Mac OS X Leopard Support Issues and Cool Features

[rikishah]

Essentials Package verified

I have seen some people having a problem where the "essentials package" could not be verified. My friend did a leopard install on his black CD macbook and it gave him that error. He purchased a family license and then installed it on his mac mini and it worked fine. Anyone have any idea what is going on here? There have been a few people on the apple forums posting that it may be due to the GUID HD format? Could that be the case?

 

[Frisco]

The Mosaic Screensaver is the "Top Secret" feature Jobs talked about. I am not being sarcastic--this is so cool and I love visuals!

No wonder Apple didn't seed the final build to developers.

 

[adamfilip]

One big issue that I have with leopard is with my
Sonnet Tempo X 4+4 Sata Card in my Powermac g5 dual 2.0
I have 4 Hard drives connected to the card... plus another 2 just on the regular g5 sata ports and the syetem is fairly unstable with the card plugged in

I really hope Sonnet issues a firmware fast because there current one isnt cutting it.

 

[irun5k]

so far so good for me. but I am getting the feeling this is really a nice incremental upgrade for os X.

Personally.... I believe $129 is a bit steep for the upgrade.

Should have been more like $79. The new OS is really not that much of an upgrade.

I pretty much agree. I could stomach the $129 a little better if the release included a Java 1.6 implementation, and if they would have toned down the visuals. I really dislike the new doc and transparent menus.

The 3-D doc on my macbook is a major distraction to my work area. It sits at the bottom of the screen and is too visually "busy." Too many reflections and it is hard to see which apps are open. The Tiger dock was spot-on. Looked modern, yet didn't distract. Unfortunately the 2-D dock option doesn't take you back to a Tiger-style dock. It is a Leopard 2-D dock that is like dark smoked glass with a major visual defect- a prominent white border!

I do like that brushed metal is gone and most of the windows look the same finally. Although, iTunes still has different scrollbars. Also, there is still no consistency in toolbar styles.

I don't care for the new Front Row. The old one was nicer IMHO. In the new one, the icon for music looks like a 5th grader designed it.

In large part, I think Leopard caused OS X to lose a lot of its refinement. In the place of visual refinement is bllng, transparency, and reflections. I think it is true that they've just spread themselves too thin.

The pluses for me are Time Machine and potentially Spaces. Although I would use Spaces mostly when I am coding and I won't be doing much of that without Java 6.

P.S. Mosaic is cool but it isn't like mosaic generators just like this haven't been around for quite some time. The algorithm isn't nearly as complex as you'd expect it to be.

 

[BWhaler]

Mosaic is hella cool. Remarkable. Truly remarkable.

 

[justflie]

Agreed, the Mosaic is now my screensaver. If you guys are looking for a program to do this (and do it REALLY well) while also including flicker, google images, etc, check out this sweet free program: MacOSaiX Gotta love the name. It's a little buggy at times but I love it. It allows you to export the final photo (ie not a screensaver, but an assembler/exporter for these nice mosaics).

 

[acslater017]

Control Panel?!

System Preferences!

 

[irahodges]

I pretty much agree. I could stomach the $129 a little better if the release included a Java 1.6 implementation, and if they would have toned down the visuals. I really dislike the new doc and transparent menus.

The 3-D doc on my macbook is a major distraction to my work area. It sits at the bottom of the screen and is too visually "busy." Too many reflections and it is hard to see which apps are open. The Tiger dock was spot-on. Looked modern, yet didn't distract. Unfortunately the 2-D dock option doesn't take you back to a Tiger-style dock. It is a Leopard 2-D dock that is like dark smoked glass with a major visual defect- a prominent white border!

I do like that brushed metal is gone and most of the windows look the same finally. Although, iTunes still has different scrollbars. Also, there is still no consistency in toolbar styles.

I don't care for the new Front Row. The old one was nicer IMHO. In the new one, the icon for music looks like a 5th grader designed it.

In large part, I think Leopard caused OS X to lose a lot of its refinement. In the place of visual refinement is bllng, transparency, and reflections. I think it is true that they've just spread themselves too thin.

The pluses for me are Time Machine and potentially Spaces. Although I would use Spaces mostly when I am coding and I won't be doing much of that without Java 6.

P.S. Mosaic is cool but it isn't like mosaic generators just like this haven't been around for quite some time. The algorithm isn't nearly as complex as you'd expect it to be.

I happily, and politely disagree with all your complaints. I am very thankful for all those things.

I think the dock is a perfect evolution of beauty and efficiency...if I put them side by side, it is no more distracting than the tiger dock. Transparency is neither too much nor too little...everything is easy to read as long as you don't sit and stare at the menu for 10 minutes. The new front row looks much cleaner and more modern than the cheap (with huge font) tiger front row. There are a few things I don't like, but mostly they are things I hope Apple will fix in a software update! Cheers

 

[Stella]

The Mosaic Screensaver is the "Top Secret" feature Jobs talked about. I am not being sarcastic--this is so cool and I love visuals!

