Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, OS, Software, Apple, Leopard
Leopard screensaver, Help menu video leaked
When I posted the new System Preferences pane in Leopard earlier this week, I was a little disappointed to see that while the desktop had changed (here it is online, if you want to make it your own already-- thanks, Ryan D!), the screensaver had not. I figured this is because Apple wasn't bringing any new screensavers to the fold in Leopard, but that was premature-- here's a "Falling Photos" screensaver sent to us by Christian BS (thanks!). I would be very, very surprised if it didn't automatically pull photos from iPhoto for you, as apparently "you can display any photos this way." Also notice the clock-- we're told that it can be displayed on any screensaver you choose.
And he also sent us this video of the new Help system, which has a Spotlightesque bar in it that will actually let you search for clickable options. That's terrific-- no more browsing through a Help system to find a tutorial about how to increase the text size: in Leopard, you'll be able to type "text size" into the bar, and automatically get the commands right within that menu.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
will Arnold said 4:45PM on 8-29-2007
well we saw that new album art one last WWDC (06 not 07). That was kinda kool.
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Nick said 4:52PM on 8-29-2007
Here is a better video: http://one.revver.com/watch/68081
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Fritz Laurel said 5:10PM on 8-29-2007
Speaking of spotlight (or, CRAPlight as I light to call it), really the only new feature I need in OS X is a FIND feature so I can find my freaking files like I used to be able to do pre-spotlight. And it needs to work for system files in "hidden" folders, too.
I mean, come on Apple, no more of this pansie-style "oh, now, where did I put that picture from my vacation last year." Hmm, I know, why don't you look in, umm, iphoto maybe? I know where MY files are, they're where I put them. I need hard-core, built-in-to-the-OS file search.
I cannot express how much I hate, hate, hate spotlight. Two things I really value: privacy and speed. And those are two things spotlight completely decimates.
That said, it looks like using a spotlight-esque search for help is perfectly suited for something like spotlight. Let it come with a pre-made index of the help files and keep its prying eyes from indexing my files and slowing my machine to a crawl.
Sorry for the rant, but I know of a lot of people who hate spotlight as much as I do and I'm surprised that no one is taking Apple to task over this. Or, maybe the are and I'm just not aware of it?
[deep breath] I feel better now.
Cheers,
FL
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Dale said 5:16PM on 8-29-2007
@Fritz, how does Spotlight "decimate privacy"? Just curious.
I never use Spotlight, but that's more a testament to how anal I am about filing than anything else. I usually know where everything is.
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Fritz Laurel said 5:28PM on 8-29-2007
@Dale -- it indexes your files (and emails and anything else it has a plugin for) which amounts to reading them and storing bits of them away in its database. For someone like myself who does government consulting, I can't have this.
Cheers,
FL
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Michael Clark said 5:32PM on 8-29-2007
That screen saver looks a lot like the screen saver that gets created when you Simpsonize yourself and save a screen saver to your machine with your image. Then again, there aren't that many ways to randomly display photos in a cool way.
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Michel said 5:57PM on 8-29-2007
I couldn't live without spotlight on a mac.
It's helpful in tons of pdf documents, website developments and so on.
you know you can control what folders it indexes ?
you know in leopard, there are networked spotlight ?
you know you HAVE the control of YOUR computer ? no little man behind you
I don't want uber-geek find stuff (you have the unix command find and grep, by the way, with regular exp and so on) when spotlight can find whatever I need by name, content or meta-data.
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Simon Arch said 6:03PM on 8-29-2007
Fritz, are you aware that Spotlight can be told to ignore items (even volumes) the user does not wish to have indexed?
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Mo said 6:05PM on 8-29-2007
If you bother to look at Spotlight's preferences, you can tell it precisely which files to index or not.
1. Set home directory to be encrypted via FileVault
2. Tell Spotlight not to index your home directory
3. Securely delete the Spotlight database and force it to re-create them
4. Use “locate” (see the --database parameter) and “/usr/libexec/locate.updatedb” (create a copy and modify the paths) with an update database stored within your FileVault-encrypted home directory.
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Fritz Laurel said 6:49PM on 8-29-2007
@All -- thanks for the responses and info!
Yes, I am aware of all of that, but no, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not interested in having to hack away at spotlight to get it to stop it's madness. Believe me, I've already taken the necessary steps to completely disable spotlight on all of my systems and it irks me that I am forced to go to such lengths.
And I can totally understand how it would be a hugely useful feature for people with tons of PDFs, etc. Rock on, spotlight!
And yes, I know it pretends to have privacy features, but 1) it won't let one add one's hard drive to the list and 2) why should I have to add things to a list. Why can't I just turn it off?
What I AM looking for is an off switch for spotlight which then would allow find to work like it used to. No indexing, no having to turn on the buggy FileVault, no having to tell spotlight not to index all my files. All I want is a way to do filename-only searches of my entire hard drive -- that's it.
It's just really annoying that for that rare moment when I need to find a file and I don't already know where it is, I have to bring up spotlight and all of the bloated madness that comes with it. Then I have to go through all these steps to turn it off again when it never finds what I'm looking for in the first place because I'm typically looking for something in a "hidden" folder.
And, as an aside, Michel, no, we do not have complete control of our computers under OS X. But that's a completely different topic.
Cheers,
FL
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adam bucci said 10:39PM on 8-29-2007
that screensaver was in an earlier build.
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Matteo said 8:25AM on 8-30-2007
I just hope this screensaver also get pics off Aperture... Because currently Front Row only communicates with iPhoto and not Aperture. For someone like me, who has 99% of pics in Aperture, the new screensaver (AS WELL AS THE NEW FRONT ROW OF COURSE) would be basically useless without that feature.
The screensaver looks kinda cool though (although mine is seldom active or, when it is, I am not in front of it staring at the pics) :-)
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Harbinger said 10:56AM on 8-30-2007
Unfortunately, I think the PS3's pictures slideshow does the effect better.
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Ross said 5:43PM on 8-31-2007
These are from the first build I had my hands on... and were uploaded to Google Video almost a year ago in 2006 :P
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