Samanathon.com

So after logging into my Gmail account the other day I noticed that I had received an email from God (I believe his signature said Saman). Telling me that I need to get busy and write an article or two. He then proceeded to call me a “Mac User” and said the iPhone might be of some interest.

Well this article isn’t about the iPhone, but that email got me thinking and I decided to do a small article on the MS vs Mac battle with the new OSes coming out soon. Any discussion about Operating systems is biased Windows users despise anything with an Apple on it, Mac users don’t believe anything without the little Apple is actually a computer, and Linux users think the rest of the world are just a bunch of Morons, so I’m going to tell you a bit about where I fit in. My 1st computer was a Macintosh Classic (128K RAM no HD, 400K floppies) this was around 1990, then around 1993 I made the switch to the world of PC’s with a 286e (12mhz instead of just 8mhz) I’ve been in the windows world up until last year when Mac released the MacBook Pro. I decided to buy my first new laptop (I’d had one before that but it was old, used and terrible) The real draw was the fact that I could use both Windows and Mac OS on it. I do a lot of programming in C# so it’s very hard for me to get away from the Windows world, but I’ve always wanted to play with Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro on the mac side, so it looked like a great deal. So as I describe my opinions of the new Operating systems, please realize that I am a “Mac User” but I’m also a “Windows User” and I firmly believe in Mozilla on both platforms.

So now the good stuff. Let’s look at Vista’s new features and see how they compare to OSX/Leopard.

Interface

Ok the first thing everybody is going to notice with Vista is the makeover: Aero Interface (3D really cool) - Looks a lot like OSX’s current appearance (which will not change much with Leopard) Vista has added some stuff like “flip 3D” which is just a taskswitcher on steroids, this is invoked with a WIN+TAB key combination. OSX has a similiar concept with one of their Fkeys that allows you to select from the open windows. Other cools features in Aero, hovering over the task bar icon shows a “mini” window (great for checking on the progress of downloads/software installs, without actually switch the active window) OSX has always had this for minimized applications, but it’s much smaller and harder to tell what’s actually being displayed in the window. The normal taskswitcher (which has been renamed “Flip”) is about the same as the taskswitcher powertoy MS released for XP (shows the windows not just the icons). The graphics have been given a “3D” makeover. It looks pretty slick but honestly it looks a lot like OSX (and who can blame them, OSX has always looked great).

Gadgets

New feature for MS just a bunch of small apps that run in the sidebar or on your desktop. Same concept as Widgets on OSX. The clock and calendar I’ve found nice to have the others right now are more eye candy than anything else.

Control Panel

It’s about the same as before, but they’ve moved a few things around and added a couple of icons to the “classic view” things like the device manager are now directly accessible, but it still isn’t as easy to navigate as OSX’s System Preferences.

User Authentication Control

Also known as UAC. Good idea in my opinion but really annoying for the Power user. The idea is to require permission to do anything that would change the system setup. But it means that you end up clicking “yes” every time you install a program, do anything in the control panel, share files, etc. It can be disabled, but only through a registry hack. OSX has had similar requirements for a long time (entering an administrator password to install programs).

Device Drivers

This is one place I have to complain about Vista. I’ve had a tremendous amount of trouble migrating my devices to Vista. (I’m running Vista Enterprise on one of my test machines) I have a CanoScan scanner that is about 4 years old. It’s a great scanner and I have no reason to replace it, well the drivers don’t work in Vista, worse they actually install and Vista can tell it’s a scanner, but it doesn’t really believe itself because it continues to tell me that no scanner is installed. Unfortunately Canon has not yet released Vista compatible drivers yet. Vista’s drivers are going to be different enough from XP that nearly everything is going to need a driver update, the old XP drivers just won’t cut it. On the Mac side there isn’t much to say about device drivers. OSX devices usually “just work” the down side is, if it’s not built to be mac compatible, your just out of luck, which currently leaves you with limited options to begin with.

