Before I get a new Mac...

[rohit_shrestha]

I am a Windows/Linux user but am willing to 'go Mac' mainly because of its interface and ease-of-use. Seriously, I'm dead-tired of waiting for one or two minutes just to show the desktop, then wait for another five minutes for other applications to start up. And after that, if I start some application, I have to wait for another thirty-forty seconds for just SOME of the parts of the window to show up, followed by the whole thing in bits/peices over the course of the next minute. I have simply lost my patience. (If the Mac sports this kind of trouble as well, please inform me, I'd prefer NOT using the computer at all).

But I have some queries before I do so (Please give me detailed answers to the questions asked below, you can also provide me links for further reading - I'm looking for a detailed answer - please take your time):

1. I have heard OS X lacks customisation and I have to stick to the choices that Apple makes for me. Can one setting fit all? How much customisation is possible? Does this affect severely?

2. How buggy is OS X? I heard that a 25 year old BSD bug (which affects OS X as well) was fixed just some time ago. There may be many other bugs like this. And, since Windoze is used by more people, I think it will get more attention, and Windoze bugs will be found out and fixed sooner. How much of a problem is this?

3. What is the condition of applications on OS X? Are there quality applications, especially quality freewares? Some Linux users were telling me that OS X has very less good freeware than even Linux has. And Windoze probably has more.

4. "Only posers use Mac OS X. The only reason its popular is because of its cool looks and good UI". "Mac is just a showpiece. Real users use Windows/Linux". How much are these statements true?

5. What about the value of money(VFM) for mac? If I do a spec-to-spec comparision, Mac has a low VFM. But some Mac users told me that that there are other things that make up for that, that actually make Mac's VFM greater than others. What are those?

6. How secure is Mac OS X? Last time, it was hacked in just 2 minutes. What is the actual scenario? (I know OS X is more secure than Windoze, but how much more secure is it?)

7. Any chances of VB development on Mac? And any chances of doing cross-platform development (not just on VB, on others as well)?

8. Can I get OS X to look a little less prettier, Just looking at is screenshots, I predict that I may be just staring that the beautiful desktop instead of doing any work. Any chances?

9. Can you provide me a list of good, quality Mac-exclusive softwares, especially freewares?

10. Is Mac the best tool for graphics designing/web-page designing/movie making? If yes, why?

11. I saw on a screenshot Apple uses the term "Continue" instead of "Next" on installers. And "Get Info" instead of "Properties". They're more appropriate and intuitive terms. That's not the query, it's as follows:

My Mac friend told me that to install an app in OS X, you just need to get the app, mount the dmg image, then drag the .app file to the Applications folder. Does this mean no EULA on Mac as well? I really liked this feature of Linux.

(Installing apps on Debian-based Linux distribution are easier than this - just get the .deb file, double click it, and its installed.)

12. I had read somewhere that if you rename a TIFF image, say "aapl.tiff" and rename it to "aapl.jpg", the size automatically shoots. How do I rename in OS X? Do I have to use the command line?

Finally, what are the main reasons why I switch to a Mac? I did see the Apple page and its quite good but are there some more really good features of OS X? Please highlight some things what makes OS X superior than others.

Thanking in advanced for your kind response, time, and effort,
Rohit Shrestha

[Viro]

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

1. I have heard OS X lacks customisation and I have to stick to the choices that Apple makes for me. Can one setting fit all? How much customisation is possible? Does this affect severely?

Yes, one setting does fit all. If you're really interested in customizing the hell out of your desktop, you should be running KDE and not OS X. The OS X approach works for the majority of people who see the computer as a tool and not as some lifestyle statement.

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

2. How buggy is OS X? I heard that a 25 year old BSD bug (which affects OS X as well) was fixed just some time ago. There may be many other bugs like this. And, since Windoze is used by more people, I think it will get more attention, and Windoze bugs will be found out and fixed sooner. How much of a problem is this?

That was an interesting bug. Did you read the details of said the directory handling bug? Essentially, this bug was already known for years by Samba developers. Instead of reporting it, they coded a "fix" around it and left the bug alone.

If you work in software development, you will know that this is exactly how many bugs are "fixed" on Windows. We code a fix for our application, as we can't know for certain when Windows will get a fix. It happens _all_ the time, and this BSD bug just shows that the commercial attitude to software development (i.e. we fix our code, can't be bothered about yours) is prevalent in the open source world.

