Upgrade to Leopard

Well I upgraded to Leopard.

I backed up my hard drive to another drive using Carbon Copy Cloner and then just ran the install.  Everything went well and it was all complete in about an hour and a half.  No issues found yet.

I’ve just installed the keychain patch, which went well as well.

I like the interface changes.  Spaces is great and better than Virtue Desktops that I had been using (and which I uninstalled before upgrading to Leopard).  The interface changes to Mail is great too. Stacks is the coolest feature yet, and one I’ve been waiting for especially, as I like to organise things in this kind of way leaving the desktop free from clutter.

Coverflow I can take or leave - in some areas it’s really annoying and other areas good.

Quickview is a bit quirky - if I have a .ppt file it does not allow quickview, so it looks like to only quickviews things that the native OS X can read.  Presumably it would work with keynote . . .

I’ve not found any applications that have problems - yet . . .

Please post your experiences and comments so we can share thoughts.

New Mac OS X Leopard release

I’m very pleased to hear about the forthcoming release of Leopard on October 26th.  I’m planing on being at the Apple Store in Sheffield to get my copy as soon as I can – hopefully on the night itself.

Once I have had a chance to play a bit I’ll post some notes here.  Anyone else planning on doing the same?  Please post comments and share experiences.

Interesting note on the use of Wikis for projects.

I came across this site tonight and thought it was worth posting the link to it so that I and others can go through some of the concepts and exemplar pages at some point.

Interesting Applications for OS X

I found a few nice applications recently, either heard about through RSS feeds or Podcasts I listen to.

Joost, currently in beta, is great for gathering together lots of media channels on the web and allowing you to browse by category or search for content.  Definitely worth a look at.

Radioshift from Rogue Amoeba is also good if you like to listen to web radio and want to record programs and drop the recorded programs into iTunes.  Good search capability too.

For those of you who get PDF documents and want some way to read them and comment on them in the “margin” then Skim is for you.  There is also integration with other document types - see the web page and online documentation for more information.

If, like me, you regularly take your Mac Laptop between different networks each with their own settings needed, then you meed to handle that in a smart way.  MarcPolo is an application that allows you to switch locations by setting rules based on a number of different criteria.  I’ve been using this for some time and find it works great for me.

More application information soon . . .

iPhone unlocking debacle

Although there is little doubt that the iPhone represents a breakthrough in device evolution, interface design and application integration, there is also little doubt that Apple has created a big problem for itself in the closed nature of the device, its release through single carriers and the stance they have taken over the whole unlocking issue, not to mention the bad press they are getting as a result!  The saying that “there is no such thing as bad publicicty” may well be proved wrong in this case.   I can’t help feeling that they have killed a large number of sales for the coming holiday period.

With such a high end device it was inevitable that people would want to add applications to it in the same way they did with other smart phones.  Also, with a percentage of  business users wanting to have such a great combined device but also wanting to use other carriers when travelling, again, as they did with their previous phones, it was always going to be unlocked.

I wonder how many sales  Apple will lose as a result of bricking these devices?  I for one will not be buying one any time soon.  I want to be able to have an unlocked device that I can load applications onto if I wish without running the risk of having my expensive device rendered useless when I apply an update.

Apple need to think carefully about the users requirements and the dynamics of a new market before they enter.

I think they have a lot riding on how this issue is handled from now on – the world is watching them!

UK Web Survey Results

It was great to read the survey results on Brians Blog today.  Very encouraging and inspiring for us all to speak out more and make use of the great resources that are there.

If you haven’t seen this site yet then please follow the link – it’s certainly worth reading!!!

iPod and Podcast information

To those of you who know me or see me about, you will probably have noticed I nearly always have ny iPod around my neck.  I bet you wonder what I listen to . . . well, as well as some music (mainly involving Clarinets), I listen mainly to techy podcasts.

Here is a list of some of the podcasts that I listen to regularly – all available on iTunes:

Security Now
43 Folders
GeekBrief.TV
Linux News Log
Mac OS Ken
MacBreak Weekly
MacCast (including MacCast loop)
Mobile Computing Authority
net@nite
Stuff Mag’s podcast
this WEEK in TECH
Typical Mac User Podcast
Windows Weekly with Paul Thurrott

They are all informative and entertaining.

Experience so far with Nokia N73

I thought I’d put some notes together on the N73 and how I’ve found using it in combination with my work Exchange account for anyone that might be interested . . .

I work for the University of Nottingham and they have an Exchange based e-mail system.  Previously I used a Windows Mobile  5 device (XDA Exec) to get mail using the push facility provided, but after changing to a Nokia N73 thought I’d try the Mail for Exchange (MfE) software.

Whilst this is not as sophisticated as the using Windows mobile, it allows me to triage  incoming mail quite adequately.  The only deficency I have found so far is in accepting appointments which does not seem to work reliably.  I’ll need to play with it some more to fully understand what is happening – more on this later – time permitting.

I am also starting to get RSS feeds to the phone  using “Mobiz LiveFeeder”, which seems to be working well.  Other software I have found to be useful is the GMail application for Symbian, the Nokia maps, which is really impressive, offering GPS navigation (at a price), and Opera which is a great improvement over the standard browsing capability of the device.