Is MacOS X perfect with it's memory protection and pre-emptive multi-tasking? Well, there are some minor issues. The Dock can get out of sync or become unresponsive for a short while. The Finder, the MacOS file browser, can also lock up if it tries to display a preview of a file it does not agree with. Fortunately it is possible to do the Apple version of the three finger solute (cmd-option-esc) which bring up a display of all graphical applications. Selecting the Finder changes the "Force Quit" button to change to "Restart" which allows you to fix the Finder without logging out or rebooting.

As far as the Dock issues, it simply starts to display the status of application improperly. With each running application there is an icon in the Dock with a black triangle indicating that the application is running. When you quit the application that triangle should fade away, but it does not. Logging out and back in resets the Dock. Apparently Windows 95 had similar issues when it first came out.

Looking at the Apple Discussion Boards you will see that there have been many issues discussed and resolved over the last few months. And issues that are not resolved usually have a workaround. There is a known issue where an iBook does not wake up after it goes to sleep, so the workaround is to simply to turn off the sleep feature. Eventually there should be a fix.

In September, the first major update date to OS X will be coming out with several bug fixes to enhance performance and to address these issues with the Finder and the Dock. Apple is also addressing specific issues to help Adobe and Microsoft bring their products to OS X. These issues go from hiding the Dock to fixing some printing issues. For example, with iMovie, the interface needs all of the space it can get, so the Dock is collapsed when iMovie is active. Simply moving close to the Dock will make it pop up. For some reason Microsoft is having problems with similar interactions with the Dock. By making these specific fixes MacOS X will be able to take on all kinds of applications that you would expect, such as Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word and Quicken. It is promising to see an OS which aspires to help application developers so much. In contrast to Microsoft, Apple does not really have competing software against Adobe, Macromedia, or Microsoft products. There is no conflict of interest in helping these companies succeed with software on the MacOS X platform.

Problems with the Unix layer have been minimal, and the oddities of this layer have been appealing. For starters, I can compile Apache and MySQL onto this white laptop and run a full development platform with Perl, which is easy to update with any additional modules from CPAN. There is some odd behavior where I cannot shut down MySQL with the "mysqladmin shutdown" command. I have not had this problem before and it is not preventing me from using MySQL, but it will only be a matter of time before I corrupt my database files if I keep killing MySQL improperly with kill -9. Other than that minor problem, I have been happy to have current versions of OpenSSL, OpenSSH, Apache, Perl, and several GNU and Unix utilities. At this time, I have no problems doing complete development right on the iBook laptop and later syncronize to my FreeBSD server. In fact, I worked on a commerce site at the lakeshore the other day, with MySQL, Perl, Apache and vi as my tools of choice. I am no longer confined to my apartment to get work done. At least I can be outside now.

Final Thoughts for this New Breed >>