That was a lot of work and a lot of hassle.

Then I found someone recommending CampTune. It's a free download and "pre-release" but it works fine. It's a working Linux ISO file you can download and burn to a CD-ROM with your favorite disc creator package (or Disk Utility).

Once it's burned, hop into System Settings, choose the "Startup Disk" option, and set your machine to boot from CD-ROM next time. Boot from the CD you burned and you'll go into CampTune, which has a very simple interface for changing the respective sizes of your Mac and BootCamp partitions.

When you're done, everything should work as normal, although if you created a VM in Parallels or VMWare to use your Bootcamp partition inside OS X, you may need to recreate the VM.

That's it. Pretty simple, huh?

Don't be scared off by the "pre-release" status. It's been that way for over a year now and I think Paragon just decided the market for people wanting to resize their BootCamp partition wasn't big enough to charge for it after all, so they just left a good release candidate up as the free download and moved on to other projects. It worked well for me.

As always, don't mess with the internal structure of your hard drive without having made backups first.

Good luck! Have fun!

I use iTunes to manage my music collection, both stuff purchased from iTunes as well as my older MP3 rips from CD and MP3s I've purchased or received free from Amazon.com. A while back, iTunes moved to a DRM free format for most new purchases and you could upgrade older purchases for 30 cents a song. The Moment will play the DRM free AAC format (M4A) from iTunes. But there's one problem, the built-in music player on the Moment, as well as two others I tried, will not recognize the information tags in the M4A format. Fear not, though...

CONVERTING ITUNES M4A TO MP3

Go to the Preferences pane for iTunes. In the "General" page (main page), go to the section that lets you specify what to do when you insert a CD. There, it has a button for "Import Settings". The default is iTunes AAC format, but you can set it to MP3. Once you've done that (you can also specify a variety of bitrates and other info), you can go into your music library, right-click on any song that's listed as "Purchased AAC" format ("Protected AAC" still has DRM), and convert it to MP3. You can highlight a large number of songs and perform this right-click action to batch convert them.

After this, I found that the three Android music players (the built-in one, MixZing, and one I can't recall) I tried would not read ID3 v2.x tags as iTunes wrote them. I ended up deciding to use MixZing because it handled the index display of videos as well as music and was better than the "Gallery" built-in video player that just shows you icons with no titles.

To import my music and my iTunes playlists, I found that DoubleTwist worked very well. It recognized my Samsung Moment and imported my iTunes Playlists with ease. It generated .m3u playlist format lists that the Samsung could understand, and dragging the playlist to the Samsung in the program took care of importing the playlist and all the associated music files.

A Playlist Caveat

If you want to import existing playlists, you're going to have to update them with any files you converted, otherwise they'll still sync the m4a version of the song to your phone. This isn't terrible. It still plays. It just comes up as "Unknown Artist" from "Unknown Album" with "Unknown Title". So if you're just shuffling your playlists and never look at the song info, who cares? if you want to know the name of the song/artist that's playing or play a specific song, then you need to convert the songs and fix up the playlists.

Two downsides. One, it will not convert/unprotect videos from iTunes that have DRM. So, for example, the free episodes I got of "Handy Manny" and "WordWorld" on iTunes won't play on my phone without some additional and illegal massaging. On the other hand, the music videos that came with the "Madagascar 2" soundtrack got upgraded to DRM-Free when I did the big batch of upgrades. So the will.i.am "I Like to Move It" music video transferred over and plays beautifully on the Moment's AMOLED screen.

Second downside is the way it handles podcasts. Rather than separating them out, they're incorporated into the music catalog. So, my "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me" audio podcasts are found under the album of the same name with "NPR" as the artist. As for my "Sesame Street" video podcasts (for my 4-year-old), they only come up in the "Movies" section under the general "iTunes" heading. They're not in the "Movies" or "TV Shows" lists, so they can be a little hard to find.

On an upside note, if you give a YouTube video URL to DoubleTwist, it will download the Flash .flv file of the YouTube video to your hard drive. Putting the files on your Moment can take a while, though, because it re-encodes the videos into an MP4 format before transferring them. Since the Moment works with YouTube, this is only valuable for being able to watch YouTube videos when you don't have an internet connection (like when you're on a plane) or you're in a poor coverage area. I'd love to know if any of you have suggestions for a quicker method for downloading and converting YouTube videos, or a faster .flv to mp4 conversion method.

It also seems to do the conversion on the fly, so if you're rotating videos in and out and back in again, you may want to use a separate converter to do a permanent conversion from the Flash .flv file format to one your Moment can play. I tried transcoding with VLC and that was difficult to produce a video VLC could play back, much less my Samsung Moment. Quicktime Player's "Save For Web" option in the file menu worked very well. I selected the "save for iPhone" option and it created a good quality m4v file that my Moment would play.

