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Applications
General
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While both Apple and Microsoft provide guidelines for the way installation and uninstallation of applications should work, the quality of this process is determined by the application developer. Neither operating system's installation and uninstallation processes are perfect...
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When you start Mac OS X and Windows XP, you land on the desktop for each. Both operating systems display a bar along the bottom of the screen by default. On OS X, this bar is called the Dock; on Windows XP, the Taskbar. Since your first task will likely be to open an application, you'll need to know how to access your applications, and there are considerable differences in how each OS handles this job...
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Both operating systems let you run applications originally written for older versions of the operating system. Such applications are known as "legacy" applications. An operating system's legacy support is important, because when users upgrade their operating system or purchase a new computer, they often need to continue running the applications they already own...
Audio
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OS X ships with iTunes for playing music, while XP supplies Windows Media Player (WMP). Both are set as the default applications for playing audio on a user's computer...
Video
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Because Microsoft and Apple have competing video solutions (Windows Media Player and QuickTime), neither operating system offers you the ability to play the other platform's proprietary video formats out-of-the-box. However, Microsoft and Apple both offer their players for the competing platform - Windows Media Player is a free download for OS X users, and QuickTime Player is a free download for Windows XP users...
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Both operating systems will play DVDs, although XP itself does not include a decompressor. DVDs may contain additional content aside from video, such as DVD@ccess web links, which both operating systems understand. Occasionally, DVDs may supply Windows software (for instance, the "Alien" DVD comes with a Windows screensaver). For obvious reasons, OS X can not play any Windows software supplied on DVDs...
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Cheaper, more powerful home computers have moved video editing from a "professional-only" arena into the realm of the home user. The ability to edit digital video on one's computer has become increasingly necessary as families upgrade to digital video cameras and DVD burners, allowing them to share home movies with others in pristine quality...
Photos
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Both Mac OS X and Windows XP will assist you with the task of importing photographs from your digital camera. OS X will import your photos through Image Capture. XP provides a "Scanner and Camera" wizard; in addition, you can browse the contents of your camera directly from My Computer as if it were just another folder on your system...
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When importing photos in XP or in OS X (using Image Capture), you can select an automatic process to generate a web gallery. Both OS X and XP rely on the file system to navigate/manage images, particularly by storing all of your images in your (My) Pictures folder...
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Slideshows are a special method of viewing a series of images one after the other automatically. Both Mac OS X and Windows XP offer built-in slideshow capabilities. You can select images from within the file system and view them as a slideshow ("On-the-fly slideshows"), create a slideshow to save and distribute to others ("Saved Slideshows"), or setup a screensaver that is a slideshow of images within a selected folder complete with transition effects. Of course, XP offers more transition effects between pictures than OS X does...
Internet
Web Browsing (Internet Explorer vs. Safari)
Mac OS X comes with Apple's Safari 2 while Windows XP includes Internet Explorer 7 for browsing the Internet. Both offer bookmark management, tabbed browsing, and viewing RSS feeds.
Email (Mail vs. Outlook Express)
Both OS X's Mail and XP's Outlook Express manage multiple email accounts. Both can connect to IMAP or POP mail boxes. Both email clients support sending web pages via email - in Internet Explorer, choose File > Send > Page by Email; in Safari, choose File > Mail Contents of this Page. Both include a built-in address book to enable display of "friendly" names (i.e., if you have a first and last name listed for a contact, their name will be displayed in the From field in place of their email address). Both can display the source code of HTML messages...
Email (Junk Mail/SPAM Filtering)
Junk email, also known as spam, has become an annoyance for many home users whose email inboxes can quickly get flooded with unwanted messages...
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Neither OS ships with a WYSIWYG HTML editor. Since HTML is just text, you can use the text editors that ship w/each OS to edit HTML, but they don't offer any features of commercial HTML editors like tag assistants...
Chat
Instant Messenging (Text Chatting)
OS X comes with iChat AV, while Windows XP comes with Windows Messenger. Both clients support buddy lists, the ability to chat with multiple buddies simultaneously, and "typing indicators" that show you when a buddy is typing a message to you. Both clients allow you to share files through your chat window, and both clients support "emoticons" (although XP's array is wider)...
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Apple and Microsoft offer competing solutions for users who wish to audio- or video-conference with friends and colleagues. Apple's solution is iChat AV, while Microsoft offers no less than four applications that have audio and video capabilities - Windows Messenger, MSN Messenger, NetMeeting, and Phone Dialer. iChat users can audio- and video-conference with AIM users on Windows. In comparison, out of Microsoft's four conferencing applications, only MSN Messenger is available for Mac users, and the latest version (5.0) lacks AV capabilities...
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Advanced conferencing encompasses such abilities as shared whiteboard, application sharing and remote assistance...
Miscellaneous
Calendaring features include the ability to schedule events, share calendars with other users, and synchronize calendars with mobile devices...
Calculator features include the ability to perform standard operations and scientific functions, as well as graph equations in 2D or 3D space...
Take a break from work; included games will help occupy your time...
Look up definitions and synonyms for any word...
Developer tools let one code applications for their respective operating system. Both Apple and Microsoft offer free developer tools, though Apple's offerings are more thorough (and are also provided as part of OS X)...
Total weight of this section: 220 points
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