Leopard Install

Well, I did finally get Leopard. I was ready for it, so I already had my data and everything backed up to my external Maxtor hard drive. I’m not a big fan of upgrades, so I set out to do a clean install from the start. I made a quick second backup to a DVD just in case. I have to say that the Leopard packaging is very nice. I love the space theme.

I have a lot more data on my iMac, so I decided to install it onto my MacBook first. All I needed to backup on it was my pictures and documents, so choosing the MacBook was a quicker process.

I popped the CD in, and rebooted. After a few minutes, Leopard loaded and I started the install. This was attempt number one. I clicked through the agreements and all the other good stuff. Then I came to the screen where you choose which hard drive you want to install to. And guess what, it was blank. Not one drive listed there. The first thing I did was reboot to make sure my drive hadn’t died on me in that shot time span, but Tiger booted up just fine.

I did some research to see if anyone else was having this problem, and it turns out others are as well. I read a few messageboard posts that suggested that I keep clicking in the white space, and another said that I should open the disk utility in the Leopard install and unmount then remount the hard drive. None of these things worked. I finally found a post from someone stating that they just left it alone for about 15 minutes and everything showed up. So, I tried this. I booted back into the install, waited about 20 minutes and sure enough, the hard drive showed up. It turns out that Leopard scans the hard drive before it installs to it. The more you have on the hard drive, the longer it takes to scan.

The rest of the install went perfectly. I chose not to install some of the printer drivers. They just took up too much space, and I really wouldn’t use any of them except for the Cannon and HP drivers. So I left those, and ditched the rest. I also chose not to install any of the language fonts. I don’t know any other languages, so they would have just been dead weight.

The actual install took around 20 minutes, and went smooth. My MacBook rebooted, and started the user setup process. I was off and running in no time.

I restored all my data from my external hard drive this morning, everything went perfecly (I didn’t need that DVD backup…a good thing I think). I was also able to reinstall all of my important programs without any trouble. Everything worked just fine.

I’ve only had the OS for a day, so I’m still exploring it. I have had a chance to use Time Machine, and so far I have to say I’m impressed with it. I’ll be writing about it once I get more familiar with it.

Make Your Linux Desktop Look Like A Mac

I saw this on Digg this morning. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks pretty cool. This is a tutorial from HowtoForge that explains how to make your GNOME desktop look like Mac OS X Leopard.

Here’s the link: Make Your Linux Desktop Look Like A Mac

I’ll have some screen shots up as soon as I’ve had a chance to give this a try.

Waiting for Leopard

The day is finally here, and I have to say I’m pretty excited. Leopard will be released in just a few hours. I haven’t purchased my copy yet, I didn’t have time to before I went on vacation. I’ll probably wait a week or two and read some reviews before I order it. That’s the plan anyway. I’ll probably break down and order it after I write this. I have been waiting a while for Leopard.

The thing I am most looking forward to in Leopard is the new version of Mail. I love Mail. It is the best email client I’ve ever used. I’ve tried Thunderbird, Outlook, Eudora, Pegasus, and many others. None have matched Mail.

I look at look at the Leopard guided tour the other day, and I was pleased to see an entire section on Mail. The new version of mail will include some great features including notes, tasks, RSS, and data detect.

The new notes feature in Mail looks amazing. Other email clients have this, but I don’t think I’ve seen any of them do it the same way Mail does it. When you click the Note button in Mail, you get a note pad to begin typing your note on. When you’re done, you simply save the note. What Mail is actually doing is just sending you an email containing your note. Mail then puts the note into a Smart Mailbox that is just for notes. You can then go to this folder to view and edit your note. Wonderful. I’m always sending myself emails as reminders, so this will be perfect for me.

The task feature in Mail works about the same way. You simply hit the Task button, type your task, and Mail saves it into a Smart Mailbox. The task has a red dot next to it, and a check box that you can check once the task is complete. I’ve tried other programs to do this, but none of them have done it as eloquently as Mail.

I’ve been using NewsFire as my RSS reader for a while now. It works great, but being able to access my RSS feeds right alongside my email will be great.

The last feature I want to talk about is data detect. Mail will automatically recognize a task in an email. All you have to do is click it and choose to add it to your task list. Mail can also do this for dates, and add them to iCal for you. If someone sends you an email, and all their information is at the bottom in the signature, Mail will recognize this, and you can them add the person to your address book with one simple click.

It doesn’t get much better than that. I can’t wait to see how well all of this works together.

If you’re interested in some of the other features in Leopard, check out this page: Mac OS X Leopard – Features

Upcoming Releases

October has turned into a rather exciting month this year. First, Ubuntu 7.10 is scheduled to be released on the 18^th, and just this morning Apple announced that Leopard will be available on the 26^th. Wonderful. I went over the Apple web site to find out some more details, and there was a pre-order button. I haven’t done it yet, but it was very tempting to go ahead and pre-order Leopard.

I’ve been looking forward to Leopard since I got my MacBook a little over a year ago. My boss is the one who got me into Macs, and he kept mentioning Leopard, so I started to investigate. I’ve been following it ever since. I came close to downloading one of the development release from The Pirate Bay, but I figured just waiting for the final, polished version would be a lot better.

I’m looking forward to a lot of the new features in Leopard. Stacks looks wonderful, Time Machine sounds interesting, and Spaces looks like a wonderful way to stay organized.

Being obsessed with just about any type of technology, I’m not just excited about OS X Leopard. I am extremely excited about the new Ubuntu release coming out this month. I’ve been trying out the beta releases of Gutsy Gibbon, and I have to say I’m really impressed. I haven’t been able to try out Compiz-Fusion yet, I think I’ll have to upgrade the video card in my Linux box for it to work. I think it’s an integrated Intel card right now. I’m thinking just a cheap nVidia card off Tigerdirect would fix the problem.

Well, that’s all from me for now. I’m going on vacation tomorrow, and won’t be back until next Monday. I’ll miss the release of Ubuntu 7.10, but at least I’ll be on vacation. I think that’s a pretty good reason to miss it.