Blog R.I.P., Mac Support Site Lives On

I have decided, after much deliberation and thought, to discontinue this Mac Support Site Blog, and only continue my actual Mac Support Website. This is due to time constraints, etc.

I will leave all the information that's currently on this blog on the Internet for some amount of time, and I will update my Mac Support Website from time to time, but I will no longer be maintaining this blog. It was good while it lasted, but nothing lasts forever! Farewell!

P.S. You can also check out some other cool sites I will continue to maintain at LifeisaPrayer.com.

Review: Assignment Planner (for school, work and more!)

About one year ago, I found a gem of an application. I was browsing apps on MacUpdate.com when I noticed one app that looked promising: Assignment Planner. I downloaded a beta version, and, although it was fairly rough at the time, it looked nice and was helpful for me.

The App

I emailed the app's developer, Logan Rockmore, with some suggestions I had (things like allowing people to use the keyboard to create new entries and enter information, tabbing between fields, making it integrated with iCal, etc.), and Logan was very appreciative of the help and worked with me to squash every bug I found and implement every feasible feature I could imagine. This app is free -- it shows a 'please donate' screen when you start it up for a few seconds -- and it runs very well on any Mac I've used it on.

It is very easy to manage your courses, your GPA, your assignments, and integrate everything with iCal (enabling iPod-syncing!) using this program. I have been using it for over one year now, and I have only had occassional problems with the spinning beachball, but most problems have been solved with the version 1.3 release; those that have not been solved will be soon enough, I'm sure, because Logan really does care about this app, and he tries to make it the best Schoolwork management app possible. Here's the app's description (from MacUpdate.com):

"This simple application stores all of your Courses and Textbooks, and allows you to add homework assignments to any of them. Easy completion is included, so you only have to view what homework you have left to do. You can even integrate your assignments with iCal and move them to your iPod, for carrying around school. This is a simple and easy-to-use application thats great for College or High School students."

The Verdict

I agree 100% with everything he has to say. It is a simple app that takes up very little space and works like a Mac program should. It is a must-have app for any student who uses a Mac and needs to keep track of assignments. You can download the program here.

iPod shuffle - Review (Yes, I used one!)

Yesterday a friend received his iPod shuffle from Apple (he ordered on the first day they were available, from the Apple Online Store). I must say, I am truly impressed!

Jeff's Deck-O-Players

My first foray into the MP3 player market was the Rio PMP300 32MB MP3 player, with a 2-line display (no text, though) and a flash expansion slot. It only worked with serial-port equipped PCs, and was a fiesty little gadget to get running and not break (I had to open it up and rewire the hair-thin power wires to the main board in it -- twice). I am glad to announce things are much nicer today.

I've now owned a 20GB Click-Wheel iPod for over four months, including a rechargable 12-hour battery, a spacious LCD display, 20 GB of storage, a simple design with only 5 buttons, and Apple's intuitive software. (I bought it for only $80 using the 'Cram and Jam' deal Apple had last year!). Things are much better!

Shuffle the Cards!

The iPod shuffle incorporates a gumstick-size case, USB 2.0, 512 MB or 1 GB of memory, and Apple's 'cool' design into a slick MP3 player package. Oh, I forgot to mention: I'll probably never buy one. That's right: I won't buy one. BUT, I still love the thing and think it is awesome -- for people looking only for an MP3 player.

For my purposes (music isn't the main attraction for me), I need a lot of storage, the ability to view contact and calendar info, and, therefore, a spacious display. But, for people who want to listen to music (and have a fairly large amount of USB 2.0 flash storage to boot!), the shuffle is quite a deal.

How do the Characteristics Stack Up?

I picked up the shuffle, held it in my hand, and was amazed at how good it felt in my hand. Instead of feeling 'cheap' and lightweight like many USB flash drives, it was *just* heavy enough to provide tactile feedback when pressing it's wonderfully gelatin-like buttons. It wasn't too heavy-either; I'd feel comfortable sticking the thing on my keychain and tossing it in my pocket--without protection! It is all-around a solidly-built device.

The status indicator lights are pretty neat, as well. They provide visual feedback that is adequate for operation. I especially like the itty-bitty light on the back that indicates the battery status.

I could not tell a difference in audio quality between the same files on it and on my iPod - the quality (through the same white iPod headphones, of course) is top-notch -- even surprising -- coming out of such a small device.

So far, my friend has not had to charge it's battery since the initial 4-hour charge; he's been using it for near 10 hours, and the battery is still 'green'. In fact, it seems that others are receiving a hearty amount of battery life as well! No problems in this department.

The Conclusion

This is by no means a definitive review (especially compared to this), but I would venture to say that this is a great music player for anyone who doesn't need the more advanced features of the iPod. Since I always leave my iPod in 'shuffle' mode and 'let 'er rip', I assume that many, if not most people, are of the same mindset, or will be, once they purchase one of these little gadgets (or ten, or twenty).

