Analysing the price tags of Apple Mac portables

17 June 2009 // Filed under Life Outside Work

It’s been a week since the Great Apple Announcements of 2009: new operating system, new laptops, and new phone. It’s no secret that Apple profits hugely from its culture of secrecy; publicity generated from worldwide speculation on its yet-to-be-made product announcements must be worth an astronomical sum every year. What’s also unique about Apple is that the company exercises total control over the prices of its products, worldwide, no matter who the reseller is. The retail prices are consistent throughout the country and Apple products, portables computers in particular, are always excluded from those crazy-20-percent-off-all-laptops-only-until-Monday promotions at nationwide computer retail stores. Some stores do offer a whopping $2 off the set retail price; if you’re lucky, $20 off – but never 20 percent.

Other than qualifying for education discounts, there are only two ways to get Mac computers at real bargain prices: Wait for the release of new revisions and products (typically every 8-9 months), rush to a reseller and pick up a previous generation model hundreds of dollars cheaper than what it was only a few days ago. If you can’t wait for the perfect timing, get an Apple-certified refurbished Mac that comes with the same warranty terms as brand new ones.

One of the strong selling points of the June 2009 Apple announcements is that due to the slowdown in the economy, Apple took bold steps to bring down the prices of its new and updated laptops. This does not happen often as Apple traditionally takes pride in being able to stay in the high-margin, premium segment of the market. Indeed, cutting the price of the high-end MacBook Air by a jaw-dropping US$700 is a bold move. Even the entry-level Aluminium MacBook (now called MacBook Pro) received a 7.7% price cut in the U.S., which is significant especially with all those enhancements that allegedly justify the upgrade to the “Pro” moniker.

There is, however, one problem: those price cuts aren’t global. In many cases, a downward movement in the U.S. doesn’t equate to similar drops in other countries; in some cases, it’s just the opposite. Regardless of how Apple repositions its products in the United States, the retail prices of Mac computers around the world are governed (I think) by one thing: Apple’s own calculations of hedging against fluctuations in currency exchange rates until the next round of product announcements. Sure, the suppliers and retailers of other brands do that, too, but in the case of Mac computers, there is only one monopolistic decision maker along the entire value chain: Apple Inc. Once set, the local price sticks until the next revision of that product line; no individual retailer can touch that, no matter how great their buying power might be.

One question piqued my curiosity: Is Apple responding to the observed and forecast fluctuations in the different currencies in a reasonable, consistent manner, or are they simply padding international retail prices in a way that ensures added profitability outside the U.S. all year round? So I did some calculations myself based on data I could get hold of. In my limited research, I compared the prices of four different Mac potables in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand over a 16-month period, i.e. three revisions in the pricing. The models represent the base configurations (hence the cheapest advertised prices) of:

• 13-inch MacBook Air
• 15-inch MacBook Pro
• 13-inch White MacBook
• 13-inch “Unibody” Aluminium MacBook (debuted in October 2008)

Oddly, obtaining raw data was the hardest part; you’d think Google and Wikipedia will tell you everything, but try finding the answer to this: How much did the base 15-inch MacBook cost in New Zealand before the new unibody range was introduced in October 2008? As I pondered before, the Internet is not that generous to information not deemed current. In any case, various sources unearth the following:

Advertised prices (local currencies)

Now here’s a caveat: The advertised retail prices in the U.S. don’t reflect local taxes whereas ones in Australia and New Zealand have the Goods and Services Tax included in them. As such, I based the subsequent calculations on before-tax figures. I also looked up the exchange rates on Yahoo! Finance for these key dates:

• The day the revisions and/or new releases were announced, i.e. new pricing begins to take effect
• Two weeks before the next round of announcements, i.e. speculation is on the rise and current pricing is rapidly approaching the end of its life cycle

Moving on, here’s the first part of the number-crunching:

Okay, now I can objectively say that while the prices of the four portable models have come down by 12% in the U.S. over the past 16 months, the drop in Australia has been much less significant. Meanwhile, those same models have actually become more expensive in New Zealand. Do these prices then correctly reflect the changes in the currency with respect to the USD? Roughly so. No complaints there.

By changing the absolute dollar figures into relative ones for the chosen dates, I get:

In terms of hedging against currency fluctuations, the February 2008 pricing clearly paid off. The sudden drop in the values of the AUD and NZD did erode all of the initial premium, but still kept the local prices very much on par with the U.S. prices towards the end of that cycle. Thanks to the dramatic change in exchange rates, however, customers down under were paying no more than what the Americans were paying – How’s that for a change? (It’s not shown here, but AUD and NZD prices fell even further to as low as 85% of the USD prices one week before the October 15 refresh, which clearly called for urgent adjustments from Apple’s point of view.)