Stability

Which OS is the last one standing in a bar fight? Well in all my time running Mac OSX (nearly a year) I’ve reinstalled OSX once (and I really didn’t have to, but I wanted a fresh start on my computer) In that same time I’ve reinstalled Windows (on my Intel based Mac) 3 times. On my PC at home I’ve reinstalled Windows 2 twice during that same year. Every reinstall of Windows was due to some type of OS problem, of course I have always preferred a “clean” system so I tend to reinstall more than is actually needed. In the two weeks that I have been running Vista Enterprise. I’ve already crashed the system to the point where I can no longer access the control panel. It may very well be my non working XP version scanner driver that helps with this problem, but the fact remains that every time I open the control panel Windows Explorer must be restarted (it makes troubleshooting difficult, I guess I’m going to be testing safe mode soon). But all in all Vista does appear to be more stable that XP, but you must be careful about your devices and drivers! Stability is the reason that I will wait 6 month to a year to actually “make the switch” to Vista (run it on my personal desktop/laptop) but it’s also the same reason that I’ll be camped out at the computer store the day Leopard is released and be installing it on my laptop before I leave the parking lot.

Installation

Here is where I must give props to Microsoft, after many years they have finally accepted the fact that not everyone’s system is the same or “ideal” and that IT pros actually know something. Not only have they gone with a Windows based as opposed to a text based installer, but it’s smart enough to look for drivers/unattended script files pretty much anywhere. You can put them directly on the install CD (if you’re willing to reburn the whole thing), on a floppy (if you even have such a device anymore), or even a flash drive (which is just cool). The other cool thing is the installer is completely image based. So Vista is prebuilt/installed in an image file on the CD which is simply dumped onto the HardDrive then after reboot devices are detected and installed and it’s up and running. Installation is lighting fast. Which a good machine you can have Vista installed in under 20 minutes. Now if OSX can catch up to that I’ll be impressed. While they have a slick installer, it still takes its time to do its business.

So what new features should we be looking for in Mac OSX Leopard:

Timemachine: Cool idea for backups, the technology isn’t as impressive as the interface, but come on I’m probably going to backup my stuff more just so I can play with the interface.

Bootcamp: This is my favorite feature, being a Windows on Mac guy I’m really looking forward to some more improvements in driver support for Windows.

Spaces: Multiple desktops, yup Vista’s got it too.

64bit: Natively running 64bit & 32bit side by side, that’s just cool. Vista has separate versions of the OS for 64bit apps.

And a bunch of other stuff Apple won’t tell us about yet.

So Who Wins The OS Wars?

Well that depends on what you’re looking for and what you want to do. If your a video editor who needs to use Final Cut pro, well you don’t have a choice do you? It’s obviously OSX. But what if you’re a grandma who just needs to check her email and look up recipes on Google? Well that’s when it gets harder. OSX is a bit more stable right now, but that’s not necessarily because of the OS. Most of the Problems in Windows are generated by 3rd party drivers, or 3rd party applications. As Mac becomes more popular we’ll see more applications and devices for the Mac and some are bound to cause errors and reduce stability on the system. The other side of things is when a Mac does have trouble (and they do) it is usually a LOT harder to fix. Mac hides a lot of the advanced features which can make it difficult to diagnose. My rule of thumb is simple, if you’re not a computer guru and you’re trying to decide what to buy, get the same thing as the computer guru you do know. Nearly everybody has a relative or a neighbor that seems to know everything about computers (and is probably still in high school). Get whatever they’ve got. Because when something goes wrong, that is who you’re going to call. So now you’re saying “Well I’m a super geek who can reinstall windows while he sleeps and dreams in programming code, what OS should I use?” That I’ll leave up to you, but you can always go my route and run both, buy an Intel Mac and run both systems on the same machine. I love using Mac OS it’s a bit refreshing after having used Windows for so long, but the old classics never die. I don’t know that I could get away from Windows even if I wanted to (which I don’t) simply because the software is still all built for Windows. My favorite games I still play in Windows, I still program in Windows, and most of the cool hardware I like to test, is still built for Windows.