Day by Day

I know that I’ve mentioned my MB’s lagging Airport dropout issues in the past, but never extensively blogged about them. It was that issue, added on top with a sound-based issue and a small crack in the topcase of the MB that led Eric and I to take the machine to the Rosedale Apple Store Weds. evening. I’d already clean-installed the OS, so I was pretty sure that the problems weren’t software.

The single second that the genius saw the crack she said that they’d replace the topcase. And due to my extensive (excessive as Eric might call it) logging of both the sound and the airport problems it was pretty clear that a hardware failure was the key culprit for those issues. It took her just a few minutes to explain that they’d replace the Airport Card (for the airport dropouts), the logic board (for both issues) and the topcase for the defect-based crack. She pointed out that the repairs should be completed by next-Wednseday (July 9th), but if the repair goes anything like what Mary’s MBP got, then it has a good chance of being done before school begins again on Tuesday. I’ve been closely tracking the repair online and they say that the repair status is “Repair in Progress”, so it hopefully will be done by the end of the weekend (they’re also working today). I do have my mom’s old PowerBook G4 (10.5-based) to use in the meantime.

The problems with the PowerBook G4 and school are the lack of battery life, the weight, the keyboard (keys rubbing off and the “closeness” that the MB keyboard doesn’t have), and other little things. I would be able to use it for school (if I had to), but as it would need to be tethered to a power outlet that would make it more annoying. Hopefully I’ll end up with my MB before Monday evening, and regardless of that hopefully the repairs will have fixed the problems (that would make me feel like Leopard is a more stable OS as well as the issues not annoying me anymore). Enjoy, Alex.

Well, today is the 4th of July and as such is most definitely a vacation day. As the day progresses a few things have come to mind:

1. My family actually didn’t do anything for the 4th of July last year while we were in Austria.
2. (Semi-annoyingly) Hoping that my MacBook’s repairs are done by Tuesday (more on that in another post).
3. … … … (not much else as of this writing).

I know that Mary has decided that as it’s a holiday she’ll be taking a break from doing her overdue writing and instead bake (stuff…) and spend time with us. All in all, this 4th of July has started out quite nicely and I hope that the same is going for you. Enjoy, Alex.

When Apple releases any software updates one question I always have (either before or after the installation) is what files/ folders were actually modified. After the files are written to the disk in a Software Update or Installer installation a “receipt” is written to disk to tell the installation system (both Installer and Software Update) what versions of what software is currently installed on your system. These receipts are saved to the /Library/Receipts folder. The /db subfolder in that folder contains the database that the installdb process reads to actually know the software that’s installed. The root of that folder and the /boms subfolder both contain the actual receipt files. These are the files to examine to know what files a software update or normal software installation has installed. But, the trick is that just double-clicking the files won’t work (the .pkg files in the root of this folder open like the original installers and Installer.app quits saying that the installer you launched is a receipt, and the .bom files in the /boms subfolder open in TextEdit.app as random, unreadable, text). So, to be able to read them in a sensible way you need to install the Suspicious Package QuickLook plugin. This will allow you to simply press the spacebar when you have a receipt selected and a simple-to-use interface will pop up in QuickLook that lets you browse the filesystem of files that will get (or got) installed onto your system. From there you can view that same tree in a Finder window to make sure that it did in fact install the file. It is a useful way to understand what Apple is actually updating when, say, the 10.5.4 update is downloaded onto your Mac (or what was updated if you QL the receipt after installation). Enjoy, Alex.

Just within the hour Apple has released the next point release of Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.4). This update supposedly adds support for MobileMe, but I haven’t seen any GUI elements that hint at that yet (but the .Mac prefpane was updated during the installation). Here are some snippets from Apple’s official release notes that stand out for me…

Addresses AirPort reliability issues with 5GHz networks.
Addresses an issue that may result in a partially installed X11 application.
Includes additional RAW image support for several cameras.
Resolves an issue with saving and reopening Adobe Creative Suite 3 files on a remote server.
Addresses an issue in which switching from a space with a Finder window keeps the Finder as the active application instead of the application residing in the destination space.

