Tetsuo Time

Current Desktop in Lion 10.7:


Mission Control Shot:



So I've been using Mac OS 10.7 Lion for a couple of days now... some people are bashing it especially those who haven't even used it yet. I have though and I think it's good however... I had to change a few settings like turning off the new reverse scrolling... I didn't have to turn the indicators back on the dock though as they where just there when I booted up Lion.. I guess they are off when you start it fresh rather than an upgrade. Speaking of which I experienced no ill effects from upgrading rather than doing a clean install.

I like the new virtual desktop system called Mission Control as I have always liked virtual desktops and used spaces heavily in Snow Leopard. I do like the full screen that auto creates a desktop just for the app you put full screen and removes the desktop when you close the app. So instead of devoting a whole desktop to Safari for example like I used to I just set it to full screen and let it manage that itself. Desktop 1 like usual is usually reserved for chat stuff, e-mail and things like that. I was a tad lost though because they removed the assign apps to desktops preferences in the system preferences and you just decide that by right clicking on the dock icon and choose to assign the app from there. I like how it has built in support for having a different wallpaper on each desktop just by opening the desktop pictures preference pane in each one and changing it.

It migrated my old space settings and I wanted to change a couple of them and didn't now how until I figured that out. So pretty much it's going to take a little settling into and the few bugs I've encountered will probably get fixed in point upgrades. It certainly isn't the train wreck some people are making it out to be though. But a couple of my old games (American McGee's Alice and the Jedi Knight games) aren't working and they need patches and or for me to switch them over to a WINE wrapped version.

Luckily I never really kept any PowerPC applications around so I don't miss them now that the built in PowerPC emulation called Rosetta is gone. Some people especially at Inside Mac Games are really taking that personally\hard though.

Performance wise the new OS seems at least as good if not better than 10.6 Snow Leopard for me... and games seem to run faster if anything. It's a bit rough around the edges though as can be expected from an initial release.

The iPhone, the iPad and The iPod touch may be wonderful devices but one thing I hate about them is the amount of hyperbole they inspire in people.. including the head honcho Steve Jobs himself. There's been a zeitgeist that Apple is going to depreciate the Mac in favor of iPhone devices. Tonight Steve Jobs said to walt mossberg of the walstreet journal that this transition isn't going to happen anytime soon and when it does personal computers will still be around just like trucks are still around despite most people using cars for their transportation. In my opinion iPhones and iPads are more like scooters and bikes and or a smart car if you must do a car analogy. Sure they get you around town but they aren't like regular cars or trucks for all purposes.

People on the internet are acting like the personal computer is going away and it's easy to interpret steve's remarks and even apples recent actions that way on the surface. This makes me complain for a number of reasons... and I realize I'm speaking only for myself so with that in mind:

Form Factor & Hardware

Sure the iPad or iPhone may be great form factors as a satellite device especially for doing simple tasks away from my desktop. However most of the time I like to create and "consume" on a large screen just like my iMac. Unless I'm on the go using a screen less than half the size of what I use every day doesn't appeal to me even with a bluetooth keyboard attached to it to do long text entry. The only way I can see it working is if they got a lot more powerful, you can dock them into an iMac shell and when it's docked the UI turns into a full OS X. Until then they would only suit my purposes as a satellite device for simple tasks and perhaps a game or two that fits the type of input it provides and mostly when I'm away from home.. and despite what they might have you believe not all games or apps are suited for that environment. Even if they make an iPhone OS device with an iMac form factor there's still problems. I don't want to always have to use a touch screen even on a big screened computing device that I'd do my main computing on. I don't want to have to keep the screen within arms length all the time. In fact I keep my 27 inch iMac's screen just outside of arms length. Nor does having to always touch a screen to do pointing and clicking tasks sound appealing to me both from an ergonomics point of view and from a keeping the screen clean point of view.

