Leopard Upgrade

Apple’s Latest operating system. Leopard (OS X 10.5)

I had to look up how to do a screenshot.

So my copy of Leopard arrived yesterday. I know , I know, I used to be a PC / Windows Junkie. Well... Microsoft essentially destroyed the computing experience for me with Vista and scared me away from the Microsoft platform.

I currently have 2 Macs (both also running Windows XP when necessary) and after using them for a while now I must say that Apple certainly knows how to make a good operating system. Leopard (And Tiger before it) are just slick and easy to operate.

Anyway, back to my install experience.

The install was simple. Insert CD, Click Install, say “yes” to a few things, and off we go! And... Wait. I’m sure I join the majority of the computing public when I say that install times are insane. I know this is a large installation and it is copying over a huge amount of data, but watching that little bar go across the screen over an hour or so is exceedingly difficult to handle without going a bit crazy. So after my stint in the loony bin, the install completed and it was time for the reboot. This took a bit longer than usual, but was expected as the install finished a few things. Finally the new desktop came up and it looked... Almost the same. A bit disappointing, but then I realized it retained all my desktop settings. Not bad. So I changed the background, moved some icons around, played with the dock a bit, and generally did the little things one does when one wants to tweak a new computer to be “your” computer.

Now it was time to play with some new features. I hit F8 to see the new “Spaces” feature and... Nothing. Hmm... Preferences, Spaces... Oh! You have to enable it. Great. F8 Again and... Cool! I have multiple areas I can run different programs. Very cool, but I am not sure how useful this feature will be yet.

Time to open the Finder (Sort of explorer, for the Windows readers out there) and see what the Coverflow and Quickview features can do. My documents folder has a number of different file types in it, so that seems a good place to test. Coverflow in the documents folder is good. Although some of the “covers” are a little small and therefore a bit hard to read. Quickview solves that problem very quickly by letting me see the contents of the document without needing to open the program that created the document. That is one excellent feature!

There are many more new features, but those are probably the big 3 for me. I am quite pleased with the upgrade and so far have encountered no major issues.

Minor Issues: I have noticed some minor issues though. The PC speaker keeps becoming the default sound device in my Mac pro. I may have resolved this one, but only time will tell. The “F” keys that activate certain aspects of the OS (Spaces, Expose, etc...) keep forgetting what they are supposed to do. I have had to reset them 3 times in less than a full day so far. No answer for this issue yet. Still looking. (Update: World of Warcraft is killing the keys. I found an Applescript to set them back when it happens.)

I am sure there are others, but this has gotten a bit long already.

Overall, Leopard is a great OS and I am quite happy with it.

Tags: Mac, Leopard