Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Re: The Vista Schoolyard Bullies........
(via DB, Bynkii.com )I actually agree with Matt on how Vista is being picked on by everybody. Most users out there aren't very in tune with technology, and often regurgitate the same opinions and generalizations they hear everybody saying. I believe Vista is actually a decent product, and the problems with it's launch probably weren't worse than XP when it launched.However, I'd like to point out some issues:
"I ask you, how many Apple users do you know that own a 3 year old Mac, and install Leopard on it?"
The answer is, many many people. As John C. Welch mentions Leopard supports Macs as old as the G4 867MHz, which was introduced August 13, 2002( Lowendmac ). That's more than 5 years old. I'm running Leopard on just such a machine, and it doesn't feel any slower than when it was running Tiger.
"First of all, in the little experience I've had with Leopard, I've had horrible hardware compatibility issues with printers, especially older printers (which just work natively in Vista) when setting up customer offices on consulting jobs."
This of course is true. I hate dealing with the old printers as well, and Windows definitely is much better at supporting the older printers. The problem is, the majority of these printers were Windows GDI printers. The manufacturers of these printers moved more and more functionality to the Windows drivers to save on hardware cost. ( LinuxPrinting ) As a result, these printers are much harder to get working outside of Windows. Thanks to the Linux community, many of these printers can still be 'forced' to work with OS X. The good news is that many of the new printers on the market now are supported in OS X.
"To me, this is a horrible thing. Having lots of vendors make parts for your system provides you a much greater variety of options, as well as driving prices down, the beauty of competition."
It's great for prices, but not so great for stability. This is also one of the reasons it is difficult for Microsoft to control the stability of Windows. Although MS certified drivers is supposed to remedy this.
"This is one of the reasons why owning a Mac has been so notoriously expensive."
Well, this hasn't been true for a long time. You really have to compare systems spec by spec. Comparing a $500 DIY PC to a $2500 Mac Pro is not fair to both the PC and the Mac. Since Apple starting using more commodity hardware in their systems there hasn't been a large difference in price for comparable PCs and Macs anymore.
ComputerWorld: Mac vs. PC cost analysis: How does it all add up?
System Shootouts: $3200 Workstation Shootout
"Why aren't all the open source people crying foul of Apple? OSX is based off of Open BSD, which is open source."
Like one of the comments pointed out, OS X is based on FreeBSD. In which the BSD license allows "[r]edistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification." Also, people aren't complaining because Apple does contribute back to the Open Source community. The Apple Open Source page provides access to Open Source code modified and used by Apple, as well as links to various successful Open Source projects like Darwin, Darwin Streaming Server, Bonjour, and WebKit.
"This, I'm sorry to say is Microsoft's fault for daring to tell everyone what they hoped to accomplish in their next OS release, starting back in the very early days of the first Longhorn 4000 build series."
Although Microsoft seems to do this quite often. I understand that MS has a lot of business customers that demand to know long term road maps of MS technology. But if these announcements repeatedly fail to materialize, perhaps MS should be a little more cautious next time.
"It is a fantastic, stable OS that is a huge step in a direction that Windows has needed to move in for a long time."
I don't know about fantastic, but I believe it is moving in the right directions with stability and security. Although, I'd recommend Matt and any MS developers read Peter Bright's article, "From Win32 to Cocoa: a Windows user's conversion to Mac OS X" ( Part1, Part2 ) Peter points out many valid points as to why Vista is getting such a bad rap compared to Leopard these days.
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Mac vs PC, Microsoft Windows Vista
Article Link
posted by Edward at 11:54 AM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post 
Monday, April 07, 2008
Leopard Server Upgrade Hanging
If you've tried Upgrading to Leopard Server and had the system get stuck with a Blue or Gray screen atboot time, this may solve the issue.You basically need to remove this file: /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/ApplicationEnhancer.bundle
This Apple Support article also covers some other possible solutions for Leopard to not boot.
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Blue Screen, Gray Screen, Grey Screen, Hung, Leopard Boot problem
Article Link
posted by Edward at 3:46 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Leopard Stacks: Fixed
Just noticed this from reading a PC Magazine post about Leopard 10.5.2 update, Stacks have been fixed in this update. You can now set Stacks to display the folder icon rather than the latest file in the stack. And as such, the previous hack to have a static icon for the stacks is not needed.
You can just right-click on the Stack and select "Display as Folder". You can also use Get Info on the folder and paste a new icon for it. Toggling Display as Folder / Stacks will update the icon displayed for the Stack.
However, if you like to see the stack of files behind your drawer icon you still need to use the Stack Hack.
