Posted inWeb/Tech

Black menu bar on Retina MacBook Pro: how I make it go away

This can't be a common MacBook Pro problem, or I would have found a solution more easily. But fairly often my 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro presents me with a black OS X menu bar at the top of the screen after I've closed and opened the cover. About all I can make out is the American flag on the right side. The black pixels that comprise the other icons are almost completely hidden, being black on black. When I'm using Safari, I have to visualize where the File menu, or whatever, is, then fiddle away in the dark to…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

Google Reader is going away. Panicky, I buy Reeder.

I love Google Reader. I return to it many times a day on my MacBook Pro. So it was more than a little disconcerting to learn that Google Reader is in its death throes. On July 1, it makes a final exit. Rest in peace. I'll miss you, my friend. I really liked how simple you were to use, and how you appeared as a web page. I've never used another RSS reader. Heck, I barely know what RSS means. Unduly panicky, given that I have more than three months to find a replacement way of easily keeping track of…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

NYT Tesla test drive makes me happy we got a Volt

Since we were not-so-happy owners of an all-electric Nissan Leaf before we sold the car and leased a Chevy Volt (battery powered, with back up gas generator), I"ve been following the fascinating tale of a New York Times automotive reporter's test drive of the $101,000 Tesla Model S sedan with considerable interest. The title of the story wasn't good news for Tesla's marketing efforts: "Stalled Out on Tesla's Electric Highway." Nor was the story itself. John Broder relates the horrors of trying to drive the Tesla, which has an estimated 300 mile range, between charging stations 200 miles apart -- seemingly…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

New Google Maps iPhone app rocks! Great turn by turn directions.

Goodbye, widely despised Apple Maps, which leads people astray in Australia and so many other places. Including my home town.  Hello, just-released Google Maps app for the iPhone. It's already gotten great reviews. Such as from David Pogue in the New York Times. So the first great thing about Google’s new Maps is the underlying data. Hundreds of Google employees have spent years hand-editing the maps, fixing the thousands of errors that people report every day. (In the new app, you report a mistake just by shaking the phone.) And since 2006, Google’s Street View vehicles have trawled 3,000 cities,…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

I love my 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro. Don’t believe negative reviews.

I was one of the first to order Apple's 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro. You can read the reasons why in my aptly titled "Why I ended up buying a 13 inch retina MacBook Pro." I've used my new laptop, which replaced a three year old 13 inch MacBook Pro, for about ten days. That's long enough to be confident in my two word review: Love it! Now, I've been reading quite a few reviews of the 13 inch retina MacBook Pro from computer geeks who usually have a different impression. They like the new incarnation of the much beloved…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

Why I ended up buying a 13 inch retina MacBook Pro

I plunked down $2,300 and change for a 13 inch retina MacBook Pro yesterday (256 GB flash storage, plus Apple Care and a USB Superdrive). I must have been one of the first to order the computer on Apple's web site, since I kept refreshing the closed-down store page until it popped up all functional, with the new goodies -- iPad Mini, new iMac, and my lusted-for laptop -- ready for purchase. Surprising. Because if I believed myself, I never would have thought that I'd end up doing what I just did. Consider... Last June I anguished about whether to…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

Yes, the new Apple Maps sucks. It led me astray.

I'm glad I still have Navigon on my iPhone 5, because I can't trust Apple Maps after what happened yesterday.  I've been playing around with Apple Maps since I got my new iPhone last Friday. Some reviewers have called it the worst Apple product ever. Don't know if I'd go that far, since when it works, Apple Maps handles turn by turn directions well. But when it doesn't... you're not going to get to where you want to go. Fortunately, I knew where Silver Falls Dermatology is in south Salem. I had a 1:45 pm appointment for a check-up and…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

After some awkwardness, iPhone 5 and me become friends

Being a long-time user of Apple'ish things (iPods, MacBooks, iPhones), I have reasonable expectations of a new product: It will work perfectly and make me ecstatically happy!  Most of the time this happens, more or less. Getting my iPhone 5 order via FedEx yesterday and firing up this long-awaited replacement for my iPhone 4 was right in line with previous Apple experience. After a few glitches, bliss. What threw me off at first was iTunes, which strikes me as disturbingly un-Apple. iTunes looks and acts like something a Microsoft programmer would produce. Functional, yet rather difficult to use and understand.…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

I’m one of the first to order the iPhone 5. Am I gloating?

Night owls that we are, my wife and I were watching a recorded The Daily Show episode as midnight approached yesterday. Her attention was on the TV. Mine was on my watch, as I waited for the hour to strike twelve, when preorders for the iPhone 5 were scheduled to begin. I'd already decided that Verizon would replace AT&T, now that our two-year iPhone 4 contract had expired. The remaining challenge was to get my ordering underway as soon as possible given the obvious pent-up demand for an updated iPhone with a new digit after its name. The iPhone 4S…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

Goodbye AT&T. Hello Verizon and my new iPhone 5.

