Snow Leopard updates are probably done — you will want to see your OS X upgrade options. Prez Art Gorski says, "If you’re still running an older version of OS X and are interested in upgrading, here’s a great article on your options."
What Does a "Mavericks" Look Like?
We remember the looks of some earlier Apple products: Snow Leopard, then Lion, and Mountain Lion, for example. But what does a "Mavericks" look like? Here's from Apple's page . . . http://www.apple.com/osx/preview/
Hearing from the Hales
Former PMUG Prez Bob Hale and his wife Sue head for Claremont, California. He writes, "Hope all is well 'on the prairie' and with all of our PMUG colleagues. Please keep in touch. We wish you all the best."
Bob served as Prez from November 2005 until January 2008. Sue spoke to PMUG, and they hosted a PMUG Christmas party at their home in Prescott Valley.
He adds, "We have skipped the Lion upgrade, so we're still happily running the venerable Snow Leopard OS's on our Intel iMacs, as are our two sons here."
Mountain Lion Installation: Read About It
John Carter jumps right in with Mountain Lion. He tells us, "Like Jim Hamm before me, I dove right in and updated my iMac to 10.8 today.
"The installation was painless. I started it and walked away for the rest of the day.
When I came back, several applications needed attention – mostly updates.
"The first surprise was a new application: Messages. This popped up in the middle of the screen all on its own. Apple's way of telling me it's there. Messages allows me to text anyone with an Apple device or PC with 10.8 for free. Messages is already available on iOS 5.1. So this is just another step toward making all Apple products look and feel the same. I doubt I will ever use Messages – unless there is someone out there who doesn't want to use Mail. Mostly, Messages is for iOS devices to avoid phone charges for text messaging.
"The next surprise was a string of short notices down the right side of the display. These were recent updates to Calendar. And each time Jackie added a new item to the Calendar on her MacBook Air, another notice popped up on my iMac. That's because she is sharing her Calendar with me to make sure I know what she's up to. And I have done the same for her.
"Another that surprised me was that Total Finder – an add-on to Finder – said that it was not tested on 10.8. It worked anyway.
"After performing just a few application updates – one was NeoOffice (3.3 Beta is out, available only to those who donated within the past year), I then discovered that the App Store had a few more updates waiting for me. These were iWork, iPhoto, iMovie, and Xcode.
"The update for iPhoto required a database update, and I haven't seen any obvious changes.
"iMovie thumbnails needed to be created for the project I was currently working on – that took quite a while. And oh, by the way - iMove is LOTS faster.
"When I opened Mail, the database had to be converted for the new 10.8. No problem. Can't see anything new so far.
"I expected some change in Preview. When I opened it, I saw a new window. It was telling me that I could now move my existing documents to iCloud by dragging them to that window from the Finder or other app. Before, what I would see was just a Finder window. Now, in the upper left corner of the Preview window are two new buttons: iCloud and On My Mac. Aside for a complete makeover in the Preview Menu, there is now a brand new Editor toolbar with an enhanced Adjust Color pane and a Smart Lasso.
"Move over, iPhoto! You may never use iPhoto again to make basic changes to a photo – unless, of course, the only way to access the photo is through iPhoto. The bad part of this is, now you have something else to spend time on. As with Lion, any change you make to a photo with Preview creates a version of the file – so you can always retrieve the original. And when you click on the filename, the menu now shows an option to move the image to iCloud. Clicking on Browse all Versions shows them in the same way that Time Machine shows your backups. Wow! I like the changes I just made to that photo.
"Remember what I said about the new buttons in the upper left of the Finder window when I opened Preview? You get the same two buttons (iCloud and On My Mac) with Pages, Keynote, and Numbers.
"I have no idea what's new in Xcode, and even if I did, I'm sure you wouldn't be interested.
And here John winds up his report with this, "All in all, it has been a good thing. Nothing really new to learn – except Messages. But then, I haven't read about all the new features in 10.8. I give this 10.8 upgrade a 10. Upgrading from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion may be like trading Windows for a Mac, but going from Lion to Mountain Lion will be like adding more icing to the cake.
"Where's my MacBook Pro? That's next!" OK, John, keep us posted.
