Snow Leopard: Days 1-2

Thanks to a pre-order from Amazon on August 3, a copy of Snow Leopard arrived on my doorstep August 28. The install was uneventful–typical of Mac OS X installs. I put in the DVD, clicked through a few dialog boxes, went to run a couple of errands. When I got back, I logged in as usual.

So far, I haven’t noticed many differences between Leopard and Snow Leopard.  The few of note:

  • Hard drive space.  Before installing Snow Leopard, I had around 14GB of free space.  After installing Snow Leopard (and the latest version of XCode) I have 27GB of free space.  It’s quite a bit more freed space than the 7GB Apple advertised
  • Printing.  I have a HP LaserJet 1022.  I had to re-install it after upgrading to Snow Leopard and use an Apple driver.  It still works just fine.
  • Battery Status.  Apple added information on battery health.  Since my MacBook Pro is closing in on 3 years old, the “Service Battery” message is most likely correct.  Apple Support already has a thread about it.  Another thing I’ve noticed which may also be new to Snow Leopard is that I’m getting battery life percentages for my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse as well.
  • Character/Keyboard Viewer.  A new widget in the upper-right of the screen.  I haven’t found any particular use for it yet.
  • Mail.  When I first started it, the app prompted me for some sort of upgrade.  Once it was done, the notes from my iPhone showed up under a Reminders item.
  • Quicken.  I’m still using Quicken 2007 for Mac, so I saw a little prompt about Rosetta when I first launched it.  What I really need to do is get out of Quicken 2007 into something else, but that’s a subject for another post.

I can’t say I’ve noticed any speed differences one way or the other so far–but it’s only been a couple of days.

A use for XCode that has nothing to do with writing software

I came across an old MacWorld tip while searching for a quick way to compare an iTunes folder on a backup drive with one on my new laptop.  FileMerge turns out to be quite a capable tool for comparing folders as well as files.  It made it a lot easier to figure out what was missing from the laptop and sync it to the backup drive.  It took awhile, since we’re talking about gigabytes of music files, but it worked.