 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Please note that archives denoted as
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 Applescript/Scripting ATM Replacements Classic Cursors Classic MacOS Mods Download ResEdit Getting Started Icon Help Interarchy Interfaces Linux Icebox MacOS Startup Screens Resources/Templates Throbbers  About Us Advertising Contact Us Submission Policy
|
 |
An Overwhelmingly Trite Review For The Masses by Jack Shedd
It's Sunday Morning, and I'm fairly certain my body odor has caused my cat to turn against me. She's been pouncing across my loft as though she became it's rightful owner. I'm certain she made the bed, and took a nap in the center of it, certain I would not be asking her leave minutes later. I'm not too amazed by that. I'm a bit shocked she washed the sheets first. I haven't left the keyboard for close to twelve hours. My body is tired, and my brain has been set adrift inside of my skull, crashing against my temples every twenty minutes or so. I've quickly come to the conclusion that morphine should be included inside of MacOS X's packaging. Not a high-dosage, but just enough to make you really enjoy the genie effect. MacOS X has made me insane. I'd liken the last 24 hours to the hours it took to give birth to me. However, MacOS X is, in a short, and rather intense verse, an achievement. Let me repeat, and clarify; an achievement, not necessarily an innovation. MacOS X is remarkable. It is perhaps the first Operating System yet to strive to act as complete user environment, and in fact, the first operating system released to date to where I felt the engineers were more intelligent then my grandmother after a few classes on object-oriented programming at the local community college. Someone loved this system. However, it is at least 2 versions away from being innovative. MacOS X's Quartz engine, which uses Postscript as it's native-display language, allows programmers to truly create dynamic interfaces. For reference, think of Macromedia's Flash technology, and it's use on the web. Compare the sites in which Flash was used as the base navigation, and in which HTML / Javascipt were used. Base web pages feel stagnant after interacting with Flash sites. The possibility of an operating system designed around Flash has always intrigued me (I even attempted it once, in a rare fit of stupidity). The simple idea of an interface so entirely dynamic the every aspect of it could change, scale, twist, contort, and otherwise alter itself on demand is simply too thought-provoking to ignore. Unfortunately, Apple only came 30% towards this idea. While, yes, Aqua, the nom de plume of the MacOS X's interface theme, does react to minimizing windows, through the now famous genie effect (view the demos), and the Dock does scale and move as need be, it is not, yet, and I should underline yet, it can be, if Apple starts playing with it's own metaphors. Or, better yet, let's design our own interface. The Finder is actually only an application, one we can remove. Within MacOS 9, Applications oft depended on the Finder for several small, although integral, functions. It is impossible to rely on OS X's Finder in this manner. Everything is available with the Frameworks of the system. We could write shells, similar to the ones commonly available within Windows, that replace the finder. In theory, these shells could rely entirely on BSD Subsystem for file navigation, as well as simple commands. I'm sure it's possible, if not already done. We just need to play, as Mac users are inclined to, with the general idea that Apple has presented to us with MacOS X. That's how I see MacOS X progressing, not via Apple's own changes, but by those of the community of programmers to circulate the Macintosh community. Take Apple's technologies, and make them our own, add to them, abuse them, push them further. Nearly 80% of the items within MacOS 9x that we all love were created by third-party developers. I say, let's make that 100%, and wave a middle finger to corporate culture and market testing dictating what our computer should be. On with the review. 1. Installation Installation is a breeze, and the most intuitive out there. Mac OS X ships with three separate and yet equally designed CDs. The first, the one we've all been drooling over for the last six-months,is the actual Mac OS X Installation CD. The second is a special version of Mac OS 9.1 specifically built for OS X/OS 9 hybrid machines, with a minimal extension set. Lastly, Apple has included a CD containing the Developers Tools, which is perhaps one of the gutsiest moves of the decade. I know EVERY *nix distribution comes with developer tools, but honestly, who uses *Nix? Mostly developers. Mac OS X is aimed at my grandmother (minus the courses mentioned earlier). The OS X Install CD is a bootable system CD that will launch you directly into the installer. I like that facet of the disc. There are already several reviewers whining about not being able to run disk utilities, and troubleshoot from a bootable CD, however, I counter, Mac OS X is not the type of operating you can troubleshoot in that manner. Also, for purpose of Disk tools, the Mac OS 9.1 CD is also bootable, and includes updated versions of Apple's standard Hard Drive tools. The Mac OS X CD, once booted, knocks you into the installer, and, after those countless license agreements, you begat the installer. The Mac OS X Installer is fairly intuitive, as the pulsing-Aqua buttons direct you as to what your next move should be.
