Panther vs. Longhorn?

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by AppleMatt
One thing that XP does better than OS X is disc recording, if you record just one file to a CD on X, it finalises the CD and thats it.

Microsoft got Roxio to help them and XP can create multi-session CD's from within the OS.

I hope panther solves this.

AppleMatt

I agree that this is very annoying. Add to that the fact that I don't get CD Text when I burn a disk from iTunes (not sure if this is an iTunes issue or a burner issue) so my car and home stereos only tell me I'm listening to "TRACK 12" of "CD 1" ...

On the other hand, I also find XP's built-in disk burning slow, unreliable and unusable (maybe my hardware is too old ... an old HP 4x/4x/8x drive) and the cost of Nero too low to mess with it. Not that I use Finder's built-in burning much either (I ship the files over to my Windows box and use Nero), but Apple has ample opportunity to leapfrog Windows here.

 

[sturm375]

Originally posted by jettredmont
That won't happen in the Windows world?!? What are you on? Windows XP came out and three of the five notebooks I had been looking at for purchase three months before would not support it (loading would invalidate the warranty). The one I did purchase eventually supported it (although many "special" buttons on the machine don't work under XP) four months later. The Epson scanner on my desktop (bought nine months before XP, the preceding Christmas) wasn't supported by Windows XP at all for over eight months!

Not exactly equivalent cases, but "forever backwards compatibility" is not exactly a by-word in the Windows world either! In fact, I do believe that you'll find older Mac hardware that still runs (although of course not necessarily supporting all the advanced features of) the latest Jaguar than you will find running Windows XP SP1 (no matter how much you turn off in XP, it still drags on my 800MHz P3 ... 450MHz machines are the minimum even supported).

Blame Epson for not supporting XP for your scanner, not M$. In all cases of pariferals(sp?), the OS producer is not, nor should be responsible for supporting every last device.

I am not familiar with your problem with the notebooks. Please provied the specs on these.

Your last point, supports my argument. You have an 800 MHz P3 running XP. Not well, but at least it runs. How old is this machine?

As I said, I paid top dollar for a top of the line notebook. Less than a year later, I had a dog that wouldn't totally run the OS. THE FREAKING OS. No OS should require that much of a computer. I would not have a problem with an application that won't run. That's to be expected, especially for a notebook.

Again, I say I still wouldn't trade this TiPB for any Windows notebook, even ones out now. Now maybe that 17" somebody mention....

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by sturm375
Blame Epson for not supporting XP for your scanner, not M$. In all cases of pariferals(sp?), the OS producer is not, nor should be responsible for supporting every last device.

You said such doesn't happen with Windows. Of course, you can blame every hardware incompatibility on the hardware maker, and MS is completely free of the blame!

I am not familiar with your problem with the notebooks. Please provied the specs on these.

I can't give complete specs on the other models (one was a Sony, one a Toshiba, one a Fujitsu, and one a different HP model), but the one I bought was an HP Pavilion. Don't have it with me for the model number specifics, though.

Your last point, supports my argument. You have an 800 MHz P3 running XP. Not well, but at least it runs. How old is this machine?

Three years now; two years old when XP came out.

As I said, I paid top dollar for a top of the line notebook. Less than a year later, I had a dog that wouldn't totally run the OS.

No. You said that one feature of the OS (Quartz Extreme) was not supported. For that matter, CD-burning in XP wasn't supported on my two-year-old machine other than the fact that I added a CD burner myself. "Sleep" on it doesn't work so hot, and my PIII-800 still doesn't support voice commands and input!

THE FREAKING OS. No OS should require that much of a computer. I would not have a problem with an application that won't run. That's to be expected, especially for a notebook.

But the OS runs fine, unless I completely misread your post. You are only missing Quartz Extreme, which is a speedup, not a core feature. The information on what QE supported was out there before you bought Jaguar, so you can't say you bought Jaguar for QE and were stunned to find it didn't work. I have Jaguar running on a non-Quartz Extreme desktop here at work, and I still see a massive performance improvement of it over 10.1, with no other problems. The OS runs fine on my hardware, even though a particular performance improvement is not being used.

The fact is: there will always be new features in software that require the latest hardware to run. No, the hardware you buy today will not run every bit of software out this Fall (especially not games!) This is not unique to the Apple world; the only thing which is unique here is that you can blame one company for both the OS and most of the hardware.

