Grasshopper you journey only now begins...David Carradine did not drop by during the time I was installing Mac OS X 10.6, but I did get my $30 dollars worth of entertainment for the evening considering the wonder and drama that goes into any OS upgrade that's not a wipe and install - Mac or Windows. Even though arguably this isn't the seismic shift of some previous versions, there was enough going on under the hood that left me wondering what I'd see on the other side.
A big help going in was the Snow Leopard Compatibility chart that showed you current state of some of the main Mac Software. Not really meant so much for Apple's own stuff, but the great collection of third party apps we live and die on.
Over the week I had been uninstalling things like the iStat Menus which were apps that ran on start up. If I saw a regular application that I saw had an issue, I checked for an update, which developers are really doing a good job of doing, considering the release date being pushed back.
Another good piece of advice came when you first start installing, which is to click the 'Customize' button just prior to install and for me at least, check 'Rosetta' which installs the Apple software that lets you run older Power PC apps. That said, I was not sure that my older Creative Suite (CS1) from Adobe would work, as well as my ancient copy of Toast, but it's probably time to upgrade that anyway. Time to let go and live in the now, I guess.
Another Customizing tip. Apple lets you choose not to install a bunch of printer drivers and basically just look for your printer's driver. You can also opt out of other languages, which may get everything done a little faster and save some more space.
The install took about 40 minutes and the machine rebooted a couple of times and then finished the installation. Pretty undramatic- which is a good thing.
My Mini booted up and looked just the same as I had left it earlier. I checked the Internet connection which was fine and checked the free space on the HD. Just as they have been saying, Snow Leopard does go in a little slimmer and gives you back some room. That's one of those things where I say - 'don't know what you did to get it there, but I like it.'
Then I started going through the critical apps making sure everything was still working.
MacHeist buyers rejoice since it looks like we either can get updates or run as is. Programs like Acorn, Boinx, Picturesque, Delicious Library, Little Snapper, etc. worked fine. Ambrosia, the maker of Wiretap Studio came out with updates yesterday which made it SN ready.
Dropbox runs a little wonky, so I went to their site and uninstalled for now. Pixen, a drawing program also did not work.
Other than that I was pretty much OK.
Do spend some time with Quicktime X. To me this was the big visible upgrade. Considering you can now record audio, video and do some screen capturing, and video trimming, like in the iPhone app, Apple has really made a great improvement to the program. But you can also still get and use Quicktime 7 if you have apps that need that version.
I think though that Snow Leopard really sets the stage for new applications and with Grand Central Dispatch and Open CL, start taking advantage of the horsepower of the multi-core Intel systems.
This update was probably a little too big to push over the internet, and thus probably made more sense to put on a DVD.
MacCast host Adam Christianson does a live install on USTREAM on Saturday
The bottom line is that it's a good idea to get Snow Leopard (if not now then definitely at some point) if you have the newer models, especially since some of the improvements will work well with that hardware. I think though that the Quicktime update is pretty solid and some of the extra menus in the dock items will make your life a little easier. I like getting the hard drive space back and I think overall we're seeing the maturity of OS X.
Which ain't such a bad thing.
A big help going in was the Snow Leopard Compatibility chart that showed you current state of some of the main Mac Software. Not really meant so much for Apple's own stuff, but the great collection of third party apps we live and die on.
Over the week I had been uninstalling things like the iStat Menus which were apps that ran on start up. If I saw a regular application that I saw had an issue, I checked for an update, which developers are really doing a good job of doing, considering the release date being pushed back.
Another good piece of advice came when you first start installing, which is to click the 'Customize' button just prior to install and for me at least, check 'Rosetta' which installs the Apple software that lets you run older Power PC apps. That said, I was not sure that my older Creative Suite (CS1) from Adobe would work, as well as my ancient copy of Toast, but it's probably time to upgrade that anyway. Time to let go and live in the now, I guess.
Another Customizing tip. Apple lets you choose not to install a bunch of printer drivers and basically just look for your printer's driver. You can also opt out of other languages, which may get everything done a little faster and save some more space.
The install took about 40 minutes and the machine rebooted a couple of times and then finished the installation. Pretty undramatic- which is a good thing.
My Mini booted up and looked just the same as I had left it earlier. I checked the Internet connection which was fine and checked the free space on the HD. Just as they have been saying, Snow Leopard does go in a little slimmer and gives you back some room. That's one of those things where I say - 'don't know what you did to get it there, but I like it.'
Then I started going through the critical apps making sure everything was still working.
MacHeist buyers rejoice since it looks like we either can get updates or run as is. Programs like Acorn, Boinx, Picturesque, Delicious Library, Little Snapper, etc. worked fine. Ambrosia, the maker of Wiretap Studio came out with updates yesterday which made it SN ready.
Dropbox runs a little wonky, so I went to their site and uninstalled for now. Pixen, a drawing program also did not work.
Other than that I was pretty much OK.
Do spend some time with Quicktime X. To me this was the big visible upgrade. Considering you can now record audio, video and do some screen capturing, and video trimming, like in the iPhone app, Apple has really made a great improvement to the program. But you can also still get and use Quicktime 7 if you have apps that need that version.
I think though that Snow Leopard really sets the stage for new applications and with Grand Central Dispatch and Open CL, start taking advantage of the horsepower of the multi-core Intel systems.
This update was probably a little too big to push over the internet, and thus probably made more sense to put on a DVD.
MacCast host Adam Christianson does a live install on USTREAM on SaturdayThe bottom line is that it's a good idea to get Snow Leopard (if not now then definitely at some point) if you have the newer models, especially since some of the improvements will work well with that hardware. I think though that the Quicktime update is pretty solid and some of the extra menus in the dock items will make your life a little easier. I like getting the hard drive space back and I think overall we're seeing the maturity of OS X.
Which ain't such a bad thing.
2 comments:
Did you benchmark any of your programs before the update to see if SL is any quicker?
And how much space did you get back on your drive? Was it a significant amount?
Just curious.
Nice "To Live and Die in LA" reference. Great soundtrack by Wang Chung.
Went from 44GB of free space to 56GB so about 12- which on a 120GB drive that is helpful. Some of that is the replacing of a new smaller system folder due to compression/fewer unnecessary files/Apple using standardized measuring of what a GB was to begin with. Still a GB is a GB and now I have more of them.
Benchmarking- not really, but I noticed shut down was faster right away. Because some of the older apps use Rosetta, they won't be as fast as apps wrote for Leopard/Snow Leopard.
I'm really curious how Quicktime tracks from here- it has fewer extra options, but some nice new ones, and really, it was an underutilized app for your rank and file Mac user.
I'm going to have to work harder to stump you on the sub-references. Clearly, I'm in the presence of the old master.
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