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Pros and Cons of Switching From Windows To Mac
It's been a couple of years since Apple ran their Switcher ads — but folks are still making the switch. Rockgod writes to point us to his list of pros and cons after he switched from Windows to Mac recently. From the article: "It took me a long time to be convinced that Windows 3.1 was a better program launcher than X-Tree Gold, but it happened eventually. Since then, I have been a sucker for every upgrade — 95, 98, NT 4.0, 2000, XP... I bought the cheapest Mac available, a Mac Mini with a single-core Intel chip and the minimum of RAM — 512 MB. It cost me AU$949. Since plugging it in, I have barely used my $3000 Windows desktop... All this time later, I have almost exclusively switched to the Mac."
I'm assuming he means $3k AU since he mentions how much the mac cost in Australian dollars earlier in the blurb. 3k Aussie dollars is about 2275 USD, still a bundle but....
Monstar L
"The GUI: It didn't take me long to get used to it. It is super smooth, even on the cheap Mac Mini .. It makes Windows XP look very late-nineties."
.. I don't run as an administrator. This simple action protects you from about 99% of malicious software. It is a simple fact."
"It's Unix!: You've got a very, very nice GUI but under the hood is good ole' Unix"
"It is only when you open the Terminal and get to a shell that you see all the ancient Unix directory structures, combined with Apple's more hip and happening directory names like Applications, System, etc"
"Notice I didn't say anything about viruses, trojans, spy-ware? I haven't been infected in three months on the Apple
"unless you are a rabid freedom-fighter it is a step above any Linux distribution out there. KDE and GNOME are still a long way away from achieving the polish that Apple has delivered with Mac OS X"
davecb5620@gmail.com
a Mac Mini with a single-core Intel chip and the minimum of RAM -- 512 MB. It cost me AU$949. Since plugging it in, I have barely used my $3000 Windows desktop... All this time later, I have almost exclusively switched to the Mac." ill bet a swich to linux and you could bring that down to 400 au dollars
For under $2k each, we just got a bunch of HP DL360 G5s at work. Granted I work in education... But still $2,000 is too much for a goddamn desktop machine.
signal, noise, to me it's all the same.
To solve the Apple's mouse acceleration problem, install a utility called SteerMouse or better yet, buy a third party mouse like Microsoft and Logitech and use their driver. Then your mouse acceleration will be just like Windows. Switchers are always complaining about this and rightly so, it's a pain if you aren't used to it.
I installed Ubuntu this Monday. I really had to hammer at it to get the programs I wanted installed and get settings the way I wanted them. Linux still has a way to go before the average Joe will be able to pick it up and use it...
My first problem resulted from Ubuntu's installer assuming my system clock was set to GMT and not asking me. When I corrected the clock +4 hours from the LiveCD's meddling and installed Ubuntu, it adjusted my clock +4 more! I didn't notice until I had worked with Ubuntu off my hard drive for a bit. When I set the clock back -4... I was locked out of SUDO! This restriction would have to be lifted or at least EXPLAINED to the average user who is not going to understand why he must wait 4 hours to perform any administrative actions. Not to mention the fix is not intuitive... I had to adjust my clock +4 again, run sudo -k to kill my sudo timestamp, and finally set my clock correctly. Then sudo worked again. No way the average user could have done that.
Also the lack of up-to-date precompiled packages (Wine package is still back at 0.9.9, ScummVM 0.8.0) for my favorite programs was annoying enough for me to have to search out more recent binaries... now I really like the Linux idea of putting program files in /bin (which is also in the path env... ooh Linux has Windows beat on this!), settings in /etc, user settings in ~, etc etc. But most precompiled binaries aren't like this! They just throw everything in one directory... so if I want these "distributed" files, I need to compile from source and make install (right? well that was my solution >.>).
Also Linux will need out-of-the-box support for Windows apps. This is critical for it's success, I believe, as if you tell a Windows user he can migrate to Linux without having to give up any of his favorite programs while gaining all the advantages of Linux... well I think that would help alot.
Currently Wine seems OK, but it still has some problems with XP profiles (it tries to use hardcoded 9x profile paths... I can't figure out how to override them) MDI dialogs (they don't work quite right, fooling around with them crashes wine) and fonts (I can't get a font dialog to pop up, font changing doesn't work in my favorite app...).
Furthermore, I still haven't gotten some things to work QUITE right (Cedega overwrites Wine when I make install it! And it's broken... it complains a SO can't be found. I'll probably figure this out eventually). Also when I built Firefox 2 and Thunderbird 2, they ended up with the internal names "Bon Echo" and "Mail/News Client"... bah... plus Ubuntu's Firefox 1.5 and Thunderbird 1.5 have different program names than my compiled versions, so the old ones still occasionally pop up when another program runs them...
I couldn't pass it up. It's got 256 Megs of RAM OS-X 10.3. I use it, too, for checking how sites I design look on a Mac. Even given that it's old and a bit slow, the experience is not bad at all. I think a Mac Mini is in my future, too.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I'm not sure what you mean. If option-dragging (copies automatically on MacOS) or control-dragging (you're given a choice about what you want to do) is too difficult for you, copying a file in KDE can hardly be easier. Or am I missing something.
