Mac a doodle...

[jsbowden]

I have updated this little box next to my desk:

[vampire:~] jamie% uname -a
Darwin vampire.photon.com 8.2.0 Darwin Kernel Version 8.2.0: Fri Jun 24 17:46:54 PDT 2005; root:xnu-792.2.4.obj~3/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc

AKA:

Hardware Overview:

Machine Name: Power Mac G5
Machine Model: PowerMac7,3
CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (3.0)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 1.8 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 768 MB
Bus Speed: 900 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 5.1.8f7
Serial Number: G8511AJGQPL

System Software Overview:

System Version: Mac OS X 10.4.2 (8C46)
Kernel Version: Darwin 8.2.0
Boot Volume: Vampire
Computer Name: vampire
User Name: Jamie Bowden (jamie)

And so far, 10.4 is faster than 10.3. This is of course backwards from just about every other OS on the planet, which all tend get slower on equivalent hardware as the version increases. I still need to find a good book on OS X administration. I found a book at B&N over the weekend from O'Reilly called Essential Mac OS X Panther Server Administration: Integrating Mac OS X Server into Heterogeneous Networks, which looked like exactly what I need, except I'm waiting for the Tiger update. In the mean time, I'm going to hunt down either Running Mac OS X Tiger, Mac OS X Tiger for Unix Geeks or Mac OS X Tiger Pocket Guide. I know the local B&N has the pocket guide, I almost bought it when I picked up my purchases over the weekend. They also had the Essential Panther Server Admin... book as I already mentioned. That was really tempting, but I'm hoping to see a Tiger Server update to that, since we're running 10.4 on our X Serv machines in the rack, and I don't know how much has changed underneath the hood from 10.3 to 10.4.

As a desktop, the Mac is pretty nice. There are some annoyances with the UI that I just don't like, and while Apple is constantly telling you to think different, they really mean "Think like us". After downloading the Windows RDP Client for Mac from Microsoft, I could probably totally dump Windows on my desk at work. I'm not going to, I still have to support it, so I'm going to run it, but it may become secondary for me. Of course, the big piece that I'm missing on the Mac is Office. As much as it bugs me to use LookOut!, we are internally an MSExchange shop, and WebOutLook isn't the same. As a Raytheon subsidiary, we all have licenses to use Office 2k3 on any box we use (yes, that's per head, not per node, the way our MS License agreement is structured, I can install Office Pro on any machine we own that I use and not be in violation, we checked), and I'm going to see about getting media for OS X. I'm pretty sure Office and Outlook for OS X are a version behind the PC, but it may be good enough.

Comments

[kjn]

Superficially, Tiger and Panther are quite similar (Spotlight and some other stuff is the main change), but internally they're quite different, so waiting for the Tiger guide is a good idea.

Ars Technica has a really detailed look at the differences between Panther and Tiger in their OS X reviews.

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it definately feels like more then just the superficial UI updates, so I figured there was a big enough difference to wait for the update. Just skimming through, it was just the kind of info I was looking for, but I wasn't willing to chance $50 US on a book that may no longer be relevant.

[nubule.livejournal.com]

Most Office applications are equal if not superior, but there’s no Mac version of Outlook. The application meant to replace it is Entourage, but since I’m Windows-bound at work, I don’t know how it compares. I despise Outlook.

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

Right, fired up Entourage, configured it to talk to our Exchange cluster, and it'll get my mail, but it can't get public folders. When it tries to open them, it dumps me back into the local inbox. I love when MS can't get their own software to work together, always makes me feel good about continuing to have to use their shit.