This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Mike Shoemaker. Original Post: Leopard Purrs but not without a hair ball Feed Title: Unruly Rambling (ruby category) Feed URL: http://www.shoesobjects.com/blog/rss.xml?category=ruby Feed Description: My thoughts on software, technology, and life in general Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Mike Shoemaker Latest Posts From Unruly Rambling (ruby category)

Like all the other Apple nerds in the world on Friday, my brain didn't wander far from the 6pm release of Mac OS X Leopard. I arrived at the local West County Apple Retail Store promptly at 5:50pm. As I walked in, I saw a line that started near the entrance of the store and went down about 60 yards. As I got closer to the "end of the line", I noticed that instead of ending it made a 90 degree turn and went across the mall to the other walkway. That walkway wrapped 90 degrees as well and stacked up back towards the apple store(although on the other side of the mall). This section of the line actually went past the apple store. The line was basically U shaped and I was at the top right tip of the U. The store opened a bit late, probably 6:05 or so but the line moved immediately. For as many people that were there, it was pretty efficient. After 30 minutes of waiting, I entered the Apple Store and was greeted with a Leopard handout and a black t-shirt celebrating it's launch. While I'm not a big fan of black t-shirts, I accepted the gift with gratitude. I plan to wear it whenever I want to annoy my non-geek friends.

After entering the store, I walked directly back to the counter and stood in a very short line of two. I checked out minutes later. Bottom line is that I went from last in line at 5:50pm to exiting the mall before 7pm. Not to shabby if you ask me. My expectations were that I'd be there a minimum of 2 hours so I was pretty happy about saving the time. One thing that struck me as odd about the whole event was the number of people that were in line and didn't buy the new operating system. I saw many people walk in, get their t-shirt, look around a bit, and leave. This seemed very weird to me then and still does now.

So now for my day and a half assessment of Leopard.

• The archive and install feature worked flawlessly and seemed faster than every other OS X install that i've done in the past.
• The eye candy is very nice, it seems like the LCD on my 17" MacBook Pro got detailed with high gloss polish. Seriously, everything seems more vivid.
• Spaces has a very fluid feel just like Expose.
• System Preference Cleanup. Sharing and Network are more clear and concise now.
• Finder Updates make the finder feel more like the iLife apps.
• Mail's new features ToDo's and Notes are long over due but I'll be sticking with RememberTheMilk.com for now
• Tabbed Terminals may allow me to say so long to iTerm. This remains to be seen though, I've been pretty happy with iTerm.

• iCal didn't maintain my calendars and I had to sync my iPhone to get them back
• Time Machine, Time Machine, Time Machine(See next paragraph)

Let's just say that the idea of time machine was the main driver behind my upgrading. I probably would have bought the OS anyway, but this was the number one feature that I wanted. The implementation of time machine is not quite what I had expected. All along I had been expecting to hook an external hard drive up to my Airport and have time machine backup wirelessly. After all, the main machines at my house are my MacBook Pro and my wife's MacBook. Time machine was suppose to save me the idle time hooking up external hard drives and copying data for hours on end. After booting up leopard for the first time, I was prompted to connect to my AirDisk without doing anything. Now that I could access the drive, I headed straight for Time Machine in System Preferences. Upon arriving, I could not find my air disk. Hmmm, I thought. I went back to the find and made sure I could copy a file there, which I could. After years of being abused my Microsoft, I wrote it off to needing a reboot. I rebooted and only received more of the same. I found the answers I was looking for, but not the ones I wanted. It seems somewhere along the way Apple removed the Air Disk feature from Time Machine. Google cache can retrieve an older version of the page where it exists, but the current features do not include this. Now I'm right back to hooking up external hard drives again only to use a new backup tool. Not exactly the experience I had hoped for. After reading more on this, it seems there is a work around for time machine. Not supported I'm sure. The work around involves pluggin the drive directly into the mac and letting time machine run once. While it's doing this, you need to execute a few unix commands to create a hidden file with appropriate permissions and ownership on the external drive. Once time machine completes it's first run, you hook it back up to the Airport and it will then be used by time machine. The fact that I have to do this work around tells me that the AirDisk is probably not to stable. Only time will tell.

My next rant on Time Machine is about this pesky window that is present when it is running. Is this really necessary? I have it minimized but I wish I could hide it all together and never see it again.

My last rant on Time Machine is around configuration. I personally don't need hourly backups. I'd be fine if time machine ran int he middle of the night every night. Hey Apple, where is the configuration? Your assumptions that I need hourly are not accurate!!!