Mike Seminaro's Blog: A forum for the voices in my head

Below is a link to a couple of great little tutorial for learning the nuances of Omnigraffle. Just open the file in graffle and follow the instructions. The basic tutorial is, well, basic. Skip it unless you're a new user. The tool tutorial is really useful though. I'd suggest spending more than a few minutes practicing with the pen tool so that you can master bezier curves - an absolute essential for getting a professional look on your diagrams.

I would highly recommend this for new and experienced users alike. I had considered myself somewhat of an expert, but even I learned a few little tricks with this tutorial.

http://www.omnigroup.com/ftp/pub/software/MacOSX/Extras/OmniGraffle/OGWalkthroughs.dmg

Enjoy!

I finally broke down and bought the new 8-core Mac Pro earlier this week. I've been wanting one of the Mac towers for years now, and I finally decided to take the plunge. After a few days of usage, I'm wondering why I waited so long. The experience has been nothing short of amazing so far. My Mac came bundled with Leopard, so this is my first extensive experience with the new OS as well. I plan to blog more about my experiences in the next few days, but here are my initial impressions:

Mac Pro

• Unbelievable fast. Faster than I could have imagined. Of course speed is relative, but I've never worked on a faster machine.
• It's also really quiet. I have a standards Intel machine (which I built myself) running next to it and that box is about 3 times as loud as the Mac. I'm primarily talking about the fan, which is virtually inaudible. The only thing I do hear is the hard drive occasionally.
• You could break your back lifting the thing. Definitely the heaviest desktop machine I've ever owned. I think most of the heft is in the case, which is extremely well built.
• I love the styling. I know, it's a computer, but it looks cool to me. I was inclined to keep it on the top of my desk, but my wife convinced me to put it underneath. Obviously, we have different views when it comes to decorating ;-)

Leopard

• Spaces: I was initially quite excited about this feature because I always have A LOT of apps and windows open at once, and the promise of reigning in the clutter was appealing to me. My experience, however, has been a bit disappointing. I find that things are too often in some other space when I need them. I'm not giving up yet though as I feel like maybe I just haven't figured out the best way to make use of this feature just yet.
• Spotlight: Whatever the did between Tiger and Leopard to speed this thing up has made all the difference in the world. I find myself using this feature all the time since the upgrade. I use it as an application launcher and to find files I need. It's been so good as a launcher that I haven't even installed quicksilver yet, and I probably won't.
• Mail: I haven't used the new notes or To Do features, and probably won't. I use a new tool called Omnifocus to keep myself organized (which I highly recommend, BTW). One feature that I have used, and love, is the ability for Mail to detect meeting invitations in the body of a message and create an iCal event automatically. Mail is doing some really clever parsing in the background and seems to usually get everything just right. In the few cases it hasn't I can correct the issues with a quick edit. Nice feature.

Those are just my initial impressions. I'll be posting some more details soon...

I just came across a feedback site that Dell is hosting which deserves some recognition. They have basically taken the Digg model and applied it to customer feedback. While many companies are using weblogs to talk directly to their customers, including Sun, I have yet to see any of them provide an publicly accessible website where customers can post any suggestion, no matter how unflattering, and let others vote on them. Give Dell some credit - it takes some guts to let your customers publicly discuss your shortcomings in an effort to find out how you can serve them better.

My favorite suggestion so far has been a plea for them to offer an option to pre-install Open Office on their machines instead of one of the Microsoft product suites. As of this writing, approximately 60,000 people have voted for this suggestion (and no, these aren't all Sun employees - we only have around half that many). The real question is "Are you listening Michael Dell?". Only time will tell if this is anything more than a P.R. stunt to assuage the rising tide of customer dissatisfaction with Dell products.

Well, I finally decided to get off my duff and start an external blog. It's been on my list for awhile, but the catalyst for action was a tag from Jon Greaves. If there is a better topic for a first blog entry, I don't know what it is. So, without further ado, here are five things about me that you probably do not know already.

1. I'm a HUGE sports nut. Okay, so a lot of guys like sports, but I think my affinity is stronger than most. My favorite sports are football, basketball, and soccer. I grew up in the D.C. suburbs and I always root for the Washington teams, with one notable exception. To all the other Cowboys fans out there: 2008 is our year!
2. If I could start life over again, I'd probably pursue a career in physics. Don't get me wrong - I love working with technology, but I just feel like there's gotta be something special about spending your working hours trying to unlock the mysteries of the universe.
3. My first job was delivering food for the Buffalo Wing Factory. I learned at lot at that job, including how to drive in snow and how much heat my mouth can handle. Can you handle the flatliner?
4. I currently reside in Manhattan on the Upper West Side. I love living in NYC - you never know what you're going to see.
5. My wife and I are expecting our first child in June. And while some of you knew that, I guarantee you didn't know that we're having a girl. I just found out for myself a couple of hours ago. We can't wait to meet the little princess, but for now we're just enjoying the calm before the storm ;-)