# Something to Impress the Dark Side



## unlearnthetruth (Sep 13, 2002)

Well guys I need your expertise again... here's the two emails my mother just sent me:

"you need to teach me something really jazzie that my computer can do and theirs can't.........."

Like what?

"i don't really know...just something jazzy that i can show them that i did   on Baby Mac and know   FOR SURE that a Dell or Compaq couldn't possibly do the same to shut them up once and for all and put them in their palce.........any ideas ?????"

She's on a new iMac (which she calls babymac). Ideas I have already are the whole screen effects thing, like with deskeffects, but other than that.... help me out! we're talking simple minded stuff to impress people who aren't by any means computer experts... ideas?


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## fryke (Sep 13, 2002)

why not go with the simple stuff? import some nice photos to iPhoto, arrange them to albums, zoom in & out..


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## unlearnthetruth (Sep 13, 2002)

That's a start!

Ok so far I have:

 Stun them with the simplicity of iPhoto
 Wow them with desk/screen effects

any more suggestions?


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## edX (Sep 13, 2002)

i don't suppose dragging apps to the trash and emptying it would be practical. unless you just happened to put an extra copy of something on the drive for demonstration purposes. Maybe make a copy of internet exploiter for the symbolic value


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## Total Konfuzion (Sep 14, 2002)

How about showing them how easy it is to burn cds without needing any software besides OSX? Maybe show them iCal and how easy that is to use.  Show them iChat and make sure the buddies speaking have pictures of themselves as their buddyicons, hehe.  Also show them how iTunes organizes your music into seperate folders by artist.  Use Sherlocks dictionary function to look up the definitions of certain words such as "Microsoft" and "Bill Gates" =/  and pull up that cool looking transparent analog clock too!


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## unlearnthetruth (Sep 14, 2002)

Ed - it's been so long since i've used windows that i forgot how it really is impressive how we can delete things we don't want. Friends of mine from the windows world often ask me "how do i get rid of [insert program name here]" Perhaps the answer does lie in the basic tasks that we mac users take for granted... program deletion, file management... functionality...

Total - all excellent ideas. I haven't yet mastered iCal myself, and i'm not so sure i will, but it's a good thing to show off. Transparent windows are definitely a good thing to show off, thankfully we have windowshade... excellent....

I figure the sheer joy of navigating jaguar on a quartz extreme enabled machine should be enough!


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## chemistry_geek (Sep 14, 2002)

Unless M$ Windows has changed, put an MP3 on the desktop, open up iTunes, play just that one song, now drag it to a folder.  iTunes will continue playing the MP3 file.  IIRC, M$ Windows will give an error something like a "sharing violation".  If a file is open in windows, I think it is difficult or impossible to move it, I could be wrong though.  Macs have been able to do this for quite sometime.

Another way to impress the windows crowd is to show just how "fast" a Mac is with OS X.  Download *Locator 0.7.3* from

http://www.sebastian-krauss.de/software/

It is a search utility that is by far the fastest file finder I have ever seen.  It uses the Mac OS X locate database to find files.  It finds the location of files within a half a second or so.

Burning an *Audio CD* with iTunes is another good example.  Rip-Mix-Burn.  PC's are famous for creating coasters with CD burners.  As always, it has to do with software, hardware, and driver problems.


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## Decado (Sep 14, 2002)

While showing of the system, never forget to play movies in the dock! not very practical, but even the übergeeks gets totally impressed when you minimize it and it just keeps on playing.

the slider that changes the size of the icons is also a hit!


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## mrfluffy (Sep 14, 2002)

thought of the iTunes visuals, say you made them as well and they'll be very impressed 

and Decado the Mac plus is 8Mhz


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## Tigger (Sep 14, 2002)

> _Originally posted by mrfluffy _
> *thought of the iTunes visuals, say you made them as well and they'll be very impressed
> 
> and Decado the Mac plus is 8Mhz *


Don't try to impress Window users by showing them the iTunes visuals.
My brother had some cool visuals on his PC even before iTunes was released for a app I don't know the name, and the visuals in iTunes 3 are still a joke compared to that. Looked much cooler.

