Leopard Due October 26th?

[webman]

He's just an out-and-out mac hater.

 

Yes, but I have my reasons.

 

Which is a shame for him as Apple have done a hell of a better job with leopard than Microsoft did with Vista in spite of the odd teething problem.

 

I quite agree, Vista sucks as well. Apple are the lesser of the two evils though considering its BSD underpinnings. I hate using closed, proprietary, and expensive operating systems and software.

[Rozzer]

I have had leopard since the release and i have to say its not made me go WOO!

 

I mean it looks a bit better and there are a few more extra features but nothing amazing.

 

Ross

[torledo]

The early macbook pros are rather bad when it comes to reliability though. There was some fault with the logic board that affected 2 out of 3 of our first production run 15" mbp. One failed just after the warrenty ran out, the other within the first few months. The third might have done too but it was stolen so I have no idea.

 

I'm really trying to find out whats improved in os x server but it seems to be mostly lots of stuff that really wasn't needed while the things that desperately need improving were ignored. I moved to 10.4 very quickly, 10.5 seems like it can wait a while.

 

You may have a point, depends really on what how you use your existing os x server. Calendar Server is a great idea. Great if you don't have an existing exchange or domino setup. Not even sure if exchange does cross platform calendaring very well. Wiki server i have no interest in.

 

Podcast producer is a great idea - great compliment to the superb QTSS.

 

They've moved setting up file sharing to Server Admin where it should have been from the start.

 

However not sure the changes to the server admin gui itself are an improvement.

 

System Image Utility has some improvements. preset automator actions in SIU 2 is a nice little idea - not really a huge improvement if you're already handy at scripting post install tasks. But that's the whole point of the improvements. Making things easier to deploy get the novice admin to get up and running quickly. The good thing is 10.5 seems to have retained the power and flexibility of 10.4

 

I'm already itching to upgrade - 10.4 was a huge improvement over 10.3

10.5 is less of a big step forward but they've definitely refined it further. Managed preferences and mobile home folder options needed improving and seem to have been improved upon.

 

Ofcourse 10.5 now comes with RoR and Mongrel - so you can start developing and hosting Rails apps out of the box....Niiiice!!!!

 

What I'm hoping for is Apple to come out with a new 2U rack server and some ideas for os x server 10.6...ZFS, XSAN 2.0 and virtualization.

[GrumbleDook]

My main thing is trying to see whether the SMB mapping issue that seems to affect some people is fixed in mixed environments.

 

However, most places I know are not going to swap until at least Easter after considerable testing ... we won't move until Summer and Leopard will just be for a few staff.

[GrumbleDook]

I have the server documentation ready to read sometime to see if that has anything extra.

[torledo]

I have had leopard since the release and i have to say its not made me go WOO!

 

I mean it looks a bit better and there are a few more extra features but nothing amazing.

 

Ross

 

I must admit the new dock made me go woo!!

 

Also, we'll probably move over to leopard next summer - wait for a few updates and fixes to the numerous issues that are likely to be discovered.

 

Had a number of issues to deal with in tiger server until 10.4.9 when they seemed to have finally fixed all the bugs and issues that were affecting us.

 

Best advise with os x server was to resist the urge to do delta updates if things were stable Which will probably ring true for leopard aswell.

 

Hopefully around summer we may get to a stage where it's relatively hassle free for production deployment.

[Rozzer]

I found the 10.4.9 update to be a pain for me. Caused time sync issues when i updated all my clients.

 

I do the like the new stacks and the new dock is nice but the little blue dots are annoying I want a nice big arrow to tell me which app i am running.

 

Ross

[DMcCoy]

So, I've been playing with it for a few hours on my mbp, I've yet to find anything new that is not annoying or is actually useful. Spaces is quite nice, but there are programs for windows that does this that are less than 1MB.

 

Can anyone point out any useful features? anything at all that improves network managment.

 

Not a moan, I really am curious as to what apple have been up to apart from changing stuff that was perfectly fine. And you can't accuse me of being a windows sympathiser as I have a new iMac to replace my main pc here turning up this week

[HodgeHi]

I find the stability to be a lot better. Finder seems to be able to recover a lot quicker than tigers.

 

Apparently mounted drives (not sure if its just network afp) are multi-threaded. How this changes things i don't know as i haven't tried connecting yet.

 

I do like Leopard, but i also have found things to be slightly irritating. Like the cover flow. Really nice but you cannot right click on the actual icons in the cover flow window. You have to use the list underneath. I think this should have had a context menu option too.

 

I have been using the server now since release at home (took me a little time to get DNS working right) and must say it is quick and very stable.

