Re: new pc finally arrived and have to make decisions-help

[russurquhart1@xxxxxxxx]

Hi everyone,

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Robert Holmgren" 
> ** Reply to message from Russ Urquhart  on Sun, 18
> Dec 2005 20:17:59 -0600
>
> > Both OS have a GUI. But Apple is more than just a GUI.
>
> You're gonna leave us hanging? Meaning ... what? But maybe we should stick to
> XyWrite. All I meant was that XP has an Apple look (if not feel) -- and it
> does.

I kind of knew what you meant as well. I wasn't trying to leave anyone hanging or be provocative. I
was just trying to say that, as someone who was a nuts and bolts pc user for a LONG time, I held the
perception that Apple's and the Mac OS was nothing more than an OS with a GUI. Having transitioned
over to the Mac OS (both 9 & X) for the past 5 - 6 years, I can say that, while is DOES have a
GUI, there is more to the OS than a GUI.

I didn't want to go much further as I really think that if anyone is happy with their OS and the
support they are receiving from their OS provider, then why change? However, if someone is unhappy
with their situation, and support for that situation, then, from an OS standpoint, there are two
options: Linux and Mac. I'm always cautious to say more than that for fear of being seen as
proselytizing.

>
> Still, since you want to be provocative, my understanding is that OS X is
> really a cut-down, much modified BSD implementation, and that you can't just
> take any Unix app and run it and expect it to work. *If* that's the case,
> then... what's the point?

Still... :)

My understanding of OS X is as about as complete as my knowledge of Solaris or HP-UX, the only other
Unix variants that i have worked with in my career on workstations, enough to troubleshoot my own
work, but i wouldn't call my self a sysadmin. I have not heard that it is cut-down. Darwin, the
underlying Unix of OS X, IS an implementation of BSD. Darwin is free and can be downloaded and run
on various platforms, both Intel and PPC based.
As for taking a Unix app and running it. You really don't have the flexibility that you do on a PC.
While true that, if you have a Unix binary, for the architecture of your computer running that same
version of the Unix OS, you SHOULD be able to run it, my experience has been that you usually have
to do a little more to get the app to work. (Set appropriate environment variables, make sure the
binary is in the correct directory, etc.) This is for any Unix binary. (Usually you have your Unix
installer put the binary in the correct place and set any needed environment variables.)
On Solaris and HP-UX, there were several applications that i wanted to use, from the Linux
community, so i downloaded them. The process then to use them was to run the configure and make
file. The apps were then compiled, linked and placed in the correct locations so I could find them
and run them. These apps were, if anyone is curious, mutt (an email client), midnight commander(a
linux implementation of the Norton Commander) and csnobol4 (the SNOBOL4 programming language ported
to C).
After the first version of OS X came out (10.0) I was able to get all of these Unix applications to
compile and run under OS X. I went through the same steps that i had done when getting them to
compile and run under Solaris and HP-UX on their respective workstations.
So, are there Unix apps that won't run under OS X? Maybe. There certainly was when i first started
with OS X. Now that we are at 10.4.3, just about every Unix/Linux app that i'm interested in
provides a way to either compile their app, if they don't already provide an OS X .pkg file which
allows you to download the file, double click the file, install and go. I honestly feel that it is
AS easy to get a Unix app, from another platform, to run under OS X as it is to get it to run under
any other flavor of Unix on any other machine. But us people who hack with Unix aren't afraid to
hack around until it works. :)

Short answer, this hasn't been my experience. There is a thriving community of OS X users who are
living in the Unix side of OS X primarily. OS X comes with the full development system (both the
free stuff and the Apple Coding tools). If you want to boot OS X as a command line only OS, you can
do that. And some do.



> Mostly what I know is that Apples treat users like
> children. It's offensive. I watch experts manipulate them, and I can't
> believe my eyes -- the rinky-dink of it all, the euphemisms, the curtain drawn
> over everything that's actually happening.

