Mac OS X

When Apple introduced the Mac OS along with the Mac, its intuitive GUI changed the way computing was done–an edge it enjoyed until Microsoft introduced Windows 95. Once the center of innovation, Mac and Mac OS fell into bad times. A new OS for the Mac has been in the works for over a decade with projects like Taligent, Pink, and Rhapsody reaching nowhere. But the latest version–the OS X–makes the wait seem worthwhile.

X in Mac OS X is ‘10’ and not the letter ‘x’. The core competencies that this OS boasts of are pre-emptive multitasking and protected memory architecture. Protected memory ensures that if one application crashes, others are not affected. Advanced memory manage- ment allocates memory to hungry applications. These features are responsible for a stable and reliable OS core. The OS is built on Open BSD (UNIX) and Internet technologies like Java 2 and XML. It also has integrated support for PDF and OpenGL. This makes it easier for third-party developers to work on the platform. The UNIX foundation is cleverly hidden underneath, which can be unveiled by opening the terminal. Yes, the new Mac OS has a terminal window that gives access to a command prompt, which UNIX and Linux users will feel completely at home with.

For all those who are used to the older Mac OS (now called Classic) structure, OS X packs some surprises. The new OS keeps all its essentials in different places. It also behaves differently, which takes some time getting used to. 

Installation

Mac OS X is high on hardware requirements. It needs at least a G3 processor and at least 128 MB RAM. So older PowerPC Macs won’t do. If you have a dual-processor machine, then Mac OS X can do symmetric multiprocessing. Installation is snappy and well guided. If you have an older Mac OS on your machine, you will need to upgrade it to Mac OS 9.1 before you can install the OS X. OS 9.1 comes on a separate CD along with OS X. Once you put it in, the OS X CD gives you the option of installing OS X on a different partition. If you don’t want your earlier OS, just boot from the OS X CD and initialize your hard disk partition before installing it. If you have just one partition on your hard disk, you can still install OS X along with your earlier OS 9.1. In this case, by default your Mac boots up into OS X. You can however change the bootup to Mac OS 9.1 by selecting the appropriate startup volume.

The installation creates your iTools account and even sets up your own mac.com e-mail account. So OS X users can have an e-mail id like myname@mac.com. The iTools account gives you access to your own Web storage space that is accessible through a shortcut that can be placed on your desktop. The mail from your mac.com account is

received in the in-built mail program. You can also configure your other e-mail accounts into the mail program.

Getting OS X to connect to the Internet is very simple, and configuration is much easier compared to the earlier OS 9.x. The standard Mac features of file and Web sharing have been retained.

Features

The new GUI is called Aqua and has a fluid look that will simply bowl you over. Let’s look at the features that make OS X different. 

First of all, most of the OS controls and preferences are stored as XML, making the OS fairly rich in appearance. 

The Finder

You will not miss the Finder, the Mac’s desktop application that accompanies you throughout. The little Apple icon still sits there in the top left corner. Except for the ‘About this Mac’ and ‘Recent Items’, you will not find anything else that was there in the Classic Mac OS. The commands for ‘Sleep’, ‘Shutdown’, etc have moved from the Special menu to this Apple menu. There is also a new addition–‘Force Quit’, which works like the ‘kill’ command for any application not behaving itself. Another interesting feature that was missing in the previous Mac OS releases was a close integration of the Finder with any of the Finder windows. However, the new Finder is fully customizable. Just drag and drop any file or folder into it. You can alternatively customize it through the option available in the Finder’s View menu. The semi-transparent windows themselves look fabulous, but if you are not satisfied, you can customize them and put a picture as their background. The View options in the Finder allow you to do this and more. You can adjust the icon sizes dynamically to your content, something, not possible in the earlier Mac

OSs.

The Dock

Each component of the interface is a work of art in itself and the Dock leads the lot. Mac users will remember the Control strip at the bottom of the screen in the Classic Mac OS GUI. The new and refined Dock has multifarious uses apart from just keeping your shortcuts in place. It is transparent and you can set the icons to be magnified when the mouse pointer hovers above them. This makes it a whole lot easier to keep tab of the Dock items because you can never lose track of them, even if you have a running application maximized. And if you minimize a window, it animates smoothly to fit into the Dock. Just click on its icon in the Dock, and it pops out smoothly like a genie called from a bottle. A click held onto an icon will show you the actions associated with it. A little arrow under an icon indicates that the application currently in use. The Preferences option that was earlier under the Apple menu has been brought down to the Dock. Like the Finder, the Dock is also customizable. You can simply drag any application or alias to it. 

Useful utilities

A number of utilities are bundled into the OS. For example, there is something called the Preview. Use this in conjunction with the bundled Internet Explorer 5.1 Preview Release browser and you can have any Web page saved locally as PDF files. Aladdin Stuffit Expander is also bundled with the OS X. SimpleText the standard text editor has been replaced with TextEdit, which has more features.

The Utilities folder has programs that UNIX users would be familiar with–NetInfo Manager, ProcessViewer and the Terminal. Another application useful when you are on a network or the Internet is the Network Utility. This gives you network interface info, netstat, ping, lookup, traceroute, whois, finger and even a port scanner! That is not all. OS X also runs Apache 1.3 Web server.

Performance

When it comes to performance, we found the OS to be very stable, and fast too. All native Carbon applications (coded for OS X) ran smoothly. Mac OS X also runs older programs. Whenever you run such a program, the Classic environment is started up. However, the older applications don’t run any faster because they cannot exploit the new features of the OS. 

Networking with the OS X is simple. It does away with the hassles associated with AppleTalk, making it easier to put Macs on networks. You could connect to any Windows NT server on your network if it has ‘Services for Mac’ installed. For networking with older Macs, OS X uses AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) over TCP/IP. Thus, you can connect to a shared folder on an older Mac and transfer files across. It also supports FTP and has its own FTP server running on Darwin, the UNIX based foundation. You just need to put a check the ‘Allow FTP logins’ option in the sharing preferences.

OS X uses what is called the Quartz graphics engine. This rendering engine is what is responsible for the superbly realistic graphics, the shadows, and the crisp text that make it a pleasure to use the new OS.

The downside

Mac OS X lacks features like native support for CD burning and DVD playback. This is surprising since newer Macs ship with CD Writers and DVD drives. These features are promised soon, though.

Overall, the new OS is definitely worth the price tag of

Rs 6,990, for the fluid interface, if not anything else.

Ashish Sharma