Leopard. OS X 10.5. My favorite animal. All one and the same.

So, seeing as Apple’s latest operating system was released today at 6pm, and seeing as how I got my copy at 9am this morning, I was anxious to try out some of the new features. Everyone (and by everyone I mean anyone who owns a Mac) has been reading about all the features for months now, we knew what to expect. We’ve all read how they will affect the world (if you haven’t, start with John Gruber’s Daring Fireball and read whatever he suggests) - but how will they affect regular people? - and by regular people, I mean me.

1. Desktop - First thing I noticed after install was the new dock and menu bar. Everyone’s been whining about these but sue me, I think they look nice. The menu bar sufficiently diffuses the background and the text is still clear, and that would be a deal breaker for me because I use my menu bar extensively. Anyway, no foul here.
2. Spaces - I set up Spaces immediately. I’ve used virtual desktops before on *nix systems and once got it functioning on Windows - that was short-lived. Spaces actually makes it useful. Simple keystrokes allow you to change screens and know where you’re going and where you came from. The Exposé-like switching is also helpful. I use dual screens at work and it handled that like a pro as well.
3. Time Machine - Still setting this up because first I had to sort out my pre-existing backup situation. Before even turning it on, it has reiterated what a great program SuperDuper! is. I have an internal 120 GB hard drive, an external 160GB that I cannibalized from my old PC tower, and a 250GB free-standing external. I name my drives for Swiss cities, so the internal is Geneva, the media drive is Zurich, and then Lucerne on the 250GB. That’s partitioned to share space with a bootable clone of Geneva, and Lucerne is currently cloning Zurich because I had no other need for it. Each night it performs a smart clone, copying and deleting anything from the backups it needs to in order to perfectly recreate the source. This is much faster than simply doing a blind brute copy of each drive each night. Anyway, I’m switching Zurich to be the Time Machine backup, and Lucerne will be the main media drive, co-existing with a bootable Geneva Clone as it does now. Once a few days go by, I’ll have the data I need to evaluate Time Machine.
4. iChat - After my second day using a Mac, I never thought I’d go back to iChat. I was using Adium and it was awesome. Until iChat improved on everything. My only complaint now is its handling of buddy lists - it keeps my accounts separate and won’t let me organize people the way I want, but other than that, amazing. I was bored (relatively) today because no one else had Leopard yet so I couldn’t try out the screen sharing and video effects except on a local preview. (One thing I noticed, Rebecca was right, I wear too much khaki and blend in with the background.) Then when I started writing this up, an invitation to video chat popped up from Matt. Sure enough, the kid is sitting in a basement party with friends around on a Friday night, trying out video chat, same as me. Peas in a pod, I tell you. Awesome stuff here.
5. The rest - New DVD player, better Spotlight, Cover Flow, Quick Look, and the sharing. I’m using all of them. I like all of them. I don’t know what else there is to say.

My co-worker came over and asked if this was “the new Vista for Macs?”. He almost got ran out of the building. I love it so far, and it looks like everyone else using it does too. My parents ought to look out for a Mac Mini under their Christmas tree. No more phone calls of “How do I get this working?” Screen sharing fixes all that. The only opponent would be my brother (Exhibit A). Little did he know, life imitates art.

“Right now, the Capitals is not one player, not two players. It’s a whole team,” Ovechkin said. “This atmosphere is unbelievable.”

[WP]

3 - 0, baby. Season tickets.

P.S. I’m back.

1. I was watching Superbad. This took only 2 hours but I had pains from laughing for another week.
2. I can’t write from work. As debunked by Wes in a post that was for some reason picked up by DCBlogs, timestamp and “when was this post written” are not the same.
3. Hockey started back up.… Monday. So this is valid but only for the last few days.
4. The Bureau retreat. Was a lot of fun, especially considering I am not in the group anymore.
5. I was making this video. Seriously.
   

I also wanted to note that I haven’t really been feeling the comedic energy from anywhere since Del Close. DC, I’m talking to you, but don’t look innocent, Switzerland. Maybe I’ll just have to come over there sometime in February when I’ve accrued enough vacation time and spend 10 days wandering your countryside and reveling in your atmosphere. Don’t act like I won’t.

Also, this post by my roommate’s girlfriend has stunned me to my core. I had no idea this was going on under my own roof.

