Mark Mischke's Weblog

The death of e-mail? I think not.

I read an interesting article on the decline of e-mail as a preferred communications mechanism among the sub-25 crowd. While I can appreciate the appeal of instantaneous, synchronous communication, I don't see e-mail's status as being threatened in any way. When I was younger, I probably would have lived and breathed via IM, SMS, Facebook, etc. The concept of a planless Friday night was unthinkable. Funny how that changes with time.

These days I tend to avoid synchronous communication. I've never been much of a phone person, I run an IM client only when required to do so for work and pretty much the only person I text with is my wife. I prefer to manage my general availability and synchronous communication feels too much like an electronic leash. For me, e-mail is the ideal medium. I can reply quickly if I need to or I can take whatever time I need to compose my thoughts.

There will always be a contingent, regardless of age, which places emphasis on synchronous communication and high availability. These people are often seen tapping away at their surgically-attached Crackberries. Sometimes it's because of a job-related need and sometimes it's just because a person likes being connected. No problem there. Some folks enjoy always being 'on'. For those of us who don't, there will always be e-mail.

Back to altitude

This past summer, Ali and I spent a week in Flagstaff, Arizona. It was a good time and we did the typical things that a vacation in Flag might entail. We stayed in the center of town, at the historic (and supposedly haunted) Hotel Monte Vista. We hiked in the Grand Canyon, but not too far down because of the heat. We spent a day biking and shopping in Sedona. We saw a herd of wild elk while hiking on Flag's urban trail network. We explored many of the local restaurants. And we climbed Humphreys Peak.

Humphreys was our main goal, although I was quietly skeptical about our chances for success. It rises to 12,600' over a gentle 9.6 mile trail which begins at just over 9,000'. I'd previously been to 14,000', but not for many years, and Ali had never hiked above 10,000'. Neither of us was in the best physical condition (fortunately we've both since turned that around), and going from sea level to 12,000' with only a few days to get used to half that height (Flag is at 7,000') is no mean feat. After steaming up the Grand with surprising stamina earlier in the week, our confidence grew.

We started out early in the day, feeling a bit woozy even at the trailhead. My thought was to take it slowly and steadily. I was concerned that if we pushed too hard, we'd become altitude-sick and be unable to recover. The trail was stunning and it didn't feel at all like the Arizona we'd come to know. We picked up a lone hiker from Canada along the way. He'd been hiking in Colorado, so he had an edge on us, but he apparently wanted company so he kept our pace. We both got on-and-off headaches and Ali had a short bout of nausea. We kept guzzling water and managed to push those effects back. This was my first time at altitude without taking Diamox, which prevents altitude sickness. I wanted to see what it'd be like, but I think I'll have it with me next time.

Before we knew it, we were standing on the summit. It was quite an accomplishment (esp. given that I was 25 lbs. heavier than I am today!). We met some cool folks up top and hung out for awhile before dashing back down to tree-line when we saw the afternoon thunderheads rolling in. The trail itself wasn't too challenging; it was the altitude. I'd rate the trail as moderate if it were in NH's White Mountains; maybe similar to the Garfield Trail. The altitude adds a lot to the mix. All in all, it was a great hike and I highly recommend it.

Leopard pounced on me

Yesterday was an odd day for me, Macintosh-wise. Upon reading about the updated MacBooks, I ran off to the local Apple store. These were 'silently' updated, meaning that Apple had added a few 'under the hood' tweaks and didn't make a big deal about it. In this particular case, it _was_ a big deal. I'd been on the fence about getting a MacBook, but the 2 GB RAM limit and the anemic GMA 950 graphics held me back. The new MacBooks accommodate 4 GB of RAM and incorporate Intel's new Santa Rosa chipset, which boosts the front-side bus speed and integrates the new X3100 graphics chipset. In true Apple fashion, pricing remains the same as before.

Alas, the Apple store didn't yet have the new MacBooks. Unlike officially-heralded product releases, Apple's silent updates are slow to trickle in. I didn't get my MacBook and now I've decided to wait a week or three to hear what early-adopters are saying about them.

I then tried upgrading my venerable Mac mini to Leopard (OS X 10.5). I know that upgrading any OS is generally a very bad move, but I'd had such a great experience going from Panther (10.3) to Tiger (10.4) that I felt compelled to give it a try. I was one of the lucky recipients of the infamous Stunning Blue Screen Which Waits for Godot. I quickly determined that Godot would be a no-show and tried to extricate myself from the mess. I'd backed up my data, so reinstalling from scratch wasn't going to be a problem. I actually prefer to do that once a year, or so. Lo and behold, the mini wouldn't respond to any boot-time keystroke commands. I couldn't force a boot from the CD/DVD. I couldn't boot into single-user mode. I couldn't boot into Open Firmware. I couldn't do much of anything except marvel at how this beautiful little 6"x6" box of brushed aluminum and white plastic refused to acknowledge my existence. I thought it might be my Logitech Elite (Mac & Windows) keyboard, so I bought a Mac keyboard. No go.

Time for surgery. Maybe it was the optical drive upgrade I'd installed earlier this year that was causing the hang. I popped open the case and swapped the stock unit back in. No dice. Despite Googling for solutions the whole time, I found little that helped. I stumbled upon a post which suggested using the mini's remote to select the boot device. I'd forgotten that the mini even _had_ a remote, but it worked. The mini ignored the keyboard, but faithfully obeyed the God of Infrared. This time I did a clean installation of Leopard and I was up and running in just a few minutes. I had to reinstall my apps, but that's never as much of a pain as many make it out to be. Took me less than an hour. Then I pulled my data off a backup disk and now I'm good to go.

Looking back over the settled dust, I now have a clean, working Leopard installation on my mini and a new Mac keyboard that I've quickly fallen in love with. The keyboard takes up less than half the desk space that my Logitech unit occupied and has a great key feel - especially to a guy like me who doesn't touch-type. I don't have a MacBook, but I'll get one one of these days. That day might be next week and it might be next Spring, after MacWorld, when they tend to rev a bunch of products. For now, I'm up and running again and I'm very happy about it.