told, we agree the Mac OS is - Beware!

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told, we agree the Mac OS is - Beware!

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• Publié par: olajufud
• Nombre de lectures: 89
• Langue: English

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14 T T u f fe c h Battle of the Cats Loyal Apple fans play devil’s advocatewith Apple’s new cat

I don’t like to say this. Really, I don’t: I’m nonplussed with Leopard (Apple’s new Macintosh by luke mckenzie operating system, Mac [e-mail] OS 10.5). Some of the hyped features are real improvements, but others are just a lot of eye candy and hot air.

I’ve been surpris- ingly satisfied.There are tons of new features worth and kyle nilson the upgrade! [e-mail] Sure the inter- net doesn’t quite work in WATERVIEW, and... stuff. But oooh! Pretty new iTunes visualizers!

The Finder Finally. “Fix th frickin’ Finder!” w cried, and Cupertin heard us. Over the years people’ve fallen i love with a replace ment file browser Finder,” and Apple copies many of its features. For one, you can have Finder display your working path. Wait. You can do that? Yup. In addition, the iTunes-like sidebar now lists network servers and saved searches powered by Spotlight. I miss Tiger’s sidebar, with its simple, easy-to-see and follow navigation, but some users will appreciate this new complexity. I’ve never been a fan of the browser view at all. Traditionally, the file browsing metaphor encom- passes the whole desktop. Who needs the sidebar when you have the menu bar and the Dock? Fortu- nately, the Toolbar button still leads to the refreshing, classic-Mac “spa- tial orientation” mode: one window per folder.

 ,, etc. like it did under Tiger. Hurray!

The Dock From the beginning, Apple devel- opers have featured one particularly ostentatious visual centerpiece with questionable utility, just to show off OS X’s ginormous icons. at, of course, is the Dock. Leopard contin- ues the trend. Two drop shadows? Awkward 3D? Fake perspective? Blurry little -

Aggressive cat is aggressive. Defensive cat is defensive. Illustration by Kyle Nilson.

nd ng i- re- ise  ,, us. ugly as hell. It takes up way too muchAt first, I’d excitedly hoped Stacks space and is too distracting. Fortu-would correct this deficiency (and nately, a fix exists for those not fearfulthus resemble the tabbed Finder win- of Terminal. (Visit our website for thedows from OS 9)—alas, no. commands.) Justlike the Dock itself, form has at’s workable, but I still preferbeen valued over function. Tiger’s dock.No further discussion needed. I Much agreed. *sniffle*agree whole-heartedly. Stacks Spaces I’m not impressed with Stacks atTake a commonly worked idea all. It’s pretty, I guess, but it offers no(multiple desktops), integrate it into new functionality.the OS, and throw in a touch of Core “ ”

The Leopard Dock, in all its awkward glory. It actually looks better in black and white.Screenshot by Kyle

