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Leopard or Vista?
- Thread starter xisforextreme
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JFreak said:
Have you read Sircusa's Tiger review on Arstechnica? He covers most of it pretty well. Spotlight can't index database stores so Thunderbird, Eudora and many other programs simply don't work with it. In fact, Apple had to change Mail, iCal, and Addressbook so they all started kicking out individual files for each entry. So now iCal and other apps have both a database and individual copies of everything in the database... that's very wasteful and just a hack instead of a real implementation.
Spotlight lacks real netowrk capability because it can't index anything it can't write directly to. It has to store its index on the drive its indexing which absolutely sucks in most networked enviorments. Also indexing networked NTFS or Linux drives, and read-only drives (FTP's, optical drives, network shares) is completely out of the question.
The Get info window's new metadata is bound to Spotlight so if something isn't indexed you can't see any of the newly exposed metadata. Open up an FTP site and look at a JPEG or something on it and you'll notice you get very littel metadata. Now download that file to your desktop and wait for it to be indexed. Now look at the Get Info window and you'll see much more metadata.
The Finder's list view doesn't use any of that new metadata at all. No new columns anywhere.
Each file format can only have one importer. So you can't have a real implementation of aribitrarily extensible metadata with Spotlight. For instance, lets say you have an importer for Photoshop files and images (EXIF, IPTC, XMP etc.) and a new metadata system comes out for images (called XMP2 for instance). Well now you need a new importer for each file type that covers all the things that the original importer covers otherwise you'll lose some metadata. You can't just design an importer for XMP2 and let the old importer handle EXIF, IPTC, and XMP. You're XMP2 importer must be designed to support EXIF, IPTC etc. or else you lose that stuff. So how is a third-party expected to add their own metadata to an existing format? BTW, there are more than a few extra metadata formats for PDF, MP3, OGG, and other file types that simply won't work because of this. Not to mention anything that covers "all documents" (Word files, Pages Files, RTF, TXT etc.) is nearly impossible to make without breaking all the other importers.
Notice how you do a search with Spotlight and it gives you thousands of results but doesn't tell you why it returned each result? You search for "Pixar" and you don't know if the files returned have Pixar in Spotlight comments, keyword field, content, copyright data, or author fields. And the only way for you to find out is to open each file and investigate yourself. What if Google just returned a bunch of links with no excepts of their content? It would be mostly useless unless you already knew the link to the site you were looking for. A preivew would be nice.
You can't save searches from a Spotlight window which is dumb.
You can't save things to virtual folders so you still have to use the heirarchy for the file metaphor instead of letting the computer handle it.
You can't use nested boolean without dropping to the CLI.
No "OR" statements.
It's tied to the kernel and not the actual file system itself so monitoring networked or shared folders (where the file aren't passing through the kernel of your machine) is not possible.
You can't drag and drop to virtual folders (something in every Longhorn build since 4008 but Apple dropped the ball on that one).
Adding metadata is still nearly useless because it doesn't actually travel with the file nor does it use traditionally defined metadata keys. In other words you can't modify keywords but Spotlight comments (which have no key separation).
You need Automator to add multiple Spotlight comments to multiple files.
Go check your facts.
http://desktop.msn.com/
It was released 12/15/2004. Indexing Service, which handles 90%+ of the same functionality plus some extra stuff, was released with Windows 2000.
And much of the improvements that need to be made to Spotlight can't be done reasonably without breaking a lot of existing apps and API's.
BGil said:As if XP was buggier than 10.1or Tiger for that matter.
i count every security hole as a bug. therefore XP has been the buggiest operating system ever.
BGil said:
it doesn't compare. i have windows XP installed at work and i don't have access to spotlight-like search features. maybe i could install a 3rd party app, but it's not an operating system feature then. with tiger, the user is always one click away from the search function. there's nothing comparable in windows.
wasn't it you who so greatly emhasized about the specific implementation that counts? well, the specific implementation of easy and fast search is totally nonexistent in windows, and it's what you get out of the box what counts. my work XP doesn't have any desktop search functionality, at least not installed by default. the underlying technology is not relevant in this regard.
...and if it were, you would instantly have to compare that tech to whatever NEXT had in the 90's, because OSX is in fact the next NEXT.
so what is the fact you want to get checked? something that NEXT had or something windows doesn't have? the bottom line is that tiger has an easy, fast and working search implementation that computer illiterate people can use. it's up there ready to be used, and people do use it a lot.
(i'm an IT admin and still don't ever use windows searches, because that's too much work for too little results. maybe vista does it better, but that's at least a year away.)
I never said that. Why does everyone seem to be so big about spotlight? It's just a glorified search engine. Does it matter who had it first? At all? As far as I've seen, sure, it searches within metadata, but, as far as I've seen with these ones, it doesn't search within the file, like Spotlight does. Either way, I don't really careBGil said:
BGil said:
Let me tell you about a thing called sarcasm. My post was not meant to be taken seriously.
The search function in Windows has always been one click away. Open the start menu or click the search button in any Explorer window. WDS isn't third party BTW.
Wrong. It's not turned on by default in Windows XP. Turn on indexing and you get all the elements of fast desktop search and more advanced that Spotlight too.
There are two text entry boxes. One for "All or part of a filename" and another for "word or phase within a file". It's sitting there clear as day.