For better USB Mouse control try SteerMouse: http://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/
d ex.html -- It even has a setting called "Redmond switcher acceleration."
For laptop trackpads, try SideTrack: http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/in
Many of my switcher friends have been very happy with these two applications. Heck, I've been using Macs since 1990 and I like the acceleration from these two apps better than Apple's.
Overall I'd say OSX is an excellent choice for Windows users who want the advantages of UNIX without having to learn arcane lore, for Linux users who need a laptop that will just work without requiring a virgin sacrifice during a full moon and for people who need to talk to a variety of different systems in a heterogenuous network. It's a bad choice for Microsoft executives, MCSEs or anyone else who makes a living on Windows being the dominant OS in the market. If you're somewhere in the middle you should probably pick OSX for the better security. It's not perfect, but any improvement is better than nothing.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Well, when it comes to switching, it tends to mean that you liked the thing you switched to more than the thing you switched from. In this case, preferring Macs to Windows.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Finder > View > Font size.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I've never known anyone to consider OS X as crash-prone as Windows.
Programs are slow, crash-prone and things can be misconfigured? That's obviously the OS's fault!
The keyboard shortcuts are listed directly next to the menu option in drop-down menus. Example
It's under the FILE menu under "Make Alias" and in the right-click contextual menu under "Make Alias". I'm not sure how this could be implemented in a more effective manner.
A computer is not a GUI.
I think you mean to say "It's different from what I'm used to and it's closed-source, therefore I hate it."
This works for all Cocoa apps:
0 119152725322&query=Quartz%2Bdebug%2Bmenu
http://www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html
But the Finder isn't Cocoa. You can set Desktop and folder font size in the Finder's view settings, but if you want to change the font size in the menu, you'll need to wait for 10.5 or play with the following -- It can change the scaling of any application, including the Finder:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006
CON: Apple include a hardware DRM chip in all its new Macs. After all... Jobs is a Disney man now, and Mac fans need to be protected from the temptation to ever do or watch anything not authorised by Apple.
You obviously didn't give it much of a chance. You can put the dock on the left, right, or bottom of the screen, AND you can have it hidden except when you bring your cursor to the side of the screen where it is located. It's a LOT better and more efficient than the Windows taskbar in pretty much every way imaginable.
1. turn on auto hide for your dock. 2. shrink your dock's size. 3. don't buy 12 inch laptops. 4. yes, finder sucks. it takes some adaptation to learn to live with it. long time mac users have no complaints about it, whereas when i switched over from pc it was waa-waa time. 5. if you're having problems with crashing maybe you should have it looked at. I was using a powermac g4 for about two months. I left it on to do some bittorrent downloading for over a week and to my shock, it didn't crash or experience memory leaks. It never once crashed on me - and this is a 6 year old machine we're talking about here.
You definitely know your cons, but at least one of them actually can be solved--
7. You can't alt-tab between windows in the same application. You can switch between programs that way, but not between windows. So if you're typing something in one window (say in Word or whatever) and you need to switch to another document, you can press one of the function keys to get expose up, take you hand off the keyboard, grab the mouse, select the window you want, then put your hand back on the keyboard. This takes far longer and requires much more thought than just pressing alt-tab. You can also select the wind you want from the "window" menu or click and hold the application's icon in the dock until the menu comes up and then select it. Both of these are slower than having a context switch that shows all windows.
While you cannot alt-tab (er, well, Cmd-tab on the Mac) between windows in the same application, you *can* Cmd-` between application windows. No, it's not an obvious command, which really bit for me at first. I spent a month very frustrated with my first Mac because of that. But then I discovered it by accident, and it made everything much, much easier.
I'm also not sure why you think you need to grab the mouse to select a window in Expose--if you just use the arrow keys to go around and select the given window, then press Enter or Space, it will select the window. I can understand Cmd-` being nonobvious, but this method is a lot more accessible.
Not to make you feel bad, but my experience on a 24" widescreen monitor is positive. I can easily use the simple Apple button shortcuts or support windows (like the inspector in Pages/Keynote) to get my work done. Rarely do I actually use the menu bar now that I know these shortcuts.
Perhaps these keyboard friendly shortcuts will help you out. You can even edit them via the System Preferences dialog about your keyboard (and its shortcuts).
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Of course, you have zero choices for much of the above mentioned software.
I call bullshit.
Desktop Publishing - a number of different options at different skill levels:
"Real Graphics Work"
Vector:
- Inkscape
- Xara
Raster:Video editing isn't my thing, so I'm not going to attack that, but I'm sure there are at least some options. I agree that linux isn't the be all, end all or ultimate solution. However, your hyperbolic bullshit serves no one. There are real arguments to be made against linux, but you failed to make any of them. Congratulations.
OK, I'll bite: in what sense is it not UNIX? I've been working with various flavors of UNIX since v7. OS X cetainly feels like UNIX to me. I switched to a iBook as my laptop when I moved from a Windows shop to a Linux shop where I do 'C' and Python development. I move my source back and forth between Linux and OS X daily. My understanding is that the threading model on OS X sucks, so it makes a poor server platform, buy what makes it 'NOT UNIX'?
I keep hearing this I don't get what the problem with 512 Megs is on Mac OS. My iBook has 512 Megs and runs fine. I mostly run Firefox, terminal, text editors and OOo (in X) on it (at the same time even) and never really felt memory constrained. OTOH if I had known beforehand how much disk space OS X eats, I wouldn't have gotten a 30GB model. Of course if you're going to do heavy graphics work, or simulation, or somesuch, things might be different, but it's not really platform specific...
This being said, and while OS X mostly runs fine despite a few annoying bugs (no showstoppers), I still find KDE way more comfortable to use. Notably because of much better network integration and the fact that windows don't have to be in front to get focus (none of this is really KDE specific though, more a Unix desktop thing).
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
The 'top of the screen' arrangement in MacOS is a sacred topic in Macintosh circles. It's considered more heretical to critcize it than even to propose additional mouse buttons.
Totally agree its dead easy. And if you're running Windows XP or Linux in a Parallels VM it works there too.
Add to that the slick two-finger scrolling on the trackpad and it's incredibly easy and powerful combination. If I find I absolutely have to have a left+right click mouse experience (like when I'm playing WoW) then the wireless mighty mouse fills the gap for me perfectly.
Anyone who really cares should be willing to sacrifice a few discs to burn them at different speeds, then check the results with any of a variety of programs.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
You realize that "sexual preference" is an out-dated term that's
considered offensive by a lot of people, right?
"Sexual orientation" is a lot more accurate. I don't know about you,
but I never spent any time wondering if I was more attracted to women
or men, it was women from day one.
Maxim
(In theory, 1x write strategy should be a standard across discs of all make. So say the rainbow books and, by extention, the DVD+-* standards. In practice, not so much...)
The right answer, the one your IT guy should already know if he has a clue, is to burn at the minimum speed the disc supports. I'm not familiar with the Memorex discs in question, but most 16x discs only contain write strategies for 4x - 16x.
"Write Strategies for high performance DVD+R/RW"
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Each and every time this type of discussion takes place on ./ I am struck by the apparent fact that a great many people have strong views about Windows XP, but very few of them reflect any serious time being spent to learn the OS and optimise the user experience.
Granted, it would be best if Windows 'just worked' out of the box like OSX (allegedly) does.
Nevertheless, if you sit down with Windows and seriously dig around for a while you may be surprised to discover that XP is highly configurable and can be tweaked and optimised to the point where it really is very slick and usable, and is absolutely lightning fast. Combined with the right hardware, it is also extremely stable - since upgrading to XP not long after its release, I have had perhaps 5-10 crashes on a PC that runs most of the time. This compares very favourably with the Apples I have used, including recent model iMacs.
Seriously, try it before you decide that OSX is 'better' for your needs. Some suggestions:
- read up on services and turn off everything you don't need
- turn off absolutely everything that loads at startup other than the essentials, and for god's sake learn how to use MSCONFIG and other undocumented but powerful MS tools
- learn how to PROPERLY use (file) explorer, windows networking, device manager, and the numerous other system tools
- be disciplined in the way you allow software to modify the system, and where you install it. You would do the same in Linux, presumably.
- check out TweakUI and similar software which can get you around most of Microsoft's more annoying 'assistance' and add a few cool features to boot, such as visual task switching (yes, like in OSX)
- spend what you would spend on Apple hardware on your (preferably custom-built) PC and appreciate that the increased performance and stability is a reflection of better hardware quality, not just a reflection of the OS
- learn how to adjust the GUI to look much prettier and be much more user friendly: play with icon sizing, fonts and typeface rendering, the taskbar and quicklaunch bar and their size and position - you can even achieve a 'dashboard' type arrangement with a clean install of Windows XP if you think about it creatively
- if you're really adventurous, look into some of the alternative shells you can use with Windows - some are virtually indistinguishable from those that come with current Linux distros and are extraordinarily customizable
- work out what your software needs are and get your system loaded up with the best open source or freely distributed solutions, such as the Mozilla suite, Winamp or VLC, and so on
- pick up the free software that will keep things running nice and smoothly, such as AdAware, AVG and so on
- learn the shortcuts used in Windows - you can do a lot more than you might think with the Windows key, control, alt and tab
I will happily agree that it would be much preferable not to have to do all this stuff just to get your system running nicely, and that non-IT types would struggle with most of the above. I am just a little tired of people rambling on about how 'bad' Windows is when they've never really applied themselves to getting it running sweetly and experienced the results. Considering that a large proportion of the people on this site would presumably spend as long as neccessary frigging around with a Linux install to get it working with their hardware and customised to their liking, the criticism of Windows is generally pretty rich.
Read Pynchon.