Category: Rant

Ok, it’s been a few hours since I upgraded to Leopard. The first time it booted after it installed, I got a kernel panic. But it booted the second time. It’s been at 100% CPU usage ever since, installing the XCode stuff (which I always install but never use) and reindexing for Spotlight. That’s colouring a few impressions, because it means Cover Flow, for instance, is very slow. But in brief

• iScroll doesn’t work. It’s probably what caused the kernel panic on that first boot. I hope there is an update soon, because I like two fingered scrolling.
• Safari has a really disconcerting and distracting way it gets really dark when you switch to it, and light when you switch away. Some of the other apps do that as well, but Safari gets too dark.
• Months ago I quite distinctly remember reading that the Airport Express’s external drives would be usable with Time Machine. As a matter of fact, that was a major reason for buying the AE. But now it turns out that AE drives aren’t supported in Time Machine. And considering what a piece of shit the AE turned out to be, I can’t think of any reason not to put it on Craigs List.
• I was also looking forward to being able to use Mail again. The Tiger version of Mail insisted on indexing and scanning every file in my ~/Mail directory on the IMAP server, which was incredibly time consuming. Every other IMAP client I’ve tried, from Thunderbird to SnapperMail, has the ability to specify that you only subscribe to specific folders instead of all of them. Well, Leopard’s Mail is supposed to have that as well, but when I open up the dialog, no folders are listed there and I can’t find a way to add or remove folder subscriptions. I’ll try again when the CPU isn’t pegged, and maybe it will work right.

I was really looking forward to getting the advantages of Time Machine without having to have a hard disk on my desk, but if that’s what I have to do, that’s what I’ll do. In the mean time, I’m glad that Apple finally came out with Spaces so I don’t need a third party virtual desktop software (actually, I gave up on those ages ago because they kept getting broken by OS updates). And Vicki and I will have to experiment with some of the remote desktop stuff.

Our company has a translation group. Normally we send off our properties files, and we get back the versions for the languages we support in this application. Sometimes we get a few questions from the translators, usually just a clarification of how we’re using a term or a request for some context. I send back and answer, and a few days later I get my translation.

I don’t think their Chinese translator quite understands this process though. I got back a list of translator questions from him, and it’s all stuff like “Please confirm this translation of the string ‘Foo Bar'” followed by a string of Chinese characters. Or “Should the word ‘Digest’ be translated or left as English?” I feel like writing back and saying “HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW? YOU’RE THE ONE WHO CAN SPEAK CHINESE!” But I won’t. Instead I’m writing to his manager to explain that we can’t answer his questions because we don’t speak Chinese, and leaving out the part about how if we did speak Chinese we wouldn’t need them.

You know, if you’re going to send email to a person who runs a mailing list, don’t assume that he only runs one mailing list. Generally the skills for running one list are transferrable to other mailing lists, so the person in question might run more than one. Take me, for instance. I run probably 2 dozen or so lists. Which is why I get so annoyed when I get email like this:

To whom this may concern:

I am from [Clueless Wankertech] Inc. and we have an event coming up that we feel
the members of your mailing list will benefit from. Below is a post
which we are wondering if you could post to your mailing list or allow
us to do this. Thank you for your time and consideration.

The post is as follows:
[etc]