On Another Topic Entirely...

Hey, so here's a post that has absolutely nothing to do with operating systems whatsoever. I'm so psyched.

(And yes, this will be a rant.)

First off, let me say, I'm a huge Final Cut Pro fan. I use it in my work, I teach a class in it, and I use it for personal projects. I've been using and loving it since version 1. In the school where I've worked for five years, I've managed to evangelize so effectively on the part of Final Cut, that when I started working in my department, Media 100 was the dominant editing software in my department, and now it's Final Cut across the board. I love it like an old friend. I feel that level familiarity with it. And I'm proud to be a Final Cut user.

That said, there's a feature I've been longing for in Final Cut Pro for quite some time now. I know I'm not the only one: I took a survey at some online FCP forum, god-knows-how-long ago, and it was among the top feature requests. I also spoke to someone who is a beta tester for FCP, and he also said it was a very popular feature request, and that, "It's coming." I was pretty sure that version 5 would include my feature. But after downloading a crack of the latest version (my department still has not received any software, which will be a perennial theme on this blog) I found that this feature had again managed to be excluded. What's the feature, you ask? Simple: Per-project scratch disks.

I'll explain.

When you first open Final Cut, you are prompted to choose the location of your scratch disk. The scratch disk, in case you don't know, is the place where, most importantly, all your captured media, among other things, goes. Anytime you capture from tape and digitize footage into Quicktime movie files, they go into the folder you've chosen as your scratch disk, into a subfolder named after your project. Now this is all fine and good, but file management in Final Cut -- and in video projects in general -- can be a real bitch. You've got all your project files, and you've got all these media files, and they're all over the place. This is actually true in all sorts of workflows -- graphics, web, audio, you name it. And many applications include utilities for managing media. Quark's "Collect for Output" is a good example: It takes all the media needed for a given project and puts it all into one folder for easy transport to a printer or client or wherever you may need to take it. Final Cut itself has a similar feature, the Media Manager, that allows you to do much the same thing. In fact, most programs that rely on multiple media files spread across the hard drive have some sort of media management tool. Great. I like this.

Now back to my feature request, again: per-project scratch disks. This seems to me an obvious solution to at least part of the media management problem. I tend to keep all my projects in seperate locations. Makes sense, right? You want to look at items that have something to do with your "Great Big Humongous Boil" project, say, so you go to the folder "Great Big Humongous Boil," and there it all is. But if you're using Final Cut, it's not. In fact, a significant portion of it -- perhaps the main ingredient, the video clips -- are not there. They're in the scratch folder. Now for some people this is fine. I understand the desire to keep this media seperate from the projects themselves. There's a logic to that, and it's justified. But there's also a logic to wanting to keep the media together with the project. This is clearly something Apple is aware of, that's why they give you the option to consolidate all your media using the Media Manager. But if you know you want all your media and project files stored together before you even start a project -- and I know a lot of people who do -- it would be much simpler and smarter if we had the option to decide this at the outset of any new project, and it would save a whole lot of error-prone media management after the fact. Seems to me like managing your media from the get-go is usually the best way to go if you can swing it. And, by the way, Media 100 had this option.

So Final Cut 5 is out now, and still no per-project scratch disk setting. We've got all the new, admittedly great, productivity features. The real-time capabilties alone are simply phenomenal. But it's this one, tiny, little feature that would really mean the world to me. And I can't, for the life of me, figure why, after all this time, it's been ignored. As a user I would consider it a huge boon, and as a teacher of the software it would dramatically simplify explaining the scratch disk concept. (Do you have any idea the sort of confused-puppy stares I get when I tell students, "Your Quicktime movies will get stored in this arbitrarily determined folder on such-and-such a drive, but you should store all your projects in another place?") I suppose the obvious solution is to keep your projects all in the same Final Cut Pro Documents folder that the scratch disk is set to. But what if you have projects on multiple drives? Or what if you just plain want to organize things in a way that makes sense to you, rather than in the way that Apple has deemed it best you do? Since FCP 4, I could set the key command for wiggling my big toe, but I still can't set scratch disks on a per-project basis. This level of customizability just seems so basic that I'm left scratching my head over its exclusion.

I'm no programmer, but this seems like a very simple thing to implement on Apple's part. Way easier than multiple angles and intgrated LiveType. A ten minute job. And yet, it continues to fall by the wayside.

