Yum!

This is Yum for Linux.

Um...

I think that pretty much sums it up.

I don’t know what took me so long. I guess I just didn’t get it. All this time I’ve been trying to manage all my passwords across multiple computers using Keychain. Insanity!

Wherefore Password Management?
As a SysAdmin, I have more passwords than I could ever possibly remember. Many of my accounts reuse passwords quelled from a fairly large pool that I’ve collected over the years. So I’m pretty good about remembering most of them. But every now and then a site has password requirements that none of my stock passwords fulfill. And then I end up with a hard-to-remember password.

Also, my current job requires me to constantly access accounts and password that I didn’t come up with myself, and there is an ever-growing number of these. They’re really hard to keep track of.

While there are certainly ways to manage all your passwords using the Keychain app included with Mac OS X, they tend to be unwieldy, or, in the case of MobleMe, costly. Plus, I often need to keep passwords handy when I’m away from my from my computer, which means I need a solution that works with my iPhone, which Keychain does not.

Enter 1Password
I’ve been hearing raves about 1Password for a long time, so I took this opportunity to actually give it a try. And I think this is the key (ha! Get it?). 1Password definitely falls into that category of apps you just have to try to truly grok. Fortunately you can install and test it for free for thirty days.

And thirty days is none too many. To really use 1Password some assembly is required. Which is just to say that I found it best to start from scratch with all my passwords. Some can be imported from Safari, but really you’re going to want to start with a clean slate. Trust me.

For my purposes, there are two things 1Password really excels at: 1) password management and synchronization across multiple devices; and 2) automatic login to websites.

Password Management & Sync
The main reason I wanted to try 1Password was so that I had my passwords with me everywhere I go. 1Password uses Dropbox (or other similar services) to accomplish this goal. So far, password management with 1Password has been as seamless as Dropbox itself. It’s fantastic! Once it’s set up, 1Password just syncs your passwords between any computers you tell it to. It’s like Dropbox for your passwords. I suppose you could accomplish this with Keychain and Dropbox, but with 1Password you can also sync to other devices, like your iPhone or iPad. So your passwords are always with you, everywhere, all the time.

Automatic Login
1Password also comes with plugins for just about any Mac browser on the planet. These plugins allow 1Password to log you in to any site in its database. This was never something I had intended to use, but since it was there I went ahead and tried it. Turns out it’s terrific. It’s very well implemented. With the click of a button you can log into any site 1Password’s aware of. Not only do you not have to remember the password, you don’t have to even type it. Or the username. It’s a real time saver, and I ended up loving it.

1Password will also offer to remember any accounts you haven’t already entered in its database. So if you’re logging in to a site 1Password doesn’t recognize, a pop-up will ask you to store the new account. Perhaps cooler, you can use 1Password to generate strong passwords and, since you always have them with you, you don’t really have to remember them anymore. I’m not quite comfortable enough to use this method yet, but it would actually make many of my logins a great deal more secure, so it’s really cool to know it’s there if I ever want to use it.

Keep Your Keychain
One thing it took me a while to realize about 1Password is that it’s not a substitute for Keychain. For many of the things you use Keychain for — like storing passwords for AFP shares on your network, for instance — Keychain is still the way to go. But if you need something above and beyond, if you need a way to keep your passwords with you everywhere and at all times, or a simple, secure, super fast way to log on to websites, 1Password is a real lifesaver.

I’m still testing it out, and I’ve only just gotten the iPhone app, which seems pretty good (minus the browser plugin, of course) but so far, like most folks with too many passwords, I’m loving 1Password.

And by someone like me I should reiterate that I am, by trade, a systems administrator and that I use computers, to a large extent, to set up and maintain other computers with highly specialized or high-level functions. In my spare time I use computers to make art — video, music, and, most recently, to scan and post drawings. For much of my job an iPad is simply useless. And for many of my personal pursuits it’s a non-option as well. I’m really not the intended audience for the iPad.

