Personal Technology: Apple Unveils Tiger

Fast Forward's Rob Pegoraro discussed the latest release of the Apple operating system, code-named Tiger. Rob reviewed Tiger on Sunday.

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Rob Pegoraro: Good afternoon! Let's talk Tiger--the new operating system from Apple that I reviewed yesterday.

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Tampa, FL: Will Spotlight search MS Entourage for emails? If not, do you think future versions will be able to do so? I think this is a major flaw. In my work, emails are just as important part of projects as documents. I just bought Office 2004 for Mac, and I'm still trying to figure out Project Center. But I keep getting interrupted by family member to clean up their infected PCs (I've actually got my sister saying she might buy a Mac!). If you don't mind changing subjects, which anti-spyware program would you recommend to compliment Norton Antivirus 2005.

Rob Pegoraro: No, not yet--Entourage's e-mail structure is one data type that the Spotlight search software in Tiger can't read just yet. I don't know if Microsoft is going to ship a Spotlight plug-in to fix that, but we can certainly hope for one...

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Anonymous: My Mac currently has 384 MB of memory. Is this enough to run Tiger? My original Mac memory wouldn't run Panther so I had to upgrade to 384.

Thanks, John

Rob Pegoraro: It will run Tiger, no doubt. But you might not always enjoy it. 512 MB felt like "enough" (well, most of the time), while 256 MB almost never felt like it was sufficient. If you don't employ the fast-user-switching option, I will venture the guess that you could get by alright with 384 MB.

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Silverdale, WA: My first purchase of an Apple, The Powerbook -E/K I just bought was supposed to have the Tiger Installed. It wasn't. The salesperson told me I could install it 'free' from the website. 'Free' isn't available there. Rather than the expected troublefree system (in comparison w/Win98) I've got my first laptop sitting in its box waiting for me to figure out how to install "free" the system that was supposed to be already installed. What can I do? Thank you!

Rob Pegoraro: What store did you buy your PowerBook from? It can't have been any kind of Apple specialist; Apple hasn't released major OS upgrades as free downloads since, oh, System 7 or so. What you'll need to do is buy a copy of Tiger at the "Up-To-Date" discount price of $10. That's available to anybody who buys a Mac after April 12 that doesn't have Tiger pre installed.

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Santa Monica, Calif.: I "switched" to Apple from PC and would up switching BACK to PC again when I found that Apple's iCal&Address Book were very basic and that I couldn't reliably sync between two Macs with my Palm/Tungsten PDA, which I need to do. Apple Techs admitted to me that Macs can't be synced with Palm with more than one Mac. Does the new version of OS X improve those programs and allow you to sync two macs with a Palm OS PDA? Thanks

Rob Pegoraro: I use iCal/Address Book/iSync all the time, but that's normally with just one computer. (But, y'know, even Palm says you shouldn't try to sync one Palm handheld with multiple PCs using its own software.) The version of iSync in Tiger runs a hell of a lot faster than the earlier versions; however, the iSync Conduit that lets iSync take the place of Palm Desktop does need some more work. I'm hoping that an updated version will arrive soon... right, Apple?

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Minneapolis: What is your favorite feature of Tiger?

Rob Pegoraro: Spotlight

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Yuma, AR: I just wanted to write in to announce I plan to buy Mac OS X Tiger after May 12th (2005; i.e. next month) and upgrade to Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac OS X as soon as possible,

I am currently running Mac OS X Panther and Microsoft Office X but plan to upgrade both soon. I laugh when I read about Windows Longhorn at the poor folks tricked into thinking Windows is a better operating system and plan to get Longhorn (meaning no interest in Mac OS X Tiger for their part).

Rob Pegoraro: Thanks for the comments. Office 2004 is probably my favorite Microsoft release... they did a terrific job of crafting an Office release that takes advantage of the Mac's capabilities (and caters to individual users, instead of the server-centric design of Office 2003 for Windows).

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Cambridge, MA: Are you able to use iChat to video conference with windows users?

Rob Pegoraro: Yes--as long as they're running AOL Instant Messenger 5.5 or newer. (That's been the case for a while now.)

