* 99% of the data transmitted on the net was useful informtion; now, 99% of the data transmitted on the net is porn, spam, advertisements, and useless graphics. Pretty soon, even Google won't be able to find a website that actually has text on it.
* You didn't get 1000 e-mails a day telling you about the latest greatest super-duper penis enlargment plan where you could make your penis larger just by "jilking it".
* You didn't get 1000 spam messages a day telling you about easy quick idiot-proof ways to make a million dollars in a few hours.
* The evil forces of the dark side, the raiders of the lost net, the proprietary corporate IP mongers, hadn't yet started bending the internet to their perverse Orwellian ideal of perfect control?
* News groups and message boards actually had mostly intelligent conversaion, as opposed to being flooded with, "YOU SUCK, I'M RIGHT YOU STUPID ****, EAT **** AND DIE".
Hahahah...they act astounded that the computer crashed 11% of the time. DUH! They're running MS Windows.
If we're going to have computerized voting, it should be done using a Linux or *BSD OS. This way, you won't get crashes. Also, any software which the government uses or is used by citizens interacting with the government should be Open-Sourced.
Software patents are so bad that even Bill Gates and M$ don't like them.
In "The Future of Ideas," Lessig quotes Gates as saying something like, "had software patents had the scope 20 years ago that they had today, many fundamental software technologies would not have been developed".
There are so many bullshit patents out there that its impossible to write a program without running into them.
Programmers would never get anything done if they worried about the billion possible patent issues before writing code. They'd spend more time reading through the annals of patents than coding.
Deal with the situation when it arises. There is no "willful patent violation". That's pure nonsense. Most patent issues come up because programmers write something off the top of their head that happens to bring up patent issues. They didn't go and look for a patent dealing with the problem their facing and then just use that. Rather, they solved the problem and then realized that someone owned a patent on it. I see nothing what-so-ever wrong with this.
Furthermore, patent owners aren't likely to waste time suing the FSF and Linux developers for patent infringement. They only sue targets with large pockets who could be profitable to sue.
This is a prime example of why patents are so assinite. They are so broad that people violate them as a matter of course just by normal programming. For many of the solutions you think of to a problem, there's a patent out there. There's probably a patent on "hello world" with some assinite asshole behind it who's trying to sue every college in the US for infringing on his patent.
Besides, by publicly talking about parts of Linux which could infringe upon patents, one only draws the attention of greedy patent owners, who'll try to find a Linux vendor to sue.
Well, 20 times a month is better than 20 times a day.
On the 80's station I listen to in Rochester, NY (98.9) I usually don't hear the same songs over again.
Guess it depends on the station.
There's certainly enough good classic music from the past to not have to ever hear the same songs in a year. Between the greats of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and early 90s, one never hear the same song twice in a year. Your talking about ranging from Wilson Pickett to Morris Day to Bob Segar to Diana Ross. Alot of "breathing room" there.
Mac OS X actually uses bitmaps for all the UI widgets still; they are being manipulated through vector transformations.
What I'm saying is that all of the GUI should be represented through mathematical vectors to save RAM, hard drive space, and decrease load time. I.e., the equivalent of "titlbe bar = solid blue 10 inches in height scaling in length to how the user resizes the window".
There are a handful, and they do have a use: application bounce when launching, zoom-rects (navigational feedback), the genie effect, and the Dock magnify. All can be disabled or changed to faster settings (Scale vs. Genie).
Most find these features annoying and useless. A bouncing icon to indicate a prompt? Why not just have a red arrow next to it instead of a black one? Zooming when a window is minimized wouldn't be needed if windows minimized to their icon on the dock, and hold clicking on that appicon would bring up a list of all instance of that application running. One should be able to completely disable zooming. Most users prefer instantaneous reactions to their commands, and don't care to see the progression of a window "travelling" from point A to point B. Just do it at the speed of light. Dock magnify is another very annoying feature; one should have the option to turn it off, or eliminate the "scaling in it" (just make it small to large, instantaneously). Also, one should be able to specify a scroll up/down dock, thus eliminating the need for having such tiny dock icons. Also, a problem with icon zooming is it makes it harder to change the focus to the next icon, because the large icon overlaps with its neighbors. A better solution would be to create a larger icon right next to that appicon on the dock, with the name of the application beneath it. While we're on the dock, text for the appicon should display instantaneously when you move your mouse over it, not so slowly. There's no point in slowing down reaction time.
You know, I read this a few times and I'm still not sure exactly what you mean. Drag-and-drop application launching is kind of a neat idea, but a little slow, don't you think?
Yes, it is, and it wouldn't be the main way to quit/load an application. The idea is that when an application is running, you can see its appicon on the dock with a black arrow next to it. Dragging that appicon (of a running application) off the dock should prompt you to quit the application.
The old Apple menu was basically a menu Dock, when you think about it. Just a Place to Put Stuff. The new association of Apple menu to 'system' commands (like Sleep/Shutdown, Logout, etc.) makes more sense to me.
A dock is a replacement for a desktop, not for a real root menu. Commonly used applications should be placed on the dock to be graphically represented. All applications on one's system should be in the programs menu under the Apple menu. I do agree that the association of system commands to the apple menu makes sense. I just don't think that the elimination of a control panel and programs menu (or the other useful menu's found under the apple menu) makes sense.
If you check Keyboard under System Prefs, you will find a tab called Full Keyboard Access. It has a Custom mode.
I didn't see that under my keyboard prefs. Maybe a version difference. In any case, I found no useful keyboard prefs options under my system prefs, aside from ones which make the delay time and repeat rate shorter.
Up/down scroll bar buttons should be available at the top and bottom of a scroll bar column.
This is trivial to do with TinkerToy.
Now that you mention that, I also think it'd be great to have up/down scroll bar buttons in the middle too, though not interfering with the scroll bar. I.e., the scroll bar would be big enough so that if centered at these middle up/down arrows, you could still click on it, and you could drag it over these up/down arrows.
1. Windows should be completely vectorized. This is faster to load than bitmaps, takes up less RAM, and less hard-drive space.
2. One should have the option to turn off all of the fancy features of Aqua -- i.e., shiny effects, transparency, animation. Why? Firstly, many find these features tacky. Secondly, they serve little or no function. Thirdly, to speed things up. Transferring the rendering of the GUI to the GPU is better than letting the CPU do it (note to X-windows WM developers, hint hint), but it requires many users to needlessly upgrade their GPU when they wouldn't have to otherwise. Thus, one should be able to turn off these resource-hogging features.
3. Minimization/maximization. Windows should minimize to their appicon on the dock, and hold clicking on that appicon should bring up a pop-up menu of the instances of it running. Dragging the appicon of a running application off the dock should quit that application, while dragging an instance of it off the apicons menu should close that instance. After the app's closed, dragging the apicon off the dock again should remove it from the dock, if it was a permanent member. Maximization should maximize to the entire screen.
