Tag Archives: Review

First Look at Mountain Lion OSX for Macintosh

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I purchased and downloaded the newest version of Macintosh OSX codenamed Mountain Lion. The download took a brief amount of time and once established I didn’t have a problem handling it. The first step was creating an independent system installer using a USB memory stick. I found some instructions that I remembered from when I did this with OSX Lion and the instructions worked well, up to a point. I was able to find the InstallESD.dmg file and I set up my 16GB memory stick with the proper format settings, specifically Mac HFS File System with Journaling and GUID partition map. The first issue I ran into was a strange memory error, that while restoring the dmg file to the USB memory stick, after the Mac was done really, in the verification step it failed with this odd arcane “cannot allocate memory” error. I went immediately to Google to look and found that if I mount the InstallESD.dmg file first, that *that* is the magic bullet. Turns out, it was.

Now that I have Mountain Lion on a USB memory stick I got a stock 24” iMac out of storage and set it up. Plugged the USB memory stick in, then the mouse and keyboard, main power, and while holding down the option key, turned it on. Everything worked as I expected it to! So far so good.

Once the system was up and running and in setup it prompted me to connect to a Wifi system, which was not a problem since I share Wifi from my primary work iMac (long story for another day) and it seemed satisfied. Then I ran into my first problem with Mountain Lion. During initial system setup I could not successfully log into any Apple ID. My personal one, or the one for work, either one didn’t work. The system allows you to continue without it and so that’s exactly what I did. Once I moved on to setting the time zone, this also failed, but I suspect it has everything to do with my shared Wifi coming from my Snow Leopard iMac and not something endemic to Mountain Lion. Instead of Mountain Lion successfully setting the time zone by it’s location I set it by hand. Not really a problem.

Once I got the system up and running, idle at the desktop everything was as it should be. My next step was to try to connect my test iMac up to my Apple ID. So logically I went first for System Preferences, then to Accounts, and there set my Apple ID. I was half hoping that setting it there would have had a chain reaction and set it everywhere else, but that didn’t happen. I noticed that iCloud wasn’t set up properly, so I found it in System Preferences, it wasn’t a problem, just a very weak annoyance. Then I tried the Mac App Store, had to do it again, same for iTunes. The only real irk that upset me was fiddling around with “Back To My Mac” feature which asked me to turn on sharing with a button that lead to the sharing panel. I was lost in there (no, not really, but I was in the headspace of an end-user) and it took me a while to notice that Apple did tell you where to go to set things up, so my one tweet about this being a problem is wrong, I was just hasty. I must say that much of this I will pin on me being in the “end user headspace” and not as an Admin, which I would have been much more careful and slow with in my approach to Mountain Lion. If you read and aren’t hasty, this isn’t a problem.

Every app that I’ve used worked well, some needed Java to be installed but the OS prompted to fetch it and install it for me without a problem so that was fine. Of the apps that work that I’ve tested, at least in that they open up are:

* Aqua Data Studio 11.0
* Dropbox
* iSquint
* KompoZer
* MarsEdit
* Miro Video Converter
* MPlayerX
* Music Manager (Google Cloud)
* OpenOffice.org
* Photo Wrangler 2.1
* Picasa (needed update)
* Postbox
* Seashore
* Spotify (needed update)
* The Unarchiver
* Transmission
* VLC
* What’s Keeping Me?
* XTabulator
* Zipeg

Of course, all the apps from the Mac App Store I assume work well. Dropbox was a non-issue, 1Password was smooth-as-glass, as I expected. But what really surprised me was Postbox. I recently fled Sparrow as an email client when they announced that Google was acquiring them. Postbox was my alternative. When I copied over Postbox and started it for the first time it offered to collect the settings form Mail.app which I didn’t think anything of and let it go ahead. Postbox seamlessly captured my iCloud email account and after I typed in my Apple ID password, I was up and running! For some strange reason, that really pleased me.

So, what is next? So far everything seems to test fine in Mountain Lion. There are some goobers from Lion that I still need to work out – such as secondary monitors in full screen mode being stupid, that sort of thing, and also to see if VirtualBox will work, but for the most part I’m satisfied that this new OS is exactly as Apple bills it, and they have done a very good job. There are some small irky bits and on my Twitter I’m sure it came across as being ranting-and-raving, but actually it’s quite good.

Next steps at work are tallying up all the people interested in Mountain Lion and figuring out how we’re to pay Apple for the licenses, then helping everyone set up Apple ID’s on their own. There is going to be a headache with all these new very independent and unmanaged Apple ID’s floating around in space, but if you want the Bright and Shiny you have to swallow a seed or two.

Williamsburg – November 16th 2010

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Today wasn’t as ram-tear as yesterday was. Breakfast was a continental at the resort center which was a surprise considering all the stories I’ve heard about Kingsmill, but I chock up the differences to a cost-conscious host like Sage and not because the venue just can’t get their host on.

