So there was this guy sitting next to me on the train with a Mac notebook...
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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
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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
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
Stuart Dootson wrote:
Interesting - what attributes of a laptop are you looking for that the Mac's deficient in?
A sensible price tag? I bought a laptop that's WAY more powerful than the macbook that comes on the same price range.
“Follow your bliss.” – Joseph Campbell
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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
Yeah I always have problems with standby too. On my newest computer my optical drives all disappear after resuming from standby until I either reboot or mess around in device manager scanning for hardware changes etc. On my previous computer the network adapter wouldn't work after standby, etc.
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Stuart Dootson wrote:
Interesting - what attributes of a laptop are you looking for that the Mac's deficient in?
A sensible price tag? I bought a laptop that's WAY more powerful than the macbook that comes on the same price range.
“Follow your bliss.” – Joseph Campbell
Did Chris say it was the price that made it prohibitive? No, it was weight. Which implies (as heavier Macs tend to be more expensive, ignoring the Air, as Chris had already stated) that some other functional attribute was deficient, which was what I was asking.
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
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Did Chris say it was the price that made it prohibitive? No, it was weight. Which implies (as heavier Macs tend to be more expensive, ignoring the Air, as Chris had already stated) that some other functional attribute was deficient, which was what I was asking.
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
OK, I thought you wanted a list of things that a Mac is deficient in. So, I thought I'd start with the price. :)
“Follow your bliss.” – Joseph Campbell
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OK, I thought you wanted a list of things that a Mac is deficient in. So, I thought I'd start with the price. :)
“Follow your bliss.” – Joseph Campbell
Just the visible price - you haven't included the hidden price of having to own, use and maintain a Windows PC :-D
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
I think you missed the point of why he closed the macbook. I have one, and the battery dies faster than I can type so you NEED these built ins :)
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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
If it's not working it will almost certantly be a driver issue. Fire up Event Viewer and take a looke at the warning. Windows will usualy note that driver xyz took 7.6 seconds to resume...... And then it all works fine :) I use it allllll the time, all works fine.
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Marc Clifton wrote:
big
Marc Clifton wrote:
Mac
Dang, now I'm hungry.
You want fries with that?
Software Zen:
delete this; -
... 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
ah, if only every OS was perfect in the business place and you can actually deploy "build once, run everywhere" apps. In my humble opinion, windows(desktop, server, mobile) = average consumer, businesses osx = artsy types (photographers, audio/video editors, etc), people who want to stick it to the man but still like to follow people like sheep. linux = nerds, smarter (new age?) businesses, people who want to stick it to the man and know how its done. In all honesty, I havent used osx for a decent amount of time but I do run (ranked by hours of use) linux (android) on my phone (relevance? yeah i know, i added this in after i wrote the rest) xp on my work pc (windows mobile/asp/desktop development) eeeubuntu on my eeepc 701 (browsing and remote desktopping mostly) ubuntu server edition on my web server windows 7 RC on my desktop pc (probably switch to linux when my RC runs out) xp on my fiancee's slow ass laptop (which she wont let me format) so i think that i am well enough informed to sum up the OS wars to this... They all suck AND they all rule, in their own way. take that to the bank!
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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.
This is why I don't ever expect to linux my desktop. The last time I could devote the effort to mastering a new OS (and before I really was a windows power user) was in college (8 years ago), and I was never able to get PPPOE to work to authenticate with the school lan. In between a few weeks of intermittent reboot swear reboot cycles I noticed that win2k didn't fall apart inside of 2 or 3 days like 98 did; after tossing nutscrape 4.7 for opera I could have month long uptimes. From then on mandrake found itself just gathering virtual dust.
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
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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'm a recent convert to the Mac, though I still own and use several Windows (7) machines. These days, the OS is just a platform. Like someone mentioned, you can get third party apps that duplicate the functionality of Exposé on Windows. To tell you the truth, I still use the app switching keys on the Mac (CMD + Tab) rather than Exposé, which I find useless if I have more than a few apps open. If you ask me, the hardware is the reason to own a Mac. I have one of the new 15" MacBook Pro unibodies. Sweetest machine I've ever owned. The multi-touch trackpad is what sells it for me, I almost never need to hook up an external mouse, which with my Windows laptops is almost a necessity. I've also heard longtime Mac users absolutely pan the multi-touch thing. It's all about what works best for you.
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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?
Not a virtual desktop, but a very useful tool that shows you the open windows (and they slide in/out) and lets you quickly select a window either by clicking or typing a number (in example on the num pad). It also has other features like search, suppport for multiple monitors, etc. I have replaced Win+Tab Vista shortcut with it: Switcher for Windows Vista[^].
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You want fries with that?
Software Zen:
delete this; -
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
Stuart Dootson wrote:
what attributes of a laptop are you looking for that the Mac's deficient in
An insert key, for one (OK - this is just the Peeve Of The Week due to me being in a remote desktop session with my Windows box through my iMac and accidentally hitting a key combo that put me into overwrite mode and I could not, for the life of me, get out of it) But seriously: - It must be light. - It must have an optical drive - An SSD, or the ability to easily change to an SSD - A right mouse button. No, I will not carry around a mouse. - An SD card slot. I use this constantly and I find it a little cute that Apple deliberately leave this out of the MacBook The Macs look awesome, but my current fave is still the Toshiba Portege R600. Unfortunately it's lack of power is holding me back a little
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP