A funny thing happened on my way to San Jose this week. Well actually the last thing I was thinking about on Saturday was laughing. I left for Detroit Metro Airport early Saturday morning. I got to the airport with my usual two bags. My suitcase and my large laptop bag. Since I planed on doing some shooting once I arrived in San Jose that afternoon I also had a fair amount of camera gear too.
I’m no stranger to TSA "bag checks". In other words I have a lot of electronic gear, batteries, etc. that sometimes triggers the x-ray person to call for a "bag check." Normally I can predict which items are going to cause problems and I take them out ahead of time and put them in a bin. So I had two bins. One with my jacket and misc. electronic gadgets and one with my laptop all by itself. Well apparently I didn’t take out enough stuff and I got pulled aside while they performed a detailed search of my laptop bag. So this meant gathering up my two bins and walking over to the TSA desk. Since I didn’t have enough free hands to carry the bins separately, I stacked them on top of each other.
Red Alert!
You know how they swab your bag/items with the little cloth and put it in the machine to check for explosive residue and other elements? Well mine turned red and the alarm went off! I just knew it would be a matter of moments before two guys came up and hauled me off to some dark room. However, that didn’t happen. I did get a pat down and continued checks on my bag. The TSA guy was nice but a little freaked out and even went to his supervisor for advice. They tried another machine and everything came up green and I was on my way. So I put all the stuff back in my bag from the bin.
Nice flight
The flight was uneventful and I just watched a movie on my iPhone, read a magazine and listened to music. Once I got to San Francisco I used my regular car service to get me to downtown San Jose.
That sinking feeling - 40 minutes of panic!
Once I got to my room (about 5 1/2 hours later from leaving Detroit Metro). I decided to pull out my MacBook Pro and do some testing with my lighting while shooting tethered. I unzipped it and looked down and didn’t see my MacBook Pro. My immediate thought was, "oh I must have taken it out already and it’s on the desk behind me - right?" So I slowly turned around to see that it wasn’t there! Then I thought, "oh it’s on the bed behind the bag!" It wasn’t there either. My heart sank! I started freaking out wondering if at any time did I not have control of my bag. Then it hit me that I never put my laptop back in my bag at the TSA desk 5 1/2 hours ago! OMG! It was in the second bin on the bottom of the first one.
I pulled out my iPhone and called information frantically seeking the number for the Detroit Metro Airport. I got the number and of course NO ONE ANSWERED! No recording, no busy signal, just NO ANSWER! I called back 3 times and it just rang! Then I called information again and asked if they had a different number. They did, I called it and got a FAX tone! GREAAAAAAT! WTF! I called and asked for the number to TSA. "What’s TSA?" OMG! You’re kidding me right? I was really freaking out at this point! So now I called Northwest Airlines and begged for them to either give me a number for the airport that someone would answer or call them for me. Luckily I got a NWA rep that felt my pain and went out of her way to try to get a human being at the airport. She did reach one person who informed her that when items like laptops are left at the security check points, they are turned over to the police. She then found the number to lost and found. I thanked her and called that number only to hear and I kid you not - "our office hours are Monday through Friday from 9AM-5PM, please call back during those hours!" I was dying at this point! So I remembered what she told me about the police and I called and got the number to Michigan State Police and called them. Mike answered the phone and checked his computer log and yes someone turned in an Apple laptop around 8:30AM that morning!!! I had already asked my wife to head to the airport because I wasn’t getting anywhere on the phone. So I called her and had her head to the police station instead.
A happy ending
My wife picked up my MacBook Pro that evening from the Michigan State Police station. One of my colleagues was heading to San Jose the next day for the same conference I’m attending and he met with her to pick it up so that he could bring it out to me. I’m typing this blog entry on it and all is well. However, besides actually forgetting to put it back in my bag, it really reminded about some common sense things that we should all do:
What you should do besides not being forgetful
First and foremost I had done a complete backup the night before I left. So I had a backup at home. However, now I’m thinking I should also travel with a backup drive too. Even if I had lost my laptop for good and was willing to go out and buy a brand new one that day, my backup would have been at home (on my Time Capsule) and I would not have been able to restore until I returned home days later, which would have meant a very unproductive week! Also before I leave the house I just close the lid and let my MacBook go to sleep. So if someone had stolen it, all they would have had to do is simply OPEN THE LID and they would have access to everything! I do have a password set for login/boot up, but I didn’t have the feature enabled that requires a password upon waking from sleep/screen saver (I do now!).
