MetaCatholic

Another little update on switching operating systems, for those who are curious, and those who are pondering the same move.

The first lesson: there’s no such thing as a perfect computer system, whatever enthusiasts tell you. The second lesson is that (whisper who dares) Windows and OS X are not as far apart as you might think. It’s more than a big-endian and little-endian dispute, but far nearer that than to the Arian controversy, despite the religious intensity of the battle. Lesson number three is that the oft-touted word “intuitive” often (but not always) means “what I’m used to”.

One downside story first. I couldn’t for the life of me work out why the Notes feature of Mail wasn’t working. I trawled the various discussions and support sites, and clearly quite a few other people had had or were having the same problem. Most were writing this off as a bug. Then I stumbled across one site that had the answer. The Marker Felt font needed to be enabled. Many of us jaded long-time users of any system are prone to turn fonts and font sets on and off as needed. I’d moved this particular font into a group that was disabled. But it is hardly elegant to make a feature depend on a particular non-system font, and throw up no warning dialogue. One thing that definitely does seem to be a bug (and not a faux bug like the notes one) is the failure of iCal to purge old events according to the settings. I had to get rid of mine by purging them on the Palm TX and then syncing.

On the major upside, I thought it was time to put into action something I’d quite wanted to do for some time. I copied part of Jesus of Nazareth to the Mac (using the excellent Handbrake) and then edited about 25 minutes of the passion sequence down to just over four in iMovie. Then I overlaid Wonderwall from my iTunes library, and exported it as a QuickTime movie, for use as an unusual meditation piece in an informal evening service. (I’d love to show you, but I think I’d be violating all sorts of copyright.) The various importing and rendering times were tedious, but I could get on with other stuff. The actual work was relatively brief. The final product may have been rough and ready (and I really undertook it as a learning experience) but I managed it without any reference to any manual or guide, and just be trying things out. In this case, it was fairly intuitive – once I realised that the Mac’s default option to make something happen is drag one thing over another.

The saga continues.

written by doug

At the end of my first week with the Mac, some comments are probably in order.

I’m still being driven mad by confusing the Command and Control keys in shortcut combinations. It’s not helped by continuing to use Windows.

I’ve by and large been impressed by running Windows in a VM (I’m using Fusion). This continues to be necessary for when I need the full power of Adobe Creative Suite, and also for using Bibleworks, and MS Publisher (an application I only use under sufferance!). If I had waited to be able to get all the software I needed when I bought the Mac, I’d still be waiting. WinXP actually runs faster in this virtual machine with a mere 512Mb RAM assigned than it did on my old hardware with 1Gb of RAM. Go figure! I have had problems with the printer driver. Printing from Windows disables the Mac driver and vice versa. I have a fairly kludgy workaround for that – printing everything in the VM to PDF and then dragging it over for a hard copy as needed.

I’ve set up the VM on another virtual desktop using Spaces. This is a great feature for running two OSs side by side and switching instantly between them with a keyboard shortcut: it’s almost instantaneous. Windows users who ned to go on using Windows have nothing to fear.

I’ve surprised myself by not yet buying MS Office 2008. I’m not yet sure what my word-processing solution will be. I have been taken aback by just how good Pages is: it is far more fully-featured than I expected, and is a real pleasure to use. I have played with Word 2008 in the Apple Store, and it is very good. Unfortunately it doesn’t have the same good language support as Office 2007 for Windows does. Pages seems to do enough for general work. I’m looking at download trials of Mellel and Nisus Writer Pro to see how they might pan out for me.

The fact that there is, in some ways, so little to say about the changeover says more about how much more alike the two OSs are than the “religious” wars of their fanboys might suggest. I am not having to change my ways of working that much. My use of dragging-and-dropping, always quite heavy, is increasing. I need to remember to use Spotlight, instead of drilling down through folders (as I would have to learn to use Search on Vista). I rather miss the Start button (a much better device than is credited: you could literally start doing anything by moving the mouse to the same place on your screen).

