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Nonexistent Windows OS Superior to Panther
Anonymous Coward writes "A Windows user slams Panther. 'Apple has implemented some basic desktop composition features in Mac OS X "Panther." But the basic problem with Mac OS X isn't going away: It's a classic desktop operating system that doesn't offer anything in the way of usability advancements over previous desktop operating systems. Today, Windows XP and its task-based interface are far superior to anything in Mac OS X. In the future, Longhorn will further distance Windows from OS X. (sic) From a graphical standpoint, there won't be any comparison. As Microsoft revealed at the PDC 2003 conference, Longhorn is far more impressive technically than Panther.'"
It's kind of true. I just recently bought a powerbook, and while I've been largely satisfied with it and don't regret my purchase one bit, os X is not without it's flaws.
:-)
Mainly, the finder. It's an unweildy, awkward interface that makes managing files on your drive an absolute chore, it has a completely useless properties menu that allows almost zero customization, and it doesn't remember choices in later instances(i.e., it refuses to STAY in a single view mode).
While the article is largely FUD, it shouldn't be completely dismissed, because some of it is accurate.
Anyone reccomend a good finder replacement?
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
The "iterative" and "task-based" nature of things gets to be kind of interesting. Rather than opening an app, you might pick (from a "start" menu that takes up a third of the screen), for example, a "photo" section (or "activity center," as Microsoft was calling them back in the late '90s). What's that get you? A UI (quite possibly full-screen) that looks a little like a website, with a list of places you might Want To Go Today[tm]. Maybe you want to import photos, maybe you want to print photos, maybe you want to organize photos, etc. Thus the "task-based" part. You click on what you want, and it gives you step-by-step "iterative" stuff, like a "wizard." Or... well... DOS. :)
So... basically, Microsoft is working on making the system extremely easy to use for people who have absolutely no clue what they're doing. They're aiming at folks who are going to do one thing at a time, more or less. Perhaps they'll still have a "classic" interface available for people who've actually used a computer for more than a week, since a "task-based" "iterative" interface would be absolutely maddening for many of us. :)
Historically, there's been this zeitgeist of "Windows is somewhat hard to use, but it's cheap, and you can do so much with it!" First UNIX-like OSes became cheaper than Windows, then Macs became price-competitive, and now Microsoft wants Longhorn to be the OS of choice for clueless newbies. Earth's magnetic poles should be flipping any day now...
I'm not sure whether to laugh or what on that "usability enhancements" part. I used Windows for many years, switched to Linux for a while, then picked up an OS X machine to use along side my Linux box. While I was away from the Windows world XP came out. I find XP nearly unusable in the default state -- no I DON'T want the little dog from MS Bob helping me, thankyouverymuch. I'm not interested in the "do you want to..." sidebar. The new start menu drives me nuts. I end up switching XP boxes to the "Windows Classic" interface -- it's better for my blood pressure. So from my point of view, Windows needs all the usability enhancements it can get -- not necessarily the way MS defines them though :)
Jebsu man. This guy is pathetic. Three major points I can think of: 1) Mach Kernel 2) Apt 3) Usable command line interface These three things alone have made XP (and longhorn 4051) several years behind. Couple that with the intense amount of ported and free software available for OS X... geez man- OS X beta smacks XP down on it's ass. I'm not a mac enthusiast.. hell I can't even afford one.. and I game alot.. so I'm pretty much forced into the XP market. Just remember.. there's something to be said when an OS limits uptime to a 32-bit number (NT Kernel based OS's)... it's an admission that the OS isn't intended to keep working. Pax. ShadowBottle
He notcies that Mozilla has a new website site, then complains that part of it doesn't look right. He then goes on to say the lizard thing is getting old. But when you look at his blog, the first thing you are assaulted with is a picture of some big duffus. It completely ruins the rest of the blog. Not to ention, the links he has under his ugly mug are default blue on a black background. This makes the links very difficult to read. Isn't it time for a more professional blog?
He also mentions in his blog that the "Kool-Aid-drinking Apple fans" misunderstand him. Well, no shit! This from someone that obviously chugs from the MS punch bowl without even bothering to use a cup.
His post regarding "Windows Media continues to dominate QuickTime, Real" looks like it was cut and pasted from the report he is linking to.
The rest of the gloom and doom for Mac gets kind of old after a while. How many ways can you say MS's Kool-Aid is the best and everything else sucks? It seems the duffus is going for a world's record or something.
