h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Apple has just released an update to 10.1.3. According to first reports, yet another speed increase! MacOS X is now maturing very well, both as an operating system in itself and in the support it is receiving from developers, more and more of whom are releasing MacOS X versions of their applications. It is an unbelievably stable environment, it has a solid Unix base, it is attractive to both amateur computer users for its ease of use and to techies for its Unixness and, combined with the new Mac hardware, it offers considerable speed advantages. Apple really seems to have hit the jackpot!

I just love it! I can't understand how I got by with my PC. Everytime I booted I was forced to choose between an excellent commandline OS (BSD) and a reasonably good UI (Windows2K). Now I've got both in the same OS

Thanks for spotting 10.1.3. I have to confess I've turned auto-update off so I probably wouldn't have noticed it. I've started a new thread to draw specific attention to the update, and I'll probably do this for every update

Actually, I don't use MacOS X myself yet!

I've used Macs since about 1990 and am currently using MacOS 9.2.1. However, I have ordered a new flatscreen iMac and will then also use MacOS X. I haven't installed it on my current machine simply out of prudence. I prefer to let others get the main wrinkles ironed out befor plunging in myself. Now, however, MacOS X is not only stable enough, but has also had some excellent tweaking since its initial release, so that it is ready for just about everyone. It even looks as if a MacOS X version of PhotoShop will soon be released, so that then almost all professional users will also be happy.

I was professionally involved in computers (since 1968, in fact!) and so used Windows, too. Even now, I am asked by acquaintances to solve their Windows problems -- these tend to be far more basic than the problems faced by Mac users who simply go further in their use of their machines; there seems to be far less inhibition to try new things with a Mac. Windows users often encounter problems when trying to add external devices or to install a new application -- each of which is a piece of cake on a Mac, of course!

However, sometimes experimenting on a mac can have disastourous consequences...

This morning I tried to compile libpdf (a library which allows php to create pdf files). I discovered that the standard install of Apache which comes with a standard install of OS X has files all over the place and even has some includes missing. In an attempt to rectify this I downloaded the latest stable apache source and compiled and installed it. However, when I came to start websharing it went horribly wrong.
So now you find me waiting while OS X (version 10.0.3) installs before I can upgrade to OS X (version 10.1) before I can upgrade to OS X (version 10.1.3)...

Oh, there are certainly surprises every now and then! And I suspect there will be quite a few surprises with MacOS X yet -- it is still in its early stages and is, after all, a highly complex beast, which it lust be in order to hide the intricacies of Unix from the average end-user (and rightly so!). You're going further than the average user, of course, so you can expect even more surprises!

Good luck, anyway, and just be happy that you don't lose the contents of your HD or have to reinstall your system when you try to attach a scanner or a printer à la Windows!