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Mac OS X 10.1 is the first major update to Mac OS X since it?s release in March. Mac OS X.1 (10.1) was released publicly on Saturday as announced by Apple on on Tuesday. [Press Release]

Mac OS X.1 is a “free update” it is available through a variety of methods including a “free” $19.95 upgrade CD, which in Apples defense is the Shipping and Handling Fee. You can also go to one of Many Apple Authorized Resellers, whom are distributing the update, and by presenting a “Proof of Purchase Coupon” from your Mac OS X purchase, you can get the update for free. A detailed article on availability is available in a previous article [Link]

Well I got my copy of Mac OS X.1 from CompUSA at about 4:00 PM. When I walked in with the “Proof of Purchase Coupon” in my hand I was told right away to go to the upgrade counter. There were a few people in line, none for Mac OS X, but various other things such as computer repairs and upgrades. Upon filling out the coupon, I was given a copy of Mac OS X 10.1, no questions asked.

When I got home I opened up the package, which to my surprise came in a really nice folder sized sleeve. Contents included a Mac OS X.1 Upgrade CD (just an upgrade, not the full install) a Mac OS 9.2.1 CD, as well as a printed guide that is very similar to the guide that shipped with Mac OS X. The only really noticeable differences I noted in the print material were updated screen shots, a mention of DVD support, and a Digital Hub page. A few other tiny things, but nothing that really stands out.

The installation, is very much like installing Mac OS X originally, it?s a long boring process with very little human interaction. None once it starts. Restart off of the update CD, and follow the online prompts. After a few minutes, you need to reboot, and then you are using Mac OS X.1.

Upon restarting the changes are noticeable right away. The first thing you see is a larger splash screen while Mac OS X.1 starts up. And that startup time is much quicker. The whole process seems much snappier.

Once the startup process is done, if you have multiple accounts on that computer, you are presented with the login screen, which is now like Mac OS 9 Multiple Users, you can select from a menu rather than type in your name. And next to it you can have a picture. I took a few digital pictures, airbrushed around the faces, and put them in as the pictures for each of the users. Now we all have our faces next to our logins, just in case you forget who you are, you can look in the mirror and match your face with the one on the login screen. When you logon, you are on the desktop in a matter of a few seconds. More than 3 X faster than 10.0.4.

The biggest problem many had with Mac OS X originally was that resizing caused a jerky motion rather than smooth resizing. Well, now it is much better. On my G3 B&W 400 I find it to be really great, smooth and quick. Exactly like it should have been in the first place.

Now for what else is new. The first thing I want to talk about is DVD support. From what I hear it is very good. But Apple choose not to support the B&W G3 with DVD support. In fact they only support AGP based computers with DVD 3.0. All others can boot in Mac OS 9.2.1 (included) to view DVD?s. This I found very disappointed. There are many B&W G3?s still in use, and they are perfectly fine for almost all uses, this is the first sign that it may be becoming an outdated computer. Hopefully they will realize their mistake and release an update to enable support on pre AGP computers. While I found this disappointing, I don?t really use my mac for DVD?s anyway, so I am not to upset.

A great addition is the new sound and monitor menu in the menu bar. One thing I really missed is easy access to the volume controls like I had in the control strip of Mac OS 9. This brings the functionality back. You can disable these menu?s all together if you want, so they are only there if you like them.

The System Preferences are broken up, which I personally don?t really see as a big deal. I think something more important is the “Universal Access” control that has been included in X.1. You can even set it so that you can use the numeric keypad in place of the mouse. In all honesty I think I will be using it every once in a while and I am perfectly capable of using the mouse. In fact I am using it right now. Pretty cool. Number 5 is to click. Another change I noted is that to set the Desktop Picture, that control panel is much more thorough.

The Dock received a few modifications in this update. One new feature is the ability to choose where it goes. You can put it to the left or to the right rather than just on the bottom, but you can leave it on the bottom if you wish. For me personally I would prefer to have another option to disable the dock when a program other than the finder is being used, and have the old fashion Applications menu to select Apps, then when you get back in the finder, the Dock is back. I would prefer to sacrifice a little menu space, which otherwise goes unused, rather than have the annoying Dock sitting there, when I am in Microsoft Word typing this. That is valuable space being hogged. Meanwhile, I could sacrifice a little menu space. Then when I go back into the finder, the Dock could reappear. Hopefully that will be included in X.2.

