Archive for August, 2002

August 24th, 2002

Jaguar, first impressions

It’s been a long time coming but I can finally say OS X is ready for everyday use by everyone. The new OS brings too many changes to cover here, so I’ll just cover my experiences on my titanium Powerbook.

First, installation. Apple has always done a great job with their installers and Jaguar is no different. I chose the clean install, with the migrate current users option turned on. Everything worked perfectly, except one thing. The installer moved all the third party applications I had installed in /Developer/Applications to the “Previous Systems” folder. Presumably you’d eventually throw away the “Previous Systems” folder, along with any apps that may be located in it. Obviously this wouldn’t be a good.

Seeing as I didn’t do a true clean install, the manual setup required was minimal. I tweaked my energy saver settings, since jaguar now includes separate settings for battery power. I also changed my Finder’s toolbar to include the new search field. And finally, I had to add a picture to my address book entry so I wasn’t a generic AOL logo when I use iChat. 🙂

So far my Jaguar experience has been great… it just works. I migrated to the new version of Mail without any problems. And let me tell you, the new spam filtering is fantastic! I’m still in training mode, and it’s already hitting about 95% of spam. No more checking my email just to see the newly received message is just spam. iChat is also working great. I particularly like the Mail/iChat integration, very handy.

As for compatibility, I’ve only run across a few problems. First, was a bug in RBrowserLite. They were linking against a private framework (shame, shame) that is no longer present in Jaguar. And the second problem was in Audion, clicking a face window from a different app would cause strange things to happen (carbon events and PowerPlant don’t mix 🙂 ). I’m happy to say both applications have been updated for the new OS and are working great. LiteSwitch is the only application that I have been using that has stopped working under Jaguar and doesn’t have an update available yet. Although the Proteron website says they’re working on a fix.

My initial favorite new features (or old ones that have found there way back into the OS) are: spring loaded folders, the ability to display more info under the name of an item in the finder, the new Aqua controls, the open with contextual menu item (it’s about time!) and Sherlock 3. I used Sherlock 3 to look up a local business here and it worked perfectly. Gave me directions to the business and a map to boot, what’s not to like? 😉

Overall I’m very happy with the OS and all the work Apple has put into it over the past year. If you aren’t using 10.2, you should be, it truly is the best OS on the planet. I’ll be sure to post more experiences and thoughts about the new OS as time passes, but until then, go to your local Apple retailer and pick up a copy.

Wade

Current music: Sneaker Pimps – Waterbaby

# posted at 8:05 pm by Will

August 12th, 2002

It’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged, but things keep moving over here at ES. I’m finishing up a small update for Maquarium that will be out next week which will fix a couple bugs that have crept up under Jaguar. It also changes several ‘behind the scenes’ things and adds French support (thanks Vincent). As for Wade, he’s getting around to finishing up Bookit 3…sometime this year. 🙂 We’ve hired Gary over at PixelPress to make some new icons for Bookit 3 and a couple more icons for Maquarium. The guy does great work, what else can I say. 🙂

In other news, I’m finishing up an internship to finally get my Computer Science degree, just a year later then expected. The current economy proved it’s nearly impossible to get a stable Mac programming job straight out of school with a lot of good programmers currently out of a job and looking. If only I had graduated three years ago. 🙂

Cheers, Will

Current music: Morcheeba – What New York Couples Fight About

# posted at 10:13 pm by Will