Because my entire day yesterday was spent catching up on work, I had the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference keynote running... but couldn't pay very close attention to it.

And so... today's the day I get to channel my inner Mac Whore and talk about new happings at everyone's favorite fruit-named tech company. If the thought of that bores you, here's your chance to escape! But don't come back until the day after tomorrow, because that'll be Part Two.

   
OS X YOSEMITE

The successor to OS X Mavericks, OS X Yosemite, was presented by Craig Federighi, the Senior VP of Software Engineering at Apple...

The guy is incredibly charismatic and engaging... reaching to near Steve Jobsian heights with his presentation skills. He's also darn funny, injecting wit and humor into his speech at a breakneck pace.

The look of Yosemite is very much a continuation of iOS7. All aspects of the OS from the controls to the icons have been simplified, saturated, and flattened. In addition, transparency effects have been liberally sprinkled all over the interface elements. Which is something I'm not thrilled about because I find it unnecessarily distracting. Hopefully users will have the ability to disable the transparency like they currently can with the menu bar.

Federighi seemed especially proud of the new look for Yosemite's trashcan...

Personally, I don't give a shit what the trashcan looks like... I only care that it works. Which it currently does not in Mavericks. It will show as "empty" even when there's files inside. Hopefully somebody bothered to fix this incredibly basic and incomprehensibly ignored bug.

After talking trash, we moved on to the system font, which is no longer Lucida Grande. I don't know what the new typeface is called, but it's very pretty and easy to read. And as exciting as that improvement is, the next improvement is something I've been begging for... DARK MODE... where the menu bars and menus are darkened so they don't distract from what you're working on...

The window model for Yosemite continues to add functionality for title bars and devote more space to content, which is nice. Apple has also changed the way window controls work... with the green button now taking the window full-screen. Something I could get behind if they WOULD ONLY HAVE AN OPTION TO KEEP THE MENU BAR VISIBLE! I frickin' hate going full-screen because fighting the disappearing menu bar drives me insane. I need to be able to see my clock... my battery level... the date... all that important stuff that's so handy to have available... at a glance.

Notification Center is getting the ability to add widgets, which will finally make it useful to me.

Spotlight, Apple's search system for OS X, is getting an upgrade... and this time it looks more than just cosmetic. All I care about is that it's not a flaky pile of shit like the interface is now (How many times do you end up launching the unintended result? For me, it's practically daily). The addition of Sherlock-esque internet data for searching is a welcome throwback.

Next up, Apple puts the smack-down on DropBox by releasing an online storage option of their own called iCloud Drive. I don't know how it will be an improvement over DropBox, which makes cloud storage so drop-dead easy, but I'll definitely be taking a look.

Federighi then took a look at Yosemite's update for OS X Mail... currently the most-hated app I use every day. It is a buggy, slow, and overall shitty email client that looks downright embarrassing when compared to what Microsoft has going on with Outlook. He promises that they have worked very hard to make improvements with the basic functionality, which would be very nice. A new feature for Mail is "Mail Drop," which allows the seamless sending of files up to 5 gigs via iCloud Drive.

Safari is a world-class browser, but Apple's not resting on their laurels. They've added a number of new features for convenience, speed, and improved battery life... but the standout for me is being able to spawn separate windows for Private Browsing instead of it being an "all or nothing" game.

And then came the first surprise of the day... something Apple is calling "Continuity"... which works towards providing a seamless experience between MacOS X and iOS. The crowd erupted in applause when Federighi announced that FINALLY you can "Air Drop" between MacOS X and iOS. This omission has been categorically absurd and, if I had been in the audience, I would have been screaming "IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME!"...

But Apple didn't stop there, because next came a new feature called "Hand-Off." This nifty bit of tech means your Mac and your iPhone (or other iOS device) now has proximity awareness of each other. You can start composing an email on your Mac, then hand it off to your iPhone so you can keep composing as you walk out the door. Additional features, like being able to answer an incoming call from your iPhone on your Mac or use your Mac to make calls through your iPhone is dead-sexy. That Federighi demoed this by calling a "new employee" — Dr. Dre — was just the icing on the cake.

And there's where Apple wrapped up their look at just some of the new features that will be available with the new MacOS X.

The beta for Yosemite has been released to developers already. Non-developers can join the beta program later this Summer. Then everybody will be able to grab a free copy come Fall.

   
Tune in tomorrow when I unleash my commentary on Part Two of the keynote... with iOS 8.

For the longest time I've been dismissive of those who say that Apple has gone downhill since Steve Jobs left us (praise be unto His name). As a Certified Apple Whore, I pretty much have to, right? And besides, as great as His Steveness was, Apple has always been more than just one man. Steve Jobs didn't do it all alone, and the people who helped to make Apple into such a remarkable company are still around. So, yeah, Apple isn't going to be the same... but it couldn't possibly be the horrific disaster that all the nay-sayers keep insisting: "APPLE IS OVER!" "APPLE CAN'T SURVIVE!" "POST-JOBS APPLE IS DOOMED!" What nonsense!

