Official Luthiers Forum!

Well I installed OS X Leopard on my core 2 duo Mac Book last night and wanted to share some impressions.

First of all it took 40 minutes to do, I did not back up prior (not recommended) and all went GREAT!

My Mac is highly tricked out with Parallels partitions with both XP, VISTA, and Red Hat all installed and running fine on this same machine.

In the end all my applications and alternate operating systems are all working fine.

Leopard is outstanding and now my favorite OS.  It is just another example of Mac bringing us products that work like humans want to work and not forcing us to learn to compensate for a less than ideal OS.

The nicest feature is the clean desk top but with one click access to all that I use and it's organized in a manner that GUI fans would love.

I also did some benchmarks because I am going to write an article on the upgrade for another forum.  Applications like Adobe Photoshop CS now open faster, 15% faster in fact.  And Safari has been enhanced and is now the fasted browser on the planet but I am a big Firefox fan and would rather fight than switch.

And Mac has added a feature that is like "system restore" on a PC but uses a portable drive or usb or network drive for the backup.

It retails for $129.00 at Best buy which is half the price of VISTA pro editions.

Needless to say as an avid PC and Mac fan Mac has a real winner here and I can't see myself using anything else now if I had to only use one OS.

I just finished installing it myself on my little Mac mini. Liking it so far,
except the lame translucent menu bar and the *#%^ folder icons that make
you squint to see what the marking is. We got it for the parental controls
with a new mini refurb, which was supposed to have 512MB RAM, but it
came with 1 GB!

Now we can sell the old 1st gen. mini on ebay, and counting the $109 we
would have spent for Leopard, we'll be about $100.

_________________
now known around here as Pat Foster
_________________
http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I'm heading to the local Mac store to get a copy next week. Can't wait!

It's pretty rare that you make a major upgrade and things just work better and faster. I highly recommend the upgrade to anyone on OS X and for those on Windows and never used a Mac, you'd be surprised at how good this system is. It converted me 5 years ago and I can't imagine going back.

_________________
Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia

I brought a Mac Mini ( the latest model) in September and It shipped with
Tiger. If I had waited another month or so it would have shipped with
Leopard. I couldn't wait, because my old G4 had crashed. I'll probably
upgrade to Leopard sometime early next year. Prior to purchasing the Mac
mini I was still using OS 9.2 So I feel like I'm in heaven with Tiger.

Ron Mack

Ron tiger is great as it is and my preference over VISTA and XP for sure.  Things just work.

Today I plugged a combo printer/scanner into my Mac and there was no installation activity, no drivers, nothing to do at all.  My Mac recognized both devices, installed the already installed in OS X drivers and everything works perfectly.

The minis are great and that was my first Mac but prior to the switch to Intel processors.  Yours will be at least 4 times faster than a mini of 2 years ago when they launched them.  Congrats

Hesh, I've had Leopard for a couple weeks now....what took you so long?

I've encountered a couple buggy things since installing, but it definitely speeds things up a bit. I also partitioned the drive for XP Pro, and am about to install VMWARE's Fusion which will allow me to run both OS's simultaneously if I want to do that.
LOVE my MacBook Pro....

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Also, I can't wait to be able to figure out how to use iChat and do some video chatting. That should be fun. I also want to get an external rive so I can run the Time Machine software too.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Very cool Don.  I have a Western Digital Passport external drive that I use as a back up for several computers and they work great with Time Machine.  I just started a trial subscription to .Mac too thinking that I could do some cool things with my web site on .Mac and the 10 GB back-up, fully automated, is attractive too.

Fusion is one I have not used so let us know what you think.

I did notice a strange thing that I have not had the time to try to resolve yet.  With parallels I installed a clean copy of XP Pro and although it all works fine what the start-up screens say is that it is just the paddy water version of XP and not XP pro.  Go figure.....

But <sigh> if figures that the only existing issue that I have with mine has been Windows related........

I am finding that although Leopard looks cooler I am not using many of the new features.

It's been a bad week for PCs.... My Dell laptop gave me several "blue screen of death" incidents before giving one final gasp of life - unable to reboot any longer. Just two short days later my desktop PC just stopped powering up, not even a flicker of life. I went and bought a power supply and replaced what I thought was the problem... still nothing. After Lappy went down I think it just gave up and died of a broken heart... Kind of like Old Dan.

After the memorial, me and Melis drove to the Apple store. Brand new MacBook baby!!!!!! Woohoo! My first Mac ever actually so I have a bit of a learning curve with hot keys finding where all my files are. The features are really great though and I love how it's so visually fluid and workable. It's like someone actually thought about how to make things faster and easier...

I took the power supply back to Circuit City and got two 1gb sticks of RAM for my new toy. My only complaint is that I didn't switch years ago. Hesh you should send me daily tips for this thing...