The launch of the new products in October 2008 reflected the global economic downturn and the resultant changes in exchange rates. Unlike the previous cycle, however, Apple did not insist on 15-20% premiums on the AUD and NZD prices this time. That still worked at least in Australia, because the AUD bounced back to give a handsome 15% premium by the end of that cycle. The NZD, on the other hand, did not recover as much – in customers’ favour, that is.

Apple used the June 2009 refresh to bring the premiums almost back to the pre-crisis level. What’s interesting here is that the revised AUD prices (=USD+15%) are consistently higher than the revised NZD prices (=USD+11%). If anything, it may be a reflection of the continuing decline of the NZD.

Contrary to my long-held perception, it turns out that customers in New Zealand are not paying outrageously more for Apple Mac computers than customers in the U.S. or even Australia do. That certainly defies the ludicrously high price tags and the absence of price drops across the board locally. Meanwhile, customers in Australia have received price cuts they surely deserve this time around. So… after all that number-crunching, I have no choice but to reluctantly award Apple a brownie point for not ripping us off *that* much.

 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2009-06-17  ::  Jess

In hindsight, I got my netbook in 2004

7 June 2009 // Filed under Tech Notes

Recently, I spent some late night hours reviving my first Mac, a 12-inch iBook G4 manufactured in the 22nd week of 2004, which had been quietly collecting dust for tens of months. Bringing a five year-old laptop back to life is kind of like restoring a classic car, though I’m no automobile enthusiast. The 1.07GHz PowerPC G4 computer has had its fair share of upgrades over the years: 1.25GB of RAM (up from 256MB), 60GB of hard drive (up from 30GB), and a new battery as a result of the Great Fire-catching Laptop Battery Recall Programme of 2005-2006 that affected the product lines of Apple, Dell, and Sony.

Amazingly, my iBook still performs flawlessly with the exception of a malfunctioning internal microphone, which does not bother me one bit. What’s even more amazing is that it’s comfortably running the latest Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.7, an operating system two generations and five years later than the one the hardware was designed for. That is remarkable in the world of personal computers.

Then I had an epiphany: This is exactly what a netbook of 2009 is and does, and more; a compact form factor, perfectly capable of running all kinds of services – be it mobile broadband, Wi-Fi, music library, DVD playback, CD burning, publishing blog posts, image editing, YouTube, Microsoft Office, instant messaging, mail, or even Web programming. Sure it can’t do heavy-duty application development and Microsoft Windows virtualisation because of architectural limitations, but nobody in their right mind would expect their netbook to be able to do those things.

Plus, the iBook has a full-size keyboard and a beautiful non-glossy screen that consumers of 2009 would kill for. Did Apple inadvertently invent the ultimate future-proof machine, or are HP, Dell, Acer, and the like rushing to re-introduce the products of 2004 with just smaller, glossy screens and cramped keyboards?

Despite its age and zero accounting value, Revive (the name I have bestowed upon the revived iBook) will faithfully and reliably keep running at full throttle for many years to come. No retirement, no decommissioning.

 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2009-06-07  ::  Jess

Mass hypnosis: Yellow is the new communist Red

31 May 2009 // Filed under Life Outside Work

“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
“I’ve never been so ashamed of being a citizen of this country – a country that kills its own president.”
“I feel like I’ve lost everything.”
“We will remember you forever. Mr President, you’re in our hearts.”
“I don’t want to talk to the media; they are also responsible for his death.”
“You will be my president forever.”
“I must have loved him. I thought I liked him but now that he is gone, I realise my feelings towards him were much more than that.”
“He has become a star of political responsibility, love, truthfulness, and self-esteem.”

Is it just me or is this reminiscent of the religious North Koreans mourning the passing away of their Great Leader in 1994?

Criminal to hero, prosecution to worship
Only this time, it’s not the Great Leader or the Dear Leader of the communist North who passed away. It’s the late Mr Roh, the disgraced former president of the rational, constitutional, democratic South who committed suicide while under intense investigation for bribery and colluding with the communist regime of the North. I must say it’s been a remarkable turnaround, though: By ending his own life, not only did he cleverly put an end to the investigation into the alleged crime, but he has also ignited once again the ideological rage that denies democracy in the name of democracy. As with the infamous candles, I can only describe this sea of yellow as “mass hypnosis” as I am not able to make any sense out of it. This, in my opinion, is a crisis far direr than the nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM’s) the North is purported to be able to fire into its neighbours and the continental U.S.

