Windows 7 party-hype is cranking up so  as a Mac user I gotta tamp that down a bit. So,  I’ve been a very happy Snow Leopard 10.6 user since early September, installing it days after Apple’s unexpected early release of their new OS X operating system in late August.

It has a lot of hidden gems and nice visual tweaks as well as navigational tweaks.  It seems to work in a much more friendly manner with Windows networks too.  Both the Preview and QuickTime have new and easy to use editing features.  I keep discovering more nifty tricks every day.  MacWorld‘s website is a great source for all this.  Discovering new things in an OS that make you smile is a good thing 😉  … this ain’t Vista …

I’ve installed Snow Leopard on our Macs here at NMRLS which had formerly been running Leopard 10.5.  I installed it first on our venerable olde white 2006 MacBook (the first NMRLS Mac), no problem and ending up gaining hard disk space, that’s right recovered a good 11-12GB, which is important on an older 60 GB hard drive (that also need sroom to run Windows in our lab). This was true on every install, I regained hard disk space after the upgrade!

Next were our two circa 2007 Mac minis in the lab, worked like a charm.   And then staff circa 2008 MacBook Pros.  Nary a problem here either.  The install process couldn’t be easier.  You pop in the disk, click yes to the EULA and that’s it! No installation key codes, no clicking yes-yes-yes to re-boot seven times, it just does it’s thing, reboots once and it’s ready to use.  I know it such a crazy concept for upgrading an operating system … some helpful links below.

Quick Slideshow from NELA2009 with info on what Librarians like about Macs, where to buy & save, and cost comparisons Mac vs. Dell:
– Macs, OS X & the Library at NELA 2009
– Blog Post on OS Smackdown form NELA2009

Helpful Snow Leopard links from Scott:
http://delicious.com/bibliotechy/snowleopard

Below is link to a  great Snow Leopard compatibility wiki listing what versions of software work with Snow Leopard by real-world users who have tested it!  Also lists what needs to use Rosetta to run.  I even contributed to it ’caused it a wiki!  http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/

Apple’s list of compatible printers with drivers included in Snow Leopard.  For older HP printers I just went to the HP site and downloaded the most recent driver for each and worked like a charm: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3669

Find same post, but with slides in full living color at http://stt.posterous.com/