Later today Panther will hit the streets. The Apple Stores around the country are hosting special events at 8:00 PM local time across the country. MacOSXhints.com will post several hints about the new OS. The good news is I might get to actually start using it as a project I was planning to deliver this week is delayed and the new included VPN functionality should enable using it without waiting for updated VPN clients.

It also looks like the Complete packages provided by Server Logistics probably will work as well. More good news.

Tonight brought some time to get the networking situation at the home office fixed up. The network now consists of two Airport base stations. One is an Extreme base station and one is a dual-ethernet base station that used to be at the office. The performance is good and it seems to work well. Best of all it seems to have eliminated problems with connections dropping here and there for no reason at all. The Airport Extreme station has an external antenna to help it rise above the interference in the room.

We'd just gotten a replacement for the iBook, a 12-inch G4 when I read rumors of the possible impending release of the 15-inch G4. Fortunately we didn't open the 12-inch and were able to return it for a 15-inch beauty. The 15-inch ended up costing about $400 more than the 12. It has a little less RAM (512 MB instead of 640MB) but much more possibility for expansion. It also has a superdrive instead of the combo drive. I'm not entirely convinced that the superdrive is right for a laptop. On the 12 I have I've liked the rapid speed for burning CD's which I do much more than DVDs.

The keyboard on the 15 is similar to the 12 but not as comfortable for those, who like me have poor typing position. I tend to rest my wrists on the computer too much. This is very comfortable on the 12 given the spacing of the keyboard, case etc. On the 15 it is not as comfortable as the keyboard is further from the edges of the case and it does not allow the wrists to bend down at the edge of the case as the 12 does. The illuminated keyboard seems to be a neat feature. I haven't really used it yet other than to cover the edges of the keyboard and see the lights come on.

While waiting for the umpteenth disk reconstruction recently I came across this knowledge base article on Apple's site. They indicate it may cause some inconvenient problems. For me it's cost the data on the disk several times. The incompatibility seems to cause the master data block on the disk to be so corrupted that the only recourse is to begin anew. I'd love to do as the article suggests and call Canon. I wonder when I'll get a response? The problem seems to be primarily the ZR-40, ZR-45 and ZR-50 cameras.