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Veteran Mac advocate and consultant John Droz, jr. writes:

Charles:

A piece that I wrote was published this week, and it is generating a LOT of heat. (See http://www.lowendmac.com/myturn/03/0806.html.)

(You will note that it references a recent article of yours.)

On the one extreme I am getting quite a few comments that question my competence, etc.. One particularly low blow said that I was a "Windows Troll" (ouch!).

On the other hand, the majority of respondents have said that they agree with my position.

Maybe I am not the best writer, but I was trying to say that the alias issue was an EXAMPLE. I did not even mention other big issues: like the cost of having to buy a new OS, new applications, upgrade hardware, etc.

Phrased another way, I see the computer as a tool. If I can efficiently do what I need to do with a tool (OS9), I will need significantly new benefits to change to another tool (OSX). But, making a switch to gain new benefits will only make sense if I retain the advantages I currently have.

And why in the world would I change to a tool that makes me less efficient?

It is an excellent move that Apple is working on more system stability, multi-tasking, etc. Here comes the heretical statement: in my fifteen plus years of working with a few hundred computer clients, these are secondary issues to the majority of Mac users.

For instance, when I set up people in OS9 "properly" the worst case is that they expect to have no more than one crash a week. More typical experience is once a month. For a full time operation, this is hardly a huge problem that would motivate them to change operating systems.

I have invested MANY hours into learning OSX "and STILL don't have a clue about numerous aspects of it. (For instance I was told that the solution to my alias problem was with "BatChmod". If I need BatChmod to throw away a file, this is beyond absurd.) Additionally I keep bumping into gotchas (like the simple alias example I cited). All this time (with more to come) is substantially reducing my efficiency.

In my case, the time saved by less crashes, multi-tasking, etc. is small by comparison to the time spent learning the ins and outs of becoming a power-user of OSX. That's my situation.

And if it takes an experienced person this much time, how much more will my less computer-experienced business clients need to invest? The major original selling point for them to use Macs was that it was intuitive. They did not have to go to school for it. They did not have to read books about it.This critical principle is now appears to be changing.

I want to repeat what I said in the article: OSX is a GOOD THING. And OSX is the RIGHT MOVE by Apple.

However, that doesn't mean that it can't be improved on -- and that was intended to be the gist of my message: in making this important change, Apple should not regress by paying less attention to human interface factors.

So, I chose to discuss the trivial alias matter as I believe that it is an indicator that Apple has relegated the human interface of OSX to a second class citizenship.

And that is a PROFOUNDLY big deal.

My belief though, is that Apple will fix this if enough Mac users speak up. We can have the best of both worlds: efficiency, reliability, performance, and ease of use.

Just thought that you may want to weigh in on this again...

regards,

John Droz, Jr.

PS - Gene Steinberg has now joined the fray: http://www.macnightowl.com/index.htm#reasons

I wrote him a similar email as above.

For him to say that I am not moving to OSX because I can't delete a file is silly. As one of the many supportive responses aptly put it:

"From reading your comments to me it appears that a number of people entirely missed the point. I get it that you are not complaining about the alias thing as a major stumbling block but as one pebble on a road that is rockier than it needs to be. You are not an ineffective writer. It is the readers who are not paying attention.."

Hi John;

I linked to your article and Gene's in New & Notable yesterday.

I agree with much of what you have to say, and indeed have made a number of similar points in this column and elsewhere over the past 20 months or so.

The current state of my thinking on this topic is that OS 9's user interface is still the best that has ever been developed for a personal computer OS -- head and shoulders above OS X or any other OS GUI. Panther may improve things somewhat, but OS 9 is still the high water mark. Its spatial stability and predictability is one reason, and its many user-friendly features like windowshading, single-clickable icon mode (Buttons), the Application Switcher, and more are things I miss.

OS 9 is also faster to work in than OS X -- at least for me, although more efficient use of multitasking is narrowing the gap. And as you suggest, stability was not a major issue for me in OS 9. I rarely got a hard crash, although I fould I had to reboot about every five days - seven days to remedy memory flakiness. But that's with very heavy use. Interestingly , I haven't averaged much longer than that between reboots with OS X -- mainly due to excessive swapfile activity and USB crap-outs. And OS 9 shuts down and reboots a lot faster than OS X, at least with my suite of applications.This morning I just rebooted my PowerBook 1400, which gets a couple hours of use a day, running OS 8.6, for the first time in a month and a half.

That said, I'm switched, at least for production work. I've been seduced by the multitasking and a bunch of cool OS X native applications, particularly browsers, as well as OS X Services.

I think that having Quartz Extreme support is key. My 700 MHz iBook is still slower in OS X than in OS 9, but not as dramatically so as my 500 MHz PowerBook Pismo. Finder responsiveness is now tolerable with QE support, and one is not plagued with constant little lags and slowdowns.

Of course there's still plenty of room for improvement, and I understand that's coming with Panther. I do hope they address what I find to be one of OS X's greatest shortcomings -- its flaky, crummy, pointing device and keyboard input response that requires many double pumps and repeated keystrokes per day. This has been the case with both my OS X machines, using a wide variety of input devices, and it does not obtain in OS 9.

Charles

OS X "Receipts"

From Mark Rushton

Hello Charles,

Here's a stumper for you... what do we do with "Receipts"?

See: http://chebucto.ca/~Mark/receipts.jpg

This folder takes up, currently, about 62 megs on my HD. As you can see from the window header, free space is a premium on my 3.2gig iBook (original), so every meg is valued.

Can we just toss these things? Are they used for Software Update? They're obviously not the "full package", but... do I really need the 10.0.1 updater receipt?

Mark.

Hi Mark;

According to this site:
http://ls.berkeley.edu/mail/magnet/2002/0560.html

OS X keeps track of its updates via "receipts" located in:

/Library/Receipts

If you install a piece of software via an installer, SW Update will see that it has been installed by looking at the Receipts/ directory first and not present you with the option. Conversely, if you want to reinstall a piece of software that SW Update has installed, you simply need to remove the "receipt" from the Receipts/ directory then run SW Update.

Now you know as much as I do.

Charles

Classic problem question

From Jonathan Kroupa

I have an application that runs in os 8 & 9, but in X when trying to run in Classic mode, it crashes. The error it gives is associated with file sharing being turned off (in os 9).

How do I turn on file sharing, or "unlock" the files in X Classic so that I can run my application?

Jonathan Kroupa

Hi Jonathan;

I can't say for sure, but this may be one of those "you can't get there from here" issues.

Classic Mode can't address a network, so I'm guessing that File Sharing is automatically disabled whether it's turned on or not.

I'll put your query to the readers and see if anyone can advise on this matter.

Charles

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

CM

Charles W. Moore

Cool Mac Gear