Actually, the Texas Legislature adjourned on May 28, and will not be back in session until January 2009. All bills of the 80th Legislature not passed by May 28 are dead. It is likely that Rep. Veasey and Sen. Hinojosa will file revised bills regarding this issue, should they be returned by voters to the 81st Session.
IBM and Motorola have no claim over the word "Power" in Apple's product line. The PowerBook designation predates the use of PowerPC processors in any Macs, much less laptops, by several years.
"I disagree. I genuinely tried to work with OSX on my new G4PB but found the vast variety of package formats counter intuitive and unweildy. I'm not a very computer literate person albeit. Also it's clear OSX is still very BETA, given the poor performance of some applications and bad design decisions in the GUI."
Beta? Not hardly. Well over half of Mac software I install is drag and drop to/Applications. What could possibly be easier than that? Software that has to install bit deeper tends to use the Apple Installer, which is just a "Click Continue" installer that's basically a wizard. Old school software may use VISE, but that's pretty rare. All much, much easier than any Linux I've ever dealt with.
"All I want to do on my machine is make music, listen to music, watch DVD's, browse and send email."
Why would you need to install any software to do that on a Mac? Those programs are all part of the operating system or bundled with it -- GarageBand, DVD Player, Safari and Apple Mail.
"Call me crazy, but I prefer usability over "ease of learning.""
Call me pedantic, but I think the two are inextricably connected.
"While sure, it's not a bad idea to make the core OS as simple as possible, I've always felt that you need to learn to use a computer just like you have to learn to use anything else."
Ah, so now one-button mouse users aren't as smart or learned as you? Arrogant, much?
"Why handicap the system to tailor to new users?"
A person with a one button mouse can do everything you can do with a two button mouse. How is that handicapped?
Handicapped is a program that hides its functions in pop-up menus, where you best click on the right object if you're hoping to find the option you're looking for. That's poor interface design. That's poor discoverability.
"Most of the big windows apps are just as straight forward as Mac apps to use, but take usability even further by comprehensive context menus to accelerate productivity."
Most Mac programs have good context menus. Cross platform programs usually have identical contextual menus. However, a really good program doesn't require someone to find the right object to right-click on to discover a certain function. A logically organized menu structure in the menubar is far more discoverable than something buried in a contextual menu that only shows up when you click certain objects.
"So instead of your "hunt-and-peck" like you seem to think is so common, you have to open menu after menu on the top bar to find the function you need."
Except, of course, that the menubar is already organized into logical categories. A contextual menu is not so organized, and worse, it's contextual. If you click on the wrong object looking for a certain function, it won't be listed. In the menubar, it will be listed, even if grayed out, so at least you can find it's there without having to find the right clickable object first.
This is an and/both situation. No one's arguing against contextual menus here. They're good things. But having one comprehensive source for all of a program's functions is also a good thing.
"Show me a feature on a Windows app where you can't find the option in a menu item easily. I dare you find one app where you can't do something unless you open a context menu."
On the Windows desktop, create a folder. Without opening any other windows, or hunting around or creating the folder somewhere else and dragging it there. That sucks.
"And what's wrong with scroll wheels?"
RSI. I prefer to keep full use of my hands throughout my life, thank you.
They're also slower to me than Page Up/Page Down.
"You shouldn't have to buy extra equipment to get the basic functionality like a scroll wheel."
Scroll wheels are an ergonomic disaster. Why would I want one?
"Because most macs won't have a multi button mouse, developers won't put the amount of effort into context menus that they do on a Windows system."
Because the Mac ships by default with a one button mouse, developers are basically forced to include a program's options in the menubar, where they are more easily discovered. This is a good thing. A program's full functionality should be available from the menubar. A user should NEVER have to hunt and peck at things with right-clicking to find a feature.
"Btw, I did just find one thing in OSX that requires the context menu. Control-click on a item in your dock and pick Show In Finder. I can't find a way to do that without the context menu."
Sure you can. Just command-click on any icon in the Dock (not control click, no menu involved at all) and the Finder pops up a window showing you the item's location.
I see this as analogous to Windows Activation, where the customer is treated from the off as a de facto pirate, and forced to go through a laborious process to use software they've already paid for.
Clicking a button is laborious?
I'm not a fan of Microsoft's Activation concept, but to call it "laborious" is absurd.
Of course, anyone who uses the term "Aunt Tillie" has his head so filled with open source propaganda that they're going to spit on anything that tries to, you know, protect the rights of intellectual property owners.
What do you mean open sourced it? The file format is a standard format, it's part of MPEG-4. It's not like it's some proprietary Apple thing.
Or do you mean open source the DRM layer? That would eliminate the entire point of having such a layer by showing people precisely how to go in and remove the DRM component.
Apple's done a very good thing here. The iTunes store is a very good thing. It's reasonably priced, broadly available and as a heavy user of Macs, PCs and my iPod, I have never encountered anything in the DRM which has ever prevented me from doing something I've wanted to do.
DRM is the price of getting low-cost, legally available copyrighted material via the Web. For the convenience iTunes affords me, I will gladly pay that cost.
1 MB of memory was so expensive in 1983, just a year before the Mac came out that it drove the price of the Mac's predecessor, the Apple Lisa, north of $10,000.
While the Mac should have shipped with more memory (256 KB would have been better), or at a lower price point (Jobs wanted it to be $1,999), to expect 1 MB of memory in a $2,499 computer in 1984 is absurd.
