Just read an intriguing article (Android’s hollow revolution and hope for 2012) by a writer who is actually pro-Android but is realizing what a mess the Android platform is—and its not just about device fragmentation, it’s also about carrier intrusion and the creation of a system more closed than what Apple’s iOS is frequently accused of being. Personally, I have found it baffling when Android users bash iPhones for not being “open” because I haven’t found one person able to explain why that’s any sort of an advantage other than confusion for the average user and an opportunity for Android geeks to spend a lot of time hacking a phone to be able to do what you want it to do when an iPhone does that out of the box.

Also, MacObserver had a good article (iPhone Crushes Android at AT&T Corporate Stores in December) where they shared how AT&T moved 981,000 iPhones compared to only 126,000 Android devices. Ouch. (clarification: that is AT&T corporate stores only—but still impressive).

I don’t even try to really debate these things too much, with user experience being so subjective and in these matters, so incredibly biased (including yours truly), but I really think you are going to begin seeing the Android reality distortion field begin to wear off as the numbers will begin reflecting what the public has begun to realize after a few years of real-life comparisons between the two platforms and for the first full-year, the ability to purchase the iPhone from your preferred carrier (apologies to T-Mobile customers).

And if all that weren’t enough, just wait until Apple announces the (real) iPhone 5 and and the iPad 3 (sooner rather than later) in 2012.

Just thought I’d post a quick little help for any of those out there that want to take advantage of a good keyboard deal but wondering if it will work on your Mac system. One little caveat before I go further, this tip is for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and earlier and I haven’t seen how this works on OS X 10.7 Lion yet. Personally, I’m waiting a little longer to upgrade my main workstation, but that’s another story.

While OS X does a pretty decent job of supporting the basic typing ability of almost any keyboard or mouse out there, there is the one nagging reality that if you have gotten into the habit of keyboard combo shortcuts, that the Command and Option key functions are basically switched and can drive you batty when you get an unexpected result from key command. To solve that, the utility that I use is a kernel extension that you can set from your System Preferences called DoubleCommand which allows you to easily and quickly remap your basic system keys that make up the main difference between Macs and Windows operating systems–notably the Command and Option keys. Basically, I only use it to swap those two keys, as you can see in the screen grab below, but you can use it set many other possible key remapping combinations as needed.

While OS X won’t support all the extra bells and whistles that may have been designed into your Windows keyboard like opening up Office apps or Mail or pretty much anything else that is extra whizbang–but surprisingly, the only extra-curricular activity that I really care for my keyboard to perform besides basic typing and F key operations, are iTunes controls. Starting a song; volume control; skipping; pausing–all those functions are supported. So, if you don’t mind missing all the additional functionality, than this is the tool for you. For those that want more control and need better Lion support, there is also a link to another utility, which I have NOT tried myself, called KeyRemap4MacBook that you may find more useful.

What I find ironic in all this, is actually how well Microsoft supports OS X with ALL of their keyboards and mice but Logitech seems to be dragging their feet as slowly and half-heartedly as possible in supporting Macs. This is a great tool to be able to use some of the cooler Logitech keyboards that don’t support Macs with your Mac and not drive you crazy with the Command and Option keys in the wrong place.

On last thing to remember is if you are using this for a laptop environment, when you disconnect your keyboard and go to use your built-in keyboard, your keys remain remapped and now they are swapped again. You will need to launch your System Preferences and turn off the the changes you made. The good news is that the DoubleCommand allows you to save it as a preferred setting in User Preferences so that when you reboot, it will default to whichever setting you prefer. Enjoy.

Just as I had been bragging to several people both online and off about how my system has been up and running now for “over” six months (5 days over to be exact), my system decided to not wake up this morning. Bummer. The good news is tear down and bake and rebuild went pretty quick. This time I timed it and it took me almost exactly an hour for the whole process (your time may vary), but I think that’s fairly good. And no screws missing after all these tear-downs and rebuilds too!

This time however, I won’t be pushing my luck anymore. After taking the “hepto-baked” MBP back to the Spokane Apple Store yet again and, yet again, failing to produce the now-coveted Nvidia error code (after I lost count how many attempts the Genius™ tried to produce it [thanks Jason!]), the best they could offer me, yet again, is the $310 repair offer that will hopefully cover anything that might happen to need replacing on my MBP. Other than the fact that it will be like it has been preserved for 3+ years and with 3-year old chip designs and technology, it will be just like having a new MBP and should (hopefully) be good for another 3-5 years.

