A Month with a Mac - Part II: The Mobile Experience
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 24, 2005 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
OS X: The Second Time Around
Immediately after I was dropped into OS X, there were a few things that I definitely noticed were off. This time around, I didn't mind that the desktop icons were large, but I did realize that the dock was far too big and it was not animated. Quickly resizing the dock and turning on its hover animation fixed my issues there.Having used the G5 for quite a while, I was also much more comfortable in customizing the applications listed on the Dock. With the G5, I had no idea what I'd be using or even if I'd find the Dock useful, so I was more hesitant to remove applications from it. With the PowerBook, I knew exactly what I needed and in what order I wanted to place them. The Dock became infinitely more useful the second time around.
Similarly, I also knew what applications to remove from the system now that I knew from which ones I benefitted and which ones I could do without. These last two changes helped a lot considering that I had far more limited screen real estate on the PowerBook than on the G5, meaning that the fewer things I had to scroll through or contend with for screen space, the more productive I could be.
The mouse tracking speed needed some work as well as it was far too slow to begin with. Unfortunately, unlike on the G5 desktop, I had no option, but to use a one-button mouse with the Powerbook. This was going to be interesting.
The keyboard repeat rate was far too slow for my liking - the same problem I had on the G5. Again, tweaking it wasn't a problem, but it's a healthy reminder that you shouldn't accept anything at face value. If Apple hadn't given me the options to personalize OS X, then I wouldn't be here writing this article; yet despite common belief, Apple doesn't seem to just cater to the lowest common denominator of computer users.
The biggest annoyance to me was the fact that function-lock was turned on by default, meaning that the keyboard acted as if I always had the "fn" key depressed. The reason this was an issue for me is because of Exposé. I am used to having the F9 - F11 keys activate Exposé, but on the PowerBook, only F11 doesn't have a secondary fn-activated function. So F9 and F10 wouldn't, by default, be Exposé activators - they would simply adjust the brightness of the keyboard illumination. Luckily, it wasn't too hard to change. Just launch System Preferences (the equivalent of Windows' Control Panel) and uncheck the appropriate box.
Finder (the OS X equivalent of Windows Explorer) offers three ways of viewing your files and folders: the standard icon view, list view (similar to the details view in Windows) and column view. When I first started using OS X, everyone heralded the column view as this wonderfully useful feature. I tried it out, hated it and never touched it again. With the PowerBook and my more limited screen real estate, I gave it a try. Surprisingly enough, open mindedness pays off - I actually ended up liking the column view quite a bit.
What is the column view? First, a screenshot:
All of your items are organized in a list. Everytime you hit a folder, clicking on it or hitting the right arrow key will show its contents in the column to the right of the present column. Opening nested folders displays their contents in the column to the right of the previous column until you run out of space for columns, at which point the Finder window activates a horizontal scroll bar and now you can scroll left to see folders higher up in the hierarchy.
Like all things Mac, column view is something that needs to be used to be appreciated. It's great for folder navigation, especially using the keyboard (remember my appreciation for keyboard shortcuts in OS X?), since all it takes are the left and right arrow keys to navigate up or down a folder tree.
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| Here's a Quicktime video of column view in action - right click and save the movie to your computer. Quicktime for the Mac isn't the abomination of an application; it is on the PC, just in case you were wondering. The application that I used to make these videos by default outputs in Quicktime mov format. |
I mentioned that the OS X folder structure was foreign to me in my first encounter with it on the G5. Now that I've been using it for a while, everything feels a whole lot more natural. The trick to keeping organized in OS X (sounds like a good book title) is to actually make use of each user's home directory. Although Microsoft tried to encourage users to put things into their own home directories with later versions of Windows, I inevitably always created new folders on my drive outside my home directory all the time. With OS X however, everything revolves around your home directory and you rarely touch the root of your drive. I found that doing two things in OS X really helped me feel more comfortable with the file system: 1) Creating a downloads directory and telling Safari to put all my downloads there instead of on the desktop, and 2) Creating all of my custom directories in my home directory instead of in the root of the drive.