I agree with the person in the appleinsider forums who said this:

Unless you are an illustrator who paints on a screen with a digital brush like a wacom tablet to mimic free-hand painting or drawing, a touch screen is useless for the intricacies of design. I can't imagine spending all day wearing out the joints and muscles in my whole arm pointing and swiping at a large screen, when a minor move of my wrist with a mouse or digital pen can cover the whole screen, corner to corner while resting comfortably on my desk as opposed to one holding an arm out to the point of muscle failure, like back in the day when corporal punishment was acceptable and teaches used to make kids stand with their arms stretched out as long as they could if they screwed up. Plus the great thing about a monitor vs. paper is you don't have to look around your own hand to see the image you're trying to create as you work. A touch screen is a step back in the evolution of design ergonomics in that respect.

Software & Operating System

Certain people may look down upon OS X as somehow being more closed than windows or linux (I don't agree with this except when comparing how many components are open sourced compared to linux but that's another story.. and it being more closed than windows is a laugh). But the iPhone OS is even more closed than windows with its walled garden app store where they dictate what can run on it and what can't unless you jail break your OS. I don't relish using this as my every day OS even with jail-breaking as I'd have to do that with every OS revision and I don't want to do that.

Each application in the iPhone OS is full screen at all times and you have to essentially alt-tab into other applications when you are "multitasking" in iPhone OS 4. It reminds me of the day before the windows desktop operating system rose where all applications where forced to be full screen. My first computer had an OS called Tandy deskmate that was like this and it was a pain to use especially without a mouse. I don't want to return to this and I value being able to do things like have different application windows mixed on the same workspace. Even just simply being able to have several text files open for comparing\copying and pasting and being able to see them all at once is valuable to me. The only things I like permanently full screened are videos and games.

Steve Jobs may be a genius but he isn't always right and the fact is more people are buying the tech he often maligns... namely netbooks than they are iPads. It's not like he's a dictator that can shove things down my or anyone elses throat. If I don't agree with a product roadmap I wont invest in it... put that in your pipe and smoke it Steve. Some people envision Apple phasing out Mac OS in favor of the iPhone OS and that day they have lost me as well because using such a locked down OS as my primary OS doesn't appeal to me no matter how many people jump into that bandwagon... sorry. I see the iPhone OS as more suited to an apple TV device than a macintosh to be honest.

The day they either get rid of OS X or the Mac is the day I'm sorry to say I will be transitioning to systems that will welcome people like me with open arms. If push comes to shove I'll go wherever that may be. I doubt they are going to revise the iPhone OS to cater to people like me as their full time OS anytime soon. You can pry my "truck" from my cold dead hands!

The iPhone, the iPad and The iPod touch may be wonderful devices but one thing I hate about them is the amount of hyperbole they inspire in people.. including the head honcho Steve Jobs himself. There's been a zeitgeist that Apple is going to depreciate the Mac in favor of iPhone devices. Tonight Steve Jobs said to walt mossberg of the walstreet journal that this transition isn't going to happen anytime soon and when it does personal computers will still be around just like trucks are still around despite most people using cars for their transportation. In my opinion iPhones and iPads are more like scooters and bikes and or a smart car if you must do a car analogy. Sure they get you around town but they aren't like regular cars or trucks for all purposes.

People on the internet are acting like the personal computer is going away and it's easy to interpret steve's remarks and even apples recent actions that way on the surface. This makes me complain for a number of reasons... and I realize I'm speaking only for myself so with that in mind:

Form Factor & Hardware

Sure the iPad or iPhone may be great form factors as a satellite device especially for doing simple tasks away from my desktop. However most of the time I like to create and "consume" on a large screen just like my iMac. Unless I'm on the go using a screen less than half the size of what I use every day doesn't appeal to me even with a bluetooth keyboard attached to it to do long text entry. The only way I can see it working is if they got a lot more powerful, you can dock them into an iMac shell and when it's docked the UI turns into a full OS X. Until then they would only suit my purposes as a satellite device for simple tasks and perhaps a game or two that fits the type of input it provides and mostly when I'm away from home.. and despite what they might have you believe not all games or apps are suited for that environment. Even if they make an iPhone OS device with an iMac form factor there's still problems. I don't want to always have to use a touch screen even on a big screened computing device that I'd do my main computing on. I don't want to have to keep the screen within arms length all the time. In fact I keep my 27 inch iMac's screen just outside of arms length. Nor does having to always touch a screen to do pointing and clicking tasks sound appealing to me both from an ergonomics point of view and from a keeping the screen clean point of view.

