الثلاثاء، 1 يناير 2013
الجمعة، 28 ديسمبر 2012
Operating System Platforms
there are many operating system platforms here i will discuss the general and importance ones like:
Windows
linux
Uninx
MacOs
WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEM
History
started: Microsoft co-founders Paul Allen (left) and Bill Gates
It’s the 1970s. At work, we rely on typewriters. If we need to copy a document, we likely use a mimeograph or carbon paper. Few have heard of microcomputers, but two young computer enthusiasts, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, see that personal computing is a path to the future.
In 1975, Gates and Allen form a partnership called Microsoft. Like most start-ups, Microsoft begins small, but has a huge vision—a computer on every desktop and in every home. During the next years, Microsoft begins to change the ways we work.
Historical Features
MS-DOS was the earliest consumer operating system that gained Microsoft worldwide attention. In the beginning, Windows was regarded primarily as a graphical user interface (GUI) that did little more than provide an easier and more visually pleasing way to use MS-DOS. What eventually made Windows a standout operating system was its ability to do what its name implies--allow a computer user to have more than one program or process operating simultaneously in various "windows" on the computer screen.
Window's Features
- Choose between blinking and non-blinking cursors. A Crosshair
option to visually assist with text alignment is also available.
- Clipboard Support for the common copy, cut and paste functions. It also provides an APPEND function where data can be appended to data already in the clipboard. A PRINT function allows the clipboard data to be sent to the Windows printer
- Cursor customization including underline, block and vertical bar. A different shape can be displayed when in insert mode.
- Dynamic Data Exchange Support to allow other Windows applications to send data to the 3270 session and receive data from the 3270 session.
- Enhanced Key Functions such as Delete Word, Error Correcting Backspace, Tab to Next Word, Tab to Previous Word
- Entry Assist provides functions that make it easier to enter and edit text material. It includes margins, tabs and an audible end of line signal. Each of these functions acts just like the corresponding functions on a typewriter. Entry Assist includes a word wrap facility, which allows you to type without having to use the New Line key. Word Wrap automatically does a New Line function for you when you need a new line. Word wrap picks up any partially typed word and places it on the next line.
- Extended Mouse support including cursor select function.
- Null to Blank Processing support translates all null characters to blanks before the screen data is sent to the host.
- Record and playback keystrokes. Repetitive typing tasks can now be automated.
- Convert pre-recorded Keystroke files to Script file format.
- Row and Column indicator for the cursor
- Screen Sizing allows the dynamic re-sizing of the window. When you drag the window border to change the window size, the application attempts to find the best font size that matches the window size selected
- Scripting support allows frequently used key sequences or functions to be written as a script. This script can be executed from the menu or the script can be assigned to a key using the keyboard re-mapping dialog.
- Sessions can be configured and saved for future use.
- Status bar integrated into bottom window border.
- Toolbar support for frequently used functions. Enhanced, fully customizable toolbars.
- Transparent Printing: The application includes support for the transparent write feature. This is most commonly referred to as TPRINT.
- Type Ahead Buffer support allows keyboard input while waiting for the host to process the last attention key.
- User selectable fonts including scalable fonts.
- WWW Browser helper application support for browsers including Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
- Ability to disable the start up splash screen.
- Ability to start another QWS3270 PLUS session from an existing session.
- JGS Update Utility provides an easy way to obtain the latest version of the QWS3270 PLUS software using your Internet connection.
- Clipboard Support for the common copy, cut and paste functions. It also provides an APPEND function where data can be appended to data already in the clipboard. A PRINT function allows the clipboard data to be sent to the Windows printer
- Cursor customization including underline, block and vertical bar. A different shape can be displayed when in insert mode.
- Dynamic Data Exchange Support to allow other Windows applications to send data to the 3270 session and receive data from the 3270 session.
- Enhanced Key Functions such as Delete Word, Error Correcting Backspace, Tab to Next Word, Tab to Previous Word
- Entry Assist provides functions that make it easier to enter and edit text material. It includes margins, tabs and an audible end of line signal. Each of these functions acts just like the corresponding functions on a typewriter. Entry Assist includes a word wrap facility, which allows you to type without having to use the New Line key. Word Wrap automatically does a New Line function for you when you need a new line. Word wrap picks up any partially typed word and places it on the next line.
