May 2011 - Complicated To Simple

Unraveling the Mysteries of Computer Backups

Are you a little fuzzy on the best way to back up your computer? Do the different types of backups have you scratching your head and wondering what it all means?

Well sit back, relax, and let’s have a little chat about that. This subject has gotten a bit confusing in the last few years. This is especially true as technology has advanced and things like virtual machines have come along to further confuse the issue. We’ll discuss virtual machines in a moment.

Backups can be of two different types. The first is what’s called an actual backup. It generally only contains data. For example, if you have a word processor on your computer, a backup would only contain your documents, not the word processor itself or the operating system.

When using this type of backup, if you have a catastrophic failure on your computer and your hard drive is unusable, a lot of reinstalling is required. First the operating system (like Windows), then your programs (like your word processor), and then your backup to get your data back. This can be a time consuming process even if you can find all your software quickly!

The second type of backup is not really a backup by definition. It’s really an image. An image is like a photograph of your hard drive at a point in time. It contains everything! It has your operating system, programs, data files, settings, etc.

In the event of a catastrophic failure, an image can be restored to a new computer and it will look and run just like the old one. There is no need to reinstall anything. This is far more convenient than a backup and saves a great deal of time. There is no need to locate and install all your software or spend time adjusting settings.

Another cool thing about an image is that it’s not required to copy it to a new computer in order to use it. You simply click on it from another computer and it’s ready to use.

This is called mounting the image and is commonly referred to as a virtual machine. It’s a complete computer running in the memory (virtually) of another computer. Programs can be run, data and files added and updated, documents printed, etc. It is truly the most convenient method available for protecting the information on your computer.

In order to run an image as a virtual machine though, your computers processor must support this feature. It is called virtualization technology and is available in most modern processors. If you plan to use this feature make sure your computer can support it before investing in the necessary software. Speaking of software, to run an image as a virtual machine it’s generally required that you have the same software installed as was used to create the image.

There are also backups that you might call hybrids of these two types. For example, the system restore function in Microsoft Windows is a type of image. However, it cannot be restored to another computer or run as a virtual machine. It only restores the same computer to a different point in time. It also is not absolutely dependable and should not be the only thing you rely on for your backups.

Time Machine on Apple computers is an image type backup. It can restore your original computer, or a replacement, to the exact condition of the old one. The image cannot be used as a virtual machine though.

Acronis True Image Home, or other similar programs, are examples of complete image systems. Once an image is made, it is completely portable and can be mounted or restored to another computer.

The other distinction made when talking about backups relates to where they’re stored. They can be on your computer, on an external drive, on a network, or offsite. There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these locations.

Storing on the same computer you’re backing up is the least secure. This is especially true if it’s on the same drive as the one being backed up.

An external drive is more secure. If stored onsite, it can be restored very quickly. It is also not dependent on whether or not your internet connection is working. The disadvantage to onsite is that it can be destroyed or stolen along with the computer that was back up which has the effect of no backup at all.

Offsite is more secure but less convenient. In the case of a physical backup, like a hard drive, you have to go and get it to restore it. If the backup is online it can take hours (or days) to upload or download depending on the speed of your internet connection. If a catastrophic event takes out your internet connection, it could be very difficult and take a long time to get your computer restored. If using a backup system that relies on a third party, this adds another variable to the equation. If the third party system crashes, you also lose your backup.

So now you know the basics of backups. This should be enough information to help you decide which system you want to use. It should also help you understand the one you may already be using.

If this article was helpful to you, or if you have questions about your backup system or one you are considering, please leave a comment and I’ll get right back to you. If you liked the article, please click the “like” button. Also feel free to join me on Facebook at http://fb.com/complicatedtosimple. You can easily do this by clicking the “like” button in the “find us on facebook” box to the upper left of this article.

Thanks for visiting and I hope to see you back soon!

HELP! What Does it Mean: Fragment (Consider Revising)?

Has your word processing program ever advised you to reconsider a sentence you just wrote? Have you ever sat and puzzled over it in frustration, wondering what it was so upset about?

Maybe your sentence wasn’t really a sentence, after all. But how can you tell? What sets apart a real, honest-to-goodness sentence from a phrase or a fragment?

Well, you came to the right place for a simple, no-nonsense explanation.

Every sentence must have a subject, as well as a verb which tells what the subject is doing or being. It must express a complete thought, however brief. If you don’t have those ingredients, then you don’t have a sentence.

“Noun” is the technical term for words that name something, most often a person, a place, or a thing. For example, “woman,” “lake,” and “car” are all nouns. “Woman” is the English name for a female human, while “lake” names a medium-sized body of non-flowing water and “car” names a type of vehicle. Other, less tangible things can also be nouns, such as emotions or ideas.

Every sentence must be about something or, to put it another way, it must have a subject. That subject has to be a noun. For example, take the sentence “The ball is green.” This sentence is about a ball. “Ball” is a name (noun) for a round object. While “green” is also a name (noun), it is not what the sentence is about so it cannot function as the subject of this sentence. Of course, it certainly could form the subject of a different sentence, such as “Green is my favorite color.”

