Re: Even more mushy Christmas sentiment

CarpathiaMan stated in post
e7d47ae2-6bff-4eec-bc64-ffc2487fd5a6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on
12/26/09 4:59 PM:

On Dec 26, 5:19 pm, Snit <use...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
CarpathiaMan stated in post

I think what you said explains why an OS upgrade can be a good idea,
even if a lot of popular opinion suggests that there's no real
incentive.  Sometimes a lot of the changes aren't necessarily
"obvious" or readily apparent on the surface; rather, they're in the
improvements to what's under the hood, the way the "plumbing" is
engineered, so to speak.  This probably applies to most operating
systems, and I think it can even be said about Windows, when you think
about the way it has evolved in the areas of security, stability,
power, and expansion for the future.  And as far as operating systems
in general are concerned, there are always lots of little things that
you eventually discover and start taking for granted which are not
present in the older editions.

Absolutely.  While Windows 7 has some aesthetics I think are pretty nasty,
and is not quite to the level of polish and consistency that OS X is, it has
worked for me well and has some areas of shine where Apple could learn for
OS X.

Heh. I really do like using both platforms, but I'll be totally
honest ... during the past few days, while working on my new Mini, the
feeling of satisfaction and joy has on several occasions been strong
enough to the point where I really started to understand the reasoning
behind why a person would commit themselves to the Mac.

And that is using the lowest end Mac. Curious, what things have drawn you
in?

Maybe you can help me, Snit. Perhaps you can help me understand why
some aspects of OS X are considered superior to Windows. We can start
with simple things, like the user interface. For example:

1. I'm trying to get used to the fact that resizing a window can only
be done in the lower-right corner.
2. Minimize/maximize/restore is different than Windows.
3. I'd like to know the advantages of having a single menu at the top
of the screen as opposed to a per-application menu.

There are, of course, a million other things we could discuss, but it
would help me if you could start with those three.

From a recent post of mine:
-----
There are things about it I think are dated... even the
single menu I think works best for single monitors and,
really, for smaller ones than are the norm now. I use two
monitors and at times it is a bit absurd to have the menu on
the "wrong" one. And the lack of full maximize and inability
to resize from any side are, to be nice, odd choices. I have
a third party program to allow full maximizing which I think
is the greater "sin", but really that should be a part of the
OS. Option-click the green button... there - available for
"advanced" users and does not change things for the general
user. Have it where you can swap these in preferences for
general users who prefer to maximize.
-----

I have written about those elsewhere as well... the three you hit on are
just odd choices. And they are not consistent, either. Look at Preview -
you *can* resize from the right hand side, but only if you have the Sidebar
showing. And the green dot - in some programs the green dot does maximize
(some examples: Firefox and iMovie), but it does not generally (not even in
the rest of the iLife suite... heck, iTunes does something completely
different).

The single menu made a lot of sense when users had smaller, single monitors.
I saw a number of usability studies that showed the benefits, and it took
less room. But with today's larger monitors and the commonality of multiple
monitors, I suspect the usability studies would come to a different
conclusion (I have looked for more recent ones but have not find any).

Even with those things, though, overall I prefer - for most things - working
on OS X than working on Windows... but I have Win 7 almost always running on
my Mac via a virtual machine.

--
[INSERT .SIG HERE]


.

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