Life is grand

Mozy is backup made easy. Create an account, download the client, select the directories you want backed up and then just leave it in the background. On a fast line I had my 2gb free account filled up in a few hours. Restoring files is easy; just request a package of files you want restored and a few minutes later you are emailed a link to download the package.

The unlimited version is $4.95 per-month which is peanuts really.

One thing to note is that this isn’t an Amazon S3 competitor. I can’t share my Mozy backed-up files with anyone else, I can’t even view a file “hosted” by Mozy. It is a backup service, nothing more and nothing less. For this it is much cheaper than Amazon S3.

One missing feature in the beta Mac OS X client I am using is external HD support. It is available in the Windows client but is “a few months away rough guess” in the Mac OS X client. Most of the files I want to backup are on an external HD so I will just have to wait. But the test I did with 2gb worked very nicely so I am confident the 150gb on my external HD will work fine too.

An interesting SMS project over in India is proving to be popular with farmers. Twitter is a presence command line, YubNub an internet command line and IM bot systems like IMIS are coming out into the open. I for one spend most of my day between the Mac OS X terminal and a text-editor (which interestingly can run terminal commands.) When I use Gmail or Google Reader I use the keyboard almost exclusively. I wish WordPress had better keyboard support. Even when I am in Photoshop or Fireworks I find learning the keyboard shortcuts to be invaluable though in those two cases it becomes an even faster system of mouse and keyboard movements. Mac OS X with Quicksilver or even Spotlight is a god-send for launching applications and finding files.

Even Windows Vista has made some improvements by putting a search/run/command text-box in the Start menu. Now if only Windows would have a good command line as default (PowerShell requires extra steps, make it the default Microsoft.)

All in all the command line and the keyboard are reclaiming some lost-ground that the mouse ate.

Mac OS X has an amazing ability to loosen the wallets of its users. In all my years of Windows computing I personally bought exactly one application; Winzip. And that purchase was more out of guilt for having used it for years and never paid. Funnily enough I switched to Mac OS X a short month after buying Winzip. Most of the other software I had installed was free or provided by a MSDN subscription.

In the few months I have had a Mac though I have bought TextMate, Omnigraffle, Photoshop, Fireworks and now Synergy.

The initial reaction to this is that Windows is better because “it has more free software for it and so you don’t need to pay” which is technically true. On another level though Mac OS X is better; The level of the computer as a productive tool and not an end in itself.

Synergy proves this out for me. It is a $5 utility app. that controls iTunes. I would never have paid for a Windows equivalent because nothing on Windows comes close to the quality of Synergy. It integrates so beautifully with the Mac OS X menu bar (and system-wide keyboard shortcuts) that after a few days of free use I realised it was worth more than $5.

Synergy feels like it is part of my daily Mac OS X experience. It is there when I need it, out of the way when I don’t and it works as if I had personally told the developer exactly what I wanted and he had gone and made it.

A lot of Mac OS X software is like this.

I can’t think of any Windows software like this. Maybe iTunes on Windows…

If I had read this post a few months ago, when I was still a Windows user, I would have scoffed at it. I would have said it was some air-headed Apple fanboy under the influence of Jobsian spells.

Now I think the reality is that Windows is the one casting spells on its users. Spells of illusion, of forgetfulness and of tolerance for poor quality. More to the point; Windows casts the spell of practicality which pervades enterprise thinking. It is the grey-suited men telling you what is good for you and you sucking it down for your rationalised life.

And before you say it; If I’m going to suck anything down I’d rather suck it down from a black pollo-neck wearing wizard who dares to dream.

Macs and Mac OS X are something you have to use to appreciate. It changes your computing experience, from the frustrating chore that is Windows where you spend more time dealing with a computer than with what you are trying to achieve. With Mac OS X I find I get more done and in a more pleasant manner. That is important, that I enjoy what I am doing while I am doing it.

I don’t expect Windows users to like hearing this or think it is even remotely true. It takes actual sit down time with a Mac and Mac OS X to have the spell lifted.

Remember, I was a Windows user for 14 years. I developed with Microsoft technologies, used Microsoft tools and thought Apple was a high-priced toy that had lost touch with reality. How things change.

Tom Raftery pointed out the new Parallels RC3 release which now has “Coherence” mode. It is strange but very useful seeing Microsoft Windows applications floating on my Mac OS X desktop. They are running in a Parallels VM but have been “detached” from that desktop and allowed onto the host desktop as separate windowed applications. It makes flipping between Internet Explorer 7 and Safari while doing web-development a breeze. The installation was painless and the speed is impressive.

Another interesting feature is that Parallels can now run your Bootcamp partition in a VM. Very useful. Now I can save on VM and partition space.

Checkout all the new features of Parallels RC3.

Reading Joel’s long piece on the Windows Vista shutdown menu, which took 48 people a year to implement, had me thinking; the answer is pretty simple. It is three choices. Sleep, Restart and Shutdown. ala Mac OS X.

I think anyone involved in computers has to shout long and hard about Microsoft Windows Vista licensing.

Even if you hate Microsoft and wish its downfall, even if you use Linux or OS X religiously it doesn’t matter. A lot of normal folk are going to be burnt by Microsoft’s new licensing and they have no idea it is coming. You need to tell your mom and dad, your non-tech friends and your company IT that the licensing is terrible and that Microsoft has to change it before it releases Vista.

CrossOver Mac is an impressive and useful piece of software. It lets you run Windows applications on Mac OSX without the need for virtual machines (e.g. Parallels). The app runs in what looks like a native OSX window and even allows you to access your OSX files from within the Windows app.

I was most impressed with the installation process. CodeWeavers has a repository of applications on their server that you can select to install on your Mac. No need for your own CDs (obviously this doesn’t get around licensing, you still need to own these apps or they have to be free e.g. Internet Explorer.) The installation process is very slick and dead easy, I can see non-technical users using this without much hassle.

In the above image you can see Internet Explorer 6.0 runnin on my Mac OSX desktop. Brilliant for testing websites. I’ll give Visual Studio 2005 a try next, a challenge if there is one.

Thanks. That is great. Telling me I can click a checkbox when that checkbox is disabled isn’t too smart chaps.