On logging in for the first time, there’s a couple of things that will strike you straight away:

The Dock has been radically changed. It now sports a 3D look, along with reflected icons. Gone are the small black arrows to indicate running applications, instead you have a glowing blue light which I find is nearly impossible to see.

Click for larger size.

The menu bar has a new “theme”, it’s now translucent, the Apple icon has been changed and the Spotlight icon has been updated. A lot of users have complained about the translucency, but my desktop picture is black along the top, so I’ve hardly noticed it.

Click for larger size.

The Finder has been updated, and the folder layout on the left now resembles iTunes. The folder icons have also been updated.

Click for larger size.

So they’re the main visual differences between Tiger and Leopard. When I get a chance, I’ll post more about the other big changes.

I usually don’t go for installing new operating versions until they’ve had time to settle down and the developers have had a chance to release updates for the bugs that invariably crop up. This time I decided I would bite the bullet and go for Leopard straight away.

I’ve never installed Mac OS before, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Coming from a Windows background, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to reinstall Windows – and what a tortuous experience that can be. (After working tech support for so long, I have the Windows mantra down pat: “Backup, format, reinstall.”)

As it turned out, installing Mac OS was a lot easier than installing Windows: pop the disk in the drive, double click the installer icon, and click the restart button. The machine automatically boots from the DVD drive, and the install process begins.

There are three options to choose from when installing a new version of Mac OS:

• Upgrade,
• Archive and Install, and
• Erase and Install.

The first option installs Leopard over your existing OS, keeping your data and applications intact. The second makes a backup of your previous installation and installs Leopard, and the third wipes your current installation and then proceeds to installation.

I went with the Upgrade option as I didn’t want the hassle of reinstalling my applications and starting again from scratch. Once you click the “Continue” button, that’s it, no further user interaction is required. In all, the process took about an hour to complete, and when my MacBook rebooted at the end I was straight into Leopard.

Some users have reported problems with their installs hanging after the reboot, but apparently the problem is due to an unsupported extension for Logitech mouse drives. More seriously, there have also been issues with the built in firewall, so if you’re using your Mac on an unprotected network, you might want to invest in a full firewall product. The only problem I had was that I had to re-enter the encryption key for my wireless network connection, even though it was already stored in my keychain. Apart from that, I had no installation problems. Now it’s time to play with the new OS.

If you’re lucky, Apples iSync will recognise your device, in which case you’re pretty much good to go straight out of the box. However, if you have a smartphone that isn’t recognised by iSync, who’ll have to splash out on a 3rd party solution.

I recently purchased the HTC S710, which unfortunately, it isn’t recognised by iSync. After a quick Google search, I came across “The Missing Sync for Windows Mobile“. Missing Sync allows you to sync via your Network, Bluetooth or USB. Providing plugins for your Contacts, iCal, and all your multimedia content, Missing Sync has all the bases covered. If you have Microsoft Entourage installed, it will also provide a conduit to sync your data directly with Microsofts attempt at a PIM for the Mac OS.

Setting up your device is straightforward and I was up and running within minutes of downloading the program.

Costing $39.95 for download, or $49.95 for the CD version, it’s certainly worth it if you have to sync your smartphone with your Mac.

The process is fairly straightforward:

1. Download the Orb software to your Windows PC,
2. Follow on the on-screen instructions and install the Orb program,
3. Set up a login account,
4. Start the Internet Channel on your Wii and go to mycast.orb.com,
5. Login to your Orb account,
6. Browse for the audio, video or photos that you want to play.

In order to get the best from Orb, you do need a broadband connection, and your Wii needs to be connected to the Internet. Although it does work, I found that watching videos through the Orb interface is patchy, but that is more than likely down to the fact that my upload connection is terrible. Another thing – at the moment the Orb software is Windows only, but apparently they will be releasing beta versions of the platform for Mac OS and Linux next year.

In order to use Joomla, you need three things: Apache, PHP and MySQL. Individually, these are easy enough to install, but getting them to work together can be a bit of a headache. Config files need to be edited, file permissions need to be changed, servers need to be started and restarted, and it can be a bit daunting, not to say time consuming.

That’s where MAMP comes in. An acronym for Mac, Apache, MySQL, PHP, it’s a collection of all these programs in one handy installer that does all the work for you. It took a couple of minutes to download and about 30 seconds to install. Once installed you have a full Apache server, MySQL server and PHP 4 and PHP 5 installation. Better still, it doesn’t interfere with any other Apache, MySQL, or PHP installations you may have running, and it’s controllable from a handy Dashboard Widget.

Once MAMP is installed and running, it’s just a matter of downloading the package and installing Joomla. A simple browser-based installer guides you through the setup, and within minutes I was up and running. The only issue I came across was that the permissions of the Joomla folder had to be updated to allow the installation. It was just a matter of selecting the folder, holding Option-I and changing the permissions for “Others”. Done and dusted.

For those of you not on the Mac platform there are also versions for Windows, Linux, and Solaris available, along with a Joomla Standalone Server (Windows based).

Cormac from macBlogger has more on the new iMac specifications, along with some very pretty pictures.

Because I’m so new to Mac OS X, I spend a lot of time looking up ways to do things with my Mac that to longtime users seem simple. Until now this research involved a lot of time on Google and a lot of time just playing with different programs and utilities, just looking at what they do. One of the programs that I discovered recently is Sherlock.

Sherlock is basically a search interface connected to several different internet sites. Within Sherlock, these connections are called channels. So there is an Internet Channel, an Ebay Channel and an AppleCare Channel among others.

From my point of view, the most useful has to be the AppleCare Channel. This allows you to search the Apple database for articles on all aspects of your Mac. Think of it as the Apple version of the Microsoft Knowledge Base. So far it’s proven invaluable in finding out about my Mac, what I can do, and how I can do it.

As Sherlock aggregates various online resources, you do need an Internet connection. But once you are online, it’s definitely worth using. There’s a wealth of information available out there, it’s just a matter of getting to it.

If you’re new to OS X, then have a look.

First up is the news that Apple have upgraded the specs of their MacBook line. The basic MacBook now ships with 1GB RAM, up from the previous 512MB. The processor has been upped from a 1.8GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo to the 2GHZ version and the hard drive is now 80GB. Considering that I just upgraded my MacBook from 512MB to 2GB, the new specs could have saved me €30 or €40.

Though with the upcoming release of Leopard, (Mac OS 10.5), you might want to hold off buying one to ensure that your MacBook comes with the latest OS.

First off, locate the Firefox.app on your system. This is normally in the Applications folder, but can be installed elsewhere. Control-Click the file and select the “Show Package Contents” option on the pop-up menu. When the package contents folder opens, double click the “Contents” folder and locate a file called info.plist

. Open this file in your favourite text editor.

The next step is to insert the following lines into the text file. The following lines must be inserted in alphabetical order:

<key>LSUIPresentationMode</key>
<integer>4</integer>

Here’s a hint: it goes before the NSAppleScriptEnabled key.

Start Firefox and you’ll notice that the both the menu bar and the dock are no longer visible. To access either of these items, just move the mouse cursor to the normal location of the dock or the menu bar.

This will work with any application, so if you’ve ever wished that you could use the full screen area for an application, that’s how you can do it.

I originally found this hint at Mac OS X Hints.