Blame Canada…err the President for the economy!

Here’s part of the problem. The President of the United States either gets WAY too much credit for a good economy or way too much blame. It isn’t the Executive Branch that sets the budget, it’s the Legislative Branch. If Congress would give the President a Line Item veto THEN we can talk about who’s responsible for huge deficits. Of course it also doesn’t help when the military eats up any possible windfall (not that there’s been much of that for 10 years) for poorly conceived and executed wars. Every President since I’ve been able to vote has had his own problems of his own making.

Carter: Elected because everyone was sick of the Republicans after Watergate. Inherited a poor economy and was able to do little about it because he was such an outsider his own party did little to help him. Branded a miserable failure even though he was probably the most moral and honest President we’ve ever had. Worst mistake was his indecisiveness when Iranian “students” overran our Embassy. Showed weakness at a time when what was needed was a show of real force leading many to believe that the US military was a paper tiger.

Reagan: The Teflon President. Nothing stuck to him even though there were several scandals equally as bad as anything Nixon ever did (probably our last strong President) because no one wanted to beat up on a guy that looked like our grandfather. How much did he know about illegal weapons sales to Iran to fund Nicaraguan Contras? No way of telling really, but I doubt he knew much either way. Economy was helter skelter except for a brief go go period none of which had anything to do with any policy decision made by him. Worst mistake was two-fold. Going into Lebanon and then retreating after the Embassy bombing and Marine Corp barracks explosion.

Bush da first: Rode the coat tails of the Reagan years to office. The economy was never really all that great but seemed to be more in a holding pattern. Did the right thing by essentially doing nothing. Didn’t allow Iraq to hold or annex Kuwait but then bowed to pressure from our “allies” by not taking him out leading to over 10 years of a large part of our military holding on to no-fly zones. Led many Shiites to believe the US would support a coup, but left them holding the bag when it didn’t work leading to many deaths and resentment that would lead to problems later. Also left Clinton holding the bag when he committed troops to Somalia.

Clinton the last (hopefully): Coasted into office when the other possible front-running Democrats didn’t jump into the race when Bush da first was still riding a wave of popularity after the Iraq “win” and they didn’t want to succumb to the Dukakkis effect. Made a lot out of the phrase “It’s the economy stupid” even though the economy was beginning to see positive gains from the first real computer/online boom no thanks to anything that Bush da first did. Quintessential politician (and no that’s not a good thing) who believed that he was above the law. Lied to a Grand Jury about borking an intern. Allowed the US to be seen as weak after pulling out of Somalia when we got a bloody nose (cleaning up after a Bush mess), and did little in retaliation after the USS Cole was hit by suicide bombers and two African Embassies (In Kenya and Tanzania) were blown up. The economy was strong NOT due to really anything he did, but more in spite of him. When the first internet boom ended, so did our strong economy.

Bush da second (hopefully the last too): Inherited a weak economy made even worse by 9/11. Finally decided to get rid of Hussein but other than the initial attack and defeat of a weakened Iraqi army, blew the victory by dumping every Iraqi manager and army leader that belonged to the BAATH party (which pretty much was all of them) leading them straight into the arms of the insurgency. Hell we didn’t even do that in Nazi Germany after the war. SOMEONE has to run the country and I doubt every Iraqi in any position of authority was a mass murderer.

Now we have President-elect Obama. Impress me not with platitudes about health care. Show me you really care by doing a few things that might make a difference.

 

 

 
1. Actually HAVE a plan to get off of fossil fuels. Does PE Obama really have an energy independence plan that is doable (not that I have any better ideas, but heck HE’S the next President). Energy Independence has the added bonus of keeping our money here instead of sending it out to OPEC.

2. Get us out of Iraq. Time for them to stand or sink on their own. If they make noises that threaten us or their neighbors, we can always beat them down again.

3. Stop the outflow of wealth by giving incentives to companies to create manufacturing jobs here in the US NOT in Mexico, Korea, or China.