The results of my two simple changes were as follows:
For starters, my desktop finally became clean. Everything downloads itself nicely into the downloads directory, and I purge it every so often to keep things running smoothly. The nice thing about OS X is that once I tell Safari to save all my downloads in the downloads directory, other applications also know to use that directory in which to save items. For example, when saving attachments in Mail (OS X's email client), I have the option of saving directly to my Downloads directory - which is the same directory I set in Safari. It's nothing major, but as I pointed out in the first article, it's the hundreds of simple things in OS X that really seal the deal - it's about things working the way that you'd want them to work.
Also by organizing my disk with my home directory as my "root", it's a lot easier to know where everything is. Before, I was using a hybrid of keeping items in the root and in my home directory, which was just a mess.
At first glance, all that I've talked about here may seem trivial because after all, the type of organization that I'm discussing isn't exclusive to OS X; you can do the same basic things in Windows. The difference, I believe, comes down to how applications are handled. In Windows, as a user, you know that all applications go in C:\Program Files, whereas in OS X, you know that all applications go in the Applications Folder. Sure, the Applications Folder is nothing more than the equivalent of C:\Applications, but to the end user, there is a slight level of separation between the drive's root and the user. This is mostly useful from the standpoint of a multi-user system where you don't want any of your users tampering with anything other than what's in their home directory. Understanding the organization helped me and my single user system in that it kept me from staring at the contents of my root and not knowing what everything under /System/Library/ was. Over time, I'm learning about the OS' important files, where they are located, and so on and so forth, but until I'm as comfortable with them as I am under Windows, I appreciate the motherly shield of the home user directory. If you're a fan of *nix file systems, OS X will make you feel right at home.
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jonmarsh - Thursday, November 3, 2005 - link
I just read this and several other Mac articles here last night. Funny thing is, several weeks ago when my "enterprise" HP laptop started flaking out on a business trip, I was at the point where I was considering buying a Mac Mini just to play with. This was after reading about the current state of Tiger and the platform in general.Instead, I ended up walking out of the store with a new 17" Powerbook, which is no heavier than my 15" HP, and infinitely more pleasurable to use, in so many ways. After loading Office for the Mac, iWorks, Deltagraph, Acrobat and Acrobat reader, and bringing my files over, I was ready for a subsequent three weeks of business travel, and haven't looked back since.
I'll need the HP to run some of my CAD software (schematics and PCB design), but I'm pretty sure now there will be a G5 dual processor system in my future running those apps under Virtual PC.
Perhaps some of the adoption process and uptake wouldn't have been as smooth with earlier versions of OSX, but some days I just wonder why I didn't do this sooner.
BTW, I've been using PCs since 1983, and building them since 1985, so it's not like I'm not quite immersed in that scene, especially due to the CAD work (electrical and mechanical) which I do. For now, I'm learning Ashlar Vellum Graphite, and thinking I should have done that long ago, too. (Adios, AutoCAD).
BTW, the 23" Ciinema display is great- not that my Samsung 213T is obsolete, but the integration factor for the Apple is a big plus. And this silly laptop DOES have dual DVI and can drive the 30" display, too. Hmmmm. ;^)
~Jon
Imaginer - Sunday, August 7, 2005 - link
"For example, if you have a file, drag it into an open Terminal window and the entire path to that file will be copied into the window for you. It actually makes interacting with the file system from the command prompt quite easy. "Windows command prompt allows this too
rhayes - Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - link
I bought a PowerBook 15" 1.5ghz about 4 months ago (my first Mac for all intents and purposes).As mostly a PC user (Windows + Linux), I agree with a lot of what Anand talks about in the article. I think most people coming from a Windows background could safely make a purchasing decision based on that article...
