Al Lustie's Tips and Tricks

Today, August 23, 2012, Apple came out with an update to Mountain Lion (OS X 8.1).  I downloaded and installed it.  Most of the things fixed do not, and have not, affected me.  They did not fix. . .

• the need to press keys (I use the arrow keys) to wake the computer up, then move the mouse, and then w a i t
• the other annoyances relating to speed I mentioned in the last blog

However, it seems quite stable.  As it is usually a good idea to update operating systems if they don't add problems, I will upgrade my wife's iMac tomorrow, or maybe later tonight.

The guys at Windows Secrets are not too impressed so far with the new Windows 8.  I'm waiting to try it, but the download (free) they offered won't install on my Windows laptop.  So, as I said, I'm waiting.

What are you experiencing along these lines?  Leave a comment. 

I installed OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) on both our iMacs in the past ten days.  Here is a modest report of what I found.

• Most things are slower and take more keystrokes.
• It seems to be pretty solid.
• We don't use gestures, so that is meaningless (so far) for me or my wife.
• Apple says it will be fixing the terrible response time to 'waking up' after the computer has been asleep for awhile, but gives no timeline.
• The Launchpad is O.K., but not necessary.
• I think Spotlight might be a bit faster than in Snow Leopard, from whence I came.
• My Scrabble game loads, but does not work.
• MySolitaire XL will work for one game, then lock up.
• Solitaire 3D works fine, but is not as good looking as Solitaire XL.

I have not tried dictation, so I cannot comment on that.  Probably in a week or so.

iCloud works fine, but I don't use it much.

Connecting Bento for the Mac wirelessly to Bento for the iPad works well.

Notes for the iPad automatically sends me an email when I add to it.  It did not do that before installing Mountain Lion, but that might have been an IOS upgrade feature I missed.

Lil' Snitch no longer works.  I am hoping for an upgrade soon.

More when I know more.