"I'd buy anything if it's shiny and from Apple."
Showing posts with label Mac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mac. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Friday, December 7, 2007
Chemdraw upgrade
Since updating to OS 10.5, I have not used the Chemdraw 9.1 program on my computer. Shortly after updating to Leopard, I downloaded a demo version of Chemdraw 11.0 just for the fun of it, and used that for 2 weeks. I didn't really intend on purchasing it since version 9 does everything I needed.
Well, the two week trial ended and I reverted back to Chemdraw 9.1. Everything was great until I tried to save my file. Apparently, while using OS 10.5, Chemdraw 9.1 can't save. I got the spinning wheel and then Chemdraw would quit. I tried everything. Uninstall, install, repeat.
Eventually, I had a choice. Go back to 10.4 or buy Chemdraw 11.0. Well, like they say, once you go 10.5 you never go back (or something like that). I asked my IT friend if they would foot the bill. They said yes. Apparently, the $270[1] for software is nothing in the grand scheme of IT. So, I now have Chemdraw 11.0.
Since I am a Mac guy and since Cambridge Software is slowly becoming more and more Mac-unfriendly, I purchased the Chemdraw Pro version of 11.0 since the Ultra version contains lots and lots of cool features that work only on a Windows machine.
For how I use it, I have not noticed any big changes or improvements. The interface looks nicer, but the functionality is essentially the same (at least for how I use it).
The one thing I really wish they would include is a shortcut button for the "distribute" function. I use this all of the time. When I have a number of structures, I like them distributed evenly. The "center" and align functions all have shortcut buttons, but not the distribute. Unless there is some way to set this up, I will always be annoyed by this shortfall.
I'm also annoyed by the fact that in all of my installing and uninstalling and upgrading, I forgot to save my stationary files (i.e. document settings). Which means, I'll need to recreate these someday. Oh well, that was my fault. I had different settings for exams, reports, and other things. I hate the ACS document settings for use on exams. The nice thing is, version 11 has Wiley settings which are very close to what I use for exams.
[1] The $270 is the upgrade price for Chemdraw Pro with the educator discount.
Well, the two week trial ended and I reverted back to Chemdraw 9.1. Everything was great until I tried to save my file. Apparently, while using OS 10.5, Chemdraw 9.1 can't save. I got the spinning wheel and then Chemdraw would quit. I tried everything. Uninstall, install, repeat.
Eventually, I had a choice. Go back to 10.4 or buy Chemdraw 11.0. Well, like they say, once you go 10.5 you never go back (or something like that). I asked my IT friend if they would foot the bill. They said yes. Apparently, the $270[1] for software is nothing in the grand scheme of IT. So, I now have Chemdraw 11.0.
Since I am a Mac guy and since Cambridge Software is slowly becoming more and more Mac-unfriendly, I purchased the Chemdraw Pro version of 11.0 since the Ultra version contains lots and lots of cool features that work only on a Windows machine.
For how I use it, I have not noticed any big changes or improvements. The interface looks nicer, but the functionality is essentially the same (at least for how I use it).
The one thing I really wish they would include is a shortcut button for the "distribute" function. I use this all of the time. When I have a number of structures, I like them distributed evenly. The "center" and align functions all have shortcut buttons, but not the distribute. Unless there is some way to set this up, I will always be annoyed by this shortfall.
I'm also annoyed by the fact that in all of my installing and uninstalling and upgrading, I forgot to save my stationary files (i.e. document settings). Which means, I'll need to recreate these someday. Oh well, that was my fault. I had different settings for exams, reports, and other things. I hate the ACS document settings for use on exams. The nice thing is, version 11 has Wiley settings which are very close to what I use for exams.
[1] The $270 is the upgrade price for Chemdraw Pro with the educator discount.
Friday, November 23, 2007
backup, backup, backup, backup......
A recent story written by Derek about 3.5 inch floppy disks and a dissertation brought back some memories for me. The fact that I am currently looking for an external hard drive to store my rapidly expanding digital information also stirred these memories. I am looking for a 500 GB drive which would be 2.5E5 times larger than the good old fashioned 3.5 inch floppy drive I stored my MS thesis on.
I was in grad school (for the first time) back in the mid-90s. I was doing work on organometallics (heavy on the organo, light on the metallics), specifically porphyrins. After a couple of years, I was offered a teaching position, and I opted for a MS and the pursuit of wealth in the world of academia.
The internet was still in its youth, but it was a rapidly growing toddler that was learning to run. Netscape was still good, and computers were becoming much more than glorified word processors.
I bought a Macintosh PowerBook 520c (the 'c' means "color"). I love that computer ("love" in the present tense. I still have this computer and use it occasionally). It was a workhorse when I wrote my thesis. I would often have 6-8 applications running at the same time, and the little thing only crashed once.
