Existing users, 
User Name bwickens
Member Since 2000-07-18
Total number of Feedback Posts: 152
Total number of comments: 28
Last 10 Feedback Posts by bwickens [ Search for All ]
Apple iPhone 3.1.2 (Mac OS X)
I appreciate that there are a lot of reviewers here who have been having many problems with their iPhones. I used to have issues with my 3G (constant low memory issues, needs to reboot, less than stellar battery life), but since I've upgrade to the 3GS with it's considerable extra memory (I'm talking about runtime memory, not the flash memory for apps, tunes, movies, etc.) and apparently better battery, or battery management, I can go for several days in standby mode, talk time is excellent, I rarely need to restart (and when I do it's because of a buggy third party app) and the Exchange integration is great, at least for me. It's hard to see what these incremental updates do exactly. In my case, they never break anything, and I am just very patient because it can sometimes take a long time to update a 3GS 32GB model (with the backups, flashing the firmware, etc.) They've never hosed my phone, that's for sure. This update is a two parter. A long download, long flashing the firmware OS update, plus a very quick 'carrier' AT&T update which adds nothing that I can see. The last carrier update added MMS (about 4 years too late IMHO!). Sorry some folks are having such trouble. If you live near an Apple store, go hassle a Genius about it... they're usually pretty helpful. If not, call Apple directly. [alert admin]
Saturday, October 10 2009 @ 09:36 AM PDT
Symantec Norton AntiVirus 11.0 (Mac OS X)
Not unlike their tragic bedfellows Intuit, Symantec has long fallen by the wayside when it comes to supporting the Mac OS X. I don't know; maybe the economics just don't make sense for them, or maybe it's a cultural thing. No press release is going to tell us what the real story is, but while every other major developer either had Snow Leopard compatibility out of the gate, or they quickly updated their programs to be compatible, Norton Antivirus was -- and is -- the only major program I had to completely uninstall from my machine after installing Snow Leopard. My wife still runs Leopard on her MacBook. She is a publicist, so receives and sends hundreds of cross-platform files and emails every day, and Norton Antivirus on her machine picks up nasty virii almost daily and successfully repairs or quarantines those files. While almost all of them are Win files, I'm sure her clients appreciate that she is not 'spreading the love' by transmitting infected documents to their Windows machines. She also runs MacScan which detected a nasty piece of malware (a DNS re-router) at her System level, and got rid of it. Norton missed that one. I know there are other options like Intego and Clam, but I've tried both and in the case of the former I just don't like Intego's vibe... too much eye-candy, not enough substance and seemingly punishing subscription routines. Clam can be cool (I haven't used it lately) but it has that quasi-experimental open-source quality about it that I am loathe to risk. And McAfee? I've forgotten if they ever even offered a Mac compatible anti-virus program... I suppose they did once. Lastly, there's Sophos, but not for the faint of heart, and better handled by an IT Administrator as part of a large-scale corporate deployment from what I can tell. So, for now, I run MacScan once a week to look for trojans and tracking cookies. I have my server side anti-spam index set very low so that I can see what is getting trapped before it gets on my machine, thus avoiding the usual bogus attachment infections. I have a fond memory of Norton (Symantec) since the early days of Norton Utilities, but am saddened that it's now just a licensed brand name that stands for very little in the Mac community (poor Peter is off collecting art and having a great time somewhere!). [alert admin]
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Tuesday, October 06 2009 @ 01:28 AM PDT
Auction Hunter 1.2.6 (Mac OS X)
"(not fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 yet: we are working to fix known problems ASAP)" Enough said, [alert admin]
Tuesday, September 29 2009 @ 11:57 PM PDT
NeatWorks 2.1.6 (Mac OS X)
I have a Fujitsu S510M (one of the scanners supported by NeatWorks for Mac.) I've been waiting for v2+ before taking the plunge, needing to scan and work with nearly two years worth of paperwork that was falling out of two vast in-trays on my shelf. Here's the good: - it works fine with the S510M and can override the SnapScan driver settings Here's the not so good: - Emailing: Unlike almost EVERY other program for the Mac, NeatWorks decides that your only email client can and will be Apple Mail. If you use Entourage, or anything else, you cannot email a PDF from within the program. I contacted technical support and they confirmed that's how the program is hard wired. No matter what your default email client is set to be. - Scanning weirdness: I scanned over 300 documents today. When I went back through the list of scanned items, I noticed about 7 of them had, inexplicably, scanned in 'negative' (the background was black and the type was white.) I had to go back through my paperwork and find those particular documents, re-scan them and then they scanned correctly in positive. I have no explanation, other than scanning in more that 50 documents at a time seemed to stress out the program, which performs OCR and PDF creation in the