Now Up-To-Date and Contact

Reader Chris Malanga wrote that Panther "...breaks Now Up-To-Date and Contact. The programs will launch, but will not open any contact or calendar files. I went to the Power On Software page today and they list a compatibility note:

"We are currently testing a new version of Now Up-to-Date & Contact for "Panther" - Mac OS X 10.3 - compatibility. Our new Now Up-to-Date & Contact 4.5.1 includes several new features and stability improvements and will ship in December 2003."

[Update 9:45p EDT 10/25] Panther Still Coming to Canada: From John Christie, "In Canada my copy of Panther didn't come to our University computer store on Friday. Go to Apple's website in Canada to see why (as of 9 Sat. it was still up). It seems that Panther is getting farther and farther away from release here. In case it is down, what I am referring to is the fact that the countdown to Panther website is still up, more than a day later, and it is now counting up!!" [Still doing it at 10p EDT--ed.]

[Update 10a EDT 10/25]"Night of the Panther"--Some Reader Reports & Photos: The Apple Stores closed and re-opened at 8 p.m. local time for this special event commemorating the release of Panther, Mac OS X 10.3. We were unable to make it this time but here are some reader contributions.

From Bob Manka who attended the Clarendon, VA, event:

Just returned from the Apple Store in Clarendon. I had planned to go to Mac Business Solutions in Gaithersburg [MD] which also was throwing a Panther party, but due to some freeway problems went to Clarendon instead Got there about 9 PM thinking that surely there wouldn't be a line to get in. There certainly was a year ago for Jaguar, but I thought that by 10.3 the "new" would have worn off.

Wrong! There were about 150 people in line from the Apple Store back to the entrance of the Barnes and Noble store and this was the steady state until at least 10 PM. Took about 40 minutes to get into the store. However, the time flew by as everyone in line were serious Mac users. Next to me were two different people who had been developers, and a serious Final Cut Pro user. We debated how to solve a few tricky OS X issues as well as the best way to install the Panther upgrade. Three of the four of us were purists who will wipe clean a hard drive partition and do a full "erase and install". I've found that this seems to result in the fewest future problems.

For the clean install I will have to install a few programs from CD (Photoshop, Office X, etc.) but I have all the subsequent updates on a separate partition that I use for downloads and it will just be a process of sequentially mounting the updates into disk images and running them (Photoshop 7.0.1, etc.). Before wiping the disk partition for the clean install, I'll copy my home directory to CD or DVD and then reinstall my Documents and a few selected preferences (Internet Explorer Favorites, Safari Bookmarks, Keychain, etc). Otherwise everything else will be new with no old problems carried over.

Overall, it was a very pleasant evening and something of a "happening". The store was packed with people of all ages and an amazing assortment of knowledgeable, and in some cases, distinguished, computer users. Since the Tyson's store is closed for remodeling, most of their staff were at Clarendon enthusiastically helping. I would expect that about 600 to 1000 people bought Panther there tonight.

I'm sending this in case you didn't make it since your Panther copies were already delivered.

And Tadd Torborg, Apple Store Event Participant Extraordinaire, wrote:

I took some pictures at the Panther Release event at the Millenia Mall store in Orlando. The crowd was bigger than any previous event at the mall. The line took hours to run out.

Tadd's photos of the "Night of the Panther" on his web page.