11-03-2009, 12:29 AM

Originally Posted by Delete

I've been using Windows for years. Since 3.1, actually. I've never worked on a Mac before this quarter at college. I've had the opportunity to work on them extensively, and so far, I H AT E them. HATE HATE HATE. This thread is NOT to flame, it's just one man's honest opinion after working on them for two months. If any regular users have tips on how to deal with my issues below, please share, so my experience using a Mac can be much less frustrating than what I've been dealing with so far. Maybe it's because I just am not used to it and don't know how to work it and am too used to Windows, but here are some things that annoy me:

- On Windows, if I want to resize a window, I drag from any edge (top, bottom, either side, any corner) and get it done. On OS X, it seems like the only way to do it is to drag the bottom right corner, then I have to move the whole window, then drag from that corner again. Maybe there's some button to hold down or something, but I haven't found a way to do it. To me, that isn't intuitive. That's obnoxious.

- On Windows, if I hit the X on a window, it's closed. Shut down. Gone. On a Mac, if I hit the orange minus button, it gets minimized. Great. If I hit the red X button, it...doesn't close!? It just gets minimized? What is that. What's the difference then between the orange minus button and the red x button then? I have to hit command Q or something, or File>Close...seriously? How is that intuitive and not annoying?

- If I want to get straight to my desktop on Windows, I hit the desktop button in the taskbar. Simple. On Mac, I haven't found a way to do this. I have to minimize every window that's open. That's tedious, especially when I have a dozen windows open.

- This is just personal taste, but on Windows everything looks different. Apps have their own look and feel to them, with different colors and such. On OS X, everything is bland and the same. Same grey ugly title bar thing at the top of the screen. Some people like the unified look, I personally think it's bland and terribly dull. Windows seems to have a lot more flavor to it.

- With Windows, I feel like I have more viewing space of a page or window if I maximize it. With the Mac's Dock, I feel like I'm losing some window real estate. Maximized windows have the doc below it, and a bunch of extra space around the sides of the dock shownig the desktop. Nit picky, but it annoys me.

- If I want to scroll around a page, I can middle click the mouse scroll wheel on Windows and move the mouse up or down. On a Mac, doing this brings some sort of app picking program. I can hold down Command then middle click, but that seems annoying to me, like one more tiny extra step.

- On a Windows based PC, if you want to open the CD trey, hit the little button on the tower. The Mac Pros we've been using don't have this. You have to hit a key on the keyboard. That's annoying to me, for this reason: plenty of times I've wanted to open the CD tray without a keyboard, but I can't do this on a Mac, at least the ones we have. Does the OS have to be loaded and the keyboard drivers initialized for that button to work? Seems kind of like a possible point of failure. I don't feel like I have more control over the drive by having some software coded button on a keyboard to open it. I prefer the little button, and the lights on it as well. There are no lights on the towers we use. There's just some mysterious little door. On a Windows PC, I know the drive is working because I can see the lights blinking. If the button on the Mac keyboard breaks, or some software glitch breaks it or something, how can I get to that CD tray? It just kind of makes me uncomfortable, which brings me to another point:

- I don't feel like I have complete control over the OS with a Mac. I feel locked out of stuff. Sure, there's the terminal, but I still feel very restricted. In Windows, if I want to edit the registry or whatever, it's super easy to do (for better or worse). I feel like OS X is too locked down

- Office for Mac is HORRIBLE. It feels very "light weight" compared to the PC version, like a lot of features are gone. I realize this is 100% MS' fault, but I don't like it, and I don't like how it's setup. I have some extra flukey box that floats around for editing things like font, size, etc. I like how the Windows Office has the stuff set up top. Again, that's a personal thing, I know, but I hate using Office for Mac.

In my opinion, OS X just feels REALLY annoying, and absolutely NOT intuitive. Things that make sense to me in Windows, and things I would naturally do there, just won't work on a Mac, and it feels like a lot of really really simple stuff takes at least one or two extra steps to do on a Mac. To me, Windows is the easy, more powerful, intuitive OS, and not OS X. Now when you look at Windows 7, IMO, it blows away OS X. The aero peek function, the window shake thing, the dragging of the windows off to the side to make them fill half the screen for side by side viewing, all these things work together to make W7 so much better than OS X, or any other previous version of Windows.
What are everyone else's personal expereinces with this OS (OS X)? Any other thoughts, irritations, etc?


EDIT: A couple of other annoyances:

- When alt-tabbing, individual windows aren't shown. If I have 3 firefox windows, it won't show them, or the contents, and alt-tabbing to a minimized window doesn't bring it up! WTF?

- Folders on the Dock aren't labeled...why? This goes along with what I said earlier, but the Dock is too big and gangly, it takes up too much space. I can make it smaller, or auto hide it...but that's just irritating. I don't want to mouse over it to pop it up to see what's on it. Some windows, for example from Firefox, show up to the right of the Dock, and then one is under the main Firefox app on the "permanent" side of the Dock. Ugh...

- WHY or why is the menu bar seperated at the top of the screen, away from the window? This wastes screen real estate, and just annoys the mess out of me.

Can anyone help me out here? Is there some secret to enjoying a Mac? Are there any fixes for my problems? Anything you can tell me to help me along, or bring me some peace and zen when working with OS X?

I kinda agree with everything here....only that I'll admit that I thought buying a Mac would make my like easier as I'm just doing my Master's Degree. Instead there's a WHOLE bunch of stuff that I have to learn over.

I really hope someone would help with the multiple image select thing though....for now I could live with the rest.

However there are many great things about a Mac such as you could practically drag and drop anything. I believe the Automator would be a great little program once I get it figured out etc. But to me the Apple philosophy is to think how to make life easier for like 90% of the market which is great if you're not one to question how things work like me. As he mentioned MAC OS seems to keep us kids away from the cockpit as it were and lets the pilot do his job without interference....not saying he's doing a bad job mind you...it's just that...well it's my plane and I should be able to have as much say about what goes on here.

11-03-2009, 12:46 AM

Here is something you might like to look at while you are complaining;
Better the broken Windows than life with the Mac monks

11-03-2009, 12:57 AM

In my limited experience, with your Apple product you really dont need to think outside the box. This OS is set up for logical thinking. Where you think something should be, it will be there. As in a simple document its in the document folder and not hidden in multiple files and folders.
A good tip i got from a wise man in this forum ( and ive only been a Mac user since May) was to get some reading material. I purchased David Pouges : Missing Manual. The book that should have been in the box. Great reference material for me.
I have learnt so much from this said forum and alot from just enjoying the machine, buy playing with it, tweaking it, stuffing up more times than not and learning. And if i have stuffed it too much. Luckily for me i have only needed to reinstall the OS once
This OS is highly customisable to your specifics.

As mentioned in a earlier post, become familiar to the OS shortcuts and it might be a little better in your learning experience
Hope it all goes well for you.
And welcome to the forum

11-03-2009, 01:00 AM

Originally Posted by Delete

- On Windows, if I want to resize a window, I drag from any edge (top, bottom, either side, any corner) and get it done. On OS X, it seems like the only way to do it is to drag the bottom right corner, then I have to move the whole window, then drag from that corner again. Maybe there's some button to hold down or something, but I haven't found a way to do it. To me, that isn't intuitive. That's obnoxious.

Deal with it.

- On Windows, if I hit the X on a window, it's closed. Shut down. Gone. On a Mac, if I hit the orange minus button, it gets minimized. Great. If I hit the red X button, it...doesn't close!? It just gets minimized? What is that. What's the difference then between the orange minus button and the red x button then? I have to hit command Q or something, or File>Close...seriously? How is that intuitive and not annoying?

Yes, you have to tell an application to quit... this is actually a good thing, because sometimes it's nice to not have to boot up anymore. Relearn your habit for closing apps. When in the app, rock command Q to quit.

- If I want to get straight to my desktop on Windows, I hit the desktop button in the taskbar. Simple. On Mac, I haven't found a way to do this. I have to minimize every window that's open. That's tedious, especially when I have a dozen windows open.

Click the finder icon in the dock... hit command+shift+D - voila, you're now in your Desktop's directory. If you want to see your desktop with the photo and all, hit F11.

- This is just personal taste, but on Windows everything looks different. Apps have their own look and feel to them, with different colors and such. On OS X, everything is bland and the same. Same grey ugly title bar thing at the top of the screen. Some people like the unified look, I personally think it's bland and terribly dull. Windows seems to have a lot more flavor to it.

Flavor... that's one way to put it, I guess.

- With Windows, I feel like I have more viewing space of a page or window if I maximize it. With the Mac's Dock, I feel like I'm losing some window real estate. Maximized windows have the doc below it, and a bunch of extra space around the sides of the dock shownig the desktop. Nit picky, but it annoys me.

Set the dock to automatically hide... move the dock to one of the sides of the screen. All easily changed in system preferences under Dock.

- If I want to scroll around a page, I can middle click the mouse scroll wheel on Windows and move the mouse up or down. On a Mac, doing this brings some sort of app picking program. I can hold down Command then middle click, but that seems annoying to me, like one more tiny extra step.

or you can use the scroll bar like it was meant to be used... shift for right to left. Or, you can invest in a Magic Mouse, but I doubt you'd be doing that since it's not your Mac.

- On a Windows based PC, if you want to open the CD trey, hit the little button on the tower. The Mac Pros we've been using don't have this. You have to hit a key on the keyboard. That's annoying to me, for this reason: plenty of times I've wanted to open the CD tray without a keyboard, but I can't do this on a Mac, at least the ones we have. Does the OS have to be loaded and the keyboard drivers initialized for that button to work? Seems kind of like a possible point of failure. I don't feel like I have more control over the drive by having some software coded button on a keyboard to open it. I prefer the little button, and the lights on it as well. There are no lights on the towers we use. There's just some mysterious little door. On a Windows PC, I know the drive is working because I can see the lights blinking. If the button on the Mac keyboard breaks, or some software glitch breaks it or something, how can I get to that CD tray? It just kind of makes me uncomfortable, which brings me to another point:

Open itunes... command E will eject the tray. Other than that, very nitpicky point, and some would argue that the bare bones craptrastic plastic look of a windows disc drive isn't something to be strived for. There is also a manual eject pinhole on all disc drives. Open door, poke drive.

- I don't feel like I have complete control over the OS with a Mac. I feel locked out of stuff. Sure, there's the terminal, but I still feel very restricted. In Windows, if I want to edit the registry or whatever, it's super easy to do (for better or worse). I feel like OS X is too locked down

There is no registry. There is Core services, the system, and library. If you want to have mastery over the OS, learn how BSD systems operate. You can learn to do it in the GUI or in the terminal. That's how you gain control. Really, there is more control and less crap in the way.

- Office for Mac is HORRIBLE. It feels very "light weight" compared to the PC version, like a lot of features are gone. I realize this is 100% MS' fault, but I don't like it, and I don't like how it's setup. I have some extra flukey box that floats around for editing things like font, size, etc. I like how the Windows Office has the stuff set up top. Again, that's a personal thing, I know, but I hate using Office for Mac.

Office for Mac > Office for windows, but friends don't let friends pay for Office. OpenOffice does the trick.

In my opinion, OS X just feels REALLY annoying, and absolutely NOT intuitive. Things that make sense to me in Windows, and things I would naturally do there, just won't work on a Mac, and it feels like a lot of really really simple stuff takes at least one or two extra steps to do on a Mac. To me, Windows is the easy, more powerful, intuitive OS, and not OS X. Now when you look at Windows 7, IMO, it blows away OS X. The aero peek function, the window shake thing, the dragging of the windows off to the side to make them fill half the screen for side by side viewing, all these things work together to make W7 so much better than OS X, or any other previous version of Windows.

Windows has been a blatant rip off of Mac OS since its inception, the latest installment being no exception. Win 7 has made their "taskbar" look much more like a dock, combined tabs for every program and categorized them by program icon (just like the dock, which I realize is a *nix/NextSTEP creation), Spotlight (ripping off Tiger), faux Exposé (Leopard), and a ton of other features, so think what you want to, but you can't deny the truth.

- When alt-tabbing, individual windows aren't shown. If I have 3 firefox windows, it won't show them, or the contents, and alt-tabbing to a minimized window doesn't bring it up! WTF?

That's because you're COMMAND tabbing to an application, not a window. If you want to pick a specific window (at least in Snow Leopard), click and hold the icon in the dock: voila, pick the window you want.

- Folders on the Dock aren't labeled...why? This goes along with what I said earlier, but the Dock is too big and gangly, it takes up too much space. I can make it smaller, or auto hide it...but that's just irritating. I don't want to mouse over it to pop it up to see what's on it. Some windows, for example from Firefox, show up to the right of the Dock, and then one is under the main Firefox app on the "permanent" side of the Dock. Ugh...

Yes they are. If you're too lazy to mouse over them to figure out what they are, you can change your icon set and make it a giant square that says "DOWNLOADS STACK."

- WHY or why is the menu bar seperated at the top of the screen, away from the window? This wastes screen real estate, and just annoys the mess out of me.

It's not. OS X remembers your window location, so you can set your screen up to look any way you'd like it and it will remember it, across spaces and everything, for all of eternity.

Can anyone help me out here? Is there some secret to enjoying a Mac? Are there any fixes for my problems? Anything you can tell me to help me along, or bring me some peace and zen when working with OS X?

The funny farm?

11-03-2009, 02:18 AM

for the desktop, just go to expose under system preferences and set a corner of your screen as a hotspot for the desktop. move your cursor there (bottom left corner for example) and all your windows will move away leaving you with the desktop.

its even simpler than what you get with windows. take that!!!

11-03-2009, 04:45 AM

I've been using a Mac for a couple of years now, and felt exactly the way you do. Used to feel... It's interesting though, how people will be really quick to reply with snippy answers which don't help at all, and only serve to boost their ego's and feed a nasty fire. You probably should have tried to keep a cooler head in terms of how you stated your questions, simply because some people here really love to answer with meaningless double talk. It annoys the heck out of me. But let me try and help you a bit. I'm actually going to start with one of your last entries because it will be of great help to you.

- When alt-tabbing, individual windows aren't shown. If I have 3 firefox windows, it won't show them, or the contents, and alt-tabbing to a minimized window doesn't bring it up! WTF?[/qoute]

If you have 3 windows opened but minimized, all three windows are going to be in the dock. Click the one you want. The last window you were working with is going to be the window which pops back up once you CMD+Tab it. Which brings me to the fact that you CAN actually bring a window up with CMD+Tab. You have to actually hold the CMD key down and when you get to the app you want to work with, take your finger off of the tab key and while still holding CMD, hit the option(alt)key and then release the CMD key.

Now, want an even spiffier way to do this, and with added coolness (ie;with the added bonus of being more efficient) ? Bind certain apps to specific spaces ! I just started utilizing this great feature, and it really saves time and makes things more neat overall. In system preferences again, go to Expose/Spaces. Go to the Spaces tab. (Now please refer to the attachment picture at the bottom of this post) I have set up 6 spaces vs the standard 4. I use specific spaces for specific types of apps.

For instance, I have my 5th space reserved for my photo editing applications such as Lightroom and PS. Do this how ever you'd like. But here's the cool part.. Once this is set up, you now no longer have to CMD Tab with the option key ! Now you only have to CMD +Tab to the app you want, and when you let go, it shoots you over to the app in the appropriate space. Niiiice.

I couldn't agree with you more on this point. It's a weakness in the OS. Truly inefficient way to get that task done. Unfortunately, this seems to be a trait of Apple, where they just want to be different for the sake of being different, totally ignoring other methods of doing things because they too closely resemble the Windows way of doing things. Stupid though, because, this is how it's done in modern flavors of Linux, as well. Sorry to say, it does look like we have to 'deal with it'.

I had to get used to this, but after time, it makes sense to me now. To be honest, it's no more or less efficient than doing it the Windows way. Here's how it works: When you open a program, it stays open until you Cmd-Q it. If you want to keep the window in the mac version of task bar, you simply minimize it. And now here's their logical way of explaining the red x.

If you red X something, you close the window, but not the application because... the next time you open a new window, it will open that much faster, opposed to re opening the entire program again. Sure, it's only a few seconds shaved off its time, but some people are really anal about stuff like this.

There are more than a few ways to skin this cat, actually:
System preferences>keyboard And Mouse OR Expose & Spaces. In both of these preference areas, are ways in which you can customize functions such as what you're asking to do. Sure, I understand... just mousing to the system tray and clicking on 'Desktop' is simple and to the point, but we do have to remember, this isn't Windows.

From within Keyboard shortcuts, there is the shortcut string for the Desktop. It's F11. However, I have my F11 key default for the system volume. I can of course hold down another key (fn) in conjunction with the F keys, which will then activate the special features shown on the keys, but I prefer it the other way around because I have other ways of getting to the desktop on my MacBook Pro. For me, I use the track pad by swooshing four fingers in an upward motion, and it brings me directly to the desktop. Can't do that in Windows. Or, if I wanted, I could set one of the four corners of my desktop as a hotspot for desktop activation. I could just drag the mouse to any corner I wanted (all four if I wished) and would be on the desktop.

You can also re-configure the pre-defined keyboard shortcuts. Just double click on a specific one, and tap the keys you want bound. F11 is the standard shortcut. Or as said before, fn+F11 if you use the special functions as default like I do. But you can set it to something like Shift+Cmd+F11.. whatever. Just make sure that the new shortcut isn't already set for some other function.

Please take a LOT of time to explore and experiment within system preferences. You won't break anything, or bog any system resources down. Apple dumbed down a lot of things in order to make certain resources available to its end users, with the knowledge that it was safe to do so. And this is the biggest difference between the two OS's. In the end, it may or may not suit your personal tastes. But please give it time. It took me a long while to get used to things, but once I did, I found that I was no longer fixing or fidgeting as I did in Windows (well sometimes, but in a good way), but rather, getting work done.

Apps in Widows all feel and look different because they are designed and implemented by third party developers whom don't conform to any standards. This method mainly fails Windows when it comes to finding and fixing bugs which cause either the program or the OS to stall, work slowly or crash. You're right, this has nothing to do with looks, but is related because third party devs design their apps to fit in with Apple's OS architecture in every way possible, in order to maintain stability and such. Yeah I agree that in the looks dept, it may be dull this way, but I'm on my computer to work, not opine over how my overall experience might be lessened because of window spaces looking similar.

However, I'm fairly sure that there are apps out there which could alter the looks of windows. Check into that.

-

I WISH and PRAY that Apple would implement a way to automatically hide the main menu bar. I too hate wasting screen real-estate. I also hate not being able to go full screen with certain apps such as Firefox. Some apps ARE able to go full screen though, such as Lightroom, so there's no doubt that other apps do this as well.

As for the dock, there is an auto hide/show dock feature. System preferences once again. Also, you can change the size of the dock with a mouse click and drag(or finger pinch on the trackpad with the Macbooks). I have it set for auto hide/show. No problems there.

(quote]- If I want to scroll around a page, I can middle click the mouse scroll wheel on Windows and move the mouse up or down. On a Mac, doing this brings some sort of app picking program. I can hold down Command then middle click, but that seems annoying to me, like one more tiny extra step.

I'm sure you can program your mouse to behave in the same fashion as it did with Windows. You might have to install the software or drivers though. I can't recall at the moment because my mouse isn't setup for this laptop yet. (It's my second MacBook Pro )

I have to finish in a follow up post. Too many characters for one post

Doug

11-03-2009, 05:03 AM

-

On a Windows based PC, if you want to open the CD trey, hit the little button on the tower. The Mac Pros we've been using don't have this. You have to hit a key on the keyboard. That's annoying to me, for this reason: plenty of times I've wanted to open the CD tray without a keyboard, but I can't do this on a Mac, at least the ones we have. Does the OS have to be loaded and the keyboard drivers initialized for that button to work? Seems kind of like a possible point of failure. I don't feel like I have more control over the drive by having some software coded button on a keyboard to open it. I prefer the little button, and the lights on it as well. There are no lights on the towers we use. There's just some mysterious little door. On a Windows PC, I know the drive is working because I can see the lights blinking. If the button on the Mac keyboard breaks, or some software glitch breaks it or something, how can I get to that CD tray? It just kind of makes me uncomfortable, which brings me to another point:

Not sure what to say about this one. I haven't run into an instance where the keyboard button wasn't good enough for me. Personally speaking, I have yet to use OS X to back up any of my DVD's or even to rip an album. I use to use Linux for DVD backups with DVD Shrink (god I love that app), and always said that I'd simply get an DVD enclosure in order to rip or back stuff up on OSX with an external burner. I don't even want to use the MacBook Pro's internal DVD player for things like that because I want to preserve it. I'd rather use it for installing software and such, and for this, the OS needs to be loaded anyway.

- I don't feel like I have complete control over the OS with a Mac. I feel locked out of stuff. Sure, there's the terminal, but I still feel very restricted. In Windows, if I want to edit the registry or whatever, it's super easy to do (for better or worse). I feel like OS X is too locked down

Well, as others have said.. There is no registry. And a hallelujah to that one, I say. Registry is sloppy, and causes way too much room for error. If you learn terminal commands, you'll feel free. And that is a big learning curve right there. So be patient.

[quote]- Office for Mac is HORRIBLE. It feels very "light weight" compared to the PC version, like a lot of features are gone. I realize this is 100% MS' fault, but I don't like it, and I don't like how it's setup. I have some extra flukey box that floats around for editing things like font, size, etc. I like how the Windows Office has the stuff set up top. Again, that's a personal thing, I know, but I hate using Office for Mac. [/qoute]

I dunno. I'm not a power Office user, so I guess I can't speak to the Mac version's abilities or feature set. But it works just fine for me. Perhaps Open Office would suit you better ?

In my opinion, OS X just feels REALLY annoying, and absolutely NOT intuitive. Things that make sense to me in Windows, and things I would naturally do there, just won't work on a Mac, and it feels like a lot of really really simple stuff takes at least one or two extra steps to do on a Mac. To me, Windows is the easy, more powerful, intuitive OS, and not OS X. Now when you look at Windows 7, IMO, it blows away OS X. The aero peek function, the window shake thing, the dragging of the windows off to the side to make them fill half the screen for side by side viewing, all these things work together to make W7 so much better than OS X, or any other previous version of Windows.
What are everyone else's personal expereinces with this OS (OS X)? Any other thoughts, irritations, etc?

At first, I was you. Now, I'm totally not you. In fact, now that I've learned a lot about how things work, and how to set things up (initial things), I speed my way around the GUI much faster than I ever did on the Windows or even Linux side. You'll get there too, but you have to LEARN the OS. Like you, I came into the whole OS X experience expecting things to behave the way I was conditioned to having them be in the Windows world. This way of thinking is just illogical and honestly, a bit ignorant and pompous.

You know how to drive a car, right ? Well, do you think you'd be able to hop into an 18 wheeler truck, and just mosey on along without learning how to drive such a vehicle ? After all, both of them have an engine, a steering wheel and wheels, right ? As for the new features in Windows 7, I was more impressed with them when I was using Linux a couple of years back. The Linux distributions I was using utilized such candy, and it was great.. But there's honestly nothing about those features which will get what I need to get done, faster than any method I'd use in OS X.

In the end it's just semantics.

- Folders on the Dock aren't labeled...why? This goes along with what I said earlier, but the Dock is too big and gangly, it takes up too much space. I can make it smaller, or auto hide it...but that's just irritating. I don't want to mouse over it to pop it up to see what's on it.

Now you're kind of being silly. What difference does it make if you have to mouse over something in order to see a title ? You know exactly what the application is, because you use it all the time. You don't even need a title. But if you really insist on having one spelled out on the icon, then you can actually create your own icon for each and every application and folder:

1. Either create the icon yourself, or find one you like
2. Open a new finder window and find the app or folder you want to change
3. highlight said app/folder and CMD+I (that stands for info)
4. a new box will open up and you'll see a miniature version of the icon on the top left hand side of the box.
5. Repeat step 3 with the icon you want to use and in the same top left side corner as step 4, you'll see the same miniature icon. Highlight it, then CMD+C (copy)
6. Go back to the information window from step 2&3, and now highlight its miniature avatar and CMD+V.

Voila ! You've now changed the way the icon looks, and how it looks is up to you. I personally don't find mousing over anything irritating. Simply because why the heck do I need to know what the name of anything is in the first place ? The icon's are self explanatory IMO. And besides, unless I'm missing a crucial part of your niggle, you'd still have to click on the app in order to open it, so since you have to do this in the first place, you're going to see the text when you mouse over anyway.

- WHY or why is the menu bar seperated at the top of the screen, away from the window? This wastes screen real estate, and just annoys the mess out of me.

I don't know why. It annoys me too. They should add an auto hide function to it.
Please feel free to PM me about anything. I'll give you my AOL or whatever other IM names if you'd like. Don't be discouraged. Take your time, relax and just start messing with preferences till you're sick of it, and then start over again when you're ready.

Hope this helped.

Doug

11-03-2009, 05:48 AM

The first personal computer I used was an Apple II - then the BBC Microcomputer (on a departmental network!) - then, for personal use, an Amstrad, and on to years of the PC with Windows - from its earliest manifestation. Now it is an iMac. Everything I used had different operating systems (and I still think that the BBC Microcomputer's was the best :-) ) and I had to learn all the quirks and oddities of each. That's what you have to do when you change. After the past 20 years or so of using the PC I have no regrets whatsoever about switching - everything works happily together, I don't get those irritating 'I'm sorry ... has a problem and has to close' messages (except with Office for the Mac!) and, although I have virus protection, nothing has ever been notified to me in the past six months.

Pluses and minuses - for me, the pluses outweigh the downside.

11-03-2009, 06:31 AM

I said some other user will come along and help but WOW, great job Doug!

11-03-2009, 06:48 AM

I have only used a Mac for about two weeks. Overall, not bad. I still prefer Linux to OS X but I'm becoming a fan. You definitely need to move away from the Windows mindset. I recommend a good book. Which one depends on your skill level. I personally decided on Mac OS X for Unix Geeks. A good resource for Unix users coming to Mac. Also good for the non-technical user wanting to do more.

I chuckle when people tout the Windows Registry. One of the worst ideas in its long history. It's not easy to edit or efficient. Why do you think Windows slows down the more you use it and install. It's called registry bloat. Mac does not suffer from such problems. The biggest complaint is usability or not understanding it. Mac is Unix-based, a more powerful and stable computing environment to Windows. Unix has been around for 40 years and is a lot different from Windows. Unix comes in many variants, there is no one Unix.

Learn how to use Expose and Spaces. They will help your productivity and both are simple to learn. The tools are triggered by keyboard shortcuts you define in System Preferences. If you really want to unlock OS X, learn Terminal and the bash scripting language. You have full control over OS X from the command-line. The GUI provides only a small subset of the customizations you can make from Terminal.

11-03-2009, 10:04 AM

I have had around a dozen pc and what did it for me was someone sending me a word docx which my word (04) wouldn't open ! So I bought a book on unix and open source and looked at macs as the next purchase. I resisted puting XP onto boot camp as I wanted to learn the mac way - and not fall into bad habits by having a mac but running windows on it. I went as far as using neo office and iwork instead of MO for Mac again to force me out of habits. I love some of your niggles ( only because I had those as well , although I like the top bar which stays regardless of which program I have , because the menus are pretty much all in the same place ) Keyboard shortcuts was not in my realm at all but now I use them all the time and it does take time to bed in , so be patient. I like all that links together unlike a pc which was colourful yes flows easy between programs - no
Trying to use a different OS is like using your standard moves in a mirror to begin with - sometimes you need to look at things from a different angle.

11-03-2009, 09:20 PM

Originally Posted by Delete

- On Windows, if I want to resize a window, I drag from any edge (top, bottom, either side, any corner) and get it done. On OS X, it seems like the only way to do it is to drag the bottom right corner, then I have to move the whole window, then drag from that corner again. Maybe there's some button to hold down or something, but I haven't found a way to do it. To me, that isn't intuitive. That's obnoxious.

- On Windows, if I hit the X on a window, it's closed. Shut down. Gone. On a Mac, if I hit the orange minus button, it gets minimized. Great. If I hit the red X button, it...doesn't close!? It just gets minimized? What is that. What's the difference then between the orange minus button and the red x button then? I have to hit command Q or something, or File>Close...seriously? How is that intuitive and not annoying?

- If I want to get straight to my desktop on Windows, I hit the desktop button in the taskbar. Simple. On Mac, I haven't found a way to do this. I have to minimize every window that's open. That's tedious, especially when I have a dozen windows open.

- This is just personal taste, but on Windows everything looks different. Apps have their own look and feel to them, with different colors and such. On OS X, everything is bland and the same. Same grey ugly title bar thing at the top of the screen. Some people like the unified look, I personally think it's bland and terribly dull. Windows seems to have a lot more flavor to it.

- With Windows, I feel like I have more viewing space of a page or window if I maximize it. With the Mac's Dock, I feel like I'm losing some window real estate. Maximized windows have the doc below it, and a bunch of extra space around the sides of the dock shownig the desktop. Nit picky, but it annoys me.

- If I want to scroll around a page, I can middle click the mouse scroll wheel on Windows and move the mouse up or down. On a Mac, doing this brings some sort of app picking program. I can hold down Command then middle click, but that seems annoying to me, like one more tiny extra step.

- On a Windows based PC, if you want to open the CD trey, hit the little button on the tower. The Mac Pros we've been using don't have this. You have to hit a key on the keyboard. That's annoying to me, for this reason: plenty of times I've wanted to open the CD tray without a keyboard, but I can't do this on a Mac, at least the ones we have. Does the OS have to be loaded and the keyboard drivers initialized for that button to work? Seems kind of like a possible point of failure. I don't feel like I have more control over the drive by having some software coded button on a keyboard to open it. I prefer the little button, and the lights on it as well. There are no lights on the towers we use. There's just some mysterious little door. On a Windows PC, I know the drive is working because I can see the lights blinking. If the button on the Mac keyboard breaks, or some software glitch breaks it or something, how can I get to that CD tray? It just kind of makes me uncomfortable, which brings me to another point:

- I don't feel like I have complete control over the OS with a Mac. I feel locked out of stuff. Sure, there's the terminal, but I still feel very restricted. In Windows, if I want to edit the registry or whatever, it's super easy to do (for better or worse). I feel like OS X is too locked down

- Office for Mac is HORRIBLE. It feels very "light weight" compared to the PC version, like a lot of features are gone. I realize this is 100% MS' fault, but I don't like it, and I don't like how it's setup. I have some extra flukey box that floats around for editing things like font, size, etc. I like how the Windows Office has the stuff set up top. Again, that's a personal thing, I know, but I hate using Office for Mac.

In my opinion, OS X just feels REALLY annoying, and absolutely NOT intuitive. Things that make sense to me in Windows, and things I would naturally do there, just won't work on a Mac, and it feels like a lot of really really simple stuff takes at least one or two extra steps to do on a Mac. To me, Windows is the easy, more powerful, intuitive OS, and not OS X. Now when you look at Windows 7, IMO, it blows away OS X. The aero peek function, the window shake thing, the dragging of the windows off to the side to make them fill half the screen for side by side viewing, all these things work together to make W7 so much better than OS X, or any other previous version of Windows.
What are everyone else's personal expereinces with this OS (OS X)? Any other thoughts, irritations, etc?


EDIT: A couple of other annoyances:

- When alt-tabbing, individual windows aren't shown. If I have 3 firefox windows, it won't show them, or the contents, and alt-tabbing to a minimized window doesn't bring it up! WTF?

- Folders on the Dock aren't labeled...why? This goes along with what I said earlier, but the Dock is too big and gangly, it takes up too much space. I can make it smaller, or auto hide it...but that's just irritating. I don't want to mouse over it to pop it up to see what's on it. Some windows, for example from Firefox, show up to the right of the Dock, and then one is under the main Firefox app on the "permanent" side of the Dock. Ugh...

