How can you tell if a project has bad documentation?
Filed under Software on December 2nd, 2007
It’s documentation is based on a wiki.
Your comment? »
A Questionable Article From a Questionable writer?
Filed under Apple, Intertubes, Software on November 25th, 2007
Tony Celeste reports for Tom’s Guide:
This is something I never thought I’d hear myself say - or maybe I should say, see myself type - about an Apple operating system: Mac OSX Leopard was released before it was ready. This operating system needed more testing on more systems with more hardware, and especially, more software configurations.
Don’t they all? In order to release you have to draw a line somewhere.
It’s like hack articles. You know it’s not 100% ready (far from it), you know that the arguments are lame, but you go and post it anyway. Well, Tony did.
The days of Apple computers operating with just the Mac OS and Adobe Photoshop installed, and practically nothing else to speak of, are long gone, and Apple knows this as well as anyone.
Emmm, when exactly were those days?
Perhaps the most troublesome of the problems has been a data loss issue caused by Finder, which performs a function on Macs similar to that of Explorer in Windows. In Leopard, when Finder moves a file from one drive to another, it deletes the file from the originating hard drive, without first checking to see if the file arrived safely on the destination hard drive. If anything goes wrong during the file transfer, such as a momentary power glitch on the destination hard drive, the file would then be destroyed on both hard drives.
While it sure is a nasty bug, is this the “most troublesome of problems” that you can come up with?
Actually the bug existed long before Leopard. It never was any real trouble because at its peak popularity the move feature was used by, let’s make a guess here, 5 people worldwide. It surely wasn’t an advertised feature anywhere in the interface. Very few people knew about it, and fewer used it. If this is the “most troublesome of problems” then Leopard must be a fine release.
Leopard users hoped that a free maintenance update (OSX 10.5.1), released on Thursday, November 15, would fix the issue, but Apple’s statement accompanying the update is too vague to give a definitive answer. With regard to data loss, it states that “… a potential data loss issue when moving files across partitions …” has been fixed, but moving files across hard drives is not addressed. Personally, I wouldn’t want to bet my important data on that statement.
And I, personally, wouldn’t want to get my software news and critique from hack articles such as this.
What’s with the FUD on Apple’s phrasing? Couldn’t bother to test it yourself? Couldn’t bother to even do a quick google on it?
In an unrelated issue, data recovery firm Retrodata has found a disturbing hard drive failure rate in some Apple Macbooks. Quoting from the Retrodata Web site: “We at Retrodata believe that any sizeable manufacturer would by this stage be aware of such a problem and issue a product recall notice, or an offer to have the drive exchanged for a suitable alternative at their own expense.” If you own an Apple Macbook with a Seagate hard drive, I strongly suggest you check out the details available at Retrodata.
And this is related to Leopard how exactly?
You got me there buddy. I thought the “in an unrelated issue” was reffering to the issue being unrelated to the previous issue, not to the article’s topic altogether. Nifty way to introduce non sequiturs. In an unrelated issue, I am, in fact, a dolly made of wood.
As disturbing as data loss is, this next problem is the Apple version of a bombshell. Thanks to Leopard, the dreaded Blue Screen of Death is now a part of the Mac operating system. When I first tell this to Mac users that haven’t yet upgraded to Leopard, I usually hear something like “Yeah, I get Blue Screens of Death when I use Windows on my Mac”. No, that’s not quite what I mean - Blue Screens of Death are occurring not only in Windows, but in Leopard as well. The problem, to a certain extent, has been acknowledged by Apple.
Nicely put Tony. You only forgot a little detail. Like, say, that this problem is not Apple’s fault, but is instead related to the use of APE, a totally unsupported system hack that messes with running applications. A hack that people have been specifically warned not to use.
Although, in a move which I find somewhat amusing, Apple refuses to refer to the problem as a “Blue Screen of Death”. Apparently they find the term, historically associated with Windows, somewhat distasteful. Instead, Apple simply uses the term “Blue Screen”. The problem is recognized by Apple on this support page. On the far right, there’s a link entitled “Blue screen after installing”. Apple’s automatically generated top searches also shows the # 1 search to be ” ‘Blue screen’ appears after install”. A Mac user in this thread actually had the audacity to use the term “Blue Screen of Death” in a post, which ultimately led to him or her being referred to as a “crackpot” by the Apple faithful.
Gee, I wonder why that can be. Could it be because not every blue screen is the “Blue Screen of Death”? Could it be because the term “Blue Screen Of Death” is used to describe a specific error screen on Windows, and Apple does not want to confuse the users with incorrect terminology in a support forum? Why does Apple use the term “blue screen” then? Well, because it’s a blue screen, Serlock. It’s not a shortened version of the Windows term, it’s a description of what users see when they encounter the problem.
Leopard has been plagued by a series of other problems as well. There are graphics artifacts followed by freezes, which may be caused by the new operating system’s increased use of the Mac graphics card.
Don’t you love how a bug in the graphic drivers is described as being probably caused by “the new operating system’s increased use of the Mac graphics card”. Gives it an aura of permanence, doesn’t it?
There are also two bugs in the usually trouble-free Mac firewall. The first caused the firewall to be installed turned off by default, which some Mac users didn’t find out about until they ran into problems. The second refused to allow some third party applications to access the Internet, including, of all things, World of Warcraft. Yeah, that’ll be good for building support among gamers! The OSX 10.5.1 update claims to have firewall fixes, but again, it’s not specific as to whether these particular issues have been addressed.
And, once again, you can’t be bothered to check.
There are a variety of other reports, including a Mac Pro becoming completely inoperative after a Leopard upgrade. One user asked, Is it me, or is Leopard just a mess?.
