Book Reviews


[Day Permalink] Thursday, August 29, 2002

[Item Permalink] How to go where you are going? -- Comment()
Mac OS X: The Tide Is Turning: "There's an old story in the UK about a man who stops an Irishman and asks him the way to Tipperary. The Irishman's answer: 'Well if you want to be going there, I wouldn't start from here.' This response is much like the strategy that Apple could have adopted in its new operating system if it had continued developing Mac OS 9 from where it was four years ago." [osOpinion]

One should also remember the story of NeXT computer: a system which was fine on paper but totally unusable for general users. Happily, Mac OS X is an evolutionary product, which happens to have a solid foundation and some well-thought ideas about future software development. And users have been listened, too. This can be seen in the improvements Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2) brought to users.


[Item Permalink] Jaguar and CUPS-based printing on the command line -- Comment()
Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2) includes CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System). This means that you no longer have to separately configure the Unix command-line printing (commands lpr, lpq etc.). You get a list of the available printers with the command
lpstat -p
After this you can use, e.g., the command
lpr -Pprinter_name file
CUPS can be controlled with a web browser at the local address http://127.0.0.1:631 (this can only be used from the local computer). Also manual pages are available through this address.


[Item Permalink] The savior of Apple -- Comment()
Jaguar Opens Strong, But Can It Save Apple?: "Apple Computer's new Jaguar operating system opened like a hit summer movie, drawing more than 50,000 people to Friday night's opening events and selling more than 100,000 copies in its first weekend." [osOpinion]

Of course, Apple is really a hardware company. The real question is, can Jaguar bring enough new software and hardware developers to support the Macintosh platform. Also, Apple currently has good easy-to-use systems for consumers, but in the business world it will have great difficulties to move into Windows-based territory.


[Item Permalink] Apple and business on friendly terms? -- Comment()
Apple's Jaguar Leaps Ahead Of Windows (BusinessWeek via MyAppleMenu) [MyAppleMenu]

This is getting strange: big business-oriented magazines are giving Apple rave reviews. When this happened? Even PC magazines are reviewing products by Apple.