Pro

Stuff that is likely to work and I would actually use.

• The usual security and currency stuff.
• Creation of instant folders for selected content.
• Filevault2 encryption.
• Mission Control (Exposé + Spaces).
• Accented character picker.
• Resize windows from any corner.
• Enhancements to Preview application.
• Signatures to PDFs (if it works with third party cameras).
• It is cheap.

Neutral

Either things I am not interested in or don’t have the hardware to support.

• Full-screen applications now integrated and standard. With large monitors full-screen is often a waste of space.
• Icons are now monochrome. Probably harder to see but no big deal.
• Launchpad—I put the Applications folder on the Dock.
• Autosave and version control (some applications). I am not sure about this one, I don’t think I use any applications that support it.
• Added 9 Sept: Autosave and version control only work to HFS+ formatted drives, not NAS.
• Resume (some) applications where you left off.
• Multi-touch gestures (I have no touch pad—should I get one?).
• AirDrop (Mac Pro has no built in wi-fi so it won’t work).
• Reversal of scrolling. I’ll get used to it.
• Facetime (reported no support for third party cameras).
• Some gestures not supported on magic mouse.
• (Reported) side swipes are inconsistent.
• Loss of Rosetta. I never used it.
• Mail and Calendar enhancements (I don’t use them).
• Added 9 Sept: Loss of Front Row (thanks Dozer).

Con

Stuff that will hinder me.

• Loss of grid arrangement of spaces (now desktops). I race around spaces at speed using Ctrl-Arrows.
• Desktops don’t wrap around end to start as you cycle through them.
• Desktops are not identifiable except by content.
• Going full screen creates a new desktop in the list.
• Inconsistencies with dual monitor support such as full screen.
• (Reported) difficulty using copy/paste between desktops.
• Auto-termination of applications which are not being used.
• Wake on mouse “wiggle” disabled (not sure if this is just for system sleep or monitor sleep as well).
• Added 9 Sept: Loss of connection to some NAS devices (thanks Dozer). I am informed by Netgear that my ReadyNAS duo should be ok. Not sure about my LinkSys NSLU2.

At the moment the big blocker is a critical application has not yet been ported but that should be ready in a few weeks finding the time. Then…is it worth it?

• At the “My Apple ID” page
• At the “Support Profile” page
• At the “Apple Store”

They all require the same id and password but each one gives you different information and there doesn’t seem to be any way to manage the account from one place or even to move from one to the other.

But I am also confused about the concept. Are we expected to have one ID (account) each or one per family? If the former then I can’t see how we can take advantage of the offer on the app store to purchase things once and install them on multiple devices. We were better off under the old family-pack idea. What happens if some of the machines (e.g. an iMac) have multiple users who also have personal devices?

If, on the other hand, we are expected to have one per family then what happens when the kids move out (or more extreme cases like divorce)—how can they take their music and apps with them?

What if you buy/inherit second hand equipment; can you transfer the registration? And what happens if you inherit music/apps—after all they would be regarded as an asset on the estate? Or if you marry? I am reading that Apple will not merge accounts.

Does any of this really matter?

Update: 10 August. Some notice is being taken of this problem. A new development is that an Apple ID can only be associated with 10 devices (including computers) at any one time and there must be a 90 day moratorium between switching of Apple IDs on any device.

Update: 8 Sept. Another well though through commentary.

Up until now, it has always been free at source with a recommendation/plea for donations to support the work, which I have done at least once. Now, since Version 3.2, the “donation” is mandatory—you can’t download the code unless you have donated at least $10US within the last year.

Times have changed—it now requires Mac OS X 10.5+ and Intel hardware which must kill off a sizeable proportion of their customer base. Also OpenOffice and now LibreOffice are much more capable. Finally, if you must pay for it, the iWorks components are much more affordable and also offer cross format capabilities.

The only benefit that I have seen from the store is that I may buy Pages now that is is available as a separate download (but curiously it doesn’t say that on the product web site either!)

SuperDuper, Springy, Crossover, CyberDuck, Sbooth Max, Firefox, SourceSource, SoundFlower, SoundApp Reborn, LineIn, LAME, Growl, KeePassX, Perian, Flip4Mac, XNJB, TextWrangler, NeoOffice, Gimp, PaintBrush, Adium, PopFile, Skype, Sonos, Thunderbird, uTorrent, VMware Fusion, Adobe Air, BBC iPlayer, Adobe Flash, Audacity, SilverLight

Anyway, the recommendation is that you change you iTunes password, as always, but also to remove any automatic credit card from the account. This is a good recommendation in any case because these card details held by vendors just in case you should happen to pass by again are at risk if anything subverts their systems.

The snag is, if you don’t happen to have your iTunes registered system with you, either iP* device or computer, then how do you change your account. There is no obvious web site you can login to except by starting up the iTunes software which you don’t have. What is not widely known is that the “Apple-id” that you use to purchase from the Apple web store is actually the same account so you can reset it there. Go to www.apple.com, change to your correct country (at the bottom of the screen), move to the Store and then, at the top right is an “Account” button. Login there and change you details as required.

When looking at problems I was having with the tagging of MP3 files recently, I had the need for something that would unambiguously tell me exactly what tags were in a file and to verify that they were changed when I thought they should be. Although there are a lot of music library programs out there I needed something that would tell it as it was and never attempt to change anything.

