Welcome to future! (Mac OS X)

Member Name: Captain Kidd

Product:	Mac OS X
Date:	21/06/01 (282 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great look, very stable

Disadvantages: RAM heavy

The Mac OS. Far superior to anythiing that currently resides on a Wintel PC machine. Easier to use, easier to look at and moe user friendly.

Enter Mac OS X (or 'ten' as it's more commonly known). In the heated anticipation of this totally new OS, no-one could get enough of the pre-release pictures and reviews. To say this was a much longed for Apple system would be an understatement.

So how does it compare to previous OS releases? Well, it looks totally different for a start and has lots of 'under the bonnet' upgrades and modifications.
I have been using Macs for about 5 years and when I installed this on my Powerbook G4, it took me about a week to really understand what the hell was going on in there!! Visually, the most notable difference is the 'dock'. This is an application that sits at the bottom of your desktop an is a visual reference to what applications and documents you have open at any one time including permanent ones such as the Finder and the Trash. You can also store aliases there too. Basically, the look has had a huge overhaul. It is now more graphically aware the previous versions in that it uses icons to describe things rather than text. It comes bundled with a preview version of Internet Explorer 5.1 which is basically the same as 5, but OS X savvy and its very own email client, 'mail'. Although this is fairly easy to use and configure, it isn't a patch on Outlook Express. Until an OS X version of outlook appears, stick to using it on OS 9.

You can use your existing applications under OS X too because when you open them it automatically open the 'Classic' environment i.e it starts up Mac OS 9. To all intents and purposes, you have 2 system folders on your hard disc and you can choose which one to start from.

OS X is also very stable and crashes far less often. I've been using it for about a month and haven't crashed once. As we all know, sometimes your
applications crash for no apparent reason. This can still happen in OS X, but you can now force quit them without any adverse effects on your other open apps. Very useful.

A great addition to the system is the 'Update Software' utility. This was available in OS 9, but it has been honed to work much better. All you have to do is connect to the net and press the button saying 'update now'. It then searches Apples site for any available software that you don't have installed including OS updates, tus saving money in having to buy updates on CD's.

It all sounds very complex, but once you use itfor a few days, it gets easier!

In the box, you get a manual which covers a fair amount of stuff, your OS X system disc (to install from), a copy of OS 9.1 (you need to upgrade your current OS to 9.1 before you can install OS X) and a developer CD (if you fancy developing software for yourself!!). Good value for money (for a change).

You also need a minimum of 128Mb RAM to use it comfortably, although it's best to get as much as you can afford (very cheap at the moment!). At least 1Gb of hard disc space is also needed.

There are still a few niggling little issues that people have found with it, but updates are now going to be more easily available and more regular ensuring that minor bugs are ironed out smoothly.

Summary: