Book Review: Mac OS X Snow Leopard For Dummies

Some people think we're a nation of dummies. Well, if the writing style of "Mac OS X Snow Leopard For Dummies" is any indication, we must be collectively smarter than I thought. The book is a thorough look at Snow Leopard. Perhaps too thorough for the "Dummies" moniker with sections like "Understanding Nested Folders" and "Zapping the PRAM." Again, these are clearly explained, but maybe this all too much for the first-time Mac (and maybe even first-time computer) owner. Bear in mind this is a book that starts with an explanation of what the power button looks like.

In this same spirit, some sections might over complicate things or scare the newbie. For example, this discussion on properly shutting down the Mac:

Turning off the power without shutting down your Mac properly is one of the worst things you can do to your poor Mac. Shutting down your Mac improperly can really screw up your hard drive, scramble the contents of your most important files, or both.

As a newcomer, I might wonder just what I got myself into.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard has plenty of thorough information on the OS and a few of the included apps, but it tends to hide that information between swinging between being written for a complete newbie, and as a complete Snow Leopard manual for all users.

Snow Leopard: Our Observations

Snow Leopard is now purring along here at TDL. Just on one computer right now, until we make sure there's nothing that would bring anything to a crashing halt. Here's the experience so far:

Apple packaging: Kudos to Apple for slimming down the dvd box to what is probably the absolute minimum. 

Shipping logistics:  Apple must've done tremendous work behind the scenes to get all these copies out nearly simultaneously today. That might be the under-reported story: The coordination with FedEx is so slick now, I imagine with future/bigger product releases we'll see Apple finding creative ways to release products at specific times.

Disk Space: Before the installation, the MacBook Pro test machine was perilously close to being out of space at 4.5GB. After installation, the system reports 17.89 GB of free space. I don't think I've ever installed any software before and gained space. A quick note though: bear in mind the way Apple reports disk space has changed in Snow Leopard, so really, i"m probably at about 14GB by the old math. Whether it's from elimination of PowerPC code, (but remember, they had to add 64 bit code) or truly a slick optimization of the OS, that extra space is really nice when you're on the verge of running out.

Mail: Just a heads up that as with Leopard, your mail messages will need to be converted into a new format when you first launch it. It's amazing how many different times lists of mainly text messages can be re-formatted. The process is faster than it was with the Leopard upgrade.

Safari: Safari does seem a little faster. If that's just a fresh cache dump or what will be apparent over time. Also, please Apple, put the refresh button over with all the other navigation buttons. I know we've talked about it before, but it's an easy thing to change, or make into a preference.

Quicktime X: Maybe I'm the only who feels this way, or maybe no one's speaking up, but I prefer to have some player around my media. I'd rather have plain grey around a movie I'm watching in QuickTime, rather than the video being up against the background image.

Performance: Startup and shutdown do seem noticeably faster, beyond that, it'll take a little more playing with it.

Don't forget you can ask us your Snow Leopard questions Monday night during TDL Live, Monday night at 9PM ET / 6 PM PT. 

Snow Leopard Takes Two Spots in Amazon Top Ten

Taking a quick look at Amazon's Top Ten selling software titles reveals Snow Leopard at #2, just behind Microsoft Office Home and Student for Windows.

Snow Leopard also registers at #4 with the Family Pack upgrade, which I find to be an interesting anecdote on how honest Apple owner can be, (or a cynic would say gullible. Be gone, cynics!) Between the two versions of Snow Leopard is Big Kahuna Reef, a free XP download. So technically, two of the top three paid software spots are occupied by Snow Leopard.

Apparently a lot of XP users are headed back to school and saying, "you mean it doesn't come with Office!?" which has pushed it to #1. The Mac version of Office Home & Student is #6 on the list.

Is that where you expected Snow Leopard to be? We sort of assumed it would be #1 during the launch.

Snow Leopard Day: CNET Weighs In

Many of you are trapped at the office today, and maybe you can't wait to get out of there and go pickup Snow Leopard. Or maybe you have a PowerPC Mac and can't install it if you want to. Either way, you probably want to learn more about it, and what better way to do that than to watch a quick video while you're at work?

Here's CNET's (or is it cnet like the logo? or c|net, or, oh nevermind) "First Look" at Snow Leopard:

Snow Leopard Day: Pogue Explains

Snow Leopard Day continues, with David Pogue's always fun video skills on display in this quick overview. For those who can't watch the video at work, Pogue's thoughts can be summed up in this quote:

"The same thing, just smaller, faster, and more polished."