19

 

Five things to love and hate about the Mac

It has been about 2 years since I've switched my personal computer to a mac. Therefore, this supposed to be one of my first posts here; after those 2 yrs of working simultaneously on a Dell Precision PC at work and a 17" MacBook Pro at home, I feel that it's just about the right time to compare both worlds. Even though I do prefer a mac, I'm not seeing it as the only best on the market. There is not much to choose from though.

Five things I hate about being on a mac:

1. Weird mousework
I feel like every second click counts; not only I do click twice as much as on a PC, the whole mouse work is still a bit weird for me and have tried countless number of mice. My hypothesis is, that macintosh is positioning the mouse cursor in dependence on the mouse movement speed, so when I'm slow, the cursor moves less than when taking it quick; through the same distance. On the PC, it is constant, no matter how quick I am. I'm getting used to it, the beginnings were quite terrible though. The keys are also having the first stand from time to time (even after the keyboard update).

2. Keyboard languages
Have found this spot common for both systems. There really must be something wrong with the keys language algorithm; as having active two keyboard languages together, they are unexpectedly switching to each other. Even worse I don't know the keyboard shortcut to switch them back, so am pretty mad of having to use the mouse everytime it happens (somebody help?).

3. Some lazy and crashing appz
OS X is still a minor system which is possibly the reason that some developers are giving us applications that are, let's say, not so well performing. To be more concrete; MS Office is quite lazy even after the 2008 update, Adobe appz crashing after trying to paste just a simple text sometimes, not talking about the VLC player, Adium issues and so on. The situation is however getting better with some of them nowadays. These are most probably not Apple's fault, but seriously, I would really be glad to have any activity indicators on the notebook body to know, if the comp is doing some or just stopped responding.

4. No solid file manager
As a hardcore PC user swithcing to a mac, missing some file manager the like of Total Commander was. Generally I hate the window work-flow either on a Mac or PC. Was really trying to use Finder for some time, but as it's not able to remember my settings, started to look for a replacement. I have found Disk Order satysfying in all major fields, but it is still not my beloved TC, because it's buggy and crashing much (especially during FTP connect).

5. Ejecting
It is not easy to eject a drive (or empty the trash) that is „currently in use“. Of mounted flash disks I don't care that much, simply removing them with a standard announcement. The situation with Apple's „superb drive“ is a bit worse sometimes.

Let's move on to my loved ones then:

1. Active Corners
This is a truly addictive feature I am glad for. Maybe, almost can't live without it anymore. The combination with Exposé is marvelous. When back on Windows have the specific hand movement, while nothing happens…

2. Virus-free
I'm surprised that there really are no viruses on the mac, at least not the ones I know about. I finally can enjoy all the great links coming at me through instant messaging :) Most of my Windows running friends are still facing the same problem for years. It is not only viruses, there is plenty of other spyware scrap. The user would have to be too upright not to catch one every so often. As I am, seeing my PC as the pure workmachine, never installing the bad stuff. This is probably where my back vogue is coming from.

3. Construction
Appearance of the mac, whether the solid steel construction or the OS, both hits the ground. The 17" MBP is the smallest in it's class, so problems with carrying it everyday to work are none; it even fits in a small looking 15.4" bag. But still there is nothing above a combination with Cinema Display. The dock is missing sometimes though.

4. Features
When it comes to extras, it is Apple's game. Those tiny things of alluminated keyboard, remote control or the mag-safe adaptor which saved my connector couple of times for now. My old HP was not that lucky though. Overall, the system truly lacks some extra USB ports.

5. Boot camp
Since Apple made the deal with Intel, it is not the old mac, I've heard. I don't know any other mac than Intel, and I'm ok with it; honestly when I see lower than 10.0 system I am quite happy that was on the PC probably playing games at that time. Mac is a platform still largely minor, so was happy to have Windows with me during the switch. The truth is that have been booting it for about three times.

Petr Lysák, 19 December 2008,   share on