# Give me a BREAK



## treetopflyer (Mar 31, 2001)

OS X is ridiculous!  I read all of this spin saying how it was going to be the world's most advanced os, and decided to buy it..  as it turns out, running on my graphite iMac with 256 MB Ram, it is the world's slowest os.  When I use instant messenger, I can type faster than the computer can think..  when I resize windows, it takes a few years for it to work.  and that stupid dock is so big and clumsy.. I wish apple could have made an OS that was faster and better rather than prettier.  and I call up apple and they say..."uhhh.. you can't uninstall it"


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## Oompa (Mar 31, 2001)

This is a first release...why not give them time now to complete all of the features and optimize.  There are obviously things to be done.  I don't think they released this thinking they were done...do you?

As for the dock, have you tried shrinking it down?


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## treetopflyer (Mar 31, 2001)

guess so.. I'm just accustomed to getting a better product when I upgrade my computer.  I think I'll try and go back to os 9 and then wait for os 10.5 or something to come out


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## Oompa (Mar 31, 2001)

me too....I mostly use my computer for digital audio stuff.  It will be while before I can use os x for any of that.  I mostly spending time getting familier with whole thing.  

I did read the Inside MacOS X System Overview.  It was actually pretty interesting.  There was definitely a whole lot of work done beside the BSD stuff.  If they can fine-tune all the technologies involved and developers really make use of the full set of technologies...it will be pretty amazing.  I don't think it will really shine until there a large software base on the cocoa side.


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## AdmiralAK (Mar 31, 2001)

I am still using the public beta lol 
I will not upgrade yet because as a hobby I play around with audio & visual stuff, with different OSs in VPC, and a small time DVD viewer ;-)  It's better to wait a little while to let apple get all their stuff in order.

I have waited a long time for OS X, I can wait a couple of more months 


Admiral


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## superrcat (Mar 31, 2001)

> _Originally posted by treetopflyer _
> *OS X is ridiculous!  I read all of this spin saying how it was going to be the world's most advanced os, and decided to buy it..  as it turns out, running on my graphite iMac with 256 MB Ram, it is the world's slowest os.  When I use instant messenger, I can type faster than the computer can think..  when I resize windows, it takes a few years for it to work.  and that stupid dock is so big and clumsy.. I wish apple could have made an OS that was faster and better rather than prettier.  and I call up apple and they say..."uhhh.. you can't uninstall it" *



One thing that I found out "VERY" useful is if you boot off a Norton Utilites CD and defragment the volume, it increases performance a lot. Also, you can modify the Dock in many different ways, you can decrease the size, turn off the bouncing icons, and even get rid of the magnification if you want. 

This is better and not prettier. For the first time Mac users have better memory management, and users with dual processors can take advantage of them. I would give it a chance, I mean that would be like judging Mac OS back in 1984... Once the updates are released...if you haven't already got the 10.0.1 update, you will notice major performance a redraw improvements in windows. Remember, if you have anything less than a Rage 128, some drivers don't have the hardware acceleration in them yet..give it some time. I would make 2 partitions if I were use, both with HFS so you can remove Mac OS X if you wish, but give it a chance.. 


superrcat-


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## AdmiralAK (Mar 31, 2001)

I have norton 5 (utils)... can they defrag an OS X volume (in HFS+) or will it screw it up just like norton 3.5 did with HFS+ volumes (because it would only recognize HFS volumes).  Is there going to be an OS X norton available anytime soon ??? ;-)


Admiral


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## TommyWillB (Mar 31, 2001)

> I have norton 5 (utils)... can they defrag an OS X volume (in HFS+) or will it screw it up just like norton 3.5 did



Here is Symantec's OS X Public Beta release notes: 
http://www.symantec.com/sabu/osx.html

They don't seem to make specific mention of OS X 10.x, but it still seems to work.


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## theed (Apr 1, 2001)

Personally, I'm a big fan of TechTool from MicroMat, they seem to care about the mac, and their support has been well above and beyond anything I expected.  And their products try real hard to not do anything that they can't do right.

As for OS X on an iMac, hardware video acceleration is a real issue, as well as a lot of G4 optimizations that just don't help you.  I'm running side by side on a Powerbook G3 233 and a dual 450 G4 tower.  It's like two completely different OSes.  I agree the user interface is a little overloaded and sluggish.  Apple knows what they are doing with this, they just need to tweak their code.

I do a lot of network stuff, unix and windows interaction, network routing, DNS serving, and other stuff often served well by *nix, I have to tell you I'd never go back to 9.  If Apple dropped support for X today, I'd still be using it for years to come.  ... I'd want the code so I could tweak it though.


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## plaidpjs (Apr 3, 2001)

AdmiralAK,

Norton 5 will screw you up even worse then the install of OS X. For whatever reason the installl makes a mess of the HDD. I used the Norton SystemWorks CD to boot and run Disk Doctor and Speed Disk. You can also use the native Disk Utility to do some fixes but no native defrag as far as I can tell.


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## AdmiralAK (Apr 3, 2001)

This sux but its only a brand new OS 
I Look foorward to the day when OS X is complete (well completeness can never be achived, but for all arguments let say it can be complete) when it has all these toold built in.  Its gonna be one lean mean processing machine ;-)


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## plaidpjs (Apr 3, 2001)

Well, I'll be damned... positive people do exist on these boards... hehe


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## Kazrog (Apr 5, 2001)

My best friend has OS X on his Graphite iBook with 256 megs of ram, same setup, and it runs VERY fast, every bit as fast as my G4/450 desktop for most common tasks.

But he installed the developer's kit.  There is a little-known bug that the OS won't optimize itself UNLESS you install the developer's kit.  This affects 90% of people, so 90% of people are running an OS that is too slow for their machine for no good reason.

Apple will fix this in the 10.0.1 upgrade - until that's released, the only known fix is to install the developer's kit.