As I wrote my thesis, I realized my paranoia of losing my work was directly proportional to the thesis length. I became a compulsive saver. I would save everything I had on a 3.5 inch floppy drive. I started saving everything on just one disk. As my work got longer and longer, I started saving 2 copies. Then an event occurred that threw me deep into backup paranoia.
I was writing at home. I decided to have a beer while writing at my desk. It was a 22 oz microbrew and I had poured it into a tall glass (see where this is going?). I was typing away enjoy what I recall as bing a pale ale. I don't know what happened, but due to what was some sort of flailing arm movement I knocked the beer over.
Sudden panic. Beer every where. My bed was next to my desk and there was enough beer on my quilt so I threw that on the wood floor to sop up the beer that was cascading off of my desk. I quickly assessed the situation. Somehow, somehow, very little beer got on my computer. It had only splashed on the display and on a few keys. My stylewriter printer on the other hand got the worst of it. It would never recover. I cleaned up the mess, tried heroic efforts to resuscitate the printer, and apologized to my PowerBook for putting it in harms way.
That's also when I decided to increase the number of copies I backed up. It eventually became 10. I would literally spend about 30 minutes backing everything up each day. The floppy disks were dispersed everywhere to ensure the survival of at least one if a catastrophic beer spill of biblical proportions were to occur.
When I returned to grad school to finish my Ph.D., I followed a similar pattern, albeit with CDs. I was eventually burning 3-4 CDs daily.
Yes, I was paranoid.
I was in grad school (for the first time) back in the mid-90s. I was doing work on organometallics (heavy on the organo, light on the metallics), specifically porphyrins. After a couple of years, I was offered a teaching position, and I opted for a MS and the pursuit of wealth in the world of academia.
The internet was still in its youth, but it was a rapidly growing toddler that was learning to run. Netscape was still good, and computers were becoming much more than glorified word processors.
I bought a Macintosh PowerBook 520c (the 'c' means "color"). I love that computer ("love" in the present tense. I still have this computer and use it occasionally). It was a workhorse when I wrote my thesis. I would often have 6-8 applications running at the same time, and the little thing only crashed once.
As I wrote my thesis, I realized my paranoia of losing my work was directly proportional to the thesis length. I became a compulsive saver. I would save everything I had on a 3.5 inch floppy drive. I started saving everything on just one disk. As my work got longer and longer, I started saving 2 copies. Then an event occurred that threw me deep into backup paranoia.
I was writing at home. I decided to have a beer while writing at my desk. It was a 22 oz microbrew and I had poured it into a tall glass (see where this is going?). I was typing away enjoy what I recall as bing a pale ale. I don't know what happened, but due to what was some sort of flailing arm movement I knocked the beer over.
Sudden panic. Beer every where. My bed was next to my desk and there was enough beer on my quilt so I threw that on the wood floor to sop up the beer that was cascading off of my desk. I quickly assessed the situation. Somehow, somehow, very little beer got on my computer. It had only splashed on the display and on a few keys. My stylewriter printer on the other hand got the worst of it. It would never recover. I cleaned up the mess, tried heroic efforts to resuscitate the printer, and apologized to my PowerBook for putting it in harms way.
That's also when I decided to increase the number of copies I backed up. It eventually became 10. I would literally spend about 30 minutes backing everything up each day. The floppy disks were dispersed everywhere to ensure the survival of at least one if a catastrophic beer spill of biblical proportions were to occur.
When I returned to grad school to finish my Ph.D., I followed a similar pattern, albeit with CDs. I was eventually burning 3-4 CDs daily.
Yes, I was paranoid.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Leopard
OK, I've been using Leopard for a few days now. My first impressions are that it is awesome. I've run into no compatibility issues thus far. I like the look which clearly Apple has focused on as much as function.One big noticeable improvement is the speed. I'm using a PowerBook G4 (1.5 GHz with 768 MB RAM). By most standards, that is getting old. Leopard has made my machine run a lot faster and smoother.
The only issue I have noticed (and I'm not sure to what extent Leopard is to blame) is in syncing. When syncing my computer to a server, it doubled some of my files. One had a "-local" suffix and the other had a "-network" suffix. I'm still trying to figure that one out.
I still wish Apple would do something about Appletalk, but maybe they can't just dump it. I don't know. It's just an annoyance.
Is it worth the cost? Well, for me it didn't cost a thing. My employer covered that. Would I, personally, shell out the $130 to update? Maybe. The change from 10.4 to 10.5 is not too drastic. If I was still running 10.3 on an iBook, I would do it in a minute.
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