So, to have a sentence, there must be a naming word (noun) that lets the reader know what the sentence is about.

Just sticking in a noun doesn’t make a string of words into a sentence, no matter how long the string of words becomes. “Is green” doesn’t become a sentence even though it contains the noun “green,” because it doesn’t tell you what is green. Clearly, this is a fragmentary thought, and that’s why such phrases are labeled “fragments.” Nor does it help to pile on more words. “Is lovely, pale, luminescent lime green” does not magically transform this into a sentence. There is still no clue as to what it’s talking about.

I’ll throw in one other tidbit about nouns, just for free, though it has nothing to do with determining whether or not you have a complete sentence as opposed to a fragment. But I find that people frequently have trouble with this next concept.

There are common nouns and proper nouns. Common nouns are, as might be expected, ordinary naming words, usually somewhat generic. All my sentence examples above use generic, common nouns: woman, lake, car, ball, green. They can refer, at least potentially, to any woman, any lake, any car.

Proper nouns, on the other hand, are the specific names given to only one thing. Not just any woman, but one specific woman: Hilary Clinton, for example. Not just any lake, but the one named Lake Tahoe. Not just any car, but your neighbor’s new Camaro.

Notice that proper nouns always get capitalized, while common nouns do not. Usually this is fairly obvious, but once in awhile it can get tricky. For instance, “mother” is a common noun because it can potentially be naming anybody’s mom. But if you start talking about your own mom and using the word in the sense that it’s the name you call her, then the word magically transforms into the proper noun “Mother,” because now it’s the specific name of one specific person. Note that this only happens if you start using it as if it was her name. If you say, “I went to town with my mother,” you’re describing who she is (my mother) rather than naming her (Mom).

Okay, so there must be a subject in every sentence, a naming word (noun) that lets the reader know what or who the sentence is about. Let’s go on to the other essential ingredient of a sentence: the verb.

Verbs are action words or words that describe a state of being. Verbs tell what the subject is doing or being. Again, there could potentially be several verbs in a sentence, but there has to be at least one that tells about the subject.

In our sample sentence, “The ball is green,” we’ve already established that it’s talking about the ball. That’s the subject. Now, there’s no action going on in the sentence, but there’s still a verb. It’s a “state-of-being” verb, the little word “is.” What happens if we leave it out? “The ball green.” Sounds like someone who can’t speak English well, like what we imagine a caveman might say, with a few grunts thrown in for good measure.

“The pitcher threw the ball” has an action verb, “threw.” It tells what the subject (pitcher) did.

Sentences can be extremely simple, consisting of little more than a subject and a verb, and yet still convey a complete thought. “The child ran” or “Mary ducked” or “Bob typed” are all examples of complete sentences. Each is a complete (though certainly not elaborate) thought. Each contains a noun that tells who or what the sentence is talking about, and each contains a verb that tells what the subject did.

There is nothing wrong with simple sentences like these, and often they are the best sort of sentence to use when you want to express quick, forceful ideas or actions. If you use nothing else in your writing, however, it will soon become tedious. It may also make you sound like you’re about six years old.

Most people write longer sentences, and this is where they can get confused about whether they have a true sentence or only a fragment. Many times there is the belief that if you just add more words, your fragment will be transformed into a complete thought. But “fragment” doesn’t mean “too short,” at least not in this case. It means “not complete.”

Theoretically, you could write a fragment so long it took up an entire paragraph—or an entire page—without ever sticking in a subject or a verb that related to it. This is one reason I’ve used such short sentences in my examples earlier. “Mary ducked” is a complete sentence. You don’t need to be wordy to be correct. Of course, it also makes the concept of subject/verb easier to see and understand, since nearly everything else has been left out of these sentences.

Let’s finish up with a few longer examples. “As she came out the back door, Mary ducked under the washing hanging up on the clothesline to dry in the bright sun and hot desert wind.” Obviously, this paints a clearer picture of the situation than the simple sentence, “Mary ducked.” But it is not any more complete, grammatically speaking. Notice that the sentence, stripped of its descriptive verbiage, is still about Mary and what she did (duck).

“After coming home from school, ran out in the back yard and began digging frantically in the sandbox.” After reading this, you ought to get a sense that something’s missing. And what is missing is the subject. Who came home, ran outside, and dug up the sandbox? Well, we don’t know. This makes the rest of the words fairly meaningless, as we have no idea who it’s talking about.

You have to have a subject for every sentence. Just having nouns isn’t enough. In the example above, “home,” “school,” “back yard,” and “sandbox” are all nouns (names of things or places), but none of them tell who or what the sentence is about.

“His fingers pounding the keyboard, Bob madly as he tried to finish his blog.” Again, something is decidedly missing. What did Bob (the subject of this sentence) do? We have no idea (although we could probably guess from the context in this instance that he was typing). In every sentence, you must have a verb that describes what the subject did.

