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Sunday, January 4, 2004

Random thought:

OS X strikes again

Apple's website says of OS X 10.3, "Mac OS X has evolved. The fourth major release in just three years, Panther offers breakthroughs in innovation, ease of use and reliability that won't be seen in other operating systems for years, if ever."

While there are significant new features in 10.3, the changes aren't as revolutionary as 10.2 was. The previous "major release" was, to my way of thinking, far more than a .1-step upgrade and should have been 10.5 or maybe even 11. But then that would have caused some naming difficulties because Apple insists that "X" is pronounced "ten" and "OS Ten version 11" just doesn't sound right. So Apple is trapped in the .1-step "major" upgrades. But who cares about that. What you (and I) want to know is how well it works.

It looks marvelous packaged in a black box with a titanium grey X. But I had a sense of deja vu. That sense was strong enough that I leafed through the DVD shelf until I found what was causing that "I've seen this before" sense. OK, it's not an exact match, but you can see the similarity ...

Apple's OS X 10.3 box	Spike Lee's Malcolm X DVD box

The upgrade discs were in a package that's reminiscent of the DVD cover for Spike Lee's movie about Malcolm X. (Click the images for a larger view.)

Apple says there are more than 100 new features and that's true, although many of the new features are cosmetic only. Double-click a desktop file icon and the icon appears to explode as it launches. Cool. Very cool. But this isn't something that will increase productivity. So let's look at the features that count.

Three new features make the upgrade worthwhile

The 3 most significant new features are the Finder, Exposé, and the ability to switch from one user to another without logging out (a feature that's been available to Windows users since the advent of XP).

Quick Switch

Let's start with quick-switching users. I said that Windows had it first, but Apple gets it right. (That should annoy both Microsoft and Apple, but it's true.) Fast switching under XP works, but sometimes leaves settings or peripherals a bit confused. Fast switching under OS X seems to store and restore hardware and software settings properly.

To understand why you would want to enable this feature, consider a "normal" session: You have a couple of browser sessions open, an e-mail application, and BBEdit is running so that you can write a review of OS X 10.3. Your spouse wants to see if an expected e-mail message has arrived.

So you save your BBEdit document and log out. Your spouse logs in, finds the e-mail message and replies, and logs out. You log in, open the browser, return to the site you had on screen, open another browser session, return to the site you had on screen in that session, open your e-mail application, open BBEdit, open the document you were working on, and try to remember what you were writing about.

Wouldn't it be easier to just suspend what you're working on, switch to your spouse's account, and then switch back to your account with everything exactly as you left it? That's what the quick-switch function does. If you share your computer, you'll love this feature.

Finder

The new finder puts all your resources in a single location -- any attached disk drives, network drives, and even your iDisk if you've signed up for .Mac. To see a larger view, click the image at the right.

The new Finder puts everything together in a single location. When you open the Finder, you'll see any local hard drives that are in or connected to your computer, and this includes USB and Firewire drives. No big change there. But you'll also have access to any shared network drives (PC or Mac) and, if you have an active Internet connection and a .Mac subscription, your iDisk directories.

Exposé

Example of pressing F9 to display all running applications. Click the image to see a larger view.

Of my "top-3" list, that leaves Exposé. Now that Mac users can finally do some serious multi-tasking, they need a way to move from one application to another. Exposé has 3 hot hot-keys. Press F11 to clear the deck, leaving only the desktop visible. Press F11 again to bring everything back exactly as it was.

You can switch from one application to another with Cmd-Tab (this is not a new feature) but F9 brings a new functionality to switching. Press F9 and you'll see thumbnail views of every application you have running. Use the mouse to click one and you'll switch to it, or just press F9 again to return to the application you were working on.

Here I had two BBEdit documents open. Pressing F10 displayed both of them. Click the smaller image to see a larger view.

If you're working on several documents in BBEdit or several images in Photoshop or several websites in Internet Explorer, press F10 while you're looking at any one of the files and you'll see thumbnails of all the other files open in that one application. And, as you probably already suspect, pressing F10 again returns you to where you were.

Exposé can add hot-spots to any or all of the 4 corners of the screen or to mouse buttons if you have a mouse with lots of buttons.

