So there was this guy sitting next to me on the train with a Mac notebook...
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... and I was, I guess they call it, shoulder surfing... anyways, I was impressed. The color scheme was very pleasing, and he would do this awesome thing where all the windows that were open were reduced in size, but you could still read the tiny text and see what the window was, and then he'd click on something and it would zoom in to full size. It was like having a virtual desktop that was bigger than the screen. It looked like it was soooo easy to navigate between apps. Why can't Microsoft do something like that? The Win-Tab thing is a joke, I never use it. I guess Microsoft doesn't want to get sued. Is there any third party out there that makes a virtual desktop that does something like that? And then, he put his notebook away, and later on pulled it out and opened it, and instantly (like as if tachyons knew he was going to open it before he himself did) the OS was up and running with all the apps and he just kept on working. It was amazing. Makes me want to go and buy a Mac notebook. That's probably what I've been missing, is watching someone who really knows how to use the OS. Impressed the heck out of me. Then again, I guess I'm easily impressed, if all it took was watching this guy twiddle his windows and close and open his notebook. :-O Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
I know I've seen Exposé clones somewhere on the net. They use the DWM thumbnail API to get thumbnails of the open windows. Win 7's aero peek is much more useful for me though.
--Mike-- Dunder-Mifflin, this is Pam
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... and I was, I guess they call it, shoulder surfing... anyways, I was impressed. The color scheme was very pleasing, and he would do this awesome thing where all the windows that were open were reduced in size, but you could still read the tiny text and see what the window was, and then he'd click on something and it would zoom in to full size. It was like having a virtual desktop that was bigger than the screen. It looked like it was soooo easy to navigate between apps. Why can't Microsoft do something like that? The Win-Tab thing is a joke, I never use it. I guess Microsoft doesn't want to get sued. Is there any third party out there that makes a virtual desktop that does something like that? And then, he put his notebook away, and later on pulled it out and opened it, and instantly (like as if tachyons knew he was going to open it before he himself did) the OS was up and running with all the apps and he just kept on working. It was amazing. Makes me want to go and buy a Mac notebook. That's probably what I've been missing, is watching someone who really knows how to use the OS. Impressed the heck out of me. Then again, I guess I'm easily impressed, if all it took was watching this guy twiddle his windows and close and open his notebook. :-O Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
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Insincere Dave wrote:
You can set windows to go in standby when you close the lid if you want.
Yeah, I know, but it's a feature that works three or four times and then Windows crashes always ever-after. I think each of us is born with some sort of karma that makes one feature of Windows always not work. Standby is mine. For my son, his taskbar is always hosed up. On one computer, it has permanently disappeared, on his laptop, there's some video problem, just with the taskbar, that messes up the display. Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
I've actually found, to my great surprise, that Suspend works fairly well with Windows 7. XP would lock up as often as not, and Vista never had the right drivers to work at all, but 7 seems to have done something right. It even manages to reconnect to WiFi upon resuming, without lengthy pauses as it searches all available networks. Of course, it might just be my time to be lucky. YMMV... ;-)
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Insincere Dave wrote:
You can set windows to go in standby when you close the lid if you want.
Yeah, I know, but it's a feature that works three or four times and then Windows crashes always ever-after. I think each of us is born with some sort of karma that makes one feature of Windows always not work. Standby is mine. For my son, his taskbar is always hosed up. On one computer, it has permanently disappeared, on his laptop, there's some video problem, just with the taskbar, that messes up the display. Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
Marc Clifton wrote:
Yeah, I know, but it's a feature that works three or four times and then Windows crashes always ever-after.
I've been using this feature on my laptop through XP, Windows 7 RC, and now Windows 7 Premium. Never had a crash in three years of daily use, often shutting the lid more than once a day. Also, being a geekish sort I tend to install and deinstall all sorts of rubbish quite regularly. So, based on my experience Windows is a pretty robust OS, even with the minor cosmetic issues that I'm less than crazy about.