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## CaptainFoo (Apr 5, 2001)

I installed the dev tools immediately on my iMac. The GUI still feels really slow. Especially the menus... I would happily have opaque menus, if that meant they would be faster!

Personally I think, slow resize of windows I can live with, because I don't resize too often. But the menus definately need to be snappy.


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## Kazrog (Apr 5, 2001)

I just don't get it.  My friend actually has LESS ram than you, 198 megs, and the OS rocks on it.  It's really fast, the menus, the dock, everything is snappy.  Like I said, almost identical to my G4 in terms of getting around the OS itself.

Are you running any huge Classic apps that are bogging it down?  Try turning off your Classic environment altogether.  You may have some extensions or other apps that are hogging processor time.

Other than that, I'm out of guesses.


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## russgold (Apr 5, 2001)

While the menu performance is *really* bad on my beige G3 266 (in the finder, about 5 seconds between a click and the menu showing up), I think I am even more bothered by the lack of attention to so many of the things which made the MacOS much more usable than Windows.

o I now realize that the 'all windows come forward with the application' was a productivity enhancer, as it allowed for easy chunking of windows. In the new scheme, if the window you want is behind the windows of another application, you must first select your application and then look for your window - yes, you can select it from the Dock, but that is more work than the single step process MacOS 9 uses.

o The apple menu allowed you to store a lot of frequently accessed information in an easily grouped hierarchical form. The Dock doesn't allow for as much because it insists on placing icons everywhere

o Spring-loaded folders and disk aliases allowed quick access to any arbitrary level place on the disk. The new Finder multicolumn view is nice, but requires click - wait - click -wait- click -wait- to get to anything not in your favorites

o The very flexible drag-and-drop of text seems to be gone; at least none of the OSX applications exhibit it.

o The anti-aliased text in the menus is pretty - but it takes up a lot more space. I cannot see nearly as many items in my menus as before.

o The OS 9 scroll bars had very easy to see and click arrows - and even allowed you to place them at the same side of the bar. OSX scrollbars force them to opposite sides again, and are visually much smaller, even if you can really hit an area well to their side, bounded by harder-to-see gray lines

Overall, it looks as though Apple has not produced a better MacOS, as much as they have produced a nice GUI for Unix; At this point I would rate its usability no better than Windows 2000, if that.


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## plaidpjs (Apr 5, 2001)

> _Originally posted by russgold _
> *I now realize that the 'all windows come forward with the application' was a productivity enhancer, as it allowed for easy chunking of windows. In the new scheme, if the window you want is behind the windows of another application, you must first select your application and then look for your window - yes, you can select it from the Dock, but that is more work than the single step process MacOS 9 uses.*



How is clicking on an icon in the Dock NOT one step? Click! BAMMM! All windows forward...



> *The apple menu allowed you to store a lot of frequently accessed information in an easily grouped hierarchical form. The Dock doesn't allow for as much because it insists on placing icons everywhere*



Because the Dock uses an icon doesn't mean you can't have hierarchical storage. I have a folder on my dock for my MP3s, when I click and hold on it I get a pop-up of the thirteen folders within that folder and when I run the pointer overone of those I get a list of yet more sub-folders or a list of the MP3s at that level. How is that not hierarchical. The best part is, I just set-up the file structure once, then dragged the primary folder (with a nice new Carlito Aqua Icon in place) to the Dock, viola aliased, awesome. The Old Apple Menu required you to open the System Folder, open the Apple Menu Folder, then creat a new sub-folder. Into that subfolder you could then place aliases you created to other places. Yuck, too much work. But, if you still want to do that you can, you just place the folder in the dock after you set it up, with one small advantage, it doesn't have to be inside of your system Folder.



> *Spring-loaded folders and disk aliases allowed quick access to any arbitrary level place on the disk. The new Finder multicolumn view is nice, but requires click - wait - click -wait- click -wait- to get to anything not in your favorites*



This is such crap. Yes, the Finder is currently slow (not exceptionally slo on everyone's machine, but on some), but you can have one click access to anyplace on the HDD simply by dragging it's parent folder to the menu bar. Hell, you could even add an alias to the favorites directory and access it that way in two clicks. Also, you can put an alias to your harddrive on the Dock and have click and hold navigation to any point you want.



> *The very flexible drag-and-drop of text seems to be gone; at least none of the OSX applications exhibit it.*



Are you refering to "clippings" or to drag and drop movement of text in a document? If you refer to clippings, every app does that. If you mean drag & drop movement of text within a document, then you are only partially correct. Several Cocoa and Carbon apps support it, but several do not. i don't know why, but I also think it has more to do with the app then the OS. Don't know for sure, though.

Ciao


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## russgold (Apr 5, 2001)

> _Originally posted by plaidpjs _
> *
> 
> How is clicking on an icon in the Dock NOT one step? Click! BAMMM! All windows forward...
> *



The Dock is not the most convenient place to go for things - you have to visually identify which icon represents your application and select it. And if you auto-hide the Dock so that it doesn't steal screen space, you also have to wait for it to reappear. This is significantly less convenient that simply clicking on one the application windows and having them all come forward.



> *
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I have done this as well. What you cannot do is use the hard disk as the top-level menu, as you can in MacOS9. Plus, you keep having to go to the Dock for *everything*.  I have placed alternative icons on my folders. They worked great - until I rebooted into MacOS9 and then back; then they vanished.



> *
> 
> The Old Apple Menu required you to open the System Folder, open the Apple Menu Folder, then creat a new sub-folder. Into that subfolder you could then place aliases you created to other places. Yuck, too much work. But, if you still want to do that you can, you just place the folder in the dock after you set it up, with one small advantage, it doesn't have to be inside of your system Folder.*



I never had to open my System Folder - I just dragged things to the Apple Menu Folder alias on my desktop.   But you miss the point. Icons take up a lot more room than an entry in a menu, and usually it is the text that distinguishes entries, not the icon - I shouldn't have to find a unique icon to let me store 6 recognizable folders, when the Apple Menu let me store 30 entries with no extra effort.



