Macs now can operate a PC mouse with right click function, and for MacBooks you can activate an option in the mouse controls where hitting the touch pad with two fingers simultaneously acts as a right click…
Some of this is tied up with legal issues. I have forgotten the details but someone owns right mouse buttons. I use a logitech usb mouse and have a multitude of buttons including the expected right mouse click event. I never took my mighty mouse out of the plastic.
Transistioning to the mac from a pc was annoying for me at first too. Habits die hard and a particular way of thinking about things can get in the way. If there is other stuff post away, someone might know of a solution or a better way to get the job done.
Control-Click is the right mouse button, so you even have that on single button mice. It’s a godsend on laptops, that right mouse button drives me nuts on PC laptops.
My Grandpa recently replaced his iBook with a new macbook. He has been using macs for his home buisness since the 90s. At that time he had a old IBM with lots of cords and towers. He went of to purchase the very first iMac because o it’s all in one eature. Since !then he has not gone back to pc. Good job Apple.
Mac…old people really aren’t the best indicator, in my experience, for quality in a cutting edge technology field. I mean I’m sure there’s some but they only serve to prove the rule
I’ve always heard that Macs are better for media. I…just simply have never found a concrete answer on why and the times I’ve used them in media endeavors I found them clunky and slow. So…
This is such a vague statement. I mean if you were trying to do video editing on an old performa desktop or something I guess I could see it being “clunky and slow”, but using an actual current mac with final cut (or even iLife products) is the easiest and most powerful way (that I have seen) to edit and produce movies.
I think party its the streamlines look/feel of the OS that makes is easier. Also having a compleatly reliable system helps too. Also There are some very well done artsy programs for Mac, so that encourages it. I think a lot is the imgae:p
There’s actually some truth to that. Part of the reason is historical (Macs were light-years ahead of other computers when they first came out.) So designers et al were quick to latch on to them, early programs were Mac-only, etc.
There’s also the fact that Macs have always placed a greater emphasis on User Interface Design, which is something that designers (and other creatives) appreciate to a great degree.
The interesting thing is that, since the adoption of OS X (which is BSD-based,) scientists, computer engineers, and others of that sort have latched onto Macs as being the easiest Unix computers around.
Granted the macs I was using were those old like clear blue all in one jobbies but still that’s the experience I took away from it.
But everytime I’m forced to use a mac I hate it. You’re not ever going to get me to a switch, I’m far to engrained into using a windows operating system
You are clearly comfortable with using windows, and for better or for worse you should at least be able to be comfortable with your own OS. As Admiral Cain once said “you certainly have that right”.
To me, I guess alot of windows users are like a guy who is just comfortable driving his old pick up truck. It does the job for him even if its not as fast or nice or even luxurious as other vehicles. And even if it stalls or breaks down frequently, he knows how to work on it, and he knows how to get it restarted and make it do what he needs it to do. Plus most of his buddies have old trucks like his too, so thats less preasure to change.
well put, iGhost
I’ve used Apple products ever since the good ol’ Apple IIe, and I’ve also spent part of my career writing MFC code for Win32 platform. So you might call me a hard core PC guy, but also a Mac fan. Of course, nowdays for work, I mostly use Linux. So, yes, I’m an OS-whore.
In my opinion, I dare say, there’s nothing sillier than a flame war about OSes or computing platforms. They are TOOLS, used to get a job done. Whether the mice have one button or two, who’s got cuter icons or who’s got an ALT key is really stupid things to get into arguments over. They are just tools for getting a job done… let’s not get into a war of words over which is superior, flathead or philips.
For what it is worth, DiskWarrior is awesome and Drive Genius is miserable.
I have to agree that letting this debate get to the point of being a flame war is a bit silly. Although it would be even sillier if the argument was simply over mouse buttons, alt keys and cute icons. I think there are at least more important points to discuss. Lets face it, these tools are much MORE than just “tools” to some people.
good point, DBT. the purpose of this thread is for macusers to share tips and ideas, not to defend our choice
Just as much as my father would have to use different tools for different tasks in making stringed instruments, so it is with computers. I switch between a MacBook, a cranky hand-me-down box running Xubuntu Hardy Heron, and two Win2000 boxes. Each has its own purpose. The MacBook recorded House in HD over-the-air from KVVU and transcoded it tonight into a nice MP4. The Xubuntu box did a really fast burn job of some WAV files to an audio CD as per my father’s request while also letting me experiment with a few things. The Win2000 boxes handles some specific tasks such as Skype and audio recording but I did not need to use either tonight.
