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Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

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Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#191

Post by rsl7 »

WayneDB wrote: post #68
annon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you hate learning the "myriad of keyboard shortcuts needed to get stuff done on a Mac," but are praising the intuitiveness of "hold Alt and middle click anywhere near a corner of a window to start resizing it?"

Well, there are a couple of subtleties that are being addressed, that maybe need to be said better. 1) Mac keyboard shortcuts are confusing and inconsistent compared to other OSes. They're not as discoverable. Maybe this is why it seems like there are more of them or that they're harder to learn. When I say they're confusing, I mean that they use those funky characters instead of the words Ctrl, Alt or Shift. Those c…

Yeah, see, Mac keyboard equivalents actually predate most other OSes. So no, they're not going to change to accomodate the newcomers. option- shift- and command- arrows have been there since the 80s. Not going to change because Windows decided to do it differently.

As for discoverability, it is worse today, but historically there were no keyboard equivalents that were not in the menus (by Apple's UI guidelines), so discoverability was better on the Mac.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#192

Post by sukuriant »

Lewisham wrote: post #175
sukuriant wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth did you do to make Windows start having "weird, inexplicable errors"? And, why do I never have these problems?

I was trying to install Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable flat-out refused to install die to "Error 1365" (if I remember my error codes right). Required a Microsoft FixIt to fix the registry keys. And I have no idea how it happened.

That is quite curious... though can you really blame the operating system for a program running on it? (Presumably SW:tOR)

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#193

Post by dasil003 »

georgieporgie wrote: post #117
jbrennan wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3) The green maximize button still doesn't maximize. This isn't and has never been a "maximize" button. It's supposed to zoom the window to fit the content as best it can without scrolling. It's up to the developer to implement it properly with their own logic.

But very, very few apps ever get it right, and most people seem to just want minimize and maximize.

Have you ever used a 30" display? Maximizing windows does not make a whole lot of sense there, especially considering the difference in window contents on Windows vs Mac (ie. self-contained menubar, etc).

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#194

Post by wes-exp »

kylewpppd wrote: post #173
robin_reala wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dump both macports and fink and use Homebrew instead: http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/

I fail to see how anyone can recommend homebrew as a viable solution to package management on OS X. You have to compile everything. Coming from apt-get or yum makes brew, port, and fink look like a joke.

I'm using both Linux and OS X regularly. Apt is awesome, without a doubt, particularly for the breadth of software available. And on the whole, I agree that Homebrew is considerably inferior. But there is one aspect I'm liking better about the Homebrew/Mac approach. With Homebrew I can have the latest software without a problem, because the OS itself is not so hooked in to the web of package manager dependencies. In many cases on Linux I just wait until the next OS release to upgrade software - because toying with the huge dependency graph is not worth it. Maybe I should switch to a rolling release distro? I haven't tried that. But I do like the ability to upgrade software without so many inter-dependencies.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#195

Post by catch23 »

MostAwesomeDude wrote: post #108
whiskers wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"breathtakingly expensive hardware and software" Where can you get something considerably cheaper than the Macbook Airs that sport: - 128GB SSD (13") - 1440x900 (13") display - 4GB of RAM - Core i5 - operating system included - thin, light, and have quality construction For £1099 including taxes?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230... is such a thing, and at $1099 USD, it's nearly half of your quoted price. Unfortunately, it has a widescreen which has more pixels than you asked for, but somehow I don't think that's a bad thing. It comes with Windows, but if you want a real operating system , you can install any Linux you like on there. Or a BSD. Go for it. Also, I was going to just an…

Unfortunately Asus has the worst support ever. If anything breaks on that laptop, you're SOL. I would also question Asus's build quality as well. I don't know about that netbook in particular, but their EeePCs aren't very well built.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#196

Post by X-Istence »

dhughes wrote: post #29
rbanffy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you pick your PC carefully with the purpose of breaking Linux, it mostly works out of the box. That said, installing Linux on a Mac seems offensive, like replacing the dashboard of a Maybach with the one of a race car. Macs are a beautifully designed combination of hardware and software that may work for you. Or not. I like Lion better than Snow Leopard, but neither works for me for work. Casual browsing and p…

Like a teenager before a date Mac seems to be entirely about looks, oh everything works well both OS and hardware but sometimes it seems looks come before function. No separate delete or backspace keys, no multiple desktops, breathtakingly expensive hardware and software, awkward layout of files in the GUI, closing apps frustrating X doesn't close the app it minimizes it but you also have a minimize button (??), am I…

> No separate delete or backspace keys,

Maybe not on Apple's laptops, but Apple's full size keyboards have it. Also, fn + "delete" will have the effect of deleting a character in front of the current cursor.