The Dock is better than the Windows Taskbar in many ways: being able to drag a file to an application without worrying whether it’s open or needs to open is a good move. You shouldn’t need to know: it’s your computer’s problem. The lack of feedback on things like which documents are open that the taskbar gave you is a bit of a minus.

Probably the thing that I notice most, and which I really like, is the almost instantaneous waking from Sleep, which means I can get going when I want, without wondering whether I’ve got time to switch the computer on to check for something before walking out of the door.

The first week: by and large, it’s been a good one.

written by doug

In the OS wars, the question of which is more “intuitive” gets asked a lot. Mac users claim that OS X is clearly more “intuitive” than Windows. My early experience would suggest that “intuitive” is a matter of what you’re used to. Windows seemed quite intuitive to me, and I’m sure that in a couple of weeks OS X will too.

Let me give a couple of examples. And the beauty of this is that eve if I’m wrong, and there is a better and easier way to do what I wanted, it proves my point about intuitiveness.

I wanted to add a graphic of my real signature to my email signature in Mail. I looked everywhere I could think of for an “insert picture” command, and failed miserably. OK, Mac is supposed to be famous for drag and drop, so I tried that and it worked. Different methods, and what you’re used to will be more intuitive. I don’t think either is quicker or easier than the other.

The signature graphic was a different size to what I wanted. How then did I resize it, short of zooming over to Windows and opening it in Photoshop. (NB When I say resize, I mean resize and resample the actual file, not make it look larger or smaller in the document.) The obvious answer, I thought, would be the famed iPhoto. Nope, there may be a way, but of so, I couldn’t find it. Almost by accident, while looking for something else, however, I discovered the option to resize and resample an image in Preview. (Incidentally, Preview is a real gem, and at the heart of some of the “must have” easy working features of the Mac.) Now call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think it’s remotely intuitive to be unable to resize files in a photo editor, but dead easy in an application intended for previewing them.

I have no idea how you could objectively measure “intuitiveness”. Everyone comes with their own habits, experience and preconceptions. The OS wars: when you take the passionate believers out, there’s still no neutral objectivity. Now where I have I heard that before?

written by doug

Well, after all the thinking and waiting; after the first, second and third thoughts, today was the day I went shopping. It’s a 2.66 Ghz 20″ iMac. A big thank you to AT of the Apple Store in Solihull for his help and advice. Over the next few days and weeks I will do the occasional post on getting used to it, and list them on this page.

A few quick and early impressions.

• It is really nice and easy to setup, and it allows me to reclaim some space.
• I wish the @ key was where I expect it to be
• In trying to make the links above I kept wondering why it wasn’t copying the locations. I eventually realised I was hitting Control+C etc instead of Command+C.
• I’ve been delighted how easily my contacts and calendar events transferred simply by syncing my Palm TX.
• It’s been great fun watching Windows install in a VM in the background, while I’ve been working on something else.
• I’ve always thought Windows was good at drag and drop. I’m beginning to discover the Mac is drag and drop on steroids. This will suit my way of working.

Anyway, I must get on with the conversion / file transfer process. But so far I’m saying to myself: “Good move”

written by doug

As many readers may know, I’m thinking over switching to a Mac, and am quite likely to once I’ve organised the pennies. But I was browsing their refurbished iMacs on the store (which does look a bit like a sell off of inventory at the moment, and was completely baffled at their pricing.

For £949 you can get a refurb of the current 24″ 2.4Ghz aluminium iMac. That’s not too bad a price. But spend £10 more, and a whopping £959 will buy you … the previous generation of 24″ white plastic iMac with OS X Tiger, iLife 06, half the graphics power and a slower processor.

Are they serious?

written by doug

I’ve been continuing to get some helpful feedback on my series of posts on switching to a Mac. I still haven’t made the switch, though I’m still thinking about doing so. The reason I haven’t switched is one of the big culture switch issues, and what seems to me like a fairly big argument to drop in the PC side of the scales.