> *
> Hell, you could even add an alias to the favorites directory and access it that way in two clicks. Also, you can put an alias to your harddrive on the Dock and have click and hold navigation to any point you want.*



OK, I see that I now can get access to much of the drive that way. Of course, some directories are not accessible (like /usr), but I guess I have to live with that. Thanks.



> *
> Are you refering to "clippings" or to drag and drop movement
> of text in a document? If you refer to clippings, every app does that. If you mean drag & drop movement of text within a document, then you are only partially correct. Several Cocoa and Carbon apps support it, but several do not. i don't know why, but I also think it has more to do with the app then the OS. Don't know for sure, though.
> *



I actually meant drag-and-drop between applications. Most OS9 apps seem to do that - but some (like Project Builder) don't even support it within a document!


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## plaidpjs (Apr 5, 2001)

> _Originally posted by russgold _
> *The Dock is not the most convenient place to go for things - you have to visually identify which icon represents your application and select it. And if you auto-hide the Dock so that it doesn't steal screen space, you also have to wait for it to reappear. This is significantly less convenient that simply clicking on one the application windows and having them all come forward.*



Steal screen space? Okay, if you say so... of course, I'm on a Cinema Display, so it really doesn't bother me, and when I autohide my Dock pops up almost too fast. So, ican't even begin to sympathize with you there. But, I will concede that clicking on the app window is any easier way to bring the app and all its companion windows forward. But, as far as a gripe is concerned, it's WAY down on the list.



> *I have done this as well. What you cannot do is use the hard disk as the top-level menu, as you can in MacOS9. Plus, you keep having to go to the Dock for *everything*.  I have placed alternative icons on my folders. They worked great - until I rebooted into MacOS9 and then back; then they vanished.
> 
> I never had to open my System Folder - I just dragged things to the Apple Menu Folder alias on my desktop.   But you miss the point. Icons take up a lot more room than an entry in a menu, and usually it is the text that distinguishes entries, not the icon - I shouldn't have to find a unique icon to let me store 6 recognizable folders, when the Apple Menu let me store 30 entries with no extra effort.*



I surely didn't miss the point. I think you are actually being pigheaded here. First, with the old Apple Menu you had to go up to the Apple icon and click, you then got a drop down menu with little icons and text, those that were folder would fly out with another drop down menu when you ran the cursor over them. You say convenient, great. But why can't you see that adding a folder to the dock does exactly the same thing, but with fly up or fly out windows depending on where you have it placed.

Let's use the easy example of the HDD. If you have them displayed on the desktop, take your primary drive icon and place it into the Dock. Now, just like it was your Apple icon go to it, click and hold down, viola a text menu of your drive, not icons. The same can be achieved for a Folder. Where is the big difference to the Apple Menu? There is none, besides the convenience of dragging alias to an aliased folder you kept on your desktop. And, some of us don't want all those extra things on our desktops, you just happen to find it easier, great. Go get Drag Thing or the other 3rd party meanu app, they work pretty damn well for what you want, but don't blame the Dock.

Oh, and what is the problem with having to visually identify something? This is after all a GRAPHICAL user Interface, is it not? I barely need to glance at the dock and i know exactly what i want, I love that, the icons are all very distinct, or do you think that an icon of a Palm V will actually light off Adobe Photoshop? Duh... For conveying small bits of information quickly, pictures are alwasy the best bet. if you want to have a long drawn out discussion, then text is the way to go... of course, there are instance in both ways where a visual cue or text will be better then the other... but for this purpose, i can't see where the issue lies, but that is just my HO.


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## pbrice (Apr 6, 2001)

I installed OS X on March 29th on my one month old (at that time) Cube.  I have not had ANY problems.  Maybe it's because my system was relatively 'fresh', but the only problems I seem to have with speed is window re-sizing.  Certainly the window drags slightly when I resize, but it isn't way behind.  My cursur is just a little ahead of the window redraw...that's all.  But I have no problems with moving windows.  In fact, I can shake a window back-and-forth and it just moves back-and-forth, it doesn't lag at all.  It just looks like I'm moving the entire window around, not re-drawing, just moving.

Everything else seems perfectly fast, from menus to most Finder functions.  The only slow items in the Finder seem to e resizing icons in a folder containing a large number of images.  I have a folder of about 300 images where the icons are previews of the image itself, the icon resizing seems to drag a bit.

One thing I can say for certain, everything looks just beatiful.  Even if the Quartz graphic technology is taxing the system, I can say that I'm glad they did it.  From the icons, to the windows, pictures, text--hell, even web pages, all look just fantastic.  I find text so easy to read and clear now (even at small sizes) that I just can't believe it.


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## maxebb (Apr 7, 2001)

> _Originally posted by treetopflyer _
> *OS X is ridiculous!  I read all of this spin saying how it was going to be the world's most advanced os, and decided to buy it..  as it turns out, running on my graphite iMac with 256 MB Ram, it is the world's slowest os.  When I use instant messenger, I can type faster than the computer can think..  when I resize windows, it takes a few years for it to work.  and that stupid dock is so big and clumsy.. I wish apple could have made an OS that was faster and better rather than prettier.  and I call up apple and they say..."uhhh.. you can't uninstall it" *




Obviously everyone is experiencing the same thing.. It is slow around the edges no mater what you tweek. Don't use a background image, its a tad faster. But I'm frustrated to. you can modify the dock and windows nicely, BUT WE CAN'T TURN OFF REALTIME WINDOW DRAG, and GRAPHIC GROUP DRAGGING?!?! That was indeed a ridiculous move.  I've noticed some applications (AIM for OSX) has gone back to 'rubberband' 

For a lot of us, OSX is not finished.. we are all using OS 9.1 to do our work... 

As a designer, OSX is useless until Wacom and Adobe get it together. Still, it's a neat toy.

