A couple of reasons why you might want to know something about ports...

First, with built-in Apache, FTP, SSH, and telnet, some knowledge of ports may be more
useful with OS X than it was with OS 9. For example, if you have an ISP (as I do) that blocks
ports below 1000, but still want to use SSH and Apache, you need to remap the ports. It
would be useful to have some knowledge of what they are and how they work in order to
successfully remap them. Alternatively, if your Apache isn't working, it might be good to know
that it's on port 80, and you could then find out that your ISP is blocking low-numbered ports.

Second, with UNIX as the core, I tend to think the issue of 'open ports' may come up more
often when discussing possible attacks against always-connected home machines.

Third, I'm in the "more knowledge is a good thing" camp (part of the reason I built this site in
the first place) so I figure the more you know about the system, the better off you are. Hence,
it can't hurt to at least understand ports.

Is it a life-or-death requirement for success in OS X? Hardly. But then again, I didn't say that.
I just said it may help ease the transition...

cheers;
-rob.

fairy nuff.

I'm just a little worried that talk of the necessity of such stuff could easily scare off potential converts to OSX. That's not to say one shouldn't discuss such issues.

Good observation.

I modified the last line and clearly distinguished between the power users who want to learn
everything, and the typical day-to-day OS 9 users (like my mom!) who won't care one bit
about this stuff.

Thanks for the feedback!

-rob.