I C E Y C A K E » OS X

Mac OS X Snow Leopard: More Usable Storage Space, a Myth?

Andy Chan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:36:16 +0000

According to Apple’s Snow Leopard web site, the new cat has a smaller footprint:

Snow Leopard takes up less than half the disk space of the previous version, freeing about 7GB for you — enough for about 1,750 more songs or a few thousand more photos.

One of the reasons could be related to the PowerPC code removal within the universal binaries. Secondly, it is related to the new compiler and linker, which generates a small size of target code. The third reason, which not much people are paying attention to, is the way how to convert from bytes to KB, MB, GB, or TB.

For the past few years, Microsoft Windows uses the base of 10 to calculate storage size. In computing world, 1MB = 1024KB. On the other hand, 1MB = 1000KB in metric world. In other words, a hard drive that has 10,485,760 bytes of available space will be shown as 10.49GB in Windows but only 10GB in pre-Snow Leopard. Now, in Snow Leopard, we will see 10.49GB instead of 10GB.

Do you see the magic there?

Mac OS X Snow Leopard: Instant Review + Upgrade Notes

Andy Chan — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 05:48:39 +0000

Originally, I would like to wait for a couple weeks before installing the new Mac OS X Snow Leopard. However, my co-worker has an extra copy so I bought it from him and decided to install on my Macbook Pro 15″ (non-unity body model). I don’t want to screw up my 24″ iMac, which is my primary workstation.

Here is what I found:

My Epson Workforce 600 All-in-One Printer doesn’t work after installed Snow Leopard. I have to download a new version of the driver and installed Rosetta in order to have my printer/scanner works.
iStat Menu does not work at all. My topbar is naked now.
Developer Version Google Chrome crashes occasionally.

[Update: 09/01/2009 10:00am]

[Update: 09/02/2009 08:20am]

[Update: 09/03/2009 08:57am]

The new iPhone like Chinese handwriting input method is very cool. Your trackpad turns into a Chinese handwriting board. There are 3 virtual buttons on the left hand side and the other 3 virtual buttons on the right hand side of the trackpad. You write in the middle of the trackpad and you pick the words by hitting 1 of the 3 virtual buttons on the right hand side.
Many people mentioned their Macbook Pro runs faster after installed Snow Leopard. Honestly, I don’t feel any difference on my non-unibody 15″ Macbook Pro (the last model before the unibody model).
Apple mentioned Snow Leopard can free up storage space due to the removal of PowerPC code in the binaries. However, it seems Apple changes the way how to calculate storage size. In computing world, 1KB = 1024 Bytes , 1MB = 1024KB, and 1GB = 1024MB. As a result, a 524,288,000 bytes hard drive will be shown 500GB . Using the new calculation, the same size of hard drive will be shown as 524.28GB. Do you see the “magic”?
iStat Menus for Mac 2.0 is just released on 09/03/2009. The latest version finally supports Snow Leopard and it has a minor user interface upgrade.

MobileMe or Not?

Andy Chan — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:25:07 +0000

Today is the first day of Apple WWDC 2009. In the keynote, Apple announced the Snow Leopard, iPhone 3.0, new 13″ Macbook Pro, 15″ Macbook Pro, and the iPhone 3GS. Snow Leopard is a big upgrade for developers but a small step up for end users. On the other hand, iPhone 3.0 is a major upgrade. Hundreds of new features are introduced. One of the new iPhone features is called “Find my iPhone”.

Here is how it works. If you lose your iPhone, you can log on to your MobileMe account and use the cloud to locate your iPhone, play a ping sound, or even erase the data on the phone (getting closer to Blackberry and WinMo finally!!!) Yes, it’s MobileMe again!!! Apple is adding 1 more reason for us to buy the US$99/yr MobileMe subscription.

For all the anti-MobileMe users, will you get it this time?

Google Chrome for Mac and Linux

Andy Chan — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:45:28 +0000

The waiting is almost over!!! According to The Chromium Blog, a developer version of Google Chrome is available to download for Mac and Linux. According to the post, this developer release is extremely unstable and normal end-users should avoid downloading and using it unless you know what you are doing. How unstable?

How incomplete? So incomplete that, among other things , you wont yet be able to view YouTube videos, change your privacy settings, set your default search provider, or even print.

May be I should stay away from it, but it is just so tempting… Oh well, forget about it. Im downloading the Mac version right now and I will try out the Linux version on my Ubuntu desktop at work tomorrow.