WTF: My Calendar Share Stopped Working!
(click image for larger view)

So I tried seeing if I could still connect to Box.net via the web. Yup. Good to go. Next I checked to see if I could still connect via the Finder and WebDAV. Nope. No go. Just sits and spins. There’s the problem: No WebDAV, no calendar share. (I. Can’t seem. To stop. Talking in. Short. Truncated. Sentences.)

Connecting to https://www.box.net: Or Not
(click image for larger view)

After having no luck Googling a solution, I decided I’d try to figure things out myself. And after some poking around I found the problem. And solution. The problem is the “s”. See it? The one after the “http”? There in the “Connecting To Server” dialog. There you go. That’s the culprit. That “s” means you’re attempting to connect using a variation on the http protocol (called https, if you can believe) that transmits over a different port (port 443) than that of standard http (port 80), and that uses an additional encryption layer for security. Seems Box.net has stopped using the protocol for WebDAV communications, and is, at least for now, using standard http. Removing the “s” from my calendar shares fixed them right up.

Best way I know to do that is to select the published calendar, choose “Change Location…” from the “Calendar” pull-down menu, and in the field marked “Base URL:” change the “http” in the URL to “https”. Hit publish, and everything should be right as rain.

Fixed: Ahh! That’s Better!
(click image for larger view)

I’m not sure why the good folks at Box.net decided to change the connection protocol for WebDAV, nor why they failed to inform anyone (as far as I could tell, anyway). WebDAV support is a beta feature at Box.net, apparently, so I suppose we should expect some changes from time to time. Either way I’m sure glad they haven’t pulled the service altogether. Hard to get too mad when the price is so nice.

UPDATE:
About five minutes after posting this article I got a comment from someone named Aaron who appears to work at Box.net. Aaron wrote:

“Sorry for the scare. Dav should be back to normal in the next few hours.”

That was last night. I’m still having some weirdness, but I have to admit to being far too tired to really do any serious investigating. Thus far, I’m unable to connect to Box.net with the Finder using https or http. Neither seems to work. Oddly, publishing via iCal using http does work, but still not with https. Strange. Not a big deal. Just strange. That’s about all I’ve energy to try. Mainly I wanted to just point out that the Box.net folks seem to really be committed to the whole WebDAV thing, and that’s great. And they appear to be listening, which is also great. Thanks, Box.net folks. And thanks, Aaron.

Now off to bed with me.

UPDATE 2:
Not sure when this started working properly, but publishing calendars via the https protocol is functioning normally again. Yay!
(Updated Sept. 4, 2006, 6:30 PM)

Filed Under: Internet Applications MacOSX Server

In a few places along the travails of this series I mentioned the need for a fail over in the event our master authentication server goes belly up. The rationale is that, with all our eggs in the one server basket, if our master goes down, no one can log in — not on Windows, not on Mac, not on Linux. Fortunately, Mac OS X Server allows for what’s known as a replica. A replica is a read-only copy of your Open Directory data hosted by another server. But it’s a bit more than that. The replica also provides what’s known as fail over. That is, if the master server goes down, the replica knows to take over and start serving authentication to the clients. The replica, in effect, becomes the master in the event of the master’s absence, until said master returns to service, at which point the replica gracefully hands control back to the master. You can actually have multiple replicas for fail over, and for redundancy in the event of slow or separate networks. Brilliant! I’ve wanted one for a long time. And now I have it.

Setting up a replica is easy as pie: Set the server’s “role” to “Replica”, point at its master, authenticate and you’re off to the races. That is, if you’ve set everything just perfectly on both your master server and the replica. That’s the thing about Mac OS X server, and always has been: if you set it up wrong initially, you’re in for a potential world of hurt. As I rediscovered last week.

After building my replica, I next went on the requisite testing spree. The test involved physically pulling the network cable from the master server, and then observing the behavior of the clients. Initially, the replica seemed to do a fine job of picking up right where the master left off. After about two minutes’ time, clients could log right back in. But after about 5 minutes’ time, nearly every client on our network beachballed indefinitely, and any attempt to login would hang the machine. This hanging was so sudden and so thorough, it actually froze my machine mid-cube-effect as I attempted to fast-user-switch to the login window. Some fail over! Not cool.

