A new MacOSX update was just released. Update 10.1.5 delivers enhancements which improve the reliability of MacOSX applications, delivers improved networking, security, support for PC Card serial communication devices, and expanded peripheral device support. Specific improvements include: Peripheral Device Support:
– Expanded support for new Canon digital cameras.
– Improved support for Nikon FireWire cameras.
– Expanded support for SmartDisk, EZQuest, and LaCie disc recording devices.
– Improved support for MO drives.
Application Improvements:
– Increased stability of Mail and Sherlock.
– Emails are properly retained when rebuilding the Draft mailbox.
– Support for 2D and QuickTime hardware acceleration for Rage Pro.
– Updated Carbon applications can use Quartz anti-aliasing technology for high quality text display.
Networking and Security Improvements:
– Improves networking via AFP when accessing multi-level directories on Windows NT file servers.
– Significant improvement to file searching on local and remote volumes.
– Includes a generic PC Card driver to support a variety of PC Card modems.
– Mail accounts go offline to indicate that SSL encryption settings are not supported by mail server.
– Includes the Security Update April 2002.
WebDAV Improvements:
– More efficient iDisk mounting and file navigation.
– Added support for connecting to iDisk using default DNS settings of AirPort.
– Support for mounting a WebDAV volume from a non-standard http port.
Asian Language Improvements:
– Significant updates to the Korean Input Method, especially important when using AppleWorks.
– Internet Connect and AirPort applications updated with Chinese and Korean localized content.
I just updated to 10.1.5 on my PowerBook 550. I am VERY pleased that I can once again operate with my 21″ monitor as the only display device, and leave my powerbook closed.
This results in less heat, less worry about accidentally damaging the open screen, and cooler, quieter running. Plus all that Colorado dust will no longer settle in my keyboard day after day.
I am very pleased. After Apple broked the closed clamshell oepration in 10.1.3, I and many others were irritated at the loss in nice functionality which we had enjoyed.
Thank you, Apple, for listening to the posts and feedback. Many TiBook owners appreciate having things works as they were intended to.
Let’s get this show on the road.
Who want’s to bet this becomes a OSx is better than Linux and Windows contest?
self-fulfilling prophecy
Well it probably will, but who cares right?!
Helk busy at work this week I can’t even keep up with the forums lately!
I’ve got a friend coming over from the US for a visit so I’ll be absent from here for about 2 weeks and then my girl friend is coming over for the summer as well, so then I’ll be absent from here for about two months, but I’ll pop in every now and again to see what’s going on with you guys (and gals)!
🙂
Although it makes no mention of it, my system seems MUCH more responsive after this update…..
Let’s get this show on the road.
Who want’s to bet this becomes a OSx is better than Linux and Windows contest?
Nah, I bet it would turn into a Mac vs. PC flamewar, the same with almost every other Mac-related posts.
To me, it make no sense arguing and spreading lies about the other platform. Mac is perfect for print houses, sound studios, 2D designers, scientist, teachers, lawyers etc. Windows is perfect for 90% of the world (accountants, businessmen, and so on), and Linux is just best left to the server and the geekish workstation users. (Well, I’m a geekish workstation user…)
So, for the flamebait: Mac OS X sucks, Quartz sucks, Aqua is a badly designed UI, the APIs are terrible and the hardware is obsolete 1986 hardware (and no, i didn’t mean what I just said, just a flamebait).
as i’ve posted elsewhere ( powerpage.org ), i updated my ibook without a hitch, and i’m glad to say that this is the most noticeable speed increase since i updated osx to 10.1.
i highly recommend this update 😉
The speed increase is releated to the support for 2d Hardware accerlation
*cough* Oh, never mind…
Darnit- I wipe OS 9 and X and install Debian on my iBook2 the day before this comes out- because OS X is too slow, and offers no advantage over Linux or OS 9 for what I do. D’oh
“Mac is perfect for print houses, sound studios, 2D designers, scientist, teachers, lawyers etc. Windows is perfect for 90% of the world (accountants, businessmen, and so on),”
You’d be surprised at how much lawyers interact with accountants, businessmen and so on, so I’m not sure they’re part of the Mac target market. I’m in finance and almost all of my work comes from lawyers. However, with Office X, Virtual PC and DAVE, Macs can become excellent business workstations.
I bet. I wouldn’t say that Windows is perfect for that 90%- they just put up with it.
Back in January, Apple’s El Supremo told us that the cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor was dead, and that Apple was moving to LCD monitors across its product line.
There are plenty of good reasons for killing the CRT: It’s heavy, bulky, and classified as hazardous waste when you throw it away. Today’s LCDs are easier on the eyes and use far less electricity than CRTs, they’re headed down in price, and, unlike CRTs, they aren’t filled with toxic lead powder.
So what Steve said made a lot of sense, especially for a company known for technical innovation (and the premium pricing that goes with it). From its desktop-filling 23-inch Cinema Display to the 15-inch LCD on the new iMac, Apple has already done more than any other vendor to promote LCD desktop monitors.
