Webthoughts

I was watching Steve Job's WWDC Keynote when I noticed a couple of oddities with the window in QuickTime Player. A screenshot can be found here.

Notice how the window did not size itself tall enough to fully draw the control buttons and also notice that there is grow icon (the widget in the lower-right corner of the window that allows the user to resize the window).

The funny thing is, this only happened to me when I was trying to watch the WWDC Keynote stream. Any other movie or stream caused the player window to draw correctly. Whenever I closed the window and tried to watch the stream in a new one, however, the same thing occurred. As I said: odd.

Um...isn't this the same company that produced a client product for Mac OS 9 a couple of years ago and decided to drop it because of lack of interest? Perhaps I'm wrong in what I remember here, but I wonder what prompted this return to the Mac?

Well...here's a quandry:

Something's busted with my Airport. By Airport, of course, I mean my Graphite Base Station and/or Airport Card in my Pismo Powerbook.

Ever since Thursday afternoon, I've had huge swaths of time where I find that my Pismo simply can not locate an active wireless network. This, even when sitting directly next to the base-station.

I've had this base station and this Pismo for two years now (both purchased new at the same time) and have never had a single issue with this setup. None.

Until now.

Now, some of you may say, "Aha! A Graphite Base Station! Of course, those were lousy, troublesome machines. Those pesky capacitors! You know that Apple might replace it free of charge, don't you?"

To this, I would reply, "Ah...but the serial number of my base station is outside the range of serial numbers that Apple publically acknowledges they will replace; it doesn't exhibit the normal symptoms of flashing (or steady) red lights, and it responds perfectly normally to the Airport Admin Utility."

And, indeed, there are also times that I will have the same normal signal that I've always had. It will just spontaneously appear. Since last Thursday, I've had more downtime than uptime, but I managed a good two hours of uptime before the signal simply dropped out again last Saturday.

I know it's not a software issue because the same symptoms occur in Mac OS 9 as Mac OS X. I figure it could be one of a couple of things:

• It could be interference from an outside source that has just recently appeared. The problem with this theory is that I still don't get a signal, even with the Powerbook sitting directly next to the base station.
• It could be a hardware issue, either with the base station or the Airport card or the Powerbook itself. The problem with this theory is that all the hardware passes every test I can think to throw at it. The PowerBook sees the Airport card. The Hardware Test CD reports no errors. I've pulled the card and re-seated it. And, as I said before, the base station responds normally to the Airport Admin Utility. The LEDs even blink normally when there is other traffic running through my router.

So, the question remains: what could it be?

I'm in a hard spot here. I have no idea if it's a problem with the base station or the Powerbook/Airport Card. I have no other Airport-ready Mac available to me. I don't know of any other 802.11b networks around to test against. I'm really not sure where else to go from here.

So, for the time being, I'll probably be transferring my e-mail and whatnot to my desktop computer until I can get the reliability thing going again with my Powerbook's access.

Ah...the joys of technology.

I've been doing some thinking regarding the system that Safari uses to organize bookmarks. I've been using Safari pretty much full-time for the last several months and generally like the browser. But, its bookmark system has been a bit of an enigma to me.

Ever since Safari premiered in its early public-beta version way back when, one of the features that has been touted to be better than all the other browsers is the way it handles bookmarks. It's been touted as revolutionary and the next stage in making browsers even easier to use.

Well, in the many months I have been using Safari part-time (and, as mentioned before, for the last several months full-time), I can honestly say this:

I don't get it.

Maybe there is something that I'm just plain missing, but I really just don't get what the hype is all about. I don't see what is so much better than before.

Perhaps I'm stuck in the past, but I've always been most comfortable accessing bookmarks through a menu in the menubar. Simply click the menu, and there are all your bookmarks for you to choose as you please. In early browsers, there was just one big list; a little later on, submenus appeared allowing people to categorize bookmarks. This just makes sense to me.

And, indeed, Safari offers this functionality. As I type this, Safari's "Bookmarks" menu is just sitting there waiting for me to tell it where to go next. It works as it always has.

What people seem to be excited about is the bookmarks button in the Bookmarks bar. Click that button and there, in your browser window is an iTunes-like display of all your bookmarks. But, again, I have to ask, what's the big deal about this? (Incidentally, the Bookmarks Bar is actually the best bookmarks innovation in Safari, in my opinion. I like the ability to have the pulldown menus in this bar for subcategories.)

To me, there are two different ways to approach this display. The first is as an organizer. This works, to me, very similar to the organizers found in other browsers such as Camino and IE. Create a new bookmarks folder and drag and drop bookmarks between folders organizing them as desired容ven reordering them, if desired. Indeed, in some ways, I find this to be more cumbersome than other browsers as well. Although, as I mentioned before, I really like the idea of the Bookmarks Bar, I don't like how much work it takes to have a pulldown menu of a subcategory of bookmarks appear in both the Bookmarks Bar and the Bookmarks menu, much less keep them synchronized once they are in their proper places? Why can't I just tell Safari to have this folder of bookmarks appear in both places, rather than having to maintain two identical sets of bookmarks? Perhaps there is a way to do this, but I'm simply missing it.

The second way to approach this display is as the user's primary way to access bookmarks. If you want to go to a bookmarked page, click the bookmarks button, find the bookmark you want and double-click on it. But this seems really cumbersome to me. Again, it just seems easier to select what I want from the "Bookmarks" menu (or a pulldown menu in the Bookmarks Bar). In fact, just to show that this isn't just some bias against Safari, I've always disliked this sort of method in other browsers as well (such as Netscape's Sidebar and similar interfaces found in Camino and IE). I'd just rather use the menu. It seems simpler.

Now, don't get me wrong, this is not a Safari-bashing rant. I really like Safari預 lot! But I just don't see the hype behind the bookmarks thing. But really, that's okay, I suppose. I've submitted feedback very similar to what I've written here to Apple. Maybe they'll pay attention to it, maybe not. But, at the very least, I can continue to use bookmarks as I always have and am most comfortable with: the "Bookmarks" menu. If the bookmark button works better for other people, that's fine too.

Just recently, I've started having trouble with the way Safari is rendering font sizes. Seemingly on its own, Safari has decided to render fonts much smaller than they should be rendered, the the point of being almost unreadable. As an example, take this portion of a screenshot from my weblog:

As you can see, although the text for the actual weblog entry itself looks correct, the text in the "Recent Entries" area is so small as to be nearly unreadable. And it's not just my weblog. This reproduces on the vast majority of pages I visit.

Deleting Safari's preferences file fixes the problem, but also wipes out my bookmarks. I don't want to delete the bookmarks because I have a lot of bookmarks and although I can resync using a utility such as BookIt, I still have to re-set up my bookmark bar menus, which can be cumbersome and tedious. I'd rather find a different solution.

I'll be looking into this further. In the meantime, if anyone has any ideas...

Although still definitely in the realm of "rumor", one has to wonder what Apple, if this is indeed true, is thinking. Apple and Best Buy have not had the rosiest of relationships in the past.

Of course, when you consider that the iPod appears to still sell well at Best Buy, that has to say something good about the chain (or that it's just a product that sells itself).

At any rate, if Apple is willing to take the plunge once again, then one hopes that they know what they are doing.

I wrote earlier about problems I have been having with my Airport signal spontaneously dropping out for long periods of time.

I never did find a solution to this problem, despite lots of different things I attempted. I never really figured out what was causing it.

However, I am inclined to believe that something in my immediate area was causing some sort of horrendous interference. Why? My signal is back and has been for five days straight now. If it was indeed interference of some sort, I have no idea what was causing it. It must have been pretty strong though because the Powerbook still wouldn't find a signal even when placed directly next to the base station.

