REVIEW: My First 5 Minutes with OS X Yosemite

Holy Caw! This beast is… SLEEK.

I didn’t think I would like the non-skeumorphic icons. I’m not crazy about them on iOS. Yosemite will probably carry me over that hump.

Right off the bat I was concerned about app compatibility. We’ve all been stung by that with these updates. Yet, here it is 30 minutes in. I’ve launched all my go-to apps and I only have 8 requiring update via Software Update. Yet, they launch fine, docs open, save, reopen. Try THAT Windows!

I’ll run Yosemite for a while on this production machine before I take anything else past Maverick. But, there’s plenty of reason to appreciate the polish Apple has applied to this latest version of OS X.

First impression of the UI is the login screen after installation. That’s a really nice “Hello”. Very subtle. Very beautiful. Very elegant. Very… Jonny Ive (honestly).

Next, and particularly impressive, is Safari. I’ve nearly exclusively moved over to Chrome (and Firefox for one very specific site cpanel). Safari hasn’t factored for a long time in my daily use except on iOS. Th new OS X Safari *may* lure me back across the aisle. Realistically, I doubt that… I have too much configuration invested in Chrome at this point to really seriously a permanent move. Kudos to Apple for getting their browser tight and right though. (fwiw, I still miss RSS)

There are so many fresh new nooks and crannies to explore. I’m genuinely looking forward to this one. Those who know me well, know I just plunge into these updates with a reckless pursuit to see what’s waiting on the other side and know the price for that will (usually) be picking up the broken pieces of busted apps and such. And, usually, that’s apparent within the first thirty minutes. Judging by the stability, ease of migration and lack of core apps misbehaving I have to say right now, barely 10 minutes in this is going to be one of the easiest updates I’ve been through of all the OS X releases. It does make me wonder what Yosemite Server must be like. That hasn’t happened in a long time. Which also makes me wonder about ZFS implementation (or lack of) in Yosemite. More on that later if there’s anything to pass along. A boy can hope 🙂

Installing Leopard 9A559

Wouldn’t it be fun for Apple to snooker us all and launch Leopard this Monday, October 1?

Hell, might as well fan the flames of desire here a bit. C’mon, dontcha think?!

They’re calculating like that. Take for instance, the iPhone. They deliberately launched it late 2Q2007. All just to get a pop for the quarter on ye olde stock ticker (AAPL) and punch up the Q2 results.

I can see them trying to milk Q4 for everything it’s got in it with an October 1 release. Yeah, I know, it’s all blue sky speculation and tin-foil-hat tom-foolery. But, still, they’re sly like a fox that way and I could totally see them kitting up the DVDs for the past two weeks while they feed us three or four week old images throwing us off and onto a cold trail. Why would dear old Apple do that pray tell? ‘Cause they can Timmy. Cause they can.

This release has been given the back seat while iPhone an AppleTV took center stage for the first half of 2007. As of 9A559 Leopard’s tight. REAL tight (especially Server). I’ve been using the latest greatest as my production machine for two solid weeks. So, it wouldn’t shock me in the least if Apple came out swinging for a full Fourth Quarter performance. Get this right and get it tight as a drum before the holiday season, gin up word of mouth and I see AAPL posting some mighty fine numbers on unit sales all the way around. Leopard has the teeth in it to drive some killer innovation across their product lineup (iPod, iTunes, iPhone and of course Macs).

Simple Maintainance For Your Mac.

Do you turn your Mac off at the end of the day? Said another way… Is your Mac not on in the wee hours of the night/morning?

If not… important cleanup is not happening on your mac which would normally be taking place late a night.

Fear not there are ways to make this happen whenever you like. Cocktail is my app of choice for lots of general maintenance on my personal machines (servers are another matter). Cocktail will make a LOT of other things on your Mac bend to your will (Safari and eradicating the favicons of your bookmarked sites which will make Safari zippy once again for instance).

For the purists, and sometimes I must admit I like tinkering in the Terminal, there are manual ways to trigger these same scripts.

Open Terminal (usually located in Applications -> Utilities directory).
Type this exactly (without the quotes) “sudo periodic daily weekly monthly”
Press RETURN
Type your login password if it’s requested (if you’re not the administrative user of your Mac this might not work)
The scripts will run in sequence and Terminal will NOT give you any feedback. You’ll know it’s done when the prompt comes back. It may take several minutes if you’ve never let it happen naturally.

If you’re curious to know what these scripts are up to you’ll find some detail here.

Totally loving Ooh La – The Kooks (link will launch iTunes).

Leopard and USB As Startup Volume

In a word… “Don’t.” It’s not that it can’t or shouldn’t… it’s kind of a boondoggle for most.

Use your time to best advantage and begin with restoring to dual layer DVD or IEEE 1394 (FireWire). That’s your best bet.

That said, There have been enough people asking in my other topic “Installing Leopard from DMG” why it won’t work with their USB drive. I don’t know the full technical answer to satisfy those who are truly asking for a technical explanation… I just know Apple has been fairly consistent with prohibiting the booting of Tiger and now Leopard on USB. I vaguely recall Panther launching on a USB mounted drive (could be mistaking that for something else though).

PS – I don’t know how you came by your image of Leopard. I don’t want or need to know how you came by your image of Leopard. I trust yours’ came by the one of two ways Apple has made it available: WWDC or ADC.

