Posts Tagged ‘Snow Leopard’

How to Use Spaces in Snow Leopard

December 16th, 2009

Many Snow Leopard users are unfamiliar with the feature called ‘Spaces’ in Snow Leopard, and that’s sad. In my opinion, Spaces was one of the best features in Leopard and it hasn’t of course been thrashed in Snow Leopard, but many Snow Leopard users doesn’t take advantage of the feature, and that can only be because they doesn’t know how to use it.

If you are one of the mentioned, that doesn’t know how to use Spaces in Snow Leopard, we have made this video to show you how you use it:

Configure Spaces

Spaces can be configured the way you want it, as you can see on the video above. To configure Spaces, just enter System Preferences, by clicking the Apple icon in your upper left corner, and then ‘Preferences’ as you can see below (click to enlarge).

System Preferences Button

Then head for the ‘Exposé and Spaces’ button

Screen shot 2009-12-16 at 15.50.15

… and then the window below will appear

Spaces configuration

Here you can adjust Spaces as you want. You can choose up to 16 Spaces, and if you have two screens in your screen arrangement you will now have 32 different ‘desktops’ or ‘work spaces’  instead of two.

In the Spaces Preferences, you can choose if you like cmd, alt or ctrl to switch between spaces, while directing with the arrow keys or the number keys. You can also choose which F-button you like to activate Spaces (to see all spaces at once). Standard key for this function is F8.

How do I use it?

I use Spaces all the time. I like to play a game called Football Manager, but I want to surf the internet and chat with my friends at the same time. My solution is, that I have my game in Space 1, my Mail application in Space 2, Internet in Space 3, and in Space 4 I have Adium and iChat.

Since I have two screen in my arrangement (the one that’s on my MacBook Pro and a separate 19″ screen), I can control two applications at once in just one Space, and if I want to listen to music in iTunes, I just open iTunes in the Space that I use the most (probably the one with Football Manager ;-) ) and then drag it to the screen that doesn’t run the application I use.

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And… Another 10.6.2 build

November 5th, 2009

Mac OS X 10.6.2 Build 10C540 has just been seeded to developers and contains several fixes, even though it arrives just one week after the otherwise most recent build. To sum it up shortly, the new Snow Leopard build fixes a pretty serious data loss issue, which was first mentioned around the 13th of October. The bug was apparently related to guest accounts, and resulted in loss of huge amounts of data.

Also, the new build contains full native support for the all new Magic Mouse as well as an Airport issue with the new iMac and VMware, which just introduced a new version with improved 3D graphics called VMware Fusion 3. Finally, the new build also contains several minor fixes, such as an Apple TV graphics improvement.

That’s all for this lunch, so go ahead and enjoy it!

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Trash freezing incidents in Snow Leopard

October 14th, 2009

Numerous Mac users who have upgraded to the latest Mac OS X release, 10.6 Snow Leopard, have informed us of a problem which causes the trash to freeze upon emptying it, when it is set to be emptied securely. At first, we believed it to be isolated incidents, but reports kept arriving and as soon as yesterday we actually experienced the problem ourselves.

The problem may occur if you have set your trash to empty securely, and there are several items queued for deletion. The trash will simply hang during the process. To get out of it, you can either cancel the process by clicking the icon to the right, or restart finder by going to “Force Quit” in the Apple menu. Some even report that cancel doesn’t always work. If you experience the problem and do not care much if the trash is being emptied securely or not, just go to Finder’s preferences and uncheck the “Empty Trash Securely” and everything should work nicely again.

Enjoy your lunch!

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Another 10.6.2 build – Fixes several major issues

October 10th, 2009

Today, the Apple developer community received another Mac OS 10.6.2 build (10C519f), which addresses major issues such as Core Data, video corruption and a problem which caused System Preferences to freeze.

The optical drive issue noted in the first Mac OS X Snow Leopard build (10C514f) however, does not yet seem to have been fixed. We therefore still advise developers and users to consider this, before they update to the latest build of Mac OS 10.6.2 and start testing it. We expect another build to be seeded soon, as there are still major issues left to be addressed.

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New version, VMware Fusion 3, to introduce improved 3D graphics

October 7th, 2009

VMware has announced that they are working on, and will introduce its virtual PC application called VMware Fusion 3 on October 27.