I agree with the person in the appleinsider forums who said this:

Unless you are an illustrator who paints on a screen with a digital brush like a wacom tablet to mimic free-hand painting or drawing, a touch screen is useless for the intricacies of design. I can't imagine spending all day wearing out the joints and muscles in my whole arm pointing and swiping at a large screen, when a minor move of my wrist with a mouse or digital pen can cover the whole screen, corner to corner while resting comfortably on my desk as opposed to one holding an arm out to the point of muscle failure, like back in the day when corporal punishment was acceptable and teaches used to make kids stand with their arms stretched out as long as they could if they screwed up. Plus the great thing about a monitor vs. paper is you don't have to look around your own hand to see the image you're trying to create as you work. A touch screen is a step back in the evolution of design ergonomics in that respect.

Software & Operating System

Certain people may look down upon OS X as somehow being more closed than windows or linux (I don't agree with this except when comparing how many components are open sourced compared to linux but that's another story.. and it being more closed than windows is a laugh). But the iPhone OS is even more closed than windows with its walled garden app store where they dictate what can run on it and what can't unless you jail break your OS. I don't relish using this as my every day OS even with jail-breaking as I'd have to do that with every OS revision and I don't want to do that.

Each application in the iPhone OS is full screen at all times and you have to essentially alt-tab into other applications when you are "multitasking" in iPhone OS 4. It reminds me of the day before the windows desktop operating system rose where all applications where forced to be full screen. My first computer had an OS called Tandy deskmate that was like this and it was a pain to use especially without a mouse. I don't want to return to this and I value being able to do things like have different application windows mixed on the same workspace. Even just simply being able to have several text files open for comparing\copying and pasting and being able to see them all at once is valuable to me. The only things I like permanently full screened are videos and games.

Steve Jobs may be a genius but he isn't always right and the fact is more people are buying the tech he often maligns... namely netbooks than they are iPads. It's not like he's a dictator that can shove things down my or anyone elses throat. If I don't agree with a product roadmap I wont invest in it... put that in your pipe and smoke it Steve. Some people envision Apple phasing out Mac OS in favor of the iPhone OS and that day they have lost me as well because using such a locked down OS as my primary OS doesn't appeal to me no matter how many people jump into that bandwagon... sorry. I see the iPhone OS as more suited to an apple TV device than a macintosh to be honest.

The day they either get rid of OS X or the Mac is the day I'm sorry to say I will be transitioning to systems that will welcome people like me with open arms. If push comes to shove I'll go wherever that may be. I doubt they are going to revise the iPhone OS to cater to people like me as their full time OS anytime soon. You can pry my "truck" from my cold dead hands!

Recently I came across a video with a guy showing off how well Windows 7 runs on older hardware. He had a 1.3Ghz Celeron M notebook that has pretty much the same hardware inside as my notebook. He showed how it took a little less than half an hour to install. How it boots up pretty quickly. How each application it comes with starts up pretty fast and how fast media center runs on it. (I lost the video otherwise I would have posted it here)

That's all well and good. However on older hardware such as that there's one major caveat. It can't run aero or any of its effects. Now you might say what do you expect on such old hardware?Actually, having experienced the other two major operating systems on similar hardware I expect quite a bit actually. I'm also not too amazed.... I mean Vista is practically the only modern OS that has performance problems on said hardware.

My notebook, which is the same as his apart from brand and look of the chassis can... even with its intel integrated graphics run all the effects in the 3D card composited windowing engines of either Linux or Mac OS X Leopard. But apparently not even with Windows 7 would it be able to run Aero glass or any of its effects.

Not only that but in Leopard it can run Core Image hardware accelerated so I can get the blurring behind certain transparent things such as the menubar, menus, drop down sheets etc. and I can also get the effect in dashboard when you open a widget that's kind of like you dropped it onto a table of water with the ripples... it all doesn't run slow either.

