f13.net

I decided to post over here so as not to clutter up shild's virus thread with shop talk about macs.

I own an iBook, the last model before they went Intel on the processors.  I own an iPod nano for all of my musicing needs.  I am, by most measurements, a fairly reliable Apple customer.  Not one of the hardcore who buys everything they sell, but I have a fair amount of their hardware.

That said, their whole, 'oh, our stuff just works great and will give you a blowjob while making the intertubes bring you porn' spiel is LIES.  Pure lies.  I, as a network admin and all-around competent computer user, can handle a macintosh just fine, no problems.  But then, I can handle linux, so that doesn't say a lot.

What does say a lot is that I did a short contract job for an elderly couple to get their iMac set up for them.  I arrived at their house, found a great big iMac sitting there, the larger model of the series, along with a printer, a digital camera, and a .mac subscription box.  The latter confused me, so I held it up and asked, "Why did you get this?"

"The man at the Apple store included it."
"Oh, so they threw it in for free?" .oO(Because free is all this thing is worth, but at least nice of them to give it away...)
"Well, no, but they said we needed it to back up the computer online."
"They said what?" .oO(Back up on the shitty ten megs they offer with this useless service?!)
"They said we can back up our computer online with this."
"Well, technically, yes, as long as you aren't trying to back up much content."

I was annoyed from the get-go that some asshole in the apple store had conned these oblivious old people into buying a hundred buck online service package that they had absolutely no need for.  If he wanted to upsell, he should have upsold the extended warranty, which might have actually been useful at some point.

I keep that observation to myself, though, and start setting up the computer for them.  Everything goes smoothly enough.  The Verizon DSL installation disk doesn't work, of course, keeping up with the 50% failure rate that shitty program has on PCs, but thankfully you can connect to Verizon's servers on unregistered DSL modems and do the installation that way, now.  Printer works fine.  Digital camera doesn't work.

Digital camera that the Apple store people sold with the computer didn't work.  Trying to use iPhoto to get the images out of the camera will download just one or two images, then time out.  After checking around some forums, find out that several other people are having the same problem, so I just switch iPhoto out for the HP photo application which does manage to work.

I go to tackle e-mail next.  'Just works?'  Oh no, not when you're old and don't know the first thing about e-mail.  Outlook Express, one of the worst e-mail clients ever, has a more intuitive setup wizard than iMail.  For iMail, I actually had to hunt down some vital settings that were nowhere to be found on the first page of the options window.  When a network admin has to click around searching for where to enter SMTP settings, what chance does a neophyte have?  And iMail kept 'helpfully' overwriting the settings with those of the .mac accounts, when the people wanted to use the Verizon mailboxes for their mail.

I finally got that working, then tried for a while to explain to them how one gets updates for macs.  "Okay, go to your Applications folder, then the Utilities folder, then double-click on the disk tools.  Run a permission fix on the disk.  Then update your computer from the apple menu.  Then go back to the disk tools and run another permission fix."  I was clearly speaking a foreign language at that point, so I changed it to, "If you see a bouncy blue arrow icon on the bar down here, run it."  Of course, updating a mac without running the permission fixes is liable to cause some problems, but this couple clearly wasn't going to be able to handle filesystem maintenance.

When I left their house, I was considerably less happy with Apple than when I arrived.  While to me, macs are easy to use, I hadn't fully grasped before then that a computer-ignorant person can't even handle that much; to them a mac is just as much a mystery box of evil spirits as windows.  It's just covered up in more shiny gloss.

The moral of this story?

In the hands of a competent user, a mac is no better than windows.  In the hands of an incompetent user, the mac won't get infected by the spyware of the week, but the user will still get an e-mail saying that their bank desperately needs them to log on to fix a financial problem, and the next week all of their money will mysteriously vanish.  One way or another, the incompetent user is gonna get fucked.  The competent user can find and install software to take care of what they need to do in either OS.  The incompetent user doesn't know how to find or use the software installed with the OS, and is afraid to click on it in any event.

And most importantly, the best games simply aren't gonna work as well on the mac.  Sure, you can boot a mac into XP now, but last I checked, macs aren't shipping with geforce 8800s inside.  For the cost of a macintosh with a decent video card, you could build a PC with a fantastic video card and still have money for liquor.

/agree on the .mac, it's a waste of money and worse, some folks have reported that Apple is auto adding it to purchases, and people are confused, thinking they got it for free (though there is a free trial period).

As far as the other criticisms, I offer as a counter-example my wife's experience, who would never be able to do the following on Windows machines:

* Upload photos from digital camera (it just works on her iMac, and our other macs, and has worked without a  hitch for three different cameras).

* Rip and burn music.

* No hassle wireless access

Granted, she still gets confused about the close app vs. close window deal, especially in Finder where she clicks the 'X' and forgets how to get the window back (Cmd+N or clicking in the file menu…). Or in mail, she accidentally clicks on the little rectangle button that hides the toolbar and forgets that by clicking it again, toolbar will redisplay).

The .mac setup probably also borked the mail setup -- I've never had a problem setting up multiple emails.

As far as system updates go, again, don't see what the problem is there --- they run automatically (at least she is prompted) once a week and I've never had to fiddle with permissions (other than the global keychain dialog confirm popup that sometimes happens after a core OS upgrade)…

But I will concede that Macs in post OS X world are not as simple as they once were…

I remember Time magazine had a glowing cover article about the iMac years ago.  I fired off an email to them that basically amounted to "It's hideously overpriced and underpowered, who cares what kind of software it has for sorting photos? Just put them in a folder!" and to my surprise they printed it.  It was the high-water mark of opinion-spewing on my part.

