Apple Software

Since having my iMac for a while now, and with all the OS X Leopard hype, I was thinking of getting the upgrade. But before I do, I just want to “ask around” and see if anyone had any significant problems upgrading.

I know Darren had a few problems, but they didn’t seem too bad.

So, please post your thoughts on upgrading. How did it go for you?

The eagerly anticipated release of OS X Leopard is due on 26th October. This is the 6th version of the OS X operating system since OS X made its debut in 2001.

According to Apple there are more than 300 new features, including the “Time Machine” that enables your Mac to be rolled back to an older configuration, like Windows XP restore points.

I for one will be upgrading as soon as I can. Prices start at £85 for a single licence and £129 for a 5 licence family pack.

Well, I’m sorry to say this but I had my second “blue screen of death” on my iMac over the weekend, and it took out my Parallels Desktop 3 install.

I don’t know what happened but I opened Parallels and clicked on the green arrow to start the virtual machine as normal, then the crash happened.

After restarting the machine, Parallels was totally screwed. An error message about the disk image being corrupt came up each time I tried to run it. I searched on the internet to see if I could recover it, and after ages of trying, I couldn’t.

I’m a bit reluctant to re-install my XP virtual machine now because that has made me lose faith in the Parallels program. What if it happens again? I only actually used Parallels to run one program – an accounts package that only runs on Windows, so it’s not the end of the world. I still have my laptop pc.

Luckily, I kept a backup of the accounts so I only lost a couple of days worth of records, which took me 15 minutes to add back in. I now have it up and running on my laptop.

Is boot-camp any good? Has anyone else had problems with Parallels Desktop 3?

I don’t know if many people are aware of this cool little feature of OS X but I have just found it.

You can  zoom in anywhere on your desktop by holding down the “ctrl” key and scrolling your mouse wheel.

I think this must be a default feature because I have not turned it on myself. You can find it in the system preferences under keyboard & mouse. Click on the mouse tab and it is right at the bottom.

You can change which key you use on the keyboard but it defaults to the ctrl one.

Also while you are “zoomed in”, moving your mouse around moves the desktop around.

After using my new mac for a couple of months, I’m always on the lookout for new software etc. Having had a PC for all my working life, you take for granted all the software available. Apple software is becoming more and more available nowadays and I came across this software list on “The Apple Blog”.

Included in the list are the usual suspects such as email clients but the list is focused more on software for using your mac for business purposes.

There are a few good ones in there but I disagree with the mail choice. I used the built in “Mail” client for a while until I purchased Office and now use Entourage. I’m not sure why, but it seems a better email client to me. Maybe it’s because I’m used to using Outlook on a PC I don’t know.

If you know any more useful apps, please add them in the comments!

While I’ve been away for a few days, Apple have launched their very own spreadsheet app called Numbers.

While I don’t really use spreadsheets at all, maybe its a nice alternative to using Microsoft Excel.

Any spreadsheet users out there that will be switching to Numbers from Excel?

One of the things I noticed when using my mac is that there is no “print screen” key like on a pc keyboard.

No fear, to create a screenshot of your desktop, simply hold the apple key + shift and press the number 3. A screenshot image will be created and saved straight to your desktop in png format!

One of the first programs I installed when I got my iMac was Firefox. On my bookmark folder I have a lot of shortcuts to websites that I visit all the time. What I do to save space on the toolbar is delete the name of the website so only the website’s favicon shows.

That’s all very well on a pc, but the first thing I noticed when I copied my bookmark folder from my pc to the mac was that the favicons don’t show at all. Damn, what’s that all about I thought?

A quick search on Google led me to the Mac Favicon theme for Firefox. Install it, set it as your default theme and your favicons will appear!

I’ve just installed Parallels and am in the middle of installing Windows XP and SP 2.

At first glance it looks amazing the way you can run XP in a window on your OS X desktop. I have a couple of Windows only programs and this will be great to be able to run them in their own window whilst running my other mac stuff.

Windows XP running in a window.

Hat tip to the fellas at Parallels!

As I use my iMac more and more I come across things that seem strange to an ex windows user.

For example, in windows, when you have say Firefox open, the menu (File, Edit View etc) is at the top within the browser. However, in OS X, the file menu for it is stuck to the top of your desktop.

Sad as it may seem nut that took me ages to figure out!