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It's always difficult to anticipate how readers are going to react to my commentaries here.

For example, in a letter responding to Odyssey 76 yesterday (which appears below in full with my reply), Kim Peacock from Quebec writes:

"...you chime in once more about 9 being more productive than X. Was that really necessary? I thought it threw a bucket of cold Nova Scotian water over the whole article."

Ouch! Kim, who is a good guy and has kindly extended a standing invitation for me to drop in for a coffee the next time I'm passing by his hometown near Montreal, really isn't going to like my Odyssey musings today (which were written before I received his note).

And James Song takes me to task for allegedly dissing PC users as morons. Actually, I never called them morons. See James's letter and my reply also below.

Then my friend Chris Long says he has given up on OS X, at least for now:

"Is it just me? The reason we all got Macs in the first place was because THEY'RE SIMPLE TO OPERATE, right? I've been following all kinds of online discussions on how to get OSX to behave, and it seems like the inevitable answer is to resort to UNIX command line gibberish. this is great for people who know/enjoy UNIX, but for the rest of us, this is #@*&%^ ... I for one have no interest WHATSOEVER in entering this realm -- if OSX can't/won't work on it's own without resorting to this, then I'm not interested. Sorry if this sounds closed-minded, but I honestly never thought I'd see the day that we'd have to resort to cryptic computer-babble on a MAC! (btw: I've been programming computers since 1972, so I have no inherent fear of compu-babble -- it's just that I'm sick to death of it and thought I had escaped it once and for all by moving to the Mac platform). Anyway, I've literally given up on OS X altogether and will very likely purge it from my iBook soon. Perhaps some day Apple will get the thing WORKING properly -- there are just too many problems with it (still!) for me to consider using it, and it runs too slowly for my liking anyway."

I share many of Chris' frustrations. Perhaps part of the problem is that we are both using OS X on relatively slow hardware -- he a 500 MHz iBook; me a 500 MHz Pismo. But that can't be the whole story, since I know people using OS X on 233 MHz and 333 MHz machines who profess to be happy with the performance they're getting.

I think maybe a more pertinent issue is what Chris observed about command lines. He has the skill to use them, but doesn't like to. I'm a command line ignoramus, but I'm not stupid. I could learn. But the fact that I have never been interested in doing so indicates my inclinations.

Of course, the boilerplate response to that is that "Apple has done such a great job of hiding Unix under the beautiful Aqua GUI, that OS X users will never even have to know Unix is there unless they want to." Bullfeathers! For almost every problematical issue with OS X, the prescribed solution involves using the Terminal, the Console, or Single User Mode.

Some will probably contend that the facility to manipulate OS X with Unix command lines is one of its biggest advantages, and maybe they're right. Having Unix under the hood has certainly earned the Mac OS instant respect in the geek world, and I won't dispute the contention that OS X is a dream to program for compared with the legacy Mac OS. With Unix muscle on the scene, nobody can kick sand in the Mac's face anymore.

However, OS X, despite its pretty face and some cool Unix tricks, is simply not as elegant as the old Mac OS. Perhaps elegance will come in the fullness of time, but it's not here yet by a long shot. I admire and greatly value elegance.

And at this point in time, like Chris Long, I still find OS 9 a much more efficient tool for getting my work done. I can only think of one application that I use -- ViaVoice -- that offers significantly superior performance in OS X compared with its counterpart(s) in the legacy 0S. Everything else in my suite of software tools works either no better, or in most cases more slowly and buggily, in 0S X.

Consequently, at this stage of the game, there is no downside from a work speed and inefficiency perspective for me in continuing to use the legacy 0S for production, with the exception that OS X ViaVoice takes dictation faster and more accurately. And indeed, that has made me gravitate toward OS X when I have a lot of dictation to do. I use it for that chore by choice because it works demonstrably better and saves me time.

That is the key. As OS X develops and native applications get better and more stable, while legacy OS development stagnates, I will inevitably find other things that OS X will do for me better and faster than OS nine can. When a certain critical mass of OS X advantage is reached, it will be time to switch, and I'll be delighted to report it and celebrate when that day arrives.

Actually, I'm prepared to take even a degree of diminished efficiency and convenience in the interest of getting a leg up on the future; just not as big a hit as would be the case today. Once Riccardo Ettore wrings a few more bugs out of TypeIt4Me for OS X, I'll be more inclined to revisit the prospect. Another issue is that Tex Edit Plus, my favorite general-purpose do-all application, runs so much better in its legacy version, but I suppose I could just use it in Classic. Now if somebody would just write an auto-scrolling utility like Scrollability for OS X....

OS X Classic problems

From Joe Rothstein

Hey Charles,

I thoroughly enjoy reading your columns at Applelinks, and thought I would write you with a problem that I am having, that no one seems to be able to solve, or even give me a direction in which to troubleshoot.