 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2009-05-31  ::  Jess

Clickjacking: the act of hijacking mouse clicks

29 May 2009 // Filed under Life Outside Work

Hijacking mouse clicks? No, it’s not a marketing concept. “Clickjacking” is the scariest most diabolic security threat to everyday computing I have come across in a long while. And unlike those countless viruses out there, being a Mac user doesn’t automatically protect one from this type of attacks.

So what is clickjacking? In a nutshell, it’s when a malicious Web page stealthily superimposes an invisible button (that does something nasty, of course) on another button, link, or image that is visible and doesn’t look malicious at all. The possible consequences of clicking on such a button range from theft of personal information to involuntarily turning the computer into a 1984-style Big Brother telescreen. Yikes.

It’s easier seen than explained in writing. Check out this 5-minute cool fantastic fun video from CNET (and yes, it’s a real, innocent link, I promise) to learn more about clickjacking and also how to avoid falling victim of it. The experts suggest some countermeasures, one of which is truly ingenious.

In this day and age where Google openly declares that the Web browser is the new computer, making the wrong click on a Web page can be much more costly than making the wrong turn on the motorway.

 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2009-05-29  ::  Jess

SharePoint guy/gal’s worst nightmare: the deadliest booboos

19 May 2009 // Filed under Tech Notes

As with many other jobs, implementing or maintaining SharePoint requires an exceptional degree of attention to detail because, well, stuff happens. If an error occurs or a mistake is made inside a testing or staging environment before things go to production, it’s a good lesson. If that lesson is captured, documented, and learned, it becomes a priceless asset. I have hand-picked some of the deadliest SharePoint mistakes which I have directly and indirectly experienced from an implementer’s point of view.

Booboo #1. Oops, I nuked Central Administration!

In smaller SharePoint deployments where there is only one Web front-end server which doubles as an application server, there is no need to turn on services related to document conversions. It’s a good idea to switch them off not only to save processing power but to prevent errors from occurring. In Central Administration > Operations > Services on Server, click on the “Stop” links next to the two document conversions services. Sounds simple enough, right? Sometimes, though, it may be necessary to switch to the “Custom” view to list all of the available services. And sometimes, you may click on “Stop” next to the the “Central Administration” service by mistake because it’s right above document conversions. When you do, SharePoint doesn’t ask for confirmation and you cannot go back to the same screen. The result: Central Administration is instantly nuked. Without a functioning Central Administration site, it’s SharePoint no more. No point tinkering with IIS because it doesn’t help. All this drama unfolds in a split second, literally.

Lord, have mercy: Thankfully, there is a way out, I mean, back into SharePoint. Terminal Service into the server and run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Wizard from the Start menu. It reconstructs Central Administration in the process. Be sure to provide the same port number it was on so that everything remains the same and, if you’re lucky, nobody would notice anything happened. The downside is that it takes at least a few minutes to finish, which means it could cause significant downtime in a busy production environment in which case… Christ, have mercy.

Booboo #2. Oops, search gets no results!

The most painful troubleshooting job I get to go through while setting up SharePoint servers is content crawl jobs failing for a variety of reasons. No crawling, no search index. No search index, no search results. No search, no point using SharePoint. Unfortunately, there is no fixed recipe for this disaster. The root cause may reside in database permissions, service accounts, IIS screw-up, NTFS security on the “hosts” file, environmental factors to do with the Active Directory domain, “local loopback“, recently installed updates, or any combination of these or other things.

While it’s not always possible to prevent this right from the beginning, it is a seriously career-limiting move not to check regularly that your search is functioning as expected. Examine the application events in Event Viewer. Also load the Search Administration page in SSP and check the number of successes, number of errors, and duration of each crawl job. Watch out for full crawls that took only a few seconds to complete… it’s never a good sign. TROUBLESHOOT IT AT ALL COSTS. Update (26 May 2009): There is growing speculation, at least in my lab, that this is a side-effect of upgrading to SP2. Microsoft has documented some of the symptoms and workarounds here and here, but still does not say that there is a direct correlation between the indexing issue and SP2. I need to get to the bottom of this; in the meantime, I would advise against patching production SharePoint farms beyond the Uber Packages of February 2009 Cumulative Update (12.0.0.6341).

Booboo #3. Oops, the content database is empty!