Now I must mention the speed in Mac OS X. Applications load twice as fast as in 10.0.4. There is no doubt in my mind that this update made my computer faster in Mac OS X. There is really not much else to say. Most Applications now “hop” about 3 times before they are fully loaded, when before it would be more like 6 ? 10 hops.

Another change I noted, is very small, but a really clever change. So clever I never really knew I wanted it. It now knows that ReadMe files don?t need Mac OS Classic to load so that it can use Simple Text. It is now smart enough to use TextEdit. I found that to be a really good enhancement.

Also the preferences in the finder now have an option to “Always open folders in a new window.” Now it is more like Mac OS 9. More like I prefer my Finder to operate. Small but that makes a big difference to me. I like it.

Now as far as networking goes, Apple says “Networking is also more compatible: Mac OS X version 10.1 now includes the ability to connect to AFP servers over AppleTalk making it easier to integrate Mac OS X into legacy networks with older AppleShare servers and Windows NT servers. We?ve also added support to natively connect to Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Unix-based SAMBA file servers with the built-in SMB client. These servers appear right in the Finder like any other file server. This makes Mac OS X fluent in all of today?s network languages.” Now I have found this to be far from the truth. The SAMBA support I have found to be quite poor so far. It seems to be quite buggy, though I would assume that it will be fixed in the next update 10.1.1. I personally had a lot of trouble connecting to a Windows based SAMBA file server. Eventually I got it working, but I don?t even know where to begin explaining the problems I had. So that is a negative. I was unable to check out AppleTalk support since my network is a 100% modern TCP/IP network and doesn?t rely on AppleTalk support, though I think it was a very good move for Apple to add support to this legacy protocol. There are still many companies and schools with AppleTalk based networks and products.


Yet another addition is the AirPort Admin Utility. Again I am unable to review this since I do not have an AirPort base station available, I am using a LinkSys router instead.

Classic support is the last issue I will be discussing. Overall I have found it to be pretty good. It is mostly due to the Mac OS 9.2.1 update over the Mac OS X.1 update. The one thing I did notice is that Classic programs tend to have a little flicker problem in the scroll bar when scrolling, but that seems to be more cosmetic than anything else. Classic seems very stable, so overall I would say it is pretty good. Compatibility is almost as good as booting in classic.

Overall I think this was a great update. While it wasn?t available for download like I would have wanted, the update was easy to install and address a lot of smaller issues. While I wasn?t thrilled about no DVD support, and flakey SAMBA support, I do believe that these issues will be addressed over time. This update is really something. I think this is the first truly usable version of Mac OS X. This is a product that I would stand behind as it competes with Windows XP. This is a product that I think will stand the test of time. Microsoft can try, but I don?t think they will be taking any of the Mac OS X/Linux market. If anything Mac OS X will take some of the Linux market, and maybe even some of the Windows market. As for me, once Palm provides support for Mac OS X, then that is it for Mac OS 9, I will be in Mac OS X full time. But that can take some time. Once the Applications start becoming available for Mac OS X, there is going to be no stopping it.

I have for the longest time been a huge Virex Fan. Since I first tried it when it came with my Performa 6220, I have never found a virus scan program for the Mac that beat it. Fast, reliable, stable, and fluent. The last is one of the most important. Virex worked very well with me and never really got in my way. Other products such as Norton AntiVirus were just annoying, always in my way. It made me want to disable it many times, but that would defeat the purpose of having it. I always found that Virex was very fluent, so when I heard that it was being brought to Mac OS X, I was very pleased, and couldn’t wait to try it out and review it. Well I have been playing with it for an hour and would like to give you the basic rundown of Virex 7 for Mac OS X.

Installation is very strait forward, enter and administrator username and password, agree to the license, read the readme, install, restart. Nothing at all out of the ordinary, about 5 minutes after I began I was opening the Virex Application and reviewing the actual program.

Well, let me first talk about the interface. If you like aqua, you will be drowning in the new interface. It is 100% redone and it’s totally aqua like. It doesn’t even resemble it’s Mac OS 9 counterpart. Very few buttons, and unfortunately less features, but more on that later. Let me also note that these buttons are huge. The 5 main buttons on the window are gigantic. Could be a little smaller, but it doesn’t harm anything, or take up any needed space so that could be ignored. The interface is very strait forward, and you can pretty much figure out what to do by the interface and not reading the documentation, but then again, I may be wrong about that, read on.

