I got to the Walt Whitman Mall on Long Island yesterday and they were doing land-office business, according to the blue (not orange) shirt I was speaking with. He told me that he lost count, but they must have moved over 150 copies of Snow Leopard per hour.

Two minutes later (they really do have their system down), I left the store in a foreshadowing downpour. After looking at the startup, shutdown and disk capacity notes I've been collecting for a few days, I removed the shrink wrap and got down to business with the hopes of upgrading four computers today. Yes, I did buy the family pack. Five hours later, I'd only upgraded two machines. This is not because the upgrades didn't move along speedily, it was because I had some real head scratching problems to deal with.

The first: my 8GB 17" Unibody Macbook Pro running at 2.93 Ghz, took about 34 minutes to upgrade. As I thought, Apple hadn't gotten any better about realistic install times with the last 'under a minute' taking 7 minutes. No news there. Additionally, I gained only 2 GB of usable storage; I did do a Rosetta install. Damn you Quicken!

If you haven't installed Rosetta, and find that you need it, a very helpful box is displayed asking if you want to. It really didn't take a lot of storage at all.

I'd suspected that much of the reclamation of storage is due to clearing out caches and other garbage. What led me to believe this was that I ran Onyx beforehand, and that gave me back about about 8GB of storage right there from maintenance and cleanup. The truth about SL's space savings, however, according to David Pogue: most of the excess storage given back is saved in compressed code and not installing gigabytes of printer drivers that most users will never need.

What follows are a few initial notes from an installation that didn't go quite as smoothly as I had hoped.

After years of being thrown table scraps in the way of a few bucks off the price of Windows for the "upgrade" versions, I happily paid the $49 for my Family Pack of Snow Leopard earlier this week.

Sure, there are a few people that say things like "Why should I have to pay Apple to fix the mistakes they made in Leopard?" On some level, that might be a valid argument, but let's set that aside because there's a better point to be made.

The handful of new features in Snow Leopard are well worth the price Apple is asking. Included are most of the QuickTime Pro features, text substitution, more expansive Spotlight integration, Expose in the Dock (sounds like a band name... hehe), and a host of other little improvements. Some of these can be added today via third-party apps, but those apps (*gasp*) cost money. Bundle all of those up, and $30 for the whole slew of apps would be a sweet deal in and of itself. I know I would spend half that just to get the new slider in Finder windows that changes the size of thumbnail previews!

Heck, the reported speed improvements make the shipped price of $29 per machine price (which, remember, drops to below $10 with a Family Pack) a bargain. Even if the overall increase turns out to be low, say 5% or so, the price of the OS upgrade turns out to be a good deal. Where else are you going to spend so little money for such a similar boost in speed and snappiness?

And remember, that $49 lets me upgrade five Macs, not just the one PC I can update to Windows 7 for over two and half times the price! (Microsoft is asking $129 for the Windows Home Premium Upgrade.) A friend of mine was excited to find out that he only needed to spend $150 to upgrade his three Vista machines to Windows 7, using Microsoft's family pack. I understand his enthusiasm: I'd gladly pay $150 to get rid of Vista, too!

Seriously, Apple did a very smart thing when it priced Snow Leopard below the cost of a typical family visit to the movies. If it would have asked the normal going rate of $129, I would probably have still upgraded, but I, along with millions of other users, would not have been happy about it.

Keeping the iPhone 3G around at $99, lowering the prices on new Macs, and now the awesome deal on Snow Leopard... I think Apple may, just may, be "getting it" when it comes to pricing lately.

Apple has just released a patch to the AirPort client to remedy the wireless performance problems stemming from the recent Mac OS X update to 10.5.8. Some users had been forced to downgrade or replace the wireless-specific kernel extensions to clear up the issues.

The update, weighing in at a svelte 1.4MB, purports to solve an issue found on certain MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Affected machines suffered from significantly slower wireless network speeds while operating on battery power.