Yeah, I dunno.  My parents manage to operate their PC on a day-to-day basis without difficulty.  My dad even got his digital camera working without any outside help.  What's the big deal?

Well, I can confirm that Apple is indeed adding it to purchases, having seen the proof with my own eyes.


Ripping and burning music is pretty stupidly simple in Media Player, if your wife can click on the 'rip music' button in iTunes she should be able to click it in Media Player, too.  And the hassle for wireless access is on the router's end, not so much the computer end.  Most of the customers I've dealt with can't figure out how to get into the router and find out what the encryption key is, they never even get far enough to worry about how to enter it into the computer.

As for photos, I can't really speak about digital camera experiences, as I don't own one and haven't often used them.


You haven't, but do you think your wife could do it?  I didn't have a problem with the mail, but knew that my customers wouldn't be able to set it up if they had a manual and a hundred years.


You should run a permission fix both before and after an update, as occasionally a system permission problem will fuck the update and make the computer start acting screwy.  Fairly common knowledge if you hang around mac user tech forums, but not known so much among the non-geeks.  You'd be wise to fire up the disk tools and go through a permission fix, it may save you a hassle down the road.

I don't get this.  If you're having problems uploading photos from your camera in windows just quit using any utilities at all.  Open the camera in explorer the way you do any other folder and drag and drop your images to where you want them.  Usually the act of plugging the camera in brings up the explorer window.

99% of the time when you get a new gadget and it comes with an 'installation' disk you are better off using the installation disk to snort coke off of than actually putting it in your computer.  If it really needs a special driver these days you can get JUST the driver off the internet and count yourself lucky that you managed to avoid dealing with some clunky, hacked together piece of shit software 'utility' that runs at boot, sits in your memory and does nothing 99.999% of the time and that when you do try and use it makes your life a living hell.

But what do I know?  I'm a power user and things that are obvious to me are esoteric and strange to others.

Truer words were never spoken. This goes double for anything relating to or connecting to the internets.

I cringe when I go to family and friends' computers and see 47 hotbar icons.

I can't speak for your wife, but neither my wife, my mother, or my female friends have any trouble doing these things on a Windows PC.  The only exception I know of would be my step-mother, who has difficulty even using a digital camera (but then, she is the only person I know who comes close to being techno-phobic).  The UI in both OSes has gotten to the point that if you can learn one, you can learn the other.  Both have occational technical hiccups that can make normally seamless things become difficult.   

After reading your rant full of misconceptions, I find this unlikely. Maybe you just buy your Macs as pretty decorations however. Bashing Macs here won't change the world. But good luck.

He's not trying to change the world. Even my redneck (super redneck) dad finds PCs easier than Mac OSX. And the only computer he'd EVER used before that was an LCII.

C'mon it wasn't even founded in reality. I'm not going to bother with a point by point rebuttal, but there was so much barking mad bullshit in there, it was an obvious draw post.

The following summarizes my thoughts…

http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20070405.html

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2007/april#fri-06-mossberg

Microsoft is Dead (http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html)


And in a followup reply from Graham:
http://programming.reddit.com/info/1gd49/comments/c1gi08


More fuel for the fire… :)

I have to agree with Righ. I admin for an office with over 100 Macs, and a lot of that is ether bad luck, or trolling mac users.

/waits for Surlyboi to appear.

Here's a question for the Mac'cers here: Why can't I properly use FTP on a Mac? I have FTP enabled and am able to FTP into my Mac, but not the other way. If I want to transfer files I have to FTP from a Windows or Linux box into the Mac. I can't go the other way. If I try, I get the message that the contents of the remote drive/folder can't be modified. I don't get it. This became a bit of a pain when I switched from sending CDs to the yearbook company to FTP'ing the completed pages. I had to FTP from the Mac to the PC via the PC, then FTP from the PC to the remote server. Am I missing something really basic here? Yes, I suppose I could investigate other means of file transfers but FTP is the one common protocol that works with everything in my house and the intarweb.

I sometimes think Apple is different not because it's any better than whats already in place, but just because they can be different. I think the only two things I like about Macs right now are Target Disk mode and Expose.

Then step right up with a single point, just one.  Because everything I described happened exactly as I described it, about six months ago on a brand spanking new OS 10.4 machine.  I'd be fascinated to find out just what part of my day with that machine didn't actually occur.

Okay, here (http://forums.applenova.com/showthread.php?p=923) is a tech forum FAQ from Applenova about needing to run permission repairs after updates. 


And here (http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/09/07/135011.php) is a blog post describing the same problem in iPhoto that I experienced.


I'm still looking for a description of similar issues with .mac being a bitch about forcing itself to be the default mail account.  Since I don't use it myself, I can't just fire up my laptop and take screenshots, as much as I'd like to.

Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention, while I was trying to show off iTunes to them as an example of what their great computer can do, I put in a Beatles CD, which promptly locked the application and forced me to force quit it.

[Edit: Oop, I did fuck up on the .mac storage quota, though.  It's one gig.  Still completely insufficient for a backup solution, but rather more than ten megs.  My mistake.]

iPhoto sucks, I use image capture and make my own folders.

I don't use MSPaint, either.

I've never crashed iTunes, nor has it crashed for any users on our network, even after hundreds of cds have been added to the collective. Congrats!

In short, macs are computers. Computers aren't toasters.

