This week's post is going to be relatively short. I didn't do a lot of testing but I've been using my MBP constantly and for doing non-professional everyday stuff, I find it pretty good especially because it boots, shuts down and starts applications faster than Windows. I've mentioned this before but I'd like to add some details.
When I first started using the MBP with fresh install of OSX and Windows, the OSX side would boot faster (about 40 seconds) while the Windows side was not much slower (about 70 seconds boot time). After a lot of apps and usage, my OSX still boots at the same time, but my Windows boot time is now more than 2 minutes!
The delay in Windows start-up may be related to another issue. When installing VMWare virtual machine, I was told that it may damage the Windows Activation files and vase the need to re-activate. It didn't happen immediately but did happen after a while. Windows detected non-genuine copy (incorrectly) and asked me to re-register using a license key. I was lucky that at school we have academic licenses and I could get a new one for free. But the problem happened for a second time last week and I did the same thing. This by itself is a problem but I also noticed that my Windows start-up is slower since the first time that error happened.
The next set of things I did last week was to install a bunch of apps for OSX. They are quite good and I thought it'd be a good idea to let readers know about them.
TotalFinder is an add-on to Finder. I really dislike Finder as I've said before. It is one of the main drawbacks of using OSX for even casual stuff. TotalFinder gives you tabbed mode and also listing folders at the top! It doesn't make Finder a good tool but it's an improvement. See post #14 for my complaints against Finder.
Miro Video Converter
Handbrake DVD Ripper
Seashore, simple Photoshop-like app
UnArchiver for RAR, ZIP, etc
Xee, a nice image viewer that is much better than Preview, kinda like Windows Image Viewer. If you open a file, you can browse through the next images in that directory. For Preview you have to select them all and then open with Preview.
Sixty Force and Nestopia are Nintendo64 and NES simulators.
For more see: http://bestmacsoftware.org/
I'LL BE BACK!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
#14, Summary 1
So I'm finally back home and can get to do my promised summary #1. But in case you are curious, let me tell what I was up to in the last two weeks. I went to Barcelona for a conference on educational technologies and methods to present our work on virtual educational environments (http://img.csit.carleton.ca/vcher). Barcelona without a doubt is one of my favourite destinations (see my Facebook album). The conference was also an interesting multidisciplinary forum. One thing that I found particularly interesting was that it's not just us in North America who try to make education "fun", and it reminded me of this thought I've been having for a while that we are probably going too far with this "do what you like" "try to have fun" idea for students (from kindergarten all the way up). That's not real life. It's good to have some fun when learning but it's not an educational requirement. What happened to joy of learning and achieving? Well, I'm going to post something on this topic some time soon. My next stop was Vancouver where I moved from 4 years ago, to attend a friend's wedding. I don't want to sound sad but nothing makes you remember you are alone and far from family more than going back for a wedding no matter how fun it is! Not to mention another unfortunate thing in such out-of-town weddings and that is meeting people you like who live far far away from you!
Anyway, I think I'm in situation to have an overall (maybe still preliminary) opinion of the whole Mac vs. PC topic. I'm going to write my #1 summary of evaluations grouped into 5 categories: Hardware, User Interface, General OS Operation, Applications, and Software Development. As we all could expect Mac and OSX don't get the same results on all categories and of course for all types of users, and I try to consider this "user type" matter in all categories.
Overall, I have to say I'm happy with my MacBook Pro. Except for playing Windows-only games, using Visual Studio (Windows development) and sometimes MS Office (because OpenOffice doesn't do all the Office functions), I hardly had to go to my Windows side. I have Photoshop only for Windows but I have Corel Painter on OSX and that usually does the typical jobs I have for Photoshop. There are all sorts of free apps for Mac. But we will talk about all these in details. One thing I can say now is that considering everything, I didn't find the computing experience superior in Mac, especially when we remember the price. Here is the tricky part though, because the experience "may" be superior for some types of users. Of course in some categories, particularly programming, the OSX experience has been without a doubt inferior. Let's go over categories before I try to make some conclusions. In each category, I group items into P (positive for OSX), N (negative for OSX), and X (just different).
========
Hardware (MBP but more or less applies to other Macs too)
========
P
* MBP is a high-quality piece of hardware. You are paying for it, of course, but anyway you'll get high-resolution screen, good graphics card, nice back-lit keyboard, and fast HDD. MBP has all major peripherals like wireless, USB, external monitor, bluetooth, etc.
* MBP had an attractive design. It's relatively thin and light.
N
* MBP has sharp edges! You kinda get used to it but the annoyance never goes away completely when you rest your hands under keyboard.
* The keyboard has missing keys like separate Delete/Backspace, and Page Up/Down. You can use Function key and other combinations for those purposes but it's not convenient, especially when writing text.