4. Bring back Apple menu, with all the nifty menus. The old apple menu was great -- had applications, control panel, and many other useful menus. The new one should get those features back. Btw, control panel options should be entirely accessible through menuing: why make us open up a whole new window?
5. Keyboard control. Apple has long had issues with keyboard control -- namely, that you can't do everything you want from the keyboard. I suggest a very simple and traditional fix: F1 opens up File, F2 opens up Edit, F3 opens up View, and so on and so forth; in other words, they F# opens up the #th menu item.
6. Scroll bar buttons. Up/down scroll bar buttons should be available at the top and bottom of a scroll bar column.
7. For other things which Apple should integrate into their WM (as should every WM), see this site.
Being quite honest, I like Britney Spear and her music. For saying this, I expect to get a whole slew of responses talking about how terrible my taste is, and even moderated down.
And it has nothing to do with the latest trend or whatever. Eminem's also one of the latest trends, and I hate what he has to offer.
So, why do I like her? Well, simply put, because her music is fun to listen to. And its fun to watch her videos. I'm not saying its intellectually rich music, but I really don't care. If I want intellectually enriched music, I'll go someplace else (like Ernesto Cortazar, Beethoven, John Williams).
That said, I can understand why this style of music means a slump for the music industry. Its not something I want to listen to all the time. In fact, there's very few artists I'd like to listen to all the time. The only musician who's music I've been able to listen to repeatedly over and over again is Beethoven.
So, what's the problem? Well, the problem is the zillion Britney-alikes that pop up (you know what I'm talking about, Pink, etc). And its not even so much them. I like some of Pink's music. I like alot of the stuff by Pink, No Doubt, Shakira, Aquilera, Spears, etc. Its not that the music's that bad. It's that it gets OVER -PLAYED.
This, my friends, is the fault of the music industry and the radio stations. Hearing the same song 500 times in one day is going to make me sick of it (i.e., anyone remember "I Saw The Sign" -- they played that song to death).
That's part of the reason I love the 80's stations, because they have a large selection to choose from, and I probably won't hear the same song twice in one day. That's also part of the appeal of P2P -- you get to mix it up.
So, ultimately, the current slump in the music business is completely the fault of the RIAA and music companies, along with the radio stations. Start mixing it up more, and people will be more interested. But really, who wants to buy that latest Britney Spears album when the songs in it have been played on the radio 500 times a day? If I listened to the radio more, I probably wouldn't buy CD's, but since I don't, I don't get so sick of songs that I want to puke when I hear them, like most people do.
So, the take home message to the RIAA? Well, lets say it like this. I like ice cream. I really like ice cream. I really really like ice cream. But if I've been eating nothing but ice cream for a week straight, I'm going to puke the next time I see it and I never want to see it again.
As for the bouncing, it is a complete waste. It doesn't tell you which programs are running. A little arrow next to the program tells you if its currently running. The bouncing tells you that that program's prompting you with some kind of yes/no question. That could be indicated by making the arrow red rather than black.
Other animations which are annoying are the ridiculous minimization/maximization animations. I want something to minimize/maximize instantaneously -- the next frame, it should be minimized, or maximized, not in 15 frames.
I don't want OSX to be just like previous versions of Apple's OS. I do, however, want it to bring back the useful features which were eliminated, and deal with some problems.
In OS 9, menu response was instantaneous. In OSX, its nearly instantaneous. Not a big issue, but it is better to have things pop up immediately.
OS9 still had that nice Apple menu with applicatioins on it. OSX has replaced that Apple menu with a crippled Root Menu, lacking the spring-loaded menu for the control panel, and also lacking an applications menu. If you want the Apple menu in OSX, you have to download a special third-party application. Way to take a big step backwards, Apple. To be fair, the dock can have sring-loaded folders on it, thus effectively allowing the creation of a programs menu. However, the menu-based control panel was far superior to Apple's MSesque control panel, which presents the user with a bunch of icons. Again, another case where the user should have the choice.
That said, there are many areas in which OSX does improve greatly over OS9:
1. Minimization and maxmization are great features (which should have been added by Apple a long time ago), though maximization is buggy as it doesn't maximize the window to fill the entire screen.
2. The dock is great. Very good to have a dock and a desktop. However, the dock could use some work too. Firstly, one should be able to set prefs for if icons get smaller as more apps are loaded on it, or if you get a "scroll up" dock, or a combination of both. Secondly, apps should minimize to their icon on the dock, and hold-clicking on that icon (lets say Explorer) should bring up a list of all instances of that application running. Thirdly, dragging the icon of a running application off of the dock should quit that application. Once that application has quit, dragging its icon off the dock again (if its a permanent member) should remove it from the dock. Finally, one should be able to adjust how many levels deep one can go from a folder on the dock in menu mode; i.e., 5 levels, 10, etc, or infinity.
3. Column-based file navigation. This is a truly excellent way to navigate through one's files. What I really like about it is that navigation is possible entirely from the keyboard. However, Apple should work on keyboard-based navigation in the other Finder modes, which is poor.
4. And, of course, the terminal.
These are some very nice additions by Apple. However, there are areas where they should take it further than they have. For example, there's a universal menu in Apple's OS'. This is great, as it saves screen space. However, why not also have a universal tool-bar so that every application's toolbar doesn't take up space on the screen when that application isn't in focus? Also, why not give the user the option to make the universal menu hide-away, thus allowing the user to use more screen space? There are many other things, which not only Apple's WM, but every WM in existence should be addressing.
Many things may hinder performance, but actually reduce the time you spend doing something on a computer: i.e., overall, they save you time.
GUI's in general save you time, even though they are necessarily slower than CLI's. This is because the time you save by being able to do things in a graphical manner rather than via the command-line greatly exceeds the time lost by increased load/run time.
Such features which save you time overall should be kept and/or added. Those which don't should be removed or not added.
Spring loaded menu's save you time overall, even though they take up more of your system resources and work slower than CLI equivalents.
As for backgrounds, themes, and screen savers, all of those are optional and can be disabled/removed for those of us who don't want to bother with them. The only one of them that's of any use is screen-savers, and I'd say good arguments can be made for a simple "blank screen" screen saver: (1) Saves power; (2) By requesting a password to exit it, adds to security; (3) Thus, saves you money.
My issue isn't that Aqua includes features you don't need, but that are overall useful. My complaint is that they include features which are useless, like the pretty Aqua effects, menu/dock transparency, and animations. Think of how many hours were wasted by Apple developers to make the Aqua effects, hours which could have been spent doing something more worthwhile. Transparency is easy to make and not too costly, but should still be optional. As for animations, the only possible use of them is telling you where a program went when you minimized it. This would be a non-issue if Apple had made things minimize to their icon on the dock (where hold clicking that icon would bring up a list of all of the instances of that app running).
Okay, now this is an even sillier canard than the first one. Have you looked at the cost of memory lately? If you don't want to spend fifty bucks, then why aren't you just using a $500 x86 linux machine to do your work?
How arrogant. Aside from having to spend the money on OSX, now I have to spend 50 bucks to upgrade my RAM? I should not need to upgrade my computer just to run an OS smoothly.
Also, even if I have enough RAM to run it just fine, why should the OS use up so much RAM? You know, I buy RAM so I can multitask more programs. The OS should not be using up more RAM than any other program on my system (which is the case for most computers I've worked with, except some Linux, BeOS, and QNX systems).
What exactly is the purpose of all this eye-candy? I find that its mostly just annoying and a hindrance, as well as tacky.
The prime use of eye-candy seems to be making good looking screen-shots to put on commercials.
That said, Apple's certainly not alone in that category. MS has recently started developing their applications to make better screen-shots not better performance (Word XP is for 99% of users no better than Word 97, yet it takes up more space, more RAM, more CPU %, and loads slower). And of course there's the screen-shot mania insanity in the Linux community that you can witness and gag from.
Btw, if, according to you, there's "no performance problems" in OS' and GUI's, how come everyone and anyone who's used BeOS or QNX says things like "applications loaded instantaneously" and "I can play 50 movies at the same time without losing responsiveness"?
Only an idiot would say "Mac hardware." Who is Mac?
If your trying to say I don't know that Apple makes computer hardware, I believe that point is nixed, since I later said, "Apple sells computer systems.
Well, I don't know how fast your comptuer is, but you mentioned a G4, so I'll assume somewhere around 867MHz (that's what I read the G4 speed as being from Apple.com). So, your WM is using up 9.6% of your CPU's resources -- in loose terms, 83.232MHz of the 867MHz. That's alot of processing power just for a WM. That means it probably won't run on hardware that's 10 years old (10 years ago, PC's were around 100MHz, so I assume Apples were a little bit "slower"). On the other hand, many Linux WM's (pwm and any of hte light WM's, as well as probably WindowMaker) will run on 100MHz PC systems.
First you say "the GUI is not the OS" and then you say "OSX is the combination of Darwin (which is BSD with a Mach kernel), and the GUI (Aqua)."
Do you see a problem with that? You are suffering from a severe lack of logic, or the ability to put thoughts together in a way that is logical and isn't self contradicting. Oh and yes I know what OS X is. But BTW, it doesn't "run" on BSD, and you don't even have to install the BSD Subsystem.
Um, no, actually there is no problem with that. Aqua is not OSX, just as (in general) a GUI isn't an OS. Its like saying a fruit's seed is not the fruit, nor is just the "flesh" part the fruit. The fruit is the entire thing. I never said OSX runs on BSD, I said it was a combination of BSD and the Mach kernel, meaning it is based off of Mach and BSD code.
Why "waste my time" with OS X? You seem to think that because it does something 5 seconds slower than OS 9 that it's not worth using.
Depends on what it is that's 5s slower. If its a long long algorithm that normally takes hours, that's no problem. If its an application, that's a BIG problem. I usually buy either the best system available or one just behind it which is still great, but priced in accord with what it offers (i.e., so I'm not paying an extra 90% for that last 10% of performance). For the money I spend, I expect everything to happen instantaneously. Programs should load instantaneously, and should do any normal tasks instantaneously. I have leeway for things which SHOULD take longer and which aren't the fault of the OS. I don't expect a multiple alignment of 100 sequences averaging 10000 amino acids to align instantaneously...that'll take a while (like several minutes).
Btw, I've found that most "updated" versions of software run and load much slower (i.e., MSO 'XP loads about 5x slower than MSO '97), but yet don't provide many more *useful* features. If somethings going to take up 10 times as much of my resources as a previous version, I expect it to be 10 times better. Why should something perform 10 times worse if its not 10 times better? (better meaning that it has more useful features).
You are suffering from a feeling that any computer that isn't the "fastest" is inadequate.
Isn't the fastest it can be, given the needed functionality. I expect programs to load instantaneously, RAM usage to be minimal, etc. In general, I don't like "wait-time". I don't find it amusing waiting 30s listening to my hard drive thrash, or watching a little clock cursor go round and round because some routine is poorly designed.
Most other people feel the same way. If not, Broadband connections never would have become popular.
You need to think about that for a while. Stop and look at what you do on your computer and see how long things take. Do you need some tasks to be faster? Why?
I need things to be faster because I don't have the patience to wait for something to get done slowly when it should be done quickly. I can tolerate it taking 30s to (for example) align many long protein sequences with eachother; I can't tolerate it taking that long for the Word processor to load.
This partly about ideals. Sloppy coding pisses me off. In the good old days where people had to "rent" time on a computer, code was written very efficiently at all levels, so it ran quickly. It was a thing of beauty. Now, alot of code is just slop which is poorly written.
This is why I like Linux (particularly Debian) so much: because it can actually still run on a 386.
If I'd doing something that's going to take a while, say rendering a picture, I can just move on to something else.
Which will, consequently, make rendering the picture even slower; furthermore, whatever else you're doing will happen slower. Also, sometimes we want results fast. If I'm running a Bayesian phylogeny, I want the results ASAP, because its a competitive field; also, because quality (maximum likelihood) phylogenetic analysis is very intensive, and the quicker its done with the better. Regarding bayesian phylogenetics, MrBayes is a program which I particularly respect for representing the ideals of good code. Each new release has become faster, and it does in days what other programs would take years to do (MrBayes bootstraps maximum likelihood phylognies about a million times in two days, whereas doing that in PAUP via Maximum Likelihood would take months or more likely years).
That's what multi tasking is all about. I find I'm much more productive in OS X than in OS 9.
So do I, but I could be more productive in it yet if some of these issues were dealt with. Firstly, there's the performance issues (try running OSX on the same ancient hardware you ran OS9 on). Secondly, OSX eliminates alot of good features of OS9. My beloved Apple program menu is gone, for example. The very nice control panel menu that you could navigate to from the Apple menu is gone, replaced with a MSesq control panel. If one installs an add-on Apple menu in OSX, it has annoying mini-icons in the menu next to the words, rather than just the names of the program. Just having the name of the program and a carrot was great.
I'm not all negative on OSX. The core of OSX is great, and there's many things I like about Aqua's GUI (if you look over that site, you'll find several places where I praised Apple on their GUIs.
I use OS 9 at work everyday so I know. I also don't see a speed difference except for the Finder, and that's been fixed in jaguar.
Unless your comparing the two OS' running on the exact same hardware, its not a valid comparison. Asking someone who has run both OS' on the same computer at the UOR how he liked OSX, his comments were "I don't like it, I hate it. Its slow, it hogs resources, and its ugly. The only thing I like about it is that its stable and doesn't crash." I've seen how the two OS' perform on the same computer, and I agree. As for "its ugly," I have to agree. Aqua's water-like appearance is about as classless as a two dollar tramp. I prefer a simple, plain look. Again, the user should be given the choice to choose a faster, more classy appearance.
well known that one of the strengths of Apple systems are their integration between hardware and the OS. Of what benefit would you get separating the two? Very little.
I'm not separating them. They are already separate, technically. My face is part of me, but it is not me. You could put a different face on me and I'd still be me. My point was not that computers don't come as systems, as a package. My point was simply what I said. Software is not hardware. This is an important point as has been shown in recent MS anti-trust trials. Distinguishing between the various parts of a system is important, especially if we want to preserve modularity. One should be able to "mix and match".
You can buy a G4 and run Linux on it if you like. I run Linux on a G3. It doesn't run as fast as OS 9, so there goes your theory on bloat.
I question what distribution you're running. If its Mandrake, I can see that. But don't expect OS9 to run faster than Debian on a G3. It seems widely acknowledged that good Linux distros are faster than other "common" OS' such as Solaris, IRIX, *BSD, Windows, and the Mac OS'.
Now, I'm not saying Linux is perfect. Linux still has PLENTY of room for improvement. BeOS and QNX represent the ideal in terms of minimal system resource use and speed. Such performance panaceas are definately possible for Linux if proper care is taken to what really matters.
You can also buy a G4 and run Darwin and XDarwin. Again, to what advantage? Maybe it's a bit faster? So what. You can't do as much with it. How fast does it have to be, and what advantage is that when you lose most of the OS?
I wouldn't run Darwin and XDarwin, because many *BSD and Linux packages haven't been ported to Darwin. I'd run Debian. One advantage being performance. The other being Debian's proven record for rock-solid stability. The biggest advantage being the freedom factor. GPL'ed software doesn't tie me up in a web of legal knots.
Here's something to think about, I don't use a Mac because of Apple's hardware. I appreciate their hardware (even if it's not keeping up with AMD or whoever).
Actually, Apple's hardware is keeping up fine. Apple hardware may have a lower clock frequency (MHz), but it takes less clock cycles to get an instruction done.
It's the GUI!
Which has alot of pros. I'm simply pointing out some areas where improvement is needed (namely resource utilization) and where Apple has taken a step backwards by eliminating GREAT features that were in OS9, like the Apple programs menu.
OS X is more of a luxury car than a Dragster. It corners better too!
What scientist need is a Dragster for their heavy duty-computers and a Porsche for their PC's, so to speak.
That may be how you would choose to deal with it. I disagree.
Which is exactly why the user should have the option to choose between the two methods, or a combination thereof (i.e., shrink icons until X, then start using a scroll-dock). Apple has never muched liked the idea of giving their users choice though.
From this, I conclude that you either 1) don't use Mac OS X, or 2) never looked at the preferences in Terminal.app.
Thanks for the tip, I'll be using a 100% transparent terminal now. However, part of my point still stands: to the vast majority of people for the vast majority of time, transparency is useless in the dock and in menus. We should at least have the option to disable that feature and purge its code from our hard drive.
No, I'm not grasping at straws for something to complain about.
The problem is they're making my hardware solve problems that should be solved by either them coding better or eliminating code (or giving me the option to eliminate code/features) which require alot of resources.
Also, you fail to consider that one may be running several Bryce windows at once; thus, Aqua windows will be redrawn.
The point is, these are useless (or near useless) features. At the very least, I should have the option to disable these useless features. Even if they don't affect my performance, they're still taking up RAM (who is Apple to assume I'm using hundreds of MBs of RAM?). Furthermore, they're using "milage" on my system. Computer systems have a limited life-time, which is dictated by how rigourously they're used.
Again, alot of little things add up, and there's alot of bloaty "features" in OSX.
Not everyone is as boring as you. Apple tries to make computers fun and easy, remeber?
If whatever you're doing is so boring that you need a fancy GUI to distract you, you should be doing something else.
And the job of an OS' GUI is not to make computers fun. That's the job of games. An OS' GUI is not a game.
Stop being such a dork. Most people in the market for a computer want a fun, neat computer with which they can get things done, not a boring, stripped-down speed machine.
And the same features which most people (myself) find "cool" in the beginning are annoying after seeing them 1000 times. Animations quickly get annoying and grate on one's nerves, as does transparency and icon zooming.
A UI is supposed to help me do things quicker and stay out of my way. Emphasize the stay out of my way part.
If you want your shit to be so fast then don't use OSX and shut your hole. "Features that need to be eliminated." Christ. And you're even trying to inflict your monotony on others. Stop posting already.
Typical of the Mac community. Suggestions for improvements are received with hostility.
Yes, some features do need to be eliminated, because they add nothing or nearly nothing. At the least, one should be able to disable them and remove them from one's system. My hard drive is not there to support Apple's obsession over tacky animations.
Its not about disliking a GUI. Its about disliking the fact that GUI's include features which add nothing or very little to their usefulness. The reason GUI's are useful is to allow us to view several pieces of information at once, and to navigate through and manage files on our hard drives easily. Not because they're "pretty".
I'd bet that since the first GUI's in existence, the CPU/RAM/hard-drive requirements have increased about 1000x, while the usefulness has only increased maybe 2-10x (lets not talk about Amiga, even though they really pioneered the GUI and were the real visionaries before Apple popularized the idea).
What I want is that if the requirements are to increase 2x, then the usefulness is to increase 2x. In other words, if I have to pay twice as much money on Apples, I better get twice as many Apples or Apples that are twice as good. Hope that's not too much to ask for.
If you want to continue to say something which is wrong, go ahead. I can't help the fact that either you don't know wtf your talking about or your confusing OS9 with OSX (though I'll admit, I confused part of the hold clicking).
FACT: APPLE-~ switches between instances of an application in OS9. Open several IE or Netscape windows, and put the focus on Netscape by pressing APPLE-TAB. Then press APPLE-~. It will siwtch between the different IE/Netscape windows.
FACT: In OS9, hold clicking brings up (for example) a properties menu (the menu which asks you whether you want to save the link as, open link in new window, etc) in IE. In OSX, you have to CONTROL-CLICK (which is more work).
FACT: Hold-clicking in OS9 does not make Icons "pop up into windows". That would be double clicking your referring to.
Anyways, my point was that OSX gets rid of a lot of stuff that was GOOD from OS9. Must be something relating to Moore's law that stupidity doubles every 18 months.
While its poor performance (read, slower than OS9 on the same system, much slower than Linux [i.e., Debian] on the same system) may not be a problem for you, it may be for other people.
Scientists use powerful computers to run reiterated algorithms over and over, billions of times. So these things that "aren't that big of an issue" add up to hours of time.
Btw, multitasking is nothing new anymore. Every major OS multi-tasks. Unix multi-tasked back when it still used a CLI only.
Still, its using valuable resources when it need not be using them.
And its demanding that I get a better graphics card. The OS should not be dictating what graphics card I use; if anything, it should be the 3D apps I use.
And, sure, it might be minor. But alot of "little" things that use up a "little bit of resources" add up to A BIG THING.
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Back in the good old days, remember when....
* 99% of the data transmitted on the net was useful informtion; now, 99% of the data transmitted on the net is porn, spam, advertisements, and useless graphics. Pretty soon, even Google won't be able to find a website that actually has text on it.
* You didn't get 1000 e-mails a day telling you about the latest greatest super-duper penis enlargment plan where you could make your penis larger just by "jilking it".
* You didn't get 1000 spam messages a day telling you about easy quick idiot-proof ways to make a million dollars in a few hours.
* The evil forces of the dark side, the raiders of the lost net, the proprietary corporate IP mongers, hadn't yet started bending the internet to their perverse Orwellian ideal of perfect control?
* News groups and message boards actually had mostly intelligent conversaion, as opposed to being flooded with, "YOU SUCK, I'M RIGHT YOU STUPID ****, EAT **** AND DIE".
* Al Gore was busy inventing the net.
Hahahah...they act astounded that the computer crashed 11% of the time. DUH! They're running MS Windows.
If we're going to have computerized voting, it should be done using a Linux or *BSD OS. This way, you won't get crashes. Also, any software which the government uses or is used by citizens interacting with the government should be Open-Sourced.
Software patents are so bad that even Bill Gates and M$ don't like them.
In "The Future of Ideas," Lessig quotes Gates as saying something like, "had software patents had the scope 20 years ago that they had today, many fundamental software technologies would not have been developed".
There are so many bullshit patents out there that its impossible to write a program without running into them.
Programmers would never get anything done if they worried about the billion possible patent issues before writing code. They'd spend more time reading through the annals of patents than coding.
Deal with the situation when it arises. There is no "willful patent violation". That's pure nonsense. Most patent issues come up because programmers write something off the top of their head that happens to bring up patent issues. They didn't go and look for a patent dealing with the problem their facing and then just use that. Rather, they solved the problem and then realized that someone owned a patent on it. I see nothing what-so-ever wrong with this.
Furthermore, patent owners aren't likely to waste time suing the FSF and Linux developers for patent infringement. They only sue targets with large pockets who could be profitable to sue.
This is a prime example of why patents are so assinite. They are so broad that people violate them as a matter of course just by normal programming. For many of the solutions you think of to a problem, there's a patent out there. There's probably a patent on "hello world" with some assinite asshole behind it who's trying to sue every college in the US for infringing on his patent.
Besides, by publicly talking about parts of Linux which could infringe upon patents, one only draws the attention of greedy patent owners, who'll try to find a Linux vendor to sue.
Well, 20 times a month is better than 20 times a day.
On the 80's station I listen to in Rochester, NY (98.9) I usually don't hear the same songs over again.
Guess it depends on the station.
There's certainly enough good classic music from the past to not have to ever hear the same songs in a year. Between the greats of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and early 90s, one never hear the same song twice in a year. Your talking about ranging from Wilson Pickett to Morris Day to Bob Segar to Diana Ross. Alot of "breathing room" there.
What I'm saying is that all of the GUI should be represented through mathematical vectors to save RAM, hard drive space, and decrease load time. I.e., the equivalent of "titlbe bar = solid blue 10 inches in height scaling in length to how the user resizes the window".
There are a handful, and they do have a use: application bounce when launching, zoom-rects (navigational feedback), the genie effect, and the Dock magnify. All can be disabled or changed to faster settings (Scale vs. Genie).
Most find these features annoying and useless. A bouncing icon to indicate a prompt? Why not just have a red arrow next to it instead of a black one? Zooming when a window is minimized wouldn't be needed if windows minimized to their icon on the dock, and hold clicking on that appicon would bring up a list of all instance of that application running. One should be able to completely disable zooming. Most users prefer instantaneous reactions to their commands, and don't care to see the progression of a window "travelling" from point A to point B. Just do it at the speed of light. Dock magnify is another very annoying feature; one should have the option to turn it off, or eliminate the "scaling in it" (just make it small to large, instantaneously). Also, one should be able to specify a scroll up/down dock, thus eliminating the need for having such tiny dock icons. Also, a problem with icon zooming is it makes it harder to change the focus to the next icon, because the large icon overlaps with its neighbors. A better solution would be to create a larger icon right next to that appicon on the dock, with the name of the application beneath it. While we're on the dock, text for the appicon should display instantaneously when you move your mouse over it, not so slowly. There's no point in slowing down reaction time.
You know, I read this a few times and I'm still not sure exactly what you mean. Drag-and-drop application launching is kind of a neat idea, but a little slow, don't you think?
Yes, it is, and it wouldn't be the main way to quit/load an application. The idea is that when an application is running, you can see its appicon on the dock with a black arrow next to it. Dragging that appicon (of a running application) off the dock should prompt you to quit the application.
The old Apple menu was basically a menu Dock, when you think about it. Just a Place to Put Stuff. The new association of Apple menu to 'system' commands (like Sleep/Shutdown, Logout, etc.) makes more sense to me.
A dock is a replacement for a desktop, not for a real root menu. Commonly used applications should be placed on the dock to be graphically represented. All applications on one's system should be in the programs menu under the Apple menu. I do agree that the association of system commands to the apple menu makes sense. I just don't think that the elimination of a control panel and programs menu (or the other useful menu's found under the apple menu) makes sense.
If you check Keyboard under System Prefs, you will find a tab called Full Keyboard Access. It has a Custom mode.
I didn't see that under my keyboard prefs. Maybe a version difference. In any case, I found no useful keyboard prefs options under my system prefs, aside from ones which make the delay time and repeat rate shorter.
Up/down scroll bar buttons should be available at the top and bottom of a scroll bar column.
Now that you mention that, I also think it'd be great to have up/down scroll bar buttons in the middle too, though not interfering with the scroll bar. I.e., the scroll bar would be big enough so that if centered at these middle up/down arrows, you could still click on it, and you could drag it over these up/down arrows.
Wow, so that means, Apple is half as bad as MS.
Lets see, what's half of infinity?
Btw, Linux updates come for free.
With previous versions of OSX, Apple basically sold people a very raw and unfinished product, with many bugs.
The problems fixed by 10.2 are things which shouldn't have been problems in an OS you spent $129 USD for.
1. Windows should be completely vectorized. This is faster to load than bitmaps, takes up less RAM, and less hard-drive space.
2. One should have the option to turn off all of the fancy features of Aqua -- i.e., shiny effects, transparency, animation. Why? Firstly, many find these features tacky. Secondly, they serve little or no function. Thirdly, to speed things up. Transferring the rendering of the GUI to the GPU is better than letting the CPU do it (note to X-windows WM developers, hint hint), but it requires many users to needlessly upgrade their GPU when they wouldn't have to otherwise. Thus, one should be able to turn off these resource-hogging features.
3. Minimization/maximization. Windows should minimize to their appicon on the dock, and hold clicking on that appicon should bring up a pop-up menu of the instances of it running. Dragging the appicon of a running application off the dock should quit that application, while dragging an instance of it off the apicons menu should close that instance. After the app's closed, dragging the apicon off the dock again should remove it from the dock, if it was a permanent member. Maximization should maximize to the entire screen.
4. Bring back Apple menu, with all the nifty menus. The old apple menu was great -- had applications, control panel, and many other useful menus. The new one should get those features back. Btw, control panel options should be entirely accessible through menuing: why make us open up a whole new window?
5. Keyboard control. Apple has long had issues with keyboard control -- namely, that you can't do everything you want from the keyboard. I suggest a very simple and traditional fix: F1 opens up File, F2 opens up Edit, F3 opens up View, and so on and so forth; in other words, they F# opens up the #th menu item.
6. Scroll bar buttons. Up/down scroll bar buttons should be available at the top and bottom of a scroll bar column.
7. For other things which Apple should integrate into their WM (as should every WM), see this site.
Being quite honest, I like Britney Spear and her music. For saying this, I expect to get a whole slew of responses talking about how terrible my taste is, and even moderated down.
And it has nothing to do with the latest trend or whatever. Eminem's also one of the latest trends, and I hate what he has to offer.
So, why do I like her? Well, simply put, because her music is fun to listen to. And its fun to watch her videos. I'm not saying its intellectually rich music, but I really don't care. If I want intellectually enriched music, I'll go someplace else (like Ernesto Cortazar, Beethoven, John Williams).
That said, I can understand why this style of music means a slump for the music industry. Its not something I want to listen to all the time. In fact, there's very few artists I'd like to listen to all the time. The only musician who's music I've been able to listen to repeatedly over and over again is Beethoven.
So, what's the problem? Well, the problem is the zillion Britney-alikes that pop up (you know what I'm talking about, Pink, etc). And its not even so much them. I like some of Pink's music. I like alot of the stuff by Pink, No Doubt, Shakira, Aquilera, Spears, etc. Its not that the music's that bad. It's that it gets OVER -PLAYED.
This, my friends, is the fault of the music industry and the radio stations. Hearing the same song 500 times in one day is going to make me sick of it (i.e., anyone remember "I Saw The Sign" -- they played that song to death).
That's part of the reason I love the 80's stations, because they have a large selection to choose from, and I probably won't hear the same song twice in one day. That's also part of the appeal of P2P -- you get to mix it up.
So, ultimately, the current slump in the music business is completely the fault of the RIAA and music companies, along with the radio stations. Start mixing it up more, and people will be more interested. But really, who wants to buy that latest Britney Spears album when the songs in it have been played on the radio 500 times a day? If I listened to the radio more, I probably wouldn't buy CD's, but since I don't, I don't get so sick of songs that I want to puke when I hear them, like most people do.
So, the take home message to the RIAA? Well, lets say it like this. I like ice cream. I really like ice cream. I really really like ice cream. But if I've been eating nothing but ice cream for a week straight, I'm going to puke the next time I see it and I never want to see it again.
I have a hide-away dock, so it doesn't matter.
As for the bouncing, it is a complete waste. It doesn't tell you which programs are running. A little arrow next to the program tells you if its currently running. The bouncing tells you that that program's prompting you with some kind of yes/no question. That could be indicated by making the arrow red rather than black.
Other animations which are annoying are the ridiculous minimization/maximization animations. I want something to minimize/maximize instantaneously -- the next frame, it should be minimized, or maximized, not in 15 frames.
I don't want OSX to be just like previous versions of Apple's OS. I do, however, want it to bring back the useful features which were eliminated, and deal with some problems.
In OS 9, menu response was instantaneous. In OSX, its nearly instantaneous. Not a big issue, but it is better to have things pop up immediately.
OS9 still had that nice Apple menu with applicatioins on it. OSX has replaced that Apple menu with a crippled Root Menu, lacking the spring-loaded menu for the control panel, and also lacking an applications menu. If you want the Apple menu in OSX, you have to download a special third-party application. Way to take a big step backwards, Apple. To be fair, the dock can have sring-loaded folders on it, thus effectively allowing the creation of a programs menu. However, the menu-based control panel was far superior to Apple's MSesque control panel, which presents the user with a bunch of icons. Again, another case where the user should have the choice.
That said, there are many areas in which OSX does improve greatly over OS9:
1. Minimization and maxmization are great features (which should have been added by Apple a long time ago), though maximization is buggy as it doesn't maximize the window to fill the entire screen.
2. The dock is great. Very good to have a dock and a desktop. However, the dock could use some work too. Firstly, one should be able to set prefs for if icons get smaller as more apps are loaded on it, or if you get a "scroll up" dock, or a combination of both. Secondly, apps should minimize to their icon on the dock, and hold-clicking on that icon (lets say Explorer) should bring up a list of all instances of that application running. Thirdly, dragging the icon of a running application off of the dock should quit that application. Once that application has quit, dragging its icon off the dock again (if its a permanent member) should remove it from the dock. Finally, one should be able to adjust how many levels deep one can go from a folder on the dock in menu mode; i.e., 5 levels, 10, etc, or infinity.
3. Column-based file navigation. This is a truly excellent way to navigate through one's files. What I really like about it is that navigation is possible entirely from the keyboard. However, Apple should work on keyboard-based navigation in the other Finder modes, which is poor.
4. And, of course, the terminal.
These are some very nice additions by Apple. However, there are areas where they should take it further than they have. For example, there's a universal menu in Apple's OS'. This is great, as it saves screen space. However, why not also have a universal tool-bar so that every application's toolbar doesn't take up space on the screen when that application isn't in focus? Also, why not give the user the option to make the universal menu hide-away, thus allowing the user to use more screen space? There are many other things, which not only Apple's WM, but every WM in existence should be addressing.
Many things may hinder performance, but actually reduce the time you spend doing something on a computer: i.e., overall, they save you time.
GUI's in general save you time, even though they are necessarily slower than CLI's. This is because the time you save by being able to do things in a graphical manner rather than via the command-line greatly exceeds the time lost by increased load/run time.
Such features which save you time overall should be kept and/or added. Those which don't should be removed or not added.
Spring loaded menu's save you time overall, even though they take up more of your system resources and work slower than CLI equivalents.
As for backgrounds, themes, and screen savers, all of those are optional and can be disabled/removed for those of us who don't want to bother with them. The only one of them that's of any use is screen-savers, and I'd say good arguments can be made for a simple "blank screen" screen saver: (1) Saves power; (2) By requesting a password to exit it, adds to security; (3) Thus, saves you money.
My issue isn't that Aqua includes features you don't need, but that are overall useful. My complaint is that they include features which are useless, like the pretty Aqua effects, menu/dock transparency, and animations. Think of how many hours were wasted by Apple developers to make the Aqua effects, hours which could have been spent doing something more worthwhile. Transparency is easy to make and not too costly, but should still be optional. As for animations, the only possible use of them is telling you where a program went when you minimized it. This would be a non-issue if Apple had made things minimize to their icon on the dock (where hold clicking that icon would bring up a list of all of the instances of that app running).
We should have the option to disable it without it affecting other parts of the OS negatively.
Menu / dock transparency is not a "key part of OS X's competitive advantage".
Its competitive advantage is the power offered by a *nix OS.
Okay, now this is an even sillier canard than the first one. Have you looked at the cost of memory lately? If you don't want to spend fifty bucks, then why aren't you just using a $500 x86 linux machine to do your work?
How arrogant. Aside from having to spend the money on OSX, now I have to spend 50 bucks to upgrade my RAM? I should not need to upgrade my computer just to run an OS smoothly.
Also, even if I have enough RAM to run it just fine, why should the OS use up so much RAM? You know, I buy RAM so I can multitask more programs. The OS should not be using up more RAM than any other program on my system (which is the case for most computers I've worked with, except some Linux, BeOS, and QNX systems).
What exactly is the purpose of all this eye-candy? I find that its mostly just annoying and a hindrance, as well as tacky.
The prime use of eye-candy seems to be making good looking screen-shots to put on commercials.
That said, Apple's certainly not alone in that category. MS has recently started developing their applications to make better screen-shots not better performance (Word XP is for 99% of users no better than Word 97, yet it takes up more space, more RAM, more CPU %, and loads slower). And of course there's the screen-shot mania insanity in the Linux community that you can witness and gag from.
Btw, if, according to you, there's "no performance problems" in OS' and GUI's, how come everyone and anyone who's used BeOS or QNX says things like "applications loaded instantaneously" and "I can play 50 movies at the same time without losing responsiveness"?
Only an idiot would say "Mac hardware." Who is Mac?
If your trying to say I don't know that Apple makes computer hardware, I believe that point is nixed, since I later said, "Apple sells computer systems.
80 Window Man 9.6% 9:54.89 5 271 305 3.57M- 52.7M+ 57.8M+ 94.9M+
Well, I don't know how fast your comptuer is, but you mentioned a G4, so I'll assume somewhere around 867MHz (that's what I read the G4 speed as being from Apple.com). So, your WM is using up 9.6% of your CPU's resources -- in loose terms, 83.232MHz of the 867MHz. That's alot of processing power just for a WM. That means it probably won't run on hardware that's 10 years old (10 years ago, PC's were around 100MHz, so I assume Apples were a little bit "slower"). On the other hand, many Linux WM's (pwm and any of hte light WM's, as well as probably WindowMaker) will run on 100MHz PC systems.
First you say "the GUI is not the OS" and then you say "OSX is the combination of Darwin (which is BSD with a Mach kernel), and the GUI (Aqua)."
Do you see a problem with that? You are suffering from a severe lack of logic, or the ability to put thoughts together in a way that is logical and isn't self contradicting. Oh and yes I know what OS X is. But BTW, it doesn't "run" on BSD, and you don't even have to install the BSD Subsystem.
Um, no, actually there is no problem with that. Aqua is not OSX, just as (in general) a GUI isn't an OS. Its like saying a fruit's seed is not the fruit, nor is just the "flesh" part the fruit. The fruit is the entire thing. I never said OSX runs on BSD, I said it was a combination of BSD and the Mach kernel, meaning it is based off of Mach and BSD code.
Why "waste my time" with OS X? You seem to think that because it does something 5 seconds slower than OS 9 that it's not worth using.
Depends on what it is that's 5s slower. If its a long long algorithm that normally takes hours, that's no problem. If its an application, that's a BIG problem. I usually buy either the best system available or one just behind it which is still great, but priced in accord with what it offers (i.e., so I'm not paying an extra 90% for that last 10% of performance). For the money I spend, I expect everything to happen instantaneously. Programs should load instantaneously, and should do any normal tasks instantaneously. I have leeway for things which SHOULD take longer and which aren't the fault of the OS. I don't expect a multiple alignment of 100 sequences averaging 10000 amino acids to align instantaneously...that'll take a while (like several minutes).
Btw, I've found that most "updated" versions of software run and load much slower (i.e., MSO 'XP loads about 5x slower than MSO '97), but yet don't provide many more *useful* features. If somethings going to take up 10 times as much of my resources as a previous version, I expect it to be 10 times better. Why should something perform 10 times worse if its not 10 times better? (better meaning that it has more useful features).
You are suffering from a feeling that any computer that isn't the "fastest" is inadequate.
Isn't the fastest it can be, given the needed functionality. I expect programs to load instantaneously, RAM usage to be minimal, etc. In general, I don't like "wait-time". I don't find it amusing waiting 30s listening to my hard drive thrash, or watching a little clock cursor go round and round because some routine is poorly designed.
Most other people feel the same way. If not, Broadband connections never would have become popular.
You need to think about that for a while. Stop and look at what you do on your computer and see how long things take. Do you need some tasks to be faster? Why?
I need things to be faster because I don't have the patience to wait for something to get done slowly when it should be done quickly. I can tolerate it taking 30s to (for example) align many long protein sequences with eachother; I can't tolerate it taking that long for the Word processor to load.
This partly about ideals. Sloppy coding pisses me off. In the good old days where people had to "rent" time on a computer, code was written very efficiently at all levels, so it ran quickly. It was a thing of beauty. Now, alot of code is just slop which is poorly written.
This is why I like Linux (particularly Debian) so much: because it can actually still run on a 386.
If I'd doing something that's going to take a while, say rendering a picture, I can just move on to something else.
Which will, consequently, make rendering the picture even slower; furthermore, whatever else you're doing will happen slower. Also, sometimes we want results fast. If I'm running a Bayesian phylogeny, I want the results ASAP, because its a competitive field; also, because quality (maximum likelihood) phylogenetic analysis is very intensive, and the quicker its done with the better. Regarding bayesian phylogenetics, MrBayes is a program which I particularly respect for representing the ideals of good code. Each new release has become faster, and it does in days what other programs would take years to do (MrBayes bootstraps maximum likelihood phylognies about a million times in two days, whereas doing that in PAUP via Maximum Likelihood would take months or more likely years).
That's what multi tasking is all about. I find I'm much more productive in OS X than in OS 9.
So do I, but I could be more productive in it yet if some of these issues were dealt with. Firstly, there's the performance issues (try running OSX on the same ancient hardware you ran OS9 on). Secondly, OSX eliminates alot of good features of OS9. My beloved Apple program menu is gone, for example. The very nice control panel menu that you could navigate to from the Apple menu is gone, replaced with a MSesq control panel. If one installs an add-on Apple menu in OSX, it has annoying mini-icons in the menu next to the words, rather than just the names of the program. Just having the name of the program and a carrot was great.
I'm not all negative on OSX. The core of OSX is great, and there's many things I like about Aqua's GUI (if you look over that site, you'll find several places where I praised Apple on their GUIs.
I use OS 9 at work everyday so I know. I also don't see a speed difference except for the Finder, and that's been fixed in jaguar.
Unless your comparing the two OS' running on the exact same hardware, its not a valid comparison. Asking someone who has run both OS' on the same computer at the UOR how he liked OSX, his comments were "I don't like it, I hate it. Its slow, it hogs resources, and its ugly. The only thing I like about it is that its stable and doesn't crash." I've seen how the two OS' perform on the same computer, and I agree. As for "its ugly," I have to agree. Aqua's water-like appearance is about as classless as a two dollar tramp. I prefer a simple, plain look. Again, the user should be given the choice to choose a faster, more classy appearance.
well known that one of the strengths of Apple systems are their integration between hardware and the OS. Of what benefit would you get separating the two? Very little.
