Recently in Apple Category

Apple has restored fairness to a system that I felt was being abused. The App Store, which allows users to browse and download Apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch, no longer accepts ratings from those who haven’t used the Apps before.

I noticed the loophole in the system myself, when reading a review about a French conjugator App (blogged about previously). I eventually purchased it and thought it was an excellent App, and realised that the earlier reviewer had his facts wrong. He alleged that it could only translate from English to French and not back, which was totally untrue. I wrote my own review, which was more positive, rebutted his claims, and gave it a 5 star rating to offset his (which was 3 stars only).

I was annoyed that people could rate Apps based on screen shots and presumptions without even trying them out. It is unfair to the creators of the Apps as it would affect their ratings and possibly their sales. Maybe some nasty reviews were posted by rivals, or these were people who just had nothing better to do.

Whatever the case, I’m happy that things are fairer now. May the best App win.

Somehow, in less than a year I’ve managed to fill up my MacBook Pro’s 250 GB hard drive. In a relatively short period of time I’ve accumulated a lot of photos and videos, and as a student I’ve saved lots of notes onto my hard drive. My MacBook Pro got sluggish a few months ago and I realised it was running out of space. I deleted some files and upgraded the RAM to 4GB. That helped.

Then I was tempted by a classmate to install Windows 7 beta on my Mac. This exacerbated the disk space shortage when I installed VMWare Fusion which partitioned 40GB of space by default (somehow I couldn’t change the settings to a lower allocation).

Importing even more photos and videos left me with only a few hundred megabytes of space tonight, which wasn’t enough for Windows 7 to launch. In which case I might as well uninstall Windows 7 until I upgrade my hard disk or transfer some non-essential files out of my MacBook Pro. I’m inspired by Kevin’s hard disk upgrade though I have to put it off until the holidays at least. Can’t afford to mess up my computer with deadlines to meet and exams coming up in 3 weeks.

I may even upload all my photos to Flickr and delete them off my hard drive. I do have portable hard disks but their space is limited and I prefer using them solely for backup purposes.

So, upgrading the hard drive is a new item on my growing to-do list…

Yes, I finally did it. I am now the proud owner of a 3G iPhone, 16GB. I chose black, even though the 8GB model only comes in black, because while white looks unusual, I might get tired of it. Black is strong and suits me fine.

My SingTel salesperson let me take photos as he activated the new iPhone. He also told me that SingTel has sold 15,000 iPhones so far, which is good by Singapore standards.

Any chance of M1 and Starhub coming out with it soon? Not in the near future, I was told … and it did make sense since other Telco companies in partnership with Apple haven’t lost their exclusive hold on iPhones in other countries, either.

As you can see, my old iPhone and new iPhone were getting acquainted. I heard the iPhone 3G was less ‘anal retentive’ in being able to accept third-party earphone jacks.

What I liked the most was that backed up data from the old iPhone was transferred seamlessly to the new iPhone. Not only were all my extra Apps installed, they were arranged in the same order. On top of that, when I opened my French dictionary app, it displayed the last verb and tense that was conjugated! So it recalled my last move on the app on the previous phone, and transferred that detail to the new phone. Amazing.

Bugs noticed: Apps quit suddenly. This is with firmware 2.0 and I am upgrading to 2.0.2 to see if it improves things. Too early to notice anything wrong with the 3G connection, because there’s wireless in school and at home. Will update this post if I have time and if something’s serious enough.

For the past few weeks I’ve contemplated getting a multiple language dictionary. I found a couple of possible models at Funan and was considering the price tag (between S$500-800). I wondered if it was worth it and whether I’d really use most of its features and languages.

Now that I’m able to buy apps from the iTunes store, I decided to see whether I could do without paying another big bill and handling yet another gadget. I’d be happy with a relative micropayment if it could help me access French words so it can help me with my devoirs (homework)!

After some browsing around, I decided to buy the Ultralingua French and English dictionary, which was just released this month.

According to the stats (0 downloads so far), I might be the very first purchaser! Contrary to what the only reviewer has stated, this dictionary does not just translate from English to French, but switches the other way round too. I’m baffled as to why he gave it a 3-star rating without having even tried the app yet!

