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Time for an official Snow Leopard thread - Page 4

post #91 of 165
8/31/09 at 8:25pm
Reminds me of the IT department I used to work with: never update a Windows OS until SP1 (some said SP2).

With OSX it's slightly different thinking for me personally. If there is some third party program I can't live without, and I'm not sure it will work with the new version, I'll hold off (i.e. Pro Tools). However, I have recently switched to Logic Studio, and I know that will work pretty much with any new Mac OS (it's one of Apple's Pro Apps) so my thinking changes to whether or not the new OS has improvements I'm interested in, and weigh that against potential apps not working.

In the case of 10.6, most of the programs I use were either certified to work, or were tested (or experts thought they would) work. I use mostly Apple apps (iLife, iWork, GarageBand, Logic Pro), Adobe (CS3 Premium, but even though it's not officially supported I knew it would work), and non complex third party apps which have a big chance of working with the new OS. Couple that with the improvements Apple touted and it was a no-brainer for me to upgrade. I don't regret updating on day 1.

That said, I can totally understand those who use a lot of programs that broke with Snow Leopard, and their frustration with the upgrade, or their decision to hold off. I think the decision of when to upgrade varies based on user needs for OSX, unlike Windows 98, 2000, XP and Vista where the darned thing didn't really run smooth until SP1 or later. Hopefully MS will learn with 7 (which I'm beta testing and fairly happy with).
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post #92 of 165
9/1/09 at 5:14am
The only review you MUST read al always, John Siracusa's:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars
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post #93 of 165
9/1/09 at 6:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlo Medina View Post

That said, I can totally understand those who use a lot of programs that broke with Snow Leopard, and their frustration with the upgrade
My annoyance is that it's the headache of a x.0 upgrade but without the benefits.

My upgrade from 10.4 to 10.5 had the same annoyances. The Logitech drivers didn't work for months. Minor things broke. I grumbled about it. But I got Time Machine and Spotlight (well, a fast, usable Spotlight): tremendously beneficial improvements that balanced the annoyances.

With Snow Leopard, I've got the same headaches and the big new feature is a tweaked Expose style.

And, yes, I could reinstall from my SuperDuper! backup. A rational person would just shut up, revert, and wait a few months. A rational person...
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post #94 of 165
9/1/09 at 8:01am
YAY!!!!! 

Quote:

The sleeping Mac dilemma

I don't like to leave my Mac Pro turned on 24 hours a day, especially during the summer in my un-air-conditioned house. But I do want to have access to the files on my Mac when I'm elsewhere—at work, on the road, etc. It is possible to wake a sleeping Mac remotely, but doing so requires being on the same local network.

My solution has been to leave a smaller, more power-efficient laptop on at all times on the same network as my Mac Pro. To wake my Mac Pro remotely, I ssh into the laptop, then send the magic "wake up" packet to my Mac Pro. (For this to work, the "Wake for Ethernet network administrator access" checkbox must be checked in the "Energy Saver" preference pane in System Preferences.)

Snow Leopard provides a way to do this without leaving any of my computers running all day. When a Mac running Snow Leopard is put to sleep, it attempts to hand off ownership of its IP address to its router. (This only works with an AirPort Extreme base station from 2007 or later, or a Time Capsule from 2008 or later with the latest (7.4.2) firmware installed.) The router then listens for any attempt to connect to the IP address. When one occurs, it wakes up the original owner, hands back the IP address, and forwards traffic appropriately.

You can even wake some recent-model Macs over WiFi. Combined with MobileMe's "Back to My Mac" dynamic DNS thingamabob, it means I can leave all my Macs asleep and still have access to their contents anytime, anywhere.

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post #95 of 165
9/1/09 at 9:56am
I'm really surprised how many people don't seem to get the fact that if you want the most seamless transition you wait until at least .1 or .2.  It's not even unusual to Mac.  It's the same for Windows.  This is the first time I've upgraded before about .4 and I am actually surprised how smooth it was.
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post #96 of 165
9/1/09 at 9:59am
Want to make your head hurt? Read ARS Technica's in-depth study of Snow Leopard. Very techie, but also very insightful (if you've got an interest in the "under-the-hood" stuff).

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars
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post #97 of 165
9/1/09 at 10:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnRice View Post

I'm really surprised how many people don't seem to get the fact that if you want the most seamless transition you wait until at least .1 or .2.  It's not even unusual to Mac.  It's the same for Windows.  This is the first time I've upgraded before about .4 and I am actually surprised how smooth it was.
I've already given my practical comment on this.

