Visit the Moom website for more information, demos, and a free trial. Moom is only $5 to buy, and is well worth it for something I use every day. You can download the program directly from the developer, but it is also available on the Mac App Store.

The above text was my post to Twitter this evening. It’s true. I woke up my Mac Mini tonight and in the middle of writing an email on Gmail.com in Safari, the entire OS failed, resulting in a dimmed, dark screen saying to power off my computer and restart. I’d never seen that before in my life. A report was sent to Apple. What in the world could have happened? I only had three open programs at the time. Let’s hope I never see that message again.

I snapped a photo of my screen with my camera for evidence, but I’m not going to include that photo in this post because the screen showed information in my Gmail account with too much personal data.

In my opinion, the number one most glaring omission on Mac OS X is the lack of a true maximize button. As a former Windows user, I’ve always found this puzzling and odd. Fortunately, that issue is eliminated with Cinch. Try it now. I absolutely love it.

Snow Leopard locks out old PowerPC users, as it available for Intel processors only. I’m at the shallow end of that requirement, using a two-year-old Mac Mini with an Intel Core Duo. You can visit snowleopard.wikidot.com for a list of potential software issues with the new OS. So far for me, in my tests, Cyberduck (FTP) won’t launch at all on the new OS, and Firefox 3.5.2 crashed once. A few other applications that I use have issued updates for 10.6 compatibility today. Expect more to come over the following days. I haven’t tried to load all of my apps yet.

In my short usage so far, the most notable difference is seem in performance and in the Dock. I’ve barely scratched the surface. Expect more posts to follow! Meanwhile, visit Macworld for updated information!

I probably sound like a crazed Apple fanboy, but it matters to me, being the Mac, iTunes and iTouch user that I am. Apple is the center of my computing world today. Hooray for OS X. In my opinion, it’s the best operating system on the market.

• apple.com
• apple.com/macosx

• apple.com/macosx

• blitzcraig.com/mac

1) When I work with a credit card account, I must enter all balances as negative values. When I reconcile my statement with iBank, if I don’t put a minus (-) in front of the balance, even if it is in the thousands of dollars, the program just accepts it, wrecking my calculated balance. This is pure stupid. If they are going to use this horrible method of managing credit accounts, at least provide a warning against entering a positive value.

2) Reconciling statements on any account is very counter-intuitive and confusing. I have to relearn how to enter statements every time I enter one. Anyone used to using Quicken or Money will have a hard time for months trying to figure this out, and I am still baffled at the hoops I have to jump through. Transactions have a date and a time associated with them. Every time I reconcile a new statement, I have to change the time of the final date in the period to 11:59 PM, because the program insists on putting the current time, each and every time. Stupid!

3) When I enter a new transaction that has no recipient name (such as ATM transactions), iBank automatically fills in the recipient field with the last transaction entered. So, if I went to Target yesterday and entered it in iBank, then went to the ATM today, when I save the new transaction today, iBank will insert “Target” in the field for the ATM transaction, despite the fact that it is entered in the ATM/Cash category!

4) When I start to enter any memorized recipient on a new transaction, I still have to manually capitalize the first letter. For example, if I type “lowes”, which I frequently visit, if I start typing the name with a lowercase “L” it fills in “Lowes Foods”, except it displays as “lowes Foods”. I have to manually capitalize even the memorized transactions! Did a bunch of monkeys code this program?

Today I was presented with the final nail in the coffin for iBank. iBank routinely notifies me of any software updates when I launch the program. I typically exit the application and download the update. When I install the update, it says it can’t update because some process of iBank is still running. This has happened with every single update I’ve tried to apply. Only a full computer reboot will stop the error. Is iBank still running something in the background after every use? What?! Today, I used the program and when I was notified of a new version 3.32 update. I restarted the computer and tried to install the update. The update would not install, and after that iBank will not load at all, saying that the program is not compatible with my Mac system.

I’ve had it. Full price for iBank is $59! That is double what it is actually worth. I didn’t pay full price for this program when I bought version 2, which was less expensive, and I received the free upgrade to version 3. I have now deleted the program and will go back to using the frustrating Quicken 2007. Quicken was due to release a new Mac version called “Quicken Financial Life for Mac” this winter, but their website now says it will be pushed back to the summer of 2009. I think I can tolerate Quicken 2007 until that time. I just can’t overlook my frustrations with iBank any longer.

I wrote a post back in May that outlined my favorite software for the Mac. In that post, I cited AppDelete as my favorite such uninstaller. While that program is free and quite adequate, I have recently began to favor the program AppZapper. It seems to be more robust than the AppDelete program. AppZapper is $12.95 to purchase, but the company allows five free uses before you must purchase the software. I am very impressed with it so far, and think that $12.95 is a very good price for this program. I now recommend it as my primary method of completely uninstalling various applications and everything that is associated with it. Try it yourself.

This needs to change, and now. And while Apple is adding that preference, extended the automatic Bcc option to include an address that is not limited only to myself. And furthermore, the mail checking intervals could use some more options than the paltry list that is currently included in Mail.

I’ve been using Windows since version 3.0 was released in the early 1990s. Switching entirely to the Mac operating system took some getting used to. Having used Windows XP for years, and often tinkering with Linux, I can say that OSX is the best operating system on the market. I’ve used Tiger (10.4) and now use Leopard (10.5). Currently, Leopard is on version 10.5.4.

Still, I am not all praise when it comes to Apple’s OS. Below, I have listed some features/changes that I want to see in future updates to 10.5, or in the future 10.6 release, due in 2009. I’m sure I can come up with many more, but this is simply a conversation starter.

CRAIG’S MAC OSX WISHLIST:

1. Add a true maximize button to all windows. Currently, I like how the green plus sign usually resizes to make information display correctly automatically, but I want true maximization. True maximization is having the application window as large as it can be, barring space for the menu bar, and the Dock (unless on auto hide). Another button doesn’t have to be added, necessarily. Simply toggle the green plus button with, say, the Apple key, or CTRL. As a former Windows user, this is a glaring issue for me.
2. All web browsers should have a fullscreen mode. This is achieved by hitting F11 on Windows/Linux systems. Safari, Firefox, and Camino all lack the fullscreen browsing mode on the Mac OS. Why is this? Ironically, Opera has one that does this on the Mac. That is proof that it can be done. Make it so!
3. Add more features to the Dock preferences. A button to toggle a 2D or 3D appearance should definitely be there, just for starters. Too often, one has to access the Terminal to enter commands to edit the Dock.
4. Make it easy to add Dashboard widgets directly on the desktop. There is a way to jump through some hoops to do this today (via Terminal), but Apple needs to make it upfront and easy.
5. Include an option in the system preferences to turn the Dashboard off all together. Again, today we use the Terminal to manipulate this behavior. Come on!
6. Make the built-in OS firewall more obvious. A new install should at least tell you what it is set to by default, and explain the reasoning behind it. I don’t want it in my face, but a new user should be told upfront what it is doing for you in the background, then leave you alone. I had to search it out to find the firewall, and it was vague when I found it.
7. Time Machine needs to give the end user way, way more options. The on/off option of backing up every single hour, or not at all, is way too broad. Hacks and third-party tools shouldn’t be required to tweak the Time Machine.
8. With Spaces, I want to be able to switch to another space with a mouse gesture of some kind.
9. Mail needs more options for the mail checking schedule. I want to set mine to 10 minutes, but I can’t. I can only choose 5, 15, 30, or 1 hour. Fooey!
10. Apple needs to be more open about the updates to the OS. Each point release should be accompanied by a detailed list of changes, or at least as much as possible without compromising security.

Again, this is just a list a threw together. If you have more to add, then please comment on the post. If I think of more, I’ll do the same. In the future, if I come up with a lot more, I’ll make a new post.

The following is my advice to Apple: Apple is riding so high today, with both the iPod and iPhone’s superstar product status. Considering that Apple and Intel are now all hugs and kisses, I would like Apple to turn the Mac OS loose for anyone to use on any Intel platform. Once 10.6 is ironed out, they could throw down the gauntlet to Microsoft and take Windows head on with the PC desktop market. The top exes at Dell have even said that they would sell the Mac OS to buyers, if Apple agreed with fair terms.

