Kufalk Dot Com

Nope, not the fruit, but the shiny, sleek, high-powered, expensive computer components that simply WORK.

“Back in the day”, when personal computers became popular, the world rushed out to buy a PC, loaded with Microsoft DOS and Microsoft Windows.  Then they got home and suddenly had to learn about .bat files, .dll’s, drivers, scripts, etc.  It was a geek’s dream and the average person’s nightmare.  And the larger nightmare came to those who ’sort-of’ knew what they were doing and suddenly their families/friends/enemies all considered them their personal Tech Support (don’t be offended Mom & Dad, you know I’ll always take your calls & fix your stuff! =) ).

Since then, not much has changed.  Microsoft still dominates the computing world with broken products, running on hardware with an infinite number of configurations and components.  To think about it, I don’t know if people would have the problems they do if Microsoft controlled the hardware that their OS runs on like Apple does.  BUT then the purists wouldn’t be able to build their liquid cooled, neon-lighted, monster machines.  I digress.

The first thing you notice about anything Mac is that It looks COOL!

The hardware is absolutely beautiful.  From the sleek aluminum cased MacBook Pro’s, to the thin and vibrant iMac, all the way down to the Mighty Mouse and Airport Express; Mac has the coolest looking/feeling hardware you can wrap your paws around.  Not to mention the original click-wheel of the iPod and the brilliant touch-screen of the new iPod touch and iPhone lines.

The next thing you’ll notice about anything Mac is that It FUNCTIONS!

Probably the number 1 thing you’ll hear people saying about Mac products are that they just plain WORK.  They do everything effortlessly.  No more digging for drivers, failed software updates, frustrating configurations.  It just all seems to work by itself.  Case in point, and what got me to writing this piece.  Last week I was trying to install a reef-controller to our saltwater reef.  One of the bigger features is that you can control it via a web interface.  HOWEVER, it is a WIRED ethernet connection, not a wireless connection.  I don’t have any wired connection anywhere near the aquarium, so I needed to install a router near the aquarium which would wirelessly connect to my router downstairs (AKA WDS).  Sounds easy right?  Wrong.  After spending a day and a half on it, loading 3rd party firmware on my routers, etc, I was still no closer to where I wanted to be.  This seemed like a perfect time to try out the Apple Airport Extreme and Airport Express routers.  Sure enough, less than 10 minutes after plugging them in, everything was working fine.  Virtually no configuration, no effort and nowhere NEAR the nightmare I would have with other manufacturer hardware.

Oh, and the following morning, I was looking at the routers and they both stated that a new version of firmware was available.  ONE click and it was downloaded and installed.  ZERO effort, ZERO issues.

The iPhone is another example of this.  I’ve listened to a lot of people talk about how they can’t get an iPhone because they don’t understand “computer things”.  I have yet to find a phone that is easier to deal with.  Everything is right there.  No menus, nothing cryptic, it’s all there behind neat little icons that open with the slightest touch of the finger, and navigation is absolutely intuitive.

So why not?

With the benefits of a Mac (ease of use, beauty of design, lack of viruses/vulnerabilities) why are people slow to migrate?  I WAS one of these slow to migrate people.  I lived in the PC world.  Everything I did revolved around a Dell laptop that I knew how to fix with my eyes closed.  I was like a mechanic listening to an old motor, or a plumber to rattling pipes.  I could tell what was wrong and knew how to fix it.  Usually…  However, a Mac runs on Unix software (or a derivative of such), which is quite different from the DOS I’d known for so many years. It was fear of the unknown.  I didn’t know how to use a Mac, and more importantly, I didn’t know how to FIX a Mac.  It never crossed my mind that I could possibly own a computer that I wouldn’t routinely need to “fix”.

Then came the price tag.  Macs are generally more expensive for hardware specs that can be “less” than PC’s.  PC people are very wrapped up in processing power, RAM and disk space.  So when they see Macs that have less RAM, less storage space and less processing power, they freak out and think “my God! I can’t go backwards! It’ll never run! My PC runs so slow right now with 4GB of RAM, how can I ever get by with 2GB?!?”.  However, what they don’t realize is that a Mac and a PC are 2 VERY different animals.  It’s like comparing motors on a Ford F-350 diesel and a Yamaha YZF-R1 motorcycle.  You simply can’t do it.  Yes, they’re both motors but they are too different for a direct comparison.  In my experience, applications run lighter, faster and far more stable on a Mac than they do on a PC.  The Mac OSX just seems to manage all of it better.  So the general theory is that you don’t NEED as much in a Mac as you do in a PC.  The other thing to consider is that in all likelihood, the Mac you buy today will outlast 2 or 3 PCs bought at the same time.  The one I’m on now is almost 2 yrs old and I have not experienced the slightest hint of performance degradation like I have almost immediately after buying every PC I have ever owned.