To get us back on track, I will offer a tip in terms of recording over-the-air HD television from your local broadcasters with a tuner like elgato’s eyeTV Hybrid. Make sure you reboot! Prolonged usage of AIR-based apps as well as Safari can cause all sorts of neat memory leaks. When recording what is essentially an MPEG-2 stream from a radio-based transmission system, you need every bit of system performance possible. Turning off wireless networking while recording and leaving the machine to just record will usually give better results than otherwise.
As a second tip, I suggest using TitanTV to check your local listings. Why pirate HD things when in some cases it is being outright broadcast by your local station? Not every FOX outlet carries House in HD over-the-air so using TitanTV can help you find what is in HD.
Well, yes, I HAVE over-simplified the the nature of the flame war to illustrate my point. And if anyone were to choose to view their hardware/OS package as more than just tools for running software, then they are entitled to that view. Furthermore if people choose computing platforms based on the lifestyle choices they each claim to represent in their TV commercials, I have no problem either.
In fact, while I have a dedicated WinXP box for running DVD-Shrink and videogaming and Ubuntu box as a local server that duplicates our datacenter deployment setups, most of my day-to-day development work and personal computing is done on a 15" MacBook Pro. And my reason for the choice are completely frivolous:
- It’s pretty. I like pretty.
- Compared to the Dell and HP/Compaq I also have, it feels solid. Pieces fit nicely, and it FEELS more durable. I don’t know if it really IS more durable, it just feels that way.
- I really enjoy walking into an Apple store and seeing a Mac Genius face to face, as opposed to waiting on the phone to speak to someone whose incentive to assist me is dubious at best because he’s not even in the same continent with me.
- I like being able to run *nix variant softwares, I want to be able to run lots and lots of open source tools, and I DON’T want to run cygwin.
- Translucent bash shell window fills me with inner peace and happiness. I don’t know why.
I know its a bit of a gimmick really, but the iTunes 8 visualizer is really quite an amazing upgrade I think. I cant help but just stare at it for long periods of time, mezmorized and unable to accomplish anything useful.
Twice now I’ve tried to use TalkShoe using Firefox but without much joy. TalkShoe would work but TalkShoe Pro did not. Yesterday after uninstalling, reinstalling, this that and the other thing I realized TalkShoe Pro would load and run with Safari but not with Firefox. I did not try to ‘talk’ so I am assuming Pro is fully functional from within Safari but I have not yet tried that. Assuming all is good, since I can now get it to work using Safari its not a big deal but curiosity prevails…
Is anyone using TalkShoe Pro on a Mac with Firefox 3.0.5 ?
If I attempt to connect using Firefox I get stuck in a deadly embrace. I click on the option to connect using Pro, it indicates its trying to load TalkShoe then a little dialog pops up telling me to run from a web page. Click on that and it takes me right back to the page to connect. Round and round we go. If I ignore the dialog and wait for the loading message eventually it just times out and reports some kind of an error that was not very useful. Anyone else experience this, know what this is about?
Since the only time I can try anything out is during a GWC TalkShoe event its difficult to sort this out, I’d rather be participating than messing around with softare. Consequently I did not yet try things like clearing cache, disabling some add-ons, etc. As I said, this more a curiosity thing than a necessity thing now that I know Safari works.
If anyone has already been down this road and knows… I’d appreciate it.
Thanks
Hello, my name is Solai, and I am a recently converted Mac user:
Mac users: Hi Solai
I am documenting my journey over here but in terms of best practices I can already share this:
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Throw away the Mac mouse immediately. Replace with $20 two button mouse. (this was driving me crazy)
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Buy a larger keyboard. Seriously. I don’t know if you guys have used the out of the box keyboard for the new iMacs. My wife noted, “it is so cute!” and it is. I think it giving me carpal tunnel it is so small. Plus I find it very hard to type accurately.
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A friend recommended buying, “Toast” as the one stop burn/convert everything software. Any others can speak to this?