- Extended Mouse support including cursor select function.
- Null to Blank Processing support translates all null characters to blanks before the screen data is sent to the host.
- Record and playback keystrokes. Repetitive typing tasks can now be automated.
- Convert pre-recorded Keystroke files to Script file format.
- Row and Column indicator for the cursor
- Screen Sizing allows the dynamic re-sizing of the window. When you drag the window border to change the window size, the application attempts to find the best font size that matches the window size selected
- Scripting support allows frequently used key sequences or functions to be written as a script. This script can be executed from the menu or the script can be assigned to a key using the keyboard re-mapping dialog.
- Sessions can be configured and saved for future use.
- Status bar integrated into bottom window border.
- Toolbar support for frequently used functions. Enhanced, fully customizable toolbars.
- Transparent Printing: The application includes support for the transparent write feature. This is most commonly referred to as TPRINT.
- Type Ahead Buffer support allows keyboard input while waiting for the host to process the last attention key.
- User selectable fonts including scalable fonts.
- WWW Browser helper application support for browsers including Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
- Ability to disable the start up splash screen.
- Ability to start another QWS3270 PLUS session from an existing session.
- JGS Update Utility provides an easy way to obtain the latest version of the QWS3270 PLUS software using your Internet connection.
Advancements
As Windows matured, Microsoft added advances to make the user experience more enjoyable and the development of software for the operating system easier. Windows 2.0 was the first to feature Control Panel, a tool that allowed the user to navigate a graphical interface to adjust settings on the computer. Subsequent advancements included peer-to-peer networking support, Internet support and dial-up networking capabilities. Software became "plug and play," which allowed users to insert diskettes (and eventually CD-ROM discs) into their computer and install software more easily, something that was still at the time difficult on other operating systems.
Surface Features
Windows 7, released in 2009, is Microsoft's most recent iteration of the Windows operating systems. On the surface, it features full 64-bit support, remote media streaming, and touchscreen functionality (when paired with a touchscreen monitor). It also features a new tool call Jump Lists, which makes accessing your most used media and programs easier. The desktop features Snap, a new way to organize, order and size the windows on your desktop so that they are easier to read and compare
.
Surface Features
Windows 7, released in 2009, is Microsoft's most recent iteration of the Windows operating systems. On the surface, it features full 64-bit support, remote media streaming, and touchscreen functionality (when paired with a touchscreen monitor). It also features a new tool call Jump Lists, which makes accessing your most used media and programs easier. The desktop features Snap, a new way to organize, order and size the windows on your desktop so that they are easier to read and compare
.
Advanced Features
Taking a cue from Apple's OS X operating system, Windows 7 features "Sleep" and "Resume" functionality. The search system has been made quicker and easier to navigate. Memory usage has also been optimized to ensure faster and more reliable performance. Windows 7 has also been redesigned for better power management through the reduction of background activities, less power-hungry media drives, automatic screen dimming and the intelligent and automated removal of power to unnecessary accessory ports.
windows Functions
In signal processing, a window function (also known as an apodization function or tapering function[1]) is a mathematical function that is zero-valued outside of some chosen interval. For instance, a function that is constant inside the interval and zero elsewhere is called a rectangular window, which describes the shape of its graphical representation. When another function or waveform/data-sequence is multiplied by a window function, the product is also zero-valued outside the interval: all that is left is the part where they overlap; the "view through the window". Applications of window functions include spectral analysis, filter design, and beamforming. In typical applications, the window functions used are non-negative smooth "bell-shaped" curves,[2] though rectangle, triangle, and other functions can be used.
A more general definition of window functions does not require them to be identically zero outside an interval, as long as the product of the window multiplied by its argument is square integrable, that is, that the function goes sufficiently rapidly toward zero
A more general definition of window functions does not require them to be identically zero outside an interval, as long as the product of the window multiplied by its argument is square integrable, that is, that the function goes sufficiently rapidly toward zero
Linux
History
The History of Linux began in 1991 with the commencement of a personal project by a Finnish student, Linus Torvalds, to create a new operating system kernel.
