Tag Archives: MacOS X

Apple/Mac, Computers/Technology

Vista vs Apple – The Comeback

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Last month I commented on the PC Pro Vista vs Apple comparison article, highlighting the fact it compared a Vista beta with a soon-to-be replaced version of MacOS X. I also mentioned the fact that they down-marked MacOS X for having a poor selection of included software by ignoring the iLife suite.

Anyway, this month they have published two, of the apparently many e-mails and letters they received criticising the article and accusing it of bias. Needless to say they aren’t giving any ground, they again justify the comparison by blaming Apple for not releasing Leopard beta code to them for review – bear in mind that they haven’t shown Leopard to Mac magazines, so they’re hardly likely to let a PC magazine see it. With regards to iLife they make the comment ‘and some people may have received bonus software such as iLife with their iMac‘ – lets just make this clear, whatever PC Pro may think, iLife ships with every Mac that Apple sell, just go through all the machines on their web site and it is listed. Microsoft maintained to the EU that software such as Windows Media Player and the like was no part of their operating system – it has to be said that they weren’t believed – but the only real difference is that Apple charge separately for the upgrade versions of iLife whereas upgrades to Windows Media Player and Windows Movie Maker are free upgrades, or come along with the OS upgrades.

The final point they address is the accusation of bias, which is effectively an agreement, but justified by saying that everybody else would be biased anyway.

To the credit of the magazine, despite their acknowledged bias, they have reviewed all the new Apple hardware in recent months, and although they review it from the point of view of putting on Windows – something Howard thinks is a bit of a waste of time – all the hardware has got pretty good reviews, with this month them conceding that the MacBook is a better compact laptop than many of the PC’s in their group test elsewhere in the magazine. So whilst they admit to being biased, even they are starting to succumb to the nice new Apple hardware!

Apple/Mac, Computers/Technology

The Predictable Windows V MacOS X Comparison Article?

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Every so often, editors of PC and Mac magazines seem to feel the need to do a comparison article, where they compare Windows XP with MacOS X. To some extent this tends to be a fairly pointless exercise, and entirely predictable – the PC magazines always put Windows on top, the Mac magazines always ensure that MacOS X wins.

The article in the July 2006 issue of PC Pro is no exception. The cover splashes with ‘Vista vs Apple – The essential guide to choosing your next operating system’, before spending ten pages going through all the aspects of the two systems proving that Windows is the best choice, indeed they put Vista ahead in every category.

However some interesting observations about the comparison. Firstly, the playing field is not exactly level as they compare Windows Vista – the next generation Windows that is still in beta – with the current generation of MacOS X. Now to be a fair comparison, either they need to compare Vista with Leopard, the version of MacOS X that is expected to come out about the same time as Vista, or compare current Windows XP with Tiger. They also are slightly odd over iLife. They heavily down-mark the Mac for not including iLife – which is true if you are buying a boxed copy of Tiger for an existing Mac – however all new Macs include iLife for free. If you are a PC owner, the only way you’re going to get MacOS X, is to buy a Mac. Indeed the article even concedes later on that a lot of PC owners will need to buy a new PC to run Vista anyway.

What is more interesting though is some of the comments in the text. Firstly, they highlight at one point in the article that, as with most magazines, the whole article has been written and put together on a Mac. In the conclusion, despite the scores at the bottom, there is a fairly startling admission for a PC magazine, that there is little to separate the next generation Windows from the current MacOS X, and more than that that 80% of users will find that Tiger meets all of their needs. The article even dares to suggest that with the current prices of Macs, and the industry standard software that is available on the platform that a Mac would make a good choice for a business machine, and it is largely down to the fact that Windows is the de-facto standard that most business purchasers would go for a Windows machine. Indeed even the editor seems to be falling for the Mac somewhat by highlighting that they have yet to find a PC manufacturer who can compete with the Mac Mini. Strange times indeed…

Apple/Mac, Computers/Technology

A Mac User Switching Colour Profile Bug Workaround

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As with any platform, there are always the odd one or two bugs or quirks that annoy you. With the Mac, ever since we got a MacOS 10.4 machine, there is one that annoys me with the Fast-User switching. If you’ve not come across the feature, it allows the Mac to be logged on as me, and for Beth to come and check her e-mail without my having to log off – Windows XP will do something similar (although without the flashy MacOS X rotating cube effect).

