Seriously. How cool is this? When viewing fonts in Leopard we can Quick Look them to get a preview! In fact, Quick Look works on most everything I've tried and has turned out to be my favorite Leopard feature. I can quickly view iCal events, emails, previous iChats, and client web pages all from one finder window. It is instant and I cannot imagine using a computer without it. Not only does it work well on my MacBook Pro but even on older G4 systems it opens quickly and fluidly.




Also very handy is the Finder Cover Flow feature which is not too much of a surprise for me... I fully expected I'd find it very useful. Like Quick Look, Finder's Cover Flow seems to handle practically anything I throw at it though sometimes in unexpected ways: fonts display a two letter preview, html documents display as fully rendered webpages while address book entries display simply as a contact photo.

With Leopard I'm finding that there are new reasons to create Smart Folders for the Finder Sidebar. For example, I've created a Smart Folder of my contacts and can scroll through their images and then use Quick Look to get their details. In fact, when I Quick Look a contact all the normal Address Book data is active with live links so I can send email, initiate an iChat, or jump to a Google map!

Images in Cover Flow are, of course, fantastic and I've created a Smart Folder so that I can view all of the images in Aperture's library right in the Finder... very cool! This would work for iPhoto as well and is very handy for quick access to images without opening the application.

One last note. Screenshots and window grabs in Leopard automatically generate drop shadows! How nifty is that?

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Macintosh, Leopard

This is not a full review... not even a mini review. I just wanted to post a note to say that I've now updated three Macs to 10.5 Leopard and all without a hiccup. Two of them were Archive and Installs and one was a wipe and install. I'm not at all surprised as I've installed everything from OS X Public Beta through 10.5 on my own Macs and many different versions on Macs owned by friends, family, and clients. Never a problem.

Now, as for first impressions. Let me just say that I am impressed! Time Machine set-up and first back-up went perfectly. I backed-up my MacBook Pro to a firewire drive attached to my Mac Mini so it took all night over the network but all seems well. Each update after that should be simple incremental updates and should not take long at all. Safari, Mail, iCal, iChat are all performing perfectly. Screen sharing and file sharing are excellent. Front Row is a fantastic improvement especially on the Mac Mini which is my iTunes music/movie server and is connected to a television. Front Row 2.0 is much faster and smoother than the first iteration!

That's it for now. I've got more exploring to do!

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Macintosh, Leopard

So the time has come for a new version of Mac OS X. I installed Tiger on my Macs on the release date of April 29, 2005 just as I installed Panther on its release date. If all goes as planned I'll be installing Leopard on at least 3 Macs on Friday. I've been very happy with Tiger just as I was happy with Panther and Jaguar. Apple has done a tremendous job with the OS X series. Each new cat comes with stability, increased speed, and a variety of new features and refinements. I have little doubt that Leopard will be the same.

At home I'll be installing on three Macs. I'll be doing an "archive and install" on my G4 Mac Mini and my trusty old 12" PowerBook which now serves as a backup to my primary work machine, a MacBook Pro. I almost always use the archive and install option when installing a new version of OS X as it installs a completely fresh OS and moves the old system to a folder rather than an upgrade which goes through the current install and updates the current files in place. I'd rather start with a completely new install. The great thing about archive and install is that it keeps your third party applications intact as well as all of your user settings and files.

Another install option is the clean install which completely wipes the drive, erasing all data and then installing the new system. I rarely use this option but my MacBook Pro will get the special treatment this time around. Why? Over the past year I've used it to back up over 200 dvds and convert them to h264 encoded QuickTime files. I've also built up a 15 GB Aperture library and 15 GB music library. That's alot of disk usage, far more than most of my Macs have seen in the past and I think its worth the time to go ahead and wipe the drive. I use SuperDuper to back-up my home directory so bringing my new install up to date with my personal data and preferences will be a breeze. I'll use the opportunity to thin out the applications that I no longer use.

I generally do not worry too much about disk fragmentation as OS X does its own file defragmentation via processes such as "hot file adaptive clustering" which works primarily with smaller files when they are opened and saved. However, if you consistently work with larger files such as video files fragmentation may become an issue. You can learn more via this Apple doc.

