A Month with a Mac - Part II: The Mobile Experience

Security, Networking and Playing with Windows

One of OS X's strong points is in its security. No application can do anything to your system without you first typing in your administrator password. At the same time, OS X has some pretty impressive password management.

OS X treats each user name/password combination that you have as a key, and where better to keep your keys than on a keychain - which is exactly what OS X refers to your collection of user names and passwords. Whenever you connect to a new resource that requires authentication, OS X asks you if you'd like to add the key (username/password combination) to your keychain. By doing so, it means that you'll never have to re-enter the information again.

The only issue I've had with this is that the keychain manager never seems to remem-ber my user name and password for connecting to Windows shares - which is extremely frustrating as my local lab file server is Windows based. Other than that one complaint, file sharing with my Windows PCs works just fine. I connect to the same wireless and wired networks as my PCs, I copy files from PCs to the Macs and vice versa without any problems at all - it's all pretty transparent.

Also remember that burned CDs and DVDs are usable on both platforms, so I can burn discs on the PowerBook and use them on a PC. The same applies to all other forms of removable storage, compact flash, USB sticks, etc. Printer sharing also works, but I've had some issues with certain printers not getting recognized. I can usually share printers on Macs with Windows machines, but I've had troubles doing the same in reverse in some cases. It could just be isolated to my few tests; I'm not calling them conclusive, just stating my experience.

Many people emailed me and asked me why I didn't comment on feeling more or less secure with OS X, given that there's really no spyware/malware out for the OS (aside for a couple of warez-related items out there). At the start, I hadn't really thought about it, but since then, I've had to deal with a number of friends and family members who have fallen victim to hordes of malicious software on their PCs, rendering them virtually useless. Although I'm not the type of user to go out and click on things that shouldn't be clicked on, there is a somewhat nice feeling of safety knowing that you don't have to deal with any of that. Now, I'm not going to somehow relate the lack of viruses/spyware/etc. to the stability or robustness of the OS, as I do believe that as solid of a foundation as OS X is built upon, if 90% of the computing population were using it, we'd be hearing more than just a handful of reports of "security" issues. That being said, for now, that's not a problem to worry about, so you can just accept the present term benefits of having a virusless platform without worrying about if it will stay that way indefinitely. To put it succinctly, yes, I do enjoy that fact.

There are, of course, security updates to OS X, which end up being the only times when I reboot the machines. OS X's software update is just like what I was used to under Windows, except it looked a lot better.

Since the Powerbook hadn't been turned on much less connected to the internet since it was built, there were a number of updates that I had to install. Software Update popped up and let me know what updates it found, as well as telling me which updates would require a computer restart, denoted by a little icon next to the item.

Interestingly enough, you also get BIOS updates through OS X's software update. I didn't have any BIOS updates on the PowerBook, but the first time that I fired up the G5, I was greeted with a BIOS update through OS X's software update.

Wireless Networking

There are two aspects of wireless networking support that I'd like to touch on with the PowerBook, one in which it does very well and the other in which it doesn't do as well. The bad news first: I wish I could say that the PowerBook had the best 802.11g reception out of any laptop that I'd ever used, especially considering its price. Unfortunately, I can't. While I wouldn't say its reception is the worst, it's definitely not the best. And the only way to truly characterize its reception quality is from directly comparing it to another laptop, which (in this case) happens to be the IBM ThinkPad X31. The ThinkPad X31 is known for having extremely good wireless reception, better than most notebooks, thanks to IBM's twin antennas in the bezel surrounding the X31's display. In the exact same position, on the exact same networks, when you're on the edge of wireless reception, the PowerBook will drop out well before the ThinkPad will. At reasonable distances, all is fine, but as soon as you really start pushing the limits, that's when it's frustrating that the one thing that the PowerBook doesn't do exceptionally well is survive on very low signal wireless networks. Again, I must stress that this isn't an issue unless you know that the signal strength of the network you're connecting to is low, but it's a bothersome issue nonetheless. Apple even includes an option for "Interference Robustness", which is supposed to improve your wireless connection when there are sources of interference nearby; however, that option doesn't help when the issue is a distance from your wireless access point.

The aspect of wireless networking that works quite well on the PowerBook isn't really due to the notebook itself, but, as you can probably guess, Mac OS X. The wireless networking UI is quite strong and very easy to use. I find that even with Windows XP Service Pack 2, the wireless network connection utility is sometimes at fault for not letting you connect to certain wireless networks. The OS X utility is fast, easy and I've never had it give me any issues while in the same situation when I've had issues using the Windows utility on the same network. Prior to Service Pack 2, this was much more of an issue and a reason to appreciate OS X, but even since its launch, the OS X utility is simply less prone to the sort of weird connection issues that I find occur with the Windows utility.