[xe0]

hey all!

I've just recently purchased a new G5 (dual 1.8) and would like to share with you my thoughts- and then, if I may ask for some help from you guys!

First of all, as mentioned in the subject- I am a Windows user, or I should say was a windows user.
I have just taken the following from my blog- so if you wish to read this in nice CSS just pop ova to http://www.jamescuda.tk ; Or for boring txt + ubb, read on!
__________________________________________________

my wife and I had to pause and admire the actual product design. All the photos I had seen on the net really did no justice to the real thing. As my wife said
"it looks very sexual... with all the curves and hard stuff" -LOL

now- on to the things I like and dislike about the G5 as a whole. (in no particular order)

The good

Expos�: the biggest improvement in computer interaction since the mouse, imo.

Dual CPUs: create another level of using a computer; I think it will be hard to go back to single CPU systems after this beast. I am a multitasking whore, so this setup is extremely efficient.

Speed: the speed of these G5 chips are incredible! very few occasions have arisen when both CPUs are at full usage. very impressive.

Responsive GUI: OSX is now as responsive as the windows GUI, even with all the eye-candy.

MacOSX: is superb. This OS is a real pleasure to use. I cant cover the whole OS in a small blurb- but I will say, it rawx! and if u've never used OS X Panther, you are missing out on the Best OS available -period.

Anti-aliased text: deserves a mention on its own. System wide text looks very refined and crisp.

G5 Product design: the G5 as mentioned, really is a striking piece of technology. Even the internal hardware design is lightyears ahead of anything else around! I find myself admiring the G5 itself, wiping small finger marks off it- so as not to spoil such a fine work of art.

Photoshop speed: A real benefit to myself, is using Photoshop cs on this system. this is how working is ment to be.

iApps: work like silk -and again, all the iApps are fantastic pieces of software. iPhoto in particular is an invaluable application.

DVD burning: Here in Australia, as many of you know DVD burners are not yet mainstream- however I dont know how I lived without one for so long. Burning entire directories on one disc, is a welcome addition.

PDF integration: is an incredible feature! As I send proof files and or production files to clients as PDFs frequently, PDF integration is simply genuis.

Apple Spell check: Great for people like me!

Unix: having access to the terminal is tremendous. Not that I know what I'm really doing- but basic commands such as kill and top are so useful.

Stability: This is something Im still getting used to. Say what you will, but windows is a piece of **** when it comes to stability. I cant remember how many times I lost work in win98. winXp has gotten alot better- but still has years to go before its as stable as this OS.


The bad


Adobe illustrator 10: is ridiculously slow. panning around an image is a nightmare, as the display chuggs like Im using an old pentium II. I hope this is due to the legacy files for OS9. Perhaps Illustrator cs will have fixed this issue.

Serial ATA: hard drives are a great product, however the one included with this G5 is loud. It scratches around to such a degree it is distracting.

No icon previews: for .ai / .eps / .html / .avi / .pdf and other such files is a disappointment. this is one feature I loved in winXP, and miss in MacOS. And its not like the OS cant do this- as the 'get info' option will show a preview of just about anything....?

G5 optimised: being such a new platform, applications which use the power of these G5 chips are far and few between. I spose the next few generations of applications will be G5 optimized and or aware.


The ugly


Finder icon: is messed up. Its all blue and looks truly ugly! Relauching the finder seems to fix this, but its prick to relaunch every time I boot up..


on the whole, I am extremely happy with this purchase and the G5 itself is a welcome addition to my studio.
I can also say with confidence, thatMacOS is now my platform of choice

________________________________________________

If I could ask does anyone know what could be causing the finder icon to display incorrectly? Ive gone into the dock contents and the finder icon is fine? _

the second question I have is- does anyone know of a script or such, that will enable or force the finder to display icon previews of all (image) files, including some of the file extensions I mentioned above? (like windows thumbnails) Like I said, this is one feature I really do miss.

one last thing- I cant believe I was using windows for so long. Now I want to tell everyone "NO! dont buy a PC, Mac's are a better buy in every respect!"

//JC

[bimmerphile]

you did turn icon previews on right?

Apple-J in the finder, show preview.