FAST-FORWARD a couple of months. Steve’s CRT death knell had hardly stopped echoing, yet here was Apple introducing a new CRT-based desktop, the eMac. I figured we could excuse this violation of the all-LCD edict, because the eMac was designed specifically for the price-sensitive education market.
Somebody kick him.. please… its Dave Coursey of course.. Moron.
I’m on an iMac G4, so a GeForce 2.
OK.. eMac IS crt not lcd
I’m going off to get a job in gardening ok..
This might be weird, but I updated both my TiBook G4 and my old iMac G3 and O only noticed a performance boost on the Ti where scrolling and other such graphic GUIness was concerned, but the iMac didn’t seem to take notice. I am not sweating it though because I plan to buy a new desktop Mac by the end of the year… okay I thought the G5 pipe dream would come true, give me a break will ya 🙂
Even if the G5 comes out soon, buying a PowerMac is still a good idea. You can bet that older systems will be cheaper.
>>Even if the G5 comes out soon, buying a PowerMac is still a good idea. You can bet that older systems will be cheaper.<<
I can admit that I am waiting for DDR and such. And with the rumors of a new case coming, if it isn’t as nice as the ole Quick Silver, I might just take advantage of what you’re talking about.
DDR support is slated for G4; Apple won’t need to release G5 to use DDR. Take Xserve for example. Just wait for MWNY (and yes, I still think G5 is vapourware).
You’d be surprised at how much lawyers interact with accountants, businessmen and so on, so I’m not sure they’re part of the Mac target market. I’m in finance and almost all of my work comes from lawyers. However, with Office X, Virtual PC and DAVE, Macs can become excellent business workstations.
I added lawyers to the list cause all the firms i went to have a majority Mac operation. BTW, lawyers don’t need to use the same platform as their clients or their accountants in order to have business with them. (anyway, I only been to one law firm)
As for business workstations, Office v.X was obviously not written to support these group of people. For example, Entourage doesn’t have Exchange support, and the only official Microsoft product for Macs that supports Exchange is Classic Outlook.
Virtual PC is not really applicable for corporate needs – if you use Windows, why not buy a PC with it? Plus, with Microsoft’s new licensing terms, you may not use discounted Windows with emulators, and may not use emulators on discounted Windows (IIRC, in both DOJ and State’s proposed settlement for the antitrust case, it doesn’t prevent this from happening).
The Mac hardware too is obviously not made for most of the corporate needs. For example, does some company that needs Office with workstations, what difference between a Windows-based machine and Mac-based machine? Exactly, consumer level Macs was created for the digital hub – something corporates don’t want in their offices, and high end professional stuff was created for professional tasks like graphic designing and science research. Conclusion: Macs was built for niches, live with it.
There are plenty of good reasons for killing the CRT: It’s heavy, bulky, and classified as hazardous waste when you throw it away. Today’s LCDs are easier on the eyes and use far less electricity than CRTs, they’re headed down in price, and, unlike CRTs, they aren’t filled with toxic lead powder.
LCDs aren’t easier on the eyes, especially if you are a gamer. Its low refresh rate causes extreme gamers who are already used to high end CRTs to get headaches.
And for heading down in price, for the past 6 months, the prices have been either static or increasing.Cost of manufacturing isn’t all that low, it is still higher than that of CRTs. Besides, CRT prices are dropping too. This time last year, a flat screen CRT 15″ monitor cost the same as today’s 17″ flat screen CRT monitors.
FAST-FORWARD a couple of months. Steve’s CRT death knell had hardly stopped echoing, yet here was Apple introducing a new CRT-based desktop, the eMac. I figured we could excuse this violation of the all-LCD edict, because the eMac was designed specifically for the price-sensitive education market.
Well, try telling not-so-well-off schools and homes that LCD is what they need, and they need to spend $300 more for something they don’t really need, in fact sometimes (for schools, K-12) would be better off without.
I have only worked for one law firm, but during that time I interacted with many others, and I also consulted at still more firms. In addition, I have several friends who practice law.
When I think of lawyers’ computer needs, I think WordPerfect. Just about every lawyer I know uses it, or used to use it (and has a bunch of documents in WP format). The firm that I worked for tried to change over to MS Office, but never managed to get rid of WordPerfect in any significant way. I also remember a lot of proprietary software that was used for research purposes. Lexis-Nexis, Westlaw etc.
Probably by now most of those proprietary clients are web-based, but I noticed that WordPerfect isn’t available for the Mac. So I have a hard time believing that the legal field leans toward Macs. I never saw a single lawyer with a Mac when I worked with them!
When I think of accountant’s computer needs, I think Lotus 1-2-3. Just about every accountant I know uses it, or used to use it (and has a bunch of documents in 1-2-3 format). In every “100%” MS Office shop that I’ve seen, the accountants are the exception, with their Lotus 1-2-3. I don’t think that their 1-2-3 is native to the Mac either.
And business? C’mon!