Except...

As time goes on and the user experience with Apple products degenerates to complete and total shit, my opinion has been changing.

Don't get me wrong... I firmly believe nobody is doing it better... but the detail-oriented Apple that made me commit my eternal servitude over the past decade simply doesn't exist any more.

Let's walk through an example, shall we?

• I receive a coupon code for a new book from Apple's iBooks Store, so I open the iBooks app.
• Immediately, I'm asked to enter my Apple ID password.
• After entering my password, I click on iBooks Store.
• I am asked to enter my Apple ID password again.
• I get to the iBooks Store and click on the REDEEM link to enter my code.
• I am asked to enter my Apple ID password for the third time.
• I redeem my code and it starts to download, so I click back to my iBooks Library.
• I tap the new book to read it and am asked to enter my Apple ID password for the fourth time.

I perfectly understand the need to prevent random people from walking up to my computer and charging a bunch of crap to my Apple ID. Really I do. But having to enter my password four times? What kind of sadistic fucking asshole made that happen? And how badly would Steve Jobs explode over what a shitty user experience that is? I'd rather just buy a physical book at Amazon with their One-Click shopping.

This problem goes much deeper than just inconveniencing customers to enter their password over and over and over and over again... it encourages people to pick simple, short, easy-to-remember, passwords. Which is pretty much the opposite of what you want, because those are the passwords that are easiest to crack. What you want is people using heinously complicated passwords that are very difficult to crack. But to get this to work, you have to make it so the password only has to be entered rarely. The password should be remembered by the system and auto-populate whenever you want to buy something. Of course you have to secure the system with a password... otherwise you're back to square one. But THAT is the kind of stuff Apple figures out so well. Like the fingerprint scanner on the iPhone, for example.

So where is it?

And since one example doesn't build a compelling case, here are a few more things off the top of my head that have been bugging the shit out of me with Apple's "User Experience"...

• The bouncy self-hiding menu bar when you go into MacOS full-screen apps is laughably stupid. Give the user the option of having the menu bar visible at all times when in full-screen mode. Anything less is just fucking annoying as shit. Especially if you have a laptop and want to be able to see your battery level at a glance. Or you want to see what time it is. Or you just want to fucking get shit DONE without having to fight with the damn menu bar every five minutes. I mean, seriously, this is such a huge fucking FAIL that this alone leads me to believe that nobody in Apple's UI team actually USES Apple's shit.
• Why can't I STREAM my video purchases to my iPad, or Mac computer? Why am I forced to download everything in order to watch it? How can it be that Apple is such a bad joke when it comes to content delivery? Hulu, Amazon, Google, and every other fucking video service on earth can stream their stuff, but Apple can't figure it out? They did it for Apple TV... why is this so hard? YOU HAVE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, APPLE, FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT!
• Speaking of Apple TV, how embarrassing is it that Apple doesn't know how to make menus work efficiently? If I scroll all the way right, my next click should wrap to the left. If I scroll all the way to the bottom, my next click should wrap to the top. Otherwise, I'm having to press way too many clicks on the remote to do anything. How is it PlayStation and Xbox has this all handled, but Apple is still using menu technology stuck in the 1980's?
• AirDrop.
• Why does Apple work so hard to conceal purchases I make through iTunes? Over at Amazon, not only is it simple to look through my past orders... they're all searchable too! But with iTunes? Everything is coded into "batches" and nothing is searchable. On top of that, it's just such a bad experience. I have to go to my iTunes Store account settings to look up my purchase history? What sense does this make? This is fucking embarrassing. Even MORE embarrassing? You can't print out past purchases either (once you finally manage to find them, that is). Sure you can hit "print"... but you get blank pages? Amateur hour.
• iTunes Match is clunky and slow, and Apple should want to look into this for anybody to take them seriously in the streaming music arena. I am sick and fucking tired of opening iTunes to listen to my music only to have iTunes sit there like a dumb shit while displaying "Getting iTunes Match Results from Apple" for ten damn minutes.
• Since the dawn of time, when you want to use an old document to create a new one, you open the original document, then do a "SAVE AS..." to save it with a new name. Easy. But not with Apple. You have to use this weird "Duplicate" command with language so confusing that I never know what is actually happening. This is one area where Apple is over-thinking things in trying to make them easier... but fucked up horribly and actually made everything more difficult to use.
• And why is drag-and-drop so fucking broken in the MacOS? Especially in full-screen app mode. 75% of the time I drag a picture out of mail so I can save it on my desktop, the operation fails. And that's just the beginning. Dragging shit anywhere in MacOS is never something you can count on... whether it's dragging into an application... or even within The Finder itself. Why is such basic functionality that people use every day never fixed?
• Speaking of basic functionality... do you think Apple gives a shit how often my MacBook gets stuck in "right-click" mode for no fucking reason at all? And do they understand how the only thing that seems to fix it is to just keep randomly slapping the trackpad with multi-touch until the "right-click" comes un-stuck (or re-boot the whole damn machine?). Aren't they even a little mortified that such a massively huge and frustrating bug has been around for years and they just don't fucking care? Well, they should, because this is epic-level crap.
• Speaking of broken, do you think Apple suffers any shame what-so-ever that their calendar app is such complete and total shit? So much so as to be practically useless? And I'm not just talking about some of the horrendously shitty UI changes they made in the advent of the disastrous design that permeates iOS7... I'm talking basic functionality and comprehensive display of information.
• And speaking of iOS7... when did "style over substance" become a mantra at Apple? Buttons aren't buttons... text is hard to read... icons all blend together... Apple's overhaul of the iOS7 desperately needs an overhaul. Oh... and people over 30 buy Apple's shit. They should try to come up with an interface that acknowledges this for people with less than perfect eyesight.
• And, before I forget... HOW THE FUCK DO YOU TELL WHEN THE SHIFT KEY IS PRESSED IN iOS7? I have been using the "new and unimproved" keyboard for over a year now and I still have trouble remembering. It's such an absurd problem that somebody even created a website to help people out. I ask myself almost daily... "Did Jonathan Ive really approved this stupid shit? Really?" This is Microsoft-level FAIL. Or it was. Many aspects of Windows Phone 8 kick the shit out of iPhone now. Of all the things on this list, this is the one fix I am most hoping to see come out of the upcoming Apple Developer Conference.
• Now let's get to software... does anybody at Apple even give a shit about the software they develop anymore? If they do, nobody outside of Apple would know it. Has development of Aperture stopped and I should switch to LightRoom? Who the fuck knows! Every once in a while a update is released that fixes some bugs or adds some esoteric feature, but any significant updates for the software's main purpose... photo cataloging... hasn't happened in four years. I spent TEN HOURS trying to get an Aperture Vault copied to a new drive. Never worked. Never could figure out why. Never figured out how to get support to get it resolved. Why in the hell would anybody want to buy Apple-branded software when this is what you get? Secrecy is fine, but non-communication is paramount to abandonment.
• And since when did REMOVING features in new software versions get to be policy? The latest versions of iMovie and Final Cut Pro stripped out so many features from their predecessors that I have no useable solution for video-editing from Apple. Hell, even burning a video to a DVD requires a fucking third-party application. Yeah, we get it, the future is digital. But, in the meanwhile, we need shit to work in the present.
• Apple Mail... on any device... suck pretty bad. For something people use constantly, this baffles me. IMAP and Gmail support are completely screwed up in the MacOS app. The iOS app is even worse, because email goes missing at random. I'll see a piece of mail come in, click on it, only to have the mail vanish. Sending mail is equally bad because it will disappear without being delivered. Where did it go? What happened? Can I get it back? If it's not in "Sent Mail" and the recipient never got it, is it gone forever? It looks that way. Who knows? Oh… and do you know how many times I’ve gone to “undo” the deleting of an email only to find that “undo” is greyed-out in the menu and cannot be activated? Insanity.
• Why does Apple even bother with having a data detector for FTP in MacOS when they only allow read-only connections? Why not let me choose to have an FTP session with a client that is actually useful? Because, seriously, I'd rather have NO data detector than to have a link that's difficult to cut and paste without accidentally opening up a half-baked FTP connection through MacOS.
• Why is "list view" in MacOS X so mind-numbingly incompetent? The filename field never remembers the length I set it, and is always adjusting itself to be at least THREE TIMES the width of anything actually listed in it. This isn't just in the Finder, but everywhere a Cocoa app calls a list view (it really drives me crazy in Adobe apps, where the pallets are so small). So each time I have to widen the window enough to find the column mark, then re-size it down to a sane width. EVERY TIME!
• iCloud syncing is awful. Yes, Apple finally... FINALLY... added the keychain syncing that they tossed out when .Mac died, but the underlaying architecture is still crap. If I set up all my Mail accounts on my desktop Mac then sync it to iCloud... shouldn't I be able to turn on iCloud syncing on my iPhone and have those accounts automatically populate? Well, that's the way it SHOULD work. But, guess, what? IT FUCKING DOESN'T! What the hell am I doing wrong? It's a button that goes on-and-off! How can I screw THAT up? And don't get me started with "Notes" where the syncing is haphazard at best. Can't tell you how many times I've pasted some critical information I need into notes on my Mac only to have it never sync with my iPhone. If you can't get that crap right, why bother at all?
• Printing, in general, is an absolute mess. There have been many, many times when I can't even connect to a printer to get anything to print. Nope, you have to delete the printer and start all over again or re-boot ten times until MacOS finally realizes the network printer is available. Any time it takes you 20 minutes to print an email, you know that something is seriously wrong. Unless you're Apple, apparently.
• And is it too much to ask to have a working trashcan in OS X? Half the time it appears empty when there's actually something in it.
• And, lastly, Siri doesn't appear to be location-aware, which is about the stupidest thing ever. Google Maps in my frickin' desktop web browser even attempts to be location aware, but a PHONE doesn't? If a real-life "personal assistant" of mine tried to offer advice based on a location half-way around the world from me, I'd fire them.

Holy crap... and that was just the stuff off the top of my head. Had I put some actual thought into this list, it would be ten times as long, I'm sure.

And there's my problem with Apple. In the past, I would expect that insane shit ruining the Apple experience would eventually be fixed. Now? I honestly don't know. There's obviously people in charge of these problem areas. But is Tim Cook obsessing over making sure these people are getting things to work exceptionally well like Steve Jobs was? Or is he being distracted by shiny things to buy with Apple's massive bank account? Early after his take-over, I was willing to give him the benefit of doubt. But now? We're going on three years and I'm starting to worry.

I want... need... Apple to be insanely great.

Anything less isn't Apple.

Stop digging out that old bomb shelter... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Cold? "Russia is the only country in the world that is realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash." — Kremlin-backed television presenter Dmitry Kiselyov, host of a weekly current affairs show in Russia. Behind him was a backdrop of a mushroom cloud following a nuclear blast. (from Reuters)

You wanna know what bothers me more than the thought of being turned into radioactive ash? I really, really, want to visit Russia. I always have. Ever since I first saw a photo of Saint Basil's Cathedral in Red Square. For most of my life, the idea of it has been an impossibility. But then the Soviet Union collapses, the cold war thaws, relations normalize, tourism becomes more and more common, and suddenly... but not really suddenly... the impossible becomes possible...

And now I'm asking myself... Are current tensions going to blow over? Are current tensions going to escalate? What happens if they do escalate? Have I waited too long? Am I too late?

Last year I ultimately decided to visit Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. But also in the running? A river cruise through the Ukraine, including a couple stops in Crimea...

I guess that ship has sailed... for a while. Or forever. You just never know. How shitty is it that we can't all just get along?

   
• Flash! The first two comic books I ever bought were Green Lantern/Green Arrow #121 and The Flash #277. Not coincidentally, they became my favorite super-heroes for quite a while...

At least until I discovered The Legion of Super-Heroes. And Batman, of course. But even so, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for those first heroes. Green Lantern finally made it to the big screen with a fucking horrendously shitty movie that I hated. Then Green Arrow got a very good television show I'm currently enjoying called Arrow. Next up? The Flash!

It's a spin-off from Arrow, so my hopes are high. The costume is certainly a step in the right direction.

This isn't the first iteration of The Flash on TV. The first was a show starring John Wesley Shipp back in 1990. It was surprisingly good, but limited by the technology of the day. To say I'm anxious to see what we'll be getting in the year 2014 is an understatement. The pilot is filming now. I'm assuming we'll be seeing it this Fall. Assuming the show is picked up. That's a lot of assuming.

   
• Drop. Apple has a terrific bit of tech called "AirDrop" that allows you to share iPhone/iPad photos, contacts, files, and whatnot pretty much effortlessly. Open what you want to share, activate AirDrop, and you can beam stuff to other AirDrop users...

Cool!

Apple has a terrific bit of tech called "AirDrop" that allows you to share Macintosh photos, contacts, files, and whatnot pretty much effortlessly. Locate the file you want to share in the Finder, activate AirDrop, and you can beam stuff to other AirDrop users...

Cool!

BUT YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S NOT COOL?!? EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE BOTH CALLED "AIRDROP," THE iPHONE AND MAC TECHNOLOGIES ARE NOT FUCKING COMPATIBLE! This is outrageously stupid and, for the life of me, I just don't get it. I keep thinking "It's coming any day now, I'm sure!" But then it doesn't, and I get pissed off all over again. Why bother naming them both "AirDrop" if they are so different that they can't even talk to each other? How is it that Apple can be so smart in so many ways but so stupid in others?

   
• Stick! I promised myself that I wouldn't start in on the new video game, SOUTH PARK: THE STICK OF TRUTH, until I finished LEGO MARVEL SUPER-HEROES, but I just couldn't resist any longer. I'm a massively huge South Park fan, and the trailer looked amazing (warning, NOT safe for work)...

And you know what? It IS amazing! It looks exactly like you're "playing" an episode of the TV series. As if that weren't enough, it is frickin' hilarious. As in laugh-out-loud-funny. Not only because it's South Park, but because they've managed to create a fully-realized RPG game that's actually a parody of RPG games... with humor built into practically everything you see and do. I'll want to play it a bit more when I get back from vacation before I write a review... but, if you're a South Park and video game fan, it's pretty much a no-brainer. You simply must own this.