[xe0]

yer dude. The default icon preview will show certain types of image previews, such as psd, jpg and gif files, but as you can see- illustrator and pdf along with many other files wont show a preview- ...

winXP would, by default preview most file types- even html files; which made quick work of browsing through many directories.
As a graphic designer I found this invaluable..

[bimmerphile]

damn.

Well, congratulations on your new mac nonetheless.

[chris.p]

Illustrator cs is a vast improvement in speed over Ai 10. Its a shame its how 10 should hve been, but there you go. Im sure some (ot sure up to which versions) you can open ai, eps etc files in preview- just keep it on the dock and its easy to drag files onto it.

Cheers,
Chris

[D'Espice]

OK I wanna be the party pooper here:

Expos�: the biggest improvement in computer interaction since the mouse, imo.

You do realize that this feature is also availble on any PowerMac G4 or G3 running Panther? It's not a G5 thing but a Panther thing.

Responsive GUI: OSX is now as responsive as the windows GUI, even with all the eye-candy.

Finally... it's just sad that it takes a dual G5 for OS X to feel responsive

Anti-aliased text: deserves a mention on its own. System wide text looks very refined and crisp.

Once again, this is not a feature of your G5 but Mac OS X.

Unix: having access to the terminal is tremendous. Not that I know what I'm really doing- but basic commands such as kill and top are so useful.

You should get yourself a book 'bout Unix, you'll be surprised what you can do.

Stability: This is something Im still getting used to. Say what you will, but windows is a piece of **** when it comes to stability. I cant remember how many times I lost work in win98. winXp has gotten alot better- but still has years to go before its as stable as this OS.

Correct me if I'm wrong but you said that you recently purchased this G5. How can you be making this statement if you haven't really used OS X at least half as long as Windows?
You'll be surprised on how many occasion it may (and most probably will) crash, especially the Finder is extremely unstable when it comes to FTP, SMB and unreadable media like CDs.

[Judge_Fire]

Check out the free Pic2Icon.

It can create icon previews from a lot of stuff, though I'm not sure about .ai

With a little scripting, you might even be able to create a folder Applescript which monitors your working folders and passes any new/modified files to this app.

And do remember to mention this to Apple at http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

They actually listen,

J

[mac freak]

D'Espice --


He's new to the Mac. Features of OS X might as well be features of the G5 -- it's his first experience with both. He never called them G5-exclusive features... he just listed what he liked

No need to be a party pooper

[saru boy]

Originally posted by D'Espice:
Correct me if I'm wrong but you said that you recently purchased this G5. How can you be making this statement if you haven't really used OS X at least half as long as Windows?
You'll be surprised on how many occasion it may (and most probably will) crash, especially the Finder is extremely unstable when it comes to FTP, SMB and unreadable media like CDs.

Yeah, I'd like to second that. Let me fill you in on a dirty secret - WinXP isn't as unstable as everyone says it is, and OSX isn't as rock solid as every says it is either.

I installed Panther on my Cube over the weekend, on a freshly formatted hard drive. Installed OS 9.2.1 and 10.3.1 and a few programs (Firebird and Office), otherwise there was nothing on the hard drive. OSX locked up on me about 5 or 6 times...mostly just from manipulating the Finder. My PC (which I built), and which is running WinXP and a whole host of other junk, hasn't locked up or crashed in weeks.

Moral of story: my $80 microwave oven is more reliable than any computer you can buy or build, granted you can't surf the net on it (yet...).

[Apple Pro Underwear]

you were a graphic designer in the windows platform????

my heart goes out to you man.

however i bet this guy can troubleshoot graphics files like nobody's business though!!!

[xe0]

D'Espice, thx for your reply dude, and thx for raising some of your opinions- but I would just like to point out one thing I mentioned in my first post

Originally posted by xe0:
now- on to the things I like and dislike about the G5 as a whole

Your right, alot of the things I like about the Mac are features of the OS itself, but as Apple manufacture computers as a package- my post was reflecting on such a package

Originally posted by saru boy:
WinXP isn't as unstable as everyone says it is, and OSX isn't as rock solid as every says it is either.

That is a very objective view- so thanks for the heads up.

Originally posted by Apple Pro Underwear:
you were a graphic designer in the windows platform????

my heart goes out to you man.

however i bet this guy can troubleshoot graphics files like nobody's business though!!!

LOL - yer I preferred windows machines as opposed to OS9 Macs. but no more am I shackled to the MS love child

btw- thx for the tips Judge_Fire!