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Stack Icons
posted by Edward at 5:33 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
PC Magazine: Mac OS 10.5.2 Write Up
Nice little review of the latest Leopard update, from PC Magazine of all places...Labels: 10.5.2, Apple Mac OSX Leopard, PC Magazine, Review
Article Link
posted by Edward at 5:31 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Quick notes on Leopard LAMP
Leopard ships with Apache2, MySQL, and PHP5. Follow the link for notes on getting it up and running.Labels: Apache 2, Apple Mac OSX Leopard, MySQL, PHP 5
Article Link
posted by Edward at 7:00 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Friday, December 21, 2007
Leopard Complaints: iCal
iCal has an annoying bug with switching back to "Today". After viewing a future or past date, iCal isn't able to display the current day anymore when clicking the "Today" button. The mini calendar shows the current date, but the main window goes haywire.This might not be an issue anymore, as I haven't noticed it lately.
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Bugs, iCal
posted by Edward at 11:48 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Leopard Compatible Skype Released
Skype released a new version of Skype that better works with OS X Leopard.Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Skype
Article Link
posted by Edward at 5:11 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Lightspeed 2.5 Released for Leopard
Lightspeed 2.5, the excellent Mac POS System from XSilva, was just released todat. The latest version brings full Leopard compatibility as well as some new features such as, Cover Flow and iPhone support to view vital store information.
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Mac Apps, Point of Sale, POS
Article Link
posted by Edward at 11:59 AM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Leopard complaints
It seems that a lot of people are complaining about Leopard. Personally I've had pretty good luck with it. I wonder if some of these issues are actually hardware related or a configuration problem rather than a Leopard issue.My advice as always, backup backup backup. And double check that your backup works.
Update: I take it back, I do have complaints about Leopard. The Leopard Firewall is a pain. It's nice to hide advanced details from the average user, but advanced users should be allowed to see exactly what's going on. TidBits got it right, Leopard's Firewall Blackbox is a PITA.
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Bugs, Complaints, Firewall
Article Link
posted by Edward at 3:46 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Leopard Perfect 10?
Here's a long detailed review of Mac OS X Leopard from Info World.Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Review
Article Link
posted by Edward at 2:17 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Monday, November 26, 2007
Security Issue with Leopard Mail
via Daring Fireball, A security issue with opening malicious attachments in Leopard Mail has been reported by Heise Security.The usual precautions remain, be careful opening attachments from unknown sources...
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Mail, Security
Article Link
posted by Edward at 6:43 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Monday, November 19, 2007
Disable Transparent Menu Bar in Leopard
via Daring Fireball, MacOSXHints.com has a post about how to disable / adjust transparency for OS X Leopards menu bar:Run: sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer 'EnvironmentVariables' -dict 'CI_NO_BACKGROUND_IMAGE' 1
Then restart.
You can also enter values between 0 and 1.
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, defaults, Menu Bar, Transparent
Article Link
posted by Edward at 11:45 AM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Thursday, November 15, 2007
New set of Leopard Stacks Icons from Optica Optima
More Stack Icons from Optica Optima can be found here. Temporary download site here.Also a blank PNG version is available for you to create your own icons.
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Stack Icons, Stacks
Article Link
posted by Edward at 2:43 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Leopard 10.5.1 Update Released
The 10.5.1 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac.
I'd suggest waiting for some more reports about the new update before installing 10.5.1.
Labels: 10.5.1, Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Software Update
Article Link
posted by Edward at 2:24 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Leopard outsells Vista in Japan
via Ars Technica, Business Computer News reports that Leopard outsold Vista in October.Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Japan, Microsoft Windows Vista
Article Link
posted by Edward at 7:52 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Tech: Leopard Stacks Icons
Optica Optima created some really nice icons for Leopard's Dock Stacks. The icons are named beginning with a space so that they will stay "on top" of the stack and be used as the stack icon in the Dock.
If you decide to sort your stacks by 'date/time' then you will need to adjust the time stamp on the icon file to the future:
Adjusting time stamp for the Downloads folder icon
cd ~/Downloads
touch -mt 202001010101.01 " Downloads "
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Icons, Stacks
Article Link
posted by Edward at 10:38 PM
1 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Friday, November 09, 2007
Tech: Time Machine vs Airport Disks
RoughlyDrafted.com discusses why the current Time Machine release doesn't support backup to Airport Disks anymore. Hopefully, this will be addressed in future updates.Labels: Airport Disk, Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Time Machine
Article Link
posted by Edward at 12:14 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Tech: OS X move bug
Be careful when you are 'moving' files to external or network drives. The following article demonstrates a particularly nasty bug if you lose connection to the destination drive during a move operation. File that were in the process of being moved will be lost.Until Apple fixes this, you should copy your files and then manually delete the source instead of using the 'move' command in the Finder.
