I just reinstalled Tiger, and I can’t help but be amazed (again) on how brain-dead simple it is to backup and restore…

Nono has already narrated how he installed his, so I don’t have to restate the obvious. Only difference with me is I did a custom install, and left out all the “foreign” language packs (and a couple of drivers of Printers I know I’ll never come across)

I guess this is a first time “restore” for Nono and I on the Mac platform. Because of that, the next scenario (wherein I was restoring and installing applications) deserves a special mention… especially through the perspective of a PC user.

Imagine:

iPod transferring 51GB of MP3s back to powerbook WHILE installing from DMGs mounted from the same iPod WHILE installing Adobe CreativeSuite2 (4 disc images, all mounted via network) WHILE installing MS OfficeX 2k4 via powerbook’s CD drive. WHILE copying backed-up files and settings from a sparsedisk over the network.

No delays, no hangs, and no errors whatsoever.

As a PC user, you know you can’t go through that scenario without an error at some (early) point. I mean most major PC applications require a restart for good measure. Try installing more than one simultaneously, and you’re asking for trouble… but here was OSX, merrily copying, installing, authenticating, replacing/updating system settings. All at the same friggin’ time!

I ask you: isn’t that simply incredible?

Transmit

I’ve returned to being a Transmit user. I’ll be first to admit that Interarchy still holds the belt feature-wise, but Transmit‘s “workflow” is simply better and more thought-out.

An example would be the queuing system. When you upload multiple files in Interarchy, you get a single entry in your transfer window and it just changes the information on which file is currently uploading. Plus for some reason Interarchy terminates a “connection” (like if it’s done uploading a file then moves to the next) really slow. After an upload, I see that there’s no more bytes to be uploaded, but it sometimes takes a bunch of seconds before the item is cleared in the transfer window.

Transmit on the other hand is noticeably faster, if you’re uploading tons of files – Transmit is definitely better. Plus when you dump a lot of files to be transferred, it shows them individually, with progress indicators for each (a-la CuteFTP… well not quite, but close enough)

I also like how Transmit consolidates both your folders and remote folders into one GUI, I really tried to get used to Interarchy‘s “standalone” approach (and just drag it to a regular Finder window) but I ended up getting irritated. Having a consolidated view also helps since you can set default local and remote folders, so when you access a directory, you have the option to set it to navigate to the local directory on your end which you usually attribute it to. It is a very old feature, I know. But Interarchy, by virtue of it’s design, doesn’t have that.

Of course there’s also the more-intuitive use of bookmarks in Transmit… basically everything about Transmit feels “natural.” And considering I only use Interarchy‘s auto-upload and regular FTP “mode” (which Transmit can do too) then I’m willing to forego the other features.

Lastly, the thing that clinched it for me, was the availability of a Transmit Dashboard Widget. Which essentially replaced my need for Filechute

QuickSilver

I’ve started using QuickSilver again as per Joel‘s suggestion. I’m really glad I followed his advice. QuickSilver is infinitely faster than Spotlight in predicting a match (naturally since it doesn’t have to catalog such a huge volume).

I now have this setup:

cmd-space is assigned to QuickSilver once again – which in turn handles things I usually launch (Applications, Preference Panes, and Remote Connections) alt-cmd-space is for Spotlight menu mode. ctrl-alt-cmd-space is for Spotlight full window mode.

I discovered that this setup is most effective for my needs.

Adium

Adium was updated and boy-oh-boy are there lots of exciting new stuff. I’m particularly psyched out by them finally implementing progress indicators in file transfer windows.

What sucks though is I think they messed up the shortcuts. I’m so used to shift-cmd-k and alt-cmd-k to connect and disconnect globally, now the shortcuts don’t work… bummer