Apple Posts Mac OS 10.5 Leopard Guided Tour

[Project]

I'm excited about Time Machine, but for me there a lot of questions:
Has anybody seen any recommendations for the size of the TM hard drive? Can I easily move the TM data to a bigger hard drive? What happens if you use a laptop without the TM hard drive? Will the TM information temporarily stored on the laptop and then updated on the external hard drive once you reconnect it or do you lose it?

Steffen

Yes to all of your questions.

Time Machine works by querying something called FSevents, which is basically a log of all changes made to the file system. So imagine the following:

You connect your external drive to the MacBook, it makes a full backup.
You use the MacBook on its own for 2 to 3 days. All changes made are logged to FSevents.
When you reconnect the external drive, Time Machine refers to FSevents and can quickly see what has changed since the last backup, and then it backs up those files accordingly.

What you dont get is the hourly/daily backups while you are not connected to the harddrive... it will just back up all changes. If the external drive is constantly connected, this is what happens.

Full backup
Every hour, TM refers to FSevents and backs up any changes within that hour.
It does this for the most recent 24 hours.
Stuff older than that is kept daily for 30 days.
Then monthly I believe, until you have no space left on the drive.

Its actually a very clever implementation of backup.

 

[God^Cent]

There could be endless ways they did this, the most logical seems to be that they made the video before Leopard was GM, so everything would be perfect for when it was declared, and it could be posted ASAP.

They could have also just done it last week and set the date on the computer back to September, it's certainly not hard, but is a little less likely than the logical solution above.



If Apple mentions Blu-ray support somewhere, then they could have HD-DVD too, however, seeing as they support Blu-ray over HD-DVD, if they haven't made any remarks on Blu-ray, HD-DVD wont be there.

Well I just thought I'd bring it up, b/c if I'm not mistaken the current imacs disk drive can read HD DVD format just do not have the drivers to do so.

Yes to all of your questions.

Time Machine works by querying something called FSevents, which is basically a log of all changes made to the file system. So imagine the following:

You connect your external drive to the MacBook, it makes a full backup.
You use the MacBook on its own for 2 to 3 days. All changes made are logged to FSevents.
When you reconnect the external drive, Time Machine refers to FSevents and can quickly see what has changed since the last backup, and then it backs up those files accordingly.

What you dont get is the hourly/daily backups while you are not connected to the harddrive... it will just back up all changes. If the external drive is constantly connected, this is what happens.

Full backup
Every hour, TM refers to FSevents and backs up any changes within that hour.
It does this for the most recent 24 hours.
Stuff older than that is kept daily for 30 days.
Then monthly I believe, until you have no space left on the drive.

Its actually a very clever implementation of backup.

Will Time Machine also back up prior saved documents? i.e. a word document that has been changed and saved but I need something off the prior word doc. Could I look back and get that info before the save?

 

[Project]

Well I just thought I'd bring it up, b/c if I'm not mistaken the current imacs disk drive can read HD DVD format just do not have the drivers to do so.



Will Time Machine also back up prior saved documents? i.e. a word document that has been changed and saved but I need something off the prior word doc. Could I look back and get that info before the save?

Yes but it is not as nice as Vista's Previous Versions, which essentially backs up every saved version. With Time Machine (as far as I know), it will back up file changes:

hourly for the past 24 hours
daily for the past month
weekly for everything older

So lets say you edit a document. Save it. A few hours later, you edit and save it again. Provided you have the external drive attached, both copies would be saved.

However, if you saved it 4 times during an hour, only one copy would be backed up, as Time Machine only backs up on an hourly basis.

But lets say that version you saved was kept that way for a few months, and you then opened it up and made changes. The changes would be backed up. You could still go back two months to see how the file was 2 months ago with that previous backup

 

[stomer]

The only way around it would be to create a sparse image in Disk Utility and back up Time Machine to that. Technically, that should work

Time Machine automatically creates a sparsebundle image if you chose to backup to an non HFS+ location (AFP share in my case).

 

[Slip]

I'm not sure why people complain about the glassy scrollbars but not about the glassy stoplight gizmos, the glassy menu bar, the glassy icons for things, etc.

It's not as if removing the scrollbars will remove all vestiges of glass and leave a glorious flat gray world

I like the glassy aqua scrollbars a lot better than the ones in iTunes, and I'm glad they are staying.

People used to like the glass, until Vista copied it

Agreed
Im not a massive fan of the iTunes scrollbars, a little to dull for my liking.

Can't wait until 26th

 

[plexdk]

Agreed. The blue keeps a nice balance and contrast to the whole layout. No reason to make it dull.

 

[chelsel]

I absolutely hate the glowing blue dots. ... The dock separator is also horrible. Two simple things that make me not want to buy leopard even though I will the day it comes out.

I think you summed it up... people will buy it even though there are questionable design decisions.

 

[Cloudsurfer]

Actually I think the demonstration is pasted into the iMac via final cut or something.

If you look closely at the Finder->Coverflow demonstration of video playback, where he stops the video, you can see how the video is still playing for a few secs and then stops, when we're returned to the cam of him and the iMac.

Oh well, just something i noticed

Either way, it's clearly not the real screen. It's way too bright and the screen doesn't show any reflection at all.

