OS Leopard

[Lomoco]

Post what part of OS Leopard that you like the most here:cool:

[Lomoco]

I personally like the time machine and core animation

[Dani]

Is Leopard out?

[jbennet]

what is leopard?

[Dani]

It's the new version of OS X which is apparently not out yet ... maybe people have betas? I dunno.

[Lomoco]

The full version is coming out this spring, but apple developers can go and download the pre-version of it at the developer connection site at developer.apple.com you can also watch the demo of it at apple's website under quicktime.

[Dani]

Thanks for explaining that. Is the Apple Developer thing just like MSDN where you need an expensive subscription?

[Lomoco]

Yes. People can get beta's if you submit a developer application form to apple. Once you are a developer, you can download pre-releases of software (and OS's) to try them and test them for bugs, user-friendlyness, and other things that testers test.

[Lomoco]

Of course, you are not allowed to re-sell it, post screen shots of it, or re-distribute it in any way to the public. (Companies like to keep their privacy)

[Lomoco]

No. If you already have a .mac account, you can log-in with your .mac info and have access to the developers connection place

[Lomoco]

Subscription doesn't cost anything and if I'm wrong, it definitely isn't much. I'm going to check it out more

[Lomoco]

You can get a student membership for $99. I haven't looked into it much, but if you have a .mac account, you can log-in to the developer's connection place and download pre-releases of software (not accessible by the public)

[Lomoco]

They send you a bunch of developing tools to get you started

[Lomoco]

Oh... you do have to get a membership. You can get the one for $500 and that will enable you to develop leopard. Or you can download the beta leopard I think without a membership. Just a cheap subscription (includes a .mac subscription). I haven't looked into downloading leopard yet because I don't want to mess up my G4 laptop which isn't made to handle leopard. Download it if you dare (and if you can) and have fun!

[John A]

If you want to see the Leopard demo, head over here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/index.html

Leopard doesn't look terribly much different than Tiger - it still uses Aqua, Mac OS X's glossy interface. However, Apple touts a lot of base program that come with Leopard as the "improvement" over Tiger. Examples include Time Machine, and automatic and continous backing up system, a much-improved version of iChat, and of course my favorite, Xcode 3.0.

However, I feel Leopard has some things lacking which I would really like to see implemented:

• Skins for Aqua. Why does everyone have to stick to the same GUI? We should be able to make our Macs look like Vista if we want!
• Virtual machines. Apple should at least include a built-in virtual machine for running other operating systems.
• Apple implementing their own version of Wine that's built right into the OS X core. They've actually had access to the Windows source code, so it could be done.

Can't think of anymore at the moment.

As for Apple developer accounts, it basically works like this:

You can get a basic account for free. All you need is an Apple handle (which can be created by signing up for a 60-day trial of .Mac) to create the account. Using this account allows you to download software such as Xcode, .Mac SDK, but nothing really special.

The really special stuff such as Leopard are only available to paid accounts of ADC, or else everyone would be creating free accounts to try out Leopard. ;) But yes, it's basically Apple's version of MSDN, with basic information freely available, and paid accounts getting special previews of upcoming software.

[Junyah]

Hey Guys and Gals,

Does anyone know what the minimum hardware requirements for Leopard are?

[John A]

Hey Guys and Gals,

Does anyone know what the minimum hardware requirements for Leopard are?

Apple hasn't posted any official requirements (at least not to the general public), because they're likely going to make some modifications to the operating system which could affect the performance of it on slower machines.

I've read a little bit of user's experiences with it, and there are some guidelines:

• No slower than a G4 processor :p
• DVD (doesn't have to be a burner) drive
• Firewire 400 port required
• 256 MB of RAM on PowerPC Macs, 512 MB on Intels
• At least 10 GB of disk space (more if you install extras)

That's the very minimum. You'll probably want more RAM, as well as a decent graphics card. Leopard will of course, run on both PowerPC and Intel Macs. I'm not entirely sure on this, but I believe that Leopard will come as a universal binary disk that will install on both architechtures. (I could be wrong.) For optimal performance of Leopard, you should have either a G5 or an Intel processor, and oodles of disk space.

[Junyah]

Thanks fer your helpJoe ... I was on another mac site amonth ago and they were just speculating on what the final prognosis was as for hardware requirements. I know I won't have any problems with my new machines ... it's the ibook G4 and the Mac Mini G4 .. I worried about ... but those have become secondary machines for me and I'm happy and the kids are happy with them running Tiger and ilife/iwork '06.. the old machines are like 'Ohana (family members) to us.

Oh! I GOTTA BRAG .. My daughter(16) and nephew(9) took apart the ibook and mac mini and put bigger drives and a gig of memory. I had to keep them from taking apart the imac and Macbbok pro. THEY ALSO PUT TOGETHER ONE MEAN GAMING PC They took their Xmas Money and allowances and went to Fry's and Best Buy. KIDS ARE AMAZING THESE DAYS! Surfing, Hula and Computers ...what more could a dad ask for!

[John A]

My daughter(16) and nephew(9) took apart the ibook and mac mini and put bigger drives and a gig of memory.

I do have to admit that taking apart Macs (with the exception of the Mac Pro) are quite a bit harder than regular PCs. I would imagine that upgrading the iBook was relatively easy, but the Mac Mini was probably difficult.

I've helped take apart a friend's Mac Mini for upgrading some RAM modules. And I can say: it's not easy. First of all, you need some crazy putty knives to pop the case open, which took us like half-an-hour because we didn't know what we were doing (we didn't have the user's manual with us, so we had to rely on a Popular Science article on it).

