comandeered
I am commandeering Ed's blog. If Ed is cool, he should post this as a special guest post. I can't even post in my blog anymore. Something is fucking up with blogger or something. I am in major cram mode and this is a break. I am here to offer my take on my first day with OSX 10.4. That's right. I'm one of the lucky ones that, for some reason or another (Jesus loves me most), I got an early shipment. Please note that I am writing this from 10.3.9 as Apple sent me a threatening email that basically said "We fucked up. If you try to install this, we will gut you like a trout." This happened as I tried to register it. So I had 10.4.0 installed for 22 hours and then I contemplated on how much I enjoy my intestines. Needless to say, I am still consuming food. However, I did give it a reasonable thorough preliminary run-through.
I am going to run through a few things and give my take on them.
1. It just looks pretty. I don't know what you kids with lower res screens will think, but on my PB (1280x854), it is like staring into God's eyes and then he smiles and winks at you. Everything looks so crisp due to Core Image. Windows scale BEAUTIFULLY and text is anti-aliased so much you feel like it's made of marble. However, this leads me into my next point.
2. It is a systems hog. More so than 10.3 in some respects. I have not yet installed my 1 gig SO-DIMM so I am still rocking the stock 512 PC2700. For the nerd in the know, this is clearly fast ram for a notebook. But 10.4 runs ADAQUATELY with 512. Everything is fast and reasonably responsive but it lacks the zippiness that 10.3 had. Still, I expect my computer to respond to my actions quickly. If I want Garageband to render 8 audio tracks at once, it better fucking render 8 audio tracks at once. So my report on this may not be the same for the casual user.
I'm positve upping my RAM to 1.5gigs will remedy this.
3. Core Image pwns. If your graphic card isn't supported, upgrade. My Xbench render scores went up 26% due to it. If you are going to be gaming on a Mac, Core Image is the shit. If not, it probably won't be a big hassle for you.
On to the meat and potatoes.
4. Dashboard. While I had 10.4 installed, I had assigned the centre "switch apps" button on my Logitech 510 mouse to open Dashboard. Simply put, you will get lost in how useful they are. At first, you're just like "cool, I might use that often." In five minutes, you realize you are spending as much time in dashboard looking up words, changing iTunes songs, googling, jotting notes checking RSS feeds, checking your email inbox, etc. as much as you are doing whatever else your current task is. And they look great. Downfall of them: "thems likes the memories!" Ya, I tried running ALL the stock widgets at once... not cool. Optimal with 512 RAM is between 6 and 10 depending on the widget. They do make good use of virtual memory, though. So that is nice.
5. Spotlight. I never did transfer all my music, docs, or pictures back to my PB because the gestapo caught me, but spotlight is still nuts. You know when you search for a song in iTunes and it narrows as you type? Ya. It's that for your system. I did do two tests though: it DOES recognize almost all text in PDF's (even overlayed over an image and text as an image itself) and it DOES recognize embedded text in images (that is .txt files hidden inside an image that require extracting to read) It is pretty brilliant. It will nice to see how it performs with a full system.
6. Safari RSS. Safari is still Safari. But now it has RSS built in. I use RSS. A lot. I use Safari for browsing and Firefox for RSS feeds. I have almost 100 sites I get feeds from and it is the greatest revolution in news delivery since the internet really went mainstream. I only tried about 15 in Safari, but I'm not sure if I like it. I may still use FF for my RSS. Basically, you save RSS feeds just like bookmarks. They go into the bookmarks bar or menu (whateveryou choose) and then when there is new RSS feeds from the site it notifies you in the form of a bracketed number next to the feed name. Akin to new messages in an email inbox. You can group feeds together etc. It just isnt as intuitive as FF RSS. It seems like Apple took the easiest way out. I don't know. I need more time with it to come to a real conclusion.
7. Automator. Only looked at it. Didn't try. Basically looks like a way to build apple scripts without programming in BASIC. Not sure how useful it will be.
8. Office X is barely compatible with 10.4. This is MS's fault. I say barely because it will install and run, but the amount of crashing is reminiscent of 9/11. (Ya, I went there. Suck it up, white bread) "Oh! You want to save? Nope! Crash!" "You want to paste something longer than 10 characters? Fuck you! Crash!"
9. Mail went from shit to wicked in 18 months. You just need to use it. Mail sucks. Plain and simple. Mail2 is brilliant.
