Microsoft Sync Dropped

[johnboytoo]

You are a bad, bad man AA

FYI, Try using Firefox as your browser ---
I stay away from IE except at work and they are now allowing us to use firefox there

We do all the above, blackberry, android, and iStuff - whatever works best for the job...

[atom ant]

Twice now I've been told something is not compatible with IE 11. Our credit union online money thing the wife tried to use and after two days she called tech support and they wanted her to download Google. And then the Garmin uploader issue.

I may try Firefox John.

[ksaltman]

Thanks you Johnboytoo and A_A for reaffirming my decision more than 8 years ago to switch from being a long time PC user to Apple. I continually am happy that I made the decision to switch. We are now 100% Apple hardware which is why I found it so disturbing to have Micro$oft Sync software running in my soon to be delivered F350. It literally almost stopped us from buying a Ford, so I can understand why they decided to drop it and go with Blackberry and QNX, just not soon enough for us.

Anyway, before I go any further I will echo Johnboytoo and saying you might want to try Firefox. It's free, I've read faster than IE11 and doesn't have the huge security issues that IE on Windows has.

With that said, let me tell you a little story about my history with M$ stuff. About 10 years ago I got a contract which required me to use an iMac. The contract included realtime video streaming and the encoder would only run on an iMac. Over the next 2 years I used the iMac just for this specific job and everything else around me was Microsoft and PC based. What I learned is that I really enjoyed the iMac and found it very easy to transition and get things done. I actually started to dislike using my PC but was tied to it because of things like Office and what not.

About 8 years ago my wife's PC crashed for one reason or another I think 3 times in about 6 months. Each time I had to spend about a day of my time rebuilding it and putting it back together for her. None of these were hardware issues btw. On the 4th time, which actually was a hardware issue, I told myself if I was going to spend anymore time rebuilding her PC I would take that time and convert her desktop to an iMac rather than once again wasting time putting her PC back together.

Over the next half a decade or so I have replaced every bit of our personal electronics with Apple stuff. That includes our desktops, laptops, iPhones, iPads and yes even an Apple TV and a Time Capsule for backing it all up.

My backstop at the beginning was a software app called Parallels that lets me run Windows applications on my iMac. Yes folks that's right, create a virtual machine on the Mac and run Windows app side by side at the same time. I initially started with the same version of Office I had been running on my PC and then started to run it on my iMac using Parallels. Luckily I still had an activation key for the suite so it didn't cost much, just the cost of Parallels which I think at the time was about $99.

After doing that for a couple of years I realized 90% of the reason why I was starting up the Windows box on my iMac was to run an office app. I took a close look at the native Microsoft Office apps on the iMac and decided rather than pay for the then current Micro$oft Office upgrade I'd use that $$ and buy the native M$ Office apps and see how that goes.

Well it actually went well for a while until Microsoft decided to make a major change in the UI of their Office suite. After looking at the changes I realized that it would take effort to learn the new Office, so I might as well use that effort (learning curve) and really learn the Apple office suite, Pages, Numbers and Keynote.

Now I very rarely, I mean like once every 3 - 4 months, start up Parallel and use the Windows machine. I have no regrets making the switch. I will say that I have had a few issues with Safari, Apples browser, and worked around that with Firefox. Let me amplify that though it has been maybe 4 or 5 issues in nearly a decade, so I'd say that's pretty darn good! I will add that since I feel so much more secure running either Firefox or Safari on a Mac it's really worth it.

One thing though to make a long story longer, I thought about going and getting one of the first iPads, now many years ago. I actually was at the WWDC (Apple's Developer Conference) when it was announced but decided I had too much other stuff to do and would wait a little before I got one. My wife scoffed and said it was a waste of money but kept telling me I would have to get one, she just knew me too well. And so this light hearted back and forth went for about 2 months before the launch. I was pretty convinced I would not be one of the first to get an iPad until I found myself in the line in front of Best Buy at 4am the morning of the launch.

Well I got one brought it home, quickly set it up, gave my wife a quick demo and put it down to continue my day. When I got back home that night there was my wife with a huge grin sitting on the coach playing with the iPad. She quickly told me that she was wrong, a rare admission of guilt, and was then and there renaming the iPad to Mypad and it was hers.

That my friends brings me to my one real piece of advise here, if you want marital bliss get 2 iPads!

[atom ant]

Thanks, but really no thanks.

I bit the bullet and "appled" up way back when they opened the architecture to the McIntosh clone program, and I bought 3 clone computer systems. Seemed like the thing to do because the school system were pretty much receiving free Apple computers in an attempt to brainwash our next generation into their hands.