[techtrucker]

I too am curious about the icon previews, I use an XP machine at work and I do admit I like the fact that virtually every file format has an icon preview. In OS X for video formats I switch to column view and get a preview, but that doesn't work for PDFs or Illustrrator files...

[euphras]

Quote: (originally posted by D�Espice)

"OK I wanna be the party pooper here:"


That�s EXACTLY what your post smells like....

He is new to the Mac platform and enthusiastic about his experience, and you come along in a teachers manner and telling him "No, it�s not the G5, it�s the OS!"......................

[Anand]

Originally posted by saru boy:
Yeah, I'd like to second that. Let me fill you in on a dirty secret - WinXP isn't as unstable as everyone says it is, and OSX isn't as rock solid as every says it is either.

I installed Panther on my Cube over the weekend, on a freshly formatted hard drive. Installed OS 9.2.1 and 10.3.1 and a few programs (Firebird and Office), otherwise there was nothing on the hard drive. OSX locked up on me about 5 or 6 times...mostly just from manipulating the Finder. My PC (which I built), and which is running WinXP and a whole host of other junk, hasn't locked up or crashed in weeks.

Moral of story: my $80 microwave oven is more reliable than any computer you can buy or build, granted you can't surf the net on it (yet...).

If that is happening, you need to look into it. I manage 12-15 macs running version of X (most on 10.2.8 and the rest on 10.3.1) with little problems. Stability is not that big of an issue. What are you doing when the cube locks up?

[WizOSX]

Originally posted by saru boy

Installed OS 9.2.1 and 10.3.1 and a few programs (Firebird and Office), otherwise there was nothing on the hard drive. OSX locked up on me about 5 or 6 times...mostly just from manipulating the Finder.

Strange--what kind of disk was the one that you originally tried--a newly purchased full version, a version that came with another machine or a "cloned" copy? If it was a copy, I think people often have problems at one stage or another using copies of OS X.

[saru boy]

Originally posted by Anand:
If that is happening, you need to look into it. I manage 12-15 macs running version of X (most on 10.2.8 and the rest on 10.3.1) with little problems. Stability is not that big of an issue. What are you doing when the cube locks up?

One time I was copying some files from an external firewire drive (Oxford 911/FW400 case, Mac Extended file system) and all was progressing nicely until I clicked on the icon for the internal hard drive and the mouse pointer turned into the whirly thing and stayed that way for about 10 minutes. Finder was inoperable so I just rebooted by hitting the reboot button on the bottom back of the Cube. After the reboot some of the files I had tried to copy were corrupted so I tried again and the same thing happened. I think it worked without a hitch after about 4 tries.

Another time I was copying files between two external FW drives (one Mac formatted, other FAT32, both in Oxford 911/FW400 cases) and the same thing happened - copying fine, then I click on something and the whirly ball comes back and all is stuck. After reboot, some files are ok, and some are corrupted.

Thing is under 10.1.5, I didn't have any problems with copying files from the internal HD or from external FW drives. I don't think it's anything to do with the FW cases since the problems with FW in Panther, AFAIK, involve the Oxford 922 chipsets and FW800. Anyway, it's a pain in the butt, and using the same FW drives with my PC doesn't cause WinXP to lock up.

[reader50]

Technically, those are not crashes. The Finder is getting tied up on something, for no obvious reason. It's possible that your internal HD is getting old.

Do a Repair Permissions in case Finder is being locked out of one of it's own files. This is a good idea after a number of app installs.

Try leaving 'top -uds 10' running in Terminal. The next time this happens, click over to Terminal and see what's taking all the CPU or gobbling your RAM. Is your HD nearly full? A VM overflow can make any system behave weirdly.

[saru boy]

Originally posted by reader50:
Technically, those are not crashes. The Finder is getting tied up on something, for no obvious reason. It's possible that your internal HD is getting old.

Do a Repair Permissions in case Finder is being locked out of one of it's own files. This is a good idea after a number of app installs.

Try leaving 'top -uds 10' running in Terminal. The next time this happens, click over to Terminal and see what's taking all the CPU or gobbling your RAM. Is your HD nearly full? A VM overflow can make any system behave weirdly.

