PC v Mac environments

[sodderboy]

I just finished amending my tax forms using a PC only.  I cannot believe how clumsy the suite of Office, scan, pdf, etc. apps are on a PC compared to a Mac.  There are few keyboard shortcuts?  The traditional menu bar is gone?  It seems that they want to be used by mouse-pecking only.  I was used to doing all the prep on the Mac and TurboTax on the xl PC but have now migrated to dual-boot mac.  That environment in Win 8 is so oblique!  Mac has retained a similar flow all along, but not Win.

I searched for shortcuts and a way to revert to the old menu bar but am coming-up short.  Is Windows devolving or am I? 

Mike

 

[Phrazemaster]

Win 8 was horrible. Every other version of Windows is bad, historically like clockwork.

I teach/use both; love the mac better! Having said that, Win 7 is pretty awesome, and their really are a lot of shortcuts on Windows; don't know about your specific software but you can Google shortcuts for it.

I installed Win 10, and it seems ok but haven't given it much use yet to give a fair assessment. BTW Win 8 was so bad they decided to skip "Win 9" altogether and just renamed the upgrade to Win 8 as Win 10. It was that bad. I'm sorry I paid anything for it!

 

[fazer]

I use both  Win 7 and Mac 10.7 10.8 and 10.10.    Everything is being designed to integrate with your phone.  Ok but it renders working software into a can't move forward with out upgrading fees or its no longer supported. 

I'm disappointed in mac but mostly with the yearly OS upgrade by Apple.  It seems like everything is design to force you to upgrade software constantly and affects the stability of DAW / Plug Ins and such.  I have an old XP machine  not on the internet set up to do CAD just so I don't have to constantly pay license fees for things I don't need.    Seems like Win 10 is the same as Mac.  Its all about Internet access and Browsers constantly under threats so OS just 2 years old is abandoned on this new model.  I like Win 7 for my accounting.  I hate where Apple is heading.

This new model really is a disaster for things that use to get the job done. 

 

[rob_gould]

Windows 7 tends to work very well for me.

Windows 8 was recognised almost universally as horrible.

Windows 10 apparently keeps the best bits of both, though I haven't tried it yet and have no need to on the basis that Windows 7 does everything I need it to.

Computer OSs are tools. Generally they're limited by the skills of the operator rather than by hideous design flaws, despite what legions of online points scorers might claim in the never-ending Mac vs PC debate.

Windows 8 might just be an exception to that though

 

[Phrazemaster]

It used to be planned obsolescence. Now it's planned upgrades or what's working gets broken.

I'll never forget my disgust when Quickbooks "sunsetted" a feature that let you email invoices directly from the version I was using.

Basically, they broke a feature u had paid for, then demanded I upgrade to get it back.

Beyond disgusting. Sick!!!

I agree about the constant updating hassle. I recently tried to upgrade a friend's Mac laptop to the newest OS so she could use Carbonite backup, which didn't work on her version.

Took her up 4 OS's.

It let me, but it was a huge mistake. Rendered the machine a paperweight. Had to downgrade or it was unuseable.

My nightmare just for trying to help her out free. Took a couple entire days to sort out,

No good deed goes unpunished.

Wish they made things solidly and without the need to keep breaking things so they can make more money. What on earth would they do if they simply made solid bulletproof software that just worked?

 

[weiss]

I see the development as well. I hate Windows 10 as much as the latest Mac OS. I used to have a windows 7 pc until last year when i upgraded my studio to mac. Actually i am really obsessed by mac now although i had to downgrade to mavericks again (works far better for me than the latest OS). The only negative side is the slower CPU power compared to the windows pc if you want to spend the same amount of money. If i stayed with Windows i'd rather not update to Windows 10. Again workflow and everything...

 

[PRR]

> the suite of Office

Office 2003 (traditional menu bar) still works fine on Win7, and I think on Win10. I'm not aware of any actual improvement in the dozen years since it came out. They did issue a DOCX converter for the older WORDs. (The download says a newer version of Office but I put it on dozens of Office 2003 installations.)

"ALL" menu bars are "gone" in all apps in Win7+. In Win7, tapping ALT often brings up real menus for a moment. Some apps have secret ways to make this stick (until the next point-update). Try right-clicking slightly right of where you think a Menu Bar should be.