Fast User Switch: Frozen in Time
(click image for larger view)

So I’ve spent a great deal of time figuring out the solution. The logs were no help. Google turned out to be a wash. Manuals? Pfft! For the first time in quite a while, it was an Apple Knowledge Base Article that offered the fix. The article was written for people who were having problems getting a 10.4.2 replica to remain a replica. Apparently there was an issue that involved these servers reverting back to “Standalone” roles after being switched from “Replica” to “Standalone” and back again. Though this was not my problem, nor did any of the symptoms reflect what I was seeing, I finally decided to try the recommendations in the article as they seemed fairly universally applicable, and as I was desperate and had tried everything else. The article essentially details methods for cleaning out every part of the master database that references the replica, and then re-promoting the replica to a clean master. Honestly, my master database looked pretty clean to me, but there was one bit of advice that I was not aware of, and it’s my suspicion that this was what did the trick for me: The OD Administrator of the replica’s database can NOT have the same UID or short name as that of the master. The article recommends creating a separate OD Admin account on the master, and using this separate account when binding the replica to the master. Honestly, I had no fucking idea. Would’ve been nice if this had been more explicitly mentioned in the manuals. Believe me, I’ve read the section entitled “Setting Up an Open Directory Replica” numerous times by now. It’s not there. Fortunately, it’s in that article, and now I know (and knowing’s half the battle).

And now you know.

So, in a couple weeks we go live with our unified internal network. I’ll let you know how it goes.

UPDATE 1:
Actually, my replica seems to still not be working, at least not very reliably. What happens is that about two minutes after the plug is pulled on the master, the replica picks up. At this point, clients — both Mac and Windows — can successfully log in. Shortly thereafter — maybe four minutes later — we start having problems: the Macs can’t log in, or only some can log in; Windows machines log in intermittently — one time it works, the next time it doesn’t, it works after a reboot, then it doesn’t; and, perhaps strangest of all, network connections to the Macs — ARD, ssh, anything but ping — become all but impossible, hanging at the attempts. This is totally a guess, but it seems to me like the clients are having serious trouble binding to the replica. They keep attempting to do so, with some initial or intermittent success, and in their attempts network connections get locked up and the machines bog down. It’s almost like the replica server is saying, “Yes, you can bind to me,” and then changing it’s mind and saying. “Wait, no you can’t. Never mind. Screw you.” Again, I’m only guessing. There is nothing clear cut in the logs, and I can’t find anything in Apple’s Discussion forums or Knowledge Base that specifically addresses my problem. I only pray that it isn’t a problem with my master server, but the master works perfectly, and it seems to me that a replica of a perfectly working master should work perfectly. The current replica is running on a Mac mini with limited RAM, and a 10/100 BT NIC, and I want to rule out potential problems that might be caused by the hardware as well as the software set up. So my next step will be to build a new replica from scratch on a G5. I’ll let you know if that solves the problem.

Another thing I absolutely should mention: For Windows replication, the replica server must be set up as a Backup Domain Controller (BDC). This is done in the Server Admin application in the Windows section. It’s fairly straightforward to set up, so I won’t go into detail, but just for the record, it’s important to be aware of this, and I wasn’t until recently, so I mention it here for completeness’ sake.

Having this replica isn’t absolutely critical to our plan. That is, we can go forward with this plan without the replica. But having a working replica will provide an important safety net that I’d really like to have working as the semester begins. There’s no good way to test it while the semester is in session. So I’m working hard to get it up and running in the final week of the summer.

So much for this post being short. More to come.

UPDATE 2:
I built the new server today. From scratch. On a G5. No joy. I honestly don’t know what the problem
could be. I can only guess that something either broke with the latest 10.4.7 update, or that there’s something slightly off with my master server and it’s causing problems on the replica. But it’s weird, because if I bind directly to the replica using Directory Access it works perfectly, which leads me to suspect a problem on the client. But it affects Windows machines as well, so that doesn’t quite figure either. I hate to admit it, but I’m stumped. And, unfortunately, I don’t have time to worry about it right now. I will revisit this issue at a later date, when I get some time. When I do, I’ll probably post a new entry with the solution, that is, if I’m able to find a solution. I hate this kind of thing. Is anyone else having a similar problem? I feel like I’m going nuts. And I can’t believe I’ve spent so much time on something that should be really, really easy. Fuck. What a bummer.

