Macs Suck

[Wormsie]

"Safari has been updated. Do you want to allow the new version to access the same keychain items (such as passwords) as the previous version?"

The options I can choose between are: "Don't change" and "Change all".

And what the fuck do they mean?! Change what to what? The dialog asks "do you want to allow..." not "do you want to change" so the answer is complete gibberish.

It's like way back in Corel Draw 4, Finnish version, which asked something along the lines of... well too bad I can't remember it anymore.

What kind of operating system asks for permission on keychain items anyway? Does Mac OS X think I want to make my life miserable by not letting the applications do what they have been doing previously? Frankly, I don't even know what those keychain items I might have are, because they are hardly ever brought up anyway.

This happens almost every time I update something in Mac and it's so irritating. The help page isn't of much use. Grumble grumble.

Otherwise everything's been great.

EDIT: OK, so there was a helpful tooltip there. I'd seen it once before, then forgotten about it. But still, it's stupid.

[elmuerte]

What are keychain items?

Besides, it's not just Mac\Apple... Windows also has it's fair amount of useless dialogs, even Vista has them.

Tried Safari 3 beta on my Windows workstation, and tbh... I have never ever tried something as terrible as that. Almost nothing works, and what works is either completely useless and annoying (animations) or it works so awful that it's not worth the effort.

It's alpha at its best.

here's a screenshot of how well it ran on my system

[DanJW]

Yeah, I go out of my way to use firefox when I use the macs at college. Why Sfari is needed on windows I have no idea. In fact, why firefox isn't the native mac broweser by now I also have no idea.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I work with Macs all day... this is the best thing written about PCs and Macs. Ever.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html

[nsps]

I work with Macs all day... this is the best thing written about PCs and Macs. Ever.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html

The best thing written about PCs and Macs is just a bunch of smug gloating from a smug gloater? Do you mean the best comedic piece? If you say so...

http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/broken_windows

I generally prefer Safari to Firefox (it decodes the pages faster), but use Firefox sometimes since some pages aren't tested on Safari. I don't see why it's necessary when Windows already has Firefox, though.

That particular dialogue box has always annoyed me with its linguistic imprecision. I would assume "Change All" is correct? This, however, is the ultimate OS X dialogue box:

http://daringfireball.net/2005/05/has_to_be_ok

[Marek]

Camino is pretty cool, it uses the Firefox engine but is written in native OS X code.

That dialog box is poorly phrased. I was also confused for a sec when I first encountered it. But the question it asks is pretty important. Your keychain is your collection of stored passwords. I definitely want to have to authorize an app to use the keychain (an upgrade to an existing app is seen as pretty much a new app by the OS).

[ThunderPeel2001]

The best thing written about PCs and Macs is just a bunch of smug gloating from a smug gloater? Do you mean the best comedic piece? If you say so...

It's called irony.

Anyways, it sums up the frustration of PCs users (like me) who are, quite frankly, patronised by Mac owners who (usually) know less about computers and behave like: "Awww, doesn't he know Macs are better? Poor thing."

The conversations I've had...

[nsps]

It's called irony.

I understand that it's irony, I'm just saying that some jackass re-stating all the Mac clichés doesn't really have the observations or insight to be called the best writing about Mac and Windows ever. (Unless that's the part that was supposed to be ironic.)

[Nick]

Some useful stuff, managed to make my firefox go more fasterer.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/15-coolest-firefox-tricks-ever.html

[DanJW]

I'm just saying that some jackass re-stating all the Mac clichés doesn't really have the observations or insight to be called the best writing about Mac and Windows ever. (Unless that's the part that was supposed to be ironic.)

I think it was just cathartic, in that the mac using world has launched a huge assault not just against PC's, but seemingly PC users as well. This is one man's rant in the way of backlash and it was pretty entertaining. Doesn't mean it has to be at all profound.

Me, I like Macs and PCs. But I know PCs better and can get more out of them.

[BigJKO]

RE: Safari 3,

I've always used Firefox, and lately it's just been crap on my Mac. So I installed Safari and it's loads better. It's got pretty much everything that I used in Firefox. And it's faster.

Never could stand using Safari before, but this new version feels much better.

[nsps]

Yeah, Safari 1 was shit, but it's really stepped up lately. I haven't installed the new beta yet.

I hear, however, that the new Windows Beta is atrocious right now.

[elmuerte]

Yeah, I said that. But apparently it actually works a bit for some people.

The worst thing is that it doesn't blend in with my operating system, it feels like an alien piece of software.

[nsps]

Yeah, I said that. But apparently it actually works a bit for some people.

The worst thing is that it doesn't blend in with my operating system, it feels like an alien piece of software.

Sorry—I meant I heard from other sources as well. In terms of looking out of place, does it look like it looks in OS X or is it a Windows style that's not right?

[elmuerte]

it looks like the screenshot I posted in post #2, I guess it's mac like

[Wormsie]

What are keychain items?

Besides, it's not just Mac\Apple... Windows also has it's fair amount of useless dialogs, even Vista has them.

I was a Windows user for years, I know. It's just that usually Mac does everything nice and quiet, doesn't pop up any windows - even sometimes when it would be nice to know something like "your printer was connected succesfully", but on the other hand it doesn't bug me periodically with a "restart your system, windows has downloaded the updates and wants to install!!!"-popup every three seconds like Windows does when I'm playing Fable, or a window for "installing drivers for hardware X", which I absolutely adore. It just installs it.

