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Nonexistent Windows OS Superior to Panther

Anonymous Coward writes "A Windows user slams Panther. 'Apple has implemented some basic desktop composition features in Mac OS X "Panther." But the basic problem with Mac OS X isn't going away: It's a classic desktop operating system that doesn't offer anything in the way of usability advancements over previous desktop operating systems. Today, Windows XP and its task-based interface are far superior to anything in Mac OS X. In the future, Longhorn will further distance Windows from OS X. (sic) From a graphical standpoint, there won't be any comparison. As Microsoft revealed at the PDC 2003 conference, Longhorn is far more impressive technically than Panther.'"

12 of 408 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Speaking of which, by Kev6 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Strange... I have all my finder so it shows everything in single view mode except for one folder that it always shows in list view after I set it that way

  2. Re:Speaking of which, by thunderbird46 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Are you running Jaguar, or Panther? I upgraded my G3/700 iBook to Panther yesterday and I'm very impressed with the improvements they made to the Finder. My first impression is that the new Finder is easier to use and seems more willing to stay in one view mode. The laptop feels much more responsive overall too.

  3. Re:Task/Desktop interface? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
  4. Re:Speaking of which, by Echnin · · Score: 2, Informative

    The save dialog can't open anything? In Windows it can, by right-clicking. I find this a useful feature. Honestly.

    --
    Lalala
  5. Ah, you'll be wanting Konqueror! by leonbrooks · · Score: 3, Informative
    I find the Windows 2000 Explorer, with the folder tree and folder contents in separate windows, more useful.

    You're going to just adore Konqueror in file-manager mode, then!

    The OS X Save As feature is horrible!

    OS X doesn't have one, it's implemented by each app. Perhaps OS X should develop a set of convenience libraries which provide this and a few other things in a wrapper library to help in making them more consistent across the board? File functions like import, export and quit ("quit?" think: "what needs saving or save-as-ing before I do this?") could be wrapped too.

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  6. It was actually 49.7 days (4,294,967,295ms) by leonbrooks · · Score: 4, Informative
    It was only discovered when some important person rebooted his box just before going on holidays, the box had nothing to do while he was away and had frozen when he returned, which got his goat.

    Here's a quote WRT the 32-bit counter (it's basically Unix's "Y2.038k bug" but happens a thousand times faster, one of the few things in Windows which does):

    Why is uptime reset after 49.7 days?

    This happens because a 32-bit variable is being used to store the tick count which is incremented every millisecond. A 32-bit variable can store numbers up to 4,294,967,295 which equals to 49.7 days (4,294,967,295/1000/3600/24). When this variable overflows it will start over from 0 again.


    Here's the 95/98/ME uptime issue straight from the horse's mouth:

    After 49.7 days of continuous operation, your Windows-based computer may stop responding (hang).

    Things to note:

    • That news was posted in late April 1999
    • When they say "may" stop responding, they mean that all unpatched 9X machines lock up repeatably
    • So it took four years before anyone noticed that their machine had a fifty-day curfew (it would take many Unix admins about 100 days: "Two crashes in the same decade? Head for the lists!")
    • That support article was last reviewed on 22 April 2003, but it doesn't say why
    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  7. Re:I'll believe it when I see it by afantee · · Score: 5, Informative

    How the hell does he know that "Longhorn is far more impressive technically than Panther" when the thing doesn't even have a firm release date and many of its promised features are still in the conceptual stage?

    The guy is clearly a troll who knows little about Panther, but his ignorance is obviously not enough to stop him making bold claims that he doesn't bother to back up with facts or logic reasons other than the utterly meaningless concept of task based UI. And then in his
    <a href="http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/longhorn _4051.asp"> Longhorn Build 4051 Review </a>, he confessed:

    "I had joked with Microsofties and coworkers that the PDC almost had to be a letdown after all the pre-show hype. And as the Longhorn build 4051 download completed, I thought back on what I'd been told to expect from this build, poured over my experience with previous builds, and came to a simple conclusion. There was no way this build was going to be anything less than excellent. It would kick the pony out of the recently released Mac OS X "Panther" and quiet the doubters. Longhorn build 4051 was The Promised Land (tm) and it would not just meet, but exceed, my expectations.