Never try to impress PC users, anyway. Why waste the time? There are things that really impress me on the Mac side. But there are some things that really impress me in Windows. For example browsing the internet is MUCH faster.
A friend of mine wanted to show me something in the internet. He was a little impressed of the eyecandy, and he just laughed about how slow IE was. It was embarassing... He said he would never buy a Mac if they are so slow.
Don't tell me other browsers in X are faster. They aren't.


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## Decado (Sep 14, 2002)

Thanks fluffy! have now removed the ?-mark.  until a year ago I still used it now and then to play classics like "ancient art of war", "boxing", "dark castle", "prince of persia" etc. But then i lost all the good games when i moved (i had put them in a box marked "good games" and i guess that was to tempting for the thiefs of the world, i hope they got dissapointed big time.) 

i love the cloud when i throw stuff from the dock  and as allready pointed out, iTunes intelligent folders. Speach could be pretty impressive to newbies too! especially the "tell me a joke" command! thats a classic! 
Got a friend all worked up by it and he sat for nearly an hour talking with my eMac


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## unlearnthetruth (Sep 14, 2002)

Tigger - point taken, but we're not dealing with real computer users here.The backstory is that my mother got an iMac, and her cousin and sister are poo-poo-ing all over her because "why would anyone get a mac... you can't do anything on a mac" - so she's looking for simple things to impress simple people who know nothing about computers... hehe


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## chemistry_geek (Sep 14, 2002)

> _Originally posted by unlearnthetruth _
> *Tigger - point taken, but we're not dealing with real computer users here.The backstory is that my mother got an iMac, and her cousin and sister are poo-poo-ing all over her because "why would anyone get a mac... you can't do anything on a mac" - so she's looking for simple things to impress simple people who know nothing about computers... hehe *



Have your mom's cousin and sister prove you can't do anything on a Mac.  There are more programs for PC's than Mac's, BUT, how many of them are REALLY THAT USEFUL?  There is so much shareware and freeware for the Mac that you don't need to worry.  Calendar programs, take your pick; Apple's iApps are useful as well.  I use TextEdit ALL THE TIME, as well as DesktopCalendar, Mozilla, Mail, and VueScan.  Have your mom email them a PDF document - that's built into Mac OS X.

When my parents were looking into a computer many years ago, everyone asked them what they were going to use it for.  My parents do a lot of photography.  They went with an IBM Aptiva 200MHz Pentium w/ MMX and 48MB RAM instead of Apple because Apple was a very sick company at that time.  If it wasn't for M$ investing $150 million into Apple at that time, we'd all be using Linux or something much MUCH wor$e.  They've spent hords more money throughout owning that PC in software they really didn't need (calendars, reminder programs and other crap), hardware (scanners, mice, graphics tablets, and printers) that they rarely use anymore.  They actually had to buy Windows 98 because the drivers they needed for their CD-ROM for Windows 95 were no longer made by the hardware manufacturer.  They recently purchased the full Norton Utilities for Windows - firewall protection, etc...blah blah blah... They've spent, er, wasted more money on their PC's (two now), than I ever have on my Mac.  Owning a PC really is not wise if you want to save money.  Yes, purchasing Apple hardware is slightly more expensive than a PC, but you don't need to spend as much money on software, and you'll keep your computer longer before upgrading than a PC user typically does.  I don't want to forget about concern about gaping security holes in the M$ Windows or Internet Explorer - they seem to be pretty regular, about one serious problem every two to three weeks.  PC's have more virii than Macs do.  In fact, in my 18 years of owning Apple hardware, I've never encountered a virus.


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## edX (Sep 14, 2002)

just one simple thought - have the doubters define what "anything" is. Barring having to buy m$ office to prove it runs, get all the apps together that will accomplish these things. (ask them to save an office document as an older version and open it with appleworks if neccesary. they have to save in older formats to trade among themselves much of the time anyway) launch all of them at once. rotate using them. print out a nice size doc from one app while working on another. intall software while chatting online. etc. etc. etc.

there, now you have shown that macs do everything and can do it all at the same time.


