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Mac Update 2: Electric Boogaloo

By Eddie LopezEddie_Lopez. Monday, February 26, 2007 1:18:47 AM

, ,

Well, after a week or so of Mac-tastic exploration, I've now gotten to the point where I sit down at my computer and don't think it's a new toy... it's just my computer (although of course, I have TONS to learn still). Instead of poking into every preference menu and expose/dashboard crevice, I've got that "eh... now what?" feeling. Which I guess is good. That means I'm ready to get back to doing work.

Some closing thoughts and comments:

I still don't like the keyboard workings for manipulating my way around the finder window. I like to start typing out the name of the folder/file I'm looking for... in Mac I have to move from the "home key" arrangement to use the "command-down arrow." instead of just hitting enter to drill into the folders.

Although I'm used to the iTunes "all library view" with everything showing at once, I was entirely unprepared for the same approach to my iPhoto library. To my girlfriend: I'm sorry you had to see all the pictures of my ex at the top of my library (as they are the oldest). Nice job Apple... way to put me in the doghouse.

What's with resizing in iPhoto? I have to go to the "Share/email" menus to "fake" my way into just resizing the image? I guess most of you Mac guys have other image manip software, this just seems STRANGE to me.

Between the Dock at the bottom, the bar at the top and then the (what us windows guys call) the title bar, I'm missing the fact that I can't reduce on of them in Opera. I want the "turn menu bar off" option I had in Windows, but that doesn't make sense in Mac.

Things I won't be able to live without
-Quicksilver
-xGestures
-Expose

xGestures got me to install strokeit again for Windows.. neither aren't as "native" and smooth as Opera which is why I haven't used them before, but it's ok.

Quicksilver (which I was interested from Enso on Win), also led me to try Launchy on Win, but I've now settled with Find and Run Robot (FARR). Great launcher app for Windows.

Expose replaces the "Win-D or M" combo and the "Show Desktop" icon I have in my Windows Quicklaunch bar.

Most surprising things
"Close" is a minimize more than anything. Before I dropped my 2Gigs of RAM this was much more of an issue... oh yeah, that reminds me: the things I do to save 60 bucks (see right) like get my RAM from Crucial instead of Apple.

HFS (Mac file system) can't write to NTFS (Windows File system). I'm not sure how I've gone this long in my computing life without knowing this, my jaw dropped when I realized this.

I don't really see what all the fuss is about with Safari... I'll stick with Opera- although downloading apps and stuff just work better in safari than Opera (understandable). Also, I haven't yet installed

Oh- do I even need Norton antivirus at all? smile

Site Update: A trepid toe into the pool of MacUsable Quotes: Icons

Comments

Anonymous Monday, February 26, 2007 6:56:45 PM

Dan writes: Keyboard workings: This may come with time on the Mac, but dialog boxes are much easier for me in Windows. Tab to the option you want and hit enter, key the first letter of the option you want (Y for Yes, N for No), using esc to close boxes that are just an "ok" type of notification. I find myself having to move the pointer to use them. Title bars: I question the usability of the Mac title bar always being at the top. For some things, like an Opera window, or Word, it doesn't matter since you're already pretty close to the top of the screen. But it just doesn't make sense to me for smaller windows like IM conversations. When my conversation is going on in the bottom right, it seems like a long, unnecessary journey to access the menus at the top of the screen. I'm still undecided about Quicksilver, but maybe I have to give it a try just to see if it produces any "must-have" features for my computing style. Expose is highly useful and just plain FUN. I agree nothing special about Safari. It's good enough in that IE is good enough, and definitely useful when you come across a website that doesn't want to play with Opera. *coughCWTVcough* I have the same thoughts about Norton. Should I be worried at all? I know it's rare, and the OS is more secure, but but... maybe? I just feel like I need that little gold shield somewhere on my screen :-)

Eddie LopezEddie_Lopez Monday, February 26, 2007 7:07:59 PM

Dan- regards to the title bars- Fitt's law makes it easy to get there... I like how I can just throw my mouse to the corner to get within a few pixels (since the "Apple" is for the system, not the app) of where I want to be. I hate having to click on sliders, or small buttons... don't like having to focus on and manipulate the UI.... that's the common thread of my "must have" apps- they abstract out the UI for me.

...that reminds me- I hope is a driver issue, but a BIG problem I have with Mac so far is the scroll wheel on my mouse:

In Opera, I rely a great deal on the "middle click to pan around" feature....where you click in and the mouse button changes to black arrow and you can pan around vert/horizontally. I can't stand that capability in Word, or most other apps, but in Opera it works much better than having to constantly scroll the mouse wheel for long pages.

I've installed the MS intellimouse drivers on Mac OS, and there's a middle click = autoscroll option. But it doesn't work the same. Set this way, the "middle-click-to-open/close-tabs" functions don't work.

Anonymous Monday, February 26, 2007 7:26:02 PM

Dan writes: I know they have the pan around functionality on the Mighty Mouse (it offers bi-directional scrolling with its "wheel"), but you'll have to shell out 60 bucks for one of them. I don't have much use for a mouse since I have a laptop, but I do find it useful that the two-finger scroll, which was talked about in another Mac entry here, allows you to scroll in both directions (or pan around), which is pretty awesome. You're right about the Fitt's law. I dunno, it still just doesn't seem right, but that's also 15 years of Windows use talking.

Nichlas Wednesday, February 28, 2007 10:10:58 AM

Heh, photo problems..

I had my iBook sitting on the dinner table.. in the living room.. at my parents'.. and the screen saver set to random..

Now, the random screen saver it chose was the one that made a slide-show from all the files in the pictures-folder..


Yes, ALL the files.

Even those that my parents, my siblings and my grandparents weren't supposed to se (and my ex would never have wanted to show them).

Yes, i deleted them, i didn't even know that i still had them sad

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