I mean, Panther might support the 970 chip. Should we all start a petition right now that Apple should upgrade all our computers bought in the last year to 970's?

Hmmmm .... maybe not a bad idea after all ...

 

[macdong]

Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by MorganX
Will there be a centralized install/uninstall? On and on.

That, is one of the most unnecessary feature.
I don't why i need it for if i can just trash a folder to delete a program.

 

[MorganX]

Re: Re: Re: More W2K goodies

>>I don't know what version of OS X you are using, but this works as expected (apple-delete moves the selected file to the trash; right-click and select "Move to Trash" likewise moves it to the trash ...) in Jagur 10.2.6.<<

Try moving it to another folder in 10.2.6

 

[MorganX]

Re: Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by macdong
That, is one of the most unnecessary feature.
I don't why i need it for if i can just trash a folder to delete a program.

You have prefs and other misc files depending on the software. I use Spring Cleaning. But this feature probably would do more harm that good in OS X.

 

[jxyama]

Here's an example of why I hate Windows:

Try deleting (removing from the Recycle Bin) or copying/moving quite a large number of files... The time indicated by Windows to complete the task will *never* match the actual amount of time.

This the single best example I know of showing how Windows just don't know what it's doing. I was actually quite amazed by OS 9 (and X) when the status window's time indicator said the job will be done in 5 minutes and it actually finished in pretty close to 5 min.

There's a way to do multi-session burn in OS X, but it makes the CD not readable by PCs. The only way to do PC-readable multi-session burn is to use Toast. In the interest of being able to share pictures/files/music with all the users, regardless of the OS, I hope this gets fixed in Panther. (Basically, I am asking for Apple to include Toast-like capability in the OS.)

 

[richard5mith]

Things that annoy me on OS X...

- Open/Save dialogs. Windows offers lots of different view options, much more sensible creation of new folders, ability to organise existing files in that window like any other explorer window and various other file management things that sometimes it's quite handy to be able to do before you save a new file.
- Folders not appearing first. This still annoys me on the Mac after all these years, at least make it an option to have my folders first like Windows. I want my folders first alphabetically, then files afterwards alphabetically. Not mixed up.
- Enter to open a file. What idiot thought CMD+O was the way to do this? Enter to rename is totally idiotic, as I'm much more likely to be opening an item than renaming it. Select some files, press enter, they all launch. Simple.
- Bad Keyboard control. I live my life by the keyboard and like to use the mouse as little as possible, but keyboard access on OS X is pretty awful.
- No fast window switching. Switching to another window on OS X is usually two actions away (right click on dock icon for window list, click on window wanted). Windows listing of all open windows (which are much more important to me than open applications) on the taskbar is much more usable. Why do I only see what windows I have open when they're minimised? It's so easy to have one window hidden behind another and I wouldn't even know it was there.
- Terrible Contextual menus. They're everywhere on Windows and it's great. Getting better on OS X, but still nowhere near what they should be. Put the options I want as close to where I am as possible please.

This is especially aparent when you combine Windows ability to customise these menus, allowing me to right click a folder and "Add to Zip" or "Send via Email" or "Play in Winamp". Incredible timesaver.
- A status bar in an explorer window that doesn't tell me the total size of all the items I've selected yet for some reason feels it necessary to constantly tell me how much disk space I have on the current volume. I shouldn't have to open another window to get this info.

Things that annoy me in Windows...
- Add/Remove Programs is one of the stupidest concepts I've ever seen. "Hey! here's an idea. To remove a program lets make somebody go into control panel, then open up another program, find the thing they want to uninstall, and then launch another program from that to actually do the deletion!". For extra points, see programs that ask you for the original CD's in order to uninstall them.
- Stupid hardware installation. If you don't need me to do anything to make a device work, don't ask me to do anything. Even if its just to keep on clicking "Next". Don't even tell me you've found new hardware, just make the device start working.
- Lack of decent command line. Yay for OS X UNIX underpinnings. Nothing like a quick Perl script to save the day.
- Trying to access a folder on another machine that requires a password pops up an authentication box. This is good. Trying to print to a printer on another machine that requires a password causes a print error. You have to authenticate by trying to access a folder on the machine first. This is pure evil.
- Cancelling a print job is sometimes like trying to raise the titanic with a rope gripped between your teeth.
- Lack of system wide spell cheker.
- Programs that use skins. WHAT IS THE POINT? Don't make me learn your self-designed interface because you think it's better. Give me a program that looks like every other program and acts like every other program so I don't need to guess the outcome of clicking on each item.
- Programs that dump stuff in 400 locations and 20 keys in the registry. Especially ones that set themselves to launch at startup (which I quickly have to remove from the registry again).
- Virii. Even though I've only ever had one. I like the fact that nobody bothers writing them for the Mac.


