News

Lion is here

Apple released Lion a few weeks ago. We upgraded our systems to the latest stable version 10.7.1 and upgraded accordingly filemaker server 11. The upgrade went pretty smooth although we had some manually corrections to make. The interface of Lion is pretty similar to previous OSX systems, in the version (server) we installed we really liked the new centralized server management tool. The only thing we didn't like is not having an easy way to reinstall Lion since it came with our new server and the only way to re-install apparently is via internet with Apple servers. We hope in the future Apple would release a way to format an USB key with pre-installed Lion server on it.

If you are thinking on upgrading to Lion, check the software you use is 100% Intel. All PPC applications will stop working. Also make sure you have a tested backup of your whole system before you install this might be the only way out in case you need to downgrade. You can't re-install Snow Leopard and use migration assistant to port a recent Lion server back into Snow Leopard.

Apple released 10.6.2

Apple released OS 10.6.2 Snow Leopard second update. One the main issues resolved, a bug that will cause data loses when using a guess account among other small issues related to Exchange and Address book.

Windows Live Sync

Finally our friends from Redmond, WA just released the long waited update to their Live Sync for Mac. This tool if you never played with it, has some pretty cool features. It allows you to sync folders you choose between computers in real time, mac or pc and the best part, it is FREE.

Microsoft took over FolderShare, the creator of this cool idea and merge this technology with their existing Sync framework. For the Mac users, this is an incredible tool, but it stopped working a few months ago after Apple released 10.6 (Snow Leopard). But now a few months after the Windows team just launched a fix that bring this tool back to the hands of the mac users! Thanks Redmond folks for not letting us out!

Windows 7

Windows 7 released the official final version of his operative system. We tried and so far works pretty well although we still see the same clumsiness we always feel with this OS, specially in terms of the UI. It requires users to authorize pretty much every single time all the actions slowing down the working process because of security. Why asking the user by default every single time they launched an application they previously agree to open, non sense.

Also there are some weirs black outs - flashes when you install new applications, it just makes the user think something wrong is happening to the computer. We still can't figure out why MS can't find a better way of communicating with their users through the interface. you think by now they should master the interface but they still struggle to get original good ideas well implemented. We tested the applications built with Real Software and we didn't find any issues although some screen handling refresh issues were noticed.

Apple released 10.6.1

Apple has released the latest official version of 10.6. This new update fixes some of the early issues with the first release in terms of network, IO devices and stability in general. A few non resolved issues in regards to third party software still going on. If you use Microsoft Live Sync, to date it doesn't work with OS 10.6 and Microsoft won't even comment on the subject. Another issue in regards to Pantone Huey, which is not longer adjusting colors properly is you run OS 10.6., We contacted Pantone and they told us they are working on fixing this issue. Also, Artisteer, a great template maker tool for Drupal, and Joomla launched a beta for Max running under X11. This beta won't work under 10.6. Other that, some rumors about 10.6 and CS4 not running correctly are not true at least in our labs. For developers Apple launched a new pre-release version of 10.6.2 and we are waiting to see this coming out to the public in the next weeks.

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