Considering my own Mac Mini is “Intel Inside”, I feel like anyone should be able to run it. Why does Apple want to fight it? Apple’s computers will still sell on their own awesome design merits. Still, I don’t think they’ll do it. Perhaps they suspect that Microsoft would yank their long-term commitment to future Mac versions of Office if they did this drastic maneuver. Who knows.

Despite all that, the best new feature, as far as I’m concerned, is Spaces. It is the one feature of the OS that I can’t function without. The grace and ease of hitting F8 to see all of my Spaces at once is just great. At first, I didn’t make much use of it, but over time, I have come to utilize a four-desktop system that makes me much more productive. I put my email and chat program on one desktop, web browsing on another, and iTunes on yet another. It is so much better than using a single desktop with all of my open applications in my way. Now, when I want to start something completely different than what I’m running, I switch to the empty Space and start from there.

Spaces is so terrific that if you’re still using Tiger, I can’t help but feel sorry for you. I once tried disabling it, and Leopard suddenly felt like a caged animal. I know Linux has had an option for multiple desktops for a long time, and it gets the job done. Also, not everyone agrees that Spaces on the Mac is as great as I make it out to be. It depends on your computing habits. But to me, it’s great!

• Browser: Safari, Firefox, Camino (I use Firefox the most, but Safari is defaulted)
• Email: Apple Mail 3, or Gmail (web)
• FTP: Cyberduck, or FireFTP (for Firefox)
• Online Chat: Adium, or Meebo.com (web)
• Finances: iBank 3
• Office Apps: MS Office 2008
• Calendering: iCal
• Media Player: iTunes, Quicktime (with Flip4Mac wmv plugin)
• Photo Editing: Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0, iPhoto ’08
• Video Editing: iMovie ’08
• Web Authoring: Dreamweaver CS3, or Taco HTML Edit (simple)
• Disc Burning: Disco
• DVD Ripping: Handbrake
• File Compression: CompressFiles
• File Decompression: The UnArchiver, or Stuffit Expander (UnArchiver is better)
• Bulk File Renaming: Renamer4Mac
• Backup: Time Machine
• Anal Application Removal (beyond dragging to Trash): AppDelete
• Virus Scanning (rarely used): ClamXav
• Satellite Imagery: Google Earth
• Fun/Games: Second Life, Pokerstars

The first backup of my data took quite a while. It had to back up around 30 GB and it took most of the night, around 8 hours or so. Fortunately, only the original backup would take anywhere near that long.

I have to say I am impressed. I am now getting my full money’s worth out of my Leopard upgrade. Time Machine works exactly as advertised, running seamlessly in the background. Now, after a week of backups, I can “travel back in time” as I flip through my folders and files. So cool! I think Time Machine could use a lot more options, though. I don’t like that it wants to back up every hour, take-it-or-leave-it. I don’t want my external drive spinning up and down all the time. I have my music library on the adjacent partition of that drive, and I don’t want it wearing out faster than it should.

Fortunately, you can download a free app that will give you more control. No installation is necessary, either. The app is called TimeMachineEditor and it allows you to easily change the intervals of the backups, without using the Terminal. Using the editor, I changed my backup interval to every six hours. Give it a try, it’s great.

The crucial feature in Leopard for me is Cover Flow. I mentioned in a recent post how I’d been on an uploading spree with Flickr. In deciding what photos were worth sharing, I turned to Cover Flow to flip through my photos and folders. It was the best experience at such work that I have ever had! This feature for me is my absolute favorite. Even on my Mac Mini, flipping through material in Cover Flow is as smooth as silk. Unbelievable. Quick Look has already shown to be a real time-saver as well, but I am less excited by it as I am Cover Flow.

The new Mail 3 is really good. I love the RSS feeds and have actually been using them! Previously, RSS feeds weren’t something I much cared about outside of the occasional visit to Google Reader. The reminders are just great, too. Small details like a progress bar for incoming and outgoing mail are certainly welcomed changes. Mail 3 also offers a variety of stationary for rich text messages, though I have no interest in that. As a whole, Mail 3 fits my needs perfectly. Since installing Leopard, I haven’t used Gmail nearly as much as I had prior, since I enjoy the new Mail so much.

