Filed under: Macbook Pro, Mac Pro, Leopard, MobileMe
Mel Martin's Friday with Snow Leopard: few glitches, much joy
It was pretty quiet at the ole' Apple Store here in Tucson. I got there just at ten, and while there were stanchions to organize the crowd, they weren't needed and just sat off to the side looking lonely. There were plenty of people in the store, and about half were buying Snow Leopard. Supplies were plentiful, but I was there early.Installing on both a MacBook Pro and a Mac Pro were two different stories. On the laptop, things were ducky. Everything worked, mail accounts were there, bookmarks, the usual.
On my desktop it was not so pretty. I kept getting messages that I needed to add a password for my MobileMe account, which I dutifully did. Problem was it kept asking. Then I saw some messages about the keychain. Whoops. Not a good message to see.
Well, the short version is that somehow my keychain was hosed. I tried to repair, but that didn't stop the problems. I finally threw away my keychain data and started again, re-entering my email passwords and a few other things. All is back to normal. I also saw a strange message about my iDisk, but I followed the directions and threw a rather large file away. It appeared to be a copy of my idisk for local use.
Other things pretty much work. My Sonos audio system is fine, Photoshop CS3 seems OK, and while it didn't get a heavy duty run through, it opens images, applies filters, runs actions, and saves properly.
Shut down is almost instantaneous, and I noticed I'd saved 14GB after the upgrade.
I'm seeing lots of little niceties. When I take a screen shot, it has a name that includes the date and time instead of 'picture 1'.
All in all, not too painful, but not completely trouble free. With keychain passwords gone I may wind up doing some extra typing for awhile on web sites where I have an account, but that's not too horrible.
Snow Leopard is clearly faster, trimmer, and a bit more fun to use. A good use of $30.00 and just a little bit more time than I planned in getting over a couple of glitches.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
kinto said 6:16PM on 8-28-2009
i just noticed this sorta buried on apple's list of new features:
"Multi-Touch gestures in older Mac models.
All Mac notebooks with Multi-Touch trackpads now support three- and four-finger gestures."
assuming this would include my black macbook (which currently does 2 finger scroll, etc) that in and of itself is pretty freaking awesome! i'm excited to get home and install it.
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Devin Pitcher said 6:19PM on 8-28-2009
They mean MacBooks like the first generation Multi-touch Pros and Airs that only did 3 fingers.
kinto said 6:22PM on 8-28-2009
@Devin
Ack! that's a bummer... thx for the info though...
Ryan S. said 6:34PM on 8-28-2009
No line? Wow. SLC's Snow Leopard line was longer than Leopard's was! Moved faster, though. I'm just glad I was 3rd in line, and not near the back like last time.
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James said 6:36PM on 8-28-2009
Ryan said...
So it doesn't matter if you watch it or not, it matters if it gets shown or not.
If they aren't watching the ad, it is not going to generate any revenue for them, so why should they be charged for it? If that's the case, why not stop the request to begin with.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. You either watch the entire ad or you block it out(not watching the ad is the same).
In my opinion, if you aren't going to watch the ad, you are doing the sponsor a favor by blocking it out. At least they aren't paying for an ad no one is watching.
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James said 6:41PM on 8-28-2009
Ummm, sorry for the previous post.
Now, the actual comment...
Maybe the trouble was because of the fact you bought a $30 single user upgrade and tried to use it on two systems. You should have bought the $50 family pack and most likely would have had no trouble at all. ;)
But seriously, didn't you mean to say that you bought the $50 family pack and legitimately upgraded both your macs?
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YodaMac said 6:55PM on 8-28-2009
I wonder... If you blog about a crime you commit, can you be prosecuted for it?....
Just sayin.
Mel Martin said 7:12PM on 8-28-2009
Gee. I hope you're not talking about me. I bought the family pack and installed on 2 machines today.
Mel
TUAW
Neil Anderson said 12:11AM on 8-30-2009
Whew! Good recovery. ;)
Jak Logan said 6:42PM on 8-28-2009
The only 'glitch' I've noticed is relatively minor, and won't affect the majority of users. I have Internet Sharing 'On' through my iMac, and have my 'Computer Name' set to something unidentifiable (i.e. 'network A). But when I browse for networks with my MBP, my wireless signal is distributed as 'Owner's Computer', which is a bit more information than I would like to share to those within wireless range. Anyone have any ideas on how this could be fixed?
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Martin said 6:44PM on 8-28-2009
Just in case anyone else comes across this. On my MacBook, I had it set to ignore the trackpad if the mouse is present under 10.5.6. After doing an upgrade to 10.6, the trackpad would now receive input even when a mouse was connected.
The option to turn off the trackpad while a mouse connected has moved from Trackpad (where one would think it'd go) to Universal Access -> Mouse & Trackpad.
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artifex said 4:57AM on 8-29-2009
good catch; thanks
Ben said 1:33PM on 10-08-2009
Dude, you are awesome! Thank you so much for posting this. I have been looking everywhere for the solution.
Yvonne said 6:56PM on 8-28-2009
My problem was slightly larger than this one.
Half way through installing Snow Leopard my computer springs up an error saying "The files on this drive cannot be changed". After an hour with tech support they said I needed to reinstall Leopard then put Snow Leopard in.
I went to the apple shop to replace the Snow Leopard install CD in case it was a CD problem, low and behold.... it was a problem with my hard drive. Genius boy ran darwin and found my harddrive was dying. My 9 month old Macbook was dying ALREADY??? He then whisked it off to the back room and came back with a brand new harddrive. My grief doesn't end there. I had failed to back up. Yep, All my data is g-o-n-e.
Otherwise, Snow Leopard is damn fun! only... the trackpad writing doesn't seem to work in mail?
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YodaMac said 7:03PM on 8-28-2009
There are only two kinds of Hard Drives in the world:
Ones that have failed...
...and ones that WILL fail.
Sorry for your loss. Now please BACKUP! :)
jsw said 6:56PM on 8-28-2009
Hosed keychain would be a *very* bad thing for me. Of course, it's also on a bootable backup that sits at the back of my desk, but still...
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badtzmaru said 7:13PM on 8-28-2009
installing snow on my macbook air went smoothly. and it freed up an additional 11GB of hard drive space!
i havent upgraded my mini yet. maybe tomorrow.
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Yvonne said 7:06PM on 8-28-2009
I know I know.. time to buy a time capsule I think!
I spent the entire night doing the tedious task importing photos and music from my old windows laptop to my precious mac.
Any thoughts on not being able to write using trackpad in mail app?
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snugs said 7:28PM on 8-28-2009
i was under the impression that writing on the trackpad was only used for character input in chinese (and maybe japanese?) - but i'm often wrong, so don't take my word for it.
as for timecapsules, if you don't have future expansion needs and have limited space, i guess it would be a good purchase. but external 1TB and 2TB drives are far cheaper alternatives, and you are still able to backup over wifi if they're connected to your network (i have a 1TB WD MyBook, and while i can backup to it over wifi, it is connected to an AEBS - not sure about OTA backups if a drive is connected to a non-apple router)
axel.golden said 7:16PM on 8-28-2009
I probably just missed you in the Tucson apple store. I was there around 10:30.
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