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Spotlight is life-changing.
 technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

T h e   R o a d   L e s s   T r a v e l e d
Apple's latest operating system is a Tiger with charm and grace


Aug. 24, 2005


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, The Post-Standard

   Imagine a computer that can locate anything -- files, pictures, programs, notes -- within a fraction of a second. Imagine one that has dozens of gorgeous secondary programs that appear or disappear with a single keystroke. Imagine one that does all this while enjoying total immunity to Windows viruses and spyware.
   You'd be imagining an Apple Macintosh running Tiger, the latest version of the OS X operating system. If you're already using Tiger -- OS X 10.4 -- you probably know this already.
   The amazing search system, Spotlight, locates everything so quickly that it's finished before you are. (I'm not even exaggerating. Spotlight often finds what you're looking for before you finish typing the search term.) And the almost-too-cute Dashboard seems to have been inspired by a strawberry gellato -- it's colorful, refreshing and delightful to the eyes.
   Spotlight is life-changing. When your Mac is running Tiger, you smile more often and have more time to spend with the rest of the family. That's because you don't waste time looking for anything. You locate stuff instantly, no matter what bit is or where it was stored. Or, for that matter, what kind of item it is -- e-mail, school reports, downloads, music or anything else.
   (Tip for Spotlight: Press Cmd-Space to open its search form without the mouse.)
   Dashboard will remind you how you felt the first time you played a video game. The widgets (tiny applications, or applets) that come with Dashboard are so pretty you feel like licking them. You can get more, too. I ended up with a few dozen after only two days of having fun with them. My favorite so far: A Web cam viewer that shows beaches along the east coast.
   (Tips for Dashboard: Launch it with F12, and disable, or uncheck, the widgets you want to keep but don't want on your screen. That will save memory and processor power.)
   A few other things I like about Tiger:
   It starts up quickly. Three cheers to Apple for bringing fast booting to OS X. I'm no longer jealous of Windows XP in that area.
   It will do anything, maybe even serve it up as a ham sandwich, with a PDF. The print dialog has a PDF button that offers options from A to Z -- or from A to W, at least. ("W" is for "Web Receipts" in this case. You can make a PDF of all Web pages that contain ordering and sales information. It's called a "Web Receipt.")
   It offers a superb new version of Safari, the Apple Web browser. I've stopped using the OS X version of Firefox now that I have Safari 2.0 in Tiger. Safari 2.0 does RSS feeds nicely, too. (I'll be writing about RSS, which stands for "Really Simple Syndication," in my Sunday column soon.)
   It has a new central core, or kernel, that operates with what geeks call less "contention." Non-geeks can just admire the way multiple file and network operations can take place simultaneously without affecting each other.
   There's more, of course. You'll probably discover many of Tiger's other new features on your own in daily use. But next week I'll present a list of hidden features. Don't miss that column.