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Review of Mac OS X 10.3
alphakappa writes "The NY Times has a review of all the new Panther features which states that the 150 odd features added are so good that calling it a 0.1 upgrade is not fair. It finds the new Expose feature and other security features (like being able to encrypt/decrypt the entire home directory on the fly) extremely appealing. Gripes include the $130 price tag and the (somewhat) lack of backward compatibility."
M$'s service packs patch hundreds of holes. Panther offers 150 new *features*. I'd pay for features.
Plant a tree in a developing country.
As with any complex system, continuous updates will always leave tiny bits and pieces behind that eventually compromise the stability of the whole thing.
That said, there's a middle ground 'archive and install' option that preserves your users and network preferences while avoiding most if not all of the trouble that might come from updating. It's also faster as it doesn't need to check each and every file for updating and just writes everything while storing the old system folder in another place. Works mightily fine.
That $130 cost won't matter to those people whose systems the new version won't run on.
Seriously though - and I've lost track of the number of times I've said this - if you don't want the new features then you don't have to pay for them. And, if you don't pay for them, you're existing system doesn't become any less productive or user-friendly.
It really amazes me that people act as if their computing experience has somehow been crippled just because they don't have the very latest thing, even though their own machine hasn't regressed in anyway and is just as useful as it was the day before.
Watch how this story will generate countless posts that proclaim that Apple has somehow stabbed its users in the back by releasing a significant upgrade packed with both new and improved features and (shock, horror) daring to charge for it.
Newsflash people: software costs time and money to develop. So either pay up or shut up. Apple is a business, not a charity.
And to those of you who just fail to qualify for a free upgrade (if there is such a thing), please, get over it. Life is full of upsets, big and small. In the end, it's an upgrade you're missing out on, not a heart-bypass operation.
Anyone else think that upgrade envy is becoming way too common, on computing platforms and elsewhere in life?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Although it is quite popular with hackers, the "works for me" answer simply doesn't solve anybody's problems. The author of the article is referring to third-party applications (mentioning QuickKeys addon specifically), which stopped working. That most likely happened because it was using some undocumented API that got removed.
Wanna know what's wrong with file-by-file encryption? Lots of stuff, but let's start at the beginning:
file names.
If I look at your laptop and see "Plan for World Domination.rtf," I know you're planning something, even if I can't read the file. Just the simple fact that the file's there--and that it was last modified on Tuesday--tells me something.
What else? Cache files. Windows doesn't encrypt cache and temporary files. Lots of important information can be pulled out of those, particularly if you use a company Intranet with confidential data on it.
The Apple solution, on the other hand, encrypts your entire home directory, caches and preferences and documents and everything, into a single sparse disk image file. If you don't have the password, you can't get anything.
Who's sucking it now?