4. Find a balance for upgrading our military while not spending even more money. The military should be for defending the US, not political or economic interests that on the surface have little to do with the average American. Maybe if we stop acting so quickly to blow stuff up, people might actually stop hating us for awhile.

5. Reform Social Security. Stop giving out checks to people that either make over say 200K a year or that never paid into it. While we’re at it, take control of the coffers away from Congress who seem to feel like it’s there very own little deficit spending account.

OK, I’m done. Sorry for the rant. It just feels good to say it all at once sometimes. And no, of course I don’t expect everyone to agree with me.

Are Psystar Open Computers really cheaper than Apple’s Macs?

Are Psystar Open Computers really cheaper than Apple’s Macs?

The ongoing debacle of Psystar just won’t go away much to Apple’s dismay. Apple tried to do what they prefer to do at first, which is ignore them and hope they’ll self-destruct. Early on that seemed to be the winning move as Psystar changed its location several times, had its capability of ordering through credit cards taken away, and put out its first computers to pretty much universal derision when they turned out to noisier than Obama/McCain supporters on Fox news.

Apparently Psystar continued selling enough machines to stay in business and Apple finally sued them perhaps thinking that their vaunted Death Star law firm would be scary enough to make them cry uncle. Instead Psystar did something unusual…they sued back claiming that Apple was an illegal monopoly in selling computers that ran OS X. I’ll leave the actual legality of the counter-suit to those that know more about the law than I do (which is pretty much anybody with a working knowledge of it) or the chance that this is an effective strategy in the long run, but it did seem to have the desired impact. Apple actually had to pull back and think about what it wanted to do next. Most lawyers outside of those on Boston Legal (Denny Craaaaane) will tell you that when you’re not sure exactly what to do when your opponent pulls a fast one you delay…delay…delay. Eventually it will all get sorted out and I’m curious what effect this will have on the Mac landscape when everything is said and done.

Apple is in a very bad position. They can’t really say that Psystar illegally pirated OS X as they include a full price retail version of it with every purchase. They most likely DON’T want to go to court and have their EULA (End User License Agreement) challenged or even looked at very hard. They certainly can’t just pay them off to make them go away as this would spur on copycats just looking for a big fat check from Cupertino. The next move sounds like it’s in Apple’s court, but I’m not sure where they can go without something bad happening.

So that’s where we’re at concerning the lawsuit and counter-suit. But what are the real meat and potatoes here? Can you get a computer that runs OS X and runs it well from someone other than Apple? The group that runs OSX86 thinks you can and created patches and software that allows you to install OS X (which is how Psystar made their Mac compatibles) on a broader range of machines than what’s available from Apple. It certainly has been proven to work and on the face of it, Psystar makes pretty cheap Macs. There’s a bit more to it than that and after you add the things that Psystar leaves out it isn’t quite as cheap as they lead you to believe.

The following chart has five different machines on it. Two are 24-inch Apple iMacs and the last three are variously configured Psystar OpenComputer Macs. I decided to stick with 24-inch models (though the 20-inch model might have made things a little cheaper all around) since those machines are the most versatile and more desirable. For those that might accuse me of bias toward Apple, keep in mind that by using the bigger, more expensive models it actually skews the differences more in favor of Psystar. I added $350 toward the cost of all but the base model Psystar Macs for a reasonably well performing 24-inch monitor since there was no way to remove it from the price of the iMacs. If you already have such a monitor, reduce my prices by that much. Click on the chart to see it full size.

So what does this chart tell us? It says essentially that Psystar makes attractively prices Macs. Let’s go over a few of the essentials.

Processors: Both are using Intel’s Core2Duo processors and these are so fast that you probably wouldn’t notice too much difference outside of maybe the 3GHz one. No real advantage to either company there.

