Mastering Mac: OSX
Chapter One
What Is Mac OS X
and What's New?
An operating system (OS) is a set of computer instructions that enables the computer to interact
with the user and any peripheral devices such as printers, disk drives, and monitors. More to the point,
the OS is what gives your computer a great deal of its "personality." The OS determines the look of windows
and icons and other controls on your screen. It's used for managing your files and applications and
documents. It's the underlying technology for all sorts of tasks, from printing to playing back on-screen
video to connecting to other computers over a wireless network or via the Internet.
Apple's flagship OS is Mac OS X, now in its fourth major iteration, Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther."
Mac OS X is Apple's twenty-first-century operating system-both metaphorically and in terms of its
timeline-bringing a number of interesting tools and capabilities to Mac users while taking advantage of
the continued hardware advances that Apple has made with its various models of Macintosh computers.
In this chapter, you'll learn how Mac OS X came to be, what its outstanding features are, which version
of the Macintosh operating system is best for you, and how you can use your existing Mac ... read full excerpt from Mastering Mac OS X ebook