On my machine, a PowerBook G3 Lombard 1999 Series, installation took around 20 minutes, using HFS+. UFS installation took nearly a full-hour and half. I'm still wondering as to why, and would bow before the first almighty expert who can explain why Mac OS X installs slower on what should be its native file system. The installer offers very few options, that meaning one. The only real option you have is whether to install the Additional Print Drivers, which only total about 7 MB. I went ahead and installed mine, for safe measure, but, if truly anal, you don't have to. After installation is complete, you get to restart your machine. Mac OS X is a slow boot. With a full 15-seconds simple to display the Happy Mac, a minute to two minutes resting there, one to three minutes on the Startup process, and another 30-seconds to pull up the Login screen, plus a good minute to display the Mac OS X Finder and desktop. However, in reflecting, Mac OS X wakes up from sleep in under 5 seconds, and should, in theory, never crash. How often will I be restarting? Time Spent: 23 Minutes Grade: B- Pros: Intuitive, compact, and hassle-free Cons: It can be a hassle if your machine is corrupt, or your on a Beige G3 with a >8Gb hard drive; Not as expedient as I would prefer, although it tops Windows installation by about a half-hour. 2. Setup The Setup Assistant in Mac OS X is amazing, and, funky to boot. As it starts, the Assistant displays a rather psychedelic wave-form pattern, and plays what sounds like Kruder & Dorfmesiter's "Aquasky", though I'm not sure that is the track title. The pattern continues to animate as the Assistant continues, displaying a subtle ripple effect, similar to Photoshop's. The interesting bit here is that this animation is actually being rendered by Quartz, as opposed to being an embedded Quicktime Movie, showcasing just what the display engine on Mac OS X is capable. (NOTE: At least I think it is, as I watch the console, I see Quartz debug messages, and not Quicktime, as you should were it embedded. If I'm wrong, let me know.) The Setup Assistant itself (now a Macintosh standard, and leader as far as setup assistants go) is quick and painless. The information it requests is explained to you in plain-english, as opposed to the Greek used in Windows 2000 setup assistants.
The network assistant is rather painless as well. If it detects a DHCP Server on your network, it will automatically assign all the information, and ask you if you want to keep this setting. If not, you can tell it what kind of connection you have (i.e.A Cable Modem automatically selects DHCP, a DSL Modem automatically sets up PPoE, and a LAN connection selects manual network settings). Networking in OS X is about 90% more intuitive then within any version of ANY operating system out there, including about 10% more intuitive then within Mac OS 9. One of the few improvements Apple should really tout, considering the complicated networking back-end behind the BSD Subsystem. Try configuring networking in a *nix flavor, and you'll understand. The only flaw comes to problems with your Network connection. A port on my Netgear 10/100, to which my Powerbook was attached, went dead, however, the Setup Assistant made no mention that I didn't currently have a network link. It would be nice to see that feature added. I didn't discover this until the Assistant tried to send my registration to Apple, and errored out. Next, you get to setup your iTools account, and your Email account. This feature could use some work. First, the idea that the moment you have an iTools account, Mac OS X sets up the Email account, isn't really conveyed properly. This is mainly a wording issue. Secondly, I have almost 5 email accounts, there should be a way to setup multiple accounts through the setup assistant... Finally, you're asked to register with Apple, and, Bingo, you're on your way. An animation of a morphing, gel-like ball, bouncing between two points is displayed, and is one of the most eye-inspiring animations I've seen in an OS. The only huge problem is you can only launch the Assistant directly after an install, or, to be more confrontational, Mac OS X launches it for you. This means if it errors out, and I'm a wee-bit confused on how to use the System Preferences control panel, I'm dead in the water. Also, while a nit pick, I would like to see an advanced option, if only an Easter-Egg. Walking through the assistants has always been a pain to me, especially when all I'm trying to do is get a system to boot. Overall, Setup in Mac OS X is fast, and free of pains. While small tweaks throughout would be nice, it's an A. Time Spent: 7 minutes Grade: A Pros: Fast, intuitive, easy-to-understand and well-written; Animations are impressive