15 N 20 0 7• v4 • I3 • Am P T o v e m b e ro l u m es s u eo d e s tr o P o s A l e c h n o l o g y Once enabled, you can have any-better tool to keep track of lists andIndeed. e screen sharing and where between 2 and 16 spaces ar-scraps, but integration with Mail (adocument sharing features are tre- UTD Students ranged how you please- -mendous—at least, they will be, once dows to the edge of you know enough people who use Beware! current “space,” and theLeopard. move over into the n one. View all of your wi ime Machine dows at once by pressiLeopard isn’t yet officially sup- F8. For the more grapSo Time Machine lets you restoreported here at UTD. Unlike with cally inclined, you can hdocuments you’ve moved or deleted.Windows Vista, it’s not a deal- a menubar item.Cool; we’ve got the most commonbreaker—but there is one caveat: Okay ... okay. I’ll let yand mundane form of user error cov- have this one. Spacesered. But is it really prepared for the ve Internet wondrous. orstof deleterious events? onnect Actually, it might be. When in- from Tiger A note, as seen in Mail.Screenshot by Kyle Nilson. stalling Leopard on release night, I Quick Look beforeyou ing in the Utili- I do tire of draggingo osop ae ea.of the installer, pgrade! JPGs to Preview, waiting on theflat text files, thaion that simply “Open with” contextual menu, orvery much. In“Restore fromLeopard doesn’t perfectly ac- futzing around with Quicksilver forible contrivanckup...” next tocommodate UTD’s 802.1x wireless what is really a very simple command:like Notes anlarge Time Ma-authentication system—which Show me what this is.Todos are simplhine icon. So,means, if you want to get on Quick Look is, quite simply, In-an impedance tot only can youWATERVIEW or CAMPUS, spector on crack. It will give you a closeworking organiecover files in-you’ll need the Internet Connect view of almost any file in native form,cally, as I tend tide your currentapplication from Tiger. It will but it’s really just an intermediary be-do. S,but also—ifwork under Leopard—just follow tween the icon and a full-blown openOn the othat gets corrupt-UTD’s connection instructions for document. I won’t use this feature ashand, I’m a fanit appears youPanther (10.3), available at http:// intermediaries aren’t my thing.Apple’s new Tstore everythingwww.utdallas.edu/ir/cats/network/ notes. urInstall DVDwlan/8021x/panther/. might nbackup drive.(ere’s a link on our website.) model of organization, butCool! Remember,though, that the they’re a quick way to jotBut would I be able to connect myHelp Desk doesn’t support Leop- down all of your exam dates atbackup drive to another computerard yet, so you’re on your own. the beginning of the semester.and easily browse the files on it? I pre- You don’t have to keep trackfer my current setup: the backup drive of all your lists since it’s all insimply mirrors the boot drive directly. one place—Mail (or iCal’s ToNo incremental backups, but it’s far Further Reading Do list). You can even assignmore robust. notes to particular calendars,And there’s that over-the-top Star- like “Exams” or “Work”.ry Night interface. I’m quickly learn-An expanded version of this article, But does it integrate withing to assume that the best-lookingas well as more links to further Gmail or .Mac Mail? Mustfeatures of Leopard were made so atreading, are available on our The Quick Look viewer.Screenshot by Kyle Nilson. you be in front of your ownwebsite, amp.utdallas.edu.the expense of utility; but it’s certainly computer to read and writeeasy to understand, and quite beauti- So you’re saying it’s redundant?these notes? Not helpful.ful, floating stars and all.n On the theory behind Finder Hmm. I suppose you could changeAh well; you just have to pick thedesign (or lack thereof ): file associations so everything openssystem that works best for you.http://arstechnica.com/articles/ in the quickest possible viewer ll told, we agree the Mac OS is still paedia/finder.ars (Preview for images and PDFs; beautiful and well thought out, at’s a fine substitute for Tiger.Now you can screenshare with Ma A c; it is what it is. It’s more painful than interface from Macemes: iChat TextEdit for text and Word docs). but too closed and inflexible. It’s a n A review of Leopard’s new If you do like Quick Look, it’s ex-anyone else running Leopard and it should be to customize and extend it be- http://macthemes2.net/ tensible, so the developers of your fa-iChat! is useful feature is relevant yond the preferences Apple offers you. 2007/10/28/aqua-a-review- vorite app can program a Quick Lookto us college kids, whether it’s show-For those of us with too little time,and-retrospective/ extension to view its files.ing a friend how to do that compli-interest, or ability to switch to Linux— cated biology lab or showing youryet still care enough to feel offended at Mail — mom how to burn a CD in iTunes.Windows—there’s always Apple. eir I’m sure Apple Support will somehowadmittedly well-made computers won’t Luke McKenzie, Apple fan since System 6, has put in So Mail lets you write notes now,exploit this, too.ever accommodate our personal ideas of countless hours doing web and print design for the likes of the Mercury, Radio UTD, and of course, AMP. turn them into todos, and send theme rest of the features are, sad toperfection, but they come close enough. Kyle Nilson, a Mac user since Jaguar (10.2), to iCal. And the rationale behind thissay, lackluster. You can now pretendAs for Leopard, not everyone’s ready for staffs the UTD Help Desk and is an admin is that people tend to email remindersyou’re on the beach or on a roller-it; but the future advances inexorably, on the Macemes and Aqua-Soft forums. to themselves? I don’t buy it.coaster in your videochats, but theand Apple is leading the way with style Presently, neither of them have girlfriends. Apple’s admitting that we need agimmick gets old fast.if little else.n Discuss this article at amp.utdallas.edu!