   
• Mars 2. The Veronica Mars movie (which I reviewed here) has only been out for three days, and already the sequel talk has started. Here's creator Rob Thomas Himself..

“With the first movie, because it was crowd-funded, it was a love letter to the fans,” he explains. “I put every character they loved back into the movie. There are a lot of inside jokes. With a second movie, I would build it from the case out. In the first movie, I feel like I did just the opposite. I put all the dessert, all the frosting on there, and then put a detective case in the middle. On the next one, I would want the detective case to be the driving force of the movie.”

It's as if he read my blog post and is answering my prayers!

Needless to say, I would be positively thrilled to get a sequel. Especially if we get a fantastic Veronica-Mars-style mystery on-par with what we saw in the first and second seasons of the show. NOW SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

   
Annnnnd... the end.

Now there's a full year of Bullet Sundays ... because a Very Special THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIFTH edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Mac! Happy 30th Birthday to the Macintosh. It's easy to overlook the importance of something when you use it every single day, but I love my Mac more now than I ever have...

If you haven't seen Apple's look back at Mac innovations, it's well worth exploring If I were forced to pick that one year of Macintosh history that was the biggest for me, it would have to be the release of the Titanium PowerBook G4 in 2001. Not only was it sexy as hell, but it was also the first time I felt I could do everything on a portable that I could do on my desktop Mac.

Here's to 30 more years of kicking ass.

   
• Truth! The greatest concert I ever saw was Depeche Mode's Music for the Masses tour back in 1988. A close second would be P!nk's Truth About Love tour from last year. Absolutely spectacular. If you didn't get to see it... or just want to see it again... it's been released on video and is for sale at the iTunes Music Store for just $15 and it's worth every penny...

Just an FYI... the tour is actually still ongoing, with three more dates remaining for Anaheim, Fresno, and Las Vegas. If you've got loads of money sitting around, it's worth tracking down tickets for this sold-out show.

   
• Bernice! Looks like I need to start watching South Beach Tow! Because, BERNICE! How awesome is she?!?

Holy shit! I hope her ObamaCare has kicked in by now... she's got a rough job!

   
• Unintelligent! I have been recording the new show Intelligence on my DVR, stacking them up in the hopes of discovering another Black List. No joy. This is easily one of the stupidest shows ever to air on television. It's yet another one of those shitty series where the writers are constantly pulling some kind of random techno-bullshit out of their asses not because it makes sense for the story... but because they're too fucking lazy to come up with something... intelligent... for lack of a better word. "HOW ARE WE GOING TO STOP HER? SHE HAS A COMPUTER CHIP IN HER HEAD?" — "I KNOW! LET'S PRESS A BUNCH OF RANDOM BUTTONS AND EXPLOIT SOME HERE-UNTO NON-EXISTENT FLAW IN THE CHIP SO WE CAN HACK HER HEAD AND SAVE THE DAY!" — YEAH! WHO GIVES A SHIT IF WE ARE THE VERY DEFINITION OF DEUS EX MACHINA! IT BEATS HAVING TO USE LOGIC FOR A LIVING! Seriously, I don't understand how this crap-fest ever made it to air.

   
• LEGO! Just when I think that I couldn't possibly be more excited about the upcoming LEGO movie, this comes along...

"Epic" isn't an epic enough word to describe the epicness of just how epic this movie is gonna be.

   
And there it is... a year's worth of 365 Bullet Sundays in the can. And you said it wouldn't last. Shame on you!

There have been rumors for years that Apple is developing a "smart television."

I wish they would hurry the hell up about it, because none of the stuff released by Google, Microsoft, or any other companies I've seen have been worth a crap.

And I am so sick and fucking tired of this Charter TV pile of shit DVR that Im stuck with. They had been promising a TiVo box was coming... since January 2011... and yet a couple of months ago they pulled their TiVo test market in Texas and discontinued their TiVo Premiere service. Lying assholes. Sure you can still buy a TiVo directly and shoehorn it into their system, but it's hardly going to be the seamless experience Charter originally promised.

And since TiVo is the ONLY company to have gotten the DVR right, I'm pretty much screwed.

First of all, the Piece of Shit Charter DVR has one of the stupidest fucking user interfaces of any consumer electronic devices in the history of consumer electronic devices. It's ridiculously... almost comically... difficult to navigate their system. And given the eleventy-billion stupid-ass buttons on the Charter DVR remote, it's unnecessarily complex as well. And then there's the ads... fucking advertisements on every damn menu screen! I'm paying for my cable package each month, yet shows still have ads. I'm paying a rental fee for my DVR each month, and it has to have ads too? Assholes! I can't for the life of my understand why a company would want to buy ad space on somebody's DVR... all they do is irritate people and associate their product or service with something people hate.