Within the year, Steve Jobs pulled the program (97 I think) and not only did we lose any support from Apple, the clone company went belly up so we lost any support, updates, peripherals, everything, and the computers became paper weights. Probably around 6-8K smacks I spent on that stuff.

I never forgave them and never again will I bite into the devil's fruit

Even today, I get frustrated with my daughters POS I-pad when she asks me to do something on it because it doesn't have a "back" button like my Droid. I end up having to start over by hitting the home button - I hate that thing to put it mildly.

Anyway, I would go back to a chisel and a flat rock or succumb to windows 8 before I would ever spend a dime with that company again. I'm not interested in learning it, using it, or even thinking about it.

Just me

[Oriana]

I'm with Brad on this one. DW uses the touch screen electronic fruit, but it really is little more than for playing games. My surface has way more versatility, although I rarely use it because it has the apple wanabee Windows 8.

Even for photo editing, I prefer my desktop or laptop, which both run Windows 7 x64, without any issues. I can also replace my PC 2 or 3 times for the price of an equivalent apple.

Also read a very interesting article a couple of days ago regarding the vulnerability of apple's OS and how poor the apple response is compared to MS.

[Dave&Ginny]

Brad....at least you have good taste in RVs.

I spend big bucks on the Mac computers and only use PCs for book keeping. In the graphics business PCs are for the amateurs. Macs are much more stable

[ksaltman]

I think we can all agree we have good taste in RVs, well said.

I don't feel the need to convince anyone in the PC vs Apple debate however, one thing I feel compelled to point out regarding the Mac cloning days, the companies (by the way there we multiple) that produced Mac clones did it without the consent of Apple and were in violation of multiple copyright, corporate espionage and other international laws. It was only after the federal government, including the FBI and IRS, stepped in, along with a hoard of Apple lawyers, was Apple able to stop the illegal cloning.

I am sorry that people were hurt by these activities. This was before my days of owning any type of Apple product. I recall at the time thinking to myself "why would Apple not want to promote their product by allowing other people to clone their hardware by using their software? Just look at how much money Micro$oft is making just selling software with out the fuss of engineering any h/w."

In retrospect though I think they made the right call stopping the illegal poaching of their operating system. You see Apple subsidizes to this day the development of their software by selling their hardware at a premium. They have (IMO) ultimately controlled the development of both their h/w and their s/w to the consumers benefit.

I have to disagree with anyone's assessment though that Apples response to malicious s/w or internet activity is subpar. I can give you dozens of technical and policy reasons why OS/X is at it's core far more secure than Windows but I would rather simply say as a Apple consumer, the amount of time and $$ I spend dealing with outside threats is near zero relative to the effort necessary to maintain and properly secure a Windows machine.

Of course there is no free lunch with any of this, enough said.

Travel safe....

[ksaltman]

Dave/Ginny,

Btw, why do you bother maintaining separate h/w to run the accounting s/w. Have you tried bringing up the accounting package in Parallels or VMWare?

Ken

[atom ant]

well I won't argue with you, but that's not the way I remember it all. It was an apple thing because PC had such good luck with open architecture. In 95 apple licensed several clone companies, mine were some of the first, and when Jobs came back that he put the kibosh to it by stopping all new licenses and killing OS 7 so those that were licensed for 7 would never get 8. I lost any love for Jobs that day and wish his company the same fate as the ones he killed.

[ksaltman]

I think we both could be right. Here are some details on the pre-license and official clones created from 1995-1998.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/mac-...ac-clones.html

[Oriana]

Originally Posted by Dave&Ginny

Brad....at least you have good taste in RVs.

I spend big bucks on the Mac computers and only use PCs for book keeping. In the graphics business PCs are for the amateurs. Macs are much more stable

Dave - can't comment on the publishing business, as I have never used that type of software, but I do know many professional photographers that happily still use PC's. Similar to the MS Office products being available on MAC's, most of the photo editing software is now available in PC versions.

Thanks to Ken for starting this discussion, as I now know where to get help if DW's ipad crashes during the Rally. I haven't a clue how to fix it, have to take it to a friend back home.

[ksaltman]

no worries, glad to help if I can.

Ken

[Dave&Ginny]

Originally Posted by ksaltman

Dave/Ginny,

Btw, why do you bother maintaining separate h/w to run the accounting s/w. Have you tried bringing up the accounting package in Parallels or VMWare?

Ken

Thankfully our company has grown to the point where we use an outside accountant. The accounting department uses "Quick Books" and we log into the accountant's system for payroll and deposits.