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... and I was, I guess they call it, shoulder surfing... anyways, I was impressed. The color scheme was very pleasing, and he would do this awesome thing where all the windows that were open were reduced in size, but you could still read the tiny text and see what the window was, and then he'd click on something and it would zoom in to full size. It was like having a virtual desktop that was bigger than the screen. It looked like it was soooo easy to navigate between apps. Why can't Microsoft do something like that? The Win-Tab thing is a joke, I never use it. I guess Microsoft doesn't want to get sued. Is there any third party out there that makes a virtual desktop that does something like that? And then, he put his notebook away, and later on pulled it out and opened it, and instantly (like as if tachyons knew he was going to open it before he himself did) the OS was up and running with all the apps and he just kept on working. It was amazing. Makes me want to go and buy a Mac notebook. That's probably what I've been missing, is watching someone who really knows how to use the OS. Impressed the heck out of me. Then again, I guess I'm easily impressed, if all it took was watching this guy twiddle his windows and close and open his notebook. :-O Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
Windows 7 copied that feature (not to say that Mac has never copied from Windows). I never use that feature on Mac as I never found it that useful. But Macs are neat, the real thing is the attention given to finer details in design, right from the hardware to the UI.
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... and I was, I guess they call it, shoulder surfing... anyways, I was impressed. The color scheme was very pleasing, and he would do this awesome thing where all the windows that were open were reduced in size, but you could still read the tiny text and see what the window was, and then he'd click on something and it would zoom in to full size. It was like having a virtual desktop that was bigger than the screen. It looked like it was soooo easy to navigate between apps. Why can't Microsoft do something like that? The Win-Tab thing is a joke, I never use it. I guess Microsoft doesn't want to get sued. Is there any third party out there that makes a virtual desktop that does something like that? And then, he put his notebook away, and later on pulled it out and opened it, and instantly (like as if tachyons knew he was going to open it before he himself did) the OS was up and running with all the apps and he just kept on working. It was amazing. Makes me want to go and buy a Mac notebook. That's probably what I've been missing, is watching someone who really knows how to use the OS. Impressed the heck out of me. Then again, I guess I'm easily impressed, if all it took was watching this guy twiddle his windows and close and open his notebook. :-O Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
My girlfriend has a MacBook, and I use it whenever I want to look something up quickly. I have a comfort thing with Windows, and of course development is still pretty hopeless on Macs, but I could see making the switch within a decade or so.
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... and I was, I guess they call it, shoulder surfing... anyways, I was impressed. The color scheme was very pleasing, and he would do this awesome thing where all the windows that were open were reduced in size, but you could still read the tiny text and see what the window was, and then he'd click on something and it would zoom in to full size. It was like having a virtual desktop that was bigger than the screen. It looked like it was soooo easy to navigate between apps. Why can't Microsoft do something like that? The Win-Tab thing is a joke, I never use it. I guess Microsoft doesn't want to get sued. Is there any third party out there that makes a virtual desktop that does something like that? And then, he put his notebook away, and later on pulled it out and opened it, and instantly (like as if tachyons knew he was going to open it before he himself did) the OS was up and running with all the apps and he just kept on working. It was amazing. Makes me want to go and buy a Mac notebook. That's probably what I've been missing, is watching someone who really knows how to use the OS. Impressed the heck out of me. Then again, I guess I'm easily impressed, if all it took was watching this guy twiddle his windows and close and open his notebook. :-O Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
Yes, the Mac is just plain easier to use, it makes more sense, etc. There's a bit of a curve if you're used to windows, but I do believe if two people of equal general intelligence with no computer experience picked up a PC or a Mac, the Mac user would get going quicker and end up happier.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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... and I was, I guess they call it, shoulder surfing... anyways, I was impressed. The color scheme was very pleasing, and he would do this awesome thing where all the windows that were open were reduced in size, but you could still read the tiny text and see what the window was, and then he'd click on something and it would zoom in to full size. It was like having a virtual desktop that was bigger than the screen. It looked like it was soooo easy to navigate between apps. Why can't Microsoft do something like that? The Win-Tab thing is a joke, I never use it. I guess Microsoft doesn't want to get sued. Is there any third party out there that makes a virtual desktop that does something like that? And then, he put his notebook away, and later on pulled it out and opened it, and instantly (like as if tachyons knew he was going to open it before he himself did) the OS was up and running with all the apps and he just kept on working. It was amazing. Makes me want to go and buy a Mac notebook. That's probably what I've been missing, is watching someone who really knows how to use the OS. Impressed the heck out of me. Then again, I guess I'm easily impressed, if all it took was watching this guy twiddle his windows and close and open his notebook. :-O Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
Well technically you have a good excuse to by one as you have a product that needs to be tested on multiple platforms!