And please note that just having a verb, or even several, will not do the trick. In the sentence above, “pounding” and “tried” are both verbs, but neither tells specifically what Bob is doing. Your verb has to tell something about the subject’s action, feeling, or even simply its existence.

Grammar can be a complicated subject, but most of us can get by just fine in our everyday lives with only a few simple grammar rules. You don’t always have to write in complete sentences, but it’s helpful to know when you are and when you aren’t so you don’t end up with fragments by mistake. Using complete sentences will make your writing more easily understandable by your readers, and since communication is the point of writing, that’s a good thing.

Don’t Let Your Website Eat You!

If You Are New to Blogging, Internet Marketing, or Any Other Kind of Online Business, Don’t Let Your Website Eat You!

It’s easy to get so wrapped up with taking courses and coaching, learning the lingo and the culture, your Alexa score, Google Analytics, keyword research, updating content, researching content, statistical analysis, and worrying, that you fail to come up for air.

The fact is there is a huge amount to learn! The temptation, at least for those that are serious about it, is to try and learn it all at once and as fast as possible. While that’s a laudable goal, it will kill you in the end!

There is too much to learn to be having the sprinting mentality. You need to have the marathon mentality. You need to pace yourself so you can stick with it for the long-run and enjoy success. Otherwise, you will burn out and never finish the race.

If you allow your website to be in control it truly will chew you up and eat you! It will steal your sleep. Once sleep is gone, it will chew up your sanity. Next will be your health and vitality which it will gleefully consume and use for its own purposes.

Your neglected relationships will be next. Pretty soon you will decide it just isn’t worth it and give up. If you’re a blogger, your blog will become one of those dead blogs that Rose Mis talks about in her book, Dead Blogs Don’t Lie.

Instead of a great website with great content that’s updated regularly, it becomes a lonely, forlorn, abandoned thing with its walls falling apart and cobwebs in the corners.

You don’t want this to happen to you!

So what do you need to do to prevent this? Here are some steps you can take to make sure you escape the beastie’s teeth and you don’t become your website’s next meal!

Make sure you have a plan.

Your plan should extend as far in the future as you can see. For example, if you have purchased a bunch of online courses, decide which ones are the most important and plan to work on those first.

If you have a course on how to set up your website, this would have a higher priority than something about using social media to drive more people to your website. Clearly you need to have a website before you can drive people there.

For days that are closer to the present, your plan should be more detailed. For tomorrow, you should know minute by minute what you plan to do. This eliminates having to waste time and energy thinking about what to do while you’re trying to do it.

Pace Yourself.

As mentioned earlier, this is the same idea as the sprint compared to the marathon. You need to find a pace that you can maintain for the long haul.

Pacing yourself means figuring out how much time you can spend on a regular basis. It has to fit into the rest of your life. If you have a spouse, a job, kids, hobbies, and other commitments, you need to figure out how much time you can spend on your website and still do a good job maintaining your prior commitments.

Don’t Shortchange Yourself.

Remember that you also have a commitment to yourself. You have to take care of yourself. Make sure you get enough sleep. Also make sure you leave time for some fun. If either of these areas suffers as a result of your online endeavors, you are doomed to failure almost before you begin.

Without enough sleep your creative powers can disappear and you become extremely inefficient. Without any extracurricular fun, your passion can become drudgery and you may even begin to hate it. None of this is conducive to a fulfilling life or an exciting online experience!

Have a Long-Term Point of View.

Just as you need to pace yourself, you need to have a long-term view and cut yourself some slack. If you’re anything like me, you’re very hard on yourself and expect a great deal. You want result now! And when you don’t get the results you expect, you beat yourself up over it.

It’s good to have high expectations. But they need to be reasonable. I find it useful to keep a journal so I can look back and see how far I’ve come. Sometimes it’s much more useful and encouraging to see how far you’ve come, rather than always worrying about how far you have left to go.

This industry is no different than any other in that it takes time to learn everything. You wouldn’t enroll in college to become an engineer and expect to be ready in two months.

Just because this isn’t officially college doesn’t make it any different. I’ve been to college and got a degree in business with a major in accounting. In many ways, I think learning this industry is much harder than anything I did in college.

Realize this is Rewiring Your Brain.

A big reason to keep all the previous tips in mind is that this endeavor is actually rewiring your brain! In your “formal education,” whether it was college, high school, or whatever, you learned mostly facts. Rarely does formal education teach you how to think! That’s why people with photographic memories can do so well in regular school. It’s also why extremely clever people, who think outside the box, sometimes do very poorly with formal education.

What you’re trying to do here in starting your online business is nothing like formal education! It is truly a mind bending and stretching experience. Think about how school was for you compared to learning about this stuff.