UPDATE 3:
I’ve pretty much given up on this for now. No time. And no good time to test, what with the students coming back next week. But today I noticed something strange, and it occurred to me it might be related to my replica problems. Today, when trying to make an AFP connection to the master server from a client using a simple “Connect to Server…” I got a Kerberos prompt that refused my admin credentials. Hmmm… Kerberos problems… On the master… Not good… So who knows? I may be rebuilding the master server at some point. But not now. Oh, Lordy, not now.

This post will deal with non-streaming movie creation using Quicktime Pro and its included CODECs. I’m not into all that DiVX stuff, nor am I into other proprietary formats. I am a lazy cheap-ass. Nevertheless, the basic tenets discussed here should apply to most web-video situations. If you really don’t want to worry about all this, your best bet is a YouTube-like solution. But if you’re interested, here’s what I know.

The Basic Idea
There are two basic goals of compressing video for the web, and they are intertwined: maintaining the highest quality and finagling the lowest file size. So, at the heart of it all, you are considering file size and quality, and the relation between these two factors.

CODECs
The CODEC (COmpression-DECompression scheme) that you choose is hugely important to the quality and file size of your video. Each year more efficient CODECs appear on the scene. This is great news for would-be video posters, but it does confuse the issue to some extent. I won’t go into a lengthy description of the various CODECs available as it would only be obsolete by year’s end. I will say that, generally speaking, the newest video CODECs for web compression are usually the best, but they also require the latest version of the media player in order to view them, as you’ll soon see.

Quicktime “Options” Window: Select a CODEC and a Frame Size
(click image for larger view)

A brief breakdown of the latest and greatest CODECs for the web:

• Sorenson 3
  The venerable Sorenson 3 CODEC has been around for years. It’s fairly efficient, creating reasonably small videos at reasonably good quality, though motion and transitions are usually very blocky. It’s compatible with Quicktime 5 and later, so if you need to reach the widest possible audience, Sorenson 3 is a good bet.

• H263
  This is the same CODEC once used by default in Quicktime Broadcaster for streaming live video. It’s a very nice CODEC. File sizes are dramatically smaller than Sorenson 3, and the quality is comparable. I find that H263 enhances contrast a great deal, though, so in some ways it may not look as good as Sorenson 3, but it still holds up fairly nicely. And transitions look better in H263. H263 is compatible with Quicktime 6 and up.
• H264
  This is one of the latest and greatest CODECs. H264 is a variant of MPEG-4 (know as MPEG-4 Part 10 in some circles) and is very similar to the MPEG-2 CODEC used for DVDs. But H264 is twice as efficient. That is, H264 can deliver twice the image quality for the same file size as MPEG-2. Or, put another way, H264 can deliver video equal in quality to DVD at half the size. Twice as efficient. Get it? H264 (or some variant of it, maybe, I forget the details) is planned for use on HD DVDs. But it’s also a great web CODEC. Just remember, it requires Quicktime 7 or later to encode and view.

Quicktime CODECs: So Many from which to Choose
(click image for larger view)

What to Consider
After you’ve chosen your CODEC, and depending on what that CODEC is, you will have numerous options and settings from which to choose for creating video of optimal size and quality. What is “optimal” for you will depend on your particular circumstance. If you have file size restrictions, that will obviously come into play. And you surely have quality requirements that are unique to your situation and aesthetic values.

Despite the huge number of settings available for the various CODECs, there are really only a handful that are of utmost importance when encoding video for the web. They are:

• Frame Size
  The number one way to reduce the size of your video is to reduce the frame size — that is, the actual size, in pixels, of the image. Standard DV-NTSC video has a frame size of 720×480. Cutting this in half will drastically (by half, in fact) reduce the size of your video file. Yet 320×240 is still plenty big by web standards. If necessary, you can go even lower.

