Updates to the OS - when and how

One of the things I am going to really miss about my Linux laptop was the software patching system. Now I have used many flavors of Linux. Ubuntu has been my main course for the last couple of years, but I have much experience with RedHat/Fedora, and even Slackware if you want to dive into the wayback machine. The last several iterations have all had a commonality that there was a tool that automatically gathered data on what patches were available, simmilar to (gasp!) Windows Update. This doesnt seem to be the case in OS X. I have to manually go and see if there are patches available. That is kind of disapointing. I actually have to go and put effort into seeing if there are any patches available.

Why doesn't Apple simply have the OS check every so many times a day for updates? Is this a concious decision? Who knows. I can see that I will have to be vigilant in keeping up with the patches. I did finally break down and get the 600+ MB worth of updates I needed immediately after first boot up, but it took me almost a week.


***Correction*** The update software in OSX X just prompted me to download some patches. The timing of the prompting for applying updates is seemingly more aggressive in Linux/Ubuntu's updater.

Applications - what CAN'T you do with this thing?

I am blown away by the fit and finish of the apps that run on OSX. Not only the iApps, but the stuff that is available for both OSX and Linux.

Some of my favorites:

VLC - Video Lan Client - Its a media playe rthat is VERY simple and yet very robust. It can handle just about any codec out there, and is very easy to use. I like using it over iTunes for simple things like listening to streaming audio, especially online news/talk stations.

TrueCrypt - One of my favorite cross platform encryption tools. This is available for Linux, OS X, and Windows. Use it to either encrypt a whole drive/partition or a single file. Each is then decrypted and mounted as a filesystem. It supports many different encryption techniques and is very easy to use.

NoMachine Client - Use it to login remotely to my home Linux server. It uses the existing SSH server software on the Linux box to tunnel an X-Windows session to your client, so its very secure.

Skype - One of the most usefeul communications tools out there. Its a voice client, a chat client, and a VOIP phone.

Firefox 3 - Its, of course, my favorite web browser and probably always will be. I know, I know - Safari is not bad.

Welcome and first post

Hi - this is a blog about my transition from using Linux exclusively to using OS X. I recently purchased a 13" Macbook, and while I have touched OSX in the past, I never got to know it to the degree I am familiar with Linux.

About me - I am a long time Linux/Unix user, having used it almost exclusively for my personal computing for the last 10 years. I have long used Linux as a server, from back in the mid 90's, working for several small to midsize ISPs. I am currently working as a Network Security Engineer, so while I am not focused on PC security in my job, I always have it in mind.

This blog will be my documentation of my journey into OS X, with comparisons and contrasts of OS X with Linux, and probably wont be extremely technical, but we will see how that goes.