Since then, the resulting Linux kernel has been marked by constant growth throughout its history. Since the initial release of its source code in 1991, it has grown from a small number of C files under a license prohibiting commercial distribution to its state in 2009 of over 370 megabytes of source under the GNU General Public License.
Linux Features :
- multitasking: several programs running at the same time.
- multiuser: several users on the same machine at the same time (and no two-user licenses!).
- multiplatform: runs on many different CPUs, not just Intel.
- multiprocessor: SMP support is available on the Intel and SPARC platforms (with work currently in progress on other platforms), and Linux is used in several loosely-coupled MP applications, including Beowulf systems (see http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux-web/beowulf/beowulf.html) and the Fujitsu AP1000+ SPARC-based supercomputer.
- multithreading: has native kernel support for multiple independent threads of control within a single process memory space.
- runs in protected mode on the 386.
- has memory protection between processes, so that one program can't bring the whole system down.
- demand loads executables: Linux only reads from disk those parts of a program that are actually used.
- shared copy-on-write pages among executables. This means that multiple process can use the same memory to run in. When one tries to write to that memory, that page (4KB piece of memory) is copied somewhere else. Copy-on-write has two benefits: increasing speed and decreasing memory use.
- virtual memory using paging (not swapping whole processes) to disk: to a separate partition or a file in the filesystem, or both, with the possibility of adding more swapping areas during runtime (yes, they're still called swapping areas). A total of 16 of these 128 MB (2GB in recent kernels) swapping areas can be used at the same time, for a theoretical total of 2 GB of useable swap space. It is simple to increase this if necessary, by changing a few lines of source code.
- a unified memory pool for user programs and disk cache, so that all free memory can be used for caching, and the cache can be reduced when running large programs.
- dynamically linked shared libraries (DLL's), and static libraries too, of course.
- does core dumps for post-mortem analysis, allowing the use of a debugger on a program not only while it is running but also after it has crashed.
- mostly compatible with POSIX, System V, and BSD at the source level.
- through an iBCS2-compliant emulation module, mostly compatible with SCO, SVR3, and SVR4 at the binary level.
- all source code is available, including the whole kernel and all drivers, the development tools and all user programs; also, all of it is freely distributable. Plenty of commercial programs are being provided for Linux without source, but everything that has been free, including the entire base operating system, is still free.
- POSIX job control.
- pseudoterminals (pty's).
- 387-emulation in the kernel so that programs don't need to do their own math emulation. Every computer running Linux appears to have a math coprocessor. Of course, if your computer already contains an FPU, it will be used instead of the emulation, and you can even compile your own kernel with math emulation removed, for a small memory gain.
- support for many national or customized keyboards, and it is fairly easy to add new ones dynamically.
- multiple virtual consoles: several independent login sessions through the console, you switch by pressing a hot-key combination (not dependent on video hardware). These are dynamically allocated; you can use up to 64.
- Supports several common filesystems, including minix, Xenix, and all the common system V filesystems, and has an advanced filesystem of its own, which offers filesystems of up to 4 TB, and names up to 255 characters long.
- transparent access to MS-DOS partitions (or OS/2 FAT partitions) via a special filesystem: you don't need any special commands to use the MS-DOS partition, it looks just like a normal Unix filesystem (except for funny restrictions on filenames, permissions, and so on). MS-DOS 6 compressed partitions do not work at this time without a patch (dmsdosfs). VFAT (WNT, Windows 95) support and FAT-32 is available in Linux 2.0
- special filesystem called UMSDOS which allows Linux to be installed on a DOS filesystem.
- read-only HPFS-2 support for OS/2 2.1
- HFS (Macintosh) file system support is available separately as a module.
- CD-ROM filesystem which reads all standard formats of CD-ROMs.
- TCP/IP networking, including ftp, telnet, NFS, etc.
- Appletalk server
- Netware client and server
- Lan Manager/Windows Native (SMB) client and server
- Many networking protocols: the base protocols available in the latest development kernels include TCP, IPv4, IPv6, AX.25, X.25, IPX, DDP (Appletalk), Netrom, and others. Stable network protocols included in the stable kernels currently include TCP, IPv4, IPX, DDP, and AX.25.
Linux Functions
Linux is both a operating system and a kernel. Linux can do many of the things that windows can do, running a GUI and a desktop environment such as KDE or GNOME. Most of the primary apps that people require when they move to Linux are already available for free.