But the worst thing about the Piece of Shit Charter DVR is that it does a piss-poor job of presenting your television shows. Watching a letterboxed version of a show on a non-HD channel? No option to zoom the tiny little window of programming to fill your screen! This is absurd. Even if it can't be done automatically, surely they could have a one-touch button to do it manually? I mean, the box knows I have an HD television... most people do... so why in the hell is it stuck in the 1990's?

And don't even get me started about how hard it is to find the shows you want to watch in the first place. You can't "hide" channels you don't get or don't want to see, so you're forced to scroll through hundreds of the mother-fuckers anyway. The closest they have to a fix is a "favorites" list... but it's not persistent, so you have to enable it every damn time you go to change channels. It's beyond fucking stupid and useless, but so is everything else to do with the Piece of Shit Charter DVR.

More and more I think about getting rid of television altogether so I can just use Apple TV to BUY everything I want to watch and not have to deal with Charter's fucking awful DVR at all. But I'd rather have a smart television that makes it a moot point.

Save us, Apple... you're our only hope!

Time to strike up the band and pour the champaign... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Walker. I was sad to learn that Paul Walker died yesterday. Not so much for his movies (because I'm not that familiar with them outside of the "Fast and Furious" franchise) but because he was a really decent human being whose humanitarian work helped a lot of people. His Reach Out World Wide is a wonderful organization, and I would hope he gets some recognition for all the amazing work he did in founding it.

I searched and searched for a picture with proper credit, but couldn't find one.
Why don't people credit their photos?

Rest in peace, sir. You did good.

   
• Comics. I don't read many comics any more... I just don't have the time... but Comixology had a sale on some "Avengers vs. X-Men" titles I've been wanting to read, so I went for it. And ran across this...

Now THAT'S some sparkling dialog right there! I know not every comic book can be Watchmen or Dark Knight or whatever... but this kind of blew my mind.

   
• Maps. My love of maps is well-documented here at Blogography. Over at Buzzfeed they made me love maps even more when they had Brits label American states on a map. The results are fantastic...

You can see the big version of this one (and many more) by following this link. And, because fair is fair, here's an even more fantastic look at Americans trying to name European countries on a map.

   
• iTunes Fail. I have numerous issues with iTunes. The biggest one being that I can't stream my movie purchases and am forced to download them if I want to watch... when every other company in the digital movie business allows streaming. Incredibly backwards and stupid, but Apple says "no." But even putting crap that iTunes can't do aside, iTunes is frustrating because it has so many problems with what it can do.

I have a MacBook Pro with Retina Display. It's display capabilities are beyond HD. Way beyond HD. And yet, I still get this ridiculous error message form time to time when trying to purchase HD content...

But even more shocking than that is iTunes occasionally telling me it doesn't support QuickTime... the fundamental video system of every Macintosh computer since video has been on Macs...

Stupid shit like drives me insane. Partly because it's so random, and you never know what's going to cause it... but mostly because it's Apple, and there's no way you can just call them up and have it fixed. Yes, they have "proper channels" you can go through to report problems, but I have never had a problem solved going that route. Hell, I've reported mistakes in Apple's "Maps" application that have gone completely ignored for months (years maybe?). Oh well. It's Apple.

   
• Nigella. I'm a massive fan of celebrity English foodie Nigella Lawson. She's bright, funny, smart, a heck of a cook, and drop-dead beautiful...

I searched and searched for a picture with proper credit, but couldn't find one. Again.
Why don't people credit their photos?

Lately she's been in the news for some not-so-pleasant things, and it's got me wondering where my breaking point is when it comes to famous people I admire (a more popular American example being Alex Baldwin's recent homophobic rant). Do I care? Should I care? Is it even true? So what if it is? I have the answers to none of those questions. It probably depends on what the issues are and how they affect things I care about. But that doesn't stop the "news" from telling me how I should feel about it. Which is everything "journalistic integrity" is not, but that's where we are now. It's what we erroneously call "being judged by the court of public opinion" when it is, in fact, the media which leads the public to their opinion. And you can be pretty sure that their judgement is going to be on the side of whichever option sells more papers (or whatever). I don't know how we got to this point, but it's been driving me crazy lately because I can't see anything else when stories like Ms. Lawson's hit the newswire. I guess all I can do is grit my teeth, wish Ms. Lawson the best of luck, and hope that she bounces back like Martha Stewart instead of crashing and burning like Paula Deen. I guess. Since all my information comes from the news media on all these people, what do I know?

   
Alas yon bullets now go gentle into that good night...

Well this was a crappy day.

Remember when Saturdays were fun days and you actually looked forward to the weekend? Neither do I, but somehow a rumor got started, and it's been propagated enough times that people actually believe it. Much like an "honest politician," the idea of a work-free weekend has receded into the myths of modern society. In the darkest recesses of your mind you think you remember it... but the truth is that it's a fantasy that dissipated somewhere in your childhood, never to be seen again.