It’s good to be future-proof and smart about capacity requirements. Projecting the volume of SharePoint content over time with reasonable accuracy is not easy, but must be done one way or another. Often, the outcome of this exercise is a decision to create (or restore) each site collection in its own content database. Having multiple databases under a single SharePoint Web application is a quantum leap from indiscriminately shoving everything in a single default content database, which is known to have a supported limit of 100GB in size. Have a look at Central Administration > Application Management > Content Databases. There you can set up multiple content databases designed for individual (or groups of) site collections that belong to the same Web application. The tricky part is making sure that the site collection you subsequently create goes into the content database you built for it. That is because SharePoint uses its own not-so-easy-to-understand logic to select a content database for a newly created site collection. That makes the process more of an art than science, although it can eventually be expressed as an algorithm.

Each SharePoint content database has these properties:

• Name. The name is typically prefixed with “WSS_Content”. Any new database you create gets a name like “WSS_Content_4435253d41864f8583ef0203fa1fd89b” where the last part is a randomly-generated identifier. Make sure you change that gibberish into to a succinct, meaningful name before you hit the OK button.
• Database status. It’s either “Started” or “Stopped”, also known as “Ready” and “Offline”, respectively. “Started” or “Ready” means the database is able to house more site collections if instructed. “Stopped” or “Offline” means the database will not accept any more new site collections. That’s all there is to it; the status does not affect the operation of existing site collections in any way.
• Current number of sites. This shows the number of site collections that are already in the database.
• Site level warning. When the total number of site collections in the database reaches this value, a warning will be generated so the administrator knows about it. The default value is 9000.
• Maximum number of sites. This is the maximum number of sites that can be created in the database. The default is 15000. It must be strictly greater than the “site level warning” value.

SharePoint bases its decision on these properties. Again, the challenge is to put the right site collection(s) into the right content database. Let me illustrate this with a real-life-like situation. Suppose you currently have these content databases set up under a particular Web application:

Question: If you were to create a site collection titled “Asset_Management” whose URL is “/am”, which content database would SharePoint place it in? Answer: The one whose gibberish name ends with “89b”. Here’s why: First, all stopped (offline) databases are eliminated. Next, all remaining databases that have reached their caps (max. sites) are eliminated. Next, SharePoint attempts to match the URL (not the title) of the site collection against the names of the databases: Here, no match is found because “Asset_Management” happens to be the title of the site collection, not the URL. Next, the database(s) with the greatest number of available slots are selected: Here, two of the remaining databases have 15000 available slots. Finally, SharePoint picks the one that comes first alphabetically.

By learning this behaviour, you can always force SharePoint to pick the right content database for a specific site collection. If you are mathematically enthused, you can even batch-restore multiple site collections in one go without having to adjust the statuses or numbers manually during the process and still have all of your site collections correctly placed in their designated databases.

So, what’s the deadly booboo other than getting the names and numbers wrong in the first place? It’s when you create a site collection and don’t check back on the list of content databases to make sure it has indeed gone into the right database. If you fail to spot your mistake early on, the consequence may be catastrophic. So how would you recover from it? Do an STSADM backup of the site collection, delete it from the database, and then do an STSADM restore of it to a new database.

Booboo #4. Oops, where did I/we/they back up the entire farm again?

The grandaddy of all deadly SharePoint booboos, in my opinion, is: not having the necessary know-how and/or resources to reconstruct a SharePoint farm when it needs to be reconstructed from scratch for whatever reason. Things might change in SharePoint Server 2010, but there is no such thing as real-time geographic fail-over in SharePoint Server 2007. Different disaster recovery mechanisms are required for the different parts and components of a SharePoint farm. Content can be backed up in certain ways, but custom-developed elements and the various layers of configurations need to be backed up in different ways and must be accounted for. The best practice is to practise replicating the content and configurations of a working SharePoint farm onto an offline environment, and document the findings and caveats in the process.

 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2009-05-19  ::  Jess

Small steps to make the world a better place

12 May 2009 // Filed under Life Outside Work

Lately I’ve been thinking about people who smoke while walking along crowded streets or standing at pedestrian crossings. Will the world be a better place without people who choose to smoke while walking along crowded streets or standing at pedestrian crossings? Possibly. But I have more important propositions that will definitely make the world a better place. These are a random selection of the little things that annoy me the most, some of which have already been mentioned on this blog.