For the record, what really sold me on the Mac (particularly the PowerBook) was running into it EVERYWHERE at my last Java symposium: "No Fluff Just Stuff". As a Java developer, it just seemed liked the perfect package: a) no Windows in sight, b) UNIX on a notebook without having to install it myself, c) the best OS GUI on the market IMO.
The reservations about the 1 button mouse on the G4 are definitely understandable. But somehow (for whatever reason) it really doesn't bother me. However, when I'm at a client site and developing for long periods of time on the G4, I do carry a Bluetooth mouse with me. It's one button also :)
ginjin31 - Sunday, June 12, 2005 - link
wonderful job with all the articles related to this. i can't believe i read the whole thing. =Dthere's one thing that i haven't noticed though. you never mentioned the sleep freature in the Powerbook, where you never really have to turn off your laptop. so whenever you need to use it you just take it out open it and it's ready to go.
unlike PCs, you have to turn it off, standbye, or hibernate. waiting for the PC to boot takes a lot time, so a lot of time wasted before you can actually start working. i'm not really satisfied with the standby feature either. sometimes the PC just doesn't resume or i would get an error message. this happens more often and i would always end up rebooting the PC in the end.
this is my favorite feature on Macs, and i don't know if i missed it but i don't think you mentioned it at all in the article.
wonderful job overall Anand. i felt exactly the same way when i first got my Mac, being a diehard PC user myself.
Gooberslot - Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - link
#28, it works on Win98 too.mongo lloyd - Monday, February 21, 2005 - link
Sometimes, these article make me wonder if Anand is the kind of "die-hard PC user" as he claims. For example:"Unlike the Windows command prompt, Terminal actually interfaces quite well with the rest of OS X. For example, if you have a file, drag it into an open Terminal window and the entire path to that file will be copied into the window for you. It actually makes interacting with the file system from the command prompt quite easy."
As does CMD. As it's done for at least since Win2000. Possibly longer. There are lots of small things like these, bordering on being untrue statements, interspersed into these two Macintosh articles (which, admittedly, are good reads).
azkman - Sunday, February 6, 2005 - link
It looks like one of your dislikes with the G4 P'Book may have been partially addressed with the brand new lineup. Scolling and panning on the trackpad can be performed with two fingers. Besides, they're just plain faster and cheaper than before. BTW, great review!sluxx - Thursday, February 3, 2005 - link
Enjoyed the article very much.I'll also fifth SideTrack. For $15, you essentially get a new multi-function trackpad.
When you are typing, in the middle of a word, press alt+esc, you get a list of words that begins with what you've typed. Great for looking up words that you're not certain of the spellings. I imagine it works only for Cocoa apps and not Carbon apps.
A couple of other freewares that I find useful: Spirited Away that hides selected (you select) background apps after a specified amount of time, and Speed Freak, a GUI wrap of the "renice" unix command. It's especially useful for me on a G3 iBook, but can help making your front app snappier. You can search and find them at www.versiontracker.com.
My first time here, but looking forward to reading your other articles.
hindsight - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
A couple of PowerBook features not covered in the article but still worth mentioning:- Dual displays: an external monitor plugged into the PowerBook can either mirror the LCD screen or act as a second display and thus significantly increase the desktop real estate.
- Target Disk Mode: start the computer with the 'T' key held down and the computer behaves like an external FireWire drive. Very useful for transferring large amounts of data between machines quickly. (this works to all Macs)
bshell - Thursday, January 27, 2005 - link
Both Windows and Macintosh OS's try to "think for you", but there's a fundamental difference in how they do this. Windows *imposes* its monopolistic will all the time, making decisions that it decrees to be the way things should be done all the way from spelling and grammar to where files should be stored, to the web search results. It's very mercenary, patronizing, irritating, and annoying. Apple, on the other hand has a more philosopher-king style, making "kind suggestions" rather than decrees, and guessing what you want correctly, sensibly, and unobtrusively more of the time. Somehow the choices Apple makes feel much kinder than Windows and always make you go "Wow, thanks" instead of "Oh damn, leave me alone." This is pervasive.