Linux doesn't bug the user in any unnecessary ways, either. Maybe in another three years I will try Linux again as my main operating system. It was kinda nice, and I sometimes miss it...

Tried Safari 3 beta on my Windows workstation, and tbh... I have never ever tried something as terrible as that. Almost nothing works, and what works is either completely useless and annoying (animations) or it works so awful that it's not worth the effort.

It's alpha at its best.

Yeah, iTunes run rather badly occasionally back when I still used Windows. Good thing all Mac software runs nicely on Macs!

[Wrestlevania]

I've been using Safari for Windows on both my workstation and laptop at home since it was released. Both installs have been bomb-proof for me, and the two-dozen or so other people I know who've tried it.

And the whole point of using Safari over any other browser - at least on PC - is the gorgeous font rendering, which has been carried over very faithfully from the default text sexiness built into OSX. As a result, reading great streams of online text is now actually approaching "pleasant" -- as opposed to "eye-gougingly uncomfortable".

As for the whole keychain thing; the OSX keychain is where all your sensitive information (i.e. saved usernames and accompanying passwords) is stored and encrypted. So when Apple Update asks you to upgrade/change your keychain, it's more than likely because they've improved the encryption and general security of your sensitive data.

Just a shame they've fucked up the dialogue box for it.

[Roderick]

Being caught up in the Mac vs. PC argument was fun for the first few years of my MBO education 7 years back, but it doesn't interest me anymore. The thing I've learned is that the two computers don't really differ that much from each other. I've seen as many Macs crash erratically as I've seen PC's do it. At the same time, I've had utterly stable experiences with PC's. It's all about the software, and the age, and the way it's used. PC's have the advantage of accessibility and that you can tinker with them and exploit them and completely make them 'your own'. Macs have the advantage of being out of the box, and slightly more stable usually, and they look prettier. For my part, I like the PC interface better, but the Mac GUI is certainly not without its charms.

The people who are genuinely caught up in this 'war' (without economic/corporate motives) have either just had random bad or good experiences with either machines, or foster some mysteriously ephemeral hate for either Microsoft or Apple or the fanbase that supports them. None of these arguments have any real, objective value. Stop being childish.

(That said, I like the Mac ads with the two people. I think they're subtle, and funny, and charming.)

[Wormsie]

The people who are genuinely caught up in this 'war' (without economic/corporate motives) have either just had random bad or good experiences with either machines, or foster some mysteriously ephemeral hate for either Microsoft or Apple or the fanbase that supports them. None of these arguments have any real, objective value. Stop being childish.

We weren't fighting, mom!

But it's true, I've learned the hard way not to use shitty software. It's not always Windows' fault it's crashing.

I miss the Captain August forums, by the way. The end of the third story arch is getting nearer and I'm actually excited.

Also, Psychonauts runs great on a MacBook! I bought it, finally, as the demo was just so much fun

[Roderick]

Haha, you must really hate me for having a small pause in updating Captain August right now we're at the start of the final scene of the story. Graduation's a bitch. In a few weeks I expect it to be going again, but I can't say for sure. I've got enormous amounts of animating to do

[Wormsie]

Pause? I'm just thinking that it can't be past Wednesday yet. It's not Wednesday until August is updated!

[Erkki]

Linux doesn't bug the user in any unnecessary ways, either. Maybe in another three years I will try Linux again as my main operating system. It was kinda nice, and I sometimes miss it...

For the past year or so, my time on my PC is split about 50/50 between Ubuntu and Windows XP. When I've worked a few days in Windows, I'm starting to miss Linux, and vice versa. I think fonts are prettier on Windows, and GTK seems to have some keyboard issues, and I like Windows Explorer a lot more than Nautilus, but that's about it for the benefits.

[elmuerte]

Linux is not GNome or KDE

imho Windows didn't receive any major interface improvements since windows 95 (mostly a few small "hidden" extras that make certain things easier).

[BigJKO]

Just bought myself a 20" iMac, and MAN IS IT BEAUTIFUL. Oh, how I love being superficial.

[Nachimir]

Design and aesthetics are actually really important. Just noone seems to be able to explain why...

For a few months I've been using Linux on my desktop PC and a macbook for work + RSS/most web browsing.

Linux is fun to mess around with and perfectly servicable for most stuff. However, even with Beryl running the visual design and cohesiveness sucks. Browser plugins for Flash in Linux are also well dodgy, crashing and stuttering regularly.

A couple of really annoying things with Gnome are conflicting copy paste methods that can cofuse some programs (with no OS level configuration options), and window positions and sizes for programs not being retained. They're both things Gnome people respond to with "Well that's the way GNOME does it. Get used to it" or "Programs should do that individually, not Gnome" - meanwhile Windows and OS-X continue to lift good features from Linux... (e.g. virtual desktops just announced for Leopard). It's very much still a paper and string operating system in some respects, and some developers seem to be very self consciously trying to keep it "other" compared to windows and OS-X by sacrificing some functionality. I expect these issues will settle and 3rd party support will keep getting better.

I've been liking OS-X for pretty much everything, except DVDs. I'd almost completely forgotten about region codes until I popped a disc in the macbook and got a giant pain in my ass.

Also, Psychonauts runs great on a MacBook! I bought it, finally, as the demo was just so much fun

Wormsie, you have just made my day