Software is another area where people get very excited and ‘clingy’.  I was one of those people.  However, out of all the “can’t do without” apps that I thought I had on the PC, there has yet to be one that I could not find a Mac equivalent for which has been either free, or a fraction of the price of anything PC oriented.  In fact, Apple is smart enough that they offer most all of their applications with a “family-pack” option which holds 4 licenses and is STILL a fraction of what anything Microsoft costs.  One area which I do use a Microsoft application on my Mac is Office.  Microsoft makes a version of Office which runs on the Mac.  So I can have Word, PowerPoint and Excel on my Mac which are the main business applications I would use on the PC.  The ONLY piece of Microsoft software that I miss is (the now discontinued) MS Money, which is arguably one of the best personal accounting software packages available.  However, instead of a $100+ price tag, I replaced it with a $25 piece of software that is functional and is small enough that I have been able to work with the developers to get them to add certain pieces which I enjoyed in MS Money.  Try THAT with Microsoft!

A few functional examples of why I love my Macs:

One thing that I always wanted to do on my PC laptop for example, but never could, is to take it at the end of the day, close the screen with all apps up, go home, open it and have it function.  In theory and per Windows documentation this should be no problem.  However, in reality it was a huge problem.  Bringing the PC back up from hibernation took many minutes, and applications often times wouldn’t recover.   A Mac however, is an entirely different story.  The one I’m typing this on hasn’t been shut down in months.  Yet every day, I close the screen, unplug it and toss it in my backpack where it sits for a few hours, a night, a weekend, and opens up EXACTLY where I left off with no complaints.

Another area is a Mac OSX bundled application called “Time Machine”.  Time Machine automatically backs up my Macs in Weekly, Daily and hourly increments, any and all of which are easily accessible and restored.  What does this mean to me?  It means when I have a hard-drive crash (which inevitably everyone does), that within HOURS I’m back up and running EXACTLY where I was just minutes before the crash.  It also means that when I decide to upgrade my Mac (which inevitably everyone does) that I won’t suffer one slight bit of data loss and there will be virtually no setup required.

A third example is something pretty common and simple.  Replacing a phone.  I have an iPhone which had several hundred contacts loaded into it, 4 active email accounts, calendars with hundreds of appointments on them, reminders, alarms, hundreds of pics, a few thousand songs.  Now, I suppose this is more than the average person has on a motorola razr, but nonetheless, changing phones can be a huge pain in the ass.  In this case, I wanted to upgrade to the latest iPhone 3Gs.  I went at lunch, bought the new phone, brought it back, plugged it into my Mac and in less than an hour, everything was EXACTLY as it was on my old phone with no intervention on my behalf.

So in the end, I’m totally sold on Apple products (including their stock) and will continue to simplify my life with them.  And I don’t even feel bad for “taking for granted” that it’ll all do whatever I want it to without a lot of frustration and figuring out.  I’m not saying anyone is “bad” or “stupid” for using PC’s or Microsoft products, I’m simply saying that during your next “Blue Screen of Death”, “Fatal Exception Error”, “.DLL Error”, or “malware or virus attack/infection”; you think of me and this blog as you click “Send this error report to Microsoft”.

Love, Peace, Hair Grease

-Jeffy

That’s all I can think that has happened.  I’ve spent years waffling around what the “greatest car ever” would be, and always dismissed it as something absurd and ridiculous.  Why would someone spend a ton of money on a car?  They’re miserable investments!  And for what?!  Some metal, plastic & rubber?

Then for whatever reason, the longing of the wind blowing through my scalp on a hot summer day got the best of me.  I started looking more and more at the beloved convertible, and closer yet at roadsters.  Power, luxury, a filthy display of perceived affluence, extravagance, ostentatious.  Yes, those words are the sole embodiment of which I ultimately captured in three little letters.

