Tell us about your Mac OS X experiences and how much time you're spending in Classic vs Mac OS X.
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Showing messages 1 through 15 of 15.

• Mac OS 9 still lives.
  2007-12-15 07:29:11  Bermellon [Reply | View]
  
  
  Hi.
  I can't remove OS 9 from my life as it's very helpfully.
  Remember when making a direct copy of OS 9 on another disc and booting from it without problems? - OS X can't do that.
  Remember when removing Control Panels or extensions for speeding up the System? - Don't try it on OS X!
  
  Another example:
  I have a Lombard PowerBook G3 (1999) and OS X was available on 2000. Yes, a one year old PowerBook "supported" by OS X (Beta - 10.0 - 10.1 - 10.2 - 10.3).
  Well, I can't remove OS 8.6 or OS 9 because Mac OS X NEVER supported the ATI Rage PRO LT video card so video is Scrap on this machine and there's NO DVD Playback on OS X ! ! !
  YES, a ONE year old PowerBook, with BUILT IN Apple DVD Drive.
  
  Thanks to APPLE
  
  Amazing ! ! !

• The atr
  2003-03-04 10:26:46  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  

• Great stuff, if it wasn't so Newbie based and OSX love-fest
  2001-07-05 04:28:57  bigboytoddy [Reply | View]
  
  
  [ramble on]
  
  Folks, without be too jaded, and I am because of being screwed repeatedly by SJ and company over the years (you don't want to know, just ask any other 3rd party developer during NeXT days). This love-fest of OSX kinda makes a 'vet' like me almost puke. In reality nothing you guys have spewed as revolutionary has been new, it is almost a decade old, in fact it is over a decade old. We know this, so move on. The reality is this, the price and cost of this is what the market demands, and such your revelation about cool cases and G4's don't mean squat, justified by an OS. What matters is when Apple can put a dual G4 low power with 2.5 gigs combined into a package for less than 1000 (and that is coming) and have OSX be multiprocessor in that environment and empower the user from a NON technical perspective. When DO and network objects can and will allow a user to specify by some common language (hey, english would be nice for a change) and have the computer see that, look at potential objects on the net to solve it, and put together a perspective on a solution. When that happens, then Apple and Steve are not smoking crack any more, they are the leaders of the pack. Apple is lacking, seriously the foresite into this market, they are looking to become MicroScrap's love buddy, and all for the dollar. It is more about the vision, not about the dollar that will keep Apple in the dollar in the longrun. They have lost their focus a LONG, long time ago, and need it badly. Steve's distortion field could be an asset, if used. Right now, selling plastic see-thru cubes to prove that a toaster type device is sellable (which it ain't proven by the lack of sale), is just an ego trip he has been on for a long, long time. Mac, then the Cube, now the cube/Apple. Time to push the envelope, not from a case perspective, but from a functional technological perspective that empowers the user. Feeling good about the color or envirodangerous plastic used is not going to be a winner in the long run.
  
  [ramble off]
  
  \t
  

• I like this.
  2001-05-05 11:06:39  plumcreek [Reply | View]
  
  
  You should definitely do more of these. I found the chat informative and entertaining.
  
  About MacOS X: I use MacOS X daily for everything that I need or want to do -
  
  PHP & HTML programming (Pepper)
  
  Genealogy (GEDitCOM)
  
  Word Processing (TextEdit - It works great for letters and little bits of this and that that I want to store somewhere, most of my communication nowadays is via the web and email anyway, I just need a cheap doc to rtf converter...)
  
  Accounting (AccountEdge)
  
  Email (Mail)
  
  Web Browsing (Omniweb)
  
  Flowcharts and Diagrams (OmniGraffle - to be honest, before OmniGraffle I rarely diagramed my programs during the design phase, now I wouldn't dream of NOT doing it, OmniGraffle is THAT good and THAT easy to use.)
  
  Graphic Editing (Create and via X11 - the Gimp).
  
  These only scratch the surface. Real apps that people rely on are here today. There is no reason for me to go back to OS 9. I never launch Classic. The terminal is awesome, there is no other way to describe it and the power it has.
  
  I believe a lot of people could make the switch to MacOS X today and be able to do everything they are accustomed to doing, without ANY problems.
  
  Again, kudos on the article idea. Very nice.
  
• I like this: Two Cool OS X Apps ... and Free!
  2001-05-05 16:36:19  Derrick Story | [Reply | View]
  
  
  I have two more cool native Mac OS X apps for you that you might not be aware of: WorldText and Sketch.
  
  In adition to some very nice word processing tools, WorldText provides an RTF option in the Save dialogue box (in addition to Unicode and SimpleText formats).
  
  Sketch is also terrific -- provides you with some nice vector drawing tools, text handling, and other fun stuff. As a bonus, you have the option to "Save a Copy As" in either PDF or Tiff formats. Wow!
  
  The best part, these two apps are free and right there on your Mac OS X CD. Make sure you have the Developer Tools installed, then go:
  
  Developer --> Applications --> Extras
  
  Have fun!

