OT: Mac users

[defpearlpilot]

QUICKSILVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You will quickly discover Quicksilver to be the best program ever written. Ever. For any platform. Everything else is secondary. Eventually you'll even stop using that fucking retarded dock. If there was a way to completely remove it I would, but for now it's just shrank and auto-hidden.

Other than that I've noticed that Leopard is still really really REALLY buggy compared to previous releases. I'm not even sure I know why Apple released it. (Beachball of doom during login, VPN pickyness during login/logout, VPN disconnects during extended downloads, keyboard stops working occasionally, etc...)

Thanks for the tip on Quicksilver. Definitely going to check that out.

Overall, I haven't had too many problems with Leopard. The one problem I ran into was finding Windows machines on the network. But that is easily solved by a small configuration change in networking. I also haven't had any problems with VPN either. I'm running Cisco 5.whatever and had no disconnects or logic problems. RDC is much more problematic but it's shitty on any platform that you use.

Dude, I don't know how you can use OSX WITHOUT it. As for the buggy issues I've found, it's probably because of all the weird crap we run at work. We tend to find bugs in new releases VERY VERY quickly here.

I usually use Spotlight to open up my apps cause it's faster than dragging a mouse. But I have been looking for something better. Don't know how I haven't heard of this before.

And you work with a bunch of nerds that probably use the intimate details of anything that they use. How's Google working out for you so far?

 

[shredhead666]

Thanks for the tip on Quicksilver. Definitely going to check that out.

Overall, I haven't had too many problems with Leopard. The one problem I ran into was finding Windows machines on the network. But that is easily solved by a small configuration change in networking. I also haven't had any problems with VPN either. I'm running Cisco 5.whatever and had no disconnects or logic problems. RDC is much more problematic but it's shitty on any platform that you use.

Dude, I don't know how you can use OSX WITHOUT it. As for the buggy issues I've found, it's probably because of all the weird crap we run at work. We tend to find bugs in new releases VERY VERY quickly here.

I usually use Spotlight to open up my apps cause it's faster than dragging a mouse. But I have been looking for something better. Don't know how I haven't heard of this before.

And you work with a bunch of nerds that probably use the intimate details of anything that they use. How's Google working out for you so far?

Hahah, yeah that's definitely true. Frickin' sharp folks over here, let me tell you. The job still rocks mang. Just went fulltime a few weeks ago (as opposed to being contract labor before).

They're about to relocate me to be part of the start up team for a new datacenter they're opening in Charleston, SC. So now I get to do the same thing, only at a bigger place, and live near the beach instead of in shit hole Atlanta. Life's rough over here, I'm tellin' ya.

 

[Code001]

Just a note for those wondering about bugs and Leopard - 10.5.2 will be released on the 15th for everyone. It's said to fix all the wireless issues the laptops face, as well as other numerous bugs people have reported. 10.5.1 is way better than 10.5 in my findings. I really don't have many bugs on my machines and I use 'em 24/7.

 

[shredhead666]

Just a note for those wondering about bugs and Leopard - 10.5.2 will be released on the 15th for everyone. It's said to fix all the wireless issues the laptops face, as well as other numerous bugs people have reported. 10.5.1 is way better than 10.5 in my findings. I really don't have many bugs on my machines and I use 'em 24/7.

Great to hear! So far I've been pretty impressed with how fast Apple responds to bug-fixes.

A little story - one of my co-workers used to work for Apple in Cupertino, and said he only met Steve Jobs once in passing, but said he was quite possibly the most colossal asshole on the planet. He said Steve fired two people (who didn't even know each other) right there on the spot in front of everyone because some shipping box was out of place and those two just he guessed happened to be in the "blast zone". I have to think his napoleon complex with his employees is what makes things 'just work' over there, and why bugs are squashed so quickly when they pop up. Hahaha, it's definitely a tightly run ship.

 

[ratter]

Man, you guys are adding fuel to the flames because I've been looking at the Macbook Pro laptops here lately. My friend just bought a new HP w/ Vista. I want to be different.

Do these things have any problems picking up wireless networks? My friend and my brother's girlfriend were able to pick up one very easily.

I got a MBP a couple of months ago. My only regret is not getting the Hi-Res 17" model. But I was being fiscally responsible.

But it has no problem picking up networks. It's an awesome machine.

+1 The MBP (I've got the 15") is overall the best pc I've ever laid hands on. And that's been a few.