I'm bummed.

Stupid Fucking Safari

I don't know about you, but I've had some real beefs of late with the current incarnations of Safari. One pesky problem is the fact that both the Panther and Tiger versions often have trouble loading pages: I type in a url, or open a bunch of bookmarks in tabs, and some fail to load. Safari says it can't find the site. A simple reload generally rectifies the problem, but still, it's just fucking annoying that Apple can't quite seem to get their own browser to actually load all pages every time they're requested.

The other problem I continually have, though this seems to be only in the Tiger version of Safari, is that my browser window placement is often changed after quitting and restarting the application. People who know me well know that I am a total freak about my window placement and sizing. I have window placement set up in certain ways that work very well for me, and I don't move my windows around. Ever. Having them in consistent locations with consistent sizes makes me a far more efficicient, far less bitchy, computer user. I find the moving of windows pointless and unfathomable -- you want it out of the way, hide the application or, if you must, minimize the window (though, if you've set your windows up properly, you should never, ever need to do the latter). Quit moving the windows around. It's stupid and inefficient. Can't you see that? Find a good place for them and leave them. Do you know how many times I've had users tell me that the Timeline Window in Final Cut had simply disappeared and would not come back? Guess what. They'd moved it off screen. Cut it out. There's no reason for it.

As I already said, I am a total freak. But I'm right.

In any case, as much as it pisses me off when users move their windows around, it pisses me off ten times more when they move my windows around. And as much as that pisses me off, it pisses me off a thousand times more when an application randomly and arbitrarily repositions its windows for no apparent reason. Tiger's version of Safari does this on a fairly regular basis. So much so that I'm really this close to switching to Firefox or Camino as my primary browser. And to add insult to injury, getting back your custom window position setting requires not only that you reposistion the main Safari window (which used to do the trick), but that you resize it as well.

What.

The.

Fuck?

And one last thing: What the Hell happened to the "Bookmark This Group of Tabs" feature? About a year ago, everyone was asking for this, and, I believe, the Safari developers were claiming it was just around the bend. But lately, all's been quiet on the "Bookmark This Group of Tabs" front. This is another missing feature that has me eyeing (and trying) other browsers. I'd put out a call right here right now to go bug the Safari devs to add this feature, and I'd go bug them myself, but I'll be damned if I can find a place to request a feature. Maybe it's this damn migraine that's mucking me up. Anyone know where/how to do this?

Okay. All done.

What I Think of the Tiger 10.4.2 Update

I've been waiting for the Tiger 10.4.2 with bated breath for a couple months now. Why? Well, there are lots of bugs and annoyances in Tiger that make it much more painful to use than one would like. And yet, there are enough good reasons to move to Tiger that I am gradually doing so. I'd heard a lot about how the 10.4.2 update was supposed to fix a great many of the problems, and frankly I was really hoping this would be the update that gave me the confidence to move ahead with Tiger. Instead, it's just pissed me off. The list of fixes is so obscure I'd not heard of most of the listed problems, and I scour the tech sites. Some are even just downright bizarre. After all the hype, I find myself disappointed again.

Here's what Apple had to say about the Tiger 10.4.2 Update, complete with snarky comments by yours truly.

Improvements
This update offers many reliability and compatibility improvements. Here are just a few of the enhancements and improvements included:

AirPort
With this update, logging out of Mac OS X automatically disconnects the computer from an AirPort network if it is using WPA Enterprise security settings (this does not affect WPA Personal WEP-secured networks).

Oh, good. I'm glad we have a new way to get disconnected from Airport. I was getting bored with the old ones.

The AirPort menu extra displays more information when you enable a Software Access Point with this update installed.

Yeah, I know that was bugging a lot of people.

Adds support for AES encryption of WPA-PSK networks, which are supported by many wireless access points.
The Try Again button behaves as expected when attempting to join a third-party, WEP-enabled wireless access point with this update.

Hey, here's a thought: Why not get the Apple hardware working first.

Improves reliability when associating with wireless networks after waking from sleep.

Which is promptly broken again with the arrival of Airport 4.2.

Improves WPA2 wireless encryption support for AirPort Extreme cards.

I don't know about you, but I live in constant fear of any update that affects my Airport connection. They usually seem to break more than they fix.

