MidKnight Gallery

So now I’ve been using Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger” for a couple of weeks, and I think I’m finally ready to spout off on it.

Since I have no intention of going to the depths that John Siracusa over at Ars Technica has on his review, I am going to try instead to give an impression of how the latest update feels in daily use, for better or worse.

The test machines are almost as varied as you can get and still run OSX. Two of my computers are Macs: an iBook G4 (14″) and an aging but still reliable “sawtooth” G4/400, from the first G4 line to use an AGP slot. Both had plenty of RAM and the desktop had been upgraded with the first AGP Radeon card for the mac.

Let me cover the “ugly” first: those things which disappointed me.

Major disappointment number 1: spotlight does not by default index mounted network shares. Given that everything except email, iPhoto, and current-project files are shared on a linux server, that particular fault means spotlight, while still useful, is a lot less useful than I thought it would be. I understand the technical whys of this. At home it may not make much difference but imagine dozens of computers indexing a server… but it’s irritating nonetheless.

Disappointment number 2: Mail. While going three-pane was an improvement over having a pull-out drawer that always seemed to hide or switch sides at the most inopportune time, they removed the familiar icons in the toolbar. Without the visually distinct shapes to guide you, it takes more effort to figure out which button is reply, which is forward, which is delete, etc.

That said, there are things to like in plenty.

First: Spotlight. Sure, it didn’t do one thing I really hoped for it, and as Siracusa notes, it would be nice if it could easily do more complex searches, but it’s already been an absolute godsend in tracking down emails from clients. It’s also saved my butt several times digging up obscure client-related info.

Widgets. I’m less enthusiastic about this one, but not having to open up weather.com in a web page is a definite plus. So is having wikipedia, airline info, and the yellow pages at your fingertips.

I can’t say much about the RSS. It works, and will gather up headlines for you. The best way to gather them is into your bookmarks bar nested into topic-based folders. It seems to be about as useful as any of the other free RSS readers out there and was easier to pick up on and use effectively than the RSS features built into Firefox. Me, I use the Pulp Fiction RSS reader client to gather, bookmark, store, and otherwise skim through my news.

I also haven’t applied the user restrictions in an ongoing, real-world basis, but I have looked through them. They get some results that are ridiculously difficult even in XP pro, such as controlling user access to applications on a program by program basis. They also allow control of websites visited (with logs), approved email and IM buddy lists, IM logs, and other similar features, most of which cannot be done in Windows without buying often flaky third-party software or setting up proxy servers.

Other than that, the biggest improvement is simply that it runs smoother, even on my aging desktop (is it five or six years now?).

I received the latest version of OSX in the mail.

Expect articles to be even lighter than usual as I go off to give homage to the programmers of cupertino/drink the kool-aid/succumb to the RDF/whatever.

tcha.

There is one thing you can always count on out of John Siracusa over at Ars Technica. When a new version of OSX comes out, he’ll go over it with a loving, fine-toothed comb, and reveal all that is good, bad, and too ugly for words in the latest and greatest from the infinite loop.

This one is longer than usual, and worth the read. People who are new to OSX may want to go back through the referenced “earlier” articles and reviews listed, as John doesn’t rehash anything that’s still the same.

Most people at all active in the computer and Apple communities already know that in about two weeks, the latest and greatest version of OSX, code named “tiger,” is arriving on store shelves near (or often enough, not so near) you.

What does this mean to me?

As one of a scant handful of Mac operators and troubleshooters not associated with a local university in Charleston, SC, that means I have to take an in depth look at it as several of my clients are already asking about its features. that means I’ll be buying it sooner, rather than later.

So what about the 200+ features we’ve heard Apple declare?

On spotlight and dashboard. I suspect that like expose, these will quietly sneak up on me and mug me, leaving me rolling in a gutter wondering what happened when I suddenly discover that using a Mac without them is a painful experience. All I can say is that many of the seemingly too-mundane for words features that Jobs has turned on his reality distortion field and hyped beyond belief have really been the cats meow. In the meantime, I’m tired of hearing of it.

Before I go into another area of the OS that I think is getting too little attention, I will say that if the search engine does for my file system what iTunes search did for my MP3 collection, it will rock.

I also am not even going to reopen the controversy over Dashboard. Yet, anyway.

What I really want to touch on that impressed me is some of the family and user administration features in the OS.

What’s Old

OSX has long had a multi-user environment. Like Windows XP and 2000, and unlike Windows 95, 98, and Me, these user accounts are restricted as to exactly what on the computer they can access. These restrictions most specifically apply to whether or not you can access other people’s files.

Even if you went in through the command line, OSX and Unixes in general don’t quite have the same level of control over types of file access, permissions, and nesting of groups that the Win2K/XP OS’s do. Nevertheless, what they do have is very powerful. From a home user’s standpoint, the GUI tools allowed you to not only keep your files and your kid’s files separate, but allowed you to specify exactly which programs they could and could not run.

While you could do this in Windows (I’ll skip specifying XP/2K from now on), it’s not as straightforward to specify what programs can be run by individual users, and there are many common programs that require at a minimum “power user” permissions or modifying permissions on multiple folders and registry keys well beyond the typical home user to make the computer useable for a non-administrative user.

You also had some control over access to basic functions like the system control panel,modifying the dock, burning CD’s, etc.

Combined with the fast user switching (that still needs some improvements) the basic multi-user system is well thought out, and allows files, desktops, and personal preferences for how things should “work” to be personalized for everyone.

What’s New

First, OSX seems to have built in some proxy services. “Proxy” servers are computers or software that monitor the traffic going through them and pass along requests for web pages, mail, chat sessions, etc. after analyzing them, approving them, and/or logging them. They do more, but for what I’m talking about this is the part that applies.

Mail uses this in combination with a “white list” of email addresses that the user is allowed to communicate with to keep tabs on email communication. If the user sends or receives email from someone not on this list, the mail gets forwarded to you first for approval and possible addition to the white list.

For a corporation, there are far more efficient ways of doing things. For a household….

You can also decide who your children can talk to online using iChat, the built-in chat program that also works on AOL’s instant messaging network. If the person sending or being sent the message is not on the allowed list, the message will not go through.

Safari has added parental controls. You can specify what websites your children are allowed to visit. They won’t be able to access anything else either through clicked links or directly typing in the URL. If a page or site is restricted, there is an option to override it with parental permission that looks fairly painless. While the concept of restriction lists for browsers is not new (IIRC, Internet explorer 5 had it in Windows), most operate on a blacklist concept. I can say that yes, it will be a pain in the ass to specify each and every web site my children are allowed to visit. I can also say that, given the creativity of names on pornography sites, that it is far, far easier than blocking all of the bad sites.

I am interested in getting my hands on this to see if it is truly a proxy or built into safari and safari only.

We also have new features to track activity. Safari will log web sites accessed, and you can keep copies of the iChat transcripts.

What’s Up?

Remember, simple is relative.

I said that from what I’ve seen these new features are simple. Simple enough that my wife, who is smart but not a “Mac User,” or even a hardcore computer use, could figure out how to set them up, simply by knowing the features are there in the first place. I suspect that any reasonably intelligent, motivated parent who wants to could set things up so they can breathe easier about their children online when not being closely supervised. I say closely because as I noted earlier, I am a big believer in education being the best prevention, and parental concern and attention being the best filter not in between your child’s ears.

Update: Added the word “features” that I somehow overlooked in a paragraph above.