But, again, I'm really not sure that that's what was really causing the problem. We'll see, of course, if it ever reasserts itself. But I'm just happy to have reliable wireless back again (he says blogging from his recliner in the living room while watching a Simpsons rerun on TV).

I know I'll probably regret asking this question because the answer is probably something really obvious which I'm simply just missing, but does anyone have any idea where this menubar icon comes from?

The one I'm talking about is the one on the left. It showed up in my menubar last night for no apparent reason. I've installed no software in the last several weeks and have not been mucking with any System Preferences for a while either.

The icon doesn't respond to clicks, nor can it be dragged off the menubar.

Anyone have any ideas?

Adobe announced today the next major versions of it's Creative Suite software: Photoshop CS, Illustrator CS, GoLive CS and InDesign CS.

Although most of the improvements (at least from my maybe not as knowledgeable perspective) appear to be refinements rather than wholesale paradigm shifts, I find one thing about these new versions very interesting.

Looking through their website and related marketing materials, most of the screenshots that are available of the new software are Mac OS X screenshots.

Yes...I know. Shock and horror are raging through the world even as I speak. This is so incredibly...important as to cause the leaders of the free world to present a united front in their dealing with this unthinkable situation. Film at 11.

Mac OS X Screenshots! What next? That the software requires Mac OS X 10.2 or above and Mac OS 9 has been left in the dustbin of history? Uh...never mind.

At any rate, it has appeared, for quite some time, that a rift has been forming between Adobe and Apple. Supposed reasons for this rift are as many as grains of sands in the Sahara, but Adobe even went as far as to *gasp!* put mostly Windows screenshots on its product marketing, packaging and website! Horrors!

Of course, now that the new website and marketing materials have Mac OS X screenshots (even for Acrobat! WOW!), it is obvious that that rift is healed and Adobe is about to announce that it is dropping all Windows support in its future products. Forever. Good riddance.

Ah...it is as plain as day. All is right with the world now.

I should probably point out, for those of you that think I have gone off the deep end, that the previous was written in response to a coworker of mine reacting to the new Adobe webpages with a bit of, shall we say, Mac-centric enthusiasm. Hopefully it will help him to see that there are probably simpler explanations for this trivial bit of news than that Adobe has seen the errors of its ways for daring to consider the Windows market just as important, if not more so, as the Mac market.

Or it will simply feed his arguments. Uh...yeah...

Well, although Mac OS X 10.3 Panther is being officially released today, I don't leave anywhere near an Apple Store, so I don't get to take part in the goodness of "Panther Night".

I do have a CompUSA in my city, but they aren't sure they're getting any copies today or not (at least, when I called last night). I'll still give them a try, and there are a few other Mac-tolerant shops around town I could try as well.

I wasn't able to pre-order for a variety of reasons (number one being that I just plain forgot--D'OH!). But, I'm trying to get my hands on a copy as soon as possible for a madhouse testing session of all my software to make sure Panther-compatability is something I can claim, of if I need to go on a madhouse debugging session. I don't forsee any problems, but you never know.

At any rate, this release has me more excited than did Jaguar. I'm not really sure why (I haven't really thought that far about it), but I can't wait to try it out (at least on my testing machine).

I have started a separate weblog in which I will document my impressions of Panther (Mac OS X 10.3). I did something similar with Jaguar when it was introduced as well.

So far, I have gotten through preparing the computer and the initial installation. There it is, for those that are interested.

Ken Bereskin has started a new blog in which he plans on discussing Panther. He mentions in his old weblog that Panther has been his primary focus since April and, since until now he was not allowed to talk about it, that was the reason he hasn't posted anything since April.

Good to have you back Ken!

Samuel Caughron from Proteron Software has posted an "Open Memo" to Apple regarding its perceived practice of snatching third-party ideas and building them directly into the Mac OS. At the point of contention this time is the "new" application switcher that was introduced with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther.

Okay...this is pretty impressive.

This is a sample of the improved QuickTime capture feature of the not-yet-released Snapz Pro X 2. It shows a variety of things going on at once: Exposé in action, a DVD movie playing and iTunes playing a song. All captured by Snapz Pro X 2 (including sound!). Wow.

Snapz Pro has always been the screen-capture tool of choice. Snapz Pro X 2 looks like it will be a worthy upgrade.

Other screenshots and sample movies can be found here.

Note that I do not work for Ambrosia Software, but am merely a very satisfied customer.

Uh oh...

Didn't we go through this once before a couple of months ago? Of course, as far as I can tell, it doesn't actually allow you record anything purchased off of the iTunes Music Store, but this would still seem to be a pretty legal grey area. I wonder how long it will be before (or if) Apple or the RIAA decides to step in.

Or maybe I'm being overly alarmist... That's always a possibility as well.

Apple opened it's first Apple Store outside of U.S. borders on Sunday in Tokyo, Japan. This store is much bigger than those in the U.S. (5 floors!) and features services not available in the U.S. stores (such as on-site repair, including portables).

Take a look at these pictures. Some of them are really impressive.

It is amazing how much the cultures of the U.S. and Japan really differ. According to one report, there were 5,000 people waiting in line to get into the store. If true, this is an amazing statistic to me!

There was a time, many a moon ago, when I would have killed for something like this.

I hated the dock. I hated it with a passion that knew no end. It kept getting in the way. The freaking icons kept bouncing and bouncing and bouncing. It wasn't intuitive and didn't fit into my very structured workflow habits.

Now that something like DockBlock is available, which promises to make the Dock go away, I can only think "eh" and shrug.

If you are like just about 90% of the rest of Mac users who have transitioned from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, you probably had lots of problems trying to get it through your head that Command-N now means New Finder Window and not New Folder.

I've just had an interesting thing happen with my PowerBook's battery that I just thought I would comment on.

Okay...this is case in point of the above. This PowerMac G4 Cube owner turned his computer into a mini-G5-style computer by transplanting the guts of his cube into a custom-designed case. Although the site is in Japanese, you can still get a fairly good idea of the steps he went through to perform the transformation (unless of course you can read Japanese, in which case you know exactly what he did, with no guess-work involved).

Apple is in the giving mood today. Many software updates are now available through, appropriately enough, Software Update.

Safari on my QuickSilver G4/933 (10.3.2) has suddenly gone woppletigoggle. On many websites, I'm finding that much text on the page is garbled. This occurs more for some sites than others. Here's an example of what I mean:

This obviously an encoding problem of some sort occurring, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to fix it. Deleting every Safari pref I can find doesn't make a bit of difference. And, just in case anyone is thrown for a loop by the 10.3.2 reference above, this happened with 10.3.1. It just showed up one day.

Any ideas?

A couple of quick thoughts about today's announcements at Steve Job's MacWorld Keynote...

I find it funny how some rumor sites go out of their way to show how correct their insider information was...

Wow. Somebody has too much time on their hands. But, you really have to admit, it's pretty cool. How many cars do you know that has, among everything else that this one has, its own ethernet network?

How sad is it when we are trying to figure out in what quarter of the SuperBowl the Pepsi/Apple/iTunes promotion commercial will appear?

(In case anyone cares, my money's on the first quarter...)

I've never really thought of this until reading this article, but is it possible that Microsoft has a better interface innovation than Apple, especially for beginners?

I just tried to burn a folder to a CD from directly within the Finder (in Mac OS X 10.3.2). I inserted a blank CD and the CD-R icon appeared on the desktop. When I copied the appropriate files to the CD-R icon (in reality, a disk image), I selected "Burn Disc..." from the "File" menu. The following window appeared:

I've seen this window a thousand times before with other CD's I have burned, but have never seen the visual bug that is apparent in this window. I suppose it's because the name of the folder I'm burning is too long to fit on one line. An odd visual thing, but one that makes it obvious that Apple didn't test this window out too much.