• Loved the chat; love OS X
  2001-05-04 21:27:16  sburrious [Reply | View]
  
  
  I agree with everything the participants had to say. I avoid using Classic and 9 as much as possible, because the contrast with OS X's power, beauty and flexibility is too stark. I only boot 9 to transfer digital photos (Kodak's fault for giving half of their cameras non-standard interfaces, including my DC 240). I only use Classic when I need to do some serious work in Word. (Boy, do I hope the OpenOffice port to OS X is successful!) Otherwise, with iTunes, BBedit, OmniWeb, Mail, GraphicConverter, Terminal, etc., <Dick Vitale voice> it's OS X all the way, baby! </Dick Vitale voice>
  
  Speaking of the Terminal, I'm a long-time Mac user, but since getting the PB, I've been delving into the Unix command line. Once you get over the baffling inattention to mnemonics and standard interfaces, it's a gas. You're basically programming on the fly with your OS. The power is incredible.
  
  Love the Dock, especially with the HUGE improvements Apple made after the PB and the as-yet-unsupported option to move it to the side. Could have done without the return of the wildly overrated Apple menu, but I understand why Apple had to cave in on that one. I also agree with the participants comments about moving away from the desk top. I use it a lot on my Windows machine at work because it's the only area where it's relatively easy to customize the organization of my files. I used it to a lesser extent on OS 9. On OS X, I have found no need at all to use it for anything but a backdrop.
  
  "One last thing": I have a suggestion for a future chat: the early stages of application development for OS X. I think it's really interesting how some new (OmniGroup) and long-time but small (Bare Bones) Mac developers are "getting it," while some of the heavy hitters (*cough* Adobe *cough*) are clearly not.

• Newbie's perspective
  2001-05-02 17:40:30  cdoering [Reply | View]
  
  
  I've been running OS X for a little less than a month. I got it because I wanted to install MySQL on my FireWire G3 Powerbook 500 so I could do some development on my website. As a result, I dived right into the terminal - in fact, I haven't spent much time learning the GUI at all. Since my first computer was a "luggable" with a 9" screen and CMP(?) and my second was an 8086 running DOS, I wasn't scared of the terminal window. The Unix terminology is a little strange, but again, one directory tree is a lot like another. The only problems I've had are with AOM and some Office crashes where I couldn't figure out how to get out of Classic. I am not used to being able to click on the Desktop and switch from one environment to another.
  My favorite thing: if something is taking too long (a slow Web page, for instance) I can go check email or do something else. Much less of the dreaded "go get a cup of coffee" syndrome.
  BTW, I have managed to generate two "kernel panics" so far. Even when it crashes, X is more entertaining than Windows by far.

• Liked the idea
  2001-05-01 16:30:00  wfaulk [Reply | View]
  
  
  The execution was a little rough, though. It'd be nice if you could manage a transcript of a phone call or face to face discussion rather than using a chat system. Or at least use a chat system that is character-by-character real time so that threads of conversation don't get lost so easily.
  
  Anyway, I enjoyed the article and I hope to see more. It's nice to read about first hand experiences rather than installation, use, and theory.

• Drivers and such
  2001-04-30 05:46:37  bradrice [Reply | View]
  
  
  I love OSX, too. I hope the drivers do become available soon. I have two SCSI cards in my B/W G3 and neither has driver support. I have an Epson 900N and doesn't have a driver, along with a Canon 1200FB scanner that doesn't work in OSX. But the writers are right, this is an awesaome piece of engineering Apple has come up with. They have even gone out of their way to make development tools available for the system. I'm looking forward to third party support of Applications and drivers (the scanner won't work in Classic due to the SCSI card). A speed increase is needed, as well, since Aqua does seem to use a lot of CPU power.
• Drivers and such
  2001-04-30 07:41:28  Derrick Story | [Reply | View]
  
  
  Your points are well taken indeed. Darn those missing drivers! I remember when the Blue and White G3s first came out, and I installed four of them in a high volume graphics dept ... we couldn't get any of our SCSI devices to work even with the third party cards. Talk about panic! No scanning, external drives, etc.
  
  Many of those lessons have helped me with my migration to Mac OS X, and I'm working on an article right now to discuss strategies for smooth migration.
  
  You can have Mac OS X and your devices too ...

• I LOVE THE EXPERIMENT!!!
  2001-04-29 22:17:10  daviddetroit [Reply | View]
  
  
  I absolutely loved this experiment!!! One of the most fabulous readings in a long time...

• Adoption Trends in the Unix Community
  2001-04-27 22:14:54  James Duncan Davidson | [Reply | View]
  
  
  I would have to agree that OS X is not ready for everyone yet. But people that are comfortable with a few rough spots are ready for this OS. And, quite frankly, the number of rough spots is less than I have had with any Unix install ever. As for Unix users buying Mac hardware... Well... At the start of ApacheCon a few weeks back, 4 ASF members owned Titaniums. By the time the conference was over with, there were 8. Keep in mind that there are only 50 some odd ASF members that are very Unix biased and you can see that there is a hell of a growth trend there.
  

