Leapin' Leopards!
Even though Little Orphan Annie used the term "Leapin' Lizards", there's about a 99.8% chance that somebody else has already used that title in reviewing Apple's OS X 10.5 operating system. I would have used it earlier, but I wanted to wait until the .2 step release was out. One thing that Leopard has proven is that Mac owners, although fiercely loyal, aren't shy about trashing Apple when something doesn't work the way they think it should. Based on some of the letters to Macworld and Mac Life, one might think that this is the worst operating system ever. It's even been compared to Vista.
First, I owe you at least an abbreviated back story; at least I owe the back story to those who don't have nearly 20 years of history with Technology Corner and TechByter Worldwide. Until 2001, I had never owned a Mac and didn't think much of the operating system. When I bought a Mac that ran OS X 10.0, the machine was also capable of running the last version of the old operating system, System 9. The promise of OS X was clear, although not actually realized in 10.0, but it was immediately clear to me that Windows 98 was a far better operating system than System 9. I'm still mainly a Windows user, but subsequent versions of Apple's OS X have convinced me that Apple once again has the most innovative operating system. So that's the prism through which I view Apple and OS X.
One of the big complaints seems to be that with Leopard, Apple no longer supports System 9. So what!? The last version of System 9 was released 8 years ago. Is it really such a big deal that your applications from the last century no longer work on the latest Macs? It's true that Microsoft's operating systems can still run some DOS applications from the 1980s, but maintaining that ability has been costly. Sometimes a clean break is better.
Some Mac users even sound like frustrated Windows users, saying that the various magazines are nothing but shills for Apple, that there are "disastrous consequences" of installing Leopard, or that they will never again install a new operating system until it's been out for a year. What's going on here?
I don't doubt that some people have had serious problems with Leopard. I thought one system security update had killed the operating system because the computer seemed to have become unresponsive and Apple doesn't believe in providing feedback about disk access with lights. As it turned out, the computer was working hard and I just couldn't see any evidence of it. Any time you upgrade an operating system, there's an opportunity for disaster.
So while I don't doubt that there have been problems, I haven't seem those problems myself. I'm enjoying Leopard and it's 300 new features.
300 new features?
Might that be just a bit of hyperbole? Indeed it might be if you consider such new features as the ability to watch movie previews; Ichat's multiple login (catching up with what 3rd party chat clients have been doing for years); Russian, Polish, and Portuguese localization; and half a dozen new screen savers not quite worth stopping the presses for. Still, that doesn't mean that these features are useless. I'm sure that residents of Russia, Poland, and Portugal are pleased by the localizations; the screen savers are nice; Ichat's extra logins are helpful; and I suppose at least a few people want to watch movie previews on their computers.
These are overshadowed by changes and additions that are more visible, more useful, or both.
Apple called Leopard "the largest update of Mac OS X." Although it supports both PowerPC- and Intel x86-based Macintosh computers, support for the G3 processor was dropped. The most important new features include an updated Finder, Time Machine, Spaces, Boot Camp installed, support for 64-bit applications and some security features.
Other Features
- Probably the most important new feature is Leopard's Time Machine, which is a way to backup the computer without having to learn how to use a complicated backup program. The operating system journals every change on the disk so that you'll have access to earlier versions of your work. If you make a change that to a file and then decide that you prefer the original, you can get the original back. Time Machine can also backup files to a network drive in addition to an external local hard drive.
- Spaces is a feature you'll love or loathe. If you've used a Linux machine, you might love Spaces because the paradigm will be familiar to you. No matter how large your screen, it gets crowded if you have a dozen or more applications open. Spaces allow you to create 4 virtual desktops and switch between them. You can zoom out to see all 4, then drag an application from one to the other. Apple fanatics like to accuse Microsoft of copying Apple's original work (forgetting that Apple and Microsoft both copied work done by the Palo Alto Research Center), but here Apple fails to give credit to Linux for Spaces.
- Spotlight, some reviewers say, looks a lot like Windows Search. I would never say that, of course. Spotlight is now able to search other Mac clients and workgroup servers. Vista SP1 will add this capability to Windows. Spotlight has advanced search features like ahhh ... Windows Search ... and it's able to launch applications the way Vista's Search feature can.
- Built-in Bootcamp: Good idea. I can't use the feature because I don't have a Mac that runs on an Intel processor, but this is a wise move on Apple's part. It could convince people who would otherwise buy a Windows computer to try a Mac because a Mac with Bootcamp will allow them to run Windows applications and Windows is still the dominant player on the desktop.
Apple users grumbled a lot about Leopard and Apple listened to the complaints. Version 10.5.2, the recently released Leopard update, addresses most of the legitimate complaints.
