MacOS 8.5 arrives.

Apple has released its latest Operating System update, MacOS 8.5.

First the bad news. MacOS 8.5 is a paid update. Unlike 8.1 which was free to download, you have to go out and buy a boxed CD version of 8.5 if you want to put it onto your system, also 8.5 no longer runs on 68K Macs.

Now the good news, otherwise called reasons to cough up your money.

More PowerPC native code

Since 8.5 no longer supports the legacy of the 68K Macs (no '040 will run 8.5, not even if they have PowerPC upgrade cards), Apple was free to add even more native PowerPC code in MacOS 8.5. Receiving the speed benefits of going native were such important parts of the MacOS as QuickDraw (the screen display routines of the Macintosh toolbox) and Apple Script (the systemwide scripting architecture of the Mac). As well, many unspecified other sections of the operating system received the new life of native speed, all in all making MacOS 8.5 that little bit faster on your current machine, and a lot faster for graphics designers, who will immediately notice the time savings of a faster QuickDraw and a fully native Apple Script. Incidently, Apple Script can now script even more of the Finders functions due to enhanced Apple Script support for the new 8.5 Finder.

Improved Find File

Apple's new Sherlock find file feature, which has been gaining the most press of all the new 8.5 features, is based on the V-Twin search technology that Apple has been researching for the last few years. Not only can Sherlock search the mounted drives in the normal MacOS way, if the user takes the time to index their drive, Sherlock can search this index for phrases and text contained inside the file. So you can find that letter your Mum's writing to her Sister using an unknown application and saved with a file name she no longer remembers (not to mention the four or five other letters of the same type she wrote and forgot to post). Indexing the hard drive is task that can be done automatically by the computer at night by use of Sherlock's in built scheduling options Something I guarantee you'll do as depending on the amount of data on your drive the first indexing could take hours. After that, it is simply a matter of Sherlock updating its index every so often to reflect new files and changes made to old ones.

The last improvement Sherlock brings to the Mac's find file is the ability to search the Internet from within the Sherlock window. Using Sherlock you can type a query, even in plain English like "why is the sky blue?" and Sherlock will send this query onto your chosen Internet search sites like AltaVista and rank the returned results from the multiple sites according to relevancy. From there a simple click will launch your Web browser and take

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