It Didn't Break

Well, I upgraded to Mountain Lion (OS-X 10.8.2) this afternoon, and it didn't break the installation and reboot. I have a few small issues with some applications and settings, but otherwise, it works, albeit differently with a few notes I've seen so far.

I hate I had to download it from the Apple App Store because it took over an hour to download it where I bought the USB stick version for Lion which loaded quickly.

It sandboxes all applications where some take a little longer to load because it conflicts with the new rules about applications working within their own space and not using other applications.

This is important if an application accesses, uses or load other application. OS-X won't let you anymore, or at least only in a very restricted manner, such with QuickTime.

Apple's software update method through the App Store now sucks. I liked the old update tool through it's own window separate from the App store. I hate this new way because I've moved three apps off the App Store but you can't remove them from the App store and they all say I need to update them, even though the App Store version is long out of date and obsolete.

So here's my answer to Apple on this.

Let users remove applications from the App store!

As for other stuff, I removed or turned off all the notificatioins because I have third-party applications which do the same thing and better. I don't need Apple telling me too. I haven't checked out the various uses of Facebook and Twitter in applications, like Safari, because I use them from other applications.

I haven't tested all the Adobe applictions because I have a lot of them from Creative Suite (CS) Web Premium 3 through 6 with other CS applications. I lost CS 3 with Lion but had all the rest and the same seems to be the case with Mountain Lion, but some Websites indicate some CS5 and CS6 has minor to some problems. I'm happy Go Live 9 works (my favorite Web design application).

Safari is faster loading, but Apple did one thing many people, like me, hate. Apple removed Java from Safari and all browsers. Now you have to download it from Oracle, found here. I miss the old activity window which is still gone under Safari 6.

Mail has some new stuff. The new Calendar size is too big for me and you can't adjust it smaller, which sucks. I don't need big. I don't like the light for the dock bar when an application is open. I like the old light.

I haven't turned on the backups yet. I need to reformat the Time Machine now because it won't access any Lion backups and is wasted space. I have one OS-X 10.7.5 clone and a complete backup of all four HD's, which I'll turn on later.

I'll add to this post as I find stuff that breaks, goes beserk or I don't like.

Real Light Bulbs Please

After the last few years of using the new CFL light bulbs I have replaced them in the bathroom sink and overhead lights with old fashioned regular light bulbs. When these bulbs first went on the market the local utility sent every home two boxes of them.

I replaced all the incandescent bulbs in the house with these, but shortly into the first year, despite the longlife of years promised for these bulbs, they began to fail, about one every 2-3 months. This is especially true of the smaller 13W bulbs where all four have been replaced in each of the two bathroom sink lights every years

And trying to find the same brand and model with produces the same light is exasperating as stores manufacturers keep changing the light characteristics of their bulbs and stores stop carrying the older model bulbs.

So I either buy four new bulbs to get the consistent light or live with different light bulbs. And if you've bought these bulbs you know they're not cheap, especially compared to old fashioned incandescent bulbs. You can buy quite a few regular bulbs for the price of one CFL bulb.

Add to that they take a few minutes to get up to full strength, the cost of them for the false claim of longlife, and the expensive production costs and materials, especially the use of toxic metal (mercury), CFL bulbs are a waste of money.

A regular incandescent bulbs are cheaper, less enviromentally dangers to produce and discard or recycle, and while they aren't cheaper to use, the overall costs is still the same if not lower over the years, but most of all there is one advantage to these bulbs.

They are brighter!

So now I'm back to the old fashioned bulbs where it counts and all the rest in the house are still CFL light bulbs. I'll give Edison is due in the bathroom lights where he's proven to me to be better, still after a century.

The Who

You know The Who the rock band. They had a song "We Won't Get Fooled Again." Well, with Mitt Romney's move to the center this week, dropping his extreme rhetorical attacks on President Obama, to almost agreeing the the President on many issues, just like the last debate, we should take heed of The Who and the lines in their song.

We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again

Don't think about what he's saying now, it's only to appease voters and pander to the remaining independents who haven't decided, they 3-5%, and to appeal to the moderates in the Republican party to be less reticent about him and his views.

The truth is nothing behind him has changed. Nothing inside him has changed. Only his words which we know he throws out just to say something without thinking of it or its effect or impact.

It doesn't change the lies he's told to Ohio voters about Jeep and GM which were refuted shortly after he said them and the ads were aired on TV and radio. Who do you believe Romney or the CEO of the companies?

So, don't get fooled again by Romney, that's all he trying to do, just win your vote and afterward you're a forgotten memory. That's his philosophy with words, fire and forget, and it's his philosophy with people, like the 47%'ers and more so the 99%'ers, like all of us.

Natural Disasters

You now seen the federal government's response through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for two of the most recent largest natural disaster this country has faced, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Sandy in 2012, the former under President Bush and this one under President Obama.

You know republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has advocated and even said he would propose as president to get rid of FEMA. You know the Republicans' view on the federal government helping states in times preparing for, experiencing and cleaning up after natural disasters, meaning either you're on your own or let the marketplace govern the solutions.

So let me ask you, do you really think Mitt Romney would be the better president for the worst time our country has experiened, is experiencing now, and will experience with future natural disaster?

Who do you want as president when we face the worst disasters imaginable?

Who do you want as president when it's time to act to help everyone prepare, survive and rebuild their lives and property after a natural disaster?

Who do you want knowing he will not back away from everyone's government, our government, ensuring all of us will be taken care of?

Think about what you're seeing under President Obama and compare that to what you saw under President Bush. Then think about what Romney has said and believes about the federal government's role in natural disasters.

Is it really such a hard choice now as who should be president?

Don't Try

Don't try to hide access to an image on your blog, Website, photo gallery, etc., simply because you can't hide it. Even the best of the photography or image Websites for photographers can only disguise the pathname to the image where it takes time to sift through the layers of code to find the image.

As a test once someone with a Smugmug account said his images were impossible to download. It took me just over an hour through three scripts to find the server name, pathname and image file to download it. I sent one of the images to him with the note, "Is this the image you're protecting?"

I see this a lot with Websites like Tumblr, Flckr, etc. where you right click and either it won't allow you to open the image in a new tab or window or popup a window it's a copyright image and can't be downloaded. Sorry it can.

This is because all images on Web pages must be a single filename to display the image. Even attempts to slice the photo (called image slicing) must reassemble the image into a single file for the Web page where you can find it.

This is also because you can simply read the code for the filename and search for "jpg", "png", or "gif" since all image files must be one of those formats, except ".gif" files are usually animation files instead of one image.

Anyway, I'm only a novice compared to others, which is the point, if you put it on the Internet, people can and will download it, so don't try to hide or disguise the filename for it. Just let them right click and be done.