h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Someone had to start the thread, and it's been a whole day since Tiger is out. Are we getting lax?

I think we need an h2g2 Dashboard widget.

I'd vote for that one! I'm here enough!

Is it better than 10.3.9 then?
Will it run on an old G3 iMac?
Is it worth shelling out £89?

turvy

It's too soon to tell if it's better than 10.3.9, the only bugs I have seen so far have been minor. The new features are certainly neat, but I don't know that they make this a "must buy" for most people. It might become one though when other software begins to rely on things like "core graphics", and if you need to use something like xgrid yes it is a something that you should buy. The Macintouch review is a pretty fair assessment of who needs it and who can wait.

I don't know about the G3 - I think the cutoff is whether your iMac has firewire or not, but you should check the Apple specifications.

Here's what I think so far about the most talked-about features:
Spotlight - a really useful, better implementation of something that's been around a long time
Dashboard - mostly eye candy
Safari RSS - The RSS is great, but where it is really cool is in the new screensaver
Automater - I haven't used it yet, but this is going to turn out to be my favorite new feature

The pertinent part of the Macintouch review:
http://www.macintouch.com/tigerreview/tiger4.html#conclusions

I installed Tiger on my iMac G5 this weekend and have to say I love it! The spotlight feature really will change the way you use your computer, especially if your hard drive is crammed full of documents and images that you can't keep track of. Dashboard is certainly eye candy, but potentially useful eye candy! I find myself using the Thesaurus all the time, and plan to put my Roget book on eBay now. Automator makes AppleScript writing a thing of the past (Thank heavens).

I'm counting down the days until I can buy it for a much larger discount through Penn State's program. Hopefully by that time, they'll have got the minor bugs worked out, too.

Rutgers announced their discount program two days after I bought it. This is the first time they've done an Apple deal, otherwise I would have waited.

Thanks for the link d'Elaphant.

I am a light home user that just loves the Mac platform. I am forced to use a PC at w*rk (Yes, I do know the rules but this should be an exception, especially in the Orchard!).

If and when I finally replace the iMac - not in the near future - I should imagine that the new machine will come with Tiger installed.

turvy

MacIntouch also have a useful listing of incompatabilities at http://www.macintouch.com/tigerreview/incompatibility.html and of updates and patches to deal with such things at http://www.macintouch.com/tigercompat.html

Its worth noting the issues with a few major utilities (in case you get into strife while installing and decide to use them to recover)
Norton Utilities is now history (don't try it on a Tiger Disk. It won't be updated)
Norton Antivirus partly works, minus automatic scans, but will be updated.
DiskWarrior shouldn't be used until you update, but the update isn't available yet.
TechTool Pro 4 have provided a patch for compatability, but there are a few horror stories about it already.

So stick with Tiger's own "DiskUtility" for the moment when working on a Tiger disk.(You can access it when booted from the DVD by heading to the "Installer" menu on the menubar)

Before you update make sure you repair permissions and check the integrity of your directories.

If you decide you want to start with a clean slate take a look at http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/04/29/tiger.html François is one the "Level 4's" on tghe Apple discussion boards and knows his stuff.

Adam Engst's "TidBits" has some good advice too. http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-778.html

Personally I just did a VERY thorough maintenance run (permissions, directories, Unix housekeeping, font checking, etc etc) and then used the simple "Upgrade" process, without getting into trouble.

Cheers

Rod

I've always done the regular upgrade for all versions of Mac OS X and never run into a problem. My own take on upgrading: 1. Backup important documents, etc. 2. Do a regular upgrade. 3. Run disk and permission repairs.

I do understand that following all the other procedures can avoid potential problems, but it can also be very time consuming - more time consuming than just doing a regular upgrade and seeing what happens. If you do the regular upgrade first and do run into problems, you can still follow the full procedure and have only lost about 30 minutes time, but if all goes well you've saved a considerable amount of time.

I have created a Dashboard widget that does absolutely nothing but say "Don't Panic!" (in large friendly yellow letters), and go to random edited guide entry when you click it. Not worth sharing yet, but give me time.

Looks Like I will need to waite a little longer, untill the software I use has had a upgrade.

By then Apple will have at least 10.4 2

Lightman