It's been over a month: and I'm still using a Mac.
I spent my Spring Break using nothing but PCs, and although I had been using PCs all throughout my 1-month Macdate period my break was the first time that I had used nothing but PCs for an entire week. It was necessary for me to move back to exclusive PC usage for a bit in order to truly confirm what I had felt about OS X; I needed to make sure that I wasn't simply being blinded by something new.
The first thing I realized when moving back to a PC was that having a single application open that takes up the entire screen is a mental blessing and a productivity curse. For example, right now I'm typing this blog in a text editor window under OS X surrounded by and overlapping at least 8 other windows - on this monitor alone. The majority of those windows have a decent amount of text in them and it can get a bit draining staring at everything at once (it's also too cumbersome to minimize every window individually). In a situation like this one, a single maximized application is much easier to focus on. I found myself enjoying running Word and writing a document more under Windows XP, as long as I wasn't trying to do anything else.
Once I got to doing some more serious work, then I began to really miss OS X. Case in point: using any application where multiple windows are open. I missed Exposé like you would not believe. For whatever reason I didn't miss Exposé much when I was at school on my laptop (although I did consciously hit F10 a few times just to bring back good memories), but without my daily fix of Exposé I was going stir crazy. I had a handful of IE windows open on the PC I was using and searching through all of them to find the one I wanted was so painful. I ALT-TABBED and held ALT down forever as I tried to remember which browser window I wanted. Granted a tabbed browser like Firefox would alleviate some of those issues but unfortunately not all apps are tabbed and there are a lot of cases where I use both tabs and multiple windows to be efficient.
The next conclusion I came to was that as nice as the Apple keyboard looks, I still prefer a good MS Natural keyboard. Although I know you can remap the Windows keys to Apple keys it would be nice to have something better directly from Apple. As far as input devices go, Apple just seems to have gotten it very wrong with the G5. The single button mouse receives so much criticism it can't possibly be helping Apple; I was talking to someone the other day who completely opposed getting an Apple out of the principle that their machines come by default with no more than a single button mouse. It seems like a silly reason to rule out an entire platform, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of people are turned off by it. While Apply couldn't get away with a single-key keyboard, the keyboard is definitely form-over-function and thus I'm not a big fan of it. Plus, white isn't the best color for a heavily used keyboard.
I'm not a fan of the organization (or lack thereof) of folders under OS X, or maybe it's just that I'm not familiar enough with the directory structure of OS X yet to feel at home. I find myself putting far too much important stuff on the desktop and not enough elsewhere, mostly because I don't know where I really want to put it. I find that the Save dialog boxes are too small, only showing me a handful of folders at a time as opposed to what I'm used to under Windows.
I just can't seem to bring myself to use Firefox; it's a great browser but the keyboard shortcuts are different from all my other OS X apps and there are more page rendering issues with Firefox that I've noticed than with Safari. I was hoping that the latest OS X update (10.3.3) would bring me a faster Safari but my wishes weren't granted as Safari still renders pages entirely too slowly. What's also annoying is that the auto-complete of URLs that you all taught me doesn't always seem to work instantaneously. Just typing anandtech and hitting enter will usually just tack on a www. and a .com around the word but sometimes it sits there and contemplates what it is doing before taking any action. I'm a performance nut and a big part of having a fast system is making sure that everything is as responsive as possible, this one little thing irks me beyond belief. Oh and I'd like a faster rendering Safari anytime now :)
The more I have to use Adobe Reader the more I really, really appreciate Apple's Preview. I was talking to a die-hard PC user friend of mine today and even he was envious watching me use Preview instead of Reader for my PDF browsing. I do wish there was a way to be in a directory with images and have Preview flip through the images for me without having to highlight them all and open them that way. I used to use ACDSee to do this back before Windows XP had it built in, but it would be nice to have under OS X as well (unless there's some way I'm not considering).
I have yet to find a ftp client that fulfills all of my needs. The only remaining requirement that would seal the deal for my comfort with any OS X ftp client: implicit SFTP support (Port 990). I have yet to find a (good) client that supports implicit SFTP. I have found a couple, but they either crash a lot or they look like they were developed for Mac OS back in the 80s. Any recommendations?
