[geeks] OS X (was: the briq)

[Hatle, Steven J.]

 I agree with Pete on this one- I bought one of the new iBooks about a month
ago, and have been running in OS X 99 percent of the time.

It's UNIX. It's a quirky UNIX, but all of them have quirks. I'm used to it,
since I did a lot of NeXTStep at one time, and still drive my NeXT's
occasionally.

I'm writing this on my couch, using my Airport network to connect to the
wired network downstairs. I have an NFS mount from my NetApp, playing MP3's
in iTunes. I can use Sharity (or Samba, or soon native SMB in 10.1) to see
shares from my W2K box if I need to.

I've compiled the *nix utilities I've needed with a minimun of fuss. I run
Apache. If I need to, I can use MS Outlook for Mac to connect to our
Exchange server when at work - again over the 802.11b network we have there.
I can do Word/Excel as well. They are in Classic (OS9 environment), but
after Classic starts, they are as zippy as native OS9. Not Word/Excel
"compatible"- the real things, and dealing with MS documents is a reality in
most all workplaces I've seen.

This has to be one of the best interoperable platforms I've seen. All on an
awsome laptop that was $1599 with RAM upgrade and Airport card.

Apple totally changed hardware architecture in the 90's. They did a bit to
coddle along the old architecture, but basically told their user base "it's
for your own good", and it worked. They're doing the same again with their
OS. It may be too early to tell with OSX, but I can't think of another major
player that has totally flipped their hardware and software base and lived
to tell the tale.

Lest you think I'm an Apple apologist, I gave up on them around System 8
because I hated MacOS (well, I did drive Newtons until recently) but I'm
back now- and I'm fired up!

Steve




-----Original Message-----
From: Peter L. Wargo
To: geeks at sunhelp.org
  <unusual and brief
moment of uncharactistic bias> "Macs rock!  UNIX rocks!  PC's suck!"
<back
to normal>

-Pete