I quickly updated 4 of the Macs (the MacMini isn’t done yet – hopefully today).  Setup went great and I had no issues with any of the setups.  I guess I don’t have any software that doesn’t run under the new 64-bit architecture that is Snow Leopard.

It’s not a high impact update though.  My systems all seem pretty fast to me so I’m not sure I’m observing a “snappiness” increase that has been bandied about on many blogs.  I’ve noticed some of the UI changes including stacks and the darker overlays.  They are nice.  I am looking forward to playing with the updated spaces and expose.  Those seem like smart changes.

I haven’t yet touched Quicktime though this afternoon when I practice my Guitar, I should use it then.

On my kids systems, I am putting Bootcamp partitions for Windows.  They use their Mac’s using OS X for web browsing and homework but they still like to play the occasional PC game and so need Windows to do it.  I’ve got Xander’s system working and need to spend some time on Mitchell’s after I do my morning workout.   Of course, this opens the door for all those PC games they haven’t been able to use for a while which means “Dad, can you install…” over and over again.

I did go through and explore using system profiler to see what runs 32-bit versus 64-bit in the app space.  I also verified that the reports are true that it’s running a 32-bit kernel.  At this point, since I use VMWare’s Fusion, I will be glad to wait a bit till VMWare updates their kernel extensions to 64-bit before trying to run a 64-bit kernel.  I hope the wait isn’t too long.

Overall, it’s a good update and worth the $49 for the family pack (which as you can see, I use all 5 installs).

Post from: Glenn's Daily Script (c)2007 Glenn Thompson. For Downloads, Pictures, and other great content go to Glenn's Daily Script. See Glenn's Daily Script Legal Information Page for Disclosure, Fair Use, Copyright, Creative Commons notices.

Snow Leopard – First Impressions

Mitchell has been primarily using my old Powerbook so he’s already familiar with OS X and likes it (though most of that might be due to the small mouse that he really loves!).

Xander has been using an old Sony desktop so I thought this would be a great opportunity to get him familiar with OS X as well as being able to run Windows via VMWare’s Fusion.

First thing I realized is that I didn’t get enough memory for the system. Kathy is potentially getting that today so the system will get faster right away after install. It’s dog slow right now so it will make it much more usable.

Second, I have some issues with some of the Windows games he was using. VMWare’s Fusion has a video driver but it shows up as SVGA and with a limited set of features so not all games are happy with it. The games he generally plays are not super graphic intensive but they do have some needs. This is frustrating because I certainly don’t want to keep a Windows system AND a Mac system so that he can run games. This should just work. I guess there is an outside chance the memory increase might help since not all error message are truly accurate so maybe it is really telling me something other than the graphics won’t work – like inadequate memory.

Xander and Mitchell like the ability to see movie previews. The browsing has some hiccups but that is because parent control is set up and you have to add things as you go. Other than that, the web stuff he gets at (Club Penguin, Cartoon Network, …) seems to work now.

If I can solve the Windows issues, I will have a great solution. Now if I only had some time to work on this.

Post from: Glenn's Daily Script (c)2007 Glenn Thompson. For Downloads, Pictures, and other great content go to Glenn's Daily Script. See Glenn's Daily Script Legal Information Page for Disclosure, Fair Use, Copyright, Creative Commons notices.

Mac Mini