Journal stoolpigeon's Journal: Couple Weeks With A Mac 19
Picked up my new 13" Retina Macbook Pro ( not the same as a plane Macbook Pro - these guys are so good at marketing.) I've been using it for two weeks. I'm learning.
My favorite surprise was when I opened up the terminal app and started trying out commands. Everything was working so I went to see what environment I was in and saw that it was bash. This made me very happy.
I think on the gui end it is o.k. I prefer but I'm getting use to the way OS X wants me to do things. I've had to learn some weird gestures to get at what I want quickly.
Here are some of the issues so far. Installing software sucks. It comes in different file formats and how it gets done varies wildly based on where I get it from. It's confusing as all get out. Without a package manager I guess updates will be on a per software basis and apparently uninstalling means removing the program and then hunting down any bits it leaves behind. That's pretty idiotic. I had a hard core Mac guy try to explain to me why this was better.
There is this gigantic track pad below my keyboard and I wouldn't care if palm detection or whatever you want to call it worked better. As I type this the window is scrolling up and down as my hands periodically bump into the track pad. So far I can't find a setting that lets me try to fix this sorry state of affairs. This is my big issue with the lack of options. If things work correctly it's fine. If they don't, you are just hosed. And it never works correctly as much as the people who make these things think it will.
Battery life on all Apple products I've interacted with lately is just flat out impressive. This laptop is no exception.
It's the most expensive laptop I've ever owned. That changes my whole approach to how I travel with it. I have to be a lot more careful. I didn't realize how much I appreciated not worrying about my $400 Acer so much. This is more on me I guess but it's still a function of the machine. I do appreciate that full disk encryption is now a part of the OS. This puts it ahead of windows and helps it catch up with Linux a bit.
When Mac people are explaining some amazing feature to me that I've been using in KDE for years and years I do chuckle a little inside. Virtual desktops for example.
Multimonitor support is weak. It doesn't work as well as it does on my Win 7 machine. I don't think I'm alone in this. When I go to conferences it's a pretty steady stream of guys coming up to present and plugging their machines into the projector. It's the Mac guys that have the most trouble.
Speaking of that - my life was increasingly becoming dongle/incompatible power cord free. Apple just set me back quite a few years as I am not back to carrying around a bunch of wire and related junk that all just do one thing for one machine. I am not a fan of that whole mess.
It's very early on. I may end up turning into a true believer. Or maybe I'll have better options by the time I'm ready for a new machine. I'd love something with this build quality that ran Fedora well.
I didn't know Apple was into aviaton (Score:1)
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And this is why I do so poorly in quizup. I'm number 5 in Hungary for English grammar but well, that's just not saying a whole lot.
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I'm used to it now. Especially with people who have good analytical skills. They really pay attention to details and I can get quite lazy with my speech/writing.
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My big gripe (Score:2)
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Make the computer find it. If the damn thing can do nothing else, it can find a file. But chances are it's in the "Downloads" folder.
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Use the modification date. Sometimes I've seen creation dates way out of whack, most notably when it is after the modification date.
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It's not really a workaround. I find weird creation dates on windows files also. It's still a simple search, whatever platform you're working with. The damn machine is expensive, make it work for its money while you go make a sandwich or feed the baby...
App installation + uninstallation (Score:2)
I come at this from a completely different viewpoint, having only recently dipped my toes into Linux - for me, a package manager is a relatively new concept. The nearest I've come to it previously has been with Apple's App Store, both for iOS and now OSX - plenty of choice, sometimes too much choice.
As far as manually installing apps goes, it usually boils down to double-clicking on the DMG file to mount it, then either running the installation package or dragging the app file to your Applications folder.
In
Moo (Score:1)
Apple wants you to use the app store for app management. If you use it, it's a simple click to update everything. Outside of that, it's an individual thing.
Apps are really mini file systems that should include all it's files. Hence, to delete, just delete the file. In reality however, some apps leave a footprint. AppCleaner [google.com] does a decent (though not perfect [macrumors.com]) job. Or, just do it manually [macrumors.com].
Ultimately, the macbook can be used as a cookie sheet. :)
I like my Macbook (Score:2)
But boy howdy can I do without the smug righteousness of the mac fanbois. I'd rather founder than ask them anything. I have a friend I really like, but he's insufferable when Apple comes up. I call him "Cupertino Joe". :-)
Heh (Score:2)
As it ever was, as it ever shall be. Probably the most infuriating thing about the Apple philosophy, and shockin
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His main idea was that the OS has no business deleting any data generated by the application, that data is mine and uninstalling should only remove the program itself and let me take care of the rest.
Being careful (Score:2)
I carried a 2007 MacBook Pro on a tractor trailer for six months. Still using it five years later. I wasn't particularly careful with it.
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Yeah- it may not be a real issue but my brain wont let me be less than very careful due to the financial investment.
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Oh, I was about as careful as I could be. But given the nature of life over the road, that exposes a machine to far more abuse than life on a desk at home, occasionally carried on an airplane.
Certainly if I were to do it today, I'd make sure the machine had an SSD.