While a lot is being made of the big, big changes and additions to Mac OS X 10.5; aka Leopard, there are many small, nifty things being changed or added to the system that, when combined, help to make the OS truly feel like a worthy upgrade.Exhibit A: Connecting/Mounting AFP, SMB, and other Servers/SharesWhether in Tiger or Leopard, when you want to connect to a server’s networked shares for the first time, you usually go to the Connect to Server dialog, and enter in the address. Alternatively, you can browse for the server(s) through the Finder, and double-click them and connect
You’re then presented with a prompt to choose the share(s) available for mounting.In Leopard, however, Apple goes one step further and eases the process of connecting and re-connecting to servers, by listing recently connected servers under the “Shared” listing in the re-designed iTunes-esque sidebar.
Continue reading ‘Leopard: It’s the Little Things’
Just a few minutes ago, I decided to give CNN’s revamped Videos section a try. Thankfully, unlike my prior experiences here on my sans-Windows Media Player & RealPlayer (but, with the awesome Perian codecs for Quicktime as well as VLC player) OSX installation, it actually worked quite flawlessly.
Prior attempts at getting the video to play, whether in Camino or Safari, had resulted in errors and pages informing me that I need install either WMP or RealPlayer.
Now, as can be observed in the shot above, they’ve switched to an all-Flash media player, which has greately improved compatibility. I assume this change came with the website revamp about a month ago.
It’s telling that the former “CNN Pipeline” service (which was, if you really wanted to watch anything decent, for-pay) must have been rather dissapointing for the team over at CNN to decide to nix for-pay video entirely. In the eyes of the user, it’s a good thing, naturally.
Rounding this little post out, I’ll say this: While it’s true that I don’t really watch that many videos on CNN, but, I suppose the next time that I do, I won’t have to trude over to a Windows installation or forgo the attempt entirely. And that’s something I’m happy about.
Leopard: It’s the Little Things
