It was quite a funny scene standing at the Stuttgart Gravis store to get my copy of Mac OS 10.5 Leopard at 6PM this Friday. Usually, I’m not the kind of guy who waits in front of stores just to be one of the first people holding a fresh gadget or peace of software in their hands. This time I was. I didn’t have to do bring my sleeping bag or tent like the guys in the US had to last year for the PS3. Our situation was incomparably comfortable since Apple set the release time to 6PM to match it West Coast opening hours. A good time to hit the store right after the usual shopping tour. Nevertheless, it felt kind of nerdy to stand in line there and being asked by foreigners “What are you waiting here for?”. For the non-techies I had a nice answer: “Well, for us it’s like for Harry Potter fans waiting for the new book.” This analogy seemed to work out well as an “excuse”.

By the way, Harry Potter 7 (the last one) is being released while I’m typing.

Standing in line there with my pre-ordered Value-Kit-Voucher was a good chance to inspect the Gravis store that just recently moved from around the corner to Stuttgart city center. Pretty nice store and right beside one of my favourite places, the Palace. After 35 minutes waiting I held my copy of Leopard and Parallels 3 in my hands, hurrying to get home.

All my files were backupped the day before, but still I wanted to archive my old system as an install option. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough space left on the HD and I didn’t want to reboot to clean it up. So I decided to format the disk and get me a clean install.

The install ran smoothly. Although the first install routine prediction brought up an install time forecast of 50 minutes, it went through in about 35. Doing the usual language selection, user profile settings and network configuration brought me to the first login after around 45 minutes. Pretty cool compared to other operating systems I installed in my life. Instead of only showing a progress bar and counting down the minutes, Apple could add some details on what’s being installed. But I guess this is too not-Mac.

First impressions were great! Finder looks cool with its cover-flow, the new dock and spaces pop up as the first of the 300 promised new features. Now there are another 297 to go! Didn’t try time machine yet since I didn’t want to erase my external hard drive (remember, it keeps my backups!)

Installing my basic apps and playing around with the system was fun, but still, it brought up some glitches I want to share here. I observed the following things I hope to get fixed soon:

Airport doesn’t dependably store my preferred network. I’m used to getting automatically connected to my favourite network via Airport when moving between places (e.g. mine and a friend’s house). This doesn’t work on Leopard right now. Leopard doesn’t store my favourite network! Even when disabling Airport and enabling it directly again returns with the message that no trusted network could be found. I need to re-type the SSID and WPA2 key to connect. In case you’re asking - I checked the box to remember the network, of course. I have my SSID hidden at home, but it shouldn’t pose an issue because it was working with Mac OS 10.4 so far.

Parallels doesn’t store my disply settings. In Parallels, you can switch between “Full screen”, “Coherence” and “OS Window”. Working with a secondary display, I usually put Parallels on my second screen in coherence mode. Unfortunately, Parallels keeps drawing the windows task bar across both screens - MacBook and secondary screen. The setting for using multiple screens doesn’t seem to be stored properly to have the task bar only on ONE screen. I’ll investigate on that.

Collectorz MovieCollector is not compatible with Mac OS 10.5. Downloaded the new version 2.0.7 but the installer crashes directly after double-click leaving a console error “EXC_CRASH (SIGTRAP)”. Let’s wait for an update from these guys.

Skype doesn’t properly load on autostart I get a “Check 1 failed. Can’t run Skype” in the console. Investigating on the issue brings up some forum discussions. It seems that Skype changes its application signature on every start. Obviously, Leopard’s firewall detects the change and blocks Skype after the first launch. Not a clear Leopard fault but rather a Skype problem that didn’t get tested thoroughly enough. The workarounds like re-installing Skype after a reboot or disabling the firewall are not the coolest options. Waiting for an update from Skype… Find the forum discussions here: forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=100329.

System settings don’t open reliably. Clicking the “Spaces configuration”
in the menu doesn’t get me the system settings panel. The same with
dock settings. Right-clicking on the dock for dock settings doesn’t work every time.

Quicksilver doesn’t hide from dock. This is one of my mac essentials, but something I rather like to have running in the background instead of appearing in the dock. Having Quicksilver’s preference “Show icon in dock” unchecked, its icon still keeps appearing in the dock. I don’t need it there.

Last.fm Player behaves weired. The first thing that’s weired is that it appears twice in the dock. Hmmmm. And it doesn’t properly quit.

Quick hint: Little Snitch 1.2.* doesn’t properly run on Leopard. It pops up asking you to grant the kernel task access no matter what program initiates the request. Not an issue, the guys put a hint prominently on their home page: You need to use Little Snitch 2 beta. By the way, this one became a pretty neat app that reminds me of Kerio Personal Firewall’s ease of use that I was using on Windows.

At the end of the day, I would say Apple did quite a good job with Leopard. The few probs I encountered are far from being show stoppers for a switch to Leopard. Well, the Skype issue s**ks but this is something the Skype guys will have to fix. Apple did quite well in not being too ambitious in changing basic things. Or just understood how to hide the cutting changes from the end user

Today is the day. I’m quite excited to go through my first OS X generation change. You remember when and why I switched to Mac? While Microsoft really screwed up with Vista, I expect Apple to do their job properly. Now that they postponed Leopard for several months, they must have had the time to deliver what they promise. Let’s challenge them!

When I first came across the idea of micro-blogging, I found it quite appealing and chose Jaiku to be my platform for that. Usually, the perception of an idea or its realization turns completely when another player comes into the game. This happened when Google and Jakiu announced to join. While Jaiku’s image was more like an experimental platform that a user wants to contribute to, with Google it seams different.

Do I want to contribute everything to that company? Taking the risk of never ever getting employed by Google in my life and say: No.

Yesterday, the Extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting approved the renaming into Daimler AG (DAI).

This is how it looks in Möhringen as of today.

I’m used to being afraid of new Windows Versions. I always tend to have the feeling “Oh my good, ’s going to happen this time?” The last delivery called Vista confirmed my caveats. It made me switch to Mac.

With Apple, the whole process of bringing out a new OS version looks a little different. They’re actually doing a good job in making people curious about the new release. In fact, I can’t wait to get the DVD in my hand and I don’t think I’m the only one who feels like that.

Beginning of this year, Apple decided to defer Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to October. October started yesterday. No more details. The well-known Apple strategy.

Time for some rumors:

1. Last week, Apple released the Firmware Update 1.4. A precursor for Leopard? Are they cleaning up to pave the road?
2. Software updates were rare during the last 3 weeks. An indicator for a clear focus on Leopard?
3. Gravis sent out the Leopard value pack three weeks ago. Does anyone know what the regular forerun is for such Gravis activities?

BTW: The firmare update ran through smoothely. Kind of an advance for a company that exactly knows what hardware it’s operating its software on. In contrast, a BIOS update for my Windows boxes was always an excitement. And not a positive one.