I have to say that in all my years of using Windows (and for the last few with OS X) they've both always worked without a hitch. So I'm happy using either. There is something strangely comfortable about OS X though, even though work wise, I'm much more efficient on 2K.

 

[MorganX]

>>*WHEN* Windows2005 comes out and it supports DirectX offloading... Most windows users will not be able to take advantage of it.<<

They already can and Windows already does that. If you mean specifically in the UI, it has been able to do that since Windows 2000. See Stardock's Windows FX.

 

[richard5mith]

One more quick note. Another bad thing about Windows is it's constantly increasing system requirements.

From a normal usage/graphical/eye candy point of view, Windows 2000 doesn't really do anything 98 couldn't. It's more stable by miles, but you're still doing the same things as you always were. However, try and run Win2K on the lower spec PC's you can run 98 on. You can't. It'll be unusable.

So what changed? Stability = bloat it seems.

OS X seems the opposite right now, each new version is faster on the same hardware.

A good example of MS is their Quartz Extreme rip off. It requires a graphics card with 128Mb RAM. QE requires one with 16Mb, 32Mb recommended. So not only will they be three years late to the party, they need 8x the power too.

 

[jettredmont]

Re: Re: Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by MorganX
>>I don't know what version of OS X you are using, but this works as expected (apple-delete moves the selected file to the trash; right-click and select "Move to Trash" likewise moves it to the trash ...) in Jagur 10.2.6.<<

Try moving it to another folder in 10.2.6

Um, okay. For sport I even started playing it in Finder before trying to move it around ... still moved just fine (although it did stop playing).

What problem do you have moving an MP3 file around in Finder?

 

[MorganX]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by jettredmont
Um, okay. For sport I even started playing it in Finder before trying to move it around ... still moved just fine (although it did stop playing).

What problem do you have moving an MP3 file around in Finder?

I personally don't have a problem. You just deselect the file and you can move it.

However, I was drawing a parallel to a complaint about Windows limiting what you can do in Explorer to an open file.

In Finder, if you highlight a file and preview it, you cannot move it until you deselect in so that it is no longer being previewed. OS X will copy the file and tell you the move cannot be completed because the file is in use.

 

[jettredmont]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by MorganX
I personally don't have a problem. You just deselect the file and you can move it.

However, I was drawing a parallel to a complaint about Windows limiting what you can do in Explorer to an open file.

In Finder, if you highlight a file and preview it, you cannot move it until you deselect in so that it is no longer being previewed. OS X will copy the file and tell you the move cannot be completed because the file is in use.

Odd. Doesn't do that for me. Just moves the file and stops the preview itself.

 

[DGFan]

Re: Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by jettredmont
You are quite correct; OS X does nothing like what Windows does in their canned films (there is some question that these are even real screenshots). Why? Because Windows is doing stupid, useless, and frankly ugly things in their demos. That does not mean OS X is incapable of doing these things (see first-thing-to-turn-off-on-a-new-Mac Genie Effect), it means OS X is a bit too well designed to do these things on an ongoing basis.

I remember seeing a movie of OS X with the genie effect slowed down. They minimized a movie and showed that the movie still played while the genie effect was going on. Pretty slick. Quartz has the power (so to speak) it's just used in more subtle ways.

 

[job]

Originally posted by sturm375
Blame Epson for not supporting XP for your scanner, not M$. In all cases of pariferals(sp?), the OS producer is not, nor should be responsible for supporting every last device.

OS 10.1 shipped with generic and product specific 3rd party device drivers. Most of these were print drivers and thus were intergrated into the OS itself.

As I said, I paid top dollar for a top of the line notebook. Less than a year later, I had a dog that wouldn't totally run the OS.

Actually, if you look on the 10.2 box, it mentions QE running with 16MB of VRAM. I'm not sure if this is false advertising or a typo, but it's there.

 

[HornetOSX]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by MorganX
I personally don't have a problem. You just deselect the file and you can move it.