I agree with them being in print shops, and a few other niche areas, and of course the users who buy them as a fashion item. But those other fields? Maybe in your dreams, but not in reality!
While I agree that WordPerfect is around in legal offices, still–and indeed, Corel stopped supporting it on the Mac a while ago (which is unfortunate, since the last Mac version was actually pretty good!)–I haven’t seen Lotus 1-2-3 in use anywhere in years, including accounting departments. WordPerfect clings on because Word can’t do some things that legal documents require, or can’t do them well; 1-2-3 hasn’t had any serious advantages over Excel for at least a decade. (Their next-generation spreadsheet, Lotus Improv, did, but nobody cared.)
As for whether Exchange is absolutely necessary for offices… eh. The flaw is the group calendaring system, remember, so the necessity depends on the size of the office. At my last job (a company of 5000 or so, with 2000 in the HQ location I was in), this would have been seen as a critical flaw. In my current job (a company of 60 or so, with most of the office on Microsoft Office and the developers on FreeBSD), it wouldn’t be. And in fact it isn’t, since I use my TiBook as my workstation.
It is a flaw, definitely–unfortunately it’s a flaw Microsoft needs to fix, and it appears to be stymied due to internal company politics. The Mac Exchange client is under the control of the Exchange development group, not the Mac Business Unit; the MBU produced Entourage because the Exchange group was being lethargic about updating the Mac client. In all ways except Exchange interoperability, Entourage got kudos as the best e-mail client Microsoft’s ever produced–which didn’t make the Exchange group very happy.
This is a similar story to the Windows Media Player for the Mac, which is the responsibility of the Windows Media group rather than the MBU.
When I think of lawyers’ computer needs, I think WordPerfect. Just about every lawyer I know uses it, or used to use it (and has a bunch of documents in WP format). The firm that I worked for tried to change over to MS Office, but never managed to get rid of WordPerfect in any significant way. I also remember a lot of proprietary software that was used for research purposes. Lexis-Nexis, Westlaw etc.
You got a point there. What is with them and WordPerfect?
Probably by now most of those proprietary clients are web-based, but I noticed that WordPerfect isn’t available for the Mac. So I have a hard time believing that the legal field leans toward Macs. I never saw a single lawyer with a Mac when I worked with them!
The latest release of WP Office isn’t available on Mac, and there isn’t any WP Office for OS X, but yes, there was WP Office for Mac. this happened when Corel bought WP.
When I think of accountant’s computer needs, I think Lotus 1-2-3. Just about every accountant I know uses it, or used to use it (and has a bunch of documents in 1-2-3 format). In every “100%” MS Office shop that I’ve seen, the accountants are the exception, with their Lotus 1-2-3. I don’t think that their 1-2-3 is native to the Mac either.
I have an uncle, three cousins, a granduncle, a few family friends that are accountants. They aren’t using Lotus 1-2-3 (except the granduncle, which uses OS/2 anyway..)
Besides, I didn’t say this was a Mac niche.
And business? C’mon!
Apple doesn’t own any niche in businesses, and they seem uninterested too for that market.
This is a similar story to the Windows Media Player for the Mac, which is the responsibility of the Windows Media group rather than the MBU.
OT, for those who claim Microsoft is on a holy war against Java, WMP for Mac is a Java app. (Besides, WMP was released for Mac to allow it’s formats to play under Mac OS, it was not meant to take market from Quicktime/iTunes, or Real).
OT2, I started using the PR for Quicktime 6, the demos for MPEG 4 kinda proved it’s power.
It’s worth noting that WordPerfect Office was a groupware program, like Outlook, and not an office suite. WPO was renamed to Groupwise back in ’95 to eliminate the confusion.
Macs have a niche in education, video, 2D desiging, print houses and is getting a niche in science research (bio and chem). For lawyers, we have no idea what they are using. For all you know, they may be using old Commodore-64s, hehehehe. (I wonder what Microsoft’s and Apple’s legal team uses…). For accounting, there is more to that niche than spreadsheets, and apparently, Windows NT holds the market.
(PS, we live in 2002, not pre-1995 where WPO was a groupware)
This is the biggest update I’ve got yet (though I “started” with 10.1, so I can’t appreciate that). Doing a “before and after”, with playing a video, was incredible. It went from “skipping 1/4th the frames, while playing at the default size” to “skipping *no* frames, while playing full screen”. WOOHOO!!!! I have a ton of sci-fi shows in divx/mpeg format, and I wanted to watch them on road trips, but couldn’t because of the crappy video. Now, that problem is solved…
Btw, this is on an original blueberry w/160 megs of RAM. Another ram upgrade is in the works B-)
I thought someone was calling me…
I can appreciate David Bishop’s joy though. I remember when I experienced my first full-screen, full-motion video on my own computer. Way back in the 1990s… Those were the days.
“Way back in the 1990s… ”
Of course Speed wouldn’t know that the blueberry imac was made in the 1990’s.
His snide comment aside, that’s good news that OS X updates are improving the user experience, especially those with older macs.