So, I will be taking it back tomorrow to the Apple Store to submit it to the “depot”. I decided to bring it back home because I’m going to remove the upgraded 500GB drive and put the original 250GB back in it for the service. Even though I have a back-up of the drive, I would have to purchase another drive to restore to–so its easier just putting the 500GB in an enclosure and working from it until I get the system back.

My main concern now, is what replacement system will I be getting. This one will most likely be handed down to my daughter and hopefully its baking days will finally be over.

Stay tuned.

Reposted from my Google+ post here: http://bit.ly/pwg9zr but with the addition of one extra tip:

I’ve been on Google+ for over 4 days now. I officially proclaim myself a Google+ Guru!

Here’s my 68 tips for Google+ N00bies:

1. Post on Facebook that you don’t yet have a Google+ invite

2. Post on Twitter that you don’t yet have a Google+ invite

3. Beg for Google+ invite from a guru (like me) on either Facebook or Twitter

4. Recieve Google+ invite

5. Join Google+

6. Post on Facebook

7. Stay on for at least 4 days.

8. Proclaim yourself a Google+ Guru

9. Post in Facebook profile

10. Post in Twitter profile

11. Post on Facebook that you’re a Google+ Guru

12. Post on Twitter that you’re now a Google+ Guru

13. Post on Facebook that Google+ is the demise of Facebook

14. Post on Twitter that Google+ is the demise of Facebook

15.-67. Keep alternately and repeatedly posting on Tweetdeck to Twitter and Facebook accounts simultaneously.

68. Occasionally post to your Google+ account when you remember

*extra tip 69. Re-post Google+ post on your blog.

Oh, and don’t forget to +1 this article!

This was too awesome to pass up. A link to this video was posted in the comments section of my blog post Cooking The Books (or Baking my MacBook Pro Logic Board) by Roland who’s IP showed him from Montreal. He did an awesome job putting together this accelerated video (on his revived MBP) that compresses the whole experience into a little over four minutes that’s made even more entertaining by a nice soundtrack: Right Here, Right Now by Fatboy Slim.

Roland is now one of at least 15 people that have commented on my blog posts alone (up to at least the writing of this post) that have successfully baked their logic boards. Only one person has experienced anything like a fail, but there were other indications that it wasn’t the same exact issue that I had originally posted about.

I hope to post again excerpts of some of the success stories for more encouragement and also possibly something to show Apple that they need to rethink their policy in expanding these symptoms to the Nvidia 8600M issue or creating a whole new category. Normal users shouldn’t be expected to have to go through this trouble to repair something that wasn’t their fault to begin with.

It took me awhile to get this posted. Not sure if it was the fact that I’ve had an incredibly busy month or that I was just tired (it is getting a little old) of posting how many times I’ve had to bake my MacBook Pro now—six for anyone whose counting (hence the clever “hexed” title). I’m getting more than a little self-conscious about mentioning it now, specially when you read further and find out how my n00bness has more than likely contributed to this multi-bake syndrome. I’m really only posting this for the benefit of those who will experience the same issue or similar and that they might avoid my fate—so read on.

This last time was the shortest time between bakes—just three measly weeks. The circumstance surrounding this issue was a little different than the previous times if nothing more than the coincidence of having it happen the day after I made a scheduled visit to my local Apple Store in Spokane (deliberately on Steve Jobs birthday, 2/24 hoping to take advantage of any extra reality distortion fields that might be present) to try one more time to have them test my system to see if it would produce the Nvidia error (see my first article: Cooking The Books). I have to take my hat off to the two techs (er, geniuses) that tried everything they could think of to get it to produce the Nvidia error (I’m pretty sure there were some serious voodoo incantations involved) but alas, to no avail. My system was perfectly fine, or so it would seem. I was entirely honest with them about the history of my system and told them all about my baking experiences and they seemed genuinely appreciative that I had been so forthright and seemed to go the extra mile as a result. But, the final verdict was that the system appeared to have no issues that would qualify it for the Nvidia repair policy or any other policy. In short, I was hosed if my board ever refused to come back from the dead.

They did encourage me that if I had them send my system to the main Apple Repair Center that there was a good chance that they “might” be able to replace the logic board for the minimum $310 but, that if it was determined by the tech that accidental damage had occurred like being dropped or spilling a Mountain Dew  on the keyboard (which has never happened) or the premature yellowing of all the stickers from being baked several times and slightly stripped hex screws (that has definitely happened) that I would be liable for the whole cost of replacing the board which was still $1100 at the time of their quote.