RAM: Both are limited to 4GBs of RAM. Both allow for either company to install it to the maximum. One big difference is that Psystar doesn’t charge an arm and leg for their upgrade ($70) while Apple’s is decidedly more expensive. NEVER buy extra RAM from Apple if you can avoid it and I didn’t for this comparison. Advantage: Psystar

Additional Hard Drive: No competition here at all. Apple’s all-in-one iMac has no space for an additional drive and you’ll void your warranty if you replace it yourself. Psystar’s tower-based OpenComputer allows for adding two drives of whatever size you can fit. HOWEVER if you replace the drive that holds the OS, I’m not sure you can just use something like SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner to move the OS and other information. Eh, I’ll stick to my original point which is Psystar allows for at least one additional drive of your choice. Apple does not outside of external storage. BIG advantage: Psystar

Optical Drive: Apple’s SuperDrive just works flawlessly for the most part. It’s an 8X DVD/CD R/RW +/- burner. What’s not to like? Psystar gives you a 20X DVD/CD R/RW +/- burner. I don’t have a Psystar machine so I can’t say whether it works with native Mac burner software (some of the reviews I’ve read didn’t suggest any issues). Advantage (with caveats): Psystar

Additional Optical Drive: OK, now this is just getting silly. What could you POSSIBLY use a second optical drive for…what? A Blue-Ray player/ burner is available from Psystar? Advantage: Psystar

Graphics: Even the lowliest Psystar comes with a 256MB GeForce card with for a small fee a 512MB model as well. Apple uses an HD2600 Pro at 256MB. Advantage: base model probably Apple, high end Psystar

FireWire: FINALLY something for Apple fans to cheer about. Apple includes FireWire 400 and 800 on all their iMacs (for now anyway) while it is an extra cost (though no big deal at $40) on a Psystar machine to add a 3 port FireWire 400 PCI card. Advantage: Apple

Blue Tooth: Another win for Apple if you use Blue Tooth on a regular basis. It’s included in every iMac and only available as a USB dongle from Psystar. Advantage: Apple

Wireless Networking: Apple includes an 802.11n WiFi card in every Mac sold. Psystar offers it as a PCI card. Even without being able to test it, I think this is a clear win for the boys from Cupertino. Advantage: Apple

Keyboard/ Mouse: Apple includes a keyboard and mouse that is guaranteed to work with your Mac and all the shortcuts built into OS X. The usefulness of the “Mighty Mouse” is open for debate (I prefer to use trackballs and every Apple mouse I’ve ever owned sits unused in a drawer), but Psystar does not include either with the base price of their computer. The good news is that just about ANY keyboard and mouse that is USB-based will work. The bad news is that if that keyboard does not include an eject key, you won’t be able to easily open your optical drives without a text command as OS X disables the eject buttons on optical drives. Also if you’re a big fan of keyboard shortcuts, you’ll have to learn them all over again probably using a keyboard better suited for a Windows machine. Psystar does offer a keyboard and mouse for $29, but how “Mac” friendly it will be is unknown. Advantage: Apple

Monitor: Apple’s iMac monitors have been some of the best I’ve seen. That’s not to say you can’t find one better and for the $350 I included in the prices for Psystar’s Macs (except for the base model), you should be able to find a pretty good one. Advantage: Apple

Warranty: Apple includes a 1 year warranty for pretty much anything that can go wrong with your computer. Between all the Apple Stores and authorized service centers, you should be able to find one near you to fix what might ail your Mac. If you have a problem with your Psystar Mac, well…send it Psystar. Both also offer a three year service plan (assuming that Psystar will be around in three years) but Psystar’s plan is cheaper. Even with that, Apple has you covered better. Advantage: Apple

After sales upgrades: Admittedly this is somewhat dodgy since really the only thing you can upgrade on your Apple Mac is the RAM. The Psystar Mac allows you to change pretty much whatever your heart desires as long as there are OS X drivers for it. Advantage: Psystar

OS Updates: Hands down win for Apple here. Psystar actually incapacitates the OS X update feature since they have no way of knowing if an Apple update will break something on your computer. Usually within a few days of an update, OSX86 has done what’s needed to make it work. Still if anything really critical comes out, you be on the razor’s edge waiting for it from Psystar. BIG advantage: Apple

This isn’t on the chart but is worthy of a mention. The only software on an OpenComputer is the OS. No additional goodies like what Apple supplies. So no iLife 08, though it is cheap enough it does add $79 to the total. No iWork (To be fair, Apple only supply’s a 30-day working version) or much of anything else. Fortunately there is a lot of free or nearly free software available for OS X that should fill the gap of what most people need or want. MacUpdate.com and VersionTracker.com along with many other sites can fill that void of your OpenComputer’s life.

