Category: Uncategorized

It’s slowly dawned on my that over the years, my love affair with the Mac has evolved into more of a lovers’ triangle.

My wife—wonderful woman that she is—has never really embraced our computer the way I hoped she would. And certainly nowhere near the way I have.

When the World Wide Web was first gaining public enthusiasm, I told her about a site where you could actually see a live picture of a cappuccino machine in Australia. I could scarcely imagine what could be cooler, and could barely contain my excitement. I rushed to tell her all about it. Her response? “If I want to see a cappuccino machine, why wouldn’t I just walk into our kitchen and see a real one?”

She had a point.

My efforts to get her to do our finances on the Mac met with similar resistance. She uttered something about not wanting to do the work twice: entering the information once on the computer and once “for real” into our checkbook was not her idea of increasing productivity.

Again, she had a point.

To be entirely fair, I haven’t given her a whole lot of time to use the family Mac. Between personal projects, work, and freelance commitments, I tend to monopolize most of the available computer time in our house.

And when she does get the opportunity to use it, I usually wind up hovering over her like a nervous mother who’s just handed her newborn to a clumsy aunt. She winds up getting so frustrated with me, she closes whatever file she’s working in (without quitting the program, though—she always forgets to quit the…oops, see what I mean?)

It’s gotten to the point where she sometimes forgets what brand of computer we own. It’s no longer the “Macintosh” computer, it’s a “Thatdam” computer. As in “how much time are you going to spend on Thatdam computer tonight?”

So this Valentine’s Day, those of you reading this expecting to find a list of romantic Internet sites, places on the web to buy flowers or find poetry will have to look elsewhere. This month’s column will feature no URLs, no FTP sites, and no links.

My advice for this Valentine’s Day is about chivalry, not technology. It’s about open hearts and open arms, not OpenDoc and Open Transport.

I’m declaring St. V’s big day as computer-free. I won’t boot up, I won’t surf the ‘net, and I won’t read my e-mail.

I’m turning to simpler pursuits on this day. I’m going to buy a card, put it in an envelope, and hand it—not e-mail it—to her. I’m going to write her a poem, not download one. And I’m going to relish in the “anti-technology” of the whole experience. I’m going to pay special attention to the way the pen feels as it moves across the paper—to how the ink smells. To how beautiful my wife look bathed in the glow of firelight instead of the cathode-ray tube of my monitor.

You see, when you get right down to it, I like my Mac.

It’s my wife I love.

I’m not cheap. Really. 

I’m happy enough to spend my hard-earned ducats on the latest gee-whiz gadgetry. (More than happy, my wife would tell you.) What I don’t want to do, though, is pay more than I have to for it. I think it all stems from an unfortunate car-buying incident where the dealer added a year’s worth of payments to my car loan without me noticing. I’ve been obsessive about getting ripped off ever since.

Thanks to the Internet, it’s a lot easier to find great deals on all sorts of things that would otherwise be beyond the reach of my budget. Take cell phones, for instance. A quick trip to Amazon.com will land you a plethora of mind-boggling deals. Pay for a cell phone? Why? If you’re willing to switch providers you can scarf up a state-of-the-art camera phone and actually make money on the deal — after rebates of, course, but more on that in a minute. Even if you’d prefer to stay with your current carrier, you can use those Amazon deals for leverage in negotiating a brand-spanking-new phone. In my case, for instance, my provider told me that, while they couldn’t cut me much of a deal on the phone itself, they’d make it up to me in extra minutes and free months of service. I wound up with a new Motorola RAZR V3 and six months of free calls, which netted out to $30 to me. Sweet.

The greatest thing about pricing over the Internet is that it levels the playing field. Now, everybody knows what deals the merchants are willing to make. And with increased competition online, they’re willing to make a lot. One popular pricing strategy is called the “loss leader.” It’s a highly desirable item that a merchant prices for a low price — often even below cost. The hope is that when you come into their store (either brick and mortar or online), you’ll pick up another item or two — with higher profit margins — while you’re there. Many of these items require coupons. The trick is having enough self-discipline to do a “hit and run” — get just the item you came for, then get out.

Rebates are probably the most popular strategy right now — especially in technology. Rebates can represent a great value, but again — self-discipline comes into play. Make sure to read the terms and conditions and follow them to the letter. You also have to be in a position to front the entire cost and wait the six-to-eight weeks or longer until your rebate check arrives. Merchants love rebate deals because a lot of people don’t bother turning them in — and that means more money for them. My personal rule is that I have to complete and mail the rebate form before I allow myself to install or use the item I bought.

