Yes i have boken away from the shackles of microsoft well apart from the internet explorer and the microsoft office and bought a nice 12inch powerbook. Was considering the ibook but this was only about £200 more and has bluetooth but not quite as cute being silver instead of pearlesant white, everyone does silver these days. But anyway i degress.

the problem is i have not got the faintest idea on how to work it so any good books that will get a semi compantant windoze user get his head round all this new unix type [censored].

Already downloaded and installed jemplode and it is nice. But what is the serandipity thing all about me no understand so me no play with

There are plenty of books on Mac OS X, but look for one that is aimed at Windows converts as most are aimed at Mac OS 9 updraders.

These articles introducing the Unix command line might help:
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07003
and
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07068

I'd recommend installing a new web browser to replace the sluggish IE (although IE is useful for sites that insist that they need IE to run because the coders were lazy). Safari is the favourite for most users, but Camino is generally better and uses the Mozilla rendering engine so tends to be more compatible.

If you've looking for software, VersionTracker is a good resource that lists almost every software release for the Mac.

MacNN is the stalwart news site and is useful for getting up-to-speed with all things Macintosh.

You may notice that the new PowerBooks have a 'feature' where sound goes to sleep and takes a couple of seconds to wake up (making a noise in the process). This fixes it.

Proteus is a good instant messaging client that supports ICQ, AIM, MSN and Yahoo. It has a few more useful features than iChat too.

I like OmniWeb as a web browser. It has a lot of really nice features. Versions 4.2 and earlier can be a little slow, but 4.5 (currently in Beta) uses the new Safari engine and is much quicker, at the expense of a little attractiveness.

I also use Fire now for IM, as I didn't like Proteus's change in licensing. Proteus has a slightly better UI, though. Actually, Adium, I think, has a wonderful UI, but it only does AIM.

The 15" is the one you wanted... tsk tsk tsk...

BTW, while getting up to speed on the Mac OS X UI, don't get too attached to its current look and feel. Things are about to change. Again. Not that drastic, but enough.

IE will likely disappear from Mac OS sooner than later. And I wouldn't be surprised if we see more software from Apple starting to replace the MS Office standbys. I doubt very much Keynote and Safari were the only two swipes. Safari is the default browser in new OS updates incidentally. Still breaks too many sites (and not all for laziness on the webmaster's part).

Fire is pretty good and I wish Cerulean would include compatible encryption into Trllian (as I use both Mac and Windows mahcines).

Bruno

I'll kill IE as soon as i have worked out how to actually install something.

But i shall bare that in mind to look for a book for someone that is switching, thought i have been going through the help files on the mac web site and they are quite comprehensive so i might be brave and just use those but that won't be much use while on the big silly floaty things.

I can also see from all the sudden answers i am not going to be without any guiding hands on macs around here. Thanks to everyone.

I would like to say that my descision was based on a thourgh examination of all the hardware issues and the relative merits of each machine against a wide range of competing laptops from many different manufactures and operating systems but that would be a total lie. The truth is it was ohh look ain't that cute intially for the 12 inch ibook but then the price of the powerboook recently dropped to within a couple of hundred more than the ibook so thought bugger that i'll have that one.

I thought the 15 inch too big and the 17 inch just a wee bit silly

I ended up going with Proteus on the Mac since it seems to mirror many of the Trillian Pro features. Thinks like metacontacts, and the ability to sign on to a medium multiple times are things I can't live without now. So, $10 to support it didn't break my bank. Plus, that will get me access to Proteus 3.0, where the interface will be seperate from the actual daemon running the chat services. Think of it like a mini Jabber setup, where you log into your main Mac from any other machine, and receive any messages while the interface was disconnected.

I wrote a PHP script to convert the Trillian buddy list into a Proteus buddy list and should be releasing it soon. It saves the hassle of having to set up metacontacts again, and also having to rename buddies.

Well had it for about a week and still can't work it properly but here is the cool things

1 the tiny led under the caps lock key
2 The led in the plug to say wether charging or charged
3 tiny meter on bottom of battery with sexy wee button
4 the empeg style small pulsing led on the front catch
5 screen catch only pops down when the lid gets close to the body of laptop
6 glowing apple on the back of the keyboard
7 tiny fold out legs on power supply for power cable.

Nothing to do with software but being an engineer i love physical things

On the down side it gets damn hot but it is tiny and silent

screen catch only pops down when the lid gets close to the body of laptop

I thought that was the coolest thing, too. It's actually just a magnet in the base and a ferrous latch with a very slight spring on it, but still very cool. You can get the catch to come out if you hold a magnet next to it. Worked for me with a refrigerator magnet.

