On Monday, June 27, 2005, at 12:16 AM, Tom Baker wrote:
On Jun 26, 2005, at 9:34 PM, Peter Schaff wrote:
Hi Matthew!
Just a few comments, FWIW.
OSX is processor hungry and RAM hungry. Our iMac (600 MHz, 768 MB
RAM) is slow. We really must replace it with another Dual PM soon.
That said, my wife LOVES what she can do with it. She runs Photoshop
and Word, putting together relatively massive picture documents,
internets, does her mail, has a large genealogy database (Reunion 8),
all without closing programs. OSX puts in RAM what you are currently
using and the dynamically allocated RAM is a godsend! It keeps track
of everything very well and lets you operate efficiently, even with
lots of programs running simultaneously. Sometimes patience is
required while it adopts to a change in your work flow.
Although my personal opinion is that OSX is far superior to OS9, I
have friends who lament the way OSX does things. If you are heavily
dependent on how OS9 operates, particularly regarding finder window
management, OSX will take some getting used to. I have little OS9
experience so I fell right into the groove (coming from Amiga). OSX
is sweet! And of course, it is the future.
There will be an adjustment period, but in the end it will be worth
it, IMNSHO. ;^)
I suggest you make the change sometime soon, and save your pennies
for upgrades. Personally, I feel OSX needs a DP 1 GHz or better.
YMMV. But you must let your conscience be your guide.
- Peter Schaff
I agree with everything Peter says above. Am new to OS-X myself
(10.3.9 on a 2001 Digital Audio 733 with 1.5 GB of RAM and several
large hard drives connected inside and out) but I like its increased
stability over 9, and the dynamic memory allotment that allows many
programs to run efficiently all at the same time. In fact I bought the
Adobe Creative Suite that lets four large Adobe programs (Photoshop,
Illustrator, GoLive, InDesign) all work with together simultaneously
with a "bridge" connecting them. Neat! For screen real estate I have
two 21 inch monitors side by side and I use all the room they provide
and would feel cramped without it. You can really be productive with
that much working space! Am running Panther quite happily, a bit
afraid to move up to the next cat while things are working so well.
This old dual-boot machine allows dropping back into 9 easily to run
old SCSI scanners and things (just do a restart while holding down the
D key, and presto, you're back in 9. Restart again without touching
the keyboard, and you're back in 10. Simple).
However, there are a few things in OS-9 that I miss, or maybe I just
don't know how to do the same in 10. For instance, I liked the way all
the active programs would be listed on a menu in the upper right
corner of the screen in 9, and you could just pick the one you wanted
to come to the front off that menu. In 10, picking their icons off the
dock among all the other icons is a lot clumsier, and the little black
triangles that are supposed to show you which programs are active are
hard to spot. Is there a way to make active programs appear in a menu
as a list, as in OS-9?
Tom
Hi Tom,
Coming from the Amiga, I'm used to, and dependent on multiple screens.
The difficulty switching between programs you've noticed caused me no
end of frustration when I moved to Mac, but for different reasons. You
were used to changing your environment from a menu, and I was used to
switching screens from program to program. I was delighted to find a
very slick answer in Virtual Desktop.
http://www.codetek.com/
This program lets you setup up to 100 "sets" of windows you want
running at the same time. It does this by letting you specify several
desktops (I call them rooms - I use 8) that each of your programs can
call home. VDT lets you set hotkeys for each desktop. I use the
number keypad (Enter and 0-6).
My "Home" room I use for transferring files between our 2 Macs. I have
two Finder windows, one above the other (in Column mode). Another room
environment is "Word" which I use for our home business. On it I have
another finder window with our work files which I import from "Home",
hit "3" which takes me to Word. That finder is in List mode more
appropriate for renaming and organizing the files. "Explorer" takes
care of internetting, allowing yet another Finder window placed
vertically on the right side of the screen to easily snag pics from the
browser. Yet another "environment" is for Mail, one for Photoshop,
another for iPhoto, and another for iTunes. I always have an empty
"room" in case I need to access the desktop icons (not very often
anymore), or to setup a temporary environment for special needs.
Most Mac users don't "get" separate screens or desktops. Had it not
been for the Amiga I suppose I wouldn't either. But I can't
contemplate OSX life without VDT now. It neatly handles management of
windows in a way I can relate to. Everything I need is a keystroke
away. Really slick.
If you try it, let me know what you think.
- Peter Schaff
PM: 1GHz DP/1 GB/80GBx2/10.2.8
iMac: 600MHz/768MB/40GB/10.2.8
PB: 3400C/9.1
Brother HL-1870N laser, Epson 785EPX, Epson 2450 scanner
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