MyPunchblog

Most people that have worked with me know that I used to be an expert on the Mac. My first real job in high school was for a company named Specular International, a developer of 3D graphics and animation software for the Mac. From 1992-1998, I learned how to manage the inner-workings of a Mac. I mastered the operating system and learned how to add video boards and memory inside the machine. While an intern at Specular, I was the sole person in charge of a series of seminars around the country at Apple Market Centers. During college, I used a Mac exclusively. After I joined Specular full-time, and later when the company was sold to MetaTools, I used a Mac. I was a fan of the Mac and I knew it inside and out.

When I joined Adobe in early 1998, I was given a IBM Thinkpad and I had a Mac desktop. The product I managed, Adobe Premiere, was a big success on the Mac. It was built on top of Apple Quicktime, so I got to know the team at Apple pretty well. During this time, I learned the basics of the Windows OS, but I was no expert. Even so, I was happy with my Thinkpad. After about 2 years at Adobe, I upgraded to the latest and greatest Thinkpad.

I left Adobe and went to business school at the University of North Carolina — and continued to use a Thinkpad. By this point, I had suffered lots of problems with configuration settings, internet connectivity and other Windows idiosyncrasies but I dealt with them. For Windows, it was par for the course. After business school, I joined Bose Corporation. Another Thinkpad.

Fast forward to when I bought my first computer for Punchbowl. By this point, I had been using Windows (and related applications) for more than 9 years. I had lots of data from various programs, and I didn’t even consider switching to a Mac. Even though I continued to have typical Windows problems that I couldn’t fix, I didn’t even give it much thought. So I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad T61.

Over the last several months, things have changed. Here’s a partial list of some of the problems I’ve had with my Lenovo Thinkpad:

1. Problems with docking station. Often when I undock and redock, I’ll get a blue screen of death (known issue)
2. Constant problems connecting to wireless networks (many times a day I have to repair my connection for no apparent reason)
3. Internet Explorer 7 crashes. A lot.
4. Display driver problems when connecting to an external monitor (everyday, I have to run the display wizard to get the resolutions correct)
5. External peripherals stop working (like my USB drive)
6. Battery problems: Replaced the battery after only 6 months. New battery runs hot.
7. Overall slowness and unusability (CPU idling very high even though nothing is running)
8. Increase in spyware and malicious viruses (virus software often interrupting my work)

Yesterday morning (Saturday) I sat down to do some work. As soon as I touched my computer, I got a blue screen. I have no idea why. So I restarted my machine, and attempted to undock it from its docking station. Another blue screen. After another restart, I got it working again. And then it struck me: I don’t want to put up with this anymore. With the whole day in front of me, I set out to do the unthinkable. I decided to switch back to the Mac.

Switching back to the Mac is not something I take lightly. In fact, over the past several weeks, I had been jotting down notes about what it would take for me to switch. I have thousands of contacts, many data files from various programs, and numerous peripherals. This was going to be a big task.

Armed with my list of information, I went to the Apple store in Natick, MA. I spent about an hour and a half with a well-trained salesperson as I went through all of my issues. He had excellent answers for some of my thorny issues. So I plunked down my credit card and walked out of the store with a brand new MacBook Pro. I was on my way.

What transpired over the next ~ 10 hours was a massive switch to the Mac. Here is a rundown of how it went down (and roughly how long it took to get everything working).

1. Initial Mac setup: Went very smoothly. Found my network quickly (20 min)
2. Internet browsers and bookmarks: Installed Firefox 3 and Yahoo Toolbar (15 min)
3. Installed Microsoft Office: Installation got hung on font installs, had to reinstall. (25 min)
4. Installed Glance for screen sharing (10 min)
5. Installed Adobe Web Collection (includes Acrobat Professional). Very slow install. (40 min)
6. Spent some more time configuring the Mac: personal settings etc (30 min)
7. Attach/reattach external monitor, configure settings. This worked really well, and I’m so happy that it will be easy to connect and reconnect quickly (20 min).
8. Installed Palm Desktop (for use with my Treo 650). Went smoothly, but software is very different so took some time getting use to it (45 min)
9. Office printer configuration: awesome (5 min)
10. Scansnap 510 (2.5 hours). This was much more difficult. The black version of this device was made ONLY for Windows. Through some internet searching, I found a site that explained how to get the Scansnap to work on the Mac. Sounds crazy, but the solution is to use a Japanese driver and then go through a crazy process to localize that driver into English. A few notes for anyone who is trying to make this work, and running into problems:

    - Make sure you use the correct version of the English driver as explained in the directions. DO NOT use the most recent version! The correct Scanscap Mac driver is English version 21.
    - If you still have Japanese menus and dialogs after you add in the English folder, you will need to find the English folder in EACH and EVERY component and replace EACH of these. There are 3 applications (Folder, Email, Print) and 6 bundles. Do not try and use the same English folder in all of the resources. It won’t work (and I found out the hard way).
    - Read this thread very carefully. It has more information that will get you through this.
11. Flickr Uploadr: easy (5 min)
12. Skype: easy (5 min)
13. Moving all documents from PC to Mac using USB drive (60 min)
14. Buffalo NAS Network Drive. Fairly easy, once I figured out how the Mac sees networks (30 min)
15. Home printer, Dymo Label maker, Photo printer. Easy. (20 min)
16. More personal configuration (1.5 hours)

So there you have it. I’m back on the Mac. I’m very happy with how things are working so far and I especially like how easily the computer wakes up from standby.

I have a few more items still to solve to make my Mac transition complete:

1. Mobile Broadband Card from Sprint (I hope they give me a new one that fits in my Mac)
2. Quicken for home
3. Quickbooks for work
4. Transitioning my iTunes library (it’s already on the network drive, so should be easy)
5. Waiting for Google Picasa to come out for the Mac (should be soon)
6. Carbonite Backup (I sent a note to the CEO of Carbonite asking to be added to the Mac beta program, we’ll see what comes of that)
7. I need an extra Mac power cord so I don’t have to move the powercord from work to home everyday.

I don’t know if “I’m a Mac” now, but I do know this: after all of the advertisements are over, a computer should just work. My laptop is the center of my work life, and it’s critical that I can rely on it. My new MacBook Pro gives me that confidence.

A few weeks ago I was at the Nike outlet store in New Hampshire and I saw a classic t-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Just Do It.” This simple phrase is arguably the best marketing slogan of all time. Can you think of a slogan that captures the brand and mission of a company better than “Just Do It”?

I’m wearing my ‘Just Do It’ t-shirt today (it’s 90 degrees here in Boston), and it got me thinking about how I can apply the “Just do it” mantra to my everyday work. 

Are you like me in that you have a list of things to do that never seems to get done? I keep my to-do list in a handy-dandy web application and I prioritize by things I need to do “Now” versus things I need to do “Soon” or “Later.” It’s amazing to see that some of the items on my “Later” list have been there for many, many months. So why haven’t I gotten to them yet?

I wonder if I were to add up all of the time that I’ve spent reading those tasks on my to-do list how much time I’ve wasted. Rather than spending those 5 seconds to process the item on my list, I could have simply used that time to start making progress on the item. I’ve done this with my email inbox many times too. Rather than handling an email right away, I’ll let it fester in my inbox. I’m always more effective when I touch an email only once.

So today I’ve been trying to handle a bunch of things using the “Just Do it now” mantra. It’s been a productive day. I’ve cleaned out my inbox, responded to a bunch of things that I had let linger, and I even knocked a few things off of my long-standing to-do list.

It’s been an interesting experiment. If you’re like me and have a long-standing to do list and an inbox full of emails you haven’t handled, try the “Just Do it Now” approach. And let me know how it goes.

Sean here, the other founder of MyPunchbowl.

It’s been a while, but I was inspired to write a blog post. You see, in the last year or so I’ve had a few moments of clarity about myself. When you have these moments like I did, you realize that they don’t come along that often. Get ready because this is some really deep stuff (ahem).