Purchasing the app was easy. I entered my iTunes Store password and it was downloaded. See bottom right corner:

I was asked to type in a French word. I decided, since I just had lunch, to type ‘dejeuner’. The dictionary immediately added the ‘accent aigu’ so it became ‘déjeuner’, which is the correct spelling.

When I held my finger against the word ‘déjeuner’, a second-level balloon box appeared. I had the option of looking it up in the dictionary, conjugating or checking it on Google.

I got it conjugated in the present tense by default.

In total, it was able to conjugate the word in the following tenses:

1. Présent,
2. Futur,
3. Futur antérieur,
4. Imparfait,
5. Passé composé,
6. Plus-que-parfait,
7. Passé simple,
8. Passé anterieur,
9. Conditionnel,
10. Conditionnel passé,
11. Subjonctif present,
12. Passe du subjonctif,
13. Subjonctif imparfait,
14. Plus-que-parfait du subjonctif,
15. Impératif,

Considering how I’ve only covered nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 15, this app is more than I’ll need for my INSEAD third language exam. I hope!

Amusingly, you can also switch to English and conjugate the word as well, except it would be very obvious to native English speakers like us - ‘I lunch, you lunch, he/she/it lunches, we lunch, they lunch’… It’s another noun that’s become a verb, I guess.

I’ll update this post if I find any bugs or other good features. So far, so good, and now I have no more excuses to ‘fais mes devoirs’!

After playing around with free iPhone apps for half a day, I’m pretty satisfied with most of them. Here’s my take on a few of them.

Bloomberg app

I think Bloomberg’s app has done a fantastic job in terms of providing lots of information but in a user-friendly way. It managed to display recent news on every Singapore share I own.

Speaking of shares, I wondered how Apple was doing, so I decided to check them out:

Recent news on Apple:

And if you flip your iPhone sideways, you’ll be pleased to see this:

I give Bloomberg 5 stars for this very intuitive app, and so have most other people.

Facebook

The Facebook app looked and behaved as expected. It took a bit of time to display my friends’ data, but that could be because I have nearly 1,000 friends.

Likewise, the Chat feature took a while to load, but managed to get there.

Netnewswire

I was glad that Netnewswire did not charge for the iPhone version of their software. The Netnewswire app syncs with the version installed on your Mac. You need an online account with them for this. I have decided to replace my old Google Reader bookmark with this app, since I can use this while offline.

Twitterrific

I decided to try the Twitterrific app. So far so good. It, along with a couple other Twitter apps I’ve seen so far, has a geolocation feature although I have yet to see how this gets reflected on my Twitter updates. [Update: I have switched it off because it’s annoying.]

Currency app

This was a simple app that alllows you to view major currencies compared with a baseline currency. You can configure all of these. The only catch is that some smaller countries’ currencies are not included yet.

Bible apps

My quest continues for a good iPhone bible. The app I installed is useless without an internet connection. If we were in an old church that doesn’t have wireless, or at church camp/bible study etc, we would prefer something that was ready to go. There are many more Bible apps but they all come at a price, so I may wait for the reviews to accumulate before deciding and purchasing one. I am primarily looking for something which has the NIV. It would be nice to have other types of Bibles, commentaries and dictionaries as well.

Just upgraded my 2G iPhone to firmware version 2.0 and man, it rocks!

The new Address Book has a search feature.

The Calendar interface has improved. Buttons to view list / daily / monthly are now at the bottom of the screen, making it easier to select with my thumb.

I appreciate the extra Memory buttons in the new Calculator. (Next, can someone write a Financial Calculator app for MBA students? :P)

However, I missed my old Apps and went to the iTunes Store to see if I could download any free ones. Then I realised that the iTunes Store now accepts Singapore credit cards - at least for the apps! It recognised the last card I used when purchasing Apple products online … and automatically filled in most of the details.

So now I’m allowed to download Apps for my iPhone! Will be syncing it via iTunes later. This is so cool!

