Tag Archives: OS X

Snow Leopard upgrade surprise

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My work recently ordered our Snow Leopard DVD so we can upgrade our iMacs. I did my usual Time Machine backup and upgraded. I didn’t worry much about compatibility since my personal 13″ MBP has been running SL for a few months now and it had the same apps installed – no problems at all.

After I upgrade my work’s iMac, there were problems. I kept getting errors from my Symantec antivirus (I had to install it, work policy even though it isn’t necessary). I reinstalled it and it warned me to install Rosetta. I thought that would be the “aha” so I installed it. It looks like it fixed that problem, but now my Adobe CS3 apps crashes when I launch them. I Googled and it turns out there is an existing compatibility issue with CS3 and SL. It’s weird though since my MBP runs CS3 without a problem.

So now I got another external firewire hard drive. What I’m going to do is restore a backup that I made in Time Machine before upgrade onto an external hard drive. This way I can make sure that’s a clean copy before formatting and restoring it onto my iMac’s hard drive. This is why I love using Macs. When running into problems, I have several options to restore without losing data – as long as you back up data.

Once this is complete and I’m satisfied with the restored data, I will restore the backup onto the iMac. Then I’ll format the external drive and install a clean copy of SL and migrate my Leopard over to see if it’s SL or just my iMac configurations.

Snow Leopard UTD finally arrived

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After 6 days since the release of Snow Leopard, my UTD discs finally came in the mail yesterday. I was somewhat upset during launch day when my order status said backordered. It’s puzzling that the company who made the software and distributes it, is backordered. I could’ve gone to the store and bought a full version. I heard they had a ton there.

My co-worker got his full version copy 10am that day. I couldn’t wait so I borrowed it from him after he upgraded his MBP and upgraded my MBP. So far I’ve gotten a few app crashes but it seems after the first crash, they tend to run normal again. I hear 10.6.1 is around the corner so it should fix some stuff.

Anyways, here are some pics I took.

As you can see from the 3rd pic, the UTD (Up to date) discs are upgrade only. The retail $30 ones should be full versions. Another thing I noticed is there is a Optional Install folder now on the disc. It has OS X applications such as Mail, iCal, Address Book, etc. Also has Rosetta. This is great coz in the past, if any of the apps needs to be reinstalled, you can either copy it from another working OS X and fix the permissions or reinstall OS X. Now just pop in the Snow Leopard disc and you can install it anytime.

Here’s a before and after pic of my hard drive on my Mac Mini MB138LL/A. Notice the changes to the hard drive size.

Here’s an article that explains about the capacity change – http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=589.

My new MBP 13″ MB990LL/A

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I finally bought the new Macbook Pro 13″ MB990LL/A last Saturday. It’s replacing my first gen Macbook Pro 15″ MA464LL/A. It’s 3 years old and still works great but it overheats. I was able to get a free iPod Touch 8GB and a $100 towards a printer – after rebate. I thought I could pull out my old hard drive from my 15″ and swap it with the 13″ but I was wrong. I’m guessing because the processor is different – Core Duo and Core 2 Duo. It took half of Saturday to transfer my files over but I got it to how I had my old laptop on the new one. With the help of Migration Assistant, the task was simple. It only took longer than I thought because I had a lot of files to transfer over.

I’ve already upgraded the storage with a Seagate 500GB hard drive and I’m planning on upgrading the ram to 4GB. So far, what has impressed me is the battery life compared to my old MBP. Here’s a comparison between my old and new MBP current setup.

MB990LL/A (new) MA464LL/A (old)
Processor: 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo
Memory: 2GB 1066MHz DDR3 (Upgradeable to 8GB) 2GB 667MHz DDR2 PC2-5300 (max)
Hard Drive: 500GB SATA 5400rpm 100GB SATA 5400rpm
Grapics Card: Nvidia GeForce 9400m 256MB shared ATI Mobility Radeo X1600 256MB GDD3 dedicated
Display: 13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy 1280×800 resolution 15.4-inch TFT 1440×900 resolution
Expansion: One FireWire 800 port (up to 800 Mbps), two USB 2.0 ports (up to 480 Mbps), SD card slot One FireWire 400, two USB 2.0 ports, and ExpressCard/34 slot
Network: Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T (Gigabit) Ethernet Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T (Gigabit) Ethernet (didn’t know it had Gigabit)
Wireless: Built-in AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi (based on IEEE 802.11n draft specification); built-in Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) module Built-in 54-Mbps AirPort Extreme (802.11g standard); built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
Weight: 4.5 pounds 5.6 pounds

My old MBP was a work horse so I expect nothing less with the new one. I am however, taking a big hit on the video card being shared but I won’t be doing much video editing as I thought I did in the beginning.

Here is my initial Pros and Cons on the MBP 13″ compared to my old MBP 15″.

Pros:

  • Improved battery life
  • Upgrading HDD and ram is painless
  • Runs at a lower temperature
  • Trackpad gestures similar to the iPhone
  • Firewire 800
  • SD Card reader
  • Cheaper
  • Ram is expandable to 8GB
  • Core 2 Duo

Cons:

  • Shared video memory. I noticed a much lower FPS while playing WoW and visit a heavy populated area – while running other programs in the backgroun (ie: iTunes, Firefox, Quicktime, and other apps)
  • No ExpressCard slot
  • No Firewire 400 port
  • Scratches easier
  • Being a pound lighter, it doesn’t feel at all lighter

I’ll probably extend my list more as I continue to use it. So far I’m impressed. It’s a great upgrade for me. Here’s some pics I took http://www.flickr.com/photos/w1n78/sets/72157621866087202/.

New Address Book sync options in 10.5.3

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Apple recently released 10.5.3 update for Leopard. One of the updates I’m excited about is the ability to sync Address Book with Google and Yahoo!. If you want to set up a sync with Yahoo!, view this pageĀ http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/addressbook/autosync/autosync-20.html. For Google, visit this pageĀ http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2008/05/mac-os-x-1053-sync-google-contacts.html. The only problem I found so far is with Google and contacts that have “Company” checked on your Address Book. These contacts seem to show up as blank in the contacts list (http://www.google.com/support/contactsync/#anchor_link_9). But if you click on it in Gmail, it will display the information.