In short, this bug makes headlines but is irrelevant to all users.

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

3. What is the condition of applications on OS X? Are there quality applications, especially quality freewares? Some Linux users were telling me that OS X has very less good freeware than even Linux has. And Windoze probably has more.

If you want half done pieces of code, you can always install the open sourced *nix stuff via a package manager like Fink or Macports.

Otherwise, there is a lot of good shareware and stuff developed by small companies on the Mac. There's a lot of freeware too and like I've said, there is the open source stuff you can fall back on if you're really cheap and desperate.

No such ecology exists on Linux.

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

4. "Only posers use Mac OS X. The only reason its popular is because of its cool looks and good UI". "Mac is just a showpiece. Real users use Windows/Linux". How much are these statements true?

You make it sound as if having a good UI is a bad thing? A good UI makes you far more productive and it's definitely an important selling point. Why do you think Windows and Gnome in particular keep lifting ideas from the Mac?

At the end of the day, does it matter what other people think? Everyone knows that real users use the command line and eschew all GUIs.

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

5. What about the value of money(VFM) for mac? If I do a spec-to-spec comparision, Mac has a low VFM. But some Mac users told me that that there are other things that make up for that, that actually make Mac's VFM greater than others. What are those?

The gains in productivity more than make up for the initial price difference.

Spaces > Anything on Windows. Similar to virtual desktops on Linux
Expose > anything you find on Windows/Linux.
Spotlight > Tracker/Beagle in indexing and query speed. Not sure how it compares with the windows alternatives.

Cmd + Tab, Cmd + ` > Alt-tab for navigating windows in Linux/Windows.

Those are the things that are off the top of my head. If you're a developer, Xcode is better than anything you get on Linux. I personally like Visual Studio on Windows better, but that's mainly because I spend 10 hours a day in Visual Studio so I'm more familiar with it.

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

6. How secure is Mac OS X? Last time, it was hacked in just 2 minutes. What is the actual scenario? (I know OS X is more secure than Windoze, but how much more secure is it?)

How long is a piece of string?

No OS is completely secure. OS X is rather good, but it is impossible to provide any sort of meaningful number. Consider that there are 0 viruses out in the wild for OS X as opposed to the hundreds of thousands for Windows. Even then, that comparison is flawed.

Just remember that the OS X being hacked in under 2 minutes scenario was due to the hacker spending months before researching his attack vector. He didn't come up with the exploit in 2 minutes. He took months of research before attempting to hack the Mac in front of a crowd.

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

7. Any chances of VB development on Mac? And any chances of doing cross-platform development (not just on VB, on others as well)?

REALBasic comes the closest to VB 6. If you're after VB.Net, you might have good luck with Mono. However, do not expect too much compatibility between MS products and the rest of the world.

As for cross platform development, native OS X applications can be ported over to other platforms via Cocotron or GNUStep, Java runs fine on the Mac, Qt and wxWidgets mean that loads of applications can be ported, and the presence of X11 means that practically any Unix/Linux application runs on OS X.

If that fails, you could always dual boot with Windows or run it in Parallels/VMWare/Virtualbox.

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

8. Can I get OS X to look a little less prettier, Just looking at is screenshots, I predict that I may be just staring that the beautiful desktop instead of doing any work. Any chances?

The UI gets old after a while.

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

9. Can you provide me a list of good, quality Mac-exclusive softwares, especially freewares?

Probably not relevant to you but:
XCode
Texshop
Bibdesk

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

10. Is Mac the best tool for graphics designing/web-page designing/movie making? If yes, why?

It is impossible to describe. Use the applications like Aperture for yourself and see.

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

My Mac friend told me that to install an app in OS X, you just need to get the app, mount the dmg image, then drag the .app file to the Applications folder. Does this mean no EULA on Mac as well? I really liked this feature of Linux.

Most applications that need a EULA will display that EULA as the disk image is mounting. All software has an EULA. Its just that on Linux, most of the software is GPL and so they assume you accept it.

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

(Installing apps on Debian-based Linux distribution are easier than this - just get the .deb file, double click it, and its installed.)

And then you want some pro grade software, you find yourself screwed.

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

How do I rename in OS X? Do I have to use the command line?

You click on the name of the app in Finder ...

