Mixed bag
Via SVN (you don’t need a link, you know where it is): Macromedia Central: a Sherlock-style app. Written. In. Flash. A desktop app. Written in Flash.
You can downlaod and install it via a Flash UI within the webpage which seems scary and cool to me at the same time. The app runs and…
Not as good as Sherlock. Its very impressive that it’s Flash, but it has a few major shortfalls for me:
Unresponsive UI
Aliased text
UI is a little too much like a web-app for me to want to have on my desktop
I just don’t dig mouse-overs on scrollbars. That feels wrong to me
It seems to make everything else running hang a little bit. Uncool.
Now, that’s not to say it doesn’t have its pros. Tha data transfer is faster than you’d expect. The Flash movement in the UI is nice, but I prefer Aqua’s smooth transitions to Flash’s clunky ones. Also, I don’t use applications because of the fact that it’s neat they’re written the way that they are.
Of course I could also spend more than 10 minutse in it before passing judgement. Go see for yourself.
Reowr
So in order to offset my last post with something to prove Alternate’s not dying, I’m going to spackle you with my latest impressions of Panther.
No. I’m not a developer. Yes, it was procured with BitTorrent. Now hush.
First thing a lot of people want to know about is the Finder. I love it. The action menu mirrors the functionality of a right- or control-click, I’ve never really used it, but I could see a first-time user getting the hang of it. The customizable sidebar is a thousand times more easy to use that the regular ole Cocoa top-bar in Jaguar. In my build (7b44), you can set the folder a new Finder window will open. No more choosing between Home and Computer anymore! I have mine set to “Current Projects” which is managed by a PHP script I wrote. The new Open/Save dialog boxes go along with this, as they use a similar UI. Shortcuts on the left, browsing on the right in one of the three different metaphors. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself not using the Open dialog much anymore because…
…Exposê makes the Finder instantly and insanely accessible. I use my Desktop again! Just slide the mouse down to the bottom-right corner and I have my Desktop available, with all my other windows’ edges a wee bit visible and lower opacity clinging to the screens edges. Click the Finder icon in the dock and get a new Finder window by itself (which, again, opens up Current Projects), find the file I’m looking for, double-click it or drag it over to its respective app icon, and all my windows come sliding back, and my app is opening the file. I use the desktop show thingy much more than the much-touted all-window minimizer, which in my opinion, takes too long to find the window you’re looking for, as there’s no predictable place for your window to end up. Yes, it’ll go to the same place every time given an almost-same number of windows but when you a. have a million windows to choose from and b. use a 1600×1200 resolution, each window is barely discernable from the next and you really only know which one you’re selecting because of the mouseover that tells you the window’s name. Like I said, I don’t use it. When I use someone else’s machine with Jaguar though, I find myself intuitively mousing over the bottom right to get the desktop, and when nothing happens, I get disappointed. I think that’s a big point to make: mouse gestures were so easily implemented into my workflow that I end up really more dependent on them that I expected I ever would be.
Speed: I’m like 10 releases behind, and I see no reason to try to find the newest ones. This thing is fast. My aging 533 with 896mb of RAM was like a brand-new machine, easily equaling a 667 or 733 machine with Jaguar. I see speed increases easily in the 20-30% range, with Photoshop 7 being the most welcome. Save For Web comes up instantly, etc.
The general UI is cleaner than Jaguar and definitely feels more professional without all those stripes. The new tabs are very nice and the darker wells/fieldset-type backgrounds are very striking.
The only apps that don’t work from Jaguar are the Apple-issued ones (iTunes, iMovie, iChat, Safari) and you have to use Panther-specific versions of those. Otherwise, application support is phenomenal. There were a few UI bugs in BBEdit but they seem to have been squashed, minus the ever-annoying and really stupid one where when I command-tab from BBEdit to Safari and hit Reload, my keyboard stops working. Other than that, this OS is a dream to use and will definitely be worth whatever it costs when it comes out, which, despite what your opinion may be, I will certainly pay. I’ve paid for every major MacOS upgrade since 8.0. So nyeh.
Personal Content Cometh
At the risk of turning into the annoying weblogger our taglines make fun of, I’ve started my own blog. The thing is though, I’m not sure I’m going to keep it. I don’t want to take away steam from Alternate, but I also don’t feel it’s really the place to spout off my most annoying inane personal daily details, which people have actually asked that I do.
My idea is to keep Alternate the same tech-y, witty (right!) place it has been, but to just augment my daily ramblings with another log that looks exactly the same (almost) that tells you what I had for breakfast today.
Thoughts? Care one way or the other? Am I already turning into the average LiveJournal writer simply by bringing it up?
Louder than words
A few days ago, before he was released.
At Home Now
I’d like to thank all of you who commented (and even those that didn’t), and I’m happy to report that all four of us will be at home tonight.
My son was released at 11:30am today and we were instructed to drive directly over the the Barbara Davis Center here in Denver. Today we learned how to take his blood sugar reading and how to admister Insulin shots. He will get 4 readings a day and 2 shots, which will be a mixture of 2 different kinds of Insulin.
He is happy, moving around, and (what I have been told is very lucky considering his condition Sunday night) shows no signs of other permanent damage (vision, kindey, etc).
We had had fears recently about his health, the possibility of Diabetes in particular, but when you’re a self-employed person who happens to make more that $34k a year, your insurance options are slim and expensive. My wife had been hoping to get a CNA job this week so that we could get insured so that we could get him tested before he got too sick. Our fear was that if he got diagnosed prior to having insurance coverage, any coverage in the future would include existing condition clauses and refuse to cover his illness. The entire time he was in the hospital, I wondered how much it would cost. I would then remind myself that not taking him would have cost him his life, which puts things into perspective. He’s worth every penny and he’s a very brave little boy to have gone through the things he went through.
Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that he’s safe and sound with us now, minus a few sticks in the finger and pokes in the arm a few times a day. He’s very apprehensive about these, as you’d expect a 5-year old to be who just spent 2 days in the hospital and was closer to death than I’d even like to consider.
You’d expect me to be scared and worried about this situation, but for some reason I’m not. The bill will get taken care of somehow, and my son is alive and I look forward to him turning back into the great little kid he was before he started showing signs of the disease we know now he has. Our worry and concern and fear has turned into action, responsibility and knowledge. This feels better than I’d ever known it could.
My eventful night
I’m only home very quickly between hospital trips right now, but since a lot of my close friends read Alternate, I thought I’d post a quick note about my night last night.
At around 4pm, my son began throwing up and acting sick. We took care of him and tried to make him comfortable. Around midnight, he couldn’t keep fluids down and couldn’t control his breathing. By 2AM his skin started turning gray and his lips blue and he still was not calming down.
My wife took him to the hospital and reported that his blood-sugar levels were in the 450 range. Normal for a boy his age is 80-150. I arrived around 3:30AM. He was quickly diagnosed with Diabetes and insulin was administered. They couldn’t get it into a vein as he was too dehydrated so they had to give it to him in a bone in his leg.
He is currently at Children’s Hospital in Denver, his glucose is almost normal and his color and condition have greatly improved. He will be fine, but he’ll be in the hospital at least until tomorrow, directly after his release, we’ll be attending 2 days worth of classes on how to admister insulin and take care of a child with Diabetes.
Your prayers and thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Is G&E next?
They may as well arrest people that make lightbulbs! Just because some people use them for illicit purposes…