Free Apps I’ve downloaded:

1. Bloomberg (stock ticker which shows graphs if iPhone is tilted. Excellent app. Managed to add local stocks without a problem)
2. The Bible (by Lifechurch.tv. Comprehensive links to commentaries and other online resources)
3. Remote Entertainment (control AppleTV or your Mac’s iTunes using iPhone! Just tried it and it works brilliantly.)
4. Netnewswire (syncs with the Mac-based app - but you need a Newsgator account)
5. Pownce (ha, maybe this will make me update it more regularly)
6. Instapaper (saves web pages for offline viewing - needs an account)
7. iProcrastinate mobile (task manager - works fine so far)
8. Evernote (to go with my Mac desktop version - synced well with my online account)
9. Younote (takes notes, doodles, photos with tagging and geolocation - and it’s free?!)
10. Sudoko (played a game; not bad!)
11. Mixmeister Scratch (play your music and scratch the record)
12. Lifecast (connects to Blogger)
13. Facebook (but of course, how can we do without this?)
14. Othello (haven’t played it in ages. This app is bilingual - Mandarin, English)
15. Moonlight Mahjong Lite (this is the solo game where you click away pairs of tiles)
16. Talking French Phrasebook (ooh lah lah, c’est pour l’iPhone!)

I’m still deciding which is the best Twitter app for iPhone… Maybe Twiterrific or more unusually, GPSTwit.

(You can find these Apps on the Store by searching for their names.)

Apps that I can’t install but am impressed with:

Oracle business indicators. Who’d think such a heavy-duty database company would write a free app for clients to sync with their Oracle databases?

Those who love classic stories, check out the Books app. You can buy books for US$0.99.

In case you’re wondering: No, I did not get a new 3G iPhone while in the UK.

See the poster. Sold out.

And this was at a telco shop in Bristol, not even the main Apple store at Regent Street, London.

Don’t get me wrong - I love my iPhone. However, I think Xiaxue’s iPhone review is totally hilarious and should be taken in the right spirit.

She has a point about the fingernails part, but overall her critique is nothing to get so worked up about. As much as I am a fan of Apple and other things, it’s unhealthy to associate yourself so closely with a brand that you take criticism of it as a personal insult.

Yesterday evening, Walter, Ivan, Lucian and I met for dinner and drinks at Brussels Sprouts, a place I’ve been wanting to try for a while.

In the midst of our conversations, I whipped out my iPhone and demonstrated all the things I could do with it, like taking photos, checking emails, strumming a guitar and recording music on a keyboard (which Ivan liked).

Lucian then unsheathed his MacBook Air. We ooh-ed and ahh-ed…

… and within two seconds (or thereabouts), a pretty waitress appeared beside him and asked him about it. “Is that the…?” “How much does it cost?” and so forth.

After the damsel was furnished with his expert answers, she gave an excited squirm which I interpreted as “Ooh!!! I wish I had one too!!”, and went back to waitressing other tables.

Lucian’s blog has been a magnet for some of my friends in the past, who swooned over the love messages he wrote for his then-fiancee, now his wife. Now it appears that the knight may have a new piece of shining armour in his arsenal.

Luminescent, indeed ;-)

Alexander is attracted by my red-clad MacBook Pro, and ventures towards it. However, there is no fear! For MagSafe, protector of notebooks and small children, is here!

Alexander meets MacBook Pro from Vanessa Tan on Vimeo.

Here they are, finally… after restoring my old laptop’s hard drive.

I have no idea what key I hit, but suddenly, Alex’s voice is everywhere.

When I open a new Firefox tab. When I close one.

When a popup message appears. When I open System Preferences (to see if I can uncheck anything so the voice will stop talking to me!).

It was amusing initially but it’s starting to get a little obsessive-compulsive as it reads out every little step I take.

Admittedly, Alex’s voice is the most accurate and human like. I prefer listening to him over Bruce and Fred. There are lots of things you can make Alex do for you.

But could someone please tell me how to turn him off? :)

[Update: Turns out I hit Command + F5 by accident and that turned Alex on. I’ve just put him back to rest.]

Ivan’s just started one. Sign up at the new blog.

I am actually more of a Logic Pro user but I did use GarageBand initially when I got my first Mac. Thanks to integration by Apple, which bought over Logic, the latest version of Logic feels very much like GarageBand.

What I hope to get out of joining this group:

1. Meet other Singaporeans, or people currently living in Singapore, who are interested in making music on their Macs
2. Share ideas and tips with fellow musicians, discuss the latest add-ons and hardware, and troubleshoot problems
3. Help GarageBand users who may have more advanced needs and would like to know more about Logic

(Aside: Ivan and I seem to be involved in various GBMs… GahmenBloggers meetup, GarageBand meetup… what’s next? :)

This is a list of all the extra applications and accessories I’ve added to my MacBook Pro (glossy) since I purchased it. I will update it as I go along. If you have any more suggestions, do post a comment!

