Apple Does not 'Just work'
-
I bought a MAC laptop for my wife last year. After using NeXT for 15 years or so(I still own a couple of them in storage), I was appalled at OSX. After an hour or so fooling around with it and not finding .cshrc or FSCK so that I might help her, I now refuse to go near it. They must be in there somewhere. Some day I'd like to hear some explanation of why they sat on NeXT for all those years. There's some kind of equivalence between VISTA and OSX for moving not backward, but into some kind of la-la-land.
bandtail wrote:
not finding .cshrc or FSCK
I found that one out the hard way too. Had just a small network at one point, one Mac, one PC, so I felt no need to setup internal DHCP/DNS. I thought I'd just setup static IP addresses with a hosts file. I edited /etc/hosts on the Mac, but it didn't pay any attention to it. It almost feels like they've taken the Unix base, and just hacked it away to take the good parts of Unix out of it. And let's not even get started on HFS+... I'm with Linus Torvalds on that one - it isn't worth keeping (although I believe they are looking at ZFS as the default file system in a future version). HFS/HFS+ is an ancient file system that's just been hacked way too much, so it is time to re-write it or replace it.
------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------
-
Chris Maunder wrote:
I am so, so sick of typing in my password every single time I want to do anything, and of apps crashing, and of things like the Airport Update rendering the Airport base station inoperative, and missing support for things like WMA files, and my USB drive, and all the other crap that Apple likes to thing only happens to PC users.
Sounds to me like something isn't right with your system. I almost never have to type in a password unless I'm updating software or I'm logging in to some account. Both seem reasonable places to ask for a password. USB drive? Are you plugging in a NTFS formatted drive? Because that may indeed not work (but then everyone other than Windows has some problems dealing with it). Otherwise everything I've attached has worked just fine. WMA? Meh, you brought that on yourself...
If you're having to type your password every time you want to do anything there's certainly something wrong with either your system or with what you're trying to do with it. Try running Disk Utility and repair permissions on your system drive. I admit it must be annoying if that is happening, but hey UAC anyone? Hello? I've been using a Mac since early OS 9 days (circa '93) and Windows machines (3.1/95/98/NT/XP/Vista) for about the same. Are they different? Of course they are. Is one better than the other? Well that depends on what you are trying to do. That's like trying to compare a salad and a steak. One thing that I've found over the years is that using a Mac you get a better view of the wider world, particularly when it comes to file formats, usually MS ones. Personally I've never had any airport issues, nor any issues with any USB drive. WMA files, well as usual that's a MS proprietary file format. That's what they do. Forget adopting anything that is already good enough for the job, let's create our own format. Sony are just as bad. Unlike Apple who went with AAC for iTunes, but also made it flexible enough for people them a choice. If you want to play WMA on a Mac you have plenty of choices, try checking out MacUpdate HERE NTFS? Well firstly you can read NTFS disks by default under OS X and of course read/write even format disks in FAT32. When was the last time you were able to read an HFS/HFS+ disk on a PC? Need to write to an NTFS disk? Try NTFS-3G Forgot cross platform file issues though, have you ever tried to open a MS Works database file in MS Access? Or a Works Word Processing file in Word? MS don't even support all their own formats on their own platform (by default anyway). Granted that XCode might not be the slickest IDE in the world, but at least they don't have the balls to charge you for it. When did MS last give away Visual Studio? You want to write in BASIC, what about REALBasic? Alright, it's not exactly the same as MS VB, but it's not trying to be. That said though what MS tool will compile your VB code into an OS X/Linux/Win executable? Want to write .net code on a Mac try looking up Mono. Granted the GUI sucks, but it can be done. I could go on all day, but it's the same old story. The bottom line is that you need to accept that different computers are good at different things. I use a Mac on a daily basis for my graphic and web work, but I als
-
