Meow 
6
Well, it’s been a little over three weeks since my last proper update so I’ve forced myself at fingers-looking-like-a-gun point to write another.
If you’ve been paying attention you might remember that I’ve briefly mentioned before that I’m getting a new power-chair — things in my life that I look forward to have a habit of going horribly wrong if I talk about them too much beforehand, so I’ve purposely kept my mouth shut on the details about this. However, the order has finally been placed (after my local friendly Wheelchair Services got their arthritic pet tortoise to sort out the paperwork) and the company supplying the aforementioned item have provisionally promised a pre-Christmas delivery. I say “provisionally” because two days before my order went in an American company placed a similar order … for a dozen chairs. Arse. Still, I can wait. It’s what I do. And I’ll tell you what: tick follows tock follows tick follows tock.
My current set-up is: motorised chair in the house giving independence and freedom; manual chair out of the house causing dependence and frustration. The new fandangled ride is an indoor and outdoor chair so I’m looking forward to being able to help on supermarket trips, go shopping at my own pace, pay for drinks at the bar and buy tickets at the cinema — the latter two of these are of particular significance as a couple of the people I frequent those places with find it amusing to refuse to take my money and to push me to the bar/counter. Vengeance will be mine … oh yes.
On a geeky note, I finally got hold of the latest version of Apple’s operating system: Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. I’ve been using it since Monday and, whilst there are some rather annoying changes that have been lambasted on all the usually Mac websites, I am on the whole liking it. Stacks is great apart from the way the icons are shown in the dock — I’ve used the “create a folder with a space as a name and set it’s icon as the one you want to see” approach. I’m patiently waiting for an updated version of Candybar so I can assert proper control over the look of the desktop — I like things to look how I’d like so I don’t have to rely on reading folder names as I find it takes me a little longer to focus on a word than a picture.
I’ve yet to use Spaces and I’ve a feeling that I probably won’t for a long time yet — I have a habit of closing unneeded applications because I’m so used to trying to keep everything streamlined for maximum efficiency. I guess I need to get out of that habit as the 2 gigabytes of RAM in my MacBook are rarely more than about two thirds full and the processor only ever breaks a sweat during a HandBrake session.
The much-complained-about dock and translucent menu-bar haven’t really registered on my radar — I always keep my dock on the side (it’s widescreen, not tallscreen) so it’s still good ol’ 2D, the menu-bar on my MacBook hasn’t been a problem and the one on my iMac has stayed opaque for some unknown reason. Hmm.
The reason is no longer unknown: Mac OS X 10.5: Menu bar appears solid instead of translucent. (Via Daring Fireball.)
I’m expecting a couple of pre-ordered items to arrive next week, namely Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on DVD and the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King complete soundtrack — the former I’m pleased about as I enjoyed the book (although it’ll have to be really good to surpass The Prisoner of Azkaban) and the latter … well, I’ve been waiting patiently for that for a year now and to say I’m looking forward to it is a bit of an understatement. Ooh, can’t wait!
And finally, a quick word regarding Christmas: AARRGGHH!!
Damn right it’s Argh
I’m expecting big things this Christmas Tim, and I know the stress is about that! But don’t worry, just get the five or six presents I deserve, and then you can enjoy the season!
Fingers crossed that your chair turns up, but like you said, don’t get too much hope. You should expect it in like.. Feb or something, then if it arrives before.. wonderful! - Darren
Been using 10.5 for about 2 weeks now. Have a couple of minor niggles, such as Time Machine requiring a HDD at least the same size as your internal, takes a little fine tuning too, though it does work, and works well.
Cover flow rocks, but for apps, it looks naff with low rez icons. Will find myself making new ones I think.
Other then that, I’m loving 10.5 and seem to be one of the lucky ones who haven’t had any bugs appear yet. - Tyla
I haven’t updated yet. Am waiting to see some updates like 10.5.1 or 10.5.2 before I commit myself. Have read too many horror stories at mac-forums to go ahead and jump.
I need full functionality of my iMac till the end of school, would die if I couldn’t use CS2 or Quark because of Leopard. Don’t have the money to go to CS3… especially since some of the apps need updating themselves. Ever the magnificent wealthy behemoth snail, Adobe promises updates to CS3 apps (only, no more support for CS2) starting in January 2008 only.
Kill - maim- destroy Adobe. - MHC
Darren: Don’t worry mate — I’ve been saving for your presents since April …
Tyla: Yeah, Time Machine does relieve a few headaches — didn’t think I’d use it at first but then I just thought “Bugger it … why not?”
MHC: Hi! How’re you? I’m guess I’m lucky that I: a) have two Macs and b) don’t really use either for mission critical purposes so any problems I get can be worked out at my leisure — I can imagine you not wanting to rock the boat or risk any hassles until your schoolwork is out of the way. It’s great to hear from you.
- Timmargh
Great to have some time to visit my Timmy! :-D
I was so excited when I learned about Time Machine. Then after seeing a demo and really thinking about it… I don’t think I’m going to use it! And here’s why:
- the TM backups aren’t bootable so I will go on using SuperDuper! once I upgrade. To boot from the TM backup, you need to insert the Leopard DVD in the optical drive, I heard
- the way I do backups like for my photos and personal files (mostly schoolwork) once I am done with them I burn them to DVD and delete them from my internal hard drive. I also save my files in “generations” i.e. say I draw in Illustrator a coffee cup, I will save cup1.ai, then I build on that and any major change becomes cup2.ai, then cup3.ai, etc. I am manually doing what TM would be doing, so I see no use for it for myself
- I might use it if it were more configurable. During the demo I asked the presenter if you could choose which type of files to backup and you can’t: it’s an all-or-nothing deal. Also I asked if you want to delete backups of a file say from November 3rd and older but keep the newer ones, you can’t unless TM runs out of space on the external hd it is using: TM will then start deleting older backups to make room for the newer ones.
But I do see that for anyone never having backed up or bothered doing backups before, this is the ideal situation. Very easy to do, the backups are done in the background, so how can you ask for more?
So I think that TM is not a total thumbs down. :-) - MHC
My plan is to finally get round to upgrading my now very old mac and at get it with Leopard pre installed.
But of course, me being me at the moment, I completely missed the announcements and release. And now that I know it’s out am still dragging my feet at the prospect of comparing prices for a Mac Pro between 3rd party dealers, the apple store (actual shop) and the online apple store.
I’m erring on the side of going for the online store as I think from there I can do the whole built to order thing.
Haven’t even decided yet how fast a mac i’ll need. But what i’m convinced of is that a G4/450 is too slow. - stonysleep
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