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| Mac OS X v.10.3 “Panther” | |
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Apple’s third revision of OS X, code-named “Panther,” does a lot of little things better. Panther includes more than 150 new features and substantial under-the-hood improvements. Some are cosmetic, while others, such as FileVault, Exposé and a revamped Finder are significant and of interest to law firms. The only downside is price — at $129, Panther is a full-price upgrade. All things considered, however, Panther is worth every penny. The new Exposé is a great timesaver. Perhaps you are drafting a brief using several Microsoft Word documents and you need to move quickly among them. With a user-configurable hot key or mouse button, Exposé neatly shrinks open windows so all are viewable onscreen. Click on the one you want, and it’s resized as the main window. Another mouse button or hot key can be programmed to clear shuffled windows that are open in your application, move them to the sides of your screen and reveal the Finder desktop. Exposé also works between and among applications. While working on a brief, you also can do Internet research. One mouse click unshuffles your foreground Web page to reveal thumbnails of all other open documents. Click on the window you want, and you can paste the information you retrieved into your document. Exposé is a true timesaver when working with multiple applications or word processing documents. The Panther multi-pane Finder simplifies document finding, copying and moving. Open any volume or folder on the Finder, and a “Sidebar” pane appears on the left side of the open window. Virtually any document, folder, application, network volume or removable media can be placed in the pane for one-click access to its contents or to launch the file. Files can be copied from the main window into any other local or networked volumes or folders in the Sidebar without having to open the target folder. This feature has become indispensable to my daily routine. Apple also returned Labels to the Finder, which aids in data organization. A faster “search” command displays each found file as soon as you type the first characters of its name. Again, these small changes save a lot of time. Panther also significantly speeds up user switching. You don’t have to close your applications or terminate your network connections when you switch, so you can recommence work exactly where you left it when you switch back. FileVault uses a 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard to secure your complete “Home” directory from unauthorized access. When you activate it the first time, you must supply “Master” and “User” passwords so FileVault accounts can be unlocked. Then, FileVault will log you out while it encrypts your data. Afterward, once you have logged in, files are decrypted on the fly. The files remain secure if your computer is lost or stolen. Using “Master” and “User” passwords allows a supervising attorney to access an associate’s files. Be forewarned, however, if you lose both passwords, access to the data is gone forever. There are no workarounds. Another issue is FileVault will not let you back up your encrypted home folders using unattended automatic backup programs if you are not logged in. Nor can you designate only certain files for encryption; all must be included. Other features include an improved version of the Safari Web browser. The mail.app also has substantially more control over junk mail and a new way to organize messages by thread. An entire e-mail discussion from the attorneys assigned to a specific case can be organized using a “master thread” with the most recent message moving to the top. Apple also gave TextEdit the ability to open and save files in Word format, and Preview, Apple’s Portable Document Format viewer, is substantially faster at displaying PDF files. Overall speed was improved, especially on a dual processor G4 or G5 Macintosh, and boot times on all qualified Macs are shorter. My 12-inch, 867MHz PowerBook boots in less than 45 seconds — down from nearly two minutes with Jaguar. There are compatibility issues with some third-party applications, but nothing mainstream. Beyond the obvious improvements are a number of under-the-hood gains. For example, I regularly repair permissions using Apple’s disk utility. When I used Jaguar, a repair session usually would disclose a number of errors in the Unix code. In Panther, it rarely makes any repairs. I have found multitasking to be greatly improved, with no noticeable performance hit when running applications simultaneously. |
Apple Computer Price: $129 for a single-user license. Contact Apple for additional price schemes. Reviewed by David A. Saraceno, a practicing attorney and owner of Pixelcraft Studios, a presentation graphics consulting firm in Spokane, Wash. PROS CONS VERDICT |
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