background as new scans are being fed in. - Program Freeze: After scanning about 50-60 documents in a row, the program seems to max out into spinning beach ball territory. Force quitted, then restarted. Fortunately my database wasn't corrupt. - Everything in a bundle: I hate the way Aperture and Entourage store all your data in one big (sometimes many GBs) file. If you open those files (view package contents) you can find all your individual files, but they usually have long random string names and meta-tagged to the underlying database in the program. Neatworks is the same. One big a** file with everything in it, with vague names. - Life is not just a collection of receipts, documents and contacts: Unfortunately, these are the only three types of documents the program allows you to assign to something you scan. Well, what about a utility bill? That's an invoice, not a receipt. Or what about a statement? That's a, well, statement not a receipt. You can create 'collections' and 'smart collections' to gather up all your scans according to criteria (but it's a somewhat arcane process). The Neat folks would be well advised to look at how iTunes handles setting up smart collections. Anyway, the program is essentially a database, so why can't users add document 'types' other than the three listed above. - Amazon receipts are not contacts: You know those little 3 x 5 inch receipts you get in your Amazon box? Invariably, when NeatWorks 'analyzes' those, it thinks they are contacts and creates a new contact with, of course, a bunch of gobbledegook in every field. Anyway, with a lot of manual touching up, and keeping an eye open for the weird inverted scans, it mostly works and does a reasonably handy job integrating with my S510M and generating PDFs when I need them. I had an old PaperPort back in the OS9 (or was it OS 8?) days before they stiffed the Mac platform. Kudos to Neat for at least recognizing that the Mac market is not ALL that small anymore and actually providing SOMETHING for us to work with. [alert admin]
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Saturday, July 18 2009 @ 09:55 PM PDT
SlingPlayer 1.0.9 (Mac OS X)
This update went fine on my MacBook Pro, and so did the firmware update to my SlingBox HD. The quality on MB Pro is noticeably better, but still far from what I'd except on my local network running 802.11n. (My SlingBox is connected to my Airport Extreme via Ethernet.) The offsite is quality is mediocre on my MB Pro with an upstream connection of about 1.5Mbit. And on my iPhone it's f***ing terrible. It's all so 1998... Windoze upgrades and features galore, and the Mac a distant afterthought. Oh well, maybe Windoze 7 will crash it all. [alert admin]
Saturday, June 27 2009 @ 09:51 PM PDT
Apple Safari 4.0 (Mac OS X)
Serious problems with Apple store! 
Like the previous reviewer, the final release of Safari 4 crashes for me when trying to load store.apple.com. If I turn off Javascript in Safari preferences, then the Apple store will load. The irony of this does not escape me, nor I am sure, Apple. Anyway, hopeless for now as I can't run my browser with Javascript turned off. Also tried the usual protocol of disabling/enabling other plug-ins, systematically deleting and re-creating the various Safari prefs littered about my system, all to no avail. It just simply seems like there is some errant code in the Apple store that Safair chokes on. [alert admin]
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Tuesday, June 09 2009 @ 12:12 AM PDT
Box Shot 3D 2.12.1 (Mac OS X)
This is simply great software. I have graphic designers with little interest in the learning curve of more complex 3D software who have been able to dimensionally visualize concepts rapidly and convincingly. The results are impressive -- certainly presentation worthy, and it really helps us test out ideas before committing to dimensional models. The ability to import 3DS for files for custom shapes is a major feature addition. Of course, there are products out there costing many multiples the price of this program which provide more control, but that control comes at a price - both in terms of time and money. I also give a big thumbs up to Vitaly at Box Shot 3D for the excellent personal and rapid support. [alert admin]
Thursday, May 14 2009 @ 11:23 PM PDT
NetworkLocation 3.0.6 (Mac OS X)
For those looking to bring back the magic of location manager, what about trying Location X? http://homepage.mac.com/locationmanager/ [alert admin]
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Thursday, April 23 2009 @ 06:19 PM PDT
()
Like most Equinux products, the interface is artfully produced within the confines of the Apple user-interface guidelines, but functionally it falls flat. In demo mode with a library of around 10,000 tracks, it found about 20 "songs with missing information", but they were very weird finds indeed. It found a single track off an Andrea Parker DJ-Kicks album, with which it 'suggested' that the artist/track title fields should be swapped! Curiously, the other tracks on the same album (rightfully) avoided detection. Then, it found a single M83 track, the title of which is an asterix (*) -- correctly -- but if flagged it as "missing information". Then the $30 nagware kicked in, so I stiffed it. It's an interesting idea, but not $30 interesting. [alert admin]
Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 08:14 PM PST
Apple Digital Camera Raw Compatibility 2.4 (Mac OS X)
Fixes the import orientation problem.
