I spent hours trying to configure the school network server on OS X - which, unsurprisingly, is using Microsoft’s protocol. Nothing works. I’m throwing up my arms in frustration!

I don’t claim to have the best tatabahasa (grammar of Bahasa Malaysia). But I’m frequently assault by horrendously phrased announcements in Singapore, leading me to assume that Singapore’s has a variant of Malay that no one other than the employees of public relations firms and public transport operators know.

Example, on the North-East MRT Line, operated by SBS Transit who assumes that there is a broad demography of Mandarin, Tamil and Malay speakers that need to be reminded that there is a platform gap, the announcement is “Berhati-hati ruang di platform” (pronounced, “ber-HAPPY-happy ruang di PLATFORM”). Translated directly, it means, “Careful of the space on the platform”. People frequently die in the ruang di platform after all.

I got a MacBook with uneven keys, will complain. But the nice aspect was when I switched the Mac on for the first time. A loud chime occurred (expected, I worked with Macs before), but for importantly, a second and a half latter, a nice, HD video welcoming me to OS X Leopard with Welcome in multiple languages.

Youtube doesn’t do it justice. It’s those little touches.

BTW, one day of using Office 2008 and I’m having severe Office 2007 withdrawal effects. It’s not about the locations of things - I think it would take a few days to know where stuff are hidden around Office 2008. Its just that the Ribbon in Office 2007 is so infinitely more convenient than all the Palletes, toolbars and galleries. In Office 2007, when you, for example, select a table, the Ribbon tab on Tables come up, showing the most frequently used functions. Office 2008 doesn’t do that.

It would be interesting to see what would be my main OS after Windows 7 - with system-wide Ribbon and APIs for other software developers to use Ribbon.

Also, I’m using Keynote’s 30 day trial. I may not even buy it. There were two killer features of Keynote: the ability to grid elements of a slide easily (for example, it is easy to centre a textbox - on PowerPoint 2007, you have to eyeball it), and cool animations. PowerPoint 2008 co-opts the first one. And animations… is it worth S$159? I rather spend that money on Parallels and get Office 2007 :-P.

In the defining case (Roe v Wade quality) of McVitties v Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise, the courts accepted the definition that biscuits (cookies) are food that grow soft when stale, and cakes grow hard when stale. Which brings up this important philosophical question of definitions, if that’s the case, wouldn’t soft-baked cookies (think Subway, Mrs Field) be classified as cakes too? They get hard when stale…