I also copied over some other videos I had in other formats (collected over the years) directly to the card. I was able to play the .wmv and .avi format videos, but not the .mpg. Of course, these formats can have various underlying codecs, so don't take that as a blanket statement, but it's a decent place to start. Of course, if videos won't play on your Moment, but will play in Quicktime, you should be able to use the "Save For Web" function to convert them to a format your Moment will handle.

Hope this information helps you. Cheers!

I'll be researching this and trying to figure out how to get my Android phone and Mac laptop to see each other. In the meantime, I figured I'd set a placeholder blog post now so it can get indexed into the search engines. Perhaps if anyone else finds a solution before I do, they'll stumble upon this page and leave a comment with some useful information.

Update: The Next Evening:

If you read the comments below, you'll see some of the things I tried. A USB mounting program still required the phone to recognize that a USB connection existed, which it didn't.

I hooked it to a WinXP laptop and got the two to see each other without a problem, transferred some files. So it's a problem with the Mac or some miscommunication with the Mac.

The image above is a screen cap of my system profiler app. It shows that my Macbook Pro is seeing the phone, identified as SAMSUNG_Android, but the phone isn't seeing the machine. I've rebooted the phone with the machine connected to it. I've rebooted the machine with the phone connected to it. Still I can't get the phone to recognize that it's connected to a computer.

It's definitely getting current via the connection. I charged it from 60% to full via the USB connection to my Mac.

I've posted a query to the community forums at Sprint's site. We'll see if we get a a response.

Update: Sunday Morning:

The thread over at the Sprint forums has delivered in part. We've determined it's not the Mac hardware because other respondents in the thread have been able to pair it up with Windows and Linux running in virtual machines on their MacBook Pro laptops. So there's some incompatibility occurring with Android and Snow Leopard.

So the question is whether the phone's software needs to be patched, whether Snow Leopard needs to be patched, or if (as I'm hoping), there's a simple config change you can make on OS X that will solve the problem. We'll see.

Update: Sunday Night:

SOLVED! I was going deep through the Moment's menus and found a kludge/workaround that is at least getting the phone to recognize a connection exists and giving me the external drive functionality so I can transfer files back and forth through the USB connection without having to pull the battery, pull the Micro SD card, and plug the card into a reader/adapter.

How to Connect your Samsung Moment to your Mac

Pearl Crescent Page Saver works much like SnagIt. It will generate a JPG or PNG format image of any web page you view in Firefox. It offers a handy-dandy camera icon it puts up in your Firefox toolbar. Just click it and you can capture the page. You also have options you can set like the default format, whether it should capture the whole page or just the visible part, whether it should ask for a file name and destination directory, and you can set a hot key if you're more keyboard oriented than mouse oriented.

It doesn't capture everything. It captures whatever frame is playing in a flash video just fine (i.e. YouTube), but when I tried it with a java applet, the applet's area was blank.

To the left is a small subsection of a capture of my most recent blog post before this. Click it to see the full image (though I shrunk it down to 300 pixels wide because the original image was very big). Now it's not as fully-featured as SnagIt or even their own "pro" version. But if all you need to do is occasionally capture a web page that runs longer than your screen, it's perfect and it's free.

Download Pearl Crescent Page Saver here.

I called the number they were ostensibly from and the guy said he knew nothing about it.

So I used Sprint's e-mail support and sent in this report:

Original Question: Gross Porn Picturemail From Stranger
Question: I was sent two picturemail messages to my phone
(425-XXX-XXXX) timestamped 2:48 from a number I did not recognize
(425-XXX-XXXX). They were gross pornographic photos (one of a woman
crapping on a guy, the other an animation of a woman ejecting grapes
from her vagina). I called the number and the person answering claimed
it was a cell phone he uses for business, never texts of sends photos,
and he knew nothing about it.

This wasn't just porn, it was disgusting. It was someone pooping on
another person.

I want to know who sent it and I want Sprint to not only take action
regarding it, but to tell me what action you took.

This was Sprint's reply. Note how they misspelled my last name (they couldn't just cut and paste?):

Dear Mr. Bulmush,

Thank you for contacting Sprint regarding the gross pornographic
photos. I apologize for the inconvenience this issue has caused to you.

Please contact the local law enforcement by dailing 911.

Thank you again for contacting Sprint. We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,
Reeve K
Customer Service Specialist
Sprint

Besides the fact that Sprint refused to do anything about this gross abuse of their network, they suggested I call 911. Now these may have grossed me out and may warrant contacting the police to file a complaint, but 911 is for EMERGENCIES. You call 911 when someone is having a heart heart attack, when you see a car accident, when something's on fire, when someone is actively trying to break into your home. You do not call 911 two hours after a stranger sent dirty pictures to your cell phone. Calling 911 when you're not in immediate danger potentially delays getting timely help to someone who is.

