I blogged Leopard, a robotic office chair, last November when it still was in prototype status. Now, more than half a year later, the chair finally went on sale in Japan. And it might find its way outside this country as well, as both Japanese companies involved in the development of the chair, office equipment maker Oki and furniture company Okamura, are active overseas.
Quick note to OS X Leopard users out there. Curpertino might send out your OS’s latest update tomorrow. No official word but you might find a bouncing System Update icon starving for your attention first thing tomorrow morning. Word is MobileMe syncing and more than 100 bug fixes will be addressed in 10.5.6 so the download and required restart might be worth your time. Just go talk to Pam at reception while you wait.
A bloke at UneasySilence has managed to install Leopard on his Dell Mini 9. Even better, he’s listed all the steps, so if you’re hankering for a quick weekend project (and you have a Mini 9), this may just do the trick.
Note that it does include downloading a specialized version of Leopard off The Pirate Bay, which may or may not be illegal. Who cares, I say. A quick search for “MSIWindosx86.iso” there will bring it up for ya.
It’s a fully functioning install, too, as the bloke was able to update his Mini 9 all the way up to 10.5.5.
I actually used the phrase “oh, wow, neat” when I first read about this. Perhaps it’s time I turn in my Cynic Card.
Why you’d want to do this I can’t fathom - the data detectors are probably the best feature in Mail - but you can turn off the little pop-up windows that appear when you hover over dates, addresses, and contacts in the application. Go to your terminal and type:
defaults write com.apple.mail DisableDataDetectors YES
Then restart Mail. You should be a happier, if spiritually poorer, person.
Apple’s Security Update 2008-005 fixes that DNS glitch that has been freaking people out for the past few weeks. As such, it’s advised that you stop whatever you’re doing and apply the patch right now.
Some had accused Apple of dragging its feet in applying the patch, but now that it’s here, expert plenty of “what took Apple so long?” stories.
Bottom line, the hole has been shut. Apply the patch, or feel the Internet’s wrath. Maybe.
Or use OpenDNS. That’s fine way to avoid the DNS glitch, too.
via Apple Insider
Some folks have convinced an MSI Wind that it is a Mac Pro and that it can run Leopard like a champ. Using Kalyway 10.5.2, a Leopard install, some Spanish hackers installed and ran the OS with no issues. Ethernet and Bluetooth both work sans problems. Our own experience with the Wind seems to point to an amazing machine without peer in the ultralight category, so maybe it deserves a little credit.
We’ve already had one Coldplay post today, and countless Apple posts. Let’s combine the two now, shall we?
You know that Apple commercial with Coldplay singing “Viva la Vida”? Yeah, that one up there. Doesn’t the background look suspiciously like the default desktop in Leopard?
What does this mean? How does this affect The Island? Will there ever be a rainbow? All questions, very important questions, to ponder, friends.
via Macenstein
High-res
Image courtesy of Gernot Poetsch
The Leopard banner reads: “The world’s most advanced Operating System.” The iPhone banner reads: “The world’s most advanced mobile platform.” I’m so happy I’ll be in Berlin during the keynote getting drunk and not dealing with this nonsense.
I’m fortunate. My upgrade to 10.5.3 from 10.5.2 took about 15 minutes and went off without a hitch. Sadly, some people aren’t as lucky.
No notable differences jump off the screen, though the fix to Spaces is quite nice. Before, if I had two windows from the same app — Say, Firefox — in two different spaces, a click on the Dock icon would take me back to the first one, no matter what space I was in. This now just takes me to the one in the space I’m in, or else to the first one. I like it.
You might still want to back up, but after bravely facing sniper fire, I declare the update ready to go.
Those of you with Psystars running Leopard might want to hot-foot it to Psystar’s website to download some important fixes. They activate Time Machine and patch many other specific errors. Since Leopard wasn’t ever meant for non-Mac computers, it makes sense that there is much patching needed.
Finally, a UMPC I’d want.
Someone got the idea into their head to install Leopard on an OQO UMPC. It dual boots from Windows to Leopard, and appears to run rather slow, but it does work.
I’m not a fan of the MacBook Air, but something like this is what Apple should work on.