You fix windows machines by the hour, it's the best way to get paid for working in windows imo. Generally I find most tasks take about twice as long when I'm working on a windows machine compared to the macs, and it's generally easier on the macs, to boot. I don't care about what computer I'm using, I want the one that gets the job done quickly and easily, I'll leave it to the format warriors to argue it out. In over seven years in a mixed environment, I'm all about the mac for 95% of everything we do.

Applications -> Terminal

man ftp

man scp

Or alternately, there is a Firefox extension "FireFTP" or you can DL Cyberduck (http://cyberduck.ch/) -- which is a GUI FTP client that also supports SSH/SFTP…

Like I said, I have no beef with macs.  What I have a beef with is Apple trying to market them to computer illiterates as a happy, friendly computer, when they have just as many whirling chains and pistons under the hood as windows.  The moment a user tries to do something that hasn't been clearly laid out by Apple's developers, they're thrust into a world that, if they aren't competent computer users, they'll never be able to work with.

Burn a disk?  Click on iTunes, click on the big yellow button, done.

Fix a problem?  Open the console, start typing in unix shell commands...

See the difference?  Grandma can conceivably do the former, but not a prayer of the latter.  Dealing with a mac can involve just as much wading through menus and icons as windows, which is not a problem to a computer professional, but can be a pretty big problem for the ignorant home user.

Except there aren't as many problems as Windows -- nor do they have to be solved with UNIX commands most of the time anyways. Most things can be easily reconfigured through preference panels, dragging a preference file to the trash, or just rebooting. Killing an app is accessible from the Apple menu (and doesn't cause the computer to hang like XP does). Installing and uninstalling things is a snap. And even when uninstalling requires more than just dragging two files to the trash, Spotlight makes those situations easy too. Network configuration is fairly transparent. Hardware snags are virtually nonexistent.

Seriously, about the most difficult thing to operate on Macs is installing Windows. That's it (and even then, it's less of a pain than most PC's).

I got myself a Mac mini two weeks ago yesterday and I can say that so far I've run into far more annoyances with Mac OS X than I ever have with Windows XP. This is my first Mac running OS X though I was a long time die hard Mac user starting from the original 128K Mac and going through System 8 (the PowerMac 8500 was my last Mac before the Mini) before giving up on it since it was too expensive to support a two platform computer habit (three if you counted my Linux boxes).

On Windows there are really only two things that bug the heck out of me on a fresh install -- no built-in way (hacking the Registry doesn't count) to put the Control key back in its proper place (fixed by ctrl2cap) and the totally brain damaged Task Bar that doesn't let you rearrange the items on it (fixed by TaskArrange).

Mac OS X, on the other hand, I could write pages and pages about how brain damaged the UI is -- it's a huge step backwards from the "classic" Mac OSes and epitomizes the expression "style over substance". While Googling around for fixes to these problems I came across a new term that I've (painfully) come to understand -- FTFF -- or Fix the Fucking Finder.

As for the "It just works" thing I do believe the Mac provides a better "default" out-of-box experience, mostly because Apple bundles more useful apps compared to Windows XP since 3rd party developers would scream bloody murder if Microsoft tried to do that (though MS does still do that on occasion) but in the Mac world they just shrug and go off and do something else. And the Dock is so nice and shiny for novice users to play around with even though the UI and functionality on that thing blows chunks. If all you need to do is Web browsing, email, and some simple word processing, though, Windows, Mac, and Linux all work equally well, IMO, except of course that you are much safer not using Windows unless you know how to avoid all the bad stuff out there targeting Windows users.

I probably don't delve into things as much as you do, but I'm not really sure what you mean by OS X having a bad UI compared to Classic Mac. Seems like things work in a similar manner to me.

On a basic level, menus and commands follow the same guidelines. Everything is more or less in the same place. Dragging and dropping still functions the same. The Finder not only behaves like the old Finder, but I get the additional NeXT like behavior with Column view (So to me, it's better than the Finder. More like a Finder Plus). Window commands (the red/yellow/green buttons) seem like a more intuitive choice than the old mac window buttons.

The only thing interface-wise that I find stupid is preparing tracks for cd burning in iTunes and the few options it offers for browsing the music library (more of an iTunes specific bitch, not an OS X one). In the case of burning, I think it's dumb to have to go through a "Make Playlist with Selection" step just to select the tracks you want to burn. In the case of music browsing, I think it could use a tree/branching view in the left column.

Also, I like the Dock. Much better than dragging things into the "Apple Menu" folder like the old days (or to the "Launcher" folder, if you remember that thing).

I admit, Windows automates the process by placing things in the Start Menu (not to mention the Start Menu gives you a generous amount of space to scroll through in the Program Menu), but I don't have a problem with having to go through the Applications folder to launch programs that aren't on the Dock. Macs have always been like that (besides, just the fact that most application data is located in the Applications folder alone is a plus in itself. Windows has to create those menus just to make sense of out of things for the end user, seeing that each prog is cryptically named and contains a hundred little parts sprawled across the system).

The Mac OS X Finder is not the same as the "classic" Finder. Google "spatial Finder" for more info. But some of that is a personal preference thing so here's a simple example of a Mac OS X Finder annoyance that has nothing to do with the above:

WHY DOES THE FUCKING FINDER NOT REMEMBER MY FOLDER SETTINGS?

This is something Finder 1.0 from 1984 was able to do properly, and yet somehow 15 (or 17) years later Apple engineers seemingly lost all knowledge of how to do that. Now the members of the original Mac team were a bunch of fucking geniuses but come on!