Fixing Things; Adding Things
Ever notice how minor features become major objects of contention? Stacks is one of these. For years I've complained about the Mac's lack of a Start Menu, which I consider to be a simple and easy way to arrange links that start programs. Stacks make it possible to create a faux Start Menu and also to do things that the Start Menu doesn't. The problem, according to some users, is that there weren't enough ways to display stacks. Heck, I was just happy that they existed, but in version 10.5.2 users can display stacks as a fan, a grid, or a list. Everybody wins.
I think the ability to create tabs within the console is new with Leopard and you can even color code multiple sessions within the console. The console is what provides access to the Unix shell, the behind-the-scenes powerhouse that runs the applications. The console/shell is what gives users the ability to use Unix's most powerful features. Now you can even make a console session transparent, which is cool even if it isn't particularly useful.
From top to bottom: the grid view (above right), the list view (above left), and the fan view (right). Click on any of the images for a full-size view. The cats are house cats at the Harlem Flop House: Thelonious in back and Calliope in front.
Some may consider this a cheap shot, but I would disagree: All of Leopard's graphical abilities are available on any Mac that's capable of running Leopard. This is unlike Vista, for which Aero is not available on many machines that are promoted as being "Vista Capable".
Transparency Where You Might Not Expect It
Speaking of translucency, that's a big feature of the latest operating system from Redmond and some Mac users have accused Apple of turning OS X into Vista. I've had far fewer problems with Leopard than I've had with Vista, but sometimes the translucency seems a bit over-done. The menu bar and menu items can have transparency turned off in the .2 upgrade so items are more readable. Even if you don't tinker with it, Apple has dialed transparency back a bit in the interest of readability.
If you want a complete summary of the improvements and additions available in the free .2 update, visit Apple's webiste.
The overall experience you'll have with a computer goes far beyond just the operating system, though. Consider, for example, the wide choice of Web browsers available to Mac users.
Apple Users Choose from Lots of Browsers
Mac users have the widest choice when it comes to Web browsers. Although Microsoft hasn't made a browser for Macs since version 5.2, Mac users don't care much about the deficiency. They have the built-in Safari and Firefox, of course. There are also some specialty browsers (Flock, for example) and several Mozilla alternates for those who don't like Firefox. If you feel that Firefox includes too much "stuff", you can choose a minimalist browser such as Safari or Sunrise. And if you want more "stuff", Flock has it all.
Here's a quick look at the primary free browsers. I have omitted paid browsers and browsers that are no longer currently being developed. The images below all show a tabbed browser with 2 tabs and the TechByter Worldwide website on the active tab. Notice the varying amounts of text visible with the various browsers.
Camino: Camino 1.5 is a universal binary and runs natively on both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs. Camino combines the visual and behavioral experience that has been central to the Macintosh philosophy with the web-browsing capabilities of the Gecko rendering engine. Camino is the result of efforts by thousands of volunteers.
http://caminobrowser.org/ (Mac only)
Firefox: Firefox offers security and add-ins that make the interface whatever you want it to be. Security features include active protection from online scams and there are now more than 1000 add-ons to enhance Firefox.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ (Mac, Windows, Linux)
Flock: A Flock user, quoted on the browser's home page, put it this way: "Flock is like the mutant love child of Safari & Firefox dipped in some weird Web 2.0 chemicals and sprinkled with twitterdust." It's a browser with a crowded interface that takes social networking to a new level.
http://www.flock.com/ (Mac, Windows, Linux)
Opera: Opera offers safety, security, and the ability to customize the interface. Opera was also the pioneer that delivered tabbed browsing in 2000, long before other browsers offered this essential feature. Speed Dial makes it easy to get to the sites you use the most.
http://www.opera.com/ (Mac, Windows, Linux)
Safari: This is the default browser for Macs, but it's also available for Windows. The Windows version is flawed, but it's a good choice for Mac users.
http://www.apple.com/safari/ (Mac, Windows)
Sunrise: Sunrise is an open-source web browser that uses the same rendering engine as Safari. It's based on WebKit framework for Mac. Sunrise, from Japan, is small, clean, and fast.
http://www.sunrisebrowser.com/en/ (Mac only)
Bottom line: Apple has resolved most of the complaints about the initial release of OS X Leopard and the 10.5.2 version is solid.
I didn't see most of the problems that Apple's core users (Sorry! I really didn't mean that!) complained about, but the Mac isn't currently my primary computing platform. You may note the word "currently" and wonder what that means. What it means is this: The next computer I buy may be a Mac that has Windows installed for those times when I need to use an application that is available only for Windows.
For more information, visit Apple's OS X website.
