joseaguilar.org

Third Time’s a Charm

Today I ran into this article named Mac OS X 10.5.3 about to hit. It listed all the bug fixes that are going to be included in the soon-to-be released OSX 10.5.3 update. I can tell you that I’ve never been so anxious about an OSX update as this one. The gods at cupertino, however, seem to have heard our pleas, and are fixing a couple of @#$@# annoying bugs that have my user experience with Apple products very frustrating (to put it mildy) ever since I upgraded to a MacBook last January.

The first issue that seems to be resolved is listed as “Joining AirPort network after wake issue resolved”. This is an issue that has been known for months, is incredibly frustrating, and the workaround takes a long time to perform. It turns out that on Santa Rosa based Macs, sometimes when you wake your computer from sleep (or reboot it), it will simply NOT be able to connect to your selected Airport network. You’ll only get a Connection Timeout error message. You cannot even begin to imagine how infuriating this is, specially if you are in a hurry or are expecting an important email. It turns out that the culprit is actually the OSX Keychain (I know… :S), and the workaround involves several steps:

• Turn Airport Off
• Go to the Network Preferences Panel, and DELETE the network you were trying to connect to
• Go to the folder Library:Preferences:System Configuration and DELETE the file com.apple.airport.preferences.plist (enter your password if prompted)
• Open Keychain Access and DELETE the entries for the networks you were trying to connect to. Make sure you delete them in both the login and system keychains.
• Restart your computer
• Try to connect. At this point, it may still fail. If it does, open Safari and try to access any webpage. You’ll get a page with a button to access the Network Diagnostics utility. Use it, and connect to the network from there

So, you can see it takes close to forever to restore your network connectivity. And sometimes you need to do it twice, as you may have missed a step. Hopefully this will be gone after the update. This bug is well documented here and here and here.

The other issue, hopefully, will be solved by the fix “Fix to CoreGraphics and DVD Player” has to do with DVD playback. This is actually worse, and it basically consists in the MacBook CRASHING when you try to play a DVD. This only seems to happen on Santa Rosa-based MacBooks with 4GB of RAM. This one isn’t as frustrating, as you only need to NOT use your MacBook to watch DVDs. Still, it should have been fixed a while back. This is documented in this thread at MacRumors.

Sci-fi Books

After leaving this blog collecting cobwebs for over a year, I decided to start writing again. I am an avid Sci-fi reader, so I decided to "restart" posting by writing about some of the books I’ve read in the past couple of years. I will only mention those books that I consider to be above-average. My intention is to periodically post about new books I’ve read and enjoyed.

So, here it is, the very first Jose Aguilar recommended Sci-fi book list:

• Hyperion by Dan Simmons: One of my new favorites. It tells the tale of several "pilgrims" that go to planet Hyperion, and each one tells the story on how they ended up on that pilgrimage. All against the backdrop of a blooming intergalactic war. Impressive book.
• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller: Another great book. It tells the story of the order of Saint Leibowitz, an engineer that sacrificed himself to preserve humankind’s knowledge after a nuclear war. The most interesting thing is that it actually tells three stories - 600, 1200, and 1800 years after the nuclear holocaust.
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin: What would happen if humans would alternate between male and female periodically? This is what happens in Winter, the world where this excellent book takes place. The story unfolds as an emissary of the Ekumen Empire tries to establish relations with the planet. Incredibly interesting story.
• The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle: Amazing history of human’s first contact with another civilization, completely different from our own. The description of the "moties", and how their environment has influenced their physical appearance and how they think, is something not seen very often.

I also ran into this list the other day while browsing this Slashdot post… I will definitely start checking them out as soon as I read the books I have in queue.