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Arlington, VA: Hi Rob, I went out and bought Tiger Friday, the thing is I don't really see that many differences in the OS (and I was on Jaguar before!). I mean yes dashboard is cute and the finder is a bit quicker (I think) but other than that where are all the 200 features? I have yet to find any real use for automator, not to mention how to work it so it's easy. It seems to me this isn't really the upgrade they made it out to be.

Rob Pegoraro: First, a lot of the new features in Tiger are at the foundation level, where they must be tapped by outside software developers who can use them to make better programs than before. (I wrote about this in my newsletter this morning). Things like the Core Image and Core Data frameworks could amount to a huge difference a year from now.

Second, if you didn't notice a big difference between Jaguar (OS X 10.2) and Tiger... well, I'm astounded. In terms of strictly the looks of things, going from Jaguar to Panther is a bigger jump than going from Panther to Tiger. I mean, try using Expose for a week, then use a Windows PC--I dare you tell me you're not annoyed by the lack of a comparable feature in Windows.

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Tulelake, CA: Rob: I am looking at a new computer. I have ran windows PC for ever but am considering a new Mac G5 which has the Tiger OS. I have avoided Mac's in the past due to lack of software, ie accounting, drafting. Is this a good time to make the change, or is a change a smart move. I do a lot of internet stuff, email.

Rob Pegoraro: I'm no accountant, nor am I much of a draftsman, so I don't know much about the state of Mac software in those categories--the latter especially. (I at least know the names of the major Mac book-keeping programs--QuickBooks and AccountEdge, right?) I think that if you can find programs in those categories that meet your needs (which I suspect you will), you'll probably be pleased with a Mac.

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Sakado, Japan: For an MS owner on the sidelines watching the buildup of the Mac OS over the past 3 years, would you suggest now is a better time to invest in a Mac or is there something better to come?

Rob Pegoraro: One quibble--you never "invest" in a computer, any more than you'd "invest" in a car. A computer is always going to lose its value over time, so it's a lousy investment. Second, to answer your actual question: With Tiger, I think Apple's likely to take a little while for its next update. And whenever that does arrive, I don't think it's going to change any of the foundation-level underpinnings introduced in Tiger. As for Mac hardware, waiting six months or a year (or more!) might allow you to buy a Power Mac with a dual-core processor or a PowerBook with a G5 chip inside. But if you don't need that extra speed, there's no real reason to wait if you need a computer now.

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Bethesda, MD: Since I passed on OS 10.3.x, I have some anxiety that installing 10.4 over 10.2.x will be a more traumatic experience for my somewhat older applications and application data. Do you have any info on this?

Rob Pegoraro: All of my test installs were on Macs running one version or another of Panther, but they all were trouble-free. And in the four years or so that I have been trying out and using Mac OS X--which covers dozens of installations and upgrades--I've only had one bad experience, the 10.3.7-to-10.3.8 trainwreck I wrote about in my newsletter. So I think you'll be fine going from 10.2 to 10.4. I also think you should back up your data beforehand anyway, just because that's a good idea before installing *any* big update.

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Jacksonville, FL: Rob, Did you encounter any slowdowns with Tiger, particularly with the Mail program. I hear Apple is already working on an update to deal with occasional spinning beach balls.

Rob Pegoraro: The beach-ball cursor did surface quite a few times, especially on the Mac mini. (Having two user accounts logged in simultaneously on that machine was one of the most gruesomely slow experiences I've had on a Mac anytime lately.) In particular, you can see a brief lag when invoking Dashboard (as the widget apps get switched back to active memory) or when typing Spotlight searches (if you pause after typing two or three letters of your query, the system will think you want it to find items matching them and not let you keep typing for a moment or two).

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California: Shocked that Tiger is not releasing JAVA 1.5

What is going on?

Gloria

Rob Pegoraro: Apple released that upgrade (technically, "Java 2 Standard Edition 5.0") on its Web site on Friday: www.apple.com/java/

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Biloxi, MS: re drafting software check architect website called www.architosh.com, also a good site for technical info on mac.

Rob Pegoraro: Thanks, Biloxi!

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Chattanooga, TN: If I'm already running the latest version of 10.3, do I REALLY need to upgrade?