1. Modified some group policy settings to allow my Mac to connect to user shares on the server the same way my office machine does. I can now edit all my code directly from my Mac in Coda rather than on the PC with Dreamweaver MX without having to remove it from the server. No local/remote issues, no upload delays.* Huge advantage.
2. Dual monitors on the Mac is more useful than one for each. I disconnected the LCD from the tower and used a DVI converter to attach it to my laptop. I arranged the screens so that the top edges are just slightly out of alignment. This means I still have access to the Exposé and Desktop hot-corners regardless of which screen I am on. I then used the new Remote Desktop Connection Client to connect to the (now headless) tower. I put this screen on the second monitor along with the live windows, and the code and other Mac applications are on the native screen. This almost replicates the normal setup except I now have Exposé access to switch between Windows and Mac.
3. Although the new RDC claims multiple connection handling, it’s not solid. I use the RDC within Windows to access another other PCs I need to through Terminal Services.
4. The disparate sets of modifier keys take a little while to get used to, just as it does when migrating from a PC to Mac or vice-versa. However, because they don’t overlap, I can hit my muscle-memory-embedded [Cmd + C] to copy something from my Mac, click in a Windows application and hit [Ctrl + V] to paste it. I can also [Cmd + Tab] and [Alt + Tab] to cycle through unique sets of applications. The list goes on and on.

*Not that this isn’t possible in Dreamweaver, but Coda is noticeably faster.

Various disclaimers: Do all this at your own risk, back up whatever you want beforehand, don’t expose your network, document what you do, etc.

Enabling Automatic Logon to SharePoint Portal Server using Integrated Windows Authentication

1. Open IIS on the server.
2. In the SharePoint site Properties » Directory Security » Edit… dialog disable Anonymous Access and enable Integrated Windows Authentication.
3. Save & exit IIS.
4. Open Internet Explorer » Internet Options…
5. In the Security tab, select Local Intranet and click the Sites button.
6. Click Advanced and add [your SharePoint url]. Do not select Require server verification (https) for all sites in this zone.
7. Close the Sites dialog and click Custom Level. Scroll down to User Authentication and check Automatic Logon only in Intranet zone.
8. Save and exit the options dialog.

Obviously steps 4 - 8 need to be repeated on every client machine, or you can implement them through user policies on the server and they’ll propagate to the clients. Just thought this might help someone else looking to solve the same problem.

I attended the Aperture in Action seminar today at the AFI Silver in Silver Spring. Bahram Forough, a member of Aperture Market Development from Apple, led the 2.5 hour demo. He showed a lot of tricks that sped up the workflow and improved the overall quality of the user experience. I also picked up near 60 pages of Canon & Aperture literature which is a mix of eye-candy (the new Canon EOS-1D Mark III) and information on storage solutions and keyboard shortcuts. We also got a presentation from Simon Bruty, a British sports staff photographer for Sports Illustrated with a number of covers to his credit. Seeing some of his photos on a 30′ screen was incredible: each snowflake kicked into the air by a skiier or the shimmer of the ocean in an aerial shot of a regatta shone through in stunning detail.

They also gave away a couple copies of Aperture, a couple reference books, and two iPods at the end. I didn’t win, but I have two of those three, and I can always buy a book if I need it.

This was my second Apple Pro Applications Marketing Event and I strongly recommend them. They’re free, you get some nice literature and a chance to play with toys you normally couldn’t afford on two years salary, and the demos are usually quite impressive. I must admit, those Apple folks really figured out how to use Keynote to its fullest.

• Next time you see me, ask about the kid on the bike as Rory and I walked to the PATH. That story must be told in person.
• On my way to meet Rory, Danny, and Zhubin for the midnight showing of The Simpsons Movie, I took the wrong train. I didn’t realize this until the train emerged from a tunnel into a cavernous open space underground. The air felt heavy and something quieted my thoughts. I realized I was in the World Trade Center. The scale of that view is unbelievable. It is one thing I think everyone who goes to New York should see.
• I did eventually get to the movie, and in a summer full of disappointing movies, this one was incredible. You really need to go see it in theaters. Don’t blow it off because it’s a TV show and the last few (/ten) years have been slipping. You need to see it in the theater. Far above the expectations of Rory, Danny, Zhubin, or myself. It definitely elicits a strong audience reaction throughout.
• Fun Did You Know? - Did you know the inside of a NYC Subway station can reach 1480? F with a 98% humidity and no moving air? Strange but true and amazingly uncomfortable.

Rory makes a gay joke about Ryan.
Ryan: Rory, I’m gonna count how many gay jokes you make tonight.
Rory: Don’t be a fag.

I read the first section of the book tonight, 60 pages, in about 45 minutes. Certain passages feel slick, like somewhere under the surface the snake oil will come out, but the rest is starkly honest and genuine. It’s a sharp contrast, and one that kept me interested so far. There was an interesting exercise/challenge at the end of the section, and I guess depending on how successful I am with that, I’ll know whether to keep reading.

[Rest of set]

Last weekend (which seems like just a few days ago), we went up to New Jersey for the annual Independence Day Family Reunion.

[Rest of set]

By the way, I’m not a Harry Potter geek but it was a lot better than Transformers, that much is for sure.