The HD is a little over-one year old Barracuda IV 80GB that I recently installed after using it lightly in a FW case. There was nothing on the hard drive except for System files, bundled iApps, Firebird and Office. If Finder is being locked out of its own files when there's barely anything on the hard disk, then something must be amiss.

If they're technically not crashes what are they? Minor Finder f*ck-ups that lock up the computer and make it impossible for me to use the thing without rebooting?

Anyway, thanks for the advice, though I doubt I'll be able to click on the terminal since it wouldn't let me click on anything at all. (All I could do was move the spinning wheel around. Clicking on stuff had no effect. Hitting any combination of cmd Apple, esc, option, del, what have you had no effect.)

For what it's worth, the Finder (when it's working) is alot snappier than under 10.1 (I have a GeForce2MX in my Cube).

[reader50]

Ok, if you can't reach anything else, then the system is in trouble. Try the permissions repair, that is the one easy trick that might work. Also, check your Sharing pref pane, and Login pref pane for network services or a network device mount. Those still should not lock the entire system out, but I've managed to bring down Jag by trying to mount an FTP volume write-enabled.

Assuming the easy steps do not yield anything ... I'd guess at a damaged install, uncooperative peripheral (USB or FireWire), or a hardware issue.

We're drifting a bit off-topic here.

[Altair]

Originally posted by saru boy:
One time I was copying some files from an external firewire drive (Oxford 911/FW400 case,...

If my memory is correct, Apple released a fix for the Oxford 911 External hard drive controllers. There was a big incompatability with them. You need to update to 10.3.2 and upgrade the firmware on your external harddrive.

[saru boy]

Originally posted by Altair:
If my memory is correct, Apple released a fix for the Oxford 911 External hard drive controllers. There was a big incompatability with them. You need to update to 10.3.2 and upgrade the firmware on your external harddrive.

The problems were with the Oxford 922 FW800 controllers, weren't they?

Anyway, I'll try the Permissions thing.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by saru boy:
The problems were with the Oxford 922 FW800 controllers, weren't they?

Yes.

[Spliff]

xe0,

For creating icon previews, get QuickImageCM. It's a contextual menu that lets you quickly create proper icon previews for jpgs, pdfs, mpegs, etc.

QuickImageCM

The developer has a bunch of other useful contextual menus - Pixture Studio

[techtrucker]

Thanks for the link to QuickImageCM...worked for me for image and PDFs but not with mpgs or avi, their site mentioned partial compatibility with Panther...

[xe0]

Cheers Spliff.
As techtrucker said- thx for the link.

Don't spose you know what's causing my Finder icon (dock) do display incorrectly by anychance?

[alien]

Originally posted by xe0:
Don't spose you know what's causing my Finder icon (dock) do display incorrectly by anychance? [/B]

If you create a new user, does it happen there too?

Some weird icon problems come from corrupted cache files somewhere. You could use a utility like Panther Cache Cleaner, or Cocktail to remove caches. (Search for them at www.versiontracker.com)

If this doesn't fix it, it could be a problem with the icons in the Finder.app bundle itself.

[xe0]

Kudos to you alien

I had a look at cocktail- and sure enough, after cleaning all caches- the glitch seems to have been fixed! and I have a nice, shiny Finder Icon every boot up!

thx once again!

[D'Espice]

Originally posted by euphras:
Quote: (originally posted by D�Espice)

"OK I wanna be the party pooper here:"


That�s EXACTLY what your post smells like....

He is new to the Mac platform and enthusiastic about his experience, and you come along in a teachers manner and telling him "No, it�s not the G5, it�s the OS!"......................

Well actually I's just kidding. But he needs to know that not everything he's so enthusiastic about is due to his G5 but the OS.
There are things one needs to know before one starts to spread rumors about the wrongs or rights of Macs. And as enthusiastic as he may be after his first Macs enthusiasm, there are things that need to be put right.

[MindFad]

Wrongs and rights? Things put right? He was happy to have a new *computer* and was telling us what he liked about it. It's just a computer people�let the man enjoy it. It seemed pretty obvious that he was talking about his computer's operating system to me.

Congrats, xe0.

[Rev-O]

Nothing like beating a dead horse but:

Dropping close to 3k on a computer also buys xeO some airtime for bragging. Who cares if its' OS or hardware related! xeO's got a smoking computer!