Moving To Snow Leopard [UPDATE: The Black Screen of Snow Leopard]

[Update: I've joined an elite group who have their screens turn black. A Mac Forum came up with some possible work arounds, but not real fixes. People seem to think it has to do with the picture preview and I've been using iPhoto and now iMovie. I can get something back if I hit the F10 key or those around it, but the edges of the screen are black and then it all goes black.]

[Update Sept 23: for the progress of this still ongoing issue, see comments to this post and check the label (right column bottom) 'snow leopard.' As I write I'm waiting for a new adapter cord that is coming by Fedex from Apple. I've narrowed it down: the only time I get the black screen is when the adapter cord (the white cord the comes with the Macbook) is connected and I don't touch the keyboard for a few minutes. When it runs on battery and I leave, nothing bad happens.]

I bought a copy of Snow Leopard when it came out almost two weeks ago now I think. At the Apple User Group that following Wednesday I saw a copy of the ebook, Take Control: Upgrading to Snow Leopard. That seemed like something useful to look at before upgrading.

I did learn some things. I thought I had a bootable back up before, but apparently not. So I downloaded Carbon Copy Cloner at the book's recommendation. But after going through lists of all the things that can go wrong, I was less inclined to install Snow Leopard. (Snow Leopard is the operating system upgrade for Macs. It follows Leopard, Tiger, and Panther.)

Finally I realized that I was getting advice that was appropriate for going to the moon but I was just going for a bike ride. The odds were good that nothing bad was going to happen and if it did, I'd go back to the MacHaus and have them help me. So, today, I finally installed Snow Leopard. The instructions in Snow Leopard merely said to stick the disk into the computer and push the install button. (The ebook was about 80 pages of things to worry about.) Actually, it would be nice for installation material to tell people to have the 5 gb free that they told us at the meeting (the ebook said, well, you really should have 10 gb free). It took 1 hour and 25 minutes.

At the meeting, Ben, the Apple guy from Best Buy who comes to the meetings regularly and really knows his stuff, told us we'd get 7GB freed up when we had Snow Leopard installed. That's pretty cool - not only does it not take up more room, but it cleans up stuff already there and you have more room when you are done than when you started. Well I started with 7.53 GB free and when it was over I had 21.56 GB free. (Yeah, I know, it must have been a real mess in there. But at least the installation cleaned it up.)

So I still have to send in a review for the ebook. It's for people who really want to take precautions for every possible thing that could go wrong. My suggestion is to make sure you've got 5 gb free and then go for it. Well, back up all your files first, at least, on an external hard drive. The ebook is for people who want to know the details of every possible illness they could ever have.

Now I'm checking things out. It says I should have a download 'stack' but I don't see one. One of the coolest new features is the ability to draw Chinese characters on the trackpad, but I haven't tried that either. If it were Thai letters, I would have tried by now.

So now I can start plowing through all the other manuals for electronic equipment that have been pouring into my life.

[Update Oct. 3 - see this later post for what the Snow Leopard problem was for me. Doesn't mean it will work for you, but it seems to have solved my problem.]