Most installs are EZ. The installer is a disk image that opens onto the desktop. Open it and drag the application from it into the applications folder. That's all Folks. finished. done.

One tip, If you want to preserve an earlier version of the software either move it somewhere else or rename it.

Open it and drag the application from it into the applications folder. That's all Folks. finished. done.

And the amazing thing is even Microsoft does this. Pop in the Office ver:X CD, and drag and drop a "Microsoft Office" folder to the Applications folder (and probably either using the easially customizable toolbar, or springloaded folders to do so). Install is complete.

Tons of minor little things like this made me realise I am truly happier using an OS X based machine for anything beyond gaming. And while Longhorn might copy Quartz Extreme, Apple is putting it to good use with features like Exposé. I still am suprised at times that I switched, but now I share the same enthusiasm about OS X as I do with my empeg.

That's one of the things I like about Apple. They seem to actually work on improving the user interface, not just making it ``pretty'' like Microsoft usually does. That's not to say that they don't fail sometimes, or even get caught up in ``pretty'' (brushed metal, anyone? or monosized titlebars?) But they seem to be making an effort.

This article is a good example of the different approaches MS and Apple take.

I don't know, Bitt. Sorry to disagree with you again, but I think that's subjective. I happen to hate the graphic effects I saw in OSX at the Mac store. I don't like that bar at the bottom that enlarges and shrinks the icons as you move over them, and I also dislike the way the windows are whisked away. They seem too slow for my taste. I think both companies are guilty of annoying UI "beautification."

But yes, Apple does seem to be attempting change more than MS (everyone knows Windows is perfect ).

I don't like that bar at the bottom that enlarges and shrinks the icons as you move over them

Apple Menu -> Dock -> Turn Magnification Off, or ctrl-click the Dock, or Dock prefs.

and I also dislike the way the windows are whisked away

Same places, there's two other effects (one of which isn't shown by default for.. no particular reason).

And Dignan... Remember that Windows has its own share of similarly annoying effects which have similar deactivation steps.

I have to agree with Bitt. And yes, I agree that the whisk-away effect and the icon growing features are annoying, but I think Bitt's got a point about the differing design philosophies between MS and Apple.

I believe that XP's "Luna" interface was supposed to be Microsoft's answer to Aqua. But there's a big difference between the two: Aqua is pleasing to the eye, soothing, uncluttered, and functional. Luna is exactly the opposite on each of those points.

Having spent some of my years doing graphic design, I can recognize the difference between "professional" and "hack". I may not be good at graphic design myself, but I know good design when I see it. And I can tell just by looking: Aqua was designed by a team of professional, talented graphic designers who genuinely wanted to give the interface a unified theme that was clean and stylish. Luna was clearly designed by a group of drunken, color-blind, myopic camels.

And microsoft office on a windows machine starts up with the cursed and annoying idiotic dancing bloody paper clip, who i know how to delete.

That is what i hated the most about windows XP any time i have played with it it would try and do everything for you and guess what you wanted to do. I know this is trying to make things easy but i think it makes it harder with what you really want to do hidden away in some nasty wizard.

I an still struggling to learn everything about this new OS but i can do anything i need to do on a everyday basis. just annoying that it has not got the support for hardware that a windoze machine has my webcam and my printer don't have drivers for OS X but the printer was half dead anyway so that got replaced and i am sure i can live without a webcam.

That is what i hated the most about windows XP any time i have played with it it would try and do everything for you and guess what you wanted to do. I know this is trying to make things easy but i think it makes it harder with what you really want to do hidden away in some nasty wizard.

They fell into the common design trap of trying to make it easy rather than intuitive.


> webcam and my printer don't have drivers for OS X

There are third-party drivers that cover most printers. There are also drivers for some USB webcams out there - what model do you have?

> I happen to hate the graphic effects I saw in OSX

You're not going to like Longhorn then. MS are desperate to show off all the wired and wonderful effects that their new graphics system can do.

A logictech something or other i don't know it is small and round

And Dignan... Remember that Windows has its own share of similarly annoying effects which have similar deactivation steps

I didn't say it didn't. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was implying that they had equally annoying effects.

Of course I'm sure that both operating systems have ways to deactivate their "annoying" features, but my point was that Apple was just as guilty of what Bit was saying about MS. I never said Windows was better with it, just that I dislike all those attempts at making an OS prettier instead of more functional.

> A logictech something or other i don't know it is small and round

Try this driver .

Sorry to disagree with you again, but I think that's subjective.

Obviously, that's true. But let me defend my point.

I have an Apple laptop that has an 800x600 screen. That's what I'm using right now. If I leave the dock at full size so that icons are readable, it takes up too much of the screen. If I make it a reasonable amount of the screen, it's unreadable. The magnification allows me to have the best of both worlds. Hiding the dock/toolbar is also a reasonable method, one which Windows has been capable of for a while, as MacOSX is, too. But the magnification is, IMO, more intuitive, as I can see what's down there without having to move my mouse. Or I can move my mouse in order to get more precise information.

The dislike of window whisking I can understand, but there's also a point to that. It shows you where that window has been minimized to. So if you're paying attention, you can click on it directly without having to search for it.

My point is that it's not just random ``beautification''. It has a purpose. You may not appreciate that purpose or like the manner in which it was implemented, but there's reasoning behind it.

As a counter-example, take Windows's menu transitions, where the menus can fade in or expand out when selected. I cannot come up with a rational reason why that could be useful. It just wastes my time waiting for the menu to render. It's just gee-whiz. A menu effect that Apple has is that a selected item in a menu flashes once or twice after you select it. This would seem to be time wasting, too, but it gives you real feedback about what menu item was actually selected. All of us have missed a menu item by a few pixels numerous times, I'm sure, but without that feedback, you have to wait and see what happens.

And, like I said, Apple is not without random beautification failures. Dragging something off of the dock creates a puff of smoke animation. It give you a little feedback, but the fact that the item is now gone would have been enough. That sort of thing has no real purpose. But my argument is that Microsoft is guilty of that much more than Apple is and does less to try to actually improve the UI.

Microsoft personalized menus need i say any more apart from the dancing paperclip

Really.

It's like Microsoft said ``How can we make it more difficult for users to find applications they use infrequently?''

Yeah, that whole hidden menu crap in Office XP....

Dragging something off of the dock creates a puff of smoke animation. ... That sort of thing has no real purpose.

But Apple had to justify the money they spent on the Newton development somehow.

This would seem to be time wasting, too, but it gives you real feedback about what menu item was actually selected. All of us have missed a menu item by a few pixels numerous times, I'm sure, but without that feedback, you have to wait and see what happens

Agreed completely.

One nice thing about Windows 2000 is that I can use TweakUI to disable all the animations for the menu appearing on the screen, but leave the one fade-out for the menu disappearing so that I get that Apple-style feedback for which item I selected.

Fair enough. And I happen to like the fade-in menus for nothing more than that it is easier on the eyes. If you have a dark background, the fade helps, at least for me. It never seems very long either.

Now I can see why the whisking windows makes sense. I couldn't see where I could open the windows again, but I suppose if I looked at it now, I'd see what you're talking about.

I will also agree that "personalized" menus were one of the worst things that MS ever introduced into their OS. They also make it pretty tough to find out how to turn it off.

Someday when I have some time, I'd like to spend a couple hours in the Mac store and take a look around the OS. I don't promise that I'll like it (for me, at least, I have had nothing but bad first impressions with MacOS), but I'll give it a try.

I'm not saying the Mac is for everyone. There are significant UI problems with Aqua. My biggest one is the fact that titlebars can't be resized. Making all of an application's windows rise to the top when one of them is clicked is another. But I think Windows has more; they're just different ones.

At the same time, you can't just decide that you don't like MacOS X just because it doesn't work exactly like Windows. That's the benefit. Just because you've gotten used to doing something in an awkward manner doesn't mean that's the right way to do it. It's hard to have a good first impression with something new when you're reasonably expert at the old thing, because you always want there to be just superficial differences, and that's just not the case.

Of course, the big problem is that it's virtually impossible to test drive MacOS X, since you need Apple hardware to do it, and that's a big investment. Trying to do it in the store is hardly ideal, either.

Actually, I think most of the Apple retail stores have a ``Getting Started on the Mac'' free class every Saturday morning, if you're interested enough to do that. I have no idea what it entails, but it might be worth checking out.

In reply to:

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I don't like that bar at the bottom that enlarges and shrinks

---

I thought this was a little goofy till I realized why it was there. You can shrink the tool bar down to illegable sizes. When that is the case, the magnification trick makes a lot of sense.

In reply to:

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And the amazing thing is even Microsoft does this. Pop in the Office ver:X CD, and drag and drop a "Microsoft Office" folder to the Applications folder (and probably either using the easially customizable toolbar, or springloaded folders to do so). Install is complete.

