20040708   

Jaguars, Panthers, and Tigers - Oh My!

Michael considered fate at 15:50   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

I gotta say the newest version of Apple's Mac OS X (not yet released) is looking to be a pretty sexy sexy beast. Despite the fact that it's preview release was distributed on a DVD and it reportedly requires a DVD drive (obviously) as well as 2gigs of free space, it seems to pack some interesting new features...

Most importantly being the new search feature: Spotlight.



Spotlight takes the type-ahead search feature from iTunes and incorporates it into the entire operating system. As you type, spotlight searches through folder names, files, applications, you name it. They are ordered into categories and a simple click gives you extended information on each item. The best part is that, as in iTunes, it is advertised as being blazingly fast:

Spotlight blazes through more than one hundred thousand files and displays the results literally as fast as you can type in search words. Instead of waiting to see results after you’ve hit Enter, you’ll see results as soon as you type the very first letter.

Conformation of these claims can be found at appleinsider's recent preview:

Overall, sources said that this first developer preview of Tiger was very snappy and responsive, even while running on a G3 processor

This is absolutely awesome because, as I've mentioned before, the one true reason I use iTunes now is not for it's iTunes Music Store integration, not for it's organizational or window layout, and not for it's ripping or burning capabilities.. there are certainly programs out there that can do better at each of those tasks.. it's for it's simple type-ahead searching which reduces my listening habits into one easy-to-use feature.

I believe I have stated before that my largest two gripes with Mac OS X is it's speed and UI responsiveness, and it's lack of a hotkey to get to the desktop (ala Windowskey-D in Windows). Late last night while I should have been sleeping I researched some possible fixes for my Jaguar install (I'm working on getting a copy of Panther which I gather is a right bit faster) and found a few good apps:

1) ShadowKiller - while the shadows around OS X windows are kind of neat, they apparently slow the system down significantly. This little app will turn the shadows off and make for a much snappier UI. I tried it out and was pleasantly surprised by the speed increase.

2) Monolingual - while some people have a need for multiple language support, I certainly don't. This little app will clear out any and all languages you don't want to use, reportedly freeing up anywhere from 200 to 600 megs.

3) Desktop Manager - while Panther has the nifty Exposé feature, some don't quite like it - especially those coming from a linux or unix gui where they are used to a windows manager that allows them to run multiple desktops at once with application windows open on different ones (although it solves my desktop hotkey problem). Desktop Manager solves this by giving you a windows manager. I haven't actually tried it since it requires Panther but I've read only good things. Amazing things, actually.

Apple is being funny about their OS. It's been a migrational process and each change or added feature gets it's own branding, gets it's own hype. First it was AppleScript back in the day.. then came Sherlock, Exposé, and now Spotlight in Tiger. Some of these features are just added functionality, not truly applications of their own, yet Apple insists on marketing them as such.. Wrong? Heck no, I think it's working for them. From a non-technical-user's point of view it must look like Apple is making innovations by leaps and bounds compared to the sluggish progress of the MS Windows series. And in the end, the non-technical-user may be exactly right.

Not everything in computers is about faster processing. Sometimes it's about a better user experience. Sometimes it's about workflow. I would say that well over 50% of my productivity is how well the applications I use are put together and how well I can move among and between them - not how fast my CPU is.

sidenote: I happened upon a mac os x hacking website that had some suggestions for reducing the boot time by at least an order of magnitude. i have been unable to find that sight again but i'd still like to reduce my boot time.. if i recall correctly it had something to do with turning off networking polling or something.. if anyone knows what i am talking about please please please point me in the right direction