For those expecting OSX to save their lives.. its a big put down when they discover not really ready for primetime!

It may be another year before we are all happy. In the mean time it's back to OS 9.1 and I'm sick of it. Day after day I must see my so called fast G4 come to a slow crawl when I insert a disc and it accesses it every time I want to scratch my ass. 

max.


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## maxebb (Apr 7, 2001)

I forgot to say: You can adjust the type speed under the Keyboard app. You can modify the doc until it's just not there... I like to make it stand still, make the icons smaller, and use Comand-option-D to hide and display the dock. I love it. All these options, but why oh why can't I turn off the realtime window resizing and slow grouping just amazes me. I mean, come on, apple should be all about these kinds of options! How else am I going to think different.


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## EricOfTheNorth (Apr 11, 2001)

I am running OS X on my G4 400 AGP with 640 MB of ram.  I installed the dev tools cd my 3rd day and noticed a bigtime speed improvement in application startup and processing. It also sped up Classic in OS X and also sped up startup form my OS 9.1 partition.   A couple of days ago I installed update 4L7 and now the OS is rock solid.  No panic, speed has improved slightly.  But, the GUI is still slow.  Moving and resizing windows is the only fault I have with the OS itself. 

It is only a matter of time before all the old apps I used in OS 9 will be out for X.  I believe by the fall, all will be well with OS X and I can delete my OS 9.1 partition.


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## VGZ (Apr 11, 2001)

OS X runs quite fast on my system.  Resizing windows is a bit slow; however, I am running a program in the terminal that likes to take 150%-190% of the processing power (dual % over 100 means it is using both processors).  Even with the processors being tapped out the system is extremely responsive and about twice as fast as OS 9.1.


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## iddly (Apr 11, 2001)

the issue about osx running faster after the installation of the developer cd is confirmed by apple. as well as the RELEASE OF THE 10.1 UPDATE this week! (by apple staff)


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## plaidpjs (Apr 11, 2001)

Okay, so where in the HELL did Apple actually say this?

And, shouldn't it be the release of 10.0.1 this week? You said 10.1, which as far as I knew wasn't supposed to be out until MWNY...

I think maybe you're pulling our leg...


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## agengler (Apr 11, 2001)

I haven't had any speed problems but I did take the suggestion on the defrag. Used Disk Warrior and sure enough the system seemed a bit faster, but it's hard to use a stop watch on something thats fast already.

powerbook bronze k
333mhz
128megs
10 gig hd


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## Magill (Apr 12, 2001)

After multiple installs on a G4 2X500 256meg, a blue G3 with 128 meg, and an original maxed out iBook. I have determined the following to be VERY true.
<br>
OSX runs like a pig if you upgrade from 9.0.4 to 9.1 and then install OS X.
<br>
OSX runs like a pig if you have an old (but clean) 9.1 install to which you add OS X.
<br>
OSX runs like a bat out of hell when you wipe the disk, install 9.1 and then install OS X.
<P>
Of my 3 original installs, the last one, on the 300 mhz iBook, outperformed both the G3 and the G4 -- simply because of the overall disk performance and fragmentation issues. When I re-installed the G3 and G4 formatting the disks first, they ran as I expected -- fast.
<P>
I did not try rebuilding the HFS+ catalog with DiskWarrior, which I suspect would have done a lot to help, but not solve the problem. OS X is a real virtual memory operating system, and because of the way in which the "swap disk" is created and installed, disk fragmentation will play a huge part in performance.


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## theed (Apr 12, 2001)

I agree that the problems expressed in speed here are due to contiguous free drive space.  I have long lived by the rule of thumb that half full is full.  If your hard drive is more than half full, you need another hard drive.  
Now with VM swap chunks growing dynamically, memery footprints ebing huge, and VM space often exceeding 1 G on a lightly loaded system, I am going to promote this rule of thumb to everyone I can.
If your HD is more than 50% full, buy another.  Fragmentation kills, and even with 512 M of Ram on this system VM speed is an issue.


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## TheFiler (Apr 13, 2001)

I know that OSX is not yet so finished as it can be. But after having laid down two weeks on tweaking and configuring the OS it runs very well... I start the modem dialup, and after that I click up MSIE, OmniWeb, Carracho, Mail, iTunes and CPU monitor. All of them have opened just in time for the connect to internet to finish. I am in the process of porting some applications to OSX, so I use CodeWarrior 6. Works great. iTunes is fast (6-8x compression) and the whole system runs smoothly. I have yet to test to reformat a disk before installing OSX but that will have to wait sometime. And for all you moving windows - I don't get it! Even with the Public Beta I could move windows w/o problem. The major problem is resizing windows! And since I don't have a signature I'll just have to type in my system config:

G4/500 MHz
512 MB RAM
1x 23GB hd (System Disk)
1x 40GB hd (Play around disk)
Lots of USB peripherals (Printer, Hub, Serial Adapter, Kensington Mouse)
DVD-RAM
Zip drive


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## pbrice (Apr 17, 2001)

FYI The Filer: You can put your config in as your signature!

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I agree!  I have very little problems in terms of speed.  Window resizing is a little behind my cursor (it's certainly a small price to pay for everything else we get with OS X), but window moving is seemless and fast.

Since 10.0.1, even the genie effect is fast and smooth!!!  Call me crazy, but I actually switched back to 'genie' from 'scale'.

I've discovered that I no longer miss spring-loaded folders becasue I can drag and drop files directly on toolbar icons or Docked folders to copy and move, which is FASTER and EASIER than spring loaded folders.  If you don't like the toolbar icons, use the text.

After just 2-1/2 weeks of OS X I am hooked on it's feature-set.  Even in it's early stages, I am finding that using OS X as it was meant to be used (read: stop pretending its OS 9>), without the desktop, with the Dock, without multiple windows, with Toolbars,...etc, is much easier, more effecient, and more FUN!

I for one, am looking forward to the many improvements that will only make it better!