I can understand that perception. I can see where a lot people see that. I used to say that. And, to
be fair, there may be some justification to that statement.
Before buying a mac, I felt that everyone ought to be able to troubleshoot an IRQ conflict (anyone
remember those?). I had had to do this whenever i added new hardware or sometimes when new network
software was added. No biggie, that just how things were. (And still are on the DOS side of things.
I'm thinking of the old Expanded and Extended memory days and accessing them in dos.) I did and
still do, some consulting work for an Elks Lodge office. They were putting together a process for
taking their previously typeset newletter and moving it to pc's. (This was mid to late 80's) I got
them set up with Ventura Publisher and Word running under DOS. A couple of the secretary's there
reminded me of my mom's friends. While extremely proficient with their current process, they were
deathly afraid of using a PC and using a mouse.
They got over it, things got better. Ever so often, however, something would happen and i would have
to help out with a problem. A lot of the problems were of a nature that, if they understood the
hierarchial nature of files, and sub-directories, there wouldn't have been any problems. Folders and
filing cabinet metaphors aside, its kind of hard to get someone new to computers, to appreciate a
directory structure. Also, sometimes things would just hang up and they might loose their work for
the day, etc.

After spending time with the Mac OS I began to think about something. While it is not a perfect OS
either, (can anything man made be perfect?), there are allowable levels of things that i don't
necessarily want to know. And that's ok.
For example, I don't know exactly how my brakes work. I know when i press the pedal i stop, but i
don't know how exactly the brake fluid, going through the master cylinder causes the disc pads to
compress on the rotors causing the wheels to stop. I don't know all the specifics of that. (And my
Dad, were he alive, would think me less of a man for that.) Mea culpa, i just want to get to work
and home. Should i HAVE to know this info to use my car? Depends who you ask. (My dad would say
yes.) Am i a child if I don't find out? Again depends. (Again my dad would say yes.)
The joy that i had troubleshooting their computers was not contagious to my mothers friends who just
wanted to do their work to meet a deadline. Should they have known how to do this? Maybe? Were they
ignorant? Certainly not. One could type circles around me and the other knew more about typesetting
and typography than i have yet to learn. And yet, something so simple (to me) was stumping them.
After going to the mac, i have never added a device driver, much less had to troubleshoot a problem.
(Now don't get em wrong, I know that there are drivers at the OS level. There has to be. The point
is that I don't have to mess with them.) IF everything is handled for me acurately and properly by
the OS, should i have to mess with them? I think not. If your OS does NOT handle them for you,
should have to know about them and mess with them? Probably. Or know someone who does.

Short answer, i think people use what they know. Most apple users would be considered children
because they don't know a lot about the inner workings of their OS. They've never had to know these
things because they never had to troubleshoot a driver issue, for example. They can use their
machines for months without having to reboot. I never knew what a head gasket was until one blew in
my Mazda truck. I know what it is now!

One point, let me say here. Apple users, in contrast to what some people may think, are very vocal.
They voice their demands to Apple and very often get results. (A friend of mine who recently
switched over to macs made the observation that Mac users are vocal about things that PC users would
even mention.) I think that is some of it. They are used to things, not only working a certain way,
but to Apple responding to them as well and they are very vocal if they don't. Spring loaded folders
are a good example of this.

> The big Apple boosters I meet, when
> you push hard, you find that they are (maybe) experts at their chosen
> applications, but actually they don't know diddly about computers.

I agree with you on this. Many of what i would call power users, are using their macs for certain
applications. Music, photography, and video (a bug that has bitten me because of my mac) are
examples where the people are very talented and are looking for tools to get out of their way and
just let them create. (Kind of like Xywrite!) They will also be the first to tell you they don't
want to know about computers, drivers, etc. They just want their stuff to work. Do they know diddly
about computers? They don't seem to know diddly about computers. For what they are doing now, the
systems that they are using now to create, should they, for example, understand the five points that
make up a Bezier curve and how it is calculated, just to add a line to a work of art? I don't know.
I don't know how all the internals of Xywrite work. I've written some simple programs, with a lot of
help from you, Carl and everyone else, but I really don't know what is happening at the register
level !
 in Xywrite. Should I?

