All posts by Kevin

I ♥ 

I visited an Apple Store Friday night for the inevitable purchase. I knew I liked Apple and their products, and everything about the experience has confirmed that. The only bad thing is that the purchasing experience is so laid back, and I’m so shy that it is hard to make the first step and approach a salesperson. Once I did, I loved the tiny little box that Rory came in. It was heavier than I expected. I love that I didn’t need a shopping bag; the salesman put a Thank You sticker on the box so the folks at the door knew I had paid. The thing fit in my pocket. I didn’t have to carry a receipt home with me, it was in my inbox waiting for me.

The unboxing ceremony was equally pleasure filled. Just a few tiny pieces in the box, very little waste, very little wasted space, and very little box. The device itself has everything I’ve always asked for and complained about my previous devices: Nice large screen, no physical keyboard, no softkeys, no stylus. Only the good stuff; only what matters.

Tab Switching

Firefox: Control+Page Up, Control+Page Down

Safari: ⌘{ and ⌘}

Camino: ⌘⌥← and ⌘⌥→

Adium: ⌘← and ⌘→ by default, ⌘[ and ⌘]

iChat: ⌘{ and ⌘}

TextMate: ⌘⌥← and ⌘⌥→

Dreamweaver: ⌘` (which is wrong, that is for switching windows)

I don’t know what the appropriate response is: Argh, groan, or sigh.

Dismal History

In honor of New Year, I was going to write about my top five or ten favorite somethings. I choose music, so I launched iTunes and created a quick smart playlist to see what I’d bought in 2007. I was disappointed to count only nine albums and an assortment of individual tracks, two CDs of which are Christmas music. So it would seem 2007 was a dismal year for music. I know some of what I purchased last year was older music, and now I see that it was because there wasn’t anything new that I was interested in.

Here’s to a better year for music in 2008.

55

Update (2008-08-21): I named 66 today. My score improves each time I try the test!

Are there more than just bugs in Leopard?

My list of changes in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has turned into a list of bugs I have encountered. There are many new features as well, and those are what I intended to document. But it seems most of them have already been revealed. Since this is a relatively new software release, it is to be expected that there are bugs. Oh, well. I guess I’ll just keep adding to my list.

Leopard Changes

In all my reading about Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, I’ve not seen mention of some changes that I’ve noticed since installing.

  1. Using Shift+Command+4 to take a screenshot now shows a cursor with coordinates.
  2. The Print dialog has been updated. It now has a disclosure triangle like Open and Save.
  3. Software Update (at least the first one) now works more like Automatic Updates in Windows. The first window is the same as Tiger, but after you click install, your computer begins to restart and shows a progress bar while installing, locking you out from using the computer. As I mentioned, the first update behaves this way, which may be because it updated the OS; I’ll have to wait and see.
  4. Shift+Command+O opens a new window in slow motion. Control+Command+O does what Shift+Command+O used to do. (Added 2007-11-19 12:00)
  5. The screen no longer turns blue on shutdown, it stays on the desktop picture for the last logged in user. Especially noticable when your computer is attached to a projector when you shut down. (Added 2007-11-25 22:55)
  6. Using Shift+Command+4+Space to take a screenshots of a windows includes the shadow. (Added 2007-11-27 20:38)
  7. In the Finder, when Getting Info on multiple items or when some Get Info windows are already open, the windows sometimes pile up instead of titling. This is probably a bug. (Added 2007-11-27 20:38)
  8. When you begin playing a playlist in iTunes, then switch to another playlist while still playing the first, the pause button changes to stop. When you switch to another app, the stop changes to pause again. This is certainally a bug and may appear in other OSs. (Added 2007-11-28 18:06)
  9. Command+Tab does not always switch apps. At first it looked like this was just a Firefox problem, but it has happened involving other apps as well. I think it has included switching to or from Finder everytime, so that may be the cause. Finder may in fact be the source of that functionality. (Added 2007-12-02 19:19)
  10. Some file icons are incorrect or generic. For example, a .tmpl file from Movable Type shows as a Unix binary, many CandyBar .icontainer files have generic icons. (Added 2007-12-02 19:21)