I don’t know about you, but I never came home from school feeling like my brain was going to explode. In this industry, I feel that way almost every day. In school it was mainly a matter of putting in the time. The material was definitely not mind bending.

This material is a new way of thinking. It causes you to make connections that you would probably never make otherwise. You have to actually grow and become a better you to succeed. You have to forge new mental pathways that were not there before. When I come off a coaching call or listen to really good teaching on this industry, sometimes my brain actually hurts.

As I said, it is not just information. Your brain is actually being rewired, and that, biologically, can only happen so fast. So realize this and don’t push yourself faster than your brain can adapt.

Give each new idea time to sink in and become assimilated along with everything else you’ve learned. This cannot happen if you have the attitude that you’re going to race through this as fast as you can. Since your brain can only rewire so fast, whatever can’t be assimilated will sort of slide off the outside. You will simply end up having to go over it again.

Be consistent.

One of the reasons to pace yourself is so you can be consistent. Consistency is probably the single most important attribute of creating a successful online business. The search engines and your website visitors love consistency. So while you’re implementing the other tips above, be sure you remain diligently consistent. It’s part of your long-term strategy and will pay off handsomely in the end!

I hope this article has been useful and encouraging to you. I also hope it has provided some comfort and helped you to be a little easier on yourself.

If you have a different take on this I would love to hear what you have to say. If you have additional suggestions or tips on how you’ve kept your website from eating you, please share them here by leaving a comment.

Thanks for visiting and I look forward to seeing you back soon!

Mac vs PC – Part 6 of 6 – Why Mac CRUSHES the Competition

Part 6 of this series continues the amazing Apple repair saga. If you missed part 5 you might want to go back by clicking here and read that so you know what this part is all about

When I got to the Genius Bar, I explained the problems the computer was having. I added one issue that I’ve not talked about before. When the screen brightness buttons did work, if I brightened it up all the way, it would go completely black and I’d have to restart using the power button.

I was seriously impressed with Apple’s method of diagnosis. The customer actually gets to sit there and talk to the tech while they work on diagnosing the problem. It was also impressive to see how deep and technical this diagnosis got in just a few minutes. In very short order, he had gotten into the computer’s log entries and found a pattern of USB faults each time I had needed to forcefully restart the computer. From this he concluded that the keyboard and the trackpad, which are attached to the USB hub, both needed to be replaced. These are all built into the top case so that part was ordered and I left my computer there to have the parts installed when they arrived. I might mention that I was fortunate to have the computer actually malfunction for the technician right off. He would have found the log entries anyway, but it was nice to have him see the problem immediately.

So in under 15 minutes, he had discovered the problem and I was on my way. If this wasn’t impressive to you, what I’m going to tell you next most certainly will be.

A few days later I called to check on the repair. I was informed that they had decided, after getting into the computer, to replace the motherboard too. Apple calls this a logic board. This all happened over the New Years’ Holiday and so the part did not get ordered until January 3rd which was the day I was talking to them.

Instead of talking to a clerk or a receptionist, I actually got to talk with the person doing the repair. I was informed that they had found some other hardware problems (loose cables that should never be loose) which is why they decided to replace the logic board.

Since I wanted to make sure this repair fixed the problem, I suggested that since ram can sometimes be a cause of intermittent problems, maybe they should just replace that too. To my amazement, they instantly agreed and added new ram to the repair list too.

Let me digress a moment in saying that when I purchased this computer, I mulled over the decision of whether or not to upgrade the ram to 8GB’s from 4GB’s. So I asked if it would be possible to just replace it with 8GB’s and charge me for the difference. They apologized and said they had no way of doing that. I was about to leave it at this point when I happened to make a comment, which you can see from all this writing, I’m fond of doing.

I happened to mention how much I absolutely loved this computer and was really missing it while it was in the shop. I had grown accustomed to using it for all my web blogs and maintenance and I was having to go back to my unpleasant Windows computers to perform this task while my Mac was out of commission. If you recall from a previous post, I said I now always try to make up for my years of bashing Apple and honestly express how I feel about their products. This was the main reason for the comment. It was heartfelt and true. I just wanted to say how enjoyable it was and that I really did miss it.

It must have sounded very heartfelt because suddenly the tech was not getting off the phone. He thought for a second and said, “I tell you what: considering how long you’ve been waiting for this, how would you feel about just getting a new computer?” After I picked myself up off the floor I said, “sure, when could I pick it up?” It was about 3pm when this conversation took place and the store closed at 8pm. They said I should be able to pick it up that day if they had time to transfer all my stuff over to the new computer.

