I leave a hard disk on the floor next to the couch backing up with time machine. Today I was installing a new copy of vBulletin, but they use an awful disk structure of code+resources in one folder, so when I replaced my forums folder with theirs, I inadvertently wiped out the images that my forums user interface uses.
I think it is clear that Time Machine is a hit - Easy to set up, works invisibly in the background to keep you up to date - Excellent!
Where can Time Machine go in the future?
Maybe Time Machine will replace .Mac’s Backup application. You could choose some plans to run and have time machine back up just those plans to your iDisk. Instead of Backup’s horrible excuse for versioning, you could have the great Time Machine methodology.
Every now and then Apple releases a major upgrade to their operating system. The last major release was 10.4, code named “Tiger.” Last Friday Apple released 10.5, code named “Leopard”
Apple releases major operating systems for several reasons:
Money - Operating system updates make money and sell Macintoshes. Each major OS release pushes the envelope of what the hardware can do and for some people, these features are the tipping point to upgrading their machines.
Software Advancement - It is with the major releases that Apple can make large, sweeping changes to the internals, which may break compatibility with some hardware and software, but it is done infrequently enough that it is not as much of a pain as a “dot” release, such as 10.4.11.
Keeping a lead on Microsoft - Apple jumped over Microsoft with OS X and has been slowly gaining market share. This is good for Apple - See Money
Apple’s latest cat is a very nice upgrade. Not only are there very visible features, such as Coverflow and QuickLook, but there are nice updates to Spotlight, the Finder is nicer, and there are many new low level upgrades that users will never see but will surely benefit from.
Applications written for Leopard can take advantage of garbage collection, which simply means it is easier to write applications that have few if none common memory bugs.
Apple has connected syncing with their built in database, Core Data, which means that we should see more applications using Core Data and gaining benefits of backup via Time Machine.
Speaking of Time Machine, Apple has made it so incredibly easy to back up your Mac that you’ll wonder why this wasn’t done before. The answer is simple - In order to have something so simple and integrated as Time Machine, Apple needed to add features to the core operating system, such as FSEvents, which lets the operating system track when files are updated.
On top of that, QuickLook, which is the technology that lets you peek at documents without launching the document’s application, had to be invented so you could look at very old documents that might not have their application installed anymore.
Apple changed the dock, taking away the ability to put simple folders on the Dock and folders now become “Stacks,” which let you peek into a folder, such as your recent downloads folder.
Another thing that changed under the hood is networking. Leopard will fine tune itself for the network you are currently on, which is a boon for those of us fortunate enough to have Verizon’s fiber optic network, FIOS. No longer do we need to run tuners - Leopard does it for us. Nice.
For security, Leopard supports signed applications. While there are reports this functionality is wreaking havoc for some applications, which Apple will fix, this is great news for us Mac users. We’ve been blessed to not have any viruses nor trojan horses for our platform, but that could change. Apple is trying to head hackers off at the pass by allowing developers to put a “seal” on their applications. If a hacker edits any part of the application, the “seal” is broken and the operating system can alert the user.
Apple tweaked the UI by making the menu bar translucent, which some like, some hate. They changed the default folders look, such as Movies and Music, and most hate them.
Spotlight is much faster and even supports boolean searches, as long as you use AND, NOR or OR. Capitalization is required. You can even use parenthesis to group search expressions. For example, you can search for:
dog AND (cat OR bird)
to find any document that contains the word dog AND at least cat or bird. Simple, eh?
If you’re a scriptor, Automator has received a large overhaul and makes it much easier to write some very sophisticated scripts with just some dragging and dropping.
The new Help system has search right from the menu and can find menu items matching your search. This is great for finding hidden menus that deal with “size” or “image” in large applications. The only thing I hate is that the help system uses a floating palette which sits on top of all windows. Who thought this was a good idea?
Launching application is faster and the general feel of Leopard is faster than Tiger was.
iChat received a lot of updates - New visual effects, tabbed chatting and integrated file sharing is fantastic. Toss in screen sharing with audio and I can now support my mom’s computer from hundreds of miles away.