- WHY or why is the menu bar seperated at the top of the screen, away from the window? This wastes screen real estate, and just annoys the mess out of me.

Can anyone help me out here? Is there some secret to enjoying a Mac? Are there any fixes for my problems? Anything you can tell me to help me along, or bring me some peace and zen when working with OS X?

Okay, I knew this was bound to appear sooner or later. So, I will answer each and every one of your complaints as detailed as possible:

1) So Mac OS X is different from Windows. Big deal. You'll sooner get over it.

2) Orange button= minimize to Dock; Red button= close the window of the application. In honest truth, I've had more problems with Windows applications freezing when you click the red X in the upper right. I prefer "CMD-Q" Gone.

3) F11 or customize a keyboard shortcut (that includes creating your own)

4) If it's one thing that bugs me- it's the cheap looking interface in Windows XP that got me to Vista. When I got fed up with Vista, I went Mac. And when I upgraded my Toshiba laptop to 7, I hate having that glassy look to the window title bars. Too many colors for my taste. Sure, grey is bland, but with the way Apple has designed the rest of the OS, such as the 3-D shelf like Dock, all is forgiven. Plus, you should be happy that compared to Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger"; 10.5 "Leopard" and 10.6 "Snow Leopard" have added a true, 3-D style, plastic-like look. If anything, Windows is disgusting.

5) Minimize the Dock (Option-CMD-D) or go into System Preferences

6) Using the scroll wheel will suit you fine. You can't make Mac OS X into Windows. It just isn't going to happen.

7) I say ****, if you can open up the optical disc drive from the keyboard when the freakin' computer is where you can't reach easily (as in my case), by all means, the Eject key or F12 simplifies your life. Deal with it.

8) This is where the fine line between "simplicity" and "frustration" is. In Windows, one little thing gets on your computer, and you have to weed your way through a complex registry. In Mac OS X, well, simply put, there is no registry. Which means you don't have to worry about screwing things up. There is the Terminal, which is like Command Prompt in so many ways. You just have to learn the ways of UNIX.

9) I stopped using MS Office even on my Windows computers. I hated it, and I still don't like it. I've never liked it in my 18 years of existence. Use OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice or Apple's own iWork suite. Far simpler.

10) In conclusion: You cannot make another OS like Windows. You will end up in a fiery frustrated mood that trust me, all of us here can easily see, especially since you posted these complaints. IMO, Apple just works. I've never had problems, and what I found was different from Windows, when I first used a Mac, I got used to immediately, mainly because of the rest of the operating system was simpler to use. No complex freakin' menus to deal with. It's logical. Deal with it, or stick with Windows.

11-03-2009, 09:43 PM

Welcome
If you can get a copy of David Pogue's Missing Manual it's worth it's weight in gold.
Even Leopard / SnowLeopard for Dummies would be better than nothing.

Apple's support sites are great too:

Apple - Support - Switch 101
Apple - Support - Mac 101 - All Work and Play
Apple - Find Out How - Mac Basics
S.

11-03-2009, 10:14 PM

a HUGE help is getting to know keyboard shortcuts. Rather than becoming, as the head of the networking and IT department at my school puts it, "mouse impaired". the keyboard is your friend. and many work on windows as well.
The resizing thing used to be a BIG problem for me, but now it doesn't seem to bother me anymore. The window takes up only as much space as it needs, no more, no less. Which seems to be the general philosophy for most things mac.
minimize the dock in system prefs
the dock is labeled as you mouse over the icons.
not having a registry is awesome. less things to have issues with, which is why windows has all those registry cleaner programs for it.
You should play with spaces. instead of having 1 desktop you can have 4.
Play with the finder. It's great. whatever you need it's there.
as far as the apps looking the same, you don't have to play around for hours trying to find things. if it really bothers you i believe there are apps to personalize this more. I haven't used any however, so i can't exactly speak to it.
After a little over a month, I prefer my Mac. These frustrations hit me hard at first too, then i learned, and it IS more intuitive. I just was used to the programming MS had done on me. Take the control panel for example, I have to navigate like 4 or 5 windows just to put my monitor to sleep faster, vs 1 window and 2 navigations on my Mac. it's so intuitive you try to fight it, like you had to do with windows.
Just my 2 cents.
BTW... that was a good reply doug, and your right about the first part of your post. Not a big fan of the "just get over it posts". It's a learning experience, thats why it's the SWITCHER HANGOUT.

11-03-2009, 10:21 PM

oh, and try installing a program sometime. it's actually kinda fun. Just drag to the applications folder and it's installed...usually.
"Wait where's the annoying wizard that asks you 1,656 questions?"
"oh, he died"