Archives for December, 2004
OS X 10.3.7 Released
For those who don’t yet know, an update to OS X (10.3.7 - Client & Server) was released today and is available via Software Update or as standalone installers. Personally, I prefer to download the standalone installers if at all possible. That way I’m sure everything installed is up to date. The download is much larger (97mb vs. 14mb to 27mb), but it’s well worth it to me in order to be sure I’m current. It’s saved me headaches in the long run. Be sure to use Yasu to repair permissions & restart again after you’ve restarted from the update.
Here’s a Cool Free Service
I’ve decided to let my .Mac account expire when it’s up in 3 months. It’s served me well, but now that I’m running my own server from home, the one reason I used .Mac for (e-mail) has been taken care of. Having never really used any of the other features, they’re of no great loss to me. I just can’t justify spending an extra $99 a year just to have a cool email address.
In pondering my decision early this morning, I realized the only drawback to signing off of .Mac was that I wouldn’t be able to sync my iCal calendars between my iBook and work machine anymore. Not really a deal breaker, but it was a small point of contention. As luck (or coincidence) would have it today, I came across a site that hosts simple iCal calendars (public and private) for free, and makes them available for others to subscribe to or view via the web. The site is iCal Exchange, and I found it while browsing OSX Hints looking for pointers to enable WebDav on my own server to do exactly this.
If you use iCal as I do, with one calendar for Home stuff that you only modify at home, and a Work calendar that only gets changed at work, (but you want to always see them side-by-side) this service is perfect. You can publish either a public or private calendar, and then subscribe to it from different locations. And, since the sitemaster was smart enough to integrate PHP iCalendar into his applcation, you can even view the calendars on the web when (in)convenience calls for it. For those interested, I’ve put up a public Yasu Development calendar if you’d like to view it. Or, if you prefer, you can actually subscribe to it. That way you’ll get all my cryptic notes too.
No, this may not be a complete solution for everyone, but it totally fills the gap for me. The best part is that it’s free, and now that I’ve got the calendar issue out of the way, I have no hesitations about letting my .Mac account lapse.
YA Mac vs. PC Comparison
Security Issues Plague Windows-Based PCs, Impairing Ease of Use:
“Meanwhile, the company’s historic rival, Apple Computer, has been making giant strides in ease of use. The Macintosh, with its OS X operating system, is rock solid. It is elegant, and — when you do a feature-by-feature price comparison with Windows competitors — it’s surprisingly affordable.”
For those who haven’t already read this article by Walt Mossberg, I recommend it, especially if you are a Windows user with any inclination of switching. In a world that’s more technologically driven every day, Walt hits on a major point here - security, or the lack thereof, in the Windows OS, how vendors have historically approached the problem in the PC world, and how the end user wastes so much time dealing with it.
Which brings up one of the things I admire about Apple. They took control of their OS early on, and set the guidelines for 3rd party developers to follow in working with it, instead of the other way around. In my opinion, that control has played a big part in the “ease of use” that we see on the Mac today. Yes, OS X has a few minor security shortcomings here and there, but they are miniscule when put into perspective of just how young OS X really is. Windows, on the other hand, has been building on the same code base for a very long time. If they were really serious about security, they would have plugged the holes already. That’s something to think about.
Updated Site Look
For those who visit regularly, you’ll notice the look has changed a bit. Never one to be satisfied with something for too long, I just had to give the site a facelift.
So… whadd’ya think? Like/no like?
Help with OSX 10.3.6 Login Delays
Mac OS X 10.3.6 Special Report: Slow Startup: Causes, solutions
Some users experience unusually long startup times after updating to Mac OS X 10.3.6. The startup process, for afflicted users, seems to stall right after login. [MacFixIt]
If you’re having issues with delayed login since you’ve upgraded to OSX 10.3.6, then you should check the above article out. It dramatically helped in reducing my issues on the old B&W G3 450 that the family uses. Once I ran the AppleScript, I took a look at my ‘~/Library/Font’ folder and found that I had almost 1,300 typefaces loaded. Yikes! I plan to clean that out tonight and go back to using Suitcase for font management.
