On Tuesday, December 17, 2002, at 04:11 PM, Bill Fischer wrote: > I currently have a Pismo and the primary applications I use are; > AppleWorks; Filemaker; BluePrint; Quicken; Now UptoDate & Contact; > Eudora; Explorer; Reunion; Route 66; Solitaire; > > Anyway, what am I missing? What are the real advantages of OS 10 over > Windows?
I don't think your observations about OS X being like Windows really have much merit. The only time people really make that argument these days, it's hyperbole brought on because they're cheesed off about Feature Y isn't in OS X. A lot of it is Apple returning to motifs that were in older systems -- OS X's System Prefs looks a lot like the Windows Control Panel.... because they were BOTH designed after System 6's Control Panel. That said... I didn't have an easy way to answer this until a couple of weeks ago when I (*sigh*) bought a PC with Windows XP. My goal was to learn about the system so I could answer questions just like yours. I've used Windows at every iteration, from 3.1 to 95 to 98 to ME to 2000 to XP. From 3.1 to ME, I really thought Microsoft was doing a good job making their system more and more usable. It wasn't a Mac, but they were slowly removing many of the roadblocks they had in the usability factor. With XP, though....... geeeez. I'm a computer tech, having worked on Mac OS, Windows, several varieties of UNIX, and VMS (*shiver*). Windows XP fights you every step of the way, regardless of what you're trying to do. I was trying to install a USB2 hard drive. XP insisted that I had no drivers installed (DRIVERS?! for a hard drive??). If I went into the device manager and clicked UNINSTALL DRIVER.... it would then say that I have a working driver and that this "Device is working properly." Of course, it wasn't. I finally got it to work, essentially by doing the same thing. Over and over and over again until one time... it worked. Now, every time I boot the computer, I have to uninstall the driver for the hard drive before it'll work. Sometimes I have to do this 2 or 3 times. Rather than do this, I've just hooked up the drive (by Firewire) to my Mac and use OS X's Windows FileSharing to share the files to the PC. It was easier that way. Compare this to Mac OS (9 or X) where you plug in a USB or FireWire drive and (*GASP*) it just works! I tried to install Jedi Knight II, but apparently OpenGL is required. On the Mac, this is simple... If you don't already have it, you just download OpenGL and install it. End of Story. On the PC, as near as I can tell, you have to download a version of OpenGL that's specific to your graphics card. It took quite a bit of trial-and-error (over 2 days) to get the right one, since my graphics card isn't plainly labeled as to brand. As for the programs you run, and whether it's worth it to you to upgrade from OS 9. Many of those are now out for OS X. Some are not. OS X has the Classic Environment, which allows you to run OS 9 apps in OS X. However, if most of your apps AppleWorks 6 - check, 6.0 and up Filemaker - check BluePrint Quicken - check, 2001 and up (I think) UptoDate & Contact - check Eudora - check Explorer - built in to OS X Reunion - check Route 66 - check Solitaire - dunno which one you use, but there are several for OS X The question then becomes, is it worth it to you to buy the upgrades, if necessary (depending on what version you have of some of these, some of the upgrades are free). Apps run in Classic don't get the benefits of running in OS X -- protected memory, multithreading, etc. That is, if a Classic App crashes, it can bring down other Classic Apps and the Classic Environment as it comes down. If an OS X app crashes, it can't bring down the whole computer or affect other apps. Just read <http://www.apple.com/macosx/> and see what features speak to you. -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-Books list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