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## maxebb (Apr 17, 2001)

Alright, this will be my last bitching session about OSX  performance.. 

Is it just me, or does the fact that when you download something to the desktop (eeek, there's that word again), like from a browser, the icon doesn't even show (in most cases) until I actually touch the desktop?  I'm sorry, but that's pretty retarded. 

I have noticed that OS9 does the same thing, but not as bad as X. 

max.


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## Kazrog (Apr 17, 2001)

Maxebb - this is not the fault of OS X, but of the (stupid) Internet Explorer 5.1 preview release.

I highly reccomend using OmniWeb. It is the best browser out there for any platform. The only problem with it is lack of plug-ins, etc., but the more that we support them, the more this browser will become a standard to be contended with.

Contrary to popular belief, the browser war is NOT over. Join the struggle, download OmniWeb at www.omnigroup.com


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## maxebb (Apr 17, 2001)

Oh yeah, OmniWeb. I like it.


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## pbrice (Apr 17, 2001)

Has anyone had this problem:

When you download a jpeg or gif,...etc from OmniWeb, you get  a generic JPEG or GIF icon?  But when you download the same things from IE, you get a high quality (128x128, i think) preview icon?


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## brandon (Apr 17, 2001)

I am new to the mac, so bear with me.  I recently purchased a G4 733 and have been running some comparisons between it running OS X, OS 9.1 and a dual 1 ghz PC running Win 2k.  The testing I have been doing is with Photoshop Elements, which is both a Mac and Windows app.  I am not using a stop watch or anything, instead, I have both the PC and Mac setup side by side and click on filters simultaneously, and then monitor which machine finished the effect first.  Comparing OS 9.1 against the dual 1 ghz proves to be disappointing for the Mac.  The Wintel machine beats it in every filter, usually by several seconds, some as much as 10 plus seconds.  What really struck me though was the comparison between OS X and the PC.  Running the same filters on the same image in "classic" mode under OS X showed the Mac beating the dual PC in most of the filters.  Only a few did the dual 1ghz beat the mac OS X machine.  What would the results be with a native version of the program?  I personally can't wait to see.

BRING ON THE OSX APPS!!!!


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## russgold (Apr 17, 2001)

It seems to me that people with fast processors (400 Mhz G4 or better) are quite happy with OS X performance. It is only those of us with the slower G3s that are feeling hammered.   I just wish I could disable transparency in the menus and window bars, and anti-aliasing of system text. It is pretty, but not worth it to me.

I have a problem with the idea that a processor as fast as a G3 should have to labor to do basic UI functions. Perhaps this is a function of Apple being a hardware company - they would rather motivate people to run out and buy new boxes than work to make performance reasonable on older machines. But they run the risk, ISTM that people will conclude that OS X just does not perform, and is not worth buying or supporting.


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## theed (Apr 17, 2001)

I agree that it's a pain to watch OS X run slow on a G3 when it rips on a G4, but this seems to be a driver support issue.  I'm happy it runs reliably, and sleeps and wakes up consistently, and never complain about RAM on my powerbook.  I think Apple has neglected a lot of older video cards and simply isn't accelerating all of the video that they could if they were trying to be compatible.  Personally, I'm OK with the performance I get, although I do think I'm gonna get more RAM.

I'd rather the limited number of engineers on OS X work on other things, like scsi support for my big box so that I can scan and burn again.  There are more critical things missing, I can deal with slow but functional for the time being.  I do hope that they try to speed things up a little.  Although I'm not sure about being able to turn off a bunch of features.  UI consistency is important, and keeping options down to a reasonable number makes OS programming easier.


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## Jurneyman (Apr 18, 2001)

On my iMac DV+, OS X moves along smooth and fast.  I do notice a bit of lag when I click on a menu,  but not much.  What gets me is that I surf faster with Netscape in classic than I do with OmniWeb or IE.  When I updated to 10.0.1 and then again (printer drivers of some sort?), I noticed a _HUGE_ speed increase.  

But my Kingston USB cam and my PNY Flash card reader still does not work :<  (but in classic, I can access the card reader :/).   




-Me

iMac DV+ Sage w/192 Megs of RAM


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## Toadstool (Apr 18, 2001)

I have just run through some of the other boards on this and it does seem as though Macs of all sorts run at different rates.

There are all kinds of fixes out there and some work on a particular machine and not on another identicle machine.  The latter would suggest some setup or some subtle hardware revision differences, but nothing concrete.

I am on an old B&W G3 450/512, MacOSX seems to be running along just fine, running off an old external SCSI disk, with no optimisations at all, surely I should be getting the some of the worst problems.  But I'm not, why?  I can't believe is all down to the size of the RAM.

This is not a complaint, just curious thats all.


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## Jurneyman (Apr 18, 2001)

On my iMac DV+, OS X moves along smooth as slik.  I do notice a bit of lag when I click on a menu,  but not much.  What gets me is that I surf faster with Netscape in classic than I do with OmniWeb or IE.  When I updated to 10.0.1 and then again (printer drivers of some sort?), I noticed a _HUGE_ speed increase.  

But my Kingston USB cam and my PNY Flash card reader still doesnt work :<  (but in classic, I can access the card reader :/).   




-Me

iMac DV+ Sage w/192 Megs of RAM


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## Magill (Apr 18, 2001)

One thing to remember about OS X.... it is a REAL operating system. The old Mac OS was not much different than DOS -- it never quite got out of the way as DOS did when a program was running, but it did get most of itself out of the way, leaving the application program 100% of the CPU.
<P>
OS X on the other hand, never gets out of the way when an application program is running. Also, there are "daemons" running all the time which never get out of the way. Just because you are the only one on your box running an application, doesn't mean that nothing else is happening. OS X really IS a "time sharing" operating system.
<P>
All this is just modern operating system theory. But it is a different model than the old Mac OS used!
<P>
There is a program called "top" which can be run in the terminal window. It is much better than Process Viewer (which is a poor imitation of top). Other than the fact that  this version of top probably doesn't know about multi-processors, it's a good way to find out what is happening.
("CPU Monitor" in Applications/Utilites has a pull down which will launch top for you.)