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
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... and I was, I guess they call it, shoulder surfing... anyways, I was impressed. The color scheme was very pleasing, and he would do this awesome thing where all the windows that were open were reduced in size, but you could still read the tiny text and see what the window was, and then he'd click on something and it would zoom in to full size. It was like having a virtual desktop that was bigger than the screen. It looked like it was soooo easy to navigate between apps. Why can't Microsoft do something like that? The Win-Tab thing is a joke, I never use it. I guess Microsoft doesn't want to get sued. Is there any third party out there that makes a virtual desktop that does something like that? And then, he put his notebook away, and later on pulled it out and opened it, and instantly (like as if tachyons knew he was going to open it before he himself did) the OS was up and running with all the apps and he just kept on working. It was amazing. Makes me want to go and buy a Mac notebook. That's probably what I've been missing, is watching someone who really knows how to use the OS. Impressed the heck out of me. Then again, I guess I'm easily impressed, if all it took was watching this guy twiddle his windows and close and open his notebook. :-O Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
meh Win7 or Ubuntu > OS X any day.
// Steve McLenithan
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... and I was, I guess they call it, shoulder surfing... anyways, I was impressed. The color scheme was very pleasing, and he would do this awesome thing where all the windows that were open were reduced in size, but you could still read the tiny text and see what the window was, and then he'd click on something and it would zoom in to full size. It was like having a virtual desktop that was bigger than the screen. It looked like it was soooo easy to navigate between apps. Why can't Microsoft do something like that? The Win-Tab thing is a joke, I never use it. I guess Microsoft doesn't want to get sued. Is there any third party out there that makes a virtual desktop that does something like that? And then, he put his notebook away, and later on pulled it out and opened it, and instantly (like as if tachyons knew he was going to open it before he himself did) the OS was up and running with all the apps and he just kept on working. It was amazing. Makes me want to go and buy a Mac notebook. That's probably what I've been missing, is watching someone who really knows how to use the OS. Impressed the heck out of me. Then again, I guess I'm easily impressed, if all it took was watching this guy twiddle his windows and close and open his notebook. :-O Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
Insincere Dave wrote:
You can set windows to go in standby when you close the lid if you want.
Yeah, I know, but it's a feature that works three or four times and then Windows crashes always ever-after. I think each of us is born with some sort of karma that makes one feature of Windows always not work. Standby is mine. For my son, his taskbar is always hosed up. On one computer, it has permanently disappeared, on his laptop, there's some video problem, just with the taskbar, that messes up the display. Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
Apple controls the OS and the hardware. Much, MUCH easier when you only have to support 1 machine. However, Windows 7 suspend is not only faster than before, I've never had a hicough, even with my old falling apart beat up vaio.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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Yes, the Mac is just plain easier to use, it makes more sense, etc. There's a bit of a curve if you're used to windows, but I do believe if two people of equal general intelligence with no computer experience picked up a PC or a Mac, the Mac user would get going quicker and end up happier.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
Christian Graus wrote:
Yes, the Mac is just plain easier to use, it makes more sense, etc.