The cost breakdown is what it is. For less money you can get an easily upgradeable computer with some options that Apple doesn’t offer. More storage space, Blue-Ray options, and even a faster optical burner than what Apple offers make the Psystar OpenComputer Macs a compelling choice. Just remember that Apple WILL NOT HELP YOU if you have the slightest bit of difficulty and you’ll have to rely on web-based or Psystar phone support to resolve any issues.

Before choosing either computer, you need to make some hard choices. If cost is an overwhelming factor and you’re willing to live with the fact that you may not be able to update the OS beyond the one it came with; then choose Psystar. If you just want a computer that you know will get you through at least 2-3 OS X updates and support from a world-renowned company and can live with the fact that some options are not available for you, then go with Apple.

Who are you and where are you hiding Steve Jobs?

What me worry?

It’s been a difficult couple of months for the typical hard-core Apple fan. The company you hate to love (or love to hate) has been making some pretty bone-headed moves lately and with the economy currently in the toilet can’t be making stock holders very happy either. On Monday, September 29th, 2008, Apple Incorporated shares dropped to nearly a one year low of around $105 US. The stock has dropped almost 1/4 of its value since last week (though it did bounce back on Tuesday the 30th to about $115 US). To be fair, the tech market in general has been hit pretty hard with money supplies tightening up and consumers in a panic over whether their 401Ks will be worth squat by the time a new President takes office in January of 2009. But this isn’t about Apple stocks or if the major shareholders of Apple will have enough money to pay Steve Job’s $1 salary for the year, this is about Apple and why they are just not hitting on all cylinders lately.

 

You’ve got the whole “Let’s release a bunch of major hardware and software at the same time and hope everything works!” debacle when the 3G iPhone was released along with new versions of iTunes, MobileMe (the eventualreplacement for dotmac), the AppStore for iPhones and the iPod Touch, and the 2.0 software for the same. Was there ANY part of these announcements that went off as expected? Planned? Hoped for? Promised?

 

Nope, it all went to spectacular crap within a relatively short amount of time. The 3G iPhone had problems with dropped calls and an odd preference for 2G networks even when the 3G network was clearly available. The 2.0 software was the clear favorite at Cupertino to be blamed unless there was some remote possibility that it could be blamed on ATT instead. MobileMe was so bad that Apple actually had to GIVE away free months to keep people from dropping it like a bad habit on top of lowering expectations on what the service would do as compared to what was claimed it would do in its roll-out. The AppStore has been sorta a bright spot in that there are plenty of apps, many free, that are now available! Well… as long as whatever app you made was cleared as not being a possible threat to some past, current, or future product that Apple may or may not release at some point this millennia. Keep in mind that this is only the tip of the iceberg. If the problems Apple has had lately were limited to just this one day, you could chalk it up to bad karma, foolish product managers, and Steve maybe being distracted by a particularly tasty looking piece of celery but there’s more. 

 

Many of the products that Apple has released aren’t exactly taking the industry by storm either. The AppleTVhas been downgraded by Steve to a “hobby” for the company. That being the case, little to no advertising has been done for the product and very few people that I know of have purchased one. It isn’t necessarily a BAD product, it just isn’t very good and that’s a shame because it isn’t that far away from possibly being great. What does it need and how much more would it cost? Well, it could use a bigger case for one thing. A case that would hold a full-sized hard drive instead of the laptop drive they have squirreled away in there. 40 or 160GBs? Really? If all it did was audio (it wouldn’t be called the AppleTV then), I wouldn’t care, but it’s supposed to be for video. You know, those really big files especially so when you download (or rip from your own DVDs) near-HD quality (whatever the hell that means) files from iTunes you can fit more than 10 to 20 full length movies. I bet you could buy 500GB 3.5-inch hard drives for not much more than those 2.5-inch drives currently in use. Also, why the heck do I have to have iTunes running on my computer in order to have the AppleTV see the library? Why noy just point it to the right volume where my content is stored and be done with it? Sure the content copyright holders probably have something to do with it, but can’t you make them shut up by limiting the device to just one library along with whatever content you download directly into it?

