Bobbin has priced it at a very reasonable £2.99, and it’s available now on the iTunes App Store. For more details visit the Air Cadets web site.

One such example that I encountered recently was while applying system updates on my Macbook. I ran the Software Update application, and after the list of updates was retrieved, I was presented with a dialogue box stating that I was running on battery power, and that Apple recommend being connected to a power source before installing system updates.

This seemed like a reasonable request, so I popped the MagSafe connector into the socket. As soon as the power was connected, the warning dialogue box closed automatically, without my having to click “Okay” or “Cancel”. It would have been so easy for Apple not to have implemented this little feature, and no-one would have thought anything of it. But they went the extra mile, and it made me realise once again why I prefer Mac OS X to Windows. Windows tries to be user friendly by constantly interrupting with questions or advise. Mac OS just gets out of the way and lets you get on with it.

If you subscribe to the calendar, you can set the refresh interval to keep it up to date (once a week should be more than enough). I will do my best to keep it in sync with the Phoenix calendar, but if in doubt refer to the Phoenix site directly.

The Wacom drivers have come in for a lot of stick over the years on sites like Version Tracker, but personally I have never had any problems with installation or reliability; especially since Wacom added support for Fast User Switching in the previous release. The latest driver installed without a hitch, and works flawlessly. Perhaps this is because I only use the tablet when I’m working. I don’t use a mouse unless I’m playing the Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo. In that case, I have to unplug the Wacom tablet, as there seems to be a minor but irritating conflict that causes the pointer to suddenly jump across the screen every few minutes. I don’t know if it’s a driver conflict or a hardware problem, but unplugging the Intuos solves the problem and makes playing UT a little less challenging.

If you ever have trouble with the Wacom drivers, I recommend the following trouble shooting steps:

1. Use the Wacom installer to uninstall the current driver.
2. Repair permissions.
3. Restart.
4. Install the new Wacom driver.
5. Enjoy.

As usual, OS X seems immune. After examining the page source, it looks like the crash is caused by forcing the image within the page to be rendered at 9,999,999 pixels square:

<img SRC="imagecrash.jpg" width="9999999" height="9999999"/>

It’s a mean trick, but it does highlight yet another flaw in Microsoft’s finest. So, in the spirit of Father Ted, DO NOT FOLLOW THIS LINK.

The developer of Quicksilver (who goes by the Nome de Plume “Alcor“) announced some time ago that the next beta would be a Tiger only release:

As the lure of Tiger APIs has been too great, the next version of Quicksilver will be the first Tiger-only release. 10.4 makes a stagerring amount of new technology available and it would be cruel to hold Quicksilver back.

Since that announcement, Alcor has clearly been hard at work on the new beta. Regular Quicksilver blogger Dan Dickinson has been poking about with a development build of the new beta, and has posted some nice information about the new features to whet the appetite of Quicksilver devotees like myself.

I am going to have to be really disciplined tomorrow and not start messing with Tiger until I’ve got my work done. Wish me luck.

I maintain two partitions on my “main” hard-drive (I have another physical hard-drive that I use for all my work files). One partition (called “Boot”) holds the operating system, user folders, local mirrors of my web sites, etc. The other partition (called “Storage” – I’m all for exciting volume names) is used for all my downloads; installers, guides, reference material, media files (mp3s, movies, photos, etc). I have already copied all the media from “Storage” to my external Firewire HD (which continues my exciting naming convention and is called “Archive”), using the Terminal and the “ditto” command (it’s faster than using the Finder). When the Tiger DVD arrives, I can erase “Storage” (using Terminal again) and install Tiger on to a nice blank partition. Over the following few evenings (or over the weekend if the package arrives tomorrow), I can then start installing all the drivers for critical stuff like my Wacom tablet, SCSI scanner, printer, etc. Once I’m sure they all run okay, I can start loading on all the applications and copying critical files from my Panther Home folder to the Tiger installation. This will allow me to carry on working from Panther during the day, then switch to Tiger full time once everything is running as it should. Then I can erase the old Panther volume and copy back the media files from the external drive.

This might seem like a complicated way to go about it, but it has a couple of advantages. It means that I get a pristine Tiger installation, with only the applications and files that I really need (none of the crap I’ve accumulated in the last year will make the transition). It means I can carry on working as normal, uninterrupted by potential wonky settings and broken apps that sometimes result from a normal upgrade. It also means I can easily cherry-pick documents, preferences and config files from Panther and copy them straight to the new OS as I need them. One last additional advantage is that Spotlight, the new system level content indexing feature, will only need to index the files that I actually need, rather than having to churn through all the rubbish that has built up in dark corners of the hard drive.

I’m also going to give my hard drive partitions slightly more exciting names this time round. At the moment I’m favouring using character names from my favourite Sega Saturn game, Panzer Dragoon Saga.

I’m sure someone at Apple thought that maintaining the French language connection was a good idea, but Bonjour really is a crap name.

• iDVD 5.0.1 Update (2.6MB)
• iMovie HD 5.0.2 Update (2.7MB)
• iPhoto 5.0.2 Update (5.5MB)
• iSight Update 1.0.3 (980 KB)
• Mac OS X 10.3.9 Update (51.3MB)

All these have installed without any problems. I did have to run the iSight updater manually after restarting, as the dialogue window got hidden behind the Software Update window; I didn’t notice it until I had already clicked the Restart button (if that happens to you too, just run the iSight Updater application in /Applications/Utilities/).

Out of habit, I ran the Repair Permissions function of Disk Utility, but it found nothing to fix, even after such a file writing frenzy. No doubt the MacSlash whingers will be moaning about needing to restart after the 10.3.9 update, despite the fact that restarting even my G4 takes less than a minute. Unless you are running a high load server, I see no problem in being forced to restart, especially if it helps to prevent instability after updating system components that are in use.

Overall, a painless set of updates (everything downloaded and installed while I was munching my Shreddies), and a great way to test the download speed of my new 1MB DSL connection. Woot!

So exciting are these new features, I’ve already pre-ordered my copy, and will soon start cleaning up a partition on my hard drive to install it on. I’m not going to risk removing my existing stable Panther installation until I know that all my critical hardware and software (scanner, graphics tablet, and their respective drivers) work with this major new version.

Once everything is installed and running sweetly, I can copy all the stuff I need from my Home folder over to Tiger and reformat the old Panther partition. This will leave me with a sparkly new OS, with none of the unused or forgotten applications and files that are cluttering my startup drive at the moment. It also means I can spend time fine tuning everything in the evenings, but still keep working in Panther until I’m ready to make the change.

I’m not so sure I like the new black theme on the Apple site though. I think it is supposed to be a homage to Spotlight (as per the image on the home page), but it’s a bit funereal for my taste.