Here's another fun one. If I "eject" a network folder (like something shared on my Windows box) I can not mount that folder again, unless I reboot the fucking machine. Not even quitting the Finder fixes that problem. In fact the whole Network thing in the Finder is just fucked up. I just unshared and shared a Windows folder for shits and giggles and now the Finder can't even see the fucking machine anymore -- it thinks the machine alias is messed up now. Actually if I wait like an hour things will sort of revert back to normal so rebooting technically isn't required as long as I'm willing to wait for the FF to fix itself and I don't actually need that network folder in the meantime. Google on "spinning beach ball of death" and Finder for more fun and hilarity.

As for the Dock you can read this for starters:

http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html

Here's one of my major gripes with the Dock that isn't in the above list. With the Windows (and Linux) task bars you can "stack" similar window types together. So for example, if you have 4 browser windows open, they'll all take up just one "space" on the task bar and when you click on it you can select from a list of all the windows of that type like so:

(http://pandadesigns.com/f13/task_bar_stacked.jpg)

Now it takes some fiddling to setup the Task bar in Windows to do that (PowerToys helps a lot) and you need something like TaskArrange to get the windows into a consistent order but once you do that it's trivial to go to the window that you need. E.g. my Opera windows are always the first on the left side and my f13 related tabs are in the first window at the bottom of the list as you can see above.

The Dock sort of does most of that, but not quite. You can click-hold/right click on a running Dock app and see the list of windows and you don't have to fiddle with stuff like you do in Windows XP, which is nice:

(http://pandadesigns.com/f13/dock_right_click.jpg)

However there's a bunch of crap at the bottom for manipulating the Dock app/icon that gets in the way of selecting the window that you need and you have no control over the ordering of the windows either from the Dock or from within the app itself (AFAIK). E.g. the first window you open in the app appears at the top of the list which means it's the farthest from where you clicked to open the menu rather than the closest. With Windows the first window you launch for that app appears at the bottom closest to where you clicked which is much more efficient than the Dock method and you can use something like TaskArrange to force a different order when you need to.

The other problem is that the Dock shows both running and non-running apps so while there's some spatial reference (ignoring the fact that the Dock expands and contracts so that the target you are trying to hit keeps shifting on you) you can't, for example, have all your running apps shown on the left side unless you drag them there but then you mess up the launch order unless you drag them all back. This is more a personal preference thing rather than an absolutely UI blunder but it does demonstrate how the Dock suffers from the problem of trying to do too many things at once as discussed in Tog's article above (the extra menu items above is yet another example).

Now Expose looks way cool but it is nowhere near as efficient as a properly setup Task bar since where the window you want ends up varies depending on any number of factors and the windows aren't labeled unless you mouse over them. Command-Tab also doesn't work cause it doesn't show the individual windows for each app.

Witch almost does what I need in a keyboard-oriented way (which has its pluses and minuses) except that I can't arrange the order the apps and their windows appear in so that spatial reference keeps changing depending on how the windows are stacked (e.g. the front most app always appears at the top of the list), analogous to the problem Expose has but at least the items are clearly labeled unlike Expose:

(http://pandadesigns.com/f13/witch_grab.jpg)

Edit: Okay fixed that section

Computers. Aren't. Toasters.

Of course Apple sales people try to sell shit...they are sales people. Hello?

Trippy: I hated OS9, and I love OSX. So I guess I don't get how the interface sucks now. I was considering another job when I was running an OS9 network with an ASIP server (and then the OSX 1.1/2 server that they installed a couple months after I started before I put my foot down! OSX 1.2 was an abortion)

I have no idea about the rest of the stuff you're bitching about, I mount and unmount network folders all the time, as do the most clueless users (in computer terms) on our network, including an 84-yr old librarian. I have a bunch of custom folder settings, again not sure what the problem is there.

The dock gripes seem real fucking picky, and I don't use Expose.
You say that like it's not a big deal. My father uses windows and despite telling him what apps to run to be safe, his machine is a nightmare. Every time he calls he has a new virus or some spyware running (Why is my homepage different? Arg). My mother runs OSX, and while she still can't figure out iphoto, at least she's not a zombiebot forwarding russian pron spam.

Computers aren't toasters. There is no computer for grandma to press the magic button and have it Just Work. Period. Every computer has problems, from novice users to advanced, no system is better than any other except for personal preference and for professionals, the ability to get the job done quickly. As I've said, given my experience for over seven years now, I'll take macs every time just for the time and hassle they save me, so I can be more productive. That's more important to me than worrying about the order of some browser window. Not that that's any less relevent for /you/, but to damn the OS for such trivial things is (imo) silly.

1. Funny looking white box with apple logo.
2. Arbitarily restrict functionality for snob appeal.
3. PROFIT!

It Just Works.


You're all getting confused about from whose perspective that slogan applies.

PS. I don't use a Mac, I've never felt the need, personally I don't care if they are better/worse because the PC I use works fine, and nothing the Mac does makes it worth me messing with with an apple.

I've never liked apple but I think they've been going down hill for a while in terms of ease of use and the lack of annoyances.  They are coasting on their brand name and that won't last forever.  They have had quite a few serious hardware recalls in the last few years and thier policy of denying anthing is wrong until enough people complain is burning away their reputation.

When I first started my career I had to test the banking web site's browser compatibilities and I always dreaded having to go down to the lab to test on the mac.  Just to start with I would always have to turn my windows computer into a dns server so that I could reach the address I wanted to hit since there was no simple hosts file to point to the server I needed to test.  Then the one mouse button bullshit, God that drove me nuts.  The actual UI and programs were also painful to use.

