Mac OS X 10.5.2 Released

Apple just released the anticipated 10.5.2 update for Leopard. Among the myriad of fixes the highlights of this major update are:

- Airport: Improves connection reliability and stability
- Back to my Mac: Adds support for more third-party routers, as detailed in this article.
- Dock: Updates Stacks with a List view option, a Folder view option, and an updated background for Grid view.
- Desktop: Addresses legibility issues with the menu bar with an option to turn off transparency in Desktop & Screen Saver preferences.
- Desktop: Adjusts menus to be slightly-less translucent overall.
- iSync: Adds support for Samsung D600E and D900i phones.
- RAW Image: Adds RAW image support for several cameras, as detailed in this article.
- Safari: Addresses issues with Safari reliably resolving certain domains.
- Time Machine: Adds a menu bar option for accessing Time Machine features (the menu extra can be enabled in Time Machine preferences).
- Time Machine: Improves backup reliability when computer name contains slash or non-ASCII characters.
- Time Machine: Addresses issues in which some external drives are not recognized by Time Machine.

Get your update via Software Update or via a Combo Installer here. One more thing after installing 10.5.2 there is one more update Software Updates will find the Leopard Graphics Update. Get it either via Software Updates or here.

Let's hope I can now connect to the Internet via my corporate MS ISA proxy server. Fingers crossed.

I Heart San Francisco

Well it is that time of the year again that I need my American fix. So I am off for 3 weeks to San Francisco, Las Vegas and possibly Seattle to visit friends and family. Very tight schedule ahead but really looking forward to it. Sneaky visit to Microsoft and Apple. Ever since I told people I am going over, my phone hasn't stopped ringing. Between the countless calls from Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, I am finding it hard to decide who I am having dinner with every evening. *Just Kidding* - Although a sneaky visit to Redmond is most likely as a good friend is a VP there. Can't wait to raid the Employee Store with its great discounts again this year with him! Finally I am so looking forward to seeing my all time favourite Bette Midler in Las Vegas on her opening night in Caesar's Palace.

See you in a few weeks.

Windows Vista SP1 & Windows Server 2008 hit RTM

According to the Microsoft Windows Vista blog, today Microsoft released Windows Vista SP1 to manufacturing. Unfortunately it will not be until mid-March before it hits Windows Update and becomes available for download.

Today also Windows Server 2008 made it to manufacturing as well. As of a few hours ago Microsoft published the final versions for download in their MSDN Subscribers' Download area.

Hopefully it wont be too long before Vista runs faster on my iMac thanks to the service pack.

Apple iMac - 2 weeks on

Well it has now been two weeks since my amazing new Apple iMac arrived. So far it is a match made in heaven. Still no solution to the MS ISA Proxy server issue (although googling the problem reveals a possible fix in Leopard 10.5.2, that's about to be released).

I am almost completely happy with VMWare Fusion as well. My corporate workstation image with Windows XP and Visual Studio 2008 is actually running far more reliably and fast than it did on my HP workstation. The virtual machine is configured to use both cores of the Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme *Intel Inside Jingle* and 2GB of physical RAM. This configuration is pretty similar to my original HP workstation. The only annoying thing with Fusion 1.1 (not a problem with Parallels though) is the lack of support for multiple monitors. Basically if you are using multiple monitors you can not use both of them at the same time with the emulated machine. You can not drag Windows/Linux/OS2 windows from one monitor to the other in Unity mode. Hopefully a fix is soon on its way as Parallels do explicitly offer that option with their Coherence feature.

I suppose unlike a Tiger or a Leopard or a Panther I have managed so far to change my stripes and spots without problems!