[mdawson]

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FuturDreamz wrote:

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Basically in Mac OS the frontground windows is the one that has the menubar. not sure why when it is minimized the menu doesn't go to the new frontground window tho.

It took considerable time to figure out what on Earth you were talking about here. Now that I have figured it out, it is not completely correct. The menubar is associated with the foreground application and not windows. Windows in the Mac OS are documents and menus are associated with the current application. Minimizing or closing a document does not change the focus from the foreground application nor should it.

[futuredragonnn]

I've been reading a lot of articles and between the war of Mac and PC. I find it unnecessary to defend the Mac for PC or Mac. As a 4-year Mac convert, I just enjoy the fun of OSX at home and the efficiency of Windows at work.

[FuturDreamz]

""Basically in Mac OS the frontground windows is the one that has the menubar. not sure why when it is minimized the menu doesn't go to the new frontground window tho."

It took considerable time to figure out what on Earth you were talking about here. Now that I have figured it out, it is not completely correct. The menubar is associated with the foreground application and not windows. Windows in the Mac OS are documents and menus are associated with the current application. Minimizing or closing a document does not change the focus from the foreground application nor should it."
Yeah I have a tendency to do that.

I somehow managed to follow the Author's train of thought of the Mac OS being document-centred based instead of application-centred.
mia coupa

[savageduck]

Miss it on Windows notebooks?

I find myself trying to use two fingers on my old G4 PowerBook 17, which I have as a working lifeboat, and can't figure out why the damn track pad isn't working properly.
Then I understand how completely and effortlessly I made the change to the no-button trackpad and the gestures.

Once he has more time on his new Air he will find more to like.

[NancyD]

Keep using the Air. You'll find yourself trying to use gestures on your PC trackpad and becoming increasingly frustrated with the way Windows "thinks".
Then that so-called "Mac Tax" will just....evaporate.
Especially when you realize how many hours you will put into your Mac machine before replacing it.
You will have new bells and whistle lust long before you NEED to replace your laptop.
We have an iLamp (the Mac that looks like the Pixar lamp) that is still going strong. We are running into non-Intel issues now. But it works just. fine. thankyouverymuch.
My dock is along the left side. The "glowing dot" is to the left of the icon. I see them JUST FINE. I know precisely what apps are available. Expose is rather extraneous and I don't use it. Don't need to!
I would say you were able to intuitively use that Mac at a higher level than it takes the average person to intuitively use a PC.
Macs are designed for users. Windows is designed for programmers. Only a programmer would think to put the shut down function under the "start" button. I'm told by my favorite programmer that it's to "start the shut down procedure".
Uh. Yea. NORMAL people say "quit". But he can't find anything on my desktop. It's all in a nice list by file type. He finds that difficult to understand. But like I said... Programmers don't think like normal people.

[uchuugaka]

Home and End?
You need to look at Keyboard Viewer (help menu is your friend)
on a Mac portable,
Fn+LeftArrow = Home
Fn+RightArrow = End.
Fn+UpArrow = Page Up
Fn+DownArrow = Page Down
These are not labeled any more on the keyboard itself.
The 1st gen of iBooks and older Powerbooks did have them labeled as such.
Of course, how a given application responds to these keys will vary based on the app itself.

[NancyD]

Oh good glory....

A friend of mine has ripped into me for my penchant for spending "all that money" on a Mac. She doesn't understand WHY I would do such a thing.



Uh. Virus protection, would be sufficient. (she tells me she gets FREE virus protection and I could too!)



Durability is another reason.



Whatever!



And the conversation shifts. {time passes} and she asks my husband to come over to devirus their machine because her kids have downloaded another virus.



And this is their third machine since I bought mine.



So let's do the math here.... spend $3K on a MacBook Pro and not worry about viruses EVER and thus not losing a boatload of work...



OR



Spend $3K on three PC's and be in constant battle with viruses.



I'm starting to think that I'm not the crazy one.

[dbutenhof]

NancyD said:

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Macs are designed for users. Windows is designed for programmers. Only a programmer would think to put the shut down function under the "start" button. I'm told by my favorite programmer that it's to "start the shut down procedure".

Uh. Yea. NORMAL people say "quit". But he can't find anything on my desktop. It's all in a nice list by file type. He finds that difficult to understand. But like I said... Programmers don't think like normal people.

That's just a silly excuse your programmer friend came up with. It's like "why the heck do you throw a disk in the trash to eject it"? In both cases, it's just because someone decided to overload an existing mechanism that just didn't fit, and the foolish decision became entrenched in tradition. It's like a natural language idiom... it doesn't make any logical sense, and it really can't be explained. It just "is", and you need to learn it by rote and accept it as an axiom.

The "Start" menu was a way to navigate and launch every installed application -- which would have been a great idea if it were better organized. But once that button and menu system was there, it became a place to dump anything someone might be expected to want to do; and shutdown is one of those things. Sure, it long ago passed the point where "Start" is obviously a stupid name for it given how it really is used and the stuff that's in it.

Oh, and programmers are users, too. Most programmers who have given both Windows and Mac OS X serious test drives prefer using -- and programming on -- a Mac. Because it's easier and more productive. There are people who program exclusively for Windows who choose to do most of their work on a Mac. And UNIX programmers love the Mac because it's got the best UI and workflow of any UNIX system.

[mjrmd]

Scot Finnie, another Computerworld editor, wrote a series of articles two years ago about his experience with a MacBook Pro after years of writing as a Windows authority. He subsequently wrote of his favorite Mac apps.

[wlunscher]

Any comments out there on the lack of a Network and Sharing Center in OS X?

Is he correct? Is there an alternative?

[Mike_Scherer]

'Home' key also is command + up arrow
'End" is command + down arrow
The idea of using the command key to "turbo" another function recurs fairly often in the Mac OS.

[webraider]

Who says you have to replace ALL your computers with a Mac? How about replacing just one? I bet you could and wouldn't really know the difference. This is how it starts.. One creeps in.. then another, then another.. 5 years later.. you never look back.

[rogbar]

Preston writes "I did miss the Home and End keys, though, and have yet to find any key combination that gives their PC equivalent on the MacBook Air.".
Control-Left Arrow sends the cursor to the beginning of the line. Control-Right Arrow sends it to the end. Using the Alt key instead of the Control key with the left and right arrows moves the cursor one word at a time.
Using the Alt key with up and down arrows moves the cursor one paragraph at a time ... while using Command with the up and down arrows goes to the top or bottom of the page.

[wynand32]

I felt the same way when I first started using my MacBook Pro. After a few months, however, once the newness wore off and, more important, once Windows 7 was released as a public beta, I'd changed my tune. Both environments have their advantages and disadvantages. I find myself more productive in Windows 7 (and, really, Vista) than in OS X, because of the way that windows are managed (I prefer Window's application focus vs. OS X's document focus for windows) and I simply can't see how the Finder can be considered superior to Windows Explorer.
But, ultimately, they're both good environments that allow work to be done.