And speaking of fantasies lost in time...

Today I accidentally overwrote a file that I needed. Usually, this would be a huge concern, but I'm on a Mac that's continuously backed up on a "Time Capsule" by an app called "Time Machine" so it's all good, right?

Well, no, as it turns out. When I "enter Time Machine" to go back to previous versions of my files, everything is blank and all my files are missing...

The "space" metaphor that Apple has going on here is ironically apt, as my Time Capsule has become a black hole from which nothing can escape.

Or so I feared.

Fortunately, ignoring Time Machine and manually accessing my backup drive allowed me to retrieve the file. So it would appear that the Time Machine backup engine is working as intended... it's just the spacey interface that's borked.

I'm trying to stay positive and just be thankful that my file could be saved... but seriously? Oh well. Maybe some third-party software developer will take this opportunity to write an app that can restore from Time Machine backups without the douchey interface messing things up.

If they can also write an app that will restore my Saturdays from the drudgery of work, that would be nice too.

Okay then... it took me six hours to get my email restored after the new Apple Mail app in OS X Mavericks deleted every single piece of email on my Gmail account... but I'll talk about that drama a bit later. The short version? If you are using Google's Gmail, pack up your crap and get the hell out. They use NON-STANDARD implementations of email protocols, which means you too could end up having horrible problems like I did... regardless of whether you are on a Mac or not... regardless of whether you upgrade to OS X Mavericks or not. Gmail is a tool of the devil, and get thee behind me, Satan.

And now, a quick pass at the new Mac OS X 10.9 you knew was coming...

"Mavericks" has broken away from the "big cat" naming conventions of its OS X predecessors, but that's not the only shift that's happening here. Bucking a trend that's existed since the dawn of computer time, the update is FREE for any Mac that can run it (which is most anything sold in 2007 and later). This is not only a clear broadside attack against Microsoft Windows, but something that's long overdue. Paid OS updates for Apple products have always been kind of lame since Apple sells every piece of hardware that runs it. And that's where they should be making their money. Keep customers freely updated and happy, and that's bound to factor into their thinking when it's time to upgrade to a new computer.

From a user's perspective, Mavericks is an interesting mix. Yes, it features a new coat of paint on some of the visuals, but there's a lot interesting stuff happening under the hood as well. Add to that a few new features and bundled apps, and it's a compelling upgrade... especially given the price tag of zero dollars. But how will it stack up against my scathing review of its predecessor, "Mountain Lion?" Let's take a look, shall we?

BUT BEFORE WE START...
Please, please, please make a current backup of your computer before you upgrade to Mavericks! Sure, Apple's OS X upgrades are usually bullet-proof and only a teeny-tiny percentage of users will have any problems... but do you want that to be you? If I hadn't backed up my machine, I would have lost all my email. But I took the time in case I need to rewind, and so should you.

And now... on with the show. My thoughts on Mavericks are in an extended entry...

And so I installed Mac OS X Mavericks on my work Mac.

This resulted in all my email being deleted in Apple Mail. "No big deal," I thought. "I'll just rebuild my mailboxes from Gmail." Except that's impossible when Apple Mail deleted all your mail off of Gmail.

And so now all my email... absolutely everything... is gone.

Fortunately I was smart enough to make a backup before I started, so I am hoping that I can restore everything... but this is a fucking horrendous situation. Thank you so much Apple for once again releasing a piece of shit OS that's fucked me over. Hard.

UPDATE: Apparently the problem cannot be laid entirely on Apple's doorstep. Gmail uses a highly non-standard form of IMAP, and doesn't really give a shit. They want you to access Gmail from their website or official Gmail client... and with any other method you're just taking your chances. But, again, Apple is not entirely blameless because Gmail is an incredibly popular service, and they shouldn't advertise as being compatible if they really aren't... whether it's their fault or not!

UPDATE UPDATE: In all seriousness, Gmail is the work of the devil. If you are using it with ANY email client not made by Google, including Apple Mail, you should archive your mail and walk away. Immediately. I've just gone back to using my host email for a while, as I know they are using standard IMAP protocols and aren't throttling bandwidth in any way like Google does.

One of the big new "features" for iOS that got touted at Apple's event was iTunes Radio, so I'm busting it out to take a look.

It's very cool.

It's also very dangerous.

But first we'll start with the cool stuff...

Newly integrated into iTunes, iTunes Radio is a similar service to either Pandora (free-listening ad-supported) or Rhapsody (ad-free membership service through iTunes Match) whereas you can listen to a variety of songs which have been helpfully organized in "similarity groups" based around artists, genres, or songs you like. For example, if you like Depeche Mode as I do, setting up a "Depeche Mode Station" is dead simple. Just search for the artist and pick your poison...

Annnnnd... done! Your station cues up immediately and starts playing...