This was not the end of this amazing story though. Before I got off the phone, the tech asked me if I’d mind a faster processor. Apparently they didn’t have a 2.66GHz in stock in my computer’s configuration so he offered me a 2.8GHz upgrade free of charge. Also, since my charger was not in brand new condition, he let me keep that too. And finally, as if all this was not enough, he said he would be able to upgrade the ram to 8GB’s if I wanted to do that. I declined this offer after hearing how much it would cost but thanked him for his very kind offer. This incidentally, will be the inspiration for another blog post about how you can save a great deal of money upgrading your own ram on you Mac. More about that later…

So basically all I had to give back, besides the computer they already had, was my empty box. They gave me a brand new computer with new software, new charger, and new box. They also transferred all my information so when I opened my computer it was EXACTLY like the old one was. Oh, and I forgot to mention one other thing. They restarted my warranty on the day of the replacement. They also did have the computer ready that night and I happily drove the 50 miles (we live way out!) to go and pick it up.

Honestly, in all the years I’ve been working with computers (since the first version of DOS) I have never, ever seen service like this. Even when repairs are performed, or a new product is issued (very rare), I have never seen a warranty restarted. I ended up with nearly an 18 month warranty and a new battery to boot! I guess the other part I’ve never seen before is such a willingness and desire to make the customer happy. Several times during my conversation with the tech, he told me how glad it made them to be able to make a customer happy like they had done for me.

Later when I was talking to my business contact at the store, he was delighted to hear that they had completely replaced the computer. He also mentioned how happy it made them to be able to do that sort of thing. Is it any wonder Mac users are so loyal? We’ve barely talked about how great the product itself is and already Apple has won this customer over for life.

Lastly, I told all the employees that were involved that I intended to write about this whole episode on my blog. I wanted as many people as possible to know about this amazing adventure. They then asked me to send them a link to it once I had it written. Again, I have never had any employees be that interested in what I had to say about them. So here is the fulfillment of that promise. As soon as I’m done here I’m going to send them the link.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the story. I certainly enjoy telling it. If you did enjoy it, please click the “like” button and leave a comment. Also, join me on my Facebook page here or click on the like box in the upper left.

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Mac vs PC – Part 5 of 6 – Why Mac Crushes the Competition

To read Part 4 of this series, click here

Part 5 of this series documents just the beginning of an almost unbelievable instance of Apple’s unique and amazing customer service.

First let me tell you the product we were dealing with. It was a MacBook Pro 15″ with a 500GB hard drive, 4GB’s ram, dual core Core i7 2.66GHz processor, high definition anti glare screen, and dual video cards. If you’re drooling right about now and thinking this is a sweet ride, you’re absolutely right! It’s an amazing machine that does not disappoint.

When I bought this computer I was very impressed with the build quality and what a pleasure it was to use. However, I did encounter a couple of negatives. The first was a glitch with the screen brightness keys. These keys worked only about half the time with no logical reason for not working the other half of the time. There was no particular program or condition that could reliably cause the keys to malfunction.

I use the computer a considerable amount of time in low light situations and so this feature is important to me. The other problem was that it occasionally froze up and had to be restarted with the power button. In spite of these things it was still a pleasure to use and, if not for a very fortunate turn of events, I may never have done anything about it.

At this point you may be asking, “why on earth would you not go have that checked out?” The answer to that question is simple. In the Windows world I was used to, these kinds of things are totally normal. If you brought your computer in for service with these problems, they would probably tell you it was a setting, a software conflict, or something else minor. Generally this would not be considered a hardware malfunction. So I just figured some day I would stumble across the reason for it. Either that or I would go into mega-research mode and figure it out once and for all. Fortunately, neither one of these things had to happen.

What eventually happened is I bought an iPad and needed some minor help with it. While I was talking to the gentlemen in the business department (the one mentioned in previous posts) I happened to mention these problems with the computer. He encouraged me to bring it in and have the folks at the Genius Bar take a look at it. I had talked to this guy before about this problem but had not taken him up on the offer. I figured the computer would probably not demonstrate the problem while I was there and I’d just waste my time. Kind of like when you take your car to the repair shop and whatever is wrong does not show itself and you spend a fortune having them chase down the problem.

This time I decided to take him up on the offer. Thus began the most amazing customer service adventure I’ve ever had the pleasure of being a part of. The explanation of the actual adventure however, is a pretty long story in itself. So in the interest of not making this post too lengthy, I will save the rest for the last post in this series.

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To read part 6 of this series, click here

Mac vs PC – Part 4 of 6 – Why Mac CRUSHES the Competition

To read Part 3 or this series, click here

Part 4 of this takes this often-made comparison to a new and unique level. It was at this point in my search – trying to understand why people make the switch to Mac and why they were so passionate about it – that I realized the difficulty in finding the kind of information that I was looking for. Admittedly, this is a pretty big topic and there are lots of reasons people switch.

There are the obvious reasons like being less susceptible to viruses. They have lots of useful software right out of the box. And they don’t having all the garbage (bloat) software that can actually cost you money to get rid of. But there is one major reason that, while seeming pretty obvious to me, is rarely talked about in reviews. Probably because it’s more difficult to quantify and compare. Let me explain.

I’m going to use an analogy here that some might not agree with and might even find offensive. I got in a bit of trouble when I first shared this analogy with some friends. One in particular, who is a very linear and logical thinker, had a pretty difficult time separating any morals of this explanation from the actual point. So as I share, please realize that no moral implications are intended.

