Here’s another Macbook support question.
Sometimes when I open up my Macbook, it doesn’t come out of “sleep” mode. I try closing the lid and opening it again a few times but that doesn’t seem to help. I always end up shutting it completely down with my finger on the power button until it re-boots but I’d rather not do that for a number of reasons.
Have any of your Mac fanboyz/grlz experienced this before? What’s the story?
I met some people at MODM recently who told me they had never – EVER!! – bought anything via Ebay. WTF? Who are you people? Even Nicole, who is currently cutting my hair, has bought something from Ebay (although she said it wasn’t very successful – it wasn’t what she thought it would be like… she assures me it wasn’t a sex toy. It was a dress.).
Anyway… a couple of weeks ago I bought a remote control for my old XBOX from someone in Hong Kong. It turned up okay but doesn’t work very well. I mean, it works if I’m no further away than a meter or two from the box – but if I’m lying in bed (the old XBOX is the bedroom media center) it’s a pain in the ass.
So I gave the seller a neutral review on Ebay – not negative, because she shipped it quickly and it was as described… it just doesn’t work very well. The next day, I got an email from the seller saying she was very sorry that I wasn’t happy with the item and asking me if I would reconsider my review if she gave me a $5 refund. I asked the folks on Twitter what I should do, and the unanimous response was that I should leave my review as it is and that the seller was trying to buy a positive review.
So I ignored the first email. Then, yesterday, I got a message from Paypal saying I had received a full refund on the product from the seller! Now I’m feeling torn. On one hand, the product isn’t very well made – but that isn’t the seller’s fault. She has been very responsive to my review and has, of her own volition, given me a full refund and not even asked for the product back. To be fair, I didn’t complain about the quality of the product when I received it and, if I had, she might have been willing to give me the refund and under those circumstances I probably WOULD have given her a positive review. When we buy something off of Ebay (or anywhere else for that matter), isn’t that all we ask for? Good service? Obviously we hope the product will always be first class but, when it isn’t, we just want good service?
So I’m torn. I don’t want to have my review “bought” but, on the other hand, i want to be fair to a seller who is trying hard to do the right thing. Or is she?
Before I move into the “making the world a better place” motif for Season 04 of G’Day World, I wanted to do a show about my recent experiences of migrating from Windows to a Mac.
Yes – hell has finally frozen over and I’ve bought a Mac.
As some of you (those who read my Twitter feed) will know, about two weeks ago the terrific folks at Global1Training sponsored a 17″ widescreen MacBook Pro for your humble host. Global1Training are the folks who run Dr John Demartini’s seminars around the world. If you haven’t listened to the interview I did with Dr John (G’Day World #276) then you really should. He’s got a lot of good tips for taking control of your life. If you’d like to attend the upcoming Demartini seminars, click on the Global1Training link above for a 2 For 1 discount on tickets.
So.. onto the Mac.
This show is going to detail my reasons for getting a Mac and my experience of the migration.
Is a Mac as easy to use as Mac aficionados claim?
What is a .dmg?
What does “eject from disk” mean?
What is the “Command” key?
Why doesn’t CTRL-C work?
Where is the “Backspace” key?
How do you drag to “Applications”?
Why doesn’t tapping the touchpad work?
Where is the right-click button?
Where is the “START” button?
Why won’t Safari or Firefox go full screen?
Do Macs “blue screen”?
Do you have to buy two versions of all of your favourite programs if you are still running a Windows machine and a Mac machine at the same time?
Which is the best 3G card – the Telstra NextG card or the Three NetConnect card.
What do I think of the Blue Snowball USB mic?
These were just some of the issues I faced after cracking the seal on the MacBook. Is the Mac truly superior to Vista? Listen to this show to find out.
Update: A good suggestion by Raf, here are the recommended apps that Jono from Xero and Duncan Riley sent me:
Jono’s list with his comments:
Twitterrific: Best twitter client, IMHO
Growl: Notification software – ties in with a whole bunch of Apps. So, new emails, downloads finishing, etc.
Delicious Library: Cataloguing software… Sounds nerdy, but it looks soooo good…
Sapiens: Mouse gesture launcher. Version 1, so doesn’t do much yet.
Transmission: Nice BitTorrent App, very clean interface.
xTorrent: More fully featured Bit Torrent & downloading App, has very good search feature.
Download these so quicktime player will play a lot more codecs:
Perian: This adds DivX playback, amongst others…
Flip4Mac: This adds WMV playback.
Any other movie files should work in either VLC or MPlayer…
And of course: Google Earth, Skype (features lag behind on the Mac unfortunately).
Use iPhoto, its awesome 🙂
Duncan’s list with his comments:
Twitteriffic: you’ll love it
Audio Hijack Pro for Podcasting: Hijacks any audio on your mac (ie Skype calls). easy to use but you do have to pay for it after a trial. If wasn’t expensive for memory. General podcasting support is built in via Garageband for non-sykpe calls.
Cyberduck for FTP: it free, there are paid clients out there but this does a pretty good job
Snapz Pro if you want to do screencasting, captures SL as well. Payware but fairly cheap after trial.