Rob Pegoraro: This is the situation I tried to address in my column. I decided that, if you're a Panther user happy with the current state of your Mac, it won't hurt at all to wait a few weeks or even a few months. That's because Panther is already a terrific operating system; it's not like you're stuck using some beat-up old relic if you don't upgrade to Tiger. (I went the other way when I evaluated Service Pack 2 to Windows XP; even with the compatibility issues this update posed, the prior versions of XP were so poorly secured I think you have to run that risk anyway.)

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Rockville, MD: If you had to name one thing that was "missing" from Tiger, what would it be?

Rob Pegoraro: Easy--somebody at Apple needs to make rewriteable CDs and DVDs first-class citizens of Mac OS X. Right now, just erasing one requires opening the Disk Utility program (in Windows, you just click the "Erase this CD-RW" link from the list of commands to its left). "Packet-writing" support that would let you use a rewriteable disc like an enormous USB memory key is also overdue in OS X.

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Washington, D.C.: Hi Rob, I have a dual 800 G4 with the original video card in it (I think the GEForce MX TwinView or something). Anyway, I don't get the "ripple effect" when dashboard widgets are placed onto the desktop. Is this because my computer is too old or my video card is too old?

Rob Pegoraro: The ripple effect is something that Core Graphics provides; if you're not seeing it, that means your graphics card isn't up for Core Graphics.

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Chicago: I did buy Tiger and installed it. However, I am getting Norton anti virus error messages on all computers. It says to reinstall. I emailed my fabulous Mac computer consultant who replied: This problem always happens with Norton when one does a system upgrade. If you reinstall all will be well. Just thought you should know. Suzanne

Rob Pegoraro: Can't say I'm surprised--anti-virus programs almost always require updates when you install a new operating system. (However, the Virex software on the PowerBook to my right still scans the disk normally; it just can't seem to download any updates anymore.)

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New York: In your article you mentioned that Tiger can run a bit slowly on older machines. I have a two year old 900 Mhz iBook with 256 MB or RAM. Would upgrading to Tiger make my computer show its age more?

washingtonpost.com: Mac's Tiger Gives Panther Owners Little Reason to Pounce

Rob Pegoraro: Absolutely. The processor isn't an intolerable obstacle (the iMac I tested Tiger on had only an 800 MHz G4), but the memory is--double that and you'll be much happier with Tiger.

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Sutton, VT: Comment: My 17" G4 iMac prone to kernel panics, in the shop more or less constantly since 31 January. AppleCare replaced logic board, cable to optical drive, and three sets of DIMMs. After all that, Tiger (in upgrade mode) can't verify hard drive, and installation fails. This one iMac has caused me more problems than my previous dozen Macs taken together.

Rob Pegoraro: If you're seeing that many kernel panics, it's almost certainly a hardware issue (although, the logic-board replacement should have fixed that). Those things do happen; Apple isn't exempt from them and, because it does use a lot of its own special designs, may be more vulnerable to them than a PC vendor using only commodity parts.

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Pleasant Hill, MO (Kansas City): Hey Rob, I really like your column. I installed Tiger, after waiting in the proverbial line at the Kansas City Apple store with a couple hundred other geeks to get my copy. I did a erase and install on my G4 sawtooth, and it went well. The only hitch was with an included driver for my Epson 740 inkjet. I eventually got it up and running. Otherwise, its da bomb!

I also installed iWork '05, and have an issue with the Pages application. Despite Apple's assertion, Pages will not open up my documents previously composed in Appleworks, and ending in .cwk. Maybe you can rattle their cage and get this fixed? The Apple discussions on their web site don't offer any fixes.

Rob Pegoraro: That's far from the only problem with Pages!

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Richmond, VA: I got Tiger on Saturday and since installing the software on my PowerBook G4 I have gotten numerous, continuous "unexpectedly quit" messages. Is there some flaw with the software. Why is this so constant when I rarely saw it with Panther? And working with my Airport and my printer are serious problems, but I don't see any upgrade for Airport after installing Tiger. Re-installing the printer doesn't work either. Any suggestions? I am thinking Tiger is not all it is cut out to be.

Thanks, Sharon

Rob Pegoraro: I didn't have any issues with printing in Tiger--the software for my Epson printer-scanner combo worked exactly as before. WiFi performance... harder to say. The PowerBook did seem to struggle at times to find my access point's signal, but there wasn't any clear pattern to it. Since the review went to press, I have seen a few other reports about WiFi performance in Tiger, so there may be some broader problem. (Which, again, is why I wrote that current Mac users need not rush out to buy this update.)

