Steamd

I knew that it would be inevitable…eventually my new Mac would crash. No computer is perfect. Hardware and software problems can and will occur. So why would a Mac be any different?

I bought my Mac Mini about 4-5 months ago. Last November, I upgraded to Mac OS X Leopard the very day it came out. Since that time, I’ve had a few programs crash and quit here and there. Hasn’t happened on a frequent basis. Nothing I would call major by any stretch of the imagination. Programs crash now and then. That’s just a fact of life. And when it happens, I can usually just relaunch the program and be on my merry way. I save and I save often when working on important files. So to have a program crash really doesn’t hurt my feelings.

So, this morning, I was working on a few things. I had a few programs open: Mail, Safari, GSync, Aptana, Adium, and iTunes. Not much. Then I started to launch Firefox to do a quick webpage test. Bam! The screen when opaque with a small box like the one listed here telling me that I need to restart my computer. So I shutdown and restarted my computer.

Upon logging back in, I was presented with a simple window telling me that my computer had crashed unexpectedly and asked if I’d like to send a log to Apple. Viewing the log gives you a few simple options to view the log information itself, basic system info, and a place to add some comments on what you were doing at the time the crash happened so you can send this information to Apple. This is very similar to what happens on a Windows XP/Vista system when it crashes. Only difference is that a Windows system itself goes directly to a very unfriendly blue screen when it crashes (the dreaded Blue Screen of Death!) and doesn’t tell the end user anything useful about what just happened or what to do when it happens. BSOD’s are generally confusing to an end user and pretty much freaks out anyone who doesn’t know shit about computers. Apple at least gives an indication to the user on what they need to do. The ability to send the logs to the OS maker is pretty much the same between the two OS’s, but I do feel that Apple’s is more straight-forward and a bit less confusing since it keeps everything in just one windows and a few tabs.

This is the first and only time I’ve had a kernel panic. The fact that it didn’t happen in the 4 months I’ve been using Leopard is impressive. This is just testament that a Mac does indeed crash a lot less often than a Windows machine. Before I got my Mac, I pretty much used Windows XP exclusively. My experience has been that programs on XP as well as XP itself crash more often than they do on a Mac. Plus, I find I can recover from a crash much more effectively on my Mac.

As weird as this may seem, the experience of having a kernel panic on a Mac was somehow comforting. I didn’t get the feeling that the end of the world was happening. Nor did I think something drastically wrong was with my computer to make me think I had to call Apple on it. Now, if this becomes a highly repetitive thing, I can see that. But, for now, I have the comfort knowing that I can go back to doing my thing and not worry about it so much. Somehow I feel this is exactly what goes on in the mind of the average Mac user. And, in my opinion, that’s a very good thing. An informed computer user is an educated computer.

Now, before I begin, I’ll just say that I’m not going to knock Tom Krazit on his CNet blog post called Problems with the Mac promised land. He made some very valid and interesting points. However, there are a few areas that I feel might be misconstrued. For instance:

“It’s never clear in the early going exactly how many people as a whole run into problems with Macs, since things get quickly blown out of proportion under the intense scrutiny paid to Apple. But the basic complaint seems to be: this ain’t what we thought it would be. Buggy upgrades? Security issues? This is why we switched to the Mac in the first place, right?”

Was Leopard really that buggy? Did it really have security issues galore? Sort of but not really. Compared to a Vista upgrade though, Leopard is probably one of the smoothest upgrades I’ve ever seen. No software product is going to be perfect right out of the starting gate. And, you’re right, how quickly a company can react to problems is very important. However, it’s human nature for people to blow the whistle much harder when they have problems versus when they don’t.

A lot of the issues with Leopard are overblown just as much as Macs are hyped. Many issues were fixed fairly quickly with the first set of patches and fixes. Many others were due to changes Apple made to the security of the OS. For instance, I had a problem sharing a folder out to a Windows machine on my network. The folder simply didn’t show up. It wasn’t until I disabled the default Guest account and set my account to allow for sharing via SMB till it worked. Shared folders is but one thing Apple changed pretty dramatically and thus the way it works is different. As such many people would consider this a bug. It’s not though; it just works a bit different that before.