Software

1. iWork, because I think Keynote’s presentations look better than Powerpoint’s. (installed)
2. FlickrExport, because it’s neater to upload photos directly from iPhoto. It uploads the photos according to the names I’ve given it, and not the default numeric names given by the camera. I previously didn’t have to pay for it but I guess it’s worthwhile supporting good software. (installed trial version, planning to pay for full version)
3. Firefox 3 beta, because it already rocks on the PC and looks even better on the Mac, taking on the metallic look that Safari has but with added features. No serious bugs encountered yet. Check out the predictive address input feature, and zoom in on text and images at the same time. Bookmarking is also smarter. (installed)
4. Adobe Photoshop. I may transfer my old Photoshop licence from my G5 PowerMac to this laptop, as I forsee myself editing and uploading more photos on the MacBook Pro. (planning to install)
5. Macromedia Studio. Likewise, I expect to do all my web stuff on this MacBook Pro, so I’ll remove it from my G5 PowerMac. (installed it, thinking of upgrading to the 2008 version)
6. Logic Studio. While it’s currently on my G5 PowerMac, Logic can only open if you have the USB token inserted. I think it is nifty, because that means you could have Logic running on different Macs (e.g. one at the big studio, one at the home studio) and still keep usage down to one machine at a time. (planning to install) (installed)
7. Second Life. Even though none of my friends seem to be using it anymore, I like to log in and take my Avatar for a spin, because this MacBook Pro’s graphics card rocks!
8. Microsoft Office for Mac Despite having iWork, I still have an extra home user licence for Office 2004, and after drooling over Kevin’s review Update: I have upgraded to the 2008 version!
9. Facebook Exporter for iPhoto I wondered if there was such a program, Googled and found it! It is so handy. It can even tag people in each photo you want to upload. And it’s free.
10. Senuti, which transfers music files on your iPod back into your Mac. When my hard drive containing countless music files crashed, I was in despair as that meant I’d have to re-rip all my audio CDs. Now it’s restored, complete with all the track info including the ratings and number of times played. Also free.
11. Evernote, a handy tool that helps you store your ideas, notes, doodles etc. Thanks to Kevin for the link.
12. Dropbox, a user-friendly interface for keeping shared folders between different systems. Works between PCs and Macs. Thanks to Kevin and Coleman for the link.
13. Newsgator, popular feed reader for the Mac. Just in case I get tired of the web-based Google Reader.

Hardware and other accessories

1. iSkin Protouch keyboard protector, because dirt, eyelashes and other little pieces of grit tend to get stuck in between the keys.
2. Speck SeeThru red hardshell case. It’s been catching people’s eyes and some even think the MacBook Pros now come in different colours! Heh.
3. MobileGear USB hub and card reader. This is an old gadget I bought two SXSWs ago but as the MacBook Pro only comes with 2 USB ports, I have to extend it. What’s cool about it is that it is entirely white and glows different colours when plugged in.
4. iPhone. For mobile synchronisation purposes. OK, I just had to rub that one in :)
5. ExpressCard reader that can be inserted into my MacBook Pro slot, so I don’t have to lug around a USB hub when I’m out of the house or office. Anyone have recommendations? (planning to get)
6. *Backup. * Once my credit cards recuperate from the consecutive purchases of an iPhone and MacBook Pro, I will get an external hard disk as backup.
7. Screen protector that doubles up as a matte display. This is for when I go outdoors, so that the screen doesn’t shine so much. Even now, the reflection isn’t too bad. I’ve seen it worse on other laptops. Anyone know a good brand?

America has a glorious ‘return’ culture that I’m not accustomed to. Still, I have a good reason to return my newly-acquired MacBook Pro. At the Apple Store, we had a big discussion with our salesman on whether to get a glossy or matte screen. As our salesman was also an electronic musician, he understood how difficult it can be to look at a glossy screen in the outdoors where it reflects light. So he kept recommending a matte screen.

However I knew I would also be using my MacBook Pro to view photos and videos. I asked if there was a screen protector that could also take away the shine - and he Googled and found such a screen!

