Leopard a Disappointment

Being somewhat curious about the new Leopard OS, I decided to install it onto my brand new iMac. The new desktop looked really cool. Then I opened Photoshop. I was very happy with the new mac and the speed my apps opened up in Tiger. But when I opened Photoshop in Leopard I was quickly disappointed. Compared to Tiger, Leopard is lethargic when opening up my Adobe CS3 apps. In addition to that, Photoshop began to give me error messages when I tried to open a file. After searching for some time on google I found several threads about Leopard and CS3 issues. Since I rely on my mac for work on a daily basis, I am not ready to troubleshoot these kind of issues, so I have reverted to Tiger which I will stick to until Apple and Adobe work this out.

Also, I thought that the new Time Machine backup/archival app in Leopard would be useful. Time Machine uses an external hard drive to back up your main hard drive. Unfortunately it needs to delete any files already on the external drive. I have two externals. One I use to save all my working files onto, a practice I began years ago when all I had was my wimpy G4 Titanium. I recently bought a second drive to back up the first, just in case.

While some people may find Time Machine worthwhile, if they save all of their files onto the internal hard drive, I don't think I benefit by doing so. First of all, I don't want to bog down my internal drive with millions of files. I would rather keep the drive only for my apps and necessary files. Keeping all that space also helps when you need it for video and large graphic Photoshop files which utilize it for a scratch disc.

So for now, I'm sticking with Tiger

Got A New iMac

Well, I finally broke down and bought a new iMac. Since I use the mac for business as well as pleasure, I got the 24" monitor with the 2.8 GHz processor, 500MB hard drive and upgraded the RAM to 4GB. I've only been using it for two days so far but I can truthfully say that THIS BABY FLYS!! Thats right. Compared to my old 733MHz PowerMac, this is one mean machine. The biggest difference is how quick apps like PhotoShop, Illustrator, and Flash open up. Before I would open a app and take a walk around the room as it booted up. Not any more. Click the icon in the dock and BAAM! I think it took photoshop about five seconds to open up. And now that I have all of this hard drive space I can safely set my scratch discs higher and work on larger files without bombing. Sweet.
Of course there are other things about this mac that I also like. The monitor is really vibrant and bright. I was using a 20" NEC Accusync monitor, which was a high end monitor a few years back. It was, and still is a great monitor. CRT screens are great for color reproduction which is vital when doing print work. However, the damn thing is HUGE! Once I moved the NEC and put the iMac in it's place I was amazed at how much desk space I had. Now I don't have to shove my external drives under my desk or up on a shelf.
And then there is the iSight video cam. No more taking shots on my camera and transferring them onto the drive. I'm really excited to experiment with the video chat application and see what that's all about.
Unfortunately this iMac did not come pre-installed with Leopard. The upgrade disc is sitting on the desk and I keep on looking at it. My co-workers upgraded a few weeks ago and they've had some issues with Leopard, especially when using InDesign and some of the other CS3 apps. I'm hesitant to upgrade for that very reason, but after watching the Leopard intro video on Apple.com I'm curious to give it a try. I was very interested in Time Machine, Stacks, and the Video Theatre, as well as the desktop sharing features. Of course, I don't know a lot of people who are using Leopard, other than the co-workers, so who am I going to video chat with anyway.
In the meanwhile, until I make up my mind, I'll be happy opening apps in the blink of an eye and looking at this amazingly bright clear monitor. Sweet!!
Heres a snapshot from the cam. Harley was a little jealous of all the attention I've been giving the computer.