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in konqueror just type:

smb://ip-or-name-of-system-here

tada! now you see your windows pc.

unless you have a firewall or other network security on the windows side. then you'll see error -36.

..mean that much to you, its not an iBook, its a status symbol. WOO!

I don't know if this applies to you, but IMHO Apple's base RAM configurations are inadequate ... up the RAM to at least 384 MB (better 512 or 768). I have a G4 933 and it's always been very snappy (it has a gig of RAM now but started out with 768).

Anyone buying a new iBook should get one with 1 512 MB memory module to leave room to upgrade since there are only two slots.

In addition to Panther issues, there are lots of W2K3 issues that might be causing problems for you. In 2K3 there are a bunch of new security "features" enabled by default such as digital packet signing that break compatibility with Samba 2.x ... you can change these settings on your Windows server(s).

I'm a comfortable Windows NT user on a ATA 6 RAID 0 w/ a 1800 Ghz PC and a good DDRAM. I'm used to speed ! (of GUI and applications starting quite fast).
Many times I tought about trying an Apple PC but this is just the kind of experiences that makes me think twice before I finnaly spend my (precious) money.

Something that has been in my mind is the slugish interface of OS X and no options to use a lighter widget. This seems to be a common problem to Windows switchers.
Looks like it just gets in your way and you can not turn it off and have a more "traditional" Mac GUI to work faster and deliver the results.

Apple should start a theme with lighter widgets (usefull for Apple servers, for example) and make it available to their users if they want

> Whether its Windows XP, Mac OS X, or KDE

Sorry, I have a second PC with Celeron 1.2 Ghz and 133 RAM (512MBytes).
It's responsive ! either with Gnome-KDE and Windows !

The issue about inconsistency with closing applications with associated documents is explained by the fact that apps that only allow one window to be open - iPhoto, iMovie, iSync, System Prefs, etc. - quit when that window is closed. Apps that allow multiple windows don't quit, even without a document open - it makes sense to me but then i find Windows infuriating with it's "loose" documents which seem to exist in isolation from the application. With OS X's memory management there doesn't seem to be much point in closing apps anyway...

As for your networking problem, There's loads of support out there in the Mac community. That's one of the great things about being a Mac user. Suggest you try MacFixit.com or OSXFAQ.com from where i lift the following (from rlaycock):
____________________________________________________________________
I lifted the error codes off William White's excellent sharing page.

(Error = -36) Server access error - server not found (name not resolved); or bad user; or no NetBIOS found.
(Error = -43) Share error - share name does not exist.
(Error = -50) - disk access problems
(Error = -5023) Authentication error - bad password

So your -50 means your server's there but you can't access the disk. The disk has to be shared. The sharenames have to be 8 characters or less. You have to have NetBios installed and you have to have NetBios over TCP/IP allowed in the TCP/IP settings.

For a pretty exhaustive look at the Samba sharing issue check out the White site yourself...http://homepage.mac.com/william_white/smbdoc.html
__________________________________________________________________

I have a two year old PowerBook G4 with an Ati Radeon 7500/32mb.
It has 512mb of ram and Panther running on it works perfect.
The only gui slowdowns I experience are with resizing windows.
anything else is smooth and fast.

I admit my Pentium III 1Ghz feels somewhat snappier, but when my PC stalls again when I copy some large files to disk, I again prefer my PowerBook..

Oh, and no windows network problems whatsoever...
check out the Apple user forums for lots of tips.

:)

First off, as somebody who uses both OSX and Windows, the whole closing the window doesn't close the application thing will throw you for a loop. And then you'll get used to it. (And there will even be times that you're glad for it -- it sucks to unexpectedly accidently close your document, but you save time in that you don't relaunch the app, you just have to re-open your doc.)

You're in the transition period. Give yourself a month or two and you'll be using both OSes equally well ... and dreaming of a system that combines the best of both.

1) How much ram do you have in your iBook? Max it out. I have an iBook G3/600 with 640mb and find it acceptable -- at the same time I don't expect the same kind of speed from it that I get from my PowerMac tower.

2) Get a 2 button mouse. Macally makes a nice little usb laptop sized optical one, no drivers needed. Gives you back the "right click" option.

3) Get to the Mac Addict forums or Ars Technica. Don't be afraid to say I'm a total noobie and start asking questions. The people in both places will help you a lot. Low End Mac is also a really good resource for anything Mac.

4) I highly reccomend David Pogue's OS X The Missing Manual. He explains the conventions and file structure of OS X really well and even explains in plain english how to get into the *nixy underbelly of OSX (if that's what you want to do.)

Give it time, and I think you'll discover that you've made the right choice in teaching yourself to "swing both ways" when it comes to computing. The fact that I know both Mac and Windows has helped me in my job.

Huh? Panther doesn't feel sluggish or slow at all on my ibook G3, 800Mhz. Well, Eclipse takes a while to startup, but the GUI speed itself is just fine. I also use a windows 2000/Slackware box (athlon 1ghz), and I seriously don't feel or see the difference when talking about Gui snapiness.

Since Samba was upgraded to version 3, there have been some teething pains but it will continue to improve. Networking, in general, has changed a lot with 10.3 and is catching a lot of people off-guard.

So often, I see someone complain about the responsiveness of the system and they've bought the minimum amount of RAM possible. Anything less than 512MB should be considered below minimum for Mac OS X. Disk drives play a huge part in responsiveness on a busy system as virtual memory will most likely be in use. Laptop computers tend to use slower drives, especially the economy models, and this will contribute to the system seeming slow.

