I agree that Windows is a hodgepodge, and that it's not really as unified as they'd like to make you believe, and that too much of it is GUI-only without a corresponding command-line equivalent. Mac OS X is much better in this regard, and honestly, Be OS was the best in that regard, I wish it had been successful.

But when I say "feel", I'm not talking about the complexity and difficulty of the various utilities. I mean just the basic movement and response of the mouse and keyboard and UI elements, regardless of which program is running at the time.

The feel of the UI and even sometimes the mouse locking up because you clicked compile and made the system actually work? The feel of explorer choking and dying, taking the taskbar with it? Sounds like the people really attached to their old clunker of a car that leaks everywhere and requires a prayer to get anywhere.

I have heard of similar tales though from people so used to the exact mouse acceleration and such of Windows that changing to anything else was difficult. I guess I've just never really noticed the minor details like that when switching between systems. Though I will say that it annoys me that PC laptops won't respond to 2 finger scrolling, or allow me to scroll a window even if it isn't the front most application. So I suppose I can understand a bit where you are coming from.

Whenever I see the Windows task bar at the bottom of someone's screen, I always think they're not savvy computer users. There's only one right place for the task bar and it's at the top of the screen. Sort of how toilet paper should *always* roll over the top and down the front, never from behind.

The thing that calls out to me is when someone logs in by clicking in the username field, entering their username, then grabbing the mouse and clicking in the password field, entering their password, then grabbing the mouse again and clicking on the login button.

I know I shouldn't ask but why is the bar at the top better ? The TP thing I can see why that would be better but I can't say I have ever thought about which way I am putting it on the holder.

Actually until I got married I didn't even have holders I prefer just putting it on top of the tank.

I still see people close a program by clicking the icon above file then close.

That reminds me, for some reason, I still have the habit of double clicking the program icon in the upper left of a Windows app to close it. This definitely predates my Mac days, and I found it amusing that it still works in Windows Vista and 7, even though they lack an icon there.

But presumably most computers already have a "free" copy of something on them. So why pay money for all of that extra pain ???

Cheers

I've noticed a rather peculiar thing happening of late. Sure, any "savvy" computer user will run off and install a pirated copy of Vista rather than learn a new O/S.

But it's the absolute beginners, or the folks just now moving off of Win98, that take to Linux like a duck to water. It's no harder to learn to use than the other newfangled stuff out there, and a heck of a lot cheaper.

So, I think I might just start recommending Linux only for new non computer savvy users. They seem be to taking to it naturally, so why not encourage it.

Cheers

You've got a very good point there. Another important group is children: since they have not been 'contaminated' by the Windows virus yet they learn Linux just as fast, maybe even faster.

It's when people have gotten used to certain GUI's by using them for years on end things get difficult to turn around. It seems the force of habit is an incredibly powerful one.

Because you'll need to offer 100% of the technical support. In the times I've tried to use Linux and something has gone wrong, I've done my best to research my problems online. I don't know about the other distros, but I was very disappointed by the Ubuntu forums. There's no support for newbies over there.

*edit*
And I can't believe you keep saying this in thread after thread that the non-computer literate would thrive in Linux. I'm still convinced that you have little actual experience supporting these types of people. I do, and I'm certain that they wouldn't.

Well I agree on the TP whole-heartedly, but the rest is just condescending.

Tony, I completely agree. It's not the entire reason I've stayed with Windows, but it's a factor.

I used to be an adamant top-over-er, but in recent years, I've found that it depends on the proximity of the bracket to the throne. If it's very close, the additional three inches of distance makes the process less awkward.

Also, some people's cats like to spin the rolls, and putting them on backwards keeps the paper on the roll.

It's not necessarily better, but it's just "correct." Microsoft has chosen a certain design paradigm, which so happens to be the same as most other windowing systems out there that predate theirs, such as Mac OS and Amiga OS (Workbench), where menus pop down vertically, from a their menu titles, which are first arranged horizontally at the top of the "display" - Window's app-centric display also happens to be the app window, versus The Mac and Amiga's dedicated menu bar. The system's menu or an application's menu is essentially the first thing you see when scanning the display from top to bottom. You know, the same way we read books.

It's actually not so much the task component of the task bar but rather the Start menu that causes the issue. A task-only list could work well on any screen edge, but that Start menu at the bottom, the effective END of the display, and popping the menus upwards, makes about as much sense as holding a paint roller by the roller itself.

