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How I Use My Dell

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Re: How I Use My Dell

#3

Post by donw »

Um, if you were happy with Windows before, why did you switch in the first place?

One of the biggest things that keeps me from using a Windows machine, is the lack of a proper shell. One that exists as a first-class citizen, and not as some bastard add-on hack. Cygwin really doesn't cut it for me, and the only other real option is to run VMWare, at which point I might as well run Ubuntu.

Re: How I Use My Dell

#4

Post by unalone »

What is amazing is that most Apple users even agree with me that it is completely terrible.

How is that remotely amazing? Mac users tend to be honest about what their stuff is like. Liking an operating system doesn't mean you can't be critical of parts of it.

Although, I like Finder more than I do Windows Explorer. What features does Explorer have that put it leagues above Finder, like this article would suggest?

Re: How I Use My Dell

#5

Post by tlrobinson »

Oompa wrote: post #2

No cygwin or anything, but you use the terminal "a lot?" I think I'd kill myself without a proper shell…

Cygwin is only marginally better than the plain old DOS shell. Too much of an "impedance mismatch" for me to handle.

Re: How I Use My Dell

#6

Post by davejohnson »

unalone wrote: post #4

What is amazing is that most Apple users even agree with me that it is completely terrible. How is that remotely amazing? Mac users tend to be honest about what their stuff is like. Liking an operating system doesn't mean you can't be critical of parts of it. Although, I like Finder more than I do Windows Explorer. What features does Explorer have that put it leagues above Finder, like this article would suggest?

Yah Exploring is not for everyone nor is Finder. I think that the tree view in Exploring while still showing the contents of the tree is great (compared to thee sliding panes in Finder for example) and the context menu integration of many apps is also good (eg win merge and tortoise).

Re: How I Use My Dell

#8

Post by davejohnson »

donw wrote: post #3

Um, if you were happy with Windows before, why did you switch in the first place? One of the biggest things that keeps me from using a Windows machine, is the lack of a proper shell. One that exists as a first-class citizen, and not as some bastard add-on hack. Cygwin really doesn't cut it for me, and the only other real option is to run VMWare, at which point I might as well run Ubuntu.

I mentioned in there the main factor is price. The MacBook seemed like a great deal compared to similar dells at the time. Today the prices are reversed :S

I ran VMWare on the MacBook but it was way too slow.

Re: How I Use My Dell

#9

Post by dfarm »

Oompa wrote: post #2

No cygwin or anything, but you use the terminal "a lot?" I think I'd kill myself without a proper shell…

If you're stuck in windows like I am at work you really need to try MS Powershell. It works great. I'm just as comfortable with it as I am with bash at home. It's object based scripting is quite cool also; you can do COM automation in a very simple manner. I do traditionally file maintenance stuff and more slick MS Office automation with Powershell. Totally recommend it if you have to use Windows.

Re: How I Use My Dell

#10

Post by jwilliams »

The author claims that with a 2.4ghz/2gb Mac they couldn't run Eclipse... I've been running Eclipse on a similar/lower spec (2yo MBP) for ages - and this is a Java,C/C++/Flex workspace.

No problems at all.... In fact it seems to churn the disk considerably less than my colleague's Vista Dell machine.

So not sure where that is coming from at all. The MBP is almost the ideal Eclipse workstation imho.

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