VMware Fusion is an application that allows you to run Windows applications and Mac OS X applications simultaneously. VMware Fusion has more than 50 new features and improvements, including Snow Leopard and Windows 7 compatibility.

VMware Fusion 3 will include more than 50 new features and enhancements, delivering a better-than-ever Windows on Mac experience.  Key highlights include:

Optimized for Snow Leopard. Built from the ground up for the Mac, VMware Fusion 3 leverages Mac OS X Snow Leopard’s advanced architecture with a new 64-bit core engine and native support for the 64-bit kernel, delivering even better Windows on Mac performance.

Ultimate Windows 7 Experience. VMware Fusion 3 will be the first to enable the full Windows 7 experience, side-by-side with your Mac, complete with Windows Aero and Flip 3D.

Switching Made Easy. VMware Fusion 3 will make it easy for users to bring their entire PC to their Mac in a few easy steps – wirelessly or with a simple Ethernet cable – allowing customers to protect investments in existing Windows software, and to keep using the programs they still need.

Best-in-Class 3D Graphics. Support for OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3 will enable users to run their favorite 3D Windows games and applications – all without rebooting.

VMware is currently available for pre-orders only, but will be released on tuesday, October 27. On Amazon.com they have suggested a retail price of $79.99, but after the release you can buy an upgrade from VMware Fusion 2  for $39.99 from vmware.com/fusion.

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Mac OS 10.6.2 on the doorstep

October 6th, 2009

Since the operating system’s 28th August launch, only the 10.6.1 software update has been released. A new build (10C514f) of Mac OS X Snow Leopard was seeded to developers today, and includes a number of minor bug fixes. Interestingly though, is that the seed notes notify of a known issue with the optical drives, resulting in possible incapability of disc ejection and media recognition, which then means that the DVD Player may freeze when trying to read the disc. We strongly advise developers, who have interest in testing the new build, in keeping this in mind when installing the Mac OS 10.6.2 Build 10C514f.

Some of the most notable the fixes and improvements are: Address Book, Core Animation, Core Audio, Core Data, Core Graphics, Core Text, File Manage, Graphic drivers, Help Viewer, ImageKit, Networking, OpenGL, Speech Recognition, Sync Services and Xtype.

Also read our Snow Leopard review and enjoy your lunch!

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Snow Leopard review compilation – Mac OS X 10.6

October 6th, 2009

Shortly after the release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard, we wrote a longer review of the OS, which we split in seven posts due to the length. This is simply a compilation of those posts, so you can get the full picture of the review.

snowleopardbox

Heard of it, caught and tamed it – Review of Snow Leopard, part 1
- First impressions and the upgrade

Heard of it, caught and tamed it – Review of Snow Leopard, part 2
- Spaces, system preferences and dock

Heard of it, caught and tamed it – Review of Snow Leopard, part 3
- Quicktime Player X

Heard of it, caught and tamed it – Review of Snow Leopard, part 4
- Around in the corners
- Startup and shutdown times
- Chinese handwriting for multi-touch trackpads

Heard of it, caught and tamed it – Review of Snow Leopard, part 5
- Printers & trackpad character recognition
- Dictionary & Preview
- Microsoft Exchange & iCal

Heard of it, caught and tamed it – Review of Snow Leopard, part 6
- Boot Camp
- Screensaver & incompatibility

Heard of it, caught and tamed it – Review of Snow Leopard, part 7
- What can iChat do?
- Ok, but what’s new about iChat in Snow Leopard?
- Conclusion

So that’s the entire review. Now go ahead and read it if you wish, and enjoy your lunch!

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Apple investigates SuperDrives issue

September 30th, 2009

As we have reported earlier, several incidents of SuperDrive failures were reported to us. The SuperDrives either responded inappropriately or not at all, after many users had installed Apple’s latest OS, Snow Leopard. We were very aware of that there was a problem, but it has been difficult to determine the scale of it. But it seems to have occurred enough times for Apple to contact a number of users who have experienced the problem of SuperDrive failures and start an investigation of the problem.

We will try to keep you updated, and provide information of potential fixes as it becomes available. Enjoy your lunch!

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