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Macintosh, Leopard

I thought I'd offer up a few belated thoughts on Apple's next cat, Leopard which I'll be posting in segments rather than one large post. Let's get started with Time Machine and iChat.

Perhaps the most talked about new feature is Apple's useful implementation of 3-D as an easy to use and very attractive interface for the most mundane of tasks, file back-up. They call it Time Machine and it does indeed look to be an important feature of the next version of Mac OS. It's no surprise that Apple could transform back-up and file restoration into a task that is not only reliable but one which users will easily understand. I have little doubt that Time Machine will prove to be quite a hit.

But there were other forms of time travel happening when Steve took the stage on August 7, 2006. Back in 1987 Apple produced a 5 minute video, the Knowledge Navigator. Twenty years later, in 2007, we'll be seeing many elements of the Apple Knowledge Navigator come into daily use. Les Posen of the excellent CyberPsych Blog also makes this connection and describes the Knowledge Navigator very well:

Set in 2010, it shows a Berkeley professor coming home, and opening his diary on his desk.

But this is no ordinary diary. It's an Apple Navigator.

As he opens, it we hear the familiar Apple bong so beloved of Mac Plus owners.

Soon enough an electronic "valet" speaks to him, reminding him of appointments and missed phone calls, which becomes a running joke.

We learn that the good professor needs to give a lecture that afternoon to students on deforestation in South America, in particular Brazil, and so calls up some statistics.

But he's also reminded of a female colleague doing similar research in Africa on dwindling forests, and just like you might in iChat, is connected with her and a videoconference commences, with each comparing their own research findings.

Welcome to the future. With Leopard we'll see Apple take a big step towards intuitive and effortless collaboration and sharing. Take a good look at that video, the device and the technology. The device has a built in web cam which should look familiar if you've seen any of the new Macs. With the new version of iChat users will be able to share screens, iPhoto albums, and Keynote presentations. I'd guess that is just the next step in turning iChat into a cornerstone of the sharing process and there will likely be much more about sharing in other Leopard technologies. As a consultant to small businesses, non-profits, and home users I'm always searching for new ways for users to share and I'm thrilled to see that it's going to get better.

As much as I enjoy the power and convenience of email, I often rely on iChat for immediate, real-time communication and file sharing for work and play. In fact, just moments ago I helped a client with her FileMaker Pro database via iChat and last week I collaborated on a logo revision via iChat. I can easily envision a time when iChat and it's expanding abilities becomes a key element in education and business. For many that time has already arrived.

Links of interest:
In October 2003 Jon Udell revisited the Knowledge Navigator.
The Knowledge Navigator entry at Wikipedia.
You can view the video here or here.

Coming up next time, Apple Mail and iCal.

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Leopard, iChat, Time Machine, Apple Navigator, Knowledge Navigator

Speaking of iCal...

Something I noticed recently regarding iCal and how an event or todo shows up in a Spotlight search prompted me to send a suggestion in to Apple:

If I initiate a Spotlight search via Command-Space or click the Spotlight icon in the top right my iCal to-dos and events show up but there is no date in the date field so if I want to filter to just the past day or week the iCal event disappears. For those of us that use iCal and Spotlight to manage projects it would be great to look at just the past day's email, tasks, files etc. As it is now filtering in such a way skips the iCal todos/events because they show up in Spotlight searches with a date of "No Date".

Which prompted another suggestion regarding the current options for viewing information for an event or to-do. As it is now you can view this info in a detached window or in a drawer. Yuck. My request? Add an option to view info as an integrated pane under the task list. I really love iCal but there's always room for improvement!!

Now, unrelated to this post, I've been having a problem with Technorati not showing my blog updates so I'm starting over with my blog claim which requires this link: Technorati Profile.
I've never had a problem with Technorati until recently, I wonder what's up.

