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Installing Leopard 10.5.1 at home (and lots of other Mac musings)

Having held on to my newly purchased Leopard DVD for an entire week, I finally started the installation process last night. I have a lot more apps at home than at Simmons and so decided to re-work my hard drive partitions so that I have a pure working start-up copy of my original Tiger installation, in case any of the applications I really can't live without have gone south.

I stayed up late (for me) getting everything backed up (using SuperDuper!, which isn't yet Leopard compatible), and let Leopard install overnight. I'd started by turning off Sophos scanning. When done, Leopard immediately ran the 10.5.1 update. I haven't read anything about it, so to the untrained eye it's interesting to see that Apple seems to have changed its OS update method to have a bunch of the update occur after the user has no control of the machine (after clicking "restart").

The first thing I've noticed is that my machine feels snappier. Start up is faster, opening folders with lots of files is faster. I have one of the earliest G5 towers, with a single PowerPC processor running at 1.8GHz, and 2.5GB RAM.

I opened up my Mail and let it do its thing--Mail seems fine.

I re-pointed iPhoto and iTunes to aliases pointing to my libraries. I had been keeping music and photos on a separate partition of my hard drive, but I heard a Mac Geek Gab podcast a while ago (don't have time to listen to these gabby guys anymore) that said OS X optimizes the use of the hard drive by putting the most frequently used files (e.g. OS) where the drive head has to work the least to get to them. So I put my photos and music back on my main OS drive, and once I'm happy that Leopard is The One for me, I'll get rid of the partition altogether. I keep my music and photos in the /users/shared directory so all of the accounts that log into this computer can have access to the same iTunes and iPhoto libraries. I do have to purposefully set up each account by pointing them to the correct location on first launch of the apps.

I opened FileMaker Pro 6, which is not even close to being on the FileMaker list of Leopard-supported products. It opened fine. I checked on my bike database where I keep track of each ride's duration, length, destination, and average speed (bike geek). It's fine! I'm going to wait to see if FMP will still sync with JFile, the database on my Palm. No time at the moment, because I need to show my partner I'm actually getting household work done, not just playing with my computer, by paying bills.

Later . . . I opened Quicken 2006 and entered a bunch of info, went to my bank's site and actually paid bills, and tried to print the one check I need to actually print on paper. That's where I got stuck. Leopard only shows printers in the print menu that are on and available. I couldn't see my Epson Stylus Photo 2200 printer. I tried to add it (having turned it on), and the only option for adding it was through Bonjour (a.k.a. through my Ethernet cable, to my Airport, and back to the printer through USB). I want to use Firewire to the printer from this Mac, so I can install all of the various "printers" (such as borderless printing) for this printer, and have the perception of faster printing.

Off to the Epson site. Yep, I have the latest driver. Looked for the Print Center. Nowhere to be found. I can't figure out where Leopard keeps printer management, and can only pull it up by printing from an application and choosing the "add a printer" option. That's annoying. I'm downloading the driver again, in hopes the installation will help me remember how I got the firewire drivers installed before!

Got it. I had to "add printers" from the drop down in the printer dialog box, and then choose "More," and then wait. I hadn't been patient enough the first time. Or maybe it's because I re-installed the drivers from Epson. Anyway, got the check printed.

I went to my bank's web site and downloaded qfx files in order to reconcile Quicken with my "bank statements." That process worked fine too. So I declare Quicken safe and sound with Leopard. For me!

I realized I hadn't been playing any music, so opened iTunes, synchronized my iPhone without incident, and started playing some music. That triggered Synergy, a great little app I've been using for years. It shows the album cover of what's playing, briefly, in the corner of my screen, and has nice keyboard shortcuts for controlling forward, backwards, pause, etc.

What app to try next? I took advantage of the Adobe offer for faculty and staff for the Adobe Design CS suite, so I trust that Photoshop, Acrobat, and Dreamweaver, the software among that group that I use, will work fine. Because I've moved my photos from hard drive to drive, I opened Photoshop anyway. I haven't used it since upgrading from Photoshop 7. File->Browse opened the Adobe Bridge software, which put up little thumbnails of my folders and then photos: wow, very slick!