However, Apple also said and implied that this was no new features, no bugs. There was a reasonable expectation that this would be especially bug- and problem-free, by its nature.

Now, to that end, my experience is that problems all lie with developers not having updates ready on Day 1. But others with 10.6 bugs -- Apple really suggested that this should be the most flawless transition ever. Why wouldn't it be if it's all about scrubbing the guts with no new features?
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post #98 of 165
9/1/09 at 12:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlo Medina View Post

Want to make your head hurt? Read ARS Technica's in-depth study of Snow Leopard. Very techie, but also very insightful (if you've got an interest in the "under-the-hood" stuff).

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars

Pssst, look three quotes above!

Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnRice View Post

I'm really surprised how many people don't seem to get the fact that if you want the most seamless transition you wait until at least .1 or .2.  It's not even unusual to Mac.  It's the same for Windows.  This is the first time I've upgraded before about .4 and I am actually surprised how smooth it was.

The only thing I am seeing broken is stuff like add ons to Apple software and things like WindowBlinds.  The stuff that isn't working by and large seems to be 3rd party software that is doing hinky things that don't really comply with the whole apple philosophy to begin with.  If you wanna do things your own way and not Apple's you shouldnt be shocked when that stuff breaks.

If people are shocked that Windowblinds is bugged they must not know much about that software at all, it changes core functionality that probably shouldn't even be allowed let along work!  =)   (I'm only half joking here)
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post #99 of 165
9/1/09 at 1:47pm
http://terrywhite.com/techblog/archives/3201

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/20-best-new-features-in-os-x-10-6-snow-leopard-630191
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post #100 of 165
9/2/09 at 12:37pm
Interesting information for HP printer users. At work, I had to remove the queue of a networked HP OfficeJet 7410 and added it back in, now it works without problems. Interesting that scan functionality is also built-in.

-Christian
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post #101 of 165
9/2/09 at 8:05pm
Thanks for the link. Our HP laser printer (ethernet connection) vanished after the upgrade. Hopefully these instructions will get it reinstalled.

Nope wrong page for me. I need "LaserJet" info...

Aha. The tricky part was finding the IP address in the printer's menu. All is well with the world again.
Edited by DaveF - 9/2/09 at 8:37pm
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post #102 of 165
9/2/09 at 8:45pm
Run SuperDuper!'s Check for Update! 10.6 compatibility now available :)
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post #103 of 165
9/3/09 at 12:22am
After my install the issues I am having that I never had with my iMac until now is Apple based programs like Safari, iTunes, iChat, Address Book and iCal have all frozen up on me and taken forever to close. This then pops up a message saying the program closed unexpectedly and asks if I want to restart it. I never had this happen before upgrading to 10.6. My HP printer works just fine and all my other programs have run with no hitches. I have upgraded everything that I can so far and the only program I am waiting on is a 3.0 version of 1Password to get out of alpha and beta testing.

Performance wise I haven't noticed any changes and it runs as usual except for those programs listed above. I think its odd the programs I am having issues with are Apple programs and not the third party programs.
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post #104 of 165
9/3/09 at 3:59am
I am removing Snow Leopard this morning.

I was a smart man to back up my system prior to install
via SuperDuper.

Too many things don't work including plugins, software
that has no updates yet, and most of all, the printer connected
to my network.

So, I'll go back to 10.5 for a few months until these issues
are resolved. 
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post #105 of 165
9/3/09 at 8:59am
Leo LaPorte, on MacBreak Weekly, said the same thing. 10.6 broke all his tools and he's grumbly about the whole thing.

I too did a SuperDuper! backup before the install. And then unplugged the SuperDuper! to preserve a 10.5 recovery system.

So far, I'm muddling through it. But I should learn not to update on Day 1. It's always painful and time consuming.
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post #106 of 165
9/4/09 at 7:17am
I still don't have that big of an issue with SL. Everything seems to be working as usual except for every once in a while.

I do like the new Quicktime a lot.
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post #107 of 165
9/4/09 at 12:20pm
http://www.kungfugrippe.com/post/177715198/confessional
(pardon the vulgarity. Mann is "colorful")
Quote:

“Did you know how much time and effort was put into making this OS innovative and subtly enhanced?”
 

“Yes. I read about that. But my apps keep crashing. Like, a lot.”


Quote:

Whereas I want what I’ve always wanted: a computer that fucking works. Without asterisks. Or (and this was so okay with me in 10.5) I want a feature set that is so distractingly gorgeous and giant-nippled that I’m not noticing that every dot-something upgrade is precisely as enjoyable and carefree as inserting one-third of a Tic-Tac into a fresh anal fissure.

