A Random Pattern

Everyone else is doing it, I figured I’ll throw my hat in the ring too. Of course, I don’t have much to add other than what I think is obvious. If you want the low-down on rumors, sites like TUAW writeup will fill you up.

So here’s the skinny: This is a developer conference. Yes, Apple may role out some new hardware. Everyone wants them to, but no one’s got any real idea whether they will or won’t. What we do know is that the main focus here is on Developers, and on the next version of OS X.

Here’s my predictions – they fall in line with one of my favorite bloggers, John Gruber from Daring Fireball:
-Leopard out soon, probably before Window’s Vista.
-Improved Spotlight and Metadata features (thanks Ars for making me dream!)
-New eye candy, major graphics cleanup.
-Next step for resolution independence?
-New Mac Pro. Yes, I think they’ll probably introduce it. No, I don’t have any good reason for thinking so, other than aggregate opinion (which is a really bad indicator, historically).

Thanks to someone’s quick camera, we know Apple’s expecting to wow us with the next version of OS X. And that, my friends, can only be good for computer users everywhere.

My wife’s grandma regularly enters all kinds of contests and sweepstakes. Recently she won a brand-spankin-new 60 GB iPod. It’s a generation newer than mine (about 1 year), so it’s half the size and plays video.

I helped Sara’s dad rip his CD collection onto our Mac, since they’re still running an old HP with Win 98 (gah!). Once his iPod was set up, we gave it a test run in my Hi-Fi.

Sweeeeet!

 

Don’t worry, I’m aiming for a Nano sometime soon so I can run with it. Grandma won’t be joining me.

arc90 labs released this cool bit of javascript. You may have noticed me trying it out – I’m still trying to get it right, but seeing how often I segue into little sidenotes I could probably use something like this.

I got Kubuntu installed. I first made the mistake of just installing KDE-desktop and some other important-looking KDE packages. Then, once I figured out how to log into a KDE session (log off, go to “Options” in the lower left corner, select “Session” then “KDE”) I got into IRC chat and learned that the easy way would have been to install Kubuntu-desktop. I did that, and KDE looked much better, had things in the right place, etc.

However, I still couldn’t get Remote Desktop working. For one thing, it was called “Sharing” instead of “Remote Desktop” (as it is under Gnome). For another, as I eventually discovered, I had left the firewall (Firestarter) running. Even though it hadn’t blocked my other PC the night previously, once I disconnected it started blocking that incoming connection (makes sense since I hadn’t made it an exception). For a third, I finally discovered my KDE session was 20, so trying “ipaddress:0″ or “:1″ or without colon obviously wasn’t going to work.

I still don’t have desktop sharing / remote desktop working for KDE, but I can remote into Gnome anytime I please. I think the VNC viewer and/or server might not allow sharing up to 20, maybe it only allows the first 5 or something. I haven’t looked into it yet, so if you know please tell me. I also don’t know why KDE starts at 20, instead of something much lower (the Gnome session is 0). One thing left to try is making KDE default – so far I’ve kept Gnome as default and just temporarily logged into KDE. This whole ‘session’ concept is still a little foggy for me. There are workspaces, displays, screens, sessions….I know there are differences, I just haven’t figured them all quite out yet. I’ll probably blog more on this.

One other item that was frustrating me until someone on the Kubuntu IRC channel pointed out the obvious: My display was just a few pixels wider than my actual monitor’s screen, and it was bugging me. I was looking for a software adjustment, when someone suggested I use the buttons on my monitor. Duh! The guys on #Ubuntu and on #Kubuntu have helped me out a few times, and I appreciate the community support. Sometimes the only solution is to figure it out yourself, but at least they’ll give you moral support.