So when a co-worker recently purchased an iPad and was kind enough to let me test it out for a week, the question I set out to answer was: Is there anything useful I can do with the iPad?

The short answer is a qualified yes. There is a lot about the iPad to like, and there are quite a few things I don’t like, but I did manage to find some areas in which the iPad shined, even for “someone like me.”

The Downside

Let’s start with the areas that, for me, proved disappointing. These will, of course, be based on my own usage preferences. But suffice to say there are at least a few areas where the iPad left me wanting, and some of them were quite surprising.

Performance
Much has been said about the iPad’s performance. All of it positive. But frankly — and I realize I sound like a crank here, but — I just didn’t see it. Maybe it was all the hype going in, or maybe it was the iOS 4.2 update I applied immediately after cracking the box, but the iPad felt to me like it performed almost exactly like my iPhone 3GS. That’s right, 3GS. Not that that’s particularly bad, mind you, but I was expecting to be impressed with the speed of the iPad, especially considering the fact that I’m accustomed to previous-generation hardware, and I wasn’t.

In my experience, I often would touch an interface element and have to wait — sometimes for well over a second — for something to happen. For example, in iBooks, when I would touch a book in the Store section it would typically take up to five seconds to load the book info. Once it would load, if I pressed the Get Book button I’d be waiting between two and three seconds for any sort of response from the interface. Pressing a book in my library would result in a similar wait time.

What’s worse is that sometimes there’d be no indication that the touch had even taken place. No dimming of the touched item, no “Loading…” message, no barber pole. You’d just wait and hope that the touch had occurred. There seemed to be some caching issues at work here, as this sort of thing seemed to get better with time spent in a given application. Nevertheless, I would hesitate to describe much of the iPad interface as zippy.

Typing
Coming from the iPhone, typing on the software keyboard felt — and largely continues to feel — awkward and difficult. Typing is so key to so many things I do that not being able to do it as easily as I can on my iPhone feels pretty crippling. I felt like I was able to learn to thumb-type much more quickly on my iPhone. But on the iPad, it’s too wide to hold and thumb type on, at least with my rather dainty hands. But two-handed typing is even more difficult, and touch typing is simply impossible without some sort of tactile feedback. Without easier typing the iPad feels a lot more limited than my iPhone.

Netflix & Facebook
One thing I could see myself using the iPad for is casual movie and TV watching, and it’s pretty good for that. I have to say, though, that after using the Netflix app for iPhone — which by and large I like quite a bit — I found the iPad version to be quite terrible. It’s essentially no different than the web app. Unlike the iPhone app, the iPad version doesn’t appear to have been optimized for the device at all. It just a slow, laggy view of the Netflix website, and I found it to be really irritating to use. The only place Netflix for iPad really shines is, of course, the watching of movies. Here, of course, the large screen makes watching stuff much nicer than it is on the iPhone.

The Facebook app, on the other hand, simply hasn’t been refactored at all, which was disappointing to discover. I use my iPhone to peruse Facebook quite a bit. It’s nice that iPhone apps will run on the iPad, but it really is true that they scale poorly. I was a bit surprised at how bad they look. I actually prefer the Facebook app on my iPhone to the scaled up version on iPad. The good news is that the Facebook website looks terrific, but I often prefer using the mobile app to the website; in many ways it’s a better interface for browsing. So overall, while nice to have, Facebook on the iPad was disappointing.

The Physical Device
While the build quality of the iPad is, in typical Apple fashion, lovely, I found handling it to be less than optimal for many of the things I want to use it for. After watching a movie in bed for a while, I found my hands and arms getting tired. The iPad starts to feel heavy and I found myself adjusting the way I was sitting or switching hands a lot. In fact, fatigue set in when using the iPad for surfing too. And when typing or holding the iPad for extended periods, the sharp metal edges frequently dug uncomfortably into my hands and fingers. While the squared off edges do look beautiful, I can’t help feeling something round would be a bit easier on the hands, and overall the iPad just felt a bit too heavy for extended use.