 

Lastly and then I’ll leave the poor thing alone, Apple sells this as essentially a media player for your living room (or wherever). Take it the next step and make it the media center. All your sources would plug into it and you would control which input was current with Front Row and a better frigging remote than the chewing gum sized POS Apple gives you now. Put three or four HDMI inputs on the back with one output. Apple has lots of money in the bank, buy Belkin or license and adapt the Harmony remote to work with it.

The iPod HiFi…nuff said. Did anyone buy this product? If they did will they admit it now?

OS X 10.5 Leopard. Late because apparently everyone at Apple was really busy trying to make a cell phone. When it did finally come out, what did we see? Problems galore. Back to my Mac was not working (and even now is shaky), dotmac issues, a menubar and dock that was so translucent that you could have trouble seeing what apps were there and which were running. Almost out of the gate people were making dock replacements and posting them online. Dock replacements! Something so basic to OS X that it was there even when the crappy beta was released so many years ago and Apple made it so bad that many wanted to replace it! Problems with Stacks, poor support for G5 iMacs with WiFi (I ran into that one myself with my kid’s computer, I finally put it on once 10.5.5 was released) amongst other problems and this was AFTER being six months late. Look, I don’t expect an initial release of something as complicated as an operating system to be perfect out of gate from Apple, Microsoft, or anyone, but it’s obvious that Leopard was not ready and Apple probably released it when they did to avoid Vista-like embarrassment.

 

How about award-winning design? This used to be one of the things that Apple really did well to make them stand out from the pack. What happened Apple? The last real design change for the iMacs was when they went from a G4 PPC processor (the lampshade) to the G5. We’re over two years into moving to Intel processors and it’s essentially the same design. While I’m on the subject of iMacs, any chance we’ll be able to replace the hard drive with a bigger one any time soon WITHOUT voiding our warranty? Heeeeeeyyy, we can access the Airport card and put a little more RAM in…WHOOPEE! We’re cooking with gas now! There are only two computers that Apple makes where you can relatively easily get access to the hard drive; The MacBook (but not the MacBook Pro that we spend a good 1/3 or more for) and the Mac Pro which will run you well over $2000 US.

 

Speaking Apple laptops and design, when are we going to see something different there? The MacBook Pros are pretty much unchanged since the introduction of the G4 PowerBook and how much different is the MacBook from the G4 iBook it replaced?

Apple used to be about taking chances…pushing the envelope and being different. It’s part of the reason why we choose them instead of the safe and certainly more accepted throughout the world Microsoft Windows platfrom. Even Apple’s failures were exciting in a “Wow! That might actually be useful if it wasn’t what anyone really wanted” kind of way. Now they seem to be trying to play it safe, don’t rock the boat. That isn’t what Steve Jobs did in the past and it makes me wonder if he’s really paying attention anymore.

Why the $*&#% am I STILL in South Florida

Why am I still in S. Florida? Beats the c**p out of me!

(Guest post by Larry G)

My family moved here when I was 4, after my father died. This is where my mother met and married my step-father. I attended the laughable local schools, and after high school, did nine years in the Air Force. Then I came back…first because I had a job offer, and second, my parents were still in Fort Lauderdale, which helped my transition to civilian life. Once I got my job, I was pretty much stuck. I’ve been with my employer, a major manufacturer of consumer electronics and other stuff, for 26 years, and as long as I have a job here, I’m stuck here–yeah, it’s this or Chicago. Another more recent reason I’m stuck here is because of the wacky S. Florida housing market. I bought my townhouse in 1994 for $64,000. By 2005, when housing pricing went completely nutso, other townhouses in my community were selling in the $240s and $250s. In 2006, I thought I was being real smart by taking only a small amount of equity out of my house, raising my mortgage to $125,000. In these last two years, much has changed–especially down here. Other than Las Vegas and Southern California, South Florida has experienced the biggest drop in home prices, and one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. Yay! We’re number one!