So I wrote this program; and very big it turned out to be. Meta data in music files is much more complex than I expected.

Like all my stuff it is a command line program, so no fancy graphical interface and, at the moment, it is compiled for Intel Macs and (since v1.4) Windows. I know that it does work on Sun Sparc Solaris. It is probably good for other platforms too and the source code is supplied for you to port if you want to try. The output is quite voluminous, particularly if verbose mode is specified so be prepared to wade through a lot of information.

Since I first wrote it, it has extended in scope and now reports…

• mp3—
  • ID3v1 & v1.1 TAG structure.
  • TAG+ extensions (not tested).
  • ID3v2.2 frames [added v1.3].
  • ID3v2.3 and 2.4 frames.
  • APE keys [from v1.1].
  • LYRICS3 blocks v1 & v2 (not tested).
  • embedded JPEG images.
• wma—
  • ASF v1 objects.
  • some ASF v2 objects when discovered.
• FLAC native files (not ogg containers yet) [v1.2]
  • embedded JPEG images.
• jpg—
  • JFIF markers.
  • Exif markers.
  • SOF0 markers.
• tar [added in v1.3].

I would like to go to other formats if I can get the information, particularly Apple & OGG sound files and GIF & PNG graphics files. I will be adding basic disk file meta data such as permissions and creation & modification dates pretty soon, though I have a feeling that this will be less portable.

I have created a static support page for the program which includes download links and full instructions on how to run it. In a later posting I will be reporting on some of the things I discovered by using it.

Updated: 23 Feb 2010 to v1.2
Updated: 8 Jan 2012 to v1.4

First I image-copied the boot disk using SuperDuper! This is a great little program that does exactly what it says on the tin and I had a convenient empty hard drive that came free when I bought my new NAS system. This took almost exactly one hour. I had previously verified that copies made this way were bootable A caution worth observing before you do this is to make sure nothing auto-starts at login that modifies data; for example your mail program which could download new mail. Otherwise you could lose things as you switch the boot from one drive to another.

Then insert the DVD and follow the instructions; it couldn’t be easier. It said it would take 55 minutes but was waiting for login in 35.

And then what? … Nothing really. It had forgotten my wallpaper preferences. It went away for five minute to install the first patch (10.6.1 announced a couple of weeks ago). Although it had remembered most of my preferences, some, like the Spaces assignments and the auto-start programs didn’t take affect immediately (I think the second reboot after the patch cleared most of that—Update: Skype seems to ignore its Spaces assignment). Otherwise everything looks and works just the same. I had read about some of the enhancements but wouldn’t have found them for quite a while without being told. I saved 8G of disk space, big deal! And I have so much spare capacity having overspec’d the machine that I can’t see any performance improvement. Never mind, it is a warm feeling being up to date.

Did anything not work? Well I had to re-install Popfile my anti-spam system as the proxy ports weren’t linking up. BBC iPlayer seemed to have a bit of a problem; it kept asking for permission to access my keychain and then proceeded to expire a program I had only downloaded a few days ago. I will have to keep an eye on that one. The Sonos desktop needed to re-register with the Firewall.

What haven’t I mentioned? I must confess to a bit of deception at the beginning. Before step 1, the backup, I had done quite a bit of research and upgraded every program in the box to the latest edition. That is why I am so late in making the move. It wasn’t until last week that all the programs I rely on had been fixed. There are a few others that I am still waiting on patches for e.g. Springy but I can live without that for a bit (the basic program works anyway). Crossover requires a paid for upgrade but a hack has been published for version 7. Update: blowed if I can get it to work. I may abandon that one rather than have to fork out every six months for the sake of a single application.

Update: Canon printing required the driver to be re-installed though the scanner side of the networked MFP was fine. As expected, CyberDuck FTP needed the beta test version installing. For reference Adobe Flash & Shockwave, Firefox, Thunderbird, SoundSource, SoundFlower, LineIn, KeyPassX, TextWrangler, NeoOffice, Adium, µTorrent, SoundApp Reborn, Lame, Silverlight, Max CD Ripper, Growl, The Gimp, Silverlight, Audacity (v2), XNJB MP3 sync and VMware Fusion (I am still on v2) gave no problems at all.

Canon Easy-PhotoPrint required Rosetta, I was expecting at least one package to require this though I hadn’t checked before hand. What is curious is that, when I now look at the System Profiler Software page, almost every program is mentioned twice, sometimes with identical information. I don’t know what is going on there. Update 2: Problem solved; it is using Spotlight and that was searching my SuperDuper copy of the previous system as well as the current one. A quick change to the preferences fixed it.

I still need to thoroughly test the Canon Camera stuff and so I will update this over the next week as I do that.

I purchased and installed Crossover back when I first bought the Mac (April 2008) to enable me to run this one program, and it has been fine. I don’t need any more features from Crossover and have never had to call on their support. So when their support ended after six months it didn’t bother me too much at the time.

Now Snow Leopard has come out and for about £20 I have received my DVD. I have been checking all the software I need for compatibility and the majority have already upgraded or are in the process of doing so. All but one has at least a beta version available and that includes the freeware. There is no patch for my version of Crossover and, if there was, I could not download it because my support has expired. They do have a new version which does support Snow Leopard but to get it I have to re-purchase the product to bring my support up to date; That is $40—more than the MacOS upgrade itself!