Here's the official description from tonight's Airport Client Update for MacBooks and MacBook Pros, version 1.0:

This update is recommended for some Intel-based Macintosh computers running Mac OS X 10.5.8 and addresses an issue with AirPort performance while running on battery power. It may only be installed on:

MacBook (13-inch, Late 2007)
MacBook (13-inch, Early 2008)
MacBook (13-inch, Late 2008)

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2008)

MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2008)
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Late 2008)

While I do own a potentially affected MacBook Pro, I did not experience the performance issues, so I can't vouch for the update's effectiveness.

Have you installed the patch and noticed an improvement (or not)?

One of my favorite episodes of The Brady Bunch is "Quarterback Sneak." In it, Marcia starts dating Jerry Rogers, quarterback of the Fairview High School football team. Problem is, Fairview happens to be the rival of Marcia & Greg's Westdale High School, and the two teams are scheduled to play in their annual big game on Saturday.

Marcia may not see it (Marcia, Marcia, Marcia never seems to), but it's fairly apparent that Jerry Rogers isn't as concerned about winning Marcia's heart as he is about winning the big game against Westdale.

But Marcia has to find this out the hard way, as she always does. The story unfolds in an oh-so-predictable sitcom television manner:

Marcia invites Jerry in for a drink of lemonade.

While Marcia is preparing the lemonade, Jerry snoops around and takes a look at the Westdale playbook, which happens to be on the coffee table.

Bobby, who just got flattened by the teeter totter outside, sees that Jerry is up to no good. Marcia sees none of this. She's too busy preparing lemonade.

Bobby and Greg confront Marcia about Jerry's evil, no good do-er ways; Marcia, being Marcia, is obviously in a state of denial and dares Bobby and Greg to prove her wrong. And they did.

On their next lemonade date, Marcia sees that Jerry, indeed, could not resist swiping the Westdale playbook. Needless to say, Marcia's crushed.

With Google announcing its intention to develop the Chrome OS, Apple has a Jerry Rogers-like situation right now with Google CEO Eric Schmidt sitting on its board of directors. Although Schmidt says there's "no issue" at the moment, the best situation for both parties would be one in which Schmidt relieved himself of his duties on Apple's board of directors.

Google just announced they are indeed developing the long-rumored Chrome OS.

Expected to be web-focused with a minimal user interface, the lightweight open source operating system will appear initially on netbooks running either x86 or ARM processors. Expansion to the desktop and full-powered laptops will most likely follow. According the Official Google Blog, Chrome OS will be available to consumers in the second half of next year.

"Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS," wrote Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management and Linus Upson, Engineering Director. "We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds."

Not surprisingly, the OS will be based on a Linux kernel and should run all current and future web-based applications.

Google admits that there may be some overlap between its operating system for mobile devices, Android, and the newly introduced Chrome OS. The blog announcement explains, "Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems."

What does this mean for the Mac community? Sound off in the comments!

On October 17, 1998 Apple released Mac OS 8.5, the first operating system that ran solely on Macintoshes with PowerPC processors. As far as system software upgrades go, this was the end of the line for any Mac built before the Power Macintosh 6100, introduced in March 1994. Earlier Macs ran on some variation of 680x0 processors and were supported mostly via emulation in a PowerPC environment. Emulation works, but it also slows things down. By 1998, Apple decided it just couldn't support 680X0 emulation for a number of reasons, but chiefly among them was speed.

What happened was just what you would expect. In user groups, USENET and the Internet (which was only starting to explode), apoplectic non-PowerPC Mac owners threatened class action lawsuits and the rending of garments. Of course, most Power Mac users loved the newfound speed introduced in Mac OS 8.5, thanks to code optimized for PowerPC processors and jettisoned emulation support.

It took Apple only four years to introduce the PowerPC chip and make any Mac without it obsolete. Technology moved on.

In September Apple will release Snow Leopard, which will only run on Intel based Macs, thus cutting off PowerPC support. This time it took eleven years from inception to extinction (well, three for the Intel transition), but even so I can hear the hue and cry machine cranking up. Once again, the major reason for dropping legacy support is speed. Technology has moved on.