Cons: Network setup can error out on you without telling you; No Expert Mode; Can't Launch after initial install 3. Finder And Desktop Before I tackle the controversial Dock, I'd like to speak on the Finder in general. This is the real meat of Mac OS X, and where it's greatest flaws lay. The Finder is now more Mac OS 9 like then ever, with everything in it's right place. The Apple Menu is in the far left corner of the screen, as opposed to the middle, and a Menu clock is now a default option. It has definitely evolved thanks to Apple's feedback from the Public Beta. If you've never used Apple's Public Beta of Mac OS X, don't. The system, in it's infantile state, was atrocious. I enjoyed it merely for the glimpse of what Apple was planning, but it was hardly a primary OS Candidate. Windows could be duplicated by simply clicking an icon twice, making the opening of duplicate windows an oft occurrence. The Menubar was a nightmare, as the centered-Apple icon caused Menu text to become overly spatial, or underlay so. Classic was unstable (at best), and the general feel of Mac OS X was a BETA. Mac OS X 10.0 is a far-off child of that Beta. The interface has been dramatically improved upon, mirroring Mac OS 9 in as many ways as possible. Windows behave correctly (for the most part), and the general responsiveness of the system is vastly improved. But it's still NOT fast. Not even as fast as Mac OS 9. This isn't to say it's slow, or should be matched to running Mac 9.1 on a tripped out 6100, but, unlike Mac OS 9, you can tell when the system is performing an action. When I click on a menu, just to select a simple command, I can tell the OS is drawing the menu internally, and then displaying it on the screen. It's a bit annoying. However, there is room for hope. This speed, or lack thereof, is not inherent in the OS. Some applications draw there items quickly, at speeds identical to Mac OS 9.1 on a G4. It seems there is most likely still a great deal of debugging code contained within the OS. For proof, just open the console.
Within the Finder, certain features are definitely slower then others. For one, live window re-sizing only truly works at usable speeds when you are viewing the window in Icon view. Within list view, live window re-sizing is so slow, it's unbearable. One thought is that the Finder is actually a Carbonized application...not Cocoa. That's not to leave the impression that Cocoa applications are some sort of hyped-up speed freak, running about Mac OS X leaving the other applications in the proverbial dust. Cocoa applications are certainly slow. Under the retail, OmniWeb takes, oh, I'd say a good minute to launch. This is the most frustrating part of Mac OS X. Launching applications is so much slower then Mac OS 9, you almost feel the need to launch an application, and then go grab a quick bathroom break. Which I've done. The strangest part, is that this isn't true for all applications. Appleworks launch time is almost Identical to Mac OS 9, and it's a far more complex application then Omniweb. Why? I have no idea. Perhaps Apple will reveal more later. Now, the column view is perhaps the great redeemer. Moving files about, as well as navigating through complicated hard drive hierarchies, is not only a breeze, but a pleasure. This view of your system is far more powerful then anything I've used in the past, and, I have to say, I'm in love with it. Next, let's look over the Finder's Window's Buttonbar. It's useful. For the love of God it's useful. Being able to quickly click into folders, change your view, and eject media, is another feature I'm proud to say I love. I'd like to see more accessories added to it's item(how about a mini-Sherlock?, or a button to compose a quick Email, or integration with Fire?), but, that's the only criticism I can offer. In reflection, the Finder is at least useable, which is more then I can say for the Public Beta, and some of it's features are not only worth the upgrade, but, when you get use to them, you will wonder how you ever existed with them. Perhaps by version X.I Apple will have vastly improved the speed of the finder. Grade: C Pros: Column view amazes all; the buttonbar is not only useable, but a true feature; it looks gorgeous. Cons: SLOW SLOW SLOW SLOW SLOW SLOW SLOW; ahem, SLOW; Icons can't be arranged by Kind. 4. The Dock Okay, I admit it. I love the Dock. I love the movement, and the beauty it adds to me OS. I love the idea that no other operating system has anything like this. And I love using it. Once you adjust to the Dock, you'll find yourself using it more and more. You begin to find it a welcomed addition to your productivity, and, best of all, you show it off to anyone who'll look. What more could you ask for?