The new Stacks feature, which fans your files upward from the Dock to show your files, is actually pretty cool. At first I was skeptical as for the need for this, but now I like realize the benefit. It can probably be customized to show something other than the Downloads folder, but I am happy with it as-is for right now.

Spaces is not much of a time-saver for me. I actually decreased the default number of Spaces from four, down to two. I have experimented with putting windows in either space and toggling between them. While it is a cool feature, I don’t run enough things at once to take advantage of this. Too often, I’ll move a program to another Space, only to later need to drag a file from a folder to that program, only to realize they are in two distant Spaces. The best I have found for my needs is to put Mail in the right Space all by itself, and leave the left one for everything else. I have pondered the thought of disabling Spaces all together, but will try to make use of it.

I’d like to tie a complaint of mine about the Mac OS to the Spaces feature, and this issue was present in Tiger as well. When I minimize a window to the Dock, and later use cmd-tab to cycle through the running programs, I want the minimized window to get back onscreen when I choose it this way, automatically. This behavior is what I am used to with Windows. But on the Mac, when I minus the Mail down to the Dock, but later want to toggle to it with the keyboard, it doesn’t reappear on its own! If I could have the option to set Mac OS to behave this way for the tab program switching, I would have little need to enable Spaces.

I still have not enabled Time Machine, or even researched my plan to partition my external hard drive. I will work on this in the future. For the moment, I am still backing up manually. One thing I will voice complaint about is that my USB hard drive randomly spins up without me provoking it. While using Tiger, this did not happen. Now, it is awakening itself regularly for an unknown reason, even though I know I am not using it.

Leopard has plenty more great features than what I have listed in this post. I just want to write and touch on my first experiences with some of the ones that I have come in contact with the most. As for Leopard, Apple should be releasing 10.5.2 any day now. From what I have read, this should be a very large update.

Initially, I wanted to wait until I’d explored the new OS in detail before I made this post, but I’ll go ahead and share my first reactions. I am pleased with it so far, although I have only tinkered with it for two days now. I like the new features offered in this new version, most notably the new Safari, Mail, and Finder. Quick Look and Cover Flow in Finder are both fantastic, and are both features we’ll be wondering how we ever lived without. Safari 3 runs lightning fast in Leopard and outperforms the old version by a long shot. I am stunned at how slick and quick Safari has become! Spaces and Stacks are also nice. I hope to put those to some use.

I haven’t yet enabled Time Machine, one of Leopard’s biggest features, and one that I am most interested in. I already have an external USB hard drive that is many times the size of my internal drive. I do not want the entirety of this USB drive to be used for Time Machine backups. I want to try to partition the drive before I enable Time Machine, or limit its database size. I want to still use the drive for other purposes besides backups. I am still not clear on how to accomplish this.

The new transparent menu bar across the top of the screen is a change that has many users balking. I actually like it very much! To the eye, the new Dock and menu bar are what set Leopard apart from previous OS X versions. The new appearance of the Dock does take some getting used to. While it is very pleasing graphically, it eats up more screen real estate. I should add that the blue orbs surrounding active programs on the Dock are not nearly as obvious as the old black arrows from Tiger. Still, that doesn’t deter me from appreciating the new look of the Dock.

There are tons of subtleties that I have found in 10.5. I’m sure I’ll pick up something new every day. I’m sure I’ll post more as I explore and learn more about this elegant new operating system. Cheers to Apple for raising the bar, yet again.

I pay attention to what is universal and what is not, to try to get the most performance from my Intel processor. I am pleased with the number of apps that are already universal. For those that are not, Rosetta does a seamless job of running them anyway. The only single problem in this arena is the Shockwave Player from Adobe. They still have not ported that app to universal code, and the only way to run it on Intel chips (for now) is to force Firefox to run in a Rosetta mode in order for the player to be usable in the browser. I have no intentions of trying this. For now, I have left that program off of my machine. Hurry up, Adobe!

