MAC vs Microsoft - Take Two.. And Action!

I love my Mini don't get me wrong. It's not that hard to "figure out" and its been really reliable (though I can't say so much for my internet router).

Unfortunately, the MAC Mini doesn't seem to have all the bells and whistles that I'm used to.

I'm certain I must be doing something wrong, but I can't figure out where (nor can the MAC-addict hubby). For those of you tech-support people reading this: 1. Yes I've restarted the computer. 2. Yes I have clicked on and read every possible button in the printer setup features in order to find the options I was looking for (so has hubby). 3. Yes I have the most current driver installed.

My printer is awesome. While most of my previous printers have been thorns in my side with little to no features other than color or grayscale options, my current printer is cool. I can print double sided pages, booklets, etc, plus the options of grayscale or color.

I should say I have these options in Windows. In MAC, I can print and thats about it. Ok.. so I can adjust margins and print portrait or landscape.. Whoop de doo.. I cannot print grayscale if I want. There is no option to select grayscale, actually there are very little "options" in the print mode period. If there is color on the page, it prints it. Which means with the webpages that I print out from time to time, I can easily run out of my color in my printer as the color cartriges are at least 1/3 the size of the black. And if the colors on the page that look black, aren't really black but lets say dark blue, or other "color" that might look black but isn't, my color cartriges are going to be used to print it.

So I'm a bit peeved about it all. I am currently using Google Docs to paste links or store documents that I want printed, then I access that page on my Windows computer, load the links/documents, and print them.

Its a lot more work, and I'm still debating on whether the Mini is worth the freaking hassle.

I am btw liking having two computers, as it splits up the work and my Windows computer hasn't been tempermental much at all. Or maybe it sees the MAC Mini, and is on its best behavior.

I'd just like to be able to utilize all the functions of my printer. Right now, I feel like MAC put "idiot guard" on the print features so that all you can do is "click print" to save people from manually messing with their options and thus screwing up their printing. Which might be good for computer idiots and those that completely lack creativity, but for those that actually have a need to use the features that the particular printer was PURCHASED to do, its not very useful at all.

Cholesterol - Women & Children

Proof that sometimes you can't believe everything you read, and sometimes you have to follow the money.

Is there anything in this country that isn't corrupted?

And is everything from the medical community just "guessing"?

Apple Mini

This weekend we went out and purchased an Apple Mini. I was hesitant at first about switching to MACs, well mostly because they're SOOOOO different from Microsofts layouts that I got lost just trying to get them functioning.

Not to mention the previously discussed fear of change.

Anyway, this is my first blog post from the new Mini-Mac and tonight I found a feature of the MAC that will have people tearing it out of my cold dead hands.

See... with MAC's there is this handy-dandy "dashboard" feature, which is mostly just a bunch of gadgets that you can set up, that are on a separate screen... a semi-transparent overlay on top your real screen, when you're not using the computer, or if you just want to check on them.

You hit a key, and woosh the dashboard goes up and you can check things like weather, dictionary, address book, time, stocks, or whatever. The dashboard also shows when you log into your machine or when you come out of screen saver. It disappears with one click on the screen as well, which makes it easy to use.

Now most of that doesn't sound that fabu-lous, and those features aren't really all that.

What I do love is the post-its that it lets you put up on the dashboard. Post-its with grocery lists, notes of things to do, reminders.. Now when I'm in the middle of doing something on the computer and I remember "Oh yes, tomorrow I should go do" I can click to the dashboard, make a post-it and remind myself.

The other feature, is this widget (thats what they call all these fancy-pants dashboard things) that imports your google calendar into it. So you can see at a glance any meetings you have for the day or scheduled errands, doctors appts, etc. (now if only my phone would sync with Google Calendar). So far I haven't done much of anything with it but put in a few reminders, but I'm imagining much much more.

8am Breakfast
9am Gym
10-12pm Errands
12-1pm Lunch
1-4pm Get cracking on that novel. jk
5pm Put on Superhero suit & Save World
6pm Cook
7pm Serve Dinner
8-11pm Relax & Watch TV (Superhero's have to have their downtime)
11pm Sleep

Yes, I am easily amused. :)

I hate my Computer

Warning: Temper Tantrum

For months, years.. I can't remember how long actually. My computer has been ticking me off.

When I first got it, it was amazing. Then things went down hill.

It had memory errors, so we switched out the memory. It worked fine for a while.

It had internet issues, we switched routers. It didn't help much.

It blew up! (seriously, I had black soot all over my office to prove it)

So we replaced all the insides, and reused the case.

I still had issues. Ok thats an understatement. I've had nothing BUT issues since.

The stupid thing won't boot up without the original CD in the freaking CD drive, even though it doesn't run off the CD while its working, just needs it there like a freaking safety blanket. We've tried to figure out why, but it hasn't been that big of a deal.

Then it would suddenly need rebooting for no apparent reason. I'd get some "failure" message, then it would start a countdown to reboot. If I tried to save anything during this countdown, the file would be corrupted beyond repair. I did figure out how to stop the countdown, but the computer wouldn't let me do anything anyway so I still had to reboot.

On top of this, it wouldn't stay connected to the internet and acted like it hated the router. Which we finally discovered was because the freaking router which is supposed to do wireless and cable connections both, would switch between the two cutting out one or both of the services for no apparent reason. So we shut off the wireless feature on it, and its been behaving 90% better. I only have to reboot the router and cable modem every 3 days, vs every 3 hours.

Hubby checked the thing several times for hacking and found nothing. My computer has been checked for viruses, and does a full scan.. I mean FULL FREAKING SCAN every night.

I also have to restart the computer about every 2 days.

Now I could understand this better if I did something highly taxing on the computer like active games that require a lot of memory and CPU. But the most I do, is have 2-3 documents open, a few webpages, and a couple IM programs.

We've souped up the computer with lots of memory, a fast good quality CPU, and a SATA drive. You would think that it could handle it?

Now today's lovely problem!

Datarat posted a link to a You-Tube video about something that Ayn Rand wrote.

I really really wanted to watch this video. I also wanted to watch a couple other You-Tube Ayn Rand videos. Which I can do, if I could be satisfied with only watching the first minute of each video.

Instead, I get interested in it. I'm waiting at the edge of my seat for the next words, and it stops. I tried it both in FireFox and IE and neither will freaking show me the video, though FireFox does show me more of the video than IE but thats hardly any consolation.

When hubby gets home, I think we're going to have a talk about getting that Apple Mini we've been discussing.

I really hate change, and having to learn how MACs work is not going to be easy for me (or for my hubby as I am going to bitch about it), but I have to do something.

I just want the damn computer to work. It shouldn't be rocket science.