Trust me, I’ve tried the dev mode thing in my hunt for a sidebar. I don’t want the looks of a sidebar, I want the functionality. Here are my wants (from http://www.osxsidebar.com)

* Will dock to the side of my screen.
* Will allow me to add dashboard widgets to it.
* Will allow me to interact with said widgets.
* Will be resizeable.
* Will work in Tiger and Leopard

In response to a lot of people who say they don’t use the dashboard widgets, not to be condescending, but you can’t really feel the frustration if you don’t use the product. Its hard to explain if you don’t use a Mac for work.

When you need to have a to-do list, a calendar, yes the weather (seriously, when you live in NY you need to know when its going to rain), an Adium widget, a notepad (I have a ton of notes in the dashboard), and an RSS reader right there where your eyes can see it while your hands are doing something else (like typing an email), a sidebar is perfect while the dashboard is useless.

I hope that helps define my wants/needs in a sidebar. Oh and to be clear, I don’t want the dashboard to be replaced. I just want a sidebar to be an option for people like me (yes there are more out there).

So theres that. Do you think there should be a sidebar in OS X? Take the poll: [poll=2]

Moving on, when I got my iPhone it hadn’t been updated (despite coming from Apple well after the 2 updates had been released). I didn’t think it would be a huge problem since Apple claimed those updates only contained bug fixes (lies). Attempting to follow the instructions online for adding ones own ringtones failed. You see, one of those updates (I assume 1.0.2) twiddled a bit for ringtones. So poor me with my vanilla phone couldn’t get the Ringtones tab to show up in iTunes to save my life. I got really frustrated and decided I was going to install 1.0.2 which I’d been shying away from. So yesterday, I went for it.

Oh Joy, I got the dreaded full download which meant Apple was up to my shenanigans and made restore the entire iPhone. Following that, I had to re-activate it. I used iNdependence to do this which was frustrating for a minute because I failed to read the instructions. You know you ignore readme’s too so stop judging me. Anyhow, I jailbreaked then activated my iPhone in about a half hour (with constant interruptions) and lo and behold, the Ringtones tab showed up in iTunes.

Getting the ringtones I wanted onto my phone was not such a small deal. Here’s a step by step of how I did it, I’m sure there is an easier way but since you’re reading my blog, you get my way.

1. Rip CD since music I wanted to use is not available for download
2. Import AAC files for songs I wanted into Audacity 1.3.3. Mind you Audacity 1.3.3 is beta software but is the only version that can handle AAC encoding. Yes I know I could have ripped into mp3 format, but I didn’t, get over it.
3. Snip songs until they are a suitable length and style for ringtones. I determined that my phone rings for 30 seconds before going to voicemail so obvs, I made 30 second clips (does fair use apply to ringtones?).
4. Export the songs to mp3 format and import into iTunes.
5. Convert the songs to AAC in iTunes (Right click on the song in the iTunes Library, choose “Convert selection to AAC”)
6. Find the converted songs in the Finder (Right click, choose “Show in Finder”)
7. Move the songs from their current location to the iTunes Ringtones folder (iTunes > iTunes Music > Ringtones)
8. Change the extension on the songs from .m4a to .m4r
9. Open the .m4r files so they show up in iTunes under Ringtones
10. Change the extensions of the .m4r files back to .m4a so iTunes doesn’t complain when you try to Sync your Ringtones to your iPhone.

So thats how I did the ringtones thing. I tried the installer.app situation but it failed miserably and almost made me think I bricked my iPhone. Maybe I’ll get the cohones to try it again later.

As far as general usage of the phone goes, there are some obvious problems that I’m surprised Cupertino didn’t get fixed before launch. Here are my OMGWTF’s in no particular order:

1. Lack of a decent contact manager seems like a major WTF. I find it annoying to have to go through the Phone app just to change a contact’s information. That you can’t search your contacts would be a non-starter for me if I had more than a few friends. I’m sure the finger scrolling would get old if I had thousands of contacts.
2. Support for syncing to more than one computer without wiping the current library of your device. Dear Apple, it’s now 2007 and people tend to have more than one computer they use regularly. Please remove heads from asses and realize how inconvenient it may be for say, college student going home for a break who’d like to add songs to her device from parents computer. Perhaps person who has computer at work and at home that they’d like their iPhone to sync to? Not a 2 way sync, mind, just one way, since Piracy is Bad.
3. Support for individually adding a song to the iPhone. Geezus Apple. This one is a royal screw up that I really don’t understand the reason for. I could drag and drop songs to my iPod before, exactly why must I sync only a playlist or my whole library now? Does somebody, anybody, know the reason for this silly change? More importantly, is the direction the entire iPod line will be taking?
4. Lack of customization options is a little piss poor. Here are the icons I could do without on the home screen: Calendar, Calculator, Stocks, Maps, Weather, Notes, and Clock. Why can’t I hide them? Also what is the point of using wallpaper if you can’t see it when you use your phone?
5. Finally, lack of games. What is one supposed to do while they are taking an hour long train ride? Make calculations? Write notes? How hard would it have been to give us BrickBreaker or some other time killer?

Those are my thoughts on the iPhone. Despite my gripes, I still love this phone. Hopefully Apple will make it better soon.

So perhaps you missed Apple’s press conference yesterday. Steve Jobs was happy to announce new versions of iLife, iWork, and sexy new iMacs. All very nice, I like new shiny things.

While I like shiny new things, I do not like being screwed. You see, the new iLife will come with all new Mac’s. For those of us who already have Mac’s, an iLife ’08 upgrade can be ours for $79…which happens to be the same price as a full purchase of iLife ’08.