Linux is also very flexible, much more than Windows. It is almost exclusively used on home routers, and supercomputers; and is very popular for server: Google and Yahoo use Linux almost/totally exclusively to host their web sites.
Linux, and most of its software, is free software and open source. This doesn't necessarily mean it is free of charge (although it usually is) but means that you can legally:
* Run the program, for any purpose
* Study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish. You have access to the source code.
* Redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
* Improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
Because the source is available Linux fixes bugs quicker, better, and faster. Drivers are also more stable and the system can work faster.
There are many distributions (distros) of Linux, communities and companies that collect large amounts of free software together so that it is easy and secure to install software, and so there is only 1 program that updates your applications. Distros also make sure that the whole system works together.
Linux is also very flexible, much more than Windows. It is almost exclusively used on home routers, and supercomputers; and is very popular for server: Google and Yahoo use Linux almost/totally exclusively to host their web sites.
Linux, and most of its software, is free software and open source. This doesn't necessarily mean it is free of charge (although it usually is) but means that you can legally:
* Run the program, for any purpose
* Study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish. You have access to the source code.
* Redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
* Improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
Because the source is available Linux fixes bugs quicker, better, and faster. Drivers are also more stable and the system can work faster.
There are many distributions (distros) of Linux, communities and companies that collect large amounts of free software together so that it is easy and secure to install software, and so there is only 1 program that updates your applications. Distros also make sure that the whole system works together.
UNIX
History
n the 1960s, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, AT&T Bell Labs, and General Electric developed an experimental time sharing operating system called Multics for the GE-645 mainframe.[7] Multics introduced many innovations, but had many problems.
Bell Labs, frustrated by the size and complexity of Multics but not the aims, slowly pulled out of the project. Their last researchers to leave Multics, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, M. D. McIlroy, and J. F. Ossanna,[8] decided to redo the work on a much smaller scale. At the time, Ritchie said, "what we wanted to preserve was not just a good environment in which to do programming, but a system around which a fellowship could form. We knew from experience that the essence of communal computing, as supplied by remote-access, time-shared machines, is not just to type programs into a terminal instead of a keypunch, but to encourage close communication."[8]While Ken Thompson still had access to the Multics environment, he wrote simulations for the new file and paging system on it. He also programmed a game called Space Travel, but the game needed a more efficient and less expensive machine to run on, and eventually he found a little-used PDP-7 at Bell Labs.[9] On this PDP-7, in 1969, a team of Bell Labs researchers led by Thompson and Ritchie, including Rudd Canaday, developed a hierarchical file system, the concepts of computer processes and device files, a command-line interpreter, and some small utility programs
Bell Labs, frustrated by the size and complexity of Multics but not the aims, slowly pulled out of the project. Their last researchers to leave Multics, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, M. D. McIlroy, and J. F. Ossanna,[8] decided to redo the work on a much smaller scale. At the time, Ritchie said, "what we wanted to preserve was not just a good environment in which to do programming, but a system around which a fellowship could form. We knew from experience that the essence of communal computing, as supplied by remote-access, time-shared machines, is not just to type programs into a terminal instead of a keypunch, but to encourage close communication."[8]While Ken Thompson still had access to the Multics environment, he wrote simulations for the new file and paging system on it. He also programmed a game called Space Travel, but the game needed a more efficient and less expensive machine to run on, and eventually he found a little-used PDP-7 at Bell Labs.[9] On this PDP-7, in 1969, a team of Bell Labs researchers led by Thompson and Ritchie, including Rudd Canaday, developed a hierarchical file system, the concepts of computer processes and device files, a command-line interpreter, and some small utility programs
Features of UNIX operating systems
- The UNIX system consists of numerous constituents that are usually packaged together which include the growth environment, documents, libraries, portable, modifiable source-code for all of these constituents, along with kernel of an operating system as UNIX was a self-contained software system.
- This was regarded as one of the main reasons it appeared as a significant teaching and learning device and has had such a broad influence.
- The unique V7 UNIX distribution contains copies of all of the compiled binaries including all of the source code and documentation occupied less than 10MB that arrived on a single 9-track magtape.