    Reality sets in

    Of course, we had to get it installed first. Contributing news editor Keith Furman and I eventually headed over to the Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC) for our pre-show press briefings, which mostly consisted of background technical information for the largely uneducated media types who probably had no business being at a developer-oriented show anyway. Bored and not learning anything, Keith worked on figuring out how to get the Longhorn 4051 ISO to install without blank CDs, which we had forgotten to bring. It didn't take long, and Keith was soon installing the build on his Compaq Presario X1010, a widescreen notebook with sufficient muscle to handle the build. By mid-afternoon, I had also installed the build on an IBM ThinkPad R50 and a Dell Latitude D800, and was starting my first install to a Virtual PC-based virtual machine.

    And it was horrible. Longhorn build 4051 features a new Luna-like visual style called Slate, which basically takes the Aero user interface (revealed first on the SuperSite) and back-ports it to Windows XP, and it's decent looking, if only half-realized. In other words, it looks like XP. Worse, it performs horribly. Most damning, build 4051 doesn't appear to offer any dramatic changes over previous alpha builds, the most recent of which came out way back in June, and the much-vaunted WinFS (Windows Future Storage) stuff is broken. Hardware detection lasts an eternity, especially on the notebooks we had at the show. A memory leak in explorer.exe quickly killed whatever performance the systems had left. It was almost heartbreaking.

    At 1:45 pm, Keith and I finally provided an update about the new build to our daily live posts to WinInfo Daily UPDATE. "At the risk of sounding a bit negative, Longhorn build 4051 is, sorry, boring," we wrote. "Once you get over the mildly amusing Slate theme, and the slow and painful hardware detection, it's basically the same as previous alpha builds, albeit in more usable form. Explorer windows feature the Aero-like look that I first revealed on the SuperSite for Windows and ... well, that's about it. There really isn't that much more to say, at least not yet. We've installed 4051 on three machines so far and we're not that impressed." Later that night, after spending a few hours playing with the build, we updated the posting with some more thoughts. "While we're still not overly impressed--tomorrow's Gates keynote better kill or these guys have some explaining to do--we have at least gotten the gist of what's going on in this build. First, it's a dog on any system with less than 512 MB of RAM, so consider that a base amount (up from 256 in Windows XP). The new content aggregator Libraries are more usable in this build than in previous alphas, and it's clear that a lot of the graphical elemen

  8. Love/Hate... by useosx · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...Would describe my relationship with the Finder.

    But let's not forget ArsTechnica's review of Panther. Nor their thoughts on Panther's Finder.

    Both articles are, of course, written by John Siracusa, but I shouldn't have to mention this because I was in the middle of reading his Panther review last week when I was rudely Slashdotted. Anyway, I tend to agree with his analysis of the situation.

  9. Re:Speaking of which, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Anyone reccomend a good finder replacement? :-)

    http://cocoatech.com

    http://rixstep.com

  10. Re:Speaking of which, by sapporoitchy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Launchbar

  11. Task Based Blah Blah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yes, as demonstrated below Micro$oft's "task based" shit is obviously much better at wasting your time and your screens prescious pixels than Apple could ever hope to.

    Here OS News shows how you need a full 1280X1024 window to view a handful of contacts, PLUS another rather large window to actually view one contacts details(note you must actually scroll through this "detail" window to actually see more details than what is shown in the larger, yet still useless window).

    While unfortunately you are forced to use Panthers Address Book which only takes up ~590X400px which gives you all the same information as M$ contacts plus more. Not to mention that to actually do a "task" you just fucking DO it instead of start a lame "wizard".

    As a double bonus OS X users don't have to view pictures of gay playskool dolls as their contacts portraits.

  12. Re:Speaking of which, it IS helpful! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    just saved a web graphic ... dunno where the foo u just saved it (because u pressed 'ok'). go file->open or file->save to save the next image

    No. Just hold down the "command" key on the title bar of the window. Up pops a menu showing you the path to the file you just saved. Or, if you prefer, click-and-drag the title bar icon.

    You shitwits just don't know how to use a Mac, that's all.