This is a big improvement, I now have working sound! WiFi is more stable.
Looks like the 10.7 Lion is now at a point where I can recommend the upgrade.

If you are considering installing on an existing Mac? WAIT until the first update has been released.

If you have a MacBook with the earlier style of trackpad and separate mouse button then you will not get the best mousing experience so maybe wait until you upgrade your computer. Lion needs a multitouch trackpad or Magic Mouse to work really well.

There are two issues that I have. These are reported elsewhere on various forums so it’s not just me and I have submitted bug reports to Apple.

1) The sound controls do not work on the internal speakers. There is a work around in place. Plug in an iPhone headset into the headphone jack, wait a few seconds and unplug. Speakers then work correctly.

2) The WiFi does not always come back on after sleeping the computer. The work around for this is not to sleep but to shut down the computer.

Hopefully Cupertino will get these addressed ASAP.

Otherwise it’s a nice OS and so far I am quite happy.

The killer feature is the auto save. It’s worth the asking price for this function alone. Launchpad and Mission Control are very clever, The Finder is improved so it’s all good.

My preferred method of ‘upgrade’ is to clone my hard drive then nuke and pave. In English: Format the drive and do a clean install then add my apps and documents back in. Often faster with less problems. If it all goes wrong then you can just reverse the process and clone the drive from the clone.

I finally took the plunge and bought a Crucial M4 SSD. The price has really dropped on SSD but they are still 3 times the price of a spindle drive.

Just to make it more interesting I decided to install Lion at the same time that I went solid state. There is method in this madness, if it all went down the pan the whole thing is reversible by refitting the old drive.

On the day that Lion was released I downloaded the app. I made a bootable flash drive from the app, then (deep breath and throw the warranty out) opened up my MacBook Pro and swapped out the drive.

Booting from the flash drive was easy, a very fast format of the SSD and I was installing Lion. It took about 20 minutes.

Once installed I used Migration Assistant and Time Machine Backup to pull over my personal files. I downloaded all my apps off the web so that I had the latest 10.7 compatible versions.

I am good to go. All quite painless.

The MacBook Pro boots ridiculously fast with the SSD.

From cold to fully operational is 20 seconds. If I let Lion reopen all my apps it slows to 25 seconds.

Awesome! Go do it people, SSDs rock!

Big news story: Apple Mac have had a skirmish with some malware.

The doom and gloom people (Translation: The people who sell anti-virus software) have been predicting that the Mac platform will drown under a tsunami of malware any day now, and this is just start.

Well they have been saying that for ten years and I am still waiting.
Truth is that a Mac malware is so rare that it makes headline news.
A Windows attack is so common no one notices.

There has been one attack per year since OS X was launched, so that about 12 items.
Windows runs at 12 Million and counting.

Draw your own conclusions.

Meanwhile Apple have patched the problem so it’s business as usual.

Except if you have Microsoft software installed on the Mac. The Office Suite is susceptible to Windows virus.

That’s right, A Mac can catch Windows virus via the Word program. I just had to de-infect a Mac that had a nasty dose of the W97M.Thus.A macro virus that infected all the Word documents on the machine.

I ran ClamXav and it located all the infected files; then I was able to move them to a USB flash drive. The machine is now clean but I have a USB drive full of infected files. The solution to getting these fixed is to open each one on a Mac that does not have Word installed, copy the contents into a text editor, save the file then put it back on the original machine and copy the contents back into Word. Tedious but it should be OK.

So if you have the Microsoft Office Suite installed on a Mac be careful, you may be distributing a Windows virus. This infection was spotted because GMail blocked my clients emails when he attached Word documents.

I took a screen grab of the hit counter earlier today, and I’ll check it out again in a day or so.

It could just be that instead of talking to myself on here I might get some actual followers.

WooHoo!

(Don’t get caught!)

So here is my guess, based on the rumours.

Apple will hold a launch event on 26 January 2010.

The new product will be a tablet device. (iSlate, iTablet)
10 inch screen, touch interface.
WiFi and 3G enabled.
Forward facing camera for video conferencing.
USB and Mini Display Port.
Flash memory storage.
Bluetooth with connectivity for wireless keyboard and mouse.
Landscape or Portrait view selected by rotating the device.
Full version of OS X.

In other words a hybrid MacBook come iPhone.

My reasoning? 10 inch screen is bigger than an iPhone but does not impact on the established MacBook 13 inch range.
Connectivity so it’s useable like a netbook.
Full version of the OS so it has more functionality than the phone.

Shoot me down in flames in January when all we get is an iPod Touch with a camera…

A gorgeous looking new range of the iMac, with superb high definition screens. The MacBook laptop gets a makeover and looks really nice. The Mac Mini gets a speed boost and now they do a server version. (I have had three Mac Minis, a firm favourite of mine.)

And a mouse.
What can I say? Apple can’t make pointing devices. I have a Mighty Mouse, it sucks. I HATE it. It does not click correctly, the scroll feature keeps clogging up and jamming, the side buttons are useless, IT’S RUBBISH APPLE!

The new mouse looks like it they put a Mighty Mouse and trackpad in a box and allowed them to breed. The result looks like the worst of both devices.

It’s really easy Apple:-

Go to PC World, pick up a cheap £10 mouse.
Take to the design labs and copy it.
Make it white plastic.
Don’t do anything else to it, less is more with a mouse.

OR

Farm out your rodent production to Logitech.

This really p*ss*s me off as a lot of programming requires the # all the time.

When I bought my new MacBook Pro I decided to fix the problem and wrote a new keymap for it. I have taken the § key, top left of the keyboard and remapped it to give me a #.

Instructions:

Download this file: piper.keylayout RIGHT click it and select save…

Open Finder and navigate to:

Macintosh HD/Library/Keyboard layout/

Put the Piper file in here.

Open System Preferences, go to International. Select the Input Tab. Find the Piper file in the list of Languages and select it. At the bottom of the page check the ‘Show input menu in menu bar’.

Shut System Preferences. On the Menu bar click the British Flag. Check the Piper option. # should now be on the § key and vice versa.

Simple!

UPDATE: I had a request for a keyboard layout that puts a € Euro symbol on the § button so here you are:

Download this file: euro.keylayout RIGHT click it and select save…

UPDATE: The Mac Geeb Gab have linked here so if you are after creating your own keymap use the Ukelele application linked to here.

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!!!