Blue Screen of Leopard

I'm writing this in Windows XP on my Mac Pro, since I'm getting the Blue Screen of Death after installing Mac OS X Leopard. I'm truly enjoying the benefits of a closed system from a single vendor... ;-/

Apple claims it's some APE software that I don't have, and apparently I'm not the only one with a Leopard installation problem. Apparently Logitech drivers install APE.

It's at times like these that I wish I had listened to myself.

Update: These arcane Unix commands worked, but remember to remove the Leopard DVD first, and type everything really carefully since you don't get any warnings if you mistyped anything. You need to find the correct keys if you are on a non-English keyboards. I found the / and - keys on a Swedish keyboard (type - and +.)

After running OS X 10.5.0 for 30 minutes, I'm sitting here wondering what's new and exciting. Using Apple's list of 300+ new features to navigate around Leopard, I'm still not finding anything that makes me glad I updated, other than these funny ones:

• "The active application window stands out with a deeper drop shadow and a distinctive toolbar color. One look at Leopard and you’ll know you’re in for something special."
• "Empty the Trash from the Trash itself with the Empty Trash button"
• "Easily delete Windows and restore the disk space being used by the Windows partition back to Mac OS X."

Where are the "Wow, dude, you've gotta see this" features? I would have settled for being able to resize a window from any edge, or avoiding the spinning beach ball when waiting for network drives. However, some people feel differently: "Leopard will have the same effect that the Macintosh 128 had on computing." I must be drinking the wrong kool-aid.

In all fairness, it seems like it's the stuff under-the-hood that we're supposed to be excited by. I'm all for geekery, but since I tend to like cross-platform apps, I need a really cool app to make me go for single-OS solutions.

- Jonas

Censorship at CreativeCow.net

Update: A few hours after I posted this, CC closed my account via this email:

You have been unsubscribed from the Creative Cow newsletter. We're sorry to see you go.
Please note that any associated accounts at CreativeCOW.net have also been closed.

Update 2: Even more sites have been found to be blocked.

Update 3: It seems that they have IP-filtered out our entire IP range, so now they have effectively blocked 2,500 people in the broadcasting business from participating in their forums. Guess who's loosing on that deal... :)

Original post:
One of the biggest online forums for media creators, creativecow.net, is automatically censoring posts that contain the names of (what they perceive as) competitive sites and forums. If you post anything that contains any of the words (sometimes even without the top domain):

• fxphd.com
• fxguide.com
• pixelcorps.com
• cmivfx.com
• vfxtalk.com
• DVinfo.net
• DVXuser.com
• TheAnvel.com
• toolfarm.com
  
• studiodaily.com
• creativemac.digitalmedianet.com
• digitalproductionbuzz.com
• vasst.com
• dmnforums.com

...you'll get an error message indicating that there is a technical malfunction. I find it dishonest to have this type of filtering, and especially dislike the fact the user is shown an error message that hides the fact that the administrators are trying to stop users from finding out about other sites.

CreativeCow makes money from ads, and their revenue is directly generated by the users that in their free time and without payment add content to the forums.

Sure, they can block anything they want. What is so appalling is doing it so it appears to be a technical error, and then closing accounts and IP-blocking people for discussing their practices.

I seldom visit their forums myself, as they are too slow, and the fact that you can't subscribe to forums and threads via email is a killer for me (just like the forums at pixelcorps and fxphd, unfortunately.)

So, skip the Cow, they're yesterday's forum, and visit any of the ones above instead.

Thanks to Mel Matsuoka for the tip.

- Jonas

Being Stuck on One Side of the Fence

In the early 90's I was an Apple zealot, hanging out at BBS:es where the finer details of ResEdit and System 6 were discussed. Since then, I've left the cult of Mac and have never looked back. But now, the recent Mac Pros have awakened a craving for a dual-boot machine where all the options can be available again -- if, and only if, it wasn't for all my licenses...

I can't be the only one who suddenly feels trapped by my license investments, can I? So many of my programs exist on both platforms, but I only have licenses for Windows. Buying extra licenses for OS X just to avoid rebooting, or running these apps via virtualization doesn't seem like real options. Who can I blame for being stuck only in Win land, but the vendors that force me to choose only one platform?

I'd gladly give up printed manuals, boxes and physical media if I could only use Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, After Effects, ImageModeler and all my AE plugins, regardless of OS.

--Jonas