However, I have a calibrated monitor profile set up on my account, that has a slightly darker, higher contrast set up to the default set up that Beth uses on her account. When the machine swaps over to her account, and then back to mine, I’m left stuck in Beth’s high contrast profile. More than that, the colour profile control panel doesn’t allow me to change back to my profile since the profile it is using is Beth’s, not mine.

However a few days ago, the MacOSXHints Weblog came up with a solution that is as simple as running the DMProxy application that is buried deep in the core graphics libraries. Beth has just checked her e-mail, the colour profile messed up, but I’ve tried it and it works. The page explains the problem (with an example screenshot of the effect) and goes through the solution, and how to set up a quick shortcut too.

Computers/Technology

Stephen Fry – Mac Fan

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Reading through the December issue of Mac Format that turned up in the post this week, I was interested to read an interview with Stephen Fry (who describes his occupation as a writer, actor and flower arranger to the stars in the article) about his Apple Mac addiction.

According to the article he got his first Mac twenty-one years ago, and now owns loads of Macs with at least eight being specifically mentioned. However the most interesting, and very “Stephen Fry” type answer is reserved for the question of why he has a Mac instead of a PC:

You may as well ask someone who has the choice why they live in a Georgian house and not a 1960s towerblock. It drives me mad that people who spend their working lives in front of a screen do so in a Windows environment, the equivalent of a “sick building syndrome” office, with strip lighting, ugly furniture and no freshness, sexiness or imagination in design. People are dragging out their lives in the computer equivalent of a sink estate and no one questions it. God rot Windows and all its ugly, clunky, badly-designed horror.

Mmm, I think maybe he doesn’t much like windows then… From my point of view, whilst I prefer the environment of MacOS X I don’t think I’d describe Windows XP in quite such damning terms as Fry does here. Having said that it still an amusing interview, and worth picking up.

Computers/Technology

Back to Panther

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After going to bed generally positive over the upgrade to Tiger last night, I’ve encountered several problems with the install, that mean that I am now going back to my backed up Panther installation so we have a usable computer again.

When I booted up this morning, and opened e-mail, all the e-mail downloaded, but for some inexplicable reason, a couple of the messages were duplicated. I assumed there was something up with my configuration of the e-mail server so took a look, and discovered that nothing had been added to either the system.log or mail.log files since 8pm yesterday night. I tried to track down what was causing the lack of logs, but to no avail, so decided to try reinstalling the operating system files.

Having done the reinstall, aside from having accidentally lost all of the e-mail downloaded that morning, everything seemed to work ok, until the Software Update system upgraded to version 10.4.2, at which point I was getting an error whenever fetchmail tried to start. As I noted yesterday it was a bit of fudge, so it’s not surprising that it wasn’t totally robust!

In amongst all of this I still can’t get rid of all of the incompatible Norton. Although I’ve removed all of the applications, somewhere buried deep in the startup are bits of Norton, which are even causing the backup software to be unable to do a backup of the Tiger drive ready to roll back.

Anyway, at this point, ensuring that we have a stable machine for day to day usage is the first priority – the problems with Tiger seem to be related to bits of incompatible code that come across, specifically everything seems to start going screwy when the remains of Norton try to do something. I’ll probably try setting up a clean install of Tiger on another disk partition, and then play about with it on there, whilst leaving the current Panther install as our normal setup. Other options to consider might be to move the mail server off onto a separate box, removing one element of complexity from the upgrade.

Having said that, boy am I glad I took a complete backup of my Panther install before I started. Although it will take a couple of hours to shuffle the data around, at least I have a fully working Mac back up and running.