[wetstuff]

I'm sooo hesitant because it seems everytime I give Steve another $120 - I run around like a headless chicken before things settle. I really only use Phohoshop, Dreamweaver and Safari. ...So, do you think there's anything to be gained if I add 20gals of avgas to Steve's G5?

Thanks.

Jim

[Old Toad]

Based on your post I think you answered your own question: NO.

[seanc]

There are the added gadgets of 10.4 to be enjoyed but Safari is rather flakey at the moment.
I'd wait till 10.4.3 and a Safari update if it's not included with 10.4.3

[gradient]

I'm running 10.3.9 on my G5 right now as opposed to 10.4.2 on my iBook and to be honest aside from the Dashboard (that I don't use very often at all) and spotlight there isn't any practical difference at all for the type of use you're talking about. If you really like the idea of having spotlight, you can use "A Better Finder Launcher" which is a nice app that does pretty much the exact same thing - I find it to be just as good as Spotlight in Tiger. My vote is "save your cash".

[typoon]

Just stick with what works for you. For me There were things that Tiger had that I needed/wanted.

1. The speed of Tiger is much better than 10.3.9
2. Automator has helped me with a few things.
3. I have found Spotlight to be very very handy.
4. The small refinements in Tiger make it worth the upgrade.

[Cadaver]

My opinions...

I find Spotlight to be a godsend, but I've got nearly 200 scientific articles in PDF format. Spotlight is soooo much better than Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional's indexing system for searching through ALL my PDFs for a keyword (or words) its not even funny. And new PDFs (and every other file) are added to the index automagically.

I've done a few things with Automator, but nothing I couldn't live without. Added Finder contextual menu items to add the selected item(s) to a new email as an attachment, to add additional Spotlight indexing keywords to the selected file(s), and to erase a CDRW/DVDRW without going to Disk Utility.

My Mighty Mouse is better with 10.4 (for full function drivers), but that's not really an essential item. And similar function can be gained by using USB Overdrive instead.

Although at first I was put off by the new Mail.app's button icon appearance, I've become quite fond of 10.4's Mail application. The smart folders are great.

Dashboard I could live without - especially now that Konfabulator is free.

There is some fit & finish that's overall better in 10.4, but not earth shattering. For me, overall OS speed and stability seems pretty similar.

Safari 2.x is better, but you could just as easily use the latest Firefox and get virtually identical features on 10.3.9.

I happen to use Keynote 2 quite a bit, and while I'm not sure if there are 10.4-specific features, there are some nifty tricks that you can do with 10.4 + Keynote 2 (Core Image/3D accelerated Quartz Extreme moving slide backgrounds & textures).

To avoid problems, make sure the apps, drivers (printer, etc) you use are fully supported under Tiger. Otherwise, don't bother if you're worried about downtime.

[Macpilot]

No.

Sounds like it would not be worth the trouble.

So far, I am mildly impressed with Tiger. Other than startup time, there is NO noticeable speed increase with Tiger. Expose does not work any better.

Spotlight has been barely useful. Dashboard is a mixed blessing.

Mainly I like the Smart folders, mailboxes, playlists, and albums. But if that is worth $129, the go for it.

If you do pull the trigger on Tiger, definitely do an Erase and Install. Back up to an external drive.

[ShotgunEd]

If you want the new features of tiger, buy it, if you can live without them, hold off.

I'm assuming you are planning on upgrading at some point, its nice to upgrade to a mature point release, keep an eye on the forums, when the posts about stability outnumber the posts about bugs, then upgrade.

But where's the fun in that?

[wetstuff]

Thanks all! Since I don't use a search feature but maybe once-a-month, and I don't use Mail (prefer three external email portals) ...and don't use this...and don't use that; I'll stick with what works just fine.

Steve is nice enough to still supply me with various updates, and I have COCKTAIL which seems to keep the gremlins (what the herll are permissons? ..don't tell me - I'm not smart enough..) at bay. Instead I treated myself to a Wacom Intuos3 tablet.

My next OS upgrade will come with my next Mac. I love this single unit IMac...just that the frickin fan runs ALL day. Cheers all - continued good health and fun.

Jim
Salisbury MD

[wataru]

Originally Posted by wetstuff

I have COCKTAIL which seems to keep the gremlins (what the herll are permissons? ..don't tell me - I'm not smart enough..) at bay. Instead I treated myself to a Wacom Intuos3 tablet.

Note that Cocktail and other system "optimizers" are not necessary, and are actually a security risk due to the poor security model they employ. Just don't use them and you will be fine. You only need to repair permissions if something goes wrong, and you can do that without buying a 3rd party utility by using Disk Utility in /Applications/Utilities.

And you are smart enough. The only reason you don't understand things like permission is because you're not interested enough to look into them. It has nothing to do with intelligence. It's fine if you're not interested; ideally, these things should be so transparent that you don't need to be aware of them. But realize that you do yourself a disservice by not looking into things further.

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Faster boottime, spotlight. Other than that, no really productive features...

U would stick with panther if I were you.