I've reported the problem to Apple using Mac OS X feedback.

I've decided to give FireFox 1.0 a try full-time. I've switched the preferences on my system to use FireFox as my default browser (instead of Safari 1.2.3) and will force myself to try it full-time for the next few weeks.

Although, in reality, FireFox is just another Mozilla-based browser, there has been a lot of hype behind it, and I want to see if the browser lives up to the hype. Granted, most of that hype has been on the Windows side of things, but it has a presence on the Mac as well and so is something that I think needs to be given a fair chance.

So, I'm using it. I'll let you know what I think as this goes on.

As I indicated in my previous entry, I've decided to try using FireFox 1.0 as my full-time browser to see what all the hype is about. After these first few days, I've come up with some initial impressions of the browser.

As I said I would do in an earlier entry, I installed FireFox 1.0 on my PowerMac G4/933 (QuickSilver II). Things, as they probably should be, were much faster and snappier than they were on my PowerBook G3/400 (Pismo II).

I was fairly pleased with the speed of rendering that I saw with FireFox on the G4. I would say it was fairly comparable with Safari on the same machine. So, obviously, FireFox requires a bit more horsepower to do its thing than does Safari. But, I'm not complaining. Just an observation.

That's it for now. I've been playing with Themes and Extensions a bit and will have more to post about those later.

Although my initial impressions of FireFox 1.0 have been for the most part favorable during the past few weeks, I have found one thing that causes FireFox to fall flat on its face: Media. Specifically any sort of animation and or video.

As many have already noticed, Mozilla recently released Thunderbird 1.0. Thunderbird is the e-mail counterpart of FireFox.

Although I've been extrodinarily intrigued by FireFox and, as I've noted here several times, have been using it as my default browser, the Thunderbird 1.0 release doesn't really interest me as much. I'm very comfortable with my current e-mail client (Microsoft Entourage) and prefer the additional options that a program such as Entourage provides that programs like Mail, PowerMail and Thunderbird don't appear to provide. Perhaps I'll have to, sometime soon, write a comparison, from my eyes, of many of the popular Mac e-mail clients and why I don't use them (except, of course, for Entourage) on a regular basis.

That said, I will evaluate Thunderbird simply for the fact that it's being trumpeted like FireFox and the group obviously hopes to make a dent in the Outlook-dominated E-mail world. But, Entourage will maintain a fast hold on my e-mail usage for the forseeable future.

From NSLog();: How much did the MWSF Keynote cost you?

Absolutely nothing, other than a slight bit of missing productivity today as I attempted to follow the "Live Updates" at MacInTouch. But, that's mostly because my credit-card would explode if I actually tried to buy something at the moment.

However, all else being equal, $499+tax. Although in all reality I have no real need for a Mac Mini, it's really quite a neat idea, and one that I think will cause Mac sales to go through the roof. I'd love to be in on that. Yes, it's a stupid reason to want to spend $500, but that's why my credit-card is staying firmly in my pocket for the moment.

I will be purchasing iLife '05 (which, incidentally is bundled with the Mac Mini and every other new Mac going forward). The improvements to iPhoto and Garageband are impressive (and iMovie being able to do HD—that's impressive too!) and well worth the $79 in my book (although, I am disappointed to see the price increase).

iWork is a "eh" in my book. I already have Office 2004, so this isn't really needed either. Therefore, no purchase here for me. However, I like some of the new features in Keynote. I do want to play around with Pages as well. I'll reserve judgment until I've had an opportunity to see these apps in person. I do wonder, however, how long it will be before this is included on all new Macs.

The iPod Shuffle is kind of a question for me. I've wanted a cheap iPod for quite a while, and this squarely in the correct price-range. But I'm a little confused as to what Apple was thinking with this one. An MP3 that you can't actually see or control the order the songs are played in seems a little off to me. And even though Apple is marketing that as a plus (as pointed out at CreativeBits), I have to wonder what the reaction to this is going to be. But, what do I know. The thing will probably be a madhouse seller in no time.

After looking at a few tidbits of information regarding the MacMini that have made their way to the web so far, I have to ask the question: Is there any part to the MacMini that is user-upgradable?

According to Henry Norr over at MacInTouch, an Apple booth staffer told him that although Apple does not recommend a the user upgrade the RAM, doing so will not void the warranty, as long as the user doesn't cause any damage. Supposedly, the hardest part of the procedure is getting the case open. If this is the case, then good.

However, wireless is definitely not a user-added option, although it can be added after the fact by an Apple Authorized service provider. According to Henry, you can add Airport Extreme and/or Bluetooth at purchase, but after purchase you can only add both together (as they come to the service provider as a combined kit).

I saw my first iMac mini in person today on display at the local Nebraska Furniture Mart. Oh my goodness is it small! The pictures I've seen really don't do it justice. Very cool!

I upgraded to Office 2004 at the end of last year and, overall, have been very pleased with the new version of the suite. However, I've run across one very annoying glitch with Entourage 2004 that just frustrates me to no end.

I have my window set so the Preview Pane is on the right of the message list. I have the message list set to a threaded view and have it arranged to show the subjects in alphabetical order. Seems simple enough, right?

Well, what I've run across is that, seemingly randomly, threads will be out of chronological order. This makes it extremely difficult to properly read a thread. Here is an example of what I mean:

Sorry for the poor quality of the screenshot, but it still makes my point. Notice the dates and times. They are in a very random order. To make this even more annoying, when you click on a message that is obviously out of order, Entourage immediately puts that message in the position it should have been in in the first place! And, even more annoying yet, this doesn't happen for every thread! Grrrr...

I've submitted a bug-report to Microsoft, which I'm sure will be promptly ignored.

Other than this one bug, though, I find Entourage 2004 to be a million times better than its predecessor.

From around pretty much everywhere: Are you a closer, minimizer or hider?

In the old Mac OS 9 days, I was a hider. I'd constantly be heading up the application menu in the upper-right corner of the screen to hide the application I was in if I needed to access the desktop or another application.

However, in Mac OS X, things aren't so clear-cut. I minimize and hide both. If I had to absolutely pick one, I'd have to say I'm a hider. Command-H is used often, but I find that more often than not, the application I want to switch to rarely comes forward when I hide the current application. I can't get used to the Command-Option-Click shortcut in the dock to hide all but the current app because I rarely use the dock (it stays hidden most of the time).

I wish I could get used to Exposé, but I haven't been able to get in the habit. I keep forgetting it's there. Maybe I'll use it more in Tiger if I get used to the Dashboard being around. Or maybe that last sentence is complete nonsense.

As you already know, Tiger is out and everyone seems to be giving initial impressions. I decided I'd write a post or two about my initial experiences with the new Mac OS.

Well, Safari 2.0 in Mac OS X 10.4 has made me switch back to using Safari as my full-time browser. (Some of you may recall that I had switched to FireFox when it first came out.)

It's not that I dislike FireFox--by no means. However, some little things about FireFox had been becoming more and more noticeable (most especially some interface issues that were simply very un-Mac-like). FireFox is a very competent browser and will remain installed (and used) on my computer(s).

However, when I discovered how much faster Safari 2.0 is that previous versions of Safari, I was hooked. The who application seems...well...smoother. From scrolling to rendering to launching, Safari 2.0 seems to have its act together.

For example, scrolling with Safari 1.2 in Panther on my Pismo G3 400 Powerbook was a choppy stop-and-start affair. However, with Safari 2.0 in Tiger, scrolling is very smooth and quick. That is a huge plus for me. Rendering pages seems to be that much better too.

