I’ve updated all of my Mac’s to have the latest version of iLife (’08). Last week I was a bit nervous because I recorded a podcast episode using the old version of GarageBand and expected to do editing in the new version. However, Apple must have thought about that scenario because it worked perfectly.

This week, I recorded in the ‘08 version and went to another machine to do the editing (again in ‘08). I then got 48 error messages that looked like this:

Don’t bother trying to search on that error, there’s nothing out there. There was no further explanation of the problem once I got through all 48 copies of this message. There was, however, several missing audio files from when I recorded it.

The missing files have to rhyme or reason. They’re all in the same track. They’re all over the timeline and there’s no single consistent element among them. They’re just … gone.

If I figure out why, I’ll post the answer. I’m shocked that this happened to an Apple product. I’m shocked at the lack of an explanation, and the multiple error messages and the lack of a support document. If it seems that my expectations are set too high, its only because Apple has done a great job of raising those expectations over time.
Meanwhile … I got home last night to find a message from DirecTV. I thought “finally - they’re going to admit to upgrading my DVR!” Not quite.

They told me that some exciting new features will be available to… (wait for it)… my DirecTV-TiVo receiver. Not the new DirecTV branded HD one they’ve “strongly suggested” I get … and have been updating without explanation … and told me they’d focus on supporting and adding new features to instead of the other DVRs they’ve had in the past. No, the OLD one I held on to (thankfully) that they told me they had pretty much stopped supporting.

The new features sound great! The ability to manage recordings on the web and better functionality in the menus … all sound awesome. But … where are those features from the device I bought, per their suggestion, that was supposed to have all of that first?!

If it seems that my expectations of DirecTV are still too high - well, that one’s my fault. They’ve been doing a great job lowering them over time. I just refused to realize that was what was happening.

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A lot of people ask me why I have a Domino blog (even though its been heavily “Mac” than anything else lately) that DOESN’T use the Notes blog template. To that I simply say: “hosting, its expensive.”

But even if I could find a low-cost Domino host, the time I’ve spent being forced to live without one has really taught me the value of stepping outside the Domino world to use other tools. I was anxious to attend a session at Lotusphere last year on integrating Domino with PHP and mySQL applications … and then surprised to find out that the brunt of the discussion was essentially: 1) Go find an ISP with “Fantastico” (a program most ISPs have that allow you to easily instantiate PHP based applications. 2) Go nuts creating them.

There are a TON of great PHP applications out there that are free and ridiculously powerful. This blog is one of the most common ones, WordPress. And beyond the fact that WordPress is very easy to use and setup, it also allows you to easily access, create or customize “themes” that give your site the look and feel you want. (Sure, the Domino blog can do that too with some stylesheet action … but there are many, many more people working on WordPress themes to help get you started).

Which brings me back to a Mac.

What would be the perfect blend of WordPress and Mac? The old-school Mac theme for WordPress, of course:

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I’ve been quiet lately which means I’m both busy and have a number of new things I want to research and comment on. Lately, the “busy” is because of work (and, of course, planning for the arrival of our baby) and the “new stuff to research” comes mostly from Apple. Here are some highlights:

iLife ‘08

I like it! Some freshening to all the products but the big areas of improvement are in iPhoto which finally manages photos they way I want them to be managed (by events and with more sorting/keyword options) and iMovie which the jury is still out on. The new iMovie looks PERFECT for someone starting movie editing at home. However, I already felt like I was pushing the limits (or running into bugs with…) the old version. I need more face time with this to figure out if its an improvement, step backwards or shift in direction.

One thing I don’t like is that iPhoto is abandoning Photocasting. I use this as a way for the screen savers on my parents’ computers to be updated with fresh photos of what we’ve been doing lately. And, with a kid on the way, I really look forward to keeping it current. The main computer in my parents’ house is in the entryway and I know they’ll see new pictures as they walk in and the screen saver is active. — iPhoto ‘08 supports current ones but won’t allow you to create new ones.

iWork ‘08

Very nice improvements here. More themes and templates in Keynote and Pages, as you’d expect. The core functionality seems to still be there and have mild improvements. The big news is “Numbers” a product that is designed to compete (to some degree) with Excel. What I love about this product is that it makes my boring Excel sheets look more interesting. It has dynamic themes you can apply to improve the look and feel of your reports. Suddenly, even looking at bad financial numbers LOOKS nice. Again, time will tell if this thing can truly replace Excel, but so far its promising.

New Apple Keyboard

The new keyboard is thinner and feels more like a laptop keyboard. This may sound geeky, but that’s exactly what I need! I find that I press the keys too hard on the old keyboard and after a long day of typing (or if I switch between the laptop and external keyboards a lot) my fingers start hurting. Its a sort of subconscious inability to control the pressure I use to type. This keyboard does a great job of leveling that out since its very similar to the laptop one.

The other big change with the new keyboard is the function of some of the buttons themselves. This is a pain and will no doubt cause problems until all the keyboards on all my Mac are in sync. Its simple things like F12 not bringing up the dashboard (its now F4 - and has an icon showing it). However, that has prompted me to find a clever little shortcut that’s built-in to the Mac and allows me to make screen prints (below). Until now, I’ve been using a dashboard widget for this. Now I don’t have to.

That’s all for now. Obviously, I’m not covering much about Notes 8, since everyone else is. But that commentary will be on its way shortly….

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