Mac Lion Update

I am in the process of updating my Mac OS to Lion. Since I got one new MacBookPro 15 this month. I am entitled to get free update. Here are some notes about the update.

First, I need to get redeem code from Apple. There is Apple web page for Canadian Mac users to get free Lion redeem code. This site is for Canada. I was trying to get it from US Apple site, and I could not pass through. It was hard to find it out from Apple web site. I found it from from MacRumors forum.

At the end of the process, I saved the result as PDF(or print it as PDF). It is critical to remember the redeem code. Then it is very straightforward to get it is from Apple Store. Now it is in downloading process. I started at about 9:00am.



I also found this CNET News article about to burn DVD for Lion Installation. I am going to follow the instruction to give it a try.

At: 10:02, the download is done.



I have installed Lion on my 3 Mac computers. One more to go, but I have to wait to make sure my daughter's Adobe's apps are OK with Lion.

After the installation, there is one new update: iTunes 10.4.1 with support of full screen.



Here is the space difference between installations of Lion and iTunes update:

Command: df -lak	Used(Kilobytes in 1024-blocks)
Before	..,13,796,024
After Lion	...8,780,612
After Update	...9,450,752
Difference (A Lion-B)	-5,015,412
Difference (AU-AL)	669,960

From the appearance, at first glance, it looks like the same as before. However, after playing for a while, I noticed some big differences. For example, srcollbars are different. The default scroll behavior does get awkward, but it is very easy to get used to it.

The biggest issue I have right now is the Preview's SaveAs is gone. I could not use previous Cmd+Shift+s to get difference format for pictures. I have to use Export or Duplicate and Save. The Save dialog does not display file size information. This is a problem for me. I would like the different format to compare the picture size difference so that I'll make decision to save it or not.

Another big change is that Java is not installed by default. I tried to test Adobe PS and it prompt to install Java.

References

• Apple Free Lion web page for Canadian new Mac users
• MacRumors Forum: free Lion for Canadian Mac users
• CNET MacFixIt article: how to make a DVD disk of Lion
• MacFixIt: how to install Front Row on OS Lion
• MaxFixIt: how to keep Snow Leopard when update to Lion
• ScreenCastOnLine: Full Free Show SCO0305a - Installing Lion(also available on iTunes podcast)