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post #108 of 165
9/4/09 at 2:25pm
Rule #1. Don't take a new gun on an elephant hunt Rule #2. Don't blame 1st party when 3rd party apps (which exist solely to act outside the bound of 1st party guidelines) when 1st party updates the ecosystem -- Both apply to EVERY OS
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post #109 of 165
9/4/09 at 2:49pm
http://db.tidbits.com/article/10507
Quote:
  • With all windows visible [in Expose] (press F9 or the Expose key [F3] on recent Mac laptops), press Command-1 to arrange the windows by name.
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post #110 of 165
9/4/09 at 7:03pm
If you have even the faintest interest in Services and Automator, I suggest watching this
http://www.pixelcorps.tv/macbreak235
(note, they show several custom tools not provided by Apple)

And then this
http://www.macosxautomation.com/services/index.html


And if you don't have any interest, you might look anyway; you might find you can improve your workflow with some automation.
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post #111 of 165
9/7/09 at 6:29am
 I'm not sure if this will help anyone else but after talking with Apple for almost an hour my Mac Pro is running like lightning with SL.

My MP is only 3 months old and has never been the speed demon I was hoping for.  I was told to wait for SL and 64 bit to really turn on all the power.  My system would take up to 3 minutes to boot and was constantly getting the beach ball.  I bought disk warrior but my system would not boot off their cd.  I ran the repair tools in Disc utilities.  I even bought a new 1TB WD Caviar Black Hard Drive.  Nothing would fix it.  I then reloaded my HDD with a fresh copy of SL and still no improvement.  I called Apple yesterday and explained all my troubleshooting steps that I had taken and was told that he was stumped.  Apparently I had done all the steps that he would have suggested.  Obviously I have not listed all of them here.  It would take too long.  

After being put on hold a few times he said to boot off the SL CD.  Then go into disc utilities and run the repair tools from there. Low and behold it found a laundry list of errors and was able to fix all but 1 of them.  Now my system runs like lightning and my boot time is more like 45 seconds than 3 minutes.  Apparently, there is a big difference running the tools from the CD rather than from within the OS itself.

 It's worth mentioning that my system was booted into target mode and had disc warrior, the SL version, run on it.  You can download the new version from their website.  Errors were found and repaired but there was no real performance increase.  Like I said before, I don't know if this will help anyone else or maybe this is common knowledge.  However, it helped me so I thought I would pass it along. And since it involved SL I thought I would post it here.

Also, DaveF.  Thank you for posting the links to the videos.  Videos like this really help a lot so please keep them coming.  As a matter of fact, we should have a thread started just for video tutorials, helpful hints etc. and make it a sticky.

Don
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post #112 of 165
9/9/09 at 10:43am
 Hey Don,

Thanks for the for the advice -- I'll definitely do it when I install.

My SL disk finally arrived -- it had been sent to our old work location for some reason.
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post #113 of 165
9/10/09 at 9:11am
Deep level info on what's new in SL.  Aimed at Devs but advanced users may find it helpful:
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/releasenotes/MacOSX/WhatsNewInOSX/Articles/MacOSX10_6.html
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post #114 of 165
9/10/09 at 12:04pm
 I did my MBP -- all my stuff is working flawlessly -- very happy with SL so far.
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post #115 of 165
9/10/09 at 2:24pm
Well, that didn't take long!  10.6.1 is OUT!

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3810
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post #116 of 165
9/11/09 at 7:01pm
I'm Sleprified now, 10.6.1 with no issues yet.
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post #117 of 165
9/12/09 at 10:48am
I sort of expected .1 to come out pretty quick.  It makes sense that there would be some rapid fixes once the system went public.  I was actually glad to see it.

One thing about iTunes 9.  It takes sooo long to start playing a song.  Is anyone else noticing this?


OK, now that I said that, I tried it again with no delay.  Hmmm.
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post #118 of 165
9/14/09 at 12:37pm
How is 10.6.1 for people? It feels much slower to me, but I've made several changes all at once which might be the source of the seeming sluggishness of my system.
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post #119 of 165
9/14/09 at 5:22pm
Dave,

It doesn't feel any slower to me. How do you mean slower? Slower to load up? Less "snappy"? I think the things I pointed out in post 75 (page 3) of this thread still hold true in 10.6.1 - in fact I just ran a permission repair and it seems to be even faster!
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post #120 of 165
9/14/09 at 6:14pm
iTunes 9 is very crashy and Lr seems a tiny bit slower, but otherwise 100% happy.
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