Giving up on Leopard and “Upgrading” back to Tiger. November 23, 2007
Posted by atharkhan in : Personal, Review, Tech , add a commentFor a company that uses outdated CRT monitors with BSOD screens as their PC icons, and finds endless joy in bashing Vista in every commercial, Apple has released an unbelievably buggy operating system in Leopard. The very first day I used it, Leopard’s Finder Bug caused me to lose about 20 GB of music and school lectures. Then, it couldn’t seem to keep an NFS share mounted for more than 10 seconds. When I brought the first issue up to a some friends, their response was “I never move data. I always copy it and then compare it before deleting.” Really? THATS how much latitude we are giving Apple now? This is an operating system people — not a cheap plastic toy from a dollar store. One friend suggested updating firmware. Another suggested wiping out Tiger completely and reinstalling Leopard from scratch. Even after those two steps, Leopard continued to crash at least once a day. When it worked, it would hang on the most minor of file manipulation operations. I don’t think I have ever seen the psychedelic wheel this much in my life. So, today, I wiped out my computer and went back to Tiger. That was the OS that convinced me to move to the Mac platform anyway. It still works just fine for me. So, as Apple phrased it in this commercial, I have “upgraded to an older, more familiar experience.” Talk about “early adopters facing some minor challenges.” From now on, just like we all do with Microsoft, I am going to wait for Leopard Service Pack 2 before I try it out again.
Kindle: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device November 22, 2007
Posted by atharkhan in : Personal, Review, Tech , 2commentsI read about Kindle on Amazon’s homepage. It seemed intriguing enough so I checked out the Kindle Product Page and viewed a few videos. The website states that Kindle is sold out and will be available only on a first-come, first -served basis. I am surprised that it is sold out because the product simply doesn’t make sense to me. The only reason I would buy one would be if I could get all my college textbooks on it. Then, I suppose it would be an attractive product.
I am all for gadgets and will buy the most ridiculous, overpriced toys (e.g. a Segway) and Kindle’s included broadband service does seem to justify some of the cost. Still, I just don’t see myself forking over $400 for a Kindle. The 500+ reviews on Amazon are (as an aggregate) hovering at a 2.5/5.0 stars. That tells me that the product is getting a very lukewarm reception. What do you think of it? What do you think of Electronic Book Readers in general? Would you pay for one? If so, how much? Would you change your mind if all your college textbooks were available for such a device?
-Athar.
Leopard’s Finder Seems Unstable November 19, 2007
Posted by atharkhan in : Personal, Tech , 5commentsA few days ago, Leopard lost about 20% of my data during a move operation from a NAS drive to the local disk. When I searched around, I found that other people had also had problems with Leopard’s Finder. Now, I am noticing that even when dealing with the local disk, if the OS encounters a file which it is unable to handle, it simply hangs. The Copy command basically stays where it is without moving forward or timing out. Also, during one copy operation, the OS crashed.
All of this makes me wonder whether I should downgrade to Tiger. I had issues with the file management on Tiger but only when dealing with a NAS — never on the local disk.
Has anyone else had similar issues with Leopard? Did you decide to decide to downgrade to Tiger or stay with Leopard?
-Athar.
