Does anyone recommend OS X Lion?

thanks for the info, I'm finally able to get rid of the dozens of the daily notifications

I am angry because Apple removed one of the best things in SL the Quicklook! The new one is much worse, can't zoom in/out !!! and I can't use it in my workflow anymore (quickly preview pdf or image zoom in to check details) - I ask WHY to cripple such a great app?

Yes, I also find the reduced functionality of QuickView a flaw in Lion.

Especially the way Quick Look... looks. Ok going gray, but in Snow Leopard it was just looking gorgeous. I really wonder why Apple dumbed it down.

Well, I can recommend it under certain conditions. First: If you want to have a worryless life, make a clean install, erasing the drive and manual migration. It's worth the effort. Second: Do not use any tools in order to facilitate administration as long the are not EPLICITLY tuned for Lion (I tried to uninstall a program with AppZapper - with the effect, that the finder was down ... and I had to make a completely new installation of lion.)

There are some apparently useful features of Leopard missing, but okay.

Very very annoying is the silly patronization of the user by hiding the user-library (you can make it visible with a short-key).

saluti,

c.

Lion seems like a major change, like the change from System 9 to System X, and the change to MobileMe. In all three cases, I think the final outcome will be worth it, but the transition is ****. It is as if they expect us to give up everything we have learned so far so that Apple can change the paradigm.

The hiding of the user-library was not only silly patronization but was also very, very inconsiderate to those of us who actually use the blankety-blank thing. I mean, how was I supposed to find the services I wrote before if Apple goes about hidding them on me?

Bad form. 😟

Lion is not a major change like 9 to X. 9 was a completely different OS and in no way related to X. No, this is more like the leap from Mac OS 6 to Mac OS 7 or from 10.4 to 10.5 The underpinning for the OS have not changed. However, Mail, iCal, Address Book, etc. have been refaced. And nost of the Apple Apps have been refined. The Finder is now much more robust, and Lion has a lot of new features.

It's not a bad idea to wait a bit after a brand new OS comes out, for all the bugs to be squashed. No amount of testing can replace a few hundred million monkeys upgrading a few hundred million computers and using them for a few week.

Before anyone upgrades they should first reapir their disk and permissions. Then they should perform a complete backup of their data. If you have the cash, you could even buy a new Hard Drive to install the new OS on, and keep your old drive as an archival, fallback copy.

There are ways to download Lion to your HD from the App Store and make your own flash drive to install onto a fresh disk.

The big difference between the leap from Mac OS 10.4 to Mac 10.5 or the leap from Mac OS 6 to Mac OS 7 versus this change. For starters, in this "leap" many applications that could run on the previous versions. Then there is the fact that some of the remaining apps (including Apple apps) don't work as well on the new system as the old, and the fact that Apple hid the Library file where one put one's services.

Bummer.

Heh! I just post a thing on showing the Library. Option click on the Go menu in the finder. Also there's chflag nohidden <path/file or directory/ that you want to show>

THX, Michael, for the chflag hint 🙂

My answer to the original question in this thread

"Does anyone recommend OS X Lion?"

is

"No.

Having installed it and run it for several weeks now, I can find NOTHING to recommend Lion.

In fact I have encountered various problems with it that I didn't have before".

I wrote a review of 10.7 Lion on my blog: http://noivad.wordpress.com/

It discusses the changes to the GUI, additional features that have been seldom mentioned, and the pros and cons. Check it out.

Carotto wrote:

Well, I can recommend it under certain conditions. First: If you want to have a worryless life, make a clean install, erasing the drive and manual migration. It's worth the effort. Second: Do not use any tools in order to facilitate administration as long the are not EPLICITLY tuned for Lion (I tried to uninstall a program with AppZapper - with the effect, that the finder was down ... and I had to make a completely new installation of lion.)

There are some apparently useful features of Leopard missing, but okay.

Very very annoying is the silly patronization of the user by hiding the user-library (you can make it visible with a short-key).

saluti,

c.

Totally disagree, your method does not allow for testing and if the install is unsatisfactory it doesn't allow for an easy way back.