If you're having to type your password every time you want to do anything there's certainly something wrong with either your system or with what you're trying to do with it. Try running Disk Utility and repair permissions on your system drive. I admit it must be annoying if that is happening, but hey UAC anyone? Hello? I've been using a Mac since early OS 9 days (circa '93) and Windows machines (3.1/95/98/NT/XP/Vista) for about the same. Are they different? Of course they are. Is one better than the other? Well that depends on what you are trying to do. That's like trying to compare a salad and a steak. One thing that I've found over the years is that using a Mac you get a better view of the wider world, particularly when it comes to file formats, usually MS ones. Personally I've never had any airport issues, nor any issues with any USB drive. WMA files, well as usual that's a MS proprietary file format. That's what they do. Forget adopting anything that is already good enough for the job, let's create our own format. Sony are just as bad. Unlike Apple who went with AAC for iTunes, but also made it flexible enough for people them a choice. If you want to play WMA on a Mac you have plenty of choices, try checking out MacUpdate HERE NTFS? Well firstly you can read NTFS disks by default under OS X and of course read/write even format disks in FAT32. When was the last time you were able to read an HFS/HFS+ disk on a PC? Need to write to an NTFS disk? Try NTFS-3G Forgot cross platform file issues though, have you ever tried to open a MS Works database file in MS Access? Or a Works Word Processing file in Word? MS don't even support all their own formats on their own platform (by default anyway). Granted that XCode might not be the slickest IDE in the world, but at least they don't have the balls to charge you for it. When did MS last give away Visual Studio? You want to write in BASIC, what about REALBasic? Alright, it's not exactly the same as MS VB, but it's not trying to be. That said though what MS tool will compile your VB code into an OS X/Linux/Win executable? Want to write .net code on a Mac try looking up Mono. Granted the GUI sucks, but it can be done. I could go on all day, but it's the same old story. The bottom line is that you need to accept that different computers are good at different things. I use a Mac on a daily basis for my graphic and web work, but I als
Bristle_Ike wrote:
When did MS last give away Visual Studio?
Visual Studio Express editions? Granted it's not the full Visual Studio product but it is free.
-
Russell Morris wrote:
1. The keyboard. I feel like I'm typing on a My-First-Keyboard. "I'm typing a letter to daddy!"
Weird. I find it the best keyboard I've ever had.
-
I am so, so sick of typing in my password every single time I want to do anything, and of apps crashing, and of things like the Airport Update rendering the Airport base station inoperative, and missing support for things like WMA files, and my USB drive, and all the other crap that Apple likes to thing only happens to PC users. I knew Apple was full of hot air and stretching the truth but it's now at the point of offensive. Get your house into order, Apple, before you think about slinging stones and arrows.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
Chris Maunder wrote:
I am so, so sick of typing in my password every single time I want to do anything, and of apps crashing,
Well, first of all you only need to type password when you're dealing with System files. I don't know what you're trying to do that it keeps asking you to type password that often. It's really weird, I have installed and removed over 100s app in last few weeks, since I got new iMac 24" and it has never crashed. Not even those third party apps. It Just Works for me. And by the way it also depends on which OS X you're running, because lot of people do get issues trying running latest apps in older version of OS.
- Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities -
-
Chris Maunder wrote:
I am so, so sick of typing in my password every single time I want to do anything, and of apps crashing,
Well, first of all you only need to type password when you're dealing with System files. I don't know what you're trying to do that it keeps asking you to type password that often. It's really weird, I have installed and removed over 100s app in last few weeks, since I got new iMac 24" and it has never crashed. Not even those third party apps. It Just Works for me. And by the way it also depends on which OS X you're running, because lot of people do get issues trying running latest apps in older version of OS.
- Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities -
Every single time I install somethinng, whether it be an update or an app. Also, every time I made a change to the Airport settings (which I've since figured out how to stop). As to the airport itself, the latest update from Apple turned it into a paper weight. I'll be heading back to the apple store, serious face in tow.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
-
If you're having to type your password every time you want to do anything there's certainly something wrong with either your system or with what you're trying to do with it. Try running Disk Utility and repair permissions on your system drive. I admit it must be annoying if that is happening, but hey UAC anyone? Hello? I've been using a Mac since early OS 9 days (circa '93) and Windows machines (3.1/95/98/NT/XP/Vista) for about the same. Are they different? Of course they are. Is one better than the other? Well that depends on what you are trying to do. That's like trying to compare a salad and a steak. One thing that I've found over the years is that using a Mac you get a better view of the wider world, particularly when it comes to file formats, usually MS ones. Personally I've never had any airport issues, nor any issues with any USB drive. WMA files, well as usual that's a MS proprietary file format. That's what they do. Forget adopting anything that is already good enough for the job, let's create our own format. Sony are just as bad. Unlike Apple who went with AAC for iTunes, but also made it flexible enough for people them a choice. If you want to play WMA on a Mac you have plenty of choices, try checking out MacUpdate HERE NTFS? Well firstly you can read NTFS disks by default under OS X and of course read/write even format disks in FAT32. When was the last time you were able to read an HFS/HFS+ disk on a PC? Need to write to an NTFS disk? Try NTFS-3G Forgot cross platform file issues though, have you ever tried to open a MS Works database file in MS Access? Or a Works Word Processing file in Word? MS don't even support all their own formats on their own platform (by default anyway). Granted that XCode might not be the slickest IDE in the world, but at least they don't have the balls to charge you for it. When did MS last give away Visual Studio? You want to write in BASIC, what about REALBasic? Alright, it's not exactly the same as MS VB, but it's not trying to be. That said though what MS tool will compile your VB code into an OS X/Linux/Win executable? Want to write .net code on a Mac try looking up Mono. Granted the GUI sucks, but it can be done. I could go on all day, but it's the same old story. The bottom line is that you need to accept that different computers are good at different things. I use a Mac on a daily basis for my graphic and web work, but I als
When did Microsoft last give away Visual Studio? How about Visual Studio 2008 Express editions. :)
-
Every single time I install somethinng, whether it be an update or an app. Also, every time I made a change to the Airport settings (which I've since figured out how to stop). As to the airport itself, the latest update from Apple turned it into a paper weight. I'll be heading back to the apple store, serious face in tow.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
Chris Maunder wrote:
I'll be heading back to the apple store,
Should have done it time ago I guess... ;P Anyway from my experience the Apple Genius aint really Geniuses, they just know the basics, not something complicated. But still give it a go. :)
- Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities -
-
If you're having to type your password every time you want to do anything there's certainly something wrong with either your system or with what you're trying to do with it. Try running Disk Utility and repair permissions on your system drive. I admit it must be annoying if that is happening, but hey UAC anyone? Hello? I've been using a Mac since early OS 9 days (circa '93) and Windows machines (3.1/95/98/NT/XP/Vista) for about the same. Are they different? Of course they are. Is one better than the other? Well that depends on what you are trying to do. That's like trying to compare a salad and a steak. One thing that I've found over the years is that using a Mac you get a better view of the wider world, particularly when it comes to file formats, usually MS ones. Personally I've never had any airport issues, nor any issues with any USB drive. WMA files, well as usual that's a MS proprietary file format. That's what they do. Forget adopting anything that is already good enough for the job, let's create our own format. Sony are just as bad. Unlike Apple who went with AAC for iTunes, but also made it flexible enough for people them a choice. If you want to play WMA on a Mac you have plenty of choices, try checking out MacUpdate HERE NTFS? Well firstly you can read NTFS disks by default under OS X and of course read/write even format disks in FAT32. When was the last time you were able to read an HFS/HFS+ disk on a PC? Need to write to an NTFS disk? Try NTFS-3G Forgot cross platform file issues though, have you ever tried to open a MS Works database file in MS Access? Or a Works Word Processing file in Word? MS don't even support all their own formats on their own platform (by default anyway). Granted that XCode might not be the slickest IDE in the world, but at least they don't have the balls to charge you for it. When did MS last give away Visual Studio? You want to write in BASIC, what about REALBasic? Alright, it's not exactly the same as MS VB, but it's not trying to be. That said though what MS tool will compile your VB code into an OS X/Linux/Win executable? Want to write .net code on a Mac try looking up Mono. Granted the GUI sucks, but it can be done. I could go on all day, but it's the same old story. The bottom line is that you need to accept that different computers are good at different things. I use a Mac on a daily basis for my graphic and web work, but I als
I can just fire up VMWare Fusion and run Win apps directly on my Mac desktop. Can't do that on a Windows machine.Did you try Virtual PC, or WMWare for PC?? Dude, the answer to almost all of yours "Can the Win do this or that ..." is Yes. But you are right - different platform have different pros and cons, so it unwise to start defending just one, or attack just the other. If something is good enough for you - that that is THE OS for you. -
Russell Morris wrote:
1. The keyboard. I feel like I'm typing on a My-First-Keyboard. "I'm typing a letter to daddy!"
Weird. I find it the best keyboard I've ever had.
I think it depends on the keyboard, my macbook pro keyboard is awesome - the wireless keyboard I use on the macmini is disgusting and exactly how he describes it, My First Keyboard. Also - home and end are very annoying, they don't exist on my macbook, but I think fn+left/right work just as well. Also, took me like 20 minutes to find the # key (alt+3). Now I do the shortcuts by instinct it is starting to become as quick to code using this keyboard layout than a normal UK keyboard, but it takes a good few weeks. They dont have the £, @. ", ~, \ keys in the right place either, even though this is meant to be a UK keyboard. Sigh... it just works, providing you are an American teenager who doesn't program or use anything other than ilife. Biggest gripe at the minute - if I use VMware Fusion in fullscreen mode then all the other windows in other Space's lose the ability to minimise via the min yellow icon, and yet, they happily do it with a cmd+m or double clicking the window. Still - there is something scarily nice about using my macbook, it's the smallest and powerful notebook I've ever owned, but then again, it's also the most expensive.... still, I'm happy enough.
-
I can just fire up VMWare Fusion and run Win apps directly on my Mac desktop. Can't do that on a Windows machine.Did you try Virtual PC, or WMWare for PC?? Dude, the answer to almost all of yours "Can the Win do this or that ..." is Yes. But you are right - different platform have different pros and cons, so it unwise to start defending just one, or attack just the other. If something is good enough for you - that that is THE OS for you.Yes you can run Virtual PC's, but what I meant is run the other OS in a virtual sense, ie: run Mac OS X on a virtual machine under Windows. Don't get me wrong, my whole point really was that don't knock the Mac if you don't know that much about it. You're right each OS has it's place (and it's fans), but it's good to understand where the limits of each are.
-
When did Microsoft last give away Visual Studio? How about Visual Studio 2008 Express editions. :)
OK, Express editions you got me there. Good products for the price, especially SQL Express. But there are limitations in the Express product set which MS puts in place to force your hand to buy the full version of Visual Studio. An example being if you want to be able to do Windows Mobile development you need the pro version.
-
Andrew Bleakley wrote:
Try writing code for Macs - that makes using them a dream
It's that bad? I've never coded for Macs in all my years of programming (20+) :-\
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
Depends on what you're coding for. If you're writing apps for mac in Cocoa or Carbon, it's pretty cool. A friend of mine turned me onto them in college and is part of the team that makes the equivalent to WinZip called StuffIt. I've never had a chance to do any programming on it until now, but I'm using it for mostly Ruby apps and I have to say it's pretty slick. It's definitely not windows, which I am used to, but I like it better. Mostly because the apps I use, TextMate for editing and Transmit for FTP are really smooth and think of a lot of the things I would need. Like Macs, its really just a question of choice. Do they cost more? Yep. Are they harder to find software for and do things in a different manner? Yeah. Am I a Mac Fanboy? No, I just like the interface, and I'm having a fairly easy time with programming on it. Are they worth the money? Mine is a work machine, so I can't say. Would I go out and buy one? If I had the cash, sure. Until then, probably not. :-D
-
I'm with you on the application crashing. Everytime I've used a Mac (OS 9 & 10.2/10.4) it 'just crashes' on me. At one place I worked where we used Macs (OS 9 days), I had to reboot 7 times before lunch because it locked up each time. Then everytime I got onto my partner's Mac (10.2/10.4), it would crash reguarly... with messages that she never got when using it! I'm not a big fan of the Mac therefore from my experiences, and few interface things drive me nuts. But hey, if you like the way they work, and are stable for you, by all means use them I say.