Now, ask a Photoshop guy about photoshop. Or any other professional about their tools. i.e. the
software. And i think you'll find that is a different story. They know diddly about Photoshop.
(I know how to pick colors! :)


> Most people
> convert to Apples precisely because they are "sensible" (never because they're
> excited by the prospect of programming them or bending them to individual needs
> -- the *whole promise and premise of computers!*).

I want to thank you. You started your response off by calling my provacative and now I am sensible,
by association. (These are both terms my parents would never have called me, so thanks!) :)

I see what you are saying, but again, that hasn't been my experience. Search for mac modders.

I guess if we want to describe what MOST people are doing, i would say that MOST people that buy ANY
computer are not excited by the prospect of programming them and bending them to their wills. I
think of most of the computers that are bought at WalMart up the street from me. I didn't get a
sense from them that these computers were going to be used for more than tools for their kids or as
web surfing devices, which i guess addresses an individual need, depending on the site you visit.
(Isn't it interesting, the promise of the internet and what it has become.)

> "They just work!" is what
> you hear (shorthand for "now I *really* don't need to know nuthin").

Everybody needs to know "sumthin" , I'll agree with you. I take the "They just
work!" cry as a challenge really. I mean, come on. We all know what an os is? We all use at
least one everyday. So, if bits are bits, why can Unix workstations be left on for months yet i have
to reboot my Win 2K machine here at work at least once a week, if not more? If an OS is an OS, why
was i able to plug my wife's Canon camera (four years before everyone had one) into my mac cube and
it immediately recognized the camera and offered me options, without ever having loaded a driver?
I think everyone's computer ought to just work. An OS, and the interface ought to be, as much as
possible, seen and not heard. Look at an iPod. (Forget for a moment that Apple makes it.) This is a
small computer that has an os, a harddrive, an input device and a screen display. This was how we
used to describe computers. But it is also an appliance. The success of the iPod, IMO, is not that
it was the first to market (it was three years late), or not that it is the only one, or not that it
is the cheapest. I think it is because you have a device that does really well what it was designed
to do. It just works. Do i know about its internals? A little not much. (Some people have already
gotten it to boot a version of Linux on it.) Do i need to know about its internals to use it? No,
not really. Should i? I don't know.

> Well,
> yeah! They control and integrate everything so tightly that of course they
> work.

I'm not sure what you mean by everything. You are correct that there is a tight integration between
the hardware and software, but i don't think we mean the same things.

Apple hardware strives to have well engineered components tightly coupled to the OS. Their
applications take advantage of this, but applications by other vendors do as well. That was the
thing i found out went i went to the Mac, most ALL mac apps have a very tight association with other
applications. By that i mean, if i open a graphic file in one app, i'm pretty confident that i can
add that graphic to another application, regardless of the underlying file type. If i can, then it
works well, if i can't then it doesn't work at all. I don't spend a lot of time messing with
half-a__ed support of this file type or another.
And, once i started using this OS, i, once again began thinking, bits is bits, why don't all OS work
this way? I use third-party hardware and software in my mac and no problems, why don't all OS work
this way?

> All nine applications work real well. Except for the word processor.
> Nobody I know likes it.
>

I don't know which nine you mean. The iApps (iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie, iTunes, Garage Band) come with
your machine. iWork (Pages and Keynote) are extra.
I don't know which wordprocessor you mean (Appleworks or Pages.) Pages has some growing to do. Its
at that awkward age now.

But, lets be fair, when you have Xywrite, IS there any other wordprocessor? To quote Paul Newman,
talking about his wife, "When you have steak at home, why would you want to go around the
corner for a burger?"



> Nice graphics adapter, though.
>

You mean the monitor? Yeah, they are cool!

You've gone and made me go long winded here. I'm sorry if i appeared fascist in any way! Like i said
earlier, if you are happy with you machine, then more power to you!

We all rally around Xywrite and that IS what is important!

Thanks

Russ