1 - I like food that is small in size, but large in quantity.

Yup, read it again. I know your next question: what are some examples?

• Sprinkles. I love sprinkles. I’ve been told that I have sort of a problem. I don’t think I do- they’re sprinkles! …  brightly colored, crunchy, small, and completely edible! I mainly eat them on ice cream (but i won’t claim i’ve never eaten a straight spoonful). I prefer rainbow, but chocolate are cool too. I used to buy the small tin at the supermarket for $3.49 but then I got smart and ordered bulk quantities on eBay (6lbs of rainbow sprinkles for 12 dollars!). I never thought my love of sprinkles was a big deal or that unusual, but I’ve been informed that it is.

• Couscous. Getting the idea here? They’re small, there’s lots of them, so i like them. Back in my bachelor days I could eat a whole box of “Near East” couscous for dinner. My wife Jessie informed me that it wasn’t a well-balanced meal. Huh … well OK maybe not.

• Angel hair pasta. Slight variation here but the spirit is the same - small in diameter, large in quantity. I prefer Pesto sauce. In fact, i boycotted red sauce for a while cause I got tired of it. Speaking of boycotting, that brings me to my next life revelation …

2 - I’m not going to drink wine anymore

Look it’s not that i hate wine or have some big issue with it, I’d just rather drink other alcoholic beverages. I don’t particularly like wine, and I don’t have a great palette for it (in a blindfold test i could probably tell you if it was red or white) and so you know what? Not gonna drink it anymore. In case you’re wondering, i like beer, bourbon, vodka, and gin (I drink them separately, of course).

3 - Liquid and leather.

These are the two forms in which I eat fruit. So to clarify: If you want me to eat fruit (Jessie tells me it’s healthy) give it to me in liquid form (e.g. a smoothie, or ‘Naked’ juice) or give me some fruit leather (it’s like a natural fruit roll-up) and I’m in!

OK, that about wraps it up. I eagerly await my next moment of clarity. I hope others will be inspired to look inward, dig deep, and uncover some truly profound, fundamental, life-altering revelations like I recently have. Feel free to share with us if you do …

-Sean

This morning, there was a five alarm fire in downtown Natick only 2 blocks from my house (the old Punchbowl HQ). It was quite a scene. The entire building was lost, including five businesses that were housed in the building.

Consider this your public service announcement to check your fire insurance policy….

If you like watching fires (or you just like firemen) here’s a video of the fire, courtesy of the Metrowest Daily News article:

I’m sitting in Logan airport (Boston) on route to San Francisco this afternoon. This morning I packed, making sure to follow the TSA guidelines for liquids and gels….

Which brings me to my rant of the day: why oh why don’t the toothpaste companies offer a bigger sized travel toothpaste? The “standard” travel toothpaste is 0.85 ounces. You know, the kind you get for free at the dentist:

Now I don’t know about you, but I like to brush my teeth a few times a day — at least twice, and often three times. A 0.85 ounce toothpaste lasts about 2 days (maybe 3 if I ration carefully). In the past, I used to bring my larger toothpaste from home — one of those 4.6oz ones. However, the maximum I can bring through TSA is 3 ounces. What to do?

Yesterday I stopped at CVS to see if I could solve my dilemmna. But CVS only sells large sized toothpaste and the small travel size. So I purchased two of the smaller ones (which raises an interesting question for TSA: can I bring an unlimited number of travel sized toothpastes as long as they are in seperate containers? Oh, the danger!).

I really hope that the toothpaste manufacturers realize that anyone who travels for more than a few days at a time needs more than 0.85 ounces of toothpaste — to maximize the amount of toothpaste without going over the TSA limit. I’ll be a lifelong supporter of whichever company puts it out first.

I ranted about this to my wife as I was getting ready for the trip, and she (in her amusing sarcasm) reminded me that you can’t buy toothpaste in San Francisco. Yeah, well I guess I could do that. But that wouldn’t be efficient.

