from various geographies as well as I suspect, some food particles.

Yesterday I could not bear the sight of the almost brown or something keys; I decided something had to be done about it. Google search came to my rescue and I found this really useful 'tutorial' on cleaning the Apple Keyboard.

I pretty much followed the sequence of activities as detailed in that article, and I must say, the outcome was pretty impressive.

The only comment I would add is that don't try and pull the keys out with your fingers -- you could end up with a couple of sore fingers very soon. Passing a string below the keys and pulling them out is a very effective method. Also, when you are replacing the keys, be careful about a couple of them: the I and the / are quite similar... the letter I is of a slightly darker shade than the / that goes into the numeric keypad.

And, by the way, I just love the aluminum Wireless Keyboard that Apple launched just a few weeks after I bought my white keyboard... but since this keyboard is now clean, I will defer any replacement decision.

Err, was that orange juice in the glass that just toppled over........