You’re right about the TV commercials. Are people really that naive that they believe everything they see in a commercial? I mean, think about the truck and Hummer commercials. Do people really think they’re gonna go off-road and travel over a mountain and a bed of rocks? I mean, really?

It was recently announced that Mac OS X Leopard has sold 2 million copies in the first weekend of its release. That’s just for the boxed copies and probably doesn’t include copies that come pre-installed on new Macs. 2 million is quite a bit. I’d say that’s a pretty darn good start for a new OS.

For comparisons sake, I tried to find out just how many boxed copies of Vista were sold in the first weekend of its release but could only find a post on ZDNet where Microsoft claims to have sold 20 million copies in the first month of Vista’s release. However, the problem is that the 20 million includes Vista licenses preloaded on new PCs, upgrades, copies sold through the Vista Express Upgrade program and full packaged product sold at retail between January 30 and February 28. Great…that doesn’t really tell me how many people actually went out and bought a copy of Vista within the first weekend of its release to take home and install on their existing PC. Could be half a million, a million, 2 million…who the hell knows!

One thing is for sure though…excitement for Leopard within the first weekend of its release seems to exceed the level of enthusiasm for Windows Vista when it was first released…and the numbers prove it.

Now, with any OS release there are likely be pundits who will try and knock it down a few pegs. There’s one report about a flaw in the Leopard firewall. And, as the Macalope pointed out, there are others who claim that lots of stuff gets broken with the upgrade and that you shouldn’t upgrade. Not only that but that Apple supposedly rushed Leopard out the door.

Look, Leopard is not perfect. Neither was Tiger or any of the other prior Mac OS releases. By comparison though, Leopard is a far more solid release than Windows Vista. Vista was riddled with driver issues and software incompatibilities galore. Six months later and Vista still have the same issues which in turn has caused many individuals and companies to reconsider upgrading to Vista or purchasing computers with Vista preinstalled. The same simply can not be said about Leopard.

There are things about Leopard that bug me…but when compared to Vista I think Leopard is a far better OS. I upgraded to Leopard the very day it came out and had only two software applications that gave me problems. Out of the some odd 30 applications I usually install that’s pretty damn good if you ask me. And the two apps that gave me problems were pretty minor: Plaxo and Growl. I can do without Growl for the time being and Plaxo still works even though it has a quirk or two. Aside from that, Leopard has been the smoothest upgrade of any OS I’ve ever used. Couldn’t be happier!

Boy, am I excited! Mac OS X Leopard is set to arrive on October 26th! This is one of those rare times when I’m actually excited about a software release. I just bought a Mac Mini not too long ago and have officially switched away from my old PC to the Mac so Leopard will most certainly be a welcomed upgrade.

I used to be a Windows guy. I’ve used Windows since the day Windows 95 came out and I’ve upgraded and used every Windows OS since then. Buck stopped when I started beta testing Vista. I’ve never seen anything so horrid since Windows ME. This is probably the first time I’ve ever told others to not buy a computer with a specific OS on it. Vista is just that bad.

Switching to a Mac was inevitable in my case. I’ve been a PHP developer for a couple of years now and, as such, use a lot of open-source tools that tend to cater to a Unix/Linux environment. Being that the Mac OS is Unix-based this makes it perfect for anyone doing a lot of open-source development. Granted, Linux distros like SUSE and Ubuntu are good too…but they’re just not as good as the Mac OS for doing things like editing videos and photos and such.

So…very soon, my Mac experience will be nearly complete. Already have an iPod, iPhone, an old MacBook G4 (which I plan to sell), and a new Mac Mini. Topping it off with Leopard will just make me into that much more of an Apple Fanboy!