SynergyKM vs. Teleport
From John Muir:
Hi Dan,
One word on the virtual KVM front: Teleport.
It works quite nicely and is definitely worth a look, from what
you've said about SynergyKM. I use it to control my media
centre/desktop mini from my PowerBook at the other end of the room.
Clipboard synching on the fly is also a plus.
As for the broader issue you face, good luck finding the right
solution. It's certainly a complex field now, though one at least
hardly short of options. I'd be tempted to run the old Power Mac via
Leopard's Screen Sharing over a good AirPort network from a laptop
myself, setting aside a screen in Spaces for it. But I know you're a
desktop man.
John
John,
I'm a desktop man today, but I've been a laptop man.
The big issue was cost: a much faster eMac cost a whole lot less than a
faster PowerBook G4, and then a guy from church had a dual 1 GHz G4 for
sale. As nice as notebooks are, a 15" MacBook Pro is going to cost a
lot more than a 20" Core 2 iMac.
Screen sharing might be a good solution, but I'd want
an outboard display for that, as I don't want to lose sight of
everything else I'm working on when using Home Page. The best bet would
be to replace Home Page, and none of the freeware or shareware
solutions I've tried come close. I have downloaded the Dreamweaver
trial version and hope to check it out next week.
Dan
Outlook Express and the Classic Mac OS
From Johan Nilsson in response to Damaged Address Book in Outlook Express
5:
Hi! Just a quick note regarding Outlook Express 5.0.x for OS 9:
I found that as the mailbox database grows, one has to allocate more
and more memory to the application. It is a long time ago I used OE
(now using Entourage) but I recall the memory allocation (using Get
Info in Finder as usual) needed to be substantially higher than the
original recommendations. My OE database file was 500 MB+ at the
time.
Regards,
Johan Nilsson
Johan,
Thanks for writing. I recall having to do that a lot
in the days of the Classic Mac OS. I know I've got Claris Home Page set
far, far higher than its default so I can go for days on end without
having to restart the application.
This is one area where OS X really shines - no more
need to allocate memory to programs.
Dan
HDTV vs. Computer Monitors
From John Muir:
Hi again,
Just a thought: when it comes to monitors, HDTV has really caught
up.
A 1080p set is 1920 x 1080 = 2.07 million pixels, which is high
compared to even an old high-end monitor at 1600 x 1200 = 1.92 million
pixels. A friend of mine bought a 40" Samsung set for his PlayStation 3
and quickly discovered his gaming PC was perfectly usable on it from
back on the sofa, especially with a wireless keyboard and mouse, of
course.
HDMI-to-DVI adapters are easily found.
Forty inches is probably a bit over the top for most needs - and the
pixel per inch number for large sets is still quite far from high
quality monitors - but it is more viable now than ever before. If you
use a screen from anything but very close range, an HDTV can be a
compelling alternative on price vs. picture size and pixels.
I may well hook one up to my mini sometime - I'd certainly not
consider buying one of Apple's displays to it given their price - but
for the moment I'm still getting use out of my circa 2000 high-end CRT
display, now on its umpteenth system!
John
John,
I'm researching digital television and HDTV, and it's
a real learning experience. One of the many things I've learned is that
every HDTV has to work with both the 1080i and 720p standards as each
is used by some TV networks, and some of the 1080 displays can't
natively display it at full resolution. It's a very confusing area, and
I'm planning to cover it on my Low
End Living website once I understand it better.
If you're planning on going HDTV and considering using
the display with your computer, the 1920 x 1080 resolution of a true
1080 screen wins hands down over the 1280 x 720 resolution of a native
720p screen. For watching television, viewing DVDs, and playing games,
720p is probably good enough, but even the basic MacBook has more
pixels on its screen (1280 x 800).
