I have quite a few friends that have trouble with then and than. They’ll say things like “I’m better then you at football” or “it was more then I expected.” I always shrugged it off as a quick typo, thinking ahead of your typing. But after reading a respectable online news publication this morning, I believe this problem is bigger then I suspected.
From IHT.com:
“More then 1 in 100 American adults is in prison, report finds”
And that’s the headline. In case they fix it, I’ve included a screen grab.
February 18th, 2008 // Posted in Apple // No Comments »
What can I say about Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard”? I can say a lot of wonderful things as has been noted in the blogosphere. But it’s what’s not being said that is irritating me. I have been using Macs regularly since 1996 and I have been a champion of the platform since 2000. Apple has had their share of misses in the software category but the distance between the usability and dependability of the Mac operating system and Windows was gigantic. I may have had my frustrations in the past but the alternative (using Windows) wasn’t really an alternative so I just worked my way through the bugs. The thing is, the bugs were never really that bad. And some of them weren’t even really bugs, I just didn’t like the way Apple chose to implement a feature in it’s operating system or other software. But I wasn’t going to switch to Windows and Linux just never had enough of the mainstream software to ever be viable.
The same is true today. Switching to Windows Vista is simply out of the question. And the distance between the usability of Leopard and Vista is just as wide as it’s ever been. But my problem is that the distance between the two operating systems may be just as wide but both operating systems have retracted in usability and dependability. Yuck. Since upgrading to Leopard I’ve had more problems with my machine than I ever did with Mac OS X 10.1 through 10.4 combined. I’ve been a member of the Apple Support Forums since 2002 and in that time I have 13 total posts. And of those 13, 8 are due to my trouble with Leopard. 8! In 5 years I only posted 5 times and some of those were in response to other people’s issues, not my own. But now I’ve posted 8 new issues because I’m at a total loss for a fix.
My latest drama is that ever since I updated to 10.5.2, my all-Apple WiFi network is now failing me. My iMac intermittently drops it’s WiFi connection from my Airport Extreme base station with no rhyme or reason. In fact, my connection dropped while writing this blog post. To say I’m disappointed with Apple is an understatement. I feel like what I’m experiencing is the result of too many things going on at Apple, not enough engineers working on any one project, and products being rushed out the door. This just hasn’t been my experience with Apple and I find it frustrating. Someone switching from Windows might not see a problem since the gap in usability is so heavily in Apple’s favor. To them it might seem light years ahead of where they were. But to someone who has used Macs for so long and has come to expect products to “just work,” this change comes like a blow to the gut.
My hope is that it’ll get better, but a small pessimistic voice inside my head thinks that this may be a problem that’s here to stay. Their market share is increasing and their footprint in consumer electronics is getting larger. Letting bugs slip through the cracks must be a lot easier these days.
Update: Looks like someone may have found the culprit behind the intermittent WiFi drops in Leopard (automatic broadcast channel). I’ve set my channel away from my neighbors and we’ll see if that does anything. I’m pretty sick of these drops though.