Mail
In Mail, if you retrieve and sort IMAP mail using multiple email clients, the counts of unread IMAP messages in mailboxes other than what's in your Inbox are more accurate with this update.

Um... So you're saying you've finally taught a computer application to count? Nice.

Addresses an issue in which IMAP messages deleted in Mail could unexpectedly "reappear" after a few seconds.

And you've taught it to delete stuff. Genius!

In some situations, a Mail message's attached graphic displayed as a small blue box with a question mark inside the message window, even though the attached file was just fine; this update addresses the issue.

And display stuff. Amazing!

Mail no longer tries to print an HTML message's remote images if the "Display remote images in HTML messages" option is deselected—the message is printed without the graphics instead—after this update is installed.
This update addresses an issue for Mail in which signatures with graphics were not appearing as expected.

Yeah, what about the problems people were having getting their Mail! Apparently, not such a big issue.

iChat
With this update, you can successfully send and receive AIM messages using iChat after changing network locations (without having to log out and back in)—from wireless to Ethernet, for example.
If iChat is logged in to your AIM account in Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.4.1, logging in to the same account on a different computer disconnects the Tiger computer without warning—this update adds a preference choice to iChat to avoid this, if desired.
iChat no longer states that the network is unavailable if you intentionally disconnect from the Internet using Internet Connect without first quitting iChat.
Improves video framerate for iChat when certain kinds of background processes or applications are running.
Resolves a situation in which iChat could incorrectly report "insufficient bandwidth to maintain conference," even though enough bandwidth was available.

I don't know. The list of iChat fixes is just plain boring. I'd like it better if it said something like, "iChat now has the ability to grant Godlike powers to it's users and smite their enemies." Alas, it does not.

Finder
Addresses an issue in which the Finder could unexpectedly quit if Show Package Contents was chosen several times from the shortcut menu for the same package.

This is a big issue? A problem that affects maybe five people, is difficult to reproduce, and that is easily avoided by simply not opening the same fucking package over and over again? Why don't you just write a patch that address the issue of people being morons. That would fix at least 75% of all your OS problems.

The Finder slideshow feature should now always work as expected.

How very reassuring. You know, seems to me like the Finder slideshow should have always "always worked as expected." That's what that means. Now it either works, or it doesn't. Which is it?

If ACLs were enabled on an SMB volume, a Get Info window in the Finder wouldn't show the Details section when getting info on files stored on the volume—this update addresses the issue.

Glad Apple is fixing Get Info problems on SMB volumes. But what about Get Info on AFP volumes? Or local volumes, for Chrissakes. I guess that nut's too hard to crack, 'cause guess what, folks: still broken.

Addresses an issue in which a supported burning device could unexpectedly be seen as "unsupported" by the Finder.
The duration of MP3 files is accurately reported in Get Info windows in the Finder with this update.

It amazes me, sometimes, what gets fixed first in updates.

Other applications
With this update, many applications, including Safari, work better with proxy servers that require authentication.

Okay. Good.

With this update, you can use Safari to log in to MyAccount on cingular.com.

Okay. Huh? Is this Apple scratching Cingular's back because they're about to do a mobile phone with them? This seems totally out of left field to me. Anyway, thanks for scratching my back for being a loyal fan and customer for the past 7 years.

Safari pages scroll better with this update when scrolling with a scroll wheel (such as one on a third-party mouse or keyboard).

Actually, this is one of the two real improvements I noticed in 10.4.2. Still not as good as in Panther, but acceptable now. Thank God.

Orange iCal calendars, with alarms that go off while iCal is not open, no longer change color after the alarm is snoozed.

What, just the orange ones? Alright, this is getting ridiculous.

Addresses an issue in which Stickies.app notes could disappear unexpectedly if Stickies opens automatically during login (if it was set as a Login Item in Accounts preferences).

If you're still relying on Stickies, you're a loser. Go buy the paper kind. Problem solved.

Addresses an issue for Adobe Premiere 6.5 in which the application could unexpectedly quit when exporting a file.

If you still use Premiere, which isn't even made for Mac anymore, you're a moron, but Apple supports you.

With this update, the Reduce File Size option in Preview works as expected when saving a file as a PDF from the File menu.
Addresses a Keychain Scripting issue in which the "password" property of a key often could not be retrieved.