Liberate the over-regulated Web addresses. When it comes to technology, people often complain about monopolies, duopolies, lack of competition, corporate greed, high prices of services, and so on. But I would put something else on top of the list: digital bureaucracy. It’s most evident in the unnecessarily long addresses of Web sites in countries like Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., Singapore, and Fiji. Let me skip the details and just reiterate what the crux of the problem is: It’s over-governance that doesn’t often do justice to the size of the local economy, is costly to consumers, looks ugly, and hurts the value of, and the loyalty to, corporate and national branding. While many countries have taken measures to get it right, many others just don’t seem to realise that it’s ultimately about national competency in a heavily networked world. Things particularly don’t look good downunder: People in Australia, whose governments take pride in maintaining layers and layers of governance, have to put up with Web addresses like www.agencyname.statename.gov.au. Across the ditch, the New Zealand government believes that the country’s domain names should be regulated under eleven different second-level domains in an economy of four million people. In New Zealand, “NZ” is much more than just a domain suffix. De-regulate it and the value of the NZ brand will skyrocket. Isn’t that what the business-friendly National government stands for?

Put some ergonomics into laptop keyboards. Some of the world’s top laptop manufacturers don’t listen to customers. Lenovo and Apple, in particular, have yet to learn Ergonomics 101. Screw the tradition and just swap the bloody keys around so I can type, for crying out loud. I’m stuck with Lenovo laptops at work. I am seriously considering installing a registry hack so I can get the seldom-used Caps Lock key to act as the left Control key instead. No, I’m not the only one complaining; there is a looooooooong rant from frustrated Lenovo users all around the world. Arrrrrgh!

Equip police officers with firearms that can overpower criminals. Need I elaborate?

Eliminate region-locking in DVD and Blu-ray. Annoying, unnecessarily limiting, and largely meaningless. It would have suited the VHS era better.

Stop playing with time zones. I am not at all opposed to the idea of saving daylight. As I wrote before, what I don’t understand is why the local time needs to be switched back and forth every six months, which is hugely wasteful in every aspect. Pick the best time zone for the locals and stick to it.

Make all wheat-based foods gluten-free. With so many people with special dietary requirements these days, I think this makes a lot of sense.

 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2009-05-12  ::  Jess

No Turning Back: The Story So Far

2 May 2009 // Filed under Life Outside Work

No Turning Back: The Story So Far is the latest album I purchased from iTunes – not that I have been buying a lot of music lately. Shannon Noll is a truly great artist, arguably the best Australian Idol.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Get up, get up, get up, get up
And lift your head
Come on, come on, get up out of bed
Today’s the day you hold the world with your song

Go now, go now, go now, help escalate
Angels come down help with this parade
To hear your voice ring out
Come on let’s shout and let your song be heard

This is the time
This is the day that we’ve been waiting for
All the world will stop to watch you shine

Hey now, hey now, hey now, hey now
Sing your hymn
This is the new national anthem
We will all stand on guard to let you be heard

Let go, let go, let go, all the cannons
How beautiful this world has become
Now everyone will see what I believe
That these words should be sung

This is the time
This is the day that we’ve been waiting for
All the world will stop to watch you shine

This is the time
This is the day that we’ve been waiting for
All the world believes that you will shine

And if you fall, and if you fall
And if you trust and yes it will come true

(Do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do / do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do)
(Do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do / do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do)
Hey, hey, yeah

This is the time
This is the day that we’ve been waiting for
All the world will stop to watch you shine

This is the time
This is the day that we’ve been waiting for
When all the world will stop to watch you shine

(”Shine” by Shannon Noll, No Turning Back: The Story So Far, 2009 Compilation)

 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2009-05-02  ::  Jess

Befriending a new Mac: a few tips and tricks

29 April 2009 // Filed under Tech Notes

I enjoy watching Apple’s Get-a-Mac ads. This particular clip titled “Legal Copy” is my latest favourite. Too bad they don’t release one every week. I enjoy watching those ads not only because they are funny, witty, and creative, but because they all state the fact in amazingly funny, witty, creative ways. Factuality and creativity do go hand-in-hand, apparently. By the way, if you are keen to see that “Mac guy” (Justin Long) perform in video clips longer than 30 seconds, I suggest you go get a DVD of Die Hard 4.0 in which he plays Matt Farrell, a hacker wanted dead by the bad guys. I don’t remember if he was still a Mac user in the movie, but in any case he does survive to see daylight again and to hit on the daughter of John McClane (Bruce Willis). My interpretation is that John McClane might happily abdicate the Die Hard throne in favour of the young Farrell in much the same way Anthony Hopkins let Antonio Banderas, whom his daughter was in love with, take over as the new Zorro… Or maybe not. Bruce Willis ain’t dead yet. But I digress.