_________________
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils - Louis Hector Berlioz

Chansen / C hansen / C. Hansen / Christian Hansen - not a handle.

Christian

Congrats Christian  Welcome to the "It just always works" world of Mac!

My transition was pretty easy because I was a user of a few flavors of Linux which are very similar to OS-X IMHO.  The most annoying thing for me initially was two fold.

First to close a window on a Mac the "red dot" is on the upper left of the window where on XP and VISTA the "red X" is on the upper right.  This of course is a pretty small nit to complain about.

The second thing was what you mentioned already, where your files are.  With Tiger you had to go to the hard drive or create a short-cut and put it on your desktop or in your dock.  But now with Leopard all your programs and documents are available from the "fan" short-cuts" in the dock - this is a very usable improvement to me.

I also picked up MS office for Mac so that I would have compatibility with common business documents from the blue screen of death world.

Christian I have the MacBook too, a black one and I maxed out the RAM as well.  Adobe Elements for Mac is nice to have too so you can put Billy's face on an elephant and resize the pic and post it on the OLF

As you transition just try to keep one thing in mind.  What ever you want to do, consider what the easiest way might be REGARDLESS of the childhood abuse that we all suffered with Windows and just try it.  Often, on a Mac, the answers are much simpler and may require no change in settings.

For example, a couple of weeks ago I decided that I wanted to stop heating my home with my 1,000 watt PC and just use the Mac going forward.  So I plugged an additional cord into the desk top Sony monitor and proceeded to look at the Mac's preferences to see how to operate the MacBook with an external monitor AND the lid closed.......  I looked all over and could not find it.  As you may know the Mac will go into "suspend" when you close the lid.

What I was able to do was have both the MacBook's screen and the external monitor working at the same time.  But I still wanted to close the lid on the Mac and not use it's screen.

So you probably guessed it, if an external monitor is available the Mac senses it and suspends "suspend" when the lid is closed.  There was no stinkin setting to find and change, etc. all I needed to do was plug in the monitor and slap the Mac closed and I was in business.

This is the kind of thing that has bit me a few times during my transition.  I have to unlearn the need to think Windows and just start doing what would make sense had I never used a Windows machine prior.

The cordless Mighty Mouse and cordless keyboard are very cool too, just buy them, put the batteries in, and turn them on and Bobs your uncle.  The MacBook and MacBook Pro both have built in blue-tooth and no drivers need to be loaded.  The same will hold true with the second generation IPhone and newer Ipods as well.  Instant, automatic connectivity to our world with no wires, drivers, etc.

Easy!!!!

Hesh,

Quick question...

What are "devices"? I get the HD (or anything else I plug in) - but when I
installed firefox (love firefox) and thunderbird (first time w/t-bird... it's
so-so) - I now have two new "devices" on my desktop. Why aren't these
programs installed and living in my applications folder? If I eject the
firefox device I have to find it in my downloads folder again and "install"
it I guess. I just want it to be there when I boot up. Any ideas?

P.S. I got the "middle-of-the-road" MacBook - White with 2.2ghz and
120gb. I figure I can go buy a cheap external HD if I need one.

_________________
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils - Louis Hector Berlioz

Chansen / C hansen / C. Hansen / Christian Hansen - not a handle.

Christian

Christian this one gives me fits too and it is because I don't completely understand how to properly install some applications on a Mac.  The same thing happened with Firefox to me and I think that what worked was creating a "Firefox" folder in "applications" and then dragging the install file there.  Then the little additional hard drive like picture icon never showed up on my desk top again.

Perhaps someone else can help us both here with this question?  Is this what they call mounting to a drive?  No jokes please.....

I've had Leopard for a few weeks now and haven't had any problems.  I particularly like spaces, time machine, bootcamp, and the integration of iCal and Mail.

With regards to the installation question, unless there is a "Setup" file on the mounted disk, then you simply have to drag the application folder on the mounted disk over to the "Applications" folder.  Usually there will be an alias to the "Applications" folder included in the install disk to which you can simply drag the program.

For anyone out there who likes to be able to navigate around their computer without using the mouse, there is a neat little program out there called Quicksilver that you can use to do many things by pressing "ctrl + space".  Spotlight does something similar, but I found QS to be a little faster under Tiger (Spotlight looks a bit faster in Leopard, however).

_________________
Alan Degenhart
Volcano Guitar Works
http://www.volcanoguitarworks.com

With a file with a .dmg extention, with a double click on it you "mount the drive. The operating system treats this mounted drive just like an external
drive that you may have connected to the computer. At least that is a
easy way for us humans to visualize it.

You can operate the program from this mounted drive, but when you log out or shut down the drive in un-mounted (disconnected) and you will have to go through mounting process again the next time you want to use the program.