Lastly, I plan to tape my business card to the bottom of it. The police had no way to know who was the owner and who to call? There was nothing on the outside of the laptop itself that identified the owner! Mike from the Michigan State Police told me that they get 3-4 laptops a day! - WOW!
Lesson learned and it will NEVER happen again!
Written by terrywhite on April 15th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Where's Terry White?.
photo by R.C. Concepcion
I had a blast at this year’s Photoshop World in Orlando! Being a Trekkie and having a Star Trek based theme was also a bonus. I wanted to take a moment here and THANK all the attendees that took time to come up to me and tell me that they appreciated the work that I was doing. I couldn’t believe how many readers of this very blog were at the show. It was great to hear all the feedback.
If you missed the show you’ll definitely want to check out my Creative Suite Podcast today for the special Photoshop World Keynote Episode. For those of you who were at the keynote, you’ll note that I had to leave out the funny spoof videos as they will be shown again at the Vegas show in the fall and I didn’t want to spoil the surprises. However, you will see Adobe’s SVP Johnny L. and Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty show off the latest and greatest Adobe technologies including some sneak peeks at CS4 technologies.
Also whether you were at the show or not, you’ll want to check out the Photoshop World Blog which has several highlights and photos from the event. There are only two shows that I actually "enjoy" working/attending and those shows are Photoshop World and Macworld Expo. So I hope to see you in September at Photoshop World in Las Vegas. As you would expect, I bought some photography gear at the show and I’ll be reviewing it in the coming days. So stay tuned.
Written by terrywhite on April 7th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Adobe and Digital Photography and Software and Where's Terry White?.
Teaching Intro to InDesign CS3 at Photoshop World in Orlando - Photo by R.C.
I gotta say that I’m having some really good classes here in Orlando at Photoshop World. Yesterday, I had standing room only in the Adobe Theater on the show floor as I was showing the NEW Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 Public Beta and today I had about 300 people in my InDesign CS3 class.
There are about 2,700 people in attendance at this year’s east coast show. Everyone I have talked to is jazzed about the show and all the things that they are learning. I want to thank all of you who took the time to come up to me and let me know that you enjoy this blog and my Creative Suite Podcast.
Well back to work! I have one more class today and Midnight Madness tonight 
Written by terrywhite on April 3rd, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Adobe and Where's Terry White?.
I’ve been a long time fan of Verizon’s EVDO network. I was a fairly early adopter and have been quite happy with the service. However, there is one thing that has led me to have to look at an alternative network and that’s the fact that I’m traveling abroad more and more for work. Verizon’s EVDO network is great in the states, however it’s practically non-existent outside of the US.
So with that in mind I signed up to get a AT&T 3G card through work. At the time I ordered the card, the ExpressCard version was not available to us to order. So I went with the USBConnect 881 card. While I would much rather have an ExpressCard version simply because it fits better into the MacBook Pro, the USB version works with computers that don’t have ExpressCard slots and it’s not that bad.
Before I have my Verizon card turned off, I decided to do some speed tests in various locations before my next international trip. I went to Miami for a conference and I fired up both cards and did some tests at my favorite internet speed testing site, speakeasy.net/speedtest/. While I was in Miami, I got these results (tested against the Atlanta server):
Verizon EVDO speeds using a V740 (rev.A) card
AT&T USBConnect 881 card
Next I traveled to Seattle for a week of meetings and here’s what I got (tested against the Seattle server):
Verizon EVDO speeds using a V740 (rev.A) card
AT&T USBConnect 881 card
The speeds vary from location to location. However, AT&T’s upload speeds seem consistently faster than Verizon’s.
Traveling internationally
Sunrise in Marbella Spain this morning (makes you feel all warm and fuzzy doesn’t it? ) If you’re interested in exactly where this shot was taken, check out the embedded GPS metadata in the shot or simply click on it above.
This week I’m in Marbella Spain for meetings and while I have a very good Wi-Fi connection at the hotel here, there were a couple of times I had no access and used the AT&T card. So I decided to run a test here too and here’s what I got (tested against the New York server):
As you can see 3G speeds are not the same everywhere. Although the driver reported that I was on a "3G" network here, the speeds were dramatically slower than what I was getting in the states. Although slower, the speed I’m getting here in Spain is fine for email and general web surfing.