I’ve test-driven Windows 7, I’ve test-driven Server 2008, I’ve test-driven Vista…
I can’t wait to put Mac-Oh-Es-Ten-Snow-Leopard to the test
As the release of the fix-it-all Windows 7 operating system draws near, I find my enthusiasm growing inversely proportional to the amount of Windows-related headlines that occupy the various tech Web sites I follow. Outside of work, I secretly think that Windows 2000 was probably the best Windows OS ever. I also have nostalgic memories of Windows NT 4, which I would have preferred over any other version of Windows only if it came with ClearType and USB support. Let bygones be bygones; let Windows evolve the way it has been for the past few years. I am more interested to know about the next release of Mac OS X dubbed Snow Leopard – which will debut shortly after Microsoft releases Windows 7 – and if my MacBook will have enough grunt to tame the new cat.

Other than the more obvious ones pointed out by the numerous Get-a-Mac ads, one of the reasons I particularly like Mac OS X is its robustness. My proprietary definition of robustness is “the durability with which an operating system serves its purpose quietly in the background, enabling applications to run happily in a care-free manner.” What does this equate to in real life? With my Mac portable, I can close the lid shut any time and expect it to wake up without problems. This way, I can leave the OS and all my favourite applications running for days if not weeks without having to shut down the computer. More importantly, once I have configured the applications I need on Mac OS X, the setup can last months if not years in a healthy state before I find reasons to rebuild it.

Unlike Windows, configuring Mac OS X and its applications does not become a habit or a series of frequently repeated tasks. The flip-side of such long-lasting robustness is that if I do decide to rebuild a Mac or a get a new Mac, I tend to feel a bit lost and end up spending quite a bit of time googling, trying to recall what I had to do last time to configure things the way I wanted them to behave. Recently I got to rebuild a Mac, so I took the opportunity to document some of the tips and tricks that I think are useful when configuring a new Mac or a new Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) installation.

Tip #1: Say NO to “safe” sleep

With Mac portables, putting the computer to sleep is pretty much an everyday affair. When I close the lid shut, there is normally a few seconds’ delay before it actually falls asleep. That’s because the Mac takes a copy of the contents of its memory onto the hard disk in case something goes wrong while in sleep. It’s a precautionary measure that does no harm, but the more RAM the computer has, the longer it takes. With 4GB of RAM, the delay is quite noticeable, sometimes up to 10 seconds or more. Many have argued that this is an unnecessary delay since the computer wakes up just fine even without it. But the real reason I prefer to have safe sleep disabled is because it runs the risk of causing unpredictable errors should I close the lid and then immediately open it back up – which I often do – while it is still busily writing information on the hard disk. That’s something I want to avoid, so here’s the fix. Open Terminal and enter the following command:

pmset -g | grep hibernatemode

If the response shows a number “3″, then proceed with the following:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
cd /var/vm
sudo rm sleepimage

Type in the password when prompted. When done, give the computer a restart for the change to take effect.

Tip #2: Say NO to multiple Safari browser windows

I don’t like it when my Web browser opens a new window when I click on a link. I’d prefer to see the new page open in a new tab inside the current window instead of a new window. Here’s a Terminal command to force Safari to keep everything in one window:

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

Tip #3: Say NO to Finder that doesn’t tell me where I am

By default, Finder does not show the full path of the current location in the window title. As I navigate around the different folders, sometimes it’s difficult to know how deep in the file structure I am. It helps to have the full path shown all the time. Here’s the command that does exactly that:

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool true

Tip #4: Say NO to American spelling

There is a system-wide setting that governs the default spell-check language. As with 600 million other people on Earth, I want all my applications to use British English when it comes to spell-check. Type this command in Terminal:

defaults write -g NSPreferredSpellServerLanguage "en_GB"

After that, open System Preferences > International > Language. Click on the Edit List button, scroll down until British English is found, tick it, go OK, and check that it’s placed at the top of the list, just above “English“. It should look like:

In fact, once I have all the languages I need listed there, I can arbitrarily change the order by dragging the individual items up and down.

Tip #5: Say NO to numeric keypads that only do, err, numbers

The numeric keypads attached to Windows-based PC’s do both numbers and arrows. Macs, on the other hand, only do numbers. To some Mac users, this can be a hugely limiting feature. It’s kind of like how lactose-intolerant people need a no-dairy choice. Thankfully, there is a solution and it’s been documented separately on my blog.