No wonder Apple didn't seed the final build to developers.

There are no top secret features because they have all previously been revealed.

--

Apple treats Java as second class. Apple will soon realise their mistakes.

 

[deannnnn]

AH MAN THAT STUFF LOOKS AWESSOMMEEEE!
i want leopardddddd!

 

[princealfie]

all of it just looks so so sleek!

 

[mrplow]

Agreed, the Mosaic is now my screensaver. If you guys are looking for a program to do this (and do it REALLY well) while also including flicker, google images, etc, check out this sweet free program: MacOSaiX Gotta love the name. It's a little buggy at times but I love it. It allows you to export the final photo (ie not a screensaver, but an assembler/exporter for these nice mosaics).

MacOSaiX *sucks*.. I can never get it to work right (I had it work like a year ago, but more recently I tried again and it wouldn't do anything).

If anyone is interested in this stuff look around a little more, there are tons of better apps out there. I wrote one in my intro programming course last year ... and that's when I realized MacOSaiX was so bad. It's really slow, while the one I wrote can generate a mosaic in ~3 seconds?

Of course you could just take a screen shot of the apple screen saver


but hell yeah, apple's implementation is wicked

 

[the.snitch]

Control Panel -> Speech -> Text to Speech. New Alex Voice in Leopard.

How dare you refer to System Preferences as Control Panel! What are you, a recent Windows switcher?



Easy mistake to make though arn.

 

[HLdan]

so far so good for me. but I am getting the feeling this is really a nice incremental upgrade for os X.

Personally.... I believe $129 is a bit steep for the upgrade.

Should have been more like $79. The new OS is really not that much of an upgrade.

In regards to the price it's actually quite reasonable. Vista Ultimate is $400. Also if you don't see Leopard as much of an upgrade then you really haven't used it, you've only observed it from a distance. I've been on the Mac OS system since OS 8.5 and I was floored at Leopards features when I played with it at the Apple retail store. It feels a lot different using it then watching the training video on Apple's website.

 

[HLdan]

How dare you refer to System Preferences as Control Panel! What are you, a recent Windows switcher?



Easy mistake to make though arn.

He's really not that far off base. Control Panel was in classic Mac OS. Windows got it from Apple back in the day. Apple since changed it to System Preferences in OS X. As usual Mac OS had it first.

 

[meagain]

Whoa - The Mosaic screen saver and the iTunes Jelly visualizer make the $129 worth it alone to me. Thank you Apple.

 

[MacBram]

OK.

The Mosaic option is
COOL

So many comments on it, it must be great. I won't be getting Leopard until Christmas. What I want to know is, is if someone can create Core Animation/Video effects like that and put them into plugins for slideshows in iPhoto?

For live events with my non-profit org I often project slideshows as people are arriving, or export them as QTs and put them in a Keynote. If the mosaic effect was available for that, that would be great.

So I hope Apple puts it in an iPhoto update or someone creates a plugin soon.

 

[gr8tfly]

no more your/you're or it's/its?

Maybe it'll even work as a teaching aid...

The new system wide grammar checker works with Safari and will catch misuse of your/you're and it's/its (among others, I'm sure)

examples (from TextEdit):

 

[arn]

How dare you refer to System Preferences as Control Panel! What are you, a recent Windows switcher?



Easy mistake to make though arn.

It actually comes from my //gs days and Mac OS 7-9 Days

Old habits... and all.

arn

 

[cohibadad]

Control Panel brings back bad memories of rows of Extensions popping up at the bottom of the screen on boot. That memory alone was probably reason enough for them to change the name to System Preferences.

 

[connectcctv@mac]

All done

Well ive done em. All 5 machines with no problems Have to say that i am very impressed. Beats doing a MS upgrade any day

 

[blackmondo]

yep agreed - that mosaic screen saver is brilliant. Can't believe Apple didn't mention it in any marketing material

Also, I'm happy to report that the login & keychain update seems to have fixed major Airport issues I was having - airport kept dropping out constantly for me after the upgrade, but has been solid so far since I updated.

And I agree with the guy who said Safari is fast. It really is a rocket. Even Flash doesn't seem to be as slow (but I might be just getting overly excited there)

Thanks Apple!

 

[laurencenoton]

I pretty much agree. I could stomach the $129 a little better if the release included a Java 1.6 implementation, and if they would have toned down the visuals.

What are you on about? Java is free, just download the SDK for whichever version your building software against, install it and reset your JAVA_HOME. Thats what I have done and all my terminals set up the JAVA_HOME on launch...no problems.

 

[boobooq88]

lol watch it on fast with 100 lines for like 3 minutes then look at your desktop. Looks like it's coming out at you.. lol trippy

HAHAHAHA!! That is so freaky! Another top secret feature revealed!!

 

[maclincsUK]

my biggest complaint is that I have not received it yet!! UPS had it out for delivery from Friday!!! and still not arrived!, it better arrive tomorrow! all you lucky people have had all weekend to play with it!