FoxBoom!

In Mac OS, if you’re trying to mount a shared folder from a Windows Vista machine and you see “The volume ‘whatever’ could not be mounted.” then it could be that you haven’t assigned any guest permissions on that folder. In Vista, right-click on that folder and select “Share…”, then in the “Choose people” combo, pick “Guest” and add ‘em.

If you’ve mounted the folder, but when you try to copy a file into it you see “You may need to enter the name and password for an administrator on this computer to change the item names ‘whatever’.” then you might not have actually entered your real username. In Vista, right-click on the folder and select “Properties…”, then click the “Security” tab. In the “Group or user names” list, look for your Windows account name; the username you need to enter when you mount the folder is in brackets after your name. So, in the list, if you see “AdminVixen (VIXENBOX\fox)” and your Windows account name is “AdminVixen” then your username when you mount the folder is “VIXENBOX\fox”.

And once, I mounted the folder but files I copied into it disappeared immediately. I suspect I put the wrong password in, but I’m not sure.

Also, if you want to install a VNC server on your Vista machine, UltraVNC works a treat for me. RealVNC doesn’t.

AND NOW YOU KNOW.

I promised I’d write something about Leopard, but honestly… it’s just like 10.4, except:

• It’s faster.
• Some bits look nicer.
• Some bits look worse.

The “faster” bit is great, and was totally worth paying for the upgrade. Finder is a hundred(-ish) times faster, Spotlight is a billion (-ish) times faster, Dashboard is a gazillion (-ish) times faster. Everything opens faster. Quick Look is fast. Spaces is fast.

If you’ll forgive me for being blunt, it’s fast.

And on the whole, it looks nicer too. It’s nice that all the classic/stainless steel/whatever window styles have been consolidated into just one style. Stacks look great. The big new help search pointer… thing… looks great. The new Finder sidebar is so much more usable than the old one.

Some bits, though, do look awful. The new Dock looks cheap (though is easily fixed). The new window titlebar buttons are too garish, and the new folder icons… just don’t look right.

But hey, these are minor things. The only killers for me right now are:

• .Mac sync is currently fucked.
• Drop-down controls in Firefox are fucked.

In a nutshell, it’s a superb upgrade. And some guy I said hi to on Gaydar just clicked the “I don’t like you” button, which has nothing at all to do with Leopard but has killed my mood.

Since the list of the 300+ new features in Mac OS 10.5 was published, I’ve been telling anyone who’ll listen that it seems to be a great upgrade, but not compelling enough to buy immediately.

Time Machine’s gonna be a life-saver, but who cares about the new Mail stationery? QuickLook will be marginally useful, but the semi-transparent menu is awful and the new dock really fucks me off.

Now, the new Finder is pretty interesting, the new security features are comforting, and the speed and stability improvements are… wait, was I going to say “compelling”?

Oh dear, I appear to have just bought a copy to arrive before 1pm tomorrow. See y’all on the flipside!

The Mac OS 9 installer intro video gets straight to the point, while 10.0 - 10.2 were a much more chilled-jazz affair, then 10.3 went all pop.

Hearing the tune in 10.4’s intro video is like the smell of a new car, or the feel of a new sofa. It’s all refined, polished and comfortable, and LOOK! It’s a SPOTLIGHT because that’s the NAME OF A NEW FEATURE!

But anyway, the video for the current developer build of 10.5 is in FUCKING SPACE, MAN, and space is COOL!