A geek’s migration to OS X

I’ve been using computer since around 1986. My first computer was a Tandy Color Computer 2. I was a kid and this computer was hooked up to a 13″ black and white television set. Basically, it was a BASIC interpreter and nothing more. I wasn’t lucky enough to have a tape drive to save my programs to so if the power was cut off, I was out of a lot of typing.

A few years later, my father purchased some 8088 NCR IBM compatible computer parts. We built our first PC and installed the version of DOS that came with it. We first had a monochrome monitor. We eventually moved up to an EGA monitor with 16 colors and then on to a VGA monitor with 256 colors. I was able to teach myself DOS using the available “help” command. I literally sat down at the computer and started trying commands. Luckily I typed “help” in frustration and was greeted to an actual help interface. I had used Apple II computers in school but had never been exposed to a PC. I had never seen a Mac much less used one.

Over the years I progress into Windows 3.1, Windows 95, 98, ME, and finally XP. I also dabbled with Linux for the first time while I was using Windows 98. This was a turning point in my computer life because I was straying from what I was used to on to something completely different. I worked a factory job until about a year ago, at which time I started working in IS. IS had always been my dream job.

I was to the point where I could troubleshoot Windows and Linux pretty effectively. I decided I wanted to try yet another different OS. So I found some information on how to install Apple OS X on a regular PC. I got it up and running with some hackery and a lot of help from the folks at the OSx86 forums.

I also had become good friends with our Mac administrator at my company. Though I had OS X installed on a PC, I wanted to use it on Mac hardware. This is mainly attributed to the fact that many things were buggy on the PC install. So, I bought a Mac Mini.

The Mini is a great computer for the price and size. Mine is a core 2 duo 1.83ghz with a gig of RAM. It gets the job done and I find that I use it a lot for music (I have a midi controller that I’m using to learn piano) and design work. I chose to use it for these two avenues because that’s what most people use their Macs for and I didn’t want to go against the grain.

Let me start off by saying that there are many things I like about OS X. I love the fluid user interface, for the most part. I love the drag-and-drop capabilities as opposed to Linux and Windows. Apple really has its act together in this regard.

However, there are a few things that don’t really care for. This isn’t a Mac bashing blog entry. No, this is an evaluation of a product that I actually want to like and for the most part I do. Like everything piece of software, there are just are few things that really irritate me.

The first thing that comes to mind, is the “home” and “end” keys. Granted Apples have slightly different keyboard layouts compared to PCs, some keys just don’t do what I want them to. These are probably not to difficult to change but it would be helpful if there was a dialog to set up shortcuts and keys more like a PC. If Apple wants more peopl to switch they should think about the people they are trying to persuade.

I program quite frequently and use the home to put my cursor at the beginning of the line. I use the end key to put my cursor at the end of a line. On OS X, the home key usually takes you to the beginning of the document you are working on, and it doesn’t necessarily move the cursor in the process. It’ll take your view to the beginning of the document. Your cursor just stays where you last left it. Surely there is a more complex key combination that could be used for this sort of thing. I rarely want to go to the beginning or end of a document. However, getting to the beginning of a line of code is used quite often. It’s worth mentioning that there is a keyboard shortcut that does exactly what Home does on the PC. ALT + left arrow takes you to the beginning of the line and moves the cursor accordingly. ALT + right arrow takes you to the end of the line.

Another annoyance is the keyboard input itself. I can’t get used to it. No matter if I’m using a Mac keyboard or a regular PC keyboard, I end up with a lot of double characters or missing characters all together. I joked recently that I had found out why Apple stole the mouse from Xerox. It wasn’t to create a better UI. It was to correct the shortcomings of the standard input device of the day, the keyboard.

I’ll wrap up my rant with a final annoyance, even though there are a few more I’ll probably add later. My final annoyance is with a concept that is truly Mac founded and most Mac users would probably be lost without. This final annoyance is the menu bar.

The first time I tried the GIMP on Linux I really disliked the way everything had it’s own window. If I want to work with layers, I have to open up the layers dialog. In most Windows programs, everything is contained with a window. GIMP was modeled after the Mac version of Photoshop I have to conclude. I thought it was just bad programming.

Which leads me to the menu bar. With most programs being modular like the GIMP, on a Mac, it’s difficult to keep up with my open windows. Even Office for OS X is like this. It’s really confusing to me. I have a feeling I’ll get used to it but that will take time. For someone who is migrating to OS X it has to be a problem though.