Tip #6: Say NO to excessive surveillance

Spotlight is great and it does a great job of indexing everything on the hard disk. The downside is the overhead associated with maintaining the search index. But when I think about it, not every type of data in every location needs to be indexed. Go to System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy. Add names of folders or even entire drives that don’t need to be included in the Spotlight search scope. To complete the job, force Spotlight to create a new index with a reduced scope. Use the following Terminal command:

sudo mdutil -E /

Restart the computer and wait a few minutes for Mac OS X to finish re-indexing.

Tip #7: Say NO to ugly fonts, especially non-Roman alphabet ones

Mac OS X is known for its beautiful user interfaces that score highly on usability. It also natively speaks many tongues other than English, which is great. There is a small issue, though: some of the “double-byte” East Asian fonts that Mac OS X uses are considered ugly by the people who speak those languages. Here’s my example: I don’t like the Korean fonts Mac OS X uses out of the box. The default Korean font in Windows Vista, on the other hand, is beautiful, crisp, and legible in any size. So I want to use THAT for all Korean text that appear in my Mac OS X user interfaces, word processor apps, Web pages, and so on. Unfortunately, there is no magic one-liner Terminal command that will do the switch. It’s fairly technical and takes some effort, but can be done.

First, get hold of the new sexy font(s). If I am stealing one from Windows Vista, it would normally be a TrueType font whose extension is .ttf. In my Korean example, I grab two files that Mac OS X doesn’t have: “malgun.ttf” and “malgunbd.ttf”. These two together make a font family called “Malgun Gothic”. Back in Mac OS X, copy the font(s) into /Library/Fonts.

Then, install TextWrangler. It’s the coolest free text editor that does much more than what other text editors do. With TextWrangler, locate and open the following files:

• /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/
  Versions/A/Frameworks/CoreText.framework/Versions/A/Resources
  DefaultFontFallbacks.plist
• /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C/Resources/
  NSFontFallbacks.plist

Examine the contents of each file and carefully replace the name(s) of the ugly font(s) with the new one. In my example, I replace all occurrences of “AppleGothic” and “AppleMyungjo” with “MalgunGothicRegular”. Note that font names in these files don’t contain spaces. Save and close the files. Because these are important system files, TextWrangler asks for a password before saving changes. Next, open this file in TextWrangler:

• /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C/Resources/
  NSKnownFonts.plist

Using the pattern that exists, register the new font. In my example, I add these two lines in the Fonts in /Library section:

<key>Malgun Gothic</key>
<integer>2</integer>

Note that this is supposed to be the name of the font family with spaces if any. Save and close the file.

Now, launch the Font Book application and navigate to the All fonts collection. Locate all the ugly fonts that you don’t want and disable each of them. In my example, I disable these ones: “Batang”, “Gulim”, “AppleGothic”, “AppleMyungjo”, “#GungSeo”, “#HeadLineA”, “#PCMyungjo”, and “#PilGi”.

Optionally, in order to force the new font to override ugly ones as much as possible in the Safari Web browser, create a custom .css file. In my example, it has these lines:

* {
  font-family: Helvetica, Arial, "Malgun Gothic", sans-serif;
}

Launch Safari, open Preferences > Advanced, and register the style sheet that has just been created. This overriding of fonts works even better in OmniWeb, my favourite browser on the Mac.

Finally, using a system maintenance utility such as Onyx, clear all font caches and restart the computer. This is an important step and must not be skipped. Update: Installing Microsoft Office 2004 or 2008 afterwards can cause problems in the setup. Workaround: Choose not to install the extra fonts that come with Microsoft Office when installing the software. If those extra fonts have been installed by oversight or otherwise, open Font Book, manually disable the unwanted font families, clear the font caches, and restart the computer.

Final word: All in the name of documentation

Whether to follow some or all of the steps mentioned above is purely a matter of personal preference. Do it at your own risk. Don’t do it if you don’t know what you’re doing. In any case, now I can come back to this post when I need to rebuild Mac OS X again, which I don’t think will be anytime soon.

 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2009-04-29  ::  Jess

Crisis, yes, but Fiji doesn’t need Jack Bauer

16 April 2009 // Filed under Life Outside Work

Fiji occupies my thoughts a lot these days. It must be the doomsday headlines delivered over the past week in much the same tone as the calamitous reports on North Korea, Sudan, and Thailand. But one thing is for sure: Despite all those perilous keywords and travel warnings, Fiji is no Thailand. It’s no war zone, it’s no axis of evil, it’s no culprit of the Ponzi scheme or mass shooting or satellite-turned-missile. It has been three and a half years since I left there, but I am certain that Fiji is still very much the same peaceful tropical island nation where I have fond memories of abundant tropical fruits, pristine beaches, Latin dance classes, frangipani shirts, and chicken palau.