During my Macless period I did use an iMac for a very brief period; for basic email and browsing the iMac was fine, but then again I didn't try to really push the system hard at all. Just today I was stuck using a G4 1GHz on campus and that was an extremely painful experience. The system was using OS X 10.2 and thus didn't have a lot of the features I was used to, not to mention that the default web browser was IE (IE for the Mac is *horrible*). The system had 512MB of RAM but it was slow as a dog (granted it wasn't as sluggish as some of the old Willamette based Pentium 4s (1.7GHz) that were sitting around the lab I was in) but it was horrendous. The system had Adobe Reader set to view PDFs (not Preview) and Safari would crash if you tried to run it, which brings up an interesting point: if I had never used a Mac and that was my first experience, I would never ever touch one of these things. The OS was also configured much differently than my copy of 10.3.3 is configured, for example Command + Tab didn't bring up a Windows-like bar of all the applications open, instead it just highlighted applications in the Dock. If Apple is to ever get back above the 2% market share they are at right now, even the worst systems out there in the public need to be configured much better than this one was. It's not Apple's fault, rather the fault of sysadmins for these labs, but maybe Apple's success isn't at the top of their priority list.
Multitasking on the G4 was a joke compared to the G5, although the minimize animations were surprisingly smooth, switching between Adobe Reader and MS Word sometimes took at least a full second before the application I switched to actually appeared on the screen. Again, if that were my first experience with a Mac, I would've vowed against ever touching the platform. It was quite satisfying to be able to hop on the G4 and be just as comfortable as I am under Windows, which is something I've never been able to do in the past. If anything, the fact that this experiment has enabled me to do just that is extremely rewarding. I used to have no problem if the only open computer in a computer lab happened to be a Mac, I would just remain frustrated while using it, but now I can feel oddly at home with the situation - while criticizing the lab systems for much more than just being a Mac.
Someone once asked if I felt any more secure knowing that there were no viruses or OS exploits that I needed to worry about while using OS X. It definitely feels nice, but I'm not getting too comfortable - if the Apple market expands, we'll definitely have OS X's fair share of destructive programs.
Given that I've used the G5 for more than a month now, what are some things I'm still getting used to?
1) Page up and Page Down don't actually take your cursor up/down a page, they just scroll. This is quite useful, but I'm not used to it yet. Command + Up/Down does the same thing Page Up/Down does in Windows.
2) I would be used to home/end not functioning the same way they do in Windows, except for the extremely annoying fact that they do work like they do in Windows while using any MS Office application for OS X. I'm not normally a critic of Microsoft (I tend to like their products), but damn you Microsoft for not complying in an environment that's not your own.
3) Not being able to hit Windowskey + R to be my starting point for navigating my hard drive. Yes, I know, install LaunchBar; I will...soon.
4) iCal - I just can't bring myself to use it.
But honestly, that's about it. Frightened? I'm not, I like being proficient with another OS/platform. And I have enough other PCs in the house to handle my gaming or any sort of tweaking needs I have to fulfill. The G5 will most likely remain my AT-Work machine.
What's next? There's a lot more, but I've made a few definite decisions:
1) I'm keeping the G5. (cmon, as "cool" as it is to jump on the AppleSucks bandwagon, when have I ever come off as a fanboy?)
2) There will be an AT Mac section.
3) I will continue this blog, although I'm not certain what direction it will take - it may eventually get moved (at least the Macdates) to the AT Mac section.
I apologize for the delay in the Macdate, and for those of you who are bored by my ramblings I apologize for the length. As I mentioned at the beginning of this experiment, there will be an article summarizing all of this (and more). When will it be published? Most likely after the new site launches and I actually have some time to put a good amount of effort into it. School is over (and I mean *over*) for me after May 11th, but hopefully I'll have some time before then to get this thing polished and out.
That's it for now, more Macdates later.
I spent my Spring Break using nothing but PCs, and although I had been using PCs all throughout my 1-month Macdate period my break was the first time that I had used nothing but PCs for an entire week. It was necessary for me to move back to exclusive PC usage for a bit in order to truly confirm what I had felt about OS X; I needed to make sure that I wasn't simply being blinded by something new.
The first thing I realized when moving back to a PC was that having a single application open that takes up the entire screen is a mental blessing and a productivity curse. For example, right now I'm typing this blog in a text editor window under OS X surrounded by and overlapping at least 8 other windows - on this monitor alone. The majority of those windows have a decent amount of text in them and it can get a bit draining staring at everything at once (it's also too cumbersome to minimize every window individually). In a situation like this one, a single maximized application is much easier to focus on. I found myself enjoying running Word and writing a document more under Windows XP, as long as I wasn't trying to do anything else.
Once I got to doing some more serious work, then I began to really miss OS X. Case in point: using any application where multiple windows are open. I missed Exposé like you would not believe. For whatever reason I didn't miss Exposé much when I was at school on my laptop (although I did consciously hit F10 a few times just to bring back good memories), but without my daily fix of Exposé I was going stir crazy. I had a handful of IE windows open on the PC I was using and searching through all of them to find the one I wanted was so painful. I ALT-TABBED and held ALT down forever as I tried to remember which browser window I wanted. Granted a tabbed browser like Firefox would alleviate some of those issues but unfortunately not all apps are tabbed and there are a lot of cases where I use both tabs and multiple windows to be efficient.
