Technology - The Tiger Wakes!

Yesterday I picked up a copy of the Mac OS X upgrade, Tiger, from Micro Center. They had a fabulous deal, only $79 after rebate. The upgrade ran smoothly, I chose the Customize and de-selected the foreign language support and de-selected the Printer Drivers for those which I don't use. This saves lots of space on your hard drive. The computer I am installing it on is a 15" Powerbook Al, 1.25 ghz g4, 80 gb, 512 mb ram, superdrive. The install ran smoothly, no problems to report. OK, there was one issue, I must admit. The new version of QuickTime, grabbed the SMIL filetype away from Real Player making it impossible to listen to Real audio. Who cares, right? Well, I listen to NPR a lot through streaming and they use Real so, I care. To solve this problem, open up the Info for an SMIL file (select the file and press Command+I) and choose "Open With" Real Player" then press "Change All" and click OK to the confirmation dialog.

I've only been using the new OS for a couple hours but feel compelled to share some of the good news! Here are my Top 3 new features:
1. Improved AirPort Signal Strength
I've always had a problem with signal strength in parts of my house using the PowerBook (an issue that my iBook didn't share). Well I am pleased to say that the PowerBook now shows amazing signal strength! I had no idea it was even possible to improve this from a software update.
2. Safari blazes!
Safari was already super fast to render pages now it is even faster! Pages load so fast it seems like my broadband connection has been upgraded to ultraband!
3. Mail UI Overhaul
Mail has been overhauled and the updated UI looks great and makes Mail even easier to use by improvements in the buttons.

Other "nice to mention" things include:
Dashboard widgets, they look great! These are small applications, such as a dictionary, iTunes controller, Weather, etc that are toggled visible/invisible by pressing F12. The great the great thing is that your current work is not disrupted in any way. Also there is a visual effected when adding a new widget that looks like a ripple in a pond, very cool!
RSS ScreensaverThere is a new screen saver that loads RSS feeds and displays them in an effect that could be described as Apple meets Matrix! Think the classic blue background with text floating, panning, and zooming. You can select from a variety of feeds to display.

The upgrade brings a fresh breath of life to the Mac and I strongly recommend it. Well worth the money, especially for PowerBook owners!