Magnification offers great user-feedback, and makes you feel like your OS is really alive, and working. Adding items to the dock is simple, and convenient in any application. You can usually just drag the Title to the dock of any open document, and boom, it's there. The Dock tends to be the bellwether of the OS. If the Dock is slow, something is seriously eating your machine's processor (usually Classic). Other then those rare situations, the Dock however, is usually quite speedy, and I've yet to see it crash. The genie effect is a nice thing to have, though you begin you wish you could turn it off when you're really pushing the machine. Perhaps Apple will add this to a future build, as I can see the Dock continually evolving. Context Menus are a great addition, allowing the dock to truly replace the Apple Menu for system wide navigation. Besides, you never could just drag an item to the Apple Menu and have it added, could you? The dock extras, like Displays, and the Battery, are nice, and allow the Dock to replace, in theory, the control strip. However, I can immediately see my dock getting far more cluttered, making finding what I need, a bit harder. I'd like to be able to have a separate Process Dock, a settings dock, and Launcher Dock. I realize it would difficult for new users to become acclimated to the Dock in this manner, however, Apple should give users the option. Grade: A- Pros: Beautifying the system: Bragging rights;Useful way to speed around your system; good marker of system performance. Cons: When the Dock goes slow, it hurts; Few options for customization ( aside from Terminal hacks); Drag and Drop doesn't work as well as advertised when dropping documents onto an applications.
I really want to enjoy using iTools. Right now, I dread it. Well, not all of it. Just the iDisk. For some strange reason, the iDisk makes the Finder crawl when it's in action. Not when it's mounted, but when you're opening the windows, copying files to and from, and mounting it. Basically, everything you would use the iDisk for. Worse, I'm on a T1 here in my home/office, I can't imagine what it's like for 56k dialup users. While I understand that Apple wanted the iDisk to act as a regular network mounted volume, it slows down the system to a point that forces us to think of another way to use it. Perhaps, a faster way would be to make the iDisk a Dock application, one that downloads it's entire file list upon initial connection, and updates every so often, according to a user specified interval, similar to the way IMAP functions. It's just an idea. Mail however, is a dream. After creating an iTools account with the Setup Assistant, my new mail address was immediately available. Best of all, Apple has created an exclusive SMTP server for iTools users. No more relying on your own provider, or using it as a true back-up account. I'm not aware of any other free email services that offers an SMTP server. Correct me if I'm wrong. Grade:D Pros: Great idea: iTools Mac.com account is a great feature, especially with the SMTP server now online. Cons: TERRIBLE implementation. 6. PDF Quick note here: System wide PDF kicks. End note. Grade: A Pros: No Adobe purchase to use PDF, easy way to save any document for everyone to use. Cons: Not every application can read PDF yet. 7. System Preferences Panel Well, I'm still wanning on this one. On one side of the issue, I'm unsure if there is a way for third-developers to add to the System Preferences. If there is, that resolves one concern. On that same side, it was nice to be able to disable certain control panels within the Mac OS. While Mac OS X won't suffer from the same problems of "Conflicts" that Mac OS 9x does, it is still a great way for administrators to simplify their users system. On the other side, the Preferences panel IS simple. And, it's easy to use, with very few damaging options to the system. On the preferences panel, you can really see the BSD Subsystem kicking in with "re-entrant" processes. This is a UNIX feature in which, abstractly anyway, once you use an application, it takes a far shorter amount of time to use it the second time. I'm sure this is only within a certain time frame, but I'm not aware of what that time frame is.