Some system info:

Blue and white, 1 GB RAM, 6 GB HD, and 4 20 GB HDs, ATA 100 PCI card for two of these drives, G4 500 ZIF upgrade.

I have no problem starting into OS X. But I cannot seem to get Classic to startup from any of the OS 9.2.2 system folders that I have (three), even when using the startup with no extensions option. The Classic launch window flashes, and then nothing, no error code, zilch. I have tried to trash the preferences in my User folder, but nothing seems to do the trick. I have posted this question on several boards, and nothing.

I also have a problem with the screen saver. When I try and select a screen saver module other than the default one, System prefs crashes.

I have been using Macs for more than 15 years, my first one being an SE. I have worked as a Macintosh Helpdesk specialist, and have several Cisco certifications.

Any help or direction in which to troubleshoot would be seriously appreciated.

Thanks,
Joe

Joseph Rothstein
Krakow, Poland
http://www.geocities.com/Jozek444

Hi Joseph;

I wish I could help, but I haven't a clue what the problem is. In general, I've noted unscientifically that there seem to be a more than average proportion of reports of issues with OS X and the Blue & White G3.

You didn't say what version of OS X you are using. If it's earlier than 10.1.2, you could try upgrading to see if that helps. I am personally still using 10.1.2, and am reluctant to upgrade to 10.1.3 due to a lot of negative reports. OTOH, who knows? If you're using 10.1.2, the later update might fix your problem. Or not.

Did Classic used to work? Did you make any changes or upgrades around the time it stopped working?

I try to avoid using screensavers at all, preferring to put the monitor to sleep when it's not in use. Screensavers have tended to be bug-plagued since the days of System 6. Just a hunch.

If anyone in readerland can suggest a solution to Joe's problem, please let us kinow.

Charles

Re: overrated OS X stability

From Erwin van Bussel

Hello Charles,

I might have a solution which might work for Hans Verhoeven's problem of losing his Internet connection after putting his Mac to sleep (OS X Odyssey 75).

quote:

I've had the same problem with my graphite iBook G3 366 running OS X 10.1.3. I connect to the internet with a cable-modem using DHCP, and I presume that Hans connects to the Internet the same way. He should try the workaround I use, although his (or anyone's) mileage may vary.

1. Open up system preferences: network
2. Turn on "Connect using PPPoE" on the PPPoE tab, and click "Apply now" 3. Turn off "Connect using PPPoE" and click "Apply now" 4. Make sure the other settings are not disturbed

If all goes well, you've just renewed your IP-address and your back online! No more waiting on the computer to finish booting anymore! However, it is still a pain to go through this, so if it is a OS quirk, I hope Apple fixes it soon.

Kind regards,
Erwin van Bussel

Try kill

From Anthony Martello

You have probably heard this suggestion by now but here goes. To kill an app that is misbehaving you can use the UNIX 'kill' command in the command line. To do this open the Terminal app, type 'top' without the quotes. This will show you everything running on your system. Look in the list for the name of the app you want to kill and make a note of its PID. Open another terminal and type 'kill 274' or whatever the appropriate PID is for your app. The terminal that you type the command into will probably not indicate that anything has happened. Just type 'top' again and see if the program is still in the list. This has a good chance of working. If it doesn't there are more advanced options for the kill command. I don't remember them off the top of my head, though.

I agree that OS X still has some stability issues. Hope this helps.

Anthony

Hi Anthony;

I have used the "kill" command before in Linux.

Sometimes the problem in OS X is that it stops responding to keyboard and mouse commands entirely, although, as other have pointed out, if you wait long enough, it usually sorts itself out eventually.

Charles

Please!

From Kim Peacock

Charles,

I just read your article about the article by Al Fasoldt. Always fun to read what you already know. Then you chime in once more about 9 being more productive than X. Was that really necessary? I thought it threw a bucket of cold Nova Scotian water over the whole article.

This is meant as a comment that I hope you take as constructive criticism, as I enjoy your writing for the most part.

Regards from Quebec,
Kim

Hi Kim;

I'm always receptive to comments about my articles, positive or negative.

In this case, one of the main points I was asserting (which was implied in the title of the column), was that Al didn't have to wait for OS X in order to have a more pleasant and productive OS user experience than he was getting in Windows.

On the issue itself, I'm just calling it like I'm experiencing it. Based on some dry runs I've done, I can estimate that my already long workday would be 20-25 percent longer if I switched to OS X from OS 9 for my production work. It's of course not just the that the OS is slower per se (although all those extra seconds add up), but also the crankiness of most of the OS X versions of the suite of applications I use, and the fact that some of my time-saving utilities (eg: auto-scrolling and text macro apps.) are either too buggy for prime time yet, or non-existant. The only thing I use that is faster and more efficient in OS X than in OS 9 is ViaVoice -- when it doesn't glitch up.

