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Zarf in Mac OS X Land
baruz writes "Andrew Plotkin (aka Zarf), award-winning interactive fiction author and Mac and Unix programmer, has not-so-recently posted a secret diary of his experiences installing and using Mac oh ess ex."
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I'd just like to point out that I've had an install of OS X since the public beta release, and NEVER have I sent information in to Apple.
Another "journalist" complained about this then X first came out.
It's quite simple: when running then installer fill in the info, then when it asks if you have an internet connection, say no. When it asks if you want to register with Apple, say "later."
After it boots, go set up your Networking preferences, etc.
No info sent to Apple. I mean, how dumb do you gotta be to not realise that you dont HAVE to send anything in?!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Man, I'd love to travel back in time five years and tell a bunch of Mac advocates that within five years, Emacs will come pre-loaded on a Mac.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Likes American McGee's Alice.
;)
Hates Dock.
Doesn't get why you wouldn't want to have root access always on.
Doesn't like font handling.
Has strange habit of referring to Apple computer engineers and UI designers as 'Steve'
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
...because I kept waiting for the grammar to devolve into Hulk-speak:
RARRR! No like OSX! Icons EVERYWHERE! Stupid Steve! HULK SMASH!
My sigs always suck.
I think this outlines a fundamental problem in switching between OSen, though. When I first installed X, I installed ASM Menu, FruitMenu, everything I could find to make it as much as possible like MacOS 9. Over time, though, I've started trimming these bits back out because they really aren't neccesary. I was just trying to force my old UI preconceptions onto what was an entirely new OS, instead of adapting to fit what the UI was designed for.
:)
:)
In general, though, this article was really on point with a lot of the interface crap Apple has piled on in recent years (I hate Sherlock!!!). Although his hatred of animations might have shown a need to move on from OS9 - does he realize OSX is preemptively multitasked, thus allowing you to do other things while the app icon slides out of the dock?
All in all, even with the occasional human interface snafu, I love MacOS X. It's still a mite bit slower than OS 9, but the overall experience and quality makes booting into 9 seem like travelling back in time 20 years. The development environment is unmatched, and it's like running 3 OS's worth of software (OS9, OSX, and GNU/Linux/BSD/OSS/Gnome/what-have-you).
Plus I like those little animations.
We just finished moving about a quarter of our Mac users to OSX. It was almost painless; I was expecting many problems from different people about the new design. One user even went from OS8 to OSX on a B&W G3/300/192MB, and I haven't heard a peep from her since. The most "power" user we have runs Photoshop, Pagemaker and Illustrator, all of which run under Classic and she had the most problems migrating -- but after a couple of weeks of using it , she stopped in to thank me and to inform me that she hadn't had to reboot her Mac in over a week. Previously it was at least once a day (ie, "System Error -1 : Restart your Macintosh"). They unversally love the dock, and the all seem confused by the new finder. They also don't like the s l o w window resizing, but the consensous is that it's well worth the niggles and bugs that do exist.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
I honestly can't say that I've encountered anywhere near the level of frustration that Zarf seems to have met with in his foray into the world of OS X. Maybe I've just been lucky; or, maybe I've spent more time actually trying to use my Mac than trying to beat the bejesus out of the UI until it perfectly matches my own personal internal representation of the perfect interface.
Don't get me wrong: I think it's perfectly valid to point out OS X's present shortcomings, or to mention areas of the UI that you wish were different. But for Christ's sake, please stop construing the fact that Apple didn't personally ask you how to implement each aspect of the UI as a failure on their part.
In the end, the diary gave me a vicarious headache as I envisioned the author's bitter moment-to-moment struggle with Steve's hegemony over his desktop. At points, particularly during the Administrator Password Crisis, it started to sound like the Al Gore sketch that Darrell Hammond did on SNL during the Florida mess.
My favorite in-joke story...
A few years back, a non-tech co-worker asked if it was fair for a local computer shop to charge her $65 to fix problem. $65 is a bit much for a 30 minute fix I my mind, so I asked her what the problem was. She said that the shop owner told her it was just aother "Windows I.D. Ten T" error. Needless to say after I agreed it was a fair price and that she wasn't being ripped off, I about fell out of my chair laughing.
I.D. Ten T = id10t
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
A friend of mine installed OS X at my urging. He's used Unix boxes in work for years, so he's computer dumb. He liked it, generally speaking.
Anyhow. He partitioned his harddrive four ways. It gave him troubles from day one. Not big ones, just little ones. The GUI didn't fit how he was using his Mac. The Application button, now was meaningless, the Documents button was meaningless, He never used his Home folder. He fought the interface to do it "his way". Looked for and downloaded shareware apps to help him OS 9ify his computer. He fought his computer for a year, changing this, changing that, trying to make his GUI work his way. That's fine as long as you don't want to get any work done.
So I tell him...."kill the partitions and use the supplied UI elements the way they are meant to be". He says no. Off and on, we have this conversation and he always wants it "his way".
Then one day, he decides that he will try my advice. I tell him how to save his mail and prefs, he backs up his "essentials" on CD. Un partitions, Reinstalls, updates, etc. For one week, he decided to actually USE the UI elements as they were meant to be used. That was 4 months ago. All that shareware he bought is now useless to him. He no longer fights his computer and has found that OS X is EASIER to use than OS 9 as long as you are willing to change a few habits. Not only that, changing those habits took very little time.
In the article, this guys first action was to ceremoniously declare (via instant format and partition, which he complains didn't go over as smoothly as he wanted) "f**k this setup, I want the set up to be TOTALLY different" and has been fighting OS X ever since. I'm willing to be if he set aside his precepts and used it the way it is set up, one week later, he would not be fighting his machine and would be back to getting work done.
Burn Hollywood Burn
There's an incredibly fast Sherlock replacement called Locator (freeware) which puts a GUI on the OS X locate database. Searches in Locator take all of a second or two. Plus no channels, no big GUI overhead, just hella fast searches. Plus if you use a program called Keyboard Maestro in it's free form you can reassign Command+F to point to Locator instead of Sherlock. Speed speed speed!
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anais Nin