So this morning I mentioned a house, well to follow up on that in a random break I have at the moment, the house in question is the one I am in now - my parents are looking at a property near my mom’s work, and if they like it, they made me a open offer of $500 a month on this place - which is about $500 cheaper than I was looking at with a 2 bdrm apartment.
As it stands, I’d go for it. I dunno if it’ll happen so part of me like many things in my life, I am not banking on it, but I am making further adjustments to the budget if it does happen, I’ll be able to handle it, because I like this house, and it served me well before my parents moved back to Bakersfield - so pretty happy about the possibility, plus, no pesky moving so another plus.
So time will tell, but I figured I’d put in a bit of an update as I was between projects - hopefully I have relaxing night ahead, but from the sound of the call a minute ago, I am guessing thats going to be a no-go, but not too unexpected I suppose, but my hope is that something fun will come up tonight, granted it is a TV night, but usually rather late.
Anywhoo, back to the grind, some small good news, a pile of mail! Just got word that the old office held some mail for me, so very cool indeed, hopefully my PO Box check goes smooth, if so happy me Have a good monday folks!
So, you guessed it, I am still awake, working away here, getting things all lined up to bring the iMac back to full production status, I am about 1/2 way transferring back over from the Linux box 47.3GB of “Music” which includes iTunes purchases and such, slow going, but it’s going the big one to worry about is Pictures, lots of digital negatives there.
I have been playing with Leopard for about a day now, like most folks out there toying with new features, though unlike a group of folks out there, I can’t really say I have found any “quirks” that are show stoppers. Granted while copying from a NFS mount I can’t seem to unmount disk images of installs, so I have a LOT on the desktop right now waiting for the data to get copied over but so far everything is running smoothly, all my common apps like Textmate which I am blogging from, Transmit for FTP works fine, I have honestly yet to find a application that gives me any problems, and most folks report that CS3 is working fine, so when that bridge comes up here, I’ll cross it without fear!
New features are nice
Spaces - It is pretty spiff, I enjoyed it on the MBP however on dual monitors, each “Space” is split into 2 sections (one for each monitor) so if I have 4, there are 8 windows to drag apps into, it’s pretty clever
Stacks - Some people are finding this very troublesome, but I think its just another feature you can take or leave, and for me, I enjoy it, for downloads and documents (the defaults) it works great, but for me I also have my stock photo purchases, projects folder, and “Desktop” as files get dropped/saved there all the time, it’s pretty handy.
Time Machine - While I don’t “hate” it, I am not 100% in love with it, the use of a NFS mount would of been better, but just means I need to get a good sized drive to use on my iMac, and I need to clean off the portable drive for the MBP.
Mail - Lovely - the new features aren’t a “MUST” for me, granted the To-Do’s will most likely sync into the Dash via Missing Sync (or so is my hope) but it’s speed has greatly increased, so much so that I imported my Thunderbird email, and have 1 less app to install.
Frontrow - Looks good, apparently it shares the layout of the AppleTV device, but it’s workable - not that I use it that much, as I tend to use VLC and full screen it on the secondary monitor, but its a nice touch up none the less.
Overall UI- Seen a number of complaints about this, folks upset about the transparent menu bar, or the dock, “blah blah blah” people are entitled to their opinion, don’t get me wrong, but at the same time aren’t Mac folk supposed to be this super “progressive” thinkers I mean come on the ad is “Think Different” but instead some folks have been spooked by the new look - all I can say is, deep breath people, it’ll be okay.
But so far so good, I am sure there’s a slew of features I could go on about, and in time, maybe I will, currently doing Software Updates for iLife06, just finished the last one, but it all is looking super good, more later I am sure, more to do while the copy continues it’s long journey of copying
So I am going to start me a Leopard upgrade on my iMac (lostfruit) the MBP (myfruit) is doing well, and of course I’ve already started fiddling with scripts, tweaks, etc. one thing I love is you can now choose what app is run when a DVD is inserted! For a long time I liked VLC over DVD Player as it could handle dual monitors better, I haven’t gotten to test things yet on dual monitors, but I have to write a Applescript to handle VLC auto-starting my DVDROM, it’s a pretty simple script, just need to write it, and put it in place.