Just callin' it like I see it.

Charles

Re: OS X Odyssey 76 (dissing PC Users)

From James Song

Hey Charles,

I've been an avid fan of your columns for a while now, and Applelinks is one of my daily stops on the web. I too consider myself to be a Mac-fetishist (is that a word?), but I was kinda upset by your latest Odyssey. I'm an aspiring 3D animator (you know, Monsters Inc/Shrek type stuff) and needless to say it's one of the most computationally intensive tasks you can do on a computer. I have a 3 year old PC (P2 400mhz 384MB RAM) and a TiBook 667 with a Gig of RAM. Now I've been doing my 3D rendering and animation on my PC for a few years, and since I just got my lovely new TiBook I thought I'd make the platform switch so I can get rid of that hulking PC. So I got a demo copy of Lightwave 3D 7.0 (my package du jour) and put in on my Mac. Needless to say I'm quite disappointed with the performance. It not only renders slower, but the openGL is atrocious (yes I know ATI sucks at OpenGL, but come on). Even worse, this is a Carbonized program.

My point is that yes PC's suck. I don't like them at all, but the speed I can get out of my 3 year old Dell (upgraded the video card 2 years ago with an Elsa Gloria II 64MB) as far as Lightwave's performance is still pretty damn great. I thought my TiBook would allow me to sell off my PC and make the full Mac-committment. Alas this is not the case. So your implications that anyone who buys a Windows box is a moron is pretty disconcerting. I really really REALLY want my Mac to be faster than my PC (OS X.1.3 vs Win2K) but it's not. I really really REALLY want to be able to do production level 3D animation on my Mac but I can't. So right now I need my PC, and I don't consider myself a moron.

So let's take your example cars. I'm not a car guy by any stretch of the imagination. If it works and lets me hook up my iPod to the stereo, that's good enough for me. It's just not important to me what other people think of my car as an extension of my soul or whatever. But I make a living on computers, and (as stated above) I LOVE Macs. I've been using them since my brother had an LC II, and will defend them rabidly. But that's not to say that I won't admit when I'm wrong. Macs are easier to use and understand, and are king of the graphics world (my other job is as a web/print designer). So I love my Mac for being a Mac. But when I do 3D animation, I have to jump over to my PC simply because it's the better machine for the job, even after 3 years and a relatively old video card. I'm not going to debate anyone on Macs vs PCs because that's just asinine. So let's just say that as FANS of Apple we can accept when we're wrong. If we want more people to use Macs, we gotta get rid of this fanatical-cut-your-balls-off-if-you-use-anything-Microsoft attitude because who's going to want to use ANYTHING that turns you into that kind of a person? In a way it's akin to those guys who stand outside my school and preach Christianity. They KNOW they're right and are trying to help others, but who's going to listen to them if they're saying things like "Bereft of true imaginative vision (the ability to "think different"), they settle for the perceived safety of popularity [popularity being whatever it is San Franciscans are]"?

Thanks for listening, and keep up the great work.

James

James Song
Wordsmith
Keyframe Magazine
http://www.keyframemag.com/

Hi James;

My comments in the article were of course of necessity generalizations, as were the stereotyped assertions of Al Fasoldt about Mac users, which is what I was addressing.

Contextually and explicitly, I was referring mainly to, quote: "the sort of folks who buy cheap Wintel boxes," -- not to the tiny minority of people like yourself who actually have an objective and specific reason to use a PC because it really is the better machine for a specific task.

I also acknowledged: "There are some esoteric tasks that require a Wintel box" (you have just described one in your letter, and I have no quarrel with that), and I explicitly excepted the gaming issue because that is another area where the PC excels. Indeed, this morning I recommended to another reader that his best bet for comprehensive computer voice control would be Dragon NaturallySpeaking on a PC.

But really, what percentage of computer users do 3D animation or require full voice control? I stand by my general assertion. I never said that people who buy PCs are morons, but a vast percentage of middle of the road, no special needs, computer users buy PCs for the reasons cited in the article -- out of fear and knee-jerk conformism.

As for those guys preaching Christianity outside your school, I *probably* agree with them about a whole lot of things (I try to be a Christian). Buttonholing people on the sidewalk to share the Good News is not my style, but perhaps that does not commend me in terms of my Christian witness. Anyway, I still think the Richard Weaver quote is insightful with respect to imagination vs. popularity. It doesn't really surprise me that Wintel PCs represent 90+ percent of the market. Mediocrity sells.

Weaver also said:

"Notwithstanding this claim that democracy is quicker to recognize native worth, every visitor to a democratic society has been struck by its jealous demand for conformity.... Wisdom and not popularity should qualify for rule."

The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here:
http://www.applelinks.com/news/odyssey/

CM

Charles W. Moore

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