Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 at End of March?

[flyinmac]

Time machine isn't really intended to backup to the same disk. Theoretically you would have this machine hooked to a FW external drive or another network drive and the file would be tagged by the operating system to move the file to the external drive at a pre-configured time.

If you look at the write-up on Apple's website it specifies that the default back-up time is at midnight and an external drive is recommended.

Your drive space will be freed up when the backup occurs but at the same time you will have the piece of mind that your file is completely recoverable if need be at a future date.

Yes, I agree that it makes more sense in that particular configuration. But, consider that your average user (the home user that would benefit from this most) is not likely to have external hard drive's plugged into their iMac. The more stuff we pile on our desks, the less Apple's iMac lives-up to the marketing Apple gives it.

I think if someone buys the iMac for the pure elegance (as Apple markets it), then the idea of additional cables and drives is less appealing.

For someone like myself, it just means devoting a drive to hold files that I've already decided I don't want. But, I guess we all have our preferences.

 

[Peace]

Yes, I agree that it makes more sense in that particular configuration. But, consider that your average user (the home user that would benefit from this most) is not likely to have external hard drive's plugged into their iMac. The more stuff we pile on our desks, the less Apple's iMac lives-up to the marketing Apple gives it.

I think if someone buys the iMac for the pure elegance (as Apple markets it), then the idea of additional cables and drives is less appealing.

For someone like myself, it just means devoting a drive to hold files that I've already decided I don't want. But, I guess we all have our preferences.

Enter the Airport Extreme with attached USB Hard Drive

Besides you can delete a file and Time Machine wont keep it unless you use TM to backup your whole disk image.

 

[Diatribe]

I think you are just seeing how bad Finder has gotten. It runs poorly for both intel and PPC.

I have a 1.67 G4 PPC PB with 2GB of ram. Finder is a pig. If I try to access a directory via the dock or get a context menu on a folder with a medium number of files, Finder beachballs, or is extremely slow. Finder code is a hack, bloated, and poorly optimized. It needs a re-write and an updated look.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that 10.5 will bring a new finder.

I hope you're right. But whatever is causing all of this I hope it is gone when 10.5 comes out.

 

[syklee26]

what i wanna know is whether you can backup your entire HD using time machine and put those files back on a new notebook/desktop. that would be absolutely cool.....one thing I hate going through when I get new laptops is getting all files back into the new system.

 

[Telp]

Time Machine is the first thing I plan on deactivating.

Think about it. I delete a file because it is no-longer needed. The whole reason I delete it is to free-up space. But, now when I delete it, Time Machine just stores it somewhere else.

So, now I'm not freeing-up space when I delete a file. I'm just moving it so it's not directly in my sight.

Doesn't really make much sense to me.

Of course, it will make it easier to recover accidentally deleted files. But, usually the files I delete are files I want gone now. Not just moved from their current location.

If I simply wanted them moved in-case I need them later, I could just drag them somewhere else and periodically weed through them later.

Seems like a waste of space to me.

Speak for yourself, there are tons of times where i atleast, and im sure many others accidendtly delete some very important documents. Also, im sure you dont have to backthe stuff up if you dont want to.

 

[daveL]

Intel Slowness

I've been noticing some unexpected slowness on my MBP C2D. I've been looking around for a cause. It seems much more apparent when I first bring the system up. Well, I just found the problem: Palm Desktop and all of its components are PPC only, and it starts a background process when you log in! So, you have this background process that starts up Rosetta when you log in and continues to run! What a piece of CRAP!

 

[digitalbiker]

Enter the Airport Extreme with attached USB Hard Drive

Besides you can delete a file and Time Machine wont keep it unless you use TM to backup your whole disk image.

Yes, I agree this would be the most elegant solution. USB drives have come down so much in price that it is cheaper to just keep filling up drives and then replacing them when they are full.

 

[Telp]

I've been noticing some unexpected slowness on my MBP C2D. I've been looking around for a cause. It seems much more apparent when I first bring the system up. Well, I just found the problem: Palm Desktop and all of its components are PPC only, and it starts a background process when you log in! So, you have this background process that starts up Rosetta when you log in and continues to run! What a piece of CRAP!

you shoulda checked up on compatibility before you bought some piece of crap palm

 

[digitalbiker]

I hope you're right. But whatever is causing all of this I hope it is gone when 10.5 comes out.

