I just bought a Gateway EC1803u from Tiger Direct for $300, after $50 in Bing cashback. This laptop has an Intel Core 2 Solo processor, Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics (including H.264 decoding), 2 GB of RAM (expandable to 8 GB), SDHC card slot, and an HDMI port.

Let’s compare this to a MacBook Air. The Air is a definitely thinner, and certainly 20 to 25 percent more powerful. But, it lacks a user-replacable battery, SDHC card slot, two less USB ports, and HDMI output.

The price difference? $1,199. That’s right, you save over a grand by choosing the Gateway over the Mac. Alternatively, you could own five Gateway EC1803u’s for the cost of one MacBook Air. The EC1803u not only makes you think purchasing a MacBook Air is relatively insane, but also gives iPad a run for its money.

Yes, you can make the case that iPad, in all its multi-touch glory, is better. Note, the EC1803u is also multi-touch via its trackpad. But I digress, Mac is clearly where Apple cannot compete in the same playing field as Gateway. It’s in Apple’s DNA to be the best. They can’t be the best and be affordable. So, they’ve moved on to iOS. There, they can be the best, and command the price to match it.

And yes, I’m sure you can challenge me by saying the EC1803u is a clearance, bargain basement price. Fair enough, but Acer has similar models with dual cores for a couple hundred more. That’s still a one thousand dollar price gap with MacBook Air.

Bottom line, Apple sees the writing on the wall with Mac. It’s a commodity market that cannot handle Apple’s demanding price-points.

I suspect Apple is contemplating a bit of a dilemma on their hands. Do they license Mac OS X, and use the iOS Halo Effect to challenge Windows. Or, do they concede that Windows and Linux have won, and use Mac OS X as an innovation platform; a test field of sorts for future iOS innovations It wouldn’t be the first time. Apple uses WebObjects to power iTunes and the Apple Store, despite deprecating the technology to the public.

Who knows? Maybe Apple will offer Mac OS X for free, like they’ve done with other technologies that are no longer the means that justify their ends. But, if you wonder why Apple isn’t driven by Mac anymore, now you know.

It’s free and open to the public. I know it’s short notice, but click over to the MechaWorks blog post to see the details.

I’ll be sure to post notated slides afterwords at least, and possibly video if we can pull that off too.

As I usually do with trade shows (when I’m not already hopelessly over-booked), I like to be open and offer to meet with just about anyone… fans… people that want to write for the sites, all the way to companies exhibiting.

Just hit the contact me link to let me know.

Apple’s glass trackpad makes a lot of sense to people that have been using trackpads for years. Whenever I hand someone a MacBook with one… they take a look at it and are perplexed… sometimes scared.

But then I tell them to just “click the trackpad” and they instantly get it. So, here’s the problem: what happens if you’ve never “clicked the trackpad”. What if you’re a new user to computers completely? Yes, new people are coming into the world every day, and I would hate to be someone young encountering Apple’s glass trackpad.

Here’s why. When I was five years old, I was playing around with Macintosh Basics. This was a Macromedia Shockwave app (yes, I’m dating myself) that Apple included with later-model Macintosh II models. Basically, it taught you how to use a computer for the first time… right down to mouse basics. I still want to feed the goldfish again (at the time, clicking a fish food icon and having it give an animation of feeding a fish on the screen was really exciting).

The glass trackpad though works as if you’ve been using a non-glass trackpad for years. The gestures act as if there’s an invisible line across the lower third of the trackpad’s surface.

Don’t believe me? Try it. Take two fingers and use them in a scrolling motion on the top of the surface. Then, take a third finger and click the top of the trackpad. Notice, right-click commands fail unless you apply the third finger on the lower third of the trackpad… where the button used to be.

I know, you’re probably thinking… who cares. Well, Apple prides itself in being “human”. They’re the company that made multi-touch after all. I think this is an indication that Apple wants to move away from the trackpad altogether.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple wants to move the Mac OS X experience in the next version, to a multi-touch gesture oriented approach. I would be more surprised if the next version of Mac OS X didn’t make the mouse, trackpad, and keyboard a completely optional experience.

It’s actually quite impressive, especially considering Apple won’t let folks author QuickTime X plug-ins.

I do have to take this moment to warn Apple that 2014 could very much be like 1984, and Flash Video could easily unseat QuickTime at this rate… when app makers like VLC cry foul, you know something is on the wrong track.

A great torture test for FLV GPU Acceleration is the 2010 Cadillac SRX commercial…

Fast forward to last week. SmartView 2.28 was released, and I fired it up in hopes that the demo units finally worked.

The result? They do. Download it and finally enjoy your 4G freebie.

Here’s the long and the short of it. Take an SD card, format it on your (Snow Leopard) Mac for MS-DOS (FAT32). Now, insert it into a Windows Mobile device.

As I’ve found, Windows Mobile won’t read the card. I’m trying to figure out if it’s a Mac OS X bug or a Windows Mobile bug. Discuss.