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## Mr_Frost (Apr 25, 2001)

There is a way to get the same result as Installing the developer tools does.

Just by typing this in the terminal :

sudo update_prebinding -root / 


This might just take a while to do but it's worth it (that's my opinion though) It does exactly the same thing as the Dev Tools update does.
There is also a little app that does this for you. I can't remember the name , but search a little on Versiotracker and you will find it.
If this has allready been posted then I am sorry to have wasted your (and my) time


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## AlanBDahl (Apr 25, 2001)

> _Originally posted by russgold _
> *It seems to me that people with fast processors (400 Mhz G4 or better) are quite happy with OS X performance. It is only those of us with the slower G3s that are feeling hammered.   I just wish I could disable transparency in the menus and window bars, and anti-aliasing of system text. It is pretty, but not worth it to me *



I have an iMac DV-SE 500 256mb and OSX runs just fine on it. Sometimes I am very surprised by just home much I can load it up without causing problems. I used to kill Classic as soon as I didn't need it but I can hardly tell it's there so most of the time I leave it running in the background just in case I need it.

I suspect that there are several factors that cause some machines to slow down while others don't. Among these are processor speed, memory, hard disk speed and disk fragmentation. In my opinion the latter two are probably more important than the former two. I would recommend defraging your HD, pre-binding and installing 10.0.01 (and perhaps the developer tools). Some things like the HD speed you can't do much about unfortunately. Getting the 7200rpm drive was one of the big reasons I went for the DV-SE over the DV+. The speed difference is very obvious if you compare machines with the 7200 rpm drive with machines with the slower 5400rpm drive. Since OSX uses the HD for virtual memory the HD speed can have quite an effect on performance.


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## Jurneyman (Apr 26, 2001)

> _Originally posted by Kazrog _
> *Maxebb - this is not the fault of OS X, but of the (stupid) Internet Explorer 5.1 preview release.
> 
> I highly reccomend using OmniWeb. It is the best browser out there for any platform. The only problem with it is lack of plug-ins, etc., but the more that we support them, the more this browser will become a standard to be contended with.
> ...



f00


Netscape 4.7 on my iMac DV+ runs faster and better than OmniWeb or IE.  Loads in less than 3 seconds.  And all the plugin's still work.

-Me


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## Jurneyman (Apr 26, 2001)

> _Originally posted by Magill _
> *One thing to remember about OS X.... it is a REAL operating system. The old Mac OS was not much different than DOS -- it never quite got out of the way as DOS did when a program was running, but it did get most of itself out of the way, leaving the application program 100% of the CPU.
> 
> <snip>
> ...



<snip>

man top!  There are lot's of options!    Wondering what all this man <whatever> is?   Type this in your term: man man


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## jim1061 (May 7, 2001)

<i>"This is a first release...why not give them time now to  complete all of the features and optimize. There are obviously things to be done. I don't think they released
this thinking they were done...do you?"</i>

I see, so Apple has rushed so often to unveil new products at the MacWorlds each year and they have released so many sub-standard first time releases that we should now accept this and pay our hard earned money for crap that isn't really ready???

Sorry, maybe you have gotten used to being ripped off but I haven't. Apple, as is so often the case has shorted us again.
For two years, I have been wrestling with the "original" OS X...you know, the one that came without instructions, and I have a bitter taste from that. I for one give Apple zero benefit of the doubt...they do the same thing over and over again...They are more interested in the fanfare of MacWorld than they are the satisfaction of their true customers. Now, after promising the release of the Mac OS X Server "shortly" after the client, we sit and wait and wait and wait.

I have no choice at work...I must use Mac because the boss originally purchased Mac but I am so fed up with them and would never think of buying Mac at home...besides, why buy something from a company that is likely to drown in the next few years at which time my response will be "good riddance".


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## Mr_Frost (May 7, 2001)

> I have no choice at work...I must use Mac because the boss originally purchased Mac but I am so fed up with them and would never think of buying Mac at home...besides, why buy something from a company that is likely to drown in the next few years at which time my response will be "good riddance". [/B]




Apple drown in the next few years ??
aaah...you sound like your typical "I would like to lick Bill Gates's asshole clean" kinda guy don't you?
You guys have been saying that Apple will drown since 1984...and still they kick ass. I am loving my OSX. It is NOT slow on my computer (slower than OS9.1 but not slow) Software will come in the summer and Apple does listen to their customers...esspecially compared to Windoze.
Have you ever heard anybody say "I'm going to mail those guys at Microsoft...2541 crashes a day is a little too much for me"?

Ah well...don't like it don't use it.
And as far as the fact that you have to because it's your job...who cares what you are working on...as long as you get your money at the end of the month.


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## Kazrog (May 7, 2001)

I don't see why anyone doesn't like OS X. I mean, be specific. Have you upgraded to 10.0.2? If not, then shut the hell up and upgrade.

At what point does an OS become "finished," at what point do you stop?  All software is a work in progress.

You are not going to convince anyone that OS X sucks without providing specific evidence. I have never had any serious problems with it.


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## jim1061 (May 7, 2001)

<i>"Apple drown in the next few years ??"</i>

If it were not for a clever brainstorm and massive advertising campaign for the Icrap, Apple would already be dead. Icrap was a stroke of genius but like everything else Apple does, the first release was horrific. Later, I must admit, they did a nice job. I'm just glad I'm not one of those suckers that ran out for the first Imac...what a piece of junk..but that overpriced box of nuts and bolts saved Apple. Now that the IMac craze has subsided, Apple is showing a significant downturn again...its just a matter of time before they either go under or are forced to integrate into one PC-type machine.

