Josh

I have a MacBook Air running OS X 10.7.2 (Lion) and over the past couple weeks, my Command + Tab (keyboard shortcut to switch applications, documents, etc.) will randomly stop working. After a couple minutes of sleuthing, I’ve found that I’m not the only one who’s having problems with command + tab.

Here’s what I’ve tried:

• Restarting the Dock by opening Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal) and typing “killall Dock” (sans quotes)
• Rebooting. This always does the trick, but who wants to reboot their Mac, even if it’s an Air and reboots crazy-quick?!
• Repairing Disk Permissions (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility). Select your local drive and click the ‘Repair Disk Permissions’ button.
• And what I’ve found to work like a charm is simply turning off Screen Sharing. I always have Screen Sharing open because I’m often times accessing the Mac Mini that’s hooked up to our TV in the living room.

So, if your Command + Tab isn’t working in OS X, simply try closing Screen Sharing.

When the iPhone 4S was announced, I knew I wanted one. My last upgrade was the iPhone 3GS a couple years ago and honestly, I was sold on the 4S’s 8 megapixel camera and 1080p 30 frames-per-second video upgrade. I haven’t shopped point and shoot cameras in a while, but $300 for a good camera that shoots 1080p video sounds like a good enough deal for me. And then you add on a phone, iPod, internet device and a borderline AI digital assistant, you’ve got a single device in your pocket that’ll do pretty much everything I need it to do. We have a new baby due in April, and as many photos I took and video as I shot with the first child, I like the idea of being able to snap all of those photos and take great videos from a single device.

I wasn’t the Apple fanboy who pre-ordered the iPhone 4S. I figured I’d wait a few weeks until the demand died down and I could just walk into the Apple store and pick up a new phone. The family and I happened to be in Katy this past Saturday (the day after the iPhone 4S hit store shelves) and I decided to just swing by the AT&T store, just for shits and giggles to see if maybe they had a few iPhones left in stock. I was surprised when the salesperson told me that she had plenty of 32GB and 64GB models in both black and white. I let her quickly sell me a black 64GB model. While we were there, we went ahead and upgraded my wife to a 16GB iPhone 4S as well (the 16GB had to be ordered).

But all that’s kind of beside the point. When I got my shiny new iPhone, I immediately synced it with my iTunes account and pretty much got everything how I wanted it (folders, apps, settings, etc.) I was almost ready to wipe my old iPhone 3GS to sell it when I realized that my new iPhone didn’t have my text message history. All of my previous text messages were still on my old iPhone 3GS (or hopefully stored as a backup on my MacBook).

After doing some scouring with the Google, I learned that your text/SMS messages are stored and backed up on your Mac when you do a backup of your iPhone via iTunes.

Your iPhone’s backup file on your Mac is located here:

/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup

If, for whatever reason, you can’t find your ‘Library’ folder, try pressing the ‘Option’ key when you click on the ‘Go’ menu item in Finder.

Your backup files should look something like this in Finder (click image below to enlarge):

What do you do with your iPhone backup files?

You should see a bunch of folders and a ton of individual files with non-descript names like “0b6dc57b11f9862d66c0a08f34c0786ddf6b6427″. Those are your backed-up files. Awesome, huh? What the hell are you supposed to do with those? Well, you can go through them individually and you might see a photo or two among the thousands of other files in that backup folder. You could get yourself some kind of SQLite browser and spend your precious time figuring that out.

What I found was a cool little application called Decipher TextMessage from DecipherTools. It takes all of those weirdly-named backup files, pulls them into a nice-looking, well-packaged user interface that lets you view, print, save and copy your text message archives onto your computer’s hard drive. I don’t necessarily want all of those old text messages on my new iPhone, but I do want those old text messages saved, if only for the sake of for posterity.

If you want to save your text messages from your iPhone before upgrading, you just can’t beat the $9.99 price tag for Decipher’s TextMessage. I was hesitant at first, but quickly reminded myself that someone took the time to bundle a slick and easy-to-use software application that does something really well, and saves folks time in researching convoluted ways to archive their text messages from their iPhones. You can buy Decipher TextMessage directly from their site or by clicking the Decipher TextMessage image below:

A closing salutation in email that has grown to become a top-of-the-list pet peeve of mine is “Best,” I see it and I think, “Really?” To me, closing with “Best” comes off as nothing short of inconsiderate and flippant. Are you telling me that I’m the best? Are you too important and strapped for time that you can’t finish typing “Best wishes,” “My best,” or “Best regards,”? When I see “Best,” and I imagine your conversation in a face-to-face setting, I picture you smacking gum and trying to remember if you set your TiVo to record a season pass of Jersey Shore instead of genuinely engaging yourself in the conversation.