Whenever something like this happens there is a potential for a marketing meltdown, but this time Apple is doing something brilliant. It is going to sell Snow Leopard for $29. When I saw this on the video stream of the WWDC keynote address my jaw dropped, my eyes glazed and only later did it start making sense to me. Apple first introduced Mac OS X in 2001, and excluding the free update to Mac OS X 10.1 from Mac OS X 10.0, a new version of the OS has been released roughly every 18 months, always at a price of $129. The sales pitch is always the same: with each new version, OS X gets new features and an "enhanced computing experience" which largely depended upon how much you like the new features.

Mac OS X 10.6 will be the fifth major release in eight years, and some users are complaining about feature overload. There will always be users who want four ways to do the same thing, but for others, feature-laden releases are overwhelming and the glimmer and excitement of a new OS X release has faded. What a perfect time to work under the hood, set up the core of the operating system for the future and stabilize what's already there! But of course you can't make everyone happy. I would expect a large group of users to not be mollified by a nicer QuickTime and an improvement to Stacks. In effect, where's the beef? The beef is under the hood this time.

Mac Magazine has posted (English translation) what they're claiming to be several screenshots and videos of Snow Leopard, the forthcoming major update to OS X. Some of the goodies on display include a slider that allows you to adjust the size of icons in a Finder window (much like iPhoto does), new Stacks behavior and a peek at Quicktime X, which has a black border in this build.

In the video above, we see some cool smart quotes, smart dashes, smart dates (add to iCal; view date in iCal) and auto-correction of spelling errors.

We first saw screenshots last year, and Apple issued a code freeze on the APIs last week. I, for one, am looking forward to this tidied up version of Leopard.

For more, check out this video.

Apple, not shy of shaking things up in the interface department, has been sitting on its laurels since the release of OS X earlier this decade. Sure, iPod changed the way we think about music and iPhone has completely turned the mobile phone industry around, but the Mac OS has been relatively static in terms of how users navigate within the environment since the release of 10.0. The good news, however, is that Apple is working on a way to change the way we interact with our systems.

MacRumors has uncovered information on a patent titled "Multi-Dimensional Desktop" which depicts a three-dimensional environment that looks somewhat like viewing a room from one end. The interface has methods for literally stacking files and minimized windows on top of one another as well as for dragging interface items along the multiple surfaces. An interface such as this would be fairly performance-intensive and the ratification of OpenCL along with the impending release of Snow Leopard could be just the shoes that need to drop for this to become a reality. There is no guarantee that this will ever be seen outside of Cupertino or the PTO, but if Apple does implement this interface design it would bring a whole new meaning to the term "wallpaper." Click the read link for an additional image from the patent application.

[Via Engadget]

TUAW's going Back to School! We'll be bringing you tips and reviews for students, parents and teachers right up until the bell rings in September.

It's time once again to head back to school. Some are entering high school, while others are going to college for the first time. If you're taking your Mac with you, you need to learn some security basics. In this post, I will show you how to secure your operating system and hardware.

Operating System (Software)
Mac OS X makes a great operating system for students and businesses because of its inherent security. However, any computer without a strong password or other means of security is an accident waiting to happen.

The first thing you need to do is set a login password. To do this, go into Accounts in the System Preferences pane. Once there you will be able to set your password for logging in. While in Accounts, you might want to disable automatic login. This forces your computer to ask for a password upon startup and makes it harder for someone to walk up to your computer and use it (or steal it and use it).

Turning off Sharing services is another way to protect someone from remotely connecting to your Mac. Go to System Preferences > Sharing. Once there, un-check all sharing services that you don't use. Disabling File Sharing, Remote Login, Screen Sharing, and other services such as these can save your Mac from being "hijacked." If you must have these services turned on, then make sure you have a secure password set.

Hardware
Securing Mac OS X isn't the only thing you need to do. If you live in a dorm, or in a shared apartment, then you may want to consider securing your hardware. No matter what security measures you put into place, they can always be circumvented by someone just stealing the machine.

Most Macs have a standard security port to connect a lock. This is a great way to protect notebooks as well as desktops and even printers and other peripherals. The locks are fairly inexpensive (around $40 US) and can save your expensive hardware from being stolen. You can find them at most big-box computer retailers and even online from companies like Kensington.

More on security...
If you want more information on Security and your Mac/iPhone, then visit TUAW's Security category. You can also get more TUAW Back to School goodness by visiting our Back to School page.

