Ack bugger i have go go to work in an hour but a bit more from me after my first day with my tiger.
Firstly for reference im currently running it on an original 12" 1Ghz Powerbook with 768MB DDR Ram.
And now on to the proper fun and games... my new pussy cat
The biggest "wow" factors that have gob smacked me today have to go to Spotlight (its everything they touted it to be) Quicktime 7 (the H.264 codec and the real time resizing of videos), and, a late entrance from Dashboard. Now a lot of people were very excited about dashboard but i must say i didn't exactly jump of my seat when i saw it - lots of us were saying "well its just a rip off from Konfabulator" ... well while eating a piece of toast and loudly slurping a mug of Tea (typical brit i know) It finally hit my square in the face.
if developers get their teeth into this thing the possibilities are immense the effectivness of displaying information pulled off the web in such a slick form is stunning. I hope the big boys from Adobe to Aladin (not to mention all the fantastic little guys) really produce the works for this.
And dashboard for gamers? A gameranger widget - showing if your buddies are off or online, server status widgets, even ingame widgets so you can see who is winning or loosing in a MP game
So for Dashboard i can't wait to see what gets released. I have however one great big bug with this gadget... Now why can't i work
and see my widgets at the same time? Say im working in Photoshop and i want to do some measurement conversion - great, i just kick up the converter and smack my numbers in; hey presto job done.. but i can't just slip back to PS, ive got to hide dashboard, go back to PS and then bring the dashboard
back upagain to do my next sums... Ok its a petty thing - but my main computer is fine tuned to work exactly just how i want it (the way it should be) and when somthing like this dosn't work with the way i work... well it just bugs me a bit!
Which brings me smartly on to my ears... or rather "bloop" "pingong" and "ziptash" No im not listing off cities in Vietnam, im talking about the crazy new sounds courtasy of the apple audio department... Call me a old man and i'll go get my pipe and slippers but some of them (like whenever you move any file!) get just a touch annoying!
mail.. or rather mail2! this wasn't just a face lift, this feels like a whole new application! Its slick its smooth, its sexy. ok maybe not sexy, but its a hell of an inprovment. The implementation of spotlight is great and the interface feels more inteligent and sophisticated - a lot less cluttered and a lot easier to navigate. My only complaint there... well it feels like a lot of stuff has been hidden away - a bit like when the kids clean their room by sweeping everything under the bed... so its into the customise tool bar option if you want to get your hands back on those nifty little features and tools.
- and lastly with mail, the intelligent mailboxs are, well fantastic - a perfect example of tightly integrated spotlight!
Oh before i forget, the upgrade (i was running latest version of 10.3) went very smoothly - all my preferences were saved, shiex dont' take this as certain but don't worry about email, pdf, and printer prefs, i have had no such problems, credit where credit is due!
Last little notes:
• No crashes, no errors, no hangs, no nothing that isn't doing what it should or anything doing what it shouldn't!
•Ive yet to test ichat video conferencing what with a rushed day (sorry brutha) but if anyone wants to hook up for a big one tommorow PM gimme a shout!
• Stuffit (id have a look civic i think its at your end) is working perfectly, as is quicktime.
• The finder, the apple apps and most housework feels faster and more responsive. it takes the laptop a few seconds to kick start the GUI - but once it does kick in Tiger loads like a flash.
• Safari: does exactly what it says on the tin. It still feels very much like safari - although a bit quicker and slicker, and of course excellent css support in the reader. i like!
• Automater looks slick, but also like you need a big mug of coffee and a free evening if you want to really take advantage of it!
Last but not least, the old mac hands in the audience don't tend to dip into the OSX help menu very often, the last time i did was as i tested the water and speedinprovments of the help section in 10.3 - but if you do you will very very relieved to hear tht the performance of the help app/reader/section has been put on speed - it runs tens of times faster than before. i believe the expression is "excellent smithers"
Right, run out of time, i must depart to sheppard drunken teenagers for the night. cheers guys