So why is Sprint telling me to call 911 in a non-emergency situation?

Well, if I do report this incident to the police, perhaps I'll also discuss Sprint's advice with them and ask them to remind Sprint about proper uses of the 911 system.

One hitch: the installation. They claim it will take 4-8 hours and someone has to be present the whole time. Not only that, but instead of giving you a reasonable arrival window, their window is any time between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., so they're telling you that you must be stuck at home for up to 17 hours... can't leave... so you can get the wonder of FiOS.

I really want to get rid of Comcast. Their service gets worse and worse while their prices go up and up. But under Verizon's little set of instructions I could have an installer arrive just before dinner and be here until 1 a.m. WTF??? And not only that, but I'll have been expected to be ready to shepherd him/her since 8 a.m.

4-8 hours for installation... if that's how long it takes, that's how long it takes. But the whole thing where their installer gets to show up anytime between 8 and 5 on top of that is just ridiculous. Basically, if their installer shows up after 10 a.m., they will be asked "can you guarantee you'll be done by 6 p.m.?" If not, they will be told to leave. If they say they can be done by 6, then run into snags, they will be shown the door at 6 p.m. regardless of the status of the installation.

Now I'm not mistaking things and they're saying the "installation" window is 8 to 5. They're saying the "arrival" window is 8 to 5. So they'd better be closer to 8 than to 5 or they're going to have an impromptu cancellation.

Brad: Thank you for calling ACME Weapons Systems tech support. My name is Brad, how may I help you today?

Schmerz von Evilstein: Yeah, I ordered your Giant Death Ray off of Amazon last week. It got here yesterday, I set it up, and it's not working right.

Brad: What seems to be the problem?

Schmerz von Evilstein: I just fired it at Switzerland to prove my evil intent to the United Nations and it fizzled. According to observers on the ground, 3 chickens exploded, a goat lost its equilibrium, and a farmer had a burning sensation when he peed... though I can't be sure we're responsible for that last one.

Brad: Have you tried rebooting the death ray?

Schmerz von Evilstein: Look sonny, I typed up my first plan for world conquest using Paperclip on a Commodore 64. I've been asked "did you reboot" more times than you've been laid.

Brad: Well, did you?

Schmerz von Evilstein: No. When all your death ray blows up is 3 chickens, other things sort of slip your mind. Hold on.... Okay, it's rebooted. Now what?

Brad: Well, you need to test fire it.

Schmerz von Evilstein: I'm not firing it at Switzerland again. If I fire it again and all it does is give a cow indigestion, I'm going to be a laughingstock.

Brad: Is there anywhere else you have people on the ground?

Schmerz von Evilstein: Well, Number #3 did take his daughter to Disneyland for the week.

Brad: That's perfect.

Schmerz von Evilstein: How is that perfect?

Brad: If you destroy Disneyland, the U.N. will think you're highly unstable which will only make them more scared of you. And if nothing happens, no one knows you were planning to attack Disneyland.

Schmerz von Evilstein: That's brilliant! Are you taking evil genius classes at night?

Brad: Correspondence school. I drew a shark with a laser on its head on the back of a matchbook and they gave me a partial scholarship.

Schmerz von Evilstein: Well keep it up. Now, let me get him on the phone... Hello... Number 3... How's Maggie enjoying the California Adventure? Uh-huh... And where are you in the park right now?... Cinderella's Castle... Great... No reason... just hang on for a second and let me know if anything unusual happens... uh-huh... No, I'm not targeting you with a missile... Really... Look, if I wanted you dead, I'd have shot you before you left for vacation... uh-huh... anything odd happening around you now?... Mickey just barfed in his mouse head. That's all? Really?... Okay, thanks. Have a great time. Big hugs to Maggie. Okay. Bye... Brad, did you get that?

Brad: Yup. Let me ask you another question. How are you targeting the death ray? Are you doing line of sight from a moonbase or are you bouncing it off an orbital targeting mirror?

Schmerz von Evilstein: Orbital targeting mirror.

Brad: Which model of the ACME Orbital Targeting Array are you using?

Schmerz von Evilstein: I've got the [mumble, mumble].

Brad: Huh?

Schmerz von Evilstein: I'm using a Shanjen Happy Lucky Super Mirror.

Brad: I'm sorry, but ACME Weapons Systems does not support the use of the Giant Death Ray with non-ACME orbital targeting mirrors. I'm afraid I'm going to have to terminate this conversation. Please call back when you've put an ACME targeting mirror in orbit.