The machine I would be most likely to buy is the iMac. However, the current models are almost certainly reaching the end of their shelf-life. They were released in August 2007 – so they’re now eight months old and growing older by the day. Given the speed of technological development: that’s really old. Coming from the PC world, where one or other manufacturer is releasing something new every week in a constant round of catch-up and competition, it seems quite bizarre. When the aluminium iMac was first released, it was a good buy. I would guess that Apple’s profit margin was tending to low. Now, however, I would guess that the same hardware is bringing in quite a high profit, and the balance has tilted away from the consumer. Buying at this stage of a product cycle, when there is no discount or sale price is paying over the odds, and I can’t bring myself to do it.

A related issue is one of screen quality. There has been quite a stir among fanboys over this lawsuit, alleging that the screens in the 20-inch iMac are not as advertised. As far as I can see, Apple have walked a fairly thin line. Their advertising makes a claim that, while not untrue, is misleading in so far as unaware readers might well think the only difference between the screens is size. In fact there is a significant difference in quality as well. One can’t help feel that Apple are trading on their reputation for quality while delivering lower quality than one would expect at the price-point. The problem is, whereas again in the PC world, there is oodles of choice, in the Mac world it is very limited, and if one is looking for a Mac, the company has rather more power than the consumer.

Don’t get me wrong. I still think there are significant pluses weighing down the Mac side of the scale in my buying decision, but I’m not entirely comfortable surrendering quite as much consumer power and choice as any of Apple’s customers must.

written by doug

I’ve been stunned by the number of helpful comments on my most recent switching to Mac post, some very specifically answering my question about virtualisation, and others giving general encouragement. I think the enthusiasm and helpfulness is itself a reason to consider switching. In fact, I’ve decided to make a static page referencing these posts for those who want to follow my journey and offer further advice. It’s my intention that I will blog the process of switching when I finally do it.

Thanks especially for the links to discussion or Parallels versus Fusion, and the comments about that. It will matter for the first few months, since I can’t afford to change all my software at the same time as the hardware.

I want to respond to some of the many comments here a bit more fully, so that I can clarify one or two things, and why the reasons I’ve already given remain the main reasons for me. I’m sure other people will have other reasons which are more important to them.

Cost. I agree (and have said) that the costs like-for-like are roughly comparable. It is true, however, that it is possible to buy a really cheap PC that is adequate. If, for example, I suddenly developed a major and expensive problem with my car, I would be forced to go that route in the short term, and come back to buying a Mac when finances were again in a bit better shape.

Laptop or desktop. In the end, my particular pattern of working probably means both (not least so that two users can be active simultaneously). One of the things I’m waiting for is the release of a new iMac, which is probably due, and certainly heavily rumoured to be due, in the next few weeks.

Support. One kind commenter asked whether I could be sure I had enough support. If everyone around me was on Windows, did that mean I might be cut off from help if I had a problem. Well, the number of comments on that post suggest it won’t be a problem, but in any case, I’m usually the one who helps other people with their problems.

User experience. I expect using a Mac to be a good user experience, however, I can honestly say that I’ve found using Windows to be a good one too. I know people say that “With a Mac I can just get things done” but I’ve found that has been my normal experience on Windows, especially with XP. It’s also true that some of the graphics and DTP lists I subscribe to suggest that there are always times when whatever the OS, there’s a gremlin there waiting to trip you up. With anything as complex as a modern computer and OS, it’s actually amazing that this doesn’t happen more often.

Viruses etc. I know many people regard this as a big selling point for OS X. However, I haven’t had a virus problem, ever, on Windows, nor indeed a malware, spyware, trojan or anything else problem, mainly because I keep my security up-to-date. It’s not a big deal for me. The problem (which is a real one) is due, I think, less to the sheer number of Windows viruses in the wild, and more to the fact that there’s a very high percentage of computing novices and ignoramuses on Windows.

So thanks again everyone who’s commented to date.

written by doug