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Windows Expert Jumps Ship
An anonymous reader writes to let us know that Scott Finnie, Computerworld's Windows expert, has given the final verdict to Windows after 3 months of using a Mac. And the verdict is: "Sayonara." Finnie is known to readers here for his many reviews of Vista as it progressed to release. Quoting: "If you give the Mac three months, as I did, you won't go back either. The hardest part is paying for it — everything after that gets easier and easier. Perhaps fittingly, it took me the full three-month trial period to pay off my expensive MacBook Pro. But the darn thing is worth every penny."
That said I still miss Windows for a few applications and MOSTLY for the keyboard commands (in the OS GUI). Window Key + R + cmd = CLI. On the Mac it's click or Apple + Space + Term + Click.
Command (Apple) + Enter tells Spotlight to open the Top Hit.
My
Install Quicksilver. It' makes a world of difference -- soon you'll have a "Window Key + R"-esque experience for all of the apps on your machine.
-30-
About ten years ago I switched from Windows to Linux. I was prompted to make this change by Microsoft's bundling IE 3.0 with Windows 95 OSR2.1 where it would start an installation of IE after the Windows installation concluded. It could be fairly easily cancelled by Ctrl-Alt-Del/End Task, but that one had to so was ridiculous.
Ditching Windows was a little hard as I used to play games, but I was reaching the point where gaming held little appeal for me anyway. Switching to a platform that ran for literally years on end without major crashes demonstrated the value of Linux, and obviously, the lack of worth to Windows.
Microsoft only holds its place because people are too timid to try something else. Apple's OS is slick. Linux has had windowmanagers that mimic the windows shell for many years. For people who don't play computer games it shouldn't be a big deal to switch.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Is linux usable on the desktop? Certainly.
Can it hold a candle to OS/X in terms of polish and ease of use? Not yet. Is dell's hardware as aesthetically pleasing and stylish as Apple's? No way...
As a Windows/DOS user since the late 80s, and a Linux/BSD user since the mid 90s - my next computer is going to be a Mac.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Or he could create a shortcut in Universal Access. Or make a service with a shortcut. Or make a QS shortcut. Or geez, just put the terminal on his dock if it's such a hassle.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I agree. I've used all three for large periods, but my current computer is a Mac and when I replace it I intend to get another Mac. In general, I find it better than Windows. There are tons of little annoyances that I run into almost daily using my PC at work that I don't have when using my Mac. But I also like it for it's "best of both worlds" that it provides me. Commercial applications and an extremely polished UI in all places (where parts of Linux can get hairy, although it's gotten better), but the UNIX command line and GCC and all that for when I feel like fiddling low level/programming/etc. A real CLI that I can use (let's face it, the windows shell is ancient and pales compared to Bash. Maybe when Monad comes out).
These facts have provided me with great benefits besides my basic preference for the Mac. When I worked on my senior project (LAMP site) while my friends were testing on the test box the school was letting us use, I was able to run the whole thing on my laptop easily because all the components were already there and easily setup (where with Windows I would have had to download/install/configure each part). When I changed code I could test it instantly, no "copy to server, test, edit, copy" over the slow connection. I could work on it without an internet connection, or worrying about interfering with what my partners were working on (overwriting them).
The only "long-standing" problem I have with my Mac is the lack of big games, but I don't have a ton of time for them anymore anyway so my consoles work fine for that (although I miss a good game of CounterStrike, I'm on PPC so I can't run BootCamp).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Ten years behind is a bit much. Did you use Visual Studio in 1997? I specifically remember it destroying more than a few projects on me. XCode (and friggin CodeWarrior) trump older Visual Studios easily. Current releases of Visual Studio are great from what I've heard. But I am productive in XCode and I am also productive in Eclipse (when it doesn't crash!) Personally, I love XCode's UI. What's your beef with it?
rm -rf
Quicksilver, makes launching apps/finding information insanely great and is completely customizable -- much more powerful than the default Spotlight interface. You could easily make a Windows-R shortcut to launch terminal, or you can enter terminal commands directly in the QS interface. QS can even access my bash history and rerun command lines that I ran manually from terminal.app two days ago.
There's also an app that adds a small terminal to every window on the system (can't think of the name of it at the moment, pretty sure it's on sourceforge).
I do wish there was an easier way to universally access all menus on OSX from the keyboard, the way that Alt does on Windows (there is keyboard access, but it's nowhere near as straightforward), but beyond that I've found the Mac to be ridiculously powerful in terms of keyboard use, even before I found QS.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Let's not forget one major thing: drivers. Macs gan be the best thing after chocolate. However if you use PCs for real experimental science, computers are supposed to gather data. Good luck finding drivers for specialized hardware for Macs. That is why many labs uses PCs. Luckily many drivers are available for Linux too. This unless you just run code or a website, of course. But then it's not a science lab anymore... ;-)
I think the problem most Slashdotters have is that they can't conceive of building the type of machines Apple sells. You can get a 20" iMac with a 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo and 1GB of memory for $1500. You can get a roughly comparable Dell Dimension E520 for $850. But it's not really "comparable". It comes with a 1.8 GHz processor with 2MB of cache, instead of the 2.16 GHz with 4MB. It comes with DDR2-533, instead of DDR2-667. It has no DVD burner, a GeForce 7300LE, and a 17" display.
You can't even configure that machine to be comparable to the iMac. To get in the same ballpark, you've got to jump up to an XPS 410, up the CPU to 2.13 GHz, add the 2007WFP and the Radeon 1300 Pro. Now you're at $1487, and you still have half the cache, a slower graphics card, no firewire, no wi-fi, no bluetooth, no webcam, and no remote. And it'll still take up much more space in your office!
So yes, even with the Intel Macs, you can get machines cheaper than what Apple well sell them for. However, it's no surprise you can get a cheaper machine with lesser hardware! However, if you try to match the basic specs, and a couple of the accessories (ie: no consumer machine today should ship without wifi!) you're not going to save a lot of money over the Mac.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
IMHO most people mocking the 'muscle memory flaw of UAC' don't actually consider the real intention or application of it.
UAC is not 'the little poppup that says do you want to do this yes/no' it's the whole system behind it, and the entire reworking of how windows deals with user accounts.
Vista's been rebuilt to work properly as you would expect with non administrator level accounts. Applications should work without error from lower level accounts. People you do not trust to tinker freely with 100% of the entire system should not have administrator access, period.
the "yes/no" prompt ONLY appears as a warning for possibly hazardous actions, if you are logged in as an administrator.
If your logged in with a lower level account, you are required to authenticate the action with an admin level user & password a-la *nix.
For the first time with reason in Windows, as an admin, you should be wondering 'why on earth is X webtard still on an admin level account, he doesn't need that access, he's a security risk' not 'why is UAC so stupid'
I've been using Windows from day 1, and seen the Mac as a curiosity. Being a hard core Unix junkie and developer, with the switch to OS X, my ears perked up for sure. The switch the Intel, even more so, so I picked up a Macbook. Well, baby, there's no looking back.
I only got the Macbook because it was a fast x86 machine that could run Windows (faster than most laptops, it turns out), and I had Parallels to run a virtualized Windows (Crossover and VMWare still suck on OS X, but won't before long I'm sure). But guess what? I haven't booted Parallels in a week, and probably won't for another month. Almost *everything* works under OS X. VLC Player filled in the "play windows media files" hole, which really was one of the last reasons to boot Windows. Good bye windows, and Sayonara indeed!
Yes, Jobs might be slightly evil ("Evil light, just one Calorie!" as Dr. Evil might say), but as compared to MS, he's freakin' Mother Theresa. (Oh wait, she was a little evil, too. But you know what I mean.) Even though Jobs obviously has Apple's shareholders' bottom line in mind, and embraces DRM, etc., etc., at least Apple shows a slight bit of respect for the consumer, while taking their money. MS is just stabbing in the dark, and nothing short of offensive in their business practices.
In short, I love my Mac. I'll develop on it, likely deploy on Linux (LAMP is LAMP, on OS X or Linux), while having a wonderful desktop to use in the meantime.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
That's exactly correct. I'm surprised you would act incredulous, because the fact of Microsoft's abuse of its monopoly position has been clearly documented in a court of law. One of the things it did in the normal course of its business was to tell manufacturers that they could sell Windows only, or not at all.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
It's tricky to sell machines without an OS because MS have some kind of conspiracy going, not because consumers generally just want the machine to come with the current Windows OS?
Not to sound like a smart-ass, but... yes. One of the things that has come to light (in court, actually) is that Microsoft will actively raise the price of Windows for OEM's who sell computers without an OS, and will threaten to refuse to sell Windows to OEM's that wish to ship other OS's in anything more than trivial quantities. This is one of the things that BeOS ran up against -- they almost worked out a deal with Toshiba (IIRC), to include BeOS alongside Windows. Microsoft told Toshiba that if they did that, they would be unable to purchase Windows licenses. Toshiba (or whoever it was, I can't remember for certain) then had to drop BeOS.
The real litigious bastards...