Serenak's Profile

  • Aug 19, 2008
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Latest comments made by: Serenak

  • Amen to that Brother... I have spent 20 years supporting Apple - pushing the Mac to the poor benighted souls of the Windows Hedgemony. Even in the dark days I kept the faith - and then things started to get better - Steve came back and the iMac was released and then X and the rest as they say is history But much as I am loving the rise and rise of Apple and X and Mac - would I want Apple to "dominate" the next ten years? No way - monopolies are like dictatorships - ultimately they turn bad (even if they start out with high ideals... power corrupts and all that Anyway no competition makes corporations fat and lazy and fall to the "good enough" malaise - I would like to see MS brought down a few pegs, I would like to see Apple taking a decent slice of the market, I would like to see Linux become a mainstream player too... but I don't really want anyone to "dominate" - maybe that can't be - perhaps the market does abhor a vaccuum and someone has to "dominate" - but the automobile market and the cell phone market and the PC hardware market tend to tell me otherwise. Yes, we get a bit of a tingle when we read "Apple will rule the next decade" - a certain amount of pent up "validation" and even desire for revenge in there I think - but after the "Ha! Take that you who called us all fools" the reality is we don't want Apple to rule the world - lead the world maybe, show the way definitely but not actually be the only game in town. Apple got to be Apple by having to be better than "good enough" to stay alive. It is nice not to be living on the edge of extinction every day anymore - but let's have enough challenge in the game to make it worth competing...
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Mar 17, 2008 Posts: 26
    I'm Not Convinced Apple Domination Is a Good Idea
  • why is everyone so obsessed with touch iMac and the like... I work on my Mac 8+ hours a day, an I for one sure as hell don't want to be waving my arms over my monitor for all that time... what works great on a hand held isn't always a great idea for a whopping great monitor - no matter how "kewl" it looked in Minority Report
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Jan 09, 2008 Posts: 26
    What to Expect from MacWorld 2008
  • Hadley I enjoy your site greatly - I don't always agree with you (or some of the other writers) but I do generally consider it a sensible and worthwhile site (sure you have made mistakes... don't we all) - and a fanboi you most surely are not, and I value that. I love Apple and the Mac (mostly) and like you I sure as hell thinks it beats the opposition - but they are not perfect and like everything in life it has flaws and foibles and it is good to stand up and say so. Well done on 5 years and I look forward to another 5... and I will continue to read and occasionally comment (and to criticise where I think it necessary, as I hope you will too). Here is to many many more Apple Matters posts.
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Dec 10, 2007 Posts: 26
    Apple Matters Five Years Later
  • Hadley we all make mistakes - doing something for a laugh and later realising it was a stupid thing to do... but I do have to agree with natf here - your "apology" yesterday was weak and very poorly put together (just check the typos for a start!) I can only put this down to a) you wrote it in a real "blue funk" of shock and realisation or b) as a result of the former you had imbibed a little too much of your preferred "nerve tonic" Oh, and reading the apologies from other "hacked" sites I get the impression someone wrote a script "I didn't get any money" and "I just thought it would be a laugh" and "wanted to support indie developers through MacHeist..." All a bit lame (like the stunt really) - I mean I came to AppleMatters and found it "hacked", seemed a bit as odd this is hardly a rabid "fanboy" site but hackers are a bit unhinged so I let that go - you have Apple in the name, maybe that is enough... but your RSS was still up, so I thought OK give it a bit and they'll take down the silly hack and be up again - but you weren't, and that seemed very fishy to me. Overall poor judgement I think, I am not going to go on and on about it, what is done is done - but I think you do need to think long and hard about why you thought this even seemed like a "good laugh"
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Nov 28, 2007 Posts: 26
    Sincere Apologies
  • I have had 2 Clamshells over the years - a 366 Indigo and a 466 Graphite... neither were fitted with the optional Airport. They were however damn fine Macs and although they struggle with heavy Flash laden sites (making them not so great for kiddies) will still do sterling service for e-mail, IM, basic surfing, WP, iTunes etc. (the small HDD is a bit of a limitation - but it can be got round). My 466 Graphite went to a friend who is still happily using it as an email and IM adjunct to his G4 iMac Desktop.