Serious Bug Discovered in Lion
John Carter wants our attention now! "I just discovered that LION has a serious bug that Apple isn’t recognizing as a bug yet. Files disappear from the hard drive. Do a search with the keywords “files disappearing on mac."
"It happened to me, and it’s happening to others. I’m still looking into it.
"There doesn’t seem to be any fix in the future. Maybe Mountain Lion won’t have the bug. It’s totally random while at the same time appears to be completely selective. All the files in every subfolder of one of my folders are missing: e.g., folder A contains folders B, C, and D. All files in B, C, and D are missing.
"Other folders that I know should be on the machine are now missing — stuff that I put there just two weeks ago.
"Using Time Machine only helps if you actually use it. In my case, the folders and files in question were deliberately excluded from Time Machine — to save space in my Time Machine backup. What a shame on me!"
John concludes for now with, "Now, I recently worked with a client who has Snow Leopard, and dozens of photos disappeared off his Mac. No Time Machine backup. Another client also claims to have missing files — and he is not using Lion. So when did this problem start, and how widespread is it?"
Want to see John's posts on this problem on the Apple Discussion site? Find it here. He is posted as jrc39 and his comments are as of 7-15. Keep up the good work, John, and let us know the resolution of the matter.
Want to see John's posts on this problem on the Apple Discussion site? Find it here. He is posted as jrc39 and his comments are as of 7-15. Keep up the good work, John, and let us know the resolution of the matter.
Upgrade Fever?
Can I upgrade to Lion and still keep my old, familiar, and useful Snow Leopard? You'll find complete directions here, but with a warning. If not done correctly you could lose all your data, everything on your computer! Aaaak! Read here for the info.
Another nifty announcement on that same site: Read about Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) events scheduled for June 2 & 3. "Hack for humanity" is their slogan, it's FREE, and being held at Burlington, VT.
So, PMUG readers, anyone want to pass on info on any recent upgrades?
iCloud on Snow Leopard?
Prez Art Gorski clarifies questions about Lion, Leopard and the iCloud. "I've got Lion installed on my new MacBook Air, but my 4 year old Mac Mini still runs Snow Leopard. Rather than upgrade the memory (which I think will be required for good performance with Lion), I've decided to leave Snow Leopard on the Mini until I replace it within a year or so.
"In Apple's announcements today, the iCloud presentation only mentioned Lion, and not Snow Leopard, and there is no solid information on the Apple web site. However, over on the MobileMe discussion forum (Apple Communities), there is a thread with a screenshot that's interesting. A developer testing iCloud opened up the old .Mac system preference on a Mac running 10.4 and the dialog said he couldn't activate .Mac (remember, this is 10.4, so it wasn't called MobileMe yet) because he had upgraded to iCloud. The interesting part of the dialog said he needed to upgrade to 10.6.9 to use iCloud."
Art summarizes, "So it looks like Snow Leopard may very well be supported, and that there will be a 10.6.9 update coming out before iCloud goes live this month."
Progress in Rosetta and Snow Leopard for Lion
From this article it sounds like some progress is being made for Rosetta and Snow Leopard for Lion. John Carter sends these comments, "I’ve seen talk on the Internet somewhere that VMWare Fusion does the best job of installing any version of OS X as a guest OS using any other version of OS X as the host. And this by more than just one very serious and credible poster. They ranted me on my preference of Parallels for Mac for that purpose, so I bow to them."
To Lion or Not To Lion?
Still pondering the question shall I upgrade to Lion, or not? David Passell shares this information from MacLife. The writer ventures between serious and humorous, and the comments are sensible. I found the best advice from someone named Fabulo writing under Comments who advises to partition your hard drive and install Snow Leopard on one partition and upgrade to Lion on the other partition. You can continue to work with a familiar system while learning the new OS at a comfortable pace.
Know Someone with Low-vision or Blind?
Be prepared to be amazed at what your Mac can do for those with low-vision or are blind. If you're using Snow Leopard go to Applications > Utilities > VoiceOver. Look at this information. This 8 page article explains the features, and it also describes and provides links to video demonstrations on how to use VoiceOver on iPhone and iPod touch.
