While preparing for the gala fourth-anniversary editions of my MacMaineiac articles and columns, appearing right here later this month, I recently searched through the extensive MacMaineiac archives (512 articles and columns since 2002, but who’s counting). I was looking for an article I wrote around this time in 2003. Of course, using the Spotlight search feature built into Mac OS X “Tiger”, the task was both swift and fruitful.

Because Spotlight can see inside documents (and images and other file types), the list of search results included not only the MS Word document containing my original writing, but the email message I sent to the Times Record containing the text from the article, and the web pages bearing the article I created with Adobe’s GoLive web design application, which I use to maintain macmaineiac.com. In fact, the moment I created and saved the Word document for this article, Spotlight cataloged it and made its contents ready for future searches.

By the way, this kind of powerful desktop search, which has been around for almost two years in Tiger, will finally be available to Windows users when the five-years-in-the-making, repeatedly-delayed, feature-depleted, Windows “Vista” hits consumer shelves on January 30th.

Vista, the operating system formerly known as “Longhorn” (or, dubbed by some “Longwait” for its tardiness, or “Shorthorn” for the many “revolutionary” features that were axed just to get it out the door), boasts some other improvements that Mac users have enjoyed for many years.

Since Mac OS X (pronounced “oh-ess-ten”) debuted in 2001, Apple has leveraged the system’s graphics capabilities and the computer’s powerful dedicated graphics processing units (GPUs), to punch up the graphical user interface, which they call “Aqua”. Vista’s new user interface is called “Aero”. Aero also leverages the power of dedicated GPUs and is chock full of opaque windows, windows that float around the desktop, and a bit of eye candy called Flip 3-D. With a keystroke, Flip 3-D presents open windows in a virtual rolodex, which can be “flipped through” (hence the name, I guess).

Aero requires a lot of graphics horsepower – at least a dedicated GPU or the highest-end integrated graphics processor. It requires so much horsepower that Microsoft is releasing a version of Vista that doesn’t contain Aero eye candy at all.

Mac OS X “Tiger” brought “Widgets” to the Mac desktop. Widgets are mini-programs, with very specific purposes, like showing you the weather, stock quotes, flight tracking information, easy access to your Address Book, language translations, unit conversions, movie times, etc. Widgets hide out of view until called upon, then spring forth upon the desktop. Apple started with a few “standard issue” widgets, and individual developers have since created thousands.

Windows Vista has Widgets as well – they’re called “Gadgets”. To be fair, very early builds of Vista (pre-Mac OS X “Tiger) contained gadget-like applications. The idea has been around for a long time. Several years ago a third-party developer created widgets for his “Konfabulator” program. When Apple didn’t buy the application, he sold it to Google, where they call them Widgets as well.

The whole Widget/Gadget idea actually dates back to 1983 and the development of version seven of the Mac operating system. Mac OS 7 contained “Desk Accessories”, among them a clock, a calculator, a note pad, and a puzzle.

The new Aero interface also refreshes Windows XP’s “Fisher Price” color scheme. What was bright red is now maroon. What was bright blue is now an opaque dark grey. Think Santa Fe in the fall.

Next time, more on the guts of Vista. Will it be more secure, and, if so, at what cost to the user?

© 2006 Peter F. Zimowski