However, I was drawing a parallel to a complaint about Windows limiting what you can do in Explorer to an open file.

In Finder, if you highlight a file and preview it, you cannot move it until you deselect in so that it is no longer being previewed. OS X will copy the file and tell you the move cannot be completed because the file is in use.

Can you explain exactly how your seeing this issue .... I've tried every combo I can think of to see it( I'm not saying the bug does not exist I just cant get it to happen) tried these
In column view:
started the mp3 playing. right clicked copied pasted on a differnt HD, and in a different folder on the same HD WHILE playing
started playing .. then dragged and dropped it to different HD as well as new folder .. with and without it playing
only thing that happened is if I moved the MP3 on the same disk .. just to a different folder the preview playing stopped

 

[Frobozz]

Well put.

Originally posted by Kamu-San
Pretty convenient for Microsoft. They never actually innovate, they just wait and see what works in the market and then release and aggressively promote their propietry variant of the technology, which is usually somewhat less complex to use that their competitor's (older) offerings.

See IE, C#, SQL server.


What also fits the pattern is that they start a hype *years* in advance. This makes competitors nervous and makes buyers wait and reluctant to look at a competitor's product.

Anyway, since M$ strength (believe it or not) is to make an easier to use variant of existing technology, it will be interesting to see how they compete with Apple. I doubt if they can improve on the usability of Apple's products.

You're right on the money. Well put.

 

[DGFan]

Things that annoy me on OS X...

- Open/Save dialogs. Windows offers lots of different view options, much more sensible creation of new folders, ability to organise existing files in that window like any other explorer window and various other file management things that sometimes it's quite handy to be able to do before you save a new file.

>>ME>> You want the open and save dialogs to be full explorer/finder? If I want to move files I do it with the right tool, I don't use the dialog. Weird.

- Folders not appearing first. This still annoys me on the Mac after all these years, at least make it an option to have my folders first like Windows. I want my folders first alphabetically, then files afterwards alphabetically. Not mixed up.

>>ME>> I don't have a problem with sorting by type. Works fine.

- Enter to open a file. What idiot thought CMD+O was the way to do this? Enter to rename is totally idiotic, as I'm much more likely to be opening an item than renaming it. Select some files, press enter, they all launch. Simple.

>>ME>> It's only idiotic because it's not work you are used to. Enter makes more sense to me because, as a mouse user, I tend to only use the keyboard to rename something. And Enter is alot easier to find than F2.

- Bad Keyboard control. I live my life by the keyboard and like to use the mouse as little as possible, but keyboard access on OS X is pretty awful.

>>ME>> I think it's just fine. Shortcuts are everywhere.

- No fast window switching. Switching to another window on OS X is usually two actions away (right click on dock icon for window list, click on window wanted). Windows listing of all open windows (which are much more important to me than open applications) on the taskbar is much more usable. Why do I only see what windows I have open when they're minimised? It's so easy to have one window hidden behind another and I wouldn't even know it was there.

>>ME>> I don't cmd-tab much so I wouldn't know. When an app has multiple windows open I just right click on the app and choose the window. Pretty much the same thing I do in XP because those tiny icons don't tell me much (oooh, I have 7 browsers open - which explorer icon is the one I want?)

- Terrible Contextual menus. They're everywhere on Windows and it's great. Getting better on OS X, but still nowhere near what they should be. Put the options I want as close to where I am as possible please.

This is especially aparent when you combine Windows ability to customise these menus, allowing me to right click a folder and "Add to Zip" or "Send via Email" or "Play in Winamp". Incredible timesaver.

>>ME>> Oh god no. I hate the fact that windows puts all sorts of useless junk in contextual menus that I don't know how to get rid of.

- A status bar in an explorer window that doesn't tell me the total size of all the items I've selected yet for some reason feels it necessary to constantly tell me how much disk space I have on the current volume. I shouldn't have to open another window to get this info.

>>ME>> Yeah, that would be a nice featuer.

Things that annoy me in Windows...
- Add/Remove Programs is one of the stupidest concepts I've ever seen. "Hey! here's an idea. To remove a program lets make somebody go into control panel, then open up another program, find the thing they want to uninstall, and then launch another program from that to actually do the deletion!". For extra points, see programs that ask you for the original CD's in order to uninstall them.

>>ME>> Yeah. How about click and drag install or delete?

