Impressive New Operating System; Gorgeous New iBook
What a Combination
October 24 Meeting Highlights
By Keith Cooper
October’s FinMUG Meeting was a casual (and small) gathering but was
filled with information. The demonstration for the night was the installation of
OS X Public Beta on a beautiful new iBook.
Michael Duke brought a couple of new additions to his family of Macs to our last
meeting. His new acquisitions are two brand new iBooks: A classic Graphite special
edition and the new bright Key Lime green iBook. If you haven’t checked out these
new machines go to http://www.apple.com/ibook/ and see these beauties for yourself. There sharper looking with a brighter
white version of ice, faster, with more storage and a long-awaited addition of FireWire
connectivity.
I arrived to the meeting a bit late to find that I had missed a great tutorial on
Life Cycles (especially where it relates to Apple’s market share). I forced Michael
to give a repeat performance. As a bonus we were also treated to a fascinating illustration
of how the glass is manufactured for display screens.
During this entertaining lecture we were able to get the OS X Beta install well underway.
Once the installer had completed the task of extracting files and installing its
packages we were on to the task of assigning the administrator user. This is the
user of the computer with the authority to make changes to the system, software,
settings and control access to the computer.
After logging in as admin Michael created a lower level user. This is a must when
using OS X because it protects the system from mistakes you may make as an administrator.
Because OS X is a multi-user operating system it is important to be aware of these
issues. Michael spent a lot of time showing us the ins and outs of user management.
Because OS X native software is still relatively thin out there Michael also spent
a lot of time showing how OS X Beta and OS 9.x coexist. He demonstrated the ease
with which Classic loads itself and how familiar Mac OS 9 applications look because
the interface your used to pops up when the programs are launched. Michael also demonstrated
how easy it is to switch between booting in OS X and booting in OS 9 through the
use of the Startup Disk extension on OS X and the System Disk extension on the Mac
OS 9 side.
Anyone who is interesting in installing the Public Beta can order the CD for about
$30 at Apple’s website. I would also suggest checking out December’s MacWorld magazine.
There is a great survival guide there that explains in some detail what to expect
when you install.
Thanks to all who attended the meeting. Thanks to Michael Duke for a great meeting.
Thank you to the Barfoots and Bethany for the hospitality. Look forward to seeing
you all on November 28 for our next meeting.
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