10. Quicktime 7. I have no H.264 content to test. I'll make something up. "OMG!1!!!!11!1~~``1!!!!!! KW1KT1M3 7 iz sOoOoO t3h 1337 shi3t!!1! 1t m@d3 me p00 mie pantZzZzZ!!111111!!!!!ONETWO!!111!!!" But seriously. It still looks like quicktime.
Ok, I think I got most of that stuff out of the way. Now the bad. It is buggy. I did a full clean install (backed up my old system on an external HD, formatted, installed fresh) and I would suggest it to everyone. Especially Lauren if she reads this. I don't know if you have re-installed 10.3 in your iBook's lifetime, but regardless, your library is going to be huge and messy. This is simply because you've had it for over a year and use it regularily. A clean start will give you a much snappier system. Back to the point though, bugs. While it has to be expected, everynow and then it hiccups and sputters and something odd will happen and applications will quit. There are also some dashboard glitches. They have been posted a lot on the net so far. I have only come across the ghost widget. Basically the widget's transparent layer stays on the desktop for awhile before going away. Not system breaking, but annoying. It only happened a few times, but still. There are other bugs slowly surfacing online that I never came across, but even in my short time with it, It just didn't feel as solid as 10.3. Needless to say, 10.4.1 can't come soon enough. (I'm predicting mid May)
To close this and go back to studying, if I am a jury, I am hung on X.4's quality. I need more time with it to make a real judgement. I will still install come Friday when Apple unfreezes the register accounts, but that is only because I have nothing important on the horizon that I will definitely need my computer for. If you do, I would advise against it. I also saved my old system on an external HD so I can revert back at any time in about 5 minutes.
That's my initial take on it. Pretty, RAM hungry, innovative, glitchy. Come Friday, I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
Ok. Marathon test time. Five in a row. Lets do this, bitch.
I am going to run through a few things and give my take on them.
1. It just looks pretty. I don't know what you kids with lower res screens will think, but on my PB (1280x854), it is like staring into God's eyes and then he smiles and winks at you. Everything looks so crisp due to Core Image. Windows scale BEAUTIFULLY and text is anti-aliased so much you feel like it's made of marble. However, this leads me into my next point.
2. It is a systems hog. More so than 10.3 in some respects. I have not yet installed my 1 gig SO-DIMM so I am still rocking the stock 512 PC2700. For the nerd in the know, this is clearly fast ram for a notebook. But 10.4 runs ADAQUATELY with 512. Everything is fast and reasonably responsive but it lacks the zippiness that 10.3 had. Still, I expect my computer to respond to my actions quickly. If I want Garageband to render 8 audio tracks at once, it better fucking render 8 audio tracks at once. So my report on this may not be the same for the casual user.
I'm positve upping my RAM to 1.5gigs will remedy this.
3. Core Image pwns. If your graphic card isn't supported, upgrade. My Xbench render scores went up 26% due to it. If you are going to be gaming on a Mac, Core Image is the shit. If not, it probably won't be a big hassle for you.
On to the meat and potatoes.
4. Dashboard. While I had 10.4 installed, I had assigned the centre "switch apps" button on my Logitech 510 mouse to open Dashboard. Simply put, you will get lost in how useful they are. At first, you're just like "cool, I might use that often." In five minutes, you realize you are spending as much time in dashboard looking up words, changing iTunes songs, googling, jotting notes checking RSS feeds, checking your email inbox, etc. as much as you are doing whatever else your current task is. And they look great. Downfall of them: "thems likes the memories!" Ya, I tried running ALL the stock widgets at once... not cool. Optimal with 512 RAM is between 6 and 10 depending on the widget. They do make good use of virtual memory, though. So that is nice.
5. Spotlight. I never did transfer all my music, docs, or pictures back to my PB because the gestapo caught me, but spotlight is still nuts. You know when you search for a song in iTunes and it narrows as you type? Ya. It's that for your system. I did do two tests though: it DOES recognize almost all text in PDF's (even overlayed over an image and text as an image itself) and it DOES recognize embedded text in images (that is .txt files hidden inside an image that require extracting to read) It is pretty brilliant. It will nice to see how it performs with a full system.
6. Safari RSS. Safari is still Safari. But now it has RSS built in. I use RSS. A lot. I use Safari for browsing and Firefox for RSS feeds. I have almost 100 sites I get feeds from and it is the greatest revolution in news delivery since the internet really went mainstream. I only tried about 15 in Safari, but I'm not sure if I like it. I may still use FF for my RSS. Basically, you save RSS feeds just like bookmarks. They go into the bookmarks bar or menu (whateveryou choose) and then when there is new RSS feeds from the site it notifies you in the form of a bracketed number next to the feed name. Akin to new messages in an email inbox. You can group feeds together etc. It just isnt as intuitive as FF RSS. It seems like Apple took the easiest way out. I don't know. I need more time with it to come to a real conclusion.
7. Automator. Only looked at it. Didn't try. Basically looks like a way to build apple scripts without programming in BASIC. Not sure how useful it will be.
8. Office X is barely compatible with 10.4. This is MS's fault. I say barely because it will install and run, but the amount of crashing is reminiscent of 9/11. (Ya, I went there. Suck it up, white bread) "Oh! You want to save? Nope! Crash!" "You want to paste something longer than 10 characters? Fuck you! Crash!"
9. Mail went from shit to wicked in 18 months. You just need to use it. Mail sucks. Plain and simple. Mail2 is brilliant.
10. Quicktime 7. I have no H.264 content to test. I'll make something up. "OMG!1!!!!11!1~~``1!!!!!! KW1KT1M3 7 iz sOoOoO t3h 1337 shi3t!!1! 1t m@d3 me p00 mie pantZzZzZ!!111111!!!!!ONETWO!!111!!!" But seriously. It still looks like quicktime.
Ok, I think I got most of that stuff out of the way. Now the bad. It is buggy. I did a full clean install (backed up my old system on an external HD, formatted, installed fresh) and I would suggest it to everyone. Especially Lauren if she reads this. I don't know if you have re-installed 10.3 in your iBook's lifetime, but regardless, your library is going to be huge and messy. This is simply because you've had it for over a year and use it regularily. A clean start will give you a much snappier system. Back to the point though, bugs. While it has to be expected, everynow and then it hiccups and sputters and something odd will happen and applications will quit. There are also some dashboard glitches. They have been posted a lot on the net so far. I have only come across the ghost widget. Basically the widget's transparent layer stays on the desktop for awhile before going away. Not system breaking, but annoying. It only happened a few times, but still. There are other bugs slowly surfacing online that I never came across, but even in my short time with it, It just didn't feel as solid as 10.3. Needless to say, 10.4.1 can't come soon enough. (I'm predicting mid May)
To close this and go back to studying, if I am a jury, I am hung on X.4's quality. I need more time with it to make a real judgement. I will still install come Friday when Apple unfreezes the register accounts, but that is only because I have nothing important on the horizon that I will definitely need my computer for. If you do, I would advise against it. I also saved my old system on an external HD so I can revert back at any time in about 5 minutes.
That's my initial take on it. Pretty, RAM hungry, innovative, glitchy. Come Friday, I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
Ok. Marathon test time. Five in a row. Lets do this, bitch.
posted by ed @ 12:39 PM
2 Comments:
At 12:52 PM, April 24, 2005,
ed said…
You got a new mouse and an external HD? When and what kind sucka?
At 1:20 PM, April 24, 2005,
Ryan said…
Just got back from my first exam. Went good, me thinks. Big-ups to Ed for posting this on his blog.
To address Ed: I backed up all my files I want to keep (6 gigs of music, pictures, school work, other misc. things) via FW Target Disc on my iMac G5. I then borrowed a Lacie 80gig USB 2.0 external HD from my uncle and cloned my whole system onto it. It took about 45 minutes to clone. So now I can just boot from it if I need to and clone it back to my HD. I'll probably hold onto it until 10.4.1 comes out just to be safe.
Logitech mx510 Gaming Mouse (colour: rouge) is, as the kids say, da' bomb. Best 40 bucks I have spent in a long time. I can assign anything to the buttons. Any set of keystrokes, commands, etc.
Few things I forgot to mention about 10.4:
Automator tasks can be set up to run automatically (at a certain time, when an iPod is connected, when a camera is connected, when something is being printed, etc.) or you can apply it to a key stroke. (ie- command-ctrl-(whatever)). Seems quite handy.
Many of the glitches can be resoloved by booting from the install disc, accessing disk utility, and repairing the disc from the install. This is different than repairing permissions. It has to be done from the boot cd though, rather than the disc utility in utilities.
You can set your monitor up to run in portrait mode. (rotated 90 degrees) Handy if you have an external monitor like one of the new-ish dell widescreen LCD's. This leads me to believe Apple may refresh there monitor offerings to actually be competitive and they will offer things rotatable orientations, other inputs, etc. But who knows.
Boot times are about the same.
That's it. Back to cramming.
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