I am keeping my fingers crossed. This is the "secret feature" that I hope actually materializes.

 

[Telp]

I am keeping my fingers crossed. This is the "secret feature" that I hope actually materializes.

The biggest thing is to actually see if there were any hidden features before we start getting our hopes up =/

 

[digitalbiker]

what i wanna know is whether you can backup your entire HD using time machine and put those files back on a new notebook/desktop. that would be absolutely cool.....one thing I hate going through when I get new laptops is getting all files back into the new system.

The way I understand the function of Time Machine, it will restore your system back from a virgin OS state. In otherwords, it makes a full copy once and then makes incremental backups of files that change.

Therefore if your machine crashes or you buy a new machine, all you have to do is start at a clean install state of OS X, perform the full recover from Time Machine and you are back to where you were.

 

[flyinmac]

Enter the Airport Extreme with attached USB Hard Drive

Besides you can delete a file and Time Machine wont keep it unless you use TM to backup your whole disk image.

Sure, that way I can share my deleted files with the neighborhood over WiFi

I use a wired network that sits behind a firewall and then run a firewall on each machine. I'm not crazy about WiFi. And, I'm pretty sure others in my area aren't either (at least not anymore). The local news has been driving around and reporting on how many WiFi networks they are able to log-on to in various areas. 13 in a small subdivision near me. 30 in another small neighborhood. And, of course many others around town. And, these are in areas where the average lot is 2+ acres and apartments are uncommon.

If you got into apartment areas, you could be talking about thousands of WiFi networks to log-on to.

WiFi is just too weak to put confidential files on. The thing about encryption, is that it's only good if the person trying to get in doesn't try very hard. The tools are easy and free to come by. I have them, and I didn't even look for them. Came on a bonus CD with a computer book.

If someone wanted to get on your network, all they need is Google, and to be somewhere near you.

But, I guess WiFi weaknesses are a topic for another discussion.

But, yes, I agree. Apple would likely steer you towards a WiFi enabled network drive. Just hope you don't delete anything that has confidential information.

I can see it now. You delete your files, and your neighbor downloads them. Of course, that would mean free storage right So, when I accidentally delete the wrong file, I can just go door to door until I find the neighbor that has it

 

[syklee26]

The way I understand the function of Time Machine, it will restore your system back from a virgin OS state. In otherwords, it makes a full copy once and then makes incremental backups of files that change.

Therefore if your machine crashes or you buy a new machine, all you have to do is start at a clean install state of OS X, perform the full recover from Time Machine and you are back to where you were.

i hope u r right on this so i can get myself a new MBP (maybe the one with LED lighting and stuff).

 

[Telp]

i hope u r right on this so i can get myself a new MBP (maybe the one with LED lighting and stuff).

youll still have to wait for leopard...

 

[digitalbiker]

i hope u r right on this so i can get myself a new MBP (maybe the one with LED lighting and stuff).

Haven't you ever tried Apple's standard migration assistant. If you get a new laptop and haven't installed anything new on it, you can always stick in the OS X installation DVD and just run the migration assistant. It will help you get any apps that you want to migrate, as well as audio and video files. It really is pretty painless.

I usually use this approach for new laptops. I just connect the old laptop using target disk mode over FireWire and then run migration assistant.

 

[MrCrowbar]

what i wanna know is whether you can backup your entire HD using time machine and put those files back on a new notebook/desktop. that would be absolutely cool.....one thing I hate going through when I get new laptops is getting all files back into the new system.

"It's backwards compatible all the way to OSX 10.0" if I remember right. It uses the same HFS+ file system you're using right now, just makes an incremental disc image every time it backs up your stuff.