Mac compatibility?
The Verizon cards are directly supported by Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger and Mac OS X 10.5.x Leopard. This is a great thing because it means never having to worry about installing or updating drivers. You just plug the Verizon card in and activate it directly from the menu that pops up in your menu bar. However, this is not the case with the AT&T USBConnect 881 card or the AT&T ExpressCards. With the USBConnect 881 card I had to go download the free driver from Sierra Wireless. The instructions were pretty clear on where to download the driver right in the packaging that came with the card. However, this driver seems minimal at best. I find that I have to launch and relaunch it a few times occasionally to get it to actually connect. Once it does connect it’s pretty stable and stays connected for me. I’m surprised that Apple doesn’t support the AT&T cards natively in the OS like they do for Verizon cards considering their relationship with AT&T with the iPhone.
Sierra’s Mac driver
What about the costs?
3G wireless cards/plans aren’t cheap. However, if you travel regularly you could easily justify one if you regularly pay for hotel internet access which ranges from from $9.95-$24.95/day. Of course some hotels have free internet access, but unfortunately that’s not the norm. The Verizon V740 EVDO card/plan goes for $59.99/mo. ($79.99 for the card if you do a 2 year contract or $204.99 if you do a 1 year contract). Verizon also offers a USB solution. Although Verizon claims their service to be "unlimited", there are in fact limits and if you hog too much bandwidth, you could get your service suspended. Check out the 3gstore.com site for best prices and info.
The AT&T card goes for $60/mo. (5000MB/mo. max bandwidth without paying overages) When roaming in Canada - 0.015/KB, when roaming internationally 0.0195/KB. The card is $49.99 with a 2 yr. contract and after rebates. You could just buy the card outright for $299.99 with no contracts.
The Bottom Line
If you spend more than 7 nights a month in hotels paying for high speed internet, getting a 3G wireless card is a no brainer. If you travel internationally, then you’ll want to go with one of the AT&T cards. If you only travel in the US, then Verizon has the better coverage at the moment than AT&T.
Written by terrywhite on March 12th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 3G and Where's Terry White? and internet.
It’s that time again. The time where people ask me, "so how was Macworld?" My response - "it was cool!" This year’s Macworld didn’t pack very many surprises. Most of the announcements by Apple had already been rumored (some with amazing detail). There wasn’t very much at the show that blew me away. I had a good week packed with presentations and I feel personally that I got a lot done and showed some really cool Adobe technologies. So for me personally the show was "cool!"
Sitting with my Adobe buddies Seb, Dave, Colin and Adam - waiting for the keynote to start.
So let me answer what you’re really asking: What did I think of Steve’s "4 things"? Alrighty, let’s take them in the order they were announced:
Time Capsule
I think this is a cool product that complements Mac OS X Leopard and makes it drop dead simple for people to not only set up a Wi-Fi network, but also to share a built-in hard drive, backup all their Macs and share a printer if they choose to. It’s hard to go wrong with this product. My only concern as a power user is the speed (or lack there of) of backing up over Wi-Fi. I tried it from my MacBook Pro to another Mac over 802.11n using Time Machine and it was just too slow to do regularly. Now keep in mind that I’m an MS Entourage user who’s main identity weighs in at 3.74GB. So that’s a big chunk of data to be backing up each hour. The average user won’t have that problem. So I think Time Capsule will be a hit!
The iPhone 1.1.3 update
I always welcome more iPhone features that are available for free. So how can I complain about 1.1.3? I still have about 46 things on my list of 50 ways to make the iPhone better. 1.1.3 gave me SMS to multiple users and a customizable home screen. The additions to Google maps with the sudo GPS feature rock! I also like the new lyrics support in the iPod app and IMAP support for GMAIL accounts. I know this stuff takes time, however I do wish Apple would come out with these updates on a monthly basis. There are still several things I want on my iPhone. I’m also anxious to see what 3rd party developers come up with once the SDK ships next month. Things should really start to heat up then!
iTunes Movie Rentals an Apple TV Take 2
I never understood the concept of buying movies via iTunes! I’m a movie buff, but for the cost of buying a movie on iTunes, I could have a DVD and get a better experience. So needless to say, I didn’t buy very many movies on iTunes (3 to be exact and the first one was a test). Renting movies is the way to go. I have already had my first iTunes rental experience and it didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped. As I reported, you absolutely HAVE TO BE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET in order to start a rented movie. iTunes needs to connect to the iTunes store online to start the 24 hour viewing period. This is even the case if you are transferring the movie to an iPod or iPhone.