So… actually I could have the best of both worlds - both a glossy screen (indoors when doing photo and video editing, where it looks brilliant) and when working outdoors I could put on a screen protector. As time was running out - I had to rush back for Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous keynote at SXSW - we paid up and dashed back to Downtown Austin.

When I took the MacBook Pro to my hotel room to charge, the lighting was dim and I was so enthralled by it that I did not notice it was not glossy.

Only the next day at a SXSW did I realise it, when I sat next to a guy with the same MacBook Pro but with a glossy screen. The difference was remarkable. I called the Apple Store but my salesman had already left for the day. So I spoke to his colleague who said there’d be a 10% charge (over US$200) for opened items.

If so, that would defeat the whole purpose of me buying a MacBook Pro from the States (where I saved money due to the weak US$). But I did ask for a glossy screen and did not get one. He said as it’s their mistake, mayyybe they’d waive the fee. He can’t guarantee it, he has to get his manager to make the decision.

So now I’m heading back to the upmarket The Domain and hoping that the Apple Store there will be empathatic and provide me with the product that I want. If they insist on charging me the opening fee, I’d say forget it. The matte screen is OK but I’ll just be disappointed that my salesman made this mistake.

Update: I took the MacBook Pro, back in its box and whatever wrappings I hadn’t yet thrown away, to the Apple Store. I couldn’t find my original salesman nor the guy I spoke to on the phone. However, a third salesman was there, consulted his manager and managed to waive the charges for me. Feeling happy, I bought a couple more Apple accessories to further protect my new MacBook Pro and extend my iPhone.

And yes - I took my second MacBook Pro out of its box and can happily confirm it has a glossy screen!

i came, i saw, i Conquered. iPhone.

I got the iPhone! from Vanessa Tan on Vimeo.

Spending the past 2 days going from shop to shop and not finding the 16GB iPhone in stock was like an anticlimax. However after calling a few more shops around Los Angeles, I finally found one Apple Store at Beverly Center which had stock.

When I finally bought the iPhone, I went back and Googled for help. Initial attempts didn’t seem to work, then I discovered Ziphone (then saw Kevin’s comment on my earlier post). It was really good! Only thing is, don’t run the software alongside iTunes, as iTunes will think something funny is happening and ask to restore your iPhone.

For part two, YouTube was quite helpful (again, I’ll leave you to search for the links) and with the ‘drop of a pin’ (or should that be ‘push’?) my phone was working! I made a phone call, messaged my parents and sent a message to Twitter.

I had heard all kinds of stories back home, with friends hiring people to saw off their SIM cards. I thought things were pretty straightforward, and I’m using firmware version 1.1.3. So far, there have been no problems on my side, fingers crossed.

Anyway, I am still on the AT&T network. Screen shots, photos and a video will soon follow. Am having trouble connecting my Dell laptop to my relatives’ network, so have to rely on thumb-driving my data back and forth, and using their computers when they’re available. Once I’ve uploaded everything I’ll post them on this blog.

Rumours abound of MacBook Pro updates.

I've owned a G5 for a few years and have been planning to get a portable (yet powerful) Mac for a while - though at 15 inches wide the MacBook Pro may require some weightlifting, from what I've been told.

I'm not tempted by the MacBook Air, as slim as it may look. I'm a power user. I plan to run Photoshop and other creative/graphics programs, as well as Logic Studio on this baby when I'm on the move.

What would make me buy a MacBook Pro soon:

• Updates to Intel processors, namely the Penryns we've been hearing about
• Multi-touch trackpad features, which the MacBook Air already has
• Incorporation of OS10.5.2 which I expect to be launched around the same time

What I wouldn't mind having as well:

• A slight drop in price (wouldn't we all want one?)
• A slightly slimmer body, inspired by the Air
• One or two new features or improvements on existing ones
• Better screens that are also more environmentally-friendly
• More USB ports, if possible. Dare I suggest removing Firewire?
• A built-in memory card reader. Of course I can always get a 3rd-party one, so it's not a big deal
• Better battery life (this is a difficult one)

What's on your wish list?

Having an iPhone locked to a network which doesn't provide 3G connectivity, and is unable to make VoIP calls despite having good wireless networking built in, is like buying a Ferrari and finding that the only thing you can do with it is power your lawnmower. It's nuts - and our regulators have allowed it to happen.

