Lion!

[josh.p.]

I know I'm waaaaay behind the times here, but I've been waiting for any kinks to be ironed out... is it worth upgrading to Lion yet?

[catrancher]

Not really sure on that one Josh.

There are things I like and things I don't.

Of course, with Lion you've got the segway into iCloud. But so far, I haven't been terribly impressed with that. Maybe that's just because it's kind of behind the scenes and doesn't have much of a visible presence.

Other than that, they've done some things in areas that I don't really like. For instance, they've modified the document saving behavior in things like TextEdit, Pages, Numbers, and KeyNote. Maybe others. I'm not sure. If you create a document in any of those and save it, then come back in and make modifications to it, they auto-save it for you. Even if you don't want to. I've had instances where I've created a document, then just closed the application. Normally, I'd expect the dialog that asks if you want to save your changes. No more. It just quits quietly and auto-saves your changes whether you want it to or not. I've lost the content of more than one document that way when I was trying out changes that I didn't really want to save. They call this whole thing auto-save and versions. Wish they'd give me a way to turn it off for each program.

Other things however can be pretty useful.

Full screen can be good. Sometimes.

Mission Control (sorta replaces Spaces) can also be good.

Launch Pad is a waste. Might be OK if you've only got a few apps but if you've got dozens, it's more of a pain to navigate than the just taking a look in your applications folder.

If you use the track pad, the gestures can be useful. I just can' get used to using a track pad.

I like having the app store. But if they change the developer agreement the way they're talking about by having the developers have to conform to sandboxing, it'll probably hurt it. Maybe over time it will work itself out but initially, I'm sure that there's some developers who won't do it.

Resume can be useful. The only problem with it is that it's global. You can only turn it on and off for everything via System Preferences. There are ways you can do it individually through the preferences commands on the command line. And there's a couple of people who have put together small apps that will let you control it on an individual application basis.

I don't know. To me it seems like they're taking away some control I used to have.
I may be old school but I'm not really sure I like that.

All in all, it's an ok update. Just study it in advance and be prepared for some of the changes.

Tom (... still on the fence about it.)

[Slowhand]

I just love you two speaking in Swahili!

[catrancher]

Now Terry, we're not speaking Swahili.

It's a Jobsonian dialect.
Between that and the secret handshake, we've got this teknikal stuff covered!

Tom (... looking for his left handed whamfrazzle!)

[Keith]

yeah best not to ask me, I'm with Tom only then some!

The problem is, it's one of Apple's "the customers dont know what they want until they see it" times. So they mess with things that generally dont feel right but fit in with Apples plans a year from now.

That's how I feel about it right now. Stuff doesnt quite work how I want it to.

However, that's me, old school computer hacker. I've seen people with new mac books and they love it and take pretty much instantly to it.

[catrancher]

yeah best not to ask me, I'm with Tom only then some!

The problem is, it's one of Apple's "the customers dont know what they want until they see it" times. So they mess with things that generally dont feel right but fit in with Apples plans a year from now.

That's how I feel about it right now. Stuff doesnt quite work how I want it to.

However, that's me, old school computer hacker. I've seen people with new mac books and they love it and take pretty much instantly to it.

in spades!

BTW Keith, here's a link to an app a guy did to allow you to mange resume on a per application basis without resorting to the "defaults" command. Gives it a GUI. No big deal. Just convenient not to have to build the thing yourself.

Tom (... please... stop trying to protect me from me!)

[josh.p.]

ahhhh, I'm unsure whether to go ahead with the upgrade or not now! I was all ready to do it but now I'm not 100% sure

[foreverducky]

As a new mac owner, I'm not having any problems with it. But in some ways I'm still getting use to it. Never bought a track pad...those are just weird.

I miss my numbers side bar thingy with a normal keyboard, if that makes sense.

[Tink]

A nine key. You can buy one to add to your key board as a peripheral... I think. (I had one for my IBM lenovo, so I'm guessing you can do it with the Mac too... after all, it is a Mac, eh)?

[catrancher]

Tink is right FD!

Apple makes a complete USB keyboard with a numeric pad. It's not wireless but...

There are other vendors who make wireless numeric keypads for the Mac. Check the Apple store.

Tom (... 1, 2, 3, etc.)