10/26/2007
My first 15 minutes with OS X Leopard
This will be short, as I'm still exploring, but I just wanted to report a few things I've noticed in the whole 15 minutes since I installed the new OS X operating system on my MacBook Pro (Keep in mind I never tried a beta version, so this is all new to me):
- jEdit actually looks really nice in Leopard! Apparently, the unified look-and-feel works well for Java apps, too.
- Sherlock is gone. I'm probably the only person in the world that still used it, but I really liked to use it as a small Web-service client. (Sure, I liked Watson even better, but that's been MIA since Sun bought it from Karelia oh so many years ago). Oh well, all the more reason to write my own WSDL apps now.
- Already, I can tell I'm going to like Spaces and Stacks.
- Not so sure I really dig the shadows and lighting overall. The new icons are reminiscent of classic Mac icons to me (The "Aqua look" is obviously out now), which gives the whole Finder a snappy feel.
- I've got to go find that app that turns off the menu bar transparency. That's just a lot more annoying than it seemed it would be. (Update: How about that? It doesn't work anymore. Oh well, it was easy enough to fix by adding a white bar to the desktop picture itself..)
- I've seen demos of Time Machine, and I want to love it, but… anybody know how to get it to work with a network drive? So far I'm only seeing my USB and Firewire drives in the list. (Update: Looking around on the Web for about 5 minutes, it seems it may not work with a networked drive. Well, ain't that a kick in crotch?)
- Hour 4 edit: Woohoo!!! Leopard lets me control my icon grid spacing! This is a feature that's been sorely lacking in the Finder, and I'm thrilled to have it now! (It's always the little things.)
I'll probably add more to this post as I find new things, but so far, I like it. I really, really like it.
6 Responses to “My first 15 minutes with OS X Leopard”
So what do you think?
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What type of install did you do? Upgrade, Archive, Clean…?
As far as a network drive, I came acroos this thread about using AirPort Extreme BaseStation Network disks:
http://forums.macrumo...owthread.php?t=374358
Thanks.
I just did the upgrade, and it ran perfectly smooth — no problems at all.
As for the network disks, it looks like I’ll still be using SuperDuper and/or Carbon Copy Cloner for a while. Pity though: that Time Machine interface just looks SOOOOooo cool.
I read the very thorough review over at arstechnica.com about Leopard, and even though it took…about two days, I got through it. I don’t have Leopard yet, but it got me thinking that it’s the kind of upgrade that will make future software on the Mac just awesome, but current changes to the end user seem kind of small. And boy, did the screw the pooch with the Dock.
When you mentioned Carbon Copy Cloner…do you happen to know if can do a bit-for-bit copy of a NON Mac formated disc?
I have read a number of hacks that claim to make Time Machine work over AFP or SMB ( http://forum.dsmg600....ic.php?pid=7395#p7395 ) though not tried it personally. I understand from some comments elsewhere that the view is that Apple could have done this but removed it because it was felt to not be reliable enough, which if you think about it is probably the right thing to do. The last thing you want is to find Time Machine hasn’t worked when you come to recover an important document from it !
Hi Scott,
Yeah, I read some of those same articles, and therefore decided not to risk a “hacked” version. The point of a backup is to serve as, well, backup. I have to confess that a deal on a 500GB Maxtor OneTouch finally swayed me — and yes, Time Machine certainly is as cool as I’d hoped.
Menu bar transparency can be disabled in the system preferences under “Desktop & Screen Saver” (at least since 10.5.2). No, I do not know what the option has to do with Desktop & Screen Saver either.