It's just getting embarrasing.

iDisk, WebDAV
Improves .Mac iDisk syncing after changing network locations—an iDisk could incorrectly appear to be offline after switching networks, causing syncing to stop working.
With this update, you can access iDisk or other WebDAV servers through HTTP and HTTPS proxies.
HTTP/HTTPS proxy account and password settings defined in Network preferences are now used by the WebDAV file system as expected.
Addresses some issues that could occur when saving files directly to an iDisk.

Who gives a fuck?

Networking
Addresses an issue in which some Apple internal modems would not dial, and the PPP log would include a message such as "Failed to open /dev/cu.modem: Resource busy".
Adds improvements to Active Directory support.
Addresses an alert "Error code -8065" that could occur when copying a file through SMB to a Microsoft Windows-based PC volume a second time, if the file had previously been deleted from the PC.
Includes other enhancements related to connecting to and using Windows-based file servers (SMB/CIFS).
Allows Active Directory users with Mobile Accounts to authenticate without being connected to the Active Directory network.
Allows Active Directory users to log in after a restart.
Resolves an issue that prevented Active Directory users from accessing certain Kerberized services, such as ssh, on a Windows 2003 server.
Active Directory users can be given local admin privileges on a client computer, with this update.
Other enhancements

Are all the networking updates for non-Apple protocols? No, wait, there's that one for the 17 people still using Apple internal modems.

Software Update no longer unexpectedly quits in certain situations after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and changing Network Port settings, after installing this update. More....

Whatever. I'm getting tired.

With this update installed, Disk Utility (and fsck) can better resolve "Overlapped Extent Allocation" issues that could appear when verifying or repairing a disk.

This is actually kind of cool, I must admit. An improvement to fsck. Wow.

Xgrid can now map multiple input files using the inputFileMap key, and retrieve results from multitask jobs using the command line.
The Dashboard widget Unit Converter requires much less CPU usage after installing this update.
Improves performance for the web-based Power School student information system (http://www.apple.com/education/powerschool/).
Improves compatibility when using an HP Deskjet 5850 printer wirelessly.
Improves compatibility for HP LaserJet 1320 printers.
This update ensures that periodic background maintenance tasks run as scheduled in launchd.conf.
Addresses an issue in which custom installations from a Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Install disc that don't require starting up from the disc could cause Installer to stop responding ("hang") for a couple of minutes if the destination volume was write-protected (eventually, a "There is not enough space for this item" message would appear).
External disks no longer unmount unexpectedly when switching users, if Fast User Switching is enabled.

Who cares?

Addresses an issue in which after performing a NetInstall or restoring Mac OS X from a disk image, you may see certain files and folders at the root level of the Mac OS X volume that are not supposed to be visible, such as etc, tmp, and var. More....

Actually, this affected me, so I'm glad to see it fixed. Of course it got fixed about two hours after I'd found the workaround. Better late than never, and I have to say, it's good to see little admin stuff like this get fixed. But only when it helps me.

With this update, the ttys file can be edited in Tiger; for example, if you're creating a login hook.
Addresses an issue in which the computer might wake from sleep with a black screen if it went to sleep while prompting you for a keychain password.
Allows users to log in with Kerberos authentication when using an edu.mit.Kerberos file.
These Automator actions are updated in this update: Add Files to Playlist, Add Songs to Playlist, Import Photos into iPhoto, New Mail Message, Run Shell Script.
The AppleScript "do shell script" command has been revised.

This last bit is obviously for the Geeks. We'll take it.

Like I said, overall this update was diappointing. Seems like there are a lot more prominent bugs that could have been addressed but weren't. I can't figure it. And what's worse, this update leaves me completely unmotivated to switch to Tiger. Until the worst of the worst bugs get squashed, I've decided to stay with Panther.