Most of the day was spent bouncing from one room to another, learning some initially upsetting things and then as time went on realizing the inherent rightness of what I needed to do, essentially upgrade via scorched-earth policy. The best way to go from where we are with our product and where we have to go is to rip out everything, and reinstall from scratch. What was going to be an onerous task now became a sluggardly onerous task, but not insurmountable.

Lunch was quick, another continental, and the rest of the sessions went by in a blur. I caught up on my email, caught up on a huge wad of unread RSS feed material and made some headway clearing out my “favorite twitter” queue.

Dinner was shortly after that. We went to Berret’s Seafood Restaurant and Taphouse Grill on South Boundary Street in Williamsburg. The restaurant was initially quite pleasant however it was designed by the same people who assembled our ballroom office-space in Walwood Hall, it is organized like a rabbit warren, little connecting pathways between staging rooms. It’s not that I found fault with my food, it’s not that I didn’t like the restaurant either, but the menu selections were agonizingly assorted. If you wanted Shrimp you could have that, but you also got Oysters. If you wanted Tilapia, you also got Crab Cakes. The short two-page menu was rife with this sort of thing and I looked it over and frankly couldn’t find anything that I could order from the menu that I wanted to eat. Individual items, of course, but each dish was a mishmash of different seafood types and I’m not one for clams, oysters, or mussels. I ended up selecting a special, Tilapia-in-a-bag and got hosed. The dish was $26 but I got food that was really $8.99, at the most generous. The scallops that came with this dish were quarter size and nominally acceptable, but they weren’t properly washed and so I got a little sand in my diet tonight. If you are going to pump a $26 plate, wash the ingredients. In the end the meal was “very light” and that was a generous estimation from some of my dining compatriots who also had what I had. “This is it?” was what we heard up and down. I didn’t pitch a fit because it was a very high-class establishment and in the end it wasn’t my money on the line. If you are visiting Williamsburg, trust me on skipping this restaurant. I’m sure their other foods are outstanding, but if you are in any way picky about your seafood like I am, you’ll either leave hungry or upset, and poorer for it.

After dinner we decided that the night wasn’t over and some of my peers went out to get beer and wine so we could have a chat about our convention and enjoy each others company. The “party” devolved into a conference group meeting and we talked about obvious things that were on our minds, mostly about the company hosting us, Sage. Almost everything we remarked on was positive and we were all generally pleased with how Sage had compensated for their earlier problems that we chided them on in Denver, Atlanta, and our Users Group meeting in St. Olaf. Some people are apparently driven to see the two co-chairs, me and another lady, attend the Sage Summit 2011 in Washington, DC. I don’t see the reason or the justification for it since I’ve already attended here in Williamsburg, but I may have to go in order to make sure that Sage keeps in line with the wishes from our group. Only time will tell with that one.

Meanwhile, I’m contemplating going to visit family tomorrow afternoon after my last session ends, but I don’t have any method of conveyance from Williamsburg to Virginia Beach as I don’t have access to the rental vehicle that I once thought I might have had. The visit to VA Beach is still a possibility, but I haven’t the foggiest how I’m going to get there.

There are some oddities that do bear sharing. Kingsmill is a fantastic resort, but their bathrooms have been outfitted with occupancy sensors that were mounted about head-level, so when you make the slightest move, the toilet flushes and you get progressively more and more spritzed. I discovered that I could fix this … annoying problem by wrapping the occupancy sensor in toilet paper until I was good and ready for it to figure out that it was time to flush. I also noticed that in high traffic areas Kingsmill spares no expense and lays out cloth napkins to dry your hands after using the lavatory. In lesser used areas? Just paper towels. It’s not a problem, but it is kind of funny to see cleverness all the way down to how patrons dry their hands. The only other irking thing has nothing to do with the resort itself, but the obvious and annoying lack of any cellular signal whatsoever. I suppose if you are visiting for the spa, or the golf, or the grounds you don’t care so much about cellular technology. For me it would be a problem, if it weren’t for free Wifi and Google Voice.

Tomorrow is another day, up at 7ish, some more conference sessions and then? We’ll have to see…

SmashBurger Kalamazoo – A Return

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Last Friday my friends Justin and Jeramiah asked to try SmashBurger Kalamazoo. For them it was the first time, for Scott and I it was our return. I promised that I would give SmashBurger Kalamazoo another shot around September 11th, 2010. I was a little late in getting back to the restaurant to give it another try. This was tounge-in-cheek because a beloved family member of mine sent my blog entry to the restaurant management company and they responded quickly, urging us to return and give SmashBurger Kalamazoo another shot.