I had previously discounted the BMW roadsters (Z4 and previous generations of Z3) as I had a distinct dislike of cloth soft-top convertibles.  No, it simply had to be a convertible hardtop.  This narrowed the field significantly, and initially had me focused solely on the Mercedes SL and SLK lines.  The Ms. on the other hand had her eyes on a Cadillac XLR roadster.

While the Cadillac certainly has its appeal in looks and a few attractive features, multiple ‘bleh’ reviews, and a production run of only 200 units per year really put a damper on a $90k car from a bankrupt company.

We momentarily looked at the Lexus SC-430, but found it too round and not ‘edgy’ enough.  The same was the case with the Audi TT (and no conv. hard-top).

Then one morning I decided to look at the BMW website, and low and behold, what do we have here?!?  The 2009, all new, redesigned Z4 roadster with convertible hardtop.  The look, the lines, the performance.  Be still my beating heart.

Already owning a Mini Cooper S which is a BMW product, we definitely had a liking for the company and ownership experience.  Seeing the new Z4, we both took long hard looks at the images and REALLY started to fall in love with this car.

The 09 Z4 comes in 2 flavors:

Z4 sDrive 30i with a naturally aspirated 3.0l inline 6 that puts down 255hp and 220lb-ft of torque at 2600RPM

Z4 sDrive 35i with a twin-turbo 3.0l inline six putting down 300hp and a whopping 300lb-ft of torque at 1400RPM (yes, 1400RPM)

As we went to look at the two models, I was giddy as a schoolgirl when my wife says (to no surprise) while looking at the 30i, “well, you know how I like my power”.  And with that, we set off to find the Z4 sDrive 35i.

In the meanwhile, we had done a LOT of reading on the car, and came to understand that the 35i was offered with an optional 7-speed “double-clutch-transmission” (henceforth referred to as DCT).  Not being a gear-head or having a clue about it, I came to learn that this DCT was a multi-mode automatic transmission that would perform virtually seamless shifts in milliseconds.  In fact, it was faster than the manual transmission in 0-60 times (which are in the high 4 second range).  Having never met an automatic transmission that I’ve liked, I was VERY skeptical, but wanted to experience it anyhow.

The day came when we were able to drive the 35i with DCT for the first time.  We were both ALL GRINS for the entire test ride.  I was amazed at how comfortably I fit in this car since I’m 6′2″ tall.  The performance was everything it was stated to be.  The DCT was a work of art (more on this later).  This was a car we could both seriously enjoy.

Is it practical? No. But that wasn’t the point.

We set up an appointment with our local dealer to order one the next day.  When we got to the dealer, there was a bit of wait time, so we began walking around and what do we have here?!? Uh Oh….  A 2008 Mercedes Benz SLK-55 AMG.  Not just the Benz roadster, but the AMG.  The holy-grail of performance.  I circled it a dozen times and Jen finally said that we wouldn’t leave until I drove it because I had to know.

I was nervous because this was one of THE cars that had always topped my list.  I was like a guy walking down the aisle with my new fiance to see the girl of my dreams give me an wink and air-kiss from the second pew.  Shit! What do I do?!?

We pulled out into the beating sun, top down, and I eased it off the lot.  Around the first corner, I pressed the “make-em-go-bye-bye” button under my right foot and that car thundered as it shot down the road, ass end squirming around as the traction control tried to counter the weight of my right foot.  It was absolutely amazing, jaw-dropping, neck-snapping V8 power. +350hp, +375lb-ft torque, it was a tire-eater for sure.  But as I drove it more and started really ‘feeling’ the car, it was lacking.  The transmission in comparison to the BMW DCT, felt like a farm tractor.  The brakes and steering both felt heavy as well.  The amenity list was very short compared to the BMW (which was a touch more expensive).  Then came the crucial moment, switch drivers.

With Jen behind the wheel, fiddling with the 500 settings possible to make the seat fit right, I tried to squeeze into the passenger side and quickly noticed that my only comfort would come at the sacrifice of about 6″ of my legs.  So if I was to ever be a passenger in this car, I’d better amputate both feet off above the ankle, or I was going to suffer from my shins in the dash while sitting dead straight up.  This car simply wouldn’t do.

It was almost sad in a way.  I mean, here was the car I had always dreamed of and it let me down.  It would be a lot like sleeping with Angelina Jolie and thinking “eh, that sucked!”.  Just one of those let-downs that you don’t want in life.  But it did do one thing, it convinced us both that the Z4 was the right car.  No regrets, no questions.