- In two volumes the printed documentation, typeset from the on-line sources contained.
- Kernel is the source code in system composed of numerous sub-components like:
- dev: device drivers for control of hardware and some pseudo-hardware
- conf: configuration and machine-dependent parts, along with boot code
- h: header files, defining key structures within the system and important system-specific invariables
- sys: operating system "kernel", process scheduling, handling memory management, system calls
- Development Environment contains early versions of UNIX contained a growth environment sufficient to reconstruct the complete system from source code:
- as: machine-language assembler for the machine
- cc: C language compiler
- ld: linker, for combining object files
- lib: object-code for effectively automating the build process
- include: header files for software development, defining standard interfaces and system invariants
- Other languages: V7 Unix contained a Fortran-77 compiler, a programmable arbitrary-precision calculator (bc, dc), and the awk "scripting" language.
- Commands: Unix makes little distinction between commands (user-level programs) for system operation and preservation (e.g. cron), commands of general usefulness (e.g. grep), and more common function applications such as the text formatting and typesetting package.
- Other tools: an object-code archive manager (ar), symbol-table lister (nm), compiler-development tools (e.g. lex & yacc), and debugging tools.
- sh: The "shell" programmable command-line interpreter, the primary user interface on Unix before window systems appeared, and even afterward (within a "command window").
- Utilities: the central device kit of the UNIX command set, including cp, ls, grep, find and many others.
BASIC UNIX COMMANDS
Files
- ls --- lists your files
- ls -l --- lists your files in 'long format', which contains lots of useful information, e.g. the exact size of the file, who owns the file and who has the right to look at it, and when it was last modified.
- ls -a --- lists all files, including the ones whose filenames begin in a dot, which you do not always want to see.
- There are many more options, for example to list files by size, by date, recursively etc.
- more filename --- shows the first part of a file, just as much as will fit on one screen. Just hit the space bar to see more or q to quit. You can use /pattern to search for a pattern.
- emacs filename --- is an editor that lets you create and edit a file. See the emacs page.
- mv filename1 filename2 --- moves a file (i.e. gives it a different name, or moves it into a different directory (see below)
- cp filename1 filename2 --- copies a file
Directories
Directories, like folders on a Macintosh, are used to group
files together in a hierarchical structure.
- mkdir dirname --- make a new directory
- cd dirname --- change directory. You basically 'go' to another directory, and you will see the files in that directory when you do 'ls'. You always start out in your 'home directory', and you can get back there by typing 'cd' without arguments. 'cd ..' will get you one level up from your current position. You don't have to walk along step by step - you can make big leaps or avoid walking around by specifying pathnames.
- pwd --- tells you where you currently are.
Finding things
- ff --- find files anywhere on the system. This can be extremely useful if you've forgotten in which directory you put a file, but do remember the name. In fact, if you use ff -p you don't even need the full name, just the beginning. This can also be useful for finding other things on the system, e.g. documentation.
- grep string filename(s) --- looks for the string in the files. This can be useful a lot of purposes, e.g. finding the right file among many, figuring out which is the right version of something, and even doing serious corpus work. grep comes in several varieties (grep, egrep, and fgrep) and has a lot of very flexible options. Check out the man pages if this sounds good to you.
About other people
- w --- tells you who's logged in, and what they're doing. Especially useful: the 'idle' part. This allows you to see whether they're actually sitting there typing away at their keyboards right at the moment.
- who --- tells you who's logged on, and where they're coming from. Useful if you're looking for someone who's actually physically in the same building as you, or in some other particular location.
- finger username --- gives you lots of information about that user, e.g. when they last read their mail and whether they're logged in. Often people put other practical information, such as phone numbers and addresses, in a file called .plan. This information is also displayed by 'finger'.
- last -1 username --- tells you when the user last logged on and off and from where. Without any options, last will give you a list of everyone's logins.
- talk username --- lets you have a (typed) conversation with another user
- write username --- lets you exchange one-line messages with another user
- elm --- lets you send e-mail messages to people around the world (and, of course, read them). It's not the only mailer you can use, but the one we recommend. See the elm page, and find out about the departmental mailing lists (which you can also find in /user/linguistics/helpfile).