My co-worker also got the Apple-made iPad case. And as superb as the build quality of the iPad itself is, this case is just as crappy. Really. It’s worse than I’d even surmised from the photos. Just total shit. The material is like cardboard wrapped in cheap plastic, it’s flimsy, and when getting the iPad into and out of it it feels very much like it could easily break. The case also offers a way to prop the iPad up for extended viewing, but I think you’ll get just as much mileage out of something homemade, and for much less money. If you’re looking for a way to prop up your iPad, find a different case. One that’s good. Though really, I wish there were a built-in way to do this. Maybe in iPad 2.

Finally, the iPad Dock. The dock is actually pretty nice, akin to the dock for iPhone. It makes a great and fairly stable stand for the iPad. My only gripe is that it’s a bit difficult to remove the iPad from the dock without lifting the entire kit and kaboodle off the table. Still, it’s a worthwhile accessory.

Activation and IDs
There were just a few other spots in the whole experience that I found perplexing. For one, can someone tell me why I need to activate this thing with a computer? This seems pretty ridiculous to me. And activation is through iTunes? But… I have iTunes on my iPad, right? Why can’t I just use that? It’s a shame that a computer that’s perfect for people who aren’t particularly interested in computers requires both a computer and a fairly tech saavy computer user to activate. I really, really don’t get this. It seems contrary to the very idea of the iPad.

What’s worse, I could at least see the activation process simplifying the activation of all those Apple-supplied services, but it doesn’t. Despite the fact that I have to activate the iPad on my computer using my Apple ID, that ID exists in limbo on the iPad. If I launch the App Store, or iTunes, or iBooks on the iPad, I end up having to enter that same stupid Apple ID every time. Why? Can’t the iPad make the assumption that you’ll be using that ID for every Apple service? It would really make my life easier, and I’m an advanced user. Imagine how much better it would make my mom’s life.

The Upside

In the end, I actually did manage to find a few areas in which an iPad could serve some use in my life. It took a while, but I managed.

Reading
It’s been pretty obvious to me from the start that the iPad would be a great device for reading books. And it is. The form factor is that of a book, the weight is similar to a hardcover book. And if those clues weren’t enough: iBooks.

I really enjoy reading books on the iPad far more than I do on my iPhone, for obvious reasons. The large, bright screen and jumbo touch areas make reading on a digital device a true pleasure. If I were going to go all digital with my book collection today, I’d do it on an iPad. And the iPad itself — along with the spatial deficiencies of a Manhattan apartment — makes a great case for doing just that. My only complaint about reading on the iPad is the weight. My arms do get tired. Fortunately, I don’t tend to read for large stretches of time, so for me it’s a minor point.

Pictures
I’ve been doing a lot of drawing lately. Particularly comics. I was very pleasantly surprised at how wonderful it’s been to look at my comics on the iPad.

As the story goes, I was testing the basic Photo app functionality, and just happened to have my comics on hand to work with, so that’s what I ended up using. But it turned out to be such a thrill to look at them on the iPad, flipping from page to page in the Photos app (or in Dropbox). There’s a physicality to hand-drawn images that is wonderfully complimented by the physicality of the iPad. Both are about gesture and the touch of the human hand. And the iPad’s display and the way it processes images is just glorious. Looking at my drawings on the iPad was the closest I got to that revelatory feeling I had when I first slid open my iPhone. It was truly magical.

General Coolness

There are a few other areas where the iPad really shines for me. And while these aren’t necessarily things that will make the device useful to me, they are immensely cool, and worthy of mention. They are a showcase of the promise this device holds.

Mixed Mode Interface
The change in interface that occurs in some apps when held horizontally versus vertically is terrific. I always thought this was really smart in the ads for the iPad. But in practice it’s even better. The mixed mode interface adds both delight and functionality to the basic idea that the iPad can function in either orientation. It takes advantage of this fact by offering a reason beyond personal preference to turn the device. I just find it a very thoughtful touch that could really be exploited by developers.

