There’s a simpler solution

When people get ham radios, what is the main thing they do with them? Talk about ham radio equipment.

When people buy tools, what is the main thing they do with them? Build cabinets to store the tools.

“Must have” home improvement products

I receive a variety of Home Improvement catalogs filled with silly inventions that solve non-problems around the home. There’s an outdoor faucet extension that eliminates scraped knuckles, a special tool for “cleaning the grass-caked underside of your lawnmower”, and an $86 solution to “wipe away dirt, dust, and grime from underneath your gutters”.

Given my contempt, it’s scary to see how I pore over the catalogs and purchase all sorts of products. Some of them I end up loving, and some turn out to be duds. For instance, from Sporty’s Tool Shop:

• (+) Backsaver Tote This is my favorite item. I had a previous tote to haul logs into the house — I would load it up, grab the handles and lift it as high as possible, and then awkwardly trudge along, resting it on my hip. The Backsaver Tote holds twice as much effortlessly — it’s well designed and ruggedly built. I expected that it would be awkward to hold the handle, but it rests comfortably against the wood with little effort. And it’s also easy to open the house door, since only one hand is needed for the Tote.
• Magnetic Vent Covers We have an unused bedroom, and I imagine that I am saving on heating costs by covering the vents in that room. The Covers are magnetized just barely enough to stay in place, and the ceiling vent in the bathroom is particularly precarious.
• (+) Remote Control Outlet with Wireless Remote Perfect for Christmas Tree lights on the roof.
• GutterPump I have two downspouts that can barely be reached with an extension ladder and are frequently clogged.  It has been great for two years.
• (+) 10 Gallon Collapsible Lawn Container Lightweight and convenient for collecting debris while gardening.
• Brick Clips Work quite well for hanging pictures on our brick wall, without requiring any drilling.
• Motion Activated Outdoor Light Provides barely enough light by the garbage cans.
• (-) Deer Repellent Scented packets that are useless.
• (+) Garden Kneeler/Seat Fantastic when we got it for $12.
• 1 lb. Propane Refill Adapter Seemed like a good idea at the time. I’m afraid to use it — I can imagine the explosion from a spark.
• (+) Parking Mat It’s embarrassing how much I like this. When you drive over the bump, you know you’re in the right spot.
• (-) Oil Changing System Useless piece of crap. I returned it. Supposedly changes your oil through the dipstick tube. Is capable of drawing out several drops of oil per hour.
• (-) Large Coil Keeper For hanging extension cords. Stupidly designed — the weight of the coil pulls the velcro apart.
• (+) 3-Pc. Socket Driver Set Love it. Use your electric drill with your socket wrench set.
• (+) 3-Prong Space-Saving Outlet Perfect for an outlet located next to our bookshelf.
• (+) Easy-Movers Put them under our home entertainment center, and they work great when I need to slide it out.
• (-) Dryer Vent Brush Can’t believe I bought it. Doesn’t work well on thin aluminum vents, and no, I don’t believe there’s a fire hazard.

What’s wrong with Mac OS X Lion

• Most importantly, many apps no longer work.
• iCal: A team of software engineers from Microsoft sneaked onto the Apple campus to create this app. The cowboy-themed skin is the ugliest ever developed by Apple, and the user experience makes the most common tasks difficult:
• In “Month” view, clicking on a day doesn’t select it. Double-clicking creates an all-day event, which you rarely want to do. When you edit the all-day event to create a normal event, it defaults to being an 8-hour event, which you never want to do.
• There’s a prominent “+” button to create multiple overlaid calendars, which you rarely want to do. I’ve seen a couple of users try to create a new calendar entry with this button.
• Apparently Apple wants to move to a single OS for both laptops and tablets.  Along the way, laptop users are going to get reduced and awkward interactions:
• Spelling auto-correct on the iPhone uses the bold and appropriate default of replacing your typing with the correction. It’s appropriate for an interface where entering text is difficult and error-prone.  It’s not appropriate for keyboard input. But now it’s the default in Lion.
• The tap-tap-hold trackpad gesture used to let you Drag in Snow Leopard. It still works for me because my preference was carried over, but this Preference has been removed from System Preferences:Trackpad:Point & Click.
• The excellent interface for searching across Mail messages has been discarded. A new impoverished pulldown offers few options, and if they haven’t guessed what you want to do, you’re out of luck. For instance, you can’t search the From field.
• Previously, double-clicking the bar between column headers in the Finder would expand the column to show the longest entry.  No more.

Apple abuses its Mac users with Lion

As much as I like Apple in general, I have found Apple’s attitude about upgrading to Lion to be inexcusable. Apple.com says nothing to warn me about the problems that result. Lion is not backwards compatible; many of my applications no longer work, and for some, there is no way to fix the problem.

If you purchased software for a PowerPC Mac, that software will not run on Lion. Snow Leopard included a feature called Rosetta that enabled all PowerPC apps to run on the newer Intel-based Macs.  With Lion, Apple decided to discontinue Rosetta, so none of your PowerPC apps will run,  Apple Says Nothing on their website to warn you, and as a Mac user, there is nothing you can do about it. For some applications, there are newer versions that you can purchase, but for many applications, there is no version that will run on Lion, and there never will be.

• Quicken will not run on Lion. Visiting Intuit’s website explains that there is a fix as long as you convert your Quicken file before upgrading to Lion. After you have upgraded, there is no way to access your Quicken data. [Update: Intuit has now released an updated version of Quicken 2007 for Mac that runs on Lion]
• iPhoto doesn’t run.  You have to buy the new version.
• my Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint don’t run. I have to purchase a new Microsoft Office.
• Eudora doesn’t run. Eudora is an old mail program which is no longer maintained.  I have been using Apple’s Mail program for several years, but I have 10 years of email in Eudora that I need to consult on occasion. It is impossible to view that mail now in Lion.

The only way to run PowerPC applications is to install a separate version of Snow Leopard in a separate disk partition. I have spent three weeks and three visits to the Apple Store to try to accomplish this.

• Ideally, I would use vmware’s $75 Fusion app to run Snow Leopard within Lion.  However, Apple has declared it illegal to run Snow Leopard as a vm, so Fusion has been forced to disable this capability.
• I would prefer to install Snow Leopard on an external drive. But external drives are not Apple hardware, so Apple does not support this and will not assist you.
• I tried to install Snow Leopard myself on an external drive. But the Snow Leopard dvd that I purchased from the Apple Store just hangs and will not install, since I have already installed a newer version (Lion) on my Mac.

The only alternative is to repartition the hard drive in my Mac. But you can’t repartition without deleting all of the information on the drive. I have done so, repartitioned the drive, and re-installed Lion from a Time Machine backup.  I am still working on getting my Mac to function properly again. For instance, after an hour with Tech Support from Adobe, downloading a “license fix” app, and typing the appropriate “sudo” command into a Terminal window, I can now use Photoshop again.

Digital Advantage

We have a clothes iron called Digital Advantage: instead of the traditional dial, it has a single button and a digital display that shows, for example, 6 Cotton. This means that

• It doesn’t remember your previous setting — you start from 1 each time
• You can only go forwards — if you mistakenly push the button one extra time, you have to cycle through all the settings
• You can’t use a temperature between two settings
• You can see the setting while ironing in the dark

This post inaugurates the category Inferior improvements, which is a tribute to the power of advertising and marketing to sell innovations that are worse than their predecessors.