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By Bob LeVitus
Mac OS X Panther Version 10.3
hit the street a week ago and the initial response has
been mostly positive. I received my copy last Thursday
and upgraded my Mac that very afternoon. Of course, I'm
a trained professional and it's my job to install "point"
releases. That way, if there are any unpleasant surprises,
they surprise me; then, I report them here so they won't
surprise you.
Panther has only been out a week, so it doesn't have an
extensive track record yet. Many users, myself included,
report that the upgrade went smoothly and everything (or
almost everything) worked afterwards. Alas, there are also
reports of Panther corrupting data on external FireWire
hard drives.
Is Panther causing the problems? It's possible but still
too early to tell. For what it's worth I have 4 FireWire
drives and Panther installed without a hiccup. Still, before
you upgrade to Panther—regardless of whether you do it
tomorrow or do it next year—here are some things to consider:
- Back up your data. At the very least back
up all the files you couldn't bear to live without. If
you have a second hard disk available, you can use Carbon
Copy Cloner (www.bombich.com)
to duplicate (clone) your boot disk to a second hard
drive before installing Panther. The cloned disk will
be bootable; if you have problems in Panther you can
go back to the way things were by merely choosing the
clone disk in the Startup Disk System Preference pane
and then restarting your Mac.
- Upgrade third-party software
before you install Panther. If it worked in Jaguar,
it'll probably work in Panther, though a handful of programs,
including some of my favorite utilities, required updating.
For example, versions of Default Folder X (www.stclairsoft.com)
prior to version 1.9 are incompatible with Panther,
as are versions of WindowShade X (www.unsanity.com) prior
to version 3.1. It's easier to upgrade non-Apple software
before you install Panther than it is to figure out
which one is causing your problems after. VersionTracker
(www.versiontracker.com)
is an excellent place to find the latest versions of
most apps and utilities.
- Allow sufficient time for the
upgrade. While the actual installation from the CDs
takes less than an hour, you may need time for updating
software, configuring and reconfiguring settings, and
figuring things out. It's never a good idea to upgrade
your OS when you've got mission critical work pending.
Instead, choose a time when you will have no impending
deadlines and no immediate need for Internet access.
(If I were a normal user I'd have waited for the weekend.)
I upgraded to Panther using the default "Upgrade Mac OS
X" option, and as I said, had no trouble whatsoever with
the upgrade. I was back up and running in less than 30
minutes and I was being productive late that same day (after
resolving a keyboard conflict involving Exposé).
After a week of everyday use, I couldn't be happier with
Panther. It boots faster, and the Finder is easier to use
and faster, too. I'd say almost everything about my Mac
(a dual-1GHz Power Mac G4) feels a bit faster under Panther
than it did under Mac OS X 10.2.8. And I sure love Exposé and
Fast User Switching, two of Panther's best (in my humble
opinion) new features.
If you have external FireWire drives, I recommend that you
read the thread on Apple's discussion boards (http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?13@@.599b4a59/84),
and the discussions on MacFixIt (www.macfixit.com)
and MacInTouch (www.macintouch.com).
You might want to wait until more is known about the FireWire
hard disk issue before making the leap. (See next week's
column.)
Bob LeVitus is a leading authority on
Mac OS and the author of 41 books, including The
Little iTunes Book and
Mac OS X for Dummies, 2nd Edition. E-mail comments to
doctormac@boblevitus.com.
Copyright © 2004 Bob LeVitus
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