Zillow.com, while not entirely accurate, gives one a good idea of what one’s home is worth. According to Zillow, my place is now worth about $155,000, a paper loss of nearly $100,000. Worse yet is that two units in my community are currently for sale for $100,000 and $105,000 respectively (those are the ones I know about…). Both have been on the market at that fire sale price for over three months with no sale. Mind you, I don’t know what condition they are in, but if those prices are indicative of what pricing is going to be in my community for the foreseeable future, I’m really stuck and really upside-down. This is just my story–multiply that by a few million…

As long as any storm hitting here doesn’t exceed Category 4 or lower, I’m probably in pretty good shape. One of the big things I invested $7,000 of that “re-fi” money for accordion-style hurricane shutters. With this type of shutter, I can button up my whole house in about 20 minutes. Also, after Hurricane Frances in 2004, my homeowner’s association replaced every roof in the community (almost 40% were destroyed in that storm) at the cost of several million dollars (that loan was just paid off a few months ago), with roofs from a highly reputable roofer (believe me, many are anything but reputable down here), that were carefully inspected by an independent inspection company and homeowner’s association staff.

I want to believe the pricing situation is only temporary. This is a family community–all the townhouses have three bedrooms, and are ideal for an extended family, with a full bedroom and full bath downstairs, for grandma or whomever, so they don’t have to deal with the stairs. It’s also good for retirees who can move downstairs when health issues dictate it. Palm Beach County is slated for a lot of growth in the biotech field, which should attract many new homebuyers over the next 5-10 years.

The only thing that will hurt the housing recovery are the high taxes down here. I’ll try to explain the crazy quilt taxing system in place down here. Wish me luck. Florida does not have an income tax. The state budget is dependent upon the sales tax. Local communities depend upon property taxes for their operating budgets. Basically, housing prices were very low and very stable for so long that the tax rates were set fairly high. When the property values jumped up by a factor of two or three starting in the early 2000s, so did the taxes–except for those who live here permanently and for whom their homes are their primary residence. Those folks’ home appraisals were frozen when the “save our homes” law passed in the early 1990s. Appraisals for those homes (such as mine) cannot be increased more than 3% a year, so my taxes are artificially low (under $900 a year). My next door neighbor, who bought at the peak of the market, is paying about $3,500 a year for an identical home. Some new property tax laws came into play last year, but the provisions are so confusing that I’m keeping what I have (there is a grandfather clause that permits folks like myself to keep the existing system).

I’m looking at the map right now. This evening, there are three named storms, two storm systems that will probably not develop into anything, and one off the coast of Africa that will probably turn into another hurricane. They say August and September are the busiest months, but I don’t remember them ever being as busy as this season. New Orleans got Gustav, we will likely get a glancing blow from Hanna, and now there’s tropical storm Ike, and yet another weather system off the coast of Africa that will likely become another big storm.

Let’s chat about hurricanes for a few minutes… If you choose to live anywhere along the eastern US coast, you are subject to the devastating effects of a hurricane. All you can really hope for is that your home is well-constructed and that you have shutters or other devices to protect the openings in your home. Escape? Hah! Florida is a long and skinny state. On the east coast, there are two expressways that go north, I-95 and Florida’s Turnpike. If a major coastal evacuation is ordered, these two highways (as well as the surface streets like US1) will become instant parking lots. Imagine the logistics of moving somewhere between three and four million people on two highways, and to get to anywhere in the interior of the US, you will need to drive at least 450-500 miles–probably a lot more because the close-by places will be filled very quickly. Yeah, that’s what we have to look forward to if a Category 5 storm (like 1993’s Andrew) comes this way. If it had moved one or two degrees further north, Miami Beach and downtown Miami would have seen destruction of epic proportions.