Newest Leopard Seed 9A###

I don’t know what the next seeds numbering is going to be.

However, it appears Apple is very consistent with their releases following quickly (day or so) on the heels of the ADC Reference Library. Since a new ref lib was posted today that would put a new distro of the Leopard seed online very shortly. Hopefully some of the goodies we’ve been expecting begin to show.

Leopard Release Date October ’07

[FINAL: The above is, by far, the best public demo on YouTube of what Leopard brings to the table I’ve seen so far. There was no harming of my NDA in bringing this link to you.]

[NOT SO FINAL: October 23 it is. :)]

[EDIT: Wanna see one of Leopard’s new iTunes visualizers from the latest 9A559 build? Yeah, I thought you would.]

[EDIT: Leopard seeds are accelerating. We’re now sitting at 9A559 as of last Friday night. This is rumored to be the final image. Frankly, I’m surprised we’re this far into September with new seeds. They absolutely have to stop the seeds and start cutting DVDs… Yes, you’re going to have to have a minimum config of a G4 with a DVD drive and better than 800MHz performance processor. It’s not clear if Dual-Layer DVD is going to be used. It has been “required” with the seed installs if using optical media up to this point. More likely to be a two DVD install set. Thanks for the sharp tongued devil “foofoorabbit” I am now a much older and wiser blogger of things Apple (see comments below).]

Apple’s just postponed Leopard to October. Stock was only punished by 3% today. Watch the selloff tomorrow. I might actually want to get my position back into Apple in anticipation of another split before too long and the eventual ride back up the slope. At least iPhone is on track…

That’s going to lend more value to the shareholders than Leopard anyway.
BTW, the opening video for Leopard was posted to YouTube in the last couple of days. Watch it. Once you’ve installed Leopard you’ll see it’ll have set the tone for a few things. More I cannot say.

[EDIT: This post has obviously nabbed quite a lot of link love lately by the looks of the stats. So, I’ll do right by those hoping to get an insight into the release date… The short answer is, no one knows what date Leopard is going to ship. Last word uttered on the matter is October 2007. So, that could be as late as October 31, 2007. It could be as early as Oct 1, 2007 (doubtful, but technically still doable). All of this is speculation. Apple (ie. Steve Jobs) could easily shift the date once again for any of a bazillion reasons. Trust me. What comes out is going to be BRILLIANT for sysadmins and programmers alike. The UI… well, folks, simply needs tweaking. At this point don’t expect major developments to rock our world. Human to machine interface on the other hand is undergoing HUGE changes. Watch for those and how they can potentially affect the UI. That’s where the action will be. Voice and touch input are going to be monsters.]

Technorati Tags: Leopard, OSX, Mac OSX

The 9A377a Leopard Release

As AppleInsider is reporting there is a new seed of “client” out (but not yet Server) and the look-out list is purportedly quite healthy still. (No confirmation of that from me though as my copy’s still downloading.) This underscores what I’ve been suggesting for quite some time… Leopard’s not being released any time soon. There might be an announcement of a release date. But, given Apple’s recent bevy of ‘take backs’ (AppleTV comes to mind)… I doubt they announce a date that won’t be rock solid.

Security Through Obscurity

The debate rages and many people feel Mac OS is secure because it’s just not large enough in marketshare to attract the attention of all the malicious or fame-seeking hackers out there.

OK. I can kinda buy that. Cool, I’m secure cause no one cares enough to fiddle with my platform. Do I really care? I’m secure for some reason. By accident is even good enough reason quite frankly. A lot of people are secure becuase their computer isn’t connected to anything outside and doesn’t swap spit with any other computer.

But, then this little twerp inside of me thinks… “Hey, that’s just an opportunity for that much MORE fame.” Right? I mean… if I’m the only guy borking up the Mac platform aren’t I, by default going to be king for a day? Who wouldn’t want to set foot on the moon first!? So, the more I get to thinking about it the more I’m thinking either it’s harder to write a bugaboo for Mac OS X or hackers are just picking at the low hanging fruit of the most susceptible OS’s out there which happens not to be the Mac OS.

OOF! Leopard on a PC!?

That thud you just heard… was my jaw hitting the floor after reading the mainstream media picking up on non-Apple PC’s running Mac OS X via Parallels. Yes!! Fist pumping in the air!

Some folks will think this forebodes evil in all manner of forms. However, think this through… you want Appley goodness? Fine, try it out on your PC. Want ALL the Appley goodness? Buy Appley hardware. I think it’s about time the genie was let out of the bottle.

BluePhoneElite + OSX = Nirvana!

Finallly! Finally! FINE UH LEE!!

BluePhoneElite beta 2 is exactly what I have been seeking all these many long months. I don’t need no stinking iPhone! 🙂 (I probably do actually… just ’cause). There were only two things I wasn’t thrilled with in the release version and beta 2 gives me pause.

• I said I wanted talk through. Got it! Called my office land line. Left a message and it’s most definitely passable.
• I said I wanted the ability to record conversations. Haven’t quite figured out the finer points but I think with SoundFlowerBed + my audio recording apps I’m going to have a serious shot at making podcast recordings VERY easily no matter where I might be (London, Bahrain, Tulsa, Houston… wherever really).

This is so cool!

Now I have to contact those wacky folks at Mira and arrange an interview!