Battery Life
Another delight is the phenomenal battery life. I used the iPad moderately all Thanksgiving weekend (a three-day weekend for me) and when I got back to work (yes, on Sunday) the battery still read 34%, which means it probably would have lasted another day if I’d been so lucky as to be off. That’s amazing battery performance, folks! I’ve never seen anything like it.

Maps
While it’s probably not all that useful unless you have the 3G version (which I did not) the Maps application is really nice. The larger screen makes it much more usable, and the zooming implementation in that app in particular works very, very well. I’m not sure what it is, it’s very subtle. But it’s nice! And I found myself impressed with the Maps app.

Keyboard
Using the Bluetooth keyboard really makes the iPad much more computer-like in its usefulness. Set the iPad on the Dock and use the keyboard for typing and it’s really pretty useful. I only got to do this a bit, but I can already see the potential. The keyboard and iPad combo is a powerful one.

My Stepfather
We’ve wanted to get my stepfather involved in computing somehow for a long time now, but he’s been resistant. I think it’s the learning curve. Computers tend to make people feel either really smart or really stupid, and I think my stepfather — and probably most normal people — falls into the latter camp. So I decided to show him the iPad as he’s expressed some interest in getting one. With very little “training” he was able to start using the device, and I think he even enjoyed it somewhat. It’s by no means a sure thing, but I think the iPad represents the best hope for people like my stepfather who want to take advantage of the basic wonders computers have to offer without feeling like an idiot. If we can accomplish this with my stepfather using an iPad it would be, in my eyes, the ultimate success of the device. Time will tell.

Conclusion

So the ultimate question is: Do I want an iPad? Or perhaps, more specifically, Can I use an iPad?

This answer’s not so cut and dry, I’m afraid. There is a techno-lusty side of me that wants one just because they’re neat. Any new device offers a certain allure to folks like me. But folks like me also have a huge practical side.

I’ve said many times now, if the iPad were $200 I’d buy one in a heartbeat. But at $500 clams, bare minimum — no keyboard, no case, no dock — I’ll have to pass. For now. If I’m going to spend that kind of money, I’m going to need to be able to do a lot more with an iPad than I can right now. I’m going to need a reason for one, a killer app, a justification. And that doesn’t quite exist yet.

That said, after using it for a week, while my basic suspicions were confirmed, I also came away with a greater appreciation of the device. And a much greater sense of its potential. This is already a great device for reading digital books. And it’s simply a joy for perusing images. I fully expect to get one of these babies someday. Maybe it will be iPad 2, maybe iPad 3, I don’t know. But they’re only going to get more useful, and at some point that usefulness will reach a critical mass and I’ll have to have one. What I’ve seen so far has proven at least that to me.

It seems to me that the reason Apple made stores in the first place was that they had something to prove, and the best way to make their point was to show rather than to tell.

Back in the day there were a whole lot of people who were at least considering the possibility of switching to a Mac. But they had questions: would a Mac be able to connect to the Internet? Could I surf the web on one? Could I print to my printer on one? Essentially, can I do on a Mac what I can on Windows?

I believe Apple Stores initially sprung up to answer these questions. They don’t actually exist to show the disparities between the Mac platform and Windows, rather the similarities, and, surely, the advantages of using a Mac to do the same things Windows does. There’s nothing particularly exclusive about the Apple Store, in fact it’s very inclusive. You go there to see and touch and experience this thing you’ve only ever heard about, this mystery that is a Mac.

For a lot of people the Mac is still a new concept. It’s no surprise the Microsoft Store is less wondrous: everyone’s already seen Windows.

The Mobile Situation
I had initially found MobileMe problematic, especially compared to Dropbox, and especially when dealing with, of all things, Mac-specific metadata. But it turns out that Dropbox is not without its own problems either. In fact, after looking more closely at my Dropbox data, not only are my custom icons and labels missing on one of my computer’s Dropbox folders, but a good many of my image files, for some reason, don’t display properly on my iPhone (or, for that matter, on an iPad I’ve had the good fortune to test out — more on that later) when viewed from the mobile Dropbox app.

