What moron decided that browsing the iTunes Store should involve a “svipp” sound every time a new page loads or you switch tabs? Including the act of leaving the store to go back to your music?

[Update: …and as mysteriously as it arrived, the sound has gone away again…]

I like buttons.

I know you think buttons and cables and ports are all bad things, and should be hidden from the user whenever possible, but you’re going too far again. The new Macbook Pro that you can’t plug two even slightly oversized USB cords into, even on the 17-inch model that has acres of free space along the one side you permit ports to appear on? Yeah, that’s pretty stupid.

And the new Shuffle that can’t be controlled without the supplied button-starved remote control that apparently has difficulty registering its array of clicks-and-holds when operated with sweaty fingers? Yeah, that’s looking pretty stupid too.

Now, I have to admit that you’re not alone in your hatred for visible controls. See that picture up above? Way back when, the retailer almost begged me to take it off his hands, because no one had ever bought one, and since they’d been discontinued, he couldn’t get it out of the store fast enough. Customers walked in, looked at the sea of buttons, and bought something else.

I, on the other hand, walked in, looked at the device, and said “Look, look! Logically different operations on different buttons! It must be mine!”.

So, let me see if I’ve got this straight: the new iPod Shuffle has no controls at all, making it usable only with the supplied earbuds or your in-ear headphones that cost as much as the player; the interface on the new remote includes double-click to go forward, triple-click to go back, and press-and-hold until it speaks the name of a playlist; and it’s smaller than most of the flash drives that people are constantly losing.

I ask because my beloved 2nd-generation Shuffle has shown some signs of near-future failure, and it sounds like I should grab another one as soon as the clearance sales start, before this new widget is all that’s on the shelves.

[not that that would leave me pod-less; I’ve yet to have one fail completely, so I’ve still got a 30GB, a 60GB, and a Mini that all use the old-style remote control, which I find best for car use. I’ve also got a Touch (for apps) and a Nano (a gift), and someday need to sync them all up with a machine that has my complete music library.]

Thank you.

Selecting the option Optimize for Mac OS application performance has no effect on performance
This issue is resolved in VMware Fusion 2.0.2. VMware Fusion now uses significantly less memory when the performance option is selected. This fix applies only to Mac OS X versions 10.5.5 and later.

Design note: do not assemble laptops with screws that are precisely the correct size to fall into the DVI adapter’s screw holes.

…on the bright side, once I found a strong magnet, I was able to finish installing my new 7200rpm 320GB drive (Amazon, free shipping, $90), giving me the delicious luxury of 200GB of (briefly-)free space.

…and I’m apparently better at putting MacBook Pros back together than the folks at the Apple Store, since the locking mechanism actually works properly again.

For a long time now, when you order a laptop directly from Apple’s web site, you’ve been given the choice between US and Western Spanish keyboards. With the latest models, they’ve added French and Japanese keyboards (and matching user manuals) for both MacBooks and MacBook Pros, with no effect on the promised shipping time.

The new one will have to be a Pro, since they’ve ripped FireWire out of the base MacBook line and once again left out the expansion slots. Which means that I really can’t justify the expense right now. I mean, for what it would cost to buy a tricked-out MBP, I could buy the new Sinolta 25-megapixel camera body, and I can’t justify that, either. Right now I’m barely using the extremely nice camera gear I already own, and we’re headed into the rainy season. And the current laptop is a 2GHz Core Duo with 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive.

I’m not buying either Really Cool Toy. This year. Spring, maybe. Yeah, that’s it, Spring. The economy can wait until then for major new contributions from me. I might need a new car by then, too. My 2002 RX-300 has over 200,000 miles on it, and Lexus is promising that the new RX-450h will be showing up around then.

Also, my company will have had the chance for real holiday retail sales, the current product will be available in a lot more stores, and we’ll be showing off our next-generation product, so I might even be able to afford all three upgrades. Or get the company to spring for the laptop and buy the other two. :-)

Please inform your developers that the existence of virtual memory is not a good reason to ignore basic software engineering practices regarding memory management. I have 2GB of RAM. I have a Safari window and an Aperture window. Aperture has a small library loaded, for which it is simply generating thumbnails in the background. This is sufficient to page most of Safari out to disk. And Safari has a lot to page out, despite having only four small, static pages loaded in tabs.

Seriously, dude, work on your hygiene.

Please stop making products that subject your customers to electric shocks.

Really, there are better ways to keep the cult alive.