I don't know which cameras -- maybe all -- were affected by the import orientation problem in the last RAW update, but the problem is now fixed, at least with Nikon D700. Previously all images imported as landscape, regardless of actual orientation. [alert admin]
Sunday, December 21 2008 @ 10:39 AM PST
Last 10 Comments by bwickens [ Search for All ]
Possibly THE worst software ever written for OSX
Maybe you are thinking about Quicken for Mac by mistake? :)
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Tuesday, November 10 2009 @ 12:49 PM PST
Sheesh. An ABEND (also ABnormal end or abEND) is an abnormal termination of software, a crash. Old school, ya know?
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Saturday, October 24 2009 @ 06:26 PM PDT
Make sure you are using the latest build of 1Password 2, and go to Safari in your finder, Get Info, and check "Open in 32-bit". 1Password will work just fine. When 1P 3 comes out, it will work with 64-bit mode Safari. Honestly, I've found running Safari in 32-bit mode plenty fast enough, faster than it ran under OS X 10.5.
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Sunday, August 30 2009 @ 07:38 PM PDT
I restarted my MacBook Pro with the shift key down, disabling all startup items. I then starting putting them back one by one (testing store.apple.com each time) and I discoverd - in my case - that the culprit was Intego NetBarrier. I uninstalled it, and was suddenly able to access the Apple Store without a problem. For those of you having problems, try restarting with the shift key held down and see if you can access…
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Tuesday, June 09 2009 @ 11:40 AM PDT
While it may be true that the Ricoh line of point-and-shoots are good, judging by the point-and-shoots that Apple's camera RAW seems to support, it seems geared mostly toward digital SLRs. The point-and-shoots that are supported seem to be the ones most favored as 'carry alongs' or secondary cameras by photographers (such as the Canon G9 or G10, Leicas, etc.) Does Adobe support the Ricoh line?
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Sunday, December 21 2008 @ 10:44 AM PST
Flaky programming of the VT site and obscure error messages resulted in a double posting. Sorry. Blame the Web master here.
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Monday, March 31 2008 @ 10:30 PM PDT
Downloaded and installed the latest version (the one with the GUI). Works like a charm. Found an obscure virus lurking in an old Entourage email and was intelligent enough to NOT quarantine my whole Entourage database. BTW, I received two follow up replies from Symantec, one asking if my problem was solved (No), the other a customer satisfaction survey. I responded to both with some choice words and I vowed NEVER to buy another Symantec product…
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Tuesday, December 18 2007 @ 09:07 AM PST
The "9.0.2" seems to me misnamed. The updater (which takes a VERY long time, but eventually completed successfully) only seems to update certain files, but not the main Flash.app itself. Most of the stuff updated seemed to reside in and around /Applications/Adobe Flash CS3/Players/Flash Player.app.
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Wednesday, December 12 2007 @ 11:04 PM PST
Update: After sending an email to Symantec Customer Support, I received a response which was more nonsense about the order being submitted but not processed, hence no download button (um, hello! What about a purchase screen that says "your order is in process and we will send you an email when it is ready for download" instead of a screen asking you to click on a download button that doesn't exist). Anyway, they claim to have…
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Wednesday, December 12 2007 @ 12:54 PM PST
On the contrary. My wife is a publicist (and a longtime Mac user). She takes receipt of MANY documents produced under Windows, some of which contained virii, and she has inadvertently passed those on to other Windows users, except when she was using anti-virus software. So the issue is not simply one of 'are there any virii for Macs', but can the Mac be a conduit for Windows nastiness... and the answer is, yes it…
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Tuesday, December 11 2007 @ 04:55 PM PST
