 | My Thoughts on OS X 10.5 Leopard October 31, 2007 10:59pm in tech |
Friday night, I had the pleasure of installing Apple's new operating system, OS X 10.5 Leopard on my MacBook Pro. Leopard is Apple's answer to the ill-fated Microsoft Windows Vista, and boy does it blow Vista away. It runs smoothly, and like Tiger, has a much cleaner feel to me that does Vista or even XP. Until shortly before I got my iBook in April 2006, I was a pretty big Mac basher. I got my iBook and that all changed. I now use my MacBook Pro as my primary machine despite the fact that I have a pretty powerful Desktop. But enough background, here are my thoughts on Leopard so far. My first taste of Leopard left me with somewhat of a sour note. There apparently is an issue with doing a direct upgrade from Tiger to Leopard where after restarting post-install users get a "blue screen of death". This isn't quite the same as Windows' BSOD; all you see is a blue screen with a mouse cursor and it hangs there what seems like infinitely. Not exactly the best experience, but it made me do what I wanted to do but felt too lazy to do initially...reformat and start from scratch. Fortunately I was smart and backed up my files that I needed. *****Let that be a warning to everyone. When you are performing an upgrade of an operating system (be it OS X, Windows, Linux, etc) back up your files FIRST.****** I'm not quite sure what the issue is/was behind the blue screen, but, while seemingly major, it was to me, only a minor hiccup. I ended up starting from scratch and the remainder of the setup went very smoothly. Initial Impressions 
The first thing I noticed was that the default wallpaper was not the blue waves (I don't know how else to describe them) that were seen with OS X 10.3 & 10.4. Something else that changed is also the dock. I've heard some people call Leopard's dock "ugly". Personally I kind of like it but I guess to each their own. Something new in Leopard are the stacks. 
These stacks allow you to put a folder in the dock and when clicked on, brings up a "stack" that shows any files or folders located in that folder. What I did was simply create a folder for my games (yes OS X has games) and you can see what it does when I click on it. It may not seem like much, but it can be used for convenience and make things easier to access. A New Look for Finder 
Anyone who's used a mac before knows what Finder is. It is Mac's file explorer. Generally, Finder looks about the same. What it does now feature is actually pretty cool. If anyone has used iTunes 7, they probably can recognize what the screenshot above shows. Finder now adds a cover flow view that will allow you to page through folders, text files, and like above, images. It's nothing incredibly revolutionary, but it does provide another way of previewing images without completely opening them. 
There is also the quick look feature which allows you to pop open files without actually opening them. This is an example of quick look on a picture I have, almost like some websites do nowadays. This might not be anything extraordinary, but definitely a nice feature that Leopard supports. Also noted is that like pictures, some video files can be viewed the same way in quick look. Tabbed Terminals 
While this may not seem like much, for those of you who do work with terminals like myself, the tabbed feature of terminal is definitely a good thing to have. Notes in Mail 
Again, this is not that big of a feature, but it still helps you keep organized within Mail.app. Final Conclusions I know I didn't touch on MANY of the things that Leopard brings to the table. Spaces (multiple desktops), Time Machine (automated backup), & some of iChat's new features are some to be mentioned. While Leopard may not bring loads of revolutionary new features to an OS, what it does bring is stability, an amazing user interface, and many nuances to help make certain tasks easier. I really do wonder if Leopard will help bring people over to Macs from Windows machines. Mac computers are very good machines, and OS X only makes them even better. Vista is bloated and the chances of really getting it to run well on older machines is a joke. Leopard on the opposite side of the fence, is said just fine on most of the older G4 and G5 Macs. Plus the cost is notably cheaper than Vista. There is only one version of OS X Leopard and it comes with all of the features. None of this 4 versions of Vista that Microsoft keeps trying to push. It's an amazing OS and in mine, and I'm sure many other people's opinion, significantly ahead of Vista. |
| 0 Comments |
| Google Gives GMail IMAP Support October 25, 2007 1:24pm in tech |
Google is apparently adding the long awaited, long missing feature of having GMail support IMAP. Google has since launch supported POP3, but never IMAP. The main difference between the two of them is that POP3 only has 1 way communication with GMail. While IMAP has 2-way communication. This means that POP3 just downloads the messages to your e-mail client be it Thunderbird, outlook, etc. but it doesn't communicate what you do with that message. If you delete it, it will still be there on the server, just not on your machine. IMAP can do things both ways. It keeps your online GMail and the messages in your client synchronized. You delete it on one side, it's deleted on the other too. I don't know how they're implementing it exactly or how they're gonna deal with the labels and folders, cause I'm still waiting for my account to support IMAP. Google is apparently slowly rolling it out and I guess my account just hasn't been set up yet. IMAP just might make it easier to keep my computers and various operating systems somewhat synchronized. Compared to the way I'm doing it now, it's gotta be faster, but we shall see. |
| 0 Comments |
| Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon October 18, 2007 9:17am in tech |
 Ubuntu has just released the final version of Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon. You can download it here. I've been using it in its beta form for about 3 weeks now and overall I'm impressed. Compiz Fusion was giving me some issues but I got it working for the most part now I believe. Release Notes Ubuntu Home Tags: news, linux, ubuntu, opensource, freesoftware |
| 0 Comments |
| Apple planning iPhone SDK October 17, 2007 11:55am in tech |
 The one thing that made me lean against getting an iPhone apparently might soon be making me reverse my thinking and actually consider getting one. Apple apparently is planning to release a 3rd party SDK for the iPhone. So what does this mean? If this means what I think it does, it means that all the hacking that has been going on since its release, should become all for naught as this SDK would allow for the 3rd party applications to be developed properly for the iPhone. While this rumor does not guarantee anything, its interesting and definitely exciting to think that the iPhone could soon see new applications coming to it. You almost wonder if the change in stance has something to do with the hacking and the bricking of the iPhones and Apple wanting to allow for a legitimate way for 3rd party applications to be developed and installed. Update - This may be more than a rumor afterall... Steve Jobs on iPhone SDK [apple.com] |
| 0 Comments |
| Interview with Richard Stallman October 15, 2007 12:36pm in tech |
 Richard Stallman, the eccentric founder of the GNU operating system and GPL, had an interview with LinuxInsider. It's an interesting read as he gives his thoughts on what open-source and free software actually means. Full Story [linuxinsider.com] Tags: linux, links, opensource, freesoftware, news, interview |
| 0 Comments |
 |  |  |  |