Do this instead:

Clone the internal drive to an external, download and install Lion on the external. Now you have your computer untouched so you may continue with whatever you do with it but you also have your computer running Lion with all your existing apps, boot from the external and test Lion, once you are happy with it point the clone back at the internal and transfer the system.

Advantages: No possibility of data loss and the ability to test in advance how the system (more importantly the applications) will run under Lion.

Instead of relying on the future iCloud, which Lion makes feasible -- just another way of saying storing and accessing data on Apple's remote servers -- I'll prefer to keep my resources local. I'm not happy being dependent on someone else's servers, as any user of cable or visitor to China will understand. I'll continue to use the excellent Synk Pro to keep my machines synched. I have used MobileMe but will be happy to let it go.

I don't want to sound overly paranoid, but yesterday I learned from a reliable source that the FBI has 15,000 human informants keeping track on "persons of interest," a broad term. Many informants keep track of multiple persons. A recent Washington Post special report, "A Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control" reveals there are nearly 1,300 government agencies and over 1,900 private companies set up to in the wake of 9/11 to monitor various aspects of "security." And we all remember the NSA snooping on every American's phone calls and Internet use during the years of the Bush Administration. This activity is alleged to be continuing. Of course, the continuous commercial poking and prodding into every aspect of our lives is even more pernicious.

The less I need to rely on giant corporations' remote servers -- Google and Facebook and Apple -- the more secure I feel.

It may be a false sense of security: government and corporate spooks today can check most of us out via cooperating cable and telco services. And overseas, all Americans are monitored by the NSA. You just accept it and act accordingly. While home, however, as precautions, I use a very small and familiar ISP, use secure FTP, cloak my browser, encrypt critical emails, use Box.net to securely store and share files too large for emailing, and my voice calls go via the politically sensitive Credo Mobile. (I'm still way too dependent on Comcast, which monitors broadband usage. I may replace it with CenturyLink, the new broadband incarnation of Qwest, the only telco that refused to go along with NSA snooping. At the moment, however, CenturyLink doesn't serve my neighborhood.) My sense is that by using smaller and more personally responsive telecom and remote server vendors, I can better protect my personal and business privacy.

Of course, if you're only sharing iTunes audios and iTube videos, who cares except your local DJ? But for people with genuinely sensitive information (e.g., confidential business documents) or who engage in slightly out-there behaviors that future leaders may consider politically threatening or "immoral" (ranging from civic activism to watching **** or playing crazy MMOGs), these could be dangerous times. I'm not making it any easier for snoops or big companies to exercise control or examine my habits. iCloud will do that in spades, and Lion sets the stage for iCloud.

Ironic, thinking back to the famous 1984 Apple ad featuring Big Brother....

(PS For those with a serious interest in issues of personal privacy and security online, there is no better source of information, commentary, and advice than the Condé-Nast online magazine, Ars Technica. It's a fabulous resource for everything having to do with digital technology, policy, and lifestyles.)

I wonder why we don't just video ourselves and everyone else 24hrs a day.

Think about it — you'd always be able to verify whether you remembered something correctly or not; you'd always be able to verify whether someone had told you the truth or not; the police would be able to solve every crime - and ensure no one innocent was ever wrongly convicted; think of all the great stuff you do at work that's never recorded or recognised: you'd be able to pull that out of a database and present it at your next job interview.

On top of all those advantages, imagine how cool it'd be if you could just send someone a video of your answer or opinion on a topic you'd previously discussed rather than wasting your valuable time going through it all again. And remember, for all those naysayers that witter on about 'big brother' and 'privacy', well if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide...

The only reason we're not paying some big service provider to tape our lives 24/7 is because

i. no one's set up the service to sell it to us yet

ii. no one's tried to sell us such a service in a positive light.

Now, compare the above fictional scenario with iCloud, Resume, Autosave, Versions, Time machine...we've all been sold the idea that recording everything and paying someone for it is a good idea and there's something wrong with anyone who thinks otherwise.

Don't worry about the possibility of Orwell's 1984...OS X Lion users, you're already in it.