• I have Photoshop CS installed, which I love. Only the newly released CS3 version is written in universal code. Still, CS runs just fine on my system. I toyed with the idea of buying Elements 4 for the Mac, but I wonder if Adobe will come out with version 5 soon that is universal. After all, it has a version 5 for Windows. I’ll wait and see.
• Obviously, I downloaded Firefox for browsing. It is my browser of choice on any computer, but I have found Safari to be a nice browser on the Mac that is nicely integrated into the system.
• For email, I use Gmail a lot of the time, but I have settled into the Mac Mail program included OSX. I did this mainly because iPhoto only wants to email photos from that particular program. I have found the mail to be quite cool indeed. The program highlights other messages in the inbox that are related to that one. I like the paper airplane sound when I send mail!
• For FTP, I downloaded Cyberduck, an open-source program.
• For messaging, I am using Adium. It is free and universal as well. Adium, in particular, is fantastic in that it is far and beyond better than comparable programs that I have used before.
• I bought Quicken 2007 at the store and I am pleased with it so far, though I have spent less time in that program than others. I converted my data file with ease and the program looks very nice. Until now, I’d been using the 2005 version on Windows. The only downside to the Mac version is in that the price is so much higher!
• I have Office 2004 installed on my Mac as well. I did not install Entourage. Office and its programs are not in universal code, but Microsoft has plans to release version 2008, which should to be.
• Burning discs is very easy using the Finder, but I acquired a copy of Toast 7. I have only used it a couple of times, but I am thrilled to have an application that is as powerful as Nero Ultra, which I was using on Windows.
• For archives, Finder handles .zip files with ease, but for other formats, I downloaded the free version of StuffitExpander. I’m glad that .rar extensions are supported. I have a lot of files that I packed in that format.
• I don’t have a web editor yet, other than iWeb which is on here, but I don’t know much about it. The free Nvu program is very lacking and I can’t recommend it these days, even though they do have a Mac version. I did download the free Taco HTML editor for OS X and it is a very capable text HTML editor.
• Quicktime handles all of my video needs for now. And a .wmv video format plug-in lets me play all of those files, too.
• iTunes runs better on the Mac than in Windows. It runs great on Windows, but one subtle difference is that when you move music files around in the Finder, iTunes automatically keeps track of where it is and plays it instantly (even if a file is moved to the trash). In Windows you have to search for the file and point iTunes to it again.

Those are the programs I have used so far. I am sure there are more to come and to explore. The bottom line is that you can do anything and everything with a Mac. Again, I’ll say the hundredth time, I’m hooked!

I have added a new category to the blog. This is the first post to the Mac category. Also, while this post is still hot, expect a lot of new Mac and Apple related material from my del.icio.us bookmark feed on my Links page.

I know Apple lives up to a high standard by working “hand in glove” (as they put it) with the hardware (which they also produce). But why not license it to quality manufacturers and, if they so decide, not offer it as a box on the shelf? For example, the Windows Media Center Edition 2005 is technically the latest release of Windows XP, on media steroids. You cannot walk into Best Buy or CompUSA and buy this OS on CD. It only comes pre-installed on new computers sold by participating manufacturers. If Microsoft can do this, then so can Apple. Apple can set a minimum level of PC performance required to effectively run their flagship OS smoothly, and poof, everybody can have an affordable machine running the splendor that is their operating system.

I certainly cannot ask them leave physical PC business, because all of their hardware products are so very sleek, stylish, and cutting-edge. They make some fantastic products and always get top rankings for customer satisfaction the PC magazines I read which conduct these surveys. Apple just needs to open the flood gates and really widen their software business. I suppose they already have, by making more applications in recent years, notably the iLife and iWork for the Mac, as well as strengthening their iTunes and Quicktime offerings. I think they can broaden their appeal by actually appealing to the masses instead of a niche audience, as they do now. The mass success of iPod, iTunes, and their surprising deal with Intel has put them back on the map, and on the path to broad consumer appeal. They need to embrace it by offering their goods and services to a wider audience.

Every young adult wants an iPod, and to use iTunes, both of which are the best of their kind. Apple is in a position today to rattle the computer industry with this bold move. A victory of such, and Apple may finally reverse their market share, which has suffered ever since their poor decision not to license their platform to outsiders back in the 1980s, opening the door to for Microsoft to run the world for the past 20 years.