:: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 ::

The Panther Growls, UM Gets A Makeover

Panther arrives, Microsoft continues to be the Evil Empire :: Notice anything different? No, I didn't get my haircut or anything. But just as Apple and Mac OS X continue to evolve, so does United Mac! The site, in case you didn't notice, has gotten a makeover. I also installed a new forum, since the old one had been broken for awhile. It's brand-new, with no posts. So post away if it suits your fancy.

A lot has happened, of course, since I've posted. I apologize for the length of time I've been away! There have been a lot of changes in my life recently. First off, I moved to a new place to get closer to my job. The hour-long (or more) commutes were getting to me. Thankfully, those commutes have now gotten shorter -- causing my temper's fuse to grow longer. I also exchanged my G4 tower on eBay for a TiBook, partially to save money, and also for more portability. Apple's right, this really is the year -- or the decade -- of the portable. It just made no sense to me to have a huge stationary machine anymore. I always felt like I had to sit at the big chair, unmoving, getting sores on my arse. Well, no more.

But before we get to Panther, a word of caution for other Bloggers. It seems that Microsoft has again showing showing its arrogance. What should have been just a humorous post, something you might see as The Daily Show With Jon Stewart's "Moment of Bliss" if he were a Machead, turned into a nightmare for a Blogger who worked on MS's campus. Upon seeing several pallets of G5s on the loading dock, he felt like he needed to take a picture of it and post it for the world to see (pictured, at right). As he said, "Even Microsoft Wants G5s." That was enough to get him permanently disinvited from the Microsoft campus, even though he didn't reveal anything surprising or secret and offered to remove the post. All I can say is, with MS's continued inability to "get it" and the release of Panther and iTunes for Windows, things are looking up for us.

And a lot of people agree. Charles Arthur of the Independent says the tide is turning for Apple. And college students, arguably the most important target audience, are putting their stamp of approval on iTunes for Windows. And Apple is reporting a huge traffic increase on its site in the wake of the release of the Windows software.

But at the center of it all is Panther, which, in my opinion, finally marks the maturation of the Unix iteration of the Mac OS. It will continue to be improved upon, of course, but it is now a full-featured competitor to Windows in every way. In many ways, it outpaces the other platform.

My new (to me) TiBook is only 400 Mhz, but Panther screams on it, and I've had no trouble. And even though I only have 8 Megabytes of VRAM, about the only Quartz Extreme effects unavailable to me are the cube effect in fast-user switching and the shadow under the cursor. Expose works just as advertised, even on this older machine. But if you need some support for your installation (MacFixit reports some problems, including issues with external Firewire drives), Apple has a brand-spanking-new support page set up for the noble cat. More on day-to-day usage after I used it more, day to day.
:: Steve 10:19 AM [+] ::
The Panther Growls, UM Gets A Makeover