Alan is correct about the installation. If it doesn't have the "Setup" file or a .mkpg (short for make package) then you will usually have the "Applications" shortcut. Just drag the folder to the short cut or your Applications Folder and everything will be copied over. Then off you go.

To uninstall a program you just drag the folder to the trash. There will be a couple of files sometimes left over from the program such as preference files, but they are small files and will not cause any problems if they are left on the computer.

Hope this helps. Once you wrap your head around how things work, you'll be wondering why you didn't switch years ago. I know I did.

_________________
Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia

[QUOTE=amcfarlen]
To uninstall a program you just drag the folder
to the trash. There will be a couple of files sometimes left over from
the program such as preference files, but they are small files and will
not cause any problems if they are left on the computer.



[/QUOTE]

That was another question that I have had and again this is a prime example of what I was saying about Macs - you have to forget what you did in Windows and just think what might be the easiest way to do something.  To uninstall - drag the program in the trash - beautiful!

Allen and Alan many thanks guys that answers all my questions.

Allen,
So is that intentional that these .dmg files mount as drives? I did like Hesh said and "installed" it via copying it to the applications folder. The drive no longer pops up when I start firefox or thunderbird.

Here's my question though - and maybe I am being a paranoid Windows user here... just dragging something to the trash doesn't seem like the correct uninstall. As a Windows user, if I did it that way I would forever have some icon that won't go away because "windows could not find the installation file"

There wasn't really a question in there was there. I guess like Hesh said I just need to start unlearning old habits.

_________________
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils - Louis Hector Berlioz

Chansen / C hansen / C. Hansen / Christian Hansen - not a handle.

Christian

Mac user since 1988...I've still got my original Mac Plus but have not yet gotten around to converting it to a fishtank.    Still waiting for it to become a collectors item I guess...call it a long-term investment!



I'm always the last to upgrade, having just gone to Tiger a few months
ago with the purchase of a new MacBook Pro.  So far the biggest
hit is Photo Booth, at a swim meet last week my daughter killed time by
taking 150 pictures of herself.  Here's the best one.

[QUOTE=Chansen]Allen,
So is that intentional that these .dmg files mount as drives? I did like Hesh said and "installed" it via copying it to the applications folder. The drive no longer pops up when I start firefox or thunderbird.

Here's my question though - and maybe I am being a paranoid Windows user here... just dragging something to the trash doesn't seem like the correct uninstall. As a Windows user, if I did it that way I would forever have some icon that won't go away because "windows could not find the installation file"

There wasn't really a question in there was there. I guess like Hesh said I just need to start unlearning old habits.



[/QUOTE]

Yes, .dmg files mount as drives. And as I said, dragging to the trash is the way that you would uninstall most programs. In the finder you will see the "mounted drive listed with a "eject" button next to it. Just like a music CD would have. To un-mount the drive just hit the "eject button or drag to the trash. You will notice that the trash icon turns into the eject button.

There are a few programs that get into the OS a little more and these ones will have an uninstall program with them.

The programs that are a little more difficult to totally clean out are the ones that have a "Setup" install. They often have an "Uninstall" program, or option built in.

The things that are left over from programs are usually preference files and "receipts". You can find your preference files under /Library/Preferences/. If a program misbehaves one way to correct things is to delete the preference file. The next time you open the program a new preference file will be created and hopefully everything works the way its intended.

"Receipts" are hidden files that are not going to harm anything if they are left were they are. Think of them like a time stamp and one of their functions is to let the operating system know if a software update is required.

Just keep telling yourself that it's simple. Don't over think.

_________________
Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia

Hi guys,

The missus just bought me an iMac tonight for a b-day/x-mas present. I
come from a HP-UX and XP background so this is a little bit different... Yes,
I'm a Mac newb. The leopard disc was a separate installation which I've
already done (I think). How can I tell if the OS was upgraded? Silly question
huh?

Congrats Warren!

Click on the apple icon in the upper left hand corner of your screen.  Select "about this Mac" and in the window that opens up the version should say 10.5.1 and then you will know that you have been upgraded to Leopard.

Congratulations, Warren!

Not a silly question at all. Go to the Apple menu in the extreme upper left corner and pull down to About This Mac. If Mac OS X Version 10.5 or 10.5.1, you have Leopard.

_________________
now known around here as Pat Foster
_________________
http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Ah, yer quick tonight, Hesh!

_________________
now known around here as Pat Foster
_________________
http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Thanks guys,

The disc was only 10.5 so I had to download the upgrade (10.5.1) as there
were conflicts with some of the pre-bundled iLife software. 12 apps were
"fixed"... and all pretty painlessly I might add. I'm digging this OS.