As you launch a single Preferences panel, it can often take a little while to load. Nothing terrible, but it does allow you to look away from the system. However, after launching it once, it loads in about half the time the second time around. Nice. Setting preferences is simple, and quick, and immediate (read: no restarting). Nice. Grade: A (I think) Pros: Simple. Cons: Can we add to it? 8. Services Services are an important part of Mac OS X, and should be covered, as well as learned by all users, and utilized by all developers. With services, you can access features of any application written with services in mind. For instance, I often find myself selecting text in Omniweb, and use the Mail service to create an email with that text inside of it. Or, selecting text in an email, and using the TextEdit service to create a new document with that text. While this seems like copy & paste, it feels more integrated, and is more expandable. Few applications really take advantage of this, but, once they do, you'll see services as a great addition. Think of it as a quick way to use an application within any other application.
Grade: A Pros: Great way to access other applications feature sets Cons: Unutilized; Yet to reach it's full potential;. 9. Fonts & Spelling If you want a real mystery, look at Apple's Font Panel. It's fast, it's intuitive, and every application can use it. Why isn't every part of the OS as fast as the Font panel? It quickly re-sizes, changing layout based on sized, and shows it's menus. Whatever Apple has done here, they did it right. I'd like to see WYSIWYG added as an option, even if it costs performance,or perhaps a preview pane. While, yes, you can select text, and pick a font, and watch in apply in real-time, it would be great to be able to quickly peruse your font collections, and see what they look like.
Also, Font collections is a wonderful addition. You can easily create Family of fonts, making navigation through several thousand fonts easier on the user. I tend to leave the Font panel in the Dock, and quickly call it as needed. Unfortunately, I've yet to get a font to properly add to the Fonts, whether I have them in the System Library, or my User Library. Other then that, I can see Designers loving this feature, eliminating the need for programs like Suitcase, and Font Reserve. The AppleSpell engine is another feature I enjoy. Apple has changed the default behavior of AppleSpell to underline words instead of displaying them as bold red text (per Mac OS X PB). I suppose designers complained that someone might actually want to type completely in bold red text, and obviously, under this scenario, you could not decipher your misspellings. Now, Mac OS X acts like Microsoft Office. The AppleSpell engine is fairly easy to bundle into an application, and allows users a universal dictionary, instead of separate ones for each application. Applaud. Even the basic TextEdit application includes this service, which allows me to write this entire review in small cocoa application, without loading a rather bulky office suite. This type of object-oriented design is what I'm really looking forward to. As Apple designs more services similar to AppleSpell (how about AppleHTML? Or even AppleTableMaker?), we'll begin to see small-developers building complete productivity applications at a lower cost to the consumer. Grade:A- Pros: Easy to use, system wide standard; Fast; Cons: No WYSIWYG 10. Bundled Applications Apple has pretty much addressed all of your needs with Mac OS X's built in applications, as well as downloads now available. Let's walk through them.
