Articles posted in October, 2009

More on downloading software updates in Snow Leopard

Friday, October 23rd, 2009 • 6:52 pm

Here’s another perfect illustration of the frustration generated by Apple’s decision to limit the user’s options when it comes to downloading software updates in Snow Leopard, already discussed in yesterday’s post. Today, Software Update popped up with a new update for me: Now, I am not a Final Cut user, but I am a Logic […]

More »

Downloading software updates in Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 • 11:09 am

I was going to address this in a blog post, but Macworld’s Rob Griffths beat me to it. In Snow Leopard, the options to download only (without installing) or to install and keep software updates are gone in Software Update are gone. The only option you get is what used to be the default in […]

More »

Mail 4.x: Even more frustrating behaviour when dealing with low-bandwidth situations

Monday, October 19th, 2009 • 9:40 am

It’s bad enough that, when checking mail in a low-bandwidth situation and getting a lack of response from a mail server, Mail typically reacts by throwing a modal dialog box asking the user to re-enter the account’s password, as if the password had changed and was now incorrect. This has been the situation for years […]

More »

Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard): Hidden option for ‘Copy Address’ in Mail

Saturday, October 17th, 2009 • 2:56 pm

Two weeks ago, I reported that, in Snow Leopard, the “Copy Address” command in the contextual menu when you right-click on an e-mail address in a message header in Mail now copies the entire “From:” field, including the name and other superfluous information. Then I reported that I got an e-mail response from Apple to […]

More »

Accidental Caps Lock Defense in Snow Leopard: Fails with input methods

Thursday, October 15th, 2009 • 9:49 am

Ah, that is why I keep getting e-mails from people telling me that they cannot reproduce the problem on their machine… See, I am a heavy Spell Catcher X user. I totally depend on it for my writing work, which is something like 90% of my work. But… until now, Spell Catcher X has been operating […]

More »

Accidental Caps Lock Defense in Snow Leopard: Doesn’t work in 32-bit applications

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 • 6:12 pm

Thanks to the feedback of numerous readers, I think I’ve finally figured out what’s going on with the Accidental Caps Lock Defense feature in Snow Leopard: It still works for people with the aluminium keyboard (and not just for laptop users), but only in applications running in 64-bit mode. Because I have a number of […]

More »

Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard): Clicking on foreground window breaks ‘Cycle Through Windows’ order

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 • 5:07 pm

I didn’t wait for Apple to invent the “Spaces” feature in Mac OS X 10.5 to develop my own strategies for managing large numbers of windows. I obviously don’t have time to describe those strategies in full detail here, but one very important aspect is the ability to use the “Cycle Through Windows” command—and especially […]

More »

Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard): Accidental Caps Lock Defense for laptops only?

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 • 3:53 pm

Following my recent posts about the Accidental Caps Lock Defense feature in Snow Leopard, I have received another e-mail from a reader pointing out article HT1192 in Apple’s Knowledge Base, which says: Intel-based Apple Portables: Caps Lock modified to reduce accidental activation Last Modified: March 18, 2009 Article: HT1192 Summary Pressing the Caps Lock key […]

More »

Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard): Accidental Caps Lock Defense not gone for everyone

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 • 9:42 am

Since I wrote about the apparent disappearance of the Accidental Caps Lock Defense on my system following the Mac OS X 10.6 upgrade, I have received several e-mails from readers indicating that the feature still works on their machine, even with Snow Leopard running. Two of these e-mails come from people with MacBooks, i.e. with […]

More »

Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard): Application launching and file opening bugs

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 • 9:27 am

I must say I am quite disappointed with the bugginess of Snow Leopard. I am not talking about small, niggling bugs here. Snow Leopard has its share of them, like any other significant OS upgrade. What I am talking about is a series of more significant bugs that severely impact usability. One has to do […]

More »

Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard): Accidental Caps Lock Defense gone?

Saturday, October 10th, 2009 • 3:41 pm

A couple of years ago, when the then-new aluminium keyboard came out, Jonathan Rentzsch reported that the keyboard appeared to have a new, undocumented feature, whereby accidentally hitting the Caps Lock key would have no effect because the keyboard had a built-in delay that caused it to wait a fraction of a second before considering […]

More »

Spotlight in Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard): More on view options for search results

Thursday, October 8th, 2009 • 2:24 pm

Yesterday’s post about the restrictions imposed by Apple in the view options for Finder windows displaying Spotlight search results generated a fair amount of e-mail feedback. Most of it was to express agreement with the absurdity of the remaining limitations. But some readers provided additional information. Alan C. pointed out this text on Apple’s own […]

More »

Spotlight in Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard): Still restricts view options in Finder

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 • 5:10 pm

One of my pet peeves withy Spotlight in Mac OS X has always been the limitations imposed by Apple on the ways search results can be viewed. First we had the lousy one-of-a-kind search results window in Tiger obtained when Spotlight searches were initiated via the global Spotlight search menu. Then in Leopard Apple attempted […]

More »

Mac OS X’s Finder: Still fuzzy after all these years

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 • 8:49 am

Snow Leopard is a “bug fixing” upgrade that is also supposed to have improved all kinds of little, nagging details by making its error messages and dialog boxes clearer. For example, when you try eject a volume that contains files currently in use, the Finder no longer gives you some generic error message that does […]

More »

Pages ’09 Tip: Double-click on endnote number to return to text

Thursday, October 1st, 2009 • 3:18 pm

Apple’s word processor Pages takes a resolutely WYSIWYG approach. Gone are the multiple view modes afforded by Microsoft Word. On the whole, it is a welcome simplification. After all, the paradox at the heart of the very existence of Microsoft Word’s “Normal” view mode (now called “Draft” in Word 2008) is that it’s supposed to […]

More »