Spaces and Expose

Spaces does a great job of integrating Expose. When in full spaces view, where every space is tiled across your screen (F8 on my computer) you can press F9 to see not only all of your spaces but also all the windows spread out  on all of your spaces so you can quickly locate any window. Also in the spaces viewer you can not only drag-n-drop an entire space to re-organize them but you can also move apps between spaces.

Moving Apps

There are a variety of ways to move apps among spaces. In full view (F8) you can drag them around your spaces. Don’t want to go to full view? Just want to move to the space immediately to the Left/Right/Up/Down? Just grab that application and hold it against the edge of the screen for about 2 seconds and the next space will slide into view. Alternatively, just grab that app and use your buttons (on my computer Ctrl + Arrow Keys) to change spaces and your app will follow.

Persistent Applications

One feature I missed from Linux multiple desktops was the ability to have on application persist across all spaces. I like to have iChat and iTunes with me on every space. At first I thought this was a feature lacking in Leopard’s Spaces, but no indeed. This feature is actually just in a place where you wouldn’t expect to find it, the system preferences.

After opening the Spaces preference pane you can see that there is an “Application Assignments” area of the dialog; the purpose of Application Assignments is to ensure that an application always opens on a certain space. Hidden within the Space drop-down menu is an “Every Space” option that essentially sticks your app to every desktop. Perfect!

One caveat, when you view all spaces your persistent applications will only show up on the space you are currently on, which actually makes sense; why clutter up your spaces if you don’t have to. Also, if you change the space assignment for a currently-running application the change will be applied in real-time, no need to re-start the application. 

Conclusions

Spaces is just one of the many changes that Apple added to Leopard that has changed the way I work with my Mac. Once you get used to using Spaces you won’t be able to go back to working the old way, especially if you have anything less than a 17″ MacBook Pro.

Linux skeptics: I know that you’re sitting out there thinking that this isn’t anything $DISTRO hasn’t done for years. Give it a try if you dare, it definitely has the Apple touch and a few things that $DISTRO doesn’t.

Vista users: I’m just going to bite my tongue; I know you’re very proud of your 3-d window switcher and that’s just great. Don’t let me rain on your parade!

The default install only builds a i386 version that fails when restarting Apache with the error:

httpd: Syntax error on line ** of /Users/*******/Downloads/mod_python-3.3.1/test/conf/test.conf: Cannot load /usr/libexec/apache2/mod_python.so into server: dlopen(/usr/libexec/apache2/mod_python.so, 10): no suitable image found. Did find:\n\t/usr/libexec/apache2/mod_python.so: mach-o, but wrong architecture

The mod_python list has some details on how to make this work but they are just a little incomplete… so here it is, the full version. After you run the configure script you’ll need to change src/Makefile in the following ways:

• Add “-arch x86_64″ to the end of the LDFLAGS line (no quotes, of course).
• Add “-arch x86_64″ to the end of the CFLAGS line , otherwise you’ll get the “symbol not found” error.
• Under the mod_python.so target add the following to the $(APXS) line after the -c but before the $(SRCS) “-Wc,”-arch x86_64″”

That should do it, just make && make install then configure and reload apache (launchctl stop org.apache.httpd && launchctl start org.apache.httpd), you’ll be serving python in no time.

You should be able to adapt this method to build a universal binary with a little research on the proper arch arguments, if you do go ahead and post in the comments what you did.

The lesson this time, I’m far too trusting of people. I actually can’t say that ever in my life I’ve been screwed quite the way I’ve just been screwed by someone I genuinely like. I’ll chose not to elaborate any more than that but the takeaway from this lesson: be very careful who you place your trust in, especially when you’ve just met them randomly. Furthermore, listen to your friends, your true friends; they really do know what’s best sometimes wether you want to believe it or not at the time.

And there you have it, your personal post for the month. Stay tuned for more posts that are (hopefully) less boring than my ramblings about my personal life.

If you are a company that is going to do what SCO did why in the heck would you go and run your mouth  about it to the media like that? If I where Judge Kimball I would add an extra couple million dollars to the fine just as a stupidity surcharge after that article.

In that same vein, I’m going to start a betting pool. I bet that Daryl McBride gets fired before the end of the year. Any takers?

I noticed today (via Slashdot) that the GUI redesign team has a blog where they’re posting the proposed ideas for a GUI redesign. Some of the ideas, quite frankly, suck. Other ideas are truly brilliant and, if implemented correctly, could really put GIMP ahead of its competition (at least in usability).

My favorite idea so far has been to replace all of the nasty GTK windows with iPhoto-esque semi-transparent inspector windows that can be free floating or docked to any side of the screen (see full post). This would really be a leap forward in the photo editing GUI and is one of the major problems I still see in Photoshop, I want to see more of my image more of the time. I know that you can now hide the pallets in Photoshop CS3, which I do, but I think it would be fantastic if they where semi-transparent.

Three other ideas that I really liked where: quicksilver style functionality (though the guy’s implementation sucks), cleaning up the tragedy that is the layer pallet and filters as chains. If GIMP could clean up its act with masking, layering and filters I think it could give Photoshop a run for its money.

My suggestion for filters would be something along the lines of Quartz Composer but simpler, I think an interface like that if implemented properly would be completely amazing for image editing.

Although the district judge ruled in Novell’s favor on important issues, the case has not yet been fully vetted by the legal system and we will continue to explore our options with respect to how we move forward from here.

Hey SCO you lost your shirt and last time I checked lawyers don’t work for hot air and empty promises, they actually want some money. I don’t see how they plan to “explore [their] options” with no money. I also wonder how long it’ll take them to fire that clown Daryl McBride or if they’ll let him drive them completely out of business.

Let this be a lesson to any poor saps that think they can take down Linux or open source. Its just bad business, you get tons of bad PR, the zealots out there threaten you personally, oh yeah, and you end up bankrupt.

On a happy note, if your the type to buy penny stock it looks like there’s another player in that market.