When I bought an early iPod mini I loaded it up with music and brought it to work so that I could put on some other music I had there, after installing iTunes it decided to automatically format everything I had on the iPod because it just assumed since the iTunes was new the iPod must be too.  Didn't even give me a warning, just poof no songs.  The newer version if iTunes at least corrected that.

Today I brought in a new Nano I got as a birthday present, I wanted to put a couple songs I bought at home onto my work computer and remarkably that worked.  However, I was presented with a shitty pop up which stated that an iPod can only be "synced" with one iTunes so I apparently can't move music from my work computer to the nano, it doesn't even show up as a device on the left bar.  I am now going to burn the music I bought at work onto a CD, bring the CD home, rip the CD to an mp3, import the music into my home iTunes so that I can finally move those songs onto the nano...

And why the fuck do I have to intall quicktime to install iTunes?  And why do I have to clear out my registry to stop that god damn useless quicktime program from cluttering up my system tray with that icon?  And how come even if I remove the iTunesHelper process from the registry iTunes puts is right back in so that I always have this asinine iTunesHelper process running?  Luckily I found out I can just type gibberish in the key value and that process never gets a chance to start up.

Apple is just as shitty as Microsoft.

As I said, Google on "spinning beach ball of doom" or you can read these comments if you are bored:

http://www.43folders.com/2007/02/28/mac-whines/#comments

Search on "network" to see the problems people have with networked folders. If I get motivated I'll make a screencast of "Finder Follies".

As a power user it's all about efficiency. Inefficiencies annoy the heck out of me.

Heck I'm the one who suggested that schild switch to a Mac because he got his files trashed from a virus.

Cause it needs the codecs that come with QT.

There's finally a preferences setting that allows you to turn that off. Praise the FSM! Of course it keeps turning itself back on everytime you update the damn thing...

And since you mentioned QT, here's a gripe I wrote in my original reply above but deleted since it wasn't OS X specific:

Another thing they need to fucking fix (but won't) is the QuickTimer player (this isn't unique to Mac OS X, the Windows player is equally fucked up). That's the only application I can think of that loses features with every major revision (I'm talking about the free version here). By the time it reaches version 11 or so I predict it'll be like one of those minimalistic FLV players with just a play/pause button and maybe, if we are lucky, volume control. Just one example of how screwed up the UI is on that thing if you click in the display area it'll pause the video. Cool. Lots of media players do that. However, unlike all those other media players you can't fucking click again in the display area to unpause it -- you have to click the Play button.

Yeah, that's one thing I've never liked about iTunes and iPods; I just want drag and drop, and to be able to play whatever format I like.

Honest question, Trip, are the nfs issues with the OS or the UI?  Meaning, does this go away if I do everything from a command line?

Dunno. I believe the problems stem from the fact that the Finder is not in fact a full-blown OS X app (it's a Carbon app, not a Cocoa app). However reading some of the comments on that page I linked above imply that people are getting locked out of their machines entirely and not just the Finder in some situations. I haven't tried to reproduce the network folder SPBOD problem yet (though I've run into other network problems as mentioned above) but if I can I can test out whether or not the share is accessible from a shell.

The network folder spinning beachball deal I have experienced — seems to only happen when I am connected to Windows networks, is a major annoyance, and another gripe is probably my bad, I haven't figured out easy, no-brainer method to auto-mount network volumes (actually, don't want to audomatically do it, just hit a button and have them all mounted).

People used to Windows (or Linux) way of working with Computer all will have annoyances when they try to use a Mac like a Windows machine. The whole windows vs. app closing for instance…). Also, many arn't aware of keybindings, or even some of the ones that arn't apparent (it took me six months before I figured out Cmd+delete on laptop was the forward delete
function). 

* Services menu is powerful, especially in Cocoa apps.
* Any menu item in just about any app can be easily hotkeyed.

For lifting stuff off of iPod, I use Senuti (http://www.fadingred.org/senuti/). There is a similar type app (may have on one of my home boxes) to lift stuff off shared iTunes hosts… …don't know if you square that criticism on Apple though, they trying to make RIAA lords happy and at least they haven't cowtowed to the extent of Gates & company…

Finder justifiably is an object for scorn, but I really prefer it over Windows explorer… …and it remembers my settings (view mode) and when I clilck into folder where I haven't previously set options, a simple cmd-J puts it into similar place.

And I will agree that Apple has slid in terms of easy new user UI grokking. Meanwhile, it's a platform that developers (at least web developers) have flocked to. At some recent conferences (Ruby, O'Reilly…), Mac laptops easily outnumber Win/Linux in attendance…

I don't have an ipod dumper, but my girlfriend does. My boss bought some shareware and for some reason he bought it over again, so we got the new license.

We're running an OSX server, so maybe that's why we haven't been having network problems. I did have some headaches trying to set up automounting home directories when we first installed it, I wanted to basically have dumb terminal imacs so people could work entirely from the server (we're small and robust enough for it). Everything should have been working great, but (iirc) I got stuck with kerberos only authenticating over ssh but not the login gui. My boss decided it was taking more time than it was worth and we just stuck with basic filesharing, kinda bummed me out. Then again, I was trying to learn on my own locked in a storage closet, so I guess I shouldn't feel too bad.
:)  >Start speaking text  :)

Sigh, very well, though you're clearly trolling.


