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About the laptop... - stalkingmsd@gmail.com [entries|archive|friends|userinfo]
stalkingmsd

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About the laptop... [Sep. 14th, 2004|09:03 pm]
stalkingmsd
So, many of you know I have had various aversions to Mac OS X for some time (not as many, I'll admit, to previous Mac OS versions, of course). So you'll be surprised to see me toting around a 15" powerbook, I'm sure.

See, I had a choice, and I could have a Thinkpad, or a Powerbook. Given that I've had nothing short of awful experiences with IBM, I decided to suck it up and deal with the UI problems present in Mac OS (wow! is that flamebait or what?) rather than give anything to the disaster that is the IBM Thinkpad division, or even entertain the remote possibility of dealing with their support people ever again.

And that, my friends, is why I now have a shiny powerbook.
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Comments:
[User Picture]From: dariaphoebe
2004-09-15 04:11 am (UTC)
So do you hate having applications, or would you have run Windows?
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[User Picture]From: stalkingmsd
2004-09-15 04:23 am (UTC)
While I'm not forced to run windows (though "not forced" translates to "unsupported" in various ways), applications are largely irrelevant.

This is very much a "I hate thinkpads" issue.
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[User Picture]From: dariaphoebe
2004-09-15 04:25 am (UTC)
Yeah I got that, I'm wondering what you hate about OS X that would have led you to consider a non-IBM PC
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[User Picture]From: stalkingmsd
2004-09-15 04:30 am (UTC)
Specifically, lack of built-in focus-follows-mouse, and the general arrogance of Mac OS X for asserting The One True UI That You Will Use upon me.

Less so, the fact that Terminal windows are all tied together into one process (though the Mac zealots claim this is the One True Way and I am wrong -- see point 1)

Previously I complained that they didn't include an X server, but thats been fixed.
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[User Picture]From: dariaphoebe
2004-09-15 01:16 pm (UTC)
The one true UI bothers me, but Terminal.app doesn't. It's not the "one true terminal", which they do ship: xterm.
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[User Picture]From: dfjdejulio
2004-09-15 02:13 pm (UTC)

focus

Eh. I almost always switch focus via the keyboard, not the mouse. Command-tab switches applications, and command-tilde switches windows within a given application. I like to swat the mouse out of the way when I'm using the keyboard a lot, and if it changed focus on me when I did that I'd get really annoyed.
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[User Picture]From: stalkingmsd
2004-09-15 04:01 pm (UTC)

Re: focus

Thats fine, but I like focus-follows-mouse, which has been standard on unix platforms for years... And the fact that there isn't even some deeply hidden checkbox to enable it is what annoys me the most (i.e. it requires 3rd party software).
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[User Picture]From: dfjdejulio
2004-09-15 04:32 pm (UTC)

Re: focus

I guess we're not likely to agree on this. IMHO, it's critical that Apple offer exactly one way to do this with no configuration option. Given that, IMHO it's critical that it be click-to-focus. The thing that makes you crazy, the "one true UI" thing, is something that'd make me crazy if they *didn't* do.
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[User Picture]From: stalkingmsd
2004-09-16 06:07 pm (UTC)

Re: focus

Exactly. That's precisely the attitude that apple (and, in many cases, their users -- no offence) has that drives me nuts.

Its my machine, I should be able to pick what the UI is like. Especially for a feature that is common across UNIXes like this. Defaulting to click-to-focus is fine, as long as it can be changed.
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[User Picture]From: duckmonster
2004-09-15 05:21 am (UTC)
> the UI problems present in Mac OS

You're so cute. :)
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[User Picture]From: krchicken
2004-09-15 08:02 pm (UTC)
shineeeeeeeey!
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