Vanquishing Vista

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is released to retail on Friday October 26th and Amazon.co.uk is offering 6% off the pre-order price for both client versions:

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (Single-user license)
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Family Pack (5-user license)

*Introduces over 300 new and enhanced features to OS X, including a new desktop and updated finder enabling easy browsing and sharing between multiple Macs
*Take advantage of the latest developments in processor hardware with full native 64-bit support, multi-core optimization, and new Core animation
*Preview files without opening an application using Quick Look
*Easily and automatically back up and restore lost files or a complete Mac with Time Machine
*Create groups of applications and instantly switch between them with Spaces

Will Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard be worth the wait? Of course it will! And pre-orders are more than double that of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger! Various online forums are positing that the increase is related to the advent of Boot Camp and native Microsoft Windows OS support! Certainly PC-based games, such as the stunning Half-Life 2: The Orange Box, can now be played with a copy of Windows Vista Home Premium installed! And, in fairness, I've experienced no problems with running Windows Vista on my Intel-based Mac!

I'll post my Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard review in short order!

Sexy! Yes Yes Yes

The new iPods are delicious! iPod touch is especially captivating and Apple has delivered a compelling refresh to its ubiquitous all-conquering brand - nano, shuffle and all-new classic.

I'd certainly have liked to see a more capacious HDD available for the iPod touch, but good things come to those who wait! For the time being iPod classic is the more compelling portable solution; boasting up to 160GB of storage! I'll be using this for data backup on both Mac OS X and Windows Vista Home Premium!

Don't forget to download iTunes 7.4! Sexy! No No No, by Girls Aloud, sounds even edgier especially Cheryl Tweedy's intro.

Goodbye to Microsoft Zune and NBC/Universal!

Jedi Master of My Domain

We all know that new iMacs are on their way today. Therefore this post will be self-indulgent and focus on the very blog that you are reading!

Blogger introduced custom domain name support in January 2007! This blog has been online for over 3 years and, somewhat belatedly, I've finally registered a domain name:

http://www.generationstarwars.com/

Redirection from http://johnhood.blogspot.com/ is automatic (what's called a 301 permanent redirect). But apologies, in advance, for any technical issues in the short-to-mid term. I've not experienced any issues using the following browsers Opera, Safari, Firefox or IE 7 (in Windows Vista Home Premium).

Subscribers to my RSS feed - powered by FeedBurner - do not have to make any changes to their subscription! Matt Shobe, at FeedBurner, confirmed that my decision to change the source feed from

http://johnhood.blogspot.com/atom.xml

to

http://www.generationstarwars.com/atom.xml

was correct. RSS goodness is uninterrupted.

I'm feverishly working on ways to minimise the impact of a domain name change on my search engine rankings - old Google PageRank was 4 (on the cusp of 5), new PageRank is 0. However, I'd encourage anyone setting up their site, who intends to blog frequently and in the longer term, to register a domain name as soon as possible! Maybe even prior to your blog going live or increased marketing activities.

Lastly, remember to create a new sitemap for your new domain and remove the existing one as Google may remove your site(s) from its search engine - duplicate content is a no, no!

The One

Looks like there's a bug (or three) with the latest Windows Live OneCare 2.0 Beta! OneCare Tune-up appears to run correctly, but upon completion reports innumerable errors! For example an unknown error prevented Disk Fragmentation (perhaps due to Boot Camp disk partitioning). However, when I log back in, it reports that the PC status is good. Initially I assumed that my Windows Vista Home Premium installation was at fault!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this story. My OEM (original equipment manufacturer) copy of Windows Vista Home Premium is installed, via Boot Camp, on Intel-based Mac hardware and presumably is not officially supported (if someone at Microsoft would like to clarify the company's position regarding Intel-based Mac hardware, I'd be happy to post). It is worth pointing out that product activation was successful. Therefore, if you're wondering whether or not to opt for the considerably cheaper OEM edition, I'd suggest that you go ahead, your bank manager will thank you.

I decided to post a query on The Windows Experience Blog. Brandon has kindly confirmed that this issue is affecting some (if not all) PCs too. I'll await the next automated update.

Overall Windows Live OneCare neatly integrates automated anti-virus and malware protection, updates, PC performance and backup services within a single easy-to-use front-end. Think .Mac, albeit splintered, during its infancy.

I doubt if I'll be using Windows Vista Home Premium enough to justify purchasing an annual subscription once the free trial ends. Should .Mac integrate Google goodies sans subscription (as early as tomorrow's new Mac announcements and evinced by current iDisk outages), Microsoft maybe forced to review its subscription-based strategy. This would be a win-win for both Mac and Windows users.