Schmerz von Evilstein: Wait, wait, wait! Isn't there any other troubleshooting we can do that doesn't involve the mirror? Let's say I do spend $20 million to put an ACME targeting mirror in orbit, then it turns out the problem isn't the mirror. Will ACME reimburse me the $20 million.

Brad: No.

Schmerz von Evilstein: Then let's rule out everything but the mirror before I have to buy expensive replacement parts.

Brad: Well, can you do a line of sight targeting? Where's your lair?

Schmerz von Evilstein: I'm not telling you where my lair is. You'll send James Bond to destroy it!

Brad: Sir, if ACME Weapons Systems sent James Bond to every lair we knew about, we wouldn't have any customers. The privacy of our customers, particularly the locations of their hidden lairs, is one of our primary concerns.

Schmerz von Evilstein: My lair's 900 miles southeast of Hawaii.

Brad: Island lair... Are there any other islands visible from your firing platform?

Schmerz von Evilstein: No. We've got a clear view to the horizon in all directions.

Brad: Okay... I'm taking a wild guess here. Are you in a dormant volcano with the death ray on a platform that raises out of the volcano?

Schmerz von Evilstein: Wow, that's one fine correspondence school. You're 100% right.

Brad: Great. Raise the ACME Giant Death Ray out of the volcano and go have one of your henchmen stand on the rim. Then fire it at him.

Schmerz von Evilstein: Alan... Alan! I need you to... ummm... go get a soil sample from the rim of the volcano. Thanks... Oh, and take a walkie talkie with you.

Brad: How long should it take for him to get there? Do you want to call back?

Schmerz von Evilstein: NO! Sorry. No, I am not calling back, sitting on hold for another 38 minutes, and then going through all of this with someone else. It should only take a few minutes. I'll hold... Donna, can you bring up the rim surveilance camera?... Okay. Alan, I need you to move 10 feet to the left.

Brad: Sorry. So he's in position? Giant Death Ray is aimed?

Schmerz von Evilstein: Yes and yes.

Brad: Then fire.

Schmerz von Evilstein: Firing... He's still there. Alan? Alan? How's it going up there?

Alan: Oh my god, I just crapped myself. And it burned when I peed!

Schmerz von Evilstein: So we can take credit for the farmer... Okay, Alan. Stay there. I'll send Ted out to help you down.

Brad: So he didn't disintegrate?

Schmerz von Evilstein: Nope.

Brad: Okay. Did you follow the complete set-up instructions, not just the quick start sheet?

Schmerz von Evilstein: I think so.

Brad: Go to the ACME Weapons Systems Giant Death Ray control panel. Select "system", then "options", then "settings", then "beam", then "preferences", then "beam strength". You should see six setting options... Annoy, Blend, Whip, Chop, Frappe, and Obliterate. What's the beam set on?

Schmerz von Evilstein: Annoy.

Brad: There's your problem. We default the ACME Weapons Systems Giant Death Ray to its lowest setting to prevent accidents during shipping. Just set that to Obliterate and you should be good to go.

Schmerz von Evilstein: [loud "fwazap" is heard in the distance] Woohoo! Alan is toast! Thanks a lot, Brad.

Brad: Glad I could help. Is there anything else we can do for you today?

Schmerz von Evilstein: Nope. That ought to do it.

Brad: Well, then. Thank you for calling ACME Weapons Systems. Have a wonderful day.

Schmerz von Evilstein: Donna! Get the Secretary General on the video screen and target Disneyland again!

UPDATE

I just found an abandoned missile base in Eastern Washington for sale on eBay for $1.5 million. It's an awesome evil genius lair. I must have it. For more details, visit Greg's Secret Lair.

Cisco has owned the trademark on "iPhone" since 2000 when it acquired another company that filed the trademark in 1996, 2 years before Apple publicly got on the "i" bandwagon with the release of the iMac.

Apple calls Cisco's lawsuit "silly". They claim that other companies have been using the iPhone name, that their phone is a cell phone rather than a VoIP phone (giving it differentiation), and that Cisco's trademark registration is tenuous. Apple has been quoted as saying they're ready to go to court on this.

What does all this mean?

First, while patents and copyrights remain enforceable throughout their lifespan, a trademark is "use it or lose it". If you do not actively defend and enforce your trademark, it can be declared invalid.

Second, a tradmark is only on a class of goods. The idea is that the use of the trademarked name cannot create confusion in the marketplace. So goods with different purposes can have the same name as long as it's not going to make consumers believe the two goods are related in some way.

If you're making a line of underwear called "Orange Marmalade" and someone makes a computer monitor called "Orange Marmalade", it's unlikely that consumers will be confused into believing the underwear and monitors are related. But if you were making a line of HDTV flatscreens called "Orange Marmalade", you might have a solid case against the maker of the monitors. Though they technically have different purposes, they're similar enough to make the claim that they will cause confusion among consumers and that the monitor maker is benefitting from and trading on the good reputation you've built for the name.