MAC OS
History
On January 24, 1984, Apple Computer, Inc. (now Apple Inc.) introduced the Macintosh personal computer, with the Macintosh 128K model, which came bundled with the Mac OS operating system, then known as the System Software. The Macintosh is often credited with popularizing the graphical user interface. The Mac OS has been pre-installed on almost every Macintosh computer ever sold. The operating system is also sold separately at Apple retail stores, and online. The original Mac OS was partially based on the Lisa OS, previously released by Apple for the Lisa computer in 1983 and, as part of an agreement allowing Xerox to buy shares in Apple at a favourable rate, it also used concepts from the Xerox PARC Xerox Alto which Steve Jobs and several other Macintosh team members had previewed.
MAC OS Features
1. Easily Add a Signature to a PDF Document in Preview
Preview has a lot of neat new features, but one of the best is its ability to digitally sign a document. You might think this happens with your finger and trackpad, but you'd be wrong—that wouldn't include everybody. Instead, you sign a piece of paper and hold it up to your iSight/Facetime camera while Preview snaps a photo. It'll then detect the signature and allow you to add it to your document. To do this, just open the PDF document you want to sign, click "Annotate" in the toolbar (if the annotations bar isn't already showing), and then click the Signature drop-down menu. That will display two options. The first will let you take a photo of your signature with your Mac's built-in camera and the second will allow you to manage the signatures you've already saved using this process. Pretty awesome.
2. Fully Migrate from Windows to Mac OS X Automatically
If you're moving from a Windows PC to a Mac, Lion can help ease that transition by migrating all your files to the proper places in OS X. This means everything from documents to mail accounts in Outlook to even your photos in Picasa (not sure why they picked Picasa, but they did). The transfer happens over the network, either wirelessly or wired—totally up to you. You need to first download a copy of Migration Assistant for Windows and then open the copy that's already on your Mac (Hard Drive -> Utilities -> Migration Assistant). From there you can select the information you want to transfer and let the fun begin. It'll probably take awhile, but when it finishes your Mac will now have the same data as your old Windows machine.
3. Automatically Restart When the Computer Freezes
Sometimes your computer freezes only to become unfrozen seconds later. Other times you stare at the screen for several minutes, wondering if that's going to happen, and then eventually restart when you're convinced you're wasting your time. With resuming capabilities it isn't so awful if a freeze does take place and requires a restart, but you no longer have to decide in Lion. Hidden away in the Energy Saver pane in System Preferences is a little checkbox called "Restart automatically if the computer freezes." Check it and you won't ever have to worry about it again.
4. Manage Privacy Settings for Any App
Lion now includes some privacy settings, letting you control which apps are allowed to use your location and collect usage data. To access it, just go to the top row in System Preferences and select Security & Privacy. From there, click the Privacy tab and you can make any changes you want.
5. Share the Screen of an Inactive User
Screen sharing is great when you want to take control of whatever's currently on the screen, but what happens when someone's logged in to another account and you want to access yours remotely? Screen sharing now lets you share the screen of any user, even when their account is running in the background.
Bonus Screen Sharing feature: If you want to allow people to share your screen but you don't want to create a new account for them, you can just add their Apple ID as an authorized user in the Screen Sharing section of the Sharing pane in System Preferences.
6. Add an Event to iCal by Typing a Phrase
Known as "Quick Add", iCal now lets you just type a human-readable phrase to add a new item to your calendar. To do this, just click the + button in iCal and choose a calendar. You'll get a little pop up that'll let you enter whatever you want. Type something like "Movie this Friday at 7pm" and iCal will translate it into a new event.
Bonus iCal feature: Enter year view and you'll see a heat map over the calendar. The warmer the color, the more you have going on that day.
7. Group a Bunch of Items into a Folder
The Finder has a handy new trick hidden in the contextual menu, and that's the ability to select a bunch of files, right- or control-click them, and choose "New folder from X items." What this does is groups all the files together and throws them in a new folder. Sure you could just make a new folder and drag them all in, but this saves you a step. Want to do this with a keyboard shortcut? Just press Command+Control+N.