It's the first obvious sign that MS had their collective heads way up their asses in trying the most obscure and inane thing to differentiate its then new Windows 95 from the other windowing OSes out there. It shouldn't come as a surprise from a company that names their OS "Windows" in the first place, but it doesn't make it any less wrong.

They should probably have named the menu "END" - but then it wold have been better defaulted to the bottom right instead of bottom left. Maybe they toyed with "Almost End" before giving up.

The first thing I remarked on when seeing a beta of Windows 95 was, WTF is that menu doing at the bottom. The second thing I did was to confirm that it could be moved. If it could not have by default, I think it would have delayed my adoption of Windows and PC hardware in general. I only built my first PC and moved over to an x86 platform when Windows 95 came out. There was simply no reason to do so before that time and I was quite content with my various Amigas.

Yeah, sorry. I went off on a rant there.

I still think that, while the UI is more consistent under Windows (excepting, of course, Microsoft applications), the paradigms they've chosen are all wrong.

That said, I think that the paradigms that MacOSX chose (foreground applications instead of windows, the systemwide menu bar, etc.) are potentially even wronger, but I can actually accomplish real work with a shell under it, so I give it a pass.

I disagree. We've got four corners of the screen. Windows are almost always used mazimized, thus, upper left -> file, upper right -> close, lower left -> start, lower right -> status. The corners are the easiest places to find with the mouse, thus, using each one for one thing increases usability.

But, MS made it configurable for a reason, and you're welcome to have it wherever you want.

I also find that's a novice way to use Windows. At least I only ever see it done by my ex girlfriend and my wife. I can see running something like Photoshop or Illustrator maximized, maybe even Excel, but not an Explorer window and not something like Word or a web browser. Unless of course you're rocking a 640x480 or 800x60 screen.

Every window always maximized. Then to move between windows, the person will click the minimize button, then click the other app on the task bar, and repeat every time they need something else. Fun times.



You're correct that it's easy to throw the mouse pointed to an extreme and be on target. That's why Mac OS has its menus at the top of the screen. And it's why in Windows you might feel it's better to maximize the window. Unfortunately in Windows you're left trying to make up for the deficiencies of MS' UI design in this way. In Mac OS it's a lot easier to run individual windows un-maximized, which allows better inter-program usage, all while still taking advantage of the top display edge for your menus. It's consistent over all apps, whether maximized or not. The Apple Menu or Spotlight are the Mac's equivalent to the START menu (recent items sub-menu and Spotlight allows you to find anything regardless of where it is).



Of course. They couldn't very well leave it locked to the bottom knowing fully well it was the incorrect place for it. The other issue is that I find the task list portion of the bar rather useless, so I always allow windows to go over top of it. But that will then also allow hiding the Start menu.

When I made the original observation some posts back, I meant it as a bigger dig against MS rather than users of the OS. Most people don't even know you can move the task bar nor have any idea why it's on the bottom or why it should be on top. They just continue through life clicking individual form fields with their mice as Bitt mentioned. Because they also don't know what the TAB key does, nor Enter/Return for that matter. Mention Alt-Tab and you'll really blow their minds.

You're all using your mice too much. Who the fuck cares where File is? It's Alt-F.

This is one particular place where MacOS loses to Windows, as there is no way to navigate menus with the keyboard, at least as far as I'm aware. Yes, can be individual accelerators, but if you don't know them, you're relegated to pointing around.

At least MacOS has standardized on an accelerator for options dialogs: Cmd-comma. Windows can't even come to an agreement on where it should be in the menu structure, or even how many of them to have.


I totally agree.

CTRL-F2 on Mac OS. I just try to remember the individual keystroke shortcuts as that's obviously the fastest of all.

Can you even create a new Folder in Explorer without the mouse? That one used to bug the hell out of me.

I happen to think that keyboard use is one area where Mac OS completely rocks Windows.

Here are some examples in a keyboard nav primer for both OSes.

Now that you say that, I do remember that. However:

First, that's a terrible shortcut. I can't think of anywhere else that MacOS uses either Control or the F-keys. And it pretty much requires that you cross your right hand over to the left. (Hm, actually, there is a Control key on the right, isn't there? I never use that one. I don't use the one on the left, either, though. I remapped CapsLock to be Ctrl so as to have a correct keyboard.)

Second, on a MacBook, that translates to Ctrl-Fn-F2, which is even more awkward. Yeah, you can make the brightness, volume, etc. require the Fn key rather than the F-keys requiring it, but there are fairly few reasons to ever use the F-keys in MacOS that I know of.