> mouse-pecking only

1) MS has always been stingy about listing shortcut keys. My mouse-arm hurts. Some hunting on MS and anti-MS sites may turn up a cheat-sheet for your apps.

2) There are devices without good keyboards, "SmartPhones". I won't have one in the house, but it appears to be a growing fad so the O/S makers are peck-orienting their interfaces. Nevermind the fact that a mouse is a gross clumsy tiresome tool, and finger-screens are worse (especially with my fingers). We ARE devo.

I have not even seen Win8 so can't say what a POS it may be.

Scan in Windows (and Mac; I'm old) used to be 3rd-party function. Two layers: the user-app and the underlying driver. I have a good user-app (from 2001!) and functional drivers, but Win7 insists on taking-over the scanner driver in a way that older apps can't work-around. I jump through hoops to launch Windows' own fax/scan mini-app, scan with hardly any DPI/depth option (and it seems to ignore what options it offers), Save the dang image (can't put it on clipboard), then open in image program. This dysfunction also broke my preferred screen-grab tool.

If you are truly disgusted by Win8, you may be able to install Win7 (this was supported for corporate customers), but obviously this is risky. If your Win8 is legit, you will be urged-urged-urged to download and install Win10 which will be legit. If it installs at all. If you don't loose 3 days of your life re-re-re-booting, then trawling the web (on another machine) for tips to un-stall the installation.

Despite the new menus and decorations, if you dig deep enough in Windows 10 you can find dialog boxes like Folder Options which are UN-changed since Windows 95. (Dialogs which really should be re-thought.)

 

[gltech]

My mouse-arm hurts.

Nevermind the fact that a mouse is a gross clumsy tiresome tool, and finger-screens are worse (especially with my fingers).

God don't get me started on the vile rodent. I've had my own software development shop for 20+ years. We all try to be what we call "keyboard-ninjas." Let me tell you, if you don't know how to use the keyboard, I'm sorry, you're doing it wrong. I try to show my own sister MS-Word/etc shortcuts. She marvels at how I can do something at light speed and says  "Wow I'm gonna learn that!" Next Christmas, same thing. Missing out on 3x or 4x productivity and free time.

Ever see somebody grab the mouse and click in the User Id field, go back to the keyboard and type their User Id, go back to the mouse, click in the Password field, go back to the keyboard and type their password, then go back to the mouse and click the "Log In" button?

I learned in an ergonomics class for computer science in college that corp execs really took to the mouse because they thought it was beneath them to type.

We've had it good for quite a while in my shop. Very clean installs of XP SP3, Visual Studio 2005-2010 (coding tools) and I believe MS Office 07 before the hideous "ribbon bar" (yes ribbon, take away 20% of my viewport please). It's very obvious that even Microsoft's own developers of the Visual Studio are not considering keyboard users much anymore -- Visual Studio 2012 and 2013 are missing KB functionality present in the earlier versions, and also have new bugs that you can tell didn't get caught because they weren't KB tested. And Visual Studio 2014's out now. They change everything so much they keep everybody at the learning/novice level.

We moved to Windows 7 after careful consideration, and it's pretty good so far. But it's not as easy to do some things as it was in XP, IMO, it all keeps getting more toyish/adolescent and more difficult to use for something serious and sophisticated.

-glt

PS: I've near-perfected a way to keep computers clean and fast, based on 20+ years experience with a sizable number of machines in my software shop and studio. I've been thinking about writing a post about it, and will if there's interest.

 

[mattiasNYC]

For what it's worth; I don't really think the sky fell with Windows 8. For most people in the audio industry it shouldn't really have been much of a change, because what people didn't like was the handling of "start", which was pretty much no big deal at all.

I start my app (Nuendo) on Win 7 by pressing the win-key and then "n" for "nuendo". Since it begins suggesting apps based on search results and the first one always is "Nuendo" launching it for me amounts to no more than 3 key strokes (start/n/enter).

On Win 8 I do the following: start/n/enter..... exactly the same thing. Never have to touch the first page if I don't want to. And once I'm in the app there is no difference in behavior. Desktop is the same. I just don't see why people got their underwear all bunched up over it.

