The WWDC keynote has just finished, and Steve has just announced the first details of OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Some new features are overhyped. For instance, Apple Mail now comes with templates! And Outlook Express had that in, what, 1996? (I always thought it was a good thing that ‘serious’ clients like Mail and Thunderbird didn’t go down that path …).

Also, OS X will now have virtual-desktop functionality called Spaces — something that’s been in KDE and GNOME for years. Heck, with Xgl the Apple fanboys can’t even claim that their desktop switcher looks cooler.

But there are two new features that caught my eye. One is Time Machine, which on the face of it is just another incremental backup utility with a shiny interface. But turn it on by default and add a little Apple simplicity magic, and I think this may finally be the solution to everyone’s tendency to never back stuff up. Kinda like System Restore in Windows XP, but actually useful, because it automatically backs up your data.

The other is the planned improvements to OS X accessibility. The lack of accessibility features in most computer software has long annoyed me, and while Apple have done a better job than most, up until now it’s been a matter of “if you can’t use this, your best bet is OS X, if you have this other disability, use Linux, otherwise, use Windows”. Leopard may change that — which can only be a good thing. Also, lots of people are saying the system text-to-speech (which hasn’t been updated since OS 8!) now sounds awesome.

Steve’s WWDC keynote also announced the ‘fastest Mac ever’ and new Xserves, but (surprise, surprise!) none of the crazy rumours like an Apple mobile phone.

I’ve long had my doubts about e-tax, the Tax Office’s supposedly “easy” solution for lodging individual tax returns electronically. Not only is it a Windows-only application, it’s a poorly designed Windows application. Heck, that much is obvious from the kludgy Win16-style interface.

But this evening I discovered just how poorly designed it is. Suppose your default printer in Windows is a network printer, in my case a home multifunction shared over plain old SMB (the default Windows printer sharing). Supposed said printer and the computer it’s attached to are offline, because you have no reason to turn them on right now. Try opening e-tax.

You get the delightful message “access violation at address 0055F9C0 in module ‘etax2006.exe’. Read of address 00000008.”

Solution: change your default printer, or turn on the network printer. Cos, you know, you absolutely must have a printer ready and raring when you type in your tax file number.

Some discoveries from a morning when I should have been reading about Asian regionalism …

• Having just concluded a summit meeting with the leaders of the European Union, I’m amazed at how George Bush has changed to a concillatory tone, even to the point of affirming that he wants to close Guantanamo Bay. The gung-ho, “with us or against us” President of not long ago has clearly learnt some lessons — or maybe he’s started listening to advisers when they point out that cooperating with Europe is his only real option.
• Over in Dili, even Xanana is asking Mari Alkatiri to resign. Although there’s clearly evidence that the PM bears some responsibility for the current crisis, I doubt sacking him will achieve as much as people are hoping. The UN’s special rep claims the situation there is still fragile, and leadership changes won’t help if the Timorese government just plods along with the same policies.
• To other matters: it’s intrigued me how the mainstream media are taking to the world of new Web services and software. This AP article in the SMH article talks about Web browsers as if tabbed browsing and Dashboard-style widgets had only just been invented, and apparently Internet Explorer 6 is only just starting to “show signs of ageing”. But uninformed reporting aside, at least browser innovation is getting some air time in the mainstream press.
• Also in the world of software, Microsoft have announced a partnership with — of all people — the Creative Commons folks! Admittedly, all they are doing is offering an Office add-in to give documents CC licensing metadata, but even that would have been unthinkable for the Microsoft of a few years ago.