I use the Canon ImageBrowser and CameraWindow, that came with my PowerShot SD500. They were both slow and slightly wonky with Tiger, and remain so in Leopard. I should stop using them, but there are things they make easier than using more sophisticated tools. And I don't want to switch to iPhoto because I like having complete control over the image files--if I make a change to an image, I want to choose whether to overwrite the original, or make a new one, with a name that lets me know how I changed it.

Feeling brave, I move forward to the ridiculous method I'm using to synchronize my iPhone with Meeting Maker. Wow, poor little old AppleScript isn't very happy. It's running much much more slowly than it used to. I'll post separately about this ridiculous process. It looks like it's working enough that if I use a smaller date span I can keep using it.

I decided everything's been going so well, why not go for the gusto. I'd heard that Palm synchronization was the thing people had had trouble with when moving to Leopard. I use an old version of the The Missing Sync (version 5.0.3) because newer versions started using the Apple OS underlying sync services, which I'd read something about that scared me. I just tried syncing my Tungsten T5 with The Missing Sync and it worked! All of these conduits worked: Crosswords, Documents to Go, FMSync: JFile X, Install, Mark/Space Conduit for AvantGo, and PocketQuicken. All of these are quite old. FMSync: Jfile X synchronizes my FMP 6 bike database with JFile on the Palm.

It's this sort of stuff I can't wait for the iPhone to be able to incorporate! Missing Sync is coming out with an iPhone app--but it doesn't look as though it's going to fulfill my wishes.

I bravely moved forward to my partner's Tungsten T3, which still syncs to Palm Desktop. Despite qualms, PalmOne Palm Desktop 4.2.1 still works too. In addition to my conduits, her sync ran: Backup, Contacts, Media, Memos, NotePad (hmm, shouldn't be running that probably), Tasks, and Voice Memo.

There are some applications I only run occasionally that I've checked quickly. Paparazzi!, which captures entire web pages, works fine. OmniGraffle Professional 4.2.1 opens. PuzzlePack X opens. Google Earth 4.0 crashed. Disc Cover, which requires the iTunes library be where it wants it to be, opens.

This means that all of my major applications work fine with Leopard: Yippee! Now I've got to get some actual work done! Enough testing for now.

Later. Used Audacity 1.2.4, Fetch 5.3, iPhoto 6, and iMovie 6: all fine.

Posted: November 17, 2007 10:07 am by Kimberly Brookes | 2 comments
Tags: Mac Leopard OS, OS testing, Palm

MS Word, Leopard, and printing: crashes

Word crashed 4 times today. Each time I was trying to print to the networked Canon printer in our area. It feels as though this is somehow related to Spaces, even though I can't be sure.

I was primarily using Space 1, where my Mail, calendar, and browser are. I switched to Word, and a file on the file server, which took me to Space 2. I had been printing earlier in Space 1. I tried to print the Word document, and the document printed, but Word quit.

Then I tired to print again, same thing.

Later, with a longer document, the document didn't print and Word crashed. Finally the 3rd time I opened the document, I was able to print that file, and another, successfully. It was as though I needed to open the file in a specific manner: move to Space 2, navigate to the file using Space 2, double click on the file. Or something.

Very odd.

Posted: November 13, 2007 4:49 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 4 comments
Tags: Apple Spaces, Mac Leopard OS, Microsoft Word 2004, OS testing

Apple Mail crashes

Mail seems to crash on me every other day or so. This time I was just trying to compose a message.

Posted: November 8, 2007 12:19 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 1 comment
Tags: Apple Mail, Mac Leopard OS, OS testing

Leopard and Meeting Maker: odd behavior?

