Snow Leopard First Impressions - Mac OS X v10.6

the JoshMeister shares some of his first notes and impressions about Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard from the Apple Store on Snow Leopard's launch day, 28 August 2009.

You can get Snow Leopard at a discount from Amazon through this link: http://bit.ly/getsnow

Following are some of the notes I took at the Apple Store (some of which made the cut to this video).

Apps that I tested and found to still work fine in Snow Leopard:
* Invisibility Toggler (my app) -- http://tjmsoftware.thejoshmeister.com
* 7zX -- http://sixtyfive.xmghosting.com
* Chicken of the VNC -- http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc
* EasyFind -- http://devon-technologies.com/products/freeware

Security issues:
* Safari - Status Bar is still hidden by default
* Finder - file name extensions are still hidden by default
* CoreTypes now detects two specific types of Mac malware when downloaded from specific applications such as Safari -- read more about this at http://security.thejoshmeister.com/2009/08/breaking-news-mac-os-x-snow-leopar... -- but all other malware is not detected, nor is the eicar.org test file

Other random stuff:
* New autocorrection feature: In TextEdit, if you type "eicar" it autocorrects to vicar, even if you put it in quotation marks. Weird. Apparently autocorrect is a new feature, but it's not very smart. Autocorrect should fix typos, not completely change the word. The letter e and the letter v are far away from each other on the keyboard. Autocorrect is interesting, though; it automatically fixes misspelled words like keybord, keybored, keybaord, keyborad, kybord, etc. It doesn't fix certain common typos like accidentally hitting the m key when trying to hit the comma, such as keyboardm, housem, applem, etc.

* Screenshots are still saved on the desktop, but now the filename makes it clear that the file is a screenshot and gives it a name based on the date and time it was taken, e.g. "Screen shot 2009-08-28 at 9.23.21 AM". It's saved as a .PNG file.

* There's no visible difference between .RTF and .RTFD files in the Finder - two files in the same folder that in reality have different names look like they both have the same name because the file extension is hidden by default

* Wi-Fi signal strength now shows up in the AirPort menu for each access point, not just the one to which you're currently connected

* The final build of 10.6 is Build 10A432

* Trimming movies is super easy in QuickTime Player -- it works very similarly to the iPhone 3GS

* I don't know yet whether iChat videoconferencing works between 10.5 and 10.6 because I didn't have a 10.5 machine in the store with which to test it. Video chat is not possible between 10.4 and 10.5, but I'm hopeful that 10.5 and 10.6 may be compatible.

My sites:
* Follow me on Twitter and other social networks: http://social.thejoshmeister.com
* Check out my computer security blog at http://security.thejoshmeister.com
* Subscribe to my podcasts at http://podcasts.thejoshmeister.com

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• snow leopard
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[HelloWaffle]

Did you happen to try out SL on any Macbook Pros?

Did it fix the terrible audio quality and headphone poping sound?

[theOrigJoshMeister]

I've installed Snow Leopard on two different MacBook Pro models. I've never experienced any audio quality or headphone popping issues with either one. If you're having audio issues with yours, I recommend taking it to an Apple Retail Store if you have one nearby.

[inkytophat]

Why is all the text behind you backwards? lol

[theOrigJoshMeister]

By default Photo Booth does a mirror image, so it's like looking into a mirror rather than seeing what someone else would see if they were standing in front of you. I hadn't thought about changing it before I started recording.

[tuckerjeffrey]

Nice informative video, what camera did you use to take this video with and what editing program was utilized? Thanks in advance, I would appreciate your help. Thanks again.

[theOrigJoshMeister]

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.

To record the video, I just used Apple's Photo Booth application and the built-in camera on one of the iMacs on display in the Apple Store. After recording, I copied the unedited video file onto my USB flash drive, and later I edited the video in iMovie '08.

[faudeeezy]

all you have to do to fix that is reset the pram