Let this OP be a life-lesson for those of you who think updating is not worth it, since at the time you’re thinking, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it!”
Take it from me, I’ve been a Mac user since 1991. I make my living using Macs and the software developed for it big and small. I’ve had to put up with the growing pains of incompatible updates with my hardware, clinging to obscure/defunct/obsolete software, getting used to new workflows, etc. while the developing world moved on. A lot of times this means moving out of your comfort zone, and accepting the new normal.
In all that time, I’ve learned: Adapt and evolve as things roll out. Not 10 years after everybody else. If you’re a developer, you should understand this.
It’s largely inappropriate for a business of any size to use a desktop database program like FileMaker or Access for anything beyond very simple record keeping.
That being said, FileMaker regularly updates their software. There’s almost no good reason if you’re using a computer and a database for work to buy into “never upgrading to protect old software that doesn’t run well in newer environments.” A lot of times people convince themselves there is some value to this behavior, and sometimes there is, but usually if we’re talking desktop level applications there is not (which is what FileMaker is.) A huge mainframe billing or A/P system is another story (and generally IBM knows that and their newest mainframes still easily run 30 year old mainframe programs.)
A MacBook is designed as a personal PC, not as something that should be expected to exist in a static state forever. Upgrade regularly and also accept that the standard refresh cycle for most desktop/laptops in the corporate IT world is 3-4 years for a reason. Frequent updates and a regular hardware refresh will put you in a place where UX/other issues change gradually and where you don’t get stuck 6 years out of date and having to make sweeping changes to your workflow.
Sometimes stuff like Eudora also just gets obsolete and abandoned, it sucks, but it is what it is. I used to like the Mozilla Thunderbird email client, but it’s largely been abandoned for 5+ years, so I abandoned it. The reality is there’s no real value in clinging to outdated and no longer updated software, adapt and change with the times.
Yep, I upgraded from Yosemite to El Capitan a few months ago and expected all kinds of problems based on the complaints in the Apple forums, but no problems at all. It installed fine, and everything seems to be slightly zippier than before.
This upgrade gave me nothing that I use; I just did it to keep up. As long as things don’t run worse or slower, I am fine.
Major feature? Probably Siri as part of the desktop environment. There’s a lot of stuff involving tighter integration with iOS, like copy and paste working across all your devices. Some nice storage management options bridging the local drive with cloud storage. This is one of those updates where there’s more under the hood than there is as far as new features go.
Photos and Apple Music are much improved to go along with the work involved with them in iOS.
The updates aren’t being named after mountains exclusively, Apple is naming its new OS releases after California locations. For example, Mavericks is a well-known surf spot and Yosemite is a national park. Other names they’ve trademarked but haven’t used are Big Sur, Redwood, Pacific and Mammoth.
I admin tons of machines running all kinds of OS’es. The only thing that really sucks with MS is the licensing. Otherwise, Windows is absolutely fine.
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
There’s almost no good reason if you’re using a computer and a database for work to buy into “never upgrading to protect old software that doesn’t run well in newer environments.”
[/QUOTE]
Sometimes business needs and good practice don’t get along well together. Hell, I have an NT 4 box (well, two of them actually but I only care about one) running that I have been trying to get rid of for 4 + years. The problem is that the box is tied into some production systems and every time the developers start working on getting the NT 4 box out of the equation, someone comes and offers us money to do something else.
The NT box is going to die. We know it. I have a plan in place in case it does before we can do a planned migration. However the plan is going to be painful to implement and some people are gonna scream if the box dies. But $$ > someone possibly bitching in the future.
I seem to be fond of Mac operating systems with numbers that contain a lot of 6’s and 8’s.
MacOS X 10.6.8
MacOS 8.6
Macintosh System 6.0.8
I guess the next time I’m likely to be entirely happy will be 10.16.8 or thereabout?
Nope. Prototyping. I can create structure faster than you can type records. In real time while you’re on the phone with me discussing parameters.
“What we discussed and decided that we’d like is if there were a button that you could click and it would tag all the resources in the Library for subsequent conversion to corporate FTP enablement that are associated with the current project…”
“Like that?” creates new relationship, new script, adds button
It doesn’t have the speed and scalability of a SQL system but I’ve worked in SQL systems. The turnaround for feature changes is about 15x what it is in FileMaker.
I still miss things about System 6.
Ultimately I’m spoiled and I want the computer to behave the way I want it to behave. I’m spoiled because I’ve usually gotten my way over the years. Apple seems to be tightening things down in ways that make 3rd party utils less and less able to modify my experience. That sucks.
I suppose I don’t really. I mean, not in the sense of wishing that the modern OS would behave more like System 6.
Let’s see, though…
•In *Open, Save, * and Save As dialogs, tab would switch volumes (drives). I never liked the System 7 / MacOS 8 dialog behavior quite as well; then MacOS X came along and the dialogs were almost unusable without a 3rd party add-on to modify the behaviors. (Thank you DefaultFolder). (Speaking of which, DefaultFolder is sluggish as hell under 10.11, which is a situation that totally sucks. File-open and File-save operations that used to take 1.5 seconds can now take 2-3 minutes.)
• Simple uncluttered Finder windows without gizmos along the left side and top. Views of any folder that stay consistent instead of taking on a new appearance depending on exactly how you ended up opening them.
• Everything was zippy and responsive. A 40 MHz '030 based Mac running 6 felt more nimble than a 2.3 GHz multicore i7 feels under El Capitan. Heck, an 8 MHz SE running from a floppy was sometimes more responsive than this!
Well … one important thing I miss about System 6 … and really this is more about the machines that ran System 6 … is that they can be made into a totally adorable aquarium. Nothing’s cuter than a goldfish look out the floppy disk slot of an old MacPlus.
I think I miss all the third party extensions and control panels that let the user customize their experience. I miss having a lil’ kitty kat chase my mouse all around the screen.
I haven’t upgraded to El Cap yet, but generally Mac OS upgrades run faster than their predecessors.
It’s possible that there’s some background filesystem indexing/updating process that’s churning through your disk and adding swanky new metadata that is slowing things down, but will finish doing what it’s doing in a day or two and things will go faster.