I've also managed to get rid of the metal interface. I used Interface Builder to change Safari's main window from a metal window to the new unified-look window. This actually looks very good and, I think, should be Safari's new standard look. I'll post a screen-shot when I get a chance (not currently at a computer with a modified Safari on it).

Safari's new RSS capabilities are nice, but no replacement for NetNewsWire. But, it's a good start.

Although this is a rather superficial look at Safari 2.0, it's a great improvement to the browser and it's made me switch back from FireFox. Now, let's see it stay out in front.

It's a four-year old iBook people!

I have to admit: the Star Trek freak inside of me thinks this is really cool. Yes, it is my screensaver at the moment, but that changes frequently, so who knows what my screensaver will be next week?

Just saw that Opera Software is giving away registration codes for its web browser Opera. It only lasts until tomorrow morning though (at the latest), so if you'd like a free registration code, you'd better get crackin'.

Although I've been impressed with Opera from a rendering point of view, I've had problems with its UI. It's gotten better with the most recent release (Version 8), but still looks way too Windows-ish. But, I know some people that swear by Opera, so it does have its fans. I've always kept a copy around just to see how my web sites render in Opera.

Apple has released iTunes 5.

Looking around the web, I've seen that there are varied opinions about the new release. Some people like it, other's don't. I think what has caused the most controversy about this release is that iTunes 5 introduces yet another new window type.

The new iTunes main window looks like a cross between the old brushed metal window and the new unified window introduced with Mac OS X Tiger (such as that used in Mail). The brushed look of the window is gone, but overall color is still there. It uses the same type of gradient look that the unified window uses.

Overall, I like the new look. I like the fact that the window borders are now gone on the left and the right. The overall look is a lot cleaner. iTunes doesn't look as busy as it did now.

But, there are two things about this that do bug me. The first of these is the corners of the windows. The corners have lost a lot of the Aqua-roundness. Although still round, the diameter of the base circle is much smaller. These corners look out of place, especially when layered with other types of windows. I'm wondering if Apple did this to make the interface fit in a little better on the Windows side of things. But, if so, why not leave the old corners on Mac OS X, especially since, as I've read elsewhere, this is a custom window (it's look and feel is completely drawn by iTunes itself, not the system).

The other thing that bugs me is that this is yet another new window type. I really don't understand why Apple can't stick with a few standard window types. As I mentioned earlier, this new window doesn't fit in well with the rest of the Aqua interface. Don't get me wrong, I like the look of this new window (except for the corners). I like the unified look window introduced in Tiger. But, why is Apple adding these window types instead of replacing older ones with them. There are so many window types running around now that any hope of a unified look to the OS is quickly disappearing. Apple needs to figure out some unity in the interface for Leopard (the next major Mac OS X release). Stop letting the graphic designers have free reign and make them work with some interface experts. Please!

Now, I'm off to do some testing with iHam on iRye.

I'm watching Apple's delayed stream of the Macworld Keynote and have a few thoughts on some of the things mentioned. The first of these: the iPod Remote/FM Tuner.

This is a nifty device, and one that should address one of the major complaints about the iPod (no FM Tuner). But, I can't help but think it might be a little over-priced. Granted, I don't know anything about how much it costs Apple to produce one of these things, but it seems to me that the $29 price point, with other iPod accessories, would be more appropriate. But, I really don't know. It could be $49 is a great bargain.

I can't wait to see how big one of these things is. My guess is that it uses the same keypad as the iPod Shuffle.

Did Steve Jobs add the Aperture section of his keynote at the last minute to try to direct some attention away from Adobe's Lightroom?

I should point out that this is the first time I've ever had problems with the stream whereby I could see the video (fairly smooth too), but keep having audio dropouts.

iLife '06 looks like a good upgrade. Honestly, iMovie and iDVD don't really do it for me (believe it or not, I don't have a digital camcorder, so I really don't have a use for them). For me, the iLife suite is all about iPhoto and GarageBand.

iPhoto

• 250,000 Photos: That's a lot of photos. Who has that many photos? But, probably a welcome change.
  
• Editing: Nice improvements. Full-screen editing is nice. The one-click effects is also really nice. Adobe's probably paying some attention here.
  
• Books and Cards: The calendars and cards are nifty here. Same or better quality than the books? This could be popular if priced correctly.
  
• Photocasting: "Podcasting for Photos." An interesting idea, but I wonder just how much of a need there is for something like this--especially with the requirement of .Mac for publishing. This seems a little like a feature for the sake of a feature.
  
• I can't help but notice that iPhoto appears to have adopted a more iTunes-like interface. Please note that I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing.
  

I want this version. A great upgrade.

iMovie

• Annimated Themes: Pretty nifty stuff for a consumer-level video-editing program. Again, I don't do this, but it looks really neat! Very impressive.
  
• Export to iPod. This was probably a given.
  
• I can't help but notice that iMovie appears to have adopted a more iTunes-like interface.

iDVD

• Widescreen menus. Given.
  
• Magic iDVD. A time-saver. But, probably not a solution for everything.
  
• Support third-party DVD burners. It's about time.
  
• I can't help but notice...well...you get the picture.

GarageBand
Apple's really into the whole podcasting thing. Garageband now supports creation of podcasts. The software now has a bunch of little tweaks geared toward podcasters. I don't podcast. I don't really care. But, most of these will probably be pretty appreciated by those who do. Steve's little "podcast" was pretty humorous. His whole demo was pretty impressive.

Oh...by the way...no iTunes-like interface here.

iWeb

• Create websites. Appears to be template-based.
  
• Drag-and-drop of iLife media.
  
• Built-in blogging.
  
• 1-click publishing to .Mac. Does this work with external hosting providers?
  
• I'd be interested in looking at the code for iWeb-generated pages. Standards-compliant? Some of these pages look fairly complex. Perhaps I'm showing my ignorance here.
  
• Supports iPhoto photocasting.
  
• I'm impressed with how quickly Steve is building his sample website. We'll see how well that translates into actual use.
  
• Is there RSS support? Apparently yes (Steve mentioned creating RSS feeds when publishing. He also just demonstrated the RSS feed).
  
• Do you suppose future versions will allow more tweaking of the templates?
  

This is an initially impressive-looking applications. I look forward to playing with it. This and iPhoto make me willing to spend the $79 for this sweet and maybe even the $99 Family Pack for my wife (she's been talking about blogging, but doesn't like the tools she's tried).

I just looked at the clock and remembered I have to get up very early tomorrow morning, so I'm going to call it a night. I'll finish the rest of the keynote tomorrow.

During Roz Ho's little spiel, I couldn't help but wonder, does anyone on the Mac actually use Messenger? Really. I'm truly interested in this.

The new "five-year commitment" was great "rah-rah" fodder. But, really, did anyone think it was going away? The MacBU at Microsoft makes Microsoft money. It is very profitable. Why would it go away?

Heh. Paul Otellini (CEO of Intel) in a "bunny suit". That's kinda funny. Was that Steve's idea or Paul's?

Who really didn't think that Apple wasn't going to release something Intel-based at this Macworld?

So, the iMac is the first Mac with an Intel processor? Somewhat surprising, especially considering the resent revision to the line. I really thought that it would be the Mac Mini. I guess I was paying too much attention to the wild speculation going on.

iMac

• Steve claims 2-3x faster than the iMac G5. I'll believe that when I see it. I'm talking real-world benchmarks. Not Steve's marketing fluff shown during the keynote. Those numbers don't mean anything to most of the people in that room listening to Steve.
  
• He claims dual processors in the iMac. It's actually Intel's new Core Duo processor with dual cores. Not quite dual processors, but close.
  
