Aqua-esque: OSX marks the spot (Mac OS X)

Member Name: Caliente

Product:	Mac OS X
Date:	22/07/01 (745 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very Stable, Multiple users very easy to set up, Little things that make the difference

Disadvantages: Having to use Classic applications, Bit disorientating for a while

Having head both good and bad reviews if OSX i was dubious about installing it on my new G4. Now i find it hard to do without.

OS X is a complete rewrite of the mac system, and the first thing you notice is the interface. It's very strange at first to anyone who has ever used previous versions of the Mac OS- It's all very 3D and seethrough. Apart from the actual look, there's something new at the bottom of the screen, called the dock. This translucent bar keeps in all your active applications, favourite applications and folders. It's also where the trash is kept, and instead of collapsing pages like in OS9.1,you can send them to the dock with a click of the little yellow traffic light at the top of any window. The dock is extremely useful to keep your favourites in, seeing as the apple menu as we know it is now defunct.

The apple menu, where you used to be able to store all your favourites, and anything you needed to access in a hurry, has now been changed into a menu that holds shutdown and system commands. Also new in the menus is a new application menu, containing preferences, the hide/show instructions that were previously in the finder menu (on the right of the screen).

The main problem in the first few weeks of using OSX is the fact that EVERYTHING'S MOVED!! It's very easy to get lost in the system, and you'll find yourself using Sherlock a lot. However, it's true that everything is in a very sensible place now- you'll wonder who put it there when you go back to OS9.1!

Another problem is that there are only a certain amount of programmes that run on OSX. These include major programmes like Internet Explorer, Graphic Converter, Appleworks 6, Sherlock and more. However, until all programmes are converted, you'll have to keep going back to OS9.1 or "Classic"as it's now called. This is where your computer has to be pretty well equipped- running two operating systems at t
he same time can make for pretty hard work for your poor computer. Plus you'll need plenty disk space to install new OSX programmes as well as keeping your classic apps on.

One great thing with OSX is the easy multiple users setup. Although multiple users has been available for a while on Mac OS, I've never been able to get it to work properly. With its UNIX background, Mac OSX copes with multiple users wonderfully, and setting it up is just a matter of creating usernames and passwords-no annoying long list of programme privileges to set up.

After that, the advantages are the little things. The spell checking system that works in any programme-as well as what i'm writing in this text box now. Then there's the home- one for every user- that contains all your documents, music, most used websites etc. There's greater itools integration-you can use your mac.com mail in the new Mail application, and save things directly to your idisk if you are connected to the internet.

The truth is that there's far too much to say about OSX in a few thousand days, let alone a small review. The new system comes bundled on all Macs being sold pretty soon, so you won't have much of a choice about going onto OSX. Me? I'm glad i installed it, if not only cause it's very stable-well more stable than OS9.1 anyway! It's slightly slower than OS9 but you won't notice before long. OSX is well worth the upgrade if your computer can handle it, and well worth the mooning over if your computer can't.

Summary: