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Panther Analysis Getting Underway
Durin_Deathless writes "Think Secret has posted their first article analyzing the changes from Mac OS X 10.2 to 10.3. In this first installment, they look at the changes to the Installation, System Requirements, the Finder, and some other things.
They have some nice images available too."
I just hope Apple makes the brushed metal window frames optional/themeable/skinable etc. Apparently (as per a recent /. article as this one's /.'ed) they are not customizable and more importantly they are not just limited to Apple apps the way that Safari, et al is today in 10.2. All apps pick up the new look and some of us are not into that new look as much.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
This was the final "I really don't need multiple desktops" shortcut for me. But you're right, it looks like Expose puts another nail in that coffin.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This Funmac.com thread has a bunch of shots of the new XCode development package. Both Project Builder and Interface Builder are featured at great length.
I am not who I say you are.
Here's at least one way do encrypt your home directory in Jaguar - a little less tricky is encrypting only particular directories like you speak of. I believe it is done by mounting an encrypted volume, so if you don't log in no other user will be able to see the directory contents.
I think in Panther they just made this feature accessible "to the rest of us" with no trickery to make it work. Perhaps they wanted to wait for a journaled file system to make this feature official, lest people accidentally corrupt a whole encrypted directory bundle...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have been using Panther for a week and have found many good improvements.
;-P Just being silly.
1. File browser (a la windows) is fast and can be changed back to a "normal" window.
2. Expose is brilliant. Though it may conflict with the screensaver settings when corners are used. I personally like using the f-keys for expose and the corners for the screensaver (activation and deactivation).
3. Faxing is as easy as printing and saving as PDF. You can also have received faxes mailed or printed. Faxing is very very easy in 10.3.
4. Preview.app is faster and works in a similar fashion as Acrobat Reader. Nice.
5. Fast user switching is just brilliant (graphically). It will be very useful when you have a shared machine.
6. Secure "Empty Trash" is a nice feature. I am not sure if I will use it...but someone in my office thinks it is the Holy Grail. I am not that excited about it...but it is probably useful.
7. Color Coded Folders/Files (the text is color coded in actuality) is nice and saves me time when digging for a file or group of files.
8. The "eject" menu icon in the right hand side of the menu bar is interesting. But it only worked with the drive tray. It would be nice if it would eject mounted items and servers.
9. User customization of desktop pics and colors is refined and much friendlier.
10. The print center is much improved.
This is the bad stuff...
1. The fax feature did not integrate well with the address book. BUT...you can have one machine as the dedicated fax machine and all other computers in the office can fax through it.
2. Some photoshop filter controls did not draw correctly on the screen or didn't show up at all.
3. There seemed to be some cut and paste clipboard errors. It seemed to show up in Safari and the Address Book.
4. Quicken 2003 seems to have strange behavior when used in 10.3. But it is usable.
Features that will hopefully show up in the actual release:
1. Piles. I know they seem trivial. But I would like it.
2. Themes. I really like the idea of customizing my OS and maybe tone down Aqua a bit.
3. Multiple docks. One for office apps. One for games. One for graphical/web apps. And in the darkness bind them...
I know this is a preview release...but it is very stable and usable. I cannot wait until the actual release. The fax sharing and abilities are worth the price of the upgrade. The rest is just gravy. My $.02.
I am posting this from a late 2001 iBook running Panther. It's the last iBook with the crappy 8mb Rage video (so no Quartz Extreme). I like Panther. I like it a lot. Some nuggets:
* Expose rocks. It's awesome. I couldn't imagine working without it again.
* Mail.app has been made a little bit prettier, and a little bit more functional.
* Terminal.app has become usable as my primary terminal. You can now configure it to send Page-Down and Page-Up to the session instead of to Terminal.app's scrollbars.
* I don't like the milky look. I want the pinstripes back.
* The new finder is 2048X better. It's great.
* I really wish they would either go with all brushed metal or all not - at least for the instances that go against the user interface guidelines. Either way, give me back the pinstripes.
* The activity monitor is cool. You can change the colors on those graphs we saw - why they default it with those colors that look like ass, I don't know.
* iTunes rocks. I don't know that much has changed, but that just had to be thrown out there.
* Safari 1.0 (also available for Jaguar, I know) is the best browser I've ever used. They've made some great speed improvements.
* The OS in general just feels a little bit snappier. With my aging iBook, any speed improvements get huge ++'s from me.
To me this was the best part of the Panther update, after Expose.
I have a lot of drives that have been formatted as NTFS. If a computer pukes and dies, it's great to be able to back up the data to my laptop (mac) rather than having to take the drive to a PC to pull the data off.
As of yet the drives are read only, although it does have a non-functional (as of yet) authentication option so who knows.
- Are part of the digital hub
- Emulate a real world device
- Use the "playlist paradigm"
Therefore, Panther is #3, as it has the new sidebar."When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won..." ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi
To get rid of that, i would recommend that you head over to http://www.haxies.com and get the APE program you see there and the deMetalizer offered there. They also have several other programs that are VERY nice for interface changes (making the dock clear for one). It is a great help, if you hate the metal thing so much. It can get rid of all metal on the desktop but iTunes and DVD player (there may be more, but i don't use them).
A very useful "no need for getting under the hood" app and worth the donation just for the Aqua.
You know what?