Not to me. It still is just enough off-centre for me that I'm constantly getting tripped up. And the weight of a decent Mac laptop (ie not an Air and not a Macbook) make them prohibitive for me.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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Christian Graus wrote:
Yes, the Mac is just plain easier to use, it makes more sense, etc.
Not to me. It still is just enough off-centre for me that I'm constantly getting tripped up. And the weight of a decent Mac laptop (ie not an Air and not a Macbook) make them prohibitive for me.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Chris Maunder wrote:
Not to me. It still is just enough off-centre for me that I'm constantly getting tripped up.
I'm only used to mine because I made a choice to do all my windows work in a VM and thus work with OSX ALL the time. There's still things that I can do better in Windows, but it's power user stuff, and it's getting to be less and less.
Chris Maunder wrote:
And the weight of a decent Mac laptop (ie not an Air and not a Macbook) make them prohibitive for me.
My Mac Book Pro weighs less than my Asus notebook, but I've had lighter notebooks than that, and I know that the Air is somewhat useless, so this is probably a valid criticism.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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... and I was, I guess they call it, shoulder surfing... anyways, I was impressed. The color scheme was very pleasing, and he would do this awesome thing where all the windows that were open were reduced in size, but you could still read the tiny text and see what the window was, and then he'd click on something and it would zoom in to full size. It was like having a virtual desktop that was bigger than the screen. It looked like it was soooo easy to navigate between apps. Why can't Microsoft do something like that? The Win-Tab thing is a joke, I never use it. I guess Microsoft doesn't want to get sued. Is there any third party out there that makes a virtual desktop that does something like that? And then, he put his notebook away, and later on pulled it out and opened it, and instantly (like as if tachyons knew he was going to open it before he himself did) the OS was up and running with all the apps and he just kept on working. It was amazing. Makes me want to go and buy a Mac notebook. That's probably what I've been missing, is watching someone who really knows how to use the OS. Impressed the heck out of me. Then again, I guess I'm easily impressed, if all it took was watching this guy twiddle his windows and close and open his notebook. :-O Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
Marc Clifton wrote:
Is there any third party out there that makes a virtual desktop that does something like that?
Loads; all shapes, sizes, and zooms, twists, etc. I use this one: http://azimuthdragon.deviantart.com/art/Windows-XP-Desktops-Matodate-69381007[^] It's one of the older ones, and not as snazzy as some of the newer ones, but I like it. What I want is the "window wobble" that you get with Ubuntu -- when you restore a window, it zooms up onto the screen, and does a little "impetus wobble" (for want of a way to describe it) when it stops.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Chris Maunder wrote:
Not to me. It still is just enough off-centre for me that I'm constantly getting tripped up.
I'm only used to mine because I made a choice to do all my windows work in a VM and thus work with OSX ALL the time. There's still things that I can do better in Windows, but it's power user stuff, and it's getting to be less and less.
Chris Maunder wrote:
And the weight of a decent Mac laptop (ie not an Air and not a Macbook) make them prohibitive for me.
