Posted by Henry Butz on November 06, 2006 at 12:58:43:
In Reply to: I am done with Microsoft - Hello Apple posted by Henry Butz on September 13, 2006 at 10:08:38:
I read three books: Switching To The Mac by Pogue & Goldstein, Running Mac OS X by Davidson & Deraleau, and Mac OS X also by Pogue as a prerequisite to purchasing the Mac Mini. The new Mini's have been upgraded from 1.25ghz to 1.85ghz (or there-about's), making them quite a mean little machine.
Cardboard boxes littered my cramped apartment and UPS/Fed-Ex made daily deliveries of all kinds of electronic goodies. I didn't care for Apple's keyboard and mouse, going instead with a Deck Keyboard and Logitech optical mouse (USB). Deck keyboards are designed for gamers who beat the hell out of them. They're a bit pricey, but well worth the money. Each key on the keyboard is designed by Cherry Switch and back-lit with its own ice-blue LED. It has over half a dozen brightness settings plus schematics and upgrades to make the most ambitious hacker with a soldering iron happy. And, taking a soldering iron to your Deck keyboard does *not* void your warranty. How cool is that? Very cool.
Typing on a Deck keyboard is like digging your fingers into a cloud of pure joy. It has the ultimate tactile feel and responsiveness. It also glows with an eerie blue glow. Right now, I shine a light on my keyboard to type, but it reflects in the monitor. I decided to go with a backlit keyboard. Other keyboards were made cheaply or buzzed or faded out over time. Deck just makes the best thing I've ever seen. They even make an "Apple" version, which still has a PC layout but the proper keycaps already installed. Even they were caught off-guard by the number of Apple keyboard requests.
I sat down early one afternoon with my quick-start guide on my left knee and my stack of CD-ROM's on my right knee and prepared for battle as I turned on my Mac Mini for the first time. It asked me for my name and which wireless network to use. Then, it simply worked. As a Windows user, I was amazed at the simplicity. I then thought to myself, the first thing I need to do is locate all the software updates, patches, and bug fixes. Before I could complete my thought, the computer had displayed them on the screen. Mind you, I hadn't even touched the keyboard since booting into my desktop.
This is real culture shock. It just works. But, my demands are many. I installed Parallels to get my current version of Windows2K running on the Mac desktop. To my amazement, I am able to get much of my old software up and running on the Mac Mini in it's own window. Parallels software allows me to switch seamlessly between the Mac and my old familiar Win2K desktop. I've got windows for Win2K, Dos6.2.2, and Win98se all running as separate applications under OS X and frequently drop down to the base file system running Debian Unix.
I purchased Final Cut Express, selected import video, and played my digital camcorder - the clip transfered right to the disk without much fuss (and I haven't read the manual yet). Importing video under Windows took me months of fighting, capture cards which never worked right, USB connections which dropped frames, and video editing software which tended to lock up and crash. Apple simply worked.
My first fight was with The Dock. Seems that Apple likes to put all their Close Window 'X's on the left, whereas Microsoft puts them on the right. And, I couldn't get The Dock to honor my request to remove application icons. Then I noticed the black dots (actually black triangles) under the icons to indicate the program was still running. On the Apple, the X closes a Window, but not necessarily the application. Not sure if this is an advantage, as I have to go through some contortions to actually close an application. But, if the application is running, the icon appears in the dock with a black triangle. If it's not running, the icon may vanish or might stay - I had to get used to it.
Then, there's the matter of aliases and Dock Icons. If you drag an application icon to the Dock, it will stay put. But, if you drag the same icon to the desktop, it moves your entire program to the desktop - and, best not to delete it! You need to make an alias to drag it to the the desktop, but if you try putting an alias in the Dock it puts a big question mark over it (?). And, I have yet to figure out how to put a "package" application icon on the desktop without making a copy 'cause it won't accept the create alias command (e.g. Parallels).
Apple has also been busy making it difficult to rip DVD's. With the latest upgrade of OS X it appears from the chatter on the boards that many DVD ripping and player programs suddenly quit working. A hacker in Switzerland is busy working on an upgrade to his ripping software. But, in the mean time, looks like an old copy of Win2K is the ticket for ripping DVD's. I assume Microsoft has thrown similar bugs into their own operating system to thwart ripping. This is a reminder that Apple is a big corporation, just like Microsoft and they will do things which are good for the corporation, not necessarily what is desired by the majority of people.
I'm also going through all the free-bee's which come with OS X. I accidently clicked on a file and a Microsoft EULA popped up. Horrified, I backed away from the keyboard and read carefully how NOT to run any software from hell. Seems that Microsoft had stuck an Office 2004 "Trial" version on MY Apple computer. I canceled out and dragged the application to the Trash.
I had to install X11 for the Mac before OpenOffice would run. OpenOffice allows you to read and edit Microsoft Word, Excel, and Power Point documents without the need for buying any software (e.g. it's FREE). But, then Apple released an update to X11 and clobbered it as quickly as I had installed it. Such is life. I have to be more conservative with upgrades and not just install them blindly.
It took me a week to realize that my Home Key on my keyboard was just a decoration now. Apple doesn't use Home and End, they use the up and down arrows. Simpler, I guess. I think the file system administration is a bit over-simplified, which makes it more difficult. Unix has Root, User, and Other accounts. But, Apple adds an Administrator which is half-way between User and Root, they've disabled the Root account by default, and they have a bunch of files which are locked so that Root has to ask permission to touch them - probably not a wise thing. But, I enjoyed dropping into the Unix shell to umount some volumes which went awry.
Apple did some strange things - like, they removed the floppy, serial port, and modem - things which I've grown sort of attached to. They also restrict their bundled software to only work with Apple branded hardware, such as the iSight camera and built-in DVD drive - although, some third-party patches break the dependency. You've got to know where to look for software, too. For example, the built-in DVD burner software works fine for some stuff, but it wouldn't recognize a blank CD-RW media. It just sits there, asking me to insert a blank disk.
There's also some confusion about .iso files vs. .dmg files - some software will burn one, but not the other. And, just like Microsoft packages their mpeg-4 video files as .wmv's, Apples brands theirs as .mov's. Don't kid yourself. It's still mpeg-4. They also make the disclaimer that mpeg-2 encoding is available but not licensed. Again, don't be fooled. Every time you purchase a blank DVD-R disc you are paying your licensing fees. You only need to worry about it when you go into mass production. Then, everyone will have their hand out.
There's also no simple Notepad under OS X. Everything is saved using Rich Text format, which is useless for things like editing html and configuration files. I had to download many utilities and am still suffering from Windows withdrawal. There is no good replacement for Trillian, my favorite chat application. iChat doesn't do Yahoo, unless I sign up for a Jabber account - and, then it won't do video.
But, the worst was the unexpected lack of legacy (Classic) support. Under OS X, Apple built in a lot of support for OS 9 software - that is, if you're running on a PowerPC. I bought the Intel dual-core processor. This is wonderful for an Intel based Unix/Linux or (cough) Windows2000/Win98se environment using an emulator, but for some reason Apple just dropped Classic Mode on the Intel Macs. I've got both the PC and the Mac version of Doom II and I can play neither one. Actually, I got Doom II running through a GPL Win32 graphics engine, running under the Parallels emulation of Win2K under OS X 10.4.8 - but, it's not exactly what one would call... robust.
All in all, I'm very pleased and despite some growing pains I should be up and running under the OS X platform by December. It's such a relief to get away from Windows. I never did "upgrade" to Windows XP and I'd shoot myself before running Windows Vista on any of MY personal computers. For all you hackers out there - I just think of the Intel Apple computer as Debian Unix with a really nice, fully mature GUI.