Oh, did I mention homeowner’s insurance? Well, if you don’t have it, you are going to find it difficult to impossible to buy it. The big insurance companies have cancelled hundreds of thousands of policies, and for those who have insurance, they can count on annual increases of anywhere from 20 to 50%. Every year. And you just grit your teeth and express your gratitude for not having your policy cancelled. The insurance situation is so bad here that the State of Florida has had to be come an insurer of last resort, for all those people who could not otherwise get insurance.

Then there are the bugs. If it isn’t giant mud daubers (really big wasps) putting nests right over your front door, or working their way through your sliding glass door tracks to put their nests inside your home, it’s the palmetto bug, which is Florida’s state dog. These things are huge, disgusting, and they can fly! Thank goodness my cats enjoy hunting them down. Fire ants can strip the flesh off of small animals in hours, and the mosquitoes will carry you away.

A little sidebar is in order here… When I was a kid, during mosquito season, the City of Oakland Park sent out these fog trucks into the neighborhoods to deal with those buzzy devils. I can remember running and playing in the fog with my sister Nancy and brother, the MacHippy not knowing (or caring) it was pure DDT (a long-banned insecticide).

Finally, if it weren’t for the miracle of air conditioning, S. Florida would still be a distant outpost, populated by hardy folks capable of dealing with humidity so high that I swear I grow gills every summer. There isn’t time or disk space to go into some of the other things that make like in S. Florida so interesting…like the fact that we’re out of water. Like the completely corrupt state legislature, not to mention the corrupt local government agencies. Like walking into a business and not being able to find anyone who speaks English. Heck, that goes on in my own office! Oh, and the schools are rated among the lowest in the country. Why? The retiree taxpayers put their kids through school “up north” (translation: New York), and don’t want to pay for these snot-nosed Florida kids’ education.

Yeah, South Florida is an interesting place. From late October to late March, the weather is near-idyllic, but even that doesn’t really matter to me. Personally, I don’t even like the outdoors! I don’t go to the beach (that’s for tourists), I don’t go boating, I don’t go hiking. Heck, the last time I went to the beach, my Nordic complexion blinded half of the folks, and the other half tried to push me back into the ocean, chanting “Live! Live!” I suppose I’d leave if I could, but at present, I’m trapped with a house that’s possibly upside down, and trapped (in a nice way, I guess) with a job I’ve had for 26 years. I can assure you, dear readers, that when I retire, when my house is again right-side-up, or when I hit the lottery, I will be out of here as fast as my little legs can carry me.

Low-priced Inkjets suck

Color printing. It may seem odd to many people today, but we weren’t always able to print in color from our computers. My history dealing with computers and getting some kind of printed output goes back to the mid-eighties and therefore my viewpoint is somewhat skewed by my experiences. My first computer was a Mac Plus and the printer I used was a Seikosha SP 1000. This was (and still is I suppose) an eight-pin dot-matrix printer that while in operation sounded remarkably like running a wood chisel on concrete at 8000 RPM and was about as painful to listen to. There were Laser Printers available but they were god-awful expensive and about the size of a small car.

Ink-Jet printers to the rescue! As compared to their laser printing brethren, they were much cheaper and the output from them (if you didn’t expect too much) was just fine for common documents and maybe even a little desktop publishing, though that could be expensive for large print jobs. Except something happened along the way. Ink-Jet printers got even cheaper, but the replacement ink cartridges became more expensive. OK, I can deal with that. I understand that Canon, HP, Epson, and the like deserve to make a profit. If they didn’t, the people running those companies would be thrown out like yesterday’s bathwater. I can even deal with the fact that they sued companies that were making replacement cartridges since that was their real bread and butter. What I DON’T like is that for the last few years, these companies seem to making these printers with very little in the way of quality and durability.