It must be him, because, emm, it works fine for millions of other people. Like those million buyers in it’s first week.
Or, it could actually be that, as every software release, it has its’ issues, its’ share of bugs and all, that will be ironed out with subsequent point releases.
Another user echoed my sentiments at the start of this article by asking Is ANY part of Leopard ready for release? Worst product from Apple so far. Here’s a shock, the entire thread was censored.
And this is shocking how? Does such sensationalist talking on a support forum help address the specific issues people have? Does it help iron out bugs on 10.5.1 or 10.5.2?
And amazingly, despite all of the above, and everything else we’ve seen go wrong since Leopard debuted 3 weeks ago, at apple.com/mac/, an Apple ad on the left side of the page says “Leopard just works”.
Well, it does. Doesn’t it?
Let’s see what you have gathered so far:
1) A bug that existed since Panther, affects only a 0.001% of users that use an obscure Finder feature and has been fixed on 10.5.1.
2) A problem with some Seagate HDs, having nothing to do with Leopard.
3) A blue screen problem for users using the totally unsupported, system botching hack that is APE (one that can be solved following Apple’s instructions to remove APE).
4) The firewall turned off by default and blocking World of Warcraft.
5) A bug in the graphics drivers affecting some iMacs.
If those are Leopard’s “serious problems” then we got a winner OS here!
Fix the Leopard Ugliness redux: tips learned in between
Filed under Apple, Software on November 21st, 2007
I have previously posted a collection of tips about fixing the Leopard ugliness (you know, the 3D dock, the Stacks and the transparent menubar).
The Mac community had been hard at work on the meantime, producing some even better tips to replace some of the previous kludgy solutions.
JWZ, of Netscape/Mozilla fame, offers some tips on how to “de-lamify your dock and menubar”. He provides tips for making the Dock stick to the side of the screen (instead of dead center) and for turning off menubar transparency.
There is an even better tip for turning off the menubar transparency than enables you to choose your own shade for the dock. Simply use the command specified on macosxhints but substitute the 1 at then end with your own decimal value between 0 and 1 (the bigger, the more white the menubar will be). 0.62 gets you nice shade of gray like the one Apple uses on old PPC machines.
I am a little worried about using this tip myself. It sets a specific preference on WindowServer, but my understanding is that WindowServer is responsible for all windows, not just the menubar. Could this setting affect other aspects of the windowing system? Like, say, some translucent windows not showing correctly? Until we here more about this, I’m hesitant to take the leap.
Two (actually six) words about Amazon’s Kindle
Filed under Spotted on November 19th, 2007
This thing is ugly.
Also, doomed.
The Adobe Updates Saga (a.k.a Adobe Sucks Saga)
Filed under Intertubes, Software on November 19th, 2007
Not wanting to be tagged as a Photoshop lover or an Adobe shill (I’m referring to my previous post), here is a recount of me trying to be kept up to date with the latest Adobe wares.
As you probably already know, last Friday (11/16) Adobe issued some updates to Camera Raw and Photoshop Lightroom programs. Good luck trying to download them or find any useful information about them.
I know what you’re thinking. “I’ll go visit the website”. No word on the front page about any updates.
Well, there must be something on the Downloads page. Let’s see, there’s an “Updates” option in the Downloads menu. It has to be here, right? And, sure enought, it is. We see a listing for “Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.3 Update - November 16, 2007″, complete with links for the Windows and Macintosh version. Yeah! Let’s now click on the Macintosh link.
It takes us here. Hey, where’s our 1.3 update? All we can see in this page is the older 1.2 update. Damn.
Maybe we’ll have better luck with the Camera Raw update. Back to Downloads -> Updates we go. Here is is. “Camera Raw 4.3 update, November 16, 2007″. Let’s click the Macintosh link below it. Hmmm. Interesting. It changes under our feet,
through an internal direct from:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3821
to:
http://www.adobe.com/downloads/?notFoundID=null
Which leaves us on the main Downloads page with the listing of every product.
Change of strategy. Maybe we can find a link to the updates from the product page. Let’s visit http://www.adobe.com/ap/products/photoshoplightroom/. Sure enough, here’s a link for the mythical “Lightroom 1.3 Update”. We hesitantly click on the Macintosh link next to it. Ah, the good old http://www.adobe.com/downloads/?notFoundID=null page.
Touch luck. It seems that there are no updates for us today (or any of the four previous days, for that matter).
Updating? Forget the Updater
With some Adobe stuff, you can use Adobe Updater to, em, update it. A fine piece of software that does not play well with FileVault and chokes your system to 100% CPU (seehere, screenshot included).
Not that Adobe sits on its hands. It suggests, and I kid you not, this solution:
Solution 1: Change the Adobe Updater preferences to not check for updates. If your computer is connected to the internet, then you can change the Adobe Updater preferences to not check for updates.
Solution 2: Edit the AdobeUpdaterPrefs settings file. If your computer does not have an internet connection, then you can manually edit the AdobeUpdaterPreferences.dat file. (…) If the
1 tag already exists, thenchange the value from 1 to 0. Otherwise, add the line0 anywhere between thetags. Solution 3: Disable the Updater.api plug-in. (…) Rename the Updater.api plug-in to Updater.api.old
Those are the Windows “solutions”. I guess something similar exists for the Mac. Good luck trying to find it.
Oh, the incompetence
It’s not that Adobe doesn’t know about those issues. It might be that, with no competitors and all, it just can’t be bothered.
For example, the Lightroom Journal, hosted on Adobe by Lightroom stuff, aknowlegdes the problem with the broken links et al and even provides an alternative download method (via ftp). Still, 4 full days later Adobe’s page remains erratic.