You're asserting that running a Disk Utility 'repair permissions' is a routine operation performed before and after running Software Update. It isn't. I have a bunch of Macs, and have never once needed to run it. Not once. Since the days of OS X closed beta. I don't know quite what 'expert user' actions you did in the first place to bugger up your file system permissions that you'd want to use the tool, but it certainly shouldn't be used as a routine operation, and it doesn't actually repair anything - it resets permissions to a predetermined state that may not even be appropriate for software you have subsequently installed. It certainly isn't designed to be routine maintenance, and using it in that way is more like the actions of an "incompetent user" than anything grandma might have done.

I've never had to do this either on any of my dozens of Macs I have worked with and/or setup for friends/family the past 4+ years. I've read some accounts where folks were advised to do this when they experienced problems — I had attributed it to maybe custom APE deals that went astray… …again, once in a while, a major OS/kernel patch might end up prompting me with a keychain confirm dialog… …all in all, I find the Mac OS X updater to be a LOT less painful than MS updates (though my experience is anecdotal I realize + Win improving in that regard).

Count me as another mac admin that's never had to use Disk Utility repair permissions, and I do all kinds of funk disk imaging (which I've finally decided I refuse to do with windows given all the hassles compared to CCC).

I have to do the repair permissions thing now and again. Had a weird one a while back working on the school yearbook. Loaded up a page and InDesign said it couldn't find the Arial font. I knew I had it and confirmed it by going into the fonts folder. On a hunch, I ran Disk Utility and sho' 'nuff, there was something fubar'd with Arial's permissions. I think I had a system crash the day before that might have done it. No biggie.

The big problem we're running into right now is locked .fstemp files on the users network folders. We have to use a program called File Buddy to unlock and delete them, otherwise the users get continuous sync errors.

Occasionally the OS farts and creates an extra user account with the same name as the real one and the kids log in and find all their documents missing (at least that's what it looks like to them). I have to go into Netinfo Manager and find the bogus user account and delete it.

MS Word will crash when the students try to print from a Network account. Still can't find any info on that on the net and it's probably an MS thing anyways.

Sometimes the laptops lose the LDAP binding and the kids can't connect to the server outside of the school.

Lots of failed 'logic boards' and quite a few bad batteries from the new MacBooks.

 Minor annoyances all but it does grind on me now and again. Macs are far from being the wonderful perfect everything just works machines that Apple touts them to be. Quite honestly by comparison, the Windows boxes are heaven to work with. Maybe it's just because I've had many more years experience with them but as far as software/hardware reliability goes, the Windows boxes are beating the Mac boxes hands down at our school (with one small manufacture being the exception but they have very shitty hardware). We have Dells and Gateways that are going on 7+ years of use with very little service needed but we have Macs that come in and die within weeks or months.

Haven't experienced anything troublesome other than a crashed HD on a 3+ year old PB…

…then again, I avoid 1st generation Apple products like the velvet fog…

What's wrong with Mel Torme?  Sure, he had some dumb appearances on Night Court but you can't hold that against the man, he was getting old and the public defender girl had big boobas.

My young, teenaged self used to lust after Markie Post like you wouldn't believe.  Sweet Jesus, but that woman was smoking hot back in the day.

Same reaction here. Have fun with that. Enjoy your Vista upgrade path btw.

EDIT: Trippy's nfs complaints are ones I share - and I love OS X. It's not perfect. It's fine to criticize something for a genuine fault. It's stupid to criticize something for your shortcomings.

You just aren't noticing it, I'm on my Mac right now and I just went to the Finder to open up my "Install" folder where I dump all my .dmg files and it's back to its fucking useless default icon view. It remembers the settings for a while but then simply forgets them sort of like the way Windows used to have limit on the number of folder layout settings it would remember and after a while the oldest settings would be overwritten by newer ones except that I hardly use the GUI on my Mac right now (it's running as a Unix server) so the Finder is even more brain damaged than Windows ever was.

Hmm...

I *think* (don't count on this) that it'll remember icon and window size settings depending on whether you maximize the window or something (the "+" sign, green button). It's weird.

Get it back to the default window size (the non maximized size), then set up icons and window size that way.....If it doesn't remember your settings after that, sorry.

Just my (probably worthless) two cents.

That sort of response has its place, generally when discussing things like Unixisms that are meant to be functional but not friendly.  It is acceptable in those cases to criticize the user for not being qualified to use the tool.

It is not valid when discussing an interface that is touted as being intuitive and easy for new users.  At all.  The job of a user-friendly interface is to help the user succeed in spite of their own shortcomings.  If the user fails, the interface fails.

You seem to be laboring under the Atlas-sized misconception that I am having some kind of difficulty with my iBook, when this is not the case.  I've never encountered a problem with my mac that I couldn't solve in a matter of minutes.  But I am not your run of the mill user; I can assemble a computer, install Server 2003 on it, have IIS and Exchange running, a domain name and SSL certificate set up and have web and e-mail traffic flowing on it in an afternoon.  Using my ability to use a macintosh as a validation of its user-friendly nature is akin to claiming that Steve Irwin's ability to grab a snake and not die means that playing with snakes is fun and safe for children.

In a world with reading comprehension, you would have noticed that I was referring to elderly computer users being in way over their heads after several facets of the advertised-as-idiot-proof iMac they purchased failed to perform in an idiot-proof manner.  You would also have noticed that I linked to the tech support forum of a Mac user site, at the big sticky post at the top of the page where they say:


If you have a problem with that, take it up with them.  As far as my computer goes, the permissions have never been 'buggered up', neither as the result of a permission repair nor the lack of a permission repair.  The filesystem has been completely problem-free.  Whether this is a result of the occasional permission repair or in spite of it, I can't say, not being prescient.