In this area, I find Apple's claims spurious. They've been pretty vigorous in the enforcement of their trademarks and have made some stretches that go much farther than the cell/VoIP differentiation. While I'm no lawyer and can't say that Apple's apparent hypocrisy will have a legal bearing on this case or on cases regarding the enforcement of their own trademarks, I can only hope it does.

On the matter of enforceability... that's going to have to play out in court. Apple's going to have to show that Cisco has let the name be abused without any attempts to stop it to such an extent as to cause Cisco to lose the right to stop it. But if they do that, are they shooting themselves in the foot? If they get a ruling that Cisco lost its rights to enforce a trademark on iPhone, then they effectively give everyone and their brother the right to create products called "iPhone". Once they get it declared dilluted enough as to be unenforceable, it stays that way. They can go and file their own trademark on it and start trying to enforce it, but any enforcement actions will be a hard fight because the defendants can use their own arguments against them.

Apple was negotiating with Cisco to have a contractual right to use the name, but it appears they thought it would be cheaper to try to knock down Cisco's trademark than to pay whatever licensing fees Cisco was demanding. So rather than sign the contract, they went ahead with their press conference and stopped talking to Cisco.

What's going to be the kicker, though, is if Cisco seeks injunctive relief pending the court case, i.e. Cisco gets a judge to rule that Apple cannot use the iPhone name commercially until the case has been settled one way or another, claiming that Apple's use of the name will cause irreparable harm. I don't think that's going to be too difficult to do and I doubt Cisco hasn't already planned that. With the anticipated June launch date, Apple would have to rebrand quickly or delay the phone.

Or maybe Apple is going to take a page from a company that is suing them...

Apple actually got a court to stop Luxpro from making and marketing its Tangent MP3 player on the claims it was too similar to the iPod Shuffle (the old one that looked like a pack of gum, not the new one that looks like a pack of matches). Despite the fact that LuxPro's model had a screen (which the Shuffle doesn't), had an FM tuner (which the Shuffle doesn't) and played WMA (which the Shuffle doesn't), Apple was able to get the injunction.

That injunction was overturned in December, and now Luxpro is suing Apple for 100 million dollars to compensate them for lost sales and lost opportunities. Perhaps Apple is hoping that the possibility of them pulling a Luxpro on Cisco will keep Cisco from seeking injunctive relief.

In the long run, though, I seriously doubt that either of the parties want this to go to trial and get a ruling. If Apple wins, no one wins, because the name basically becomes generic for internet-enabled phones and Apple cannot stop others from using it. If Cisco wins, then they can do serious damage to Apple in terms of punitive damages for violations, plus the cost of rebranding the phone with a new name and switching all the marketing efforts to it.

I really think that this is just posturing, each side trying to use their argument and the possible outcome of the court case as leverage to win concessions from the other in the licensing agreement that will eventually be signed. The benefits of this court case just don't warrant the risks. This will be settled before June.

Let me just say first that I think it's awesome that it comes with all the cables included. It has a FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, and USB power cable. The last is in case your USB or FireWire port has the amount of juice it puts out throttled and you need an extra zap of power to spin the drive up.

I hooked mine up with the FireWire 800 cable and that apparently had enough juice at the bus. The drive was quickly registered and installed by my MacBook Pro and ready to go without any special formatting, drivers, or jujumagumbo needed.

In an unscientific, non-precision test, I copied a 796.7 megabyte folder of mixed files, timing it with the second hand on my watch. From the time I dropped the folder onto the new disk to the time the copying dialog said it was finished took about 35 seconds, giving it a ~22 megabyte per second write speed. Copying the folder back to my internal hard drive took 23 seconds, giving it a ~34 megabyte per second read speed.

Those read and write speeds are pretty darn sharp. They'll handle most uses (including video editing and viewing) without creating significantly noticeable disk lag over the internal drive. And with 120 gigs of space (111.78 gigs usable), that basically doubles the drive capacity of your average off-the-shelf MacBook Pro.

It's a little pricier than your average USB 2.0 or USB/FireWire combo drive of the same capacity. You're paying for the "ruggedizing", plus the extra circuitry of the triple port design, plus the extra cables. But, there are distinct advantages you buy...

• Because Apple limits the amount of juice at the USB port on the MacBook Pro's USB port (I haven't confirmed this personally so much as read it in review after review of USB 2.0 bus-powered drives), you generally have to sacrifice both USB ports to run a bus-powered external hard drive. As this runs fine off the juice going out of the FireWire 800 port, you get to keep both USB ports open for other devices.
• There is definitely a noticeable speed boost when you hook it up via FireWire 800 instead of the USB 2.0 or FireWire 400 ports.
• Of the FireWire capable devices out there, most are FireWire 400, and few are FireWire 800. Hooking this up via FireWire 800 allows you to keep both USB 2.0 and the FireWire 400 port, which are in greater demand, open and available.

