New computer old problems

I finally came around to do my own unboxing images now that I got my replacement Mac Book Pro. Unfortiently could I reproduce the problem with Numbers while having my external monitor connected. I was hopping that it would have been hardware on my old machine or any of the third party applications but this does not seem like an excuse anymore. The problem was still present on the newly opened computer even when no custom software was installed.

I used to get a warning when opening Numbers that the Excel file contained unsupported formats, so I changed the format to normal text on these cells and manage to remove all the warnings. This didn't however solve the problem, I still managed to get the hanging so now I wait for Apple Support to tell me why this still isn't a real problem.

New view on memory usage...

The computer has been running for a few days now and as I was working I noticed that it became extreamly slow and the mouse pointer got looked up. When I checked Activity Monitor I saw that it was using over 66GB of virtual memory (see attached picture).

From my experience with Linux and Windows the virtual memory should be about twice the size of the actual memory but 33 times felt just to extreme. 

After a quick call to the support I was however thought that this was nothing unusual and having 30GB of virtual memory after boot is normal.

Hope this can help some other switchers to sleep tight while their computers are eating virtual memory to breakfast.

Pre login hook?

Still waiting for my replacement computer but I have some other findings which I thought I could share. I have disabled automatic logon on my Mac and are asked for password each time I resume it from sleep. This morning I did however noticed that I managed to type text into one of the widgets before I had logged in. Feels like a bit of a security hole if someone managed to utilize this "hook" correctly.

Return to sender...

And I thought a new computer should increase the productivity... yet another few hours of troubleshooting and Apple support was still not satisfied, to many third party programs - well I thought I was supposed to use the computer as well... well well apparently not.

After todays troubleshooting I identified that the problem only occurred while I had my secondary screen attached. I have reinstalled OS X but not wiped the harddrive reinstalled iWorks (Numbers) and done what I think could be expected.

I got the computer last Wednesday so I could utilize my two weeks return policy and get a replacement computer which felt like a better alternative than wasting more time troubleshooting this one. However the troubleshooting would have ended I don't think I would have been able to fully trust this computer after all the strange things that have happened this first week.

I must give Apple some reward for allowing the new computer to be sent to me before I have to return the existing one so that I don't have to wait another three weeks without a proper computer (or perhaps I should call Windows computers proper computers as well concerning the last weeks problems with a non Windows computer, NetBSD next I assume ;-) ).

Let's hope that the new computer won't have the same problems now.... I let you know once I get it.

Hangings - I prefer blue screens

Just spent almost two hours on the phone with Apple support after I had had the computer freezing twice while editing a excel document in Numbers.

During the time with the support I managed to identify that the computer froze every time I added two lines and started editing on the second line. The problem seamed to occur also when all data is selected.

When the computer freeze everything is frozen except the mouse pointer which can be moved and even change pointer while hovering over the Numbers window or the menu. I tried cmd-alt-esc but that did nothing and the only possibility was to hold down the power button and restart the computer (I waited as long as 10 minutes without any changes or even the clock updating).

I managed to duplicate the fault even when the content of the file was copied into pure text, by using cat in the terminal (TextEdit didn't support simple text files, and NotePad that was my favorite program on Windows...) After opening the text file I exported the file as Excel format from within  Numbers and when opening the newly exported Excel file and started performed the same type of edit the computer froze again.

I do accept that computers freeze and that programs crash occasionally, but I did hope that I would get away from those problem when I switched over to the Mac. I have really hard to accept that a ordinary program such as Numbers even should be able to bring the whole computer to a stand still, and if it did the OS should inform me of the problem, I think that I would appreciate the blue screen next time I see it.

We will see tomorrow what Apple support comes back with after that they have got details about my system and the problematic file.

Dual screen surprise

As the good Mac user I try to become I close the lid on my computer and watch it go into sleep mode each night. Yesterday when I opened the computer the screen didn't come to life and it didn't help pressing the power button, when I didn't find any other solution I pressed and hold the power button for a while and I finally heard that it turned off - Turned off? So it was in fact running before, was my surprised reaction. 

