I am utterly tweaked. It's the end times.

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
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...
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 21
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    I've been from one side of this keyboard to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange things. But I've never seen one, all powerful company that controls everything.



    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
  • Reply 2 of 21
    crazychestercrazychester Posts: 1,339member
    Chester dashes cross court while Kickaha is busy tying his shoe laces



    Quote:

    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.)
  • Reply 3 of 21
    crusadercrusader Posts: 1,129member
    I'd be lying to you if I said that stuff like that didn't deflate my ego.



    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.
  • Reply 4 of 21
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    In a few months, I will probably give this iMac to my mother. If *she* can actually do some simple tasks with it: e-mail, chat, look up recipes (go Watson!), balance the checkbook (damn you, Intuit!), then start practicing your rosaries come September.
  • Reply 5 of 21
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    You know, this sort of thing really makes me wonder about whether the interface-design people really are arguing from a well-intentioned but incorrect set of assumptions: My mom always sort of muddled along on OS 7, then Windows 98, then OS 9. Since I moved her to OS X, she's started finding all this stuff out on her own, and she's perfectly comfortable doing things she was never comfortable with before.



    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.
  • Reply 6 of 21
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Same here - my brother is a non-techie - bright guy, just not his thang.



    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.
  • Reply 7 of 21
    hobbeshobbes Posts: 1,252member
    Quote:

    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.
  • Reply 8 of 21
    Quote:

    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 (!).
  • Reply 9 of 21
    homhom Posts: 1,098member
    Well, I've had the complete opposite experience. \



    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.
  • Reply 10 of 21
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Absolutely. Old ingrained habits are hard to break, even when they didn't make much sense in the first place.
  • Reply 11 of 21
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    That's completely true. In the past 18 or so months, the people I'v switched to Macs seem to hit the ground running with OS X. It's co-workers and longstanding Mac buddies who can't seem to make the transition worth a damn.







    "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...



  • Reply 12 of 21
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    "This isn't my Mac!"



    "You're right, it's better. Now sit down, shut up, and learn something."
  • Reply 13 of 21
    homhom Posts: 1,098member
    Quote:

    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.
  • Reply 14 of 21
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    I have to agree that people who have used Macs for 10+ years struggle greatly with anything outside of the Classic Mac OS, and Mac OS X, particularly its permissions and multi-user directory structure, is as bad as post-WindowsMe MS operating systems.



    Quote:

    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!
  • Reply 15 of 21
    jadejade Posts: 379member
    I think it is a lot easier to go from Windows to OS X than OS 9 to OS X.



    AS a long time windows user classic mac os is absoluterly nonsensical for me.
  • Reply 16 of 21
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    We're here for ya, bud. 8)
  • Reply 17 of 21
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    That's funny, because, to me, OS X seems to finally get it right. OS 9 (and others before it) almost seems like a cruel joke, looking back.



    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.
  • Reply 18 of 21
    thegeldingthegelding Posts: 3,230member
    i'm with mr scates on this....i used os 7, 8, 9 from 1992 to 2002..i had no real problem with it and was fairly good at doing most things on my macs...but when i bought my iMac FP and finally took the plunge into os x, i suddenly felt much more comfortable (less crashes certainly helped)...sure it was a change, but everything seemed to be easier, to make more sense...i didn't have to remember how to do things, i just did things...and i could play around with the system without fear of freezing the sucker...any time i open a older program that starts to open classic, i just stop the "opening classic environment" and move that program to the trash...



    g
  • Reply 19 of 21
    meecesmeeces Posts: 160member
    Interesting thread, I just posted about being semi-lost in osx forum a while ago. I have that ingrained system 7 and 8 in my brain(skipped 9). So moving to jaguar has been quite a change. Went and bought the missing manual, huge help. I think the biggest differance for me right now is the orginizational level of things. Everthing was in one spot on the old os. I mean, you could use alias to create a copy of someting, but it just seems there are so many multiple ways and places to get things and to put them places, i.e. documents, programs, pictures, etc. in 10. I'm still a little uneasy about it, but it would be pointless to stick with an old system that will be dead sooner than later. I do miss a few things though. I actually kind of liked control strip and I miss window-shade. I just find it easier sometimes to want to double click the title bar of a window and minimize it that way instead of moving it to the dock. And when I've had stupid questions, this board has helped for sure. So long live osx, as soon as I figure out completly how to use it!
  • Reply 20 of 21
    dmband0026dmband0026 Posts: 2,345member
    OS X is by far the best OS ever, not just from Apple. And that's coming from experience. I've used every system that has ever been available to the public from Apple. I used system 7, 8, and 9 the most out of all of them and when OS X came out, I couldn't get enough of it. Everything about it was amazing. I was used to having a freeze or crash every once in a while, but that never ever happened with X. My computer ran much faster, multi tasking was awesome (especially for me, I usually have like 10 programs open at once). I love everything about OS X, and I don't miss the old systems at all. If people only knew how good we had it, Microsoft would go out of business. haha

    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!
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