So there was this guy sitting next to me on the train with a Mac notebook...
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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; -
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
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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... 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
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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've always heard this debate between Windows and Mac and recently, as part of a new project, I got a Mac to play with. Here's my take so far: Mac works better than Windows because it has only one Hardware base to worry about. It has absolute control over its software, hardware and to some extent, its end users. Mac staunchly believes in the 80-20 rule. 80% of people only use 20% of the functionality of a computer and Mac caters to that 20% very well. Same with iPhone. For most of us, we stick to our first love (or the first computer that we get our hands on) - if it's a PC, we stick to a PC or if it's Mac, it's a Mac. If you like things like Expose and Spaces, they only were recent additions. Much like Apple borrowed the idea of XP folder panels (left sidebar), tools that gave these functionality existed on Windows long before and in Linux too. They just didn't ship with the OS which is good thing in my opinion as they could be resource (CPU, RAM) intensive and not suitable for average PC buyer unlike Mac which dictates hardware. I miss the maximize window button on Mac (the green + button does its own thing in each app and doesn't maximize window on all builtin Apple apps). I also miss the ability to be able to drag any side/corner of a Window and resize it. In Mac, I've to precisely choose the bottom right corner. Windows gives more customization and flexibility and that is where average users mess their boxes and blame Windows. Of course, its not like Windows is perfect and doesn't have bugs, but by constraining more, Mac appears to be more stable (less things you can break or mess with). This list can go on and on but to me, I think I'd stick to PC as I personally find the Mac theme to be 'girly' :)
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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:
but I can't do half of what I do on a Win box with them
...then you must be having Windowsphobia! ;P
Reuse! Buy If You Can! Build If You Must
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That feature is called expose, I think there are a few implementations for windows. Win7 has aero peek which shows the whole window when you mouse over the thumbnail. There is a video of Win7 where one of the developers mentioned that as they are full size you can differentiate between text much easier. Expose is a lot cooler than Flip-3D but taskbar thumbnails pretty good aswell. You can set windows to go in standby when you close the lid if you want.
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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
Chris Maunder wrote:
An insert key
Yeah - I have issues with the Mac keyboard - PgUp, PgDn, Home and End...(I know about Fn+other keys, but still a pain!) Having said that, I do like the ability to type accented and other non-English characters using the Option key.
Chris Maunder wrote:
It must be light
Where 'light' = around 1kg, going by the Toshiba Portege R600, I presume? Yeah, that's a killer. Best you'll do is the 13" MBP @ 2kg.
Chris Maunder wrote:
An SSD, or the ability to easily change to an SSD
Changing disks in an MBP is dead easy - I changed mine to a 500GB drive in about 5 minutes (3 of which were spent finding the right size Pozidrive screwdriver!)
Chris Maunder wrote:
A right mouse button. No, I will not carry around a mouse.
Your only option with a Mac is ctrl+left-click or tap with two fingers
Chris Maunder wrote:
An SD card slot. I use this constantly and I find it a little cute that Apple deliberately leave this out of the MacBook
Something the MBP now has, of course. I got an Expresscard SD card reader, which I leave in my MBP. Works splendidly (although I'm thinking of getting an SSD in an Expresscard[^] to store my Windows 7 VM on, as it hits the disk so much). So - as you say, weight is the real deal-breaker. And the thing is, of course, that the Apple line-up is limited, whereas you're pretty likely to find a non-Apple laptop to match almost any combination of constraints. Well, it could be worse, Chris - I'm likely to be getting a Dell Latitude 5400[^] with Vista (groan) as my 'corporate network connected' PC soon. Just as the rest of the world is thanking their lucky stars that Windows 7 means they don't hav