I found that with WinXP and a 1.8 GHz P4 HP machine that it needed the sliding effects turned off to make the system feel responsive. With Mac OS X, you turn off the cutesy Dock effects--magnification, genie effect, and bouncing of icons. Also, the lovely liquid effects kill the system. If you have a progress bar running and you aren't staring at it, minimise the application window. You'll be able to see the progress in the icon and it won't take huge amounts of CPU to animate it.

Hello all,

I am a software developer for Windows, Linux and BSD. For so many years I suffered from hardware perfomance and operating system instabilities, I have been looking around to find a perfect match of hardware platform that runs the perfect OS, yet until last month, I put on a cash purchase of a iBook G4 800MHz, with 384MB RAM and 30GB HDD. The spec that compare with x86 PCs seems like I can get a better spec if I purchase a normal PC laptop. But, on the other hand, my only choices of OS that can install on the x86 PC laptop is either Windows, Linux or BSDs (as I preferred). But I also had a big challenge, that is the hardware compatibility to Linux and BSDs.

So, I was wondering around, is there any better/stable hardware around that can runs BSDs without any compatibility issues, bingo! I found Mac OS X. After a few weeks of research on Mac OS X, in order to determine whether I can use if daily to substitute Windows/Linux/BSDs, also thinking for software development point of view and thats it, I got my decision, I went to the Mac Store.

Apple with Mac OS X will change the future of PC computing that ruined by Intel and MS, what I all need is a good platform and a good OS. And I found the best choice of all.

Please forgive me that my English is bad since is not my mother language.

It would seem pretty inconsistant to put utilities like bluetooth connection and network connection in the same panel that you set your personal preferences - or am I wrong? MS Windows has now started to split out their tools into "Settings" and "Administrative Tools".

Doesn't seem inconsistent to me.

I use the keyboard commands almost exclusively. Apple-W closes the window. iTunes keeps on playing. That's just how I would want it.

Apple-Q quits a program. I don't know if it's all that different from Windows.

I was never really a notebook person. At some point maybe 3 or 4 years ago I got an IBM Thinkpad T21. It was a good notebook, but I found that I never used it, leaving it on my desk all the time, always preferring my full-fledged PC (which is itself a small form factor, a Mini-ITX, but still much more powerful, and with my nice big screen). I eventually sold it and bought a used Powerbook G4 from a friend (500Mhz, 15.1" model with a gig of RAM, woo!). I love that notebook. Three months after I got it I moved to the city, and I found that I used it all the time; it was light and easy to carry around in my backpack, it didn't have problems with always being in "sleep" mode so I could just open it up without waiting for a boot-up time, and the Airport let me get access at all sorts of public hotspots which can be found at nycwireless.org. Having a notebook allows you a lot of freedom, especially if you write, since you can just pull it out to write about an idea you have without having to wait till you get to your PC or using pen and paper and then losing the scattered notes (which was the method I used for a long while, often frustrating me).

I also use my Powerbook for what Ars.Technica described as "couch surfing." This is laying on your couch with a notebook and browsing the web instead of sitting upright in your computer chair all day. That's truly a nice thing to have. I think I really prefer the dual-life of PC/Notebook, and especially the dual-life of PC desktop and Mac notebook. In terms of Windows file sharing errors, I coughed up the small amount of cash for DAVE (which I remember from my OS 9 days), which I think adds more reliable and better Windows file sharing support than Panther or Jaguar have.

I think Apple desktops sort of suck, to be blunt. Not being a troll, but I just don't like any of them: neither the G5s nor the iMacs nor the eMacs. I prefer the innovation I see in Mini-ITX case design in the PC world, and the flexibility to run Windows and Linux when I need to do tasks in either. Mac OS provides the best _notebook_ environment for me because I have the little Linux support I want to have through Fink, and the occasional Windows support through Virtual PC (though I barely use it) and DAVE. So I truly have the "best of both worlds." Plus, I think Apple's notebook designs are much better than anything in the PC notebook world (though the Toshiba Sattelites and Fujitsu Lifebooks are both approaching Apple in design, but still have a ways to go).

The one downside? Cost. It kinda sucks to have to upgrade both your desktop and your notebook eventually. In fact, I'm thinking I may have to sell this 500Mhz Powerbook soon while it's still worth something (anyone looking? ;-))

I understand all of the author's points without argument. The GUI IS slower on OSX for systems with parity. I find it curious the execution of commands, however, seem as fast or faster on the Mac. When I open a folder on my W2k 1.8ghz desktop it takes longer than on my OS 10.3.2 G4 .5ghz. Program launch seems about the same (Photoshop) for both systems.

As for networking, Apple's need for smb means it will always be a second citizen doomed to MS's OS moves. Today it may work but the next patch could knock you off the network. My Mac will go to any address on either my AFP or the company's +2000 node W2k...if I know the address. Browsing networks will stall the "Finder" on even numbered days.

Mac is OK. A great "personal" computer but it still needs work on the network side.

I also agree with the author's control panel point. Having some networking utilities in one location and others in another is not great. However, I often have to shop around when I use a Window's Control Panel because the action may fall under several applications.

None of them are worth a da3n. (including linux)

I have noticed weirdness if you remove a network connection without first disconnecting from a windows share. It will search and search, then fail if you try to connect to any other windows shares. A reboot fixed this. I seem to remember this giving me -41 error... While its seems stupid you'd do this, its easy to forget a sleeping laptop was connected to a shared folder...

No new PC no matter how econgrade/cheap is going to be slow or slugish running windows. Thats sorta the point here. Apple controls everything, they shouldn't have models that feel sluggish. We arn't talking how fast things run on it, just the bare OS, if your selling models that people feel the speed differance in just the basic OS and it feels slow you have some problems.

Granted I wouldn't buy any G4 based mac at this time, not when they have a whole new generation proc. out there.

