Scenario 1

Given a set of messages, 1…..2…..3…..4

Click a mail message (1), Shift-Click another (2) to highlight everything in between. Command-Click a new mail message (3), which is added to the selection set without altering the previous list. Up until this point, the behavior of Tiger and Leopard’s Mail.app is the same.

Shift-Click a message (4) further down the list.

In Tiger, this would have messages 1….2 selected, and messages 3…..4 selected. One could continue down the inbox message list like this, adding hundreds of messages to a selection, then perform an action (move to folder, mark as Junk, delete, etc).

In Leopard, this would have messages 3….4 selected, and not the previous selection. Bad.

Scenario 2

Given a set of messages, 1…..2…..3…..4

Click a mail message (2), Shift-Click another (3) to highlight everything in between. Shift-Click a new mail message outside the list, and in the opposite direction (1).

In Tiger, this would have messages 1….3 highlighted. A subsequent shift-click on message (4) would have messages 1….4 highlighted.

In Leopard, this would have messages 1….2 highlighted, and not the messages between 2…..3. A subsequent shift-click on message (4) would leave messages 2…..4 selected, and not the messages between 1…..2. Bad.

The behavior in Tiger’s Mail.app was brilliant, and radically contributed to speedily of adding items to a selection list. I want to revert to this behavior in Leopard’s Mail.app. It is reasonable that it might be a plist option. In general, however, I want this selection behavior available across all applications, including the Finder.

My quest began at http://www.gametap.com/home/myst/ which promised that URU was available for both PC and Mac. Excellent, said I, for I had a spiffy new iMac, I’d be able to run the game with theoretically beautiful visuals. This incentive drove me to plunk down $83.40 for a 1 year subscription, after which I eagerly clicked through to download… a windows executable? What the shit is this?

I went back to the gametap homepage, which promised “Great Games”. Navigating around to the product pages prompts me to login again. This site has apparently not heard the wisdom of cookies. After login, I am cheerfully presented with a different 35mb windows installer of similar non-usefulness.

Googling for various combinations of “myst” “uru” “osx” “mac” turned up lots of people with happy news of the port, and no link to real information.

I pounded some pavement around the MystOnline Forums, and uncovered the following information:

• URU on OSX apparently runs in the Wine-based Cider wrapper from Transgaming. I have yet to be impressed with Transgaming, but I’ll give them another shot.
• The GMA 950 integrated graphics card is not currently supported. So I cannot play URU on my MacBook.
• Hamsta helpfully links to the Super Secret Mac OSX URU Myst Online Installer. Why the fuck gametap couldn’t do that, I have no idea.

I downloaded the URU installer on my macbook. It complained about the GMA 950 being unsupported, but let me continue anyway. It spent a half hour or so downloading updates, restarted, and let me login fine. The intro Myst video played fine, and took me to the Explorer name login screen. It let me create a character, though there were some occulsion and specular highlight issues in the character generator. The game itself runs smoothly, and apart from the main character’s clothing appears free of strange rendering artifacts.

1. That is, of course, to QD Mac Solutions in Windsor. ↩
2. Martti DeLaBarre ↩
3. Look, my laptop, she’s an expensive external firewire harddrive, with a built-in 802.11b wireless networking, full-size keyboard, touch trackpad, and malfunctioning 12″ active mode backlit lcd display. ↩

• 20″ iMac 1680×1050
• 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• ATI Radeon X1600 PCI-E 256MB GDDR3
• 2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM – 2×1GB
• 250GB Serial ATA Drive
• SuperDrive 8X (DVDR-DL/CD-RW)

Built-in 802.11b means the only cords connected are power and a keyboard. I’m a sucker for clean lines.

Reki’s been helping me edit a little video montage recently. Now, her sempai will help finish it. I’m not too sure what job Reki (or Hikari, for that matter) will be doing next. Caring for the young ones, maybe.

Until this evening. 150$ of Lithium Ion 50-watt-hour go juice later, she’s got that youthful spring returned to her gait. I’ve been listening to music for the last 3 hours, still have 61% battery remaining. I am pleased.

Now, following the plotline of Haibane, Washi (the Communicator) tells Reki that Nemu is more worried about seeing Reki leave than about leaving herself. It is certain that Nemu has already overcome her trial, yet she’s been in Glie longer than any of the other Haibane. Her concern for Reki holds her there, and Nemu will not move on until Reki overcomes her trial and passes over the wall.

Now, Reki is still working through the final days of her trial, but Nemu has fallen ill. A failed harddrive, to be specific. We’ve lost 20gig of non-critical data. She’s going to need invasive surgery. It is certain, however, that she will not be passing on yet, as she is bound to wait until the Day of Flight comes to her sister in feathers.

I don’t really have the money for the help she needs right now. And in the meantime, I’ve got no machines with a graphical web browser at home.

Update 2006-06-15: Replaced the harddrive, and in doing so I managed to fry the memory controller on the mainboard.
Update 2006-07-17: Almost 6 weeks later, I have replaced the motherboard. Sleepyhead is back.

Firstly, connect the two apple machines together with 6-pin firewire cable. Boot the macmini normally. Boot the elderly laptop while holding down the ‘t’ key on keyboard, starting the laptop in Firewire Target Disk mode.

The laptop’s display will show a large floating orange firewire logo. Observe that the iBook’s harddisk is mounted on the macmini’s desktop, and you should have full access to read or write any files needed. (Now would be a good time to backup anything still needed.)

Note that if the drive doesn’t appear, there’s something wrong with the firewire cable or one of the two machines. You should stop now and fix that before continuing.

Insert the Tiger install DVD in the macmini. Reboot, holding down ‘c’ to boot from the install disc.

We want to do a clean install of Tiger. So before starting the actual install, use the built-in Disk Tools (from Utilities menu) to either repartition or erase the firewire-attached disk.

Select the firewire-attached drive as the installation target, and start the installation as per a normal install. Several questions and lots of file copy later, the install will finish. The macmini will reboot. The laptop continues to bear the floating orange firewire logo.

The first stages of install are done, and we no longer require the Tiger DVD. Unplug the firewire cable from both machines, severing the umblical relationship between them. Eject the Tiger DVD, and start the macmini normally. Press the laptop’s power button to shut it down completely, then again to start it, booting off the newly-blessed harddisk.

Follow the wizard and finalize the installation like normal.

Summary:

1. Connect both machines with firewire cable.
2. Hold ‘t’ to boot target machine in firewire target mode.
3. Verify that the firewire drive is visible on source machine.
4. Optionally backup any important information.
5. Reboot, holding ‘c’ to boot source machine from the install DVD.
6. Optionally repartition or erase the target’s harddrive using Disk Tools.
7. Select the firewire drive as the installation target.
8. Let the installer copy the required files.
9. Reboot both machines from harddrive(s), remove firewire cable.
10. Finalize installation via wizard.

At long last, I’ve gotten an iBook of my own. Her name is Nemu. Being one of the elder sisters, she doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of her juniors. I have set out to rectify this.

Wireless 802.11 networking

While having room for an Airport card, she left the creator without being blessed. Update: I’ve ordered an airport card from macwireless.com.

Ram

Two slots available, one is stuffed with a 128mb stick of ram. I must add more ram to this machine, filling her to 640mb.

Safari is the rawk, and this battery seems to be holding up pretty well under extended use.