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Apple claims that five million Mac users have upgraded to OS X -- at least some of the time.

Apple also noted in a release that this year also marks the first “All Mac OS X” Macworld Expo, with every developer on the show floor featuring Mac OS X products. Some 5,000 OS X native applications are now available.

“Mac OS X really came of age with the release of Jaguar last fall, and since then the momentum has been off the charts,” declared Steve Jobs. “With more than 5 million of our users running Mac OS X, and more than 5,000 native applications, we can now say that the Mac OS X transition is nearly complete.”

I suppose it depends upon your definition of "nearly." Five million OS X switchers/adopters means that about 20 million Mac users have not yet made the move.

Matt Berger of IDG News Service notes that "The split between Macintosh users running Apple Computer's new and old operating systems came under the microscope at the Macworld Conference and Expo here as Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak joined industry experts in a panel discussion Tuesday on the merits of Mac OS X.

"Like Wozniak, many Macworld attendees say they do use the new operating system but find themselves in the world of Mac OS 9 when they want to run older applications and hardware.

"You have to eventually make a transition," Berger quotes Wozniak commenting. "Some people are just not ready to convert....I use [Mac OS X] but I have computers with [Mac OS 9] doing important tasks. Why would I switch when it just works forever?"

You can read Matt Berger's complete report here: http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/03/01/07/030107hnjaguar2.xml

I expect that like Woz, and indeed myself, many Mac users are betwixt and between on the OS x transition. Since I installed Jaguar I'm using OS X more and more for production work, and I anticipate that it will be the main system I use on my new iBook, but I'm actually running in OS 9.1 as I type these words. ViaVoice for OS X crapped out on me yesterday and refuses to start up, I haven't had time to do battle with it (yet again), so I'm back using ancient ViaVoice Millennium Edition in OS 9.1, which is fast, accurate, and reasonably dependable (ie: "works forever"). When OS X versions of the software I need become as reliable, it will be a great facilitator to OS X switching.

Re: Constantly waiting for the beach ball

From Noel McRae

I have a G3/400 and experienced sluggishness like you would not believe. It took a counted 29 seconds at one time to be able to highlight an item in a Save dialog box.

I found Randy Singer's VERY helpful page on http://www.macattorney.com/tutorial html

He gave many things to do.

I did a Safe Restart (hold down the Shift key) - it helped for a while. I used the Disk Utility to rework permissions - ditto result I tried several other things.

Finally, in desperation I Reformatted by drive, doing away with the partition. I have been as speedy as I could expect on a G3/400.

Go to Randy's site and print out the help files. He has a great collection. I have corresponded with him and got additional help, too. He and you, Charles, have become part of my heroes list.

Noel McRae

Hi Noel;

Good advice. Randy's site is a gold mine of useful info.

Thanks for the approbation.

Charles

Re: %@*(&$%$# USB audio!

From Rich Bayer

Good day, Charles,

In response to Kim Peacock's message about Via Voice not recognizing her microphone I remembered reading about a product from <http://griffintechnology.com> Griffin Technology called USBAudio Hub. I understand that one connects the microphone directly to the USB port and not a hub but maybe a call or email to Griffin would be worthwhile to find out if this might help Kim and others who experience poor performance using USB/audio peripherals. Their literature states that their hub is superior to others in connecting audio devices and getting them to work properly with a USB connection. Don't know myself as my ancient machine is pre-USB but hopefully this will help.

Cheers,
Rich

Hi Rich;

Griffin stuff is usually top-notch, so this might indeeed be worth a try.

As noted above, I'm having my own ViaVoice woes this week. It now refuses to start up. I get a message telling me the microphone might not be connected. It is of course, and is picked up fine by the Speech pref pane monitor. I still say %@*(&$%$# USB audio! -- but ViaVoice X is one buggy and erratic puppy. I'm hoping that the recently released upgrade patch will make it nore stable and reliable, but I've got to get around to installing 10.2.2 or 10.2.3 before I can try it. I've actually reverted to OS 9.1 and ViaVoice Millenniom Edition in protest tonight.

Charles

Jaguar 2.3 works!

From Duane A. De Vries

Hello Charles,

A few months ago I upgraded to 10.1.5 and soon had a variety of problems, the most common of which was when ending nearly any third-party software program I would get the message 'Application has ended unexpectedly'. I also had problems with some USB devices for my digital camera. This past weekend I bought the 10.2 update package and had my son download the combined update for me (59 megabytes on my 4800 dial up line would have taken a LONG time <grin>). To my utter amazement, the migration and subsequent update went flawlessly! Even better, I no longer get the 'unexpected' error message AND my USB devices work just fine. One in particular that I really wanted to use with Finyl Vinyl (free program from the makers iMic) to record some of my really old 78 rpm records that belonged to my grandparents. (Ever hear of Nervous Norvus singing 'Ape Call' or 'Transfusion'). On my TiBook G4, it seems to run quite well with 512meg of RAM and a 4-gig partition for OSX. I like to keep my applications on other partitions just for ease of keeping track of them...and for taking backups!