Downgrading from Snow Leopard?
John Carter has been plagued with several problems with Snow Leopard. He says, "The interesting part is that the problems are isolated to my login and the problems did not show up in another login. However, in the process of trying to resolve the problems with my login, my iMac no longer allows me to login as any user. These problems are quite unique to my computer and may not happen to anyone else."
As a result, John needs to downgrade his computer back to Leopard and then restore all his applications and data from his Time Machine backup to the date prior to upgrading to Snow Leopard.
He warns, "If you are not keeping frequent backups of your computer, you may not be so lucky as to restore to a known good snapshot."
Cocoa-Java on Snow Leopard
Applications relying on Cocoa-Java won't work on Snow Leopard. John Carter finds out why. Without warning Apple has completely removed these components from Snow Leopard. He sends us this website from a developer, Fabien Conus, who says, "Since developing software applications is a hobby . . . I cannot make any promise for a new release date, but I will do my best." The applications in question are CocoaBooklet, PDFLab, and Smallimage. We hope these conditions will soon be addressed by Apple, and we hope such creative programmers will hang in!
Using Those Function Keys
Jim Hamm starts out with, "I was 'messing' (technical term) around with Snow Leopard and came across a feature that might be helpful. Say you've got four windows open (or any number, for that matter) and you click Function 9 (fn+9) on your laptop, to open all windows in a miniature version. Put your cursor on any minimized window, then tap the spacebar. That window will pop open to full size. Then start moving your mouse and cursor around. Each small window will pop open in full size. Keep moving your mouse around and around and each window will pop open. When you find the one you want, click it. It will stabilize then in a normal window. You can almost make yourself dizzy as you mouse the cursor around the screen and the windows pop open."
He says on Zee's iMac the key combination in fn + F8.
Trying to do this myself turns up a different scenario. Different Macs have different Function keys. On his G4 PowerBook running Mac 10.5.8 Don's favorite is F12 to bring up his Widgets. On my MacBookPro running Snow Leopard, it's F4 for Widgets, and F3 for that nifty feature Jim describes to play Hide and Peek with your open pages. Yes, it's fun!
Now for a summary of Function Keys, a list of key combinations, and 20+ links to additional info on modifier keys assignments go to this Apple Support page. No need to memorize the whole thing, just click on the tiny Plus sign on the left of the page's address at the top. Click to add it to your Safari Bookmarks. Function keys are very useful.
What's Going On Inside Your Mac?
Jim Hamm files this report today, "If you've installed Snow Leopard, Menu Meter (iStat Menus) is now compatible with this new OS. The new version has been completely revised, and is much better. It sits in the menu bar, and you can click on one of the icons to get a variety of information about your Mac. You can also customize which icons you want to show in the menu bar: open System Preferences, then click iStat Menus. Drag the items from the 'Available Box' into the 'Active Box.' I use the app occasionally just to see what's going on in my Mac, and which app is consuming so much memory. Usually it's Safari. Closing and reopening Safari gets the memory usage back to a much smaller number. If you've not tried this app, it might be worth a look. It also works with Leopard, as well (OS X 10.5 or higher)."
Some Difficulties with Snow Leopard
"After upgrading to Snow Leopard, on many occasions, several programs have crashed during a save operation," so begins a report just received from John Carter. He goes on, "The save does not complete and any changes not already saved are lost. The programs in question are: NeoOffice, GraphicConverter, and Screenflick. All programs are the latest version available.
"The only thing that seems to help is to do frequent saves on small changes and not wait to save at the end of all changes/additions. Screenfick is the one program that does not lose the intermediate file during a save operation, but may require several attempts to save before one of them is successful.
"If you have a Canon MP830 printer and you want to do a scan using MP Navigator, forget it. It never seems to finish 'Processing calibration data from a scanner.' But if you scan the document from the front panel of the MP830 using the platen, it works just fine even though it takes a minute or two to warm up the scanner. The application that launches to grab the files from the printer is Image Capture. I have been unable to use the printer's ADF from either the front panel or from MP Navigator.