Win 10 looks great to me. To me it seems like a logical extension of 7 and 8. The homogenization of the interface across different devices is the future as far as I can see. Why learn different ways of operating the same software just because you're on slightly different form factors (within reason)? Makes total sense to me. I'll probably get 10 next year at some point.

 

[Phrazemaster]

I suppose every change works for a few. Most did not appreciate the clunky win 8 interface, the charms that popped up unbidden - or failed to do so when bidden. The menu in the upper left corner that popped up by accident all the time. And the difficulty in finding apps. And the missing start menu. It was, actually, a big deal for most.

And it extended far beyond just how you launched things. It seriously sucked and also hampered me in a lot of other ways too, such as the awful IE browser, etc, etc, etc.

But it worked for some.

 

[ruffrecords]

This is precisely why I use neither Windows or Mac. Linux has all you need, it is free, stable and available in flavours to suit every type of UI you can imagins.

Cheers

Ian

 

[ruairioflaherty]

PS: I've near-perfected a way to keep computers clean and fast, based on 20+ years experience with a sizable number of machines in my software shop and studio. I've been thinking about writing a post about it, and will if there's interest.

GL,

As a PC idiot that would be very useful to me.  I've avoided PCs all my life but in the last few years I've needed one for simulation, PCB design and now for my dScope.  I'd love some tips from a pro on how to keep it running well.

Thanks,
Ruairi

 

[living sounds]

Word processing software did everything you need 15 years ago.  Or at least it wasn't worse than it is now. They change stuff that doesn't need changing and keep all the clumsy stuff... The latest Office version with the new bar on top is another step backwards.

I often wonder how software can still be so bad. Like copying lot's of files in Windows, if there's a problem (like a file with the same name already being present at the destination) it actually still stops copying and waits for a prompt. Why can't it copy the 1523 files that don't have a problem in the meantime?

I'm currently trying to get my new smartphone an OS that just works... really tough.

Apple software has some advantages in terms of useability but also severe drawbacks in flexibility. And price. And hardware options. And life cycles.

 

[weiss]

Apple software has some advantages in terms of useability but also severe drawbacks in flexibility. And price. And hardware options. And life cycles.

..and compatibility! i just ordered a second monitor for my mac mini. guess why i couldn't make it work like with any other pc. i thought i could just connect it with the noname adapter cable. but it had to be made by apple and obviously cost about 10 times of a normal cable. now it works though.

 

[Andy Peters]

..and compatibility! i just ordered a second monitor for my mac mini. guess why i couldn't make it work like with any other pc. i thought i could just connect it with the noname adapter cable. but it had to be made by apple and obviously cost about 10 times of a normal cable. now it works though.

That's not true ... maybe the no-name adapter is a piece of crap?

The recent mini has two graphics outputs, one is the HDMI out and the second is the Thunderbolt, which is in the mini-DisplayPort form factor and accepts any mini-DisplayPort cable. I have the same port on my 17" MacBook Pro. I connect that port a standard DVI monitor with a cheap (non-Apple) mini-DP-to-DVI adapter dongle I got at the local computer store (SWS in Tucson). It just works.

The mini ships with an HDMI-to-DVI dongle, or at least it did earlier in the year when my wife ordered the machine for work. She drives two Dell U2412M 1920 x 1200 displays with that machine. The HDMI-to-DVI dongle is used for one and that cheap mini-DP-to-DVI dongle drives the other.

(BTW: these Dell 24" 1920 x 1200 monitors are the best. The U2412M is the older model; they've got a U2415 which seems to be better in all respects, including price.)

 

[Andy Peters]

I see the development as well. I hate Windows 10 as much as the latest Mac OS. I used to have a windows 7 pc until last year when i upgraded my studio to mac. Actually i am really obsessed by mac now although i had to downgrade to mavericks again (works far better for me than the latest OS). The only negative side is the slower CPU power compared to the windows pc if you want to spend the same amount of money. If i stayed with Windows i'd rather not update to Windows 10. Again workflow and everything...

We're a Mac household. There, I said it. A Core2Duo mini lives under the TV and does all of the streaming and DVR stuff (and it's also my Subversion server!). I have an Early 2008 Core2Duo iMac with a second monitor as my main workstation, where I do electronics design (Kicad, ARM with Eclipse, SiLabs 8051 with their tools, and [ugh] Xilinx in a WinXP VM) and digital audio stuff (Logic, I do not do ProTools). I have a 17" quad Core i7 MacBook Pro (last of the breed). My wife has a quad Core i7 mini at home and another one at her office, and she just got a new 13" MacBook Pro.