I agree, the shortcut is awkward. And I never use it. But the good news is that it can be remapped. Though I think you'd need to use a third-party utility to remap it. Mac OS' own keyboard properties only allow creating new keyboard shortcuts linked to menu commands, not other keyboard shortcuts.

The Fn keys are too handy with their default actions, especially on the newer keyboards, so while there's the option you mentioned, which I used to use, I don't use it anymore on my MacBook Pro nor with the BT mini keyboard.

There's no CTRL on the right side on the MacBook nor BT mini keyboards. You should be able to map one of the other modifiers on the right, but as you've noted, CTRL isn't really required for much of anything, so I wouldn't bother with that either.

I probably will map CAPS lock to CTRL though, if only for use in Terminal. Otherwse I always keep CAPS lock disabled anyway.

Because the "free" copy of something isn't necessarily the thing they want, or need?

I'm a bit confused, and wondering if we're talking past each other. Are you just talking about paying for OS upgrades, or paying for an OS in general?

I mean, I get what you're saying -- Linux has been my sole OS since '98-ish (barring a brief stint on IRIX at work, and now part time OS X at work via a company supplied MacBook). I see no point in paying for an OS, or most of the apps I use regularly. A large portion of the industry I'm in uses Linux on the desktop. For the most part, it works just fine. Heck, I even use gimp for photo retouching. But every now and then, there's something that's completely missing, or just so painful to use, that the "free" version just doesn't cut it. If they were a regular part of the things I use, it's not "paying for extra pain," it's paying for pain to go away (or, at worst, trading one pain for another, possibly more manageable, pain).

I recommended OS X to my parents, because a) it's better at things that they want to do than Linux is, b) is more compatible with the other people they share files with, c) supports software that isn't even available on Linux, and d) I didn't want to be their (unpaid) support technician.

Different strokes, you know?

As opposed to what percentage if you issue them with Windows or MacOS machines?

Peter

It's on the File menu. (Explorer has a menu just like everything else.)

There are sometimes right-click-context-menu things you can do in Explorer where there aren't equivalents on the file menu. But interestingly, there's a "secret" keystroke to get the right-click-context-menu to appear without the mouse. Shift-F10 pops the context menu in Explorer. That's a rare one most folks don't know about.

So does the context menu key.

Well, in my case, as opposed to 0%. With the former, it was always "I don't know much about Windows, but you might be able to try <insert remedy here>. If that doesn't work, you'll have to ask someone who knows Windows." With the latter, I say "I don't know anything about OS X. Ask the people at the Genius Bar."

I will say, however, that support requests decreased significantly now that my parents are on a non-painfully slow net connection, and have learned to Google it first.

One of my favorite additions in Windows 7:

Ctrl+Shift+N

Great shortcut.


The percentage left after the person searches a web full of Windows users, contacts Geek Squad (or me, hopefully), IT people at work, etc. I know it's self-fulfilling to say that everyone uses Windows, so people shouldn't try out a less-used OS, but it's true right now. And I repeat my earlier comment about finding little help online when I was trying to use Linux.

Speaking of keyboard shortcuts, is there anyway on a Mac to delete something and bypass the trash can. The equivalent of a shift-delete in Windows. That's one of the trivial, yet terribly annoying things that bothers me when I use the Mac.

I don't really buy the argument of "everyone uses it, so supporting it is easier" thinking, nor should such a statement preclude using something else. After all, you yourself use a G1 instead of the iPhone, Blackberry, or Windows Mobile phone. Sure, your chances of finding someone random to help with a particular problem might be a bit higher with Windows, but Apple does offer excellent support via the phone, online, or in their stores. And since Apple makes the OS and the hardware, you avoid the support loop between the OEMs and Microsoft. Linux, I can't comment on the desktop side, but I've never had any issues getting support with Gentoo or CentOS issues online.

It also depends on what support you need. With Windows, Mac or Linux, it may be "How do I do this operation?". Windows adds on fun ones like "How do I remove all this spyware?", or "what antivirus solution do I need to make my computer run slower and maybe protect it?". And then there is the "I bought some cheap no name computer and it failed, and it only came with a 90 day warranty, how do I get my data off onto my next cheep PC?"

The amount of time I have spent supporting family and friends on computers has gone dramatically down ever since they moved to a Mac. And they aren't going elsewhere for support either, it's just that their need for support has dropped dramatically. The printer no longer stops sharing for no good reason, the system never gets infected with crap, the virus scanner updates are no longer an issue, and the hardware is lasting far longer. I even went to the extreme of recommending Apple routers or time capsules, and internet problems have also gone away with at most a power cycle required.