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Jul 22, 2007 Posts: 26
    July 21, 1999: WiFi Introduced...By Apple
  • A decent NAS which supports AFP properly (I recommend the Buffalo Link Station Pro, though I hear the LaCie supports AFP too) should not have any obvious speed issues other than those imposed by your network. NAS is a good solution if you have several Macs as it can be accessed by all and you can use secured account shares if you wish. Personally although CCC is free and very good and I highly recommend it (especially for the single user who knows what they are doing) SuperDuper has more features and is not expensive and can easily do scheduled backups (good for the "less tech aware" family members...) Back up, back up and back up some more - as we become ever more reliant on "digital only" media then the risk of loss becomes greater. Without backups a serious data loss could be catastrophic - all your pictures and music and videos... never mind the correspondence and all the rest of the stuff! Soon I suspect many of us will be paying "off site data storage" bills the same as we pay house insurance - or maybe an enlightened insurer will get the idea that including such a service in their premium will win clients.. No one backs up enough (No really I mean it... SJ says only 4% of [home] users really back up properly - he has to mean home users... doesn't he? Please say he does...) Why do I say this? I got burgled at work about 2 years back... the hardware was irrelevant - replaced in days, but the data loss affects me even now (yes I had back ups - but at no point had I bargained on someone taking the main working Mac, the backup Mac, the external failsafe drive AND the not yet archived to "hard media" archive... And because they struck at Xmas guess what? We got hit just before the archive got duplicated to multiple on off"hard media" archives - Oh boy, how long have I regretted that "after the holiday" decision?!? Back it up and back it up now! If it is "irreplaceable" store it on DVD and make a reciprocal agreement with a sibling or someone you trust to keep a copy for you too (put it in encrypted password protected disk images if you are paranoid) but do it - really, I mean it.
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Jul 03, 2007 Posts: 26
    Backing Up Is So Hard to Do
  • Well - not that a smart phone Apple iPhone or otherwise is something I care one jot about but one thing says it all "Windows CE" - they would probably have to pay me or at the very very least give me the phone for free before I would even consider it... Oh and by the way iMatt, Apple didn't invent the multi touch technology - just had the balls to put it into a phone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-y3ZNaCqs if you want to see some cool multitouch stuff
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Mar 21, 2007 Posts: 26
    Meizu M8 vs. Apple iPhone
  • It is not as flashy but it is free and open source... check out the excellent Simply Burns at http://simplyburns.berlios.de/ or currently more reliably from http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/simplyburns.html
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Feb 20, 2007 Posts: 26
    Disco 1.0, Simple Disc Burning With Style
  • I have been using standard Mac keyboards and mice since way back in the IIcx era and I have never suffered from this mysterious wrist and arm/hand pain so many complain of... Could this be because I was taught to type properly? With the wrists held up and not with the palms flopped down on the desk/keyboard edge or worse still on one of those dreadful "wrist rests"?
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Oct 16, 2006 Posts: 26
    How Many People Actually Use Ergonomic Keyboards?
  • If you want to do AV with Messenger using people on Windows go download aMSN (http://cmq.qc.ca/4w/amsn/) or Mercury (http://www.mercury.to/) Personally Fire is my IM client of choice... it does all I require and dispenses with the frivolous bells and whistles but to each their own...
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Sep 20, 2006 Posts: 26
    Messenger for Mac 6 "On Target"
  • Hi Sorry to hear you got your PowerBook stolen... horrible (my works was broken into in January and they took all my office Macs... never felt so sick I don't think!) I have a 2.0GHz MacBook and it rocks... but with the stock 512 it was a bit gutless - upgraded to 1.5Gb it flies. I was not sure about the glossy screen but actually it is fine, yes it takes fingerprints really easily... avoid touching it as much as possible. It can reflect a bit but it is not the problem I feared it is really just a minor shift of you or it to negate it (indoors, never used it outside...) Can't comment on the Pro options obviously, but more RAM is worth more than the small increase in CPU cycles in my experience.
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Aug 28, 2006 Posts: 26
    Ask Apple Matters: MacBook Pro 2.0 or 2.16Ghz?
  • Zune... sounds like Dune... Dodgy old books, dodgy film, not a bad mini series on Sky But agree or disagree with the analogy... are not MS the House Harkonnen to Apple's House Atradies? (apologies for the possible misspellings...) and no I don't mean the messaanic overtones... though no doubt there are plenty of fanboys (of which I admit to being one) who would be happy to see Steve in the Paul Atradies role...) No I am thinking more of the political manoueveres of one great house against another.. and to be honest doesn't the role of the "Freeman" fall to Linux? Think about it... MS as Harkkonen, Steve Jobs as Paul Atradies and Linux Community as the Freeman... Just a thought...
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 26
    Will Apple Define The Future?