The analogy I use is that of modern day church. There is a tendency these days to make churches very plain and utilitarian. The epitome of this is the cinder-block church with a metal roof, a plain gymnasium type sanctuary, and chilly folding metal chairs. This gets the job done, but it is not a place you come to because you want to.

The building does not draw you in. You come because you need to. The building is something you endure in order to achieve a higher purpose. The chilly folding metal chairs and the poor acoustics are examples of things that actually detract from the purpose and tend to draw focus to themselves.

The other extreme in churches is the beautiful cathedrals of old (and some new ones too). These buildings are gorgeous and beckon us to enter. Once inside, we don’t want to leave. Even people that know nothing about God, and want to know nothing, still love being inside a building like this. For those who do go for worship, the building actually encourages the higher purpose instead of detracting from it.

In the end, the building melds with the purpose and the two become difficult to separate. One could also say that the building gives it’s glory to serving the higher purpose and stays out of the way so one can concentrate completely on the higher purpose.

In this analogy, generally the PC’s of the world are like the modern day, plain churches. They serve a purpose, and we use them to get a job done, but they don’t make us long for the experience. In fact, much of the time, we dislike the PC experience intensely. If we could do it some other way, we definitely would.

I have had so many PCs, especially laptops, that have been absolutely miserable to use. As a writer, they sometimes made it nearly impossible to get into the writing mood because of all the stuff (like chilly or broken metal chairs) that you had to put up with. I will get into more of the details on this later. For now, let’s just absorb the analogy.

On the other hand, Apple products are more like the cathedral. They are extremely well designed with the user and the purpose in mind. Their designs are sleek and beautiful (some would even say sexy) and you almost can’t resist picking them up and playing with them. When you begin to use an Apple product, rather than being frustrated and having to overlook the problems to get the job done, you don’t want to put it down.

It beckons you to enter further and further and to stay longer and longer. Just like the cathedral, the purpose and the device tend to meld into one. You suddenly notice that while the device is gorgeous, it also stays out of the way so you can completely concentrate on the purpose. I almost can’t wait to tell you about the difference between the Sony Vaio and this MacBook Pro that I’m writing on now. But that will have to wait for a future post. For now let’s just say that I’ve never had a computer that made it so easy to get into the writing mood and stay there.

I believe this is one reason the Apple store is so popular. It’s easy to spend hours there just playing with all the stuff on display. The products are so fun to use that you find yourself making up reasons to buy them. The iPad is a perfect example of this. It is so cool that it makes you want one just for the fun of it. Of course, once you get one and find out all the things it can do, you wonder how you ever survived without it.

Remind me sometime to tell you about my iPad purchasing experience. For now though, I better let you go and we’ll continue this story tomorrow.

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Mac vs PC – Part 3 of 6 – Why Mac CRUSHES the Competition

To read part 2 of this series, click here

Let me tell you about my first couple of visits to the Apple Store while deciding to get my Mac. I still can’t quite put my finger on what it was about the ambiance of that place. I know ambiance might sound like a strange word to use to describe a computer store but it actually fits. Let me explain.

Most computer stores are filled with sales people that seem to know very little about about their product. They also seem to be more interested in the sale than in the customer. Neither of these were the case at the Apple Store. I know they really are concerned about sales, but they don’t act like it. Both times I visited prior to my purchase, I received absolutely delightful service from a young man in the business services area. He was not pushy or forceful but carefully listened to all my needs and concerns for probably 90 minutes.

This was impressive considering how many people were in the store. It was packed! It reminded me of a bunch of college students trying to see how many people they could stuff in a phone booth. Normally when you get that many people stuffed in one place it’s not very pleasant. This was different though. Everybody, including the employees, looked happy and actually seemed to enjoy being there. I think part of this comes from representing such a fun and functional product.

Apple has also figured out how to make the sales experience as high-tech and enjoyable as actually using the product. In spite of the store being packed to the limit, there is almost no waiting to get help from a salesperson or to buy something. Each employee is a walking point-of-sale Terminal. Each has an iPod with a special back that contains a card reader and is connected to the store’s computer network. So at time of purchase, your card can be swiped anywhere in the store and the employee simply walks a few feet and gets your receipts. You are also given the choice of having your receipt emailed to you. Even the signature process is done with ones fingernail on the iPod screen.

Add to this the fact that every product that Apple sells is on display. All are in full working order, come in various colors and configurations, and are just waiting for the customer to try out for as long as they like. Compare that to many stores where most of the displays are either broken or non-functioning, “empty” versions of the product that were never intended to work.

This whole experience is already very impressive before the customer even touches a product. And touching and using the product is where all the magic begins….