* Hardware modules like speaker and CD/DVD drive have software-based controls, meaning that you have to have the OS up and running properly in order to control those devices. Now this may seem like a trivial thing but it's not. Here are my two experiences:
1- I had a CD stuck in the drive but not mounted (i.e. not recognized by the OS). I had no way of getting it out. I rebooted with Windows and used right-click/eject on the drive name. The Eject key is not like the eject button on other drives. It is not directly connected to the hardware.
2- I started my laptop during someone's talk in Barcelona and had no way of stopping the log-in sound because the OS was still booting. My last laptop had a volume knob directly connected to hardware.
It seems that designers have given a higher priority to "looking good" than "being usable".
========
User Interface
========
This category is the most difficult one for me to evaluate, as it clearly depends on "user". There are two key points:
1- OSX hides details which can make it easier to use especially for less technical users. I personally like to customize things and do things the way I want. The "ease of use" thing has no value for me if not being a negative. Window is kinda going toward that direction too.
2- OSX has a different UI style compared to Windows, such the common top menu, window resizing/closing, etc. I don't find either one better, just takes getting used to, but some users may think differently.
If there is one thing that I do find inferior in OSX compared to Windows is Finder vs. Windows Explorer. The Explorer in XP was my favourite. Vista and Win7 changed it for worse in my opinion (for example by removing customizable toolbars) but it still has the typical 2-pane view with tree structure on the left and content on the right. Finder has two options none of them like Explorer. Some difficulties with Finder are moving a file to another directory. In Windows Explorer you simply drag and drop in the same window (to the tree pane) but with Finder you need a second window because there is no tree pane. It is also difficult to create a new folder or paste from clipboard when the window is full and there's no space for right-clicking (you can use keyboard commands though). And why the hell the Cut command is always disabled in Finder?
========
General OS Operation
========
OSX is faster in booting up, shutting down and starting applications. That is the only certain positive I've seen so far.
OSX seems a little more stable but it does crash too (or some apps). When I had a damaged CD stuck in my CD/DVD drive (see the Hardware section), my OSX took forever to load and the keyboard stopped working! Windows doesn't really crash much on me either. The stability issues are usually for applications not OS.
Having to deal with a known standard hardware (the Mac case) allows OS to be a lot more optimized. Windows need to be open to all sorts of hardware and software configuration (some really cheap and low-quality ones) and so it's a lot more likely to suffer from problems. In a way, Mac is faster and more stable and we pay for it!
Because most online threats are for Windows, you are less likely to have that sort of problem on Mac. Does it mean OSX is more secure? I'm not sure.
========
Applications
========
There are more applications (especially games) available for Windows but it's not as bad as I thought before. You can find pretty much everything for Mac maybe except games. I didn't find applications any of the two operating systems particularly better than the other. As I mentioned in my 3D Graphics post, the performance of Maya 2010 and Half-Life 2 were not that different on Windows and OSX.
========
Software Development
========
This is the easiest category for evaluation, and I'm sure anybody who has read my previous posts already knows what I think.
N
- OSX has a weaker 3D API
- ObjectiveC and Cocoa are confusing and harder to use compared to.NET and C#.
- Xcode is an embarrassingly bad IDE.
===========
So what is the conclusion? If you have the money, and are doing the "typical" tasks, and don't want to bother with customizing things, then Mac can be a good option. In other cases, I haven't been convinced that Mac is a better choice worth paying a lot more. Of course if you can afford it and are a technical person doing more complex stuff, then it can still be a good idea especially because you can have Windows on it too.
There's more to do for testing and seeing how things work over time.
I'LL BE BACK!
Anyway, I think I'm in situation to have an overall (maybe still preliminary) opinion of the whole Mac vs. PC topic. I'm going to write my #1 summary of evaluations grouped into 5 categories: Hardware, User Interface, General OS Operation, Applications, and Software Development. As we all could expect Mac and OSX don't get the same results on all categories and of course for all types of users, and I try to consider this "user type" matter in all categories.
Overall, I have to say I'm happy with my MacBook Pro. Except for playing Windows-only games, using Visual Studio (Windows development) and sometimes MS Office (because OpenOffice doesn't do all the Office functions), I hardly had to go to my Windows side. I have Photoshop only for Windows but I have Corel Painter on OSX and that usually does the typical jobs I have for Photoshop. There are all sorts of free apps for Mac. But we will talk about all these in details. One thing I can say now is that considering everything, I didn't find the computing experience superior in Mac, especially when we remember the price. Here is the tricky part though, because the experience "may" be superior for some types of users. Of course in some categories, particularly programming, the OSX experience has been without a doubt inferior. Let's go over categories before I try to make some conclusions. In each category, I group items into P (positive for OSX), N (negative for OSX), and X (just different).
