Four Island

Mac OS X 10.6.6 was released this morning, and you know what that means! Actually, you might not, so I'll tell you: the Mac App Store! The Mac App Store is like the App Store on iDevices--it's an Apple-controlled repository of Mac apps that you can buy with your Apple ID. It also automates update delivery, which is pretty nice. All in all, I think the App Store needs some more development and some more features, but it's a pretty neat idea and I think it's a nice addition to Mac OS X.

There are some really cool-looking free apps available, like the long-awaited Tweetie 2 (renamed "Twitter for Mac"), a Solitare game with various versions of the game, not just Klondike (this will be great for those transitioning from Windows :P ) and an alternate to Spotlight: Alfred. The problem is, I can't log in. :( The Mac App Store seems to be having a lot of initial teething problems and one of them is the "MZFinance.NoGUIDTokenFailureKey_message" error. Yeah, great message. So, until Apple fixes the problem, I can't get any apps from the Mac App Store. Bummer. :(

The other thing I wanted to talk about in this post is the upgrade itself, and how it affects those who are using Mac OS X on decidedly non-Mac hardware (like me). Usually, OS upgrades can cause major problems, but this one was very easy. I really just had to install the upgrade via Apple Software Upgrade. It was really that simple! However, do keep in mind that if you use the SleepEnabler kext, you have to delete it and clear the extensions cache before installing the upgrade (like I did) because SleepEnabler kexts are version-specific. There isn't yet a new version for 10.6.6, but you can be sure that there will be one before long. But, other than that, nothing too bad went wrong. You may have to run MultiBeast again to reinstall some fallback kexts if you need them (I didn't), but the only thing I've really noticed about this upgrade is that my startup time seems to have increased. Which is pretty annoying, but hopefully it can be eventually fixe--KERNEL PANIC AIEEEE :P

Anyway, I hope that Apple gets its act together soon and fixes the App Store--I really want to play some solitaire! :P

EDIT: 24 hours later and the problem has been fixed. Now, time to download random apps! :D :P