Also +1 on VMWare. Great application except for the fact that if you use VMWare and boot your Bootcamp partition, when you go back to Bootcamp, Windows wants you to reauthorize. And then again when you go back to VMWare. I didn't spend much time trying to figure out a way around that, or if one even exists. But I bought a real $$ copy of XP, so I don't want to dick around with authorizations I just want it to work every time. Because of that I end up just booting into XP. Which is really only for occasional work and more frequently for CoD4.

 

[Code001]

Just a note for those wondering about bugs and Leopard - 10.5.2 will be released on the 15th for everyone. It's said to fix all the wireless issues the laptops face, as well as other numerous bugs people have reported. 10.5.1 is way better than 10.5 in my findings. I really don't have many bugs on my machines and I use 'em 24/7.

Great to hear! So far I've been pretty impressed with how fast Apple responds to bug-fixes.

A little story - one of my co-workers used to work for Apple in Cupertino, and said he only met Steve Jobs once in passing, but said he was quite possibly the most colossal asshole on the planet. He said Steve fired two people (who didn't even know each other) right there on the spot in front of everyone because some shipping box was out of place and those two just he guessed happened to be in the "blast zone". I have to think his napoleon complex with his employees is what makes things 'just work' over there, and why bugs are squashed so quickly when they pop up. Hahaha, it's definitely a tightly run ship.

To be honest, they're kind of lacking compared to what they used to do. They're intentionally holding out on a fix that will help many computers just to announce it at MWSF. I know because the update is already available to devs. Steve Jobs has always been known as having a huge temper, as well as being a bit odd. However, his business sense is pretty amazing considering what he did with Apple since he came back. Just look at the flooded iPod market.

One good thing is that you can still email Jobs at sjobs@apple.com. He sometimes even replies to emails depending on the content. If you're having issues with Apple stores in terms of replacing a product or there's a hardware issue, your best bet is to contact him directly at that email. Chances are you'll get an assistant, but you'll still be helped roughly the same. They've helped many people that Apple stores refused to help due to various circumstances. The latest reported email he answered was regarding the iPod Touch:

http://www.macrumors.com/2007/10/08/ipo ... tionality/

Apple's quality control is starting to go down compared to what it used to be, which is unfortunate. I'm hoping they'll soon get back on track, especially with the laptop line. The amount of issues they generally have is astonishing.

On a side note, WTF is Quicksilver? I'm looking at it and don't quite understand its usage.

 

[Zach]

Go for Firefox. Greasemonkey and Adblock Plus = WIN.

 

[shredhead666]

If you're not gaming with the machine, Parallels or VMware would probably be a better choice instead of bootcamp. Both run near-native (think Wine).

Just a comment about Parallels.. I would not suggest using it for extended periods of time. On my MacBookPro, it really makes the thing heat up like a hot iron. I also had it running on my MacPro in the background for a few days to the point that it shut the thing down. I was freaking out when it happened but after shutting it off for a few hours to let it cool, it booted up again. I've never had that happen if I let it run without sleeping for a few days.

I'd still prefer using Bootcamp until they figure out how to keep the CPU utilization down.

Know what Andy? I just felt my MBP really heating up recently and I could tell it's because CPU cycles were probably being chewed up. I went and ran top and SURE ENOUGH... there was a process vmware-vmx that was running at a steady 20% CPU utilization. Pretty odd considering I'm not running any instance of the VMWare program at the moment. I killed the process and sure enough it cooled back down. I'm not sure if this was just an anomaly, or whether this is normal for VMWare Fusion. If it continues to be a problem though, VMWare Fusion is going to get the boot.

I don't need my balls fried my my MBP just to run some linux images.

 

[shredhead666]

Just a note for those wondering about bugs and Leopard - 10.5.2 will be released on the 15th for everyone. It's said to fix all the wireless issues the laptops face, as well as other numerous bugs people have reported. 10.5.1 is way better than 10.5 in my findings. I really don't have many bugs on my machines and I use 'em 24/7.

Great to hear! So far I've been pretty impressed with how fast Apple responds to bug-fixes.

A little story - one of my co-workers used to work for Apple in Cupertino, and said he only met Steve Jobs once in passing, but said he was quite possibly the most colossal asshole on the planet. He said Steve fired two people (who didn't even know each other) right there on the spot in front of everyone because some shipping box was out of place and those two just he guessed happened to be in the "blast zone". I have to think his napoleon complex with his employees is what makes things 'just work' over there, and why bugs are squashed so quickly when they pop up. Hahaha, it's definitely a tightly run ship.

To be honest, they're kind of lacking compared to what they used to do. They're intentionally holding out on a fix that will help many computers just to announce it at MWSF. I know because the update is already available to devs. Steve Jobs has always been known as having a huge temper, as well as being a bit odd. However, his business sense is pretty amazing considering what he did with Apple since he came back. Just look at the flooded iPod market.