Let’s break this down, shall we? I got my newest Macbook Pro about a month ago. I pay $79 for the new version of iLife. Jamie got a Macbook Pro on August 6. She has to pay $79 for the new version of iLife. John bought iLife from an Apple store an hour before Steve’s proclamation. John is royally screwed because John has to pay $79 for the new version too.

There is clearly a problem with that pricing model and its beginning to cause some grumbles in the Mac community. Sure, Apple has an “iLife Up to Date” program but that only covers iLife for Mac computers purchased on or after August 7. I find it sad and funny that people who qualify for the program still have to pay $10 to get the new iLife. It’s no wonder torrents for iLife ’08 started appearing early this morning and entire copies of the software package were available in other places this afternoon.

Apple clearly has a problem with their iLife pricing model. The question is, will they fix it or will the illegal sharing of iLife become more prevalent in response?

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Um, Apple? You’re scaring me a little bit.

Update: I found out why I was getting this message. Apparently my account information was incomplete and Apple needed a little bit more data. It would be better if the message said “Please visit Apple.com and update your account,” instead of creeping me out with a message about harvesting.

Edit: Had to fix the image link.

So for the past couple of weeks, I’ve started and deleted many a post, mainly because I wasn’t inspired to write. Chalk today’s inspiration up to things I love. This blog is called erica’s joys right? Well here are some of the things that bring me joy.

• We’ll start off with Birthday Cake ice cream. I visited my sister recently and got a taste of this marvelous ice cream and now I’m addicted. Honestly, when I’m as big as a couch, I will have her to thank. If you’ve not experienced the wonder that is Birthday Cake ice cream, you need to seek it out and partake. What would be truly fabulous would be Birthday Cake ice cream bars with frosting shells instead of chocolate. Seriously, it could revolutionize birthday parties. Imagine the pretty multicolored ice cream bars with the lucky birthday kid’s name and/or age on them. Are you listening Mayfield?
• Good pens, particularly the BiC Z4 Roller. I am extremely in love with that pen.
• Room temperature water. Don’t ask me why but I only like ice cold water when I’ve just come from outside when its hot.
• These guys:
• These girls:
• This guy (even though smoking is gross):

And that, my friends, is a small collection of some of the nouns that bring me joy.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (or leaving the ranch), I cancelled my Valleyschwag subscription. Not that it wasn’t awesome or anything but they kept sending me shirts that were too big (women’s XL != men’s XL). They also kept sending me stuff from Ask and Yahoo. What am I going to do with that sort of stuff? Besides, I figure I have enough schwag to last me for a while.

While I’m thinking about it, I’d like to thank Apple for dropping the price of the refurbed 2 gig iPod nano’s to $99. Thanks so much Apple, for doing that after I just paid $115 for a 1 gig mp3 player. Not that I don’t think my Zen is great but seriously, 2 gigs always beats 1 gig. Always.

Enough talk, time for sleep. Early day tomorrow and all. Oh, before I go, I’d like to give a shoutout to the spell checker in Blogger. If it weren’t for the spell checker, I’d never spell tomorrow correctly.

So my trip to New York was good fun. I did go to the Apple store opening but I didn’t actually go in. By the time I got there the line was ridculously long. No Macbook for me and definitely no iPod since they weren’t giving them away. I got some pictures of the outside of the place though. Its rather nice looking and the underground store concept is hot. I do wonder what would happen in case of a fire with a store full of people. That day was pretty awesome all around as I was 100 ft away from at least 2 billionaires in one day. Ah, if only richness rubbed off.

This weekend I’m picking up my sister and nephews and driving up to NC for our cousins wedding. I’m worried that the trip is going to be extremely boring, given that I’m used to roadtripping with my iPod. How I miss MyPod.

Last thing to touch on before I go to bed. The DaVinci Code. I will start by saying that I am a Christian. That being said, I’m also a fairly smart Christian and can easily discern fact and fiction. Here’s a hint; if a book is in the fiction section of the bookstore, its probably fiction (*shock*) and should be considered as such. I can’t understand why people make such a big fuss about a book. It’s not like the DaVinci Code is out to replace the Bible. It’s simply a good FICTIONAL story that makes for good reading.

Time for sleep now. If I don’t post again before Friday, have a SAFE weekend folks.

Speaking of Apple, here is my switch update of the day: Widgets? Friggin cool. I love the Blogger one and might soon make use of it (though not right now). Are there any that I should have installed that aren’t part of a vanilla build of OS X? I’ve only installed the Google ones. Let me know please.

Thats all for now folks. Have a great weekend. Oh yeah, Happy Birthday Mr. Frost!

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I got my macbook pro today and am now typing this blog from it. I must admit, it’s taking a little getting used to but it’s already well worth it. I <3 expose forever. Dragging a program to the Application folder to install it? Outstanding! Everything is so pretty...now if I could just turn my windows a nice shade of pink I'd be all set.

Mac people, you may stop gloating now. I know you’re saying “Silly Windows girl,” in your heads. Don’t laugh if in the future I discover some cool new feature that is actually old…it will be new to me dangit!

Moving on, I’ve found out that the new Mario is for the Nintendo DS (yes, this is me, late again). I must have a DS now. For Mario and for that cool brain age game (can you call it a game?) I’ve been seeing on TV. I can already tell it will be an exercise in self control not to use my savings to buy toys. Lets see, digital camera, iPod, NintendoDS…anybody got anything else to add?

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Sometimes I wish I didn’t listen to myself.

I went into the Genius Bar with an iPod that was stuck in hold and walked out of the Genius Bar with an iPod that had the folder with the exclamation mark and wouldn’t spin up.

Geniuses? Methinks not. Very bad, oh Appley ones. Very bad.