Right--referring to my original post here, you want to singletask and not multitask. Depending on what apps you use, this may be a reason Windows is better for you--although apps like Final Cut and Xcode can take up the entire screen on Mac OS X without much effort, other apps like Safari and TextEdit are harder to maximize. (This is because of two concerns--need for real estate, and likelihood of multitasking. If I'm in an IM, text editor, or terminal window, I probably want to multitask pretty often--if I'm in Final Cut or Xcode, I'm more focused on what I'm doing then and there).
Okay, click a menu. You're telling me that every single entry on that menu has a shortcut?
No, but the vast majority of entries I actually use do have shortcuts.
How does the Windows GUI waste space in comparison to the OSX one? At the bottom of my screen, there's a 32 pixel task bar, that's it. OSX has the task bar AND the dock.
Mac OS X has a task bar? Are you posting from an alternate universe or something?
It's singletasking in that if you maximize your windows, you're switching between single-task workspaces instead of switching between applications/windows as you would in Mac OS X. If you don't maximize your windows, then the Windows GUI (which is designed to favor maximizing your windows) is inefficient compared to the Mac OS X GUI (which is designed to favor showing many windows at once, only taking up the whole screen when an app really needs to). Windows doesn't really even support such constructs as "multiple windows per application"--either they fake it or you have to run a whole new instance of the program to get another window. (This, for instance, is probably the motivating force behind tabbed browsing--while it helps even in Mac OS X, it's even more crucial in Windows as a hack for the "single window per app" restriction).
If the shortcuts were there (and there are SOME, but not all things are shortcutted), I would have learned them. But, they're not.
They're right up in the goddamn menu.
Then, you need some new apps because I've got apps maximized on all three of my monitors right now, and not one is showing whitespace.
Yes--either because you're using Windows, and the Windows GUI wastes space, or because you're using the sort of apps that would maximize themselves on Mac OS X anyway.
I regularly work with several SSH sessions, text editors and web browsers open at the same time on my dual monitor system. There really isn't a big problem multitasking in Windows.
First, you have a dual monitor system, so you can show two workspaces at once. Secondly, it would probably be slightly more easy to do that on a Mac--although you can still get Windows to show multiple windows per workspace, doing so makes the maximize button superflous and an optimize button (as in Mac OS X) more useful.
If I do have too many windows open at once to fit them all on the screen, I find the Windows/Gnome/KDE style taskbar to be a far superior solution than the information poor dock, as mentioned in the article.
The dock is used to launch and switch applications, not windows. (There's a distinction between applications and windows on Mac OS X.) Exposé is used to switch windows, and works far better than the taskbar.
However, if there were really that many options that had shortcuts would I be complaining about the lack of them?
If you never bothered to learn them, then yes.
I keep my apps maximized because I want to actually see what's going on in the app I'm using.
I never have any window that isn't showing everything it can. I only get scrollbars when the content doesn't fit on the screen. Actually seeing what's going on in the app you're using is not a problem--all maximization does that optimization doesn't is fill your screen with blank space.
I don't know if you've noticed, but most menu options in Mac OS X have keyboard shortcuts, and often buttons do as well above and beyond pressing return for the default button. The benefit of multiple windows is this: when you're multitasking, you can see everything you need--when you're singletasking, your eyes naturally focus on the one window you are using anyway. With the Windows GUI, this multitasking advantage is sacrificed for no real gain in singletasking. (You can also note that most applications that tend themselves toward singletasking--Final Cut Pro, for instance--by design take up the entire screen anyway. XCode can easily become a screen-filling IDE if you want to use it that way as well, since in editor mode, the main XCode window's optimize button actually does maximize.)
Because in Windows, maximizing is a useful (necessary) task that you always have to do, so putting it in a button makes sense there. This is not true of Mac OS X.
The problem isn't that the users don't "get" OSX. OSX is just an operating system. You're talking about it like it's the hardest quantum theory any mere mortal could never hope to understand.
Quite true. The problem isn't not learning OS X, the problem is not unlearning Windows. "Take up the whole fucking screen with this window" makes sense in a GUI that's based on tiling (and, despite overlapping windows having been introduced in W95, Windows is still more of a tiling GUI--no differentiation between windows and applications, menu bars in every window, etc.). The Mac GUI isn't about tiling, so the "take up the whole fucking screen with this window" functionality doesn't mesh as well with the rest of the GUI. When I work in Windows, I always want to "take up the whole fucking screen with this window" because that keeps the menu bar in a predictable location. Windows, in effect, isn't really a single multitasking workspace so much as an implementation of multiple workspaces, with one application/window/form per workspace. The motivation behind wanting Mac OS X to "take up the whole fucking screen with this window" stems partly from being stuck in the Windows singletasking frame of mind, and partly from boneheaded software vendors who design the same UI for all OS's so that Photoshop or Office has to take up the whole fucking screen by design. (Mac-only software often has a minimalist UI that can peacefully coexist with other windows and applications, unless it actually requires that much space. Tasks that are usually done with space-sucking toolbars get put into Inspector windows and such.)
