On Wednesday, November 02, 2005, at 11:56AM, Susan Platter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I just want to throw my 2p worth in here to broaden the spectrum of opinions :) >>> The $64,000 question is whether I should, at last, upgrade to 10.4 >>> from Panther. What would I gain and lose, please? >> >> I'm sure that you've read all of the marketing material put out by >> Apple. Here are my experiences: >> >> Spotlight is handy but: >> 2) Takes ages to find anything. None of the snappy search results >> that you see at a keynote. (My Tiger machine is a 867MHz Powerbook >> w/640MB Ram) All the Keynote demos are run on G5 Dual-CPU machines with about 2GB of RAM I think. Latterly of course just to wind up everyone they have been using Developer Intel boxes with 2GB of RAM instead. Suffice to say with a ton of RAM and a megafast CPU it does make Spotlight go a LOT faster. A lot of people I know with G4s and slower iMac G5s have complained it's a bit sluggish. 10.4.3 is supposed to have an update for Spotlight top speed it up - dunno how effective it will be. >> 3) Because it takes ages to find anything, if you try to click in >> the list of results before it's finished, your target may have >> moved and you end up clicking on something else by mistake! Grrrr. I press Enter after typing and get a window up, but yeh it still does that. >> Dashboard: >> Actually pretty useful. I like the fact that I could program up >> some widgets to do things my way. I don't like it, I don't want it and I now know how to get rid of it (thanks for the link) - bye bye Dashboard! ;) Seriously though, I have 6 widgets loaded in Dashboard but I never have the mindfulness to use them, apart fro m the calculator - and I'd switch back to Calculator.app in a flash as it's way faster and has more functions. >> New look mail is pretty nice, but I'm a mutt fan so I use that >> instead... ;o) This is one thing I do like in 10.4. It searches fast and doesn't have that head bangingly annoying habit of grinding to a halt trying to look thorough a list of 2000 e-mails that the version in 10.3 has. >> Safari RSS is really really great. It is by far the best RSS reader >> I've tried and has completely changed the way that I use the web. Safari is great and it gets better with each patch. As a web designer I still have a few issues with the page rendering (it uses IE rendering methods not Mozilla ones which means lazy people's websites still look good). I don't mind that though, it's just a professional opinion :o) The RSS is fantastic and having it built into Safari is awesome, however the CoreDatabase that stores the RSS articles is prone to glitches, missing descriptions, repeated artciles etc. Good but could be better. It's a balancing act 'cause it doesn't have to reload RSS feeds everytime which makes it wicked fast. >> I haven't used Automator really (despite having had Tiger for >> 4months). When I first tried, it seemed to take an age to start up. >> I'm sure that it's super-handy, but I've not really got into it. It's a nice idea but it's ultimately inflexible compared to Applescript. >> Otherwise things are pretty much like Panther, there are no huge >> performance gains/hits and there are no massive usability >> improvements (c.f. App Switcher and Expose in Panther). >> Anyhow, that's my impression. I think Tiger occupies more RAM because of Spotlight and Dashboard, which has a knock-on effect on multitasking. PAnther felt fluid and fast on my iMac G4/800. Tiger feels slightly more like thick gear oil on a cold day - it still flows but not always as fast as you'd probably like it to! -- Mark Benson http://homepage.mac.com/markbenson -- Mac UK is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... 123Inkjets.com <http://lowendmac.com/ad/123inkjets.html> Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Mac UK list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/mac-uk.shtml> --> 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/mac-uk%40mail.maclaunch.com/> iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