Upon our return we dwelled for a brief few moments in the foyer to the entrance while our friends regarded the menu items. After we all made up our minds, we walked into the restaurant. The order process was acceptable, the person behind the counter was stumbling and trying to cope with our order but got it in successfully. In comparison to our previous visit there were some notable changes:

  • Fountain Service was at 100%
  • Restaurant was not absolutely packed.
  • Manager was not bounding like a billiard ball.
  • Servers were not wandering aimlessly asking everyone what they ordered, the numbering system is working.
  • The hamburgers were rested properly and did not fragment or run with juice.

That being said, quite an improvement. However there were some lingering problems and one I did not detect until this last visit. We were dining with my dear friend Jeramiah, who I trust completely when it comes to food preparation. He detected it before I did, and that is that the French Fries had a different taste to them. They were fried, but they carried an odd flat/dull taste along with them. Jeramiah told us that what we tasted was what happens when you deep fat fry french fries in shortening instead of a true plant oil, like Peanut. It wasn’t unpleasant, just different.

In the end we couldn’t detect any failures in SmashBurger itself on our visit, our only point of surprise was the price, again. For Scott and myself it came to $18.57. For Jeramiah and Justin it came to $21.52. I polled the table and posed the same question to them that I did the last time: Comparing SmashBurger Kalamazoo to Culvers Kalamazoo, which one would you choose and why? The answer was unanimously for Culvers, and the reasons were “better food” and “cheaper prices”. The prices for what we got were really remarkably upsetting, still.

Of course, for due diligence I must also state that Jeramiah became extremely ill the next day and had to miss work because he was very ill. The illness was most likely foodborne as it affected his digestion. I can’t pin anything on SmashBurger as none of the other of us got sick, but my trust in a restaurant is savaged when I or someone I know gets sick from eating at a place. Once bitten, never again.

That being said, we are done with SmashBurger Kalamazoo. We will never return to this restaurant and we won’t include it when we are thinking about places to go when we are hungry. The food is not very compelling for the price and the prices themselves are too high.

Entertainingly, the people who own and run SmashBurger Kalamazoo also run at least two other “Food Traps”, FireBowl Cafe and Wine Loft. While I haven’t been to FireBowl Cafe and wouldn’t comment on the quality or price, I did attend Wine Loft’s inaugural opening and I have not been back since. The food quality follows the design that we see in SmashBurger Kalamazoo, meh food for unacceptably high prices. Seeing that two out of the three properties this holding firm own are off-limits, it makes it a handy guide to figure out whatever else they own and avoid that out-of-hand. We can simply assume it’s not very good for too much money, and instead patronize other establishments that are better and worthy.

Casa Bolero – Mexican Tapas

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Casa Bolero in Kalamazoo MI is a quaint cozy restaurant serving tapas style food. Having to wait for our tables was the only annoyance, but understandable.

The food is delivered on small plates and I had chicken falutas and chicken enchiladas. The flavors are clear and bright and presentation is top-notch. The price per plate ranges from 6 to 11 dollars. It is a very good value for the money for upscale downtown dining. I give it a 8/10.

The sharing of plates is a delight and this restaurant delivers. The staff is bright and conscientious and the interior is very pleasant.

The desserts, flan and key lime tort are toe-curlingly delightful.

There are only two issues I can see, the first is that the tortilla chips aren’t very good, but they are consistently bad which makes me think that they are meant to be this way and i’m off. The second problem was that one of the bench seats was besmirched by some stray BBQ sauce. It should have been bussed properly before we sat down. These are the only problems, and they aren’t anywhere important enough to truly complain over, so they only get a 2 point ding on their score.

ScotteVest Review

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Just accepted the delivery of my new Scott-e-Vest Ultimate Cotton Hoodie. From the shipping bag, through the opening and the exploration I am absolutely bowled over. The bag was damaged, it took some rough treatment and a little tear from the brutes at UPS, but the Scott-e-Vest catalog took all the abuse, saving the actual hoodie itself.

The hooded sweatshirt is a full-zip and it’s gray-green, a little duller than Army Green in color. The primary pockets are secured with magnetic closures which is a surprise when you reach in and pull out things, when your hand comes up and away, you hear this very gentle click. The weight of it is acceptable, a little more hand in the fabric wouldn’t hurt. I layer when it gets really cold, so this particular hooded sweatshirt is just fine.

The pockets, man, the pockets! It’s going to take me at least a week to decide what to put in all the many many pockets, there are 13 of them! Definitely going to have to come up with ideas on what goes where – the hint cards do help. When I stock it up with stuff, I’ll have to see how it fits then. The XL fit perfectly, everyone was right, the size is slightly large for the label but that is a great thing in and of itself. I’m going to have to figure out what I want to do about the PAN features, that’ll take some time.

After I have a chance to put it through it’s paces, then I’ll have a more concrete opinion.