Hell, a few months after the Mac shipped, it cost several hundred bucks to swap out those 128 KB for 512 KB.
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Actually, the Texas Legislature adjourned on May 28, and will not be back in session until January 2009. All bills of the 80th Legislature not passed by May 28 are dead. It is likely that Rep. Veasey and Sen. Hinojosa will file revised bills regarding this issue, should they be returned by voters to the 81st Session.
IBM and Motorola have no claim over the word "Power" in Apple's product line. The PowerBook designation predates the use of PowerPC processors in any Macs, much less laptops, by several years.
Beta? Not hardly. Well over half of Mac software I install is drag and drop to /Applications. What could possibly be easier than that? Software that has to install bit deeper tends to use the Apple Installer, which is just a "Click Continue" installer that's basically a wizard. Old school software may use VISE, but that's pretty rare. All much, much easier than any Linux I've ever dealt with.
"All I want to do on my machine is make music, listen to music, watch DVD's, browse and send email." Why would you need to install any software to do that on a Mac? Those programs are all part of the operating system or bundled with it -- GarageBand, DVD Player, Safari and Apple Mail.
Never said it was. But the claim was that it could only be done through a contextual menu, which is not true.
Call me pedantic, but I think the two are inextricably connected.
"While sure, it's not a bad idea to make the core OS as simple as possible, I've always felt that you need to learn to use a computer just like you have to learn to use anything else."
Ah, so now one-button mouse users aren't as smart or learned as you? Arrogant, much?
"Why handicap the system to tailor to new users?"
A person with a one button mouse can do everything you can do with a two button mouse. How is that handicapped?
Handicapped is a program that hides its functions in pop-up menus, where you best click on the right object if you're hoping to find the option you're looking for. That's poor interface design. That's poor discoverability.
"Most of the big windows apps are just as straight forward as Mac apps to use, but take usability even further by comprehensive context menus to accelerate productivity."
Most Mac programs have good context menus. Cross platform programs usually have identical contextual menus. However, a really good program doesn't require someone to find the right object to right-click on to discover a certain function. A logically organized menu structure in the menubar is far more discoverable than something buried in a contextual menu that only shows up when you click certain objects.
"So instead of your "hunt-and-peck" like you seem to think is so common, you have to open menu after menu on the top bar to find the function you need."
Except, of course, that the menubar is already organized into logical categories. A contextual menu is not so organized, and worse, it's contextual. If you click on the wrong object looking for a certain function, it won't be listed. In the menubar, it will be listed, even if grayed out, so at least you can find it's there without having to find the right clickable object first.
This is an and/both situation. No one's arguing against contextual menus here. They're good things. But having one comprehensive source for all of a program's functions is also a good thing.
"Show me a feature on a Windows app where you can't find the option in a menu item easily. I dare you find one app where you can't do something unless you open a context menu."
On the Windows desktop, create a folder. Without opening any other windows, or hunting around or creating the folder somewhere else and dragging it there. That sucks.
"And what's wrong with scroll wheels?"
RSI. I prefer to keep full use of my hands throughout my life, thank you. They're also slower to me than Page Up/Page Down.
Scroll wheels are an ergonomic disaster. Why would I want one?
"Because most macs won't have a multi button mouse, developers won't put the amount of effort into context menus that they do on a Windows system."
Because the Mac ships by default with a one button mouse, developers are basically forced to include a program's options in the menubar, where they are more easily discovered. This is a good thing. A program's full functionality should be available from the menubar. A user should NEVER have to hunt and peck at things with right-clicking to find a feature.
"Btw, I did just find one thing in OSX that requires the context menu. Control-click on a item in your dock and pick Show In Finder. I can't find a way to do that without the context menu." Sure you can. Just command-click on any icon in the Dock (not control click, no menu involved at all) and the Finder pops up a window showing you the item's location.
Clicking a button is laborious?
I'm not a fan of Microsoft's Activation concept, but to call it "laborious" is absurd.
Of course, anyone who uses the term "Aunt Tillie" has his head so filled with open source propaganda that they're going to spit on anything that tries to, you know, protect the rights of intellectual property owners.
Because I'm not buying music in order to simply buy music -- I buy music to get songs from the bands I like. Can't do that at emusic.
What do you mean open sourced it? The file format is a standard format, it's part of MPEG-4. It's not like it's some proprietary Apple thing. Or do you mean open source the DRM layer? That would eliminate the entire point of having such a layer by showing people precisely how to go in and remove the DRM component. Apple's done a very good thing here. The iTunes store is a very good thing. It's reasonably priced, broadly available and as a heavy user of Macs, PCs and my iPod, I have never encountered anything in the DRM which has ever prevented me from doing something I've wanted to do. DRM is the price of getting low-cost, legally available copyrighted material via the Web. For the convenience iTunes affords me, I will gladly pay that cost.
1 MB of memory was so expensive in 1983, just a year before the Mac came out that it drove the price of the Mac's predecessor, the Apple Lisa, north of $10,000. While the Mac should have shipped with more memory (256 KB would have been better), or at a lower price point (Jobs wanted it to be $1,999), to expect 1 MB of memory in a $2,499 computer in 1984 is absurd. Hell, a few months after the Mac shipped, it cost several hundred bucks to swap out those 128 KB for 512 KB.