Everyone on this site is (or is good at faking being) a competent computer user.  Most of you can't comprehend exactly how lost an inexperienced user is when faced by a computer, unless you've worked tech support and been exposed to the horror.  Let's look at a common enough sort of problem, a frozen program.  From the tech support FAQ:


Now, in this scenario, imagine that you're fucking old.  You were trying to send an e-mail to your grandkids, probably one containing some frantic urban legend that your grandkids were smart enough to check on snopes and realize how gullible you are.  The mail client freezes.  The computer didn't come with an instruction book to speak of.  Which of the above four options are you likely to be able to come up with?  And remember, you still haven't gotten the VCR clock to stop blinking 12:00, and you don't even own a DVD player.

None of them.  The poor old guy isn't going to be able to do any of those things.  He doesn't have the knowledge, he doesn't know how to find that knowledge, the magic box is simply broken.

Sky is right, of course.  Computers aren't toasters.  Computers are monstrously complicated machines, and they're in the hands of people for whom toasters are probably too complicated to be safely handled.  So why'm I busting Apple's balls in particular?

Because Apple is the jackass putting out all the commercials talking about how super-easy their computers are.

Are Macs easier and safer than Windows machines?  Yeah, no real question of that.  But they aren't easier and safer enough for those advertisements to be ethical.

If someone can handle a Mac competently and well, then they can handle Windows too.  If someone can't handle Windows, they probably can't handle a Mac, either.  Anyone who gets their Windows computer utterly raped by spyware and trojans, sees that commercial, and buys a Mac under the belief that their new expensive magic box will usher them gently into a new age of computer savvy and in a week they'll be sipping lattes in a cyber-cafe and living the digital lifestyle, well.  They've just thrown a few grand down a hole and won't be getting it back soon.

You're not much of a worldly wise computer expert if you run an option to fix filesystem permissions because you found a reference to it on some idiot forum's FAQ. You don't know what it's doing, you just run it as if it were some magical ceremony that you need to perform. Maybe it wards off evil filesystem spirits. Who cares? The FAQ told you to do it.

That's fine though. Its even fine to want to spread your mad fucking Mac religion to other people. But you've got some nerve to then hold that up as an example of why Macs are difficult to use. In your church of bizarre behaviour they are.

As for adverts being 'unethical'... who the fuck knows. I guess your ethical standards are kind of high. Probably goes with the waving mistletoe and dancing in circles around the Mac as it fixes filesystem permissions. I do know that all advertising is poppycock designed to get you to buy stuff. Apple is no different in that regard.

False advertising it may be, but this one always gives me a chuckle.  :-)

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/betterresults_480x376.mov (http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/betterresults_480x376.mov)

Nothing is idiot-proof. Idiots are inventive.

But while some people will screw everything up, Windows gets screwed up more easily. You have to work to screw up a Mac.

Of course it can be done. Particularly by elder relatives. Relatives don't ever listen to what you tell them because hey, they are one or two generations older than you, they knew you when you crapped your diapers, so what can you really know about anything.

Sounds like my supervisor. It used to piss me off when suddenly a computer he was troubleshooting flaked out, but now I'm ok with it. I get paid the same whether it's a real or fabricated problem, and sometimes it's interesting diagnosing what the hell he did. This is the guy who will buy a $15 shareware program to replicate a few terminal commands...makes it interesting.

Re: Advertising. Ell Oh ell. It's advertising, for crissakes. Macs are full of wholesome goodness, no trans fats! Advertising.

Re: folder settings. Most of the custom folders I make are for public computers which are locked down with security software to wipe out any changes. So the settings are constantly being restored, that might be why the custom folders are always correct. Dunno, I honestly don't dick around with computers too much. Get the job done, leave as much default as possible is my motto. Some day I'd like to just snooze at my desk knowing I've done a good job, wait around to maybe reboot a machine remotely. Maybe in another 30 years...when computers are toasters :)

I'm configuring a new windows pc setup right now and it's a total pain in the ass. About half from having new security software to learn (they can't make it simple like the macs :( ) but a lot of it is the way windows tends to overcomplicate things. I don't care about my geek ego, I'm not too proud to say I like things simple and easy. It allows me time to get more stuff done. I don't even fuck with my windows machines anymore configuration-wise, just update the software and let 'em be. I reconfigure the macs all the time, because it's quick and easy (relatively speaking). My favorite example is Ghost vs CCC, in my opinion there is no comparison. Ghost is (for me) a complicated mess I've never gotten to work properly (properly = like CCC). CCC, otoh, is pure magic voodoo. Set up one machine, and image the rest from it's disk image file. Now I don't strictly count that against windows, because I could get ghost working if I took the time to really learn it, but when I can easily use CCC instead, why the hell wouldn't I?

That said, each has their place, each has their strengths and weaknesses. Look at your damned Vista thread. Your only 'legit' gripe is based on advertising, which is very silly indeed.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=DiskUtility/10.5/en/duh17.html (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=DiskUtility/10.5/en/duh17.html)


An idiot forum's FAQ AND Apple's own recommendations.  How did I know you'd try to blow it off as voodoo if I didn't mention Apple says to do it?  I'm just that good.

I think that is the cause for so many borked computers (Mac or PC)… …people reading something off of a forum post and implementing it… …I myself am guilty of such a transgression in distant past times of ignorance…

The thing(s) that are messing up the permissions is the problem.  I don't know anything about a Mac but I can see that resetting permissions to defaults is a "what to tell end users to get them to go away" tactic.  Blindly following vendor docs is, indeed, a newbie tactic that should only be done when time is short and you have real vendor support; understanding root cause will prevent future borkifications and catchall fixes.  However, I'm speaking from the perspective of an actual support specialist, not a raw home user, and am not familiar with the particular weaknesses of OSX.