• Same Price. Same basic specs. Same features. Fair enough. Fairly transparent to users.
  
• Steve acknowledges that Photoshop isn't the best performer under Rosetta. He really took some shots at Adobe during this portion of the Keynote.
  
• The new iMac ad is actually, I think, one of the best Apple ads in many years.

MacBook Pro

• "MacBook Pro"? What kind of name is that. Who came up with that. They need to be fired.
  
• 4-5x faster than the PowerBook G4. I'll believe that when I see it. I'm talking real-world benchmarks. Blah blah blah. I already did this spiel.
  
• The audience went nuts over the built-in iSight camera. Why? Has this been a popular request?
  
• Front Row and the Mac Remote control. Again, why? Why should this be on a portable? I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but this just doesn't make sense to me.
  
• The MagSafe power adapter is a cool idea. If it works well, this is a great feature. Whoever thought that up should be given a big raise.
  
• No Firewire 800. I don't really care about this, but I've heard several complaints about this.

All in all, it was a decent keynote. Not one of Steve's best, I don't think. But the Reality-Distorion Field was going in high gear.

It's great that Intel-based Macs are now available (ahead of schedule), but I can't help but wonder if this will be more of a burden if these machines were rushed, just so Steve could announce them at the keynote. I could be off base here and I certainly don't have any inside information, so take what I said here with a grain of salt. It's just an idea that popped into my head.

Besides the Intel-based Macs, the highlight of the keynote, for me, was the new iLife suite. I can't wait to get my hands on it to play around. The new iPhoto is something I definitely want and the iWeb application is something I'm interested in seeing if it's as good as it looked in the keynote.

I'm looking forward to the rest of this year, if nothing else!

According to TidBITS, the MacBook Pro supports 802.11a wireless. This is the wireless standard that Steve Jobs declared "dead" when he introduced Airport Extreme a few years back.

I would assume, of course, that this support is in addition to the already supported 802.11b and 802.11g standards that Mac's have supported for years.

Witness the stories (here and here) of two enterprising souls who decided that a Mac Mini was not complete without a Mac SE or Mac Plus shell.

And before anyone begins thinking that I'm mocking these sites, I actually think both these projects are pretty cool. If only I had the time, ambition and/or know-how to do something like this.

I wonder how hard Apple thought about this one.

Specifically, the entry-level Mac Mini is now $100 higher than it was before the Intel switch. Interesting. I've always thought that the $499 Mac Mini was only there for rock-bottom price seekers. A decent computer, but nothing special. I'm thinking Apple somewhat thought the same thing.

The new entry level Mac Mini is a better computer overall, but the price went up. I wonder what this might do to adoption rates.

I also wonder how the Intel Core Solo processor will perform in the real world. I look forward to some real world tests.

However, despite the slightly down town of this post, I should point out that in all likelihood, I'll be purchasing a new Intel Mac Mini fairly soon. It will be my Intel test-bed computer for future versions of my software.

Huh. So, Apple's getting in on the Battery Recall fun that's been making the rounds as of late.

Eh. It happens.

Turns out the battery in my PowerBook G4 15-inch is included in the recall, so I've already filled out the required form online and the new battery should be to me soon. I've never had any overheating problems of any sort with this computer, let alone with the battery, but better safe than sorry, I guess. My current battery was starting to lose it's capacity anyway, so getting a free new battery works for me.

Well, despite the fact I just put in for a new battery as part of Apple's PowerBook G4 battery recall, I just picked up a new laptop: a 13" MacBook! The new computer is the high-end black computer with 2.0 GHz Intel Dual Core, 80 GB hard drive, SuperDrive and 512 MB RAM.

I was in Nebraska Furniture Mart's Mega Mart the other night with my wife and we saw an "open box" MacBook on their special deals counter ("Open Box" to NFM means that the item was previously purchased new, and for whatever reason, has been returned). The price they had on it was a fairly good deal (about $200 off retail), so I had the sales guy open the box up and let me inspect the contents. Everything was there, and the computer booted just fine. No dead pixels. No scratches or dents. Looked brand new.

I had been looking around for an Intel-based Mac for development testing anyway (I had originally been leaning toward a Mac Mini for cost reasons), but this was such a good deal in my eyes we went ahead and purchased the computer.

I've been using it for a few days now and am generally pleased with it. The two biggest complaints people initially had about the MacBooks (the glossy screen and the keyboard) don't bug me at all. The computer does run a little warm, but no warmer than my 15" PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz does, as far as I an tell. One major difference here between the PowerBook and the MacBook is that when the fans in the MacBook turn on, you can really hear them, whereas in the PowerBook they were much quieter and barely noticeable. However, I've only had the fans in the MacBook turn on twice, so it hasn't really bugged me.

I really like the black look of the computer (ever so much more than the white MacBooks), although it doesn't look quite as..."polished" as the Aluminum PowerBook/MacBook Pro. I really like the new screen latching system--there isn't a latch. It's a magnet that holds the screen closed.

I look forward to using this new MacBook and already consider it money well spent.

After having spent about a week with the MacBook now, I thought I'd post a couple of thoughts.

• I definitely need more memory. It currently has the stock 512 MB of RAM and that is obviously causing all sorts of issues with Rosetta. When I'm using only Universal apps, this computer screams. It's amazing the speed increase that I've seen with this. However, the moment I fire up a PowerPC-only app, the computer bogs down. That immediately points to Rosetta. I've read that Rosetta is a memory hog (and I can understand why), so throwing more RAM at the issue should probably help a lot. And, seeing as I can't work without Entourage (at least not easily), that's what I'm going to do. RAM will be on the way.
• The trackpad is taking a little getting used to. There are times it doesn't seem to register the fact that I'm dragging my finger across it. I haven't exactly figured out what's going on, but what I think might be happening is that I'm not yet used to the wider trackpad. I think a portion of my hand may be touching the edge of the trackpad while I try to drag me finger and that confuses it. I'm trying to pay more attention to the times the arrow doesn't move.
• Likewise, the trackpad button is taking a little getting used to as well. It seems a little..."mushier"...than the trackpad button on my PowerBook G4. There are times I think I've clicked the button, but nothing happens. I click it again and everything's fine. I'm not ready to call this a hardware problem, it's probably just me trying to get used to the new feel.
• Dashboard is a little flakey on this machine. I don't know if it's an Intel thing, a MacBook thing or a specifically this MacBook thing. When I activate Dashboard by pressing F12, it can take several seconds for it to activate (even if there are no PowerPC-only apps running). Then, once it's activated, at times, it appears as though some of the widgets don't update properly. They show incorrect or outdated information or they stay blank. It is as though those widgets requiring network access (such as the Apple-supplied Weather widget) can't make a connection to whatever server they're trying to access. I never had this problem with the PowerBook G4. I suppose I should hold off judgement until I get the additional RAM to see if this is just another symptom of the lack of memory.
• The MacBook definitely feels much sturdier than the PowerBook G4 does. When I move the MacBook around, I don't feel the fear of accidentally damaging it by improper flex or something like that as I do with the PowerBook. I don't know if this is actually the case, or if this is just a perception that I have.
• I miss the backlit keyboard.
• The screen is absolutely beautiful. I know I touched on this before, but the glossy finish on the screen is not bugging me at all, and everything is so very bright and vibrant on the screen. No complaints here at all.

I've run into a recurring problem with the MacBook that I haven't totally figured out yet: About half the time I try to print, the application I'm trying to print from crashes before the Print dialog ever appears.

I have a PowerMac G4/933 that the printer is connected to (an HP DeskJet 5500). The G4 has printer sharing turned on. The MacBook is connecting to the G4 via Airport.

