Month: October 2007

That was…interesting

Last night, I wanted to write a posting titled “Break in Line: Internet Cut Off”, but I was too busy talking with my ISP trying to get the situation fixed — and blogging on the iPhone is a pain, anyway. I was too busy at work today to post, and by the time I got home, we had service again…the trouble ticket said that there was a problem on the local loop about half-way between here and the central office, so I guess someone fixed it.

This evening, I was minding my own business when I thought I heard the garage door open. But the noise continued. And then things started to shake. And kept shaking.

It felt like a long time, but it was probably only about 20 seconds before things calmed down. I turned on the radio went to KCBS to listen, and soon learned that the quake was a 5.6 on the east side of San Jose, maybe 20 km away.

According to the USGS, there have been a number of aftershocks, but I haven’t felt any. And I’ll be perfectly happy if it stays that way.

Leopard for me

I visited the Apple Store on Saturday, thinking I might come away with a new iMac. But I couldn’t quite convince myself that I needed it.

So yesterday, I went back and bought Leopard, thereby using up almost all of my iPhone rebate (for some reason, the sales guy only applied $99.99 of the $100 to the transaction, and my receipt says clearly that I have one cent left). I took it home and installed it on the two-year-old mini.

There were no fireworks.

I did run into a couple of small glitches, though:

  • Quicksilver now shows up in the dock; there is rumored to be an update which solves that, but the official site is down, and I’m not willing to load an unofficial copy yet.
  • My userid fell out of sudoers, so I had to log in to my admin account and put it back.
  • I had to change my path to pick up the new system versions of Ruby and Python instead of the ones I’d installed into /usr/local/bin in the pre-Leopard days. I should uninstall those versions, too, but I haven’t had a chance to see exactly what’s been superceded.

I also found it necessary to put the Dock back to 2D view; the reflective shelf effect is cute for a few minutes. And I really don’t like Stacks.

But otherwise, it was pretty painless. And I haven’t noticed any loss of performance.

I still might want that new iMac, but the Leopard upgrade isn’t the excuse that I need to justify it.