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, iCal

A suggestion I just sent in to Apple via their handy dandy feedback form:

I've been using Safari's RSS feature and I love it. That said, I've got several groupings all in one master rss folder in my bookmark bar. Those groupings, Mac, News, Tech, etc are also bookmarked on the bookmark bar. What I'd like to be able to do is load up a group, say all my Mac rss feeds which contains 60+ feeds and see, in the sidebar of the rss page, which feeds have been updated (bold) and how many new items in that feed... all in the RSS sidebar. Would be a fantastic improvement. As it is now I have to click each one to check for updates or go to the folder of groupings which requires a good bit of mousework to navigate through the menu.

I've tried various RSS readers: NetNewsWire, Endo, NewsFire, and the Sage extension for Firefox. Of the bunch NetNewsWire and the Sage/Firefox combo were my favorites. I stopped using Firefox because it seemed a bit clunky and a resource hog. I tried NetNewsWire with Camino as my browser for a bit. Not too bad... in fact a great combo. I don't know that I want to buy NetNewsWire though and I've discovered that Camino keeps my processor going at a consistent 15 - 20% which means the PowerBook fans come on often. Between the two apps they use a good bit of my RAM.

My latest experiment has been Safari as both my browser and RSS. I'd tried it just after Tiger was released but stopped using it because Camino was faster for me, most notably going back through cached pages. At this point though, after a week of constant usage I've got the RSS set up with my groups of feeds and on the whole I'm very happy with the memory usage and low processor idle. In particular the Saft plugin lowers the processor, fan noise, and heat of my PowerBook with its animation/ad blocking. Saft also has the benefit of features such as saved tabs, moveable tabs, and type ahead search (it is a long list).

Of course I'll continue checking in with Camino. It's been my favorite browser for most of the past 2 years. For the moment though, I'll stick with Safari. I'll probably send Apple a couple more Safari feedbacks but I'm really very happy with Safari RSS.

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Safari, RSS

So, what kind of self respecting Mac geek fails to post a few words on Tiger? It's not at all surprising that such mini reviews are all over the internet so I'm sure one more will make little difference... but I cannot resist.

I've now installed it or supervised its installation on five Macs ranging from a 900mhz G3 iBook, 3 G4s, and a G5 iMac. I've only run into one problem which involved iPhoto which I think may have been related to one of the 2 plugins I had installed: Photon (for exporting to TypePad) or FlickrExport. I'm not certain about this but the only solution seemed to be a reinstall of iPhoto. Not a big problem and solved easily. I have not reinstalled the plugins to verify if any problems exist with them in relation to iPhoto and Tiger.

Most of the installs were less than 45 minutes. The spotlight indexing that takes place upon reboot hogs the processor for a bit but on all of these machines indexing was typically finished within 20 minutes. Oh, and I should note that I used the "Archive and Install" which allows for saving all the user settings which means that upon logging back in everything worked with no need to adjust anything. Smooth as buttah.

After two days of use I've got this to say: I like.

There are all sorts of little things such as the addition of Energy Saver presets to the battery menu for portables. Saves you another trip to System Preferences if you want to make a quick change to the settings.

Dashboard is far better than Konfabulator and much more useful than I thought. I've got it set to activate when i move my mouse to the bottom right corner which takes less than a second. From there I can access a fantastical variety of useful tools with more being created every day. Aside from Apple's included phonebook my two favorites thus far are WikityWidget and Wikipedia Widget.

The new Safari is incredibly speedy. I love NetNewsWire but I will also use Safari's RSS feeds. I put the 83 feeds included by Apple into my bookmarks bar and at last count I think I saw 2,000+ unread stories waiting for me. It goes without saying that I won't read all those but I can leave that open in a tab and check particular areas of interest every so often using the built in keyword filter which works splendidly.

The updated Mail program is excellent. It imported all of my email perfectly. The new smart folders that were previously only available in iTunes and iPhoto are now available in Mail thanks to the systemwide integration of Spotlight. Not only do we now have smart folders but searching through the content of thousands of emails is nearly instantaneous. While many seem to hate the new interface of Mail I'm happy with it.

