If you were looking for a funny or heart felt blog like last weeks… Sorry to disappoint… This is totally geeked out!
My New Pet
We have a new big cat in the house… it’s a Snow Leopard. Some people fear big cats but you have little or nothing to fear here!
I pre-ordered the family pack last week and It showed up with free FedEx shipping on the first day it was on sale! It comes in a small package with less documentation than previous operating systems. Snow Leopard is being called an upgrade, but it’s really more like one of those automatic software updates. It adds some enhancements to Expose, Stacks, and most noticeably an improved Quicktime.
I became a Fan on Facebook and one of the first things I saw was a video posted on Snow Leopard first impressions. Which led me to YouTube, where I viewed a few more and I found this one below. I think it better outlines some of the major new feature and improvements. It’s a fairly quick overview and worth the watch! (The audio only come out of the right speaker which is a bit annoying).
Some people ask “Why would I pay $30 ($10 each in the family pack) for an update package?”. I can answer that in one word – SPEED! It’s the finder system that now takes advantage of duo/quad/eight core systems with a true 64 bit engine. So if you have a DuoCore you will notice the difference right away! Once you install it you will feel like you just bought a new faster and better laptop or desktop.
I was going to wipe out my back-up hard drive, but since I had read enough positive install reviews, I went for the jugular and loaded on my main drive. On my Mac Pro, I have 4 hard drives plus the Drobo (3 – 1.5 tb drives raided) back-up disk (a total of 7.25 terabytes of space). I have two OS disks (my current and my previous), one disk split for misc Files and PeeCee files, and two 1/2 tb drives that are raided together to protect my clients Project files. Then all that is backed up every hour using Time Machine!
So what do I think? I absolutely love it! I can tell you that the computer boots almost twice as fast. Programs (like Fireworks) open twice as fast, and web pages are loading almost 4 times faster. Some news stories from Yahoo used to take almost 30 seconds to load but now they take less than 5 sec in the new Safari 4 (I thought it was a problem with my AT&T UVerse but now I know better!).
Since I use two physical 17″ monitors, Spaces (8 Screens) and Expose… I love the new features. Just writing this blog I have 4 Safari windows open right now (with multiple tabs). Just clicking and holding the Safari, it opens all (in an Expose fashion) and I can click one to view it! Very useful and cool!
The other big improvement is the updated Quicktime X. Now you can do things that you previously could only do with Quicktime Pro (a $30 upgrade). You can create screen recordings (Screen Casts) and audio recordings. I will talk about this more in the next section.
Overall… The speed and new functions are well worth the upgrade cost and the installation from Leopard to Snow Leopard was fast, painless, and worth the price of admission!
Grab it Baby!
Part of my work includes training. One of my favorite tools is doing screen casts with various tools. I had bought Camtasia Studio years ago for PeeCee. It was the de-facto standard since it did all the work for you. It would compress the files to flash, create the “Please Wait – Loading” movie, and even create the HTML pages to display on a web site.
Since I switched to running my PeeCee on my Mac using VM Ware, I was hesitant to update a PeeCee only program. So I bought a really solid program called Screen Flow ($99). It does some very cool things and is fairly easy to use, but it lacks some of the features in Camtasia Studio. The new 2.0 upgrade addresses some of those needs, but it’s a $29 upgrade for me (free if you buy now).
But I have Good News… Camtasia for Mac is here! It’s a scaled down version of the PeeCee iteration of studio but still has most of the major features I use. It’s on sale for $99 also. It has a more video style editing window. It does allow you to add audio, create transitions, add text and shapes and more. I think the call outs (making one part of the screen bright and the rest darker) are easier and cooler in ScreenFlow. The biggest advantage to Camtasia for Mac is the export. It flows right into You Tube, makes the same HTML as the PeeCee studio and even has a smart export for mobile devices (Something mentioned in the ScreenFlow upgrade).
Although the new Screen Record feature in Snow Leopard will serve some just fine, both of these packages offer features well worth the $99! Even better… you can download a 30 day free trial of each and decide which offers you the best fit for your needs!
Bonus Video of the week!
For all my small business consultant friends…. This comes to you via a Facebook post by a talented graphic artist and fellow teacher at Waubonsee Community College, Lisa Smith-Youndahl… It shows you what it’s like, sometimes dealing with clients who just don’t get it! (P.S. none of my clients are like this… wink-wink)!
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