What you need is a complete image of your Hard Drive. Just boot from the Mac OSX DVD number 1, run disk utility from the menu bar. click "new image", use Macintosh HD as source, your external drive as destination, "read only" and no encryption. This will copy your whole partition into a DMG file. Then, connect your backup drive to your new laptop and use disk utiliy from the OSX DVD and use "restore", Backup drive as source, Macintosh HD as destination. Wait, done.

The other way is using "Carbon Copy Cloner". There's a new version since yesterday and it lets you do the same thing while your system is running. It slows down your system a lot though because it's run with root privileges (that makes it "more important" than your admin or user rights) and hogs your hard drive. The scheduling deamons are PPC so you'll notice your RAM dissolving on intel macs. I just let it run sometimes before I go out for a couple of hours. My USB drive has a loud fan in it and it just gets too damn hot when I unplug the fan (there are two 7200rpm drives in there) so I can't sleep when the fan is on. Actually I like the sound of clicking hard drives when I am sleeping alone... it's almost like a living thing that makes its little random sounds. Yea... I'm weird...

 

[SiliconAddict]

As I've said before. Color me unimpressed. I expect more for $120-ish. So, again, unless there is some massive, hulking, new top secret feature that simply blows all our socks off, a likelihood that is becoming less and less likely with each dev release, I'm probably going to skip 10.5 and wait for 10.6. Al least then you have the combined total feature set of both releases for $120-ish.

PS- And before someone tells me "Well with a student discount it only costs...blah." I'm not a student.

PPS- If they revamped the Finder not only would I buy Leopard the day it came out I would drive my car into the mall and crash it into the Apple store to be first in line. Sure I would go to jail but new finder!

 

[Peace]

As I've said before. Color me unimpressed. I expect more for $120-ish. So, again, unless there is some massive, hulking, new top secret feature that simply blows all our socks off, a likelihood that is becoming less and less likely with each dev release, I'm probably going to skip 10.5 and wait for 10.6. Al least then you have the combined total feature set of both releases for $120-ish.

PS- And before someone tells me "Well with a student discount it only costs...blah." I'm not a student.

PPS- If they revamped the Finder not only would I buy Leopard the day it came out I would drive my car into the mall and crash it into the Apple store to be first in line. Sure I would go to jail but new finder!

I'd up your auto insurance if I were you .

 

[phillipjfry]

I'm not sure what you mean by that. When an application is loaded, the OS just loads the code section for the correct architecture, and it's all native from there (unless you're running a PPC app in Rosetta).

I figured when you compile a program, you would have to configure arch with both ppc and intel, bloating the software more than it should (eg. if it were just optimized for just 64bit intel). But I could be wrong, I'm pulling info from using linux

 

[MrCrowbar]

I figured when you compile a program, you would have to configure arch with both ppc and intel, bloating the software more than it should (eg. if it were just optimized for just 64bit intel). But I could be wrong, I'm pulling info from using linux

The applications indeed get bigger with PPC and x86, both in 32bit and 64bit versions. But OSX is smart enough only to load what fits best for your system. The Universal Binary is still very useful when you use your backed up applications on an older PPC Mac, it all just works. The only bad thing is, that applications use more space on your hard drive, there are tools to remove the PPC or Intel versions tho, but in my opinion, I wouldn't do that just to save one or 2 GB on my hard drive. Binaries are small, libraries are big, but those are cross-architecture anyway.

 

[goosnarrggh]

The applications indeed get bigger with PPC and x86, both in 32bit and 64bit versions. But OSX is smart enough only to load what fits best for your system. The Universal Binary is still very useful when you use your backed up applications on an older PPC Mac, it all just works. The only bad thing is, that applications use more space on your hard drive, there are tools to remove the PPC or Intel versions tho, but in my opinion, I wouldn't do that just to save one or 2 GB on my hard drive. Binaries are small, libraries are big, but those are cross-architecture anyway.

Most applications probably won't even bother differentiating between 64-bit and 32-bit.

64-bit MacOS (both PPC and x86) should very happily run 32-bit userland processes natively. And for most applications I wouldn't expect that there'd be any noticeable performance hit in doing so.

Unless you've got a lot of number crunching to do, there just isn't a compelling reason to spring for the increased development time and storage-size overhead of pushing out a 4-arch binary.