Unlike with most restart-required updates, I’ve already installed 10.5.4 in the leading-up time until I go to an Apple Genius Bar for a crack in the palmrest, Airport issues (that I may have just installed the fix for), and a sound problem. I do, however, strongly urge you to not install this update until it is clear that it is all fine (or at least backup before installing it). Enjoy, Alex.

I’m in a year-round school, and so I’m still in school. Just today I finished a project that I did on a speech in the play “The Tragedy Of Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare. The project was simply to read and translate/ interpret one of the many speeches in the play, I chose the one entitled “Our Course Will Seem Too Bloody” by Brutus. The above link will take you to the written components for the project (an audio recording of me reading the speech was and will never be made). Feel free to use the comments of this blog post to provide me with feedback on the translation and interpretation that I wrote based on the speech (which is also linked from the linked page). Enjoy, Alex.

Because of the stroke I had at birth, I’ve been told (and have always believed) that my left eye has no vision abilities because of nerve damage. Two Friday’s ago I saw the neurologist, she wasn’t there (some kind of emergency), so I saw an intern/ student (along with her normal nurse) instead. In her official report about the visit that came in the mail yesterday she mistakenly(?) said that I have limited vision in my left eye. That triggered Eric and I to do a quick test at the dinner table yesterday. He covered my right eye with a towel (or something) and waved his hand with the free arm. To both of our astonishment I could sense (see) the motion with my left eye alone. Later that day we did further tests while video chatting with Mary (whose on a work-related trip). In those tests, I could not only see the motion, but also the colors of what she was doing. During some of the tests I honestly believed that I was involuntarily cheating, that makes sense if I’ve had this limited vision for my left eye for the past 16 years without knowing it then it’d become a part of my vision, so I’d consider it my right eye’s sight, when amazingly enough it’s my left eye’s sight. That was the most amazing revelation that I’ve come across in the past few weeks (maybe months). It’s been 16 years and 2 months that we’ve essentially thought that my left eye had no vision abilities, and now (well, yesterday, actually) we found out that it in fact can see well enough to sense motion and color (two basic elements of human vision). Enjoy, Alex.

For those of us with Intel Mac laptops (MacBook Air, MacBook, and MacBook Pro) this cool little application may be a fun getaway for you to have on your Mac when you get bored and/ or tired. The application is called LiquidMac and uses the UniMotion library to access your Mac’s internal motion sensor to animate the motion of water-like material on your Mac’s screen. So, you move your Mac around to move the onscreen “water”. Useless app, but kind of a cool idea. Enjoy, Alex.

There have been a few new pieces of news related to both the App Store (and recursively the 2.0 Firmware), as well as Snow Leopard.

The news in connection to the App Store is a launch date of June 27th, not July 11th. This has been hinted at by ARS Technica, but their source is Apple itself, on their Australian iPod Touch page. It has since been removed from the iPod Touch page, but there’s still the chance that the 27th is the release date. One way or the other, Apple would not release the firmware and launch the store earlier in other countries than in the United States.

Also, TUAW has referenced the system requirements for the developer beta of Mac OS X 10.6 in saying that the OS will be Intel-only, dropping the PPC architecture entirely. It will not, however, be 64-bit-only (note: all Intel Core 2 Duos are 64-bit, but not all Intel Core Duos).

Again, more news stemming from WWDC will make it’s way onto my blog as I learn of it (and have time to post it here). Enjoy, Alex.

This afternoon Apple sent out Airport Utility v5.3.2. The release notes are sparse enough to simply say compatibility and general fixes. It updates two applications:

Airport Utility in /Applications/Utilities
Airport Base Station Agent in /System/Library/CoreServices

The update is 10.5 MB in size and does not require a restart. Enjoy, Alex.

Earlier this afternoon Apple released iMovie v7.1.2 and iDVD v7.0.2.

iMovie has general compatibility fixes (QuickTime 7.5?), overall stability issues (the Color issue evident w/ 10.5.3?), and addresses a number of other minor issues.

iDVD has general compatibility fixes (QuickTime 7.5?), overall stability, and a number of minor issues.

Niether update shows up in Software Update unless you already have QuickTime 7.5 installed. Enjoy, Alex.