There are far more Applications available for OS X in the base install, but, they either don't matter, or aren't often used. Grade for Applications: B+ Pros: OS X can now immediately replace most users Desktop OS. Most Applications take advantage of unique OS X features. Cons: Still no large-commercial applications ported. 11. Classic Okay. Let's get this over with. Classic works. It's stable (mostly) and often just as fast as native Mac OS 9x. Aside from the screen redraws which plague it, Classic mode works, and is perhaps the crowning jewel in Mac OS X. However, if you're low on RAM, forget about using it. When Classic wants to, it can consume your OS, forcing every application to slow down, occasionally requiring a quick force quit. Great news: Once, sometimes you can force quit a single Classic app that is misbehaving, and continue using your other Classic applications. Also, Classic has yet to make my machine crash. Certain aspects of Classic still bother me, like the inability to use applications that access the Hardware level, or the idea that Networking with PPP Connections seems buggy, but other then that, I'm happy to say, Classic is wonderful. I'd dive more into Classic, but it's really just Mac OS 9x, and we all know how great that OS is. Grade: B+ Pros: It works, and no one expected it to. Cons: If the Classic application requires hardware access, forget about it;PPP connections buggy. Can grab up to 95% of the CPU. 12. Networking First, on a positive, server-based AppleShare IP file transfers are so fast, I literally said WOW when I copied a 60 Megabyte file to my hard drive in under a minute and a half. If you happen to have an AppleShare IP or Mac OS X Server Box, be prepared to be amazed. Now, to cover the negative: You can only connect to Mac OS 9 machines, and IP-based File Sharing, has to be turned on. Next, that grand increase I mentioned with Mac OS X and AppleShare IP boxes does not translate to regular Mac OS 9x boxes. File transfers are a little faster, which is great to see, although after transferring with AppleShare IP, I was disappointed. Apple had gotten my hopes up. Download times within Mac OS X Seem faster then under Mac OS 9. It's hard to be exact with these benchmarks, but I'd say the increase is slight enough not to matter. Connecting to servers can be a real pain, as the great, however out-dated, Chooser is nowhere in sight. Instead, we now have the Connect menu item, which opens a Browse Dialog. Live AppleTalk updating is still there, but browsing a single server is yet to be seen. Instead, when you select a server, you have to "Connect" to it. I'd like to see it automated a bit more, as well as have the mounting points available shown within the Browse dialog, instead of in a separate modal dialog.
Networking is general not as integrated as it should be, as you still have to use that Connect menu. I'd like to see that Network item on the main level of the computer actually show the AppleTalk network, as it did with NeXt Boxes. Grade: B+ Pros: Fast; Fast; Fast Cons: Integration lacking, and generally feels non-intuitive. 13. Wrap Up It is now Midnight on Sunday evening, and I'm settled within Mac OS X. I'm proud to say that with over 24 hours of playing, I have found myself accustomed to the operating system at hand, and ready to begin retraining myself as a UNIX Administrator, instead of just a Mac guy. The UNIX Shell beneath Mac OS X is a dream boat to have access to, and I can immediately see the advantages in having a shell beneath your computer, as long as it's not DOS. It would be nice if Apple installed some common-language translation in Mac OS X's shell though, so that I could type in something like "List" instead of "ls", with syntax similar to AppleScript for control. Also, I'd like to see the true power of this UNIX Shell utilized, and Apple producing Cocoa only applications. Further optimization on the G3 is required (on a G4 450, I saw a definite speed increase in all processes). Generally, it's a great Operating System, and it shows us, if not in this release, then perhaps the next, that the power of a Macintosh lay not only in the Software, but in our hardware as well. One thing to note is the possibility of an Intel port. When NeXT ported OpenStep to the Intel chip, it actually performed far better... That intrigues me. Of course, this was on a 68040 chip set, and not on our G3 or G4's, but, it'd be interesting to see if an Intel port of Mac OS X on a similar MHz machine would be faster then the PPC. Total Grade: B- Pros: It's the future of the Mac, and it's a bright future indeed; Buzzword compliance is a gift from God; Classic exceeds all expectations; Applications will be quick coming in the following months; Networking is improved; Interface is gorgeous; Cons: SLOW; Finder is Carbonized; Networking lacks integration; UNIX shell maybe dangerous for newbies; High-end graphic and web applications still messing.
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
Notes, and Rant Part 1
5. iTools Integration
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Please note that archives denoted as
|
Privacy Statement? Sure we gotta Privacy Statement.