========
Hardware (MBP but more or less applies to other Macs too)
========
P
* MBP is a high-quality piece of hardware. You are paying for it, of course, but anyway you'll get high-resolution screen, good graphics card, nice back-lit keyboard, and fast HDD. MBP has all major peripherals like wireless, USB, external monitor, bluetooth, etc.
* MBP had an attractive design. It's relatively thin and light.
N
* MBP has sharp edges! You kinda get used to it but the annoyance never goes away completely when you rest your hands under keyboard.
* The keyboard has missing keys like separate Delete/Backspace, and Page Up/Down. You can use Function key and other combinations for those purposes but it's not convenient, especially when writing text.
* Hardware modules like speaker and CD/DVD drive have software-based controls, meaning that you have to have the OS up and running properly in order to control those devices. Now this may seem like a trivial thing but it's not. Here are my two experiences:
1- I had a CD stuck in the drive but not mounted (i.e. not recognized by the OS). I had no way of getting it out. I rebooted with Windows and used right-click/eject on the drive name. The Eject key is not like the eject button on other drives. It is not directly connected to the hardware.
2- I started my laptop during someone's talk in Barcelona and had no way of stopping the log-in sound because the OS was still booting. My last laptop had a volume knob directly connected to hardware.
It seems that designers have given a higher priority to "looking good" than "being usable".
========
User Interface
========
This category is the most difficult one for me to evaluate, as it clearly depends on "user". There are two key points:
1- OSX hides details which can make it easier to use especially for less technical users. I personally like to customize things and do things the way I want. The "ease of use" thing has no value for me if not being a negative. Window is kinda going toward that direction too.
2- OSX has a different UI style compared to Windows, such the common top menu, window resizing/closing, etc. I don't find either one better, just takes getting used to, but some users may think differently.
If there is one thing that I do find inferior in OSX compared to Windows is Finder vs. Windows Explorer. The Explorer in XP was my favourite. Vista and Win7 changed it for worse in my opinion (for example by removing customizable toolbars) but it still has the typical 2-pane view with tree structure on the left and content on the right. Finder has two options none of them like Explorer. Some difficulties with Finder are moving a file to another directory. In Windows Explorer you simply drag and drop in the same window (to the tree pane) but with Finder you need a second window because there is no tree pane. It is also difficult to create a new folder or paste from clipboard when the window is full and there's no space for right-clicking (you can use keyboard commands though). And why the hell the Cut command is always disabled in Finder?
========
General OS Operation
========
OSX is faster in booting up, shutting down and starting applications. That is the only certain positive I've seen so far.
OSX seems a little more stable but it does crash too (or some apps). When I had a damaged CD stuck in my CD/DVD drive (see the Hardware section), my OSX took forever to load and the keyboard stopped working! Windows doesn't really crash much on me either. The stability issues are usually for applications not OS.
Having to deal with a known standard hardware (the Mac case) allows OS to be a lot more optimized. Windows need to be open to all sorts of hardware and software configuration (some really cheap and low-quality ones) and so it's a lot more likely to suffer from problems. In a way, Mac is faster and more stable and we pay for it!
Because most online threats are for Windows, you are less likely to have that sort of problem on Mac. Does it mean OSX is more secure? I'm not sure.
========
Applications
========
There are more applications (especially games) available for Windows but it's not as bad as I thought before. You can find pretty much everything for Mac maybe except games. I didn't find applications any of the two operating systems particularly better than the other. As I mentioned in my 3D Graphics post, the performance of Maya 2010 and Half-Life 2 were not that different on Windows and OSX.
========
Software Development
========
This is the easiest category for evaluation, and I'm sure anybody who has read my previous posts already knows what I think.
N
- OSX has a weaker 3D API
- ObjectiveC and Cocoa are confusing and harder to use compared to.NET and C#.
- Xcode is an embarrassingly bad IDE.
===========
So what is the conclusion? If you have the money, and are doing the "typical" tasks, and don't want to bother with customizing things, then Mac can be a good option. In other cases, I haven't been convinced that Mac is a better choice worth paying a lot more. Of course if you can afford it and are a technical person doing more complex stuff, then it can still be a good idea especially because you can have Windows on it too.
There's more to do for testing and seeing how things work over time.
I'LL BE BACK!
Thursday, July 8, 2010
#13
I just came back from Barcelona and will be off to Vancouver tomorrow. So the overall summary has to wait.
I'LL BE BACK!
I'LL BE BACK!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
#12
I'm in the beautiful city of Barcelona for a conference, and planning my first summarized report for next week.
I'LL BE BACK!
I'LL BE BACK!
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