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Minneapolis: I really miss the convenience of a Control Panel and the Chooser...that actually work and give you some control. It seems that I have lost all control of my Printer since the advent of OS X. Will any of these (the old Apple Menu) items be easier to work with now?

Rob Pegoraro: You just moved from Mac OS 9, right? The Control Panel is still there; it's just called System Preferences, but it's in the same basic spot under the Apple menu. The Chooser is history, and good riddance to it--that interface stopped being useful years ago. You now configure your printer with the Print&Fax system-prefs pane instead.

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Clarendon Mac Nut: Rob,

I installed Tiger this weekend on our PowerBooks and the installation was flawless. However, that may not the case for some. It may be good to tell everyone to make a backup of your "Home" folder(s), list all of your applications and make sure you know the locations off all of your serial numbers in the unlikely event something does terribly wrong.

30 minutes of prevention is worth 3 days of restoration.

Rob Pegoraro: That's a good idea in general--i.e., you should be backing up your important data once a month, not just before loading an OS update.

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Reston, VA: With Sync being brought into the heart of OS X with Tiger, is it now more capable of handling most devices correctly out-of-the-box? I know it was sort of a hit-or-miss proposition as to whether it would support your phone, your Palm, your Pocket PC, or other portable device. Worse, when it seemed to work it could double-up your data or delete valuable entries. I'd like to get some confidence that Sync can now be trusted to work.

Rob Pegoraro: I hear you--I've taken iSync to task many times before in print. With Tiger, iSync feels a lot more robust, as if the programmers finally went through the code, cleaned it up and gave it a tune-up in general. Device support is a little better with this update; what can make it a lot better is the new ability of third-party developers to extend iSync's reach with their own software.

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Washington, DC:

I made the mistake of doing a full-install of Panther and got all the foreign fonts and other useless stuff place on my hard drive. If I do a custom install of Tiger, will it remove the stuff I never wanted but was installed with Panther?

Thanks. Love the chats and newsletter!

Rob Pegoraro: An "Archive and Install" setup (where you get a completely new copy of the OS, with your old copy put in a "Previous Systems" folder while your applications and your own data are kept intact) will give you that option.

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Atlanta: I did not understand your paragraph when you wrote you cannot download the Tiger when you have an Operating System 10.3. I have an OX 2.8. Is it not possible to use the Tiger with my Apple?

Rob Pegoraro: "download" = "go to www.apple.com and download a free copy." You can install Tiger on top of 10.2.8, as long as your Mac meets the requirements--but you will have to pay for a physical copy of it.

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Arlington, VA: I have a two button mouse and a button that's right underneath the scroll wheel. I just accidentally clicked that button and pops up a nice big "application switcher" type transparent window in the middle of the screen, sweet! Is this something new to Tiger or have I just happened upon something old?

Rob Pegoraro: I think that's been around for a while. Apple built in a good set of USB drivers for third-party rodents some time ago; that's why it can invite Mac mini buyers to plug in any old USB mouse and know that it'll just work.

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Washington, DC: Okay, not an Apple question but I sure hope you can help.

I ran SpyBot and came up with a minibug and it looks like it is something left over when I had Weatherbug in 2001. I tried deleting any mention of it (I know that was dumb) and then i downloaded the new Weatherbug which has a patch for this problem then removed the enter Weatherbug program and still it shows the minibug - what can I do to get rid of it?

Thanks in advance.

Rob Pegoraro: I've got time for non-Tiger questions too! What do you mean by a "minibug"? Is this a cookie, an executable, a registry entry? (Mac users, see what kind of fun you're missing? :)

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Roanoke, VA: Rob,

Always enjoy reading your column. I'm about to purchase an iMac, upgrading from my Powerbook G3. With a fresh hard drive, is it a good idea to go ahead and make a partition or two on it, just in case?

Thanks.

Rob Pegoraro: No. You'll waste a good deal of time reinstalling the OS after that partitioning, but you'll never actually need that partition unless you're going to do stuff like put a copy of Linux on a second partition.

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Washington, D.C.: My parent's Win 98 machine is dying (the software, not the machine itself), and my parents have been planning a brain transplant on the old machine. This machine is used for dial-up and web surfing; they also have another (non-networked, no internet access) XP machine.

