by: George Starcher, Associate Editor

All in all I really like Leopard. But let me go over a few issues I have had with it and the places like Apple forums have no solutions.

I did in place upgrades to all three of my systems. No clean installs. I have tried repairing permissions, repairing keychains etc in attempts to fix the few glitches I have had.

• Powerbook 15″ Aluminum G4
• iMac G5
• iMac Intel 24″ Aluminum

Back to my Mac. This has been inconsistent at best. Sometimes it works some times it does not. I am doing it between my Powerbook and 24″ iMac. I try the normal log out of dotMac and back in. Sometimes that works. Other times I just see the iMac show up in shared systems but can never actually connect. If I am on the same local LAN then I can use file and screen sharing without any issues.

SAMBA Shares. This has got to be the biggest headache and mystery. Both my iMacs cannot see any shares but those of each other and most of the time the share from my Airport ExtrememeN shared drive. Neither can see by browsing my Microsoft Media Center. This was visible in Tiger. With that said the powerbook sees EVERYTHING on the network from every system without any issues or inconsistencies. I have tried all the tricks talked about online. Stopping file sharing, rebooting then turning it back on. Checking the samba.conf files for differences, there are none. What I have noticed is this. On both iMacs any time I change the WINS tab under advanced options on my network connections the settings revert back to default. Meaning I cannot change the wins.netbios name the mac calls itself on the network nor will the workgroup name stay populated. On my powerbook these settings stay and can be changed without any issues. I can still map drives by using the IP and Connect to Server in finder.

dotMac syncing of widgets. This works really well MOST of the time. But inexplicably three widgets I deleted off my powerbook come back about once a week without warning. I delete them again and they stay gone for a while. Otherwise the syncing is working great.

Airport Card MIA on iMac G5. I have no idea what happened. I have tried every fix mentioned in the forums. EXCEPT an archive and resintall. But now my G5 reports the Airport Card as not installed. It was working perfect before Leopard. Fortunately I don’t use it on the G5 since there is a wired connection right there. But I will be glad when some Apple patch fixes it.

So enough with the bad stuff.

Time Machine. I have had no issues out of Time Machine. Even making it sync to the external drive on my iMac 24″ from my old iMac G5. I just need to get a bigger drive from a nice holiday sale coming up so I do not have to filter what I am backing up to it.

iChat Screen Sharing. By far the best feature I have used is screen sharing from iChat. I got my dad to get a macbook Pro two weeks before Leopard came out. He got his update dvd in the mail and boom instant tech support by me when he needs it. And he needed it for a few things since he is a new Mac user. But for me it just rocks. No hoops of using things like Hamachi, VNC etc. It works and I don’t have to go out of my way.

Spaces. I extensively use spaces. Chat and mail in one space. News reader in another etc. One cool thing I noticed today. If you have a video playing say from iTunes and pull up the spaces display. You can still watch the video. So I wonder. If I play four quicktime movies and pull up a four way space display do I get an effect like watching security monitors? Makes you go hrmmmm.

Finder. One thing I had to figure out in Finder is how to make network mounted drives show up on the desktop. I personally like to see the icons. Just open up Finder. Go into Preferences and check the box for Connected Servers on the General Tab. Instant icons on the desktop.

Mail and RSS. I still use NewsFire for most my RSS feeds. But I have a few I want to be sure to see new posts on right away. For that I add the RSS feeds in mail so I watch them like I do my email. It works well and painless. Same for the new To Do feature in Mail.

Web Clips in Dashboard. So far I only have one web clip for PC Weenies. But it works just like advertised.

Other than that I have not run into much I did not just do the same way in Tiger so far. It sure boots faster though.

Meet Bento. No, it’s not a breath mint or a new anti-gas pill it’s the upcoming database application from the makers of FileMaker. This is a free limited time trial. I heard about it through listener Dorothy and just downloaded it. Finally I might get some items in my house organized.

Use it to organize all your important information in one place so you can manage your contacts, coordinate events, track projects, and so much more – faster and easier than ever before!

Update as of 17:30PM PT

Just to be fair to all sides, here is an article from TidBits that I found this afternoon that goes into more detail about some potential issues. Please read this before forging ahead. It says. . .

So before you fire up Bento, make a backup. (And yes, Virginia, Time Machine is backing up your stuff, but it’s also a point zero release. So let’s make two.) In Address Book, go to File > Export > Address Book Archive and save your contacts. This is a newly nested menu item in Leopard. In iCal, you can still use File > Back Up iCal.

I’ve been using it all day today Saturday without any issues. I did back up my iCal and address book as suggested in the article.