RunawayJim.org

I came across an article (technically an opinion piece) this morning while reading through Slashdot.  The article basically says that Leopard is just as bad as Vista (calls it Leoptard, which I found amusing).  Now, I have no problem with Vista, so you might think I have no problem with Leopard either.  I disagree with most of what this guy was saying.  However, there were a few things that I did have in common with him.

First, the crashing.  Yes, Leopard crashed once a day on me… before I installed the Parallels update (released earlier this week), which seemed to fix it (though now Parallels crashes on it’s own, but at least it’s not taking the whole OS with it).  That’s probably what this guy is seeing.  I hadn’t seen Leopard crash without having Parallels running.

Second, the eye candy.  Yes, the new Dock is probably annoying to those used to the old Dock.  However, I like it.  I hadn’t used the old Dock regularly enough to get used to it.  I think it’s slick and shiny and nice.  I think the little blue dots that denote the open applications could be a bit darker or more visible, but I don’t have a problem seeing them.  I actually think, when comparing the 2 Docks that the old one is ugly.

Third, the stacks.  Ok, I’ll bite.  They suck.  They’re annoying and I don’t see why that works better than clicking on the Dock icon and just having that folder open in Finder.  I have also found the stacks to be a little less responsive than they should be, even with 4 GB of RAM.

Fourth, consider any .0 release as “beta”.  That’s annoying.  Sure, with Windows, wait until SP1 is released and things are better.  That shouldn’t be the case.  I heard the same thing about OS X.  Wait until the .1 release is available before upgrading.  Why can’t they just make it and have it just work?  I installed 10.5.1 and I didn’t notice a whole lot of changes.  In fact, I had a change that didn’t work at all.  I went to my brother’s house where he has an Airport network, using Apple’s hardware for his wireless network (as opposed to my home network which cost a whole lot less for a Linksys wireless router).  Anyway, I added his network to my preferred networks and saved it.  Big mistake.  I rebooted and the computer wouldn’t allow me to login.  I had to go in via “Safe Mode” (holding Shift while booting), remove the network, and reboot again.  Then it allowed me to boot (only after removing applications that start on startup, like a MS database thing that installed with Office and iTunes Helper, which isn’t an actual application so I couldn’t put it back).  For sake of truly figuring out what it was, I re-added the applications that start on startup and left the wireless network out of there and it worked.  Added the wireless network and it didn’t work.  Perhaps Leopard just doesn’t like Airport networks?  I have my wireless network saved and it starts up and logs in and connects to the network just fine.

Finally, I’m still waiting for better Active Directory integration.  The Apple people I’ve spoken with say “It just works”.  It doesn’t.  There are things that still just do not work properly (like giving me all my network drives without having to map them myself, I only get my personal drive, but not the department shared drive unless I map it myself, which I did permanently in the Dock).

I would have to say that most of his problems are stupid whining and the crashing is probably related to use of Parallels.  He should download the update and it should then work just fine.  However, since I also have few issues with Vista, I guess I’d say, sure it’s like Vista, but neither are overly problematic.

Verizon Wireless, my wireless provider of choice, was all over the news this week with 2 major announcements.

On Tuesday, they announced (via Slashdot) that they will be opening up their wireless network.  Yes, this is the same company that cripples phones, punishes customers, and does all sorts of mean nasty things.  I would imagine this is in response to Google’s 700 MHz plans.  Some speculate it’s in response to Apple’s iPhone, which won’t even work on Verizon’s CDMA network as it’s a GSM phone and AT&T has an exclusive deal with Apple for quite some time.

What this opening of their network means is that any approved device will be allowed to use their network.  They’re building a facility to test devices.  Supposedly, they’re planning on making it easy for the small business and not just large companies like Motorola or LG.

Don’t get too excited just yet, though.  They won’t be doing this until late 2008.

Yesterday, they announced (via CrunchGear) that they selected LTE, Long Term Evolution, as their 4G wireless broadband direction.  They will begin testing this in late 2008 with possible rollout in 2009.

All in all, it was a good week for Verizon news.  As a customer, I am now more comfortable remaining with them, even though my LG Chocolate is still crippled and I can’t afford their data plan anyway.  Someday, maybe I’ll afford it.

There’s some new news on the grocery store front in Providence (ok, not entirely new, but I’ve been a bit busy to post much).  The old Valueland property on Smith Street in the Smith Hill neighborhood will become an ALDI Supermarket.  It’s a low cost chain, from Germany with very few stores in the United States.  This will be the first ALDI in Rhode Island and the 6th in New England.  The chain is building a distribution center in Connecticut to serve the needs of those stores and plan for future expansion in New England.  They also have plans for more locations in Rhode Island.  This is good news in a year when Shaws closed 2 stores in Providence.

Speaking of Shaws, the article in the Providence Journal that announced the new grocery store for Smith Hill also had a short blurb at the end saying that the Price Rite in Olneyville Square will be moving to the former Shaws location in Eagle Square.  I’m not sure how I feel about that as it still leaves an empty big box.  Also, the Shaws location is bigger than Price Rite.  So either they’re expanding or the location will be split into multiple units, something that was said would likely not happen.

In either case, this is good news for the people living around Eagle Square, bad news for the people that live near Olneyville Square, and great news for the people living in Smith Hill.  The Valueland property is going to be divided into 3 units.  A large one for ALDI, and 2 smaller ones.  The councilman for the area hopes to get a pharmacy and a bank in there, both things that the neighborhood lacks.

Smith Hill wants retail – UrbanPlanet

Grocery stores in Greater Providence – UrbanPlanet

Previously on RunawayJim.org:
The future of Eagle Square
Eagle Square grocery store meeting