Well, OS X Leopard has well and truly landed. First for the upgrade was a G5 machine at work (that is just about to be replaced, so was a good candidate for testing). I did an archive & install, then wiped and re-installed Adobe CS2 and Dreamweaver (neither of which ever quite survive an archive & install). Other than having to fiddle with the printer driver before it would behave, I was delighted to find that everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING) worked perfectly. I fully expected to wipe that machine and re-install Tiger before re-purposing it out to another department, but under the circumstances, it can stay exactly the way it is.

Next up was my own MacBook Pro. I did a full wipe on this one as a: I wanted to clear some crud off the system and b: I felt like it ;-)

Again, everything works - even Adobe CS2 under Rosetta (I also have CS3, but need CS2 for compatibility with work - I just don't install VersionCue, which is the one bit that breaks). I was especially impressed by the upgraded partition management tools in Disk Utility as I made a mistake when setting up Boot Camp the first time, and needed to wipe the Windows partition - was done easily without even needing to reboot the machine. Windows could learn a lot from this OS. Anyhow, I've now got XP running well both via BootCamp and VMWare (temporarily - wanted to test XP under Boot Camp as I'm going to be installing an iMac at work set up that way - It'll be replaced with Vista in due course), all my other major applications are installed and working and I'm struggling to remember when I last did an OS upgrade that went so smoothly (that'll be never, then ;-) ).

The only slight hiccup on the horizon is the new iMac we're installing at work - it has to drive a Konica/Minolta 5440 colour laser and the b*strds don't have a driver compatible with OS X Intel (only PPC). D'oh! Looks like I'm going to have to hack the open-source Linux-compatible driver to work with Leopard's version of Ghostscript. Oh well - in the meantime I can always print via the XP partition....

I'm kinda blown away by the astonishing value of the current iMac range.

We need another Mac at work. Previously we've bought pro models only, but for the use they get, I'm not convinced we need a Mac Pro (especially given that the MacBook Pro I'm typing this on is more than powerful enough to do everything we need). Hence I recommended that we bought an iMac. The board was stunned. The last Mac they authorised cost almost two grand - this one was £680 + VAT and will be a major improvement on the old G5 it's going to replace.

Having priced up cheap Windows PCs recently, I'm struck by the fact that you can pick up a Mac with a quality 20" widescreen display, 1Gb RAM, a 250Gb HD and the iLife software bundle for little more than an entry-level HP business PC with a crappy screen and not much else.

I wish I could switch the whole company over - unfortunately we rely on the Goldmine CRM software, which is Windows only, so we're stuck. Shame.

Well now it's public, I guess I can talk about this Leopard issue myself. Unfortunately, owners of earlier G4s need not apply - it's now specced for 867Mhz and up only. It's a shame (I've got an old G4-400 that I would have upgraded, but will now leave running Tiger), but not really that big of a deal - especially as - hmm.... I think I better keep that comment to myself for now (NDA).

I know it's a long way in the future, but I find myself wondering what the hardware requirements of OS X 10.6 will be in a couple of years' time. Intel only? 64-bit only? (My guess would be the latter, but probably requiring at least a high-end G5). I'm reminded of the 68k to PPC switch, and the years of universal binaries. Given that the underpinnings of OS X (i.e. NeXTSTEP) have long been intended for portability, I suspect that we're going to be in for a few years of Universal Binaries yet, but that Intel switch is coming, and my guess is that G5-based Macs are going to be looking like dinosaurs a lot more quickly than, say, the G3 and G4 did.

Meantime I'm going to quit buying old Macs for server use. I've still got a G4 that's doing sterling service, but when the time comes, it'll be replaced with a cheap secondhand Intel Mini (or equivalent). My days of buying and selling old Macs are, I think, over - at least for now. I can see too many ways of catching a cold - PPC Macs are, I'm sure, going to continue to plummet in price. I'm just glad that I sold my G5 for a decent figure before they hit rock bottom =]