My guess is you just like to say your a software developer......or you just got your first job out of school. :-P

You see: Networking on Panther's just fine. Connect several Macs (and other UN*X machines) and you don't have problems. So, ah! You expect Win and Mac machines to work together... Now: You say your Win boxes can access the Mac just fine, but not the other way 'round. How come you think it's PANTHER that's flawed? ;-)

Other than that: Nice to read. About the UI-speed: You'll think differently once you start working with 8 or 10 applications on both platforms. Then minimize Photoshop and open two Word documents at the same time. Suddenly, Windows seems not sluggish but dead, while the Mac enjoys the same 'sluggishness' it had before, i.e.: It's fast.

Ah, and yeah: Get some RAM into the machine. Max it out.

Type this in terminal.app

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSWindowResizeTime 0.1

Restart mac os x

The gui will be more speedy, you can put what time in seconds u want, but u will lose some effects...
Example:
Min:
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSWindowResizeTime 0.001

Max:
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSWindowResizeTime 5.0


I have Panther in my Tibook and have no problems with networks shares in a multiple os environment (win, linux, freebsd). I think if u search more on the net (MacFixit.com), u will find the solution.

"More puzzling was the requirement to press APPLE-Q (or select Quit from the File menu) in order to shut an application. Simply closing the application window does not do the job (except for certain applications such as iPhoto - rather inconsistent it seems)."

This is not inconsistent, Windows is a UNIwindows environment, Mac OS is a multi-window environment. Probably, u don't know, but there are a lots of apps in windows, that run on the system tray bar when u close the window. Mac os do the logic, if i push the close button of a window, i want that window closed not the entire application. Iphoto is a uniwindow application, because that, when you push the close button of the window closes the application.

It's Apple HIG. I think the title of the article isn't too much optimist, as with the article.. And.. The first cube, was an overpriced computer.

Sorry for my english, i'm spanish.

I don't know... Not a very concise review or comparison...

and I have the same question as others do... How much memory do you have in that thing?? OS X eats memory... So definitely go for at least 512mb!

As for your comment about the iBooks being more reliable? That's actually not true at all. There's been tons of problems with dead logic boards on the G3 based iBooks. Here's a link to some info about it:

http://www.macopinion.com/columns/roadwarrior/03/12/16/index.html

Hopefully the new G4 iBooks won't have the problems that plague the G3s.

I was going to go for one of the new G4 iBooks myself, but now I've decided to wait until the problems are corrected with the 15inch PowerBook and get one of those...

My 15.2" 1.25 ghz Powerbook running Panther is every bit as fast as my Athlon XP 2600+ running XP/Mandrake on a RAID level 0 array. I'm very happy w/ my Mac. Lightweight yet does everything one of those 10lb monsters from Dell/Toshiba/Compaq do and in a better, more solid, whisper quiet package.
Now if Apple could fix browsing Samba shares! Seems like I'm not the only one! Although Eugenia doesn't seem to have that problem. Maybe I need to take a look at her smb.conf

By all...this man has written the article too early.
Like a lot of the writers before my impression is that he is a newbie in OSX trying to make a fair comparison with a system he knows for years.
Perhaps in 5 or 6 months this article would look different - imho very possible.
Panther isn't sluggish at all.
I had a 550 Powerbook on 10.1 and this was a sluggish experience.
Unfortunately I wasn't patient and sold the machine.
After hearing good things about Panther some weeks ago I bought an Ibook G3 600 with 384MB Ram and played the whole christmas with this fine machine.
Panther is running very smooth on it.
Preview is working great, the Finder isn't a speed hell but absolutely acceptable and I found some very,very nice apps.
In the first place Launchbar which I've never found in the Win World.
You type Contol+Space and a small bar pops up. You go on typing what you are looking for and with Return Launchbar starts the Program or a Webpage or whatelse. Very, very cute!!
The other very nice app is Expose.
In the few days I've trained myself not to minimize any document window so that you can reach it with one click and the help of Expose. Only 3 keys to remember F9,F10,F11.

I liked the experience so much that I'm selling the Ibook and also my Sony Vaio with 1400 AMD Proc and buy a new G4 Ibook as my main working machine.

My last point:
How does the writer didn't find the Network settings in System Preferences?
In 30min I managed to share my XP Internet Connection with OSX and to activate Samba between both.
A task that would have cost me an afternoon with Linux and XP.

Sorry for the english mistakes!

By the way through Panther I've also become a Vim user ;-)

You're right, browsing a Windows network IS broken. Even the latest patches don't fix it. Shame on Apple for lying about this on their website....seamless networking with Windows? Wrong!

I bought a 700 MHz G3 iBook w 128 MB RAM about a year ago. It is my first Mac. Initially I thought it was slow. I then bought a 512 MB ram chip and added it... pushing the iBook to its max ram capacity.

Even with Jaguar the iBook screamed. With Panther, I feel there is atleast 30% improvement in UI responsiveness.

The comment about iBook being sluggish is totally unfair. Buy more Ram and you will see!!

Compared to the machine evaluated in the article, my specs are ancient, but I have never had to wait around for anything I do.

...panther is sluggish, at least on my iMac. That's why I don't use it much. That and no workspaces/virtual desktops. I don't know how anyone can live without workspaces. I find GNOME to be a lot more responsive, UI wise.(I use a very light theme)

I believe the speed issue we are discussing is a matter of opinion. Windows XP has a much snappier feel than any Mac OS X install I have ever used, and I say that as a complete Mac enthusiast. Apple is obviously not going for the same feel with OS X that Windows XP has, both OS' have their own nuances and do things their own way. So as an avid Windows user of over 10 years, you are naturally going to find the OS X GUI a little different, to say the least.

