If you really are a "professional science and technology communicator" you should know that the first rule of technical writing is "it must be written so it cannot be misunderstood". The second rule is to "know your audience". Neither of these rules were followed here.
This is a forum. Not a scientific research facility that produces highly-detailed tech papers so that everyone from a gerbil to a Ph.D can understand them. It's casual. It's laid-back. We abbreviate. We link to articles that contain useful information, and sometimes those articles aren't written in the best format possible... they're surely not technical papers. This is the internet, not a scientific laboratory. People have bad grammar, spelling and punctuation. If all we were allowed to do was link to technical papers, this place would be useless.
It seems that the idea here is not to improve the board but to kill the messenger whenever anyone says that things could be better. In fact, all of these replies seem to be aimed at saying freedom of speech does not exist here.
No, it's to help people. We've helped a lot of people, and been helped by many, as well. We have complete freedom of speech within limits. While I can stand on the street corner and insult everyone that walks by or be snide or rude or demand respect because I'm older than them or have more technical experience or education, it's not a good idea to do so. And this place isn't a street corner. If someone's rude to you, being rude right back or calling them out on it or being snide or demanding respect or stating that the response you got was because you were older certainly doesn't help the situation -- it only makes you a rude person, as well.
I agree that, if I had known these attitudes existed among supposedly intelligent, helpful people, I would have worded it differently.
You get all kinds of attitude from all kinds of different people wherever you go. You cannot control the actions nor the disposition of others. How you respond to those people reflects greatly upon yourself. Walking away from a rude person or ignoring them without saying a word puts you in a much different light than staying around and playing their "let's see who can put who down" game.
Seeing that these attitudes do exist, I will refrain from asking for advice here. So you can all go back to telling each other how wonderful you are and pay no attention to the realities of being helpful.
I think jumping to the conclusion that this place is unhelpful because of one experience you had here is a bit extreme. I wish you'd stick around and see how helpful this place can be.
Back on topic, there have been many good suggestions in this thread to help you solve your problems. If they are unsatisfactory, then perhaps one of these conditions exist:
1) You already know what solution you would like to use and will not accept any suggestions nor try anything new that deviates from that, or
2) We have not provided an adequate solution, or
3) An adequate solution that meets all of your criteria does not exist.
I think you've got the idea that it's #2 around here. I think others think it's #1. I, personally, think it's #3, and that you should relax your criteria a tad.
If you wish to run a handful of simple Windows programs on your Mac
without having to run full-blown Windows, there exists a solution called "Crossover" (don't know if it's been mentioned already). It's supported by a good community, has frequent updates, and is very compatible with a lot of Windows software on the market. It allows you to run Windows programs by emulating or translating the required Windows libraries on-the-fly, just as if they were native Mac OS X programs.
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/
At any rate... I wish to see you back here, as someone with your level of expertise and knowledge could be very helpful. Fair warning: you will encounter buttheads, rude people, stupid people, non-English speaking people, smart people, lazy people and every other imaginable person, just as you would in the real world. I recommend that you brush it off and not take it so personally. I hardly saw any rudeness where others apparently did see rudeness, but then again, I've got thicker skin than most (when you work for a boss like mine, you have to!) and it's like water off a duck's back...
...which, coincidentally, is a metaphor, much like the honey vs. vinegar vs. flies. While vinegar may have been proven to attract more flies that honey, that doesn't mean I'm going to run out into the world, crumbling cookies with one hand, holding birds in the other, staring horses in the kisser all while searching for a stone to watch roll down a hill.
Happy birthday!