I noticed a couple of times today that Meeting Maker has started opening new windows behind the main "daily view" window. For example, if I create a new appointment by clicking and dragging across a time, and then I click away, and then I click the "invite guests" link, Meeting Maker opens the "Activity" window behind my "daily view" making me think that I haven't properly clicked the link.

I noticed this after I clicked repeatedly and saw no results, then went to the Window menu and saw lots and lots of Activity windows open. A similar problem has occurred when Windows users have chosen "New Main Window" repeatedly.

But I hadn't seen it on the Mac before switching to Leopard.

Update on 11/8/07:
Today I noticed another feature missing from Meeting Maker that was there before Leopard (unless it has something to do with my version of MM, which is v,8.6.2b65). When I invite a guest to whom I have proxy rights, I ought to be able to double click on the guests name and see what the guest's busy time is when I hover over the red bar.

In the example above, I've proxied to Susan's calendar, which is why her name is bold. But when I mouse over the red parts of her calendar, I can't see what meetings she has that are making her busy, which I used to be able to do.

Update on 11/27/07:
I'm trying to schedule a meeting with 8 people, and Meeting Maker is just about impossible to use due to these bugs. I cannot move forward in time and see when people are busy without going back to the details tab, changing the date, and then going back to the guests tab.

Posted: November 5, 2007 2:37 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Mac Leopard OS, Meeting Maker, OS testing

Apple Leopard Spaces: misbehavior with Word

I just tried to use Spaces. I have two Spaces. I switched from one to the other using F8. I'd seen in the demo that you can drag one apps into another Space before switching to that Space.

I dragged MS Word into the second space, and entered the 2nd space. But my title bar of my Word document then wouldn't let me move the Word document down below the Word toolbars. When I tried to click in the document and edit, some of the document's text spilled over the bottom of Word's document window, and I couldn't edit the document. This is behavior similar to what I experienced several years ago when opening certain documents originally created in Word for Windows.

I tried opening another application to see if Leopard would redraw the screen properly. That didn't work. I quit Word, opened it again in the 2nd space, then opened the document and everything was fine.

I don't think Spaces likes having an open Word doc dragged into a new space through its F8 feature.

Posted: November 1, 2007 12:19 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Apple Spaces, Mac Leopard OS, Microsoft Word 2004, OS testing

Mail, RSS feeds, and a crash

I love the new Mail in Leopard, the new Mac OS. I tried subscribing to a couple of RSS feeds this morning, including the Simmons employee announcements, and the campus announcements. Within Firefox, I had to choose "Mail" as the application that I wanted to use to subscribe to the feed.

The campus announcements feed came right up, and I was able to see the last 20 announcements right there in my email box--very convenient! The campus announcements prompted me for my username and password, and then some component within email warned me and asked if I wanted it to keep personal information. A good reminder about security. I said: yep, go ahead. The messages in that feed didn't appear, though.

I opened some other messages, deleted a bunch, and then opened a message and tried to forward it. Mail crashed. There was nothing going on in the Mail Activity box at the time. I'll bet Mail is a little buggy, as it was when Tiger was unveiled (or was it Jaguar?).

After Mail quit, and I told it to submit a report to Apple, I re-opened Mail and the employee announcement feed is there with 15 entries, and Mail is working normally again.

Posted: November 1, 2007 8:51 am by Kimberly Brookes | 1 comment
Tags: Apple Mail, email applications, Mac Leopard OS, OS testing

Testing the new Mac operating system: Leopard

I'm one of the first testers at Simmons to be using Leopard, the latest Mac OS X release: OS X.5. It's dangerous to be using a brand new OS on my work machine, but I've sacrificed myself for the cause of seeing what does and doesn't work. The Help Desk's Senior Support team will be working with a few Leopard testers, and testing Leopard themselves, in the coming weeks to determine the utility of Leopard for Simmons users, and how best/when to upgrade folks.

We're thinking about using the Simmons blog as a way to share information among early Leopard adopters. We look forward to seeing how the blog works for this purpose!

Posted: October 31, 2007 8:27 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Mac Leopard OS, OS testing