Yearly Archives: 2005

The Tao of Tiger

OK, I must admit, when I first installed Mac OS 10.4 Tiger and used it for the first couple of days I was fairly underwhelmed. Sure, some of the new features were cool and all but some of the most touted ones simply left me wanting more. The new Mail application for instance, why can’t I change the background color for the new mailbox “drawer” and why can’t I choose which side it lives on? Why do I have to press a button to bring my Dashboard widgets to the front. Why can’t they live permanently on my desktop like Konfabulator widgets do? I mean, if you are going to “borrow” elements of a great idea, why not “borrow” the useful ones.

Thing is, most of the cool features are little tweaks done here and there. The annotation feature in Preview for instance. Yet another step towards never using the painfully slow Adobe Reader ever again. That makes double for the inline PDF viewing now added to Safari.

You want more? Well Apple has posted a nice page detailing more than 200 new features in Tiger. Read this if you install Tiger and wonder what you got for your hard earned cash.

What They Don’t Sell You

I was recently going over my Amazon Wish List and came across a few items that they don’t sell that I wish they did:

1) Time – Seems that I could knock a number of items off of my wish list if I could just buy what many of the books on there are meant to solve. My quest for being more productive and organized all center around not ever feeling like I have enough time. What is even more ironic is that, when I get these books, it takes me forever to read them because I just don’t have the time to do so. I actually even schedule time to read (i.e. literally block it out on my calendar) and I still find that even keeping that commitment to myself is difficult due to all of the other obligations and responsibilities in my life that I put first (and most often they rightfully deserve that placement).

2) Cloning – I am also stretched way to thin. There is literally not enough of me to satisfy all of the demands in my life. If there were several more than I would not need to purchase the item mentioned above. I suspect that, one day, I will be able to purchase this item somewhere. Maybe even in my lifetime. It is at least more likely we will find a way to be several places at once than it is to stretch time itself.

3) Capabilities – This would not even have to be all new capabilities. If we could just get upgrades to our current ones. For instance, if I could just be more focused and more organized perhaps I would not even need items #1 and #2 above. Like a Processor, RAM or Hard Drive upgrade, this should cost even less than a complete brain replacement but provide comparable benefits.

I am sure you can see where I am going here. The bottom line is that lately I have been feeling overwhelmed and directionless. I wish I could have enough time and money to devote to simply getting organized and productive. To paraphrase an old saying “You have to spend time to make time.”