tech ronin

Up and Running in OSX Leopard

I dropped by my local Apple store in Corte Madera last night around 9:25 pm. It was busy but there were lots of Apple staff around so I could get help fairly quickly. I used my iPhone $100 credit and bought the Family size of OS X Leopard. Got my free T-shirt which is still in the bag.

I'm moving this weekend with movers coming early Monday morning. No time for much fun. But, I did think I could stop working around 9:15 pm long enough to get Leopard on Leopard night.

I left pretty quickly and headed over to the new place in Tiburon. There were no special treats other than the T-shirts at check out. Not exactly a party. My new apartment has my new Sony XBR4 40“ HDTV, so I coordinated my trip with a brief visit to the new TV to watch Numbers in HD. Looking good!

While the show was on, I tried to install Leopard on my MacBook (my #2 machine). I just tried the upgrade. First time through it failed. Second time through it was failing and said the only way it would work is if I erased my drive. I forgot about archive and install and erased the drive. Too bad. The install failed which left me with an unusable computer on day 1.

Today, in between packing boxes, I used SuperDuper to copy a backup of my MacBook Pro to the MacBook. That took about an hour. Then I was able to boot the MacBook again. I read the installation instructions a bit more this time and decided to do an archive and install.

Worked like a charm and I am writing this post in Leopard using ecto as we speak. Leopard is definitely snazzy. The consistent look and differences are really nice. I'm already plotting to upgrade my MacBook Pro as soon as possible.

But, after my first bumpy install experience, I think I'll give it at least until Tuesday after the move. Meanwhile, I can use this machine to check my IMAP email in Mail and surf the net. I did upgrade my copy of NetNewsWire when it notified me there was an update and it is running just fine without a problem.

I can't wait to play with Go to My Mac and screen sharing in the near future! I'll make several more posts no doubt as I discover the niceties of this new OS for myself over the next few days.

iPhone Update October 4

My iPhone use has risen to a new threshold of enjoyment and value of late. The difference for me has been the Safari pages I have found and am using.

Here are some of my favorites:

• Mobile New York Times
• Google Reader
• Digg for iPhone
• Pocket Tweets
• iPhone Central

Keep in mind that these are all designed with the smaller screen in mind. I don't limit myself at all to optimized pages, but these are my mainstays. I am extremely pleased with the information I have at my fingertips 24/7.

The other day I was sitting with coffee at my local cafe after breakfast. I had picked up the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, maybe a USA Today. Papers I hardly ever buy but like to read when the opportunity presents itself. What surprised me is that I was reading off my iPhone about half the time rather than taking the opportunity to read these real papers that I would not be able to read later. Things are changing!

I'm loving my iPhone and I haven't even tapped into the native third party applications that are out there now. I've been busy and was hoping I would see more from Apple by now on this front. Instead, the latest iPhone update 1.1.1 broke the third party application capability. That is truly unfortunate as a lot of iPhone users were really enjoying the bounty of new and useful native apps people were coming up with.

I don't think Apple intended to stop this sort of thing because it adds value to the iPhone and only a small percentage of iPhone users are likely to venture into this territory anyway. Let the more hardcore enthusiasts have their fun, I say.

Apple has to be shorthanded what with Leopard coming due, the iPod touch, the new UI for the nano and classic, the high expectations for updates to the iPhone, the Apple TV. They are stretched thin. I am so blown away by the existing iPhone that I cut them a lot of slack.

Nevertheless, I am all in favor of legitimate demands from the Mac, iPod and now iPhone communities. Apple needs the feedback. They innovate. They rock. They save us from mediocrity. And they still need to know what we want and expect.