10.3 is working. Most important, I can now synch my iPod with my Mac. Tons of new music downloading into the little white box ‘o fun.

Not surprisingly, the machine isn’t terribly speedy, but I think I’ll just always keep it on, and never quit any of my key applications.

Later. Okay, so I know some of my earlier posts sounded kind of snarky, in that nervous “is it going to work or not?” way, but I must say: this is turning out to be a great piece of technology. Not only is my iPod synching again, but I’ve got my CD burners again. A few months ago, during an update of OS 9, my Mac lost the ability to recognize the presence of the CD burners. 10.1 wouldn’t find them either. But Panther just takes them over, no using third party software, no nothing: put in a blank disc, open up the Finder, drag folders in, and hit “burn CD.” Magnificent.

This one seems to be going a bit faster. If this computer doesn’t positively scream, I’ll be very surprised.

Clearly this could take all day….

No, don’t install Internet Explorer! I’ll have just have to remove it!

Stuffit Expander, iTunes… okay….

Maybe one day I’ll use iMovie. Oh, who am I kidding?

(A friend of mine just got his 15″ Powerbook delivered today. All he has to do to get it working is open the box, and unfold some plastic.)

iPhoto… Have these been seriously updated, or is this a sign that my hard drive’s been erased, I wonder?

Now we’re into a bunch of languages. And there’s still one more CD to go.

And we’ve now switched from the blue progress bar with the little striped lines to something that looks like a candy cane. Some kind of cool peppermint, I think….

Whatever the optimization consists of, it’s not a quick process.

-by writing about the installation as it’s happening.

Clifford Nass, a communications professor at Stanford, makes the argument that people treat technologies like people: we know that they’re not really people, but we still behave toward them as if they are. (Howard Rheingold has some fascinating speculations on what could happen to those attitudes as devices become more reactive, can recognize different people, etc.)

There are times when they don’t seem so much like people, as like gods. And not a forgiving New Testament type of god- one of the Greek ones that gets its kicks by screwing around with mortals.

Now processing “Base System Part 2.” 7 minutes left.

Now that the conference is over, I thought I’d treat myself to a day of confusion, pain, and possible loss of my entire digital life, and install OS X 10.3 on my iMac.

Fortunately I’ve got everything backed up, save for a few hundred meg of recent photos, but I take so many of them that I feel like their loss would be sad but not completely tragic.

The installer says its going to process “Base System Part 1” for another 12 minutes. Who knows what happens after that, or what I’ll have on my machine when it’s over. Part of me wouldn’t be completely unhappy to have to do a clean reinstall of stuff- I know I’ve got a lot of detritus on the machine. So long as it boots up, and not in Unix mode. That’s all I ask.