I'm not separating them. They are already separate, technically. My face is part of me, but it is not me. You could put a different face on me and I'd still be me. My point was not that computers don't come as systems, as a package. My point was simply what I said. Software is not hardware. This is an important point as has been shown in recent MS anti-trust trials. Distinguishing between the various parts of a system is important, especially if we want to preserve modularity. One should be able to "mix and match".
You can buy a G4 and run Linux on it if you like. I run Linux on a G3. It doesn't run as fast as OS 9, so there goes your theory on bloat.
I question what distribution you're running. If its Mandrake, I can see that. But don't expect OS9 to run faster than Debian on a G3. It seems widely acknowledged that good Linux distros are faster than other "common" OS' such as Solaris, IRIX, *BSD, Windows, and the Mac OS'.
Now, I'm not saying Linux is perfect. Linux still has PLENTY of room for improvement. BeOS and QNX represent the ideal in terms of minimal system resource use and speed. Such performance panaceas are definately possible for Linux if proper care is taken to what really matters.
You can also buy a G4 and run Darwin and XDarwin. Again, to what advantage? Maybe it's a bit faster? So what. You can't do as much with it. How fast does it have to be, and what advantage is that when you lose most of the OS?
I wouldn't run Darwin and XDarwin, because many *BSD and Linux packages haven't been ported to Darwin. I'd run Debian. One advantage being performance. The other being Debian's proven record for rock-solid stability. The biggest advantage being the freedom factor. GPL'ed software doesn't tie me up in a web of legal knots.
Here's something to think about, I don't use a Mac because of Apple's hardware. I appreciate their hardware (even if it's not keeping up with AMD or whoever).
Actually, Apple's hardware is keeping up fine. Apple hardware may have a lower clock frequency (MHz), but it takes less clock cycles to get an instruction done.
It's the GUI!
Which has alot of pros. I'm simply pointing out some areas where improvement is needed (namely resource utilization) and where Apple has taken a step backwards by eliminating GREAT features that were in OS9, like the Apple programs menu.
OS X is more of a luxury car than a Dragster. It corners better too!
What scientist need is a Dragster for their heavy duty-computers and a Porsche for their PC's, so to speak.
That may be how you would choose to deal with it. I disagree.
Which is exactly why the user should have the option to choose between the two methods, or a combination thereof (i.e., shrink icons until X, then start using a scroll-dock). Apple has never muched liked the idea of giving their users choice though.
From this, I conclude that you either 1) don't use Mac OS X, or 2) never looked at the preferences in Terminal.app.
Thanks for the tip, I'll be using a 100% transparent terminal now. However, part of my point still stands: to the vast majority of people for the vast majority of time, transparency is useless in the dock and in menus. We should at least have the option to disable that feature and purge its code from our hard drive.
No, I'm not grasping at straws for something to complain about.
The problem is they're making my hardware solve problems that should be solved by either them coding better or eliminating code (or giving me the option to eliminate code/features) which require alot of resources.
Also, you fail to consider that one may be running several Bryce windows at once; thus, Aqua windows will be redrawn.
The point is, these are useless (or near useless) features. At the very least, I should have the option to disable these useless features. Even if they don't affect my performance, they're still taking up RAM (who is Apple to assume I'm using hundreds of MBs of RAM?). Furthermore, they're using "milage" on my system. Computer systems have a limited life-time, which is dictated by how rigourously they're used.
Again, alot of little things add up, and there's alot of bloaty "features" in OSX.
Not everyone is as boring as you. Apple tries to make computers fun and easy, remeber?
If whatever you're doing is so boring that you need a fancy GUI to distract you, you should be doing something else.
And the job of an OS' GUI is not to make computers fun. That's the job of games. An OS' GUI is not a game.
Stop being such a dork. Most people in the market for a computer want a fun, neat computer with which they can get things done, not a boring, stripped-down speed machine.
And the same features which most people (myself) find "cool" in the beginning are annoying after seeing them 1000 times. Animations quickly get annoying and grate on one's nerves, as does transparency and icon zooming.
A UI is supposed to help me do things quicker and stay out of my way. Emphasize the stay out of my way part.
If you want your shit to be so fast then don't use OSX and shut your hole. "Features that need to be eliminated." Christ. And you're even trying to inflict your monotony on others. Stop posting already.
Typical of the Mac community. Suggestions for improvements are received with hostility.
Yes, some features do need to be eliminated, because they add nothing or nearly nothing. At the least, one should be able to disable them and remove them from one's system. My hard drive is not there to support Apple's obsession over tacky animations.
Its not about disliking a GUI. Its about disliking the fact that GUI's include features which add nothing or very little to their usefulness. The reason GUI's are useful is to allow us to view several pieces of information at once, and to navigate through and manage files on our hard drives easily. Not because they're "pretty".
I'd bet that since the first GUI's in existence, the CPU/RAM/hard-drive requirements have increased about 1000x, while the usefulness has only increased maybe 2-10x (lets not talk about Amiga, even though they really pioneered the GUI and were the real visionaries before Apple popularized the idea).
What I want is that if the requirements are to increase 2x, then the usefulness is to increase 2x. In other words, if I have to pay twice as much money on Apples, I better get twice as many Apples or Apples that are twice as good. Hope that's not too much to ask for.
If you want to continue to say something which is wrong, go ahead. I can't help the fact that either you don't know wtf your talking about or your confusing OS9 with OSX (though I'll admit, I confused part of the hold clicking).
FACT: APPLE-~ switches between instances of an application in OS9. Open several IE or Netscape windows, and put the focus on Netscape by pressing APPLE-TAB. Then press APPLE-~. It will siwtch between the different IE/Netscape windows.
FACT: In OS9, hold clicking brings up (for example) a properties menu (the menu which asks you whether you want to save the link as, open link in new window, etc) in IE. In OSX, you have to CONTROL-CLICK (which is more work).
FACT: Hold-clicking in OS9 does not make Icons "pop up into windows". That would be double clicking your referring to.
Anyways, my point was that OSX gets rid of a lot of stuff that was GOOD from OS9. Must be something relating to Moore's law that stupidity doubles every 18 months.
Read the book I referred to if your curious about the security issues.
While its poor performance (read, slower than OS9 on the same system, much slower than Linux [i.e., Debian] on the same system) may not be a problem for you, it may be for other people.
Scientists use powerful computers to run reiterated algorithms over and over, billions of times. So these things that "aren't that big of an issue" add up to hours of time.
Btw, multitasking is nothing new anymore. Every major OS multi-tasks. Unix multi-tasked back when it still used a CLI only.
Still, its using valuable resources when it need not be using them.
And its demanding that I get a better graphics card. The OS should not be dictating what graphics card I use; if anything, it should be the 3D apps I use.
And, sure, it might be minor. But alot of "little" things that use up a "little bit of resources" add up to A BIG THING.