Used to be: Re: Linux in business

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Craig White wrote:
> And an Apple OS X runing on intel based hardware wouldn't do much good
> simply because it would have to run legacy 'DOS' and 'Windows' apps.
> That ain't gonna happen. Apple's hardware is quite good, some of it is
> cheap enough. The problem isn't the hardware, it's the perception that
> Apple isn't Microsoft that drives people to stick with Apple.

That's a valid point - and let me add that my primary reason for going
with Apple/OSX over i386/Linux (and i had been running Linux as my primary
desktop OS since 1997) was that I felt it was the perfect convergance of
Commercial and OSS, the hardware was wonderful, and OSX met my needs
perfectly. So perfectly (in fact) that I actually spend less time in
front of a computer now - I get what I need and I go on to having a life.
*grin*

> The Macintosh OS X UI is probably the weakest of all GUI's now, the
> average user hasn't a clue where their documents are going, why they are
> going there - much like the early Windows setup. Screens have gotten
> larger and Apple still clings to a single menu structure at the top of
> the screen (painful to chase a mouse up there) and whereas Apple used to
> lead the way on UI, they now sadly have started to incorporate Windows
> UI features because there were better ideas such as the multi-paned
> finder windows.

Point taken - but the layout of /Users/Username/* is very useful. I Drag
the "home" folder to the dock on all the macs in my house and I tell the
user "all your stuff is in there". You single-click the "home" icon and
there's your stuff... music, documents, movies, etc. Very easy. It needs
more work for the novice-novice user though.

> Apple falls entirely flat by having having scattered configuration
> elements such as Finder options in one menu, Finder Preferences in
> another menu, Finder that doesn't print anymore, and separation of other
> UI preferences in System Preferences (Dock - Desktop - etc.) Even worse,
> it's hard to get Finder preferences to stick for a user or across the
> board preferences.

Oh yeah - this is my biggest pet peeve with OS-X. I love it, but there
are lots of little things that I just don't understand. I still don't
like finder in OSX. Why did they leave out sound sets? Why did they go
to a very linux-like printer manager setup? What was wrong with the
finder method in Classic? Why does OSX do stupid things if you have an
Nvidia card and over 256MB of ram in your Sawtooth machine, but not if you
have an ATI card? Why does OSX support some features of ATI cards and not
the same features in Nvidia cards? *head explodes*


> I do have to give them recognition for trying, Rendezvous is good stuff
> and Expose is interesting but these kind of ideas have become too far
> and few between.

Ditto. Rendezvous is a God-send if you have multiple machines under one
roof (especially if they are portable!!).

> As for iTunes - I also have MusicMatch on my Windows XP system and it
> seems to give iTunes a good run for the money...

*hack* *spit* Ewwww. I *tried* to love Musicmatch on my one and only
windows laptop(work) and it just isn't as sexy as iTunes for Windows.
The integration of the music store, library, play lists, cover art, song
sharing, burning, etc is just too well done in iTunes. Just my .02 cents.
:-)

> The article was a good read - thanks

Aye - I enjoyed reading that. Thanks for posting!!!

(Craig - I hope to meet up with you one day. I really need to start going
to the meetings again. Darned life schedule of mine)