So sayeth the Observer, and I empathise. What's the point of having a state of the art handset when you are only allowed to perform basic phone functions on it, because of the phone company's insecurities?

As I've been using Windows-based PDA phones for the past few years, starting from an O2 Atom to a short-lived HP iPaq 6828, a Dopod 818 Pro and now a HTC Touch, and because I was a Mac user even before that, I've relied on the Missing Sync to coordinate my phone data with iCal and Address Book.

As my system was last running on Mac OS 10.3.9, I was happy to install Leopard because that meant I could finally upgrade to the latest version of the Missing Sync, which only runs on OS10.4 and above.

However, after a few successful attempts at synchronising my newly-upgraded PowerMac with my newly-upgraded Missing Sync, my phone and Mac stopped talking to each other.

I suspected it was due to incompatibilities, and sure enough, the Mark/Space website confirms that running the Missing Sync on Leopard can lead to connectivity problems, not just for Windows Mobile but for other systems too. The company is working on a fix within 90 days of Leopard's release. I will wait for it.

What's strange is that I did sync my phone for the first few times using Leopard and Missing Sync. And right after upgrading to Leopard, I was still able to connect to the Net. It was only after an Apple Update that Airport started giving problems. And perhaps it affected my Missing Sync software too!

So in summary, I have Leopard on my system but 1) No internet connection and 2) no synchronisation with my devices! One step forward, two steps back! This is a warning to all readers... wait if you can until the software bugs are fixed.

In the interim, I should back up my phone data on Outlook which used to be installed on my Dell laptop. However, since the laptop's last major crash, the IT folks upgraded my Office software (which I do appreciate) but the latest version doesn't come with Outlook. And Microsoft ActiveSync doesn't talk to other mail programs as far as I know, so I'm totally relying on my HTC Touch for scheduling now.

A few weeks ago I had 'fantasised' about having perfectly synchronised calendars and address books on my work and home systems. Now it is just an illusion :(

I thought I had fixed my Airport problem which occured after upgrading to Leopard. However, while the network card is now working again, it cannot detect my wireless network.

Things are more complicated. My PowerMac is in my music studio, which happens to be in an old part of the house that does not have a LAN point. My only Internet source is a wireless router at the other side of the house, which I stretch out as far as possible to get the maximum signal. Usually there is no problem for my PowerMac to connect to the wireless network. However, it was only able to detect my wireless network for a brief moment in time before losing the connection totally. Subsequently it was unable to detect a network at all.

I thought maybe some hardware was damaged but after reading forum threads like this and this, I've realised many people who have upgraded to Leopard are going through the same thing. I am surprised that Apple did not do their testing properly before releasing the upgrade. Now we are all waiting with baited breath.

It is certainly an anticlimax, after marvelling at the wonders of Leopard, to discover that it impairs your Mac from doing something as basic as connecting to the Internet. Steve Jobs, are you listening? Maybe you are, and probably you're firing some manager's ass right now for overlooking this problem.

I seriously hope that Apple will release more than a 'Software Update' to fix this, as that assumes we users still have alternative ways to connect to the Internet. I cannot update my Mac this way because it does not have another Internet connection... unless someone lends me a 30-metre LAN cable which I can then wire around the house through the window to my music studio.

I think this problem is happening with various other Leopard users. I updated my keychain today and now my system says it cannot detect an Airport card! What the...

This forum discussion seems to have a solution except I don't know how to go about doing it! I've been on Windows for too long and don't know how to locate this particular file that needs deleting. Can someone help me, pretty pleeease?

[Update: It occured to me where fo find that file. Now Airport is back on.]

[Update 2: Correction. The Airport card is activated, but it cannot detect my home network. It did once but lost the connection soon after. I haven't touched my router which is several metres away. Nope, I cannot use a LAN cable because my Mac is at the other end of the house and it doesn't have a wired LAN point. Apple, I hope you're working on a fix that can be downloaded from another computer!]

I am glad to report that Leopard finally arrived at my doorstep a day later than promised… but it made up for it by being so darned easy to install. I started with my iMac G5 and there were no problems.

The package.

What was inside.

Selecting a hard drive.

It was just that to be safe, the system checked the DVD for consistency before proceeding with the installation. That took quite some time. For my subsequent upgrade of my PowerMac G5, I skipped that function.

