Thoughts on Apple's latest cat - a week with Leopard

My copy of Leopard finally arrived via the "Up To Date" program offers to recent Mac purchasers. Once I'd received my copy I sat down to undertake the upgrade process only after I had a complete bootable backup copy of my existing 10.4 drive. Rather than undertake the traditional "clean" upgrade that I'd undertake with a Windows PC I opted instead to migrate from 10.4 to Leopard. The process took approximately one and a half hours as it went through the upgrade steps..

As I've gotten to know Leopard better here are some of my top observations:

Preview.app - as someone that actively reads large PDF files and edits images this is a great update of Apple's built-in viewing application. Some series changes have taken place and will enable users to discard Skim! a great application that let users mark-up and annotate PDFs.

Automator - while I haven't had a lot of time to experiment with the new version of Automator. A number of significant changes have been implemented making it even easier for the average user to perform repetitive tasks. I'm looking forward to working with Automator in greater detail but they've improved integration across applications and the operating system.

Stacks - this was a feature that I was skeptical about using since it seemed more like glossy feature-ware than a useful addition. However so far I've started to use Stacks to help organize my desktop since I leave a number of high priority documents sitting on my desktop. I took these documents and placed them in a folder that sits on my dock making it faster easier and neater to access these documents.

iChat - Apple has made a number of positive improvements to iChat beyond including access to more networks to connect with buddies. A number of interesting features have been added to the application with the ability to utilize a much wider range of backgrounds including custom back-drops from a user specified picture. Our testing indicated that the application can effectively change the backdrop to a user selected picture(s). The application also allows you to transfer files directly to your buddy via file transfer or sharing through iChat Theatre - both of which worked well. The most useful function included in iChat was the ability to share your computer with your buddy. As a replacement for Chicken of the VNC an open source remote administration application the latest version of iChat is equally useful for an average user. We were able to utilize screen sharing to prove out the ability for a remote users to execute a variety of commands across various applications (e.g., Finder, iPhoto, Safari).


More thoughts later.

TED Talks - Thoughts on cell phone design.

Following up from my post last night about interesting places on the web to watch some thoughtf provoking videos with interviews, lectures from a variety of interesting speakers. I wanted to offer some thoughts after watching a presentation by Jan Chipchase of Nokia Research entitled "Our cell phones, ourselves" that was given at this year's TED conference. To provide a brief overview in a ~20 minute discussion he covers some of the interesting findings from a series of Nokia field research projects relating to people's use of mobile phones. This discussion is even more interesting in that it doesn't tackle micro details in the sense of what functionality on today's cell phones and smart phones people use. Instead, he focuses his discussion addressing more fundamental questions about why people take cell phones with them? what other key items do people across the majority of cultures and countries take with them when they leave their home? I'll leave it to you to go watch the video but I think it raises some interesting points about our use of technology and the different use cases that actually arise when a product goes out into the field.

After watching the presentation I took a look at Mr. Chipchase's profile page at Nokia and found some interesting presentations that you can review. Typically they're relatively short 20-30 page presentations that cover a range of research topics he's worked on. A couple that I found particularly interesting dealt with work from a trip to Uganda and addressed the issue of how you recharge a cell phone in an area that does not have access to the central power grid. He touched on some of his team's work in Uganda in terms of first person interviews, home visits, shadowing a person's use of a phone in his TED discussion. The presentations relating to power in Africia show the level of ingenuity that exits as people adapt to meet the requirements of day to day life. His slides detail the existence of street level charging kiosks that operate throughout Ugandan cities where an operator for a fee recharges a customer's cell phone. My key thought in looking thought in flipping through these presentations is that emerging markets will adapt the resources they have at hand as they seek to leverage new technologies. Given the portability and low capital costs required to purchase a mobile handset its clear that a new series of applications will evolve in these markets as people seek to communicate, do business and improve their standard of living.

Great Thought Provoking Videos Online

Here are a couple of my top links that you should check-out if you're interested in learning more about the world.

First up At Google Talks basically this is an internal seminar series held within Google for its employees. The talks are with famous and interesting individuals covering a range of occupations including:

Authors (e.g., Michael Lewis, Michael Bloomberg, Jeffrey Toobin, Tom Brokaw, George Soros, Steve Wozniak)
Candidates (e.g., John Edwards, John McCain .....)
Musicians (e.g., Jose Gonzalez ...)

Needless to say very thought provoking and covers a wide range of topics. I have the feeling that I'm going to be very busy watching a bunch of these interviews over the next few weeks.

Second time to check-out TED. If you haven't heard about TED let me introduce you. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment & Design. The motto of TED is "Ideas worth spreading" and it also covers a range of topics from: Technology, Entertainment, Design, Business, Science, Culture, Arts, and Global Issues. TED is a non-profit organization that hosts a conference once a year for 1,000 attendees in Monterrey, California.