For running Vista
Parallels: if you’ve only got the upgrade Vista I can tell you how to install. Parallels allows you to run windows from the Mac desktop, and programs like they were native on your mac. Bootcamp from Apple is free but you cant run Windows and OSX at the same time.
I presume you’ll stick with Microsoft Office under win, but if you switch try Neo-office, its Open Office code but customized to be more Mac friendly. It’s a little slow in loading, but its cheaper than buying office itself. You’ll find Thunderbird for Mac cool as well.
Become part of the G’Day World conversation.
TPN now has a HQ in Second Life! If you’ve never spent any time in SL, jump in, go to TPN HQ (by clicking this link) and add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends (that’s me). I’d be happy to show you around and help you find your SL legs.
If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.
You can show your love by buying me stuff from my Amazon wish list.
Get the TPN version of Particls.
Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.
You can now buy transcripts of this podcast from Pods In Print.
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!
I recently installed the Flock browser and I’m enjoying the way it integrates things like Flickr feeds into the main screen. I’ve got it set up to show the Digital Photography Show’s Flickr feed, a nice continual stream of visual inspiration during the day – kind of like the visual equivalent of Twitter.
“Advertising will get more and more targeted until it disappears, because perfectly targeted advertising is just information. And that’s good!” (says Dave Winer via Doc Searls).
I have believed that for a long time. I am time poor. There are products and services out there which can improve my quality of life. I want to know about them. Someone needs to tell me about them. That’s advertising. If the communication about those products and services is relevant to my interests and respectful of my time and intelligence, it’s a good thing, not an imposition.
Speaking of Doc, he points to Rageboy’s impending birthday and a photo of a recent Cluetrain reunion. What an impact these gents have had on how we think about advertising, the net, marketing, etc. How many times a day do you think someone in the world says “Markets are conversations”?
Late last week I was invited onto Mark Jones’ “The Scoop” podcast to talk about Second Life with The Markster himself, as well as Lisa Romano, Project Manager, Strategic Development, ABC INNOVATION, Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Gary Hayes, head of MUVE development, The Project Factory.
It was an enjoyable chat and I hope you enjoy it. Listen here.
If you’re in Melbourne, why not come along to this screening of Blade Runner – The Final Cut with a few of us on Friday Nov 16?
Register here.
I’m posting up my Movember progress photos over here if any of you want a cheap laugh at my expense. My facial hair skills aren’t really jedi master level. I’ve tried to grow a goatee on several occasions over the last couple of years and after a month it looks pathetic. Has to do with a combination of my irish blond/red/grey hair and how fine my hair is. Pathetic. Anyway, I’m trying again and using Movember as an exuse. This time I’m trying to grow a bikey bullbars or, as I like to call it, a “Lemmy“.
I finished playing the HALO 3 campaign over the weekend (pretty uninspiring actually… sigh), and now I want to get my hands on either THE DARKNESS, GEARS OF WAR (update: GOW purchased! Thanks Tony) or BIOSPHERE BIOSHOCK, but I’m not prepared to spend $100 on them. Anyone out there want to loan me / sell me a copy?
Stan Relihan had me back on his very popular Connections podcast today to discuss the results of our Digg contest as well as discuss his learnings from his first couple of months podcasting. We talk about LinkedIn, Twitter, and how to use podcasting to build your personal brand.
Well folks, here we are, 300 episodes and 3 years in, and I’m just getting warmed up! However, with a new year of G’Day World comes a new format, a new topic and a new question which demands The Cam’s attention – what are you doing on a daily basis to make the world a better place? As you’ll hear in today’s show, that is going to be my focus in the Year Four of G’Day World and TPN.
Also on today’s show, I’ve got a recording from MODM 7 where Simon Chen and I chatted with James Masini, 24-year-old Melbourne entrepreneur and founder of Hippo, an online job board to 15 – 24 year-olds. There’s a lot of background noise and we were standing too far away from the mics, but it’s audible and a great story. I hope you don’t mind the low quality. I was using the new Blue Snowball and Macbook for the first time and over-estimated it’s ability to pick us up amid the noise.
Speaking about my new Macbook Pro – it was sponsored by the awesome folks at Global1Training who are also sponsoring my interview from a few months ago with Dr John Demartini. If you didn’t hear that show, I highly recommend it, especially if you’re feeling like you could be getting a little more out of your life. Demartini has some great tips for asking yourself the right questions.
Thanks to everyone who has supported the show over the last three years – I’ve had the time of my life. Three years making this shit for a living. It should almost be illegal.
Become part of the G’Day World conversation.
TPN now has a HQ in Second Life! If you’ve never spent any time in SL, jump in, go to TPN HQ (by clicking this link) and add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends (that’s me). I’d be happy to show you around and help you find your SL legs.
If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.
You can show your love by buying me stuff from my Amazon wish list.
Get the TPN version of Particls.
Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.
You can now buy transcripts of this podcast from Pods In Print.
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!
The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
