Ramblings, by Doug Corbett.

Hi, folks. We are trying again to put some of our thoughts to paper this week.

As you know we have been experimenting with OS X to determine just how we will be accepting this new operating system.

Macworld has taken the, in my opinion, extreme position that we will all be using OS X by years end: "By the end of 2001, Macworld will test and rate all products based solely on how they perform on Mac OS X." (Macworld, Macworld and Mac OS X, We're closer than you think, Page 45, October 2001.)

On the one side, I applaud them for keeping us informed regarding the developments in the Macintosh community. They are expected to keep us advised of developments relevant to the hardware and software that we use. We want them to expose us to all the 'latest.' On the other hand, how well do they know their audience?

I believe they have mistakenly assumed that a large percentage of Macintosh users even have the hardware capable of running the new OS and that we users are out buying the new OS. In the referenced article they state that "by July, 68% of you will have already purchased Mac OS X."

Macworld has drawn this conclusion from a survey (research) by Karlin and Associates - Macworld OS X study 4/01.

So all of you out there who have bought OS X raise your hands... I am having a little trouble seeing all those hands... Actually from the list of computers in use by members attending our last meeting and an informal telephone survey, I get the following results. (Please keep in mind that this was a very impromptu survey, only of those who answered there phones on the nights that I attempted to call, and one member who returned my phone call message.)

We have 6 members who have a G4, or use a G4 at work. We have 7 members who have a G3, (at least three of these have 466/500 mhz G3 Ziff upgrades), 4 iMacs, 8 who have Power PC's and a small number (less than 5) that still use one of the 68K machines, mostly as a second machine.

Out of all of those, we have only 3 'families' that use OS X! We have 10 that use 9.0.4 through 9.2 with the remainder using from 7.5.3 up to 8.6.

Those that use OS X do not use it full time and must return to 9.X to do such chores as printing, etc. so this doesn't add up to 68% even if I use 'new math.'

At the meeting today I want to also talk about two search engines... opps I meant 3, browsers and other topics as they come up...

Yes, you can copy CD's with Toast Lite...

Have a good day.

dc