Dan
Dan,
Indeed. My friend was quite particular about getting just the right
screen, and his 40" Samsung does indeed show up as the full 1920 x 1080
on his PlayStation 3, PC and indeed the old PowerBook I hooked up to
it. Using it as an oversized desktop monitor is the one time when the
difference between 720p and 1080p really is like night and day. In the
purely high-def video stakes they are indeed closer than most seem to
think!
John
Windows XP vs. Mac OS X
From Jason Packer in response to Windows XP Is Faster, but
Mac OS X Is Superior in Many Ways:
I, too, read Scott Hansen's article about Windows XP versus OS X
Leopard, but have to admit that I wondered at his conclusion. He called
it as a tie between the two operating systems, when the only thing that
seemed to be better about XP was the overall speed. I discounted that
argument immediately - you know what else runs faster than OS X?
MS-DOS 3.3. I bet that really screams on a Core 2 Duo-based
computer.
Apples and oranges, you say? You can't even run Photoshop under DOS,
you say? Well, I would argue that maybe the comparison between XP and
OS X, while not quite so egregious as OS X and DOS, isn't
exactly an even playing field, either. OS X versus Vista is a much
more apt comparison, with all of the attempts by Microsoft to emulate
the OS X experience.
I think we'd know which OS would come out on top then. In fact, if I
can get my hands on a copy of Vista to install on my MacBook, I'll
gladly make that comparison for everyone's general edification.
Jason,
Hansen is sharing his own experiences in using Mac OS
X after many years with Windows XP. He isn't a Vista user - he calls it
"a complete and utter disaster" - so he can't make a fair user
comparison between it and OS X. But if XP is on an even footing
with the Mac (which most of us dispute), then Vista, which is worse
than XP, must also be worse than OS X.
And in the end, the stability, friendliness, and ease
of use won Hansen over: Speed with instability just isn't worth the
hassles.
Dan
Windows Can Be Faster than OS X
From Adam:
Hi Dan,
I agree with Scott Hansen that Windows XP is faster than OS X on
certain systems. On my B&W G3, even System 9.2 blows Tiger out of
the water when to comes to speed. That's because it is an old OS which
uses far fewer overheads than Tiger and Leopard. XP was released back
in 2001, the same year as OS X v10.0, which makes it an antique in
computer terms, and it did not have all the graphical effects and
background tasks running that a modern day OS does. What Scott is
experiencing is the speed benefits of running an ancient OS on a very
modern, powerful machine - there are plenty of clock cycles to go
around. When you start using a more modern OS, of course there is going
to be a performance hit.
It would be a far fairer comparison to run Vista against Leopard on
the same hardware. Vista uses an obscene amount of processing
horsepower and memory, even when it isn't doing much and Leopard would
probably outpace it in most tasks, and I don't really buy into the
argument that Leopard vs. XP is a fair competition just because most
users can't stand Vista. OS shootouts should be between the most up to
date version of the current system, anything else is simply
misleading.
Keep up the great site Dan.
Adam
Adam,
Vista and Leopard both use an obscene amount of
computing power - CPU, graphics processor, memory, and drive space - to
provide all of their eye candy. Windows XP and Tiger will generally
outperform them.
It's not Hansen's fault that Vista sucks (his word)
and that he won't use it, so he really can't compare it to Mac
OS X. He's sharing his own experience as someone who has used XP
for years, knows it inside and out, understands its failings (like
Photoshop crashing regularly), and is comparing OS X to that.
I don't think its fair to compare any operating system
to Vista, as every home user I know who has bought a new PC and had to
deal with Vista hates it. Whatever the reason, Microsoft took a huge
step backward from Windows XP, and Apple has a real opportunity to take
market share from Dell, HP, Microsoft, etc.
Dan
Too true, but I've seen Vista idling and using around 30% of the
system overhead on a P4. Leopard uses around 7% of my G4. Yeah, Vista
does suck (clock cycles too), and I don't blame PC users with sticking
to XP - although I know a couple of people who swear by it, most swear
at it. Latest news on Windows 7 is that it could
be a modular release, so at least if you buy the entry level OS you may
not loose all your computer's power.
I also agree that this is Apples best chance in a long time to steal
back market share. Linux is too technical to be accepted by the average
home user and MS are on a downwards spiral. Come on Steve, with OS X.6
you could really clean up.
Mac OS 9 vs. OS X Speed
From Rick Mansfield:
Dan,
I enjoyed your newest article on the speed of Photoshop in XP vs. OS
X.
While I certainly enjoy the benefits of OS X over OS 9, we made a
huge performance trade-off when making the move to OS X.
It's not just Photoshop that is slower. Word 2008 in OS X takes
seemingly forever to launch compared to Word 2007, even when running in
emulation like Parallels.
Compare the current versions of a program like Photoshop or Word in
OS X to their equivalents in OS 9 at it's peak on a G4. That's
Word 2001 and was it Photoshop 5 or 6? Those programs run so much
faster. OS 9 itself on a G4 runs so quickly, and even pages load
faster in IE5 than in Safari.
Again, I would never desire to go back to OS 9 because the
advantages of a newer OS and software outweigh the speed, but we
definitely gave up the latter.
Rick
Rick,
I have to agree with you - we took a huge performance
hit going from the Classic Mac OS to Mac OS X - that said, Mac
OS X kept getting faster as we moved from version 10.0 through
10.3.x. Tiger was generally faster, but Spotlight and the Dashboard
could slow it down. Leopard is the first time OS X has taken a hit
on speed, and that's why it's not recommended on older, slower
Macs.
Mac OS 9 was great, and I sometimes boot into it, but
it feels alien after so many years with OS X. Better yet, Classic
Mode in OS X in many cases provides better performance with
Classic apps than running them natively, thanks to OS X handling a
lot of the overhead. This is especially true on dual-processor
Macs.
Dan
Windows Is Not Faster than OS X
From Harvey:
Hi Dan,
Just wanted to briefly comment on your article about how "Windows XP
Is Faster".
In the recent past there have been articles on the Web complaining
about how Adobe has dropped the ball (purposely?) in optimizing the
Windows version of Photoshop for that operating system, while the Mac
version runs slower on the same processors. In earlier times, Adobe
applications ran noticeably faster on the Mac OS (on slower Motorola
processors) that they did on Windows PCs. Remember Apple's snail &
bunny-man ads in the nineties? It was only when Apple started becoming
a competitor to Adobe by coming out with applications like Aperture and
Final Cut, that Adobe began to devote more resources to optimizing
Photoshop for Windows than for the Mac.
It should be made clear that this speed difference is a problem with
the Mac version of Photoshop, and not a problem with the Mac OS. It has
absolutely nothing to do with "OS X has more overhead - more tasks
running in the background", which is not true at all.
There are many applications that run faster on a Mac than on
Windows. These include Apple's own applications like Safari and iTunes,
as well as applications from third-party developers.
Your article should have made this distinction, rather than painting
Windows XP as "faster" only because Photoshop runs faster than on a
Mac. In fact, Mac OS X (the operating system) has been found to
run faster than Windows in various tests. This becomes very clear when
you try start ups and shut downs of each OS and the same hardware using
Boot Camp.
And, even though Photoshop is an application that currently runs
slower on the Mac, Scott Hansen points out another very important
factor:
His second point is that Mac OS X is much more stable
than Windows when using Photoshop. He complains that working with
Photoshop "in Windows is wrought with errors, bugs, crashes, and lost
work." And it's not just one particular machine - this has been his
constant experience over the years with Windows XP. By comparison, he
says that Photoshop on the Mac has never crashed or misbehaved.
Despite Photoshop being milliseconds slower at some functions on the
Mac, it saves minutes in lost productivity compared to Photoshop
running on Windows. So the reality is that running Photoshop on the Mac
is much faster (and less frustrating) than on Windows.