------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------
Years ago, I used Macs with OS 7 and 8 for a project. Not only did they constantly crash, there was no outward indication that they did so. You could pull down menus, turn caps lock on and off, move the mouse around, but no commands would actually work. In one case, we crashed it so hard, we had to reinstall the OS. The reason: we'd put more than 512 files in the root directory. (I've related this before, but it bears repeating. At this time, I worked with a guy that did both Mac and Windows development. I asked him which one he preferred. He said, "Whatever one I'm not working on.")
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
-
Christian Graus wrote:
Objective C is nasty looking.
I agree. I guess if I ever get a project requiring Mac coding, I'll find out :-D
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
It's like anything, you learn it when you have to, and until then, it just looks odd.
Christian Graus Please read this if you don't understand the answer I've given you. If you're still stuck, ask me for more information.
-
I am so, so sick of typing in my password every single time I want to do anything, and of apps crashing, and of things like the Airport Update rendering the Airport base station inoperative, and missing support for things like WMA files, and my USB drive, and all the other crap that Apple likes to thing only happens to PC users. I knew Apple was full of hot air and stretching the truth but it's now at the point of offensive. Get your house into order, Apple, before you think about slinging stones and arrows.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
Aha, I knew it was a scam... at least on vista you don't have to put your password in all the time... you just have to click "Yes I want to run this malicious program". I have a couple of friends who switched in university, they are happy for the most part. I still laugh when they have a problem and point out that I have never had that problem with XP, Vista or Ubuntu. The other funny part is that one refuses to update to Leopard because it will break things that he finally got working the way he wanted them to... thats just a .x update... so sad... :laugh:
-
I am so, so sick of typing in my password every single time I want to do anything, and of apps crashing, and of things like the Airport Update rendering the Airport base station inoperative, and missing support for things like WMA files, and my USB drive, and all the other crap that Apple likes to thing only happens to PC users. I knew Apple was full of hot air and stretching the truth but it's now at the point of offensive. Get your house into order, Apple, before you think about slinging stones and arrows.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
If iTunes for Windows is anything to go by, I can't really say I'm surprised...
Sunrise Wallpaper Project | The StartPage Randomizer | The Windows Cheerleader
-
Depends on what you're coding for. If you're writing apps for mac in Cocoa or Carbon, it's pretty cool. A friend of mine turned me onto them in college and is part of the team that makes the equivalent to WinZip called StuffIt. I've never had a chance to do any programming on it until now, but I'm using it for mostly Ruby apps and I have to say it's pretty slick. It's definitely not windows, which I am used to, but I like it better. Mostly because the apps I use, TextMate for editing and Transmit for FTP are really smooth and think of a lot of the things I would need. Like Macs, its really just a question of choice. Do they cost more? Yep. Are they harder to find software for and do things in a different manner? Yeah. Am I a Mac Fanboy? No, I just like the interface, and I'm having a fairly easy time with programming on it. Are they worth the money? Mine is a work machine, so I can't say. Would I go out and buy one? If I had the cash, sure. Until then, probably not. :-D
I have heard of Cocoa and Carbon, just never have had a chance to work with them. I've always wondered about Qt since it is cross platform...
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
-
Try writing code for Macs - that makes using them a dream
-
It's like anything, you learn it when you have to, and until then, it just looks odd.
Christian Graus Please read this if you don't understand the answer I've given you. If you're still stuck, ask me for more information.
Yes, that is very true. I remember how odd C++ looked when I had just come out of high school learning BASIC on an Apple ][e ( showing my age here :laugh: ). Then, after C++, found Java odd, learned it, then onto C#, and I have to say, I do like all three of the languages.
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon