resistance to persistence

That’s right, I’m turning the new Mac OSX 10.4 Dashboard feature off. I came across this DashOnOff software yesterday and I really thought about how much I use Dashboard. Very close to 0. Looking at the system info, each widget just takes up valuable memory. Memory I could use elsewhere to keep things running. I’ve got 1Gb of memory, so it’s not slow by any means, but I just never switch to the dashboard to control iTunes (i use quicksilver instead) - and besides, why doesn’t the iTunes widget allow you rate songs? Maybe I’d use it if I could do that. Or a clock running in Dashboard? There’s already a clock in the top corner, and numerous ones around me at any time.

I’m relatively new to MacOSX, and didn’t spend much time using Panther before getting the upgrade to Tiger since I bought my machine right after the release, but if I had to pay for this upgrade, I would be disappointed and want my money back. I rarely use Spotlight. It finds way too much stuff and isn’t accurate enough. If I search for a filename, it displays hundreds of unrelated files that don’t appear to have my search keyword. Quicksilver is much more efficient. I thought Spotlight was going to be a Quicksilver killer, but I can’t do half as much with Spotlight as I can with QS.

I gave the Automator a try yesterday when I finally found a use for it…A task I repeat daily - connect to VPN, then start my Remote Desktop connection. But none of these options are available within Automator! Maybe I’m not looking in the right place. Automator must be useful somewhere, right?

Smart Folders could be a good idea, but I’ve got a pretty good file organization system going, so I haven’t needed this yet. I don’t use Safari’s RSS yet as I have a web-based RSS reader so I can read my news from anywhere.

Tiger apparently has over 200 new features, but I haven’t seen any that have really impressed me. None worth spending $100+ to upgrade for. Don’t get me wrong, I do love Mac OSX, but I would have been just as fine with Panther. If you really want to improve your Mac experience, just go get Quicksilver.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 8th, 2005 at 12:07 pm and is filed under Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.