The next conclusion I came to was that as nice as the Apple keyboard looks, I still prefer a good MS Natural keyboard. Although I know you can remap the Windows keys to Apple keys it would be nice to have something better directly from Apple. As far as input devices go, Apple just seems to have gotten it very wrong with the G5. The single button mouse receives so much criticism it can't possibly be helping Apple; I was talking to someone the other day who completely opposed getting an Apple out of the principle that their machines come by default with no more than a single button mouse. It seems like a silly reason to rule out an entire platform, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of people are turned off by it. While Apply couldn't get away with a single-key keyboard, the keyboard is definitely form-over-function and thus I'm not a big fan of it. Plus, white isn't the best color for a heavily used keyboard.
I'm not a fan of the organization (or lack thereof) of folders under OS X, or maybe it's just that I'm not familiar enough with the directory structure of OS X yet to feel at home. I find myself putting far too much important stuff on the desktop and not enough elsewhere, mostly because I don't know where I really want to put it. I find that the Save dialog boxes are too small, only showing me a handful of folders at a time as opposed to what I'm used to under Windows.
I just can't seem to bring myself to use Firefox; it's a great browser but the keyboard shortcuts are different from all my other OS X apps and there are more page rendering issues with Firefox that I've noticed than with Safari. I was hoping that the latest OS X update (10.3.3) would bring me a faster Safari but my wishes weren't granted as Safari still renders pages entirely too slowly. What's also annoying is that the auto-complete of URLs that you all taught me doesn't always seem to work instantaneously. Just typing anandtech and hitting enter will usually just tack on a www. and a .com around the word but sometimes it sits there and contemplates what it is doing before taking any action. I'm a performance nut and a big part of having a fast system is making sure that everything is as responsive as possible, this one little thing irks me beyond belief. Oh and I'd like a faster rendering Safari anytime now :)
The more I have to use Adobe Reader the more I really, really appreciate Apple's Preview. I was talking to a die-hard PC user friend of mine today and even he was envious watching me use Preview instead of Reader for my PDF browsing. I do wish there was a way to be in a directory with images and have Preview flip through the images for me without having to highlight them all and open them that way. I used to use ACDSee to do this back before Windows XP had it built in, but it would be nice to have under OS X as well (unless there's some way I'm not considering).
I have yet to find a ftp client that fulfills all of my needs. The only remaining requirement that would seal the deal for my comfort with any OS X ftp client: implicit SFTP support (Port 990). I have yet to find a (good) client that supports implicit SFTP. I have found a couple, but they either crash a lot or they look like they were developed for Mac OS back in the 80s. Any recommendations?
During my Macless period I did use an iMac for a very brief period; for basic email and browsing the iMac was fine, but then again I didn't try to really push the system hard at all. Just today I was stuck using a G4 1GHz on campus and that was an extremely painful experience. The system was using OS X 10.2 and thus didn't have a lot of the features I was used to, not to mention that the default web browser was IE (IE for the Mac is *horrible*). The system had 512MB of RAM but it was slow as a dog (granted it wasn't as sluggish as some of the old Willamette based Pentium 4s (1.7GHz) that were sitting around the lab I was in) but it was horrendous. The system had Adobe Reader set to view PDFs (not Preview) and Safari would crash if you tried to run it, which brings up an interesting point: if I had never used a Mac and that was my first experience, I would never ever touch one of these things. The OS was also configured much differently than my copy of 10.3.3 is configured, for example Command + Tab didn't bring up a Windows-like bar of all the applications open, instead it just highlighted applications in the Dock. If Apple is to ever get back above the 2% market share they are at right now, even the worst systems out there in the public need to be configured much better than this one was. It's not Apple's fault, rather the fault of sysadmins for these labs, but maybe Apple's success isn't at the top of their priority list.
Multitasking on the G4 was a joke compared to the G5, although the minimize animations were surprisingly smooth, switching between Adobe Reader and MS Word sometimes took at least a full second before the application I switched to actually appeared on the screen. Again, if that were my first experience with a Mac, I would've vowed against ever touching the platform. It was quite satisfying to be able to hop on the G4 and be just as comfortable as I am under Windows, which is something I've never been able to do in the past. If anything, the fact that this experiment has enabled me to do just that is extremely rewarding. I used to have no problem if the only open computer in a computer lab happened to be a Mac, I would just remain frustrated while using it, but now I can feel oddly at home with the situation - while criticizing the lab systems for much more than just being a Mac.
