Thoughts on Tiger
Posted on May 04, 2005 at 11:25 PM EST
I finally got around to upgrading both of my Macs to Tiger. The PowerBook was updated on Friday and the iMac was done yesterday afternoon. It only took about 30 minutes to install and everything went nice and smooth.
Spotlight
Although, it’s really nice to be able to instantly search files wherever they may be on your computer (separate partitions, external hard drives, etc.), it is not as fast as I thought it would be after all of the marketing hype that I read about it. Spotlight includes a feature called Smart Folders, which contain files grouped together based on search criteria instead of physical location. If you wanted to keep track of all Photoshop PSD files, you can simply create a Smart Folder that will search for this type of file and they will instantly appear after clicking the folder.
Automator
Automator is great for repetitive tasks such as moving specific types of files around, renaming files/folders, scaling images, etc. Rather than having to do this manually like in the past, this will definitely help save me a lot of time in the future.
Dashboard
Dashboard is pretty cool and has some nice animation and effects. One thing that bugs me about it is that it doesn’t have an option to turn each widget on/off so it is permanently displayed on the desktop. Currently, you have to click the Dashboard icon to make them all appear then they all disappear when another application is selected. You can hold down F12 and drag a widget out onto the desktop, but you have to do this each time you click on the main Dashboard icon which is a pain and you can only select one widget. Here’s a list of my favorites:
- Weather - Displays your local weather conditions and forecast for the next six days.
- Unit Converter - Converts units such as currency, temperature, time, weight, length, etc.
- Package Tracker - Track packages that are sent via FedEx or UPS.
- Hula Girl - Adds some good fun to your desktop.
- Translation - Translates 13 different languages.
- Dictionary/Thesaurus - Looks up word definitions and synonyms.
Preview
Preview now offers enhanced PDF abilities, screenshot options, and saves screen captures as PNG files instead of PDFs. It also offers support for RAW camera images which is great for viewing photos that are taken from my Canon Digital Rebel XT.
Safari RSS
Safari is definitely a lot faster than it was in Panther. One of the biggest new features in it is support for RSS. This is one feature that I don’t particularly find useful since I use NetNewsWire as my news reader.
I like that it finally has an option to import/export bookmarks under the File menu. In previous versions of Safari, a separate application had to be installed in order to copy or backup your bookmarkes, unless you went into the Library folder and copied the files. I also like the option to be able to save a page as a Web Archive which will save the entire page, complete with images and links in case you would like to save it for offline viewing or save an older version of a webpage.
Default Icons
Cage Fighter Icons
The first thing I noticed after launching Mail for the first time was the tiny, hideous buttons for the mail controls. Luckily, someone created a tiny application called Cage Fighter that will remove the ugly backgrounds and just display the plain icons. One big improvement from the search functions that were in previous versions is Spotlight and also the ability to create Smart Mailboxes.
Overall Thoughts
Many of the new features that are included will help speed up the amount of time that it takes to get things done which is certainly a big plus in my book. There are also hundreds of small improvements everywhere you look that really make a noticeable difference from Panther.
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