Leopard — It’s cool cause I waited in line for it
Just wanted to jot down a few thoughts about the new Mac OS X. I waited in line for about 40 minutes on Friday at my nearest Apple Store, more so I would get a shirt than be the first to have Leopard. My upgrade was mildly disastrous (probably my fault since I’ve been running the same factory install and have done God knows what to my machine) so I eventually did a clean install. I’ve been moving this weekend, so have not spend as much time as I would have liked on it. As I notice things, I’ll drop a note. It feels faster than Tiger even on my 1.5 Ghz Power Book G4 with 1.25 GB RAM. Quick Look, CoverFlow in the Finder are worth the price alone. I thought it was rather silly at first, but it’s amazing how useful it is. The new FrontRow has the same interface as Apple TV.
Detailed (read lengthy) of the Leopard upgrade experience below:
5:20 Arrive at Apple Store and get in line with 250-300 other people
Apple Employees were pushing the free water and coffee really hard
5:59:50 Apple Store staff start counting down from 10 and then go into hysterics at 6:00 PM
6:00 Apple Store starts letting people in 5-10 at a time
6:05 I get in. I was in the middle of the line. I get handed my free shirt. I pick up Leopard, iWork 08 and a drive for Time Machine. Apple Store employee comes over to me, asks if that’s all, and rings me up with the portable scanner/credit card gizmo. Sees the hard drive and she says ‘Somebody’s using Time Machine!”
6:10 I leave Apple Store to applause as Apple Store staff congratulate me. One gives me a high five.
7:30 I get home and start 3rd Tiger Backup (just in case)
7:50 I start the first Leopard install. Several reliable sources said that the upgrade process was much improved and reliable. I decided to give it a shot since I really didn’t feel like rebuilding this thing.
9:30 Install done. Reboot is fine. However, if I log into my user account I get a Spinning Beach Ball of Death for an hour and still can’t do anything. A brand new user account works fine, so something in mine is borking it. Unfortunately I can’t get into it to see what it is.
I decide to go for a clean install. I backed up my junk 3 times, so no big deal. Clean install goes fine. .Mac brings all my bookmarks, calendars, and mail settings in. Aside from the annoyance of having to re-install everything–no complaints.
Two weird things– Leopard seemed to install iTunes all by itself a few hours after I installed. Not that I mind, I needed it anyway, but it was weird. Also, I don’t have a transparent menu bar, which may not be a bad thing since most people hate it. No one’s sure why. The forums seem to think Apple turned it off on older hardware but some people are reporting that they have new Macs that don’t have it, and in some case the low powered Macs have it and the higher powered Macs don’t (more on that in a bit), like I said most forum posts are “How do I turn it off?”All the apps are much improved–Mail is nicer, iCal is nicer, Spotlight seems much faster. Time Machine may be the greatest thing ever. I can’t wait to accidentally delete something so I can use it. The new system voice Alex is really good. I wish there was a female version, but oh well .
