[naepstn]

These forums have been pretty depressing lately, so lets have a good positive thread for a change, and one including only facts, not speculation about what will and won't be in the release version of OSX.

I wanted to start a thread for people to post things that they would recommend demonstrating that would really impress people and show off OSX's abilities. For me personally, I'd want to impress people who already know a lot about computers and the abilities/weaknesses of many OSes. At work, for example, we have machines running Win9x, Linux and Solaris; we have scientists and software developers, business/management and admin people. So, for me, the flashy eye-candy isn't gonna cut it - but being able to demonstrate networking, code-compiling, etc. while running MS Office and viewing Quicktime movies off the internet without having to dual-boot would be impressive.

So please, people, let's start listing things that we can show off about OSX, and start the conversion process to Macs/OSX.

[Scott_H]

For that group you may want to press the open source stuff like MySQL and perl and apache and samba and mail servers ... ALL FREE!!!!!! That is no yearly tax to M$. Open and free. Also full Java support just when M$ and Sun sever the Java deal that had.

But in the end OS X is just another OS

[3.1416]

For developers, show how Cocoa lets you write real applications with very little code. I believe it's possible to do a text editor with multiple document support in around 10 lines.

[naepstn]

Well, to me, OSX seems like an awesome development platform, because it has the compilers, text editors, etc. that developers use all the time, but at the same time, they could use Office, Outlook (soon), etc. that the rest of the company uses for writing reports, preparing presentations, contact management databases, website design/updating etc. where Linux and Unix typically fall short compared to Mac and Windows. It really does seem like OSX is combining much of the best of Unix/Linux, the Mac and even Windows into one. I know many developers who run Linux but who really don't like StarOffice (though I don't really mind it), and regularly boot up Windows just to use that when necessary. They might find OSX to be a great combination of both worlds, with many additional enhancements and features.

P.S. Does anyone have a reference for where to get the code for this text editor that 3.1416 mentions? I'm not a developer, so I wouldn't really be able to do it myself. This is the sort of info that I want people to post on this thread, so that we can impress people from various backgrounds.

[PerfectlyNormalBeast]

Uhm, 10 lines of code might be a bit of an exageration. It is a lot better than most platforms though. Cocoa competes directly with framworks like PowerPlant for Carbon/OS9, MFC for Windows, the BeAPI for Be, and most notably the Java environment including Swing. These are all object oriented frameworks which relieve developers from most of the burden of developing apps.

With the possible exception of MFC, they are all much nicer to develop for than the function set based APIs like Carbon and Win32.

Of all these objective framworks, I like the Cocoa the best, not because it's nicer for developing small apps, but because it's nicer for developing large apps. Showing off a reall simple app that has marginally less code than another app based on a different framwork won't impress any seasoned developer. Showing off a large app that has much less, and much more organized code will. That benefit is delivered by Cocoa.

I impressed a friend of mine by showing how any document can be outputted as a PDF. What a killer feature! I've already booted into Mac OS X PB several times just to make PDFs of AppleWorks files and websites. And hey, Mac OS X costs a lot less than Adobe Acrobat...

[[email protected]]

I think I found where the 10 lines of code text editor origonated from. http://homepage.mac.com/svc/cocoa-objc-mac-os-x/

[havannas]

Originally posted by PerfectlyNormalBeast:
Uhm, 10 lines of code might be a bit of an exageration.

That's true, it's only 7 lines of code for the Os X(server) version, its 13 lines for NextStep. Here is the tutorial- Programmers: Build a 13-line graphical word processor".

that's cause your freeloaders. and you'll never learn unless you buy MAC OS 10. Than youll get all your freeware apps that are run by java or whatever.
why run a program not made for the GUI part of Mac? cause you damn want to stay in archaic world. Rarr! "laugh"
j/k

hmmm...i want to leave my computer out with Mac OS 10 on it and see if people like using the new navigation. id bring my powerbook to work, if i had one and let all those windoze users play with it.
heck, i show off my iMac to anyone who comes visit me so i guess thats a sign i can impress people.
BUH BYE.

[naepstn]

I'm sorry Gorilla, but I can't make any sense out of your post. What exactly are you trying to say? It's late for me too.

[Gee4orce]

Whilst you're working in your translucent terminal, just casually command-drag a background OmniWeb window behind the terminal window, as OmniWeb is rendering a page. That's sure to get a double-take from anyone who uses...well, any other OS =)

[ppmax]

not sure if this was the original intent of the post, but here's a little something i did today that should impress traditional mac users--maybe not this crowd i was working on a bunch of stuff at home the other night and forgot to email all the files to my work account. but i got them anyways

telnet into my osx box thru my home firewall from work (in IPNetRouter i portmapped telnet to go to my osx box on my internal network).

remote ftp from my osx box a bunch of files to my macos9 webserver that also runs ipnetrouter--this machine routes my dsl connection to 2 other macs and a pc and serves as the firewall.

local ftp from my machine at work to grab the files off the pub directory on my webserver.

dvd or no dvd--ive prepaid for osx for these features alone. id be happy to write up a detailed tutorial to explain how to do this if anyone wants. i also urge others to post similar tricks/tips so that we can be ready at ship date to help other mac users make the transition to this powerful new os.

ppmax

[Mediaman_12]

How about it's true multi-linguisam. I showed a friend who works for a Japanese company a few Japanese web pages in OmniWeb (which show up using the correct 'double bite' characters, and not the '??????Apple???' you usually get), and told him that this was the standard release and not a special international version. He was impressed.

[Richard Pinneau]

And what can be said about Virtual PC. For some folks, having a top-performing Virtual PC will be an important security blanket to get them away from a Wintel machine?