From across the Pacific Ocean, it’s kind of hard to figure out what is really going on in Fiji right now. Locals seem to be saying that things are business as usual except for panic-stricken foreign journalists who have been kicked out of the country and some military guys dealing with foreign media. Foreign media, on the other hand, say it’s a crisis, a coup, a military crackdown, censorship, economic suicide, and citizens suffering from an unjustified absence of democracy; Fiji as a nation is doomed for the 15th time in as many years – or something along those lines.

Perhaps that is where the real crisis lies. More than anything, it’s Fiji’s battle against foreign relations and the media – one that is costing the nation dearly. Unlike what the news reports openly and subliminally purport, I cannot possibly imagine Fiji with bullets flying around or the safety of ordinary citizens threatened in any way. I certainly can’t say the same about the United States – but I digress.

If my local experience entitles me to a view on this matter, my speculation is that the world will never – underline never – see blood, torture, boat people, suicide bombing, or loss of lives coming out of the current crisis in Fiji and that the media frenzy will die down accordingly. That is because, as undemocratic as it is, things are firmly under control, so much to the point where the Republic is able to function without a constitution. One can find plenty of real examples of tyrannies and civil unrest around the world but Fiji can’t be placed under such a category. Perhaps Australia, New Zealand, the Commonwealth, and the UN should take a step back and take a breath before lashing out on the island nation for not reaching the same level of political maturity as the leading Western nations that have nurtured parliamentary democracy over a much longer period of time.

If all this was a season of LOST, the Oceanic Six could get on a plane, travel back in time to “the island” of 1971, and do something to change the course of history such that the people of Fiji would not have chosen the bumpy, painful road towards sovereignty and ethnic unity… Relax, I am just speaking hypothetically.

As for the sanctions Fiji’s neighbours are mulling over, I don’t think kicking the country out of the Pacific Forum or UN peacekeeping missions will have much of an impact on the lives of Fiji Islanders including the military regime. If, on the other hand, the New Zealand Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade were to threaten to pull the screening of Shortland Street on Fiji One, that would most devastatingly upset every citizen from grammar school kids to grandmas in villages… But no, strictly leave that as a last resort.

1 comment  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2009-04-16  ::  Jess

IMHO, Fiji should have remained a British colony

12 April 2009 // Filed under Life Outside Work

With a significant presence of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the country, the developing crisis in Fiji will undoubtedly be Helen Clark’s first assignment.

When I first heard that the Fiji Court of Appeal declared their military government “illegal,” I thought maybe things will begin to return to normal, i.e. parliamentary democracy, at last. Wishful thinking. It’s a stunt featuring an illegal regime replacing another illegal regime with the same man in charge. Only this time – and this is important – there is now no more Constitution to rule them illegal.

Former coup leader Commodore Frank Bainimarama has been reappointed as head of Fiji’s government by the country’s President, according to local reports. Bainimarama was sworn in on Saturday as caretaker Prime Minister by President Ratu Josefa Iloilo at Government House in Suva. The move comes a day after the President annulled the 1997 constitution after a court declared Bainimarama’s 2006 coup illegal. Iloilo also sacked the judges who made the court ruling on Thursday, reversing an earlier decision that the military-backed government was legal.

Bainimarama said he would step down after the ruling and on Friday denied having any role in the President’s decision to annul the constitution.

(TVNZ, 11 April 2009)

THE decision to revoke the 1997 Constitution and declare a public emergency in Fiji is a “clear attempt to prolong rule by an unelected executive”, said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today. In a press statement attributable to his spokesman, Mr Ban said he strongly deplored the political developments following the Thursday ruling of the Fiji Court of Appeal and that they were a “clear rejection of the legal process”.

(Fiji Times, 11 April 2009)

During the two and a half years I spent in Fiji, things were relatively stable although it later turned out to be a period of dormancy between two coups. I believe Fiji minus its “coup culture” has great potential to thrive as a leader of the South Pacific nations; it has economies of scale, a land mass big enough to be visible on every world map (and one that’s not sinking), and a population 2/3 as big as Hawaii.

Indeed, Fiji could have been like Hawaii with the aid of political stability and leadership capable of leading to prosperity instead of isolation. In my humble opinion, Fiji should have remained a British colony.

 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2009-04-12  ::  Jess