<i>"aaah...you sound like your typical "I would like to lick Bill Gates's asshole clean" kinda guy don't you?"</i>

Not at all and now you've gone and done it....you've made an ASS of U and ME. You assume incorrectly. I curse Bill anytime I have Windows problems because he too is far from perfect. I actually like aspects of macs, I just don't like Apple. They are a bunch of rah rah cheerleaders more focused on how much applause they will get at Macworld than making a good product from DAY 1. I've been to several Macworlds and it is nauseating to watch the goobers and geeks bend over for Apple. Talk about licking a-holes...go to MacWorld my friend and you'll see it at every turn.

<i>"You guys have been saying that Apple will drown since
1984...and still they kick ass."</i>

Kick ass???? Recent survey has shown that Bill has 87% of the market and Steve has 13%...where in those numbers do you see Apple kicking ass????

<i>"who cares what you are working on...as long as you get your money at the end of the month."</i>

Well put. Actually I am studying Unix which is why I came into this board in the first place. Neither Mac nor Windows can or ever will stand up to the original masterpiece....Unix and thats why I prefer to learn it and never have to rely on either platform, but when given a choice between those two, I'll gladly suffer through a few crashes than live with sub-standard and since learning Unix is no overnight task, I'll live with Win while I must choose...best of luck with your way of doing things. We all have to do it the best way we see fit and I do not challenge your right to choose, only the company that owns your choice.

Jim


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## Kazrog (May 7, 2001)

Apple's first releases being crap? The iMac was great for its time and a steal! Mac OS X is well on its way to being the best OS ever made, and the new Macs are the best machines on the market!

Apple does like to make a big impression and please crowds, but it does it by the quality of its products and its true innovation.  The only reason Apple has had a bad last quarter is because the whole tech industry has, and of all the companies out there, Apple was among those hit LEAST hard by the sales slump.

Sales of Apple's latest laptops, the PowerBook G4 and the redesigned iBook are skyrocketing, and Mac OS X is flying off shelves everywhere.

In fact, when I recieved my Mac OS X in the mail, the UPS man said, without me saying anything "What are all these Apple boxes, these have been slowing down our couriers all day!"


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## Mr_Frost (May 7, 2001)

> I'm just glad I'm not one of those suckers that ran out for the first Imac...what a piece of junk..but that overpriced box of nuts and bolts saved Apple.



Well...guess I just happen to be one of those suckers. I still use it to this day and I have't had a single problem with it. Off course I prefer my G4



> I've been to several Macworlds and it is nauseating to watch the goobers and geeks bend over for Apple. Talk about licking a-holes...go to MacWorld my friend and you'll see it at every turn.



Been to MacWorld New York 2 years ago....came all the way from Belgium for the Filemaker booth.



> Kick ass???? Recent survey has shown that Bill has 87% of the market and Steve has 13%...where in those numbers do you see Apple kicking ass????



I don't care about market percentage...what I want is a computer and an operating system that I like...nothing more nothing less. 



> Well put.



Well thank you 



> We all have to do it the best way we see fit and I do not challenge your right to choose, only the company that owns your choice.



Nobody OWNS my choice....it's not like I haven't tried anything else yet. (I too have a job you know) It's just that I haven't run into anything quit like my Mac. If I do...I will sure as hell let you know 

Mr_Frost


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## jim1061 (May 7, 2001)

Shane- I see you are a 22 year old Pantera fan. Now that I understand the source of the previous comments on Mac and OS X I realize my best course of action...move on since I'm wasting my time here. If your knowledge of Apple is in line with your knowledge of talented musicians, then I guess you really know nothing about Apple...time to move beyond this.


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## Mr_Frost (May 7, 2001)

> _Originally posted by jim1061 _
> *Shane- I see you are a 22 year old Pantera fan. Now that I understand the source of the previous comments on Mac and OS X I realize my best course of action...move on since I'm wasting my time here. If your knowledge of Apple is in line with your knowledge of talented musicians, then I guess you really know nothing about Apple...time to move beyond this.  *



OK...NOW I AM PISSED OFF !!!!!
I like Pantera as well man...(I wish I was still 22 though);
What does a choice of music have to do with this ??
Guess this just confirms that you are a narrow-minded person.
I have been using Mac for 8 years now..I know that's not long compared to some of the guru's that wonder this earth , but my choice of music has never had any influence on any of my actions. The only bad reactions I got from people were from 97 year olds who just didn't know what was happening to their oh so quiet world. You need to realise that we don't all listen to Shania Twain and jerk off on the cd-cover.

ah well...fuck it...my boss isn't complaining and my paycheck is gettin' bigger each day. That is the only thing that counts.


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## Kazrog (May 7, 2001)

Musical taste is subjective. OS specs are not. You still have not provided any concrete reasons for your dislike of Mac OS X.

So unless you provide any, I'm assuming you're giving up your argument.

PS - if you can't respect the skill of Pantera, then you have no idea what you're talking about musically either. Like their music or not, they have undeniably great musical skill.


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## Mr_Frost (May 7, 2001)

Well...I'm off to bed...might listen to some heavy tunes first though. 
Guess this discussion is closed.
Rock Hard...(Jeff Beck is King) !!
OSX is well on it's way to becoming the only true operating system for the future!


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## AdmiralAK (May 7, 2001)

I have to DISagree with you on your music tastes, club/house/techno/happy hardcore are my medicine, but I DO AGREE that OS X rules.  I am on 10.0.2, and  for a 1.0 software it is GR8!!

OS X is the fastest now than it ever was(for 2 months now).  OS X has been making a lot of strides in the 2 months of its commercial life, and its future looks GREAT 


Viva OS X, VIVA OS X technologies....and please ressurect the newton   That was a GREAT technology WAY ahead of its time that every other PDA copies ourdays.


Admiral


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## theed (May 7, 2001)

And I hope the flaming remains closed.  If Macs didn't have flaws, they'd own the market.  If they didn't have something that no-one else had, they wouldn't be in the market.