Look, there's really nothing complicated about it.  Macs use fairly simple permission sets: read, write, and execute, and store them in relation to the object's owner, the file management user group, and everybody else.  If you install a program that goes batshit and decides that some random system file needs to be read-only, you've fucked the system.  To combat this, the system stores the information about the default permissions for the system files, as well as any Apple software installed on it, and can go down the list and set all of those files back to their original state.  The repair tool isn't blindly setting every file to the same permission, and it doesn't obey permission lists on any non-Apple software, just in case the borked program with the bad permission setting in its install routine also has the bad permission setting in its log file.

This doesn't involve giant space hamsters shooting gamma rays into your computer to make the gerbils revolt and stop running in the little wheels.  This is a perfectly sensible solution to a perfectly possible problem, no mystery involved.  And unlike what Righ's bizarre ramblings hint at, it can't hurt anything unless, for some reason, you have manually and intentionally altered a permission on a system file, and setting it back to the factory default will somehow make something else stop working.

If your programs are changing permissions on system files stop installing them as root.

He's trolling. If there were an ignore feature, I'd use it. Instead I'll just read the site even less than I already do.

Slow day, I'll continue.


I would hope not, since that would be a dictionary definition of "stupid".  I had assumed that it kept a record somewhere of default permissions for things, like 0644 for /etc/hosts or whathaveyou, but I would not trust that either.  If such a tool was available on the OS I supported, I would only run it under dire conditions.  I'd be far more likely to just restore from the last OS backup, since there are probably non-standard perms out there that we need.  The real thing to do is figure out which permission is wrong and fix it.

Also, what Murgos said, but that would supposedly surface in the root-cause analysis.  It also happens when you are not root.  For example, I know that an Oracle upgrade is going to strip the group-write bits from lots of directories in the $ORACLE_HOME tree.  Among other things, it breaks backups.  I figured this out after a few upgrades and it's just the way that these things work due to the upgrade process, but I know what needs to be changed and I do it manually: chmod -R g+w works fantastically and does not open up any security holes worth noticing but it is incredibly sloppy; I try to change just the ones I need to in order to make it work.  If there was some tool that went around setting default permissions on things... well, geez, can't you see why that is bad?

Once again, I am speaking as someone who does this for a living and my shit breaks down when you apply it to normal users.  I'm just raging against generic fix-all tools, not calling you a moron or anything, but this reminds me of the people who want me to set file perms to 777 for them.  I also know that root-cause analysis is not always an option, many times you just want to fix it now and let God sort'em out, but a little thought goes a long way and could keep you from doing a lot of extra work.

Also, one of my favorite sayings: it takes a lot of work to be lazy.

I think I have officially left the original topic.

I'm totally stealing that one.

I knew that, one day, we would agree on something.

This would be because Oracle presumably has permission to diddle with files in the Oracle group.  There is really no way you can install something and have it dork around with files it doesn't own.  Unless, of course, you are installing as root.

In my limited experience most Linux/Unix/BSD etc... errors are caused by improper permissions settings.

It does; I've only gone to the root account once on my iBook, and it was so long ago I don't even recall what setting I was changing that required those credentials.  Despite that, on multiple occasions the permission fixer changed some file permissions when I ran it.  Mostly having to do with printer config files, so it's likely the fault of Epson's shitty software.


That kind of user exactly fits my original point.  If you're working as a troubleshooter, you have to know the horrifying number of people who can't grasp why setting their files to full control for all users is a bad idea.  Or why they shouldn't be logged in as root on a *nix box, or an admin on Windows.  They don't know, and even if you tell them, they still won't know, because they somehow can't comprehend that striding through their computer with the power of God means they can destroy the OS with a misplaced keypress.

That kind of user is dangerous with ANY computer more powerful than a Speak 'n Spell.  They might manage to not destroy a PalmOS handheld, but a truly dedicated soul can wreck them too, in the same way that a person confronted with a 'Check Engine' light in their car will 'fix' it by putting tape over the light.  OS X can't save these people from themselves, and it can't train a computer-illiterate person how to use it, no matter how much advertising budget Apple may throw at saying otherwise.


The original topic derailed the instant the Mac lovers hit the thread and came to the mistaken conclusion that I was sullying the holy grail when I generally like the OS; it's Apple itself that annoys me.  I've carried my iBook into MS seminars, taped a badly-drawn Windows logo over the big glowing apple, and used the thing to VPN into my office and open a terminal session on my desktop during the slow parts.

I liked it when the conversation turned to Markie Post.

Me too, night court reruns would be on when I came home from school, she was awesome.  I still have an image burned into my mind of her in some reflective weird dress from an episode where I think her dad visits and gives it to her as an awkward present.

(http://cinemonde.com/artman3/uploads/rmoll.jpg)

Kitsune, you need to talk to This guy (http://www.smh.com.au/news/laptops--desktops/cult-of-mac/2007/04/13/1175971304301.html) - I'm sure he can show you the error of your ways.

That dude's a total poser, he just got into Macs with the first flat-panel iMac.  My second computer was a Mac Plus, after a TRS-80 and before a Tandy 1000 TX.

Certainly when you are using a vendor script, which is when you are installing/upgrading things.  It also confuses people/scripts when you modify their umask, which amounts to the same thing.

We implemented a script that strips off the other-write bit from every file on every system, once per month.  People don't like that, but it makes me smirk.