About half the time I try to print, when I select "Print" from the file menu (or press Command-P), the application will hang for a few seconds and then crash (prompting the "Application has unexpected quit" message to show up). At other times, it works fine and I can print just fine.

I haven't yet tried to connect the printer directly to the printer via USB and see if the crash continues to happen, but may have to try that here soon. It hasn't gotten to the point where I'm ready to throw something. This is just mildly annoying at best at the moment.

A few more thoughts regarding the MacBook:

• The right side of the screen at the hinge has developed a plastic squeaking sound the the screen is moved up or down. The hinge doesn't seem any looser or anything like that, but the sound is a little annoying. Luckily, I don't move the screen much unless I'm putting the computer to sleep.
  
• I had to put off getting additional memory for the computer for a variety of reasons, and now when I look at memory prices, I see they've gone up almost $100 for 2 GB of RAM since early September. Ouch! 1-800-4-MEMORY.com had 2 GB RAM kits for $163 in early September. Now they are $255. What's going on with RAM prices?
  
• Probably related to the memory issue, but switching between PowerPC apps running in Rosetta and Intel-native apps is dog slow. Doesn't matter if I'm going from a PowerPC app to an Intel app or the other way around. Switching between Rosetta and native is slow. Switching between PowerPC and PowerPC or Intel and Intel is just as fast as I think it should be though.
  

It appears that it's now been one year, to the day, since As The Apple Turns went silent. *sigh*

While I'm really enjoying the MacBook, I've discovered a problem that just irks the crap out of me. The Office Notifications application (that ships as part of Microsoft Office:mac 2004 must be some sort of steaming pile of...well, I'll let you fill in the rest.

Office Notifications is the application that handles displaying a notification of an event or task reminder that you set up in Microsoft Entourage. There is a background application that runs all the time on your computer when you have Office:mac installed called Microsoft Database Daemon. This application is in charge of monitoring the current time on your computer and comparing it to various times in your calendar of events or tasks list. If you have Entourage set to remind you about events or tasks at certain times, and the time is correct, this background application will launch Office Notifications, which will then handle displaying the reminder by putting up a little floating window with the reminder in it.

This is where the problem comes in.

At least on my MacBook, it can take upwards of two to three minutes for the Office Notifications application to launch. Yes. I wrote that correctly: two to three minutes. I've watched the icon show up in the dock and bounce for three minutes before the application is considered "launched" by the system. During this time, the computer can become unresponsive with a lot of watching the Spinning Pizza of Death cursor spin away and nothing much else happening.

Once the Office Notifications application has launched, things get even worse. It can spend another two to three minutes before it actually displays the reminder window. When the window finally does display, the sound that is played to accompany the reminder is very broken up and stuttery (although I'm not sure "stuttery" is a word).

Once the reminder is shown, the computer becomes somewhat more responsive, but still has lag problems until the reminder is dismissed. Once the reminder is dismissed, the computer resumes its quick and speedy ways.

So, really, the question must be asked: "WHAT IS THIS APPLICATION DOING?" (yes, I was shouting that question). What is it doing that apparently takes up so many system resources as to make the rest of the system slow to a crawl—and remember, this is just to show a single window. Nothing more, for all practical purposes.

I know that Office:mac (and therefore Office Notifications) is not an Intel-native software package. I know that means the software has to run in the Rosetta emulation layer. I understand that means that the software won't run as fast as it would on a PPC-based computer. But, were talking about a simple application that does nothing more than show a window and play a sound. If Word can run smoothly without causing the rest of the system to grind to a halt, so should Office Notifications.

I can not, for the life of me, figure out what this application is doing. I don't have a single other application on the MacBook that causes these types of problems.

Office Notifications: The Root of All Evil.

Here's a neat list of five products that Apple prototyped, but never brought to market. It's an interesting look at Apple's past and makes you ask the question "What might have been?"

Thanks to The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

I'm willing to bet that Apple probably wants to just forget this ever existed.

I find the number of Apple IIIs in this video somewhat disturbing.

As if it were a swarm of bees, you should stay away from the SyncServices folder in Mac OS X 10.4.

Heh. I love these little gems that you sometimes find in Apple's Knowledgebase. It's nice to see that even a corporation that relies on a professional image (for the most part), can still have a little fun from time to time.

Yesterday, the Mac BU at Microsoft started publishing some new information about Office:mac 2008 (due for release in January, apparently). They've put up a new website dedicated to information about the product, and the Mac Mojo blogs (along with individual employee blogs) have started revealing some info.

Early looks at Office have provided some interesting tidbits. It definitely looks as though the Mac BU really is interested in making Office more user-friendly and Mac-like. The new page-layout view seems to make it much easier to design complex layouts in Word. Of course, it remains to be seen how well this actually works when the product is actually in users hands versus just looking at marketing videos.

But, a few things are bugging me. I should probably note that I'm not an Office hater. I own Office:mac 2004. I've owned ever version of Office for the Mac since Office 98. I use Office frequently for many different things, although, to be honest, the application I use the most from Office is Entourage (with Word a distant second and Excel and PowerPoint even more distant thirds). I mostly like Office for the Mac and want to see the product succeed.

Here are a few of my thoughts:

• I find it interesting that, in all information we've seen so far since Office 2008 was introduced at MacWorld (which, to be fair, hasn't been much yet), there has been little information about the new version of Entourage. As I indicated above, I use Entourage the most of any of the Office applications. It is always running in my dock.

  Why the dearth of information about Entourage? The only thing I can think of is that either Entourage 2008 will not be that big an evolution of the current version and won't get a lot of the new whiz-bang features Microsoft is currently trumpeting (like the Elements Gallery and such), or the new Entourage will be such a huge leap that they're carefully keeping it under wraps until they get the "lesser" stuff out the way first.

  I'm figuring the reason we're not seeing too much is more the first guess than the second. Really, what would Entourage need with an Elements Gallery?

  By the way, before anyone asks, I don't see My Day being that big a leap. That really is just a natural evolution of the idea behind Entourage.

• Besides the fact that Visual Basic for Applications will no longer be included in the Mac version of Office (which already has set off some harsh criticisms of Microsoft), what we've seen of Office 2008 so far shows that the Mac Office is diverging from the Windows version of Office even more than ever before.

  Let's look at Office:mac 2004 for a moment. Although Office 2004 was definitely the most Mac-like version of Office to date and even included some Mac-only "innovations" like the formatting palette, a Windows Office user could sit down in front of a Mac and feel mostly comfortable. The toolbars mostly looked the same, with the same options in the same places. The menus were mostly the same (with a few minor variations). The dialog boxes were mostly the same. The point was that the Mac version of Office was going to be mostly consistent with the Windows version of Office, with a couple of exceptions to help the software feel more Mac-like.

  But, now we have Office:mac 2008 and Office 2007 for Windows. Suddenly, consistency is no longer an issue. Office 2007 for Windows has the Ribbon. Office:mac 2008 does not. It has the Elements Gallery, but that seems to serve an entirely different function than the Ribbon. Office:mac 2008 still has toolbars, but they now look like standard Mac OS X toolbars and look very little like the toolbars found in versions of Office for Windows prior to 2007.

  Office:mac 2008 does look more like a Mac application. I'll have to wait until I actually use it to see if it feels and actsmore like a Mac app, but I'm willing to bet it does. Personally, I think this is a great thing. I want to use good-looking, Mac-like applications. I do not like the clunky feel of Office for Windows, especially with that horrid Ribbon.

  BUT...