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## boi (Sep 27, 2002)

windowshade's window transparency always impresses people. so does codetek's virtual desktop.


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## phatsharpie (Sep 30, 2002)

If your mom's Mac has a Superdrive, burn a DVD and show them how easy it is with iDVD ought to shut them up.


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## roger (Sep 30, 2002)

For me it is the simple things that make a difference. When I am on the iBook then people really notice the dock (lots of maginification). Also the genie effect is neat.

Other things that are quite annoying on a PC:

Trying to share pictures - usually they are pasted into a word document. With a Mac you just drag a picture to where you want to send it.

Changing icons - again, just drag and drop.

I don't know whether you can do this one - but linking two macs via airport always looks good.

One more thing - my empty desktop. A nice clean screen is the sign of a well managed OS. Most PC users have a screen full of tiny icons.

When people tell me about the lack of drives available for MacOSX, well I just tell them that there aren't any drivers because you don't need them (often, not always true).

The reason that I use my Mac: I plug in my gadget, I work with the data a little (burn a CD, create a web page of my photos, synch my iPod with music, calendar and contacts) and then I turn off my computer and get on with my real life. My mac supports my life, it doesn't control it.

iPhoto is deceptively powerful. Last weekend I had a party with some friends and there was a big screen behind the dance floor. I scanned in about 200 photos of all my mates through the ages and then plugged in my iBook to the big screen using an AV to SCART cable. I then put iPhoto on a looping slideshow and it worked great. The speed at which I could crop photos to make them look infinitely better really impressed the guys helping me with editing. During the party a lot of my friends took photos with Digital cameras. I got all of them to plug them into my iBook so that I could suck out the photos (without drivers - they all worked) and then the next day it took me ten minutes to zap them to the web. I then burnt a couple of CDs with the photos so that some people could take the photos with them.

R.


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## TheBarty (Sep 30, 2002)

OK :

In iTunes, set preferences to play song while importing.

Then :

Insert a CD
Import a song to your library while listening to it at the same time

THEN, AS SOON AS THE IMPORT IS DONE, EJECT THE CD :
NO SKIP, ITUNES WILL CONTINUE TO PLAY THE SONG BUT, IN THE SAME TIME, IT WILL SWITCH TO THE LIBRARY SONG WHILE THE CD GOES OUT !

I did that a lot of times and people from the other side always had to find a seat...


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## mrfluffy (Sep 30, 2002)

> _Originally posted by roger _
> *One more thing - my empty desktop. A nice clean screen is the sign of a well managed OS. Most PC users have a screen full of tiny icons.*


i cant work with a clean desktop, mines covered in files, and my real desktop is even messier.


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## nvaughan3 (Oct 1, 2002)

Lots of misconceptions here about windows.

-you dont need any additional software in winxp to burn CD's
-you wont get a "sharing violation" if you try to copy a currently playing MP3 around.
-mac is better because they have cleaners desktops? please....
-you can easily add photos to a word document by dragging pictures to it.
-WMP's MP3 organization is as good, or better than iTunes.  WMP even downloads the cover art automatically for you. 
-iCal is additional software, not built into the OS


note that i love my g4/400 just as much as my 2 homebuilt athlon systems, although I wish the g4 was faster.


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## mrfluffy (Oct 1, 2002)

> _Originally posted by nvaughan3 _
> *
> -WMP's MP3 organization is as good, or better than iTunes.  WMP even downloads the cover art automatically for you.
> *


but we already have the CDs so dont need to get a copy of the cover art.......


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## metiure (Oct 1, 2002)

the best way to impress people from the dark side is to put a PC box and a new iMac side by side and ask the bastards to LOOK at them...

vic


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## nvaughan3 (Oct 1, 2002)

> _Originally posted by mrfluffy _
> *but we already have the CDs so dont need to get a copy of the cover art....... *




Well, good for you but 99% of my music is pirated.


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