These points should have been made in your article, rather than
leaving readers with the false impression that "Windows XP Is Faster"
than Mac OS X.
Harvey
Harvey,
Thanks for writing, but the truth of the matter is
that you can't fairly benchmark two different operating systems running
different versions of a program even if it's on exactly the same
hardware. Photoshop for Mac and Photoshop for Windows may function and
appear to be very similar, and now that both Mac and PCs us x86 CPUs,
they may even share some code, they are not the same program and they
are running in different environments.
Then there's the whole matter of optimization.
Photoshop started on the Mac, and for a long time Adobe put the bulk of
its efforts into making sure it ran as well as possible on Macs. Apple
has changed the playing field several times - switching from 680x0 CPUs
to PowerPC and later to Intel, going from the Classic Mac OS to
OS X, and adding powerful new features like Core Graphics. All of
that made it more difficult for Adobe, and the Windows platform
remained more consistent across the years.
Why is Photoshop faster on Windows? Probably because
Adobe sees that as its largest market. And why is Safari faster on
OS X? Probably because Apple developed it on the Mac and sees the
Mac as the most important market for Safari.
Yet another factor is the version of the operating
system. There are some measurable performance differences between Mac
OS X 10.4 and 10.5, just as there are between Windows XP and Vista.
Decisions are made as to what part of the OS should be optimized, and
that changes over time.
The folks at Primate Labs have done their best to
create a platform neutral benchmark, and their Geekbench shows a
4-core 3.0 GHz Mac Pro with Leopard and a 4-core
Windows PC benchmark within about 1% of each other, but Geekbench
doesn't measure disk performance or graphics performance, just the CPU
and memory system.
I can't conjecture why Photoshop runs faster on
Windows than on Macs these days, but I doubt it was a deliberate
decision by Adobe to thumb its nose at the Mac market. After all, Macs
still hold a huge portion of the graphics arts field, Apple's market
share is growing, and nobody benefits if Photoshop for Mac is
intentionally slowed down.
In the end, as you note, the key issue isn't raw
processing power, but the fact that Mac OS X is incredibly stable,
Photoshop runs on it without crashing, and it just lets you be more
productive. So what if Photoshop is faster between crashes?
Dan
Show Me the Data
From Gene Steinberg, the Mac Night
Owl:
I am troubled by your article interviewing someone who claims that
Photoshop runs faster on Windows XP than under Mac OS X. From what I've
read over the years, given the same processors and configuration
performance out to be fairly similar, since core Photoshop rendering
functions shouldn't depend so much on operating system overhead.
Unfortunately, the article doesn't mention the version of Photoshop
used. Was it CS3 - Universal - or not? Worse, benchmarking information
is lacking and also how the tests were timed. In each case, preferences
would need to be set the same, and, ideally, a full restart would
follow each test run.
As I said, questions and questions and few answers, which I'd like
particularly when you read test results that are clearly anomalous.
Peace,
Gene Steinberg
Gene,
Thanks for writing. The article was written by someone
who uses Photoshop regularly to manipulate large images, and his
findings aren't based on artificial benchmarks but his real experience
working with his own projects. He said that on the same hardware,
Photoshop under Windows XP was faster than Photoshop for the Mac. As
he's running very up-to-date hardware, I'm guessing he's using Leopard
and the latest version of Photoshop, although he doesn't state that and
didn't answer that question when I interviewed him.
The gist of the article is that while Windows
computers may get the job done a little bit faster, the Mac OS is both
friendlier and more stable, allowing you to get more work done because
you don't have to deal with as many crashes. I can buy that without
needing to know exactly which version of OS X and Photoshop he's
using, let alone the exact time differences between his tests. As
Hansen needs to be productive in Photoshop, I have to trust that he's
making as fair an assessment as he can - it directly impacts his
productivity.
Dan
Dan Knight has been publishing Low
End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.