  
  The G4 is even faster in and out of sleep than the G3 based iBook. There have only been a couple of times when the mouse pointer wasn't ready to go as soon as the screen was up. And then it wasn't more than a half second or so. I have heard from Apple's Core OS team that this is because they parallelize all of the tasks that are performed when a computer wakes up instead of serializing them like every other OS does. This means that you can use the machine while the network is reestablishing itself.
  

  
  Kudos on the chat. My only complaint is that the bias towards AIM making a new entry each time the Return key is pressed shows through a bit too much. For example, there is one place where there are 15 entries from beamOSX. I would suggest a bit of post chat massaging on the logs. But other than that, this was a great read.

• Time on OS X vs Classic vs OS 9
  2001-04-27 21:49:03  scottharrison [Reply | View]
  
  
  I spend more time in OS X than OS 9 because I like the OS X interface better and because I want to add my effort to the overall effort to refine OS X. I like the interface better primarily because of the Dock. I am almost at the point where I have everything I want in the dock. I use it rather than the recent follder under the Apple menu because the recent folder reminds me of the Applications folder I put under the Apple menu in OS 9 and the altered applescript I used to put aliases of my most used applications there. Hard work compared to dragging an icon to the dock.
  
  I also like the screen saver, which I have come to miss since After Dark went away. I don't think you need a screen saver with a Powerbook, but I like my favorite pictures slowly transitioning in and out.
  I use OS 9 for burning CDs and for using IE 5 when I don't want it and Classic freezing at the wrong moment. It may be just me, but when I play Yahoo!s Word Racer game, OS X IE 5 won't load the Java applets and Classic IE 5 freezes pretty often. Classic IE 5 freezes occasionally but less often doing other things like online banking. I don't like freezes that leave me wondering whether or not my payment instructions were accepted and which make it impossible to download a qif with which to update my Quicken accounts. This may be just me. I haven't seen anything in the Apple OS X discussion forum indicating that others are having the same experience. too bad, because someone else might come up with a workaround before I do.
  
  I spend more time in Classic than OS X. My three most frequent activities are internet browsing, eMail, financial management using Quicken and Excel and communication using Word.
  
  Quicken requires Classic.
  
  OS X eMail, though nice does not compare to Microsoft Office 2001 Entourage for address book, calendar and integration with Word and Excel. Therefore, I use OS X eMail to look at eMail sometimes, but use Classic Entourage to store received mail in folders.
  
  OS X IE 5, as I mentioned doesn't handle Java applets the way Classic IE 5 does, which affects not only game playing but also online banking and online trading.
  
  Almost everything else I do, I can only do in Classic, so I'm there for other activities that aren't in OS X yet.
  
  You mention Apple being good at saying it's time to move on, which it is, but sometimes it stutters a bit. I ordered a PowerBook G3 the day it was announced in May, 1998. I finally took delivery in September, 1998. Less than six months later, the bronze keyboard was available. No big deal that it was faster, that's expected. but it had built in DVD and Firewire and cost about $2500 less. Worse yet, less than a year later, a cheaper, faster model with built in DVD, firewire, USB and Airport was out and Apple terminated support for the PC card approaches to these things for my version. I'm very jealous of those who waited a bit and get to use their USB printer and their Airport with OS X.
  
  Although I plan to continue with OS X until Lucent provides the drivers for my WaveLan card and I can use my airport again, the airport is the one thing which could make me decide to go back to OS 9 until OS X support is in place. The thing that rankles me is that the Apple Airport card is a Lucent WaveLan card. Apple gives the impression that it is being arrogant by not supporting the card sold by Lucent. I did not choose it over and Apple Airport card, it's my only option.
  
  Further to the feeling that Apple abandoned its most enthusiastic G3 PowerBook customers, I wold like to have a G4 PowerBook, but I will not buy one until the superdrive and whatever else is waiting in the wings is out. Even with its limitations, my G3 PowerBook is more useful than the G4 PowerBook, so I will wait.
  
  Thanks for this opportunity to communicate my thoughts in an intelligent forum.
  
  
• Time on OS X vs Classic vs OS 9
  2001-04-28 07:44:34  Derrick Story | [Reply | View]
  
  
  Scott, I think you make many good points in your post. There's one in particular that I'd like to touch on.
  
  I think PowerBooks and Mac OS X are a wonderful match -- even more so that with the desktop machines.
  
  The Airport networking (for newer books with Airport slots), the fast wake-up, iTunes on the road, iMovie, etc, etc have added new life to my PowerBook experience.
  
  I understand you concerns about Apple's shortcomings too when it comes to supporting customers. As I said in the article, sometimes it feels like tough love.
  
  But other times there are solutions and work-arounds that I just don't know about. Such as using Airport with non-Airport transmitters. I thought I was cooked with OS X.
  
  But I found out that if I enter the Hex version of my password, I can connect. Weird! I'm sure that will be corrected with time.
  
  That's why I think these forums are so important. We can help each other survive these exciting, but painful transitions.

• That was great!
  2001-04-27 21:17:31  sharumpe [Reply | View]
  
  
  I found that very interesting. My vote is for continuing the articles.