- Stupid hardware installation. If you don't need me to do anything to make a device work, don't ask me to do anything. Even if its just to keep on clicking "Next". Don't even tell me you've found new hardware, just make the device start working.

>>ME>> I had all sorts of HW problems but then my HW is pretty old.

- Lack of decent command line. Yay for OS X UNIX underpinnings. Nothing like a quick Perl script to save the day.
- Trying to access a folder on another machine that requires a password pops up an authentication box. This is good. Trying to print to a printer on another machine that requires a password causes a print error. You have to authenticate by trying to access a folder on the machine first. This is pure evil.
- Cancelling a print job is sometimes like trying to raise the titanic with a rope gripped between your teeth.
- Lack of system wide spell cheker.
- Programs that use skins. WHAT IS THE POINT? Don't make me learn your self-designed interface because you think it's better. Give me a program that looks like every other program and acts like every other program so I don't need to guess the outcome of clicking on each item.

>>ME>> Skins.. Ugh...

- Programs that dump stuff in 400 locations and 20 keys in the registry. Especially ones that set themselves to launch at startup (which I quickly have to remove from the registry again).

>>ME>> LOL, see install

- Virii. Even though I've only ever had one. I like the fact that nobody bothers writing them for the Mac.

>>ME>> But if some Mac users get their wish and Macs become popular that will change in a hurry

I have to say that in all my years of using Windows (and for the last few with OS X) they've both always worked without a hitch. So I'm happy using either. There is something strangely comfortable about OS X though, even though work wise, I'm much more efficient on 2K.

 

[sturm375]

Originally posted by job
OS 10.1 shipped with generic and product specific 3rd party device drivers. Most of these were print drivers and thus were intergrated into the OS itself.

Apple didn't create these drivers. The hardware manufactures submitted these drivers to be included in OS X. At least that is how it works in the windows world. I can't imagine Apple writing a driver for an HP laserjet.

Originally posted by job
Actually, if you look on the 10.2 box, it mentions QE running with 16MB of VRAM. I'm not sure if this is false advertising or a typo, but it's there.

Actually the Rev A TiPB, which I have, only came with an 8 MB ATI video card. About a month after I ordered my TiPB, Rev B came out with a larger video card. This didn't bother me at the time, until they anounced the requirments for QE, a part of the OS.

Back to the topic. I would like to see a comparison of Comand Line (ie Linux w/o GUI v. OS X Terminal w/o GUI). That would be intersting.

 

[richard5mith]

Re: Re: Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by DGFan
I remember seeing a movie of OS X with the genie effect slowed down. They minimized a movie and showed that the movie still played while the genie effect was going on. Pretty slick. Quartz has the power (so to speak) it's just used in more subtle ways.

Just hold down shift when you minimise a window to see it in slow motion.

 

[macdong]

Re: Re: Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by MorganX
You have prefs and other misc files depending on the software. I use Spring Cleaning. But this feature probably would do more harm that good in OS X.

When I want to "completely" delete a program, I do a search with the name of the program and delete everything that's related to the program (App Support, User Pref, etc.). Takes 5 seconds, no Spring Cleaning needed

P.S. I tried that application a while ago. can't quite get used to it.

 

[job]

Originally posted by sturm375
Apple didn't create these drivers. The hardware manufactures submitted these drivers to be included in OS X. At least that is how it works in the windows world. I can't imagine Apple writing a driver for an HP laserjet.

I can understand your point.

I merely wanted to point out that generic print drivers were also included so I could connect my ancient HP and still have it print, albeit with limited functionality.

 

[job]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by richard5mith
Just hold down shift when you minimise a window to see it in slow motion.

That is cool.

I didn't even know you could do that.

 

[MorganX]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More W2K goodies

Originally posted by HornetOSX
Can you explain exactly how your seeing this issue .... I've tried every combo I can think of to see it( I'm not saying the bug does not exist I just cant get it to happen) tried these
In column view:
started the mp3 playing. right clicked copied pasted on a differnt HD, and in a different folder on the same HD WHILE playing
started playing .. then dragged and dropped it to different HD as well as new folder .. with and without it playing
only thing that happened is if I moved the MP3 on the same disk .. just to a different folder the preview playing stopped

Perhaps it's a bug. After some experimentation it is when moving from one volume to another. It will move on the same volume. I have an external firewire for a second volume.

 

[WorldWithoutLuv]

This is going to sound really dumb, but is Apple making Longhorn, or Microsoft?