• Frames Rate (fps)
  The frame rate (or frames per second) setting refers to the number of video frames that will play each second. (Really. I swear.) Adjusting the fps can greatly reduce the file size, yet has little appreciable affect on video quality. In fact, the video image itself goes unaltered. When reducing fps, frames of video are simply removed. Playback will be a bit less smooth than normal, but this is generally considered acceptable when it comes to web-based video. Reducing fps to around 12-15 can give you huge reduction in file size. You can even go as low as 10 fps and still have things looking pretty decent.
• Quality
  The quality setting refers to the amount of data removed from each individual image in your video, each frame. This affects the overall quality of the video the most, but also has a significant affect on the file size, and is the setting that requires the most care. High and medium settings are usually pretty good looking; things tend to go steadily downhill from there, but maybe not so much that it is a problem for your particular situation. You’ll need to judge for yourself here.

H264 Settings
(click image for larger view)

Do a Test; Do Some Math
That brings me to my sagest piece of advice on this topic: Do a test. Seriously. There’s no way for you to figure out the file size-to-quality ratio without testing it out a bit. There’s no set standard. I recommend copying a minute-long section of your video project to a new Quicktime movie and testing with that. Testing on a minute-long clip will make the math easier for calculating the size of the final file, but you really could use any length if you’re not afraid of the math. You’re just trying to get an average (which is really all you can get anyway, as web CODECs are generally variable bit CODECs whose output will vary in size d

epending on the type of images in your video). So take your minute-long test clip and export it using a variety of settings. You can multiply the minute-long exports by the actual length of your final movie file to get a ballpark figure for the final file size. Find the best balance between these settings — the best balance of file size and quality — for your needs. It’s a pain, but it’s worth it. And don’t forget to write down your optimal settings for next time.

So those are the basic concepts and settings to consider when compressing video for the web. Hopefully this helps someone out. If anyone has information to add to this topic, I’d love to hear about it in the comments section. I am by no means and expert on the subject and am always curious to hear people’s experiences.

New Mac hardware tends to have “growing pains” — usually minor, but still sometimes troubling bugs and problems — that I’d just as soon avoid.

Little did I suspect that bugs would also haunt our G5 purchase as well. After unpacking and building our new PowerMacs, we noticed tiny insects crawling around many of the new keyboards. On Thursday, I went to check on the latest Mac we’d built and noticed what appeared to be dirt on the mouse. Upon closer inspection, this “dirt” turned out to be several tiny insects — some very small bugs, and some even smaller “babies” — crawling about the Mighty Mouse. These same bugs could be found swarming all over the Mac’s case. Truly disturbing!

I have no idea what sort of bugs these things are, nor from whence they came. Did they come from the manufacturing plant? From the distributer? I couldn’t say. But a few hours after discovering the latest batch, they had altogether disappeared. While I wish I’d had a chance to take a picture for reference, I can’t say I’m sorry to see them go. Here’s hoping they don’t reappear in a few months, giant-sized and man-eating.

Just when I thought my job couldn’t get any weirder.

My basic rationale for sticking with the PowerPC platform was the following:

• The PowerMac is a known quantity. We know what we’re getting here. We know it will be great, and fairly precisely just how great it will be. It’s the safe bet.
• This machine, while perhaps maybe not the fastest, will be plenty fast for our needs for the next two years.
• New Mac hardware tends to have “growing pains” — usually minor, but still sometimes troubling bugs and problems — that I’d just as soon avoid. Stability and reliability over speed and novelty. It doesn’t matter how fast the machine is if it won’t boot or it’s in the shop.
• Buying Intel hardware would entail working with, and maintaining, essentially two separate platforms — one Intel, one PPC — each with it’s own separate OS, applications, troubleshooting routines and set of software updates. Our lab is heterogeneous enough, thank you. Adding a new platform would only complicate things more in our already complicated lab.
• But perhaps the strongest argument I made was that, for all these potential troubles, we won’t see much real-world advantage on the Intel hardware for at least the first year of the lease. Why? Because a large proportion of the applications we use on our Macs won’t be Universal Binaries until some time next year. Applications like Maya, the entire Adobe suite (which now includes all former Macromedia apps), and the Microsoft Office suite are all mainstays of our lab. They are, in fact, the apps that get used the most. And they currently run slower on Intel Macs than on PPC. While the performance of Intel-native or UB apps is certainly better on the new Macs, this advantage is largely negated by the performance hit apps running in Rosetta will experience.