  • Killer Apps are probably past though I have to agree with the comment "Pagemaker and/or Quark Express were the killer apps that lit the fuse under desktop publishing and revolutionised the advertising, printing and publishing sectors. Photoshop was another…" and although they were available for Windows they always worked better on Macs... Quoting another poster: "On another note… I think the killer app functionality is still waiting in the intersection of groupware, .Mac, mobile devices, and always on connectivity. Another might be a simple function like NEVER having to say “damn, it’s on my computer at home”, but rather having access to your system from anywhere (via iChat perhaps?)" I have for a long time waited to see an application/device that gives you the /true/ ability to have a desktop and a laptop and then a smaller device that is more than a Newton/Palm and less than an "Origami" device... the Nintendo DS seems a very good form factor for such a tool - but one that serves as a sort of micro laptop but allows you to easily get access to your laptop or desktop without the current fiddling of SSH or VNC or VPN. Yes - I can use SSH to access my home Mac from my iBook or my work G5 tower via my VNC but I want something easy and quick and in a DS style "Diary Book" that holds very little on-board but is a remote "satellite" for my main system. I could see the "Super iPod" perhaps fulfilling this role if it kind of rolled iPod and Newton into something above iPod and below Mac Book... A tool that makes your network accessible everywhere. Especially places you might not want to be fussing with a "notebook/laptop". In the forthcoming always on everywhere network we are promised the first to produce a really good home/work/desktop/laptop/network access pocket device that can really cut it will have the "killer app" (even if it is not actually an App but a solution...
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 26
    Is the Killer App Dead or Will Apple's Numbers Revive It?
  • Guys, guys, guys... Let's not get overheated here - I am a long time professional Mac user and I have a lot of Macs... at work and at home (more than I want to count actually). Anyway having declared my obvious bias I would like to say you buy a Mac and you get a good OS "free" and a bundle of pretty good software "free". If a new software bundle becomes available you may wish to upgrade or you may consider the new features not really worth the cash... Now to my mind Apple's prices on consumer apps are pretty cheap for what you get so the argument that they are all offered at "upgrade" pricing is not spurious - even if not 100% germane either. But overall, allowing for a reasonable margin I would call them reasonable. Pro apps are a bit different - I am seriously dependant on Adobe apps at work and though I am happy enough with the versions I have I will have to upgrade to keep up with the game or get left behind... I paid 1000 UKP for the Adobe design collection several years back and as a carrot and lure I can keep on upgrading for a "mere" 300 UKP or so as each version emerges. Excessive for personal use maybe but for a business user fairly small beer. Anyway "consumer users" have the choice of a wide range of free and cheaper alternatives (The Gimp, iPhoto, Seashore, Photoshop Elements, ImageTricks, Stone Imaginator. Pages, Swift Publisher, Stone Create, Mariner Write, Open Office, Neo Office, ScribusAqua, PageStream, Inkscape, EazyDraw, etc. etc.)etc.) OS upgrades come at a fairly rapid pace on Mac... So some might gripe at their cost I guess - but if you compare features and power of your machine you rarely need more than evey other one (unless you just /have/ to be on that bleeding edge, in which case you will just have to pay for your addiction).. which makes about 3 years these days... time for a new Mac anyhow with nice shiny new OS included in the price - and a big new bundle of consumer apps too. Overall - I don't think Apple "gouge" their customers at all. Actually I think they treat their average users pretty well. Of course having a selection of Macs of various vintages does mean I tend to have at least one that needs replacing every year... so I tend to always have access to the latest and greatest "free" Apple software on at least my newest shiny upgrade. Then again I suspect many (though not all) who come here would be in a closer situation to this than they might let on... You don't want to cough the cash for the latest upgrades? Remember firstly that they are not obligatory, and secondly that free or chap alternatives are available to all... Google is your friend on this one (truly it really is).
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Jan 24, 2006 Posts: 26
    Upgrading, Why It Hurts To Be A Mac User
  • There is that and the fact that they don't see nasty $10 3rd rate rubbish software on sale at Wal Mart or Best Buy... Now i know that most Mac users don't care a hoot about that cause they've got used to good software that works... and don't want to waste money on aforesaid tat. Actually there is a ton of good software for OS X available for free anyway... Scribus, Inkscape, Gimp, Seashore (aquafied gimp), DigiTools, Onyx, TinkerTool, LiveQuartz, AbiWord, NeoOffice J, etc etc etc. but as you say we who come here to read are not the demographic that is being discussed....
    Great Britain (UK)Serenak had this to say on Nov 22, 2005 Posts: 26
    Does OS X Have Enough of the "Good Stuff" to Sway Basic Users?