I too feel like getting an iBook. This lust for the Apple laptops has hightened once I saw a friend with a bluetooth phone seamlessly connect to the internet like magic. It's not really the the look it's the OS. I am an OS head and have never really fiddled with MacOSX. OS 9 yes but not OSX. If only Sun would release "looking glass" for the Java Desktop they could save me a bundle. One can only hope.

It's amazing to me to see how windows and apple users alike seem to overlook something that seems to obvious to me.

Windows is designed to "snap". That is, the user interface is quick. The applications that use the windows aren't nessacarilly ready when their windows appear, but the window is there.

OS-X seems to be designed to "flow". The windows aren't there until the underlying code is ready to accept input. It seems sluggish, but I'd hazard to guess that it's about as fast as Windows is.

Perception is everything though.

I wonder if there are any tests done between say, a P4 and a comparable G4, say a P4 1.8 or 2Ghz model, and a G4 1Ghz box . Under nomianal load how long does it take for someone to open up a 1MB word document with MS Word on XP and actually begin to USE MS Word? How long does it take under OSX?

You do not realise just how far you have swerved into the truth !!

You might also consider the the brilliant stereo sound system built into the top-line G4s, from one speaker too!!

"The comment about iBook being sluggish is totally unfair."

Though your reasoning about memory is probably right, it is probably still Apple's fault. Everything I've seen so far seems to indicate that it is a "standard" Apple configuration. From looking at Apple store's standard configurations, I'd say ALL of them have 1/2 the proper amount of memory. If Apple doesn't want to see "sluggish" in their reviews, their recommended configurations should have more memory. This is a pet peeve of mine in the PC industry too. Dell, Gateway, and HP are ALL guilty of this tactic. Computer makers (including Apple) should provide recommended configurations that make sense.

Enjoyable article. Perhaps persuading you to write more articles and less Eugenia articles.

Yes, iPhoto is a uniwindow application but so is iTunes - yet they behave
different when closing the applications window, so it's inconsistent.

Az Jim

I know this is a dead horse, but the OVERALL speed of MacOS X relies on pretty much one thing: RAM. When I had 128 MB of RAM in my iBook G3/600, I was crying because it was so slow. As soon as I popped in a 512'er to max it out at 640, I was a happy man. OS X caches a LOT in RAM, so if you give it lots of RAM, it will sing. Having a fast HD will certainly give any computer a speed boost for loading things the first time. However, a fast HD in a laptop will generate lots of heat, and suck your battery dry, so I think lots of RAM is a reasonable tradeoff to a slow HD.

Another thing- The GUI speed relies a lot on what the computer is drawing. There is no "tearing" in OS X; it will redraw the entire window when it's good and ready. ON a G3, resizing metal windows is painful, but if you use a theme program, you can change the appearance of the metal windows to a flat theme. There, no more resizing lag. Shapeshifter http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/ will theme your applications at runtime, without modifying system files. (i.e. it can't hose your system.) It uses the APE framwork. (Read about it at unsanity.com.)
Also, Metallifizer, due in January for Panther, Jaguar versions available now, will add/remove the metal appearance from applications. This is also based on the APE framework.

Pulsating buttons can eat 15% of the CPU each (on my computer,) and the progress bars (determinate, and indeterminate both) can munch about 18%. If you switch to a theme that is not so bloated (read "full of useless animations,") you will find the GUI to be much more responsive.

I find that today's GUIs suck cycles like there's no tomorrow mostly for marketing reasons. (Have the best looking GUI, rather than one which is purely utilitarian.) The underlying technology is usually pretty solid. I've always found XP to be a dog with Luna, so I turn it off. The classic interface is more consistant in regard to older applications, anyway.

Just my ni-en.

I think that people should realize that a slow response gui is really not acceptable. The reason it's made slow is because of the added bells and whistles - the little shadows and 3d effects, The extra rendering of the curved surfaces, the large, colorful backdrops, the animated interfaces, etc. These things consume much more memory than you think. If you strip these things down, you can run a very responsive system that's no more than 200 MHz and 40 MB of RAM if not less.

It's partially perception, and partially actual speed. If you're going to count raw drawing speed, then Windows will definately be faster. OS X does lots of fancy effects (like anti-aliased 2D) that Windows does not, and that causes a performance hit. However, OS X often does not feel appreciably slower than Windows because of how it synchronizes all drawing with window movement. That means you never see expose lag as windows are moved across the screen, and window contents stay right up against the window frame when you resize.

You also have to factor in I/O performance. Things like how long it takes to load documents, etc. In my experience, OS X is slower than Windows at this, but usually smoother. Opening PDFs might take longer than in Windows, but won't freeze up the UI as it sometimes can in Windows. Sometimes it seems like OS X takes its sweet time doing things, but you never get that out-of-control (as if the computer is ignoring you) feeling that you get with Windows.

FYI> All my experience with MacOS X is from a 800MHz G4 iMac with 512MB of RAM running 10.2.8. Any comparisons with Windows are done relative to a 700MHz Duron with 384MB of RAM running XP.

As an owner of both a 700 megahertz iBook and a 1 gigahertz 17" iMac, both running Panther 10.3.2, I can tell you with total honesty that neither machine is "slow" from a UI point of view. Perhaps they are slow from a number-crunching perspective, I don't know -- I don't do benchmarks. But I can tell you that I click on the Finder icon and the Finder opens up almost instantaneously. I have no window drag or redraw when resizing a window. I can do the cool expose thing with no problem on either machine. Safari takes maybe 1 second to open and my general surfing experience is no different than when I use IE 6 on WinXP here at work.

I honestly don't know what people are talking about when they complain about a slow UI in OS X. My wife and I use our two machines constantly and there is no lag -- that's all I can say. It's frustrating to read these things. I don't doubt the author at all, but I just want people to know that I really believe those problems are in the minority. I know lots of Mac users with all kinds of machines, from new G5's to older G3's and really nobody I know thinks their Mac is "slow" from a UI perspective. Maybe we're just lucky, I don't know.