I went home disappointed but thankful my system has been able to go through its repeated resurrections and that I would wait until it died again before taking my chances and bringing my system in. Little did I know that would happen to be the very next day. Lo and behold, that very night, I closed my system just to transport it into another room and when I went to open it, it would not wake up. Now in the past when this occurred, I had gone through many troubleshooting steps which would always involve doing a hard power down by holding in the power button for several seconds. Once that had taken place, it has never recovered on its own without baking. All of the times that I had had the system looked at by Apple techs, the system had been powered down. This time though, I thought I would try to take advantage of the fact that it was still “on” but dead—hoping that there might be some forgotten voodoo chant that could be summoned that would shed light on the root cause of my system failures. I decided to leave my system on and I scheduled another Genius Bar appointment as early as possible the next morning.

Now Coeur d’Alene isn’t that far from Spokane. It’s only 35 miles from my door to the downtown Spokane Apple Store location but 70 miles round trip (which I used to make every day for quite a few years). But it takes about 45 minutes each way and almost a quarter of a tank of gas in my Jeep so you don’t make the decision to go into Spokane if you don’t have to. That said, my expectation was that I was taking advantage of this “powered-on” condition hoping it might make a difference in diagnosing the problem. However, when I finally slid my MBP onto the Genius Bar counter to have a new tech, er, genius, take a look at it, I tried to be very careful in explaining the situation of the “on condition” to which he unhesitatingly responded to by immediately powering down the system, to my dismay, to go through all the same troubleshooting techniques that I told him has already previously been done many times over. Which, predictably resulted in the same result—nothing. Now, to give the guy a break, there’s probably nothing that could have been done, but I would have at least liked for him to have acknowledged and appreciated the fact that I was hoping to take any possible advantage of the “on condition” and then tell me why that wouldn’t make any difference. Instead, the impression I had was that he didn’t hear anything I had just said and went into robot-mode and instinctively powered the system down—doh!

Well, I turned around and drove back the 35 miles home in 45 minutes and another eighth of a tank of gas, completely disappointed. I then proceeded to bake the system for the sixth successful time. The difference this time is that on the way home, I stopped at Radio Shack and picked up a small tube of Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste. This is the one thing that I have not done on any previous baking attempt. In my defense it wasn’t mentioned in some of the other articles and videos that I had used for my initial research so I didn’t think that it was really necessary. As it began to dawn on me that this was probably the main culprit behind the fact that I have had to bake the system multiple times, I had resolved that the next time I would make sure to apply the step of thoroughly cleaning off the old thermal paste residue and applying the new paste.

I have now had the system up and running for over a month now (so longer than last time but still aways from the four month record) so I think that the thermal paste has made the difference. There were some other complicating issues between the fifth and sixth bakes besides the voodoo visit to the Apple Store and that was that I had upgraded to OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and swapped out my old 250GB hard drive for a new 500GB. I had noticed after upgrading to 10.6 a dramatic increase in fan usage so I am suspicious that it may have also played a role in the shorter timespan between bakes 5 and 6.

Well, now onto the “hope” part. That same afternoon after I got home and got my system back online, it just so happened that I had received an email invitation to partake in an online survey of my experience with the service of the Genius Bar…so, I told them, in a respectful and kind but lengthy response of my disappointment. That evening I received a phone call from the store manager where I reiterated in more detail my story to which he seemed genuinely motivated to try to take care of my situation and make it right. I was able to get his word that if I decided to bring my system in for repair of the logic board that he would have the store do the repair rather than sending it out to Apple’s Repair Center and guaranteed that it would only cost me the $310 to replace the logic board (assuming that was the only thing wrong). While free would have been obviously better, I consider that a pretty good deal considering the original Apple Care was for $250 (which I should have paid for), I’m only out another $60 more than that. So, now the only thing is finding the time in my schedule along to take advantage of this offer. Meanwhile, my hexed system keeps on keeping on.

Hopefully the next post will only be about having the logic board successfully replaced. Although, seven is a perfect number. To be continued…

Back to the point of this post–on January 31st, after slightly over four months of up-time (which has been the longest time by a month so far), and right in the middle of huge web launch deadline, my MBP refused to wake up that Friday morning. This time, for the first time, with no peripherals attached when put to sleep by closing the lid–so that kinda blew my peripherals-affecting-the-sleep-mode theory. I went to work going through the now very familiar process of tearing down, baking and putting it all back together. It can be noted that just the weekend before, I finally upgraded to Snow Leopard OSX 10.6.6 from 10.5.8 and upgraded my original 250GB hard drive to 500GB. I don’t think that had anything to do with the last failure, as it was working swimmingly that whole week, but it’s worth noting.

The encouraging news for anybody who has made the commitment or about to make the commitment to bake their logic board, is that in this case, my board has been baked successfully five times. Of course, that is all contingent upon your definition of encouragement.