8. Create Search Tokens When Searching for Files
You'll find this functionality throughout applications in Lion, but it's especially useful when looking for files in the Finder. Basically, when searching you type in something like "Text" and are given some options in a drop-down menu. You might be looking for a file with "Text" in the file name or just a file that is made up of text. You can choose which one from this menu and it'll create a search token. Once a token is created, you'll start to get results. You can keep creating more and more tokens this way to refine your search, however, making it really easy to quickly locate the file (or files) you're looking for.
9. Look Up a Word in the Dictionary with Two Taps
Lion comes with a lot of new multitouch gestures, and hidden in the new set is the ability to look up a word with two taps. All you have to do is place your cursor over a word you want to look up, then tap the word twice with three fingers. This will highlight it in yellow and show you a heads up display with the word's definition. Of course, you'll need to turn this on in System Preferences -> Trackpad -> Point & Click first.
10. Add New, High-Quality Text-to-Speech Voices
Over the years, Apple's been working incrementally to improve the quality of the text-to-speech voices offered with its operating system. For awhile we just had Alex, the only somewhat natural-sounding computer voice in the collection. While that hasn't changed much, as far as the defaults go, you can add a bunch of new voices directly from OS X's VoiceOver Utility (in Hard Drive -> Applications -> Utilities). Just click the Speech pane and then select "Customize" from the voice selection menu. This will let you choose from all the options—including a lot of the fun novelty voices you might have thought went missing.
Preview has a lot of neat new features, but one of the best is its ability to digitally sign a document. You might think this happens with your finger and trackpad, but you'd be wrong—that wouldn't include everybody. Instead, you sign a piece of paper and hold it up to your iSight/Facetime camera while Preview snaps a photo. It'll then detect the signature and allow you to add it to your document. To do this, just open the PDF document you want to sign, click "Annotate" in the toolbar (if the annotations bar isn't already showing), and then click the Signature drop-down menu. That will display two options. The first will let you take a photo of your signature with your Mac's built-in camera and the second will allow you to manage the signatures you've already saved using this process. Pretty awesome.
2. Fully Migrate from Windows to Mac OS X Automatically
If you're moving from a Windows PC to a Mac, Lion can help ease that transition by migrating all your files to the proper places in OS X. This means everything from documents to mail accounts in Outlook to even your photos in Picasa (not sure why they picked Picasa, but they did). The transfer happens over the network, either wirelessly or wired—totally up to you. You need to first download a copy of Migration Assistant for Windows and then open the copy that's already on your Mac (Hard Drive -> Utilities -> Migration Assistant). From there you can select the information you want to transfer and let the fun begin. It'll probably take awhile, but when it finishes your Mac will now have the same data as your old Windows machine.
3. Automatically Restart When the Computer Freezes
Sometimes your computer freezes only to become unfrozen seconds later. Other times you stare at the screen for several minutes, wondering if that's going to happen, and then eventually restart when you're convinced you're wasting your time. With resuming capabilities it isn't so awful if a freeze does take place and requires a restart, but you no longer have to decide in Lion. Hidden away in the Energy Saver pane in System Preferences is a little checkbox called "Restart automatically if the computer freezes." Check it and you won't ever have to worry about it again.
4. Manage Privacy Settings for Any App
Lion now includes some privacy settings, letting you control which apps are allowed to use your location and collect usage data. To access it, just go to the top row in System Preferences and select Security & Privacy. From there, click the Privacy tab and you can make any changes you want.
5. Share the Screen of an Inactive User
Screen sharing is great when you want to take control of whatever's currently on the screen, but what happens when someone's logged in to another account and you want to access yours remotely? Screen sharing now lets you share the screen of any user, even when their account is running in the background.
Bonus Screen Sharing feature: If you want to allow people to share your screen but you don't want to create a new account for them, you can just add their Apple ID as an authorized user in the Screen Sharing section of the Sharing pane in System Preferences.
6. Add an Event to iCal by Typing a Phrase
Known as "Quick Add", iCal now lets you just type a human-readable phrase to add a new item to your calendar. To do this, just click the + button in iCal and choose a calendar. You'll get a little pop up that'll let you enter whatever you want. Type something like "Movie this Friday at 7pm" and iCal will translate it into a new event.
Bonus iCal feature: Enter year view and you'll see a heat map over the calendar. The warmer the color, the more you have going on that day.
