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Flirting With Mac OS X
An anonymous reader wrote to us with an article on Byte from Moshe Bar about flirting with using OS X. Taco and I are both strongly considering beginning to use OS X as a primary laptops - anyone else looking at doing this? And anyone from Apple that can get me a good price on super TiBooks? *grin*
10 months ago I used Linux and Windows at home exclusively but wanted a laptop for taking stuff to work and writing on the train.
None of the Windows laptops cut it with battery life or displays so I looked at the iBook. I plumped for the 600Mhz DVD Rom drive beast. It's since been with me to Singapore - great for watching DVDs, work most days, bed for writing, downstairs infront of the TV for emailing, the kitchen for recipes. (I got the airport card as well - nothing to break off so I don't feel scared using wireless networking while actually moving!)
I use nothing but OS X on the beast (Up the RAM to at least 384Mb) and it's great. Proper terminal window to connect to my personal servers, MS RDP client for configuring Works' Windows 2000 boxes. Internal modem for connecting to other networks, Bluetooth for connecting whilst on the train. Best of all IT JUST WORKS.
I've definately reached the point where I no longer want to have all my machines as play toys - the iBook is a workhorse and just keeps on slogging. It'd without a doubt the best PC I've bought so far.
My Name's Matthew Thompson and I'm a system administrator and freelance journalist.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
The point: they should try to make a few more people happy. I would have switched long ago if they had a full size laptop keyboard (every key full size) and a three button trackpoint pointer.
You mean they should make *you* happy.
It's a different computer: use it differently. As a long time trackpad user, you'd have to squeeze my testicles in a vise to get me to use a laptop with the orange knob right in the middle of the keyboard. I've tried it, repeatedly, and it sucks. It's an infuriatingly useless device. I onced worked in an office where Thinkpads with such idiotic cursor-manipulating devices were standard. Everyone there was a Windows user, not converted Mac users, and a majority of users had mice. They couldn't stand the stupid thing.
Same goes for the two- and three-button trackpoint pointers. Again, I've used them, and repeatedly. It almost requires two hands to use! In fact, that's how most people do it: with two hands. What a logistical and tactical waste of effort. But a one-button trackpad, it's a one-handed device. And you can keep your other hand on the keyboard to control-click, which is natural since that hand is often using other modifier keys, as well.
Part of the reason Windows and Unix users have problems with the Mac's one button (and whine incessantly about it, to such a degree that you want to put *their* testicles in a vise), is because they tend to be unused to the click-and-hold action. On a modern Mac, this will get you the exact same action as the right-click menu. What in God's name you need a third button for, besides having another part to break, beats the hell out of me.
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
Whereas I hate trackpads and never use the damned things if possible.
I like Dell's approach on the Inspiron I have - put both on the machine, let the user decide.
Cheers,
Ian
I've had a mixed bag of an experience. I'm very used to right clicking items for properties/context-sensitive menus, and the "click-and-hold" drives me insane. That few tenths of a second is just enough to interrupt the flow of using the trackpad, and I use a two button mouse whenever possible.
The click-and-hold also makes the dock less than useful for navigating around the apps if you have multiple windows/instances open and are looking for the familiar "taskbar" approach. I also find the jumping icons instead of a simple flash to grab my attention annoying. I have a couple other beefs about the interface, but nothing I can't deal with. Navigation between apps is icky, and that was my point.
I use the powerbook (funny how we don't call it a laptop) in a variety of places and have a serious beef with the "Location" feature for networking. When I switch to a known area, and switch the location, it seems if chance plays heavily into whether the net connections are used. It's very unreliable, but I seem to have found the majiic sequence necessary to get it to work most times.
That all said, I'm pretty happy with the rest. The apps that make up OSX, such as the DVD player, iPhoto, and iTunes are well thought out, and I wish they were available for other platforms. Third party software has helped with things like PocketPC support, and apps I'm used to with other OS's.