One good thing is that you can still email Jobs at sjobs@apple.com. He sometimes even replies to emails depending on the content. If you're having issues with Apple stores in terms of replacing a product or there's a hardware issue, your best bet is to contact him directly at that email. Chances are you'll get an assistant, but you'll still be helped roughly the same. They've helped many people that Apple stores refused to help due to various circumstances. The latest reported email he answered was regarding the iPod Touch:

http://www.macrumors.com/2007/10/08/ipo ... tionality/

Apple's quality control is starting to go down compared to what it used to be, which is unfortunate. I'm hoping they'll soon get back on track, especially with the laptop line. The amount of issues they generally have is astonishing.

On a side note, WTF is Quicksilver? I'm looking at it and don't quite understand its usage.

I completely hear you with the laptop line. I'm almost scared to pop a CD into the drive now for fear that it won't eject again (this has happened to me w/ 3 separate Mac laptops).

As for Quicksilver... watch this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBvFUhTqKK4

It's about 10 min. long and goes through it pretty well.

 

[shredhead666]

Go for Firefox. Greasemonkey and Adblock Plus = WIN.

Piss poor CSS rendering, memory usage, table rendering, javascript speed = LOSS.

The extensions are nice and all, but Gecko BLOWS.

 

[Code001]

Go for Firefox. Greasemonkey and Adblock Plus = WIN.

Piss poor CSS rendering, memory usage, table rendering, javascript speed = LOSS.

The extensions are nice and all, but Gecko BLOWS.

I don't see how you can prefer Opera, though. I hate that the most out of the main browser selection. I'm a big Safari fan for its speed. The only problem is that small memory leak. Gecko-based web browsers also don't display text the way I want them to. For some reason, they make it incredibly tiny. Maybe it's because I use multiple languages on this machine, but ever since Leopard, the font looks like it's at 8 pt. Who knows, maybe it's a Leopard issue. Would be kind of odd, however, considering it only happens with Gecko-based engines. Changing the text encoding isn't an option for me, either. Again, multiple languages.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be off installing Quicksilver.

 

[shredhead666]

Go for Firefox. Greasemonkey and Adblock Plus = WIN.

Piss poor CSS rendering, memory usage, table rendering, javascript speed = LOSS.

The extensions are nice and all, but Gecko BLOWS.

I don't see how you can prefer Opera, though. I hate that the most out of the main browser selection. I'm a big Safari fan for its speed. The only problem is that small memory leak. Gecko-based web browsers also don't display text the way I want them to. For some reason, they make it incredibly tiny. Maybe it's because I use multiple languages on this machine, but ever since Leopard, the font looks like it's at 8 pt. Who knows, maybe it's a Leopard issue. Would be kind of odd, however, considering it only happens with Gecko-based engines. Changing the text encoding isn't an option for me, either. Again, multiple languages.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be off installing Quicksilver.

If Safari had an intuitive ad-blocking feature (please fill me in if it does!) then it would be my browser of choice. Among the other problems with Gecko I listed, I really fucking hate how picky Firefox can be when trying to switch proxy settings on the fly (extensions, I know, but it should do it by default).

Now then, this is why I mainly prefer Opera - http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html

I tend to COMPLETELY agree with the baseline tests and my real-world usage of the browser tends to support these findings as well (back/forward page rendering is faster, scripts run faster, memory usage is optimal, application loads/closes faster, crashes less, renders text/css/tables/etc... way more cleanly and faster)... I could go on. Not to mention that Opera for mobile devices stomps FireFox mobile, and they implemented the browser very nicely on the Wii as well. Again I could go on for pages, but I digress. Why anyone would prefer Firefox after using Opera is a thing of mystery to me.

 

[Code001]

One interesting thing about those charts is that they do not include the latest version(s) of Safari. Here are some nice ad-blocking Safari utilities:

http://safariadblock.sourceforge.net/
http://pimpmysafari.com/plugins/?c=Adblocking

To be fair, I haven't used Opera in quite awhile. Last time I tried it, it wouldn't even display Ebay pages properly. I'll go back and test it again.

P.S. Quicksilver is installed, running, and customized to my liking at the moment. So far, it's a real cool application.

 

[shredhead666]

One interesting thing about those charts is that they do not include the latest version(s) of Safari. Here are some nice ad-blocking Safari utilities:

http://pimpmysafari.com/plugins/?c=Adblocking

To be fair, I haven't used Opera in quite awhile. Last time I tried it, it wouldn't even display Ebay pages properly. I'll go back and test it again.