All in all, I'd say keeping the ports free and the speed boost make this worth the premium. How else can you add 120 gigs of high-speed data storage to your MacBook Pro for under $200?

After a lot of looking around and reading reviews, I settled on the LaCie Rugged All-Terrain Hard Drive.

If you want a review of it, it was a cNet Editor's Choice in August 2006. They tested the 80 gigabyte model, but as far as I can tell, the performance is pretty consistent along the line (80, 100, and 120 gig models).

With a ruggedized 2.5" form factor drive plus USB 2.0, Firewire 400, and Firewire 800 connectors (even comes with a FireWire 800 cable included), it isn't a simple backup unit. If you want that, there are plenty of cheaper and faster options you can leave plugged in at home. This is a road warrior's buddy for increasing hard drive space on your MacBook Pro by up to double with a unit that is both speedy and resilient.

In cNet's tests, it read a 10 gig folder of mixed files at an average of around 19.3 megabytes per second on FireWire 400 and 22.1 megabytes per second on FireWire 800. And with the FireWire 800 connection, it also wrote a 10 gig folder of mixed files at 20 megabytes per second. While the read speeds are not particularly impressive compared to most USB 2.0 external drives, the write speeds blew them out of the water, writing data at more than double the speed of comparable 2.5" USB 2.0 drives.

Everything I've read suggests that the power output on the MacBook and MacBook Pro's USB ports is too low to power most USB hard drives, requiring you to use a secondary USB-to-power cable to make up the gap. That means monopolizing all your USB ports. But it seems that the firewire ports have more juice and do well with bus-powered units.

But more than that, with the FireWire 800 connector, if you have a MacBook Pro, you don't have to sacrifice your FireWire 400 or USB ports. And since there aren't a whole lot of FireWire 800 products, the drive won't have a lot of competition for that port.

Of course, if you're powering it off the laptop's FireWire or USB bus, that's going to lower how long your laptop will run on battery power. But, when you're plugged in at home, on a plane, at a coffee house, or in a hotel room, that won't matter. And if you divide your files intelligently between it and your internal hard drive, you should be able to use it sparingly when you're not plugged in to maximize battery life.

I just ordered the 120 Gig model from NewEgg and will post a new entry when I've put it through its paces next week.

The odd thing is that any former Windows user who voluntarily switched to Mac has already admitted that they consider Mac superior to Windows PCs. But that doesn't mean that this has to be a blanket admission. The purchase of a Mac does not immediately imply that a former Windows user has sipped at the Mac Kool-Aid.

Switching from Windows to Mac is hard, and the more of a "power user" you are, the harder it is. You have more keyboard shortcuts, small specialized apps, and customizations and tweaks on your Windows system than an average user. That also means that you have a lot more work ahead of you to replicate these things on your Mac to create a comfortable working environment.

That is not to say that users like myself are trying to make Mac into a Windows clone. We switched to have fewer spyware worries, to have all that fun commandline Unix under the hood, to have a wide variety of advantages. But a few things in the interface can give us pause.

For me, the biggest and most disconcerting adjustment is the loss of the "Explorer Interface", both in terms of browsing my own hard drive and in terms of finding an FTP client that offers it.

I just find the way the Mac Finder works to be... inefficient. That doesn't mean I think that the interface should be changed to the Windows way and only that way. But it would be nice if the "Explorer Interface" were an option.

This isn't me trying to make my Mac work like Windows. This is just a good thing that I'm surprised is missing from OSX. But if I ask why OSX can't offer this functionality (in addition to the existing functions, not instead of them), I get jumped on by the Mac faithful. It's as if I defiled a holy place by suggesting that Apple adopt one of the things I believe Microsoft got right.

I'm told to get used to it. I'm told that I should consider that maybe the Finder works this way "for a reason". Maybe it does, but at least for me, that reason doesn't mesh with the way I like to work and am used to working. I'd love to "get used to it", but if it slows me down and if my productivity is negatively affected, that is a bad thing.

There are a lot of good things about Apple and OSX, but Microsoft isn't retaining its market share simply because it's ingrained. Some of it is that Apple has thought so differently, that the Mac environment can feel alien to people who have become used to Windows. And if the answer to "how can I make my environment more comfortable" is "like it or lump it", that's just wrong.

I'm starting to regret switching. I miss some really minor little things that I now realize I took for granted. But more than that, it's just frustrating trying to get those little things so I can work in ways that are comfortable and familiar for me. But rather than accomodate me, it seems both Apple and its legions of faithful tell me that I should feel privileged to accomodate Apple.