  With the two products diverging even more, how is this going to affect the perception of the Mac in mixed-platform shops or even to the common consumer? Let's face it, like it or not, the Mac needs Office. If Office:mac went away, the Mac would become more irrelevant (note that I'm not saying that it's irrelevant now—far from it). Someone may decide not to switch to a Mac because he or she couldn't get Office. A business may decide to standardize on Windows rather than be mixed-platform because Office was not available for the Mac.

  Unfortunately, that's the computing world we live in. Office is still that important.

  But now, we have two software suites using the same basic name, but look and perhaps act very differently based on the platform they are on. Something that works one way on Windows may work completely differently on the Mac. Word 2007 on Windows does not look like Word 2008 on the Mac. It is becoming harder, it seems, to apply knowledge of the software on platform to the same software on the other platform.

  Is it possible that this could cause a similar reaction as if Office for the Mac disappeared altogether?

  Granted, the new version of Office:mac may be heralded as Microsoft finally "getting the Mac"? Mac users may finally begin to say that perhaps Office is a good thing.

  But, what does that matter if a business says that the versions are too different and they don't want to take the time and expense to train employees on two different versions of Office for two platforms. Therefore, they decide they are going to standardize their entire fleet on one platform. Which platform do you think they'll standardize on?

  Or, what if Joe Consumer is in an Apple Store, contemplating the purchase of his first Mac? He walks up to a display iMac and sees that it has Microsoft Office on him to try out. He launches Word and is quickly confused because it doesn't look or act like Word 2007 (or 2003 for that matter) on the computer he has now. Obviously, that means that Macs are difficult to use and they don't do things the "right way". Therefore, he decides he's not going to buy a Mac.

  Those examples are probably a little contrived and very probably a little stereotypical. It's also entirely possible that I'm completely off base. It's not as if I've actually used the software. I'm just going off of the previews I've seen from Microsoft. I should also probably add that I don't want Office:mac to just be simple clone of Office for Windows. As I said, I hate the ribbon! Plus, I want my software to be Mac-like, not Windows-like.

  But, I do think this is something to think about.

• I also think it's interesting that the new promotional website is entirely Flash based. Say what you will about the appropriateness of using Flash for this type of website—that is neither here nor there. What I find interesting is that Microsoft, when they decided to make this website heavily media-based, decided to use Flash and not their own Silverlight technology.

  Make no mistake: this website was not put together by the Mac BU. That group has their hands full getting the new version of Office ready. They don't have time to muck around with websites.

  No. Instead, some marketing group at Microsoft put this site together. And they used Flash. Not Silverlight.

  It is true that Silverlight is still a very new technology and probably hasn't really propagated all that far just yet. There probably just isn't a huge installed base yet, especially on the Mac. But, that brings up another interesting point. Does this mean that possibly someone at Microsoft was actually taking the target market into mind and decided to do what was right for that market instead of just imposing the "Microsoft Way"? Silverlight probably doesn't have a huge installed base, especially on the Mac platform. Therefore, Silverlight is not an appropriate technology for this website. Since we want to be media rich, we'll go with a technology that has a near 100% installed base on the target platform (Flash) even though it is a direct competitor.

  An interesting thought.
  

Those are just a few ideas that started rattling around in my head as I browsed some of the new info on Office:mac 2008. I should say that I am looking forward to actually trying the new software.

Just received my Leopard DVD via FedEx about 10 minutes ago. I'm off to do the last backup of my MacBook before I install! More later!

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the FedEx driver, when she handed me the box, said "Here's your new toy!" I looked at her a little funny at that and she mentioned that FedEx had been warned that there would be many, many of these boxes to be delivered today and what they were. She even mentioned she already had her copy!

My copy of Leopard arrived this morning and, of course, I hurried to install it to take a peek around.

The system I decided I would install on first is my first generation Black MacBook with the 2.0 GHz Core Due processor. This is the computer I user for everything except for development (my QuickSilver G4/933 is my development machine). So, I figured I would install the MacBook first as that would allow me to be completely immersed in Leopard right off the bat.

Of course, the first step was to do a complete backup of the computer (you do backup before making major changes to your computer, right?). So, I launched my copy of the handy SuperDuper! and connected to a external hard drive that I use for backups. About half-an-hour later, I had a complete backup of the MacBook and I was ready to install Leopard. (I should probably point out that, as of this writing, SuperDuper! is not completely compatible with Leopard. The author however promises a quick update to make it completely compatible. This incompatibility doesn't affect my backup as SuperDuper! was running under Tiger when the backup was made. If the worst happens and I need to restore, I can simply boot off the external drive, which has Tiger on it, and do a restore.)

Once the backup was done, I went to open the box that FedEx delivered earlier this morning.

The first thing that struck me was that the shipping box was obviously custom-made specifically to hold the Leopard box. That doesn't mean that it was designed specifically for Leopard, but that it was designed to hold the type of box that Leopard comes in. It just continues the nice touches that Apple provides.

The Leopard box itself is very similar to the iLife '08 box. The box itself is wrapped in a sleeve. Pull the box out and it opens to reveal the DVD itself. On the left side is a box-in-a-box that contains the Leopard "manual" and the customary Apple logo stickers.

All in all, the packaging is typical Apple with a lot of attention to detail.

I popped the DVD into the MacBook and after a few moments the DVD window appeared on the screen. I double-clicked the "Install Mac OS X" icon and the computer restarted and booted from the DVD.

The boot process took about 3 minutes (typical for booting from a DVD). Once the boot-process was done, the installer automatically started. The welcome screen has a welcome graphic and a "Continue" and "More Information" button. Clicking the "More Information" button replaces the welcome graphic with the read me text from the DVD.

The installer works very much like the Tiger installer. I was given the option as to the type of installation I wanted to perform (erase the hard drive first, do an upgrade install or an archive and install). I chose the Erase and Install option so the hard drive would be wiped clean first. When I was given the opportunity to customize the installation, I chose to not install the printer drivers or the additional languages (saving close to a GB in space).

I clicked the "Install" button and the installation proceeded. As with the Tiger installer, the Leopard installer spent about 15 minutes checking the install DVD for "consistency". I would assume that it's checking the DVD for errors to make sure that the install is not interrupted by a disc error. I think this is a good thing so that you aren't left with an unusable installation.

During the installation I already started to notice the changes in the look of the OS itself (the new look for windows, the translucent menubar, etc). It's that obvious.

The install took about 45 minutes (including the DVD check). Once it was complete, the installer window displayed a large green check mark with text that indicated that the installation succeeded. I was reminded by how Apple has obviously spent some time making even the Installation process as beautiful as possible. Much better than that Redmond bunch.

The computer restarted and the OS loaded. As with every other version of Mac OS X, after the first restart the Welcome movie played. Unlike previous versions of Mac OS X, this welcome movie was full-screen and much longer than previous versions with more languages represented. With the camera swooshing around in space, the movie looked like something out of Star Trek. Pretty cool movie.

After the movie was done and the welcome window appeared (the window asking for my country), I let the computer just sit there for a moment as I wrote down some notes. I was surprised when a male voice began speaking about VoiceOver and gave instructions on how to use the feature. That was a very nice touch by Apple.

I proceeded through the setup assistant. I chose not to use the Migration Assistant during the setup process (electing to do that manually later). I also noted that there is a big emphasis on .Mac during the setup assistant. Not an issue, just found it interesting.

All in all, the Leopard installation is just as easy as you would expect from Apple. It really was as pleasant an experience as you could expect from an installation process.

I'll detail more experiences, including my run-in with the Migration Assistant, in later posts. Stay tuned...

I had planned on doing a full review of Leopard within the first couple days of its release based on a whole slew of notes that I took as I fiddled with the system. However, the problems with my server and this weblog precluded my getting that posted in any sort of timely manner and there are many other reviews of Leopard available now, many of which are better than mine would have been. Therefore, I have decided instead to simply post a few thoughts here and there about things that specifically jump out at me about the new system.

