Brian Kohrs’ Blog

I have to admit that Apple is really good at innovation and creating gadgets that just beg to be purchased. I have been able to resist them for the most part, but when the Nano came out, it was just to hard to restrain myself. The Nano was definitely worth the money, and it’s size is just awesome. The only drawback is its susceptibility to scratching. The front still looks great and you can only see the scratches if you are really looking for them. However, the scratches on the back are quite noticeable. Hopefully Apple will fix this with future Nano versions.

I finally bought Tiger and got it installed last night. No doubt that it was worth the money. I didn’t buy it right away because of the performance concerns with my mini, but that is not an issue at all. The upgrade went very smoothly, but I had to wonder why it needed to install all 14 some language packs, especially after it asks what language to install.

I got Safari to crash within five minutes, but after installing all of the software updates, I have had no problems. It is so much easier to install one update patch than it was when I re-installed XP on my PC a couple of months ago. One update patch as opposed to 17 patches so that I could install SP2, and then another 22 patches after that. Needless to say, Microsoft could learn a few things from Apple.

Some of the hightlights:

• Spotlight: Haven’t used it too much yet, but initial impressions are that it is superior to any other desktop search engines that I have used.
• Dashboard: One of the coolest features of Tiger, and since I waited a few months before getting it, there are already lots of cool widgets available.
• Finder: The new smart folders show a lot of promise.
• Mail: Love the new style. I never really did like the old layout, and the new interface seems a lot cleaner.