I kicked around on the new mac mini all day today, getting much more work done than yesterday. It only took me an hour or so to hack together a printer solution using Gutenprint and a mismatched PPD–at least it prints now.

Some stuff I’m starting to like: Spotlight was useful in a case or two, I’m getting used to hitting the [Windows] key instead of control, and the F9 reflex is starting to set in. I got some networked folders to show up every time I boot (something that’s more involved than it is on a PC), used Terminal for the first time, and and installed FireFox. I also hit the menu button on the remote, and that’s pretty dang slick. Of course, I have no media on that beast to use it with, but it’s a pretty slick implementation nonetheless.

I still had trouble on the following:

• Safari froze up multiple times. (I guess 512MB of RAM and a dual-core proc isn’t enough for 5 apps at a time in OS X after all)
• Fireworks 8 is slow as crud if I try to use it with anything else running
• I still keep sacrificing system resources to apps that continue running even after I’ve closed all the windows
• Mail bogs down horribly every time I try to read an email with big images attached
• I realized that my “60GB” Hard drive already had 20GB of space used up. (Even Vista, with its gobs of legacy code, uses only about 12)
• All the anti-aliasing doesn’t look so great on my LCD, and gives me a headache. (yes, I tried adjusting it in Sys Prefs) Switching to my windows box is like a breath of fresh, crisp, clean, air.

Other than all that, OS X does have a very polished, schnazzy feel to it, for lack of a better word. I’ll at least take it out of the negative for the relatively painless day I had with it today.

Score:
PC: 3
Mac: 0

Prior to printing with my new Mac Mini, my Mac experience had been frustrating (Monitor didn’t work) and slightly disappointing (my mac isn’t all it’s cracked up to be). Nevertheless, I still maintained some high hopes for this guy. After all, I hate to admit I’m wrong, and I was beginning to believe that OSX was possibly superior, and I had definitely spent a lot of time in hopeful anticipation of the Mini after I ordered it. After successfully connecting to some shared folders and even printers on a Windows network, I was beginning to think that most of the old Mac incompatibilities were history. (Excepting, of course, the fact that my LCD monitor does not work with my mac!)

I had made it through an entire day with the Mini, getting some work done, getting OpenOffice installed, and squinting at my 2″-smaller replacement monitor. It was nearing time to leave, and I just had to print out a 1-page .pdf file. The networked printer (a pretty fancy multipurpose copier with all the options) had been “installed”, and so I let ‘er rip.

I make it to the copy room, and some jerk has this huge job printing out… I wait for it to finish, but my .pdf doesn’t show. Hmm…I examine the huge job a little more closely. It appears that it’s one page with some gibberish about Adobe-pdf-something-or-other, and about 35 blank pages. Wait a minute, that’s my PDF! (A little devil pops into my head, saying “Hi, I’m a Mac!” and laughing)

I trek back to my computer, remembering how easy it was to make that printer work with my PC when I installed it, and headed off to the manufacturer’s website. They’ve got some file there that’s a psuedo-driver for OSX, and so I download it, and go to install it.

Hmm, that’s odd, this weird .hqx file doesn’t seem to have a file association. Wait, OSX doesn’t include an extraction utility for zipped (bin-hexed, if you want to be precise) files! Even Windows XP does that! So much for out-of-the-box usefullness. Now I’ve got to go to some other website and download and install Stuffit Expander. By this time I’m cursing the day Steve Jobs was born–but wait, then Bill Gates wouldn’t have had all those great ideas to steal and make practical.

So I install Stuffit Expander, install the PPD or PDD or whatever file it is, and reconfigure my printer. Finally, some productivity will occur! I hit “print”, and run over to the copy room.

You guessed it, more gibberish, and 35 more blank sheets. <sigh> No wonder no one in the corporate world outside of artists uses OSX. I finish my day by opening the .pdf on my PC and printing it out.

Score:
PC:3
Mac:-1

Today my Windows XP Automatic Updates tried to install IE7 for me. (Nice of them, huh?) Expect to see a large jump in IE7 usage as Microsoft takes advantage of their OS monopoly to move people to their new browser. I just wonder, will this automatically install itself as the default browser?

Whatever the case may be, if you’re running a web app or webpage that doesn’t render right in IE7, you’d better get your act together. (Yes, I know my whole site has a big yellow warning and a gap between it’s “teeth” in IE7. So get over it and upgrade to Firefox already! I can afford to do this because my site doesn’t have any commercial purpose.)

A report over at eMarketer.com begins with a statement and a chart of data that seems a little shocking. (I certainly filter much more than 20% spam!) After a brief glimpse at the chart, it appears that the conclusion being drawn is laughably unsupported.

Check it out: rather than interpreting the Number of messages received versus the type of email received as an average of their surveyed audience, they are drawing conclusions as if the x-axis represented the age of the recipient, and the data the percentage of their inbox. Doing a little math with their paradigm, it appears that people aged 0 are getting 7% business-related material, and a total of only 44% of their mail (what’s up with the missing 56%?) People aged 11-30 (again, with their reasoning) are receiving 158% of their mail. (Maybe they’re stealing from the 0-year-olds)

The scary thing is that this site sells this report as part of a bigger package, and they charge $695 for it! Yes, $695 for flawed conclusions! What it should say is that 41% of people receive 50+ spam emails every week, or something actually supported by the data shown.

I’ve seen typos and other snafus on this site before, but this really takes the cake. Way to go, eMarketer, way to go.

Screenshot here

Ah, the day has finally come where I can get paid to blog. Well, kind of.

We’ve started a Step2 blog over at Step2.com, and now part of my job will be blogging. We’re excited to put more of a personal touch on the company’s image by allowing our personalities (and they are definitely personalities) to be visible in some way.

Rob and I will mostly be talking about stuff Step2 is doing, odd facts about the Step2 Direct program, information about new products that are coming, news about special offers, and possibly some child psychology information that illustrates ways our toys can help your child learn and grow.

Go on, check it out.

At Step2, we’ve got this great line of toys that have realistic wood and stone colors and textures, and they’ve become quite popular. It seems that nobody wants bright yellow and pink in their back yard (or worse, faded yellow and pink). Up until now, though, you had to sort through our entire website to find your options. All that has changed!

Now you can find the whole gamut of Naturally Playful toys at the Step2 Website. I created this overview of the whole toy line for a few reasons–to explore the reaction to a new color scheme, and to ease the shopping process for people who just search for that term on the web.

Check it out–do you prefer the more muted colors, or the old style?