I have to say that the correlation between musical taste and computer usage was making me feel f-ing hostile, what I felt was not properly addresses was/were two things.  1, nice - does nice work now?  It hadn't before.  It'd make me really happy if I could properly nice things.  I apologize to the uninitiated for using nice as a verb.

2, the cathedral vs. the bazaar - releasing the OS and releasing an update every couple of weeks is one of the most innovative things Apple has done.  This is the benefit of the open source development cycle.  Rapid development, partial completion of large tasks by completing small tasks.  Tight and fast development cycles.  I really couldn't be happier with the way things are going.  It friggin' rocks.  I agree it's not finished, it's evolving, so are humans.  I'm glad to be here in my imperfect form helping to improve the state of everything.  ... and computers are fun too.

<preachiness> Those were my concerns from this thread, but I also hope that in the future we can welcome the unenlightened and try to learn from them as well as teach them.  The religious wars are completely unnecessary.  They don't belong here.  ... The argument could easily be made that Jim didn't belong here either, but I'll let that slide.

I come here for information and enlightened conversation, and I rabidly avoid the Apple boards because they are full of drivel like this thread started to be.  Zealots yelling at each other telling their side of the story, giving information instead of getting it.  This is some of the worst zealot style material I've seen on these boards, and it saddens me a bit.  At the same time I'm proud that this is the worst I've seen here.  I just thought I'd address it.  </preachiness>


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## jim1061 (May 8, 2001)

Shane,

First of all, whatever your musical taste or opinion, mine should not matter at all to you. Getting so upset about the musical taste of a stranger on a Mac Os X board is a bit unnecessary. If I offended...I apologize. I'm older than you and have different tastes. My personal opinion (and thats all it is) is that Pantera is a horrible no talent bunch of noise and that most rap out there would be better off labeled crap but again its only an opinion...certainly nothing that should be taken very seriously. Its not that I don't like hard rock, but I think there are hard rockers with much more talent...Aerosmith, Black Sabbath and the original Van Halen are three of the most talented rock bands ever and far far more talented than Pantera...but again, thats my opinion...so lighten up and enjoy your own music.

As for OS X, well I've worked with it since it was introduced and I've worked on a Mac at my job for 7 years. I've had PCs at home for 10 years. I believe my overall exposure to these machines and platforms gives me a pretty good insight and ability to offer a reasonable opinion/evaluation. 

There are many things about Macs that I like but just as many things about PCs. I do not believe Steve or Bill have done a very good job of replacing Unix. I certainly don't think Mac having Unix within it is better than Unix itself and finally, my personal experience with both platforms yields a preference to PCs. I will not in any way deny the shortcomings of Microsoft, but it is a fact that a large percentage of the "real" world uses it.

 I'm always looking in the computer field for jobs and I have found that while searching around, the demand for Mac experienced people is minimal. Unix and Microsoft based skills are in much higher demand especially in NYC where I live. So, my preference and opinion comes from both experience and observation. As for Mac fans, I find most annoying (but not all). Macworld is nauseating....I go as a requirement for work. Like I said in the last post, its all fanfare with so little substance and I truly believe based solely on actual hands-on experiences that Apple makes it a regular practice of releasing products that are sub-standard in order to grab the fools that get caught up in the fanfare...then improve on the products and actually offer solid products that should have been released originally. Thats not to say it doesn't happen in the Windows world...but I see it more annoyingly in the Mac world. 

Good Luck on your choice...mine ultimately is Unix where neither Bill nor Steve can get my money.

Jim


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## theed (May 8, 2001)

I don't get the feeling that Apple releases stuff less finished than their competition.  I do feel that they spend a lot more time (proportionately) than others on their fanfare, and this does occasionally leave a bad taste in my mouth.  

I feel that the most important thing that Apple has done is bring about the mataphor and style that have since become ubiquitous.  I really like Mac OS X because it keeps most of the Mac OS that I like, and adds the unix stuff that I have begun to depend on.  It allows me to do on one computer what used to require two.

I don't feel that Mac OS X is nearly as significant as the original Mac was.  It does, however, allow me to have my Mac and eat Unix too.  This combined with a reasonable path for longevity for my Mac make me love this OS in a way that no one can take away.  I'm proud that Apple has done something significant enough in the industrial computing world that a unix head like you even feels it's worth his time to post to a board like this.  

I also have to give to Jim kudos for even walking on both sides of the fence.  I'm proud of my Mac, and I can respect anyone who can appreciate this as a valid choice.  Even if they choose to think different.  ;-)


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## macboy73 (May 10, 2001)

> _Originally posted by plaidpjs _
> *Okay, so where in the HELL did Apple actually say this?
> 
> And, shouldn't it be the release of 10.0.1 this week? You said 10.1, which as far as I knew wasn't supposed to be out until MWNY...
> ...



apple actually said this in a press release, and it is all over the mac news sites. you can do the same thing by going [figure it out for yourself] in the Terminal


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## plaidpjs (May 19, 2001)

> _Originally posted by macboy73 _
> *
> 
> apple actually said this in a press release, and it is all over the mac news sites. you can do the same thing by going [figure it out for yourself] in the Terminal *



Uhmm... that post was a month ago, so either you're a little late or I'm confused as to what you're refering to. My comment was oriented to the previous poster's allegations of *10.1* being released that week. It indeed will not be out until MWNY, which is in July.

If you were trying to one up me on something else, please let me know!

Ciao!


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## macboy73 (May 19, 2001)

> _Originally posted by plaidpjs _
> *
> 
> Uhmm... that post was a month ago, so either you're a little late or I'm confused as to what you're refering to. My comment was oriented to the previous poster's allegations of 10.1 being released that week. It indeed will not be out until MWNY, which is in July.
> ...



Yes, i was just BIT out of date aren't I. sorry about that. I only drop by once in a great while and look at everything from about the last month or so... but still, you took a while to reply...


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