I use Office X (thank you Microsoft, for not allowing me to upgrade cross-platform and fucking me for some more $, thank god for tax writeoffs) so I can use Entourage, Word, Excel, and PPoint as office apps, and I prefer the OSX versions to their windoze counterparts. This lets me fit into the environments of most of the companies I work with. StarOffice/OpenOffice is ok, but I prefer to use the Office Suite when I can.
Finally, I have mysql, apache, and a bunch of mods installed so I can do app development/screwing around without the need for another box or rebooting/using an emulator when I want to use. It's also really nice to have a console/term window on an environment designed for use by regular folk.
The hardware itself is mostly great - beautiful screen, three types of networking, firewire, usb, and the combo drive, and battery life kicks ass. The gripes I have are its size and weight (it's a little too big for my tastes, I was spoiled with the X21), the trackpad could have been designed a little better and including scrolling capabilities would have been nice, and a hd light would have been welcome as I sit and wait for stuff to launch, wondering if it's doing anything.
All in all, I'm happy with the switch to the Ti as my laptop. I don't think I'd use it to replace my desktop, as I still can't play CS and a bunch of other games on it, but for a all-in-one travelling companion it's very hard to beat. I'm happy I made the switch.
Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant
I had OSX on my G3 300 Powerbook. I sold it to someone in California. Then I sold one of my mountain bikes. It looks like I'm selling my PC as well. Why?
:)
So I can buy me a sweet Dual-G4. Sure, I'll only be able to buy the bottom model, but dual 867s is more than enough for me to do my daily grind on. OSX on the Powerbook sold me. I loved it so much, but I'll admit that it was occasionally a bit laggy. It was excellent for being a remote terminal when I had headless machines around me. I only half switched before, because of the cost. I've decided now that I'm sick of fighting with my machines. The cost of my time is now more than worth the money I'm going to spend. I'm sick of trying to get things like Gnome 2.x to compile (took me a week because of some Xft problems) and then discovering that Gnome 2.x is possibly the worst user interface that I've ever had to beat my head against. I know where I stand with OSX. I start up the computer, it works. I do my work on it, that's all. Add Space.app into the mix, and I've got multiple desktops, and the world is a glorious place.
So Hi. I'm Jan Sacharuk, and I'm a games programmer.
I'm happily typing this on a new white iBook 700MHz, rather decked out with a 40GB harddrive and 384MB of RAM. It may not have the raw horsepower of my roommate's Dell Inspiron 8200, but it also weighs a third of that behemoth, has more than twice the battery life, and most day-to-day operations feel faster, and the whole experience is more pleasurable. What do I mean by "pleasurable?" Example: as a longtime Linux user, I prayed for decent antialiasing system-wide (well, except for the terminal). OS X's PostScript-driven graphics layer makes everything look gorgeous, sharp and readable. It's like looking at a printed page, maybe better. And I can keep my terminal and anything under x-font size unantialiased if I so desire. That's pleasurable. It makes the machine I interact with hours a day enjoyable to use. Things just work, by and large. If I want to tinker, I can, but after years of spending hours and hours to get, well, ANYTHING working (somewhat self-inflicted: I used Gentoo, which I still love on the server side along with OpenBSD), it's amazing to just plug in devices and have them work the way they should. I forget who said it, but "Linux is only free if your time is worthless." With college, I don't have the time to tinker endlessly to get a printer working when I've got a paper due. There are tons of open source apps that have either been ported or are being natively developed for OS X. This is a slow transition for the Mac community, however, and you'll still find lots of shareware and commercial programs out there, particularly in the utilities/customization arena. But as someone who's learned to accept that commercial development works for some products and open source for others, I think the OS X community has the right idea in accepting and supporting both. I could go on for hours about how nice it is to have an OS that's actually integrated with its hardware, all the little aesthetic details and polish that Apple throws in, but most readers have heard it all before. I can safely say that as someone who's lived and breathed Linux (with forays into *BSD) for the last six years, I feel utterly satisfied with my switch, and I can reccomend it to anyone looking for a great desktop (or laptop) platform.