P.S. Quicksilver is installed, running, and customized to my liking at the moment. So far, it's a real cool application.

Sweet! I'll have to check those out. That might just get me using Safari again. In the tests it doesn't have the newest version of Safari, but Opera has also released a couple versions since those were done as well, and it's just become more speedy. I really didn't start using Opera as my main browser until version 9 came out. I think it's at version 9.25 now.

And yeah dude Quicksilver ROCKS. I'm telling you, you'll never use that retarded screen-space-robbing dock again after you get used to using QS. QS is so ridiculously extensible too, you can make it do damn near anything with a few quick key strokes. It's like having instant access to any part of the computer by pushing a key combination, and just start typing what you want it to do.

Now then you can configure QS to do this through some hacks, but I also found an application called LockTite that locks your screen through a key combination instead of having to use hot-corners (which I despise).

 

[Code001]

Be sure to check out the one I added during the edit. That's actually the most powerful blocker currently. However, you can't configure anything, which sucks.

 

[Code001]

Oh, maybe some of you can help me. I'm looking for two things. One is a a way to dim the screen except for the text box when entering a password (ala Linux). The other is to get rid of that stupid, annoying "Are you sure you want to open this application" screen that pops up in Leopard. I know of a hack, but it's not a very useful one as once you set it to an area, if you download to any other area, it'll still give you that dialog. Here's what I'm referring to:

http://henrik.nyh.se/2007/10/lift-the-l ... quarantine

 

[shredhead666]

Oh, maybe some of you can help me. I'm looking for two things. One is a a way to dim the screen except for the text box when entering a password (ala Linux). The other is to get rid of that stupid, annoying "Are you sure you want to open this application" screen that pops up in Leopard. I know of a hack, but it's not a very useful one as once you set it to an area, if you download to any other area, it'll still give you that dialog. Here's what I'm referring to:

http://henrik.nyh.se/2007/10/lift-the-l ... quarantine

*Edit nevermind. Same script.

As for the dimming, I'm not sure. Looks like you'd have to access the graphics acceleration layer. What exactly are you trying to do?

 

[Code001]

Oh, maybe some of you can help me. I'm looking for two things. One is a a way to dim the screen except for the text box when entering a password (ala Linux). The other is to get rid of that stupid, annoying "Are you sure you want to open this application" screen that pops up in Leopard. I know of a hack, but it's not a very useful one as once you set it to an area, if you download to any other area, it'll still give you that dialog. Here's what I'm referring to:

http://henrik.nyh.se/2007/10/lift-the-l ... quarantine

*Edit nevermind. Same script.

As for the dimming, I'm not sure. Looks like you'd have to access the graphics acceleration layer. What exactly are you trying to do?

I'm not really looking to do anything (besides get rid of that lame-ass dialog box for good). I'm kinda just trying to keep my options, browse around, etc. I find it harder to get some real nice applications for OS X compared to XP simply because of the user base. I know there are lots of apps out there I don't know about (Quicksilver is a great example of this).

 

[shredhead666]

Oh, maybe some of you can help me. I'm looking for two things. One is a a way to dim the screen except for the text box when entering a password (ala Linux). The other is to get rid of that stupid, annoying "Are you sure you want to open this application" screen that pops up in Leopard. I know of a hack, but it's not a very useful one as once you set it to an area, if you download to any other area, it'll still give you that dialog. Here's what I'm referring to:

http://henrik.nyh.se/2007/10/lift-the-l ... quarantine

*Edit nevermind. Same script.

As for the dimming, I'm not sure. Looks like you'd have to access the graphics acceleration layer. What exactly are you trying to do?

I'm not really looking to do anything (besides get rid of that lame-ass dialog box for good). I'm kinda just trying to keep my options, browse around, etc. I find it harder to get some real nice applications for OS X compared to XP simply because of the user base. I know there are lots of apps out there I don't know about (Quicksilver is a great example of this).

Ah I see. In that case just attach that script to the Applications folder. That way any executables you download, drag them to the applications folder (that's what you're supposed to do with them anyway) and they won't nag you. Unless it's one of those pkg files or self-extracting deals that runs a script to copy it to the appropriate place (the Applications folder).

As for apps, ask around here and search Digg.com as well. Digg has a HUGE mac userbase and I've found MANY helpful articles there when I'm looking for an application. I've yet to find an everyday-use app on Windows that I couldn't find a suitable (if not superior) application for on the Mac.

 

[-=MYK=-]

@ All Mac users

Mojo Sent!