Office 2004 is the best word processor/spreadsheet, but Keynote wins handily over PowerPoint
PithHelmet
Fink
Xcode IDE
VLC
Solitaire XL
Growl
Azureus
The pinheel pops up because of a lack of RAM. I'd strongly reccomend 1GB, 2GB for smooth Rosetta performance. The Mac OS X equivlent to Ctrl+Alt+Del (I'm sure you know that well) is Cmd(The apple)+Option+Esc.
Wow, I never knew that the first-time Mac user needed Fink, Xcode plugins, Quicksilver which is pretty much obsoleted by Spotlight, and Growl which nobody knows what the fuck. Keep it simple, I agree with PithHelmet and Adium. I recommend Poisoned over Azureus though since Poisoned is an actual well-coded and integrated-with-iTunes Cocoa-native client instead of Azureus which is effectively a Java applet.
even though its goddamn cluttered there is no match to it at this point.
neither appleworks or pages comes close.
keynote def is better than powerpoint.
excel is also the best spreadsheet.
maybe if apple took more time on it they could create a better word processor and spreadsheet.
however as it stands.... word and excel are the best on the market.
I agree with excel. As far as word processors go, I think that's going to be variable depending upon the user. I would avoid word if possible. There are other alternatives that are easier to use IMO.
Im a recent make switcher too. Keep with Pages and Keynote. Actually right now i gotta make a powerpoint presentation (wow even i call it "powerpoint" even though it is a slideshow) and lots of essays and nothing keeps it simpler than Pages and Keynote. While word prolly has more features than Pages, most of them you won't use. When i was using word on my old computer it was like "ok so i see a lot and lot of buttons i can click on...which ones are the ones i WANT to click on..." and would spend 2 minutes finding them...and then 5 minutes later need to find another button and so on. Pages i like "ok i need to do this...o i see where i need to click for that!" It is better IMO.
I just think that Pages makes it intentionally or otherwise impossible to have the standard tried-and-true layout of your fonts and sizes and other stuff at the top instead of a bunch of free-floating inspectors that are cluttered and take up more space than they need to.
Wow, I never knew that the first-time Mac user needed Fink, Xcode plugins, Quicksilver which is pretty much obsoleted by Spotlight, and Growl which nobody knows what the fuck. Keep it simple, I agree with PithHelmet and Adium. I recommend Poisoned over Azureus though since Poisoned is an actual well-coded and integrated-with-iTunes Cocoa-native client instead of Azureus which is effectively a Java applet.
Woah, chill out. We can have our differences. And QS is muuch faster then Spotlight. And Growl is very useful when you use Adium and Safari.
I'm buying a MBP tomorrow, and having used two different versions of Office on a variety of work/borrowed Macs and I've liked it on all of them. AppleWorks only just beats Works for Windows/MSWorks as one of the most horriable office programs I've ever used.
However, I'm also a student and Student Office costs £60 more then iWork does. So I'm basically looking at iWork because it does most the jobs I need it to do within my budget.
If I do need a spreadsheet package, then I'll probably resort to the rather good Mac versions of OpenOffice.
Quicksilver which is pretty much obsoleted by Spotlight
In the most abstract sensem, Quicksilver and Spotlight may seem to perform the same tasks, but they go about it in very different ways such that both are useful in the same system for different things. To say that either replaces the other is to use only a tiny subset of either's functionality. Among many other things, Spotlight can't easily launch programs or open often-used documents in four to five keystrokes, and Quicksilver isn't a very good document search tool.
I strongly disagree. What about it do you like, and why do you think Pages is inferior? All of the core features in Word, and 80% of the extra features were available in ClarisWorks 10 years ago, and are still available today in Pages. The remaining 20% aren't of great enough importance, in my opinion, to counteract Word's abysmal search & replace functionality, its generally slow running speed, its tendency to corrupt files, and its demonically unpredictable item selection.
Pages is nice but it too has glaring stupidities.
When most Mac programs seem to have settled on command+ and command- as a standard way to zoom in and out, pages uses command> and command<, which is worse since I have to press three keys, command-shift-<, rather than two keys. Yes, a change of the keyboard preference pane does fix it, but it's still something that shouldn't be necessary.
Unlike most word processing programs I've used, there is no keyboard shortcut for page break. Even using the system preference pane to add a shortcut to that menu item doesn't work.
The auto-hyphenation system is borderline retarded. Pages will hyphenate short two syllable words to break it up into two lines when there is no real call for it, such as print in a very narrow column. In my opinion, breaking gently into "gen-tly" to better fit two lines reduces readability, and Pages does exactly that to that and many other similar words. I am not kidding. There is no central preference to turn off hyphenation, it must be turned off on a per-document, per-paragraph or per-word basis.