I don’t use mine a whole lot. Occasionally I’ll print something like a licensing agreement and some holiday cards and letters but I’m mostly dealing with documents on an online basis. I DO expect them to last over a year. I SHOULD expect that if something goes wrong, that it might be worth repairing over replacement. I DO expect that even if I have to replace the damn thing, that I should be able to find another that uses the same expensive cartridges so any cartridges I have left can be used in the new printer. Lately though that’s not been my experience.

I used to use Epson printers until they succumbed to these kinds of bad habits, so I switched to HPs. Didn’t take long before I learned that HP did much the same, so I then went to Canon’s Pixma line. Last year I bought a Canon Pixma ip3300. Worked great until the other day and here’s where the story begins.

My younger son has discovered the theater. During the summer, he and a friend of his during theater camp performed some excerpts from Oklahoma. So now he’s bitten by the acting bug. The theater group has asked him and his friend to audition for their next production except they can’t use any of the material from THAT production for their audition. So, being 12 years old and with a bit of a sense of humor they decided to sing and play the violin and piano to (God help us all) the theme from Gilligan’s Island. What does any of this have to do with ink-jet printers? I’m getting to that.

In order to have the words and music to the theme song required me to go online and look for it. The only place I found that had it was a service I’ll save for another day because they suck too. To make a long story a little less long, I could buy it but I couldn’t save it in ANY format but had two chances to print it out instead (told you I’d get there). After I actually paid $4.95 for a copy of the theme song to Gilligan’s Island (I know this stretches believability a bit in this day of expecting everything to be free on the internet), I attempted to print it. My printer went through its normal warm up routine and then went ERRRRRRNNNNNTTTT. This was not the sound I was expecting. It was still in the print queue, so I changed some things and examined the printer and tried again. ERRRRRRRNNNNNNNNTTTTTT. The printer was totally borked and nothing I could do would fix it. I was afraid that if I logged off the site I would have to pay yet again for the theme to Gilligan’s I sland. The only thing I could think of doing was to replace the printer. This might sound crazy in the wake of losing just $4.95, but I was going to have to get a new printer ANYWAY, so why repay for this stupid theme song?

So off to Target, where they had no Canon Printer that used the same ink cartridges that my now broken one used. So I tried Office Depot and ended up buying a Canon Pixma ip3500. Yes, it MUST be better since 3500 is more than 3300, but more importantly, it used the same ink. I connected it and it wouldn’t see the print queue from the 3300. Online I go to find the OS X driver for this printer (and yes I had the disk, but wanted to make sure I had the latest one from Canon). Installed it, but I had to restart to activate it. In the words of the Charlie Brown trying ever so futilely to kick that damn football that Lucy is holding…AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGH! One restart later and with the tech Gods smiling down on me, the files were still there waiting to be printed. One drag and drop later and I had two printed copies of…yes…the theme to Gilligan’s Island to give to my son.

What I also have are two broken ink-jet printers (I still have the one from before the 3300 as well) that really aren’t worth getting fixed. With all the grief that Greenpeace gives Apple for their manufacturing methods, you’d think they could throw a little tantrum in the direction of ink-jet printer makers for making garbage that isn’t worth repairing and ink cartridges that don’t last very long thoroughly clogging landfills all over the world. Thank you makers of low-priced ink-jet printers! You suck.

Creating a New Media Empire does take some time…

Apparently the Whirling Vortex of Suck isn’t exactly taking the world by storm, but it will…it will. All good things take time and time is a luxury I have in abundance!

Well, not really. However this site costs me nothing to post to and maintain so there’s no reason to pull the plug. I’m waiting for the masses to rise up! Seize this opportunity to tell their slave owners that their products blow increasingly large particles of vomit. 

I’ve got a new post in mind coming up to talk about inkjet printers and why they suck. Stay tooned!

Hello world! You suck!

Yep, just another WordPress blogger. Except this site might be a little different. This isn’t about your favorite music or the pictures you took last week at the Grand Canyon, this site is about stuff that sucks. Don’t make me do all the work, go to the “Contact Me” page, and send me a note telling me about the stuff you think sucks. Yeah, I have some rules about what you can submit. Too bad.