You want this upgrade if you're a Mac user

Those are the top features from my point of view and once again Apple has raised the standard for making Unix easy to use. Mac users who have still not upgraded to OS X are missing out. I can think of no good reason to stick with System 9 or any earlier operating system. And I recommend that even Windows users who are looking for a new computer should at least take a look at what Apple has to offer. For somebody who felt that Apple had fallen behind technologically not too many years ago, that's quite a change.

The more I use OS X, the more I think the folks in Cupertino are onto something big.

Technology corner rating for OS X 10.3
	NINE CATS: Slicker and slicker. I really can't think of much that's missing from the OS now (except for something like the Windows Start Menu) and everything works beautifully, even on my old, slow iBook. If you own a Mac, get the upgrade; if your Mac is too old to use OS X, buy a new Mac.

How the Technology Corner rating system works.

Downloading music - iTunes for Mac and Windows

A couple of months ago, I tried both Apple's iTunes service and the "new" Napster, which is a repackaged version of Sony's on-line music service. I rated both "not acceptable", at least for Windows users, because Napster's software was a mess that couldn't seem to stay connected and because Apple's software didn't understand firewalls, so I could never connect in the first place.

Downloads from iTunes is easy, whether you're on a Mac or on a Windows machine. The player can also import music from CDs and plays most audio files. It's also free. Click for a larger view.

Apple released iTunes 4.2 in late December and it works flawlessly. This is probably not a good thing because there's a lot of good music out there that I'm willing to buy at a buck a cut. Most albums are priced at 10 bucks and if you have a fast connection, the downloads don't take very long.

In the time it took to write this much, I've downloaded the 12 cuts from Gato Barbieri's "The Shadow of the Cat" album and I'm now listening to a delightful Latin Jazz album performed by an artist I hadn't even heard of 15 minutes ago.

Having access to a large selection of music could easily raise my entertainment costs. Click the image for a larger view (and, no, you're not going to see my account name.)

For my ear, this is a good thing. For my wallet, I'm not so sure.

If you have an Apple computer and an iPod, hook up with iTunes. If you have a Windows computer and an IPod (yes, they work with Windows computers now), hook up with iTunes. If you have a Windows computer and you don't have an IPod, hook up with iTunes. You may have noticed that I didn't suggest the "new" Napster for anyone.

Technology corner rating for ITUNES
	NINE CATS: Apple's boastful CEO called the original version of iTunes for Windows the best Windows application ever. Wrong. Dead wrong. It didn't work right. I couldn't even connect to the iTunes store from behind a firewall. This is the best? But version 4.2 takes care of that problem. iTunes may not be the best program ever written for Windows, but it works the way it's supposed to work, which is more than I can say for Napster.
How the Technology Corner rating system works.

Nerdly News

Preview of the future: Online crime zooms

"Phisher" is a pleasant-sounding name for the scum who create websites designed to dupe the gullible into providing everything the creep needs to steal someone's identity. Those kinds of sites were created in abundance in 2003. The same goes for online auction scams and Nigerians who want to share a great deal of stolen wealth with you.

The Internet Fraud Complaint Center received more than 120 thousand fraud complaints through its website in 2003 and they say that's up 60% from reports made in 2002. But the Internet Fraud Complaint Center is no more. It hasn't gone away, but it has been renamed. The IFCC was launched in May 2000 by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, a federally-funded, non-profit organization.

As of late December, the IFCC became the Internet Crime Complaint Center. The operation is based in West Virginia and employs 62 people. With a staff that small the group doesn't do any investigations itself, but enters complaints into a database and sends them to an appropriate FBI field office or local law enforcement agency for further investigation.

We're in the chips (or somebody is)

The global chip industry is expected to grow by 18% in 2004 as personal-computer and cell-phone shipments increase. A lot of computers were replaced in 1999 because of Y2K fears and those computers are now reaching the end of their useful life. Market-research company IDC says that the semiconductor market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.5 percent between now and 2008.

The country that will continue to drive much of the growth already buys more of the world's cell phones than any other country, and the second-largest number of PCs. That country is China. Pacific Asia is becoming the dominant region for PC and cell phone demand and production according to IDC.

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