And the sad thing is that power users like me are influencers. We're the ones our friends, family, and business associates look to for advice on hardware, software, etc. We're the ones who will persuade or dissuade people on the topic of switching. And when we're feeling frustrated, regretting our Mac purchase, and avoiding getting down to work because it feels so klunky to do it on our Macs, we're going to tell people to stick with Windows and avoid Mac.

I'm finding I really am not liking being a Mac owner as much as I thought I would, and my advice to anyone who is reasonably happy with Windows is to stick with it. If you need to be productive in more areas than e-mail, Adobe design tools, and Microsoft Office, you're going to spend days trying to find a replacement for those little apps you used so often and will miss like the dickens when you can't find a Mac equivalent that has the same feature set.

I miss four little things...

• The two-pane interface from Windows Explorer
• Crimson Editor (tabbed MDI and a great bracket matching function)
• WinSCP - SCP and SFTP with a Windows Explorer style filesystem browser.
• IrfanView - Probably the best little graphics viewing/cropping/converting utility around. Easy, functional, free... love it.

But when I'm developing sites, these things are the three things I use most and I cannot find functional equivalents on OSX. It makes work less "fun" and more frustrating.

Many, many moons ago, it was common to have a desktop for your in-office work and a laptop for travel and work on the road. Well, not necessarily common for everyone, but if you had a laptop, it was usually your second/secondary computer, a stepchild to your desktop.

But in the past few years, the trend has moved toward dumping the desktop and using a laptop for everything. But as anyone who has owned a laptop without a docking station or port replicator has learned, this is a royal pain in the patootie.

Most people, when they work with the laptop at their desk, prefer the ease of a real mouse, real full-size keyboard, and real monitor. But imagine connecting and disconnecting each of those manually every time you need to leave your desk and take your laptop along. And most people aren't just plugging in those three... There may be a USB or Firewire cradle for your PDA, one for your music player, a cable for your speakers, and let's not forget the LAN cable and the power cable.

With a dock or port replicator, you connect the laptop... voila. Without one, you're connecting and disconnecting up to 8 or even 9 different cables every time you want to take the laptop off your desk or bring it back to the desk.

I've been wanting to switch to Mac and was pricing out a nice little 17" desktop replacement MacBook Pro. I did a search of Apple's site for a dock or port replicator and got nada. I searched Google and found one company selling a MacBook Pro dock, but it's for the 15" model and doesn't support FireWire 800.

When I went searching for a dock or port replicator for the 17" MacBook Pro, I found a number of forums where people told stories of how they wanted to switch, but the lack of a dock was a deal-breaker. And it wasn't just individuals, but small business owners who would have bought 10 or 20 Apple laptops, but instead had to settle for Lenovo or HP solutions because the docking station was just that important to them.

Perhaps Apple's done the research and concluded that it would be more expensive to produce and market a docking station than it would be worth. At least I hope that's the case. And I hope that they really crunched the numbers to come to that decision. Because, like a number of these other people, I'd like to switch, but the lack of a dock could end up being the deal-breaker that keeps me in the Windows world.

I'm currently a Cingular customer, and when I upgrade, I was thinking of getting a phone that can double as a modem for my laptop. Thinking Cingular only offered their GPRS/EDGE network with 70-110k speeds, switching to Sprint and getting an EVDO capable phone was attractive.

But then I learned about HSDPA.

HSDPA stands for High Speed Data Packet Access and is a newer specification for 3G data services. While Cingular's HSDPA network is only offering speeds comparable to EVDO right now (average 400-700k), the literature I've read says HSDPA is capable of getting up to 550-1050k with lower latency (sub 100 milliseconds).

That said, according to this list of phones that work with their Cingular Connection Manager software to allow tethering your phone to your laptop as a modem, only two of the phones they offer are both HSDPA capable and PAM (Phone As Modem) capable.

I don't know how often they update that list, though. They just started offering the Samsung Blackjack, which they advertise as HSDPA, and I believe may also be PAM capable.

The sad thing about the list though is the absence of any of their Blackberry or Palm PDA phones.

It seems that Cingular's HSDPA rollout, while mentioned in press releases, is not getting a full court press right now because of two factors.

1. They've only rolled it out in a fraction of their coverage area and they're waiting until it reaches a greater saturation level before they start making real noise.

2. Because it's relatively new, the number of phones, PDAs, and laptop cards that support it is still pretty small. They're also waiting until they have a broader range of HSDPA enabled devices available before they give it a full-court press.

IMO, EVDO is still ruling the wireless broadband roost, but HSDPA could be seriously nipping at its heels in the next year or two.

But What About WiMax?