In my opinion, the "View" menu should be the third menu item next to Edit, like any other other programs I've used, not near the other end of the menu bar items.
Someone mentioned the inspectors. I do find the inspector to be useful, but I don't think it was wise to make it the only means to adjust page and object properties.
And Growl is very useful when you use Adium and Safari.
It works well as an event notifier for iTunes, Cyberduck FTP and several other programs too. The iTunes notifier offers the option to show the album art and track info in the corner when ever a new audio track plays, it looks very nice.
I just think that Pages makes it intentionally or otherwise impossible to have the standard tried-and-true layout of your fonts and sizes and other stuff at the top instead of a bunch of free-floating inspectors that are cluttered and take up more space than they need to.
Even though the inspector takes up space i find it easier to see all (or mostly) text layed out in that way than the icons at the top...especially since w/ each new version or different type its all different n takes forever to learn.
I just think that Pages makes it intentionally or otherwise impossible to have the standard tried-and-true layout of your fonts and sizes and other stuff at the top instead of a bunch of free-floating inspectors that are cluttered and take up more space than they need to.
I just think that Pages makes it intentionally or otherwise impossible to have the standard tried-and-true layout of your fonts and sizes and other stuff at the top instead of a bunch of free-floating inspectors that are cluttered and take up more space than they need to.
I happen to really like the Inspector found in Pages and Keynote, although I
agree that there is a bit of a learning curve, especially if you've been using MS applications. But once you learn to us the Inspector, it's very useful and
makes a lot of sense.
I find both Pages and Keynote to be much more enjoyable to use and far more reliable than their MS counterparts.
I found the Pages demo included in the Tiger upgrade to be very slow. As much as I hate to say it, MS Office is the most mature and versatile package, even though it has many annoying bugs and limitations. Without a spreadsheet and scripting language, iWork is no competitor to MS Office yet. The good thing is that if you get Office you won't need to upgrade because MS haven't incorporated any significant new features in years (all the while telling people they should upgrade every version and give them more $$$).
PS. Congrats on the new MBP, it looks awesome and if I had the $$$$ I'd get one myself!!
Quote:
Originally posted by mfiwrh
I happen to really like the Inspector found in Pages and Keynote, although I
agree that there is a bit of a learning curve, especially if you've been using MS applications. But once you learn to us the Inspector, it's very useful and
makes a lot of sense.
I find both Pages and Keynote to be much more enjoyable to use and far more reliable than their MS counterparts.
All of the core features in Word, and 80% of the extra features were available in ClarisWorks 10 years ago
Um... No. If you really think that, you have not even scratched the surface of what Word can do.
Claris Works did not have "styles", and it also was not possible to break one document up into several sections, such that each section could have its own page layout, headers and footers, page numbering etc. Of course, the list of features that Word has and Claris Works did not could go on for a very long time, but the two I've mentioned I would consider to be "core features" of an advanced Word Processor.
I should say that I used to think Word was rubbish, until someone taught me how to use it properly. Then I was like "holy s**t, this thing is a lot more powerful than I realised".
2) Once when the 'pinwheel' came up, it was up for a good minute. I'm wondering if there's any way to stop loading/performing an action when the pinwheel is up.
Someone else said that this is due to a lack of RAM. This isn't entirely accurate, a number of different things can cause the "pinwheel" to appear.
It appears whenever an Application's main thread is locked up. An app's main thread handles the GUI, so if the thread is locked, you can't use the GUI. The pinwheel is thrown up to indicate this locked condition. If an app is well threaded, you shouldn't really see the pinwheel.
Having more RAM can help if the thing that is locking a thread is that the thread is waiting for stuff to be swapped from disk. However, this isn't always what locks a thread. For example, connect to an SMB share in the Finder, then disconnect your ethernet cable (or turn off airport). The main Finder thread will lock up and you'll see the pinwheel until the Finder finally realises what's going on and presents a message letting you know that the SMB share is no longer accessible.
As someone else mentioned, if an app has been locked-up for a very long time, you can use the command-option-escape key combination to bring up a "force quit" dialogue box. You can also "click and hold" on the locked app's dock icon, and a pop-up menu will appear with a "force quit" option.
Some tasks can be stopped by holding down the command and period (full stop) keys together.
Quote:
Originally posted by tdnc101
3) Are there any must-have apps I should use for my MBP?
That depends what you want to do with it
I would recommend the following as a must-visit website: Mac OS X Hints
Wow, didn't realize there would be such a response to my subject. Thanks, all.
As for the word processing thing, I picked up iWork as well (if for nothing other than Keynote) so I have both, and it'll boil down to a preference thing I guess. Thanks for all the tips etc, I've used almost all of them (some users listed a few items that a newbie like me probably doesn't need right off the bat heheh).
Comments
Originally posted by theapplegenius
You need:
Adium X (Chat Program)
Quicksilver (Most useful program ever made)
Office 2004 is the best word processor/spreadsheet, but Keynote wins handily over PowerPoint
PithHelmet
Fink
Xcode IDE
VLC
Solitaire XL
Growl
Azureus
The pinheel pops up because of a lack of RAM. I'd strongly reccomend 1GB, 2GB for smooth Rosetta performance. The Mac OS X equivlent to Ctrl+Alt+Del (I'm sure you know that well) is Cmd(The apple)+Option+Esc.
Wow, I never knew that the first-time Mac user needed Fink, Xcode plugins, Quicksilver which is pretty much obsoleted by Spotlight, and Growl which nobody knows what the fuck. Keep it simple, I agree with PithHelmet and Adium. I recommend Poisoned over Azureus though since Poisoned is an actual well-coded and integrated-with-iTunes Cocoa-native client instead of Azureus which is effectively a Java applet.
Originally posted by Elixir
bottom line is Word is the best out.
even though its goddamn cluttered there is no match to it at this point.
neither appleworks or pages comes close.
keynote def is better than powerpoint.
excel is also the best spreadsheet.
maybe if apple took more time on it they could create a better word processor and spreadsheet.
however as it stands.... word and excel are the best on the market.
I agree with excel. As far as word processors go, I think that's going to be variable depending upon the user. I would avoid word if possible. There are other alternatives that are easier to use IMO.
Originally posted by Placebo
Wow, I never knew that the first-time Mac user needed Fink, Xcode plugins, Quicksilver which is pretty much obsoleted by Spotlight, and Growl which nobody knows what the fuck. Keep it simple, I agree with PithHelmet and Adium. I recommend Poisoned over Azureus though since Poisoned is an actual well-coded and integrated-with-iTunes Cocoa-native client instead of Azureus which is effectively a Java applet.
Woah, chill out. We can have our differences. And QS is muuch faster then Spotlight. And Growl is very useful when you use Adium and Safari.
However, I'm also a student and Student Office costs £60 more then iWork does. So I'm basically looking at iWork because it does most the jobs I need it to do within my budget.
If I do need a spreadsheet package, then I'll probably resort to the rather good Mac versions of OpenOffice.
Originally posted by Elixir
bottom line is Word is the best out.
even though its goddamn cluttered there is no match to it at this point.
neither appleworks or pages comes close.
keynote def is better than powerpoint.
excel is also the best spreadsheet.
maybe if apple took more time on it they could create a better word processor and spreadsheet.
however as it stands.... word and excel are the best on the market.
Sadly I don't see Apple releasing a suite that cleans Microsoft's clock. We all know they can, so the fact that they haven't is by design.
Apple is on a mission to increase its market share. It needs Office to accomplish this unless they just want to concede the business market.
Corey
Originally posted by theapplegenius
Woah, chill out. We can have our differences. And QS is muuch faster then Spotlight. And Growl is very useful when you use Adium and Safari.
Not to mention "GrowlMail". Its really nice to have a little pop-up preview of email as it arrives I find.
Originally posted by Placebo
Quicksilver which is pretty much obsoleted by Spotlight
In the most abstract sensem, Quicksilver and Spotlight may seem to perform the same tasks, but they go about it in very different ways such that both are useful in the same system for different things. To say that either replaces the other is to use only a tiny subset of either's functionality. Among many other things, Spotlight can't easily launch programs or open often-used documents in four to five keystrokes, and Quicksilver isn't a very good document search tool.
Originally posted by Splinemodel
I strongly disagree. What about it do you like, and why do you think Pages is inferior? All of the core features in Word, and 80% of the extra features were available in ClarisWorks 10 years ago, and are still available today in Pages. The remaining 20% aren't of great enough importance, in my opinion, to counteract Word's abysmal search & replace functionality, its generally slow running speed, its tendency to corrupt files, and its demonically unpredictable item selection.
Pages is nice but it too has glaring stupidities.
When most Mac programs seem to have settled on command+ and command- as a standard way to zoom in and out, pages uses command> and command<, which is worse since I have to press three keys, command-shift-<, rather than two keys. Yes, a change of the keyboard preference pane does fix it, but it's still something that shouldn't be necessary.
Unlike most word processing programs I've used, there is no keyboard shortcut for page break. Even using the system preference pane to add a shortcut to that menu item doesn't work.
The auto-hyphenation system is borderline retarded. Pages will hyphenate short two syllable words to break it up into two lines when there is no real call for it, such as print in a very narrow column. In my opinion, breaking gently into "gen-tly" to better fit two lines reduces readability, and Pages does exactly that to that and many other similar words. I am not kidding. There is no central preference to turn off hyphenation, it must be turned off on a per-document, per-paragraph or per-word basis.
In my opinion, the "View" menu should be the third menu item next to Edit, like any other other programs I've used, not near the other end of the menu bar items.
Someone mentioned the inspectors. I do find the inspector to be useful, but I don't think it was wise to make it the only means to adjust page and object properties.
Originally posted by theapplegenius
And Growl is very useful when you use Adium and Safari.
It works well as an event notifier for iTunes, Cyberduck FTP and several other programs too. The iTunes notifier offers the option to show the album art and track info in the corner when ever a new audio track plays, it looks very nice.
Originally posted by Placebo
I just think that Pages makes it intentionally or otherwise impossible to have the standard tried-and-true layout of your fonts and sizes and other stuff at the top instead of a bunch of free-floating inspectors that are cluttered and take up more space than they need to.
Even though the inspector takes up space i find it easier to see all (or mostly) text layed out in that way than the icons at the top...especially since w/ each new version or different type its all different n takes forever to learn.
Originally posted by Placebo
I just think that Pages makes it intentionally or otherwise impossible to have the standard tried-and-true layout of your fonts and sizes and other stuff at the top instead of a bunch of free-floating inspectors that are cluttered and take up more space than they need to.
Originally posted by Placebo
I just think that Pages makes it intentionally or otherwise impossible to have the standard tried-and-true layout of your fonts and sizes and other stuff at the top instead of a bunch of free-floating inspectors that are cluttered and take up more space than they need to.
I happen to really like the Inspector found in Pages and Keynote, although I
agree that there is a bit of a learning curve, especially if you've been using MS applications. But once you learn to us the Inspector, it's very useful and
makes a lot of sense.
I find both Pages and Keynote to be much more enjoyable to use and far more reliable than their MS counterparts.
PS. Congrats on the new MBP, it looks awesome and if I had the $$$$ I'd get one myself!!
Originally posted by mfiwrh
I happen to really like the Inspector found in Pages and Keynote, although I
agree that there is a bit of a learning curve, especially if you've been using MS applications. But once you learn to us the Inspector, it's very useful and
makes a lot of sense.
I find both Pages and Keynote to be much more enjoyable to use and far more reliable than their MS counterparts.
Originally posted by Splinemodel
All of the core features in Word, and 80% of the extra features were available in ClarisWorks 10 years ago
Um... No. If you really think that, you have not even scratched the surface of what Word can do.
Claris Works did not have "styles", and it also was not possible to break one document up into several sections, such that each section could have its own page layout, headers and footers, page numbering etc. Of course, the list of features that Word has and Claris Works did not could go on for a very long time, but the two I've mentioned I would consider to be "core features" of an advanced Word Processor.
I should say that I used to think Word was rubbish, until someone taught me how to use it properly. Then I was like "holy s**t, this thing is a lot more powerful than I realised".
Originally posted by tdnc101
2) Once when the 'pinwheel' came up, it was up for a good minute. I'm wondering if there's any way to stop loading/performing an action when the pinwheel is up.
Someone else said that this is due to a lack of RAM. This isn't entirely accurate, a number of different things can cause the "pinwheel" to appear.
It appears whenever an Application's main thread is locked up. An app's main thread handles the GUI, so if the thread is locked, you can't use the GUI. The pinwheel is thrown up to indicate this locked condition. If an app is well threaded, you shouldn't really see the pinwheel.
Having more RAM can help if the thing that is locking a thread is that the thread is waiting for stuff to be swapped from disk. However, this isn't always what locks a thread. For example, connect to an SMB share in the Finder, then disconnect your ethernet cable (or turn off airport). The main Finder thread will lock up and you'll see the pinwheel until the Finder finally realises what's going on and presents a message letting you know that the SMB share is no longer accessible.
As someone else mentioned, if an app has been locked-up for a very long time, you can use the command-option-escape key combination to bring up a "force quit" dialogue box. You can also "click and hold" on the locked app's dock icon, and a pop-up menu will appear with a "force quit" option.
Some tasks can be stopped by holding down the command and period (full stop) keys together.
Originally posted by tdnc101
3) Are there any must-have apps I should use for my MBP?
That depends what you want to do with it
I would recommend the following as a must-visit website: Mac OS X Hints
As for the word processing thing, I picked up iWork as well (if for nothing other than Keynote) so I have both, and it'll boil down to a preference thing I guess. Thanks for all the tips etc, I've used almost all of them (some users listed a few items that a newbie like me probably doesn't need right off the bat heheh).
Thanks again.
-tdnc101