I have a PowerMac G4 500MHz AGP (1999) with a ATI8500 and 512MB RAM. Nothing slow about this setup. GUI is very responsive and I regularly have 4-8 Apps and multiple windows open. I don't worry about quitting Apps since OS X's Virtual Memory is very efficient, so why do I need to close an App. Many Apps work off of common Cocoa frameworks and thus their actual footprint is small with key frameworks being shared. So everything is very responsive, since over time the VM has my most often used Apps and code cached. So you see, you need to relearn how to use a PC when you switch to Mac. You are not hobbled by legacy constraints which required you to close Apps and reboot often to fix memory leaks. In fact their is no reason to turn off your mac unless an upgrade warrants it, and the longer the Mac is on, the faster and more efficient it becomes.

Startup is instantaneous from sleep and all my Apps are ready to go. It's hard to beat the day to day experience of using a Mac with OS X. Overall a much more productive system. I switched 12 months ago and the experience gets better as time goes on and bad Wintel habits are forgotten. You really don't appreciate it much until the times you are forced to jump back on a Wintel PC, then you realize it.

One absolute for a responsive GUI, AGP video card with acceleration. If you have that, your processor doesn't need to be a speed demon, you don't need more than the minimum memory to get things done.
Want applications to load fast? RAID, SATA, SCSI. Your regular old ATA will result in regular old load times.
Want to be able to have a whole bunch of stuff at once? 512MB-2GB of RAM; more depending on what kind of stuff.

And then again, PowerPC is not the fastest all in one PC there is. It is designed entirely different than P4. This is why rendering benchmarks, game benchmarks, and other such streamlined benchmarks are silly. P4 is high frequency, and huge pipeline (20 stages I believe). Apple's G4 was 4 stages, and G4E was 7 stages; but it did more at once and it's RISC so instructions are balanced to use similar numbers of clock cycles. I'd like to see compilation benchmarks to accompany these render benchmarks. And game benchmarks are just plain silly, you don't need state of the art for games (you want it but don't need it).

Apple is trying to present a desktop solution that works every time, appeals on the showroom, and outperforms a Windoze box in desktop usage (because that's what PC's are for).
And for those power users that dislike Mac's gui, try KDE or Gnome or fluxbox (all will work in OS X). Arguing that Windows has a superior gui just boggles my mind. Microsoft has yet to make a convention in UI, and they still need to catch up with what others do:
Window shading
Scroll focus without full focus (this is unbelievable handy)
Skinning for free and shipped with the $150 product
One look, I still see old 9x styles in XP (I think Apple is the only one to achieve this)
Ability to work without a graphical user interface, even if only server functions
Throw out the XP start menu, it beats the desktop but isn't good enough; and wherever you put it, put the recycle bin there too. OS X is it for handling the recycle bin correctly.

Oh and for those who think Apple is nuts with resource heavy gui's: Longhorn will have all z-buffered (yes, 3d) objects. I've seen dual 500 G4's sleep through Apple's dockbar, it's hardly heavy. This biggest adjustment is that OS X discourages maximizing; once you get used to not maximizing you will realize what a screen waster it was.

My Powerbook 550 Mhz with 786 MB RAM just works very well! Faster than our Ghz-PC-Box running Win2k. GUI Responsiveness is quite well. The only exception is when resizing a brushed-metal-look window.
When I look at the network-errors he has, I must only laught. Ok, I don't really like that Error-Codes are the only feedback Apple provides, but when people don't know how their servers ip is ...
Networking works pretty well in my homenetwork and at work. Never had problems!
Seems like the quality of the reviews and articles at OSNEWS.COM decreases! First this poor SUSE 9 review of a person that does screenshots using his digitalcamera and then this Macintosh-article!

Sorry but iTunes is not UNIwindow as playlists can be opened in new windows... unlike iPhoto albums which open in the main iPhoto window.

All I can say is that I confirm what people are saying about memory, it's all about the memory. I started out without any memory in the extra slot (read: only a soldered in 128MB stick), and it was painfully slow. Let me tell you, swapping like crazy to a laptop hdd is nowhere near pleasant. After about a month, I caved in and shelled out for a 512MB stick, and put it in. It was like a completely new machine.

Oh, and put me down on the list of happy "switchers". My parents both run Win XP on their respective computers, and there's always some problem that they have to call support (read: me on a sunday morning) to solve. As soon as I make my first million, I'll buy them both Apple's

Do you ever wonder why some people feel that they need to list all their degrees and qualifications when dealing with a subject completely unrelated to their expertise?

> 1) How much ram do you have in your iBook? Max it out. I have an iBook G3/600 with 640mb and find it acceptable

256MB. The general advice has been to max out the RAM - which I will eventually do. However, the UI speed issues are not crippling, just a minor irritation.

> 2) Get a 2 button mouse.

Already done.

> 3) Get to the Mac Addict forums or Ars Technica.

I've been visiting the support forums on the Apple website. The sheer number of people unhappy with Panther's networking abilities still surprises me. Thankfully, the fact that the problems suffered are so widespread bodes well for the hope that they will eventually be fixed.

> No Window shading (on Windows).

If you have an NVidia AGP card (mine is NVidia) you can download the latest detonator driver and on the (Microsoft Windows) Control Panel double click the NVidia "NView Desktop Manager" (it's for dual display managing but also works on single dispaly PCs) and check the "enable collpapse to title bar" at the User Interface Tab.

