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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 $130 price tag and the (somewhat) lack of backward compatibility."
. It finds the new Expose feature and other security features
it also rubs the lotion on its skin....
xao
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
M$'s service packs patch hundreds of holes. Panther offers 150 new *features*. I'd pay for features.
Plant a tree in a developing country.
Not sure if you're trolling or not, but here ya go.
Debian on my desktop, OS X on my laptop, life has achieved perfection.
El riesgo vive siempre!
If you don't already know about this, and your eyes are glittering with the prospect of encrypted home directories.. there is a way to do this in linux also. It's called the cryptoloop. This is a kernel loop extension that uses the CryptoAPI encryption options to create an encrypted loop of a mount for your system. Although I don't think there is anything to make it as automagic as they probably have set up in OSX, this is something that's out there for those of us that are ultra paranoid. You can visit the CryptoAPI site here where you can get everything you need, or look into the new 2.6 test kernels that have cryptoloop and the CryptoAPI options as a standard feature.
Hackers and academics have uncovered one Windows security hole after another, turning Microsoft into a frantic little Dutch boy at the dike without enough fingers
I don't know about you, but the image I got in my head was definitely not G-rated.
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Since I heard Apple offers discounts to government employees and my dad works for the state govt, I looked at the "government employee discounted" version of Apple's online store. OS X Panther can be had for $65 bucks by state govt. employees! Hardware discounts are much more modest, however.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
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
Keep in mind that a "fresh install" on a Macintosh doesn't mean the same thing as on, say, Windows. A "clean install" means that the installer renames the previous System directory and writes out a new one, so you don't lose any data, settings, etc. The alternatives are:
- Upgrade: write the new OS over the old one. This sometimes has side effects, if you had system extensions installed (e.g. third party drivers) that don't work with the new version of the OS.
- Clean Install, preserve settings: do a Clean Install (as below), but preserves system and user settings, etc. This is the best choice, unless you're really short on disk space.
- Clean Install: renames the old System, and installs a clean new one. You then have a nice clean system, and can selectively copy third party drivers, application settings, etc., that you know you want.
- Format: reformat the drive, then do the install. This is for when you're doing an install on a random external drive, or wiping an old machine.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
Since Pogue has been writing tech books for years,
I'd say he's fairly well qualified to write a review of the OS.
And for the most part, he's dead on. Expose has changed
the way I work, that feature alone is worth the upgrade cost for me.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
I've been using Panther in a mixed environment with Jaguar, Cheeta and Puma releases with no fights.
I think there's a job opening for you at the Mirage...
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.
So it's too good for a 0.1 release, but not good enough for $130. Hmm...
How about a 0.2 release, and $99? Or we could leave the price, and bump the numbering up to 10.5 - that would be worth $130 of anyone's money!
Cheers, Paul
Likewise. By the way, if you'd like a nice new G5, don't forget about the Apple Developer Connection Student Membership and the associated Hardware Purchase Program. The membership is $99 for one year, and you get a once-in-a-lifetime 20% discount on Apple hardware. So, that nice new dual 2GHz G5 is only $2400 instead of $3000, for a net savings of $501. The discount applies to any hardware at the Apple store, including Cinema Displays and the like. Is nice...that's how I'm paying for my new G5 & 20" cinema display...
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Overall, I'm quite happy with it, but I've found a few bugs. yes, I've reported at least one to apple
1) iChatAV and a AD account - If I try to opena video chat to a person, and I am logged in via my Active directory account (i.e. authenticated to the AD domain), the video connection fails. Audio is fine, jsut video
2) If I open a chat to one particular friend, it causes my cpu to pegged. Fortunately the process is niced (iChat, that is) and so it's not particularly disruptive, but it's a very ahrd problem to diagnose (it's only him, other people with the same setup work fine)
3) using Mail.app to access an exchange server with an exchange mail account (i.e. you select "exchange account" when you set up your mail, different than the imap one), you cannot make rules that filter to subdirectories of Inbox. Very odd.
Otherwise, I'm pretty happy. You can't encrypt home directories of "network accounts" (read: AD accounts), even if you tell it to create a local home directory, but the home directory encryption is pretty slick. Expose, of course, is unique, and I've still not used it extensively. The asking for a password when coming back from sleep is a much needed repair.
As a whole I find that it's quite a lot faster than the previous version, and all the subtle tweaks are a good add. I didn't know about the command-tab switching. I use that a lot in windows.
Probably worth the $130
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Why do you care how they're labelled? Do you, by any chance, have pointy hair?
How many AES-128 encrypted files have you broken into?
(crickets)
Then shut the fuck up.
In that sense, for the overwhelming majority of Mac users, it wouldn't matter if the cryptosystem used DES, or even pkzip-encryption; a determined attacker is going to break the system with the password.
You fucking idiot. You're completely missing the point! For the overwhelming majority of computer users--not just Mac users--there are no determined attackers! What are you storing on your laptop? Confidential business information, and confidential personal information. Stuff that you would prefer no one read. No national secrets, that's for damn sure. Who's going to throw a million CPU-hours at cracking your home directory? NOBODY. Because the people with a million CPU-hours to spend sure as hell don't give a rat's ass about reading your dirty iChats with Janet in Marketing.