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Mac vs PC – Part 2 of 6 – Why Mac CRUSHES the Competition

To read Part 1 of this series, click here

My entry into the Mac world was a rather unexpected one. As I said in the first post, I was really a Mac hater and needed a very good reason to even consider getting one. The event that changed my mind was a class I took in Seattle at the beginning of 2010. It was T. Harv Eker’s, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind seminar.

As is common in these introductory seminars, he did a lot of plugging for his other seminars. One of these was a course called The Ultimate Internet Boot Camp (UIBC). I knew from the moment I heard about this class that I had to take it and it’s what I’d been waiting for. After a lot of planning, preparation, and pretraining, I took the class in Los Angeles in December 0f 2010. Part of the pretraining included a coaching telephone call that proved to be the pivotal moment in my decision process.

The idea of the coaching call was to answer any questions participants might have and to introduce the methodology of the class. At the time, I was considering replacing my Sony Laptop as it had a lot of problems that made it a real pain to use. I happened to ask this coach for his thoughts on the matter. He said, in no uncertain terms, to get a Mac! This comment was totally unexpected and I asked him to explain why I would possibly need a Mac to take this class. Surely a Windows computer would be adequate…wouldn’t it?

The coach proceeded to go through a long list of why he thought Macs were superior for this kind of task. I was pretty dubious for the entire 90 minutes of this call. Being the skeptical researcher that I am, I wanted all the facts. After getting off the phone, I spent weeks researching the question. I even called him back two more times to discuss my research. At the time, I thought I’d be taking the class in the summer so I didn’t think I had much time to switch platforms and learn the new one before the class started. As it turned out, I rescheduled for December which permitted plenty of time for both.

The result of all this research is that I decided either platform would work fine for the class. I still had my doubts though because this coach seemed so adamant that a Mac would be better. By the third phone call, the coach realized that I was a very savvy Windows user and would do fine with a Windows PC. Interestingly though, he predicted that when all was said and done, I would end up using a Mac. So, he reasoned, I might as well get one now and enjoy the ease, simplicity, and time savings made possible by this platform.

As a side note, I have to say that part of my decision was based on an issue that had nothing to do with any research results. I had invested a lot of time, money (more than a nice Mac would even cost), and planning in this class, and I didn’t want to do anything that would make me get less than the maximum benefit from it. So since the coach was recommending it, and clearly he knew what would be going on in the class, I thought it wise to take his advice. So that was probably the single factor that finally tipped the scales.

As it turned out, when I got to the class, only about 20% of the participants had Macs. As far as I could tell, the success in this class really had nothing to do with which platform was being used. That however, is a story for a future post.

During the months between purchasing the Mac and taking the class, I used it exclusively for everything except my office work. By the time I got to the class I was as comfortable with using it as I had been with using Windows for all the years since Windows had been invented. That’s a telling statement about the Mac because it takes a while to really know your way around Windows. I don’t know how many books I read over the years about using and tweaking it. I was completely shocked at how easy it was to use a Mac right out of the box.

I still haven’t said that much about the difference between PC and Macs. Again, things don’t always turn out how we expect. So I’ll save for tomorrow most of what I thought I was going to write about today. I do think that all this preamble will help you have a better appreciation for what I’m going to say in in the remaining parts of this series. So stay tuned and I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

By the way, just in cased I’ve influenced you to look into T Harv Eker’s Ultimate Internet Boot Camp, I think it’s only right that I give you another bit of advice. Although this was an amazing class, and I’m glad I attended, I believe there are less expensive ways to get the same information. However, if you’re a hands-on learner and don’t like to dig things out for yourself, by all means take his class. You won’t regret it!

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Click here to read part 3 of this series

Mac vs PC – Part 1 of 6 – Why Mac CRUSHES the Competition

The Apple, or Mac, vs PC controversy is one that has gone on for a long time. It goes far beyond the technical world into emotion, loyalty, and lots of other subjective areas. I will confess to being a Mac hater for most of my adult life. However, just like I suspect it is with lots of other people, my opinion was not based in a lot of fact. It was based on what I had heard from others and read in various places. Even more to my embarrassment, I formed that opinion while never having used a single piece of Apple hardware and without ever even talking to a single Apple user or employee. What I find extremely interesting about this is that it’s completely opposite of anything else technology related in my life. In everything else, I go completely overboard in the other direction, spending days, weeks, or even months researching the subject until I, and the subject, are completely exhausted!

I’m afraid this attitude has not been without casualties. Not only have I missed out on some pretty cool stuff, I have also influenced my family and friends away from Apple when, at times, that may not have been in their best interest. It has also gained me a reputation of being rather closed minded in certain areas. Fortunately for me, my family, my friends, and you, a recent turn of events has given me a far more accurate view of what Apple is all about.

