As some of you may have deduced from my previous, rather negative entry about Google's SSL practices, I have spent a great deal of time investing their services as of late. Overall, and despite the aforementioned disappointment, I am extremely impressed by the quality of the offering. Most iPhone users using Google Calendar, however, will inevitably hit a roadblock when...

After much debating, we decided to enable Google Apps Premier Edition for in-office use. SSL had always been a sticky point for us, and Google Apps are notoriously lacking in this regard, but probing around various newsgroups and sites seemed to show behavior had been improved across the board. Unfortunately, things are still very hit and miss and I fear...

One of our office iPhones recently had to return to Apple for "service" — read replacement. For some reason, the phone started complaining at random intervals that a mysterious phantom accessory was incompatible and kindly suggested we enable airplane mode to avoid any risk of interference. Judging by the sympathetic smiles we got at the Apple Stores in both Chicago...

Apple's latest MobileMe announcement has me elated. In fact, I feel just as I felt when .Mac was first introduced: hopeful, excited and happy at the prospect of being able to rely on Apple for one more thing instead of shopping for vendors all around the Internet. Of course, this supposes that MobileMe does not follow .Mac's and iTools' infamous...

A few months ago, I decided to resurrect one of my first Macs ever, the very computer that once held my life, to go. Unfortunately, not being invested with divine powers, I ran into a bit of odd trouble in the process. With the help of a friend, the solution soon became clear: here is to hoping it can help...

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I unpacked a Hewlett-Packard accessory: a 24 inch LCD monitor, to hook up to my MacBook Air. I am not one for unboxing porn, especially given how little there would be to wet your appetite, but I felt compelled to share a few thoughts. First of all, a MacBook Air drives this...

There are two delivery extremes for software in this world: there is the Panic way and the Adobe way. The first relies on a simple ZIP archive, that, for most users, gets unpacked and moved out of the way automatically. The second on a slew of installers, updaters and package managers that do everything they possibly can to get in...

After years of refusing to install extensions in my browsers or proxies on my machine, I have, for the past few months, started to work seriously on blocking connections to ad servers. The reason? The increasing number of security issues linked to these ad networks and their ability to inject code in relatively "trusted" web sites. Are such drive-by downloads...

For years, the Macintosh world has lived under the assumption that Vista's look is crap and Mac OS X rocks. Everything on the Mac side screams quality and reliability, elegance and composure, style and attitude. Compared to our elegance, unique style and peaceful workflow, Vista's bumpy, bright, tawdry interface does not stand a chance. Or does it? Vista's interface is...

The iPhone is one curious beast. Since I first started showing affection to mine in public, I am happy to report that I have never run into an embarrassing moment: it has always behaved properly, performing as expected and wooing audiences with its cute grin, boyish attitude and tactile features. That is until today. You see, like probably most iPhone...