Thoughtful, detailed coverage of the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, plus the best-selling Take Control ebooks.

 

 

Pick an apple! 
Become a TidBITS member!
 

 

TidBITS Watchlist
 
Edit iCal Event Titles Directly

In the Leopard version of iCal, double-clicking an event shows a summary of the event, and to edit the name (or anything else), you must click the Edit button in the summary pop-up. To bypass the summary and edit pop-ups entirely, Option-double-click the event name. That selects the text for editing, and you can make any changes you want. Click outside the event to save your changes.

Share your own tip! | Search TipBITS

 
 
Blog Post | 29 Oct 2007 | Print Printer-Friendly Version of This Article

Vega, Like the Star?

by Glenn Fleishman Send Email to Author

Send Article to a Friend

After you install Leopard and restart your computer (or allow it to restart), Apple plays a nifty little movie that's a bit over the top. As with Tiger, the movie welcomes you in many languages before settling down to allow you to perform basic configuration. But Tiger's introduction seems sedate compared to the whirling trip through space in 3D you take with Leopard's startup. Apparently, they want to make sure you understand this is a different animal.

What I noticed, however, was that a few moments into the "song" - revised from their "doo-doo-doo" music that's been in use for a while - there's a bit of human voice saying, "doot doo doo doo doot da doo doo." It didn't go on for long, but was clearly a reference to Suzanne Vega's 1987 song Tom's Diner.

Far be it for me to spin a crazy tale, but...

  • Leopard has a space theme. Vega is a star musician, but also a star in the constellation Lyra.
  • Tom's Diner was the song used to tune the warmth of the MP3 music encoding format.
  • DNA, two British producers, created an illegal remix of Tom's Diner in 1990, which Vega liked so much her label legitimized and released their version, which rose to No. 2 on the UK charts. See, there are compromises besides legal action?
  • Vega was the star chosen by Carl Sagan for his book Contact from which a first contact signal originates. (John Moltz of Crazy Apple Rumors Site provided this detail.)
  • The diner in the song is really called Tom's Restaurant - I visited it once just before seeing Suzanne Vega perform in about 1987 - and was used as an exterior shot and interior model for Seinfeld. Seinfeld is funny.

In conclusion, Suzanne Vega is the Mother of the MP3.

Update: Reader Joost Schuur punctured my balloon, rather nicely. The post-install music is Exodus Honey by Honeycut. The "doot doot doot" in the song is clearly not an homage to Vega. Nice theory, while it lasted.

 

Doxie makes it easy to go paperless and scan anywhere — no
computer required. Doxie scans paper and receipts, creates
searchable PDFs, then syncs up to your Mac. With smart design and
great software, Doxie just works. <http://www.getdoxie.com/a/bits>