Recently, on a billboard near my house and a stand at my local shopping mall, ClearWire has started promoting its WiMax-based wireless internet service. Based on the WiMax standard and operating in protected frequency bands around the 2.5 GHz level, they're offering a 1.5 Megabit down / 256 Kilobit up service that prices out comparably with "unlimited" cellular broadband services.

On top of this, if you go with their business plan, you can even get a dedicated IP address.

Upsides are:

• Faster speeds than current cellular-based services.
• Fewer hidden restrictions on how much usage you're allowed. Because the cellular data plans are intended as stopgaps for road usage, excessive usage, even under an "unlimited plan" can get you cancelled or charged overages (there are lots of horror stories about this if you care to hunt them down). But, since this is meant to be used for home and business connectivity, a much greater level of usage is expected and allowed.
• The speed is fast enough to handle VOIP.

Downsides are:

• Based on their installation demo video and their literature, the service requires a modem/router that is as big as most cable modems and has a nice, clunky power brick. That means service is limited to locations where you can plug in the power brick, thus it's not a good mobile broadband option.
• Because they're newer, their coverage areas are significantly smaller than cellular coverage areas.
• At least for now, you're going to find more dead and slow spots in a coverage area than you might with cellular.
• While the speed is good enough for VOIP, there's the question of latency due to the wirelsss connection method and the distances, so your mileage might vary significantly depending on how close to the transmitter you were and what was between you and the transmitter.

Still, like HSDPA, I see this technology becoming more formidable in the next couple of years. WiMax has a greater capacity than 1.5/256. They're likely capping it to provide greater quality of service as they roll-out. Once they've reached a certain saturation point, I could see them running back through existing areas and beefing up the number and strength of transmitters so they could offer greater speeds and lower latency.

Second, just like they've been coming out with WiFi VOIP phones that contain all the hardware needed to connect to a wireless hotspot (be it your home router or hotspots in airports, hotels, and coffee shops), if WiMax achieves sufficient penetration, a WiMax VOIP phone would not be out of the question. Containing all the hardware necessary, it could substitute for a cell phone in WiMax coverage areas and connect via bluetooth or a USB cable to your laptop to provide high-speed data access.

So What Do I Do Now?

For the time being, if you need the best combo of speed, coverage area, and connection options, EVDO is king. But if you're still locked into a contract and won't be upgrading your phone/plan until mid-2007, I'd say to give Cingular a call at that time and see where they are with HSDPA.

As for WiMax options like ClearWire... If they can increase coverage and boost speeds, then bring out an all-in-one handset (VOIP, tethered modem for your laptop via USB or bluetooth, free instant messenger via Yahoo/AIM/MSN using the broadband connection instead of SMS), they could be the killer app of 2008.

Now I am a very proficient two-fingered typist. I have a double-jointed pinky where the central knuckle just pops out the other side if I try to straighten it, and it makes the standard touch typing hand stance a little difficult. If I'm reaching out with my right pinky (which covers a lot of keys used in coding), the knuckle is popping in and out, which is uncomfortable at best. So I've learned to two-fingered type at 50-60 words a minute.

I thought I might consider a Dvorak keyboard, especially if it could double my typing speed, like it did for Randy, and did a quick search. There were none at Newegg (shame on them) and only a handful of very expensive ones at Amazon.

But it made me think of another keyboard I'd stumbled on through either Slashdot or Gizmodo, the Optimus keyboard. This one is tres cool, even if you're not trying to switch from QWERTY to Dvorak and back. Each key contains a programmable OLED matrix, so you can program the keys to display whatever you want. The image below is a portion of the keyboard with a Photoshop-optimized layout.

Pretty cool, huh? They say they'll announce pricing on 12/12/2006 and that it will be around the price of a mobile phone, but since they're in Russia, who knows what that will be? As well, I personally like a big, wide backslash key over my carriage return (which it doesn't have), and I wonder what the feel will be like (I like a good, solid feel to my keys with a good springback). I'm just hoping a local store will start carrying them or a friend will get one, so I can try it out for feel. I couldn't gamble $200 on a keyboard I'd never tried, then find out I didn't really enjoy it, then have to sell it on eBay.

But for pure coolness factor... Very nice. The high-end MacBook Pro laptop has an illuminated keyboard for low-light situations, but when each key is a programmable LED matrix, how cool will that be? OTOH it will be a drain on battery life, but what isn't?

Update

My friend Chuck just turned me on to the virtual laser keyboard.

Connecting to your palmtop, smartphone, or laptop, it uses lasers to project a simulated keyboard on just about any flat surface, then uses optical tracking to detect which of the projected keys you're tapping. And the projector itself is "about the size of a disposable lighter".

Sort of reminds me of the air guitar shirt, but still very cool.

UPDATE 2:

Just checked over at the Optimus site and now they're saying the keyboard is due out in late 2007. Cool concept, vapor product.