The first of these things is the new Finder.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the new Finder is, at minimum, what Apple should have provided back in the early Mac OS X days (maybe not 10.0, but at least 10.1). The new Finder is such an incredible improvement over the Tiger Finder as to make me laugh when I think about dealing with the old Finder.

Let's be clear here: I had no problem with the Tiger Finder. There were the minor annoyance or two, but overall, it serviced in most of the ways I thought it should.

Wow, was I wrong!

Let's start with the most obvious thing about the Finder: the new look.

Although I never really liked the brushed metal look in previous versions of Mac OS X, it didn't really bother me enough for me to care all that much about it. Its use in the Finder in Panther and Tiger somewhat stretched Apple's guidelines of when brushed metal should be used, but whatever. Brushed metal in the Finder was relegated to the background for me and was pretty much a non-issue.

After 15 minutes of the brushed-metal-less Finder in Leopard on my MacBook, I went back to another computer still running Tiger to look for a file. I was stunned to look at how—dated—it looked. It was truly painful for me to use the Finder in Tiger because it looked so ugly.

The new standard look of Windows in Tiger is a very welcome change, especially in the new Finder. It looks much more professional and allows me to take the system much more seriously when its built-in file browser takes itself seriously. The new look allows me to know that this is a serious tool and is meant to be a serious tool. It may sound strange, but it's true that the look does have that kind of psychological impact on me.

Functionally, the new Finder's windows are much the same as they were in Tiger. The main view allows you to see your files in whatever directly you are currently browsing. The toolbar allows navigation and customization of the view as well as easy access to those same options that can be found in the Finder's contextual menu.

The sidebar has been refined and now much more closely resembles the sidebar found in iTunes. I like the fact that the sidebar has been further organized with a variety of categories for items placed there to be filed under. It makes much more sense to me than the willy-nilly method that Tiger's Finder used. Some people have barked about the fact that the category headers in the sidebar are in all caps. It doesn't bug me.

Speaking of the Sidebar, I really like the new icon for the Desktop found under the "Places" category. I'm not sure if this appears anywhere else in the system and, indeed, I'm not sure if any of the other icons found in the "Places" category appear anywhere else in the system either. But, they look really nice in the sidebar.

I also really like the new look of the list-view in Finder windows. I tended to avoid list-view in previous versions of the Finder (I mostly used icon-view) because it could be very difficult to distinguish between rows—the rows were too compressed together and there were no visual cues to help separate one row from another. The new Finder spaces the rows a little further apart and adds an alternating-color background. This works very well to quickly separate different items in the list and it blends in very well with the rest of the interface. I like the new look so well that I've made it my default view for Finder windows.

This brings me to one minor gripe about the new Finder: how it handles default views. The new Finder insists on using whatever view is selected in the toolbar as the view for any folder it displays. The only way to override this is to display a folder, set the view you want and then use the "Show View Options" window to set the "Always Open in {whatever} View" option. Plus, this option does affect subfolders. Annoying and cumbersome.

As long as I'm talking about Finder views, I might as well touch on the Cover Flow view. In fact, I'll get right to the point: eh. This is not the revolutionary technology that Steve Jobs makes it out to be. I have no desire to browse my files with Cover Flow. I'll admit that when viewing a folder of pictures, Cover Flow would probably be useful. But that's it. I can't see any other situation I'd want to use it.

Quick Look, on the other hand, is something that I'll use all the time. It is so very handy to be able to click on a file, press the spacebar and instantly have a preview of the file appear in its own little window. I'm looking forward to third parties providing the necessary plugins for they file formats. This is probably one of the absolute best improvements in the new Finder.

Speed in the new Finder is amazing. Everything is snappier (and, indeed, appears to be so in the system as a whole). The previous Finders, there was always a sense of sluggishness that you couldn't always put your finger on. Not so in Leopard. Windows fly open. Lists are drawn quickly, including icons. Scrolling flies by.

Much has been said by others about how much faster connecting to servers in the Finder has become. I have to admit that I'm not seeing this. Although the Finder doesn't become hopelessly bogged down with a spinning pizza of death when a server unexpectedly drops of the network, I still see things being rather slow in this area. File transfers from another computer on my LAN to the Leopard machine actually seem slower than they did in Tiger. I'm wondering, however, if there might not be something more going on here. I have another Mac on my LAN acting as a file server and it shows up in the Network window on all the other Macs on the LAN running Tiger. However, it does not show up in the "Shared" category of the sidebar (another computer running a VNC server does show up). More investigation is needed here.

These are really just my first impressions of the Finder. I haven't messed with everything yet (such as searches). However, from my first impressions, I would say that Leopard is a must-have upgrade if only for the Finder itself. Thank you Apple for finally providing Mac OS X with a Finder that it can be proud of!

I may have run across a bug in Mac OS X's Archive Utility (the process that ZIPs files when you select "Create Archive" from the Finder's contextual menu).

I have a folder full of iMovie source files that I want to archive. The folder itself is just over 7 GB in size. I won't need these files anymore, but don't want to get rid of them. Normally what I do in this situation is simply create a .zip file from the folder and move it to an archive's directory.

However, in this case, when I select "Create Archive" from the Finder's contextual menu, I get the dialog indicating that it is archiving the folder with a note that it is expected to take about one hour to complete. The progress bar moves very slowly for about five minutes and then, suddenly, the dialog disappears. When I check, I do have a .zip file that is just under 6 GB in size. However, when I double-click on it to re-expand it (to test to make sure it was created successfully), nothing happens.

So, it appears that the .zip file is not being created successfully.

I'm wondering if this might have something to do with the size of the folder or the size of the individual files within the folder.

I'm saying Goodbye to an old friend tomorrow: I've sold my old PowerBook G3/400 Pismo. It's actually a little sad to see it go.

I bought that computer new in 2000. It was my first "real" laptop (I had previously owned a used PowerBook 1400/166 for about a year). It blew away my desktop computer of the time (a PowerMac G3/266) in terms of performance.

It was my first foray into the world of WiFi. I remember sitting out on the deck of my apartment of the time one summer evening browsing different websites for whatever information I could find about the then just announced Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. All without wires. It was truly astounding to me.

It became, over time, my primary computer as I learned the convenience of being able to compute anywhere without any wires. It was the first computer that I ever installed the released Mac OS X on (I installed the Mac OS X Preview on my desktop G3). I still mostly used Mac OS 8.6/9, but more and more I began to use Mac OS X, especially once Mac OS X 10.1 came out.

I've since owned two other laptops (a PowerBook G4/1.2 GHz and my current 1st Gen black MacBook 2.0 GHz). But the Pismo still found uses. When my wife used it for the final time--just today in fact--to connect to an LCD projector to show a PowerPoint presentation at work, it was running Mac OS X 10.4.11 and Office 2004. Sure, it has a few scratches, the battery barely holds a charge and the screen has long since developed the slightly pinkish hue that was endemic of that model PowerBook, but it still runs reliably and reasonably fast for what we asked of it.

However, the last few years did find it sitting in a closet more and more. It seemed a waste to have this perfectly good computer sitting around not doing anything most of the time. Surely, someone else could get something out of it. An acquaintance of mine approached me a few weeks ago asking if I knew where she could get a cheap laptop that she could run Word on so she could write a novel she's working on without having to sit at a desk. I immediately thought of the Pismo.

I hand it over to her tomorrow. It's currently packed up (in the original packaging!) and sitting there waiting for me to take it to her. As I said, it's slightly sad to see it go, but I'm glad it will still get used.

It was a great computer and I hope it will continue to be for at least a few more years to come!