Some users are having awful upgrading experiences, but since Apple sold 2 million copies in a few days, I don’t think the overall experience has been poor. My install went fine and I even restored from Time Machine.
If you plan to upgrade to Leopard, be sure to see my Moving to Leopard article for tips that might make your migration to this new cat smoother.
[isfym](http://www.isfym.com/site/blog/Entries/2007/10/27Don’tgoBacktoMyMac.html] has an article alarming about a security risk in .Mac’s “back to my mac” feature, which allows your Mac on the road to connect to your Mac at home.
The gist is this: If you have enabled “Back to my Mac” and someone knows your .Mac password, your machine at home is wide open to them.
This is not much different than if they knew the password to your machine. Their one concern is somewhat weak to me
Most people use weaker .Mac passwords. They do.
I don’t. My data is backed up on iDisk, I have email there, I don’t want anyone having an easy time at getting to that data, so I chose a password with various types of characters.
If you have an online service, use a strong password.
Now having said that, I think they are right that logging into .Mac should be different than logging into your Mac. Let the road Mac remember the .Mac password and when you connect at home, enter your machine password as a second line of defense.
While at MacCamp this weekend, I was trying a spotlight restore (open Time Machine, use spotlight to search for an application, restore) and it did something very odd: It restored into the same time machine folder the application was in.
This created a very broken partial application and now time machine fails to backup. Also, one of the broken apps contains a circular reference of symlinks, so something got broken very badly.
Caveat: This time machine was started on a beta of Leopard, so it is possible that had something to do with this failure. I’ll report more later.
Leopard represents a major leap in OS X. As such, there are some major changes under the hood that you should respect when considering moving to Leopard. If you rely on your Mac for day to day business needs, you are best off waiting for a couple of weeks and following news reports, while the rest of us geeks figure just what does and what does not work. You might also be wise to wait for 10.5.1. Apple has a history of releasing a .1 release within a month or so, quick fixing any major issues that are found by the general public.
When you do decide to move to Leopard, here are some tips to consider:
Make a complete archival backup of your system
Use a cloning backup program such as Super Duper to archive your computer to an external drive. I use the term archive because I suggest putting this drive away and not touching it for several months while you decide how well Leopard is working for you. Should you ever need to move back to Tiger, you can clone back this older backup, after saving off any data you added or changed while using Leopard.
Erase and Install
If you have several good backups of your system you might be best off erasing your system and installing Leopard clean, vs. upgrading or archive and installing. You can then use the migration assistant to copy your users and data from the archive backup you made in the first step above. (There is a method to my madness)
Time Machine vs. Super Duper
Time Machine promises to be a wonderful archival backup system, however it is new and has no track record for reliability. If you plan on using Time Machine, I suggest using a separate, large hard disk (because time machine will keep old data as long as it can!) for time machine, and a separate drive for your clone backup using Super Duper.
Three disks?!
Yes. Your data is very important. So now you have one drive with your tiger archive, one for a super duper clone backup and one for your Time Machine. Should Leopard prove great for you, you can eventually repurpose your original Tiger archive drive for Time Machine or a second Super Duper backup. Keep one offsite. You’ll thank yourself later. Drives are cheap these days.
Install Applications
After installing Leopard, install any apps that need reinstalling and keep a log, so if your machine does start acting oddly, you can contact the appropriate developer.
Beware plugins!
Quicktime Codecs, such as XIPH, iTunes Plugins, haxies, Little Snitch 1.x and other applications that hook in or extend the operating system can and probably will cause some issues on Leopard. The underpinnings have changed and thus the rules for these extensions have also. If you are having odd behavior, check the following locations for installed software. If you have an uninstaller, use that to remove the software, over uninstalling by hand:
Home Folder Locations
/Users/YOUR_HOME/Library/InputManagers/
/Users/YOUR_HOME/Library/iTunes/iTunes Plug-ins/
/Users/YOUR_HOME/Library/QuickTime/
Top Level System Locations
/Library/InputManagers/
/Library/iTunes/iTunes Plug-ins/
/Library/QuickTime/
Beware StartupItems
Some applications install startup unix scripts. You won’t want to remove these by hand, but rather use the application’s uninstaller. To see what you might have installed that runs when you boot your machine, look in the folder:
/Library/StartupItems/
You might see Retrospect, or some Final Cut Pro, mySQL, Parallels, etc startup items in here. If so, contact the developer to make sure you have Leopard compatible versions.