Quicktime is a mixed bag. The quality of the new codec is truly amazing. I downloaded the new Batman and Fantastic 4 trailers from Apple's site and the large versions are DVD quality. The downside is that playback on a G4 1 ghz was a little choppy. The image was perfect but the playback was not as smooth as would have liked. I'll have to use this a bit more to get a better idea of what I think.

Automator, the easy to use workflow builder, is going to be very cool. I've only just begun to play with it but in just a few seconds I created a single step workflow to add "Spotlight comments" to any file. I can access this via the contextual menu in the Finder and it took me 42 seconds to create. This tool will only get better as I learn more about how it works and as others share the workflows they have created over the interweb.

The new Dictionary and Thesaurus is very cool. I can access this via a contextual menu anyplace on my screen where there is text. Tip: open up the Dictionary application and open its preferences. On the bottom change the "Contextual Menu" from the default to "Open Dictionary panel". By doing this you can get the definitions you want via a smooth little pop-up rather than opening the Dictionary application. Another tip: in addition to the contextual menu you can access this with a key combination. Position your cursor over any of these words then press Control+Command+d and you should see the magical little popup! Keep pressing Control+Command and release the d key and it will stay active. Now, keeping Control+Command pressed move your cursor around to different words in the active window!

I'll end with a few observations of Spotlight. The thing to remember is that this is now a systemwide change not just a little icon to be accessed via the menu or a search field in a Finder window. Spotlight is the groundwork for all sorts of cool future applications. That said, I was not as impressed as I thought I would be with the menu and Finder implementations of Spotlight. It works as intended but it just feels a bit... limited. Let me explain why: QuickSilver.

Now, I've been using QuickSilver for nearly a year (previously I used LaunchBar) and so I'm comparing Spotlight to QuickSilver. Spotlight is all about finding information in files and opening them in the appropriate application. QuickSilver is about finding information and manipulating or using it from within QuickSilver. For example... If I search in Spotlight for Greg the first result is my brother-in-law's address book vCard. Good. That's what I would hope. Down in that list are other related files, emails, and iCal events. Excellent. I can arrow down to them and open the appropriate object in its application in most cases. For some reason iCal events do not open though iCal itself does. Compare this to QuickSilver. When I enter Greg I get the same top hit, Greg's vCard. I also get any file with Greg in the name. I do not get email or any document with Greg in the actual content so I'm looking at a smaller file list. That said, I can do far more with what QuickSilver does find. For example, with the vCard, I can open it in Address Book as with Spotlight but I can perform all sorts of other functions. With a few key maneuvers I can send an email to Greg, send an email with an attachment, open his web page, display his phone or address in large letters across the screen for easy viewing and much more.

What it comes down to is that I'll use Spotlight for searching for files and QuickSilver for performing advanced actions and file manipulation. One day the functionality will meld together, for now I'll use them both.

One disappointment, at least on my Mac, iPhoto and Spotlight integration. Spotlight does not seem to pick up my iPhoto keywords very well. Compare this to Quicksilver which does not pick these keywords up but does see the iPhoto Smart Albums associated with the keywords and lets me view the actual album photo thumbnails! Edit: To clarify, if I use the find field in a standard Finder window it becomes obvious that they are indexed and they do show up. I think that they must have been in the dropdown search but perhaps I missed them because the display via the dropdown is more limited.

Lastly (at least for the moment) I think users of 10.4 will soon be amazed by the underlying technologies that will be incorporated into new or updated applications. Core Image filters are at the top of that list as are Spotlight plugins. Keep a look out for many goodies.

Reviews:
The very best: John Siracusa's review at Ars Technica He's been reviewing OS X going back to the public beta days. His Tiger review is 21 web pages... several hours reading. 100+ pages if you download the pdf. This is not a casual review.

Another good one by John Gruber of Daring Fireball.

Downloadable Automator Workflows
Apple's Workflows Downloads
Automator World
Automator Actions @ Macscripter

Downloadable Spotlight plugins
Apple's Spotlight Downloads

Downloadable Dashboard Widgets.
Apple's Widgets Downloads
Dashboard Widgets
Dashboard Exchange

Technorati tags: Tiger, Apple, Mac OS 10.4, OS X