I started the journey long ago with >Ion3. My main problem with it was the terrible default configuration. Hundreds of lines of incomprehensible Lua means that it’s very difficult to write a proper laptop status bar. I slogged through, learned Lua, and eventually came up with something that was usable. Then I learned of the author’s bat-shit insane-ness. Not wanting to get sued, I switched away. I wanted something that was easy to understand and script with a “large” install base.

So far build quality seems good, and it’s battery life is working as advertised(although I haven’t had it for long enough to do a completely battery drain test. It comes with a stylus and 3 magnets for attaching to a refrigerator. The magnets are TOUGH to pull apart. I’d recommend using a butter knife or box cutter to wedge between them. According to my Kill-A-Watt, the entire laptop uses 14 watts with the backlight on and battery charging.

I decided to give Snow Leopard gold master(10a432) a try on my fancy Macbook unibody. I had become accustomed to some of the particular quirks and performance of Leopard 10.5 on my hardware, and wanted to see what new features or performance I should be expecting for the next release of OS X. Booting up the install USB disk, I notice that the background is slightly changed. It’s still Leopard-esque, but slightly different.