The speed of scanning is not quite as fast as the Mac OS 9 version. I would say it is about 60 - 75% as fast, but then again, I would expect that it will be improved in future releases. This is the first official release of Virex for Mac OS X, and they had 6 tries to get the speed that they have in Mac OS 9, so hopefully in the future it will be a little faster. I must say that it is still faster than Norton is in Mac OS 9. As for what it scans, it is pretty thorough. There are monthly virus definition files so you are kept up to date like with most other virus scans. Don’t worry about not having a thorough virus scan, most scan for the same things, but you can rest assured that Virex is thorough. It has an option to scan compressed archives (.sit etc.)

Now as far as features go, it is a double-edged sword. One thing I like is the command line scanner. I think that gives network administrators and *NIX savy users a lot of flexibility. I am sure many will create shell scripts and other things to take advantage of this new feature. But on the other end, I think the developers forgot about the regular user. Allow me explain. There is no schedule option like Virex had in previous versions. To schedule a scan like you would in the past, here is what the user guide had to say:

You can run the scanner using the cron scheduler to run automated scan operations. Cron stores the scheduling commands in its crontab files. For further information about cron and crontab, refer to your operating system documentation or view the help text, using man cron and man crontab.
Examples
To schedule a scan operation to run at 18:30 every weekday, add this line to your crontab file:
30 18 * * 1-5 /usr/local/vscanx folder-name
To schedule a scan operation to run and produce a summary at 11:50 p.m. every Sunday, add this line to your crontab file:
50 23 * * 0 /usr/local/vscanx –summary folder-name
To schedule a scan operation to run on the uz directory at 10:15 a.m. every Saturday in accordance with options specified in a configuration file conf1, add this line to your crontab file:
15 10 * * 6 /usr/local/vscanx –load /usr/local/conf1 /uz
To schedule a scan operation to run at 8:45 a.m. every Monday on the files specified in the file biglist, add this line to your crontab file:
45 8 * * 1 /usr/local/vscanx –f /usr/local/biglist

That’s right, you have to use a cron. No simple utility in the application itself, you have to use a cron to perform this simple task. Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t think that the average home user who just adopted Mac OS X is going to be doing this anytime soon. Now as for updating DAT (virus data) files, as long as you do it monthly it is pretty easy, doing it weekly is pretty much a terminal job. You even have to log in as root, I won’t even bother doing that for the review, I think we can all figure out how that is going to turn out.

Now as for an overall rating, I would have to give it a 3 out of 5, but I do believe that the next release could raise that rating if they could make it more usable for the average user. I like that they are supporting Mac OS X, I like the features, I like the interface, I like that Virex doesn’t bother you, it just does its job, but I don’t want to be in terminal to setup a weekly scan on Fridays. This is something that they need to work out. If all the features that the Mac OS 9 version features could be brought to Mac OS X without making the features any harder to use, it would obtain a 5 out of 5, but I couldn’t give it to them with such a large problem like this. If a virus scan isn’t easy to use, we tend to not use it, and that defeats the purpose. Virex 7 has amazing potential, and hopefuly Virex 7.5 will prove it to us.

Well, Mac OS X.1 (10.1) will not be released via a download like so many other Mac OS Updates have been, though it will be “free” depending on your definition of free. But here are a few ways to get the Mac OS X update.

If you were lucky enough to be at Seybold this week, you received a free copy, so don’t complain or read further. It will be much harder for others to get a copy, consider yourself lucky that you only had to reach out your hand.

Go to any Apple Retail Store

International Plaza International Plaza 2223 N West Shore Blvd. Tampa, FL 33607 (813) 354-3868   Get directions	Mall of America Space 134S 132 South Avenue Bloomington, MN 55425 (952) 854-4870   Get directions
Easton Easton Town Center 4070 The Strand East Columbus, OH 43219 (614) 478-5592   Get directions	Willow Bend 6121 West Park Blvd. Suite C120 Plano, TX 75093 (972) 202-5651   Get directions
Northshore Northshore Mall 210 Andover Street, Suite 96 Peabody, MA 01960 (978) 531-2802   Get directions	Tysons Corner Center 1961 Chain Bridge Rd Space 8087 McLean, VA 22102 (703) 893-5055   Get directions
Woodfield Woodfield Shopping Center K303 Woodfield Mall Schaumburg, IL 60173 (847) 240-6280   Get directions	Glendale Galleria 2148 Glendale Galleria Space 2126 Glendale, CA 91210 (818) 502-8310   Get directions

You can go to CompUSA if there is no Apple Retail Store near you. According to a representative from CompUSA, all stores will receive shipments of Mac OS X.1 update on Saturday. Many found upon contacting CompUSA this week that they wouldn’t carry the free update. The latest explanation is that CompUSA wasn’t originally selected to participate in the program, thus many company representatives did not know about it, or were informed that they wouldn’t be included, though they expect all stores to have shipments by Saturday.