[andychrist]

The desktop is actually very customizable through third party apps such as CandyBar and a bunch of Haxies by Unsanity, such as Shape Shifter, though the latter has not yet been updated for Leopard.

You can also easily make the desktop "less pretty" by hiding the dock and, of course, changing the background.

For third party apps for Mac (many of them free), see MacUpdate.

[VirtualTracy]

1) You can customise OS X without too much trouble at all. It's up to you, whether it's the Desktop, the Boot Panel image, the login Panel image, icon sets ... there are apps like CandyBar , Visage or websites like interfacelift.com to visit.

2) How buggy is OS X? Well, a lot of new Leopard users complained of bugginess but IMHO a fair chunk could be put down to user error. As for trojans or viruses ... the only trouble I've seen lately originated from Porn sites where users were duped into accepting an update for their media player which resulted in their web browser being highjacked. The Mac Web Browser has a "Private Browsing" feature and the Firewall has "Stealth Mode". Being informed is probably your best bet and forums are great for that!

3) I personally like to draw the line with freeware and run only the basic minimum. There are some fantastic freeware apps and IMHO OS X has a range of quality apps at its disposal from either Apple's arsenal of entry level or Pro apps or from 3rd Party Delvelopers. My favourite freeware app by far is SizzlingKeys by Yellow Mug Software. Basically it's a System Preference Pane and allows controls of iTunes through keyboard shortcuts. Control + Spacebar will launch iTunes and a song will play. There are other keyboard combos to give you full control.

4) Windows Rocks - Mac Sux ... Beta or VHS, Automatic or Manual .... which is better? Who cares is my reply ... Mac OS gets the job done for me and I enjoy it along the way. The first computer I happened to buy was a Mac .... I've used PC's and I love both .... both are slightly different in their own way but both get a job done. Sometimes I might need to hop on my PC to get something done and to me it's like having a contingency plan. Nothing more. Forget the eye candy and focus on how well it does a particular job and the rest will just fall into place.

5) VFM ... In Apple's latest range I couldn't believe the price of the entry level iMac ... "Starting at $US1199" ... for that you get a 20" 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac with 1GB or memory and a 250GB HD. That's roughly half price to what I paid when I purchased my iMac C2D 20" 2 yrs ago and for me it's all about watching the market as even I got a good deal on my iMac. As with everything it's just a matter of waiting and watching ... never rush in for the latest and greatest, that's when you won't get VFM IMHO. Ultimately, no-one can determine what's VFM for you except yourself, given your particular circumstances at the time of purchase.

6) I feel I covered this in answer 2. Didn't that Hacker win a MacBook Air ?? Now that's some incentive!

7) DK

8) You are looking at OS X too superficially ... it can be as dull as you want. Forget the eye candy desktop backgrounds or fancy magnified Dock .... you can have as rotten a look as you want. I don't think productivity will be affected by such things.

9) Google Mac apps OS X and you can spend hours just browsing the selection. Just about every Mac forum has a sticky about this.

10) If you are into Pro design/movie making etc you should check out the Pro range of Macs with their seemingly never ending RAM/Hard Drive capacity. At the other end of the range ... I couldn't be sure but I think you'd have to consider a desktop over a portable with the 24" 3.06GHz C2D iMac coming to mind. Whatever you choose, maxing out the RAM is necessary in this case.

11) As annoying or necessary as the EULA may be .... installing apps in OS X is only mystifying when you are used to another way of doing it ... once you know the ropes it's very easy to do and takes next to no time. I don't have any experience with Linux so I can't compare.

12) I tried that renaming of a .tiff file to .jpg and the size stayed the same so I don't know if I missed something there .... If you want to batch rename in OS X there is a reasonably easy way to achieve this through Automator or by using 3rd Party Software. Batch renaming is something that everyone wants to do from time to time and IMHO OS X surely makes it just as easy as any other OS once you know how. Once again I only have experience with Windows XP and Mac OS in this regards.

In finishing, the best answer for your final question is to go to an AppleStore and see for yourself OR if you have a friend with a Mac, ask him/her to let you have a test run of sorts ....

[Mikuro]

Originally Posted by rohit_shrestha

2. How buggy is OS X? I heard that a 25 year old BSD bug (which affects OS X as well) was fixed just some time ago. There may be many other bugs like this. And, since Windoze is used by more people, I think it will get more attention, and Windoze bugs will be found out and fixed sooner. How much of a problem is this?

