Rhon did some research into my missing email problem. Turns out you can't just dump your old Panther Mail library into your new Tiger Mail install and expect it to see everything. Despite that iTunes and iPhoto both work that way. No, for Mail, I had to open up an Import Mailboxes command and show it my old Mail library. Then it resurrected all of my email fine. Except that, for some reason, Panther stored Inbox email in a different location than your custom mailboxes, so I had to direct Tiger Mail to another nearby location to find my actual Inbox email. Before I did that, the only Inbox email it saw was ancient 2002 Jaguar mail!

So out of the four items I was concerned about, my music came over perfectly, my photos were a total pain, my email was almost written off, and my documents were of course no problem. The utilitarian view would be that, sure, it's all fine now.

Now about the new Apple product announcements.

New iMacs. Although I still consider the lamp design far and away the best computer casing yet invented, I like the features on the new iMac. Having iSight built into the monitor is great... but it does seem to prove my early assertion about the iSight camera: it is nothing more than an $150 accessory for iChat AV. Having the camera stuck into the frame is even more useless than the non-positionable external gunbarrel model they've been pushing for a year and a half. Well, "useless" is a strong word, maybe more like "non-versatile." Apple is telling you: you will use this camera for video chat and nothing else. At least now you're not paying extra for it.

Oh, and PhotoBooth. Jesus, what a waste of company resources that was.

I like the Mighty Mouse standard. I like the remote doohickey in theory (can it control iTunes?). If my lamp iMac dies tomorrow, I'd get one of these.

Video iPod. We all knew it was coming, but it just doesn't seem ripe yet. The new screen is nice, the black casing is nice, the concept of buying TV shows through iTMS is nice. However. The battery life for video playback sucks as much as the PSP's battery life for video playback. And $2 for an hourlong 320x240 TV show that can't be burned off to DVD is terrible. That aspect is definitely undercooked.

Oh great, I can pay to download one of the half-dozen overrated Pixar shorts that have been included as bonus material on every single Pixar/Disney DVD made since the dawn of time. Come on.

But we're definitely on the road to something cool. I like the cheapie GBA video carts, which look far crappier but never made any grandiose claims of quality like the Digital Lifestyle (TM) junk we regularly get from Apple. If Apple could give us a wide selection of TV shows to download, a reasonable output quality, the ability to burn off to a playable DVD, battery life that could support any one of the Lord of the Rings movies, and they will have entirely changed the home entertainment business.

NOT RELATED: Dreamhost upgraded my webserver's Debian to 3.1, which cripples Movable Type. What happens is you can't login because MT thinks all your users are dead. There is a quick fix, as explained in this MT support forum thread. It's a one line shell command that upgrades your MT database. I used OSX Terminal and it was super easy. So far, everything seems back to normal, so if you're a frustrated Dreamhost / Movable Type user desperately googling for info on why your weblog suddenly died, this may help you out.