Since I have an ancient iPhone 4 (a hundred years old in smartphone years), and my two-year AT&T contract is up, I knew that I'd be getting an iPhone 5 once it was released. Which it was, today! I watched the unveiling via Engadget's liveblog. The main info I was waiting for: when an iPhone 5 could be ordered. This coming Friday, September 14, apparently. I've been going back and forth about whether to stick with AT&T or jump to Verizon. We have shitty AT&T reception at our house, but last year AT&T sent me a free 3G Microcell device that…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

Why I’m not going to wait for a 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro

Rumor has it (isn't Mr/Ms Rumor a reliable source?) that a 13 inch Retina Macbook Pro will be announced by Apple on September 12, along with the long-awaited iPhone 5 and probably other goodies. I've used a 13 inch MacBook Pro for over three years. Love it! At least I did, until the 15 inch Retina MacBook Pro was released. Since, I've bounced back and forth about what Apple laptop should replace my aged current one. On the day of the release I blogged, "New Retina MacBook Pro or MacBook Air? Laptop lust will decide." At that point I was…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

Forgive me, Apple: I prefer Chrome to Safari

Because I worship at the altar of all things Apple'ish (my wife and I have two iPhones, a Macbook Pro laptop, an iMac desktop, an iPad, and Apple TV), sometimes my brief acquaintance with Catholicism as a kid leads me to confess to the Great God Apple when I feel that I've sinned. ------------------------------ Dearly beloved lord of my cyberspace connections, praise be to your marvelous omniscience, which was manifested most recently in my life by a smooth upgrading to the Mountain Lion operating system on both of our Apple computers. I am so happy that I converted from the…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

How I’m talking myself into buying a Retina MacBook Pro

Without rationalizations, what would my life be? Dreadfully filled with, ugh!, impersonal reality. I've got sound neuroscience on my side here. Ever since Apple announced the Retina MacBook Pro, I've been wrestling with whether I should get one. On the day news of the new laptop was released, I presciently blogged, "New Retina MacBook Pro or MacBook Air? Laptop lust will decide." That's how it's been going the past eight days. Logic and reason lead me one way, emotion and intuition lead me another way. And here's the likely neuroscientific fact: my brain (a redundancy, because "my brain" is me)…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

Reasons to choose a basic MacBook Pro over the Retina

After Apple's release of the 15 inch Retina MacBook Pro, I've been bouncing back and forth between finding good reasons why I need one, and why I don't. As I said in a previous post about my laptop lust: After the WWDC event was over, the online Apple store returned to life with the new Retina MacBook Pro prominently displayed, which is basically a blend between the old MacBook Pro and Air. That's the laptop I lust for. But my pocketbook wonders if an Air would suffice. I priced three options of the new models, with each including 8 GB…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

New Retina MacBook Pro or MacBook Air? Laptop lust will decide.

Like lots of other Apple addicts, I was glued to my computer this morning, watching Engadget's live blog of the WWDC 2012 conference where new Apple products were eagerly anticipated. The rumors were pretty much right-on. A new 15 inch MacBook Pro with a retina display (like on the iPhone 4s) was the highlight of the show. For me, at least. I've had my 13 inch MacBook Pro for what seems like centuries. In computer years, that's about right -- got it in October 2008. It's been almost completely trouble free. It looks virtually brand new, but my laptop is feeling…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

Dark Sky tells me if it’s going to rain soon. Great iPhone app.

Here in Oregon it's super important to know for me to know if rain is coming in the next hour. Even though I'm retired, I have many crucial things to do -- such as taking our oldest dog for a semi-slow motion walk every afternoon. Our walk takes about an hour though it's less than two miles. Serena is twelve and a half. She doesn't move nearly as fast as she used to, unless a CAT! grabs her attention. So this morning, when I learned about Dark Sky through my iPhone's AppAdvice app, almost instantly I decided to fork out $3.99…
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Posted inSustainability Web/Tech

How I’m fighting global warming Internet “trolls”

It's a tough decision: how to handle anti-science global warming deniers who repeatedly leave lengthy comments on my blog posts, filled with untruths, deceptions, and flat out lies at odds with facts about how the Earth's climate is changing because of human carbon pollution. I've tolerated this crap for a long time, but have decided to take a stand for truth (as contrasted with "truthiness," which is what global warming trolls specialize in.  In this context a troll isn't a mythical being, but someone set on disrupting courteous, respectful cyberspace discourse. They're a problem almost everywhere on the Internet. I've…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

My iPhone speaker survives toilet water. Here’s how.

I wish I had a better story involving wild sex, drugs, or fighting off a home invasion about how my beloved iPhone 4 ended up in a toilet this morning.  Actually...I'd put the phone on some magazines that were headed to the recycling bin. Forgetting where the phone was after, um, I'd done my (stand-up) business, I grabbed the magazines from a counter and heard a highly disturbing splash as the phone hit the water. Moving as fast as my semi-awake 63 year-old self does that early in the day, I had the phone out of the toilet in just…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

iPhone DiffCase: a lot to like, not quite right for me

I'm a naked iPhone user. Meaning, sometimes we both are, but usually only my iPhone is. I've enjoyed feeling the glassy, metallic sleekness of the iPhones I've owned without a screen protector or case coming between me and my beloved bit of technology. But after dropping my naked phone several times onto the (thankfully) carpeted floor of an athletic club, I decided to look into protection options.  And came upon DiffCase, an aptly named different sort of case. You should look into it if you're an iPhone user who is into tripod-necessary photography, seeks full protection for your phone, and/or…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Web/Tech

NY Times “Election 2012” app is great for political junkies

Ah, another source to feed my political addiction: today the New York Times sent me an email about its new Election 2012 app. I fired up my iPhone, downloaded the free app, and instantly thought Sweet! The app will look particularly sweet to me, because I'm forking out $15 a month for unlimited online access to NY Times content. Many features of the app work even if you're not a paid online subscriber, but after I put in my log-in info I was able to access everything. Like I said before, I'm happy to pay. It'd be horrible if the NY…
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