OS X is remarkably stable. Since 10.0, I've had an average of about one crash every 5-6 months. And most of those were due to buggy programs I wrote myself.

3. What is the condition of applications on OS X? Are there quality applications, especially quality freewares? Some Linux users were telling me that OS X has very less good freeware than even Linux has. And Windoze probably has more.

There is plenty of great freeware for the Mac OS. There always has been. However, if you want professional-level free software, like OpenOffice, the GIMP, Inkscape, and others, Linux is better. While you can run these things on OS X, they are clearly not built for OS X, and the experience is sub-par. This is changing, though — many of these projects, like OpenOffice and Inkscape, are developing more Mac-integrated versions now.

4. "Only posers use Mac OS X. The only reason its popular is because of its cool looks and good UI". "Mac is just a showpiece. Real users use Windows/Linux". How much are these statements true?

They are not true at all, and clearly show closed-mindedness and a lack of experience. If you ask me, the WORST thing about OS X is the looks. Sadly, that's what is most copied by Microsoft.

5. What about the value of money(VFM) for mac? If I do a spec-to-spec comparision, Mac has a low VFM. But some Mac users told me that that there are other things that make up for that, that actually make Mac's VFM greater than others. What are those?

A couple things that spring to mind are support costs and software costs. Compared to Windows, you will need to spend much less time and money on support and things like antivirus software. In fact, the only antivirus software you should ever even bother with (ClamXAV) is free, and even that is highly optional, since there is not a virus problem in the Mac world.

Obviously the cost of software is higher compared to Linux. Like I said before, big open-source apps are better suited for Linux. The big problem with Linux is configuration and support. If you're not an expert, you really shouldn't consider it, IMHO.

7. Any chances of VB development on Mac? And any chances of doing cross-platform development (not just on VB, on others as well)?

Someone already mentioned REALbasic, which is a lot like VB and can compile cross-platform apps (Mac, Windows, and x86 Linux).

Mac OS X also comes with cross-platform languages like Python, perl and Ruby preinstalled. There are cross-platform APIs you can use such as wxWidgets (built into Tiger and Leopard, I believe) and Qt, but Apple does not include development tools for these.

9. Can you provide me a list of good, quality Mac-exclusive softwares, especially freewares?

Check out http://www.macupdate.com

12. I had read somewhere that if you rename a TIFF image, say "aapl.tiff" and rename it to "aapl.jpg", the size automatically shoots. How do I rename in OS X? Do I have to use the command line?

I've heard this a few times, too, but it's not a feature of OS X. There is some third-party utility that lets you do this, so some people must be confused. I don't remember what it is. StuffIt, perhaps? Anyway, renaming a file just renames a file. It doesn't convert it.

[Viro]

Originally Posted by Mikuro

I've heard this a few times, too, but it's not a feature of OS X. There is some third-party utility that lets you do this, so some people must be confused. I don't remember what it is. StuffIt, perhaps? Anyway, renaming a file just renames a file. It doesn't convert it.

So that's what he was asking. I got the rename bit, but I've never heard of the file size changing as the result of a simple rename.

edit: You can start developing with wxWidgets the moment you install Xcode (which is quite neat!). Leopard comes with wxWidgets 2.8.4 installed by default. Imagine my annoyance as I wondered why my wxWidgets code was compiling against the wrong library.

[Rhisiart]

Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, so for me eye candy sucks, as does the whole Windows veneer. MacOS 10.4 seemed to have got it just right. I still haven't made up my mind about Leopard.

Freeware is plentiful. Security is robust. I'm not sure Macs still dominate the graphics market; much of its following relies on loyalty. However, this loyalty is well deserved. As a PC user at work, the difference between a Mac and a PC for me is akin to comparing an Audi with a Pinto (although the latter still gets you to work I guess).

The only fly in the ointment is Apple's decision to ditch the Apple Menu post MacOS9. I can barely forgive them for that.

Originally Posted by Viro

So that's what he was asking

'he'? You mean Rohit?

[andychrist]

Rhisiart, have you taken a look at Unsanity's FruitMenu? It has a lot of great features in addition to bringing back the original functionality of the Apple Menu. I'm also addicted to their Xounds haxie, which brings back OS 9 style sound effects to mouse and keyboard actions, and to WindowShade X, which provides custom window shortcuts.