Snow Leopard 1
I have not been a long-time Apple Computer user. I got my first and current 20″ iMac a few weeks before the release of Leopard which was about October 2007 and took advantage of the $10 upgrade price for that OS. I was curious about the OS and the fact that it is now Intel-based and therefore I can load Windows if I don’t like it. Besides, I kind of like the minimalist design of having a desktop without a big honking tower and monitor combination. Back then it was only Apple that had the all-in-one designs, not like now were almost every Windows PC manufacturer has one. What I really like though was the sunflower design which was I think about four designs back, but that was still a PPC-based machine.
Anyway, I liked the simplicity of OS X and the fact that it has everything native or already part of the OS for calendar, mail, simple photo editing and movie making, PDF, web site, and a lot more. It was easy to use and I
Snow Leopard 2
never had any reason to load Windows on it except via Parallels which I later on decided that I don’t use or need. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a post to prove that OS X is better than Windows, since I still use Windows, at work and for school work. I never had a problem with using Windows and I think it gets a bad rep with regards to virus and computer problems just because it is the OS in almost every computer and people who had problems just don’t know how to maintain their computers. But I digress. So when Apple released the latest iteration of OS X named Snow Leopard, I bought a copy of the upgrade disc at Amazon for $25, sans tax or shipping. A good deal if you ask me since the disc is even going for $30 at Apple’s own store. I bought Snow leopard after reading about how it ill be a true 64-bit OS and will therefore take advantage of the Core 2 Duo of my 20″ iMac. Most of the pre-release reviews pointed out that most of the features added are minor compared to the upgrade from Tiger to Leopard. Some even call it Leopard Service Pack 2. But most agree that its improvements are more under the hood in terms of stability, security, and making native applications run faster due to the OS being 64-bit. It also has the added bonus of having Quicktime Pro included when before you have to shell out $29.95 to get it. So that in itself pays for it.
Snow Leopard 3
I bought the disc by the end of August but hold off on upgrading because a friend of mine told me to hold off till others have done it just in case there are compatibility or other issues. That is not really a big issue for me since I don’t have a lot of programs installed on it. The real issue is really finding time to do it as I don’t have a lot of free time between school and work. There were reports of a bug that guest accounts deleting files but again not an issue for me since plan on doing a back up and a clean install. I always prefer doing a clean install even on a Windows PC as it gets rid of the gunk and stray registry that builds up from years of installing and uninstalling applications. And it is more fun!
So last weekend, not really having any free time, but itching to do a clean install I loaded the Snow Leopard upgrade disc on the iMac after I was able to get this instructions off the the web on how to do it. My plan is to clean install and maybe at a much latter date, add via boot camp Windows 7.
Basically the instruction will have you load the disc, then access disc utilities to erase the hard drive and then restart to boot from the disc, from then it is just a matter of clicking next and agreeing before you hear the familiar opening tunes of Honeycut’s Exodus Honey. Don’t forget to backup, remove any password for existing usernames, and deauthorized your computer for iTunes.
Snow Leopard 4
It was so easy. Backing up using Time Machine and also doing duplicates on another external drive took longer than the installation of Snow Leopard. The whole clean install took about 30 minutes and it took me another hour to put back my data and install Office for Mac and other applications. The only problem I encountered was setting up my Google calendars again and I think it is more an error coming from Google’s end than OS X. It keep crashing when it tries to update the 5 calendars I have on Google. But after I deleted the account and added it again, it worked fine and was stable as ever.
So far I have to validate what the earlier reviews say. Applications like Office for Mac applications like Word and PowerPoint loads faster and even Firefox which I have been having issues with on the iMac loads images and flash videos quicker. Quicktime has this modern look and I have tried the video and audio recording feature and it was great. Playback of the recording did not show any artifacts or slowdown. I like the feature of having a folder on the dock for applications and clicking on it display all the iMac’s application in a grid. Overall, I am satisfied with Snow Leopard and have not had any major issues. I won’t call it a must-have upgrade especially since Leopard is a stable and never had a problem with it. But with Quicktime Pro, the other small improvements it offer, plus having a 64-bit OS that takes advantage of your Core 2 Duo machine, it is not something that will break the bank for the price of admission.