TECHPopuli

Tiger Analysis

John Siracusa of Ars Technica has done an extensive analysis of the new vers of OSX, Tiger. I haven't read it all yet, but it looks good.

It's tempting to say that Tiger marks childhood's end for Mac OS X, but I think that goes too far. A more accurate analogy is that Mac OS X versions 10.0 through 10.3 represent "the fourth trimester" for Apple's new baby—a phrase used to describe the first three months of human life, during which the baby becomes accustomed to life outside the womb. As any new parent knows ( yes , I am one of them), this is not an easy time of life, for the baby or for the parents.

It's been a rough journey, but we've made it through intact: Apple, Mac OS X, and Mac users everywhere. Tiger has arrived. Let's see what this baby can do.

Apple mistake

I am pretty troubled by Apple's recent attempts to squash information that they don't like.

The blogger lawsuits, where Apple wanted to know who leaked early info, was unfortunate, and this latest, an attempt to block the publication of an unauthorized Steve Jobs biography, is downright embarrassing.

Steve says...

Asked at the recent Apple annual meeting what he thought about Microsoft's next OS "Longhorn" Steve Jobs didn't mince words.

News.com:

They are shamelessly copying us...

Improving RealPlayer performance

I don't know if this makes any difference. But I've made the change, and now we'll see.

He told me that my problem "could be a firewall issue or an AirPort version problem."

Preferences -> Transport -> Use manually configured Click Configure and clear all transports except HTTP

TidBITS Mac History

TidBITS' co-founder Adam Engst has posted a nostalgic look back at all his Macs. Nice.

Adobe to buy Macromedia

Macworld.com:

Adobe Systems Inc. has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia Inc. for US$3.4 billion in stock, the company said Monday.

[Thanks Ronald Gehrman of Seacoast MacGeeks]

I took the Geek Quiz

Geeky goodness

Peter Wood shows us how to turn on, and use, the DNS server built into Mac OSX.

Comcast internet problems

Steve Garfield has the story.

I was wondering what was going on with my Comcast internet connection last night and just found this status page.

Looks like it was down for over seven hours.

Sluggish

For the past 12 hours I've been struggling with a very sluggish internet.

At least part of it appears to be some unusually slow Comcast DNS servers. These servers are nearly legendary for poor performance, but this is the first time I've really needed to set my machine to use independent DNS. That improved things right away. That was last night.

This morning DNS seems more or less OK, but things are just slow. Annoying.

Sad, but true...

Geek.com:

A new study suggests that e-mail users are increasingly growing accustomed to spam. Sponsored by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the study compared how people judged the rampant, unsolicited advertising method. Although a majority of e-mail users (67%) said that spam "has made being online unpleasant or annoying," that is down 10% from last year's finding. Age also seemed to have an impact on how people viewed spam: those between 18 and 24 were not as likely to be affected by it.

I want you to stick your head out your window and yell as loud as you can, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore."

Aggie Plus

I'm rewriting my bookmark manager/rss reader again. This time I'm adding tags, cause they're the new hot thing.

Is Flash the Enemy?

CNet:

"Flash is the enemy," said Lessig, a Stanford University professor and board member of the Free Software Foundation, as he described the opinions of leading free- and open-source-software advocates. These advocates "hate Flash. They think that by participating in the Flash community, you are feeding the devil."