I cannot find a better post to start off a personal journal. Ladies and gentlemen, this entry is made on Mac OS X Leopard.
No upgrades for me, I decided to wipe the slate clean and go with a total fresh install. The whole process took slightly less than an hour. The installer took a long while to verify the disc. I was tempted to skip the check, what are the chances that something could be wrong with the disc! After some indecisive moments, I decided not to take the chance. One can never be too careful even when it comes to Apple.
Moments after the reboot, the familiar Macintosh "Welcome" video plays on my 1-month old 15-inch Macbook Pro. Finally, I can get my hands on Leopard! So how does it feel to use the long awaited operating system from Apple? A full two and a half years since its predecessor, Tiger. So much hype and coverage all over the internet since Apple announced developments.
At first glance, everything feels pretty much the same even the familiar chime when the mac boots up. A reflective dock, translucent menu bar, a space-theme wallpaper... I will not go deep in details with the 300+ new features, I think the Leopard section on the Apple site did a great job for that. I will just talk about what I like and gripes about this incarnation of the operating system. It is hard for me to hate anything that Apple made, with the exception of the Mighty Mouse.
I can understand why anyone will want to bring back the triangles on the Leopard's dock. The new bluish replacement indicators look great on the reflective dock but at times, it can be difficult to tell which applications are active.
I am alright with the new stack feature which springs a fan view when a dock item is clicked.
Fancy cool animation that just works. I always have a shortcut to my applications on the dock for easy access to all applications. Right click on it and a list of applications appear. Hover on a nested folder on the list and applications within that folder appears. Easy one-click to any application.
However, things have changed on Leopard. For a stack that has too many items (as in the case of the application folder), a grid view appears in place of the fan. Logical but unlike in the past, now I cannot get to the applications nested in a subfolder without additional clicks. So not quite the usual single click to a specific application.
Something I am really eager to test was the new iChat screen sharing function. Friends at the other end of the chat can see whatever you share through iChat. Keynote slides, PowerPoint presentations, photos, PDF... you name it.
I am what one might call, a Mac support line for my converted friends. They can tell you more on the evangelistic nature I have when it comes to the mighty Apple. Being able to take over my friends' Mac screen remotely rocks! It is way easier for me to help them on any issues or questions they have. Watching me demonstrate on their mac remotely beats having me verbally explaining to them which button to click.
Screen sharing technology is not new but Apple really made it easy for the average joe (or jane). Anyone can do it without additional setup, installations or mind-boggling tweaks on firewall settings. Just a couple of clicks and voila!
I am pretty neutral on swapping the square corners for the rounder ones that Tiger has. That does not really bother me much, in fact it seems more natural for the corners to fill the screen. Wish I can say the same for the new folder icons on Leopard. In comparison, I would prefer the old ones. The new flat-looking icons do not really cut it for me, they are just a tad too dull. You can hardly tell the differences between each folders at first glance.
The Finder finally got an overhaul that it badly needed, it is about time that Apple does something about quick preview of common files! Now you can easily preview images, documents and videos through Quick Look. I am a big fan of Cover Flow in iTunes but honestly, I am not too sure about having that in Finder. Sure it looks great and all but it seems like quite an arduous task to me. Scrolling through album art seems apt but doing that for files and documents? Hmm.. maybe for the first 5 minutes. After that, I still prefer either the icon view or the column view. I am just glad they finally added the "Arrange By Kind" for the column view!
Overall, I think Leopard did good. I had the benefit of paying an insignificant price of US$10 for it. Courtesy of Apple, under the Leopard Up-to-Date Program, customers who bought any mac computers on Tiger recently will be able to get a Leopard upgrade cheap. No complaints from me on their customer service. Would have been great if its totally free though. That being said, I think the US$129 price tag is still worth the investment.
Time to explore more features. Ciao!