> Break Mac apps by copying them with Snow Leopard to a Windows file share

Those who have set up a Mac for use in the business world have more than a few horror stories under our belts regarding connectivity of Macs to folders shared with Windows (usually using the Samba or SMB protocol). It's one of those desperate, hanging bridges spanning the edifices of two technological giants (Apple and Microsoft), that neither of them seems particular concerned with upgrading or fiixing the planks on.

OS X Tiger was probably the high-water mark for SMB connectivity. Before that it was still too flaky — as of Tiger, connecting via SMB had begun to get vaguely useful, at times. But then, with Leopard, it suddenly took a turn for the unconscionably slow. Faced with hourslong+ copy times, I just bought a bigger USB key.

Now, beginning with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Apple appears to have innovated yet another new way of rendering SMB shares useless to the Mac community: sudden, instant regression to the 1990s, when simply copying a Mac app or complex document to a foreign server would usually destroy it.

WORKAROUND: If you aren't sure whether a foreign file server will mangle your Mac files, you can always 'zip' them. If you haven't heard of Zip, it's an ancient little third party plugin that appears to be smarter than Windows and Snow Leopard, combined. It comes pre-installed — just rightclick a file, then select 'Compress', and then copy the zipped version, instead.

> Check apps for Snow Leopard compatibility

The Unofficial Apple Weblog pointed me to SnowChecker, which will detect all of your apps and compare them with an online compatibility database. It doesn't really detect them all — it didn't pick up on any Adobe apps, for example — but for a cautious upgrade-shy fellow like myself it's a good indicator of the current state of things.

My verdict: this cat is not ready for primetime yet. Which means it isn't ready for my Mac.

> Avoid guest accounts on Snow Leopard

Using guest accounts on Snow Leopard could cause your entire main account to be wiped. That's right — wiped. Still feel comfortable out there on the bleeding edge?

> List what's been removed from Snow Leopard

An informal list has formed at Waffle [via Daring Fireball]. The knifing of PowerPC support was widely expected, but the dropped creator code adherence is going to spark a bunch of people to falsely believe that their system can no longer open their oldest files anymore, when the truth is that it has merely forgotton how to figure out which app to open them with.

I can understand clearing out the cruft, but adhering to creator codes made the system more intelligent about how to open your legacy files, so that really wasn't cruft at all, was it?

[ UPDATE: Looks like I'm not the only one who was shocked at the braindeadness of the creator code move: see more details and complaints about this issue here and here. ]

> Launch any app from the keyboard in Snow Leopard

Never have looked too kindly on increasing my third-party background app load (a very risky category), just to get more keyboard shortcuts in OS X. So, I'm very much looking forward to assigning keyboard shortcuts to launch apps, natively in 10.6 (via macosxhints.com); at least, whenever I eventually, cautiously, pull the trigger and actually switch to Snow Leopard!

Which is something I definitely recommend you avoid, until at least the third 'point update'. Rather than jump into bed immediately with all four big Apple cats (Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, and Leopard), I hung back, watched and waited, until versions 10.2.3, 10.3.4, 10.4.4, and 10.5.3, respectively, to finally do the deeds.

You can ascribe my caution to the ridiculous-but-undeniable fact that it takes this planet at least three attempts to get any new computer engineering to work in such a manner that nobody will need to pay a huge upgrade tax in the time and energy spent identifying mysterious new bugs.

Refusal to participate directly in the bleeding edge treadmill is definitely the way to go. If you have trouble letting go of the immediacy of it all, repeat after me:

"An operating system is a serious piece of engineering. Not a fashion accessory. An operating system is a serious piece of engineering. Not a fash—"

etc.