Clear the caches
If you are experiencing any oddities, it is known that cache data from your Tiger system may cause problems. Caches are files to help speed up operations and I don’t know why the installer does not nuke them for you. You can find these cache folders to delete at:
/Library/Caches/
/Users/YOUR_HOME/Library/Caches/
Enjoy!
With these simple precautions you are well on your way to enjoying Leopard and its many new, wonderful features!
What’s new in TextExpander 2.0:
- Snippet groups
- Add snippet groups from external files
- Add snippet groups from URLs (including password-protected URLs with Keychain support)
- Synchronize snippet groups using .Mac Synchronization
- Print snippets
- Hotkeys to enable / disable and to create snippets from selection or clipboard
- Enable or disable groups on a per-application basis
- Sort snippets by date last used to identify unused snippets for possible deletion
- AppleScript snippets, which expand to the result of the script
- More options for sounds
- Sound settings on a per-group basis
- Update snippet groups from URLs and external files at regular intervals
- Improved performance with large numbers of snippets
a very useful guide on how to use OpenGL Profiler to launch games, like World of Warcraft, with older video drivers (if you crash with the current drivers)
Joe Kissell from the Take Control visited PMUG via Paris, France using Skype video. He talked about troubleshooting your Mac.
Ironically, we spent a fair amount of time troubleshooting the Skype video connection. Once that was up and running, aside from the typical Skype disconnections that are to be expected with the PersonalTelco connection here at EcoTrust, his presentation was very well spoken and even included a PowerPoint presentation operated by Allan Watson locally.
Maybe the new Screen Sharing feature in Leopard can be used for his next presentation!
Safari uses the first phone number listed in your Address Book card. There is no direction UI manipulation gesture for controlling this order, but there is a preference.
Address Book -> Preferences -> Template
Make the number type you wish to be used by Safari (Home, Work, etc) be the first number type in the template. Set others as needed.
By default, Address Book only has Work and Mobile on the template, so Safari will always choose Mobile over Home. If you make the first entry in the template “Home” and then add a new entry for “Mobile,” your home number will always be used for Safari Autofill.
For some time I have been a big fan of Path Finder as a Finder replacement. One of the things I missed tho was changing desktop photos.
It turns out, I could have had this all along, but the convoluted preferences are well, convoluted!
You see Path Finder has a much nicer display of desktop icons. They can have info below them, they layout on the desktop better, etc.
Path Finder can also hide the Finder’s desktop. But this is where it gets confusing - The Finder is not in charge of the desktop picture, the Dock is! The Finder’s “Desktop” refers to the icons on the desktop.
So if you use Path Finder and would like to get your changing desktop photos back (via System Preferences->Desktop) here is what you need to set:
First, click on the Desktop
From the View menu, choose Show View Options
Next click the “Set Background…” button
Uncheck “Show Desktop Background”
Close the Desktop Options palette
Secondly, open Path Finder’s Preferences
Path Finder -> Preferences
Click General
Check “Hide Finder’s Desktop”
This will hide the Finder’s desktop icons but not occlude the images being shown by the dock with Path Finder’s desktop image.
Took me awhile to track down, but there is a conflict between Intuit Quicken 2006 Quicken Scheduler and TextExpander 1.4.2. When the scheduler is running, textexpander snippets cannot be triggered via the keyboard, rather only via the menu.
Apple updated Boot Camp to 1.2 beta today. I installed the update, then ran the Boot Camp Assistant (Found in /Applications/Utilities) and made a new windows drivers disc.
I booted into Windows XP, installed the new drivers and rebooted. Then I installed Windows Media Player 11, the WMDRM junk and tried the Netflix “Watch Now” feature. It had me update one WMP component and it finally worked! No more green / inverse graphics.