It hung on my PowerMac though, which got me worried. On restarting, the system hung again probably because it was trying to boot in Leopard which wasn’t installed yet. I managed to restart the PowerMac and immediately eject the DVD. Then I realised my external hard disk could be making things complicated so I turned it off as well. Immediately, the system started up, and I installed Leopard without a hitch.

What I thought was cool:

1. How my PDF and Office document icons suddenly took on their own individual look, displaying their contents.
2. Similarly, Quick View was handy when flipping through my music scores and notes.
3. I like how I can select a section of a website in Safari and it will display it as a widget.
4. Coming from OS10.3.9 I finally got to play with Apple widgets. Goodbye, Yahoo! Konfabulator.
5. The stacked documents in the Dock is useful. If I used a Mac for work, I’d arrange all my projects this way.
6. Finally, I was able to install The Missing Sync for my HTC Touch (Windows Mobile 6) phone! Needed OS10.4 or above to do so.
7. The latest version of iLife came with Leopard! Woohoo.
8. This is one of my favs: Time Machine. A bit slow because I have so many files to backup, but I think it will give me a sense of assurance. Assuming my external hard disk doesn’t die, like it did for Kevin’s.
9. Things look a bit better than before. Like the icons and the Dock.
10. Full screen video preview.

I don’t have much time to play around with it today as I’m now doing some paperwork… but will definitely get round to it!

What are *your *favourite features?

I ordered a Mac OS Leopard family pack upgrade a few weeks ago and received two emails yesterday (26 Oct) telling me that Leopard would be shipped to my home by 26 Oct. Naturally I was very excited about it.

However up to today (27 Oct) I have yet to see any traces of this feline. To double-check, I logged in to my account page and was told that it had been shipped!

Which leads to two possible conclusions:

1. The delivery man went to the wrong house and someone else is now in possession of my copy of Leopard.
2. Leopard has not been delivered yet; due to the (possibly) high number of orders Apple has been unable to cope, yet their system isn’t well-synchronised and has informed many of us that our orders have been delivered when they haven’t.

Option 2 has happened to one of my previous orders and I am not surprised if nobody has bothered to improve this process since then. Apple Asia standards lag behind the US headquarters. I’ve found more broken links on the Asia website and wonder if Steve Jobs should shake things up a bit.

I have been holding on to the line for the past few several minutes. I suspect that many other people are in the same situation, baffled by the emails informing them that Leopard has been delivered to them when it hasn’t.

Post a comment if you’re in the same situation as me! Misery loves company.

According to rumours, Mac OS X Leopard (aka version 10.5) will be out on 26 October 2007. That means we can upgrade the two Macs at home, and my sister will be able to run Final Cut Studio which we purchased a couple months ago (only then to realise it wouldn't run on our Mac OS 10.3.9).

It will be a big jump for me, I suppose. I don't have fancy widgets because that came with OS 10.4. So I expect to be pleasantly surprised.

Hopefully the upgrade process won't kill me. Better backup all my Logic Pro songs. Or else I'll really cry.

More updates: Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac will be coming out, too.

While I was getting my own vision upgraded, I also decided to fix my RAM problem. My PowerMac G5 was only registering 512MB of RAM when I had actually much more than that. Seems it was a problem of loose fitting and my re-arranging the slots in the wrong order.

Man, I feel powerful now.

Calling all Mac experts! I'm having the same problem that Andy Budd had - the family iMac has been unable to get past the startup screen. The blue loading bar looks like it's 95% complete but it just hangs there. Even when starting in Safe mode, it hangs at exactly the same spot. I can't get beyond this stage to type anything.

I, too, checked out the Apple Support site and did more Googling, but have yet to find a solution. It is not reassuring looking at people's forum posts and not getting any replies so far that have helped!

What may have happened is that a software update was recently attempted, but it was not successful/complete. The iMac's running OS10.3.9 (the last I recall). Since then, the iMac has been hanging on startup. The iMac uses a G5 and not an Intel processor. It's the older version without the built-in iSight.

I tried calling AppleCentre Orchard's support line as we bought it from that store a couple years ago, but it is closed today. Any other ideas as to what I can do? In any case, I will probably call the store tomorrow.

Technorati tags: Apple, Mac, iMac, G5, troubleshooting