I ran into another problem. Although Steve said that rentals can be moved from device to device apparently those devices can’t be multiple computers. Unlike music purchases, whichever Mac or PC you rent a movie on is the one that you have to watch it on. After I got home from Macworld, I started my movie to see if it worked. It did. The next day, I tried copying it to my Mac mini which is hooked up in my home theater (and is running the latest iTunes/QuickTime) and I got an error stating that it "Could not play the rented movie because it is authorized to play on another computer or device."
The error I got when I tried to play my rental on a different Mac.
Although the new iTunes 7.6 allows you to "transfer" your rentals to a compatible iPod or iPhone, there doesn’t seem to be a mechanism to transfer your rentals to a different computer. You can only watch it on the computer you rented on. These restrictions really put a strain on the 24 hour viewing period which at first sounded OK, but If I have to put that much thought into where I rent it, when I want to watch, be connected to the internet, etc., then the viewing period should be more like 48-72 hours.
The biggest problem I see with the service besides the time limits is the fact that iTunes won’t have new releases until 30 DAYS after they come out on DVD. That will seem like an eternity at times. I’m all for iTunes rentals, however in their current state I’m not ready to give up my Netflix account.
Check out the iTunes Store Movie Rental FAQ for more on what you can and can’t do.
As far as the Apple TV Take 2 is concerned I was very pleased that this didn’t require new hardware. The new interface looks slick and it will be great to be able to buy/rent content directly from my TV as opposed to having to download it first on my computer and then sync/stream it to my Apple TVs. I can’t wait for the update!
The MacBook Air
When I saw what "The something is in the Air" was, I thought, "wow that’s really neat, but not for me!" I think the MacBook Air is a phenomenal piece of engineering. However, it’s just not strong enough to replace my MacBook Pro and since I don’t need two laptops, it’s just not for me. Some have started to knock it and complain about what it doesn’t have. I say to those users, "then it’s not for YOU!" It amazes me that people beat up Apple and other companies about what a new product doesn’t have. Do you beat up developers for building one bedroom apartments because you have a family of four? No that would be silly. You just find a place with enough rooms for your family. So why should this be any different? The MacBook Air will be a hit with people that want a lightweight notebook that they will primarily use for internet surfing and email They’re not doing a lot of heavy duty processing and they don’t store tons of data on it. It would be great for someone who already has a desktop Mac as their main computer, but want a notebook for going on the road with. The list goes on.
On the show floor at Macworld Expo holding the new MacBook Air - it’s stunningly light!
But Terry, it doesn’t come with an optical drive, Ethernet or Firewire. The hard drive is only 80GB at 4,200 rpms. Yup, you’re right - and? If those things bother you, then this isn’t the notebook for you. You can buy an external optical drive that is USB bus powered for $99. You can add Ethernet via a USB adapter for under $30. Sorry no Firewire.
So what do I think of the MacBook Air. I think it will be one hot seller for the market that it’s intended for! Is it for everyone? nope. Am I buying one for me? Not likely. 
OK, what else was at the show?
Well, I gotta say there wasn’t a whole lot that impressed me this year. Adobe was showing off the new Photoshop Elements Mac 6.0 and that really was cool, but you knew I would say that right. Otherwise, I got a chance to get by the Garmin booth and check out their new Mac apps for their various GPS units. All good stuff. Microsoft was there of course. They shipped Microsoft Office 2008. I’m not a huge Word or Excel user, but I do have to use Entourage for work email. So it’s great having a Universal Binary of this app. There really wasn’t any new hardware that was a must have.
Sarah give up, you’ll never find an iPhone case at this show
If you were looking for a new case or speaker system for your iPod or iPhone this was the place to be! Honestly guys, do we really need this much of a selection for iPod/iPhone cases? There was a vendor in just about every aisle selling them.
All in all, it was a good show. Last year’s iPhone announcement was hard to top. I think Apple did some good things this year and I’m sure their success will continue throughout 2008! Also check out Macworld’s own Best of Show winners and you’ll see what I mean. Not a lot there that has a wow factor.
Here’s a funny clip that summarizes Steve’s keynote in 60 seconds:
Written by terrywhite on January 21st, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Apple and Where's Terry White?.
« Older articles
No newer articles
