I am utterly tweaked. It's the end times.
My mother is a computer... well... not neophyte (she's had a Mac for ten years)... but let's just say she's not well adjusted to life with a computer.
At all.
She's in China, on business.
She and my brother just got video conferencing working, from Bellevue, WA to Zhuhai, China, all on their own.
*twitch*
Go iChat go.
*twitch*
I feel a disturbance in the force... as if a million geeks wailed in the anticipation of their loss as alpha geeks...
At all.
She's in China, on business.
She and my brother just got video conferencing working, from Bellevue, WA to Zhuhai, China, all on their own.
*twitch*
Go iChat go.
*twitch*
I feel a disturbance in the force... as if a million geeks wailed in the anticipation of their loss as alpha geeks...
Comments
The iSight is a lot of superstition and hocus-pocus.
There's no match for a good iPod at your side.
You started it...just volleying back
Originally posted by pscates
There's no match for a good iPod at your side.
Even if it's an imaginary one. (I can be absolutely relentless if that'll help.)
Macs are wonderful machines for everyone. I came home from Christmas break once and dad showed me a DVD. It was of our Thanksgiving celebration! The man, who only types with two fingers, sat down and taught himself how to use iMovie and iDVD in two days. The man who doesn't like it when he gets out side of the AOL "features." From that day forth I knew that Apple was a truly amazing company.
Most tellingly, she could never find her documents under either prior OS. Under OS X, she can get around fairly easily, and the dialogs tend to drop her where she wanted to be anyway.
Stuff just... works. And it's intuitive. And I get far fewer "how do I do this" calls.
It's fascinating. I can't even really say why it's true, but it is.
Well, with OS X, it's becoming his thang rather quickly. I still walk him through things from time to time, but they're much more advanced walkthroughs (how to move settings from one AirPort Base Station to a new one, for instance), and I only have to do it once. Things *make sense* to him now. Dunno when that happened, but it did. Nice to see.
Originally posted by Amorph
Stuff just... works. And it's intuitive. And I get far fewer "how do I do this" calls.
It's fascinating. I can't even really say why it's true, but it is.
I completely agree, the OS X UI is just tons better for neophyte users and novices. (I think it's better overall for most user groups, BTW, but perhaps no more so than that one.)
OS X does so much right in this dept... the super user-friendly Dock, the bundles that create a simplified group of applications, the gentle push to save documents in a single place with folders for different categories of items, the clean, minimal interface, the big friendly toolbar buttons and sidebar... Not to mention that novice users IME also find (sorry John S.) the browser metaphor much easier to grasp than a spatial interface...
The added complications of permissions, the slightly more complex directory structure, and Apple's occasional over-reliance on fixed path names (grrrr) are about all I see on the con side.
It's the main reason why I shake my head when OS 9 graybeards -- even very esteemed ones -- rail against OS X, dinging on it little consistency and UI blips here and there. Point by point the critiques often do make some sense, but they utterly neglect people who haven't been using the OS for years and/or aren't geeks. They fail to see the vast forest, instead settling for the little warps, mossy patches, and clearings in the trees.
Originally posted by Kickaha
My mother is a computer...
Come to think of it, that explains a lot......
Anyway, I think you should all swallow your pride and encourage them onward and upward. Despite the fact my 82 year old mother still manages to email me from her Windows PC, I'm convinced that in 10 or 20 years time many of my own generation, will have become some sort of techno under-class because they failed to keep up. They'll be like my Great Aunt Nora (may she RIP) who never quite made the leap to decimal currency and would waffle on about pounds, shillings, pence and guineas (!).
I've recently moved a few people over to OSX because they were having issues with Mac OS 9. None of the developers were going to fix these long standing bugs so I started the migration process. I now am being flooded with emails and phone calls because nobody can get around anymore. Seems like the people that have the hardest time with OSX are former Mac OS 9 users.
"Aw man, where's the Chooser? Where's the Control Strip? How come I can't d..." *SMACK!*
Shut up, already, and roll with it, pal!
I work with someone who'll probably still be using 9.0 and PageMaker 6.5 five years from now, yet he never seems to miss an opportunity to inform me how "OS X isn't the Mac" or that "InDesign is too much like QuarkXPress...", him having used OS X and InDesign a total of MAYBE 11 minutes...
"You're right, it's better. Now sit down, shut up, and learn something."
Originally posted by Kickaha
"This isn't my Mac!"
"You're right, it's better. Now sit down, shut up, and learn something."
If it were only that easy.
Originally posted by pscates
"Aw man, where's the Chooser? Where's the Control Strip? How come I can't d..." *SMACK!*
I completely forgot about the control strip until you mentioned it!
AS a long time windows user classic mac os is absoluterly nonsensical for me.
Just something simple like changing your desktop picture in OS 9 vs. X. That whole "remove picture, go find the one you want, select it, select another button to make it happen...don't like it, go through the process again...".
I can try out about 4 desktops in OS X in the time it takes me to do one in OS 9.
And it's like that EVERYWHERE (networking, printing, iDisk access, etc.). You name it. And everything is in those damn "OK" or "Cancel" boxes you can't back out of (modal dialog boxes, is that what they're called?). In X you can still actually DO stuff while a Save or Open dialog is open...you're not locked out of your machine, constantly pushing Cancel.
And the best part? If one programs acts like a butthole, your entire Mac doesn't go down with it.
OS X has been pretty damn usable for 18 months now (starting when Jaguar came out). Panther takes it to a whole new level, so for anyone STILL not using OS X, I've got no patience with them anymore.
Like my co-worker, for example...
Our work could be SO much easier and pleasant and hassle free with Panther and InDesign, but nooooooo...
I can't believe I have to spend 8 hours a day in OS 9 AND PageMaker 6.5...
Complete lameosity.
g
And even those people still on system 8 and 9...what are you people thinking? Get OS X and never look back!
I've never learned more about (or wanted to know more about) a computer before OS X came along. I guess I can blame it for getting me more into computers. It's just so cool all the stuff that I can do with it, it makes me want to dive deeper and deeper into it. It's been awesome learning all the stuff that I have learned over the past few years. Than of course I found AI...and you can all tell how obsessed with this place I am . This place has helped me learn a ton of stuff too. Ya'll rule!
Sometimes it's fun to boot up my old Apple II, Mac+, LC, or 6400 to remember the "good old days", but I wouldn't go back to that if you paid me. Life with X is just too good.
To echo Meeces words, Long live OS X!