It's important to understand that this station is not Depeche Mode exclusive. You'll get occasional Depeche Mode, but you'll also get similar artists like Erasure, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, and Eurythmics. Just as if you were to create a "Depeche Mode Enjoy the Silence Radio Station" it's not just going to play that one song over and over... you're going to get that song plus similar tracks.

If you don't have an artist in mind, iTunes Radio has some "featured stations" to get you started. These include stations based on iTunes chart-toppers, popular genres (like Pop and Rap), sponsored stations (like the Pepsi Pulse Pop station), and even "Guest DJ" stations by popular artists and performers...

"Guest DJ" stations have commentary by the "guest" which may add information about the song (if it's theirs) or provide insight as to why they like the song (if it's somebody else's). Unlike songs, which can be skipped, commentary has to be played all the way through.

Which brings us to "skips."

Just like other internet radio services, iTunes Radio puts a limit on the number of songs you can skip past... six per hour (regardless of whether or not you are an iTunes Match subscriber). This may sound limiting but, if you find yourself wanting more than six, you're probably not listening to the right station in the first place. But what if you can't find a different station that's closer to what you're looking for? Fortunately, iTunes Radio gives you options to customize your stations so that they'll be more to your liking and less "skippable." The easiest way to do this is head to the "Star Menu" and tell iTunes Radio whether you want more songs like what's playing... or not to play that song ever again...

I could be wrong, but I think choosing "Never Play This Song" only applies to the current channel. So if there's an artist you really hate, you'll want to ban them from every channel manually. Fortunately, that's not quite as horrible as it sounds. You don't have to wait for each of their songs to show up, you can just ban an entire band from your station, or add them, if you'd prefer...

Also note that you can temper a station between "Hits" (most popular songs), "Variety" (all songs), or "Discovery" (obscure songs). To be honest, I don't notice a heck of a lot of difference at this point, but maybe that's something that will get better with time? Or maybe I just wasn't giving iTunes Radio enough time to build a list. I'm impatient that way. One thing that would be nice would be if "Discovery" mode looked at your library to play stuff you don't have... and perhaps that's the intent... but it's not very effective if that's the case.

And now for the problems. Which are surprisingly few so far.

The most puzzling problem is duplicate songs. On more than a couple occasions, a song will play again for a second or third time after it's just finished. It's happened to me four times now, and I'm not quite sure what the deal is. At first I thought that maybe they were coming from different albums (original album, greatest hits album, compilation album)... but a quick check under history shows this is not the case, so I don't know what's going on...

The other problem is something that may not be an actual problem. I had thought that iTunes Radio was going to be dynamically syncing across my devices. Meaning I can start listening to a song on my Mac, then pick up where I left off when I head out with my iPhone. But maybe I heard something wrong... or misunderstood. In any event, it ain't happening. It should.

And here's where we get to the dangerous part.

With every song played, Apple conveniently places a "BUY ME!" button next to it. Whether it's in your play history, or in the track info window, you're being given every opportunity possible to purchase whatever it is you like listening to that you don't already own. Like so...

Now, this is dangerous for two reasons.

The first is that you'll find yourself buying a lot of music because it's just so convenient. I ended up purchasing $26 of new stuff in just one day (curse you, 1980's and your delicious music!). I'm not an avid Pandora listener by any means, but I maybe purchased two whole songs in the years I've been using it off-and-on. Good thing I have a $50 iTunes Gift Card to burn through.

The second danger is more serious... iTunes Radio doesn't seem to check your library to see if you already own the song. So, unlike the iTunes Music Store, you're in real danger of purchasing stuff you've already bought. In some cases, this is somewhat understandable. The Depeche Mode song Something to Do that I own is, I suppose, different from the Something to Do: Remastered version that Apple wants me to buy. But that's not the case with Yaz's Only You which is the exact same Only from the exact same album I already own (twice if you count the version from the 1999 Best Of... album), and yet, when it plays I'll be encouraged to buy it a third time...

Note that the Upstairs At Eric's version that iTunes Radio played and wanted me to buy has been "matched" by iTunes Match. Apple knows I already own it! The second copy from the Best Of... album was actually purchased from iTunes. They definitely know I own that! So... like I said... dangerous. But, than again, I haven't actually bought music I already own (that I know of), so maybe Apple checks with the iTunes Store and iTunes Match before it actually charges you? I dunno. If this is the case, they really should go a step further and not waste your time encouraging you to spend your hard-earned money on something you already own (but may have forgotten about). It happens when you own thousands and thousands of songs.

So... anyway... danger aside, I love iTunes Radio. Love it.

Once I fine-tune a station, I'm getting even better play-lists than I did from iTunes Genius Mixes. Plus discovering some terrific stuff I either never knew about or didn't recall hearing before. And that's about the best I could have hoped for.

I just hope I don't go broke buying new music while listening to it.