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Thoughts from a Mac OS X lover
Hi all,
I thought i'd write this in part for no other reason than I felt that I could on this forum, which I have to say has been wonderful and informative and... civilised !?!
I've always been a Mac user, dyed in the wool, cut me and you saw that I'd bleed OS X aqua and Tiger brushed steel.
I'm one of those guys that had to move away from the mac as the 3d design programmes weren't available for the mac (Autodesk Alias, Catia, solidworks et al).
I have to say that I always hated XP - you see as a mac user, we didn't really understand the guts of our systems like you windows users did, bios, registry, permissions were all dirty words for us. We knew that we liked the aesthetic of our OS, and this transalated for us, into useability.
OS X always made you feel welcome, it always made you feel that for your everyday tasks there was nothing it couldn't do, or in truth we'd want it to do, the only issue came when we had to look down from our silver lined clouds of smug, and interact with those.... pc's!
I've always been a minimalist at heart, and loved the inegrated elegant software solutions in OS X, I liked the fact that I could smugly roll the words UNIX around my mouth like a smooth cognac when I spoke to pc using colleagues who were always bemoaning crashes and virus' and the need to get another programme to do this or that.
I built my first pc, as money was tight, and all the decent stuff looked like a NASA christmas party, and there was no way I was paying Dell or HP for a workstation grade product at those prices. I was horrified at the noise of those ....PC's compared to my macpro tower, so I was guided to aftermarket cooling solutions.
I poked the bios with a stick, waved a dead chicken infront of it... it was so... eighties!
I installed XP, and wondered why I couldn't find the location manager... OS X had it, why hasn't windarse got it?
(location manager is a little app in the core system that basically says, OK, the programs folder at the moment is here, but you want to put it on this drive. OK, no probs, i'll just reconfigure the pagefile and the core OS to now deal with it on that new drive.... )
I could do it with the 'my documents' no probs, what was the problem with windows not wanting the programs folder moved?
I loved the way OS X just had vendor drivers of all kinds embedded into it, why couldn't XP, I resented having to trawl the net for things, instead of just smugly plugging it in and the OS saying hey, it's a cannon yadaya device (rummage) here's the driver for it right here!
And so, a couple of years went by, I realised that all those with virus' nearly all ran their computers as the adminstrator and used torrent sites, without taking those virtual condom precautions, just downloading to C, instead of a toxic disc or such.
I suppose that it was stuff that a Mac user takes for granted as we never really realised that unix forced us to never tamper with the system unless you went in as SUDO - which no one was ever going to do as it meant... oh my god ... a terminal window
I really disliked the way that windows would open a pane on the taskbar for every active window, when in OS X we just had the active application in the dock, and could use expose' to tile all active windows at a glance.
I always wanted the ability to have something similar to OS X's disc utility, which could format and repair all my volumes, but could also create and burn ISO's and images. I knew there was apps out there, but there was something really nice about having it as part of the core functionality of the OS already.
I'd bought Vista, but waited till all my apps were compatible, and even then found reasins not to install it, despite knowing that it was far more stable than XP in every respect.
Then I read about 7. I went onto the websites, looked at the screenshots, read the pre-reviews, and thought why not. Downloaded the Beta, and here I am.
At last I'm working with an aesthetically pleasing interface, somehow it's still got all the aero qualities, but it seems to me just less bling that Vista's black chromy thing.
The background wallpaper isn't as hard on the eyes, I hope they keep the beta fish in the final build! until 7, i' used all the OS X backgrounds!
I like the clipping tool , OS X had one, and i'm sure that like theirs, the final release will also be able to capture a timed interval or short movie type of thing, great for when you have to do an off the fly how to.
I like the way that 7 will let you burn an ISO, I really hope that they can incorporate something like BurnISO intothe final build. Infact I think 7's implementation is more elegant with just a small window opening when you want to burn.
I also really like the way that now the application is in the task bar, and I actually really enjoy the floating window with all active app's windows within it, i'd actually say it's better than apple's implementation. I love the aero flip 3D but in the final build, it would be great if there was a control panel with different options like flip, tile, etc.
Of course I still wish that when I plug in my USB stick, it just mounts on the desktop and I just double click it to open it, but I think that this is a limitation of the way windows addresses volumes (drive letters as opposed to mount points). But I don't know enough about this side of it yet.
Of course there's a few other little 'macisms' that i'd like to see, but it mostly revolves around core OS integration, and in time i'm sure it will come.
But I do like the device centre, again a nice elegant solution, to a common issue with devices of all kinds, at least now manufacturers will have a defined framework to develop with rather than getting away with coding trash.
Which in reality was very much what apple have done very well. Their interface guidelines were and are very strict to preserve the look and feel of a mac product. Microsoft was always very good in my opinion with developers by not forcing their hand on such things, and in my short time of using Windows, I realise that there was never anything wrong with the OS, it was lazy development which got bought by the non technical public which caused issues and so the 'windows is c**p' cries.
I'm really enjoying 7, i'm really enjoying the fact that it does the looking for me if I don't have a driver, and I like that the aero interface has grown on me without me realising it.
And I really hope that i'll be notified of the RC or the other one before my beta expires, as when it does go to market, i'll have no hesitation in buying it - but please Microsoft just a business and home version, both ultimates, or possibly just a single box... Windows 7 - The Operating system?
And in OS X, if you're like my partner who has poor eyesight you could have an indipendent screen resolution from other user profiles whereas in windows you have to change the resolution globally - rubbish, and the resolution manager programmes all had flaws.
But in W7, she finally can see the text and icons - thanks to the scaling technology, but better than that, is able to use the full 1600 x 1200 of the monitor's native resolution.
THAT MY DEAR MICROSOFT IS INSPIRED - probably the biggest gift MS could have ever give to her, the ability to see without having to compromise.
So i'm sitting typing, and have commercials behind me...
Hello, i'm a mac... and i'm a PC.
hmmm.... thanks to W7...
I'm a PC. :)
I can see without having to compromise.
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