Sorta. It keeps a normal file system, but until recently the "files" were databases. Given the power of the original Palms, it was a necessity for applications to be able to efficiently access data, and, given the applications the Palm ran, databases were a good match. (One notable exception is the Memo Pad, which is stuck with a 4K limit due to this format, which can be frustrating [but can be fixed with a Doc editor].) Recently they have introduced a File Stream API, which allows software to create "regular" files.
Personally, I think the solution to all of this is for someone to write a shell application that doesn't replace the normal OS shell, but just runs as an application. The ability to assign keywords and other metadata to files, or have it detected automatically, would be the main source of data. Customization to allow it to create, open, print, and understand any format of file (by launching the program in some cases) would allow it to at least understand the "tasks" you might want to perform; the way it presents them could be user-customizable. An included set of file type descriptions would allow it to find all your files and allow you to work with them without having to put in the locations of all your programs.
An application called Chandler implements an organization system similar to Lotus Agenda, which was a free-form database which allowed (among gazillions of other features) the storage of snippets of text in any number of locations on a hierarchical tree. It also allowed you to create categories as if they were fields: in a view of contacts, you could add a column named Company, and when you enter a value, it would create a category for that, which could also be used for other information about the company. It also had a text-matching system that allowed it to pick out keywords in a piece of text and use the context around that word as a category or something else.Side note: I actually once wrote a program for my TI-89 that was basically a small memo pad with a list of categories. When a second program was run and the calculator was given a couple minutes, it would update a word frequency list with any newly-categorized memos, and that information would be available to the memo pad. Once enough information had accumulated, it would select a few consistently representative words and put them in a separate list, so the memo pad program itself would categorize a memo when you close it if you hadn't yet.
I could really use something like this, since making deep directory structures and navigating them like a maze is not my idea of fun.
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I'd never seen this guys blog until now. Its really quite bizarre.
He owns macs. He obviously likes macs, because he goes to the apple store to consider purchasing one. But he really, really hates Apple.
Is it some sort of twisted personal therapy he's going through? Or does he really feel it's his responsibility to spend hours publishing negative comments about a particular platform?
And his reasons for not buying a 12" iBook is just funny (no, you can't get 1GHz in the 12" iBook.... Just buy the damn Powerbook!!)
Any PC user that I know that has spent any amount of time on the Mac (more than just moving the mouse around at the local best buy) really has nothing bad to say about it and usually likes it.
A lot of them switch over to the Mac after a while or use both. Some do not switch but still don't rag on it and are honest about the flaws of both platforms.
I remember going into a computer store in the 80's and someone was showing me Windows 1.0. She was telling how bad the Mac was and how powerful Windows 1.0 was. I said show me something this can do the Mac cannot. She said, "Well you can use a mouse and it has this neat little calculator". I said "And?" She said "Well you can run programs". I said "And?", She said "Well that is more than the Mac can do" and she cheerfully went about playing with the Calculator.
I wonder if she ever went on to work in Redmond.
Paul Thurrott is a Microsoft shill. That's right, by some kind of agreement, tacit and silent or outright, he works the market to stay frustations ISVs and techies are having and to promote MS crap at all odds.
Here's an actual example:
The general paranoia with Win2K was easy for him to work on. In the weeks immediately prior to release, he came out strongly AGAINST the new OS, knowing that a lot of people had seen the product in beta and were highly suspicious of what was under the bonnet.
Then the day the monstrosity was released, he came out strongly IN FAVOUR of it.
I have absolutely no respect for this man. His new article is probably just written to piss Apple people off anyway. That's the kind of thing the arrogant MS crowd find 'fun'.
One thing is certain: if MS are planning 3D graphics, Apple will beat them anyway, and you don't have to be a Mac user to appreciate this.
Apple are always going to be in front, and they have their own hardware.
Positing that MS is somehow ahead of somebody else, when it's not a question of bugs or vulnerabilities, is just ridiculous anyway. It's never happened, it doesn't happen, and it never will happen.
There were worse and stranger problems than this. I had a straight Compaq I bought from Sears, running Compaq's Windows 98. I bought it to run one particular program for beta-testing purposes (Functional Objects' Functional Developer (Dylan) IDE).
Most of the time, it just merrily ran the screen saver. Until I noticed that I'd be sitting in my apartment reading, or dozing in bed, and at approximately the same time every night, it would reboot... going through the whole disk check, did-not-shut-down-properly, etc.
In other words, my brand-new out-of-the-box Compaq running Windows 98 wouldn't stay up longer than 24 hours in a row. Astounding.
I never did determine exactly who to blame: Microsoft's 98 distribution or Compaq's customizations or even the motherboard hardware. I just installed Linux. That was the last time I have owned a machine running Windows...