Status-Q

Since upgrading my elderly Powerbook to 'Jaguar', the latest version of Apple's operating system, I'm struck once again by an important contrast with Windows. As far as I can remember, every upgrade of Windows I ever did gave you extra features, sometimes even features you wanted, but at the cost of speed.

Mac OS X, perhaps because of its youth, has the wonderful characteristic that every version has been faster than its predecessor, which is especially good if your hardware isn't the latest. This is particularly wholesome because Apple, unlike Microsoft, does make a lot of its money from hardware and so has a vested interest in encouraging you to upgrade.

Thought for the day: the iPod is now usable as a contact list manager as well as an MP3 player. My suggestion for the next step: make it an outline browser. You could create arbitrary outlines in something like OmniOutliner or Radio and carry them around with you on the iPod. The user interface is superb for that.

Some outlining programs have a handy to-do list option. Each node has a checkbox, and an item is automatically checked when all its sub-items are checked. While entering text on the move would be a pain, checking and unchecking things is something you could reasonably do on an iPod.

Checkboxes would probably require changes to the iPod software itself, but simple browsing could be done initially by creating fake MP3 tracks in an appropriate directory hierarchy. That's how the contact list idea started. Should be easy. In fact, if somebody gives me an iPod, I'll implement it...

Apple's Bluetooth Cavity. [osOpinion] Apple led the world with USB support and is still well ahead of PCs when it comes to Firewire. It's interesting that they haven't yet jumped on the Bluetooth bandwagon.

Amazon's stock of the new iMac sold out in four hours. Our local dealer has a couple of display models, but is quoting a six-week waiting time for new orders.

As a result of Mac OS X, BSD-based Unix is now apparently three times more popular on the desktop than Linux.