FileMaker is offering Bento 1 and Bento 2 users a discounted upgrade to Bento 3 for $29. I personally think Bento 2 users should have gotten more of a discount, considering the lightweight transitions. But, this is FileMaker, and they are a subsidiary of Apple. Still, the collaborative functionality in Bento is something we’d like to expand on using at MechaWorks.

Did you know? PhoneCashback.net is powered by Bento. We use it for processing all your cashback requests, and making sure you get your cash… back.

Anyways, back to the upgrade. I entered in my Bento 2 serial number into the FileMaker online store… and to my dismay, it was rejected. I re-entered it three times over, rejected each time.

Then, I thought, could Safari be the problem? At first I said to myself “no, FileMaker would never let that happen…” but, FileMaker was closed already and I didn’t have other options. I fired up Firefox, and re-entered the serial number. It worked instantly.

So, if you have issues upgrading to Bento 3, give Firefox a go. I’m still puzzled how this happened, but at least I’m happily setting up Bento 3.

Here’s the deal. I purchased two Windows Vista Home Premium product keys way back when Vista was shipping. They were $50/each, under their Family Upgrade Discount deal. I purchased the keys from a special Windows e-store that is since defunct.

Fast forward to 2009. I only wound up using one of the keys (which, was still a good deal, considering Home Premium ran $119 at the time). The other key went unused.

Well, now I want to use that second key. And, unfortunately, I didn’t know many Family Upgrade Discount keys were invalid. There’s no support number to call, and no department that appears to field these invalid keys.

Any better suggestions than to get pass the buck treatment at 800-MICROSOFT?

The reason I wrote this article, in full detail: I hope Comcast reads this. I hope it’s passed around in their halls quietly. I hope they look at this and it gets slipped under each and every VP’s office door. I hope they all see that these are the systemic problems plaguing their customer service perception. If they don’t, they’re destined to replace Sprint in the halls of companies with permanently-poor customer service opinions amongst consumers…

I had a fun 79 minutes on the phone with Comcast today. No, that hour and nineteen minutes of my life wasted is no exaggeration.

For months now, seven in fact, I have been trying to get Comcast to activate my modem in the Silicon Valley. Brace yourself, I own my own cable modem. Not shocked? Well, the folks at Comcast seem to think I’m from another planet.

Here’s the issue, in a nutshell. I bought a DOCSIS 2.0 modem, and used it with service in the Sacramento Valley. I then moved to Silicon Valley, where I tried to activate the modem. Enter the disaster…

Comcast, from day one of my relocation was unable to put the modem on my account. Comcast first claimed that my modem was leased. Uh, no. Then they claimed it was on another active account. My old “active” account. I told them to check the old account. Sure enough, the modem wasn’t leased and the account was closed and paid in full.

Then Comcast blamed (Comcast) Sacramento’s billing market for not releasing the MAC ID of the modem. Okay, fine right? Hand me a leased modem and waive the lease fee for the couple of days to get the issue fixed? And, to their credit they did. The problem is, they didn’t fix the issue.

Every month, I would call in and ask for an update on the issue. Nobody would know there was an issue. They would then just issue a leased modem credit for the next month and say “we’ll handle it.”

Well, nobody has handled it. Lather, rinse, repeat the next month. I tried all the paths, even going so far as to have the store manager put his hands in his face and apologize for Sacramento’s market not doing their job.

Eventually, after getting a leased modem credit month after month (all six months of my reduced service rate), I cancelled and switched to U-Verse.

Much with other dysfunctional-company deployment issues, every department or team has a different name for similar processes. Some say the Billing Department, some say “another system”, and others say “the warehouse.” In reality, it’s all the same location, but when people in your own company can’t understand the terminology of another department… that has me running for the sell button on my portfolio. And no, I don’t and never have owned shares of Comcast.

Now, four months later Comcast came back with a new offer: They’re finally discounting a tier above the entry 6 or 12 mbps tier (that speed depends on if your market has gone DOCSIS 3.0 yet) and they offered me 16 mbps (pre-PowerBoost) for $34.99/month, for a full year. So, I cancelled U-Verse and switched back.

And, that brings us to today’s Comcastic debacle. I tried desperately to get someone at technical support to “own” the issue. Basically, the tech was sympathetic, going as close as he could to admitting this was a disaster, knowing he was being recorded. Finally, his supervisor (after many pestering, and being put back on hold after getting refusals) did indeed agree to own an issue. I had to dig deep, call them drones, stuff I don’t like to do to other people to get their attention.

Still, seven failures in a row shame on you. Eight failures in a row, shame on me. I expect them to fail at this effort yet again, at which point I’ll wrangle another store manager to fall flat on his/her face. My next final step is an FCC complaint. I am no fan of the FCC telling companies how to be capitalistic… but Comcast has a monopoly on the cable lines, and I’m more than fine with the FCC forcing a company to resolve internal company issues.

The fact that two billing departments, over seven months, can’t talk to one another, is about as insane as having regional billing departments in the first place.

I hate to be crass here, but please, if you work for Comcast, don’t post here telling me how bad you feel, and how you see this all the time. I’ve stopped caring. If you do really care, contact me and either own the issue, or get someone in Comcast to own the issue.