 

[Yupper3D]

Upgrading vs. Clean Install

It better not be June or July! I get married in July and those two months will be savings crunch time where NO money can be spent! April is good though... that's my birthday!

On a separate note, is it recommended to format and install 10.5 fresh or will an upgrade be fine? I'd rather not deal with backing up everything to do a clean install. But what's recommended?

I'd say installing fresh is better than upgrading. When you upgrade, you are depending on a separate process to get you to a new version of the OS.

This process involves a series of scripted steps that are aimed at upgrading every individual piece of the OS to the target version (kernel, packages, libraries, etc). Most of the time, the upgrade scripts are able to account for any changes you may have done to your system prior to the upgrade, but speaking from past Linux upgrade experiences, there seems to be always some sort of package that could not be upgraded for lack of dependencies, and things of that sort. Besides, your upgraded OS seems to be fatter because not everything gets deleted from your prior OS version in case you want to go reverse the upgrade, etc. Even if you are given the option to remove these files, there are always going to be traces of the old OS in your installation (stray files, empty directories, etc).

Just my 2 cents

PS: Congrats on your wedding!

 

[jhedges3]

I want to see a new GUI. I'm bored of Aqua. Yes I know, it's just eye candy but I think Aqua is looking a little dated - just take a look at some of the offerings from Linux (i'm thinking of Enlightenment 17 in particular).

Me too. It would be nice to have something new, but I’m doubtful that it’s going to happen.

I want to be surprised by Apple (again). I want to be proven wrong. If all we end up getting in Leopard is Time Machine (I can back my data up VERY easily at the moment thank you), Spaces (I really don't need Linux's virtual desktops - Expose is just fine) and bloody notes in Mail then I am just going to cry.

Yes. I don’t care, much, about Time Machine, Spaces, and Notes. They seem like such minor improvements, like there are plenty of ways to do what they do already.

But I don’t care that much and I won’t cry regardless of what happens. If it sucks it sucks. I’ll still want to have it. I’ll just be less impressed.

I'm just sick of reading all these rumours about Leopard. The bottom line is, no-one in Cupertino is throwing us a bone and we are all in the dark.

What is the precedent on this? Have people outside of Cupertino known, well in advance, what the main improvements to Tiger and Panther, for example, were going to be? My impression was that they didn’t. Well, it seems like they would want to keep something secret. I’m just wondering how much they’ve withheld in the past.

 

[Mgkwho]

Three months without hardware update!

It has already been three months since Apple last refreshed their computer line. And I'm just talking about the computers- desktops, laptops only.

The most recent release was 8 November 2006. If there isn't a new product release/refresh on the 27th of February, then the earliest would be the 6th of March, four entire months without a computer refresh. And the 27th to me is doubtful, because of tv shipping.

I really hope there is a refresh of some sort before Leopard is even announced. Mac mini refresh, anyone? Or even iMac...


So would four months be the longest Apple has gone without a computer refresh? (They have released airport extreme, new shuffles in these 3.4 months, but I am only talking about computers). How long have they gone if not four months? Gosh, four months sounds like an eternity, doesn't it?

March = Leopard and other software updates. April will bring MacPros and Displays, me hopes. May probably new iPods? June the iPhone...

-=|Mgkwho

 

[jhedges3]

PPS- If they revamped the Finder not only would I buy Leopard the day it came out I would drive my car into the mall and crash it into the Apple store to be first in line. Sure I would go to jail but new finder!

This is the Mall of America you’re referring to? I’m guessing it would be pretty rough for you to get through all that concrete and steel on the south end, or any end, but at least it’s ground floor, which helps.

You might consider something more elaborate. Like fast roping onto the top of the Park. Cutting a small hole and parachuting down.

But then again you could also just get in a much more inconspicuous way. Like through an unlocked door. Maybe with a friend's MOA badge. Also, you could just show up early. Are there really that many people in Minnesota willing to line up for Leopard?

But if you were in jail it wouldn’t matter what version of Finder was out there in the world. Does anyone know whether people in jail actually have access to Finder? Are there jails that are running OS X?