The Tiger is still the buggiest OS (since 10.1). Look at Apple's security fixes and all the ones from Apache. And Tiger has only been out for 3.5 months.
toneloco2881 said:
at least they moved away from the 'teletubbies' colour scheme... that's a big step for MS
hahaha at least it no longer looks like a kidstoy...greatdevourer said:
I disabled spotlight here... as did I with Dashboard...
my old G4 has arrived and whenever I have time & money I will set it up to be a fileserver... to backup all my pictures... so maybe I'll leave spotlight on that one... might be usefull if a client later on asks for a file... but than again I store them in folders with the clients name and in that a folder with the name of the project... probably the fastest way anyway... spotlight allways show too much results
hahaha
The very fact that you have to turn WDS on ensures that consumers won't use it. There's a reason that Microsoft has wizards in XP. Spotlight is visible right from when one installs 10.4. And the non-Spotlight search in 10.3 and below was pretty damned fast too. A far sight faster than default Windows search.BGil said:
Why not just integrate filename and word/phrase search in one box? People are smart enough to add the extension to look for the filename.
The bugginess you describe implies that all open-source software (like Apache) is somehow tied to a bug with Apple. It's not. And much of the open-source stuff like Apache isn't on by default - if it's not on, it can't do harm.
I've been watching this thread for a while before I made any comments going either way. Vista has good things going for it, as does Mac OS X.
However, Microsoft has a tendency to hide the good things from users and make things difficult to access. Apple tends to increase the availability of technology, and faster too.
WDS being a perfect example. You mentioned (but I didn't quote) that WDS has been available since 2000, and that it was turned off due to the fact that computers in 2000 couldn't handle instant search. Well here we are, five years later, and people with Apple computers from before 2000 are happily running 10.4, happily using Spotlight, and enjoying the benefits of instant search.
So I can draw the conclusion that the "same" feature (from consumer perspective) took MS 5 years to get workable, and took Apple 1 year to make work. And before you mention features that most people won't use (why would I want to index other people's volumes over FTP?) I say that for 90% of users, Spotlight works well enough.
And on the other side of the fence...previewing pictures in OS X sucks. I like how Windows has a view for pictures that OS X still can't match (though 128X128 icons helps).
NO OS can be everything for everybody. That's why we have so many different ones. And a comparison just leaves everybody unhappy in the end because people don't like being told that what they use day-to-day is crap.
I say to users of all OSes - without the other guys, there'd be no incentive for YOUR OS maker to improve.
Why bother? Microsoft is pathologically incapable of designing a user interface. I had to use XP the other day and I had forgotten just how bad it is.
We hear all this talk about Longhorn/Vista from people, but the previews basically suck. Sure, what they say sounds "reasoned", but it's the same old BS of claiming something is going to be so great and then never delivering.
My prediction is that Vista will just be a prettier version of XP. More bloated borgware from MS.
I'm guessing BGil is one of the Windows losers who hangs around XvsXP constantly getting owned by Rosyna.
We hear all this talk about Longhorn/Vista from people, but the previews basically suck. Sure, what they say sounds "reasoned", but it's the same old BS of claiming something is going to be so great and then never delivering.
My prediction is that Vista will just be a prettier version of XP. More bloated borgware from MS.
I'm guessing BGil is one of the Windows losers who hangs around XvsXP constantly getting owned by Rosyna.
Okay...JFreak said:there is no such thing as semi-transparent. it either is transparent or it isn't. if it's an almost-see-through surface, then it's TRANSLUCENT. oh, well... this comment is semantics, really; however, there's nothing more distracting than using wrong terms
Oxford said:
Merriam-Webster said:
Houghton-Mifflin said:
With the growing list of missing functions is enough to make me say Leopard will be the better OS. What a joke.
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BGil said:
i cut out most of your quote to keep it short. i think all of your points are valid.
however what you are looking for is a search tool for a professional enviroment, network drives and so on. i don't think spotlight is that. not even close. it's a nice little desktop search tool. and it's fast. for the home user with an imac and one external HD. from that point of view it's a great product.
from your point of view it sucks and you're right about it. but the tool you're looking for is a real pro tool that i wouldn't expect bundled in a $129 OS.
it's a little bit like iphoto. it's great for the home user. or pages. it's great for a few flyers. or imovie. or iDVD. you get the pattern. apple is developing more and more light consumer apps and products. i just hope the also keep a set of pro apps and pro products because thats whats driving innovation and quality.
I didn't say it sucked. I like Spotlight but I think it's half-baked.
I agree although it could be better. It just bothers me that Apple choose to cut corners in favor of a marketing gimmick so now my new Mac Mini (in the mail) won't be able to search the rest of my network including my file and media server. It's like they designed it in a vaccum. How is Spotlight supposed to work with Soundtrack Pro and FCP Studio? It's only common sense that the central file store for many studios is on a network or central file server. Do you know how amazing it would be if Soundtrack could allow fast searching through all the sound effects, plugins, and loops on our network? But Apple decided it was more important to have a marketing gimmick than developing their product a little more.
i like an OS that looks nice but if it is bad an doing stuff and unstable( virues spyware) its worth less and becuz of that Vista will be worth less, i'd like too see Vista get canceld for a completly new kind of OS like what apple did for OSX from OS9. BUt i doubt MS could make a good OS from the ground up
i dont understand why every one keeps asking Leopard or Vista? i think i would be diffrent if you could run Leopard on regular pcs or Vista on macs.. as of right now no one knows for sure if you will be able to run the 2 on diffrent platforms... So who really cares? microsoft is playing catchup now "stealing" ideas from apple. Maybe this time apple with grap a couple ideas from micrsoft... As long as microsoft has to keep legacy support for 1 million hardware configs, microsoft will always be an unstable piece of poo