Category: Technology

Unlike the previous Mac OS X releases, I didn’t have think of getting a copy of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard because I only have non Intel-based older Macs (a PowerMac G4 933MHz and a PowerBook G4 1.33GHz). However, there was something in the ad campaign yesterday that just attracted me enough to push me to get a copy today. The short of the matter is that it is a good release but not necessarily the best. Initial testing (I’ve only got enough time to install on my PowerBook) reveals that it is fast and zippy…but there are small irritating things like transparent Finder menu bar (Hello? Why copy this from Vista?) which is distracting and frivolous. I wasn’t too impressed with the Cover Flow feature when I first saw it in Steve Job’s keynote but I must say, after trying it myself on my PowerBook, that this is one of the better features of this release. It really opens up a different way of interacting with your folder and files.As for the much touted Time Machine, I really wouldn’t know yet because one would need to have a system with more than one hard disk drive to enable this feature.Overall, I’m happy with Leopard as I think that it looks more polished, more aesthetically pleasing. But honestly,  I could have lived without the graphical bells and whistles and just remain with Tiger.

Thanks to the PC Fair in KLCC last week, my PowerBook G4 had gotten a new 160GB hard disk. I’m installing all of the stuff into the machine now improvements in hard disk technology had made my PowerBook to load up faster, reacts more zippily, operate more silently with less heat.

I’ve also doubled the existing size of the hard disk. However, I haven’t been able to recover any of my old data yet. This reminds me of the importance of backing up. Even though I can now surf in the toilet again, I’m heart-sick that all of my precious data is still lost.

Imagine a website that publishes everything that you do, every second of everyday. Imagine that your information to this website can be gathered via the phone, web, instant messaging or e-mail. This is the premise of Twitter.com, a social networking/web 2.0 (pick your own favourite jargon) web service. I’ve created an account and so far I have submitted 9 entries- 2 via SMS to a UK Orange number.

It is a pretty easy setup with very low barrier of entry for any company that intends to replicate the same model. All one needs is a web journal publishing engine that is integrated to a content database. It is also quite easy to build the engines to obtain information from web forms, IM, e-mails and SMSes.

I first read about Twitter in Wired Magazine (in fact there are 2 articles- one on the creator of Twitter, Evan Williams and one on the phenomenon) and forgot about the name all together. I recalled it was “Tweet” or something like that. Anyway, I stumbled on it again today when I was googling away at work to find ways to increase international SMS traffic.

For the uninitiated, Evan Williams is the kajillionaire who created and later sold Blogger to Google. Seeing that the barrier of entry is relatively low, what is the business model for Twitter anyway? What does it hope to achieve? Don’t get me wrong, I love the service- it’s fun and addictive at the same time. It serves critics to know that Williams was probably laughed at on the on-set when he created a website to publish peoples web logs about themselves. Now, he’s probably laughing all the way to the bank- or not. Why don’t we head down to his twitter to find out?

After a painless upgrading process that took less than 15 minutes, Rambling Thoughts is up again! Damn, WordPress is that good!

I’m upgrading my site to WordPress 2.2. Site will be down for 15 minutes.