If anybody is interested....either later this year oe early next, we'll be replacing all the Macs in our office. We sell the old ones cheep and they're still good machines loaded up with memory and programs. We have to keep up with the new software and technology. I believe last time we were selling the computers for $300-$500 each depending on the machine. We have the "I Macs" and some "cubes".

[ksaltman]

When you do decide to sell lmk, I have some friends that use Macs that have Kids and might want some at that price point.

Used to run QB Pro under parallels because the Mac version was really lacking. I've been pretty happy with the QB 2014 for the Mac now though. Much improved over the last Mac version I tried.

[RCAircraft]

Originally Posted by atom ant

Thanks, but really no thanks.

I bit the bullet and "appled" up way back when they opened the architecture to the McIntosh clone program, and I bought 3 clone computer systems. Seemed like the thing to do because the school system were pretty much receiving free Apple computers in an attempt to brainwash our next generation into their hands.

Within the year, Steve Jobs pulled the program (97 I think) and not only did we lose any support from Apple, the clone company went belly up so we lost any support, updates, peripherals, everything, and the computers became paper weights. Probably around 6-8K smacks I spent on that stuff.

I never forgave them and never again will I bite into the devil's fruit

Even today, I get frustrated with my daughters POS I-pad when she asks me to do something on it because it doesn't have a "back" button like my Droid. I end up having to start over by hitting the home button - I hate that thing to put it mildly.

Anyway, I would go back to a chisel and a flat rock or succumb to windows 8 before I would ever spend a dime with that company again. I'm not interested in learning it, using it, or even thinking about it.

Just me

I also am in your camp with the limitations of the iPad and it's family. I purchased an iPad several years ago for my wife and over time she went back to her Win 7 laptop. Recently I did get her a Nook as she enjoys reading books during business travel.

I started to explore her iPad and over time I did get hooked on it's light weight and somewhat ease of use. However not having a USB port without buying another interface plug was a burr under my saddle.

When RV'ing I use the iPad when outside or inside and just catching up on the news or Emails. For serious work I also use my PC laptop in the RW and at home our monster desktop PC.

As for the "back" button that you and I enjoy in the Win world I discovered something out of pure frustration one day. Irked at the lack of a "back" button on the iPad OS I accidentally hit the "sleep" button (the push button on the front surface of the iPad) very quickly twice. Lo behold that serves as a back button. The active screen reduces in size and any other app or "open" screen can be clicked on. For instance I could have CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, CNBC and a local news site all open at once. Double clicking the "sleep" button drops the active screen back to the home screen with the other "open" screens. I then just tap the screen over another news site and it opens up. Works just as well when jumping from one app to another, from the bottom menu or from the main screen without closing the other app. This older iPad has 64 GB of memory and so far I have not taxed it to it's limit. One can also swipe through these many "open" sites until the desired site is in site then tap the screen.

As the "sleep" button on the iPad needs to be double clicked within approximately one second it's helps to promote one's youth!!

[Oriana]

Bob - if you are ever looking for a tablet in the PC world the Surface works well. The pros are it comes with an attached keyboard, which is important for me. Can't stand this pressing buttons on the screen. It also has access to the latest MS Office suites, as during my working days I ran spreadsheets and made Powerpoint presentations with it.

I have an early model, which has the limited version of Win 8 OS, but the newer versions have a full Win 8 OS, with the latest service pack. I don't like Win 8, with the tiles, so I mainly use the laptop while on the road.

[atom ant]

Thanks Bob on the double tap - I'll have to try it next time on her (daughters) I-pad. She is mentally handicapped and relies on me for help, but overall she can maneuver it pretty well.

I just have to watch out roaming the house in my skivvies as she could be on video conference with one of her friends at any time

[atom ant]

Originally Posted by Dave&Ginny

Brad....at least you have good taste in RVs.

I spend big bucks on the Mac computers and only use PCs for book keeping. In the graphics business PCs are for the amateurs. Macs are much more stable

I agree, they have always been the preference for graphics. My brother is a graphic designer and that is all he uses. We do engineering and computer modeling and PC are the only serious number crunchers.

[atom ant]

Originally Posted by ksaltman

I think we both could be right. Here are some details on the pre-license and official clones created from 1995-1998.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/mac-...ac-clones.html

Ya there was some illegal activity going on both the Mac and PC worlds, but I had legitimate licensed clones that were an "Apple" initiative, which went as quickly as it came.

[RCAircraft]

The Surface is a great unit. I recently reviewed one at our local Best Buy. Would be high on my replacement list.