Shame we have to let the users move into the building tomorrow morning.

Uh-huh, yeah, sure:

From: News@InsideApple.Apple.com
Subject: Leopard. Easy to install. Just say go.

So advanced, it practically installs itself.
...

The Yurikamome line is short, and its elevated train cars are completely automated. And the announcements at each station are voiced by anime voice actors. First column, first row: Masumi Asano. First column, second row: Maria Yamamoto. Fourth column, third row: Mikako Takahashi.

As we were discussing preparations for our upcoming trip to Japan, friend Dave remarked, “of course, you’ll have to teach me a few things to say in Japanese”. He is a long-time anime fan, so he’s got some basics, but just in case, I’ve prepared a refresher course. Evil laugh.

[downsampled quite a bit and converted to mono, to compensate slightly for the fact that it’s copyrighted music. Artist: Minimoni]

When you switch between open applications by clicking their icon on the dock or using Command-Tab, Spaces switches you to the space where that application has an open window.

If that application has windows open in more than one space, it alternates between them. So, if spaces 1 and 3 contain open Finder windows, and spaces 2 and 4 contain open Terminal windows, switching back and forth between the two will show you all four spaces in a consistent, predictable order.

Except when it doesn’t. Currently, I’ve got a set of windows Spaced out where repeatedly pressing Command-Tab takes me on a very peculiar tour: 1, 5, 2, 4, 1, 5, 1, 5, 1, 4, 2, 4, 1, 4, 2, 5, 1, 5, 1, 5, 2, 5, 1, 5, 1, 5, 1, 5, 2, 5, 1, 4, …

Wish list for Spaces:

• visual indication of current space (background color, etc)
• named spaces (#3 is less useful than "build monkeys")
• ability to isolate desktop icons to a single space
• consistent switching

[Update: I killed it! I added a second Terminal window to one of my spaces and started rapidly hitting Command-Tab to see if it changed the behavior, and after a few cycles, Spaces went kablooie. I lost Spaces, Dashboard, Dock, Exposé, and Command-Tab. Fortunately I landed in a space that had a Terminal window, because “Force Quit” doesn’t include an option to restart the Dock (which is the parent app for all of the above).]

[update: Blech: Safari now constructs synthetic italics for fonts that not only don’t have them, but shouldn’t, such as kanji. Just like IE! Oooooh, smell the bug-compatibility!]

Blech: The excessive translucency really sucks in the Dock and the menubar. I’ve got application icons that are invisible, and a multi-colored menubar that varies between mostly-functional and useless. UI visibility should not depend on the user’s choice of background screen.

Woo-hoo: The behavior of Software Update is a significant improvement; previously, it was possible to keep working while binaries and libraries were changing on disk, which had some nasty failure modes. Now, if an update is going to do something like that, the machine logs you out before replacing everything.

Blech: existing WPA/802.1X configurations are not preserved correctly, and the new dialogs are goofy and glitchy. I’m still not sure I’ve got it fixed, or that I’ll be able to repeat it on a dozen other machines. The “strongly-recommended” keychain update didn’t help in the slightest.

Partial Woo-hoo: Spaces works. It behaves in odd, unexpected ways, however, and will definitely take some getting used to.

Blech: the Finder is a mess.

Woo-hoo: adjustable desktop icon grid.

Um, okay: the Finder’s built-in smart folders have potential, but why does the “All Images” search sort the porn to the top?

Blech: why is “Bluetooth Sharing” turned on by default?

Blech: why was my previous firewall setting replaced by “Allow all incoming connections”?

Woo-hoo: Japanese and J-E dictionaries integrated; the search capabilities aren’t as comprehensive as JEdict, but it’s not based on the free Edict data. I don’t know how good Shogakukan’s dictionaries are, but just having a second opinion is often useful.

[yes, this is a test machine; nothing I actually rely on will be upgraded for weeks]

PS: It’s probably coincidence that one of the backlights on the LCD panel started to fail after the upgrade…

PPS: why does the wireless fail to authenticate (WPA2, EAP-TTLS) when I log in (showing connected but with a self-assigned IP address), but succeed immediately if I run “sudo ifconfig en1 down” (note: just down; it brings it back up on its own)?

I knew I’d find a use for my Xbox 360 sometime: Portal. I’m trying very hard to hold off until after we finish the building move and I get back from Japan, but I doubt I’ll be able to resist, between the trailer, the 2-D Flash version, some of the many gameplay videos, and this:

This should never happen on a Mac: “reboot in single user and type several cryptic commands if you can’t log in after upgrading to Leopard”. It will give months of ammunition to the paid Ubuntu shills, and even let some Windows users feel good about themselves (“see! see! I told you the grass wasn’t green over there!”).

Changing how user passwords are stored: good. Forgetting that they used to be stored another way in a previous release: bad.

As usual, when my copy arrives, I’ll install onto a test machine and let it bake for a few weeks. My primary machine won’t get upgraded until we finish moving the company into a new building and I get back from my upcoming vacation in Japan.