Many readers have noted that Fry’s will be participating, though they could not be reached to confirm this.

And last but not least, you can order from Apple for $19.95 (which is Shipping and Handling) you can use the following URL for more information on this:

http://apple.com/macosx/upgrade/

The upgrade includes the Mac OS X.1 CD, Mac OS 9.2.1, and an updated Developers CD.

As usual, I decided to give an overview of the recent events rather than quick play by plays. Lets face it there are tons of those out there already, why waste your time.On Tuesday September 25, Apple made an announcement we were expecting to hear back in August at MacWorld NY. Mac OS X 10.1 is available. [Link] Apple will not be offering the update as a download due to it’s large size, but will be offering it via CD for $19.95 at the Apple Store [Link] and will be giving out free CD’s at the Apple Stores on Saturday September 29, 2001. Apple officially has said that it will be offered through “participating retail outlets,” though no retail chain that MacVillage.net contacted will be offering the CD’s, a CompUSA representative said that they were not chosen by Apple to participate in the program.

I posted what is new in this release when Apple first gave a demonstration of 10.1 at MacWorld NY back in August. [Link] When I get a copy of 10.1 to review, I will be posting a detailed review on how the OS has improved in this release, and what is still missing. Look for that within the next week on MacVillage.net News.

Another important announcement was the announcement by Apple that over 1,400 applications have been ported to Mac OS X, and more are on the way. [Link] Palm has promised a Mac OS X client to it’s Palm Desktop by the end of the year.

Also announced was the release of Mac OS X Server 10.1. [Link] New features are:

• system-wide performance enhancements that increase reliability, launch server-side applications faster, speed printing times, increase administration response and reduce file transfer times;
• the latest advancements from the Open Source community, with the most reliable releases of Apache, Samba, PHP, MySQL, Tomcat and OpenSSL;
• RAID support for disk striping (RAID-0) and disk mirroring (RAID-1) allowing flexible storage configuration, data redundancy and improved disk read performance;
• a new release of QuickTime Streaming Server, version 3.0.2 for streaming digital media over the Internet;
• improved reliability with enhancements to Apple file services, NetInfo and Directory Services; and
• Macintosh Manager 2.1 support for local administration from Mac OS X Server and support for the latest Apple Macintosh® systems with the inclusion of Mac OS 9.2.1 within NetBoot.

Obviously, no new hardware has been announced. Most likely the next introduction of hardware will take place in January 2001, and maybe then we will see the G5.

Despite the canceled expo, Apple still appears on track to release Mac OS X 10.1 within 14 days. There has been lots of talk about Mac OS X 10.1 and whether or not it will be released on time. Then with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks leading to the cancellation of the Apple Expo in Paris, one had more reason to believe that the release could be delayed. Steve Jobs said weeks ago that his keynote would focus on 10.1, thus making us believe that Mac OS X 10.1 would be released in time for the expo. Well apparantly Apple is still on track for a release.

In the “Mac OS X Product News” newsletter published by Apple, it says “Next issue, the star of the show will be Mac OS X version 10.1. Published reports from users with early access say it feels even faster and more powerful than the overview at apple.com makes it sound. ” This can only mean that Apple plans to release Mac OS X in 14 days (the newsletter is published every two weeks.) It has also been reported by various developers who have been seeded the latest builds that Mac OS X 10.1 does appear to be ready for mainstream use. Features such as DVD playback which were not very good just weeks ago now appear solid.

As always, MacVillage.net will keep updating the web site with any new information discovered about Mac OS X 10.1. That includes release information, reviews, and troubleshooting.

Apple today announced that it has canceled the Apple Expo 2001 in Paris, France on September 26 - 30 citing safety of its developers and users as its primary reason. [Press Release]

Apple has not announced if it will be rescheduled, though there is no indication that it will be. There has been no indication that this is the end of Apple Expo Paris forever, but just for this year.

