I had the unstoppable urge this morning to upgrade my Mac’s operating system to the newest version, 10.4, otherwise known as Tiger. It was introduced by Apple in April but I wait a spell after major ugrade releases for the company to squash the inevitable bugs with updates. With such fixes, they’re now at version 10.4.2, so I figured I was generally safe.
I took the 1 train down to the CompUSA near the Time Warner Center and bought a copy. I could have saved about $30, mostly in taxes, if I would have ordered from Amazon.com, but as I said, I was a man on a mission.
I spent the past few days backing up vital files on my computer. I’ve noticed the problem I’ve had as hard drives get bigger is that I’ve gotten lazier about keeping my files archived. HDs used to be so small, I had to archive things like mp3s and digital photos frequently, simply for want of hard drive space. But now that I have a 40GB drive (which itself isn’t even considered large anymore), I only back-up my files whenever Apple releases a major OS update and it’s been a year, so that’s a lot of files. It’s also not a good idea, as I’d likely weep if my hard drive crashed and took nearly 20GB of un-backed-up document files with it. But after I put down $20 for a big stack of 50 blank DVDs from Best Buy and set aside some quality time for copying-and-burning, I was good to go.
I noticed Apple seems to have got half-hearted with the whole jungle-cat marketing concept. When the first major OS X update was released, OS 10.2, it was dubbed Jaguar, replete with jungle-print themes on ads, packaging, desktop pictures, and metaphors wherever you looked (“Jaguar pounces!”). OS 10.3 was dubbed Panther and the theme was even less pronounced. With Tiger, it seems to have all but vanished. Even the packaging seems to have reverted to the matte black design with a large, mysterious X, like back when OS 10 was first introduced.
Installation went smoothly. In true Jason fashion, the feature I was most excited about was the complimentary dictionary/thesaurus application. I’d been previously using a third-party version of the American Heritage Dictionary, but it had some shortcomings, like the inability to copy-and-paste text from definitions and non-hyperlinked definition text, two features present in the Oxford American Dictionary version included with the new OS.
Some of the other features look promising, but I need time to fiddle with them and work them into my workflow. The most interesting bits to me are Spotlight, a Google-like search feature, and Dashboard, which is an rejuvenation of the Mac’s classic “desk accessories,” little programs that put a calculator, clock, calendar, weather forecaster and other dinguses on your desktop, and accessible at a click of the mouse.