I’ve been curious lately, with the updates to the MacBook Pro lineup, whether I’d risk buying one again. The smaller MacBooks are looking more and more attractive to me, as I primarily use the portable for travel.

But I’m really afraid of a repeat of last year’s MacBook Pro Whine fiasco. I have been seeing a lot fewer complaints, and hearing more stories of “resolution” when the problems do crop up, but Apple has evidently still failed to address the core problem.

Sergey Tsalkov writes about his experience earlier this year which mirrors mine almost exactly from a year previous, except he decided to give up and get his money back, while I pressed on for months to reach a resolution.

Though I did end up mostly satisfied with my MacBook Pro, I can tell it’s a problem that’s been masked more than it’s been fixed. For instance mine still makes the nasty noise, it’s just a lot quieter (so much so that, I honestly am not bothered by it 99% of the time). But when I plug it into a sound system in a conference room, the tell-tale noise comes buzzing across the PA. Then my blood starts to boil again. My $2500 noisemaker becomes a lot less charming.

If Sergey’s experience is at all typical, then many MacBook and MacBook Pro owners are still experiencing this defect. A defect in a product whose public image exudes quality and perfectionism. If on the other hand his experience is no longer typical, then replacing it with a guaranteed top-quality product should have been automatic and quick.

All MacBook owners should have the same experience, otherwise the viral nature of marketing is lost. We all talk about the products we love, some of us more than others. These days I tell people that if they buy a MacBook or MacBook pro, it will probably be a fine product. I hate having to qualify my recommendations like this. It’s a qualification I never make when endorsing the iPod, Mac OS X, the Tom Tom, my favorite bands, or my favorite restaurants. The fact that I finally got a MacBook Pro with tolerable noise levels in 2006, but that Sergey couldn’t get one in 2007, betrays a lingering problem.

If it’s possible to produce high quality MacBooks, then everybody who pays full price should get one. Anything less is a disgrace.

(Also: I have heard a bit of feedback from various sources about how the “core problem” is not easy to fix. I empathize. But fixing hard problems is what you do when you’re the innovation leader for an industry and are working with a product surrounded by billions of dollars in revenue. Fix the damn problem!)

The Silicon Valley chapter of CocoaHeads is holding a special meeting/presentation during WWDC next week. The event will be held at the Apple Store on Wednesday evening. The topic is Going Indie and I’m pleased to participate as a presenter/chatter.

The format is essentially going to be each of Gus Mueller, Wil Shipley, Scott Stevenson, and myself giving a short presentation, then all of us sitting around and taking questions (or corrections!) from the audience. Maybe I’ll see you there!

Apparently lots of folks who are interested in Mac programming are still not aware that CocoaHeads exists, and that it’s so easy, casual, and inexpensive (free!) to participate. I run the Boston area chapter (with the help of other members), and they’ll be meeting as usual on the second Thursday of the month. That’s next Thursday, June 14th. If you’re in the Boston area but can’t make it to WWDC, you’ll probably enjoy meeting other local Mac developers and chatting about the week’s happenings. MIT Building E51, Room 149, 7:00PM.

Next week, San Francisco will become the extremely concentrated stomping ground of Mac developers from around the world. I’m attending this year and am very excited (if a bit overwhelmed!) by the amount of activities that I’m scheduled to participate in both within the official confines of the conference, and outside those walls in various lunch meetings and evening meet-ups.

This is the first WWDC I’ve ever paid for. Ouch! That part stings – but I think it will be worth it. The last WWDC I attended was in San Jose, while I was still working at Apple. I had been several years running, although to be honest I didn’t spend all that much time in the sessions or parties. As a member of the Core Services team I had little time or inclination to be too curious about the various technologies that comprised “complete developer landscape.” Usually I learned about technologies as they related to the Core Services functionality that my team was providing.

This year is going to be different. As an independent software developer, I’m interested in — no, fascinated by — almost every facet of the system. The reason of course is that almost every facility Apple provides has the potential to be useful to me in providing new features to my users.

The other huge difference between now and then is the number of people I have become acquainted with outside of Apple. I have to confess that as an inside developer I didn’t go out of my way to make friends with 3rd party developers. I did meet a few at various developer kitchens and through email correspondence, but mostly I just stuck with my Apple friends. This WWDC will be exciting because I’ll get to see so many of my old Apple friends again, and also see so many of the 3rd party developers I’ve come to know through the web.

Meet Me In San Francisco

If you’re going to WWDC, be sure to wear a flower in your hair. Whoops, phrase-o. If you’re going to WWDC, and you have an interest in meeting me, I’ll be showing up in some predictable places throughout the week. These events all promise to be jam-packed with interesting folks. They’re not the only places you’ll find me, but they’re probably the most reliable (i.e. I’ll be there for a while):

I would be honored to meet any readers of this blog who happen to stumble upon me. Don’t worry, it will be easy to spot me in the crowd. I’ll be the nerdy programmer!

O’Reilly’s MacDevCenter has posted the most definitive article I’ve ever seen on attaching keyboard shortcuts to scripts:

Hit-and-Run: Launching AppleScripts With Keyboard Shortcuts

Jochen Wolters explains the why and the how in brilliant detail. Of course, I’m also excited that his description of the how settles on FastScripts and QuickSilver as the best choices. I especially like this summary of FastScripts:

“If you want to use global keyboard shortcuts for launching your AppleScripts, FastScripts simply is the most Mac-like way to achieve this.”

I can live with that description!

I noticed that Jochen dings FastScripts slightly for its alleged inability to run Automator workflows. It can in fact run workflows, it’s just a question of getting the workflow files into a folder where FastScripts will notice them. Since FastScripts 2.2.3 (finally!) added the ability to drag aliases to folders into your script folder hierarchy, you should be able to simply drag an alias of ~/Library/Workflows into your ~/Library/Scripts folder, and FastScripts will pick them up.

For the especially Terminal-gifted, there is a secret FastScripts defaults key that would also help here. The ScriptTreePathsKey specifies the list of paths FastScripts should include in its search for scripts and other launchable items. If you add “FSSP%%%$HOME$/Library/Workflows” to the list, then you should be in business.

It occurs to me that I should include automatic support for listing the contents of ~/Library/Workflows in a future release of FastScripts.