Raible Designs

Apache 2.0.48 and 1.3.29 Released!

The most popular web server has some new releases for you security conscious developers. What's changed? View the release notes for Apache 2.0.48 or for 1.3.29. You can download both versions here.

I found it strange that Panther shipped with 1.3.28 rather than 2.0.47 - luckily, I was able to quickly install 2.0.47 (thanks to a backup of /usr/local) and disable 1.3.28.

Mozilla 1.5 Released!

The Mozilla Foundation has released Mozilla 1.5. I don't really have any reasons to use Mozilla anymore because of Firebird, but since Mozilla Firebird depends on the same core as Mozilla - I suppose this is good for me. I wonder if it means that Firebird and Camino will have new releases soon?

Panther vs. Jaguar ~ The results are in!

According to my performance tests, Panther is faster than Jaguar for most things Java related. Compiling whole projects with Ant is a few seconds faster. Opening IDEA is only 1-2 seconds faster. Opening Eclipse is actually slower. Booting is considerably faster - they've managed to trim off 1/3 of the boot up time.

I really like Panther so far, but I've discovered today that my 3rd party memory will have to come out and stay out. I've had 5+ black screens of death and after talking to tech support from OWC, they've confirmed there is an issue with all 3rd party RAM. They said they'd be tracking down the issue and getting me a replacement ASAP.

Things I dig the most: the Finder (more like Windows Explorer), Mail and Expose. I can't figure out what Expose's "Application windows" is for - it just seems to highlight the current app I'm in.

Things that suck? Photoshop gives errors on startup but continues to run. Ant puked at one point but seems to work fine now. A few of the haxies I've purchased aren't available yet (for Panther). XCode kinda sucks too - it forces you to use it's directory structure for projects. It looks cool, but we all know that good IDEs don't force you to do anything.

[Proof] Panther ships with Ant, XDoclet and JBoss!

Simon mentions some treats that Panther has for developers:

I've just installed Panther and since you don't get stuff like CVS installed by default, I decided to open up the XCode CD and install the developer tools. To my surprise there are some Java tools tucked away including Ant, XDoclet, log4j and JBoss.

Here's a screenshot to prove it really does exist:

Wicked cool. It sucks that Ant is out of date (1.5.3), but that's OK since I already have it installed.

Oh yeah, and the 3rd Party RAM I have that was causing the Panther install to hang? I re-installed it and everything seems to work just fine.

Jaguary vs. Panther - performance numbers

While I'm waiting, I might as well post [my performance numbers|PerformanceComparisons] for Jaguar. I'll update this post when I finally get Panther installed on my laptop. I'm willing to bet my new 2.6 GHz Dell Dimension 8300 blows the doors off all of these numbers. We'll find out later this week!

My name hurting Pro JSP sales?

I guess Amazon (or Apress) figured that if they removed my name from Amazon's listing of Pro JSP - they'd boost their sales. I don't mind, whatever it takes!

Getting help from the Geniuses

I'm now at my local local Apple Store trying to get this damn upgrade accomplished. The guy who's working on it thinks its fingerprints on Disc 1 that's causing the problem. I'll be fricken livid if this is the problem. If it's not, that means this guy doesn't believe I know what I'm talking about and I've just wasted 30 minutes while he sees the same behavior that I've seen. If it is fingerprints, I'm an idiot and I'll walk out of her with an upgraded machine in 30 minutes or so.

Update: A nice stack trace towards the end of disc 1 finally prompted them to try new CDs. Once again, more waiting...

Update 2: New CDs didn't help - the upgrade still froze when installing Asian Languages (or something like that). I left it there for them to fix. Hopefully, I'll get back an upgraded machine in the next day or two.

Update 3: I just talked with the guys from the Apple store - my 3rd party RAM was causing the problem. They removed it and Panther installed just fine. Now I get the joy of installing it again (when I get home tonight) and hoping it works. If not, I'd better get my money back from OWC!

The upgrade saga continues...

Continuing from yesterday...

Today I tried doing a "clean install" with Panther. That didn't work either - it quit with a "installation failed" error. Finally, I tried erasing my hard drive and going that route. Then Panther said it couldn't find an OS X installation to upgrade. To make matters worse, I can't boot to my OS X 10.1 nor 10.2 install disks. I hold down Ctrl+C with no luck. Thanks to some advice on the Apple Discussion Forums - I'm now restoring back to 10.2. I suppose I'll try to upgrade again after that - but I'm suspicious that the CDs are bad.

Later: Must be a bad install CD. I restored my PowerBook with the restore DVD and tried to upgrade. It made it most of the way through the upgrade, and then gave me a gray screen with a spinner at the bottom. After 20 minutes of waiting, I figured it was hosed and re-installed 10.2 with the DVD. I guess I'll head to the Apple store for an exchange tomorrow. Panther truly sucks right now in my opinion - don't upgrade unless you're a glutten for punishment (like I am).

Upgrade to Panther - not pretty

I've tried to upgrade to Panther 3 times now, all with the installer getting hung up somewhere along the process (in different locations each time). The sweet thing about having 2 PowerBooks is that I can mount my bad-upgrade machine as a Firewire drive - and back up all my files. Looks like this upgrade is going to require a format first...

At the game

Nuggets behind by 6 at halftime.