I enjoy your column...Live long and Prosper!

Duane De Vries (retired)

Thanks for the report, Duane.

The closing sentiment is reciprocated.

Charles

Safari Feedback And Tips

Safari

From John Buhrman

My impression on Safari is that it seems to rival speeds of Chimera on a broadband connection, but it has some big problems on dial-up that makes it lag behind. I have seen some say that it has problems getting an initial response from a web page which would match up with what I am seeing.

John

Hi John;

That could explain why some reviewers are reporting speedy performance, but I found it quote sluggish. I'm on a slow dialup connection -- usually 26,400 or 24,000 connection speeds with a 56k modem.

Charles

Safari Speed

From Roger Harris

Hi Charles,

On both DSL and Cables connections I have found Safari at least as fast as Chimera and Mozilla, and often faster. The drag and drop bookmarks are very nice once I caught on to how they worked. But, I will need Tabs before Safari can replace Mozilla. This should be a great browser by version 1.0

Roger Harris

Hi Roger;

It seems that broadband is the ticket for this browser. Regrettably (for more than this reason) not available in my neck of the woods, and not likely to be for the foreseeable future.

Charles

Safari

From Jim

Hi Charles,

Your assessment of Safari was right on the money. No tabs, very cumbersome (slow!!) bookmarks, etc., makes Safari something I'm not going to be using as my default browser either.

The fastest browser? Not quite!! I read dozens of global newspapers daily (from Malta to Dubai) and both Mozilla (and Netscape 7.01) and Chimera open them much faster (it took me quite some time to import my bookmarks from my other browsers, as I'm not an IE user either.) Safari has also crashed on several newspaper sites. But Safari has lots of potential --let's hope Apple really listens to user comments. The name is a bit weird --what is it with this "jungle" thing: Jaguar, Safari (!?!?)

Best,
J.

Hi Jim;

I found that it had the most problems on newspaper sites too, which tend to be busy, full of ad graphics, etc. It loaded the Applelinks page (middling busy) reasonably smartly, but not as fast as Chimera or Mozilla or even iCab.

However, John's observation about a discrepancy in relative performance on dialup vs. broadband is interesting. Would you be on a dialup connection by any chance?

Charles

Safari

From David Layman

Dear Mr. Moore

First off, thanks for your continued high-caliber Mac journalism. Don't always agree with you, etc., etc., but, etc. I DO enjoy your religious commentary (and largely agree with you commitments there).

Right now I writing to disagree with your assessment of Safari. I've always used MS IE, since there was no competitor with the look and feel to convince me to switch. Safari has. I've tried Navigator, without success (it wouldn't open properly for me).

I don't understand your claim that it is sometimes "excruciatingly slow." I haven't made any scientific tests, but my PERCEPTION is that it is significantly faster than IE. I've had no problems with it. "…more than a little buggy." ??? It has been rock solid for me. Some odd reloads yes, but infinitely better than what I used before.

The workaround for saving as text is simple: use Services. Select the text, go to the Safari/Services/TextEdit/Open Selection.

Importing my Bookmarks was simple, but then I did use IE in the past.

You were much too harsh. Give it (like OS X) a chance. MS IE is out of my dock; its place has been taken by Safari

David Layman

Hi David;

I have to (perhaps mischievously) observe that as an IE user your frame of reference is not setting the bar very high. When I tested seven OS X browsers in a shootout last spring, IE was the slowest overall. Have you tried Chimera?

Also, referencing the comments above, I'm wondering if you might be on a dialup connection.

Just reporting things as I experienced them. Safari *is* excruciatingly slow on some newspaper sites I visit daily -- so bad that I would have given up and gone to another browser if I hadn't been doing a test drive.

Glad you like Safari.

Charles

Warming up?

From Eirik Paulsen

Hey, Charles.

"Safari's bookmark library is a single-window interface.... I didn't immediately warm to it."

Do you immediately warm up to anything? >:)

I haven't had the opportunity to d/l Safari yet; so I found your take interesting.

Eirik

Hi Eirik;

Well, I did say I liked the URL field/progress bar doohickey. :-)

However, I warmed up to Chimera pretty quickly. It really has to do with performance. If something works well for me, and suits my tastes, I will usually know fairly quickly, although some things are gradually acquired tastes. I remember that I liked iCab the first time I used it, even though those early betas were quite buggy back in 1998. I just liked the way it worked (when it worked). Still do, although now it's very dependable.

