- By Dan Veaner
- Business & Technology
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Dr. Digit 'Splains it AllDr. Digit 'Splains It All
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I loved two things when I turned it on for the first time. There was a wizard that wanted me to tell it things about me. It was short. It only took a minute. In Windows it takes a lot longer than that. A LOT longer!
I love the look of the MacBook. It is white, light weight, and the wide screen formt is nice even though it is not a very big screen on this low-end machine.
I had recently found a clone of the Mac dock for the PC (it's called ObjectDoc if you want to Google it -- it's the little 'table' at the bottom of the screen with handy program icons you can click sitting on it), and I like it better than littering my desktop with icons. So I was ready to like the OS X dock. And I do, except that it is not as configurable as ObjectDoc is. But I can live with that.
I really don't like the keyboard with its widely spaced square keys. My hands hurt all the time from all the typing I do, and the action on this keyboard is not helping. Also, it doesn't always type the letters, especially when using the shift key. I can retype them, but something is not great with these keys. I tried keyboards on some of the desktop Macs in the store and they felt the same to me.
And would it have killed them to include 'page up' and 'page down' keys? (I found that FN plus the arrows work, but other laptops have these keys. It couldn't be that hard!
But I love the look and feel of the USB Mighty Mouse. They get a lot out of a little with that mouse. My only gripe is that the cord could be a little longer. And I love that they call it a Mighty Mouse!
One of the things I originally didn't like about the Mac was that the availability of software wasn't nearly of the volume it is for PCs. That still seems to be true, though there is clearly much more now than there was. There does seem to be an active group of shareware and open-source developers now, though, again, not of the volume you find writing software for PCs.
Hot keys don't seem to work nearly as reliably on my Mac as they do on the PC. And having to use the Command key with the shift key and a letter key is much more awkward than using Ctrl+Shift+LetterKey in Windows. This matters, because the purpose of hot keys is to simplify your life, usually with one hand. I have to use two on the Mac.
I like that the F5 key is the refresh button on the Mac, just the same as it is in Windows. Since we are running a Web-based business you can imagine that we refresh our Web browsers a lot as we are working. I also refresh file windows (Explorer in Windows, Finder in OS X). And in my FTP program (if you don't know, don't ask. All I'm saying is that I use F5 a lot!).
If I had to pick the one thing Windows does better than OS X I would pick file management. Windows comes from the culture of geeks using computers, while Macs come from the culture of protecting users from that geeky stuff. So Finder is not nearly as well thought out as Windows Explorer (I'm not talking about Internet Explorer, the Windows Web Browser. Apple's Safari is much better than IE, and I like the open-source Firefox (on PCs and Macs) better than either of them).
In Windows Explorer I can find just about anything without opening new windows or having to know secret clicks (like 'Show Package Contents', laid out and usable in a logical way. Finder hides a lot of stuff to the point where I can't understand the logic of how my hard drive is organized beyond a very basic level. Understanding the logic makes it easier for me to find what I need and move things around. I also think Windows Explorer has more useful views than Finder. I must note, however that Vista has added restrictions in where you can place files that I think is very much the wrong way to go.
But Finder has one thing WE doesn't have. Under Windows you have to find the little 'Safely Remove Hardware' program before removing a device, figure out which thumb drive or whatever you are removing, and go through the steps to close it out before removing it. How many times have you pulled out your thumb drive without doing that? And how many of those times have you lost data (if you haven't yet, you will!)?
Sometimes the little things are a stroke of genius. In Finder there is a little 'eject' icon USB drives, CDs, whatever isn't permanently part of the computer. And it is right in Finder next to the drive or gadget that needs to be ejected. Apple really got that right.
There are many many widgets clones for PCs. Widgets are handy little mini-programs with limited but focussed uses like clocks, calendars, calculators and the like. On the Mac you can see them or not see them with the click of the mouse wheel. I like this better than the ones on the PC that take up real estate on your desktop. It is very handy. I find I use them all the time, and I can get rid of them on the screen instantly. I like it much beter than even the new gadgets/Windows Sidebar scheme Vista touts.
After using this Mac for a couple of weeks I guess the thing I like the least is the keyboard. For home use that can be easily and inexpensively remedied with an external keyboard. The problems with Vista are not nearly as easily addressed. With a downright paranoid security component that is so intrusive that it is difficult to get work done, and with a heavy drain on resources, many new PC owners are 'upgrading' by removing Vista and replacing it with the older tried and true XP.
I am sorry Microsoft has gone down that road so extremely. I never would have thought I would even think of buying a Mac. But now that I do, there are many things that I like about this laptop, and I can no longer say that I hate Macs. I really kind of like them.
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