---

Actually. This has been around since at least the MacOS9 version of Office98.

Well, I'm not saying it should behave exactly like Windows. I just get put off by things I don't like initially. For instance I can see your reasonings behind the bits of UI we've been talking about, but I tend to think that the first thing I would do would be to turn them off, just like I turn off and adjust countless Windows "features" when I get a fresh machine.

First off, what is "Aqua"? I gather that's the general interface of the MacOS? Hmm, that inability to resize the titlebars would be a big point for me. I really disliked the size of them on the machine I tested. Is there no way to adjust it? I keep all my Windows titlebars as small as possible.

I'll check into those classes you mentioned. Like you said, it's a big investment just to try out the Apple experience, but I may give it a try someday. I think I may do my Linux trials first, though, as that would be an easier thing to try

First off, what is "Aqua"? I gather that's the general interface of the MacOS?

Specifically, it's the name of the new user interface that was introduced with Mac OS X.

Luna is the name for the "Fischer-Price OS" user interface that Microsoft introduced in Windows XP.

Luna was clearly designed by a group of drunken, color-blind, myopic camels.


Tony, how can you say such a thing? Don't you think you're being unreasonably harsh? I mean.... myopic?



tanstaafl.

You're right. I should have said drunken color-blind camels with strabismus.

No, myopic was fine... at least I knew what it meant.

/me digs out his dictionary.

Strabismus is the medical term for cross-eyed.

Well, sorta. Folks who are cross-eyed have strabismus, but not all strabismus sufferers are cross-eyed. They could be walleyed or a few other symptoms.

Types of Strabismus

You're right. I should have said drunken color-blind camels with strabismus.

I agree. I like XP better than the last couple attempts from Microsoft (aside from the activation thing), but the first thing I did was rip out the luna interface, personalized menus, the icon hiding in the system tray, etc... It's personally affrontive that my operating system would assume I'm an idiot and that I can't organize my menus and pick what programs I want to run for myself. I would find it more acceptable if they offered an option to choose "idiot mode" or "I-can-do-it-all-by-myself mode" during the install.

Oh...and it's ugly too

Sadly i never have been good enough to dump all that shite and detrius but i have no PC with XP i have had 95,98,98se,Me and win2k and find 2k the best so far.

but OS X has blown them all away only had one total crap out when a dirty dvd locked up the dvd player and i had no idea how to kill it so i had to kill the whole machine.

but the idea of having idiot mode or i know better than the computer mode a great concept it will never happen.

The latest cool thing i have found is the multihead mode of the laptop when i can attach a big monitor and have two different things on the laptop screen and the external monitor.

me thinks i might be wanting a G5 unless i can pick up a cheapo G4 powermac.

i had no idea how to kill it

Command-Option-Escape brings up the ``Force Quit'' dialog. You can also usually control-click on the dock icon if the program's not responding and it'll give you the option to kill it, but that may not have been available if the DVD app had taken over the screen. For that matter I can see that C-O-Esc might not have worked, either, but it probably would have.

There's also a Unix-y way to kill processes, but I won't burden you with that, as I don't think that C-O-Esc would fail when the Unix way would work.

So is the Luna interface basically everything that is the initial alternative to the "classic" theme? I'm on XP at work and I agree, I've been on several computers here and the first thing I do when I sit down is to get rid of all those annoying features.

And I agree it is very ugly. Nothing prettier than green, bright blue, and orange color schemes.

That is so true. As well as I hate having the OS define its directory structure so rigidly. Every install I do includes a registry modification and moving Program files and Documents and Settings to a different disk. What I really really miss is an "expert" installation mode that makes me do all this at the very beginning during the install process...

And yes, I find Luna awful as well. And I either get rid of it or install StyleXP and use some different visual style. But I hate having to waste ram memory for that.

And yes, I find Luna awful as well. And I either get rid of it ... But I hate having to waste ram memory for that.

Best way with XP to ensure the themes don't waste memory is to disable the "Themes" service. That way, XP dosen't load Luna for the login screen.

disable the "Themes" service

Wow, thats always annoyed me. How the login screen had the luna theme. Nice. Thanks!

Making all of an application's windows rise to the top when one of them is clicked is another.

Umm, OS X doesn't do this (unless the other windows are floating pallets). You can have multiple browser windows open with stuff in between then for example. If you click on a window just it will come forward, if you click on the application icon in the dock all the windows will come forward.

-Mike

if you click on the application icon in the dock all the windows will come forward.

It may be that that's what I always end up doing, due to the small screen on my MacOS X machine. Sorry for the misinfo.