My new definition of “space aliens” as they relate to systems administration:
When a certain error behavior arises that indicates systemic problems somewhere in the machine. Either a failed dependency on a library shared by many programs, or similar symptom.
If you never find any space aliens, you may be justified in believing there aren’t other problems. If you find one space alien, it’s a reasonable assumption that there are many more.
After using iEX for a few hours today, I realized how key the animations implemented by Expose on Mac OSX are. They provide visual cues about where each window appeared from, and provide a physical context for visual reference; i.e. if you know where the iChat window is supposed to be under all your windows, it will be easier to locate it when a visual animation is used.
Can you imagine playing the shell game with shells that just appear suddenly in different locations?
This is super cool… missing the transitions, so we’ll see if it sticks around on my taskbar.