Question: Would a Tiger-equipped Mac mini with 512MB run fast enough for dial-up, web browsing, email, word processing, and occasional spreadsheet work? It might also be used for some digital photography work.

Many thanks for taking my question!

Rob Pegoraro: Yes, a Mac mini in that configuration should work fine for those uses.

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Phoenix, Arizona: See any hitches in hopping the fence directly from Jaguar 10.2 to Tiger?

Rob Pegoraro: Nope.

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McLean, VA: Is a Tiger upgrade going to mean updating major apps like Photoshop and QuarkXpress or will the current versions run as well or better? I a little sick of having to spend major bucks on upgrades because they won't work on new OS's.

Rob Pegoraro: I didn't spend any time testing either program; as a general rule, home users don't run programs that sell for $600-$900 each. But I haven't heard of any issues running either one under Tiger. (If there were, you can bet that the Post's News Art department would be howling in protest.)

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Arlington, VA: A two-part question: We're a Mac family but my daughter has just chosen a college for next year whose IT people "don't really support Macs." With all the computer worms and viruses college students share, I think she'd be better with a new Mac and finding a student user group to help with problems. Which laptop should she get (she's not into games or photos)?

2nd part: I need to replace my 5-year old iMac. What do I need to do a little video editing (short segments of 5-10 minutes), edit still photos, and the usual word processing? Will a laptop work?

Rob Pegoraro: 1) The iBook is a terrific buy; unless she really wants the bigger screen of a 15-in. PowerBook (or needs a PC Card slot's expansion capability), that's what I'd go with. 2) For video editing, a new iMac ought to work significantly faster than even the fastest PowerBook. The other uses you cited don't call out for or against a laptop; it's just your opinion on how important portability is.

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Virginia Beach, VA: When upgrading to Tiger Mail what is the best way to move old mail/mailboxes from Mail 1.3 on OS 3.9? Should I use the "import" function in Mail 2.0 or should I drag the data over from my external hard drive with 3.9 installed on it?

Rob Pegoraro: Your messages are imported automatically when you first run the new Mail program in Tiger; all you need to do is click an "OK" button and wait a few minutes.

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Chapel Hill, NC: Two questions:

1. From what I can tell, Spotlight works very well. Is it possible to program Spotlight? For instance, is it possible to program Spotlight so that it searches not only for the terms that you enter but also for the synonyms of those terms?

2. What is the status of video compression on Tiger? Can one use the compressed video stream as an embedded object in a Microsoft Word document so that the text associated with the video can be indexed by Spotlight?

Purpose behind these questions: I would like to index Microsoft word&powerpoint documents containing text, images and compressed video using a thesaurus of medical terminology. The compressed video is to save space, of course. This is for medical student education purposes.

CB from a Duke Ghetto in Chapel Hill

Rob Pegoraro: 1) I don't think so--or if it is possible, it's limited to programmers, not mere users. 2) Spotlight does index QuickTime movie files, but I don't know if that extends to QT files embedded in Word documents.

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Mountain Brook, AL: A comment on installing Tiger over Jaguar, not a problem! I installed Tiger on a G4 Power Book that was running Panther and three dual USB G3 iBooks that were running Jaguar. The initial boot after the install ran longer than I expected, but that was only Spotlight indexing all the files. I highly recommend Tiger for Spotlight alone, but Dashboard and Automater have some cool features that I am just learning.

Rob Pegoraro: Thanks for the info!

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Galesburg, IL: What is your opinion of the video-conferencing features of Mac/Tiger? Do you think that it's a viable alternative to Motorola's Ojo, or a Cisco videophone, for instance? I have been searching for a video-conference solution between remote offices and have three criteria: (1)relatively inexpensive; (2) stone simple in operation; and (3) no latency.

Rob Pegoraro: Tiger's videoconferencing is anything but "relatively inexpensive," since you need a really fast Power Mac desktop and gobs of bandwidth to host a group chat.