7. Group a Bunch of Items into a Folder
The Finder has a handy new trick hidden in the contextual menu, and that's the ability to select a bunch of files, right- or control-click them, and choose "New folder from X items." What this does is groups all the files together and throws them in a new folder. Sure you could just make a new folder and drag them all in, but this saves you a step. Want to do this with a keyboard shortcut? Just press Command+Control+N.
8. Create Search Tokens When Searching for Files
You'll find this functionality throughout applications in Lion, but it's especially useful when looking for files in the Finder. Basically, when searching you type in something like "Text" and are given some options in a drop-down menu. You might be looking for a file with "Text" in the file name or just a file that is made up of text. You can choose which one from this menu and it'll create a search token. Once a token is created, you'll start to get results. You can keep creating more and more tokens this way to refine your search, however, making it really easy to quickly locate the file (or files) you're looking for.
9. Look Up a Word in the Dictionary with Two Taps
Lion comes with a lot of new multitouch gestures, and hidden in the new set is the ability to look up a word with two taps. All you have to do is place your cursor over a word you want to look up, then tap the word twice with three fingers. This will highlight it in yellow and show you a heads up display with the word's definition. Of course, you'll need to turn this on in System Preferences -> Trackpad -> Point & Click first.
10. Add New, High-Quality Text-to-Speech Voices
Over the years, Apple's been working incrementally to improve the quality of the text-to-speech voices offered with its operating system. For awhile we just had Alex, the only somewhat natural-sounding computer voice in the collection. While that hasn't changed much, as far as the defaults go, you can add a bunch of new voices directly from OS X's VoiceOver Utility (in Hard Drive -> Applications -> Utilities). Just click the Speech pane and then select "Customize" from the voice selection menu. This will let you choose from all the options—including a lot of the fun novelty voices you might have thought went missing.
Advantages and some Disadvantges of MAC OS
Mac OS X has several advantages over Windows. These include:
-Mac OS X's Aqua UI takes up less system resources than Windows's Aero UI.
-Mac OS X has better security (though it's by obscurity) than Windows and you are much less likely to get your Mac infected than a PC.
-Mac OS X has a simple, easy-to-use interface perfect for Technophobics, Kids, and Geeks alike. It's easy enough for the home user, and powerful enough for the programmers.
-Mac OS X has the iLife and iWork suites by Apple which work beautifully and integrate with each other (something you can't say about PC equivalents). All the programs in OS X work flawlessy and invisibly together, making everyting from E-Mailing to making a Home Movie DVD a snap.
-Mac computers overall last longer (in years) than Windows PCs, and they can be sold on eBay for a big portion of what you paid for them. (Sometimes up to 3/4 of what you spent on it can be gotten back by selling it)
-If you need to run a Windows program, you can run Boot Camp on all Leopard Intel Macs and install Windows on your Mac. When you need a Windows program, just reboot into Windows. When you're done, you can reboot back into Mac OS X. You can even run Mac and Windows applications at the same time with software like VMWare Fusion or Paralells.
-Contrary to popular belief, Macs can run many games out for PC without the need to use Boot Camp, Paralells, or VMWare Fusion. However, most developers don't actually make the games for Mac in the first place, and it can take 1-2 years from the game's release for PC for a 3rd party developer to make it for Mac. Many developers are making games for Mac now, and Blizzard has always made their games for Mac.
Some games you can play on Mac without Windows are:
-World of Warcraft
-Starcraft
-Warcraft III
-Spore
-Age of Mythology
-and more. Check out Apple's directory of Mac games here:
http://www.apple.com/games/
You may also download Steam which has over 100 games for Mac OS X such as Half-Life 2 and Portal.
Some disadvantages are
-Macs can't be upgraded. This isn't a concern for the average home users, who probably don't upgrade their PCs anyway.
-Mac cost more, but as i have said above they last longer and can be resold for more than Windows PCs. (I have a 1998 iMac and I can run Mac OS X Panther 10.3.9 from 2005 on it and it runs just fine. Great for quick web browsing or listening to music in the kitchen.)
-Mac cost more, but as i have said above they last longer and can be resold for more than Windows PCs. (I have a 1998 iMac and I can run Mac OS X Panther 10.3.9 from 2005 on it and it runs just fine. Great for quick web browsing or listening to music in the kitchen.)
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