Me and My Mac

I installed OSX Lion. I quickly got used to the natural scrolling. It works, it does.

However, i now have a full screen button on some apps. Awesome! Top right hand corner i have a full screen button!

Wait, so, what does the green button do?  I want a button that makes the window use all the space available on the desktop, even if that means not using the space that the dock and the status bar use.

What does the green button do? Kind of flicks between one screen size and another.

What does the yellow button do? Minimise a window. How do i get the window back? Alt+Tabbing to the window still doesnt bring it back, i have to click it.

Where has the resize handle gone from the window chrome? I know they are trying to clean everything up, but in doing that, they’ve made it look like windows that can’t be resized, could be resized. They can’t. There isnt a handle on either a window that can be resized or a window that can’t.  Silly apple.

Good one this one.

I use VLC to read media files - easiest way forward is the old right-click ‘open with’ menu. Awesome.

However, lets say i update VLC.

Now when i try ‘Open With’ - it doesnt work - why?

Because “VLC 1.1.6 is in the trash”.

Just open VLC, its in the same place as the last one, and its called the same thing.

I mean, seriously apple, sort it out.

I’ve been trying to hackintosh one of my laptops.  I have so far, failed.

Why?

OSX doesn’t seem to support the motherboard. Wait.  Lets just stop a moment. OSX DOESN’T SUPPORT THE MOTHERBOARD.

What?

I could download any linux distro and it would install immediately, guaranteed.  I could install windows 95, memphis, 98se, 2000, 2000 ME, XP, Vista, Media Centre, Windows 7, and they would ALL work.

HOW have apple managed to successfully deliver an operating system that is substandard? I mean, you cant call an operating system an operating system unless it can genuinely compete with its competitors in all factors.

Ignore functionality, you cant even install it on a computer that wasn’t made by Apple.  

Why?  They realise that with huge configuration options, comes the chances of hardware issues.  They realise that if they can control the hardware on which the operating system can be installed, that it will make for a more stable product (in theory).

Now, iv got windows 7 at work, which hasnt crashed or bluescreen’d once since install. Adversely, my mac beachballs regularly.

I’d like to posit the notion: The latest OSX is no more stable than the latest Windows.  This is for no good reason.

Windows manages stability without the ability to predict the hardware on which it is installed. So do ALL the linux distro’s out there.  Why cant OSX?

Steve Jobs loves to winge about ‘closed’ and ‘open’ (and loves to redefine these words to fit his purpose).  His is a truly closed system.  Ok, the hardware is intel now, but its still proprietary because OSX won’t run on anything but hardware that looks and smells like apple.

Ok, apple computers are really good, ill concede that totally (its why i spent my hard earned money on one) but Apple and OSX are frankly unprepared for a marketplace (following the IBM model in the 70s and 80s) which will surely start to demand OSX on non-apple machines.

I mean, what a brilliant move by apple!

Enterprise support on a beautiful device (yes, my love for my mac is deepening). 

Caveat: no public folders support.  Frankly, ridiculous.

OK, Microsoft are deprecating it, but itll be around for years to come.  They just haven’t bothered doing it, which means we’ll never be getting it.

Typical apple. Promise a lot, and achieve a lot in a very - VERY nice way, yet still somehow manage to completely ignore something that would make it ‘complete’.

Its this sort of thing that makes pc fanboys moan about mac (oh yeah, and mac fanboys).

Why must the default samba configuration of snow leapord mean its SO slow when initially connecting to a windows network?  Sure, we can hack it around to fix it, but you try convincing your it support team to come and configure samba correctly for you.

Well, thats it - im convinced.

Apple’s time machine is amazing.

I just changed my drive, and restored from the backup… and its running on the new drive now.

Painless. Totally and utterly.

Mac owners, if you aren’t using time machine yet - go and get yourself a drive, and get it going.

I bought a WD Elements 1TB drive when i got my mac, and its just proven its value to me - and it was like 55, 60 quid.

So.  I should have got a bigger drive when i got my mac.

Upshot, I’m about to void my warranty on my MBP and swap the hard drive for a new Samsung HM500J (500 of those gigabyte things) i bought from eBuyer (great next day service).

Ill be following one of the many guides there are for upgrading the mbp hard drive.

I have a time machine, and according to this page, transferring the system over should be easy.

Ill let you know tomorrow how it went… and what kind of performance drop i experience in going from 7200rpm to 5400rpm. 

It’s a cheap holdover, until i can get a truly enormous 7200rpm drive (bigger than 500). 

So, was talking with a developer friend (yes, hes a developer, despite his insistence that he isn’t), and he said how great it’d be to get a gallery module.

Iv started planning it - but wanted some further input. If you’re interested in this, drop me a tweet and let me know what you’d want!

S