 

I have yet to test it with leopard client but will do as soon as i am well. I am looking forward to using the recording feature of Automator. Could prove quite useful.

 

I have also yet to test screen sharing feature. Someone mentioned the calendar service. I had a little play with configuring the service for users (i admit i did not RTFM) but could not get it to work.

 

Anyone managed to get it up and running with a client?

 

Re-connecting to an airport extreme wifi network seems quicker though.

[HodgeHi]

Time machine is very good. My brother had to use it the other day and it saved his bacon.

[torledo]

So, I've been playing with it for a few hours on my mbp, I've yet to find anything new that is not annoying or is actually useful. Spaces is quite nice, but there are programs for windows that does this that are less than 1MB.

 

Can anyone point out any useful features? anything at all that improves network managment.

 

Not a moan, I really am curious as to what apple have been up to apart from changing stuff that was perfectly fine. And you can't accuse me of being a windows sympathiser as I have a new iMac to replace my main pc here turning up this week

 

Having played briefly with it a few days ago it's definitely not a major upgrade - as for changing stuff that was fine i can't agree with that. The small tweaks make a lot of difference. The use of the new blue folders with the slightly darker coloured icons is Very cool. I'm someone who hated the folder icons in previous releases and the folder icons in Vista. The new finder is not a radical change but anything is an improvement on the old finder. I'm hoping the radical finder changes proper appear in 10.6

 

Time machine is a good idea. Yes, Windows and the OEM suppliers have a plethora of backup options for Windows so it's not earth shattering, but for a lot of home users a straightforward to use backup app for their imac is handy. One thing I've realised is how little beyond the odd bell and whistle Microsoft have changed Vista from XP - and they've had 5 years during which time they've spent more time ruling out features that were once moooted so that they could get a product out of the door, and guest what? they were still late!!!. Apple in a 2 and a bit year timeframe can't be expected to reinvent the wheel and compared to what Microsoft have done they've done a great job.

 

The 3D effect dock is another design tweak that freshens up an aspect that was looking tired. Don't forget the dock has barely changed from NextStep days. You might call a lot of this eye candy, but it's actually about improving the visual user experience. Something Apple understand much better than Microsoft. (I'm not having a go at Microsoft it's just they're the only people we have to compare to the Leopard team)

 

Every release of os x has been an improvement on the previous version. I don't see 10.5 being any different. There's no single compelling reason to upgrade from 10.4 but the hassle and barriers to upgrading don't exist as they do for a vista rollout. Even the decision to abandon support in 10.5 for the G3 makes sense.

 

10.4 in a network environment had all sorts of bugs and niggles that took several updates to sort out, even then every update seemed to break something else. If 10.5 can reduce this as much as possible while retaining the good things about 10.4 (namely Server Admin) I'd be happy. Network and mobile home folders too are improved in every release - that's compelling enough for me. Plus it gives a chance for newer features in 10.4 to improve and mature such as Software Update. Plus, what's not to like about the Calendar server. Admittedly, a calendar server is not a good enough reason to go and splash out on a quad core xeon xserve. I thing Apple will need to up the ante in 10.6. On the server they need to incorporate ZFS, upgrade the XRAID or come out with a 2U xserve and incorporate a virtualization product. On the client they need a *new* finder and again ZFS would be nice. But I'm really not convinced theres' the will to accomplish any of this in their current two year release cycle.

[GrumbleDook]

Ok ... things that I think are for the better.

 

These are from things I make use of as a user, not as an administrator.

 

Boot Camp ... no longer in beta. Worth noting.

Automator has been improved, I have nearly finished my rss feed and blog tool to take timed snapshots of me (using iChat) and bang it into a .Mac based blog. Purely proof of concept but for a non-code monkey like me things are improving.

Dashboard is getting better, building your own widgets. I have a few based around collecting threads from a range of rss feeds from different forums. Bring them all into one place.

The new desktop ... I will hang fire on this as a number of things were fine for me.

Stacks is good, but I had similar already, it is a UI thing.

Spaces are fun, but frustrating when windows of the same app are in different spaces, in spite of saying not to. I have yet to work out whether this is just me being thick or something is not working the way it should.

Core Animation. It is making an improvement in performance for those that multi-task in a range of multimedia based apps. I like ... very much.

There are a variety of UI changes and some might be improvements for me but a pain for others and vice versa.

iChat, if you use it then there are lots of good things ... if not then there is little to say.

Quick Look and improvements to preview are nice.

Most other things I would say are a refresh but I'll be able to say it is worth it once we get a few machines on the domain and start playing with them.

I also have to wait until the next budget to get Leopard Server, but will try and look at the webcasts that are coming up about it soon.