Nonetheless, there's nothing stopping you from making a single Mac OS X window take up the whole fucking screen. Just hide the dock, move your window into the top left corner, and resize it until it takes up the entire screen. It's just a pointless and silly task in the Mac GUI so there's no easy shortcut for it.
Muslims do believe Jesus is the Messiah. They just don't believe he's the son of God, since God needs no son, and he certainly wouldn't have a son with a human woman.
China manufactures things for free now? Exports are free too? The same problems exist in convincing a Chinese manufacturer than any other--how do you convince them it's a profitable proposition to manufacture and sell an open-source car, especially in an environment where any other manufacturer could literally sell the same car?
They shouldn't learn how to do a binary search, they should learn why it's such a powerful technique. The implementation falls out naturally from the description.
How do you demonstrate understanding of what a binary search is? By coding it. As you say, the implementation falls out naturally from the description--if they understand the description they can write the implementation.
I don't know of a case where it invalidated a patent, but in the 60's, when Charles Hall supposedly invented the waterbed, the Patent Office denied him a patent citing Heinlein's description of a waterbed in some of his novels.
That's designed on the assumption that large numbers of essentially identical cars are produced by well-funded manufacturers, so the cost of a lot of crash and emission-control testing and design work can be spread out over many units and become affordable.
Sounds like a self-fulfilling assumption to me--one that easily restricts competition in favor of the bigger, established businesses, no?
That's true. Another obstacle, though, is that without adequate funding, it would be impossible to run the necessary safety and emissions tests on the open source car that would be necessary to make it road-legal. Building software requires nothing more than a compiler and an adequate computer. Building cars and getting them onto the streets requires significant amounts of funding. Also, most cars are already open-source in some sense--if you buy a car, you have the means to disassemble it and discover for yourself the underlying design without much difficulty, provided you can understand the mechanics involved. Except for the electronics systems, of course, which is not a trivial complication given how much electronics is used now.
It's a cool idea, but there's a few practical problems. Firstly, open source works for software because an intelligent person can pick up a few books and learn how to write code. Designing a car has a higher barrier to entry. Secondly, lacking the ability to run complex simulations on a car design, much less to produce prototypes for testing, will put an open source car at a disadvantage. Finally, who would mass-manufacture such a vehicle? I'm not saying it's impossible but there are many obstacles to overcome.
Yeah, but still. Just giving the poor money when they'll just waste it won't help their standard of living. Giving them more directed aid is paternalistic, but is perhaps more what they need. Yet that's even more classist.
If you're worse off because of your own "poor judgment" in wasting money (interesting choice of words) then maybe you're just not smart enough to become all that wealthy after all.
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Right--referring to my original post here, you want to singletask and not multitask. Depending on what apps you use, this may be a reason Windows is better for you--although apps like Final Cut and Xcode can take up the entire screen on Mac OS X without much effort, other apps like Safari and TextEdit are harder to maximize. (This is because of two concerns--need for real estate, and likelihood of multitasking. If I'm in an IM, text editor, or terminal window, I probably want to multitask pretty often--if I'm in Final Cut or Xcode, I'm more focused on what I'm doing then and there).
I could design 50 UI's this afternoon alone to disprove that assertion.
I'm just explaining the way Mac OS X does it. If you don't like it, there's nothing stopping you from using a different OS.
No, but the vast majority of entries I actually use do have shortcuts.
Mac OS X has a task bar? Are you posting from an alternate universe or something?
It's singletasking in that if you maximize your windows, you're switching between single-task workspaces instead of switching between applications/windows as you would in Mac OS X. If you don't maximize your windows, then the Windows GUI (which is designed to favor maximizing your windows) is inefficient compared to the Mac OS X GUI (which is designed to favor showing many windows at once, only taking up the whole screen when an app really needs to). Windows doesn't really even support such constructs as "multiple windows per application"--either they fake it or you have to run a whole new instance of the program to get another window. (This, for instance, is probably the motivating force behind tabbed browsing--while it helps even in Mac OS X, it's even more crucial in Windows as a hack for the "single window per app" restriction).
They're right up in the goddamn menu.
Yes--either because you're using Windows, and the Windows GUI wastes space, or because you're using the sort of apps that would maximize themselves on Mac OS X anyway.
First, you have a dual monitor system, so you can show two workspaces at once. Secondly, it would probably be slightly more easy to do that on a Mac--although you can still get Windows to show multiple windows per workspace, doing so makes the maximize button superflous and an optimize button (as in Mac OS X) more useful.
The dock is used to launch and switch applications, not windows. (There's a distinction between applications and windows on Mac OS X.) Exposé is used to switch windows, and works far better than the taskbar.
Yeah, I never actually used Windows much until either 98 or 2000 came out, so I'm fuzzy on the details of earlier versions.
If you never bothered to learn them, then yes.
I never have any window that isn't showing everything it can. I only get scrollbars when the content doesn't fit on the screen. Actually seeing what's going on in the app you're using is not a problem--all maximization does that optimization doesn't is fill your screen with blank space.
I don't know if you've noticed, but most menu options in Mac OS X have keyboard shortcuts, and often buttons do as well above and beyond pressing return for the default button. The benefit of multiple windows is this: when you're multitasking, you can see everything you need--when you're singletasking, your eyes naturally focus on the one window you are using anyway. With the Windows GUI, this multitasking advantage is sacrificed for no real gain in singletasking. (You can also note that most applications that tend themselves toward singletasking--Final Cut Pro, for instance--by design take up the entire screen anyway. XCode can easily become a screen-filling IDE if you want to use it that way as well, since in editor mode, the main XCode window's optimize button actually does maximize.)
Because in Windows, maximizing is a useful (necessary) task that you always have to do, so putting it in a button makes sense there. This is not true of Mac OS X.
Quite true. The problem isn't not learning OS X, the problem is not unlearning Windows. "Take up the whole fucking screen with this window" makes sense in a GUI that's based on tiling (and, despite overlapping windows having been introduced in W95, Windows is still more of a tiling GUI--no differentiation between windows and applications, menu bars in every window, etc.). The Mac GUI isn't about tiling, so the "take up the whole fucking screen with this window" functionality doesn't mesh as well with the rest of the GUI. When I work in Windows, I always want to "take up the whole fucking screen with this window" because that keeps the menu bar in a predictable location. Windows, in effect, isn't really a single multitasking workspace so much as an implementation of multiple workspaces, with one application/window/form per workspace. The motivation behind wanting Mac OS X to "take up the whole fucking screen with this window" stems partly from being stuck in the Windows singletasking frame of mind, and partly from boneheaded software vendors who design the same UI for all OS's so that Photoshop or Office has to take up the whole fucking screen by design. (Mac-only software often has a minimalist UI that can peacefully coexist with other windows and applications, unless it actually requires that much space. Tasks that are usually done with space-sucking toolbars get put into Inspector windows and such.)
Nonetheless, there's nothing stopping you from making a single Mac OS X window take up the whole fucking screen. Just hide the dock, move your window into the top left corner, and resize it until it takes up the entire screen. It's just a pointless and silly task in the Mac GUI so there's no easy shortcut for it.
Muslims do believe Jesus is the Messiah. They just don't believe he's the son of God, since God needs no son, and he certainly wouldn't have a son with a human woman.
Depends on how the gift card was bought. If it was bought at a cash register with cash, there's no way to track it through credit card records.
You wouldn't explode, you'd just suffocate.
China manufactures things for free now? Exports are free too? The same problems exist in convincing a Chinese manufacturer than any other--how do you convince them it's a profitable proposition to manufacture and sell an open-source car, especially in an environment where any other manufacturer could literally sell the same car?
How do you demonstrate understanding of what a binary search is? By coding it. As you say, the implementation falls out naturally from the description--if they understand the description they can write the implementation.
I don't know of a case where it invalidated a patent, but in the 60's, when Charles Hall supposedly invented the waterbed, the Patent Office denied him a patent citing Heinlein's description of a waterbed in some of his novels.
Sounds like a self-fulfilling assumption to me--one that easily restricts competition in favor of the bigger, established businesses, no?
That's true. Another obstacle, though, is that without adequate funding, it would be impossible to run the necessary safety and emissions tests on the open source car that would be necessary to make it road-legal. Building software requires nothing more than a compiler and an adequate computer. Building cars and getting them onto the streets requires significant amounts of funding. Also, most cars are already open-source in some sense--if you buy a car, you have the means to disassemble it and discover for yourself the underlying design without much difficulty, provided you can understand the mechanics involved. Except for the electronics systems, of course, which is not a trivial complication given how much electronics is used now.
It's a cool idea, but there's a few practical problems. Firstly, open source works for software because an intelligent person can pick up a few books and learn how to write code. Designing a car has a higher barrier to entry. Secondly, lacking the ability to run complex simulations on a car design, much less to produce prototypes for testing, will put an open source car at a disadvantage. Finally, who would mass-manufacture such a vehicle? I'm not saying it's impossible but there are many obstacles to overcome.
And clearly, Apple has not put nearly as much thought into this problem as "Anonymous Coward".
Yeah, but still. Just giving the poor money when they'll just waste it won't help their standard of living. Giving them more directed aid is paternalistic, but is perhaps more what they need. Yet that's even more classist.
That release valve already exists. It was discovered by the Prussian upper class in the 19th century. It's called the welfare state.
If you're worse off because of your own "poor judgment" in wasting money (interesting choice of words) then maybe you're just not smart enough to become all that wealthy after all.