OSNews

As an international user, I was hoping you would have touched on some of the perils and possibilities of using Mac OS X from a non-English perspective. Of course, localization depends on cooperation of 3rd party apps, but from what little I've toyed the localization could be very nice. Just curious what a non-US centric user thinks of the localization implementation and possibilities for improving it. I used to work in a similar graphic studio to what yours sounds like. The bean counters bought low end equipment when older models were being discontinued and kept them well past their usable life. I remember trying desperately to squeeze out just a bit better performance on old 68040 macs when the PowerPC's were already in their second generation. But your subtle point about purchase price having a hidden correlation to processor speed (because of thrifty accountants) was right on target. I just wish it were easier to quantify proficiency increases in dollar amounts. It'd make upgrades (whatever your computer system) easier. I also like your perspective on using emulation. Basilisk is a very cool emulator of the old pre-PowerPC platform and it really flies. Apple did a bang up job they did on the "Classic" environment, but I still use a Mac emulator (vMac) on Mac OS X to run ancient System 6 apps that no longer run even under Classic. Emulation is also pretty cool with other OS's (I use Virtual PC to run IBM DOS that's really cool). I'm not sure how valid your speed comparisons are between metal and emulation; I've always had terrific speed emulating metal that's 3 years old or so. In fact, it's more often the case that I need speed limiters to slow my emulator down (so sound and other functions work reasonably). I won't argue about the holy war of which computer language is better, but if you are looking for a good comparison I strongly suggest Timothy Budd's "An Introduction to Object Oriented Programming". I have the second edition and it goes into nice comparisons about what the various object oriented programming languages are good for. It doesn't attempt to say which one is more marketable or even to say which one is "best". He does a good job of pointing out where it's most beneficial to use C++ or Java or Objective-C. Good code comparisons too. The things you despise about the interface (single, global menubar, similarity to what has come before, strong contrasts) are things that I like. I agree with your assessment of some outstanding bugs and inconsistencies but lumping them in the same paragraph as your critique on interface design probably just goaded Mac readers. Of course no one likes bugs, to suggest that the home folder move and the contextual menu vagueries were designed in rather than simply oversights suggests some disorganization in either your evaluation or your presentation of your evaluation. I'm interested in your assessment of speed and lag. I strongly agree with your assessment of BeOS's speed; it was incredibly responsive. But so far I don't agree with you on your assessment of Win XP being faster in feel than Mac OS X. In many, many ways they both seem comparable to me. There are a number of things that do feel faster on Windows XP and some that feel faster on Mac OS X. But in many cases I don't notice much of a difference without a stopwatch. At the tail end of your article you start lumping together things that Mac OS X fails to deliver: a journaled file system, a software manager, and advanced networking. I strongly agree about the file system need (but I actually hold out more hope that third-party Darwin developers will deliver it sooner than Apple will). I am not sure what exactly you mean by the software manager need. And I strongly disagree with you about the Windows networking layer (which I've had nothing but trouble with interfacing with standard Unix boxen). Though I only partially agree with your perspective, I do wish you had elaborated more on these issues rather than just throwing them unelaborated.