Song Of The Day: Whole Lotta Love Artist: Led Zeppelin

I couldn’t resist the urge to visit the local Apple Store last night to buy an official copy of OS X Leopard during Apple’s Leopard World Premiere. The first 500 people would get t-shirts. I arrived rather late, so no t-shirt, but I had no line wait as well, so I was happy!

As I was walking through the mall, Tysons Corner, I saw multiple people in the mall corridors carrying computer boxes. If that’s any indication of future weeks then I suspect a good holiday season for Apple. :)

Once in the Apple Store, the place was buzzing with people. People checking out iPods, iMacs, and accessories.



Someone greeted me, I bought a family pack (~$200) of OS X Leopard, had an e-mail receipt sent to me, and I was done. No hoopla really! I decided to play with the new 20″ iMac for a while and asked a few questions, but that was it. I headed home with the intent of loading the OS by midnight :). Okay. So I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get a Leopard t-shirt. I knew there were only 500 available and I was late, but hey! Oh, well. I guess it’s my AOL t-shirt expecting nature (i.e., seems like t-shirts were currency at AOL). But I have some from last summer’s WWDC, so I shrugged off the feeling and got back to business–operation Leopard Install.

As a note for Photoshop Elements users and Mactel owners, I was told that a native build of Elements 6 would hit the street in Feb and that native Adobe Premiere was on its way as well. Not sure if the source was referring to a future release of Premiere Elements or not, but we’ll see if that comes out. Here’s a link on Adobe’s recent compatibility announcement: Adobe Leopard Compatibility

After getting home, and most being asleep, I plucked the install DVD in my iMac G5 first. It was not running the best previously because of an early beta version of Leopard on it (i.e., something to do with a bluetooth keyboard I think). However, I plugged in a USB Apple keyboard, chose to archive the old and to install (i.e., Archive and Install option) the new official copy, and my iMac was revived within an hour and a half. Installed and ran perfectly. All data in tact.

The refreshed Dock and Desktop look beautiful; I went to sleep with visions of sugar plums.

Today, I decided to be rather risky–not good practice–and I upgraded my main MacBook Pro without performing an initial backup. Maybe this isn’t entirely true because I already have my critical information and applications stored elsewhere for various reasons, so I know I could recover if needed. However, not to worry, Leopard installed and worked flawlessly within an hour. All data in tact.

Wow! I haven’t had an easier installation of a major OS in recent memory, except maybe with previous versions of OS X. Vista was a disaster. Linux is still touch and go sometimes. My experience with Leopard seems to compare only to installations using virtual appliances (e.g., VMWare and pre-configured OSes). And those are installed, pre-configured, and then packaged.

Truly impressive, and appreciated!

I know…controlled hardware environment coupled with a controlled software environment, etc. I just don’t think that line of skepticism resonates with most consumers. People want computers and software that work. They may allow some deviation with “flexibility,” but not at the expense of a 7 hour installation, for sure!

It’s the weekend and I have some things to do, like run a marathon tomorrow (!!), but I’ll write about the Leopard features I like, and any dislikes, when I get a chance.

Update:

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