> You see: Networking on Panther's just fine. Connect several Macs (and other UN*X machines) and you don't have problems. So, ah! You expect Win and Mac machines to work together... Now: You say your Win boxes can access the Mac just fine, but not the other way 'round. How come you think it's PANTHER that's flawed? ;-)

Good point! However, people with apple-only as well as mixed networks seem to be suffering similar problems.

Yes, iPhoto is a uniwindow application but so is iTunes - yet they behave
different when closing the applications window, so it's inconsistent.


No, iTunes is a multiwindow application. Doubleclick on the music store, or on the icon of a playlist. You get a new window.

To the author,
You don't come across as a Mac basher but rather as someone who has made a fair comparison. I'd be interested to see how your opinions change after a couple of months use, hopefully you will have solved your networking problems by then also. I think most Mac users who had a Classic Mac OS are disappointed by the OS responsiveness, I know I am. I think you'll agree however, apps run comparably (to a Windows system).

pixelmonkey,

You can install full-blown Linux on all Macs. Have a look for an article entitled "55 OS's on one PowerBook" (this guy really got 55 OS's on a 17"!)
Technically you can run Windows on Mac's, but to be fair the experience leaves a LOT to be desired.

everyone,
As for the issue of "feeling slow". This is for a reason. Many people are aware the Classic Mac OS was blazingly fast and responsive, as were the programs. This however is a flaw, as processes were allowed to utilise 100% of the CPU. In Mac OS X this cannot happen, it's a true multi-tasking OS rather than an "imitation". This is the main reason it feels slower, rest assured all tasks are of a comparable speed (take a look at the recent BareFeats comparison). It also means that in OS X I can have multiple apps running without slowdown, when I do this on Windows I start angrily smashing the mouse around because it won't respond.

Finally...Windows is a very, very mature OS. The Classic Mac OS was a very, very mature OS. Despite it's UNIX core, Mac OS X is a baby. Give it time, it's constantly improving. One of the best facts is that Apple software upgrades improve speed and features on the same hard-ware. Windows upgrades usually require a accompanying hardware upgrade.

Oh one last thing, iTunes isn't a uniwindow application, however I don't think the criteria for closing/quitting is the number of windows.

Matt

> Do you ever wonder why some people feel that they need to list all their degrees and qualifications when dealing with a subject completely unrelated to their expertise?

Sorry about the willy-waving! I'll try and be a bit more discreet and humble next time ;-)

Chek out d Panasonic tough book, beautifully designed - real titanium casing, touch screen (bit old now...but...), and you can drop it from 4ft - wont break tried it.

nikk7 wrote:
>apps that only allow one window to be open - iPhoto, iMovie, iSync, System Prefs, etc. - quit when that window is closed.

Except that SysPrefs, for example, only allows one window to be open. It is inconsistent, and even if it was, it is not a thing that is intuitive and unconciously learned by the user. All apps should remain open unless the user explicitely quits them, since that is what that command is there for.

I have been using Windows for about 13 years, and Macs for about 4. It was annoying, when I was used only to windows, to have all once opened apps laying around because of forgetting doing a File/Quit. Now that I have grown used to it, it is extremely annoying to have to have a window laying around for a certain application to remain open. It clutters my desktop without reason, when there is no reason to quit the app (in order to get snappy bring-to-front functionality).

I bought my first mac 1 year ago. It came with Jaguar. It took me awhile to even realize that I was wasting my mac by inadvertently doing things the way that I had on windows. This list could be much longer, but here are some things to explore that will make you LOVE your mac:

1) drag and drop is more comprehensive on the mac than on any other platform....try dragging text clippings from anywhere to anywhere....really cool.....no need to cut and paste

2) spring-loaded folders.....no need to have a zillion windows open

3) expose' ....no need to always be minimizing and maximizing
Try dragging something from a window, hitting F9, continue dragging to the destination window, hover until the destination window becomes active and drop.....things just really flow

4) do you need to see a bit more of a window that is not the top window (such as reading instructions in the browser and executing them at the same time?).....hold down cmd and move that bottom window around without making it active.

5) I totally agree with the folks that told you to get more memory

6) I understand about the window closing thing....I fell into that trap too...and thanks to all who explained the uni-window app thing....I didn't know that (and how long did I say I've been using a mac!)

7) Can't speak for the networking issues, but the windows servers DO have to be set up correctly to allow sharing to take place

8) the mac ain't perfect, but some aspects of it are quite different, and you need to put some effort into developing new habits in order to appreciate it.

The Police Dept. where I work uses these, and while they are cool, they're really expensive for what you get under the hood. You pay _alot_ for that case.

Let me see if I have this right. You cut your processor speed slightly more than in half and you expect the system to be just as speedy? Now, lest you blow me off as a fanatic Mac user let me say I have used Windows probably as long if not longer than you have. I switched to a G5 Mac several months ago and have not looked back since. I still run my Windows XP machine to which I have my Mac networked. And might I add I had no trouble at all doing so. Networking on the Mac is far superior to Windows and was much easier to set up.

Since I have used quite a few different OS's over the years adjusting to the Apple way of doing things was easy. Anyway, there are some things about the Mac that I do find a bit frustrating, but these are far fewer than I encountered using Windows. Anyway, maybe you were expecting too much.

"I wonder if there are any tests done between say, a P4 and a comparable G4, say a P4 1.8 or 2Ghz model, and a G4 1Ghz box . Under nomianal load how long does it take for someone to open up a 1MB word document with MS Word on XP and actually begin to USE MS Word? How long does it take under OSX?"

I opened a 1.36 meg word file in under a second, i'd say .75 secs. An no I did not have word running allready. And I could work with it right away. I have a 2100 athlon and 256 megs of ram and winXP. Can't say I've seen it much slower on my 400 mhz box with XP. I do no just launching word in OSX takes forever.

I can't say I have ever seen your window is there but can't do anything with it effect, if it's up, you can work with it soon as you see it.