Dropbox: Corrupted Image

The images seem fine on my computer, and when viewed from the web, but when viewed or downloaded to my iPhone they are corrupted, so it would seem to be a problem with how they’re downloaded to the mobile app only, not corrupt data per se. Nevertheless, it’s a problem.

Moreover, it’s problem I don’t have with MobileMe. The same images viewed on my iDisk app look fantastic.

iDisk: Beautiful Images Every Time

Behavior-wise, though, I much prefer the Dropbox app. As I’d mentioned in my last post, it’s capable of displaying text files with the .sh extension. But it’s also a lot more friendly when it comes to viewing and managing images. Dropbox, for instance, allows you to use the swipe gesture to flip between images that are in the same folder, much like you can do in the native Photos app; iDisk doesn’t. It also has a gallery view for image folders that iDisk lacks.

Dropbox: Image Gallery

Dropbox allows you to create folders and add photos from your phone to your Dropbox; iDisk doesn’t. iDisk, on the other hand, does allow you to share a file right from the mobile app, but this is something I never do, so it’s not particularly useful to me. Dropbox’s features are useful, and are ones I use all the time.

The Dropbox app is the clear winner in terms of behavior; I much prefer it. But it doesn’t do me much good if my images don’t display properly. Dropbox fails on a core piece of functionality, and that makes it hard to fully recommend if photos are your game.

Decisions, Decisions
I find myself ping-ponging between MobileMe and Dropbox: Dropbox is simple and easy to use, but MobileMe includes more features; Dropbox lets me read my shell scripts from it’s mobile app, but MobileMe lets me view my photos more reliably. Overall, I like Dropbox better, but the image issue is quite possibly a deal killer.

Find My iPhone
Apple recently announced that iOS 4.2 will include the Find My iPhone service for free with the current crop of hardware. Though I’m still using an iPhone 3GS, I will almost certainly purchase the next revision of the phone, and that will probably be right around the time that my MobileMe subscription is set to expire. Since Find My iPhone is one of the few reasons I’ve continued to hang on to my MobileMe subscription, I’m seriously debating not renewing it when the time comes. My foray into Apple’s cloud services has been largely disappointing. If Dropbox can fix this image issue by that time, it will make this decision a no-brainer.

It’s a shame, really. Everywhere the iPhone shines, MobileMe falls down. Where my iPhone instantly allowed me to consolidate my Mac and mobile data (remember when your Address Book and phone contacts were completely separate?) MobileMe seems to offer a Mac-specific service that’s easily replaced by free and more cross-platform solutions. Mail, contacts and calendar can all be provided better and for free by Google. And there are much better, faster and cheaper ways to get synchronized data storage and backup. What’s more, I already give Apple most of the money in my technology budget, so I can’t help feeling cheated when I have to fork over additional green for these services.

So, while not perfect in some really key areas, I will likely end up giving my money, this time, to Dropbox. Here’s hoping they continue to improve their excellent, if not quite perfect, service.

UPDATE:
One other admittedly very minor beef I have with Dropbox that I just have to get off my chest: if you want gallery functionality, the folder used for images must be called “Photos.” As a person who uses this folder almost exculsively for either drawings or computer graphics, I’d prefer something more neutral. iDisk uses the word “Pictures” which I much prefer.

I’m using the free version, so I only get 2GB of storage. This has been plenty for me so far, but I often wonder about what I should do if I ever hit that limit.

I’ve also been using Mobile Me for just over a year. I mainly got it to tinker with, as well as for the off chance that I should someday lose my iPhone. In addition to the various things you can do with MobileMe — none of which I ever actually do, it turns out — you get 10GB of disk space on your WebDav-connected iDisk, and this can be synced to any computer you sign on to much like your Dropbox account is synced. So I’ve been tempted to replace Dropbox with MobileMe, since I’m paying for it anyway. Before going ahead with a dedicated switch, though, I thought I’d give it a try for a while first. See how it stacks up against Dropbox.

