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Our guide to the guides to what to do if you’re installing Apple’s operating system update

Apple’s Snow Leopard: just before you update..

Of course your first starting place if you want an overview of Apple’s Snow Leopard (aka Mac OS X 10.6.0) would be our own review. But there’s so much else out there on the web too. Here’s a quick roundup; add your own useful links.

Help!
Apple has some support pages. Probably the first place to start would be with installation (PDF link). This has changed somewhat between previous versions and the latest: particularly because there now isn’t an “archive and install” option as there used to be. (Except there sort-of is.)

Apple also has a page of “known incompatibilities”

TidBits also explains about installation, and how it’s changed.

Macworld has a wiki of known and emerging problems. If you’re in France and using Orange and trying to send Mail, it’s got a particularly helpful tip.

Wired also has a how-to wiki on upgrading to Snow Leopard.

The Register is mirroring a list of incompatible software being compiled by at a wikidot page.

Interesting: Jason Snell at Macworld points out that Snow Leopard calculates space used according to “1,000 bytes = 1kb” rather than the old “1,024 bytes = 1kb”. This suggests (surely?) that Snow Leopard will tell you that your hard drive is more full than by the previous measurement system. Then again, it’ll tell you that you have a bigger hard drive. Swings and roundabouts.

Reviews
The Register’s review, which I think was the UK’s first; and its story about the takedown notice from Apple which it ignored. It’s long, and based on a developer build that was almost surely the same as the Gold Master (GM).

Macworld gives you more than you may be able to comprehend. Of note: Rob Griffiths on what annoyances have and haven’t been fixed between Leopard and Snow Leopard.

The Daily Telegraph review:

Opening and closing applications, flicking between windows, and even booting up and shutting down feels slicker. Snow Leopard’s support for 64-bit computing is key to this, as is its use of OpenCL, which utilises the power of the Mac’s graphics processors to run other programs and applications, giving the entire system more grunt.

I’m not convinced that 64-bit or OpenCL have anything to do with those perceptions, but am willing to be corrected.

We’re awaiting John Siracusa’s usual in-depth review at Ars Technica where he points out that it should have been a 0, not a 1, at 0×005335333553544222.

Er, have we missed some other UK papers’ reviews? Perhaps not.

BusinessWeek’s Stephen Wildstrom says that it’s a “steak more than sizzle” upgrade that’s a no-brainer for [Microsoft] Exchange users.

What else have you noticed around the web?

Windows\Mac\Linux: If you’ve got a virtual pile of e-books but no good way to organize them, Calibre is a feature rich e-book manager, complete with Cover Flow-like looks and network sharing.

Whether or not you have a portable e-book reader, Calibre is packed with features to help you organize your e-books. More »

Ironically, it’s one of the biggest decisions you make when you get a Mac: How should I run Windows on it? Parallels or Fusion? An exhaustive battery of benchmarks by MacTech reveals a clear winner. More »

Mac OS X only: Free application AddressBookSync pulls contact photos and birthdays from your Facebook account and syncs them with Address Book, so you’ll always nice photos assigned to your contacts (and hopefully never miss another birthday). More »

Mac OS X only: Free plug-in Understudy integrates Hulu and Netflix streaming directly into Front Row. Hulu recently made a seriously poor decision, blocking media center application Boxee from streaming Hulu content. For the same reason, Understudy has been crippled to comply with Hulu’s indication that More »

Mac OS X only: Disk for iPhone is a free application that mounts your iPhone or iPod touch as a drive on your Mac, turning your device into a portable hard drive. More »

iConvert is a web-based application for converting icons from the format of one operating system into another and from image files into new icons.

The iConvert interface is straight forward, select a compatible file from your computer and upload it. There is no editing or tweaking just More »

Mac OS X only: Screen locker utility LockTight adds a shortcut key combination for OS X users to quickly lock your workstation from the keyboard. Windows users switching to using a Mac might be surprised to More »

Google has officially released their popular photo management application Picasa for Macs, after years of offering Picasa as a free Windows download. More »

Citing a supposed inside source, the Googling Google blog says it’s plausible that a free Mac OS X version of Picasa, one of our favorite photo organizers, could drop next week.

The post notes that two other statements by Google—about Picasa launching “later this year” and “larger presentations” at Macworld—point to exactly this kind of launch, and, for all the comments we’ve seen around here whenever Picasa is mentioned, it would certainly rank as an attention-getter at a conference where Steve Jobs won’t be making a big splash.