In my experience, OS X (doesn't matter if you're talking 10.1, 10.2, or 10.3) networks well with modern, standard, properly-configured networks. Most of the problems I've seen people struggle with have been due to pre-existing (but often masked -- this is especially true in all MS-Win networks) network problems or proprietary weirdness in the network itself. Before blaming Panther, another alien machine should be connected (say a Linux box in an MS-Win network or an MS-Win box in a UNIX network) and see if the same problems are encountered. If they are, it's the network's fault. I suspect that as more and more MS-Win users start using Macs, more and more existing network config issues are being uncovered...

OS X is a lot smoother than the others, I will agree with that. I forgot to mention one thing from my posts earlier. I was working in OS 9 the other day, and I found it VERY frustrating, because the front application would hog all of the CPU. AND I wouldn't really say that the applications ran faster than in OS X. Everybody whines about how much faster the OS 9 Finder was, yeah, well it wasn't. True that the OS X finder as of 10.3.2 is certainly a piece, and in Jaguar, there were lots of issues with Finder hanging when mounting/umounting volumes, but I believe that OS X runs faster for many things, it's just that it is doing so many little things that the user is not aware of.

Well I too am a recent Apple convert......or should I say Ive added a Powerbook to my Windows desktops and Linux servers. I got the 17inch 1ghz G4 upgraded to 1gb of DDR ram. I can say with full confidence that the performance is fantastic. Ive had no issue networking to my other Linux and Windows boxen, but I have read that other people have had some issues. Most of what Ive seen was a result of the new Samba 3 in Panther. From what Ive gathered thus far most of these issues have been ironed out by the 10.3.2 release.....though I would expect further refinements. Afterall Samba3 is VERY new. All in all Im totally sold. Apple has come full circle in the last year IMO, and Ive already started dismantling one of my big PCs to liquidate on ebay......>Bring on the dual G5 and 20 inch cinema display

stop it now. that is a blatant flame and you know it. if you think there is any system performance boost for something as BASIC as the UI when you get over 1 GHz and the GUI uses the Graphics card to do much of its display work.

processor speed means almost nothing when you get to the mid 1.5 GHz. that is a fact, and unless you are using CAD or 3d compositing work, then you have no incentive to get the fastest machine out there.

you are aware that Office is all loaded up on boot if it is installed so when you open a program in the suite it just pops open.

hard drives do not spin that fast for instant load of programs. if you knew that you would know that windows "cheats" with its programs.

the reason that the front app hogs all the processor time is because it has cooperative multitasking and the in focus app gets all the system resources.

memory management was also archaic. it used dynamic blocks, but there was no paging so once the memory was full, it was full.

My 12" iBook/800 is very snappy, then again, I have Gentoo Linux installed.

Actually, there are lots of processor-intensive programs:

1) Art of any form (3D, Photoshop, etc)
2) Engineering (AutoCAD, etc)
3) Scientific computing (Matlab, etc)
4) Programming (g++, d2c, etc)
5) Games (Doom III!)

Due to an odd mix of my job, my major at school, my hobbies, and my penchant for a good game of Battlefield 1942, I have to deal with all of the above. So there are *lots* of reasons to get the fastest machine you can get your hands on.

I am a Windows XP user, I have my PC at home connected to broadband. I bought my fiancée a new iBook for Christmas (G4 933Mhz) with Panther installed. I connected it to my PC with a crossover cable and straight away she could access the internet. Simply clicking on "Macintosh HD" and then "Network" she could view all my shared folders, she even added my USB printer without any problems. As for speed, it seems to run a lot faster than my 2Ghz AMD PC with 1Gb RAM!
I really cannot see what you had a problem with as we seem to have the same set up.

I got my first Apple (a 12" Powerbook) 3 weeks ago, and generally my experiences with it have been even better than what I expected. Written from the perspective of a UNIX fan who previously was forced, from time to time, to boot to the antithesis of good OS design for some music programs.

Speed

Like many people have already pointed out in this thread, adding RAM makes all the difference speedwise. I had a total of 768 MB for two weeks (then I installed Panther and started getting constant kernel panics caused by my faulty extra RAM - I'm waiting for a replacement) and the GUI performance was quite spectacular. Currently I'm trying to do with 256 MB and everything is, well... slow as hell.

Input devices

I'd appreciate a second touchpad button (no external mice for me, thanks, I constantly use my PB in places where using an external mouse is impossible). There's one huge fault with the "ctrl + click" system: for some reason, Apple has decided to put a second enter key in the place which would have been appropriate for a right-hand control key. So, as a right-handed person, to perform a ctrl + click, I have to use both of my hands.

Networking

I seem to be one of the rare people with no problems networking with Windows boxes.

Bundled Applications

I love Mail.app, Safari and the Apple Developer Tools. What I don't understand is all the hype about iApps - I haven't been able to come up with any kind of use for them (with the exception of iTunes, see below).

IMHO, iTunes is one of the most overhyped applications ever. Maybe in combination with iTMS it would be somewhat useful, but as a general purpose audio player it seriously sucks (native, reliable ogg support, anyone?).

More puzzling was the requirement to press APPLE-Q (or select Quit from the File menu) in order to shut an application. Simply closing the application window does not do the job (except for certain applications such as iPhoto - rather inconsistent it seems).

This is a stupid idea that has caused more confusion for beginning users than anything that the PC does. I can't tell you how many times my high school students think that the program is exited by just closing its last window. Back in the day of pre-Unix Mac, it was the number one cause of crashes since they'd come and use the computer after someone else had left many apps open unbeknownst to the current user. Since <10 had such poor memory management, that was a recipe for disaster.

KDE realized this mistake and makes the program exit after closing the last window when the menu is set to the top.