Any news on Connectix expected releases / capabilities / speeds?

[jcarr]

Originally posted by Richard Pinneau:
Any news on Connectix expected releases / capabilities / speeds?

I seem to remember hearing that Connectix has announced a version of VPC 4 for Mac OS X.

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I'm cookoo for Cocoa Apps!

[NeoMac]

Everything is impressive about OS X. Just repeat the Jobs MacWorld shpeal and you will get the desired response. I've had people decide to buy it on the spot after I demonstrated a few features.

Personally, I like showing off the PDF publishing, Services, and QuickTime playing in Dock.

For lay people, the Dock and Finder (file system shortcuts and methods) really get their attention. The eye candy always get's at least one "WOW".

[gorgonzola]

NeoMac:

I remember I got one "WHY is it bouncing?!?! That's TERRIBLE!" from someone. He calls himself a PC user, but lusts over the Cube.

You know how it is.

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the oddball newsletter
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it's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything

[mxcantor]

On the topic of multilinguilism (sp?) - dont stop with browsers. You can save documents in japanese, and we you view their icons in the finder, they dont have jumbled file names, rather perfectly rendered characters. Including some with 25 stroke Kanji characters in japenese. If Macnn forums support japanese, here's one beauty for all of you with the beta who have japanese one:

��s�@

-max

(note - you have to switch your browsers character set to japanese to view that)

[Gavin]

At work, for example, we have machines running Win9x, Linux and Solaris; we have scientists and software developers, business/management and admin people.

A lot of these people have two computers in their office, one Unix box for something like GIS, a database, gene sequencing tool, 3D modeling or whatever and a PC or mac for email, calendar, writing up a presentation and printing it.

OSX lets them do everything with one box. It does absolutely EVERYTHING you can do with Linux, plus it's a Mac, which has all the desktop software worth having. If you need to run something from windows, Virtual PC will handle it.

No email viruses!

Costs less per seat than W2K pro and is easier to use. I'll bet it's already more stable and secure (BSD).

You may have a hard time convincing the solaris people but the hardware costs less and it is based on BSD, which is respected.

No email viruses!

The low level stuff is open source so your software developers can tweak things.

No email viruses!

It integrates with all network platforms (except novell?): appletalk, SMB, NFS, netInfo, NIS, LDAP.

No one can waste time watching DVDs at work.

No email viruses!

You can edit things to cover up embarrassing grammar mistakes without everybody knowing it.


[This message has been edited by Gavin (edited 03-09-2001).]

WHAT????!!!!

I didn't know this!

You mean Mac OS X will actually let users get some work done? On their own?

They won't spend hours reinstalling the OS because a web download install has gone astray? Or need to have it extensively reconfigured so they can get themselves onto a network?

Schools and businesses won't need teams of people on hand to sort out the thousands of problems that pop up everyday?

Or justify their existence by pointing to the hypothetical amounts of money saved by maintaining a "free" OS?

I AM NOT HAPPY!!!!

I am employed to do all this stuff. I will lose my job! Wahhhhhh!

I'll be impressed with OS X when I see all the Adobe and Macromedia apps running natively and FAST on it. I don't give a f.u.c.k about half-of-the-screen icons, translucent terminals, smoke puffs and the other candy s.h.i.t. The free Unix stuff is fine but just bonus.

Originally posted by mxcantor:
��s�@

-max

(note - you have to switch your browsers character set to japanese to view that)

Same to you buddy. ~_^

Actually, just about everything you mentioned about using Japanese with the OS you can do in OS 9.1, assuming you have the JLK installed. To view file names properly and without garbage characters in the finder, just set your veiw font to Osaka. Japanese software, such as Chocoa, a Japanese IRC client (that for some reason will not do /me actions), will have Japanese menus.

The only thing that I can't get to work is window title bars. For example, I visit a lot of Japanese art sites, like this one for example (the first random one I picked from my bookmarks), and the title bar only displays garbage characters because you cannot set Osaka as the system font. However, if this does work in OS X (anyone know?) then I will be a happy person. I would assume it will, possibly by default since Japanese is one of the install types on the CD, so Japanese fonts should be able to be system fonts.

Anyway, I am only beginning to learn Japanese, but the JLK has helped immensely, and I can only assume that having a Japanese version of OS X will help me even more.

Note: My first paragraph is not by any means meant to tout OS 9.1 over OS X. I can't wait until my copy arrives. ^_^ UPS better be on the ball in two weeks.

BTW, what mxcantor said was this:
��s�@ = �Ђ����� = hikouki = airplane.
Just in case anyone was looking for some hidden message or something. ^_^

[edit]Oh yeah, the topic of this thread. How to impress, eh?
Well, I already impressed my Linux geek friend by setting up Apache w/ PHP, while SSHing to his box, while he was SSHed into mine, WHILE using a beautiful interface.
I impressed my Windows(CeMeNT/2k) friend with the genie effect, the fact that my terminal maintained it's transparency while minimizing, the fact that my terminal in OS X PB was infinitely more powerful than his DOS command line .
I impressed my friend in Japan (who works for MS-Japan Tech. support, the poor guy) by setting up a user account for him and turing on an FTP server so he could upload some .mp3 files of some music that he thought I might like, all in under 2 minutes.
Hrmm...I'm sure there will be much more to impress with on or around the 24th when I (and many of you) get my copy (your copies).
[/edit]


�����C�ŁB

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"It's your music. Burn it on a Mac. Dig?" - George Clinton

[This message has been edited by interactive_civilian (edited 03-10-2001).]