The Mac Pro: Be Afraid; Be Very Afraid
(click image for larger view)

After the initial release of the Mac Pro, I started to worry that I’d overestimated that performance hit. But a few sites have already gotten their hands on the new machines and are testing them. They seem to confirm my initial suspicions and my decision to stick with PPC for this lease term. MacWorld raves about the performance of the new Macs. But their tests mainly include native or UB apps. The one exception is the Photoshop test, in which the Quad G5 soundly trounces the Intel. Bare Feats’ tests are more comprehensive, and again show the G5 Quad beating the Intel Mac Pro in all non-native applications. This is especially significant for us, since this includes our most commonly used apps. If you really think about it, at worst we break even, and at best come out slightly ahead in the performance game by buying G5s because of the apps we use. And we’ll probably come out way ahead on convenience and manageability and all those little lab admin intangibles that mean so much to folks like me.

Finally, while factors like the amazing upgradability of the Mac Pro might influence some users to buy the new machine (and rightfully so — if I were buying for myself I’d probably go Intel), such issues don’t concern us. Our machines are leased for two years. We will not be upgrading them. We’re mainly interested in a certain level of performance — though not necessarily the absolute best — and stability. We want fast, reliable, easy-to-manage machines. And that’s what we got.

In two years the transition to Intel will be truly complete from the standpoint of the end-user, and at that point we’ll certainly buy Intel Macs. (We won’t have a choice anyway.) But for now I’m pretty confident that I made the right choice in sticking with the G5. And so far, the users love the new Macs. They are great machines.

Except for the one that shot sparks out the bottom and had to be returned. That one, not so great.

That’s right, intro-net. I’m back. Sort of. I realize I haven’t posted anything in a while. I’ve been exceptionally busy. And I continue to be. But today, luck, fate and timing have conspired to give me a day that looks to be fairly free. So I’m spending my time writing my first post in almost a month.

Lucky you.

It being my first day back and all, I’m a bit rusty and unfocused. So today’s post will a running list of odds and ends — things I’ve noticed, complaints I’ve had, maybe even some stuff I’ve been working on, and then a roundup of my thoughts on this year’s WWDC. Here goes.

For starters, where have I been? What have I been doing? Well, actually, I’ve been on vacation. It hasn’t been all fun and games though. This year my vacation was spent working on and playing in a performance at Lincoln Center. It was a long and fairly arduous process from which I’m not completely recovered. I had a dream about it just last night, in fact. But it went well, and it’s over. So it was worth it. Lincoln Center, baby! How cool is that?

This has left little time for systems work, hence the lack of posts. And now that I’m back on the job, I’m having trouble throwing myself back into the fray. I always kind of lose track of where I was after vacation. And now, with three weeks left before school starts, it’s crunch time. Still, somehow, today I’m the only one here. Everyone else is either sick or off. It’s weird.

There were a couple things I stumbled on over the past few weeks. Really little, tiny things but maybe worth a mention. First, the final word, in my opinion, on the whole Repair Permissions saga has just come down from MacWorld. It’s fairly pro-repair — or at least not anti-repair — yet Gruber seems pleased. Go figure. It’s a very clearly written piece that really demystifies the whole process, and at least to mind, says everything that needs to be said. Read it and then put it out of your mind. Finally.

Second, I discovered a neat little trick in Firefox: Pressing the control button while scrolling with the scroll wheel on your mouse activates forward- and back-page. Control+scroll-up will go back, and control+scroll-down goes forward. Seems backwards to me, but it’s still kind of a cool trick. No, wait, you’re right… It’s dumb…

Finally, I wanted to talk a little bit about the announcements made at this year’s WWDC. Overall, I’m a bit underwhelmed, I must admit. Maybe I’m somewhat jaded after all these years of WWDC announcements. Or maybe I really wanted there to be far, far more attention on the Finder. There was none in fact, which only leads me to believe — hope, at least — that improvements to the Finder are in the pipe, and that they were among the “Top Secret” features Steve Jobs mentioned in his presentation of Leopard.