I looked into getting Leopard to run on mini-PCs and this gives me hope that it is actually possible. While it’s not easy, this hack lets you install Leopard onto the OQO mini-PC and even dual-boot into Windows when you need to run Quicken. The only thing they couldn’t get to work was WWAN, which they’re working on now.
Most Mac users currently running Leopard may have experienced this little problem; you’re tooling around the interconnected network of world wide web sites and all of a sudden your connection just drops…then reconnects…then drops. Or it’ll look like you’re not connected, but you are. Or vice versa.
9 to 5 Mac is reporting that the aforementioned glitch has aggravated the New York City Department Education enough that it’s “temporarily suspended receiving shipments of new Macs.” My wife is a teacher here in the Boston area and her school-issued Leopard-based MacBook is experiencing the same types of problems.
We got a tip from a young man today claiming that OSX was due for a fairly minor but important upgrade sometime before the end of April, bringing it up to 10.5.3. The update is fairly technical in nature but fixes many minor and some major bugs in the OS.
Will your nitpick be resolved? Hit the jump for a full list of what the update does.
It’s looking more and more likely that the Psystar-produced Mac clone is a scam, surprising people who figured that out within four seconds of reading the initial reports. The Guardian, in a journalistic coup, did a little Google Mapping and telephone calling last night, discovering nothing but dead-ends and run-arounds. And now Gizmodo, the gadget guide, sent one of its readers to the supposed physical addresses(es) of the company. One turned out to be some guy’s house, and the other was a packing supplies company. Dunder Mifflin or something.
So, if you didn’t already figure, best to let this scenario play out before pledging any cash to Psystar. Not that you can even place an order with them yet, since their ability to accept credit cards is non-existent right now.
Rush Limbaugh’s on-air plea for Steve Jobs’ help worked. The conservative radio talk show host recently broadcast the problems he was having with the way Mail.app archived—or, here, didn’t archive—his e-mail. Following the plea for help, an Apple engineer helped him sort out the problem. The engineer deleted a null folder and rebuilt Mail.app’s internal directory using Terminal, that scary application only the élite know how to use.
The fix or patch or whatever you want to call out hasn’t been officially released by Apple yet.
Rush Limbaugh Resorts to His Bully Pulpit to Get His Mac Fixed [New York Times]
I’m not a big fan of CoverFlow and rarely use it, but it seems a lot of people feel differently about it and now it’s making an appearance on the iPhone thanks to Erica Sadun. Erica came up with AppFlow, which is essentially the same thing as CoverFlow, but it’s for your iPhone apps. You can find it here.
Thanks for the tip, Patrick.
Rush Limbaugh needs your help, Apple. He can’t get Back to My Mac or Time Machine to work properly.
The radio talk show host spent some time on his show recently pleading with Apple to fix certain problems introduced with Leopard. For one, Time Machine, the automated backup app, doesn’t work with Limbaugh’s Mail.app. (Limbaugh says he “lives” in Mail.app, partly because his hearing problem prevents him from adequately using the telephone.) Why can’t he go back in time to find an e-mail he accidentally deleted?
Secondly, Back to My Mac isn’t bringing Limbaugh any closer to his Macs. He’s got six of them and only one is properly working with the .Mac service; Limbaugh says all six Macs are identical. A feature not a bug?
Limbaugh’s politics aside, this news should be welcomed by Mac users. What could be better than to have a high-profile individual draw attention to software bugs in hopes of getting them fixed, hopefully with the next point release? (10.5.2 was released earlier this week.)
I don’t use either .Mac, and by extension Back to My Mac, nor do I use Time Machine, so I can’t say that I’ve replicated these problems. But numerous message boards and forums I’ve visited at least show that the problems Rush is having aren’t invented.
Now let’s see if Apple responds.
Spinning Beach Ball: Still Waiting for Steve Jobs [Rush Limbaugh via Slashdot]
So I had to wait an extra day for some reason, but last night I got my Take Two upgrade for my Apple TV up and running. I rented an HD movie (The Simpsons, for those who’re curious) and it looked and sounded great. The 5.1 Dolby Surround was flawless and the video looked just amazing, far better than what I get with Comcast HD.
The update itself took just 7 minutes from start to finish. My Apple TV itself now works great. But then I ran into a problem that took me hours to fix.