I have been working for the last day or two, to really clean up Lostfruit, it’s my oldest Mac in house, and thus has the most …. “Data” on it (read: Junk) - but on top of that its the home for iTunes, Business Email, Books, Photos, Negatives, etc. SOOOOO - A quality backup has been a big thing, and while my weekly script covers the big boys, Mail/Pictures/Music/Docs - it didn’t cover everything I want to be 100% sure I have, everything, and anything I need (first time upgrading this badboy!) of course iLife was a odd one on myfruit, as its part of the “restore” disks with Mac’s not a separate disk to install things with (iLife came pre-installed), same with the iMac - so some magic to work via Terminal but it’s easy enough.
Probably another hour or so before I get it rolling, need to get some large folders over, and then with everything shut down and server sessions moved to myfruit, I’ll do one last rsync of all critical things, and when that’s done (shouldn’t take long) I’ll drop in the DVD, say a prayer, and move forward - but I think one thing that’ll change, I am going to drop Thunderbird, unless it magically runs better under 10.5 than it does under 10.4, but my plan is to migrate email to Mail.app - the new version is pretty snazzy, and have it all in one place and easy to access/manage.
No word back on the job, kind of hoping to hear something first of this next week, but there’s always that chance I won’t get anything back at all - but such is part of the game I suppose, but there is a few more options out there if not, and it’d really help get my cash flow up, and things really rolling for me, and help me get some things taken care of in my personal life (Re: Payoff Car, Get Apartment, Buy a Cheesecake) - so hopefully things happen, if not then its continuing this nose to the grindstone bit with hosting, and work hard to get customers coming in!
Anywhoo - I am off, just wanted to take a quick break and post something, but now it’s off to the wonderful world of upgrading! (Yay!) Next time I post from this station will be using 10.5! Hooray!
So tomorrow I think I will give the full treatment to the iMac - on the MBP it’s going smoothly, heck even Firefox runs a world quicker, all apps seem a lot more chipper, the big things like the Adobe CS3 Suite are still on the “To Install” list along with other apps, but all in all, it’s going well with no burps.
I do like the new features, and the tabbed terminal, awesome. I can’t wait to see what it does in dual monitors with things like Spaces - but time will tell, must get a backup done fresh tomorrow on the iMac and see about clearing off one of the 250GB drives I have to use in the USB enclosure for Time Machine.
Anywhoo - live from my bed, Captain Sleepy Signing off.
So today is the day where all nerdy mac users upgrade to leopard - I imagine around 6, I’ll be over at CompUSA to snag my copy for $99, but with various issues reported like some noting that Software Update is broken, not 100% sure how soon I’ll install it on the iMac, but since the MBP is really just a portable rig and I can always re-install 10.4 I am going to start there and see how it goes. Already have my rsync backup scripts written to sync up the various “must have” directories on both machines, I’ll do some fresh syncs probably to the new NFS Exports I made on my Ubuntu rig last night, lot better speed than rsync was giving previously.
In other news, no word back yet on the job - granted the site does say I’ll only hear back if they are interested in me, but I am going to remain hopeful, but none the less, life goes on - and I have customers to tend to, servers to manage, people to chase down about their bills being overdue (yay! lol) but who knows, I figure if I don’t hear back in the next week or so, then that’s that.
Anywhoo it’s friday, I am almost alive, and today will be a good day… or else! thanks all for the continued prayers on the job, if anything changes on that front, I’ll let you all know! Take Care!
So it seems you can save $20 off the retail price of 10.5 if you purchase via Amazon.com - not a horrible deal, but still means you run the gambit of getting 10.5 late, as some delivery companies aren’t prepared for the massive pre-orders, like with Harry Potter, some folks saw their pre-order days later.
I am not sure of my purchase plan as of yet, as one Canadian asked if I was going to get the family pack, I think I am going to hold off in general, or simply goto my local CompUSA in the AM and just pick it up then as I imagine they’ll have it, if not, there’s always the 2hr drive to visit my brother and his local apple store but time will tell.
So 300+ new features, do I rush out now and pre-order? Do I wait for it locally and just pick up a disk? Will it install on both my MBP and My iMac or do I need the family pack? So many questions, 10 days to find the answers - honestly it looks like a lovely upgrade, some of the functionality I am excited about (re: Stacks) some others (re: Time Machine) not so much, just unsure how it’ll affect performance.
So we shall see how it goes, plus I need to drum up $129 at the very least ah the joys of Mac ownership.
so another plus.
Have a good monday folks!
- not a horrible deal, but still means you run the gambit of getting 10.5 late, as some delivery companies aren’t prepared for the massive pre-orders, like with Harry Potter, some folks saw their pre-order days later.