The new Mac Pros look incredibly sweet. But then, each iteration of the pro Mac line looks exponentially sweeter, so I’m not floored. Plus, my now aging PowerMac dual G5 still feels like plenty of computer for anything I need to do. It handles it all without complaint and still feels fast. Underscoring my lack of enthusiasm, Apple now tends to release new pro hardware right after I buy my new Macs for the lab. This is fine, actually. I kind of like to stay just short of the bleeding edge here, preferring stability to speed and novelty. Getting a known quantity (we bought Quad G5s) just makes everyone’s life easier. But It’s hard to get excited about new hardware when you don’t need any. Also, Apple has really been focused on the Intel transition, I think, so we’re not really seeing many (any?) new products. Mostly what’s been announced lately — and this year’s WWDC is no exception — has been product revisions and speed bumps. Fine ones to be sure, but not exactly what I’d call exciting, and nothing that will change my life any time soon. *Yawn*

Some other things I noticed while watching the WWDC keynote:
Phil Schiller said, “Our [Intel] transition is complete.” While Apple’s transition may be complete, the transition for users is not. Apple is right to be proud of this amazingly swift transition to Intel chips. They’re unbelievably good at this sort of thing, and it’s one of the aspects of the company that keeps it fresh and alive and constantly moving forward. But make no mistake: the transition for users is still in progress. Many major applications are still PPC-only and must run in Rosetta, negating many of the advantages of buying new, Intel-based hardware for the near-term. And the OS is not yet Universal. This means that, in many ways, we’re dealing with two separate platforms when we mix PPC and Intel Macs. Each platform must have a different OS and applications. In a lab setting this complicates matters a great deal. So, I think for users and lab admins the transition is just getting started. Once all apps are Universal and the Universal Leopard is out, then we can start to call this thing done. But as it stands, there is still a lot of work ahead.

Along these lines, as yet there has been no Intel-compatible version of Mac OS X Server. But I noticed that you can configure your new Mac Pro with Server — and the new Intel Xserves surely come with it — so apparently the Intel version exists. Where is this software? Are there two separate versions — a PPC and an Intel one, as with client — or is it Universal? The answer appears to lie at the Apple Store. Clicking “Buy Now” on the OS X Server page takes me to the store (I can’t seem to get there from the Apple Store directly) where it’s revealed that Mac OS X Server 10.4 is a Universal application. I’m not sure when this happened (did I miss it somehow?), but something tells me my old copy of Server won’t be running on my new Intel Mac mini. I wonder if there’s an upgrade path to the Universal version?

Mac OS X Server 10.4: Universal? Really? Since When?
(click image for larger view)

Another thing that struck me this summer is the fact that this is the first year I don’t have to upgrade my lab systems. Sure, I’m running Software Update and updating various apps. But there is no new version of the OS, and there won’t be for a while. This, as it turns out, is a godsend. With my promotion, and all the various new responsibilities and projects it entails, the last thing I need to be doing right now is testing a new — and, let’s face it, probably buggy — Mac OS, and worrying about implementing it before summer’s end. I have to say, the slowdown of new Apple OS releases couldn’t have come at a better time for me.

The one thing that really did get to me this year was Time Machine. Time Machine looks amazing. It looks like magic. It looks like… Well, it kind of looks like a toy, actually. It’s almost deceptive how childlike Apple has made some

thing that, for many users, is an essential yet often vexing task. While I think the UI for Time Machine is ultra-cheesy (though no less so than Dashboard), I also think it’s immediately and intuitively understandable. And for something like backups, that’s no small feat. It may be somewhat garish-looking, but I think it’s about twelve billion times more attractive and user-friendly than something like Retrospect. It’s a look I could learn to love for it’s personality. Here’s hoping it works as well as it appeared to in the the presentation. No one but Apple could make backups so intuitive, so appealing and so fun. Yes, fun. Makes me almost want to lose some documents.

And speaking of cheesy graphics, Core Animation looks great. I’ve little doubt that Core Animation will be used to great success. I’ve also little doubt it will be abused by bad UI designers. Can I just say? Brace yourselves for the cheese.