According to the Seybold SF web site [Link], Seybold SF Seminars will continue as planned with a keynote by Phil Schiller, Apple’s vice president of worldwide marketing from September 24 - 28, 2001 in San Fransisco California.

I have long been an advocate of the Open Source movement, and a huge fan of the Mozilla web browser, the premier open source project. Open source in essence allows for infinite possibilities and many different programmers each contributing what they know best. Creating some very unique software created by the people for the people.

Mozilla 0.9.4 was released last week, but due to tragic events in the United States, reviewing this software has been delayed. But now as our nation rebuilds into a stronger and more united nation, it is time to start going back as much as we can to our normal lives, though it will be hard. That is why this review is posted very late.

Mozilla 0.9.4 offers some new features that are really something to admire:

The most impressive is the ability to disable popups. This is done by the browser not recognizing the JavaScript window.open() method, though when used, navigation popups that some sights use will not work, so there are disadvantages to this feature, though for many it will be very useful. I personally leave them on since many sites I visit offer popups as a way to navigate the site without a large menu on the actual page, though depending on your browsing habits, this feature could be of great use to you. I would like the ability to selectively use this feature, for example on certain sites disable this feature, or disable on all except on certain sites.

From the release notes:

It is now possible to disable the JavaScript window.open() method during page load and unload events. When the dom.disable_open_during_load pref is set to “true”, window.open will fail when called during an onload or onunload event, from top level script, or as part of a setTimeout or setInterval script. Setting this pref (instructions here) should turn off most pop-up and pop-under ads that appear when you load a new page. (Bug 92955)
user_pref(”dom.disable_open_during_load”, true);

The sidebar now has a new Address Book tab. By selecting “Customize Sidebar” you can then choose to add the address book. Then the address book is displayed as a sidebar tab. This feature is actually very useful. I have found myself a number of times already using it. Now my address book is easily accessible.

There is also experimental support for searching LDAP directories.

I have also noticed that there are far less cosmetic bugs in this release. In 0.9.2 and even in 0.9.3 there were a few cosmetic problems on occasion with resizing windows and creating new windows where parts of the menu or scroll bars would exhibit unusual behavior, though I haven’t noticed anything like this in 0.9.4. On one occasion the command keys stopped working, though I could still do everything I needed using the mouse, but I couldn’t submit a bug because I couldn’t reproduce the problem. Another issue I had was the browser would crash on quitting with an error type 3, though I have never seen any version take the whole system down, unlike IE. So while it has its little quirks, I do believe that these will be fixed before 1.0 (note that these releases aren’t 1.0 yet.) Another downfall is the slow building of a new window, but hopefully that will change in the future as we approach 1.0.

Overall I still think that this browser is going to do some damage in the future. It is extremely fast, and very standards compliant. The general complaint of other webmasters is that it is too standards compliant and makes no exceptions. It’s features are robust, and are being added all the time. It’s major downfall is it’s retro-interface which die hard Mac users find hard to accept, though in all honesty, after a few hours it really grows on you, besides you can change it by installing another skin. There are also a few lingering cosmetic bugs, though I haven’t seen anything that is serious, just odd behavior. It’s a very usable browser, great for those who like to customize their computers, and excellent for those who really like to have the most powerful software they can get. Mozilla is just a feature packed browser. The more and more I examine it, the more and more I find in it. At this rate, 1.0 will be a momentous release.

There comes certain times in life when we must focus on what is important in life, and look beyond money and materialistic worshiping which many Americans suffer from.

Today shortly before 9:00EST the lives of every American has been changed forever. Many would say that the lives of everyone worldwide have been effected by this act of cowardliness. Terrorists have hijacked planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center leveling both buildings and resulting in a catastrophic loss of life. This event has made an impression on the world in which we have not yet begun to grasp. September 11, 2001 will go down in history that marked the end of an era, and the beginning of another. Our children, and their children will study this day and reflect upon the tragedy in the same way we have when studying Perl Harbor. This has not been an attack against those who were directly effected by the attack, but an attack to America as a whole, an attack to the world community as a whole.

I would like to express my sincere condolences to anyone who has been effected by this tragedy. This is a tragedy that has taken thousands of innocent lives. It makes each of us ask ourselves how much we value life. It makes each one of us appreciate what is truly important in this world. It makes each one of us realize we are all human.

God bless all who are dealing with tragedy at this time.