In the fall of 2010 I purchased a 15″ MacBook Pro, with a 2.66 Ghz Core i7, 4 GB’s of ram, 500 GB’s hard drive, dual video cards, and hi resolution anti-glare screen (non geek-speak = FABULOUS laptop). I now do all my writing, blogging, web design, and most of my web research and general browsing from this laptop. I still maintain, as I have since the first PC’s, an extensive Windows based network with high-end Intel based desktops and laptops. Most of my business stuff will not run on a Mac without using Boot Camp or some sort of Virtual Machine software so I don’t see that I’ll be converting that any time in the near future. I am also not saying anything bad about AMD here. They are a good company and I’ve built quite a few AMD based systems in the past. It’s just that at this point, I prefer the Intel processors for the type of work I do.

Since the purchase of this laptop, I have endeavored to become as much of an expert in all things Mac as I am in the PC world. I have also done my best to repent of my very biased attitude that I had about Mac. To those that have heard me badmouth Apple, I have admitted my error and given a more accurate report. To others, I try to give the most balanced assessment I can without badmouthing anybody. I honestly believe this whole thing has made me a better person and I hope a better adviser to those I serve.

When is stared writing this blog entry, I did not expect to be telling you so much about myself and did expect to get more into the differences between PCs and Macs. However, things do not always go according to plan. I think it’s important to know where I came from in order to better appreciate what I say in the future. The remaining 5 parts of this series will go into much more detail about the differences.

I think you’ll be surprised and hopefully delighted with my take on the subject. Before I purchased my Mac I did my usual exhaustive research to see if it’s what I really should do. It was a difficult choice because, even with the thousands of articles and blogs about this subject, none definitively answered my question of why people switched in a way that was convincing to me. Nobody seemed to capture the true essence of the issue. My writing style is such that when I’m passionate about something, I tend to wax a little poetic and get into the subjective as well as the objective. So I can almost guarantee that you will find a refreshing and unique view of this subject as we continue on.

Please join me tomorrow for part 2 of Mac vs PC. If you enjoyed this article, please comment and tell me what you liked about it. If you prefer, you can head over to my Facebook page by clicking here, and leave a comment there. Also, if you would like a simple, non geek-speak explanation of something technical, let me know and I’ll see about writing a blog post about it.

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Click here to go to Part 2 of this series.

How to Repair a CD or DVD for Under Ten Cents

Has this ever happened to you? Your popcorn and liquid refreshments are ready. You’re snuggling with your favorite person. You’ve selected the perfect movie and the whirring of the player has begun. Then suddenly, you get a blue screen with something like “unable to read disc.” Or part way through your movie it looks like the picture has been chopped up and randomly rearranged.

No matter what you do, it just won’t play and your hopes for the perfect evening seem ruined. You discover your disc is scratched and you’re probably looking at buying a replacement. Of course you can take it to a video store for repair but that will cost you and it’s not available in time to save the evening.

This used to happen to me a lot, until I discovered the perfect solution! It costs less than ten cents and it’s almost instant, so your evening is hardly even interrupted.

Believe it or not, the answer is toothpaste! Yes, you heard me right, toothpaste. Before I tell you the process, let’s talk a little about how discs are made.

CD’s and DVD’s are several layers thick. They have a clear-plastic layer on the top and bottom. The recording media is tucked safely between the layers. So when a disc is scratched, unless the scratches are very deep, the recording is usually not damaged. A DVD player reads the disc by bouncing a laser beam off the media inside the disc. The laser must pass through the clear layer, bounce off the inside, and then pass back out to be read by a sensor. Scratches on the outside layer deflect the laser making it more difficult to read the data precisely. Heavy scratching will make this process impossible.

Those fancy machines at the video store repair discs by buffing out the scratches. But did you know that you can do the same thing at home? You don’t even need a fancy machine. All you need is a toothbrush or fingers, and some toothpaste. Most modern toothpaste has micro-fine grit that helps remove tarter and polish your teeth. This same grit is perfect for polishing your discs. It’s the same principal behind rubbing compound for your car or jewelers rouge.

Simply apply a half inch of toothpaste to your disk, wet your fingers, and rub. The rubbing should be in small circular motions or back and forth from the middle hole to the outside. Never rub in the direction of the disc’s rotation. You can also use a toothbrush or a small piece of cloth. For deep scratches it may take 5 or 10 minutes of buffing. Don’t use too much water. The toothpaste should remain a pasty consistency but not too dry.

Most modern discs are completely waterproof so it doesn’t matter how wet it gets. If it has a paper label on the opposite side, try to keep it as dry as possible. Rinse the disc after this process and examine it carefully to see if any scratches remain. Repeat as many times as necessary until all scratches are gone. It takes a long time (several hours) to buff through a disc layer so don’t worry about causing more damage. Make sure the disc is completely dry and spotlessly clean before replacing in the player.

Your disc should now play perfectly. You can also enjoy the fact that the repair cost you less than ten cents and was nearly instant. Before I go though, let me give you another little tip. When you clean your discs, make sure you rub from the center to the outside, or in small circles. Never, go around the disc. This will cause tiny scratches that run in the same direction as the recorded media. Scratches of this type seem to cause more laser distortion than other types.

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