End rant.

It’s Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 — the first Saturday in May. That means it’s Kentucky Derby Day.

As I sit in my home office on this rainy morning, my wife is downstairs preparing Mint Juleps and various southern foods (from the smells I’m guessing pulled chicken, corn bread, and sweet potato pie). My job is to help set up the chairs in front of the TV and nail down the betting rules. Here’s what I got so far:

$2 to enter. Pick a horse randomly from the hat. If you pick Big Brown, Colonel John or Pyro (one of the three top horses on the morning line), you have a choice to make:  

• For Big Brown: pay 5 times more (total bet $12) or choose another horse
• For Colonel John pay 3 times more (total bet $8) or choose another horse
• For Pyro: pay 2 times more (total bet $6) or choose another horse 

3^rd place: Double total bet, 2^nd place: Triple total bet, 1^st place: Remaining pot
A few of the Punchbowlers will be coming over to the house this afternoon (it’s not a required company event like our annual Groundhog Day Party but they’re coming anyway!) Should be a fun afternoon. MyPunchbowl was very useful for our online invitations and potluck coordination. Damn, I wish we could have purchased Kentucky Derby party supplies through MyPunchbowl. Someday….

Whether you’re having a party or not, turn on the TV around 6pm EST (NBC) for the best two minutes in sports. See it once and you’ll be hooked. Happy Kentucky Derby Day!

I’m taking some time over the next week to unplug from the office. I’ll be shutting down completely, not reading emails or connected to the web world….

In the meantime, here are a few related blog posts to read:

Need perspective? Then go on vacation

Why NOT to work on vacation

I’ll be back in about a week. Until then, I’ll be here:

Have a great week!

Boston is famous for its Italian North End– if you ever come for a visit to Boston, make sure you check it out. I’ve been to the North End many times, and I’ve eaten at about ten of the many restaurants in the area.

Last night, with my wife’s family in town, we headed out to the North End for dinner. We ate at a restaurant called Fiore, right on Hanover Street (the main drag through the North End). Dinner was fantastic– fresh antipasta, perfect chicken parm (my favorite) and a tiramisu that was out of this world. The bottle of Sangiovese was pretty damn good too.

If you ever have to choose an Italian restaurant in the North End, check out Fiore. It’s by far the best Italian restaurant I’ve been to in the North End.

I got this bizarre email from my brother this morning… and felt the urge to share.

Disclaimer: My brother is currently taking the legal bar exam in Dallas, TX. This is Day 3 of the exam, so he’s a bit loopy by this point….

From Joshua: “I had a dream last night that you visited san antonio, came to the chambers, and showed us MyPunchbowl’s new “product.” You took a loaf of bread, sliced it, and then put it back into the bag. Then you took a power cord, stuck it into one end, and put the other end into a banana. It  made banana bread.”

Um…. cool Joshua. Thanks for sharing. And CONGRATS on finishing the bar exam!

I just read the breaking news that John Edwards is bowing out of the presidential race. That’s really too bad–John Edwards is a great reminder of what makes this country great. John is a lower-middle class kid from the South who rose to national prominence. Stunning, really.

I had the great pleasure of sharing a flight with John Edwards a few years ago. I’ll never forget how much he struck me as “just a regular guy.” When I sat next to him, he was engrossed in a trashy beach novel. He was friendly and personable and we shared a few moments reminiscing about how our Tar Heels just beat those rascals from Dook.

After the flight, John asked if I’d like to take a picture together. I didn’t know it at the time, but John was on his way to the cancer center in Boston where his wife was about to begin chemotherapy. With all that was swirling through his head, he had the grace and awareness to stop and take a photo with me. A true southern gentleman.

John: thanks for all that you’ve done to raise the nation’s conciousness on key issues of poverty and job creation. We hardly got a chance to know you as a presidential candidate– I just hope that whoever is the eventual nominee is smart enough to choose you as their running mate.

Party Planning and Free Online Invitations with MyPunchbowl