Spaces also looks cool. I’ve never been a big virtual desktops kind of guy. But once it’s baked into the OS, I may end up taking advantage of it after all. It looks like Apple’s done a great job with it. One thing: Some folks are complaining that Apple tends to steal existing ideas from small software developers and put them in OS revisions. I don’t really think this is always fair. Here’s how I see it: Apple puts out the OS. Things — like, oh, I don’t know, Finder labels, for instance — are missing. In the interim, some enterprising software developer comes along to fill the void with a program that brings labels to the Finder. The people are happy. In the next OS release, Apple then adds labels to the Finder, thus effectively ending the need for the third-party solution. Suddenly people are accusing Apple of stealing the idea and putting developers out of business. But the fact is, Apple had labels in Mac OS 9, which is why people wanted them in the first place. If anyone stole the idea, it was the developer who implemented the third-party label solution. But the fact is, no one stole anything. These ideas — Finder labels, tabbed chats, virtual desktops — are out there already. Software developers know this. They know it’s risky to develop apps that could someday be implemented by Apple themselves. In fact, unless you’re idea is fairly original — i.e. not a web page creation tool, not system modification, not a browser — you should expect some competition. Whether that competition comes from Apple or another third-party developer makes little difference in my book. Spaces is just Apple’s implementation of an idea that’s been around for a very long time.

The vague demonstration of Spotlight’s new features has me worried, as I always am when it comes to Spotlight. The big new feature of Spotlight (well, aside from the boolean functionality, which is great) is it’s ability to search network drives. Yes, this worries me immensely. One of Spotlight’s biggest issues, in my book, is the problems it has returning relevant results. When Spotlight searches my huge store of files and folders, the results I get are usually not very useful. There’s just too much stuff there, and its relevance is determined — well, I don’t know how it’s determined, but it doesn’t seem to be very accurate for most of my needs. I have chalked this up to the fact that I have a very large amount of data. Users with less data seem to like Spotlight more than I do. So my worry is, what happens when you add to this already burgeoning local data, the data of all the machines on your LAN, which in my case is about 30 Macs? Surely the boolean functions will help aggregate more sensible results, but I worry that the accuracy and speed gains of the new version will be negated by all that extra data. What I was really hoping for from Spotlight was more ways to customize and configure the app. It’s possible that wish will still come true. I hope it does.

Finally, one other thing I noticed in the keynote speech. It’s something I’ve noticed in previous keynotes, actually. Steve Jobs, at least when he’s onstage, always uses point-and-click to navigate the Mac. He always uses the mouse. Now I can say with a fair degree confidence that I’m a power user. That is, I know a great number of keyboard shortcuts, and I tend to use the keyboard for as much navigation as I can. I would guess Jobs is, like, the uber-power user. And yet he always uses the mouse for presentations. You never see him use a keyboard shortcut. Never. And I just wonder why. I assume it’s for presentation’s sake. I assume it’s to show the average, mouse-encumered user how to do things. I assume it’s also just more visually interesting. But who knows? Maybe Jobs is just a freakishly prodigious mouse user.

Steve Jobs: King of the Mouse
(click image for larger view)

Anyway, as I said at the top, we’re in crunch mode here, getting ready for the return of students to the lab. I’ll post when I can, but expect things to be lean here for a bit longer as I actually try to do some real work.

UPDATE 1:
I’ve found some more information on Mac OS X Server for Intel hardware. Seems if you want to run Server on your Intel Mac you need to buy the latest, shrink-wrapped, 10.4.7 version from Apple. That version is Universal. Previous versions are not. As far as I can tell, there is no upgrade path.

UPDATE 2:
A fellow blogger tells me that the coolest stuff in Leopard is the stuff not mentioned in the WWDC keynote. This is being confirmed by other reports. I’m a bit baffled by Apple’s decision not to include this stuff in the keynote. Did they think it was too low-profile? Not consumer-friendly enough? I thought this conference was for developers. And I’m not the only one who seems as, if not more, impressed by some of the unannounced features than the announced ones. Makes me really wish I had the time to attend WWDC, but it’d be a hard sell to the bosses, I can t

ell you. The timing is just terrible. Oh well.