Charles

Import OmniWeb and Chimera bookmarks to Safari

From John Dennis

You can read the full story on macosxhints by clicking this link:

Simpler Solution -- authored by: Alpha Centauri--

"Open both Safari and Chimera. In Chimera open the bookmarks Sidebar, in Safari click on the book symbol in the toolbar. Then select all of the Chimera bookmarks you want to transfer to Safari. Drag them into the Safari bookmark window and you're done!"

I thought you might also like this software so I am sending you the link. This way you do not have to follow that advice about changing that file as this software will do that for you. http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10482

Hi John;

Thanks for all the information. Looks like the bookmarks issue has been dealt with from several angles.

Charles

On Safari

From Anon

Charles,

Hint: Try Command-Shift-D to enter a new bookmark without a rename dialog.

Hint: For more shortcuts, see Safari->Show Package Contents->Contents->Resources->english.lproj->Shortcuts.html

Not sure why your Safari benchmarks are showing slower than the Gecko crowd; over here, it is, at a minimum, equally fast, usually noticeably faster. Is it possible your browser cache is located on a different partition, perhaps one that is slower or severely fragmented? How about cache, in general; is it possible your Gecko load times appear faster because they were pre-cached? Pre-cookied? If you have the time, it would seem a fair test to load the same page (like the CNN front page) several times each for a fair test. For us, CNN, loads about 10-15% faster with Safari over the latest Chimera.

In terms of maturity and features, I will agree. Hopefully later builds will include desperately needed features such as:

• Text Selection Drag-to-Clipping ability
• Auto-fill Form Profiles
• Auto-type Common Words
• Better Cookie management (ala MSIE 5)
• Better Cache management (ala (MSIE 5; others) • Scrapbook / Snapshot (WAF files or similar;
save fully working, complete webpage, including graphics)
• Import / read WAF files (Web Archive Format) • Export as Plain Text
• Window Cycling (Command-Tilde)
• Print Preview
• Reload Page/ Load Image Command (in contextual menu)

Wish List:
• Print Now
(avoids printer dialog box and prints to default printer at selectable default settings)
• Print PDF Now (Exports to PDF to selectable default directory)
• Save (from cache) Image Now to selectable default directory (as opposed to Download Image to Disk to default downloads directory:
I've already downloaded the image, why do it again?)
• Tabbed Browsing (I don't use it, but most folks I know now do)
• Built-in keystroke executable AppleScript Menu (ala Entourage)
• Child Content Protection
• Ability to reorder Toolbar icons
• Choice between icon, icon and text, or text-only in toolbar
(thankfully, the icons are small and tasteful already, so as not to waste precious real estate)
• Choice to move Status Bar to top of screen with Toolbar and Bookmarks Bar
• Ability to stack / reorder Toolbar, Status Bar and Bookmarks bar, including bottom or side of screen
• Bookmarks Bar optional line-wrap (instead of hierarchal submenu)
• Page holder ala MSIE 5
• Auto-scroll Feature with adjustable timing
• Option to launch Safari without opening a window
• Option to open page in a new window when another application requests a URL
• Option to open new windows with or without toolbars; option to open to last default
• New window opens in stacked position relative to parent
• Stack / Tile Windows command
• Contextual Menu item to add email name/address link information to new entry in Address Book

Anon

Hi A;

Based on John's comments above, I'm guessing that the speed issue may well be related to the fact that I'm on a dial-up connection (as are more than three-quarters of Internet users).

I would be interested, for example to hear how Safari handles this page on your connection: http://www.nationalpost.com/national/

It did very poorly on mine. I find that the National Post page is one of the more challenging ones for many browsers. It used to trip up Mozilla/Netscape quite badly, but lately they handle it with reasonable aplomb.

Charles

Re: Safari

From Chris Long

I'm playin w Safari -- It's pretty good but it's obviously still rough/beta ... but I like it. version 1.0 s/b pretty good. Hope it gets tabs!

Interestingly: altho I'm a mac.com member (for now) I use ONLY iTunes ... all the other "i" thingies are of no interest/use to me

I may (?) have sent you an email some weeks/months ago lambasting Extensis "suitcase" font utility -- I had some big problems w it -- you'll be happy to know it's now purring like a kitten ... a little slow, but it WORKS. wahoo!

That's it. back to work.

Later,
c

ps: I MUST OWN (some day) a 12" aluminum PowerBook ! Talk about COOL!

New Apple browser

From Eolake Stobblehouse

Apple has just released their own web browser for OS X. It rocks. It is the fastest I have used, and has some great features I already love. (Is this the end of the "friendship" between Apple and Macrosnuff?)

Yours, Eolake

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

CM

Charles W. Moore

Cool Mac Gear