on 1/23/04 8:44 PM, Jack Mileur at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> ... But the general consensus is that OS X isn't ready
> for prime time yet *anyway*, so I'm not going to worry about it just now.
I side with Greg in respectfully disagreeing with the assertion that OS X
isn't ripe. While I'm running X on two fast machines (17-inch flat screen
iMac and G4 mirrored dual drive) rather than on vintage Power Computing
boxes, I find X (Jaguar, 10.2.6) to be an excellent OS. I'm waiting for
Panther to be tweaked, and will make that move, too.
Indeed, my department's servers are all running OS X, and the performance
boost is tremendous, even with a dozen or more people working off the same
database, doing word processing and pagination simultaneously.
In the course of my work I find that OS 9 browsers (IE 5.1.6, Netscape
4.7.6, iCab) choke on certain web sites that appear to be database-driven. I
was embarrassed yesterday to be on the phone with a corporate colleague in
Washington as we each tried to access www.fedscope.opm.gov. Neither IE nor
Netscape could handle it; I felt like a moron ("Gee, Explorer is still
trying to load this site. No, I don't see the icons yet.") But when I
rebooted the G4 MDD into X and viewed it with Camino, the web site screamed.
(To get even further off topic, if you're curious about just how many
federal employees work in your state or metro area or county, or want to
know how much they make or in what agency they work, play around with
http://www.fedscope.opm.gov.)
I also find OS 9 browsers incapable of rendering a certain state government
web site that provides information on highway bidding and contract awards.
But OS X and Camino (my vote for best Mac browser) handle it well. Believe
me, calling and emailing state officials, pleading the case that they ensure
that government web sites are viewable on a Macintosh, is a futile pursuit.
Considering Microsoft's decision to halt development of IE, and considering
Netscape's uneven progress in recent years, anyone who relies on the web for
work-related information, esp. from big databanks, will find themselves
increasingly frustrated running 9. Three cheers for Camino and the
open-source code jockeys who keep improving it.
That said, I otherwise find OS 9 to be an excellent OS. (Mind, I liked 8.6
and 7.6.1 very much, too. Shoot, I enjoyed booting up a Mac IIci the other
day that ran 6.0.5.)
If I had a PTP, I would enjoy upgrading it to run X. As it is, XPostFacto
evidently will not enable my two non-pro PowerTowers to run it. Sigh.
-- Chuck
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