Chas wrote: > > Mac OS X imposes an extremely minor penalty (the mandatory "accounts" > and "permissions" thing) in exchange for a huge bounty of advantages, > including multi-homing, SMB networking, VPN compatibility, Rendezvous, > iChat, PPPoE compatibility, iSync and much more (much of which is yet > to come). Almost all of these improvements and services are of use even > to people who live alone, and are the only user of their computer. > Every time those people plug their cell phone in, their PDA in, connect > to a neighbour's LAN party, trade files with Windows users, run DSL or > chat with iChat, they are taking advantage of some of the benefits that > UNIX adds to OS X. And there are plenty of other examples. >
I don't *think* I use (or even need) any of the "advantages" that you mention here, but then again, I don't even know what most of them are! I do occasionally give files to a friend with Windows, but I've been able to do that for several years now. Exchanging files with PCs (via floppy) was a problem in the early years of the Mac, but hasn't been for quite some time. The very first Mac I ever used was connected to both a Windows network and an IBM mainframe, and that was back in 1992! (That's when I fell in love with Macintosh.) If iChat is just another Instant Messaging program, then that's nothing new either. I've been doing that since 1995. Anyway, I'm slowly starting to get used to OS X. I'm just surprised in the way certain things are organized. I keep clicking on the darned clock when I want to switch applications, for one example. I keep going to the program's menu when I meant to click on the file menu, and wondering what happened to "save" or "open". And I miss the windows shade function. Just lots of little cosmetic things, things that they could have easily included in X to make it easier for us OS 9 and earlier users to get around, especially since many of us still have to switch back and forth. They have nothing to do with it being UNIX, just the way the finder is organized. It's simply the *way* it's programmed, not *what* the program is written in. My biggest beef with it is that I still can't do all the things I could do in OS 9 - not yet, anyway. I'll have to buy lots of new software and peripherals, which takes a lot of money, or keep switching between two Operating Systems - and that eats up a lot of time. Just my observations/opinions about how I use OS X, and how it affects the way I do things on my little old iMac. Gerry -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