Someone once asked if I felt any more secure knowing that there were no viruses or OS exploits that I needed to worry about while using OS X. It definitely feels nice, but I'm not getting too comfortable - if the Apple market expands, we'll definitely have OS X's fair share of destructive programs.
Given that I've used the G5 for more than a month now, what are some things I'm still getting used to?
1) Page up and Page Down don't actually take your cursor up/down a page, they just scroll. This is quite useful, but I'm not used to it yet. Command + Up/Down does the same thing Page Up/Down does in Windows.
2) I would be used to home/end not functioning the same way they do in Windows, except for the extremely annoying fact that they do work like they do in Windows while using any MS Office application for OS X. I'm not normally a critic of Microsoft (I tend to like their products), but damn you Microsoft for not complying in an environment that's not your own.
3) Not being able to hit Windowskey + R to be my starting point for navigating my hard drive. Yes, I know, install LaunchBar; I will...soon.
4) iCal - I just can't bring myself to use it.
But honestly, that's about it. Frightened? I'm not, I like being proficient with another OS/platform. And I have enough other PCs in the house to handle my gaming or any sort of tweaking needs I have to fulfill. The G5 will most likely remain my AT-Work machine.
What's next? There's a lot more, but I've made a few definite decisions:
1) I'm keeping the G5. (cmon, as "cool" as it is to jump on the AppleSucks bandwagon, when have I ever come off as a fanboy?)
2) There will be an AT Mac section.
3) I will continue this blog, although I'm not certain what direction it will take - it may eventually get moved (at least the Macdates) to the AT Mac section.
I apologize for the delay in the Macdate, and for those of you who are bored by my ramblings I apologize for the length. As I mentioned at the beginning of this experiment, there will be an article summarizing all of this (and more). When will it be published? Most likely after the new site launches and I actually have some time to put a good amount of effort into it. School is over (and I mean *over*) for me after May 11th, but hopefully I'll have some time before then to get this thing polished and out.
That's it for now, more Macdates later.
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Pete - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link
"School is over (and I mean *over*) for me after May 11th"Congratulations, Anand. Just remember to use your knowledge for good, not evil. ;^)
GL - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link
I think it would be great if AnandTech could do official coverage of WWDC 2004. I'm not sure if I can scrounge up enough money to go this year, and it is usually a rather secretive affair (beyond the highly publicized keynote). I know WWDC is more of a software developer affair, but there's a good chance the Powerbook G5 will be released at this year's event. And besides, I think a lot of readers would be interested in reading about some of the advances in OS X 10.4 just like they enjoy reading about the upcoming Longhorn features.DrTrustme - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link
>> "I find that the Save dialogue boxes are too small"> Then drag them bigger - bottom left corner as always.
Correction:
If your save dialogue is not expanded yet first click the down arrow button at the right-hand end of the "Save as" row (to the right of the name entry box).
If you'd like the save dialogue bigger still:-
Drag the bottom RIGHT corner of the dialogue downwards.
Apologies, Doc.
RadRafe - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link
Yeah, I was going to suggest Fugu too.SmurfTower - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link
I forgot all about this little app.ittec
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/...
Ittec puts your computer at your fingertips. It gives you immediate access to all of your files and folders, applications, and open windows. You will no longer need to clutter your Dock and Desktop, no longer need to use the bulky open dialog, no longer need to move windows aside to reach the Desktop, because everything will be waiting for you at the click of a button.
Ittec is a robust and intuitive tool. It has many useful features and is highly customizable. Some of the key benefits include:
Browse through all your files and folders quickly and easily.
See running applications and the open windows in those applications.
Drag files and folders out of Ittec menus to the Dock, Finder or other applications.
Send selected files to any folder or application, effectively dragging items into Ittec menus.
Add your preferred files and folders to the Ittec menu.
Perform actions such as Print, Move to Trash and Copy to clipboard on items in Ittec menus.
Integrate your classic and native desktops, and mounted volumes, all in one place.
View vital staistics of your files and folders right from Ittec menus.
Show contextual menus in the Finder without holding the control key down.
If you find any problems with Ittec, please send an email to support@balancesoftware.com with the details so that we can fix it. Thanks
Tim - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link
Anand:I second the DooD who wants the hardware stuff brought out into the open a bit more. I'm sure that there is a nice bank of resistors buried somewhere in my Dual 1.8 that once changed would turn it into a Dual 2.0 ( and probably with no ill effects either) - I'd like to see some hardware exposes' on Apple stuff and some good tutorials on getting the most out of the programs I've got. The Mac section shouldnt be just like the PC section but there's room for for hands on improvements. Most Mac sites are simply congregation pointsof users; they dont offer anything of value. I also notice many of the sites are letting their users write the content on the site ( via "Reader Reports" and other such cruft ) to the point that it's absurd as to why the guy that runs the site is bothering - dont fall into this trap.
Patrick - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link
Anand~I'm glad your experience has ended well. It truly is a breath of fresh air to get an experienced PC user such as yourself to give the Mac such an unbiased try. I truly hope that your attitude will open the eyes of other PC users that so respect your opinions.
Thanks Anand and I eagerly await your Mac section.
DrTrustme - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link
Interesting blog. Some feedback:"I'm not a fan of the organisation (or lack thereof) of folders under OS X"
Either use the Document, Movie & Picture folders in the Home folder or make your own set within one folder & put the root folder in your dock, in the left of window icon shortcuts or make an alias/shortcut on the desktop - what could be easier? Do you really want an OS that second guesses you & demands you put things where it wants?
"I find that the Save dialogue boxes are too small"
Then drag them bigger - bottom left corner as always.
"the auto-complete of URLs that you all taught me doesn't always seem to work instantaneously"
That is because it tries what you have typed first: http://anandtech/ before http://www.anandtech.com/
"I do wish there was a way to be in a directory with images and have Preview flip through the images for me without having to highlight them all and open them that way"
No need to even open Preview - just use any program (e.g. Graphic Converter - www.lemkesoft.de) to add a resource fork, large thumbnail icon (128x128 pixels) & preview image to your pictures. Then just either set the icons large & the folder to open in icon view or keep column view and just select the top image & watch the previews as you run down the list using the down arrow key. If you do not pre-make the previews/resource fork the OS will behave sluggishly , like Windows, having to create the preview as you select the file: the larger the image the slower the the preview. Macs have had incomparably better image handling that Windows for years. Even now in XP not having a resource fork means that images have to be in one special folder to have access to previews (the childishly named "My Picture" folder - always makes me wonder when all PCs are going to come with a free "My Little Pony").
"The OS was also configured much differently than my copy of 10.3.3 is configured, for example Command + Tab didn't bring up a Windows-like bar of all the applications open."
OS X 10.3 was not a "Service Pack" it was an OS Update & included some of the features you have come to expect - OS X is evolving at high speed before you.
"not to mention that the default web browser was IE (IE for the Mac is *horrible*)."
It is slow but fairly standards compliant. IE for Mac shows what problems M$ makes even for its own programmers with its policy of "embrace, extend & extinguish". M$'s ceaseless work to move the goal posts is the bane of the computing industry. Welcome to the real world.
"Multitasking on the G4 was a joke compared to the G5"
Was it dual CP?
"Safari would crash if you tried to run it" + "If Apple is to ever get back above the 2% market share they are at right now, even the worst systems out there in the public need to be configured much better than this one was."
Apple cannot legislate for the quality & regularity of systems administration. Neither can they force institutions to hire the odd Mac conversant tech amongst the legions of thumbs necessary to plug the Windows dyke.
"Someone once asked if I felt any more secure knowing that there were no viruses or OS exploits that I needed to worry about while using OS X. It definitely feels nice, but I'm not getting too comfortable - if the Apple market expands, we'll definitely have OS X's fair share of destructive programs."
The same old comment - all I can say is that I have enjoyed the last eight careless years without virus protection, trojans, spyware or browser hijacking. That's eight years and counting...
"3) Not being able to hit Windows-key + R to be my starting point for navigating my hard drive."
Command (Apple) + n in the Finder can be set up in its preferences to open any folder you wish. In the Finder Command + up arrow will take you to Home. Also try out Command shift + c, h, u or a - again in the Finder.
Regards, Doc.
TMoney - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link
Glad to hear everything went well and you'll be continuing the mac section and updates, you should bring an interesting and often lacking perspective to the mac review world, namely the view of a fairly unbiased PC user.As a mac user, one thing I would love to see from you would be low level mac stuff, getting into the openfirmware and such, but also (if you have the stomach for it) hacking the hardware. That's one of the things the mac community doesn't have in a lot of it's review sites, people willing to void their waranty and push the machine to it's breaking point. Of course, with the price tags macs carry, it's understandable, but if you have the guts to do it, it would be a great addition.
Anonymous - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link
An AnandTech Mac section will be wonderful! The state of Mac benchmarking/reviews is pretty poor, with barefeats being really weak and xlr8 just ok.It will be really cool to have AnandTech quality coverage to help nail down the actual performance of new hardware.