Deal finder sites are a great tool for the tech shopper — it’s like having a whole team of researchers do your work for you. DealsOnTheWeb.com, DealMac.com and its sister site DealNews.com are great resources for finding special promotions, rebate offers, etc. If you’re looking for a specific item, CNET.com has a price tracker that can help you find the best current price at both physical and online stores.

Many brick-and-mortar stores have price protection policies, where they’ll meet or beat competitors’ advertised prices. Most exclude web merchants, but a few will still deal if they think they’re about to lose out on a sale. It never hurts to ask, but make sure they know you’re ready to put cash on the barrel.

As for eBay, I’ve never found the prices to be compelling enough to make me want to put up with the hassle and risk of PayPal, unscrupulous buyers, and lack of instant gratification. If you’re a happy eBay shopper, more power to you; it’s just never been my cup of tea.

Technology shoppers are in a great position—if they have the patience. With tech, you can always get more for less if you’re willing to wait. The hard part is knowing when the time is right to make a purchase. I did it well when it came to my digital camcorder and digital camera. I didn’t do so well years ago when I bought a Power Mac 7200 that became obsolete far too quickly for my tastes. Right now, I’m playing the waiting game on a new G5 and a Bluetooth headset for my cell phone.

The thrill of playing on the bleeding edge of technology is something I’ve learned to outgrow after considerable damage to my wallet. Now, I’m content to let others pay the price of being a pioneer. I’d rather wait for the mature versions that cost a fraction of the price. And when I can get a great deal on them as well, I’m a very happy geek.

I may not be cheap, but I’ve found that being a frugal shopper gets me a lot more cool toys.

Not too long ago, a developer had a conversation with a colleague over the issue of running small “mini-applications” (let’s call them “widgets,” for lack of a better term.)

(He said) “You’d want tiny apps that were good at a specific, limited function that complements the main application. Like a little calculator, for example, that looked like a real calculator. Or maybe an alarm clock, or a notepad for jotting down text. Since the entire screen is supposed to be a metaphorical desktop, the little programs are desk ornaments, adorning the desktop with useful features.” 

“But where do we draw the line?” I asked. “What are the differences between an ornament and a real application?” 

“Well, ornaments have to fit into the world of the main application”, Bud responded, “but not the other way around. The main application owns the menu bar, for example, but maybe the ornaments can have a menu when they’re active. The main application would still run its event loop, but it would occasionally pass events to the little guys. And of course you can cut and paste between them.”

The conversation, of course, took place among two members of the team that eventually turned the idea into Konfabulator.

Oh, wait — that’s not right. It was two Apple developers discussing their plans for Tiger’s new Dashboard feature.

Oops — only half-right.

The author of the above exchange is Andy Hertzfeld and the colleague he was speaking to is Bud Tribble. Together, the two developed this widget idea into Desk Accessories in Apple’s System 6, 22 years ago, in 1982 — predating the release of the Macintosh itself.

The idea for widget-like functionality, then, is clearly not new. So what sets Konfabulator apart from Desk Accessories? A big part of the difference is in their appearance. As John Gruber notes in his excellent essay, the goal of Konfabulator’s widgets was that they look “right at home” in Mac OS X. Why, then, is it surprising that Dashboard’s utilities — built by Apple — look similar? Remember, it was Konfabulator that was mimicking Apple’s look in the first place.

This part of the argument is reminiscent of Proteron’s cries of foul when Apple included tab-switching in Panther. Proteron didn’t invent the idea of tab-switching; they got it from Windows. And Proteron’ LiteSwitch was designed to look like it was part of the Mac operating system. Yet there was still an outcry when Apple’s tab-switcher had a similar look — but how could it not? It was part of the operating system.

Konfabulator runs Javascript. Dashboard runs full HTML, along with Javascript, Cascading Style Sheets and more. This is nothing new, either — Apple’s Help application has run HTML pages for some time. Apple’s Dashboard takes advantage of Safari’s web engine and other system-level resources like Cocoa. Konfabulator is a stand-alone program. 

So the similarity, it seems, is that both Konfabulator and Dashboard run small applications that have limited or targeted functionality. But that’s a definition that could be just as legitimately used for the original Desk Accessories.

Since John Gruber “beat us to the punch” with his comparison (most of which we wholeheartedly agree with), we’ll point you there for the rest of the arguments, including some important tidbits on the similar Watson vs. Sherlock controversy that got lost amidst the cries of theft.

Some charge that if a third-party developer comes up with a solution not currently available on the platform, Apple should stay out of their way. To address that, we look to Gruber again, who (referring to the Proteron LiteSwitch brouhaha) wrote “? when a utility is designed to compensate for a hole in Mac OS X, the developer should not expect the hole to remain unfilled by Apple forever.”