Reasons to switch (back) to Windows

[cygsid]

All frustrated Mac users unite! Every once in a while, I get so frustrated with the inconvenients and limitations of using a Mac that I just feel like going out and buying a PC instead.
So in an attempt to prove myself wrong, I'd like to start going through each item one by one, and so if others can either debunk it or at least find mitigating factors.
Excuses don't count as mitigating factors btw, so no need to post things like "but but but.... it's not Apple's fault that <reason X>!" That might very well be but why should Mac users care? Also please put aside any loyalty you might have for Apple: I want to consider solely from a consumer's benefits perspective.

[cygsid]

Reason #1: Quicken for Mac sucks!!! (and there is no Money for Mac)

Year after year, I hope that Intuit would finally release a decent Quicken for Mac, but year after year they keeping release the same crap over and over again, with only minor "Mac-only" (hah!) enhancements, like integration with iCal (WTF??)

The program has an unbelievable number of glitches and shoddiness all over. The Windows version is miles ahead in so many ways it's not even funny (including and especially the UI).

And this, with SJ welcoming Intuit back into the fold a few years ago, and having its CEO on the board of Apple. :no:

Of course, if there were solid alternatives, then none of this would matter: we could just all give Intuit the big finger and move on. But no, there is MS Money unfortunately, which I hear is as good if not better than Quicken on the Windows side of things. Now granted, there are a number of low-cost alternatives, but they're also far less full-featured, modern, and their reliability is all up in the air. Who would want to trust one's years of data to some little known one-person software shop.

Appendix: for a sample of all the bad reviews Quicken for Mac consistently gets from users year after year, release after release:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/6866
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/B0009XB160/002-2996760-1999265?_encoding=UTF8

Of course, go figure why MacWhore would give 4 stars to the same product when it's so obviously bad: http://www.macworld.com/2005/10/reviews/quicken2006/index.php

[cygsid]

Reason #2: No support for videochat from the major IM players (MSN, Yahoo IM, Skype, AIM, etc.). And no iChat doesn't count.

Living far away from my family and having friends and acquaintances in many different locations around the world, I'd love to be able to videochat with them, as all my friends are doing and have been doing for years now with their respective friends and families.

But of course... I can't. They all have PCs of course, in line with the current statistics for Apple's world market share: 2% or so.

Now Apple can give me all the crap they want about iChat being a superb solution and all that, but if virtually nobody (outside of their fancy Infinite Loop campus) uses it, then who cares??? And in the same vein, what good is that iSight going to be if all you can is use it with iChat??

Now I know there are other alternatives, but they're all obscure, and even fewer people use them (and you can imagine how hard it'd be to ask my parents to setup something like that on their own... at least MSN Messenger comes built-in on their PCs).

[cygsid]

Reason #3: Office for Mac sucks... Yep, you heard right: it sux!

I try to use Office as little as possible on my Mac, as everytime I open it, it makes me cringe when I think of how much it sucks compared to the Windows version: inexplicably high CPU usage in Word, horrible font rendering, weid Excel behavior, horribly slow scrolling in both, There is just no comparison. And all those reviews who claim that the Project Center is the best thing since sliced bread, get real!

[cygsid]

Reason #4: Web browsing is still slow and not as smooth on the Mac.

Safari, Firefox, Camino, whichever. They're all pretty good browsers with pretty good rendering and decent speed. However browsing on Windows is still miles ahead in terms of speed, and smoothness of experience. Flash performance on the Mac makes browsing sites with lots of Flash content (and which don't these days) a nightmare of obscenely high CPU usage, poor responsiveness, and jerky rendering. Not to mention the fact that so-called "smooth scrolling" in Safari/Mac OS X is still far smoother had has been for years on Windows than on the Mac. Oh and that Bookmarks menu, forget about opening it in any reasonable amount of time... ever heard of caching Apple?

And of course, Safari has such glaring limitations it's not even funny (can't get the properties or info of the current page, WTF??)

[Kickaha]

#1: Haven't upgraded on the Quicken front in a couple of years. What features do you use on the Windows side that you miss on the latest Mac version?

#2: iChat interoperates with AIM 5.5 and higher for videochat. Perhaps if your PC friends upgraded once in a while... ;) Seriously, works great.

#3: Funny, I keep getting comments from Windows Office users about how much nicer Mac Office is... I think this one is going to have to just be personal preference.

#4: Er, exactly what 'properties' are you looking for for a page? Perhaps you've just missed where to find it in Safari? As to speed, I can't say that I've noticed a huge hit with Safari 2 vs. the PCs at work running IE6, or Firefox. The Flash engine got a big boost recently, and is now much more snappy... and unlike the PCs at work, the sound and video stay in sync. ("We're so much faster, we can't keep track of it all! Whee!")

Just curious... if you hate it so much, why do you use a Mac at all? Serious question. I can't stand Windows, so I don't use it. I use what I prefer. Why don't you?

[rok]

wow, cygsid, you really like to see yourself type, huh? if kickaha hadn't gotten in here, you may have had an AI record for "longest thread that has only one participant."

[Kickaha]

Because editing your own post doesn't bump the thread to the top. ;)

[cygsid]

Originally posted by Kickaha
Because editing your own post doesn't bump the thread to the top. ;)

No, not really. I just thought I'd make this a real participatory thread, where others could easily post their own reasons, and each reason could be commented on separately (through quoting).

Although granted, now that you pointed that out, that's a nice benefit too ;)

It would have been even nicer if there was a way to have multiple threads in one.

[cygsid]

Originally posted by Kickaha
(...) Just curious... if you hate it so much, why do you use a Mac at all? Serious question. I can't stand Windows, so I don't use it. I use what I prefer. Why don't you?
That's a very good point for sure, though it's also a very common reaction to attempts to start a lively spirited debate like my thread starter. I would argue that that question and its answer is somewhat irrelevant to the discussion at hand, and that each reason should be evaluated based on its sole merit (or lack thereof).
However, to answer your question, I am certainly - and have been for a long time now - thinking about alternatives. Of course, the ability to run Windows on a Macintel, whenever that might be, will go a long way toward alleviating my concerns with being a Mac user. Let's just hope that'll happen sooner rather than later. Another option is of course to buy a cheap PC to complement my Mac, but I'd rather have only one machine to do it all (ideally through a virtualization solution for Windows).
More importantly however, I don't hate Macs. In fact I love many things about it: the elegant Aqua GUI, the elegantly designed Cocoa freeware and shareware apps, the mindset of the platform (focus on ease of use, elegance, and "It just works"), and many others. It's just that it irks me and I find it sometime frustrating the (very real) downsides of the Mac are seldom discussed or brought up in forums like this one. We paint this idyllic but untruthful picture of the Mac experience, probably in a misguided attempt to support the mothership in its efforts to recruit new switchers. I just don't think that's fair or right.

[cygsid]

Originally posted by rok
wow, cygsid, you really like to see yourself type, huh? if kickaha hadn't gotten in here, you may have had an AI record for "longest thread that has only one participant."

You're right, maybe I should just start my own MacSkeptic blog
(damn... already taken) ;)

[trumptman]

Originally posted by cygsid
Reason #1: Quicken for Mac sucks!!! (and there is no Money for Mac)

Year after year, I hope that Intuit would finally release a decent Quicken for Mac, but year after year they keeping release the same crap over and over again, with only minor "Mac-only" (hah!) enhancements, like integration with iCal (WTF??)

The program has an unbelievable number of glitches and shoddiness all over. The Windows version is miles ahead in so many ways it's not even funny (including and especially the UI).

So don't use it. I'm serious in that it is actually becoming much more easy for me take care of most of my banking issues through a web interface. I do use Mac Quicken to keep track of my checkbook register,(and I could use a dozen other programs to do this) but other than that, all the things I would use an advanced version of Quicken for can be taken care of better online.

I have a brokerage account, home equity line (zero balance on it), two checking accounts and two savings accounts all online with Wells Fargo. I much prefer to deal with them all through the web interface than through Quicken on any platform.

Everything that Quicken used to build into their program can now be done on the web. Better still Quicken often attempts to make money off you managing your finances whereas my bank often attempts to save me money by working to get my business in multiple financial areas.

Quicken wants your yearly upgrade fee, they often want monthly fees for online account access. For Wells Fargo the fees total up to $10 a month.

I'll keep that money thank you very much.

Nick

[trumptman]

Originally posted by cygsid
Reason #2: No support for videochat from the major IM players (MSN, Yahoo IM, Skype, AIM, etc.). And no iChat doesn't count.

Living far away from my family and having friends and acquaintances in many different locations around the world, I'd love to be able to videochat with them, as all my friends are doing and have been doing for years now with their respective friends and families.

But of course... I can't. They all have PCs of course, in line with the current statistics for Apple's world market share: 2% or so.

Now Apple can give me all the crap they want about iChat being a superb solution and all that, but if virtually nobody (outside of their fancy Infinite Loop campus) uses it, then who cares??? And in the same vein, what good is that iSight going to be if all you can is use it with iChat??

Now I know there are other alternatives, but they're all obscure, and even fewer people use them (and you can imagine how hard it'd be to ask my parents to setup something like that on their own... at least MSN Messenger comes built-in on their PCs).

As mentioned iChat works with AOL 5.5. My Yahoo Messenger software shows support for video chat as well.

Nick

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by cygsid
That's a very good point for sure, though it's also a very common reaction to attempts to start a lively spirited debate like my thread starter. I would argue that that question and its answer is somewhat irrelevant to the discussion at hand, and that each reason should be evaluated based on its sole merit (or lack thereof).
However, to answer your question, I am certainly - and have been for a long time now - thinking about alternatives. Of course, the ability to run Windows on a Macintel, whenever that might be, will go a long way toward alleviating my concerns with being a Mac user. Let's just hope that'll happen sooner rather than later. Another option is of course to buy a cheap PC to complement my Mac, but I'd rather have only one machine to do it all (ideally through a virtualization solution for Windows).
More importantly however, I don't hate Macs. In fact I love many things about it: the elegant Aqua GUI, the elegantly designed Cocoa freeware and shareware apps, the mindset of the platform (focus on ease of use, elegance, and "It just works"), and many others. It's just that it irks me and I find it sometime frustrating the (very real) downsides of the Mac are seldom discussed or brought up in forums like this one. We paint this idyllic but untruthful picture of the Mac experience, probably in a misguided attempt to support the mothership in its efforts to recruit new switchers. I just don't think that's fair or right.

You must be reading a different forum than I am, if you think it's all sweetness and light... :D

Seriously, there are flaws. Your points so far, however, seem to be either a case of not realizing there is a solution (videoconf with AIM 5.5), or strictly personal preference that doesn't match a lot of other people's (Office). If it truly comes down to personal preference, then there's absolutely no argument that is going to change your mind, because it's not a rational logic-based decision, it's just personal preference.

The rest we can edumakate you on, but it's still a matter of choice in the end. Me, I can't *imagine* dealing with the vagaries of Windows on a daily basis - I just don't have the time, I have work to get done... but obviously others feel different.

[cygsid]

Originally posted by trumptman
So don't use it. I'm serious in that it is actually becoming much more easy for me take care of most of my banking issues through a web interface. I do use Mac Quicken to keep track of my checkbook register,(and I could use a dozen other programs to do this) but other than that, all the things I would use an advanced version of Quicken for can be taken care of better online.
(...)
Nick

Oh yeah? I am using Bank of America, and as far as I can see it, they have nothing like the wealth of features a product like Quicken has built over the decade or so of existence.
I doubt there is a website out there that would give you a complete picture of your financial situation especially across different banks, accounts and so on. Of course there is also the issue of security: not sure I would trust some random portal website with all my financial data. But maybe I am wrong and there is such a thing from a trustworthy provider.

[cygsid]

Originally posted by trumptman
As mentioned iChat works with AOL 5.5. My Yahoo Messenger software shows support for video chat as well.

Nick

Yahoo Messenger on Mac has no audio, only video. And I hear the video is horrid, 1-2 fps. Seriously let's not waste time on totally unviable options like that one. Next thing, you're going to tell me I should be using Yahoo video in combination with Skype audio (and believe it or not, in my desperation for any workable solution, I *have* considered that option)....
As for iChat's interoperability with AOL, last I heard performance is pretty dismal and reliability is not far ahead. Again let's stick to realistic solutions.

[cygsid]

Originally posted by Kickaha
(...)
seriously, there are flaws. Your points so far, however, seem to be either a case of not realizing there is a solution (videoconf with AIM 5.5), or strictly personal preference that doesn't match a lot of other people's (Office). If it truly comes down to personal preference, then there's absolutely no argument that is going to change your mind, because it's not a rational logic-based decision, it's just personal preference.


My, what a race to conclusions! nice try buddy.
How can bad performance be about personal preference?? Are you going to tell me that Office really has no notable performance problems to speak of? Give me a break. Now surely it has a few niceties here and there that go beyond what Windows Office has to offer (easy installation, auto-repair, Project Center, and maybe a few others)... I'll give you that. But that certainly doesn't make up in my book for other graver limitations, and in particular obviously bad performance.
As for videoconf, see previous reply.


The rest we can edumakate you on, but it's still a matter of choice in the end. Me, I can't *imagine* dealing with the vagaries of Windows on a daily basis - I just don't have the time, I have work to get done... but obviously others feel different.

"Edumakate" me?? Pluuuuze... I really need no more edumacation than you need it... I've been around the Mac block long enough to not need any, believe me. I am looking for some healthy discussion here on what I think is a perfectly legtitimate topic, not condescension.

[Flounder]

Dude, maybe people would be friendlier if you didn't come off as such a dismissive jerk.

[cygsid]

Originally posted by Flounder
Dude, maybe people would be friendlier if you didn't come off as such a dismissive jerk.

:???: *sigh* I guess that's always the risk one takes when posting "sensitive" topics like this one. I am not being dismissive at all, just trying to keep the thread on a "productive" course. 8)

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by cygsid
My, what a race to conclusions! nice try buddy.

I'm sorry, your points seemed pretty definite.

How can bad performance be about personal preference?? Are you going to tell me that Office really has no notable performance problems to speak of? Give me a break. Now surely it has a few niceties here and there that go beyond what Windows Office has to offer (easy installation, auto-repair, Project Center, and maybe a few others)... I'll give you that. But that certainly doesn't make up in my book for other graver limitations, and in particular obviously bad performance.

And yet obviously, for many other people, any perceived performance issues are overwhelmed by those features. You said it yourself: 'in my book'. It's your opinion, and your preference, that performance trumps features. Fair enough - but that's all that it is, an opinion. From the vast majority of people who I know who have used both Office versions, the Mac version is praised, while the Windows version is tolerated at best.

I don't use either, because I can't stand either version, but all I can pass on is that the consensus by far in my experience is that the Windows version simply doesn't measure up.

As for videoconf, see previous reply.

Yeeeeeeah... you haven't actually tried these solutions that the rest of us seem to have little problems with, and dismiss them out of hand as unrealistic. Right.

FWIW, I use iChat to videoconf with some friends a couple states over on a pretty regular basis - once they upgraded to AIM 5.5, no problems. And I'm sorry, but if you're going to say that AIM isn't widespread enough to be a viable option, you're not going to get much further response.

No app, Mac or PC, works with every system out there. Both ends need to find a compatible paired solution. AIM has a widespread enough user base that it's quite viable. If your friends on the other end aren't willing to even entertain an option, and expect you to adapt to whatever they have, that's unrealistic. It's a two-way street.

"Edumakate" me?? Pluuuuze... I really need no more edumacation than you need it... I've been around the Mac block long enough to not need any, believe me. I am looking for some healthy discussion here on what I think is a perfectly legtitimate topic, not condescension. [/B]

*cluestick* It was meant as a lighthearted jest, not condescension. Don't be so thin skinned.

And yes, if you don't know about solutions that *are* realistic, and work, then learning about them would be, I would *think*, appreciated. I know that if I came on here stating that I was having problems, I'd want to know about solutions. But, instead, if you're unhappy getting such information because it undercuts your assertions, then maybe you shouldn't ask? Just sayin'.

Now, did you want actual solutions, or did you want to just keep ranting? Either way, up to you.

[cygsid]

Originally posted by Kickaha
And yet obviously, for many other people, any perceived performance issues are overwhelmed by those features. You said it yourself: 'in my book'. It's your opinion, and your preference, that performance trumps features. Fair enough - but that's all that it is, an opinion. From the vast majority of people who I know who have used both Office versions, the Mac version is praised, while the Windows version is tolerated at best.
I don't use either, because I can't stand either version, but all I can pass on is that the consensus by far in my experience is that the Windows version simply doesn't measure up.


Fair enough. I note though that your experience with either app sounds itself pretty limited. Though I might not know other people who use Office for Mac personally, I know what I see with my own eyes, and it ain't pretty. I also note that there are plenty of reports from actual users to back me up. But as you said, maybe it's a matter of priorities: ease of use and good looks vs. performance and features. This is probably also true of the OS itself and your typical Mac app. I guess it's a question of balance, and I feel that the balance is just way too titled to the left in the case of Office.


Yeeeeeeah... you haven't actually tried these solutions that the rest of us seem to have little problems with, and dismiss them out of hand as unrealistic. Right.

FWIW, I use iChat to videoconf with some friends a couple states over on a pretty regular basis - once they upgraded to AIM 5.5, no problems. And I'm sorry, but if you're going to say that AIM isn't widespread enough to be a viable option, you're not going to get much further response.

No app, Mac or PC, works with every system out there. Both ends need to find a compatible paired solution. AIM has a widespread enough user base that it's quite viable. If your friends on the other end aren't willing to even entertain an option, and expect you to adapt to whatever they have, that's unrealistic. It's a two-way street.


ok.. misunderstanding here: I never said - or even meant to say - that AIM wasn't widespread (although it seems to me its spread is rather US-centric, unlike say MSN Messenger... everybody I wants to communicate with uses the latter but not the former).
All I said is that the two, iChat and AIM, are not as interoperable as Apple or AOL would have us believe (just like Apple and Intuit would have us believe that Quicken is great Mac software), according to everything I read on the subject on the web (and I read a lot of it!). Granted that was a year to six months ago, so maybe things have changed now, though somehow I doubt it.


*cluestick* It was meant as a lighthearted jest, not condescension. Don't be so thin skinned.

And yes, if you don't know about solutions that *are* realistic, and work, then learning about them would be, I would *think*, appreciated. I know that if I came on here stating that I was having problems, I'd want to know about solutions. But, instead, if you're unhappy getting such information because it undercuts your assertions, then maybe you shouldn't ask? Just sayin'.

You're right... my reaction did come out as a bit over the top. Sorry for the "friendly fire".

[Elixir]

ok, just to kind of do what the original poster wanted us to do



my only real complaints about using a mac are


1. we have to actually purchase Word and there isn't anything good preinstalled on MAc OSX.


2. the web browsing problem i can understand. sometimes i dont get why myspace loads so slow (this comes from my gf. she's a mac user to)

if someone could explain or fix that problem it would be appreciated.



3. some photo output programs like Picture It are not offered on macs (also coming from the girlfriend) she's not about photo editing but more about doing cute little things with pictures.

if someone could recommend something please do so. she's searched but hasn't found anythign that great.

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by cygsid
Fair enough. I note though that your experience with either app sounds itself pretty limited. Though I might not know other people who use Office for Mac personally, I know what I see with my own eyes, and it ain't pretty. I also note that there are plenty of reports from actual users to back me up. But as you said, maybe it's a matter of priorities: ease of use and good looks vs. performance and features. This is probably also true of the OS itself and your typical Mac app. I guess it's a question of balance, and I feel that the balance is just way too titled to the left in the case of Office.

*nod* Understood - I used to use both Office suites extensively, but gave them up a few years ago. Since then I've been impressed with where Office/Mac has gone from what I've seen of it, and not so much with Office/Win. *shrug*

Like you said, we all have our priorities. :)


ok.. misunderstanding here: I never said - or even meant to say - that AIM wasn't widespread (although it seems to me its spread is rather US-centric, unlike say MSN Messenger... everybody I wants to communicate with uses the latter but not the former).
All I said is that the two, iChat and AIM, are not as interoperable as Apple or AOL would have us believe (just like Apple and Intuit would have us believe that Quicken is great Mac software), according to everything I read on the subject on the web (and I read a lot of it!). Granted that was a year to six months ago, so maybe things have changed now, though somehow I doubt it.

In my experience, the iChat 3 upgrade was significant in this regard. Prior to that, ports to be opened in firewalls on the Windows end were problematic. Since then, no such problems that I've encountered.

Well, I take that back. No problems that I've encountered *when* the other person had upgraded to > 5.5, and had confirmed that it worked with other PC users. It's not perfect, but much improved.

I'd love to see a universal videoconf solution that all the big dogs could agree on. H.264 seems like the brain-dead obvious approach, but the obvious isn't always what happens. :P

You're right... my reaction did come out as a bit over the top. Sorry for the "friendly fire".

No worries.

[Flounder]

Originally posted by cygsid
You're right... my reaction did come out as a bit over the top. Sorry for the "friendly fire".

See, you stop being a jerk and all of the sudden everyone is much friendlier.

Funny how that works, huh? ;)

[Splinemodel]

I find that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. That is, what good is it to have all sorts of PC apps if they just end up crashing in Windows. . . I'm serious on this one. Windows itself never really goes down (although it goes to hell if you don't restart it regularly) but Office always crashes on me. Especially Outlook. It's very reassuring to work on the mac, since I'm less worried about the programs crashing and losing my data.

[trumptman]

Originally posted by cygsid
Oh yeah? I am using Bank of America, and as far as I can see it, they have nothing like the wealth of features a product like Quicken has built over the decade or so of existence.

Most of these things are not "built" into Quicken. It is Quicken, especially on the PC, using the built in Internet Explorer to take you to parts of their website and access the services via web pages.

I doubt there is a website out there that would give you a complete picture of your financial situation especially across different banks, accounts and so on. Of course there is also the issue of security: not sure I would trust some random portal website with all my financial data. But maybe I am wrong and there is such a thing from a trustworthy provider.

You might have your services across a dozen accounts at a dozen banks(how is that secure again?), but my reasoning then is that you need to address the problem at the root instead of complaining about the programs. Quicken can help you do this but again, they charge loads of fees.

Also Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, these are hardly some random portals. Bank of America, via their website offers a features called MyPortfolio where it claims these features...

View your non-Bank of America accounts

* Use My Portfolio to view all of your online accounts, including non-Bank of America - in a single, secure location, using just one Online ID and Passcode.
* You can access your banking, credit card, and investment accounts.
* My Portfolio allows you to access your email accounts, news preferences, frequent-flyer miles and reward programs.

Over time, instead of simply deciding to link my non-Wellsfargo accounts to Wells Fargo, I've simply had them bid for my business. Everytime they have saved me money and your bank might do the same for you. Instead of having five credit cards across five banks, your bank might pull off something like a full balance transfer with 0% interest on the transferred balance and a better interest rate on new charges, etc.

Quicken is a dinosaur. The core program tracks your register. All the other stuff, tracking your 401k, planning various things, all lead you to online sources at their site and recommend programs where they make more money instead of you saving more money.

Nick

[Aquatic]

Ok. Yeah. You guys are definitely apologists.

I seriously was startled when I realized just how useless a HUGE waste of money that iSight built in to all these new Macs is. Unless of course you don't have any friends with PCs.

Sorry, iChat is a piece of shit. It doesn't even work with iChat. It NEVER works even with JUST audio for me with my sister and dad and we are all on very fast broadband, we're talking Verizon DSL, McGill and URI LANs. NO excuse. And its interface is retarded. Apallingly retarded. Why does it use my girlfriend's address book on MY buddy list on her computer? I don't think Apple gets that people in general do NOT have different accounts. They make an admin account and that's it. And why should we make more accounts? It's a pain to switch Users. It just is. I guess Apple just doesn't "Get It"

Video on IM services just does not work. This is big and will get to be make or break for lots of potential Mac purchases.

As for Quicken though...I have to say, like Nick says, the Web is the way that stuff is moving.

Office on Mac is good on the outside. But the inside code is obviously a piece of shit, as people have elaborated, it is slow slow SLOW and buggy. I hope they rewrite it. Didn't they say they were going to? It seems like Word 2001 in Classic felt smoother than Word 2004 on OS X. You know? Same goes for Excel. Really sloppy stuff under the hood probably.

Browsing, so right. Safari is a piece of shit under the hood still. So what if it's Flash's fault that sites slow to a crawl. I don't want excuses, I want Safari to work with sites and not use 1000% of my CPU. I have HUNDREDS of pages open sometimes when writing papers. Why can't Safari handle it? And don't tell me it can. It can NOT. It chokes OS X to death. FIX it Apple. Or again it will prevent purchases.

[pyr3]

Originally posted by Aquatic
Ok. Yeah. You guys are definitely apologists.

Yes. People with different opinions are automatically not on the same level as you because you are so much smarter than everyone else.

I seriously was startled when I realized just how useless a HUGE waste of money that iSight built in to all these new Macs is. Unless of course you don't have any friends with PCs.

Um, webcams were out LONG before they were really useful for video conferencing, or anyone actually had the bandwidth for it. It's not like other people might have a use for it... unless you think that all products have to pander to your needs and your needs only.

Sorry, iChat is a piece of shit. It doesn't even work with iChat. It NEVER works even with JUST audio for me with my sister and dad and we are all on very fast broadband, we're talking Verizon DSL, McGill and URI LANs. NO excuse. And its interface is retarded. Apallingly retarded. Why does it use my girlfriend's address book on MY buddy list on her computer? I don't think Apple gets that people in general do NOT have different accounts. They make an admin account and that's it. And why should we make more accounts? It's a pain to switch Users. It just is. I guess Apple just doesn't "Get It"

Actually Apple 'Gets it' more than most of the other technology companies. Like Microsoft which made it so hard to do things when you are not an admin that most people just run as admin and get tons of spyware/adware/etc on their computer.

I'll admit that iChat kind of sucks when it comes to things like multiple accounts. But it's not like alternatives like Adium don't exist. If you judged every operating system based on a dislike for one piece of software on it, I don't think that any operating system could pass.

Video on IM services just does not work. This is big and will get to be make or break for lots of potential Mac purchases.

Not as much as you think. I don't think that a lot of people have really jumped onto the 'OMG I need to VIDEO conference now' bandwagon. There is a sizable portion of the population that uses these features, yes. But I don't think that many people value that as the only consideration when purchasing a computer. On that note, Skype has a lot to gain here by bringing the video to their Mac and Linux versions. Skype has been pretty good about making at least audio conferencing across platforms easy. And they haven't run into the "Oh noes! My computer is behind a firewall so I can't audio conference or send files!" crap that plagued AOL's Instant Messenger for the longest time.

Office on Mac is good on the outside. But the inside code is obviously a piece of shit, as people have elaborated, it is slow slow SLOW and buggy. I hope they rewrite it. Didn't they say they were going to? It seems like Word 2001 in Classic felt smoother than Word 2004 on OS X. You know? Same goes for Excel. Really sloppy stuff under the hood probably.

I'd say yes if you were talking about Office v.X, but Office 2k4 seems to be an improvement. I don't use it enough to see the slowdowns that you seem to be seeing, but for typing up documents and spreadsheets, it's not like you need the computer to be on the ball or else someone will die like some sort of medical machinery.

Browsing, so right. Safari is a piece of shit under the hood still. So what if it's Flash's fault that sites slow to a crawl. I don't want excuses, I want Safari to work with sites and not use 1000% of my CPU. I have HUNDREDS of pages open sometimes when writing papers. Why can't Safari handle it? And don't tell me it can. It can NOT. It chokes OS X to death. FIX it Apple. Or again it will prevent purchases.

I want, I want, I want. In the words of Howard Stern, "Wah wah wah!" If it's such and easy thing to fix to write a flash plugin for Safari, then why don't you do it? What's Apple supposed to do? Put a nuclear device under Adobe-Macromedia and threaten to detonate if they don't fix the Flash plugin? Having hundreds of pages open? That seems sort of extreme. I doubt that everyone out there needs to open HUNDREDS of pages at a time. That's more like a stress test of the system than something actually useful. It also sounds more like you just don't know how to organize your information... It's like saying that a library sucks because their tables aren't large enough for you to have HUNDREDS of books all open to different pages while your are writing a paper. Ever hear of bookmarks? I hear they are useful in real books as well as browsers.

Plain and simple. 100+ web pages open at the same time is extreme usage. There are maybe a handful of people that need that functionality. To say that Apple needs to spend all kinds of time to save the maybe 2 purchases that this might prevent is a rather ludicrous proposition. It's like saying that every gas station in the world needs to have bio-diesel because only 100 people in Southern California have bio-diesel cars.

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by Aquatic
Ok. Yeah. You guys are definitely apologists.

Didn't we just have the friendly fire discussion, or was it just me?

I seriously was startled when I realized just how useless a HUGE waste of money that iSight built in to all these new Macs is. Unless of course you don't have any friends with PCs.

Oh no, even then. I'm shocked that they did it myself... it makes me wonder what they have in store for it other than just iChat.

Sorry, iChat is a piece of shit. It doesn't even work with iChat. It NEVER works even with JUST audio for me with my sister and dad and we are all on very fast broadband, we're talking Verizon DSL, McGill and URI LANs. NO excuse.

Er, yeah, since again, I haven't seen issues like that. I click, it works, no problems. Hell, I've had a flawless video chat between Chapel Hill, NC and Beijing before, no futzing necessary.

And its interface is retarded. Apallingly retarded. Why does it use my girlfriend's address book on MY buddy list on her computer? I don't think Apple gets that people in general do NOT have different accounts. They make an admin account and that's it. And why should we make more accounts? It's a pain to switch Users. It just is. I guess Apple just doesn't "Get It"

Sorry, I'd chalk that one up to user error. Accounts are there for a reason, and if Fast User Switching via a single menu item is too difficult for someone, maybe they *should* look into switching platforms. Perhaps something from Fisher Price?

Now, if iChat had a 'guest mode' where you could say "Alright, just this one time, I want to log in as <user>, but don't use Address Book, don't save anything, just make it temporary", that might be handy. If you're using the same machine more than a few times though, I can't see how setting up an account is onerous. In fact, it seems like a no-brainer to me.

Video on IM services just does not work. This is big and will get to be make or break for lots of potential Mac purchases.

iChat to iChat or AIM 5.5 has *generally* worked really well for me. There are times when I just look at it and wonder what the hell its problem is, but those are quite rare now. If the major services could all just agree on a common format and codec, we'd be good, but they don't seem interested.

As for Quicken though...I have to say, like Nick says, the Web is the way that stuff is moving.

Agreed. I recently started a new 'organize the finances!' rally, and have been looking around - I can either handle it online, now, for (mostly) free through my banks, or I can buy Quicken, pay Intuit a monthly fee, and then pay the banks as well. Hmm. Yes, having one central point of access is nice, and having a global view of the finances is good, but mine are not yet to the point of needing that sort of macromanagement. Jury's still out on what path to take with this one.

Office on Mac is good on the outside. But the inside code is obviously a piece of shit, as people have elaborated, it is slow slow SLOW and buggy. I hope they rewrite it. Didn't they say they were going to? It seems like Word 2001 in Classic felt smoother than Word 2004 on OS X. You know? Same goes for Excel. Really sloppy stuff under the hood probably.

Oh god, you have no idea. Until at least '99/'00, Excel's macro language parser was a single ~30,000 line switch statement. I'll let the programmers in the audience have a moment to regain their twitching...

I know folks who still use Word 5 if at all possible.

Browsing, so right. Safari is a piece of shit under the hood still. So what if it's Flash's fault that sites slow to a crawl. I don't want excuses, I want Safari to work with sites and not use 1000% of my CPU. I have HUNDREDS of pages open sometimes when writing papers. Why can't Safari handle it?

Whaaaaaaa? Who the hell has hundreds of *ANY* kind of document open in an app, and expects the app to be able to handle it gracefully?!? Seriously... open a hundred .txt files in TextEdit, and it's going to get poky. Somewhere along the way, 'poor app' segues into 'unrealistic expectations'...

And don't tell me it can. It can NOT.

You're right. It can't. Because it was never designed to.

It chokes OS X to death. FIX it Apple. Or again it will prevent purchases.

Really? There are people out there who make OS decisions based on whether or not the included browser will be able to handle a few hundred open pages simultaneously?

Have you tried this test under Windows? How did it fare?

I'm not exactly *thrilled* with Safari's performance, but it keeps getting much better, and I also don't expect it to handle insane numbers of open pages at once. I hit about 15 pages, and I can feel it start to bog, and it's time to bookmark, drag to Desktop, or otherwise cache the URL until I need it again.

[Elixir]

ichat does suck. i hate the look, i hate the way it works, is organized. i cant lie for ichat, it stinks lol. but it isn't a big deal cuz i'll just use other things... though does the built in isight work with aim on mac? or do i have to use icaht? cuz then i'll be annoyed.


i'll never go back to windows but i can agree with those people who are bitching.

safari is kinda slow, and ichat stinks.



though when using Word on intel imacs the other day at the store that bad boy felt fast and it was running under rossetta.

so maybe much software improvements will come out since the switch?

[fahlman]

Originally posted by Aquatic
I don't think Apple gets that people in general do NOT have different accounts. They make an admin account and that's it. And why should we make more accounts? It's a pain to switch Users. It just is. I guess Apple just doesn't "Get It" Are you really complaining that a computer that has multiple physical users doesn't work right because you are unwilling to set up multiple user accounts, but choose to use one "admin" account. Think through how silly your claim is for a second. Should Apple make it easy for multiple users to share a single account, or should they make it really easy to have multiple accounts for multiple people? Oh, and FUS is such a PITA. Setting up multiple admin accounts without passwords would be my suggestion for you.

[cygsid]

Any other reasons beside the ones I presented? I certainly have a few more on my list, but the point of the thread to kinda have other people also contribute their own potential reasons for switching to Windows. All the discussion so far has been about the four points I raised. Any other takers?

[Gene Clean]

nm. sorry.

[Elixir]

yeah, i'm all out

sorry


lmao

[BeigeUser]

Lack of compatibility with some webpages.

[ecking]

Here's a big one that pisses me off:

PRESSING THE HOME AND END KEYS TO TAKE ME TO THE BEGINNING AND END OF A LINE.

In windows I used to use that all the time. I just tried it now, I noticed a spelling mistake I made at the beginning of the line, pressed home and...nothing. So I've got to hold the arrow keys for a while or lift my hand up to use the mouse.

This feature only works for me on a mac in guess what MICROSOFT Office. Wow. Never thought I'd see the day. This is a big deal and makes typing a 1000 times faster.

WHAT THE HELL. How could they not think of that?

Since I'm new to OSX maybe there is a way to do that but it should be the home and end keys. If it's not but it's there:

SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE GODDAMN KEY IS!

[pyr3]

Apple (or 'Command' or 'Cmd' however you call it) + left = home
Apple + right = end
Apple + up = ctrl + home
Apple + down = ctrl + end

If you are on a text box that has multiple lines and you are on the top line, you can press up to get to the beginning of that line.

If you are on a text box that has multiple lines and you are on the last line, you can press down to get to the end of that line.

If you are in a text box that only has one line (like the location bar in safari), then 'up' arrow key will take you to the beginning of the line and 'down' will take you to the end.

You can skip between words using "Option + right" and "Option + left" which would be equivalent to "Ctrl + right" and "Ctrl + left" on windows.

Edit:
Note that some of these things may not be in all applications. Notably the up/down arrow keys in multi/single line text boxes that I mention doesn't work in some of the text boxes in Firefox. I'm sure there are other apps out there like that. Things like "Option + right/left" didn't work in Microsoft Office X, but they changed that in Office 2004. (IIRC it didn't work in Office X, but it's been a while since I've used that version)

[skatman]

As much as I like PCs and Windows, I can tell you that Dell is the worst PC world has to offer. Terrible hardware, trashed Windows OS from the start. The empahsis is on low price, compatibility and making it simple for IT "pros".
The results, unfortunately is: frequent hardware failure, slow performance, not-so-good compatibility... you know the rest.
I hope your IT guys are good! :lol:

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by ecking
PRESSING THE HOME AND END KEYS TO TAKE ME TO THE BEGINNING AND END OF A LINE.

What pyr3 said. Home and End historically (1970's workstations) took you to the top and the bottom of a document (or more likely a screen of text on the old consoles), just like they do on a Mac, but MS screwed it up along the way to make them work on just a line at a time.

[ecking]

Originally posted by pyr3
Apple (or 'Command' or 'Cmd' however you call it) + left = home
Apple + right = end
Apple + up = ctrl + home
Apple + down = ctrl + end

If you are on a text box that has multiple lines and you are on the top line, you can press up to get to the beginning of that line.

If you are on a text box that has multiple lines and you are on the last line, you can press down to get to the end of that line.

If you are in a text box that only has one line (like the location bar in safari), then 'up' arrow key will take you to the beginning of the line and 'down' will take you to the end.

You can skip between words using "Option + right" and "Option + left" which would be equivalent to "Ctrl + right" and "Ctrl + left" on windows.

Edit:
Note that some of these things may not be in all applications. Notably the up/down arrow keys in multi/single line text boxes that I mention doesn't work in some of the text boxes in Firefox. I'm sure there are other apps out there like that. Things like "Option + right/left" didn't work in Microsoft Office X, but they changed that in Office 2004. (IIRC it didn't work in Office X, but it's been a while since I've used that version)

I cannot even begin to thank you enough.

[ecking]

Originally posted by Kickaha
What pyr3 said. Home and End historically (1970's workstations) took you to the top and the bottom of a document (or more likely a screen of text on the old consoles), just like they do on a Mac, but MS screwed it up along the way to make them work on just a line at a time.

Ah so it was microsoft that screwed that up. Makes sense.

[cygsid]

Here is another one:

Reason #6: Non-Apple applications rarely if ever have auto-update capabilities.

This is one is really unfathomable to me: how can so many apps on the Mac still not have auto-update capability in this day and age?
Apple's auto-update is a fine piece of software alright, but why oh why can't they share the same mechanism with third parties?? It would make the whole Mac experience soooo much sweeter.
Granted, most apps do have the ability to automatically check for updates, but if it's only to tell me to go download the update myself and replace the application with the downloaded one manually... yuck. So much 20th century drudgery!

The funny thing is even Apple's apps do the same on their own if you don't update to the latest through Software Update: iTunes for example will notify you of a new version and will open the iTunes website for you for manual download.

On the Windows side of things, it seems to me pretty much all the apps I use have had this capability for a long time. Not sure what's the hold-up on the Mac side.

[cygsid]

Reason #7: The never-ending "Optimizing system performance..." makes updating system components through Software Update unbearably slow.

We're all familiar with this one. Software Update gently informs you of new updates to your system software, and you gleefully start your updates... and glee turns into anger... as you realize that once again, that heinous "optimizing system performance" step is taking forever to complete, consuming a whole lot of CPU and making your system almost unusable due to the high level of IO activity.

This is by far one of the most frustrating thing about Mac OS X: totally unique to OS X, unfathomable to the user, and horribly slow. I know and don't care for the technical explanation, there is absolutely no excuse for this on a modern OS. Fix the damn thing Apple!

[pyr3]

Originally posted by cygsid
On the Windows side of things, it seems to me pretty much all the apps I use have had this capability for a long time. Not sure what's the hold-up on the Mac side.

Um, like what? Firefox? I don't think I've ever had MS Office ask me to update it on Windows. Windows itself auto-updates but that's just the same as what OS X does.

Let's see:
WinZip doesn't auto-update last I checked
PowerArchiver doesn't auto-update
7zip doesn't
WinRAR doesn't
AutoCAD doesn't to my knowledge
I don't believe that the Adobe products do, except for maybe Adobe Reader
WinSCP doesn't
GAIM doesn't
AIM only notifies you last I recall
PuTTY doesn't
WinAMP might just notify you
I don't know about Skype
Nero doesn't
No clue on Picasa though

Maybe all of the apps you use on Windows have this functionality, but I just don't see it. "Look, two apps on Windows auto-update themselves without putting the burden on you," seem like a rather flimsy argument for moving back to Windows. It might be a legitimate gripe about OS X, but not a compelling argument for its abandonment. Especially just basing it on what third party developers are doing. "Apple sucks because their 3rd party developers are lazy." I just find it rather odd how some people will blame a company for what other people are doing. Things like "Nintendo sucks because they don't have enough 3rd party games." What is Nintendo supposed to do? Threaten developers to develop GameCube games... or else?

[KingOfSomewhereHot]

Originally posted by cygsid
Reason #7: The never-ending "Optimizing system performance..." makes updating system components through Software Update unbearably slow.


Well, now you seem to be trying to hard to find something to complain about ;) ... it's something that's got to be done. How could it possibly be "fixed" ?

The only reason I have a Windows machine in my house is to access a training web-site for my work very occassionally. It, unfortunately, uses code that is proprietary to Windows (directx maybe, or something else, i don't know.) So Apple couldn't make it work on a Mac even if they wanted to.

Most of the other complaints seem to center around "standards", or rather the lack of standards. Which would indicate that most of our compaints aren't Apples fault... or even M$'s .... but rather the fact that the industry as a whole refuses to adopt standards and stick to them.
Even on Windows, It'd be nice to just have a clean efficient program for running chat, rather than some bloated piece of code that has to support 20 different services and dozens of codecs just to maintain the appearance of being a "universal" client.

If you like Windows, then use Windows.
If you like OSX, then use OSX.

Each has it's own problems, pick the one that gives YOU fewer headaches and run with it.

[Aubec]

We're all familiar with this one. Software Update gently informs you of new updates to your system software, and you gleefully start your updates... and glee turns into anger... as you realize that once again, that heinous "optimizing system performance" step is taking forever to complete, consuming a whole lot of CPU and making your system almost unusable due to the high level of IO activity.

You could always wait until you have finished your work before updating. Or do you find that simply unacceptable?

[mattyj]

Reason 101: Battlefield 2.

[fahlman]

Originally posted by cygsid
The never-ending "Optimizing system performance..." makes updating system components through Software Update unbearably slow. This is nothing compared to the "progress bar" (what a joke) in Windows. It isn't a progress bar because the percentage of the bar filled in has absolutly nothing to do with the actual progress. It's just a moving bar to make you think it's doing something.

[PBG4 Dude]

Originally posted by fahlman
This is nothing compared to the "progress bar" (what a joke) in Windows. It isn't a progress bar because the percentage of the bar filled in has absolutly nothing to do with the actual progress. It's just a moving bar to make you think it's doing something.

I hear ya, the progress bar cruises to 99%, then hangs there for a good 10 minutes. That last 1% must be one heck of a nut to crack.

[cygsid]

Originally posted by PBG4 Dude
I hear ya, the progress bar cruises to 99%, then hangs there for a good 10 minutes. That last 1% must be one heck of a nut to crack.

I am sorry but I have no idea what progress bar you guys are talking about. All progress bars in Windows? A particular instance? I honestly haven't noticed this problem, if it exists.... maybe because everything is so fast in Windows, you never really have to wait long for anything...? :devil: (kidding, kinda)

I OTOH was talking specifically about the fact that every time you install/update software through Apple's Software Update (or sometimes otherwise), you have to go through that excruciatingly long "system performance optimization" (way to turn a negative into a positive, that) step.

[cygsid]

Originally posted by Aubec
You could always wait until you have finished your work before updating. Or do you find that simply unacceptable?

Sure, I could. I could also just keeping using my old trusty Mac Plus with its lovely unitasking System 6. NOT. My point is: sure we could all come up with thousands different excuses for limitations of our favorite OS, but why should we? Because we care? Do you think the 98% of non-Mac users care? No they don't. And neither should I have to.
For every single item I am pointing out, one can always come up with lots of compromises or kludgy workarounds. But there comes a point where you have to stop, and wonder about your choice of tool or technology: maybe I don't have to put up with this stuff after all, maybe the tradeoffs are simply not worth it. This, my friends, is what I would rather this discussion be about.
I am not the devil here, just its advocate. :p

[cygsid]

Originally posted by mattyj
Reason 101: Battlefield 2.

I wouldn't have brought this one up because it's so obvious and on-controversial but just to generalize a bit:

"Reason" #100: Macs are NOT for hardcore gamers.

I don't expect much controversy here: few games, way behind their Windows counterpart, often with worse performance, etc. etc.

However this one doesn't bother me too much, I can definitely live with it, although I am sure it must be hold-up for some people.

[mattyj]

The mac just lacks a few titles imo, such as Battlefield 2 and Half Life 2 and perhaps Far Cry. All what Apple needs are the triple AAA must have titles, and there aren't many. The new iMac has a decent graphics card in it now, something that can play these games pretty easily.

[cygsid]

Originally posted by KingOfSomewhereHot
Well, now you seem to be trying to hard to find something to complain about ;) ... it's something that's got to be done. How could it possibly be "fixed" ?

*sigh* If "it's something that's got to be done," then why doesn't Solaris need it? Why doesn't Linux need it? Why doesn't Windows need it? 'nuff said.

ps: please do not take the above literally! I do not mean to say that Linux/Solaris/Windows/whatever is better than Mac OS X. I am just saying that such a statement could only come out of the mouth of a Mac geek, like me, you, and probably most people in this forum. However again, I am asking you, no, I am pleading you, to think like a normal user, who only cares about the fact that "it just works." The fact that we even know about things like library prebinding (performed by that step) is an anomaly in the grand scheme of things.

[pyr3]

Originally posted by cygsid
*sigh* If "it's something that's got to be done," then why doesn't Solaris need it? Why doesn't Linux need it? Why doesn't Windows need it? 'nuff said.

ps: please do not take the above literally! I do not mean to say that Linux/Solaris/Windows/whatever is better than Mac OS X. I am just saying that such a statement could only come out of the mouth of a Mac geek, like me, you, and probably most people in this forum. However again, I am asking you, no, I am pleading you, to think like a normal user, who only cares about the fact that "it just works." The fact that we even know about things like library prebinding (performed by that step) is an anomaly in the grand scheme of things.

Which 'average users' are you talking about? Graphic designers? I spend about 6 months as a systems administrator at a small graphic design firm. The designers didn't even have permissions to do the updates (no admin access), and we never did updates until they weren't working at their station. This goes for the Macs and the PCs.

Home users? I think that home users would do something else while it's updating. Even if they don't, I've never had a performance hit to web browsing while an update was running. And that's what the 'average' home user uses their computer for.... Web pages, Email, Photos, maybe MS Office, and Instant Messaging. I've never noticed a serious hit to performance while doing any of those things during an update, and I'm on a 667MHz G4. Even if home users are forced to wait, I don't think that they will view it has a huge deal. I don't see many people demanding that body shops allow them to multi-task by fixing the car while it's being driven to work, etc.

I think that most people would just do something else while it is updating. Especially since most of the updates that will require heavy "Optimizing System Performance" waits are on updates that require a reboot. People are told about the reboot that will be required. So I think that a lot of people will just ignore if they are in the middle of working and it pops up notifying them of an available update. If anything, they might be annoyed that it popped up at all.

Edit: I forgot to add. I think that it is an area that could use improvement. Elimination of waiting times like this would be a benefit to the entire platform, but you attack it like it raped your sister or something.

[AgNuke1707]

Originally posted by cygsid
This is by far one of the most frustrating thing about Mac OS X: totally unique to OS X, unfathomable to the user, and horribly slow. I know and don't care for the technical explanation, there is absolutely no excuse for this on a modern OS. Fix the damn thing Apple!

There is no excuse for a modern OS to optimize its performance so itworks with the computer? Are you also upset that some updates require you to restart (I'm being serious...)? When I got my new iMac G5, before I installed the extra RAM, the first this I did was take it out of the box, hook it up to my ethernet line and run software update twice. It took *maybe* 20 minutes to process 11 updates the first time around and less than 2 to process 3 updates the second. And all the while, I had my old G4 set up in target disk mode copying over my documents. Next time you run software update, open up the Activity Montior utility and check out how much of your CPU is going to SU, as opposed to the other apps you have open. You'll be surprised. The computer is also designed to take advantage of extra CPU power if it has it. If you're running nothing but software update and the OS, then of course it'll take more CPU ... the program has it at its disposal and will use it.

On the gaming comment that was stated in a later thread ... yeah, the Mac isn't for HARDCORE gamers, but like someone else stated, it really suffers from a lack of titles and the fact that the games are more expensive (Usually $10 - $20 more). With my new iMac though, I've been running UT 2K4 and Halo and it looks NICE, runs smooth ... much smoother than running off the GeForce 4 MX that was in my old G4.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but from my own user experience, I like the look, feel and overall use of a Mac ... enough to where I'll never go back. My roommate at college got so fed up with windows randomly restarting and crashing and quitting that he moved over to Ubuntu. He tried to move back to XP for a while yesterday to install router drivers and it wanted him to reactivate his legit copy of XP, then the computer didn't like his activation number so he tried calling MS's automated activation support. The number they gave him didn't work, and reformatting didn't work. It was like MS was telling him ... no, you REALLY, REALLY don't wanna come back to us...

[Aquatic]

Safari chokes Macs even with 20 or 30 pages open.

If Flash sucks, it sucks. Did you not read the beginning of this thread pyr3? Your ENTIRE response is an apology.

I don't want apologies. I want iChat to not be the absolute WORST instant messenger client on our platform. It's interface is retarded, its functionality works 10% of the time, and...so it sucks.

Safari is half baked. It's like they had great ideas, at .8, and then...Haven't updated it since they added Tabs like years ago. Ouch.

And people don't switch Users in the real world. They just don't. It's inconvenient. Hell, I find it inconvenient and I use computers all the time. People that casually use computer certainly don't want to be bothered with it. Apple needs to grapple with this. One problem that this has caused is that I can't lock folders. I want everyone to be able to use my Administrator account but have a folder of some, let's say, sensitive stuff, (ok yeah pics of my girlfriend) in a locked folder. I mean...XP does it. OS X doesn't. How embarrassing.

There are many flaws in OS X that Apple refuses to admit are there. That is unhealthy. I mean the Finder, for example, has been a mess for so long, and yet they refuse to do anything about it. Ever since they half added FTP, they have refused to go back and make it real FTP support. Make up your mind, either include it or don't, you know? Same for iChat, it's just half baked. Actually it's still in the mixing bowl.

I mean sure OS X is better. It just has a few rough edges that are real problems, that for some reason, Apple refuses to fix.

[fahlman]

Originally posted by Aquatic
And people don't switch Users in the real world. They just don't. It's inconvenient. Hell, I find it inconvenient and I use computers all the time. People that casually use computer certainly don't want to be bothered with it. Apple needs to grapple with this. One problem that this has caused is that I can't lock folders. I want everyone to be able to use my Administrator account but have a folder of some, let's say, sensitive stuff, (ok yeah pics of my girlfriend) in a locked folder. I mean...XP does it. OS X doesn't. How embarrassing. Are you still on this? I switch users. My Wife, Me, and my oldest daughter. A user account for each of us. We use iChat with no problem. Mail, Address Book, Safari, etc too. You know what, my wife can't see my "sensitive stuff" in my Documents folder either. If you were properly using the computer you wouldn't have your problem.

Edit: Niced it up a bit.

[Kickaha]

Well without being quite so rude, I'll chime in that if my 65+ year old in-laws can figure out Fast User Switching and multiple accounts, anyone can. It's their first computer. In my mind, it's kind of like complaining that you have to turn the wheel to make the car turn. Pretty basic stuff. The tools are there to do what you want, so use them. They work well.

[Gene Clean]

Originally posted by fahlman
Are you still on this? I switch users. My Wife, Me, and my oldest daughter. A user account for each of us. We use iChat with no problem. Mail, Address Book, Safari, etc too. You know what, my wife can't see my "sensitive stuff" in my Documents folder either. If you were properly using the computer you wouldn't have your problem. No shut up already!

Why don't you *read* what he said instead of being a condescending apologist?

He's not talking about different users; he's saying OS X should be able to put a key on one specific folder - a password-protected folder so others can log in with *his* account but not be able to open that one folder. He's not talking about different accounts,, he's talking about *one* (1) account.

Geez.

[dojobi]

FWIW, I use iChat to videoconf with some friends a couple states over on a pretty regular basis - once they upgraded to AIM 5.5, no problems. And I'm sorry, but if you're going to say that AIM isn't widespread enough to be a viable option, you're not going to get much further response.

Originally posted by cygsid
ok.. misunderstanding here: I never said - or even meant to say - that AIM wasn't widespread (although it seems to me its spread is rather US-centric, unlike say MSN Messenger... everybody I wants to communicate with uses the latter but not the former).

This is a major issue for me right now. Out of the 100+ people on my contact list, I don't know a single person who uses AIM, so it must be a US thing. Here in Australia, MSN is the standard.

In the future, I would love to get a 2nd gen Intel Mac to replace my Powerbook (hopefully people have worked out how to install Windows by then), but if I can't use the built in camera, then that would be enough to make me not get the Mac.

[fahlman]

Originally posted by Gene Clean
Why don't you *read* what he said instead of being a condescending apologist? You might want to read what he said again. What's his first sentence in the fifth paragraph?
Originally posted by Aquatic
And people don't switch Users in the real world...One problem that this has caused is that I can't lock folders. I even quoted the whole papragraph in my responce.

[pyr3]

Originally posted by dojobi
This is a major issue for me right now. Out of the 100+ people on my contact list, I don't know a single person who uses AIM, so it must be a US thing. Here in Australia, MSN is the standard.

In the future, I would love to get a 2nd gen Intel Mac to replace my Powerbook (hopefully people have worked out how to install Windows by then), but if I can't use the built in camera, then that would be enough to make me not get the Mac.

MSN is pretty much the standard outside of the US. Most people I know use AIM, and the few people I know (from the US) that use MSN is usually because they know people outside the US that use MSN. That said, this is what people get for going with a Microsoft solution. Hell will freeze over before Microsoft will allow videochat to interoperate with an OS X program. Not because of Apple, not because of OS X sucking so much that it can't be done, but because Microsoft doesn't want to move people away from the Windows platform. Sure they do things like Office for Mac. That's because if Apple dies then Microsoft can't point to them and say, "Look! We aren't a monopoly! Really!"

That said, why are you basing a $2000 purchase on the ability to use the built-in camera? Is the built-in iSight really the only reason for you to spend $2000 on a new laptop? Personally, I want one of the new MacBook Pros, and the iSight camera is just a second thought to me. I could really care less about it compared to the other features is has over my 3.5 year old PowerBook (667MHz). In my opinion, either you're really rich and can afford to spend $2000 just because you like the built-in iSight, or you're being pretty picky. It's obviously your opinion and your choice, but to me it's like not buying a certain car because you don't like the brand of tires that come standard.

[pyr3]

Originally posted by Aquatic
Safari chokes Macs even with 20 or 30 pages open.

If Flash sucks, it sucks. Did you not read the beginning of this thread pyr3? Your ENTIRE response is an apology.

I don't want apologies. I want iChat to not be the absolute WORST instant messenger client on our platform. It's interface is retarded, its functionality works 10% of the time, and...so it sucks.

Safari is half baked. It's like they had great ideas, at .8, and then...Haven't updated it since they added Tabs like years ago. Ouch.

And people don't switch Users in the real world. They just don't. It's inconvenient. Hell, I find it inconvenient and I use computers all the time. People that casually use computer certainly don't want to be bothered with it. Apple needs to grapple with this. One problem that this has caused is that I can't lock folders. I want everyone to be able to use my Administrator account but have a folder of some, let's say, sensitive stuff, (ok yeah pics of my girlfriend) in a locked folder. I mean...XP does it. OS X doesn't. How embarrassing.

There are many flaws in OS X that Apple refuses to admit are there. That is unhealthy. I mean the Finder, for example, has been a mess for so long, and yet they refuse to do anything about it. Ever since they half added FTP, they have refused to go back and make it real FTP support. Make up your mind, either include it or don't, you know? Same for iChat, it's just half baked. Actually it's still in the mixing bowl.

I mean sure OS X is better. It just has a few rough edges that are real problems, that for some reason, Apple refuses to fix.

You're talking about people in the 'real world' and how they use their computers? People in the 'real world' don't open even 20-30 pages in a web browser at once. The only time I've had near that many pages open was when I was loading a bunch of images into tabs. And even then, I didn't see my 667MHz PowerBook slow down to a crawl. (Granted displaying an image is less intensive than rendering an HTML page)

I'll agree that FTP support in Finder is a joke. But it *is* better than it used to be. And at that, I think that most people use an FTP client anyways. I've never used the FTP support in Windows either. Why? Because FTP support in Windows Explorer sucks too.

As far as Safari goes... Why is it half-baked to not add 10 million new features every release? You're complaining that Apple isn't fixing old flaws in other software, and yet here you don't care about them fixing old flaws, just adding new features every release. C'mon. How many new features can you add to a web browser? Personally, I think that improving the Webkit engine is a good thing. My online banking site used to be unusable in Safari (mostly because they did some funky crap with Javascript files that I don't even think is part of any web standard), but now I can access it and bank online in Safari. Thus far, I've been happy with Safari's progress.

Guess what? Flash sucks. So what? You are trying to blame Apple for the failure of Adobe-Macromedia. Blame Adobe-Macromedia, and then call it a gripe. The thread is about compelling reasons to switch to Windows. Not "Every small gripe I have with OS X." One that note, even your FTP gripe doesn't qualify. "I think that the built-in FTP support in OS X sucks, so I'll switch back to Windows where the built-in FTP support sucks?"

[AgNuke1707]

Originally posted by Gene Clean
Why don't you *read* what he said instead of being a condescending apologist?

He's not talking about different users; he's saying OS X should be able to put a key on one specific folder - a password-protected folder so others can log in with *his* account but not be able to open that one folder. He's not talking about different accounts,, he's talking about *one* (1) account.

Geez.

The weird thing is, OS X lets you do this with a very secure AES-128 encryption scheme ... here's how it works:

1) Go into disk utility and click new image
2) Pick a name and pick a location for the new image
3) Under size, select on appropriate for the size of all the files you're trying to protect (you can sleect your own size if you're not happy with the standard sizes apple provides)
4) Click on encryption and pull down to AES-128
5) Select read/write disk image
6) Click OK ... while it's creating the image it'll ask you for a password and to verify ... click OK again and you're done
7) It'll create a .dmg, just click on it, authenticate with your password, it'll mount the image, drag your dirty pictures to it, authenticate again so it'll copy them over, you can now Secure Delete the originals since you've copied them to the disk image.
8) Unmount the disk and hide the .dmg in an obscure place if you're REALLY paranoid

I don't understand why this is so hard? It's not a failure of OS X ... it's actually something that works quite well. I have several encrypted .dmgs on my HDD with confidential research on them ... just in case. I chalk it up to user ignorance. Before you come back and say ... that's more complicated, I just want to key *one* folder and make it easy for *me* to access ... you wanted security right? Password protecting something is *NOT* security. Its a band-aid. Its like you saying, I don't wanna get the flu, so I'm just going to stay in my house and hole up for a while instead of saying, well, I'll just go get the damn shot and be okay. So for the extra 3 or 4 minutes creating an encrypted disk image takes, you can sleep better at night and be sure NO ONE but YOU can access that information. It's not embarassing that OS X does it this way ... its quite reassuring actually...

[Aquatic]

Most people do not know what an FTP client is.

And Fast User Switching is a concept most people are not familiar with. I mean know thousands of people. 95% them, although vaguely familiar thanks to "logging on" on Windows, and using a User on a lab computer, do not switch users on their home computer. This is a real issue. iChat NEEDS to be designed for multiple AIM accounts on the same OS X Users. Do you see what I am saying? More than one person usually uses the admin account of OS X. An entire different user is a little beyond what most people need or want. They just want a few things set up for more than one user, basically email and IM. Most people use the Web for email now though, so that takes care of that. But people still use IM clients (I would like to see them use the Net for that too a la AIM Express...perhaps someday). So, iChat needs to be redesigned.

pyr3 this is what this thread is for. Not for excuses as to why something is wrong, but how it is wrong, and how it can be fixed.

PDF and Flash in Safari slow Safari down hardcore. This needs to be fixed. Maybe not by Apple, but it does need to be fixed as it is a serious issue, and effects the web browsing experience.

Just today I was looking at 20 pages. That's not exorbitant. I had restart Safari as it got sluggish. Why does this happen? I thought KHTML or whatever was supposed to be efficient.

I hate to say it but FireFox on Windows just browses faster, and never seems to bog down. Nor does Explorer, really. And of course Flash and PDF are way faster. We are second-rate Net citizens. This is unfortunate. Back in the 90s we were on par or ahead.

[AgNuke1707]

Originally posted by Aquatic
And Fast User Switching is a concept most people are not familiar with. I mean know thousands of people. 95% them, although vaguely familiar thanks to "logging on" on Windows, and using a User on a lab computer, do not switch users on their home computer. This is a real issue. iChat NEEDS to be designed for multiple AIM accounts on the same OS X Users. Do you see what I am saying? More than one person usually uses the admin account of OS X. An entire different user is a little beyond what most people need or want. They just want a few things set up for more than one user, basically email and IM. Most people use the Web for email now though, so that takes care of that. But people still use IM clients (I would like to see them use the Net for that too a la AIM Express...perhaps someday). So, iChat needs to be redesigned.

Wait, wait, wait .. are you saying you can't use multiple AIM accounts in iChat under the same OS X User account? This is absolutely false!!! I've got 3 different AIM accounts in my OS X admin accoun, two for me and one for my bother. Mail works the same way? They all operate off of the cards in address book anyway. I don't see how this is a problem???

In iChat, go to prefs, click on the accounts tab and make a new account. You don't even have to log in with a particular account if you don't want to. You can easily switch between the accounts by going to the iChat / Switch to menu. What's wong with this????

In mail, go to accounts, create a new mail account. I have 3 mail accounts in mail right now. One for school, one for home and one for professional use. They are all listed as different mailboxes within Mail itself. If whoever wants to be able to check their mail from your admin account, just create a new mail account for their e-mail address. Again, what is hard about this??? Also, why would you use the internet to check your e-mail? It's slower ... you could just get it all by throwing mail in the dock, and whenever you wanna check your e-mail, making one mouse click...

All of the names and addresses used in iChat and Mail are directly tied to your address book. If someone else is going to be using your admin account for mail or iChat, you'll have to put their contact into your address book, but no problem, you can always make groups within address book to differentiate between them. OS X is made for multi-user simplicity. I don't get how you can say multiple people can't run stuff off the same admin account because they can. You just have to create accounts within the apps for them and add contacts? What is so damned hard about it???

[Gene Clean]

Originally posted by fahlman
You might want to read what he said again. What's his first sentence in the fifth paragraph?

Originally posted by Aquatic
And people don't switch Users in the real world. They just don't. It's inconvenient. Hell, I find it inconvenient and I use computers all the time. People that casually use computer certainly don't want to be bothered with it. Apple needs to grapple with this. One problem that this has caused is that I can't lock folders. I want everyone to be able to use my Administrator account but have a folder of some, let's say, sensitive stuff, (ok yeah pics of my girlfriend) in a locked folder. I mean...XP does it. OS X doesn't. How embarrassing.


I even quoted the whole papragraph in my responce.

So he clearly says that he doesn't want to switch users, and that his only issue is with creating password-protected foldrers, yet you tell him, even though you quoted the entire paragraph that you and your wife do it just fine - and tell him to "no shut up!" in the end too.

Did you not read what he said? He doesn't care if you are doing it just fine - he doesn't want to do it. He wants to be able to use *his* account for *everyone*. But he also wants to be able to protect those folders he deems necessary to be protected.

It doesn't get much clearer than that.

The weird thing is, OS X lets you do this with a very secure AES-128 encryption scheme ... here's how it works

Oh yeah, and how many steps is that: eight? Why not make it a little more consumer friendly, say, right click and 'password protect' or even use Keychain for that thing instead of Disk Utility and some 8 steps of something your average Joe will never know/care for?

[AsLan^]

Originally posted by Gene Clean
Oh yeah, and how many steps is that: eight? Why not make it a little more consumer friendly, say, right click and 'password protect' or even use Keychain for that thing instead of Disk Utility and some 8 steps of something your average Joe will never know/care for?

You know... that is a good idea, I'll bet you could probably work something with Automator and save it as a Finder plugin.

Speaking of things I dont like about Mac... FTFF for a start. Also, fix automator too, I had an honest to goodness all night play with it a couple of weeks ago and I've come to the conclusion that it's buggy beta software. It shows some real potential and I love the fact you can save automator scripts as Finder plugins.

Safari... it's not just flash that can kill Safari, javascripts too. I can't use my universities distance ed. website with Safari, only Firefox and that other browser (when I'm not at home).

I wish a safe and compatible substitute for ActiveX could be created. It's next to impossible to use most websites in Korea (and other countries too I'm sure) because of the lack of ActiveX. I'm not a web developer mind you so I might have my assertations mixed up on that one but basically, my wife can't use a mac because it doesn't fulfill her internet requirements (Hangame etc. for those of you who might know it).

I dont like Versiontracker very much, it's not automated enough for me and "emerge sync" or "yum update" etc. is so much more convenient, updated software all the time, no worries (well for those who know... it's not always that simple ;)).

I dont like the fact Terminal can't automatically load X11 and start forwarding SSH sessions, gotta load X11 separately and use the X11 terminal. I dont like not being able to cut and paste into or out of the X11 terminal. I dont like the fact Quartz windows can't be forwarded through SSH.

I dont like the fact xcode 2.0 project files are uncompatible with xcode 1.5. I dont like the fact cocoa documentation sucks (IMHO compared to java api reference). I also don't like the fact interface builder is unwieldy... I need to click the classes tab to active the classes menu item, even though I might have a particular object selected in the instance menu. I dont like the fact Apple didn't port java 5 to panther.

I dont like the Home/End buttons jumping around the document either, this should be a no brainer to include in System Prefs. Also, I dont like System Prefs.

I dont like how calc quits when you close it.

I dont like not being able to open items when they are in the trash.

I dont like that mail doesn't have secure authentication.

I dont like textedit.

I dont like that I can't beat chess.

:)

[AgNuke1707]

Originally posted by Gene Clean
Oh yeah, and how many steps is that: eight? Why not make it a little more consumer friendly, say, right click and 'password protect' or even use Keychain for that thing instead of Disk Utility and some 8 steps of something your average Joe will never know/care for?

The way I explained it was eight. I can make it 4 or 2 or 1 ... you're arguing semantics. It's not hard to do either. No longer than "Password Protect" having to encrypt everything the folder. Unless you're saying you don't want the encryption ... then I don't see the point of password protecting it? You want it secure, those extremely simple steps that any joe user that searched through Apple discussion boards or AI (like I do...) can do. Really ... it takes 3 mouse clicks. You can add the dmg to your keychain as well, but again, what's the point, anyone that double clicks on it automatically has access to it? Could Apple do folder encryption? Sure ... they had it as an option on OS 9 in the menu bar and did away with it. Why? Because going through disk ustility to make a secure image allows you to encrypt multiple files and folders instead of individual files one at a time. It is a MUCH better system than simply PW protecting a folder or encrpyting individual files from the menu bar...

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by Gene Clean
So he clearly says that he doesn't want to switch users, and that his only issue is with creating password-protected foldrers, yet you tell him, even though you quoted the entire paragraph that you and your wife do it just fine - and tell him to "no shut up!" in the end too.

Did you not read what he said? He doesn't care if you are doing it just fine - he doesn't want to do it. He wants to be able to use *his* account for *everyone*. But he also wants to be able to protect those folders he deems necessary to be protected.

It doesn't get much clearer than that.

You're right, it doesn't. He wants to do something that appears to be working against how the tool was designed. "By golly, I love driving screws with my hammer! Dammit, why don't they change hammers so they make driving screws easier!?!"

Think about what he, and you, are saying... he wants security for files so multiple users on a machine don't have access. That sounds an awful lot like a need for individual accounts. And I'm sorry, but FUS is brain-dead easy. Seriously, if someone has a problem with the basic concept of 'these are mine, those are yours', then they need to step away from the keyboard. FUS is the *simplest* way to ensure file security on per-user basis, bar none. No pesky messing with permissions, it just works. The question is... is FUS the right solution for the scenario, which it *seems* to be, but...

I'm trying to figure out why the resistance to a simple, easy solution for multiple user permissions on the same machine.

Two issues come to mind: a stated desire to let everyone have the capabilities of an admin account, and a non-stated possible desire as to *WHY* let everyone use the same account.

If you want everyone to have admin rights, just click the little box in System Preferences -> Accounts. Done. They're all admins.

I'm still stuck on why force everyone to use the same account. Is it to monitor what the kids are doing? (System Preferences -> Accounts -> Parental Controls) Is it share common files? (/Users/Shared) Seriously, why?

And no, "because it's what he wants to do, dammit" is not a reasonable answer. See above hammer/screw analogy. If someone wants to use a tool in a way other than how it was designed, they better have a good reason to think that the tool manufacturer needs to cater to their wants. Personal whim doesn't cut it, IMO. In my experience, that only indicates that the person hasn't clarified what they want to do, are unaware of the capabilities and options available to them, and/or are stuck in a track of behaviour for no logical reason. There are a lot of tools and solutions in MacOS X, and no single combination is going to solve everyone's problem, but I'm still trying to puzzle out why a single account for everyone.

So... why the fascination with everyone using one account? What problems do you see that *that* solution solves, that multiple accounts don't?

As a side note, I'd like to hear about 'password protect this folder' solutions, but for a different reason. I have sensitive info on my laptop that would be problematic if it were stolen. (I see this as quite different than a situation with shared users, however.)

[fahlman]

Originally posted by Gene Clean
So he clearly says that he doesn't want to switch users, and that his only issue is with creating password-protected foldrers, yet you tell him, even though you quoted the entire paragraph that you and your wife do it just fine - and tell him to "no shut up!" in the end too.

Did you not read what he said? He doesn't care if you are doing it just fine - he doesn't want to do it. He wants to be able to use *his* account for *everyone*. But he also wants to be able to protect those folders he deems necessary to be protected. He wants to lock a folder because he insists on improperly using the OS. OS X is a multi-user OS and if he were using it like one he wouldn't have to lock his folder 'o porn so his sister wouldn't see it. There is no reason to lock a folder if he were using it properly because the entire user account would be restricted to just him. Problem solved.

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by fahlman
He wants to lock a folder because he insists on improperly using the OS. OS X is a multi-user OS and if he were using it like one he wouldn't have to lock his folder 'o porn so his sister wouldn't see it. There is no reason to lock a folder if he were using it properly because the entire user account would be restricted to just him. Problem solved.

Er, even I'm not willing to say he's using the entire OS improperly. Wanting to lock down a specific folder is a fine need, and one I'd like to see a good solution for.

BUT...

Given what we've heard about what he's doing, we haven't heard *why*... it may be that there are other, alternative, solutions to what he wants to do, given the plethora of solutions in OS X.

At first glance, FUS seems like by far the easiest solution to the basic problem of 'each user has privacy'. I want to hear more about what he wants to do, and why, first, before saying it's the only solution for his needs. There may be something we're not aware of that has been yet unsaid. And no, I'm sorry, "It's too hard" isn't a reasonable justification for not using it, IMO. Like I said, if my techno-illiterate elderly in-laws can figure it out, anyone can. It's easy and slick... *if* your problem is partitioning out user spaces. If that's not the problem at hand, then there are other solutions to offer.

[Gene Clean]

Well FAS is cool and all, and I like it, but I *never* use it. Want to know why? Because I too have sensitive info that I don't want other people (and that includes possible intruders/theives) to see. I want to be able to put a password on one folder. I also want to be able to use just one account. Sometimes my brother, who's 14 now, wants to use AIM for 15 minutes.

I want him to be able to use iChat, the same iChat that I use, without a different account. It's just a matter of preference, not something that is supposed to adapt to my workflow. And the wider issue is that almost all OSs do it. Windows has it on a right click, Linux has it in permissions (you can assing different permissions to different folders using all kinds of combinations.)

You can, for example, tell the system to let just the root open X folder. So even though you *are* an admin, and you *created* the folder, you can't open the folder unless you acquire root privileges (sudo or su). Why not offer this solution as well? Different levels of permissions for different things. It could be even disabled by default - put it in System Preferences so only those who need it - see it and use it.

[Kickaha]

*nod* Like I said, I definitely see the utility of it - in a situation where someone is *only* going to be using one or two apps on a very rare basis, then FUS is overkill. If instead it's an ongoing thing, FUS is a much better solution. It's all about context and problem parameters. From what was originally said, *I* got the feeling that it was a regularly shared computer, in which case FUS just seems obvious to me, but I'm open to new data about the situation. ;)

So... okay, I can make a folder, and make it so I can't get access to it. Interesting. However, when I double-click it, I *don't* get a privilege request from the Finder, just a 'not allowed' dialog. Hmm. I thought that when a user attempted a disallowed action, the Finder would ask for an admin password. Curious. Of course, I'm logged in as an admin, soooo...

[AgNuke1707]

Originally posted by Gene Clean
Well FAS is cool and all, and I like it, but I *never* use it. Want to know why? Because I too have sensitive info that I don't want other people (and that includes possible intruders/theives) to see. I want to be able to put a password on one folder. I also want to be able to use just one account. Sometimes my brother, who's 14 now, wants to use AIM for 15 minutes.

I want him to be able to use iChat, the same iChat that I use, without a different account. It's just a matter of preference, not something that is supposed to adapt to my workflow. And the wider issue is that almost all OSs do it. Windows has it on a right click, Linux has it in permissions (you can assing different permissions to different folders using all kinds of combinations.)

SO again, what's wrong with creating a seperate account in iChat and then when he wants to use it, going to iChat/Switch To/Screen Name??? Is it really that hard???

Also to everyone wanting to password protect folders so intruders or thieves can't access the info, is there something I'm missing with the encrypted disk image??? I use this a TON for sensitive research material. I feel a lot more secure using this ... do people here know something about the method I don't? Am I missing something????

[giant]

Encrypted disk images work great. After all, if you don't want people the access the files in the directory, it's probably the kind of stuff you want encrypted, too. If it's stuff that you don't want other users to access, that's what fast user switching and permissions are for.

Fast user switching is really nice, easy to use and fast, so I honestly don't understand the resistance to using it. Each user gets to have his or her own desktop, dock, user folder, menu items, etc, and can have their own documents open without affecting one another.

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by AgNuke1707
Also to everyone wanting to password protect folders so intruders or thieves can't access the info, is there something I'm missing with the encrypted disk image??? I use this a TON for sensitive research material. I feel a lot more secure using this ... do people here know something about the method I don't? Am I missing something????

I think it's more the functionality than the approach. Say, for example, that you wanted to Zip up the files into an archive, but you had to go to File Archiver.app, make an archive, then drag the files to it.

Instead, we just right-click, and "Create Archive of foo" is right there. If there were an "Encrypt and Protect foo" in the same list, that did, behind the scenes what you currently have to do manually, I think this would be a non-issue.

[AgNuke1707]

Originally posted by Kickaha
I think it's more the functionality than the approach. Say, for example, that you wanted to Zip up the files into an archive, but you had to go to File Archiver.app, make an archive, then drag the files to it.

Instead, we just right-click, and "Create Archive of foo" is right there. If there were an "Encrypt and Protect foo" in the same list, that did, behind the scenes what you currently have to do manually, I think this would be a non-issue.

Ah, I see ... its doable, we just want it in a right-click menu. Makes sense. Someone earlier mentioned an automater workflow. I dunno, is it something you could Apple Script? In any case, the functionality is there. The way I understood it in an earlier post, there was complaint that the concept of locking or encrypting a folder was non-existent in OS X. That's not the case, you just have to use Disk Utility because as you pointed out, I can't right click and do it.

[dojobi]

Originally posted by pyr3
MSN is pretty much the standard outside of the US. Most people I know use AIM, and the few people I know (from the US) that use MSN is usually because they know people outside the US that use MSN. That said, this is what people get for going with a Microsoft solution. Hell will freeze over before Microsoft will allow videochat to interoperate with an OS X program. Not because of Apple, not because of OS X sucking so much that it can't be done, but because Microsoft doesn't want to move people away from the Windows platform. Sure they do things like Office for Mac. That's because if Apple dies then Microsoft can't point to them and say, "Look! We aren't a monopoly! Really!"

Well I really hope this isn't the case. It means that iChat is a useless app for me. I guess I can just hope :)

Originally posted by pyr3
That said, why are you basing a $2000 purchase on the ability to use the built-in camera? Is the built-in iSight really the only reason for you to spend $2000 on a new laptop? Personally, I want one of the new MacBook Pros, and the iSight camera is just a second thought to me. I could really care less about it compared to the other features is has over my 3.5 year old PowerBook (667MHz). In my opinion, either you're really rich and can afford to spend $2000 just because you like the built-in iSight, or you're being pretty picky. It's obviously your opinion and your choice, but to me it's like not buying a certain car because you don't like the brand of tires that come standard.

Well I'm certainly not rich enough to be buying laptops just for fun :)

The reason why it's so important to me is that I do a lot of video conferencing. My other choice is to get a PC laptop with a built in camera that would definitely be compatible with all the different messenger clients. So that makes the iSight's lack of compatibility a bit of a deal breaker. In fact, it's one of the reasons why I need Windows on the Mac (I use a separate Mac and a PC, which was a pain in the arse, so these intel Macs are a dream for me).

The reason I buy Macs is because I'm pedantic about my machines, and Apple make the most integrated and well thought out machines.

[cygsid]

Originally posted by dojobi

The reason why it's so important to me is that I do a lot of video conferencing. My other choice is to get a PC laptop with a built in camera that would definitely be compatible with all the different messenger clients. So that makes the iSight's lack of compatibility a bit of a deal breaker. In fact, it's one of the reasons why I need Windows on the Mac (I use a separate Mac and a PC, which was a pain in the arse, so these intel Macs are a dream for me).

Amen brother!

The reason I buy Macs is because I'm pedantic about my machines, and Apple make the most integrated and well thought out machines.
Amen to that too!

great - composed and succint - post! :)

[Aquatic]

In iChat, go to prefs, click on the accounts tab and make a new account. You don't even have to log in with a particular account if you don't want to. You can easily switch between the accounts by going to the iChat / Switch to menu. What's wong with this????

It needs a log in window.

And the integration is actually kind of annoying. Why does my account use my girlfriend's address book. I cansee how sometimes that could be good...but it should at least be able to be turned off.

No amount of apologizing can make iChat's interface, the very thing that should shine, not suck.

It's not good at IM. That's what it's primarily used for. Firstly because videophones won't perhaps ever replace text, or at least not until almost everyone has one which will be a while. And two, because video chat currently sucks. As I said, and others have said, iChat audio/video support many times does not work. I don't care why this is, I just want to be able to call my parents and my sister. Currently, I can not. We have tried so many times. It's very...very, annoying.

I think I'll try Skype and report back here.

[Gon]

Originally posted by Elixir
1. we have to actually purchase Word and there isn't anything good preinstalled on MAc OSX.Huh? What comes preinstalled on OS X is tons better than what comes on Windows. After a Windows install I have to install a mail app, a browser, a MP3 player, a SSH terminal, a text editor, and then I can begin contemplating using the machine. Every basic OS X install out of the box has software that does these things well, and more quite useful apps come with computer purchases (iLife, OmniOutliner, etc).

And just how do you not have to buy Word for Windows?3. some photo output programs like Picture It are not offered on macs (also coming from the girlfriend) she's not about photo editing but more about doing cute little things with pictures.I'm not quite grasping what it is that these programs do. Picture browsers? Printing programs?

[Placebo]

Reasons #1-#87237 for me are the hardware.

[AgNuke1707]

Originally posted by Aquatic
It needs a log in window.

And the integration is actually kind of annoying. Why does my account use my girlfriend's address book. I cansee how sometimes that could be good...but it should at least be able to be turned off.

No amount of apologizing can make iChat's interface, the very thing that should shine, not suck.

It's not good at IM. That's what it's primarily used for. Firstly because videophones won't perhaps ever replace text, or at least not until almost everyone has one which will be a while. And two, because video chat currently sucks. As I said, and others have said, iChat audio/video support many times does not work. I don't care why this is, I just want to be able to call my parents and my sister. Currently, I can not. We have tried so many times. It's very...very, annoying.

I think I'll try Skype and report back here.

My God ... the more and more I read your responses, the more and more I think this is simply a case "the computer and the software sucks because it won't read my mind...". Come on man, seriously. You called me an "apologist" and all I told you was how to use different accounts in iChat, which is what you wanted to do.

It needs a login window?? Why? It's MUCH faster when you open the program, to go to the menu and drag to the screen name. Bad interface??? Seems pretty damn simple to me. You AIM account is automatically tied into iChat, screen names and all. The only reason your GF's stuff would be in there is if you have the same people listed on both accounts. My brothers friends don't show up when I use iChat, why do your girlfriends? Chances are you or her added buddies to the account while you were using it ... under you admin account (or you like the same people...). This is where multiple user accounts would save you a LOT of hassle, but you didn't like that either.

Not good at IM? You type text into the box and it send it to the person you're talking to. That seems to work fine for me. How can something be "good or bad" at Im? The video / audio seems to work fine with me. You need to think about the problem before you blast it and say, well, this is a piece of shit. My fiancee, uses XP and has a webcam, she uses AIM 5.9, i use iChat through a firewall. Works smoothly every time. The only thing we can't do is have her initiate the chat. Point is, you can make it work but you might have to think about it at first for more than 10 seconds. Good luck with Skype though, I have a friend 90 miles down the road on a windows machine that wanted me to download it and try it out about 2 weeks ago. It was more difficult to figure out. We spent 2 hours trying to connect and it never did work...

It seems like you want computer utopia ... the ultimate in plug and play and ease of use. Don't we all. You want the computer to think for you. Why? Multiple user accounts are a great thing for keeping your address books, documents, etc. seperate, and if you turn on fast user switching, its really, really snappy. Why should Apple clutter their OS with bullshit to accomodate people that can't go to the top right of the LCD and drag down to another user ... or can't go to a menu and select another screen name. People like that are already lost ... there's little chance they'll ever be able to please them.

[BenRoethig]

Originally posted by Placebo
Reasons #1-#87237 for me are the hardware.

Agreed. Apple thinks just a little too different in that arena. A lot of you guys love what Apple has to offer, but there are those of us who have more conventional needs and tastes. You ether have to buy completely into Apple's philosophy or go with a Windows PC. I really don't like either option very well.

[Skipjack]

Originally posted by AsLan^
I dont like the fact Terminal can't automatically load X11 and start forwarding SSH sessions, gotta load X11 separately and use the X11 terminal. :)

What does this mean? I mean, I'm not very familiar with forwarding ssh sessions, but when I do "ssh -X" it does the same thing in the Terminal and in an X11 terminal. After I begin the session, I can run X Windows applications from a remote server.

I imagine that you're talking about something else, so could you give an example?

[AsLan^]

Originally posted by Skipjack
What does this mean? I mean, I'm not very familiar with forwarding ssh sessions, but when I do "ssh -X" it does the same thing in the Terminal and in an X11 terminal. After I begin the session, I can run X Windows applications from a remote server.

I imagine that you're talking about something else, so could you give an example?

Hey! you are right, my DISPLAY variable wasnt set right in Terminal. Thanks :)

[Skipjack]

Thanks for answering. I just learned how to do that this weekend while trying to follow a professor's instructions for running an application required for class on a Linux machine, so I wasn't sure whether I was addressing the same situation as you described. I was going to mention the DISPLAY variable, but wasn't confident that we were talking about the same thing.

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by BenRoethig
Agreed. Apple thinks just a little too different in that arena. A lot of you guys love what Apple has to offer, but there are those of us who have more conventional needs and tastes. You ether have to buy completely into Apple's philosophy or go with a Windows PC. I really don't like either option very well.

Er...

CPU: same
USB: same
Enet/WiFI: same
RAM: same

What, you don't like the case?

[BenRoethig]

Number and type of drive bays and expansion slots different.

[Gene Clean]

Originally posted by BenRoethig
Number and type of drive bays and expansion slots different.

Motherboard readily available to be replaced, substituted, upgraded. CPU as well. Graphics cards replacable/upgradeable on ALL desktop systems, wether 'workstation' or not.

[Kickaha]

Fair enough - while the DYI market is shrinking, there's still a vocal group that wants to.

[BenRoethig]

Originally posted by Gene Clean
CPU as well. Graphics cards replacable/upgradeable on ALL desktop systems, wether 'workstation' or not.

And don't require a six figure income to do so.

[BeigeUser]

Originally posted by dojobi
This is a major issue for me right now. Out of the 100+ people on my contact list, I don't know a single person who uses AIM, so it must be a US thing. Here in Australia, MSN is the standard.


Isn't AIM still free? It seems to me that if two or more people want to chat with each other, downloading and installing a free piece of software isn't that much of an inconvenience.

Of course, some people would rather use the Instant messenger that came with their computer (MSN). But if that's your argument, you should stop using Macs. If you and all your friends wants Apple to start littering the Mac OS with Microsoft stuff, you might as well switch back to Windows.

[Gene Clean]

Originally posted by BeigeUser
[B]Of course, some people would rather use the Instant messenger that came with their computer (MSN).

Except that, MSN Messenger does not come with their computer. You have to specifically go here (http://messenger.msn.com) to download it.

But if that's your argument, you should stop using Macs. If you and all your friends wants Apple to start littering the Mac OS with Microsoft stuff, you might as well switch back to Windows.

Apple has been "littering" the MacOS with Microsoft stuff for years - even by default not long ago. If this is your argument...