Here are the (now four) previous MBP Baking Series articles:

Cooking the Books (or, Baking My MacBook Pro Logic Board)
Twice-Baked Mother Board (or Refried Logic of my MacBook Pro)
Ooops! I Baked It Again. (3rd Time!)
It’s Officially a Quad-Baked MacBook Pro (4 Times and Counting)

You can tell I’m running out of steam for creative titles. Next will be something to do with Hexes I’m sure.

If only it would begin on T-Mobile.

Some points to note: it now only takes me about 15 minutes to tear apart the machine (disassemble is probably a gentler way of saying that). It takes a little longer putting it back together because after spending a great deal of time trying to reconnect the only connector that connects to the underside of the board (connecting with me on this?) and then position the board at an angle so that I can get the port side (the other side) to fit through the openings in the case and allow the board to seat properly. I invariably fail to remember that I didn’t connect the battery unit before I went through the convolutions necessary to seat the board. I then remove the board, affix the battery and then go through said convolutional placement of board once more. So, in all, the reassembly takes at least 10 minutes longer for me. However, I’m getting real good at it. Maybe next time, I will remember to affix the battery beforehand.

For those coming to this article for the first time, I have three other posts of the whole MacBook Pro logic board baking ordeals:

Cooking the Books (or Baking my MacBook Pro Logic Board)

Twice-Baked Mother Board (or Refried Logic of my MacBook Pro)

Ooops! I Baked It Again (3rd Time!)

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything about AppleTV. Or Boxee. When Boxee came out for OS X, it took the desire (or need) out of wanting to get a dedicated AppleTV for the purpose of using Boxee. And, to be honest, while the form-factor is intriguing, I can’t see it in my entertainment center and I have little desire to purchase a Boxee Box. We’ve settled into a comfortable routine with our Netflix queue and Netflix instant watch offerings for watching movies that we didn’t want to wait for in the queue and especially to catch up on past episodes of Lost or 24 without commercial interruption (which is essential when you’re trying to catch up on multiple seasons before series finales). Hulu and Boxee apps for OS X, or even surprisingly, the network sites like FOX and ABC, have been sufficient to watch any current season episodes of anything. Of course, now that Lost and 24 are finished, there’s only an occasional Lie To Me or Kitchen Nightmares that I care to watch. And if we really like something, like BBC’s Elizabeth Gaskell Collection box set (don’t look at me like that), we’ll invest in the DVDs. As for gaming, we’re still using our almost 10-year old GameCube! So, admittedly, we are not the ideal demographic in this space—or, are we? Now, with all the new rumors surrounding AppleTV’s change back to iTV and being brought over to the iOS platform with the promise of apps similar to iPad and iPhone—will the game be changed? Will we finally take the plunge? That all depends…

Of course, one of the things that it really depends on is us taking the plunge on a real HDTV set. We have a 24″ monitor that suits our purposes but its not the ideal. We’re still as committed (even more so) to keeping our family time not focused on entertainment but quality time spent together with games (of the board or card variety) or reading good and edifying books or just plain old, good conversations. So its always a battle to not let the “ooh, shiny” side of technology get the better of my judgement. Of course, financial verities are a good way to keep things in check too.

Another thing that it would depend on, is if Apple is able to offer a subscription model that is compelling enough to replace our Netflix subscription or at least low enough to augment it. And what might make that whole point moot is if, by virtue of embracing the iOS platform, that Netflix and/or Hulu iPad apps will be able to be easily modified to run on iTV similar to Wii, PS3 and Xbox if they chose. I’d much rather buy a device at the rumored $99 price point than $199 or $299-$399. Of all the rumored specs, thats the one I’m hoping is most accurate.

And as I’ve already mentioned, the gaming aspect is not as big of an incentive as it would be to many, but I can definitely see the logic and appeal now that Apple has some serious gaming momentum going for them for the first time in a long time. It only makes sense to capitalize on the lower cost of iOS games and I think iTV has the serious potential to break out of the hobby stage and into the same stratosphere currently enjoyed by the iPad and iPhone 4.

And the big fuss over 1080p being downgraded to 720p is in reality, not a big deal. However, I do think Apple is going to have a challenge overcoming the market perception after so much has been invested by BestBuy and other retailers to “educate” customers to the “benefits” of buying the best 55″ LED 240MHz 1080p behemoth that money can buy. Of course the biggest benefit is more money in their pockets.

Well, until Apple makes any announcement, I’m perfectly content with our current Netflix arrangement. To be honest, I’d be more excited if Apple announced the iPhone was available on T-Mobile—but alas, it looks like I will be having to choose whether to switch over to AT&T (which I’ve successfully resisted for three years) or Verizon (another rumor). Until then, back to werk!