We ordered the Z4, completely decked out.  I mean literally EVERY available package and option except for the 19″ wheels (didn’t like ‘em) and the Satellite radio (didn’t like it either).  And thus began:

THE WAITING GAME

There are days that I can really dislike technology, and days when I think how horribly spoiled Americans are as a society in general.  Most of the next 2 months was like this.  Online, I watched the build status change daily in the plant from Germany.  Watched it in transport from the factory to the port of exit, watched it wait for a boat, watched that boat cross the Atlantic, watched it get trucked down to South Carolina to the Performance Delivery Center, and waited another week and a half for our date.

BMW is pretty cool in that they offer 3 basic delivery options on a new vehicle.  You can do a dealer pick-up where you get it at your dealer like “normal”; or you can pick it up from the factory in Germany, drive it around Europe and then ship it to the US; or you can do the Performance Delivery Center in Spartanburg, SC.  I had heard nothing but rave reviews about going to SC for the PDC pickup where they send you through a 1-day school in a “like” car configured similar to what you are picking up, and then you spend the afternoon with a delivery specialist, configuring the 642,000 options on the vehicle and finally drive back home.  It seemed like a great option and a wonderful experience.  I have to say, it didn’t disappoint.

PDC

We were to do our PDC on Tuesday 8/4/09, and BMW takes care of everything but the flights.  We flew in late Monday night and were picked up in a new BMW wagon and whisked back to the Greensville Marriott.  The next day went by much like a blur.  Being the second person to pick up a Z4, they did not have a demo Z4 for us to drive, but instead put us in an M3.  The M3 was absolutely amazing.  The biggest difference between the Z4 and M3 (aside from the Z being a roadster) was the monstrous V8 pushing 414hp.  We spent the day understanding and experiencing traction control, anti-lock brakes, various suspension settings, etc.  Then came…

THE MOMENT WE’D BEEN WAITING FOR

We spent 15 mins or so just walking around the car, and then about 2 hours setting everything up before we were off, top down into the mountains.  It only took about 2 hours until both my arms, bald head and face were FRIED!  Thankfully though, clouds rolled in and the rain came, so with the top up we continued our adventure back home.  We ended up going through Evansville, IN to take care of some business we had and then continued on home.

In all, it’s been 15 days since we picked up the car and it’s still impressing me with every mile.  It’s the little things like the DCT blipping the throttle and auto-matching the revs on downshifts; the side-mirrors that automatically dim at night; the headlights that are steering sensitive; the FULL iPod/iPhone intgration; the steering that is speed sensitive; the brakes that dry themselves in the wet, and so on and so on.  Yes, she’s an absolute marvel delivering Perma-Grin through every mile.

DCT

The 7 speed automatic double-clutch gearbox was something new to me.  A bit of research broke it down to it simply being a transmission which has basically 2 separate gear mechanisms within the single transmission.  One for odd gears, one for even.  What this does is allow the ‘odd’ gear (up and down) to basically be “primed & ready” for a shift, and it carries that shift out in milliseconds.  What this means is stomping on the gas and getting to the electronic limit of 150mph while barely feeling or noticing the gearshifts.  It means downshifts that don’t throw you forward as well.

The transmission has 3 basic modes:
Auto-Drive: Full automatic transmission driving with ’standard’ shift points.  It’s the gentlest of modes and the most fuel efficient.
Sport-Drive: Full automatic transmission with higher RPMs at the shift points and quicker shifts.  This is the mode I drive around in mostly.  It’s INSTANT power, all the time.
Manual: Full manual either through the paddles on the steering wheel or via the stick, which shifts in the logical manner of forward (downshift) and backward (upshift), unlike others that go side-to-side.

In all modes, you can use the paddles to shift, and after a short period the transmission will resume auto modes (except full manual).

As stated, I’ve never met an automatic transmission that I’ve actually liked until this one.  It is just something you need to experience to fully appreciate.

All of this while STILL getting near 30mpg.  I will say though, if you’re considering this line of vehicle, do it while you still have capable knees! It’s an interesting thing to drive with your ass about 8″ off the pavement.

And in the words of Ferris Bueller, I close with:

Plus, I must be honest here.  I love driving it, it is so choice.  If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

Why? God only knows. I guess it’s my core-soul resistance to facebook that I’ve installed this, but we shall see. So stick around, email, comment, come back, whatever. But have fun in the process.