A few years ago I decided I’d just be myself in email. Email inherently lacks tone and inflection, so I like to let folks know of my perpetual lighter side. I’ve had so many conversations via email that just seemed to portray both sides as fake. Whenever the conversation(s) carried over into a phone call or a face-to-face meeting, it’s like I was talking to the person for the very first time. Like we’d never exchanged any kind of words in the past. I didn’t like the feeling on my side of being insincere and disingenuous. A client, colleague, friend or family member should and will know me for who I am. I’m not the kind of person who writes you off in a closing by saying “Best, Josh.” Where applicable and in most cases, I’ll always be professional. Usually I’ll use the old stand-bys like “Thanks,” or “Cheers,” (I usually use the latter when I’m typing in my British accent), but by and large, you’re getting a piece of me in the email I’m sending to you. You should feel special for playing such a integral part in the contribution to my carpal tunnel syndrome.

In recent months when corresponding with colleagues via email, I started closing my emails with off-the-wall photos. Nothing offensive, but something that would, in my hopes, brighten someone’s day by garnering a chortle. For instance, I was replying to a coworker’s email one morning after we’d collectively solved a problem. In closing, I said, “Happy Friday! Here’s a picture of a guy playing a guitar with a rabbit on his head.” I don’t know why a photo of a guy playing guitar with a rabbit on his head came to mind, but it did, and I decided to include it in the closing of my email (Google Images is your friend). It was completely off the wall, irrelevant and sporadic. My colleague wrote me back and said, “That just made my day!”

If you’re going to try to be cute with your closing salutation, be clever. Make someone laugh or at least scratch their head. Sign off with something like “Cottage cheese,” or “Graham cracker airplane,” Life’s too short to be arrogant and distant.

Best isn’t the best.

Fushigi balls,

Josh

• Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will get millions in severance – Sep. 7, 2011

I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t find the amazement in something unless I experience it personally. In this case I’m referring to the savings that I’ve experienced since riding the bus to work. Given that I’m not a seasoned public transportation commuter, I think I’m lucky in that I ride a “flyer” (non-stop) bus that takes me from my neighborhood’s park & ride directly to downtown Austin. I’m kicking myself in the ass for not having ridden the bus for the 3+ years when I was working at another job that was located downtown. I say I’m lucky because given my limited research, if I had to catch a bus and meet connecting buses in between on my route to my destination, I can see how public transportation wouldn’t be cost- or time-effective (it would take 1 hour and 40 minutes for my ~12 mile ride to the office if the flyer route weren’t available). My bus stop is 2.7 miles from my house, so I ride my bicycle to the bus stop. I get a bit of exercise in the morning while listening to some tunes on my iPod. The bus travels the same exact route that I would take should I drive myself. The bus blows cold AC, has free WiFi, the seats are comfy, and, best of all, I don’t have to contend with traffic. I can sit back and read a book, catch up on Facebook on my phone, look out at the landscape and angry commuters, or just sit back, relax and think about the money that I’m saving.

This aren’t hard, “final” numbers, but more of an approximation given that we know what our monthly car payment was (we’ve since sold one of our cars), and what gas and insurance were costing us per month:

• $275 car payment
• $200 monthly gas
• $60 insurance

Now, if my math is correct, since I started riding the bus in mid-June, we’ve saved $1,329.80 in just me driving to work (well, and a few miles on the weekend)! Subtract the two bus passes at $30 each that I’ve since purchased, but those barely put a ding in the cost savings.

It really puts into perspective how much transportation actually costs us. Now, I’m not apposed to personal transportation. I love having a vehicle, I love driving, having my own space & music, but when you take a few minutes and look at the numbers, it’s pretty easy to see where a large chunk of your money is going. To me, I see: I can spend $535 per month to drive myself (with stress), or $30 per month (without stress).

Since riding the bus, I’ve learned that Google Maps in my very good friend. Google’s bus schedule is far more accurate than Austin’s Capital Metro schedule. Google also gives you a handy “Estimated Driving Costs” calculator for each bus route you look up. Google tells me that my route just to get to work would cost me $5.13. That number doesn’t take into account a car payment, and it’s allocating the average cost per mile allowed for tax deductions by businesses — our car gets terrible gas mileage (~10 miles per gallon).

Savings like these get my wheels spinning (pun intended). In April 2010 I paid off our student loans in full, 14 years ahead of schedule. After being unemployed for the better part of 2010, my first goal will be to rebuild our “oh, shit” fund. Then it’s onto how to get that money to work for us; that’s while keeping my fingers crossed that our home’s air conditioner doesn’t fail on us before the end of summer.