It turns out — and this will probably come as no surprise to current MobileMe subscribers — that the iDisk functionality is problematic for a number of reasons.

First of all, MobileMe occasionally tells me that there is a sync conflict, despite the fact that I’ve told it to always keep the latest version of a file. This is something you never see with Dropbox. Ever. I’m not sure how the two services differ in terms of their syncing algorithms, but Dropbox definitely has the edge.

But perhaps more disturbing is the fact that MobileMe — an Apple-hosted service, mind you — doesn’t seem to be able to retain Mac-specific data on certain files synced to iDisk. Case in point: Remember when I told you about adding icons to your Services to make them clearer and prettier? Well, I wanted to store those Services in the cloud for easy access from any computer. When I copied them to my local iDisk, everything appeared to be just fine.

But as soon as the sync began, the icons and labels all started disappearing.

In the end, MobileMe stripped off all the labels and icons from my files.

I’m not sure why Apple’s own file syncing service is incapable of handling Mac-specific data, but this works just fine using Dropbox. And Dropbox wins on seamlessness too. So if I ever do have to spend some money on this, that money will be going to Dropbox. It really is a terrific, versatile service, and it’s very Mac-compatible.

UPDATE:
Another advantage that Dropbox has over iDisk is its iPhone app. Both let you read documents directly from the online storage, but Dropbox is actually smarter about file types, particularly when it comes to text files. The iDisk app on iPhone will not allow me to read text files that end with the .sh suffix (or, I’d wager, any text file that doesn’t end with .txt), saying that the file type is not supported.

Dropbox for iPhone, on the other hand, will recognize those files as text files and display them as such.

This is a big deal for me because one of the main uses I have for these services is constant access to my scripts in the field. They’re essentially my shell scripting field reference. But unless they have a .txt suffix, MobileMe’s iDisk for iPhone just won’t display them.

UPDATE 2:
It turns out that Dropbox isn’t perfect with regards to extended attributes after all. While my Dropbox files on my work machine do seem to retain the labels and icons, the same files at home lack these attributes.

Despite these discrepancies, Dropbox considers these files properly synced. Without the reliable retention of icon data, I will not be able to store my icons using Dropbox’s service. And the fact that my home and work Dropbox folders are inconsistent does a great deal to reduce my confidence in the overall reliability of the service. Big ticks in Dropbox’s CON column, if you ask me. Bummer.

As per one reader’s suggestion, I think I will go ahead and try SugarSync.

Automator Icon

If you want to customize the look of your Services, simply give the actual services on disk (located at ~/Library/Services) a custom icon.

Custom Icons

These icons will appear in the Services menu listing, which looks nice and provides visual hints about what the Service does.

Services Menu Icons

Meantime, I wanted to just point out the Ars review of Windows Phone 7, which I’m presently in the midst of skimming. And I have to say, I’m impressed. It looks very promising and it’s the most attractive, forward thinking thing I’ve seen come out of Redmond in, well, maybe since I started using computers, which would be about 12 years.

Windows Phone 7: I'll Never Remember That

I’m intrigued by the largely text-based visual approach, and the incredibly spartan, almost institutional iconography. In a world of imagery overload there is something very appealing to me about this look, and I’d imagine it will appeal to the business set as well. It’s classy but not cutesy the way iOS can be.

It’s not often (ever?) I post something positive about a Microsoft product. And I don’t know if it will be successful. But I have to admit, Windows Phone 7 looks, if nothing else, interesting.

I’m also surprised at how much I’m liking iBooks for my iPhone. There are tons of free, interesting-sounding books, and it’s great to have these handy when I just need a little something to keep me occupied. It also lets me read PDFs, which is awesome.

But maybe the biggest surprise with iBooks is that if I want to sync my books to my computer I’ll have to delete all the songs, movies and TV shows from my iPhone:

Hmmm… That seems awful drastic. I think I’ll pass.

If anyone knows how to sync my books to my computer — and what I might do with them once I have them on there — let me know. For now I think I’ll forego deleting all my data.

And check out iBooks. It’s surprisingly good.