Cons for the Weak Minded
Occasionally I think of a teacher I had in high school. He taught freshman biology and I recall doing the usual things that freshman biology classes had students do (collecting butterflies, writing reports, and the like). But the class also had a component that dealt with critical thinking. It wasn't presented as that, of course, and you couldn't do anything like that today because you wouldn't be teaching students what they need to pass "the test", but I remember the class 45 years later. It gave me skills that are useful in debunking urban legends (or at least having the common sense to check when something doesn't seem quite right) and for deconstructing spams that play on some people's unwillingness to think. Unfortunately, many schools no longer bother with critical thinking and, in the long term, that's going to make life a lot easier for spammers and demagogues, people H. L. Mencken defined as those who will preach doctrines they know to be untrue to men they know to be idiots. Mencken didn't mince words, but he was correct. The volume of spam and the "quality" of spam illustrates the point.
First, the quantity. Recently I set up a separate G-Mail account and directed all of my e-mail to it. The flow to G-Mail was upstream from all of my spam filtering, so everything reached the account. G-Mail does a fairly good job of identifying spam, but probably about 10% of the 600 messages G-Mail thought were legitimate during a one-week test were actually spam. G-Mail also accurately identified more than 1600 spams. It appears that my monthly spam count will be about 6000 messages.
You've undoubtedly seen spams for diplomas from "prestigious non-accredited universities". Apparently that wording is designed to appeal to people who don't understand the meanings of words. The statement clearly says that you'll receive nothing more than a worthless piece of paper. After all, it's not the paper that's important, but the knowledge that stands behind it. The message above and to the left is one of those messages. The subject line says "Is your skills about to expired?"
Here's another spam that I didn't bother to open (and this is the case with approximately 99.99% of the spam I receive). This one told me not to read it. The subject line was "Please do not view." If the writer of the message tells me not to view it, I can certainly accommodate the writer's wishes.
Here's an Opportunity to Discuss Critical Thinking
I received an e-mail from a correspondent. It was one of those forwards of a forward of a forward of a forward of a forward and it contained about ten thousand e-mail addresses. OK, so maybe it was only a dozen or so. Ever notice, though, that the most clueless forwards seem to come from people who can't figure out how to strip out all the junk when they forward a message? But that's another whine for for which it is not quite yet time.
Here's what the alarming message said:
VIN NUMBER
Here is info worth the price of your car...WHAT WILL the car thieves THINK OF NEXT?
The car thieves peer through the windshield of your car or truck, write down the VIN # from the label on the dash, go to the local car dealership and request a duplicate key based on the VIN #. I didn't believe this e-mail, so I called Chrysler-Dodge and pretended I had lost my keys They told me to just bring in the VIN #, and they would cut me one on the spot, and I could order the keyless device if I wanted.
The Car Dealer's Parts Department will make a duplicate key from the VIN #, and collect payment from the thief who will return to your car. He doesn't have to break in, do any damage to the vehicle, or draw attention to himself All he has to do is walk up to your car, insert the key and off he goes to a local Chop Shop with your vehicle. You don't believe it? It IS that easy.
To avoid this from happening to you, simply put some tape (electrical tape, duct tape or medical tape) across the VIN Metal Label located on the dash board. By law, you cannot remove the VIN, but you CAN cover it so it can't be viewed through the windshield by a car thief I urge you to forward this to your friends before some other car thief steals another car or truck. I slipped a 3 x 5 card over the VIN NUMBER.
PASS THIS INFORMATION ON TO ALL YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS
This is absurd. Why should anyone be surprised that an auto dealer can make a key once the VIN (vehicle identification number) is known? By the way, this makes "VIN number" clearly redundant: "vehicle identification number number" like Rio Grande River and DMZ Zone. But people who can't even figure out how to check an e-mail for veracity probably don't have the mental capacity to recognize redundancy.
The message is even more absurd if you think about car thieves. I responded: "Does anybody really think that a car thief would do something this elaborate just to steal a car? I certainly don't." A few minutes later, I had a reply: The message came from a retired music teacher (do retired music teachers have a special knowledge about car thieves?) and the person who sent me the message would check with "a guy from Chrysler" later in the week. (I never did hear how that conversation went.)
Understanding the Difference between Can and Will
The question is not whether a car thief can obtain a key in the manner described, but whether the thief will do it. Of course it can happen, but the average car thief wants the car for use in a chop shop and won't care if he has to mangle the ignition a bit.
Keep in mind that the average car thief can get into a car in about 15 seconds with a slim-jim tool (the same thing some police officers carry to help with lockouts). A slim-jim causes no damage to the car.
