Industry pundit Tom King says that, “Mac OS X, as it’s being sold today, is like ordering dinner at a restaurant that plans on cooking the meal at a later date.”
I’ll be checking out this assertion over the next few days as I take Mac OS X for a test drive. I’m a bit late getting started with this “diary” as I never received a copy of the next generation operating system from Apple as promised. And I was unable to make it down to my local Mac dealer, Mac Authority, Saturday due to a severely sprained ankle that was inflicted in a softball tournament. (Outfielders, puh-leeze talk to each other so that one of you don’t crash full blast into the fence while chasing down long fly balls.)
However, I drove down to the Mac Authority yesterday, bought a copy of Mac OS X, and have installed it. I’ve also downloaded iTunes, iMovie 2, and the AppleWorks 6.1 preview and installed them. Over the next few days, I’ll be filling you in as to how things progress.
So you’ll know, I’m running Mac OS X on a Power Mac G4 dual processor (450 MHz) system that’s a standard configuration except for an extra 128 MB of RAM (for a total of 256). My monitor is a 15-inch Apple flat panel display. Other peripherals include a VST USB/FireWire external, 6GB drive and a Hewlett Packard 990c m series DeskJet printer.
Installation of Mac OS X went smoothly. First, I had to update my Power Mac’s operating system from OS 9.0.4 to OS 9.1 via the 9.1 CD that is part of the Mac OS X package. Although some computers are experiencing problems with the 9.1 CD, it worked just dandy on my dual processor G4. After updating to 9.1, the subsequent installation of OS X itself went flawlessly and took about 15 minutes.
After the installation process and a restart, Mac OS X “walked” me through a series of welcome/registration/customization steps. The process was, well, elegant, accompanied by music and flowing graphics. Pretty cool. I’ll confess here that I like the “eye candy” of OS X’s Aqua interface. Will it still appeal to me after days of semi-regular use? We’ll see.
When I connected my VST external drive, the icon popped up on screen immediately. I installed the AW updater and X versions of iTunes and iMovie 2 from it without a hitch. Now I’m ready to do some serious experimenting, which will be the focus of these daily, short diary entries.