Myst IV: Revelation - Final Review

Well, I have finished my game of Myst IV: Revelation. It was quite an experience. Luckily, I was able to save the game almost every 10-20 minutes, after dragging the game folder to my desktop (suggested by Ubisoft support), but the game continued to crash almost every time I saved it, after the save file was written. Ubisoft's support representative told me there would be a patch released soon to deal with this issue, and it only occurs on Macs running OS 10.3.7 (earlier OS version run Myst fine).

The music for this game was top-notch, enjoyable, and relaxing. There were a few songs that, in unison with the vivid and flowing onscreen imagery, really made my spine 'tingly'. This Myst game's puzzles were not as impossible as many in Riven were, but they are very challenging. After solving all of Tomahna's puzzles on my own, exploring most of Spire, Serenia, and Haven, and solving a puzzle here, and a puzzle there, I resorted to online walkthroughs to help me finish the game.

Luckily, this version of Myst is not like the original, in which you could finish the game in a few minutes without exploring all the environments! To solve the final puzzles, you must explore various worlds, and find pretty much all of the clues left behind by Atrus' unruly sons. The plot is intriguing, with few bothersome inconsistencies, and I found the game to be very well-paced and enjoyable (except for the occasional crash when accessing the main screen).

I played the original Myst on my sister's iMac for a few minutes, for old times' sake, and it is amazing how far advanced this new Myst is. The old myst displayed a small image that was 100% static, and movies could only be played in a static location - they were grainy at best.

In the new Myst IV, environments are lifelike, you can look around, birds are flying in the air, wind rustles the trees, animals run about you, the clouds move, water shimmers and creates fog, and everything is mind-bogglingly detailed. The folks who designed this game spent plenty of time getting the details right!

My recommendation: if you liked the other Myst games, this game is an absolute must-play; if you are ABSOLUTELY stuck, the game's built-in help might carry you through, but searching Google for "Myst IV Walkthrough" (I found this gem of a Walkthrough for Myst 4 when I searched) might help a little more. Five stars out of five!

Myst IV: Revelation - First Impressions

Tonight I began playing Myst IV: Revelation (for the Mac), and I thought I'd post my review/comments here for all to see.

I've been an avid fan of the whole Myst series - from the early days with the original Myst CD-ROM (when it was made exclusively by Cyan on a bunch of Macs) to today (now it's made by Ubisoft). My whole family would gather around our old Performa 637CD to solve all the original Myst puzzles, in full 256-color glory. For Riven, my mom purchased a new Performa 6360 to handle its more complex graphics (not to mention the 5 CDs!). Finally, after purchasing Myst III: Exile, my family no longer gathered to play the game - I had to resort to many hints and tricks while solving puzzles on my own. My mom received Myst IV for Christmas, and she's letting me 'check it out' while I'm on vacation (woohoo!).

I'll go through this in the stages of how I setup and played the game:

1. Setup

The setup of this game was definitely not as intuitive as it could've been; Ubisoft cheaped out by making a sort-of clunky Java installer that required a few too many steps to install the game (for my liking), and didn't look like a 'Mac' installer. Plus, you had to drag the install application to your hard drive before you could even open it to install the program! Otherwise installation was very routine, with no errors (there is a patch, 1.01, available as of this writing, that is worth downloading from support.ubi.com).

A Note to those with little hard drive space: The minimum installation of this program requires over 3 GB of free space! Make sure you still have plenty of drive space left. (The full install requires over 8 GB!).

2. First Impressions

The intro videos for the game were very nice, and the music that plays behind the main menu has a new-age yet 'antique' feel to it. Unfortunately, the music stopped and the game crashed after I tried to change options in the options part of the menu. I tried following Ubisoft's online suggestion of moving the game folder to the desktop to solve this problem, but it didn't help. So I decided to forgo any options-changing and dive right in.

The game starts off with you in a cable-type car with Atrus' daughter driving you to his lab amidst a rocky terrain with water below. Everything looks very nicely rendered, and the integrated video clips (you can move around while videos are playing, and the sound has a 'surround' effect) are even better than in Myst III. If you turn on all the environmental effects (somehow I was able to do it once), things look a little odd, with many tree branches swaying in the wind like some organism... but my lowly iBook couldn't handle it very well. The environments are very detailed and beautiful, and the soundtrack is quite nice.

But (there's always a but...), when I tried to save the game, it locked up. So I started the game again, played it, then tried to save, only to have it lock up again. And again. Needless to say, I won't be playing the game until this issue is resolved, because saving the game is a must - I'm not going to leave it up and running for days on my iBook! I've contacted Ubisoft support, and am waiting for an answer now.