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Rolling Hills Estates, CA: Have new Tiger, printers will not work and Adobe 6 has vanished, any suggestions? Read your article and it was a good one, also went to the two articles you listed, one was easy to read the other was so deep I got a pain in the middle of my forehead like when I was a kid and ate ice cream to fast. Michael

Rob Pegoraro: Ars Technica and Macintouch reviews can have that effect on people. Adobe Reader 6 works fine in Tiger; it just opened up on the PowerBook with a problem. Not sure what happened to your printers, but I'd try reinstalling their software.

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Fishkill, NY: Rob,

Is it worth installing on a 500 MHz Ibook with 384 Meg and a 10 gig hard drive? Panther works well on it.

Rob Pegoraro: That's a really small hard drive. A normal install of Tiger will take up 2.7 GB by itself. You can knock that down by maybe half, but... really, if you're happy with Panther I'd stick with that.

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San Francisco, CA: Deleting temporary files from cache and defragging the hard drive are procedures that Windows users do to maintain their computers. Should Mac users who own Tiger or Panther do this too? Is there any other similar procedure that Mac users need to do from time to time?

Rob Pegoraro: Back up your data, back up your data, back up your data! Otherwise, not much. Maybe once a month, I'll open the Disk Utility program and have it repair file permissions.

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Columbia, MD: I have a new PowerBook G4 with 1.5GB of RAM running OS X 10.3.9. What has Apple's history been with the stability of upgrades? Should I wait for 10.4.1 patches to be released?

Rob Pegoraro: You can count on seeing a 10.4.1 update in the next couple of months--there are enough small glitches in Tiger to require that, and some of the rumor sites are already talking about work on such a patch.

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Scranton, PA: With Dashboard loaded and XM Radio playing on Windows Media in the background, Safari "unexpectedly quit" on me several times. It looks like a bug. I'm wondering, is this a Dashboard conflict or a Windows Media Player conflict?

Rob Pegoraro: Safari or Windows Media. Dashboard shouldn't affect things either way.

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San Francisco, CA: Yesterday, my computer-savvy son installed airport and tiger into my G4 Powerbook. Everything was fine yesterday but this morning I can't get online. I get the error code 1712 when I go through applications to internet explorer and the "E" at the bottom of the screen doesn't respond at all. Can you help me?

Rob Pegoraro: First, please don't take this the wrong way, but what on Earth are you doing running Internet Explorer? That's easily the worst browser you can run on the Mac these days. Try Safari or Firefox--unless you can't live without pop-up ads, I think you'll like them a lot better. Second, that error code, according to Apple's site, means "an AppleEvent timed out." That can mean a lot of things, but it'll probably be easiest to fix by getting a new copy of IE from Microsoft's Web site and copying that to your Applications folder.

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Edmond, OK: Which of the three installation methods for Tiger do you recommend? Clean install, Clean install with saving your data, or Upgrade in place. When would you use one over the other? Any problems with the Upgrade in place? Thanks.

Rob Pegoraro: None in my experience, and it's far less work that way. If you're superstitious, you can use Archive and Install (the second option). If you just like pain, go with a Clean Install and watch the rest of your day vanish as you reinstall and reload everything.

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Hanover, N.H.: Interesting about Tiger. Do you have any information about a possible upgrade for Appleworks 6? Thanks, J. Norton

Rob Pegoraro: No, none at all... it's a total mystery at this point what Apple wants to do with AppleWorks. Steve Jobs says iWork is supposed be its successor, but Apple continues to bundle AppleWorks--and with a spreadsheet, iWork can't replace AW anyway. My guess, just because this would be the only logical move given the effort sunk into iWork thus far, is that we will see a considerably changed iWork bundle with a new spreadsheet application at some point.

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Chevy Chase, MD: Your review of Tiger mentioned briefly that it "expands Panther's limited parental-use controls with options to restrict a child's online use to designated Web sites, e-mail addresses and IM chatters."

To this parent, that sounds like a huge big-deal feature in an OS, almost making a switch to MAC worth it just for this feature alone. How effective is this and is there anything like it even as an add on for XP or Win 98?

This is a good topic for an article all by itself. How do the controls work, how easy are they to use, etc.

Rob Pegoraro: There have been parental-control utilities available for Windows for years--NetNanny, CyberSitter, etc. Apple's solution is built in, as you note, and also doesn't have their silly names. But it's not all that intuitive to set up. For instance, here's how to configure parental controls in Safari, if I'm remembering everything correctly:

1) Create a new user account for your kid.

