Snow Leopard - Benefits and Drawbacks

I bought the Snow Leopard upgrade today (first day of official release). In short, it's a really quick install and just as much of an improvement in the speed up of application and OS start times and shut downs. Yet, it's not without problems.

PRICE:
$29

INSTALLATION:
The installation was extremely easy. Simply insert the disk, ensure there is only one person logged in (main account or one with administrative rights) and run the install. It said it would take about 40 minutes, but it took slightly less. After a quick reboot (which was faster than normal), it greeted me with a slightly different background than that which came with Leopard.

PERFORMANCE:
Applications loaded much faster and behaved faster, as expected. After all, it's supposed to be a migration of the OS from 32-bit to 64-bit.

PROBLEMS:
I noticed the lighter colors looked even brighter than the already impressive display used to provide. However, green color saturation was off the chart. For example, I ran Cheetah3D, only to find that the previous renders I created that normally can be seen in the render manager had all disappeared (extremely unfortunate). After re-rendering a scene I had done before, I found it was overly saturated with green.

You can see the samples below. The first image is what the render should look like, and the second is the one done after Snow Leopard was installed.





As far as any other problems, I can't say, yet. If I find other things wrong, I'll update this article.

5 October 2009 - UPDATE
{
Relatively soon after I notified Dr. Wengenmayer about the problems I was having with Cheetah3D and Snow Leopard, he released an update that solved the colorization issue, along with some other problems. However, PLEASE SAVE YOUR CHEETAH3D CACHE FOLDER. That folder holds all of your renders. You don't want to lose those, now do you?

Another problem I found with Snow Leopard was the fact that my wireless Lexmark Inkjet X6570 drivers weren't working anymore. I had to find the wireless automation wizard install files on Lexmark's site and run those again to get it working.

Cyberduck FTP program also would not work. I used a beta version, until recently.

Inkscape has also ceased to load. I think I might know why, but I'll have to look into a bit more to be sure.
}

CONCLUSION:
Other than being 64-bit, none of the other enhancements of Snow Leopard are really useful or of interest to me. You can read up on Snow Leopard here. You can also read about the color issues from earlier postings from beta testers here.

Windows 7 - Initial Comments

I've been holding off on bothering to download this massive 2.4Gb pre-release. I will be testing both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions. I'm not holding my breath though. I've been using PCs with various OSs, on them for over 30 years. I just read a few reviews on Windows 7 pre-release, and it appears that Microsoft is still trying to dupe the world.

Now, in all fairness, this is a test version, but I found this text on the pre-release download site:

"# If you've installed Windows 7 Beta on your PC, you'll need to back up your data, and do a clean installation of the RC. Then you'll need to reinstall your programs and restore the files, settings, and other information you want to use for testing.

# While we consider this a stable and high-quality pre-release version of Windows, the RC is not the finished product. It could crash your computer or cause you to lose important files or information."

What I found rather hilarious is the fact that that last statement sounds a huge amount like their finished products over the years. They crash and lose your valuable information. Why else do you have so many backup software vendors and hardware solutions? Now, of course I'm not saying that you shouldn't back up your data for any OS, but hey...it rings so true in the case of Windows.

Having seen a review at http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/08/first-look-windows7, I found it quite laughable. Before reviewers compare Windows 7 to Mac OSX, they should actually use both. This reviewer stated how similar the taskbars between the two look, and they're no where close. Take a look:

WINDOWS 7 TASKBAR:


MAC OSX TASKBAR:


The reviewer continued, stating that memory management is better in Windows7. I've been hearing this since the inception of Windows. He states that Windows7 only puts applications you can see in the memory space, not the ones that are minimized. If this is indeed true, how does this work for applications that are supposed to be running in the background (E.g. virus scanners that provide always-on real-time.). Perhaps those programs will be left in their own memory space and only the ones that appear in the taskbar will be managed. Regardless, if this is true, it's at least a long-overdue move in the right direction. What I found, again, laughable is that OSX has no problem with this at all regardless of having multiple applications open and maximized or not.

The reviewer also talks highly of the backgrounds that come with Windows7 pre-release. It's a sad attempt at artistic vision. I bunch of cats, worms, toon doodles, and 3D faces that make it difficult to see your icons. They look much like I would expect from an artist in the 1980s. I guess it's not for me.

The other comments were about how you can have one Windows7 machine gets files and folders from another Windows7 machine on the same network. You can do that already. What did they add? Apparently, it can also get drivers for a device from another machine, such as a printer. Again, you can already do that (as in WindowsXP). It comes with a slew of updated drivers (more bloat in your OS than you'll ever need, which again, is already in earlier Windows releases dating back to 3.1

Also mentioned was the ability to stream media to your WiFi TV. How many people actually have these or can afford them? I bought an HP TV that does WiFi and I was HIGHLY unimpressed with its performance and how hard it was to get connected to the network (which is a function of my network, also). Let's not ignore the fact that Windows Media Center has been a half-baked solution for media fanatics in the past. Trust me, do yourself a favor and buy a non-OS specific media streaming solution, or at least, get an AppleTV. Most of these solutions cost between $150 and $300, and you won't need to fork out another $2k-$3k for a WiFi TV.

More to come...