Adding the RAM modules wasn't too hard, although it was a little bit buried. The Mac recognized it, so that part was easy. Then trying to get the case back on... that was harder than taking it off. We couldn't get it completely closed in the end, so there was a 1/4 in. gap once we were done. We finally concluded that Apple didn't exactly *intend* for users to upgrade a Mac Mini.

With the latest Mac Minis, Apple has only made it harder. You have to take out a fair bit of stuff to even get at the RAM modules, and the hard drive is even more complex. In short, if you can choose what you want as a build-to-order option on Apple's website, do it. It's much, much easier. ;)

[Lomoco]

If you want to see the Leopard demo, head over here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/index.html

Leopard doesn't look terribly much different than Tiger - it still uses Aqua, Mac OS X's glossy interface. However, Apple touts a lot of base program that come with Leopard as the "improvement" over Tiger. Examples include Time Machine, and automatic and continous backing up system, a much-improved version of iChat, and of course my favorite, Xcode 3.0.

However, I feel Leopard has some things lacking which I would really like to see implemented:

• Skins for Aqua. Why does everyone have to stick to the same GUI? We should be able to make our Macs look like Vista if we want!
• Virtual machines. Apple should at least include a built-in virtual machine for running other operating systems.
• Apple implementing their own version of Wine that's built right into the OS X core. They've actually had access to the Windows source code, so it could be done.

Can't think of anymore at the moment.

As for Apple developer accounts, it basically works like this:

You can get a basic account for free. All you need is an Apple handle (which can be created by signing up for a 60-day trial of .Mac) to create the account. Using this account allows you to download software such as Xcode, .Mac SDK, but nothing really special.

The really special stuff such as Leopard are only available to paid accounts of ADC, or else everyone would be creating free accounts to try out Leopard. ;) But yes, it's basically Apple's version of MSDN, with basic information freely available, and paid accounts getting special previews of upcoming software.

Of course there are still some hidden features in leopard that no-one knows about except the apple team. You may be suprised:)

[Junyah]

Yeah My Kids Kinda Scared me before they did it! But my daughter saw me take apart the ones at the Nature Center... and she googled a video and step by step picture on taking them apart .. I have the apple tools ... modified putty knifes ... but for the mini I modified the wider putty knifes and I told the kids to watch out for the antenna wire.( I almost sliced one by mistake. Any way, she used her camera phone as a back up for reassembly. They did a pretty good job. But I told here to not take apart the Macbook that I got her for school.

She used psychology on my nephew to get him to help her... he was all upset that he didn't get a playstation. She talked him into naking a PC gaming machine ... she actually got a 9yr old boy thinkin' that the computer would be better that a PS3. Whn she and my nephew were building the PC ...I kida left the room .. You know ..I wanted to archair quarterback.. Gratned she's not really into computers ...She wants to teach drama and media when she's out of college.

Anyway, they're playing with the computer as I type this ... What I wanna know is they rounded up another 150.00 from me, my ex, and my sister... We're curious as to what they are going to buy for their computer ... but they're not going to Fry's their going to Weird Stuff Surplus. She's stealing my car keys ... my nephew is looking in my wallet. Thier taking grandma instead of me.....

I think I've created some monsters .. aaaaawwwwwwwwwwwww...(Silence)

[jbennet]

i was the same but with pcs (not macs) - only used a mac once but was very impressed.

It was the sort that have an LCD/TFT screen and the system is built into the back of it. Its white too and it has OSX and came out before the new intel chips did.

[John A]

Of course there are still some hidden features in leopard that no-one knows about except the apple team. You may be suprised:)

I'm aware of the distinct possibility that some of the things I mentioned that weren't currently advertised as a feature of Leopard may still be present. Steve Jobs himself said that they have "even better" features waiting but don't want to reveal them yet. However, Leopard hasn't blown me away yet, and until I see the whole operating system, I'm not going to be terribly enthusiastic about it.

(In other words, I'm not going to upgrade for quite some time unless there's something really special that hasn't been revealed yet.)

[Junyah]

Leopard Looks nice on the apple site .. but even when it comes out ... I wann see it working and use it on someone else's machine before i put it on my machines .. I'm not going to rush and get it .. I wanna wait for them to get the kinks out of it ... then i'll make one last back up of my data .. and start with a clean slate.

[John A]

then i'll make one last back up of my data .. and start with a clean slate.

Definitely. It's almost always a good idea to reformat before you install a new version of an operating system, rather than upgrading. You should be backing up your data anyway, so what harm does it do to format your disk, then?

Reformatting is a good habit to practice anyways, and is done all-too-infrequently on computers nowadays. You should format your hard disk at the very least once a year. If you manage especially large files, ideally do it every 6 months.

[Junyah]

Joe Dat's great advice ... I do that sop for 1 1/2 ..you know I'm da old dog that learns from my mistakes .. I was just talking w./some relatives at dinner who are IT in SF and Sacto and they GP wipe da drives and start from scratch ..times money .. and traffic when you have to drive back is a hassle.

When I use my music programs ... I eat up 20-30 gig a day .. I agree with you ... I'm gonna do the studio drives every six months .. MAHALO Again for the Great Advice as always ... Hey Check out my band's website at nkkband.com

We did the CD at Laughing Tiger Studios In San Rafael, CA and Amor Productions in Alameda, CAbefore the INtel Macs Came Out.. We used the studios Beeg G4s and G5s with protools and Logic... I also handed my overdubs and rough cuts done in garageband to the engineers and they put it all together .. You know we ate up 40 gig a day.(Alto Of Mics and Tracks per instrument and Vocals. Dats about 10 gig per musician a day.

The intel macs this year have been a blessing ... I use tiger, ilife 06 garageband and M-Audio .. I ship my tracks to the producer and engineer and they put it into protools ... less hectic schedule/less commuting .. better quality sound from smaller local studio.