As someone else has already mentioned- don't be so quick to blame your networking problems on Panther.

I run winXp and OSX 10.3 I had similar problems, and have been running both OS's for some time.

I experienced similar networking problems, as you did- however to my suprise it was not OSX which was acting up- but XP. The problem was buried within the TC/IP of XP! to explain what I found, without going into a long post I will simply say this:

OSX is a social OS, but XP is a Mac snob.

I must admit that OSX 10.2 was easier to network as it was using an earlier version of samba, and yes OSX 10.3 has got some teething to do as far as networking is concerned.

But as I said- don't be so quick to blame the Mac. And as with all things, time and practice is needed to be fully in control of the power OSX gives you. After a few years- come back and re-read your post

btw- to answer your question- no.
Your problem is not that OSX is a half-baked OS- but rather that you yourself don't understand what you are doing yet- and I mean that in the nicest posable way. We were all at that stage at one point or another

I should also mention that networking between a Mac and a windows box is quite easy, it just takes some learning

and congrats on your new purchase!

I don't know about the rest of you, but I found OS X's UI increased in speed admirably wit Panther. And I'm far from an Apple/Mac fan. The thing most people don't realize is that OS X's Quartz is very different from its competitors, from Windows to X11 on Linux. Why?

For one, it is largely vector-based. Sure, it may be still short of a complete vector UI ala Fresco, but technically, it is very different. That's the main reason why you see the UI is so smooth - it doesn't mean Apple's graphics designers are the best on earth (hardly, heh) but because of Quartz.

Another reason why people think OS X is sluggish is the scrolling. OS X adopted an ingenious scrolling idea ala NeXT called acceleration, IIRC. That means, the longer you scroll, the faster it gets. And if you noticed when you scroll down a webpage in Safari, or a bunch of pages in Word, is that you can see every thing moving slowly up/down, instead of in blocks, like in Windows or X11. Hard to appreciate, but it is a feature.

But what I really don't like about the entire UI is the aesthetics part. I find there's a lot of inconsistency between applications Apple made themselve - inconsistency you couldn't find with Classic Mac OS. The looks too is the "love it or hate it" kind, and can get very very annoying after prolonged periods of time.

Apple should make it a periority to fix the inconsistency, while having more options with the UI besides Aqua and Graphite.

The only problem I had with my ibook (mind you a laptop, so using the keyboard to nav is VERY helpful)is the following.

1. Tab didnt take you to all fields inside a program [ex. in safari, if you want to click a radio button you have to CLICK on it, you could not tab then press the space bar]

2. One button mice got to go. On the desktop not an issue, I could get a 2 button and be done with it. but I think a 2 button mouse on the laptop is a good idea, gives more options and shortcuts and if you use them great, if not no biggy but when trying to use say, OfficeX there are some items you need the 2nd button for and I had to search for the way to do it differently.

3. I suffered from broken program links all the time. I would creat a link to terminal and place it on my desktop or in my nav bar at the bottom and then after so long,a x would appear over it and i would have to recreate it.


Other than that and the fact that i couldn't hook up a external attena to my airport card I was happy with the ibook. Only problem of it was is the software that I was using for school was made for mac then went to wintel base...thus making my purchse null and I had to sell it to get a wintel. To me navigation is a key factor, the track pad is coold but the more keyboard I can get the better and there shortcuts don't always cut the mustard. 3 to 4 key combo's to me is not a short cut. Like I said though I would own one again cause the machine was well built and zippy. I would actually like to get a Powerbook next time so I can REALLY take advantage of the PPC chip.

1) OS X - RAM, RAM and more RAM :-)

2) Some Mac ways of doing things would seem odd to a Windows user. By chance, I learned to use Macs before Windows, so I had to learn the Windows quirks (or what seemed like quirks at first). But, it's great to use more than one OS. I like OS X and 2000/XP.

3) This is edging away from performance and networking and is not so important to readers of OS News as it is to regular uses, but the old Mac OS took the desktop analogy to its logical conclusion. Volumes and media appeared on the desktop (your filing cabinets), the trash can was right there and you could get to your apps and docs many different ways, usually by customing the Apple Menu. The point is, the desktop felt like a "real" desktop and most people had their work on it. Then, when you were done, you'd "file away" everything (unless you kept a messy desktop :-). This was also true of BeOS and, of course, it had all the advantages the old Mac OS didn't have - true multitasking, protected memory and many other cool things. Of course, the old Mac OS had to go - besides not being modern, it was so top heavy by 8/9 it was like a house of cards, just waiting to crash at any moment. But, something has been lost in that along with BeOS. I guess it doesn't matter - today's regular users just install AOL and have no idea how to use their computers anyway ;-)

> Your problem is not that OSX is a half-baked OS- but rather that you yourself don't understand what you are doing yet- and I mean that in the nicest posable way.

I take your point but this rather goes against the philosophy that the Mac "just works". There shouldn't be steep learning curves for basic procedures such as setting up simple home networks. Besides the fact that so many users have simliar problems on the networking front (including Mac-only networks), points the finger of suspicion at the OS. Additionally, many users were networking away happily with Jaguar but ran into problems after upgrading to Panther - it sounds as though Panther is the culprit.

or is this world filled with whiners and whingers?

I've got an eMac loaded with 512MB RAM and running MacOS 10.3.2, its fast, rock solid and all the software I run is responsiveness to the same amount one would expect from the latest wizz bang, gizmo packed machine from some nameless vendor with support manned by people who can't speak a blasted word of English, hmm, real nice.

If you don't like Apples, then don't bloody use them. Stick to your no-name PC and stop trying to ram "PC's" and "Windows" down people throats claiming that some how you have the "moral" or "intellectual" high ground.