Additionally, many new cars use special keys that cost $200 to $300 to replace because they have logic circuits built in. What car thief is going to spot a car, get the VIN, go to a dealership, drop $200 (or even $10) on a key, wait for the dealer's parts department to make it, and hope that the car will still be there when he gets back? This is simply not logical and regardless of the fact that most car thieves aren't too bright, most of them are bright enough to see this as a pretty unintelligent way of going about the task.
The car might be stolen by a joy-rider, though. But if it's somebody looking for a joy-ride, they're just going to smash the window. Can you imagine some kid taking a VIN to the dealer to get a replacement key? It's possible, but highly unlikely.
The warning is simply a bit of needless scare-mongering that gets people all worked up about something that has virtually no chance of happening in the real world. You're more likely to be struck by lightning than to have a car stolen in this manner.
Spam, phishing, and much of what passes for "modern" life works because critical thinking seems no longer to be a valued skill. This is not good for the long-term prospects of our nation. As Mad Magazine put it: THIMK.
Stupid Spam of the Week
Shooting fish in a barrel comes to mind when I look at this week's stupid spam of the week. The sender seems to have, at best, a tenuous understanding of commerce as it relates to scams. It depends on the potential victim's having recently signed up for Google's AdWords service. If you haven't done that, you'll recognize in an instant that it's somebody trying to make a fast buck (or Euro) at your expense.
Here's the message [my comments are in square brackets]:
Dear Google AdWords Customer! [An exclamation point?]
In order to update your billing information, please sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com, and update your billing information. [This sentence is a bit redundant, don't you think? And it also repeats itself, too.] Your account will be reactivated as soon as you have entered your payment details. Your ads will show immediately if you decide to pay for clicks via credit or debit card. If you decide to pay by direct debit, we may need to receive your signed debit authorization before your ads start running, depending on your location. If you choose bank transfer, your ads will show as soon as we receive your first payment. (Payment options vary by location.)
Thank you for choosing AdWords. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.
Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team
This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message. If you have any questions after following the steps above, please visit the Google AdWords Help Center at https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=8336&hl=en_US to find answers to frequently asked questions and a 'contact us' [Single quotation marks are not used this way in American English.] link near the bottom of the page.
Google is a highly visual company, so it's hard to imagine that they would send out a message this plain for anything, but the real giveaway is the link, which won't take you to Google: http://adwords.google.com.fr4ck.cn/select/Login/; instead you will find yourself at fr4ck.cn, which is, or at least claims to be, in China. As a reminder, Google is located in Mountain View, California. In fairness to the scammer spammer, I should probably note that Google does have 3 offices in China, but it's somewhat unlikely that any one of them uses fr4ck.cn to record AdWords accounting data.
Domain Name: fr4ck.cn
Registrant Organization: gfdthy [Note the random letters.]
Registrant Name: hrthhtfhrth [Note the random letters.]
Administrative Email: hfgdhf@nfrujhn.cn [Note the random letters.]
Sponsoring Registrar: 厦门华商盛世网络有限公司 << You might see Chinese characters here. Or not.
The website, which claims to be Chinese, is hosted on a server in Romania. Bang! Got another fish.
Nerdly News
A Netflix Oops
"We're sorry," the message from Netflix began. "As you may have heard, our shipping system was unexpectedly down for most of Monday. We should have shipped your DVDs but were unable to. Your DVDs were shipped today, Tuesday, March 25th, instead. We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused."
Netflix says it will issue a 5% credit to the accounts of those affected by the outage. Many of Netflix's 7.5 million members watch DVDs on the weekend and return them on Mondays. The outage affected people who expected to receive shipments on Tuesday.
Company spokesman Steve Swasey said only that the outage was unanticipated and declined to explain what caused it. He said that the company felt the 5% credit was simply the right thing to do. Netflix shares hit a 52-week low this week and reported its first quarterly customer losses in its history. Netflix is reducing monthly subscription fees on some of its plans to match Blockbuster's rates.
The Two Halves of Motorola
Motorola has been under pressure from investors and is now giving in. The company will split into two divisions: One for handsets and accessories, the other for wireless broadband networks and enterprise communications services. Why is this happening? The Mobile Devices division generated a lot of sales in 2007, but it also lost $1.2 billion and lost market share. The Mobile Devices loss nearly wiped out profits by the company's other divisions.
The Mobile Devices business will market mobile handsets and accessories. It will also be able to license intellectual property. The Broadband & Mobility Solutions division will be responsible for developing and selling voice and data communication solutions along with wireless broadband networks for enterprises and governments.
Insiders suggest that separating the cell phone business might make it possible for Motorola to partner with foreign companies that want an entry into the US market. Motorola has lost much of its market share to companies such as Nokia and Samsung.
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