When I tried Linux with Compiz I could get the respective effects there too. So what's wrong with Windows? They are accessing the same hardware. Is their way so much more demanding than Mac OS X that it can't run on the same hardware without turning all that off? It could be that the drivers just aren't ready but it could also be that Microsoft just isn't supporting it because people have the perception that it would slow down the computer. Well..... under Leopard and Linux it doesn't.

I made that wallpaper last night. It's that $200 Joker action figure I made a post about the other day. I said there was at least one image that is high res enough to be made into a decent wall if I edited it so I put my money where my mouth is. I also combined the black pearl VLC mod with a single window VLC mod. You can also see the contact list mod I did to Adium. I'm starting to really get a hang of interface builder but it's still kind of a pain to use. It took me hours to get it right. I've also added some more status icon mods to my menubar.

The new theme editing software "Architect" is supposed to be out soon in public beta. It's supposed to make Leopard theming easier than even Tiger theming as far as theme creation goes. I know I'm going to be messing around with it as soon as it comes out time permitting. I may have less time as my online college class ramps up.

The sunday they speak of on the web page is actually supposed to be today but I'm thinking unforseen things are happening so they are probably having to delay it. It also doesn't mention anything about the software for applying the themes, Façade. A combination of the two is supposed to do everything Shapeshifter and Themepark did and more. But that remains to be seen.

I made that wallpaper last night. It's that $200 Joker action figure I made a post about the other day. I said there was at least one image that is high res enough to be made into a decent wall if I edited it so I put my money where my mouth is. I also combined the black pearl VLC mod with a single window VLC mod. You can also see the contact list mod I did to Adium. I'm starting to really get a hang of interface builder but it's still kind of a pain to use. It took me hours to get it right. I've also added some more status icon mods to my menubar.

The new theme editing software "Architect" is supposed to be out soon in public beta. It's supposed to make Leopard theming easier than even Tiger theming as far as theme creation goes. I know I'm going to be messing around with it as soon as it comes out time permitting. I may have less time as my online college class ramps up.

The sunday they speak of on the web page is actually supposed to be today but I'm thinking unforseen things are happening so they are probably having to delay it. It also doesn't mention anything about the software for applying the themes, Façade. A combination of the two is supposed to do everything Shapeshifter and Themepark did and more. But that remains to be seen.

I'm a little jealous of those people who already have Leopard. Especially those who are running the GM build. It makes me a little anxious to get it myself.... although I can't afford to buy it right now and like I said I would like to get it when theming is available for it. But it looks awfully nice as it is right now.

From the last screenshot I linked to showing delicious library it looks like they didn't actually replace brushed metal... what they did is they changed the skin and added an out of focus state to it.... at least to the window background anyway. They probably did that for compatibility reasons.

The new Quicktime in Leopard looks really nice. I was imagining one time how Quicktime would look if they redesigned the UI the way they did with the finder, itunes, etc. to make it look more border-less and this is the result. I must say, I approve.

There's a nice collection of screenshots here.

One last comment though.... even though it looks good in screenshots I tire of the grey unified color that was introduced in iTunes and when I theme Leopard that is going to be the first thing that goes... sorry Steve. I mean it does look good with the new titlebar widgets and everything but overall it feels kind of meh to me combined with the new menubar and stuff. Although I am ok with it in themes like Aqua Inspirat. But it's not something I would want to use for long periods of time. I sort of like the out of focus look like in the first screenshot I linked to better. So one possible theme for me would be to keep that but change the in focus color to perhaps a brighter white. I know I would also like a pro theme to start off with as well.

Today Apple has released Boot Camp. It's a program that allows you to partition your intel based mac's hard drive, install windows with appropriate drivers and dual boot between it and Mac OS X. On the Mac gaming message board I already see people running around like chickens with their heads cut off proclaiming this as the end of the mac gaming market but I don't see it this way.

( More inside... )

Here is my screenshot in Linux on my PC using Enlightenment DR17 using the default theme and a matching GTK2 theme to make the dialog areas match the titlebars.

This one is from my Mac running Neos as my theme which I just found out was updated today so I threw together this desktop using it. I love the spiffy new iTunes skin it included.