When I managed to open the screen this morning (which is a mission in itself thanks to the thin button which requires me to use my non existing nails instead of the finger to get opened) the computer screen was black again. I pressed the power button but no response from the computer so I closed the lid again, and then the diod in the button started to pulse to indicate that the computer was in stand-by. What was happening? Why would my computer come out of stand-by without giving me any indication of it? Maybe I should turn off my secondary screen which I also had connected - And there it was the login window, since I use the built-in screen as the primary everywhere else I could not have guest that the login screen should have moved to the secondary screen when I got back from stand-by. The fact that only the secondary screen was active even after I logged in got me a bit irritated. Bringing up the screen properties and pressing detect screens solved the problem but now all windows had already been moved into the secondary screen and whatever kind of order I had managed to arrange was lost.

After my first day I thought that I wouldn't have to relearn much to become a true Macer, seams like I might been mistaken.

Where did that go?

I'm now a few days into my Mac experience and have learned to navigate around the texts as requested in the last post (alt-arrows is a good tip). Now I have found new challenges and things that does not behave as I would expect.

I had expected the same stability as of my old unix computers but a few incidences have made me understand that this is just another desktop os, my incidences are however mostly connected to parallels I think - Do not try to change the display settings on your screen within OS X while running parallels in a coherent mode. This has resulted in my screen starting to show just garbage and required me to make a hard reset since I do not know how to make a normal reboot without being able to read the screen.

I have also managed to get a "hang screen" and it was sure much nicer than the blue screen in windows but still not that much fun to potentially loose data. See the screenshot for inspiration :-).

My main challenge so far has been to know where things appear, it does sometime feels like I play hide and seek with myself while I move windows around to see if I have placed something behind them. Here are some of my points about the window system of OS X:

• I like the idea that an application is not just a single window, and that all windows have the same menu. But this does lead to some confusion about which application a window belongs to.
• In MS Win we are used to switch between windows with alt-tab the same concept exists in OS X but we switch between applications instead, and an application can both have multiple windows or no open window at all which adds to the initial confusion for a switcher as myself.
• Similarly pressing the close buttons on windows does not terminate the application but only disposes the actual window, this resulted in that I had a lot of open applications in the beginning but no open windows.
• Window handling between OS X, MS Win, and X is quite different and I guess that I have to accept to relearn how to interact with them to become efficient in this new system. 

Initial thoughts from a first time Mac owner

So after years of envy since Mac OS X first was announced and a true desktop unix alternative became available I have finally made the switch. I got my much anticipated Mac Book Pro yesterday and I will try share my thoughts as I live through the switch.

The first impression when getting the package was how nice and efficient everything was packed, I got the same impression when I bought my previous Apple products (Airport Express, iPhone) and I must admit that it feels good with a manufacturer that understands how important the first impression is.

My girlfriends first impression was that it was nice with a backlit keyboard, and that just one of the things that shows how much effort they put down in making small features that really makes a difference. 

I have used computers for as long as I now can remember and have a master of science within IT, but this was the first time that I really got the chance to use a Mac. I must admit that I was a bit nervous that all my past skills would  have to be unlearned and that I would have to start all over again - but despite my fears I have not yet felt lost, I actually think I feel more lost on my old PC which I been using daily for the past years.

But nothing is never perfect and however small here is a bullet list with my initial irritations:

• The screen can only be opened to about 130 degrees. When the computer is located in the lap the screen can not be opened enough to be orthogonal with my line of sight. An other related issue is that the screen is so heavy (17") so the hinge have problem to keep the screen in the same position when moving the computer gently.
• The trackpad is phenomenal and the two finger scroll and three finger swipes just makes life so much easier. But I do not understand why they didn't use the bigger trackpad from the Mac Book Air now that they introduced their multitouch. The minimal space to have two fingers over each other makes the pinch and rotate gestures a bit tricky since their is not much room to move the fingers after you put them over each other, and this even if I just have normal sized fingers.
• The last thing I like to mention now is the keyboard layout or usage of the keyboard. I am used to use delete to edit text and control arrow while typing to move around and to select word etc. I have not found how to do this on the Mac yet although I am sure I will find the way in the next few days.

I will try to continue this update as I am getting more familiar with this new computer which by the way my girlfriend has named Cosmos.