My first impressions of OSX

Lastmboy said:

Overall, everything has been positive, with only really one major disappointment. File transfer speeds from PCs on the network is absolutely brutal. I have tried everyone's suggestions, but it seems that the networking capabilities of the mac are a bit ancient. Transfer speeds pc to pc are about 50 times what they are from mac to pc. i.e. I average about 50 MB/s between PCs, but only about 1 MB/s from pc to iMac on a gigabit network with cat6 cabling. Transferring my music library over should take about half an hour or less, but it looks like it will be a couple of days, instead, which is really disappointing. It took over 3 hours to copy 15 GB across. I've seen hundreds of similar complaints, but not a single resolution to the problem. However, copying large amounts of data over a network isn't likely something the average user needs to do, so I doubt it's a high priority. All the positives outweigh this disadvantage, and there aren't that many occasions where it would be a big issue (other than now when I'm trying to copy everything across), but it would be cool if it worked better. Still very happy with my new toy, though.

Click to expand...

Lastmboy,

definitely something is wrong there. I have a cabled network at home linking my Mac Pro, Macbook Air (with the ethernet dongle for large files), two MacBooks, a Mac Mini and two AppleTVs. The router is an Apple Extreme connected to two Gigabit switches. Transfers are vary fast (the Macbook air is limited to 100 Mbits/s), and when I do a transfer between the MacBooks or Mac Pro, the limit is the hard drive speed not the network. 50 MB/s is the norm not the exception.

Have you tested the speed between two Macs, instead of Mac/PC? Could be a configuration issue in either computer?


Joster Macedo

Congratulations on your first steps with OS X! I decided to read through all your impressions and see if I could offer some advice with the difficulties you mentioned. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to know.

1. 
   

   [*]The non-customizable fonts (e.g. bookmark bar in Firefox, mailbox list in Mail) seem really large and heavy, like they’re bolded. Couldn’t find a way to change them.

   Click to expand...

   Certain fonts within app UIs are left to the developers in terms of whether they want them customizable or not, but you can change a number of System-used fonts as well as a bevy of other stuff with the very handy TinkerTool. I recommend it on every OS X install for power users.
   

   [*]I miss the right-click-and-drag to move files. I also miss the right-click “cut” option. I use those a lot. Normally, I would highlight a group of files, right-click and select Cut, then navigate to where I wanted to put them, then right-click and select Paste. This doesn’t work very well with the drag-and-drop approach, as you can’t see both your source and destination at the same time, which means having to have two Finder windows open (one for source and one for destination). However, I did discover that the drag capability in OSX is quite cool. When you hover over a folder, it actually opens it in a Finder window, and you can actually work your way down to the destination. Not quite as efficient, and you end up with a mess of Finder windows, but it works. I’ve never been a fan of drag-and-drop. The novelty of it wore off a couple of days after I first tried it, and I went back to quicker, safer, and more practical options. Since OSX seems to live by the drag-and-drop, I may have to learn to like it.
   [*]The copy/move files options in Finder are going to take some getting used to. It looks like if I hold down Command while dragging, it will do a move. I’m a bit surprised there is no “Move” option in the menu, as I find that I move files a lot more than I copy them.

   Click to expand...

   I have a solution to both your aversion to dragging and the lack of a "cut" option in the right-click menu if you prefer keyboard shortcuts. Copy the file as you normally would (Edit -> Copy or cmd+c). Then, in the destination directory, hold down option while clicking Edit in the menu bar and you will see "Paste item" transform into "Move Item Here." Alternatively, the keyboard shortcut to do this is option+command+v. True cut-and-paste functionality, and it does not use drag-and-drop. If you really want it as a right-click item, there's a wonderful tool in OS X for power users called Automator that you may want to read up on.
   

   [*]Can’t get use to the “Delete” key not actually deleting anything. It is apparently the equivalent of a “Backspace” key. It looks like drag to trash or a right-click option are the only choices for deleting files.

   Click to expand...

   fn+delete works as forward-delete for text (as does an actual forward delete key on a real keyboard), but to delete files in Finder, all you have to do is hold command while pressing the regular delete key.
   

   [*]I can’t figure out how to refresh a list. Something like the F5 key in Windows.

   Click to expand...

   Stuff is generally updated automatically in OS X. If you mean something more like refreshing a webpage, command+r handles that.
   

   [*]Couldn’t figure out how to see the size of a folder and it’s contents, then discovered that there is a setting in Finder which causes the sizes of all folders to display in the list. Very handy. However, it looks like it doesn’t stick. The next time you open Finder, you have to go select the option again.

   Click to expand...

   Alternatively, hitting command+i or choosing "Get Info" from the right-click menu will show you a number of things about a folder/file, including the size.
   

   [*]Apps DO hang or crash. I had it happen a few times specifically with Firefox, which I eventually determined was due to the X-Marks sync. However, the Force Quit option actually works (unlike Windows where it generally does nothing and you have to just re-boot) and toasts it immediately, so no big deal.

   Click to expand...

   This is more a general recommendation than a Mac-specific one, but you may want to look into trying Google Chrome. It's quite nifty, and a lot of extensions have made the jump from Firefox. Safari is actually pretty nice on Mountain Lion too, but historically Chrome has always caught up and surpassed it in pretty much every respect fairly quickly.
   

   [*]In Windows, I have “thumb buttons” on my mouse programmed to send the “back/forward or prev/next” commands (to go back a page or forward a page in a web browser or file explorer). I use those a lot and am really missing them at the moment. I’m wondering if it’s maybe possible to setup gestures for the track pad or magic mouse to provide the same type of functionality.

   Click to expand...

   BetterTouchTool will make your trackpad capable of doing things you didn't think possible. That said, multi-button mice will generally have the back and forward thumb keys work just fine out of the box with most browsers on OS X.
   

   [*]It seems that in about 90% of the cases, the OSX app seems nicer (whether in features and/or GUI and looks) than the equivalent Windows app. I compared quite a few. I’m not stomping on Windows. There are lots of good Windows apps, but it almost seems as if more time, effort, and thought goes into the OSX versions, and they are a bit more polished. There also weren’t many apps for which I couldn’t find an OSX equivalent. This was a pleasant surprise.

   Click to expand...

   Apple has an exhaustive list of Human Interface Guidelines that most developers do their best to follow. It's quite nice.
   

   [*]Icon “Stacks” are pretty cool, but I still have to figure them out, as I ran into some problems.

   Click to expand...

   Try playing with the different options when you right click a stack. You can make it spring open as a list, grid or regular stack, as well as have the icon itself be either the items inside the stack or just the folder icon - and you can choose to have the stack display as organized by a number of criteria. One thing I've done is made a folder-icon alphabetized stack out of my Applications folder. It provides the same functionality as Windows' start menu while also being a convenient-to-reach place to just drag new applications when I want to install them. Similarly, I made an alphabetized folder-icon list-view stack for my Documents folder, since it's easy-to-reach and very organized. The only stack I have that is the "default" type is my Downloads stack, since it makes sense there to have the most recently added item front and center.
   

   [*]This was a silly one, but in Windows I can click on an icon in the taskbar to open an app, then click on it there again to minimize the app. Sometimes that is handy. I also like being able to hover over an icon in the taskbar to see how many instances are open, or to get to a sub-window that is hidden behind. I find this to be more cumbersome in OSX. From what I could determine, you pretty much have to Control-click an icon, then select the instance you want or select Show/Hide. Not a huge deal, though. After experimenting some more, it looks like Option-click on the icon in the dock will minimize it.

   Click to expand...

   command+m is generally the keyboard shortcut for minimizing a window. With regards to seeing the number of open windows and previews, hover your cursor over the Dock icon and swipe down with three/four fingers (depending on what you've configured to be the number for showing Mission Control when swiped up instead). I think you'll like the results better than what Windows does.
   

   [*]I like not having to do everything in an MDI frame window. E.g. Photoshop. I can organize all the little windows however I want all over the desktop, or multiple desktops. We seem to be so conditioned to believe that everything must be in one all-encompassing window. It was fun to “think outside the box” (or Window, in this case). I have a recording studio and use Pro Tools a lot. I have heard that it works like this, too, which would be really sweet, as I use multiple monitors and could really spread things out and have a much more effective desktop.

   Click to expand...

   One of the big differences between OS X and Windows from way back when is the use of a "processes by application" model vs. "processes by window" model. Microsoft seems to have acknowledged that OS X has been in the right, since each version of Windows since XP has made very small steps away from the latter model.

Lastmboy said:

The two I miss the most are Home and End. However, I just mapped them to gestures on the touch pad, and it's even easier. I also have gestures for moving/resizing/closing windows that make it almost effortless.

Click to expand...

fn+left arrow and fn+right arrow are home and end, respectively.

Lastmboy said:

Overall, everything has been positive, with only really one major disappointment. File transfer speeds from PCs on the network is absolutely brutal. I have tried everyone's suggestions, but it seems that the networking capabilities of the mac are a bit ancient.

Click to expand...

I'd need a bit more information on how you're doing this to offer useful advice. Are you using SMB file-sharing?

EDIT: I'm just now seeing that some of this has been said by others. Oh well. Feel free to ignore large parts of this post.

Lastmboy said:

13. I miss the right-click-and-drag to move files. I also miss the right-click “cut” option. I use those a lot. Normally, I would highlight a group of files, right-click and select Cut, then navigate to where I wanted to put them, then right-click and select Paste. This doesn’t work very well with the drag-and-drop approach, as you can’t see both your source and destination at the same time, which means having to have two Finder windows open (one for source and one for destination). However, I did discover that the drag capability in OSX is quite cool. When you hover over a folder, it actually opens it in a Finder window, and you can actually work your way down to the destination. Not quite as efficient, and you end up with a mess of Finder windows, but it works. I’ve never been a fan of drag-and-drop. The novelty of it wore off a couple of days after I first tried it, and I went back to quicker, safer, and more practical options. Since OSX seems to live by the drag-and-drop, I may have to learn to like it.

Click to expand...

You can select multiple files in Finder by clicking the first one and then ht the last one while holding SHIFT. If you want to select a few and not everything, then you can hold down CMD and click the files. Once you're done, I find it's easy to hit CMD+x to cut and then move over to the destination folder and hit CMD+v to paste the files.

Lastmboy said:

38. This was a silly one, but in Windows I can click on an icon in the taskbar to open an app, then click on it there again to minimize the app. Sometimes that is handy. I also like being able to hover over an icon in the taskbar to see how many instances are open, or to get to a sub-window that is hidden behind. I find this to be more cumbersome in OSX. From what I could determine, you pretty much have to Control-click an icon, then select the instance you want or select Show/Hide. Not a huge deal, though. After experimenting some more, it looks like Option-click on the icon in the dock will minimize it.

Click to expand...

Hit the app you want and then try CMD+~ to switch between all the windows for that application. CMD+tab will switch between all open applications. This will come in handy to find the windwo you want. Also, Mission Control will group all windows of each application nicely so you can see what you have running

One problem I have run into on my MBA running lion is that there does not appear to be a way to adjust the touch sensitivity of the track pad when you have it set to touch instead of click mode. Windows gives you this ability. If anyone knows a way to do this in Lion PLEASE post!! Tried better touch tool - no luck as far as I could tell.

Clicking “X” in the title bar has varying results, depending on the app. However, it seems quite smart. For example, if you click the “X” on Firefox, it keeps Firefox running, but clears all the tabs and minimizes it, so it’s ready to go again.

Click to expand...

The X always does the same thing for me: push the application into the background, still running. That's the way it's supposed to work. The X does NOT end the application, you have to do that either through the top bar menus or keyboard shortcuts.

rpg51 said:

One problem I have run into on my MBA running lion is that there does not appear to be a way to adjust the touch sensitivity of the track pad when you have it set to touch instead of click mode. Windows gives you this ability. If anyone knows a way to do this in Lion PLEASE post!! Tried better touch tool - no luck as far as I could tell.

Click to expand...

I found the touch pad sensitivity option in BetterTouchTools.

MacInWin said:

The X always does the same thing for me: push the application into the background, still running. That's the way it's supposed to work. The X does NOT end the application, you have to do that either through the top bar menus or keyboard shortcuts.

Click to expand...

It varies by app. If I click the x on iPhoto or the App Store, they completely exit. If I click the x on Safari or FireFox, they revert to the home page and stay running in the background. Mail stays running in the background exactly the way you left it.

joster.macedo said:

Lastmboy,

definitely something is wrong there. I have a cabled network at home linking my Mac Pro, Macbook Air (with the ethernet dongle for large files), two MacBooks, a Mac Mini and two AppleTVs. The router is an Apple Extreme connected to two Gigabit switches. Transfers are vary fast (the Macbook air is limited to 100 Mbits/s), and when I do a transfer between the MacBooks or Mac Pro, the limit is the hard drive speed not the network. 50 MB/s is the norm not the exception.

Have you tested the speed between two Macs, instead of Mac/PC? Could be a configuration issue in either computer?


Joster Macedo

Click to expand...

Well, that gives me hope then. Thanks. If others are getting proper speed, then there must be a way. I put up a post asking what kind of transfer speeds people were getting, and there was no response, so I assumed that meant bad news. I'll keep at it

Raz0rEdge said:

You can select multiple files in Finder by clicking the first one and then ht the last one while holding SHIFT. If you want to select a few and not everything, then you can hold down CMD and click the files. Once you're done, I find it's easy to hit CMD+x to cut and then move over to the destination folder and hit CMD+v to paste the files.

Click to expand...

I would love it if that worked, as it's not much different than the Windows approach. However, that doesn't work for me. The "Cut" (cmd+x) option is always disabled in Finder. Is there some trick to get it to enable.

Raz0rEdge said:

Hit the app you want and then try CMD+~ to switch between all the windows for that application. CMD+tab will switch between all open applications. This will come in handy to find the windwo you want. Also, Mission Control will group all windows of each application nicely so you can see what you have running

Click to expand...

This is great. Didn't know about that one. That will come in handy. Thanks.

Maybe my brain isn't quite working today, but doesn't the cmd+tab combo seem to be completely useless? Unless the apps are all open (i.e. not minimized), it doesn't do anything. If it's not going to open/display the window, what's the point of even having that option? What am I missing?

Discerptor said:

Congratulations on your first steps with OS X! I decided to read through all your impressions and see if I could offer some advice with the difficulties you mentioned. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to know.

Click to expand...

Hey. Thanks for all the time and effort in your great reply. Lots of great info.

Discerptor said:

Certain fonts within app UIs are left to the developers in terms of whether they want them customizable or not, but you can change a number of System-used fonts as well as a bevy of other stuff with the very handy TinkerTool. I recommend it on every OS X install for power users.

Click to expand...

I discovered a way to change them right in Firefox. However, I'll give TinkerTool a try. I always like trying out new tools ;D

Discerptor said:

I have a solution to both your aversion to dragging and the lack of a "cut" option in the right-click menu if you prefer keyboard shortcuts. Copy the file as you normally would (Edit -> Copy or cmd+c). Then, in the destination directory, hold down option while clicking Edit in the menu bar and you will see "Paste item" transform into "Move Item Here." Alternatively, the keyboard shortcut to do this is option+command+v. True cut-and-paste functionality, and it does not use drag-and-drop. If you really want it as a right-click item, there's a wonderful tool in OS X for power users called Automator that you may want to read up on.

Click to expand...

Actually, I discovered that the Option key works with the right-click menu, tool. The paste option changes to "move". That's perfect. I didn't know about option+command+v. Dragging isn't the end of the world, but with my lack of dexterity, I seem to sometimes end up dropping it in the wrong folder, and then can't figure out where it went...

Discerptor said:

fn+delete works as forward-delete for text (as does an actual forward delete key on a real keyboard), but to delete files in Finder, all you have to do is hold command while pressing the regular delete key.

Click to expand...

That's perfect. Much easier than dragging to trashcan.

Discerptor said:

Alternatively, hitting command+i or choosing "Get Info" from the right-click menu will show you a number of things about a folder/file, including the size.

Click to expand...

That works good for displaying info, but it doesn't seem to show folder size on many occasions. It definitely doesn't work on network volumes... unless you have to wait long enough. I left it thinking for half an hour, and it never populated the folder size.

Discerptor said:

This is more a general recommendation than a Mac-specific one, but you may want to look into trying Google Chrome. It's quite nifty, and a lot of extensions have made the jump from Firefox. Safari is actually pretty nice on Mountain Lion too, but historically Chrome has always caught up and surpassed it in pretty much every respect fairly quickly.

Click to expand...

The ONLY reason I use Firefox, is because the "add bookmark" option in Safari is absolutely mental. Otherwise I'd most definitely use Safari, especially since I like the cool little animations. However, I click on "add bookmark", and it lists every folder and nested folder of my bookmarks all in one list. I have over 2,000 bookmark folders. How the !@$# am I supposed to sort through that list to find the one I want. It scrolls for days.

If there were ever to be anything that would tick me off about Apple design ideas, it's the fact that they assume everybody would never have more than a dozen of anything... bookmarks, songs, ebooks, etc. iTunes started out the same way. List all songs in one big linear list. I have over 30,000 songs. How stupid is that? The solution, I was told, is to make playlists. For every album? Ya, right. Apple is smart enough that they must be seeing it differently than I do, but I like my nested folders/groups, and they don't seem to believe in them. iTunes has adapted, and now lists songs by artist or album, so I guess I wasn't completely out to lunch. However, they haven't caught on with Safari bookmarks, yet. I know I need to sort through my bookmarks and cull them down a bit, but I'm still going to have way more than I'd ever want to see in one non-nested list. That's it for my rant. I just don't understand how they can make such impressive software, but completely botch one section of it.

Discerptor said:

BetterTouchTool will make your trackpad capable of doing things you didn't think possible. That said, multi-button mice will generally have the back and forward thumb keys work just fine out of the box with most browsers on OS X.

Click to expand...

I LOVE BetterTouchTool. Been having all sorts of fun with it.

Discerptor said:

Try playing with the different options when you right click a stack. You can make it spring open as a list, grid or regular stack,

Click to expand...

I stumbled across that by accident. Very cool.

Discerptor said:

as well as have the icon itself be either the items inside the stack or just the folder icon - and you can choose to have the stack display as organized by a number of criteria.

Click to expand...

Didn't know that, though.

Discerptor said:

One thing I've done is made a folder-icon alphabetized stack out of my Applications folder. It provides the same functionality as Windows' start menu while also being a convenient-to-reach place to just drag new applications when I want to install them. Similarly, I made an alphabetized folder-icon list-view stack for my Documents folder, since it's easy-to-reach and very organized. The only stack I have that is the "default" type is my Downloads stack, since it makes sense there to have the most recently added item front and center.

Click to expand...

Great ideas.

Discerptor said:

command+m is generally the keyboard shortcut for minimizing a window. With regards to seeing the number of open windows and previews, hover your cursor over the Dock icon and swipe down with three/four fingers (depending on what you've configured to be the number for showing Mission Control when swiped up instead). I think you'll like the results better than what Windows does.

Click to expand...

Now I understand what that 4 finger swipe is for. I had been trying it and couldn't figure out what it was doing. However, if you have several instances of the same app open and do that, much better!

Discerptor said:

fn+left arrow and fn+right arrow are home and end, respectively.

Click to expand...

I actually ended up mapping these two onto my track pad through BetterTouchTool.

Discerptor said:

I'd need a bit more information on how you're doing this to offer useful advice. Are you using SMB file-sharing?

Click to expand...

I believe I am. When I connect to a volume manually, I'm using the smb: prefix. However, OSX generally finds and connects to most of my Windows shares automatically. Can I assume it is using SMB? Is there any way to see how they're connected?

Discerptor said:

hover your cursor over the Dock icon and swipe down with three/four fingers (depending on what you've configured to be the number for showing Mission Control when swiped up instead). I think you'll like the results better than what Windows does.

Click to expand...

ok, I like this, but it brought up a new question. I was experimenting with it by opening a bunch of Finder windows. All cool. Now... how do you close one of the Finder windows without clicking the "x"? There are no menu options for hide or close or anything similar. I can hide them all and re-display them all, but the only way I've been able to close one is to click the corner "x". Is there any other way to close one?

joster.macedo said:

definitely something is wrong there. I have a cabled network at home linking my Mac Pro, Macbook Air (with the ethernet dongle for large files), two MacBooks, a Mac Mini and two AppleTVs. The router is an Apple Extreme connected to two Gigabit switches. Transfers are vary fast (the Macbook air is limited to 100 Mbits/s), and when I do a transfer between the MacBooks or Mac Pro, the limit is the hard drive speed not the network. 50 MB/s is the norm not the exception.

Have you tested the speed between two Macs, instead of Mac/PC? Could be a configuration issue in either computer?

Click to expand...

Found the problem... and I have to take back my complaint about OSX networking. The culprit was a 2WIRE dsl/router combo box I am required to use with my current ISP. They wouldn't let me run a router behind it, so I was forced to route everything through it. However, when I harassed them today, they turned off the "no router" switch, and I was able to stick a D-Link gigabit router in front of it, and network the other computers through that. I connected it to the 2WIRE with a single cable to one of the LAN (not WAN) ports of the D-Link. I turned off DHCP and changed the IP address of the D-Link, and now everything is working great. My network transfer speeds went from 0.4 Mbps up to 45.0 Mbps... a number I am much more pleased with.

Slydude said:

Congrats on the new gear and finally making the switch. I'll be curious to hear about the bonuses that you did not expect.

Click to expand...

One of the little extras I discovered that might seem trivial to many, but was quite exciting to me, is how the gesture scrolling is context sensitive. It scrolls whatever the cursor is over, regardless of whether that area has focus or not. In Windows, you have to actually click in an area you want to scroll, before you can do any type of scrolling with it. It's really handy to just move the cursor around with the touch pad and then scroll whatever list I move it over. I'm sure I'll discover more exciting little secrets.