My Mac Book Pro weighs less than my Asus notebook, but I've had lighter notebooks than that, and I know that the Air is somewhat useless, so this is probably a valid criticism.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
Christian Graus wrote:
There's still things that I can do better in Windows, but it's power user stuff
That's the problem. I've used Macs on and off for years, but I can't do half of what I do on a Win box with them, and I'm not willing to dedicate the time required to learn it. Plus I hate the company.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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... and I was, I guess they call it, shoulder surfing... anyways, I was impressed. The color scheme was very pleasing, and he would do this awesome thing where all the windows that were open were reduced in size, but you could still read the tiny text and see what the window was, and then he'd click on something and it would zoom in to full size. It was like having a virtual desktop that was bigger than the screen. It looked like it was soooo easy to navigate between apps. Why can't Microsoft do something like that? The Win-Tab thing is a joke, I never use it. I guess Microsoft doesn't want to get sued. Is there any third party out there that makes a virtual desktop that does something like that? And then, he put his notebook away, and later on pulled it out and opened it, and instantly (like as if tachyons knew he was going to open it before he himself did) the OS was up and running with all the apps and he just kept on working. It was amazing. Makes me want to go and buy a Mac notebook. That's probably what I've been missing, is watching someone who really knows how to use the OS. Impressed the heck out of me. Then again, I guess I'm easily impressed, if all it took was watching this guy twiddle his windows and close and open his notebook. :-O Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
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Christian Graus wrote:
There's still things that I can do better in Windows, but it's power user stuff
That's the problem. I've used Macs on and off for years, but I can't do half of what I do on a Win box with them, and I'm not willing to dedicate the time required to learn it. Plus I hate the company.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark Wallace wrote:
I've used Macs on and off for years, but I can't do half of what I do on a Win box with them, and I'm not willing to dedicate the time required to learn it.
Well, there's nothing I need to do that I can't do, it's just that stuff like looking for the runonce key in the registry, I don't know Macs that deeply, yet. I'm still more productive on my Mac, because their Office suite does everything I need, the computer comes with other software that beats anything I've seen on PC, etc.
Mark Wallace wrote:
Plus I hate the company.
Well, I hate Microsoft, but I still use their stuff if it's the best thing going.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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Christian Graus wrote:
Yes, the Mac is just plain easier to use, it makes more sense, etc.
Not to me. It still is just enough off-centre for me that I'm constantly getting tripped up. And the weight of a decent Mac laptop (ie not an Air and not a Macbook) make them prohibitive for me.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Chris Maunder wrote:
Not to me. It still is just enough off-centre for me that I'm constantly getting tripped up
Or is it you that's off-centre :-D
Chris Maunder wrote:
And the weight of a decent Mac laptop (ie not an Air and not a Macbook) make them prohibitive for me.
Interesting - what attributes of a laptop are you looking for that the Mac's deficient in?
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
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... and I was, I guess they call it, shoulder surfing... anyways, I was impressed. The color scheme was very pleasing, and he would do this awesome thing where all the windows that were open were reduced in size, but you could still read the tiny text and see what the window was, and then he'd click on something and it would zoom in to full size. It was like having a virtual desktop that was bigger than the screen. It looked like it was soooo easy to navigate between apps. Why can't Microsoft do something like that? The Win-Tab thing is a joke, I never use it. I guess Microsoft doesn't want to get sued. Is there any third party out there that makes a virtual desktop that does something like that? And then, he put his notebook away, and later on pulled it out and opened it, and instantly (like as if tachyons knew he was going to open it before he himself did) the OS was up and running with all the apps and he just kept on working. It was amazing. Makes me want to go and buy a Mac notebook. That's probably what I've been missing, is watching someone who really knows how to use the OS. Impressed the heck out of me. Then again, I guess I'm easily impressed, if all it took was watching this guy twiddle his windows and close and open his notebook. :-O Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
Yes, Expose is nice (although I tend to use CMD-Tab (which is like Alt-Tab) to switch apps). It also integrates with Spaces (the multiple desktop functionality) so you can press F8 to show all your desktops and drag apps from desktop to desktop, which is nice. And the sleep/wake thing is so true - that was the thing I most noticed when I first got a Mac (a 1.4GHz PowerPC iBook) - although it was much slower than my Windows laptop (2.2GHz Athlon64?), it slept and woke properly. And the wireless just connects instantly - none of the nonsense waiting for it to try and find the base station as I got with WinXP. But the feature I find myself missing whenever I use a Windows laptop is the multi-touch touchpad. And not the fancy features - using two fingers on a touchpad to scroll is so ingrained in me that I find myself using it on a Windows laptop and wondering why it doesn't work. I know some Windows laptops have that (Asus Eees, for example), but not the ones I've used :-(
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p