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Wednesday, August 21, 2002 |
Pogue praises Jaguar
Writing in his New York Times column, long-time Mac journalist David Pogue sings the praises of Jaguar in Mac OS 10.2 Reviewed.
"Don't be fooled by the small increase in the version number. This is a polished, innovative and - if such a term can be applied to something as nerdy as an operating system - exciting upgrade."
This is good news for Mac users who rely on solid advice from Pogue, who, although he is not a Mac cheerleader, sounds awfully glowing in this article. But an even more enlightened quote pulled from the end of the article highlights one reason that many of us are Mac users and why we tend to frown at times at Microsoft:
"Furthermore, Apple is not Microsoft - that's the understatement of the year - and isn't nearly so Big Brotherish. There's no 25-digit serial number to type into a new Mac before you can use it, as on a new PC. Mac OS X imposes no copy protection, no Windows XP-style activation process and no risk of being locked out of your own PC if you upgrade too many of its components. Nor does Mac OS X ever interrupt you with little balloons that nag you to sign up for Passport, .NET or some other Microsoft database. Mac people rarely feel like they're living in the persistent, lurking shadow of a software company.
Amen. This is something that Mac users need to keep an eye on, but right now you can safely use your Mac without worries of Apple probing your machine for the latest configuration information, for instance. Whether this remains the case in the future is something all of us need to keep an eye on.
All in all, David Pogue's review coupled with other reviews this week make the move to Mac OS X 10.2 sound like a no-brainer.
9:14:49 PM 
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Just how important has RSS become?
Brent Simmons, the creator of the NetNewsWire Lite program that I and a lot of other Mac users are using to read various Web sites with RSS feeds offered these comments earlier today:
I think I’ve seen the future. I think I’ve seen the future, or a small part of it, regarding weblogs. Two things:
1. If you’re not syndicating your site as RSS it might as well not exist.
2. If you don’t include a tag in your home page that points to your RSS feed, then you might as well not be syndicating your site, and therefore it might as well not exist. [inessential.com]
5:28:53 PM
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An interesting tangent: What is home?
If like me you are a freelancer who works from home (which works great with a Mac and OS X!), you may find the radio show I justed listened to an interesting topic: What is home for? The show from KUOW FM, a public radio station in Seattle, deals with the issue of integrating work and home along with listener comments and an examination of how home functions in today's American society.
2:03:46 PM
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Where are the 'switchers' coming from?
Tim O'Reilly brings up an interesting idea in his latest article on the O'Reilly Networks site: Mac OS X switcher stories. Are more of the new Mac OS X users coming from Linux and Unix OSes than from Windows? Could be...
11:40:03 AM
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How to tell when a company doesn't get the Mac
A good clue: When the company press release for a new product refers to the current Mac operating system as "Mac OS XT"...
10:46:42 AM
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An oddity with Yahoo Messenger
For some reason this morning I cannot connect to Yahoo Messenger with my normal username. What happened? Did they figure out that I work for the competition at Lycos?
An update: I did get my Yahoo IM working again finally by manually going to the Yahoo site and logging in through there. I am not sure why this happened...
9:18:20 AM
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Starbucks rolls out more wireless hot spots
Writing in 80211b News, Glenn Fleishman notes: Starbucks, T-Mobile, and HP reveal 1,200 hot spots, new software: Today's joint announcement, scheduled at 10 am, but announced in a press release at 4 am this morning, shows the future of what is now called T-Mobile HotSpot service. The press release says that 1,200 hot spots are now up and running in these cities and states (Connecticut's an awfully large single item): Atlanta; Austin, TX; Boston; Connecticut; Denver; Dallas/Ft. Worth; Houston; New York; New Jersey; Philadelphia; Portland, OR; the San Francisco Bay area; and the Seattle region. (The Texas, New York City, SF,and Seattle service was all up and running before fall 2001.) [80211b News]
8:02:25 AM
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Running a Weblog in an imperfect world
I have been frustrated by the Radio software I use to run Mac Net Journal again over the last day, as for no explainable reason the program has stopped upstreaming my RSS file and thus made it look like MNJ is not updating for those users who read the site through NetNewsWire Lite and other news aggregators. I am trying to work with the folks at Userland to fix the problem. Meanwhile, it should be noted by those of you who only read MNJ through a newsreader program that you do indeed miss out on some stories by chosing not to read MNJ through the Web site...
An update: I managed to get my rss.xml file upstreaming to the remote FTP server again today by taking a brute-force approach and firing up an FTP program, removing the RSS file from the remote server and then manually FTPing my current RSS file to the remote server from my home machine. Now, for whatever reason, Radio is upstreaming my files correctly...for now...fingers crossed and all that rot.
7:53:50 AM
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MacCentral posts its review of Jaguar
Review: Jaguar shows its teeth [MacCentral]
This review is more detailed than some others I have seen, and it doesn't pull any punches as it points out some specific problems with iChat and an odd problem saving some files in Microsoft Word after installing OS X 10.2. I think there will be a lot more to this story when thousands of people start installing and using Jaguar on the myriad of Macs out there.
Fun times ahead...
6:58:47 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Rob McNair-Huff.
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