 

[plexdk]

no matter what, the conclusion must be that we have no lives, since we're sitting here, posting such minor stupid observations

 

[aafuss1]

I have yet to see that functionality in all of the builds I've worked with sam.Perhaps you're thinking of something else.

[edit]

Fan view :
Notice the top of the fan

Grid View :

The gride view looks very similar in appearance to Stunt Software's Overflow (which I use in Tiger).

 

[Lesser Evets]

At first I thought: What a fluff video. Useless.

Then I realized it wasn't aimed at the MAC crowd, but a demonstration of how awesome OSX is for those who are PCows. So now it strikes me as an amazing sales video for those contemplating switching over. Especially those who don't understand how easy everything is on a Mac - using, installing, etc.

I really wish Apple released their coverflow-viewer stuff earlier, because it is a hassle to go through files and open programs to look at unknown items.

OSX 10.5 is 6 days away and it won't arrive soon enough.

no matter what, the conclusion must be that we have no lives, since we're sitting here, posting such minor stupid observations

I've been wanting to say this for months.

 

[72930]

The gride view looks very similar in appearance to Stunt Software's Overflow (which I use in Tiger).

Except unlike Overflow, it unfortunately cannot separate files into sections...

 

[Diatribe]

I never realized how much I dislike the new dock until I saw this video...

 

[elppa]

EDIT AGAIN: Umm how does one browse through the file system via cover flow. Seems counter intuitive to browse somewhere. Change to cover flow, then change back, browse somewhere else, and then change back to coverflow. Am I missing something here? Almost feels like a tacked on UI vs. an integrated one. *shrugs* We'll see.

Yes you are missing two things:

Folders show up in cover flow.

To move back to a previous directory, use the back button or the path bar.

In that way it is no different to icon view.

 

[72930]

I never realized how much I dislike the new dock until I saw this video...

Seems like there will be loads of interest in Cleardock come the 26th...

 

[0racle]

And I find it strange how no one seems to care that in addition to copying portions of Vista's UI

Exactly what do you think Apple copied?

And before anyone gets all in a huff and calls me a Apple fanboy, I use own a number of different OS's and have probably been called a fanboy of them all.

 

[weckart]

Seems like there will be loads of interest in Cleardock come the 26th...

Not immediately. Firstly, Unsanity will need to build something that works with Leopard. Secondly, people shy off haxies for stability and compatibility reasons.

 

[toodeep]

Presumably when working with databases Time Mchine will rewrite the entire database to disk every hour whenever there's the slightest change. This includes mail collections such as Entourage. Expect much disk thrashing I think.

Can someone confirm what happens when the disk fills. Presumably it is the oldest instances of files that are deleted rather than simply the oldest files per se so that unique old files are not sacrificed?

Also, can generic AFP shares be used at all? According to Apple TM requires Leopard-networked shares it seems.

 

[philgilder]

Lastly, I think that Finder (preview) application is going to be the killer application. It will be cool to view documents without having to open them or run a program.

It is SHOCKING that Apple actually improves their OS with useful, value adding applications and tweaks while Microsoft spends five years working on eye candy and bonehead security upgrades.

vista can do live previews of most documents as well

although it is in that little pane, so for powerpoint, excel, pdf etc its hard to see as theyre so small, but with word/text files it reformats them so you can read the whole thing

still sucky compared to os x though....

 

[72930]

vista can do live previews of most documents as well

although it is in that little pane, so for powerpoint, excel, pdf etc its hard to see as theyre so small, but with word/text files it reformats them so you can read the whole thing

still sucky compared to os x though....

If you want to do this in Tiger, I greatly recommend Leap

 

[decksnap]

At first I thought: What a fluff video. Useless.

Then I realized it wasn't aimed at the MAC crowd, but a demonstration of how awesome OSX is for those who are PCows. So now it strikes me as an amazing sales video for those contemplating switching over. Especially those who don't understand how easy everything is on a Mac - using, installing, etc.

At first I thought so, but look at what's not in the video. Everything that already makes OS X great- including things brought in by Tiger like expose and dashboard. This video seems to presume you already know about everything that isn't new in Leopard, meaning its target must be existing Mac users, not PC switchers.

 

[72930]

At first I thought so, but look at what's not in the video. Everything that already makes OS X great- including things brought in by Tiger like expose and dashboard.

Just FYI, Exposé came with Panther

 

[decksnap]

Just FYI, Exposé came with Panther

Oh yeah. Well you get my point anyway.

 

[72930]

Oh yeah. Well you get my point anyway.

Yes, Tiger is already awesome...if only one of these new features appeals, it will increase Mac marketshare greatly

 

[Multimedia]

All New Versions Of OS X Are Faster Than The Previous Version

Ya, I wondered about that. Everything was SOOO fast. Do you think they sped it up? Or was that really how fast it would run on a brand new fresh comp?

Everything seemed very quick in the tour video... anyone know how fast Leopard actually is on say a Macbook Pro? Faster/slower than Tiger?

Each new version of OS X is faster than the previous version. So I don't know why you wouldn't think it is that fast. Plus you know they're likely using a 2.8GHz iMac with 4GB of RAM not 3.