"Image Capture crashed once setting up for a scan operation (when clicking on the 'Show Details' button). Image Capture also seems to hang occasionally when changing resolution between scans and starting a new scan (message: Scanner is warming up). 'Force Quit' does not show the application as not responding, and pressing 'Cancel' during this time does not abort the process. Using 'Force Quit' caused the printer to hang and had to be powered off only by pulling the plug."
More on Snow Leopard
First thing this morning we hear from De Prez Allen Laudenslager recommending this article, “Faster, Bigger, Longer: How Snow Leopard Will Improve Your Hardware,” (8-31-09) article from Wired. Longer lasting batteries, bigger hard drive, faster everything, and tweaks gives SL more than $30 worth of new features. Yes!
Then scroll down to the link to “Apple Euthanizes PowerPC Macs with Snow Leopard.” Sigh!
Next Allen refers us to an article on Gizmodo with a list of apps that don’t run on Snow Leopard, followed by comments sent in, so far. Keep informed on your friendly PMUG news blog.
John Carter adds, "GnuCash does NOT work in Snow Leopard. If anyone has installed GnuCash on their Mac and want to continue using GnuCash then I recommend you install VirtualBox, then install Ubuntu 9.04, then install GnuCash in Ubuntu. You can copy your GnuCash file over to Ubuntu and continue using it with no side effects. And since you can run Ubuntu right alongside Mac OS/X (at the same time), you don't lose anything. In fact, you gain all the free applications that you can run in Ubuntu."
And here's today's note (9-1) from John Carter, "Quickbooks 2007 doesn't run on Snow Leopard and Intuit has no intention of supporting QB 2007 on 10.6. Intuit 'may' provide a bug fix for QB 2009 on 10.6, but don't hold your breath.
"Is there an alternative to QB on 10.6?Maybe MYOB Accounting Edge? Accounting Edge has been touted by some as way better than QB for business accounting."
Adventure With Snow Leopard
Taking time out of his busy day John Carter files this detailed report about his adventures with installing Snow Leopard. Got a minute?
"I just finished upgrading to Snow Leopard this morning. Total time under two hours, but that also involves a little extra work. This memo is more about warning others what NOT to do, and that is essentially to NOT go blindly through the upgrade process.
"I wasn't sure if the upgrade would update my printer drivers unless the printer was plugged in and turned on, so just for safety I plugged in and turned on my printer, including a printer attached to an IBM laptop. Since the laptop printer is shared and the laptop itself is hardwired on my LAN, I was hoping that the upgrade would detect it and allow me to use it as a remote printer.
"During the upgrade I neglected to look for the 'Customize' button before doing the upgrade (it is on the left side of the window and I was only looking on the right side), so I had to go to the optional upgrades on the DVD. So please click on the Customize button, select all the options you want to install (if you don't know which options you want, at least click on Rosetta and X11). I don't recommend installing all the additional language translation, so you should check only those languages that you think you might want or need (primarily for translating from another language to English).
"After the upgrade finished (including the options), I needed to update those applications that I installed using 'fink.' One of those packages is 'GnuCash.' Unfortunately, the fink update failed while looking for dependencies for 'evolution,' which is another mail program that some time ago I thought I would try, but it failed the installation procedure for lack of supporting files (so I never got to try it out, and to this date there are numerous files laying around for evolution that aren't needed). This is a problem I will have to resolve eventually. Fortunately, GnuCash still runs, but the GUI front-end I installed (GnuCash Launcher 2.0) will not run (not supported in Snow Leopard). So I continue to execute GnuCash from a Terminal on the command line. No big deal.
"As for the Snow Leopard upgrade itself, there was one window at the end that showed a list of applications, one of them being Mail. Having no idea what that was about (not mentioned in the instructions), I pressed OK and the window went away. I think I should have clicked on each one of those applications in turn to see what it would do. I suspect that each application would come up and then present me with an option to update for Snow Leopard. Read on to find out why I think this.
"When the machine rebooted and I logged in, I was presented with a large number of update windows (about 7) that flashed across the screen with icons bouncing up and down in the dock. Frantically, I tried to read all the short message - to no avail. Finally, I just clicked on one of the 'Install' buttons that stayed on the screen long enough to read it. That message essentially said that in order to use the application it was referring to that I had to install Rosetta. At that point, I got an installation window that said Rosetta was going to be downloaded. It finished successfully. But I still had a number of jumping 'update' icons in the dock.