Labels: Apple Mac OS X, Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Bug, Finder
Article Link
posted by Edward at 10:17 AM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Friday, November 02, 2007
Tech: Change Leopard Login Background
I found that the new Leopard login background to be a little annoying. Replace this file with an image that you want, and you'll get a new login background:/System/Library/CoreServices/DefualtDesktop.jpg
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Login Background, Login Image, Login window
posted by Edward at 2:01 AM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Tech: Apple Mail 3.0
Apple Mail has a neat new feature that hides all the nitty gritty stuff about setting up an e-mail account. Now all you need to do is enter your e-mail address and password, after that Mail takes care of everything.
Sounds cool, and it works quite well. However, it still may get things wrong. For example for GMail accounts it defaults to POP access, but GMail now support IMAP as well. The trick is to hold down the Option key when you click on the "plus" sign to add a new account. This creates a new mail account without using the Add Account helper, and let's you enter all the settings manually.
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Gmail, Mail.app
posted by Edward at 1:08 AM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Tech: Leopard update_prebinding
If you're getting these error messages in Leopard you need to run update_prebinding:Nov 1 23:21:16 Macintosh com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.dyld): Throttling respawn: Will start in 60 seconds
Nov 1 23:22:16 Macintosh com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.dyld): Throttling respawn: Will start in 60 seconds
Nov 1 23:23:16 Macintosh com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.dyld): Throttling respawn: Will start in 60 seconds
Run the following in Terminal and then reboot:
update_prebinding -force -root /
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, com.apple.dyld, Error, updae prebinding
Article Link
posted by Edward at 10:25 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Tech: Leopard Airport issues
A lot of people are having issues using Airport after upgrading / installing Leopard. I ran into the same issue as well. My problem was resolved by manually setting the Airport MTU to 1492.For some reason my ISP's implementation of PPPoE requires me to manually set the MTU on all the systems in my network. I had a script that did this automatically every time I switched to my "Home" location. This of course broke after the upgrade. I decided to try my luck and see if the proper MTU's would be automatically detected and set, so I didn't bother to set it manually.
It turns out that without the right MTU set, I could not join the Airport network at all. "Connection failed" would be reported in the Airport preferences, and the following appeared in the system log:
Nov 1 22:02:45 Macintosh airportd[225]: Error: Apple80211Associate() failed -3Nov 1 22:02:45 Macintosh Apple80211Agent[195]: Error: airportd MIG failed = -3 ((null)) (port
= 27139)Nov 1 22:02:45 Macintosh Apple80211Agent[195]: Error joining XXXXX: Connection failed (-3 resul
t unavailable)
Setting the MTU manually fixed this issue immediately.
sudo ifconfig en1 mtu 1492
Labels: Apple Airport Extreme., Apple Mac OSX Leopard, MTU, PPPoE
Article Link
posted by Edward at 9:29 PM
3 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Tech: Leopard Login & Keychain Update 1.0
If you're having issues with your keychains on your upgraded Leopard system, check Software Update for the Login & Keychain Update 1.0.Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Software Update
Article Link
posted by Edward at 9:27 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Tech: Leopard Security Features
Matasano.com has a nice write up about the various security features in Leopard. Along with the various improvements are also some flaws in the implementation. I suspect some of the flaws are due to 'time constraints' of meeting the release schedule and will be addresses in future patches.When talking about the new "Address Space Randomization" feature in Leopard Ptacek mentions:
This feature removes a talking point argument about Microsoft Windows Vista’s superior security, but it doesn’t address the underlying point of that argument. Cocoa programs running in Darwin are less secure than Win32 programs running under NTOSKRNL, and aren’t even in the same ballpark as Managed C++ or C# programs.
I wonder if that's true, Vista having superior security. Perhaps there's a side-by-side comparison somewhere.
Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Security, Windows Vista
Article Link
posted by Edward at 9:45 AM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Tech: Leopard Time Machine Quirks
Gizmodo has a quick write-up / fix for a quirk in Time Machine. It looks like Time Machine has some issues with PC formatted disks. Basically make sure you reformat your PC disk with the new GUID partition scheme, otherwise Time Machine will choke...Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, Disk Utility, GUID PArtition, Time Machine
Article Link
posted by Edward at 10:57 AM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Leopard OS Foundations Overview
Leopard is being released in just a few days. Here's some information from Apple's Developer Connection.Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard
Article Link
posted by Edward at 9:37 AM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Brief history of OS X
Kernel Thread has a nice summary of how Apple's OS X came to be.Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard, History of OS X, Mac OS X
Article Link
posted by Edward at 1:33 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Tech: New Leopard Screenshots
ThinkSecret.com has some new screenshots and information about Mac OS X Leopard.Labels: Apple Mac OSX Leopard
Article Link
posted by Jambo Consulting at 5:04 PM
0 comments :
Post a Comment : email post
