As the Apple Turns: Scene 4222: Panther? Yeah, Whatever (9/23/03)

Panther? Yeah, Whatever (9/23/03)

Still clawing at your own eyeballs in frenzied anticipation of the release of Mac OS X 10.3? Yeah, us too, and this has really got to stop soon-- the Visine bills alone are killing us. Here's hoping that the rumors of a mid- to late-October launch come to pass and we aren't reduced to incessant ocular self-mutilation straight through until New Year's; it'd really put a damper on the whole holiday thingy. (Unless, of course, anyone's got an eggnog recipe in which vitreous humor figures heavily.)

The good news, though, is that we don't have to wait for Panther to get all excited about a new version of Mac OS X; if you fired up Software Update last night, you no doubt noticed that 10.2.8 is now ready for download and your ensuing rapturous approval. We, of course, downloaded and installed the 38.9 MB update ASAP (well, as quickly as we could with seriously impaired vision, at any rate); after all, who could resist "enhanced functionality and improved reliability" for "Audio, Address Book, AppleScript, Bluetooth, Classic compatibility, Disk Copy, Disk Utility, Finder, Graphics, Help Viewer, iChat, Image Capture, IP Firewall, Kerberos, Mail, OpenGL, Print Center, Rendezvous, Safari, and Sherlock"? Exposé, Shmexposé; enhanced functionality in Image Capture is where it's at, Daddy-o!

And "updated security services," too? Well, that's just the icing on the cake. Christmas in September, boy howdy!

But wait, there's more: Mac OS X 10.2.8 also granted us a taste of that rarest of treats, the Jaguar kernel panic! Or, rather, installing it did-- once the update was downloaded, installed, and optimized, clicking the "restart" button dumped us unceremoniously into the "Let's Pretend Nothing's Wrong" screen which calmly instructs you to restart your Mac without ever actually clueing you in to the fact that behind that serene screen lies the flaming, twisted wreckage of your entire OS session. Heck, even the subsequent restart taking forty minutes just to get to the Desktop was a blessing, since it gave us some quiet time to really make some serious headway in the whole eye-clawing department.

To be honest, though, the very bestest thing about 10.2.8 is the little note in its System Requirements: "Not for G5 systems." Yes, folks, now there's something your beige G3 can do that those fancy-shmancy new aluminum powerhouses can't; they're stuck in the oh-how-last-week 10.2.7, while you get to tool along with 10.2.8 and all of the glory its enhanced-functionality version of Print Center can muster. Who's laughing now, Virginia Tech? Who's laughing now?!

Um... well, Virginia Tech is, for one-- as are a lot of G5 owners who didn't have the opportunity to fling themselves headlong into 10.2.8ville. Whereas we only experienced a kernel panic after installation, apparently some others have had more serious problems (lost network connections; unbootable iMacs; festering boils on the face, neck, and shoulders), and Mac Rumors reports that Apple has pulled the updater. Oopsie! We'll let you know if we find any further problems following our installation. Hmmm, we do feel kind of itchy...

SceneLink (4222)

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The above scene was taken from the 9/23/03 episode:

September 23, 2003: Apple releases Mac OS X 10.2.8-- for about twenty minutes. Meanwhile, rumors fly that Apple is turning to liquid cooling systems to wedge a G5 into next year's PowerBook, and Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly orders Microsoft to pay nearly a million smackers to Massachusetts to help cover the state's legal fees as it continues to fight the good fight...

Other scenes from that episode:

4223: It's Liquid G5 Refreshment (9/23/03) So about that PowerBook G5 that Cap'n Steve hopes to foist upon us all before the end of next year: are you one of the many obsessive fans who didn't get a wink of sleep last night because you couldn't stop worrying about how Apple could possibly get around the cooling problem?...
4224: Sweet Redmond Moolah (9/23/03) Wow, we take back everything we've ever said about Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly! Well, except for that stuff we said about her name, which really is a pretty funny one-- be fair. And actually, now that we think about it, we should probably only take back just about half of what we've said, instead of the whole enchilada, what with pro-rating and all...

Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast...


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