"I clicked on each of the update buttons in the dock and was presented with exactly the same install message for each one. My choice was to ignore or to install. Not wanting to miss anything, I installed every one, and every one was exactly the same - so maybe I didn't miss anything.
"Bottom line, I'm going to list a few applications that I frequently or occasionally use.
"What works:
- My Canon MP830 printer works, but I am unable to print to the remote HP Laserjet 3150 printer on the IBM laptop (it says it is ready, but when I print to it, it then says it is busy and doesn't print). The upgrade did not automatically detect the HP printer, so I had to add that printer manually.
- Mail. When I opened Mail, I was presented with a window to do an update. I did that.
- NeoOffice works fine, what I looked at anyway.
- Adobe Reader v8
- Adobe Photoshop CS v8.0.
- Safari took a 'long' time to recreate all 24 images in 'Top Sites' (you might have fewer images), but it works.
- Firefox 3.5 appears to work, but I haven't tried everything yet.
- Skype, Gimp, Fetch
- Coda - after installing a Snow Leopard compatible update.
- Delicious Library - after installing a Snow Leopard compatible update.
"What doesn't work:
- Bento (will not launch) - but I presume that no one is really using it anyway. This is an Apple application designed to allow non-programmers the ability to create small and potentially useful databases. I guess they don't see it as a useful tool after all.
- Cyberduck (will not launch)
"No sense going further with testing. It will either work or it won't, and what doesn't work I'll put out of my mind.
"If you used fink to install applications that do not have a GUI front end (like GnuCash), I recommend that you run the following commands from a Terminal before installing the upgrade:
$ fink selfupdate
$ fink update-all
"I did this out of self-preservation, but it didn't help me regarding 'evolution.' I have submitted a ticket to SourceForge on that issue."
Anticipation!
Today's the day! As we anticipate Snow Leopard De Prez Allen Laudenslager wants us to know how to do it. He's copied from Daring Firewall an article by John Gruber, "I Believe in Murphy's Law." "How I upgrade to a new version of Mac OS X, from 2007:
So, in short:
1. Do a complete backup clone to an external FireWire drive.
2. Test that the backup is indeed bootable and up to date.
3. Unplug the backup drive.
4. Boot from the installer DVD and perform a default upgrade."
Can you jump from Tiger to Snow Leopard? Read for details and cautions from Wired.
More details are here at Apple Insider.
Note: Your Mac must have an Intel processor in order to run Snow Leopard. See the list of technical specifications from Apple.
Jim Hamm sends some links to articles that will help us check items before installing Snow Leopard. "For example," he says, "is your printer compatible with Snow Leopard?"
Now, whoever is first to put in Snow Leopard, let us know how it went for you. . . Mine was just delivered by FedEx.
Snow Leopard Requirements
More details on how well your Mac will implement Snow Leopard is sent to us from Jim Hamm. He tells us, "For example, my MacBook Air will not realize any improvement from the 'OpenCL' design because it doesn't have a supported graphics chipset. This won't bother me as I don't use my 'Air' for any intensive graphics work anyway. Otherwise, it looks like my 'Air' is good to go with Snow Leopard.
"Even if your particular hardware configuration won't fully support all the features of Snow Leopard, I think you'll still realize benefits, including freeing-up about 6GB of hard drive."
Take a look at the article from About.com and note that Snow Leopard is only for Macs that use an Intel processor.
Clearing Up Some Confusion
Have you seen the recent article comparing the up-coming Snow Leopard with some PC system? Spare yourself some confusion - - and time - - by reading Apple’s page that outlines which computers will be able to run it. http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html
Note: It is only for Intel Macs. Earlier Macs don’t need it and won’t run it. When you buy a new Mac now it will be Intel, and if you purchase after June 8 you can upgrade Leopard to Snow Leopard for $9.95. The rest of us will pay $29.00.
Thanks to David Passell for alerting us to the confusion of the PC article. Want to read it for yourself? http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1114