How Stupid and/or Irritating

So, with a nice, fresh, clean -- some might even say virginal -- install of Tiger on my big, beefy, hefty -- some might even say manly -- Dual 2.0 G5 with 2.5 GB of RAM, I'm giving it a go and still finding things that I either just plain don't like, or that downright piss me off. This will be a running list:

• In Mail.app, tabs turn into spaces after being typed, and are not constant in length -- are basically not tabs. This is not a new problem, just really, really fucking irritating. Really.
• Ha! Oddly, you can have tabs in the To, CC, and Subject fields if you cut and paste them in (typing the tab key, of course, tabs you to the next field). Cut and paste into the message body, though, and the tabs become spaces. And that's just really, really fucking stupid.
• Today I had my first Spotlight problem on the new install: was searching for some stuff and got the beachball and the unresponsive Spotlight window.
• After that (don't know if it was actually related), noticed mds taking 90-100% of the CPU. Rebooted. Problem seems to be gone for now. I'm pretty sure this was a bug, as there was nothing I was doing that should have prompted Spotlight to be indexing anything, and if it was indexing stuff, why didn't it continue after the reboot? Yup. Bug.
• I later checked the system log for instances of mds and found this one line that seemed to occur right about the time I had the above problems:
Jun 23 15:35:28 systemsboy diskarbitrationd[33]: mds [158]:24067 not responding.
Yeah. That could do it.
• It's been said that Tiger updates items in the Finder "instantly." This word "instantly" sure gets kicked around a lot, doesn't it? And while it's true that running:
mkdir /Desktop/test
will instantly show you your new folder on the Desktop, there are some changes in the Finder that are far from "instant;" in fact they're downright slow. Try this: Open a new window in column view. Create a new folder. Now rename it something that would cause it to change its alphabetical placement -- something like aaa. Wait for it... Wait for it... Ahh! There we go. Took it a few seconds, eh? WTF?
• In Preview, you used to have a setting that told the app to show any PDF document it opened as full screen as possible. Meaning, you open the PDF, Preview zooms in as far as it can without clipping. This was one of the many reasons I chose it over Adobe's PDF readers (whose names are constantly changing -- stupid and irritating, in and of itself). You can still set this up in Preview, but there's a hidden trick that always takes me forever to find: Make sure View->PDF Display->Continuous is checked. Otherwise, Preview assumes you want to zoom in 100% without clipping the full page. It's just like the old saying goes: when you assume, you make an ass out you and me.
• So wait... You're telling me I can only have one Spolight window open at a time? Yup. That's what I'm telling you. Yes, it's true. Do a Spotlight search and choose "Show All" from the drop-down list of results. Then do another Spotlight search, and choose "Show All" again. The original Spotlight window results get replaced by the new results. Too bad. Looks like if you want multiple search result windows, you'll have to use command-f. And that's just command-f-ing stupid.

More to come...

Everywhere, Widgets

I go to the software download sites every day. MacUpdate, Versiontracker, you know, the usual suspects. And they're great. Always up to date, full of useful products, and information about said products. I actually go to these sites several times a day, just to stay current. And I used to enjoy it. But lately, when I go to, say, MacUpdate, the list is entirely full of what forevermore I shall think of as the lowest form of application: the widget.

I think they need a whole seperate category for these. I mean people think they're cool right now, because they're the latest thing, but I'd venture to guess most people only use a few widgets, and not even very often. Am I right? Am I? But even if people are using them, do we really need seven bajillion little, tiny apps that do one, highly specialized thing? Here's an idea: Let's make a widget that draws lines. Then we'll make one that draws shapes. Then we'll make one that draws textures. In fact, let's make a widget for every function in Photoshop. And then, let's post them all to MacUpdate at the same time, so no one can see anything but widgets, widgets, widgets. No real applications. Just widgets as far as the eye can see. But what about the folks who don't even have Tiger yet? What about them? Tough shit. Move on.

God! I can't even stand the term "widgets" anymore. Try it. Try saying (or writing) "widgets" five or ten times. Gets really annoying doesn't it?

And then there are the novelty widgets. Hula Girl is my favorite widget. Want to know why? Because Hula Girl actually gets what Dashboard is about: novelty and eye candy. I mean compare, for instance, the look of Dashboard to the look of Final Cut Pro, and you'll see what I mean. Final Cut is cold, severe, business-like, and dark gray, making maximum use of screen real estate with tiny buttons and almost no color, or even icons, by default and by design. It's made for efficiency. Its interface says simply this: Let's kick some video ass. Dashboard, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. Just activating it brings it up with an exciting zoom effect. The inactive widgets are hidden away behind a giant plus-sign button. And the active widgets are all over the place and range wildly in color, shape, and general appearance, depending on the function of the widget. Activating a widget produces yet another effect -- the ripple effect that brings the widget into view. Sure it's cute. Sure it's fun. Sure it might even be useful at times. But Dashboard's interface screams one thing and one thing only: I am a toy.