  > no multiple desktops,
Mission control has multiple desktops, or are you conveniently forgetting that. Also, Windows and multiple desktops?

  > breathtakingly expensive hardware and software,
Mac OS X at $30, then iWork at $79, iLife at $79. Should we compare to Windows? (comparing to Linux and free everything is always going to be expensive).

  > awkward layout of files in the GUI,
Eh, what?

  > closing apps frustrating X doesn't close the app it minimizes it but you also have a minimize button (??),
No, one closes the current context. Lets say you have 10 Word documents open, you can close the single instance using the red button, if you use the yellow button it minimizes it down to the dock. The two buttons have very different behaviors.

When you have Microsoft Word open on Windows, you can have multiple documents open as well, when you close one you don't want to close all of them, well on Mac OS X when you close the last one it won't quit the full application, whereas in Windows it will. Mac OS X Lion has solved this by allowing applications to specify that they are no longer in use and when required they will be quit.

  > am I copying/pasting/cutting?,
Cmd + C == Copy Cmd + V == Paste Cmd + X == Cut

Clearly you are using it in a different context ...

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#197

Post by X-Istence »

dhughes wrote: post #45
watmough wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't blame Lion for not having a delete key! It's a hardware choice. Add a wired USB keyboard (I use the long Apple one) and there's a perfectly functional delete key, right there! What you can blame Lion for, is the fact that Xcode4 can't even scroll a sodding code window at repeat rate. Quad-core and discrete graphics, utterly ridiculous.

Yes true it's a hardware issue not OS and yes that's one option to use an external keyboard but I don't want to drag an external keyboard around with me otherwise I wouldn't have bought a laptop. The lack of a delete key actually labeled "delete" (not backspace labeled "delete") just seems to be a glaring error along with no separate number keypad. More thought went into making it look pretty than to make it useful.…

How do you want them to fit a number keypad on a laptop? Fn + Delete does what you want.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#198

Post by dasil003 »

DanBC wrote: post #120
Jakob wrote: post #109

If you don't like MacOS zooming and maximizing behavior, i recommend divvy [0] it has a heavy price tag but fixes those issues completely. [0] http://mizage.com/#macdivvy

$14 USD for something which is standard in most Linux desktop environments? (And is probably standard in Windows, but I can't remember.) This is exactly what people complain about. Yes, this stuff can be done, but you need to set a bunch of options via the command line (no problem, but annoying if you have lots of stuff you want tweaked); then set a bunch of program options; then install a bunch of apps (some of whic…

> This is exactly what people complain about.

Well, this is what Linux users complain about. Windows users tend to complain about the lack of games or long-term support.

The problem is, Apple is able to do what it does specifically by not providing these things. If they were off in the weeds trying to make everyone happy, they wouldn't be able to create the streamlined experiences that have made them so successful.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#199

Post by cpeterso »

neetij wrote: post #163
vertr wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold shift while clicking the zoom button to maximize the window. Edit: in Chrome only.

Or install a utility like RightZoom.

Thanks for the tip! I didn't know about RightZoom.

Here are some little known Mac utilities I like:

* MutableCode's Breakaway let's you configure separate audio volumes (including silence) for with and without headphones.

* Stereopsis' Flux adjusts your display's color temperature to match the type of lighting in your room (e.g. daylight, halogen, fluorescent) to avoid the blindly blue glare in a dark room.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#200

Post by philwelch »

artursapek wrote: post #147
ugh wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They removed it for all apps that auto save. Save as doesn’t really make sense if an app auto saves and only serves to confuse. You now duplicate and then save.

When I saw the previews for Lion I thought autosave seemed like overkill. When I'm working on anything I "autosave" by reaching over slightly and hitting CMD-S every time I make any small amount of progress. The last time I experienced significant data/progress loss was probably about 3 years ago before I developed this habit. I don't see what problem they're trying to fix.

Like you, I also have a tic of hitting command-S. However, I don't think requiring the user to develop a tic to keep their data safe is very good usability.
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