Before you wonder why I’m talking about my MacBook upgrade on a site dedicated to Mind Mapping, I hope this weekend’s events will highlight the importance of Mind Mapping software in my life and also be a warning to those of you that are running iMindMap.

I had this vision of a new sleek machine with a host of new dazzling features, because, unlike Microsoft Operating systems, Apple Mac upgrades don’t require you to take out another mortgage just to afford the hardware to run their new operating system.

In fact, this would’ve been the second upgrade of my operating system on the same hardware, had iMindMap not disappointed.

I diligently backed up my whole machine on Friday night, just in case something went wrong. The previous time I did the upgrade, I was so excited that I didn’t even back up the machine before upgrading. This time, I was a bit more cautions and made a backup image of my machine.

Early Saturday morning, I upgraded to Snow Leopard. I first did an upgrade over my existing operating system, Leopard. The upgrade went as smoothly as usual and the machine worked first time. Isn’t it amazing that in under half an hour you can have a brand spanking new operating system that actually works?

I tested most of my software and was happy that it worked. In fact, the upgrade even recognised some of my older incompatible software and moved it to an incompatible folder automatically.

I made another backup image of my machine, this time with Snow Leopard already installed, just in case.

My plan was to completely erase everything on my machine, load the new operating system from scratch, reinstall the software and then copy my user data across. This would ensure that my machine’s performance would be optimum and I would get rid of a lot of “junk” on my machine in the process, keeping only what I really needed.

Once the machine was erased and upgrade, I started to install my software and test them. Everything went fine until I installed iMindMap. In case you don’t know what iMindMap is, it is the official Mind Map software endorsed by Tony Buzan, the inventor of Mind Maps, and is the software that I use to create all the Mind Maps that you see on MindMapTutor.com. As you can see, it enables me to easily draw beautiful, colourful and organic Mind Maps.

Unfortunately iMindMap did not work. After searching the support website, I found that it was not compatible with Snow Leopard and was a known problem. I either had to upgrade (at a cost) to the Beta 4.1 version or roll back my upgrade to the previous version.

I decided roll back to the previous version, as it would cost me too much to upgrade. I was already more than a bit upset when iMindMap announced that I would have to pay for the upgrade from version 3 to version 4, as I felt that version 3 was not yet a good enough production product for its price, despite all the rave reviews quoted on the site. I use it because it draws Minds Maps that resemble Tony Buzan’s Mind Map Principles the closest.

The Mac version also had a few things missing that were in the Windows version.

Luckily I could erase my machine and restore the backup image quite easily.

By the time this was done, it was Sunday afternoon. Most of my weekend was taken up by this process, considering that I started on Saturday night and also tried to have some “time off” on the weekend.

Lessons learnt:

• The Apple MacBook and Apple’s operating system are simply great. If you can afford a MacBook, buy one!
• Mind Map Software is too important for me to be without it. I even gave up all the wonderful features of a new Mac operating system just so that I could use my Mind Map software. (Business before pleasure.)
• iMindMap should be a bit more customer focused instead of praising themselves.

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, based on my experiences, and not necessarily fact.