It’s no secret that Steve Jobs stepped down as Apple’s chief executive yesterday. I’d completely forgotten that he’d been on medical leave since mid-January. I sincerely hope that he’s in both good health and spirits. I was just reading Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth Revisited yesterday while on the bus and read where Gerber quoted Theodore Levitt in that, “Creativity thinks up new things. Innovation does new new things.” Apple was and always has been creative, but it wasn’t until Jobs took the helm again in 1997 that the company became the business dictionary definition of innovative. Four years later, in 2001, the very first iPod was announced among a growing sea of other MP3 players. I had my own MP3 player at the time and had long-since been a Windows PC guy myself, but it wasn’t until seeing and holding one of these iPods in person when I knew that this product was going to revolutionize the technology and business world. I bought an iPod for myself and shortly after I bought one for my wife. Shortly after that, I purchased shares of common stock in Apple, Inc., and I paid a little over $20 each back then.

In 2004, and after having been encouraged to wait for a couple years, my wife bought me a 14″ iBook. I’ve been an exclusive Mac user ever since (worth noting that my family’s very first computer was an Apple IIGS Woz Edition, circa 1984). There are 4 Apple computers in our house, two iPhones, a handful of iPods and a pleasant looking stock portfolio, with AAPL shining at the top of that list.

It wasn’t until late last night, after putting our daughter to bed that I hopped on Facebook and saw where people were talking about Steve Jobs resigning as CEO. CNN.com confirmed what I was hoping to be a sick rumor. While my jaw didn’t necessarily hit the floor, a flood of thoughts came rushing through my head. My first inclination was to log in to my Ameritrade account and put in a sale order to cash in all of our Apple shares. That thought dissipated as quickly as it came on. I’m no investment guru, but have stood by a simple mantra that I heard years ago when I first purchased my own shares in a company: Invest in companies that you know and love. Just because Steve Jobs is no longer going to be the face of Apple (although I’m sure he still will be, unofficially, for years yet to come), I’m sure the Board will keep him on as Chairman and as an employee. While Tim Cook might not be the same pitch man as Jobs, he’s done one hell of a job on the operations front as far as Apple’s retail stores and supply for product launches. Cook has Jobs’ blessing, and that has to be worth it’s weight in platinum iPads. My two cents: let Cook sustain the business as it is today. Let Jonathan Ives run keynotes and product launches. As a consumer, I firmly believe that Ives can keep Apple’s face sexy, creative and innovative. Watching Cook deliver a keynote or product launch is up there, for me, like watching a presentation on podiatry (no offense, podiatric professionals).

In the aforementioned CNN.com article, Mike McGuire, analyst at Gartner said, “One of the most important things that Steve Jobs did in Apple 2.0 is rebuilding the culture.” And other articles I’ve since read talk to the culture of Apple, the foundation of which Jobs laid, which will hopefully carry on for years to come. It reminds me of another chapter (or two) in The E-Myth Revisited, where a common paraphrased theme is: your business is not to sell a product or a services. It’s to sell your business. Love or hate Apple, you know that they’re an innovative company the delivers consistent products and results. For me, Apple has recreated and embodied the business ethos of consistency, quality, reliability, innovation and sexy. I “bought” Apple as a company when I saw the iPod in person. I have proudly been an “Apple Fan Boy” ever since. And I will continue to be a die-hard Apple fan with or without Steve Jobs, so long as the company gives me reason to be.

I feel I have absolutely no reason to sell a single share of Apple stock. In fact, I just might drive over to the local Apple retail store this evening and buy something, just to show some love and support.

• Amazon.com: Microsoft Touch Mouse: Electronics
  Everything Apple does, everyone else has to follow.

I do the majority of the work for my day job in Microsoft Excel. One thing that chaps my ass since upgrading to OS X 10.7 Lion is that Apple has assumed that I no longer need those helpful little arrows that I once used to horizontally scroll through my Excel spreadsheets. I need to move left or right, one cell at a time in Excel. I’ve been left with the horizontal scroll bar, which allows me to quickly move left or right by many columns, but I need to scroll once cell (with one click of the arrow) at a time. Where, o’ where did you go little horizontal scroll arrows in Excel?

If I go into Preferences > View, I can check/uncheck “Show horizontal scroll bar”, but that’s not what I need. I need my arrows back!! Does anyone know how I can get the horizontal scroll arrows in Microsoft Excel in Lion?

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I abhor “conversation view” in my email client. To me, it just isn’t intuitive and makes for more work. I might want to delete or file away a previous message, but keep a current message thread in my inbox as actionable. The conversation view for me just makes for more clutter. And it reminds me of Microsoft Outlook. Blech.

Reverting to the “classic” inbox style of Mail.app in OS X Lion is simple.

View > Organize by Conversation

By default, Mail.app should have this checked. When you click on ‘Organize by Conversation’, it will then become unchecked, and will bring your Mail.app inbox back to the way that you know and love.