If you've been looking to snag Parallels Desktop version 3.0, but don't want to pay the $79.99 associated with Parallels then a summer MacHeist bundle is just the thing. MacHeist is currently offering Parallels Desktop + Mac Pilot for only $49 (US).

Returning MacHeist customers receive a $10 discount, making the bundle only $39. That's a steal! In addition, the first 1000 customers to purchase the bundle will recieve a free "mystery application" (one that's an Apple award winner) which will be detailed on Friday.

Update: The rumor on the street is hinting at the "mystery application" to be either Coda or Lineform.

If you haven't preordered Leopard yet, but both plan to get it and have a need for a little Windows action, Mac Warehouse has the deal for you. They're offering a bunch of Leopard, Parallels, and Windows XP (or Vista, but seriously, Vista?) for just $279. That's basically getting Parallels for free, and a little over $100 off the price of XP Pro. If you haven't bought any of these yet, and plan to use all three, that right there is a tasty deal.

And speaking of deals, we've gotten a lot of tips about this, so even though we've mentioned it before, it's probably worth another mention: Amazon is going aggressive on Leopard pricing, so they're offering it for only $109, twenty bucks off the price elsewhere.

Of course, buying Leopard in either of these ways won't get you the satisfaction of being there on Friday when Apple's new operating system goes on sale. But then again, how much are the crowds and the lines worth to you?

Thanks, Michael!

After months of betas and release candidates, Parallels has brought their fantastic Desktop OS virtualization software to an official release. As you might remember from their last release candidate, they have also listened to user feedback and bundled their Compressor Server tool for optimizing virtual disks and streamlining the amount of disk space they take up, which also brought the final price up to $79.99. However, until July 15th, Parallels is still offering a discount price of $49.99, so get those credit cards out if Boot Camp doesn't quite cut it.

[thanks for the tip, Mark!]

Reader JP Dane-Castro wrote in to remind us that it was exactly one year ago today that Apple starting shipping the world's most advanced operating system, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

Take stroll down memory lane by reading Apple's press release. Now, when is Leopard shipping?

Parallels sure has been busy these last couple of weeks, as they have now produced a beta of VM Compactor for Intel-based Macs (as well as Windows and Linux), an app that helps optimize VMs (virtual machines) and compresses the amount of physical disk space they use. The nice thing about VM Compactor is that it can help optimize VMs created with software other than their own Workstation, such as Microsoft's Virtual PC and VMware's Workstation.

If you aren't quite familiar with why software like VM Compactor needs to exist, here's a quick example: with an app like Parallels' Workstation (which has been creating so much buzz in the Mac world lately), you can install and run multiple operating systems, such as Windows and Linux, inside of Mac OS X. This is referred to as 'virtualization' and is a bit different - and some would say more useful for general tasks - from using something like Boot Camp which requires you to shut down Mac OS X in order to boot into Windows.

Well, over time, these other OS installs, called 'virtual machines,' can begin to take up extra and needless space on your hard drive, even when Parallels Workstation compacts and compresses their installation after each time you finish using them. This is where VM Compactor comes in: its purpose is to clean up, optimize and strip the fat out of these installs to make sure they run as well as possible and take up the least amount of disk space necessary.

Parallels VM Compactor is in beta and offers a 30-trial, which suggests it should be available for retail purchase within the next month.

I almost decided not to post this on the grounds that a lot of us probably won't be surprised, but then I figured it might still be good for a laugh.

A friend passed me an article at CNET which reports that Vista has been delayed yet again to January 2007. Windows chief Jim Allchin explained that a few complications would force some PC vendors to wait until '07 to get their hands on the über-delayed upgrade to Microsoft's OS, while others could have it as soon as November 2006. As a result of this quirk, Microsoft ultimately decided to push the hold button again, kicking Vista's debut into January of 2007.

Here's hoping Apple will capitalize on this latest roadblock in Vista's development. With Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) still slated to land this year, along with the recent announcements of a new chip from Intel and WWDC's move to August (perhaps for a Leopard release?), I wouldn't be surprised if 2006 turns into a fantastic year for Apple.

[thanks to Damien for the pic]