Forum Moderators: travelin cat
Post one reason why users should choose a Mac over a PC.
Do Macs really suck?
Shouldn't that be re-written to "Do Macs really suck, or do they really really suck?"
Uh-oh, here come the tomatoes! :o
Anyway, there are some nice things about the mac, but I'll stick with my PC if I don't move to Linux.
XP is nice too... my favorite of all the Windows OSes. Love all the *nixes (technically OS X is a Unix too), but rarely use them as desktop machines. But for me OS X is a world apart.
Regarding keyboard shortcuts, there's a plethora in OS X. In fact you can use the whole system, including moving the cursor, without a mouse plugged in. Funny is that I was cursing XP a while back for stupid things, like here's an example: the browser's location bar... the cursor sits at the end of the URL, and when I needed to move the cursor to the beginning of the line I would curse it every time because it made me back-arrow one character at a time. On the Mac you just click the UP arrow (or CMD-LEFT ARROW) and bang you're at the beginning. On the PC, noooo. Of course later I realized that you'd use the HOME key for this (duh!) making the PC not as stupid as I though, just different. :)
(technically OS X is a Unix too)
Nope -
newsfactor.com/perl/story/9451.html
Apple is not currently an officially sanctioned UNIX, nor is the company in violation of trademark rights with its marketing materials. Apple and its customers are in fact justified in using the term UNIX, as has been the case all along. No more arguments can be made. The debate is now settled.
And the very last sentence:
UPDATE
Since osOpinion's publishing of this piece, the Open Group has updated their web site to include Apple into its list of vendors that support the single Unix specification. This appears likely as a direct result to osOpinion's publishing of the report.
Platform Vendors Supporting the Single UNIX Specification [unix-systems.org]
Maybe jamesa should have said "technically OS X is a UNIX like too" but we're not pedantic, or!? ;)
My biggest gripe is the lack of keyboard shortcuts.
Actually, MacOS has always had a rich array of keyboard shortcuts. In fact, when my old mouse died, I had to use my Mac with keyboard only. The numeric keyboard can be used to move the mouse pointer around. You can also navigate the Finder without the mouse.
Here are some useful keyboard shortcuts (you can learn them by looking at the little symbols in the file menus):
Apple + S ~ Save
Apple + Shift + S ~ Save as
Apple + Z ~ Undo
Apple + X ~ Cut
Apple + C ~ Copy
Apple + V ~ Paste
Apple + P ~ Print
Apple + O ~ Open document/location
Apple + N ~ New window/document
Apple + W ~ Close window
Apple + Option + W ~ Close all windows
Apple + Q ~ Quit program
Apple + Option + Escape ~ Force Quit
Apple + Plus (Shift + =) ~ Increase font size
Apple + Minus (-) ~ Decrease font size
MacOS X: Apple + Shift + 3 (#) ~ Print screen (creates a picture clipping file)
MacOS X: Apple + Shift + 4 ($) ~ Take screenshot (select area with bullseye)
MacOS X: F14 ~ Reduce brightness
MacOS X: F15 ~ Increase brightness
In the Finder:
Apple + I ~ Get info (gets info for item(s) in focus/shaded)
Apple + L ~ Make alias
MacOS 6-9: Apple + N ~ Create new folder
MacOS X: Apple + Shift + N ~ Create new folder
Neat trick in Safari:
Drag images you want to save onto the desktop
We finally dug up one of the those single button mice where the whole thing click... I quickly developed a strong dislike for whoever designed that thing.
Apple did extensive useability studies in the 1980's and concluded that the single button mouse was superior. You've been trained on a multi-button mouse, however, and that means you may never use the single button mouse as naturally as those who started on it do. It has turned into a personal thing.
I tried one of those multi-button mice (trackball with four buttons). It was a pain to use. I can use two-button rather well and I do find it annoying when Mac vendors make you use the control key instead of mouse gestures like they should. grr. You should not need two hands to work a mouse.
Btw, mouse gestures are easier to use in MacOSX (particularly for changing the names of files, long one of my pet peeves) so there's really no excuse.
Maybe the way to security is via Mac's with the added bonus of drivers and reliable software.
And with the the forthcoming Panther OS for the Mac you should be able to run both OS X Mac software and Unix X-Window software simultaniously on the same desktop.
No need to wait, you can run X-window system, OSX and OS 9 at the same time [freewebs.com].
For the record, in regards to OS X being a *NIX. Technically it is a version of BSD as far as I know, which is indeed a breed of UNIX.