2) Click the checkbox to enable parental controls for Safari.

3) Restrict his account access so he can't install software or use any other browsers.

4) Log into his account, open up Safari, select its Preferences window, click the Security tab, and uncheck the box next to "Enable parental controls." Type in your own user account name and password when prompted.

5) Bookmark all the sites he'll be allowed to visit--remember to put them on the Bookmarks Bar, not under the Bookmarks menu.

6) Return to Safari's prefs window's Security tab and click that "Enable parental controls" box again.

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Murray, KY: I currently use Panther on a iBook. It is version 10.3.9 Rather than upgrade to Tiger, I am still learning how to use Panther. I'm a confirmed Mac user and understand the need for upgrades now and then, but Tiger seems a bit superfluous.....It's a bit like trading for a new car every year.

Dan

Rob Pegoraro: Using OS X has felt a bit like that over the past four years. Take your time with this update; it's not like Apple won't take your money if you don't buy a copy until this summer or fall or whenever.

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Alexandria, VA: I've been trying to get IBM's via voice dictation program to work on my Panther G5, but it doesn't. Is there anything in Tiger that makes it possible to dictate into Word without buying a Windows emulation program?

Rob Pegoraro: What I read--don't remember where--is that IBM discontinued ViaVoice for Mac some time ago. That leaves a company called MacSpeech, which makes a program called iListen, as your only option; their Web page (www.macspeech.com) says that the current release works fine with Tiger.

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Savoy, IL: As a long-time PC user and more recently a Windows XP user for word processing, data base programs, and digital photography what advantages and disadvantages do you point out to me for deciding or not deciding to jump toward Mac and the new Tiger operating system? -Dave P.S I tend to have a relatively slow learning curve.

Rob Pegoraro: The single biggest advantage of Tiger (or Panther or Jaguar) over Windows XP is their security. There aren't any viruses, spyware, or browser hijackings to worry about on a Mac. That's not just because Apple has a much smaller market share; Apple did its homework in securing OS X from the ground up. (To be fairer, Apple benefited from the homework of the developers who built the Unix software OS X is based on.)

The second biggest advantage is the overall elegance and ease of use of the Mac OS. There's a lot less time spent scratching your head as you figure out how the programmers meant for you to accomplish one task or another.

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Columbus, Ohio: Rob - not really a question so much as a heads up for your readers. If you buy the Tiger Family Pack and one of your computers doesn't have a DVD drive, Apple is requiring you to send your Tiger DVD back to them under a "media exchange" program under which you're required to pay $10, plus postage, in order to get CDs. I have a G4 iMac with a Superdrive for which the Tiger DVD is fine, but I also have a G3 500 mhz iBook with a CD-ROM drive, which won't read the Tiger DVD. I'm trying to work this out with Apple, so that I can get CDs without having to give up my DVD and pay extra money, and I'm hoping this will get resolved quickly and amicably. Still, it's a pain in the neck.

It's doubly irritating because I bought Tiger directly from Apple and paid full price for the Family Pack.

Thanks.

Chris

Rob Pegoraro: I did mention this CD-ROM exchange deal in my newsletter, but I hadn't thought about this particular issue. But... I think there's a way out. Buy a FireWire cable, use it to connect the iBook to the iMac, and you can boot that iBook into "FireWire Target Disk" mode, in which it acts like an external hard drive for the iMac. The Tiger installer will then ask if you want to install the OS on that "second" hard disk and then go about its business.

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Boston, MA: Ok, I am leaning 80% towards a new windows-based PC and considering the HP1050y series...but before I make my purchase decision, my IT guy at work is trying hard to convince me to go the Apple way - I fall into that great "considering Apple" demo...your thoughts...his main comment was the security factor - would love your input on what is best...

Rob Pegoraro: Usually I hear from people at offices who want to use a Mac but are getting a wave-off from the IT department... this is a new one!

Your IT guy is correct; the Mac is a lot more secure than Windows.

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Denver, CO: I am hoping to become a convert to Apple. As yet the Apple stores are selling computers with Panther and including the upgrade software to Tiger. With Windows, one never knows how a computer will behave once an upgrade is made to the OS. Is that also the case with a Mac? Would I be better off waiting until the Powerbooks are shipped with Tiger factory installed? Thank you,

Rob Pegoraro: The risk of an update going bad is a lot smaller with Macs. It still exists, which is why I keep saying "back up your data"--but in most cases, a Mac system upgrade is utterly devoid of drama.

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Washington, D.C.: How does Spotlight compare with Google Desktop Search?

Rob Pegoraro: Great question! Google Desktop Search is, architecturally speaking, inferior to Spotlight. It can't index files as they're changed and instead has to keep up afterwards (which it does do very well!). It also indexes far fewer file types out of the box and can only be accessed from your browser window or its taskbar button, while Spotlight can be used from any Finder window and even file open/save dialog boxes.

But... Google Desktop indexes your Web browser history, which Spotlight does not. That's a big difference in practice as well.

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Chicago: I have a 2 1/2 year old 700 mhz ibook, with memory maxed out at 640 MB. I am running the most recent version of Panther, and it is slow, slow, slow. My instinct is not to buy Tiger (even though I really want to) because: (a) it will just make things slower, and (b) I'm holding out for a G5 Powerbook, which will, of course, come with Tiger and iLife (which I haven't bought yet either) already installed. Are both of these reasons valid? That is, will Tiger really be slower, and/or is the G5 Powerbook such a pipe dream right now that there's no point waiting. I do have a relatively new PC that I use when speed is an issue, so the iBook isn't my only computer.

P.S. The new version 1.3 of Safari broke MLB Gameday (the flash updating program, not the video program). Reports were that the Java update would fix it, but it has not. Firefox works, though ...

Rob Pegoraro: You've got plenty of memory, but that processor is on the slow end of things. Tiger is slightly faster than Panther at some things--booting up in particular--but in general I can't say it feels any faster in daily use. If that holds true for your experience, you'd then be paying $130 for a new set of features/capabilities, but not any speed up in performance.

The G5 PowerBook is not a pipe dream, but it is still a plain old dream. It'll come true someday, but I've given up predicting when that might be.

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Boston: I installed Tiger this weekend on a Powerbook g4 running 10.3 and all is well. I'm curious though - with Longhorn due next year, do you know what Apple's plans for OS X 10.5 might be? I recognize Microsoft is now playing catch up, but it's not to early to think about Apple extending its lead. Thanks -

Rob Pegoraro: I think 10.5 won't come for a little while yet--Apple put a lot of work into Tiger, and I hope it will take some time to tend that garden before it thinks about new plantings (to stretch the springtime metaphor farther than it should go). We may very well not see a major new OS X release before Longhorn ships, assuming Microsoft does get it out by the holiday season next year--and that would be fine with me. This game can't be about beating the other company's pace of updates; it has to be about giving enough value in each update for customers to bother buying it. If you can't do that, then you clearly have to do some more work on your update.

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Columbus, Ohio: Rob, this is a follow-up to your response to my earlier comment about the media exchange program. I just wanted to say thanks for the terrific idea for getting Tiger installed on my G3 iBook with a CD-ROM drive. I'll give it a shot.

Chris Shea chrisohio-mac.com

Rob Pegoraro: No problem. Let me know where to send the bill for my consulting services :)

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Princeton, NJ: I think you're missing one big part of the picture when in your review you conclude that users of 10.3 have little reason to upgrade. Tiger with all it's highly touted features like dashboard and spotlight is at it's roots an even more revolutionary update for developers. look out 6 months from now when things like CoreData, CoreImage, and the Spotlight API allow small developers to write software that'll give the big guys a run for their money. And it'll only be available on Tiger.

Rob Pegoraro: I'll close with this one, because it's a good comment. By six months from now, yes, I think the case for moving from Panther to Tiger will be far stronger than it is today. But in the meantime, if Panther works fine for you, and you know you're not going to save any money by buying Tiger now versus later, why rush? Whenever you do make that move, you'll benefit from the weeks or months of debugging and optimization work that Apple can put into Tiger in the meantime--or if you wait long enough, you'll get Tiger for free when you buy a new Mac in the normal course of events.

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Rob Pegoraro: That's all, folks! I've got a backlog of reader mail to pretend that I'll catch up with, plus all the writing and editing work that the Post actually pays me to do. Thanks for all of your questions... see you here again in a couple of weeks.

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