Musings of a Marketing Maven » Leopard

A Hybrid Notebook

Christine — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:04:20 +0000

It’s taken longer to get here than expected, but I can now run either Windows Vista or Mac OS X Leopard from my MacBook Pro. What a treat — both operating systems on a single notebook that weighs less than 6 pounds. This will be a great convenience when traveling to work at a client’s office.

Better yet, Vista runs faster, more smoothly, and with better video support on Apple’s device than the laptop I bought 18 months ago from Alienware. Somehow, Alienware and Nvidia just couldn’t be bothered to update the graphics drivers on the Alienware device.

Once again, Apple trumps all other tech vendors for quality of user experience…

Leopard Update

Christine — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:26:43 +0000

Well, it took a couple of hours to backup the hard drive and then install Leopard on my MacBook Pro. So far, so good. It’s been fast and very reliable.

I haven’t done a thorough test, but so far, most of my applications are working just fine. The notebook recovers from sleep even more quickly than before — within a couple of seconds of opening the lid. (I wish my PC Vista notebook could perform like that!)

So far, the only compatibility issue I’ve had is with a one-year-old version of Google Earth, which failed to launch. To be fair to Google, I haven’t tried to install a more recent version.

What a stark difference between the experience of installing Vista as an upgrade to a Windows XP notebook, and installing Leopard as an upgrade to Mac OS 10.4 “Panther.” Nine months later, I still lack drivers to support the full capabilities of my PC notebook. I’ve given up hope that those drivers will ever arrive.

As for Leopard, let’s hope this positive experience continues to be the norm on my MacBook Pro!

Leopard: Living Dangerously?

Christine — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:39:47 +0000

Our Leopard 5-pack arrived today, ready for installation on our Macs. The Mac geek discussion boards have been full of cautionary tales, so I’ve backed up my MacBook Pro and will test compatibility there before installing on any other Macs.

It will be interesting to learn how Leopard compares to Tiger (Mac OS X 10.5 versus 10.4.9) — and how the overall experience compares to Windows Vista on my PC notebook.

I’m particularly curious to see how the new UI lends itself to organizing documents, applications, emails, etc., by project (or in my case, client/project). If what I’m imagining is true, this could be a very useful way of simplifying the Mac workspace at times when we’re working on multiple concurrent client projects.

And if I’m wrong, it will have added needless complexity.