iPhone no more

I mentioned my iPhone screen had exploded when it fell face first in my kitchen. I found a nice iPhone screen repair kit on Amazon for about 15 bucks.

iphone 3G screen repair kit

The kit came with zero instructions, so I just hit up youtube for some instructional videos. There were plenty. Unfortunately the videos make it seem a little bit easier than it really is. Apple really doesn’t want you to take this thing a part.

My first error came when I was trying to split the iPhone open. A circuit board got caught on the screen and started to crack.

a slight crack

At this point, I kept going forward, because even thought it seemed to be cracked I thought it might still work.

Then I really messed up, shattering some crystals in my LCD.

So at this point, I gave up and I am using a 5 year old Samsung flip phone that my roommate had laying around. I haven’t decided if I want to attempt to replace the LCD or try to aquire a new phone.

So now my desk just looks like this:

Leopard, Entourage, and Exchange out of sync

I work at a rather large place with hundreds of PCs and only a handful of OSX machines. Luckily, I happen to be one of the few OSX people.

We use Entourage, which is Microsoft’s wanna-be Outlook app for OSX, along with Exchange for all our e-mail needs. Normally things work without a hitch, however recently a few people using Entourage started experiencing some oddities.

What started happening:

• Inbox will not sync. At all. A quick check to the webmail interface shows all the mail is there.
• Other folders such as Deleted Items, Spam, Drafts synce without issues.
• E-mail can be sent without errors.
• No errors, warnings, dialogs, etc shown.
• Other users with the exact same config experienced no problems.

After doing some quick research there is a quick fix:

• Right click  the Inbox Folder (in your Exchange account) and choose “Folder Properties”.
• Locate the “Empty Cache” section in the middle of the window.
• Click the “Empty” button.

That’s it. It will take a few minutes to resycn but once it is done things should be back to normal. Since this has only happened – randomly – to a few users I’m still not sure what caused/causes it.

Now if only Entourage wasn’t so terrible.

Making Gmail and OSX play nice

I’ve been using Gmail IMAP for my jaredatchison.com mail for over a year. Google App for your domain is nothing short of fantastic. You get to use Gmail on your domain, get the use the pretty web gmail interface, and also get to tap into Google’s fine tuned spam filtering.

The downside is when you try to use IMAP instead of POP3. Things get funky – real fast. This is not a application problem, but is because Google IMAP is very non-traditional in the way it handles labels as folders as well as some other quirks.

I love the Gmail web interface, but at the same time I need a stand alone application. I use the OSX address book and need an application that can tap into that. If I want to use the Gmail web interface my only option is to regularly export my address book and import it in Gmail – something I shouldn’t have to do.

That said, I have tried a few mail apps for OSX and figured I would share my results.

Mail.app

I love Apple’s built-in Mail.app and have been using it since I switched to OSX full time over 2 years ago. It’s fast and sexy. Unfortunately it does not play nice with Gmail’s IMAP workings. If you want to use Mail.app be prepared to do a fair amount of searching to figure out the best tricks to get it working sort of working. Mail.app’s downside is handing Gmail’s labels-instead-of-folders method. From my expereince it can get ugly. At one point in time I had a configuration that worked well enough to use, but things such as my Sent folder often got out of sync just ended up causing a nightmare.

Have Snow Leopard? Good luck. I made the upgrade to Snow Leopard hoping the newest version of Mail.app improved on things. In reality, it actually got worse. A quick search revealed the new Mail.app is even more difficult to get working with Gmail IMAP. After reading this I decided not to waste more time tricking things to work right and started looking for other options.

Mailplane

If you have used Google Chrome – which means you own a PC since there is still no official Mac release (they say by year end!) – you might have played with the ability to create a “stand alone app”.  This is what Mailplane does but with a plethora of extra features. What extra features?

• Drag and drop attachments
• Use multiple Gmail accounts
• Get new mail notifications (Growl)
• Send screenshots
• Enjoy Gmail shortcuts
• Integrate with OmniFocus

If you want a stand-alone app and like the Gmail interface this app is likely for you. I used it heavily for a month (there is a free 30 day demo) and had no problems at all. Ultimately I decided not to use it because, since it is still based on Gmail’s web client, there is no address book integration.

Thunderbird

The last app I tested out, and the one I decided to ultimately stick with (for now) was Mozollia Thunderbird. I’m all for open source and use Firefox, so it seemed logical.

First I tested Thunderbird 2. This is the version you get if you just go to the main website and download. It worked, but wasn’t pretty, seemed very aged, and again – no address book support.

Then I began to Google. What is this? Thunderbird 3 you say? OSX Address Book support? Completely redesigned interface? Works with Gmail? I got excited fast.

Well here I am 2 weeks later happy to report that I am using Thunderbird 3 Beta 4 preview and it’s kicking ass and taking names. Gmail IMAP is working with minimal tweaking. Just download T3 beta 4, setup your account using the Gmail IMAP Thunderbird 2 instructions, and finally tweak a few things to follow the recommended IMAP Thunderbird 2 settings.

Hopefully this might help anyone who has been trying to get a Google IMAP usable in OSX.

New keyboard saves my sanity

Next month (November) marks the 2 year anniversary of “the switch”. It will be 2 years since I retired my PC, bought a Macbook Pro, and starting using OSX full time.

When I bought my original Macbook Pro two years ago I purchased the new sleek low profile Apple keyboard. I liked it so much I got one to use with my iMac at work.

slim and sexy

After two years of using Apple’s famous slim form keyboard, today I am retiring it. How can I part with such a slender and graceful piece of equipment you might be wondering? It all came down to ergonomics. I love that keyboard, I really do. However having one at home and at work, I was typing on it an easy 10 hour/day. This keyboard design is not accommodating to heavy usage – far from it. By mid day it was just not comfortable – my wrists ached and fingers were sore. I need keys with more resistance. I need a place to put my wrist.

About a week ago I had enough. Clearly Steve didn’t give a shit if his keyboard was made for people who actually use the computer for real work. Appearance over functionality! That is the Apple way isn’t it? Thus I started my quest to find a replacement. I quickly figured out why many people use that slim finger torturer Apple sells: the number of “mac” keyboards (command key, not windows key!) is few and far between.

Regardless of the small selection I was finally able to find a replacement that is working just fine. It’s not even comparable to Apple’s when it comes to comfort. To top it off, it’s a Microsoft keyboard. Did I mention it was dirt cheap? Oh, and it came with a mouse. Yes, really.

new hotness

So if you are looking for a solid ergonomic keyboard for your Mac look no further than the Microsoft Wireless Laser Keyboard (and Mouse). The whole combo is $25 bucks off of Amazon.

Snow Leopard and Quicksilver

Last week was Christmas for me, as I received my shinny new Macbook Pro. Getting things setup was minimal and easy since I used OSX’s migration assistant.

My old Macbook Pro had Leopard installed on it and most programs transfered over to Snow Leopard without a hitch. One of the apps that did give me some issues was Quicksilver. The main problem I had is the preference panel was blank.

After some googling it was revealed that this was a pretty common problem. Users performing a fresh install of Quicksilver also are experiencing other problems as well.

To get Quicksilver and Snow Leopard to play nice just downloaded the latest build, Quicksilver-b56a7.tar.gz, from their Google code repo. Everything was smooth sailing once I used that build!