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Mac Book Author David Pogue Interviewed
MacSlash writes "There's an interview over at MacSlash with David Pogue, the New York Times Tech columnist and author of lots of stuff, including the best-selling Mac OS X: The Missing Manual and his brand new Piloting Palm, The Inside Story of Palm, Handspring and the Birth of the Billion Dollar Handheld Industry. The interview deals with subjects like the future of Mac OS X, how Unix programmers are providing some of the best new stuff, and even why Pogue uses Windows to write his books."
Why does Apple get the fancy art and stuff?
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
Hardly anyone's posting. Has there been another Islamic terror attack or something?
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
Apple Laptop Keyboards are Unacceptable to Unix Users
Apple designs horrible keyboards. ADB keyboards (which are still used on all of Apple's laptops) are unusable to unix users who need a Ctrl key to the left of the 'A'.
Proper Keyboard Design
- When a key is pressed, the keyboard sends a keyPress
event.
- When a key is released, the keyboard sends a keyRelease
event.
- Each key is assigned a different keycode.
Nothing more, nothing less.ADB Keyboard Mis-design
- When the key to the left of the 'A' (CapsLock) is
pressed, the ADB keyboard sends both a keyPress event
and a keyRelease event.
- When the CapsLock key is then released, the ADB keyboard
sends NO events.
- When the CapsLock key is next pressed, the ADB keyboard
sends NO events.
- When the CapsLock key is then released, the ADB keyboard
sends both a keyPress event and a keyRelease
event.
- The above cycle repeats over and over.
This is WRONG ! Apple's ADB keyboards are broken by design.Unix Users Cannot Use Apple's ADB Keyboards
What this means is that unix users who need the key to the left of the 'A' to be a Ctrl key cannot use Apple ADB keyboards. You can easily reprogram the CapsLock key to be a Ctrl key and get rid of the badness of the CapsLock key, but you can't get the required goodness of the Ctrl key to the left of the 'A'.
Apple Loses Sales to Unix Users
All Apple laptops have the horrible broken-by-design ADB keyboards which are unusable to unix users. I want to buy an Apple laptop, but I cannot and will not until Apple builds input devices usable by unix users.
For interested non-Mac Slashdot readers, David Pogue was an early champion of Hotline (Mac warez tool of choice) and MP3 before it hit the bigtime. He wrote humorous and interesting stuff for the inside back cover of MacWorld before Andy Inahtko did and some time after John Dvorak. Now he has Pogue press (affiliated with O'Reily Books) and writes for the NYTimes. check www.pogueman.com for his web site.
Am I the only one to notice that the Mac postings on Slashdot are getting hardly any comments? Well, here's my contribution to the cause of getting the apple.slashdot.org site off the ground. Good luck with it.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
Don't miss the David Pouge icon courtesy of Nitrozac and Snaggy of geekculture.com.
Somewhere in the heavens... they are waiting.
It is refreshing to read an interview with someone about the Macintosh and not have it deteriorate into a Win-tel bad/Mac good dialectic. Useful, critical insights into the diferent realms of personal computing are rare given the tremendous amounts of PR-spin in this industry. I can think of another example: John Dvorak is the only one left at Ziff-Davis with any kind of integrity.
The guy seems pretty cool, I might have to check out his OSX Missing Manual next time I'm at B&N. Can anyone comment on if the book is any good?
Ironically enough, I think Macslash is Slashdotted
Thanks guys for the replies! I think I'll pick up a copy, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately :p), there is no Microcenter near me.
I need some help on the CLI/Unix side of OSX, so this sounds like a good starting pointing.
I decided to stop waiting for Sun to make a keyboard that has a functioning forward delete key, and stopped using emacs. The problem here is with emacs making you use the cntrl key all the time. Just don't use it. I suggest nedit as it has language modes and other features that emacs users love. At the same time, it does not require so much hitting the ctrl key. Just for openers emacs nedit cntrl-d delete-key cntrl-e end-key
This GPL code remaps on OS X for Emacs style control key.
n tr ol.html
It may be useful for those using Linux on PPC - haven't looked and wouldn't know.
But they have overcome the difficulties of the toggle adb caps-lock key issue.
http://homepage.mac.com/patricklee/CommandAndCo
Also google for uControl
James
Slashdot used to be a forum of intelligent conversation amongst people who could be reasoned with.
Yes, that's right. I do believe that all intelligence whatsoever has left Slashdot. There's no point in wasting time with these losers. If you'll take a look at the recent flurry of posts, you'll notice by the response that the vast majority of the Slashdot readership now firmly believes:
1.) There's no money in Open Source
2.) Open Source is a dotBomb business model
3.) Proprietary software will always be necessary
4.) Open Source software is poor quality
5.) Artists need to be published to make any money
6.) In general, copyright licensing is needed to make money on any intellectual product.
You know what this means? It means that Adobe / Microsoft / RIAA / whoever have been successful in their FUD campaigns against a lot of weak-minded geeks. Sick.
So, what is there left to do except troll on Slashdot? Nothing really. The idiots who believe the items in the above list are trolls themselves. If you can't beat 'em, might as well join 'em.
From now on, I will do nothing but crap-flood and troll Slashdot (using a different username from my original of course - I like my karma). Thanks a lot you assholes. Way to let The Man win.