So, that said: all of the machines get upgraded to the latest OS a few weeks after it goes gold. (the exception is the mini under the TV.) The only trouble I've ever had with an OS upgrade was when I tried to update the iMac to 10.10 (Yosemite). The machine came to a crawl. There was something going on that it didn't like and I couldn't figure out. My best guess was the Drobo software (which sucks), and after a few days I used Time Machine to revert back to 10.9.

I read some stuff about 10.11 which seemed to indicate that it fixed some of 10.10's slowness issues, so over the weekend I tried to update the iMac again. This, too, failed miserably, with kernel panics and all sorts of horribleness. Given that the machine has never had a clean OS install since I bought it, I figured, why not try that? I plugged in an external hard disk, and did a clean install to that. After it came up (startup disk is now the external drive), it was all fast and snappy. Then I used the Migration Assistant to pull my user data and settings from the Time Machine backup. When that was done, I got the log-in screen. After log-in, I saw that everything was restored. What was cool was that all of the programs which were installed on the machine previously were now restored back to the internal hard drive!

I'm sure there are some things that will need to be properly re-installed (more that just dragging from the old /Applications folder), but the machine seems happy and snappy.

The lesson? It's worth doing a clean install, especially if the machine is older and has had multiple OS upgrades. A lot of cruft accumulates over the years. And if you use Time Machine (and you should), you can get your user data and settings all back without much hassle.

 

[weiss]

That's not true ... maybe the no-name adapter is a piece of crap?

The recent mini has two graphics outputs, one is the HDMI out and the second is the Thunderbolt, which is in the mini-DisplayPort form factor and accepts any mini-DisplayPort cable. I have the same port on my 17" MacBook Pro. I connect that port a standard DVI monitor with a cheap (non-Apple) mini-DP-to-DVI adapter dongle I got at the local computer store (SWS in Tucson). It just works.

The mini ships with an HDMI-to-DVI dongle, or at least it did earlier in the year when my wife ordered the machine for work. She drives two Dell U2412M 1920 x 1200 displays with that machine. The HDMI-to-DVI dongle is used for one and that cheap mini-DP-to-DVI dongle drives the other.

(BTW: these Dell 24" 1920 x 1200 monitors are the best. The U2412M is the older model; they've got a U2415 which seems to be better in all respects, including price.)

don't know.. i tried one cable from amazon and one of a local store. they all didn't work. i use it to go out of the hdmi into the dvi of the screen, there was no cable included when i bought it. DP to dvi works without any problems. Btw i am having the 24" dell monitors you mentioned 

I'm sure there are some things that will need to be properly re-installed (more that just dragging from the old /Applications folder), but the machine seems happy and snappy.

The lesson? It's worth doing a clean install, especially if the machine is older and has had multiple OS upgrades. A lot of cruft accumulates over the years. And if you use Time Machine (and you should), you can get your user data and settings all back without much hassle.

Yes that's true. In my case i am testing many programs and stuff. After deinstalling there still remain files in some hidden private folders and after time it sums up. Time Machine is a no-brainer. Best backup system i ever had.

 

[mattiasNYC]

I suppose every change works for a few. Most did not appreciate the clunky win 8 interface, the charms that popped up unbidden - or failed to do so when bidden. The menu in the upper left corner that popped up by accident all the time. And the difficulty in finding apps. And the missing start menu. It was, actually, a big deal for most.

Sounds like sub-par operators behind the keyboard. I had zero such problems.

I've had no problems with charms, no problems with the upper left corner menu, and no difficulty finding apps. Like I said, I press the "win" key, start typing, and the app is selected for me; 'enter' - done. As simple as it was on Win 7.

And it extended far beyond just how you launched things. It seriously sucked and also hampered me in a lot of other ways too, such as the awful IE browser, etc, etc, etc.

But it worked for some.

Well, I use Fireforx so if IE sucked I didn't notice. But as I said, I use my Win 8 laptop for media production when I use it, and I see close to no difference when actually working on the thing.

 

[PRR]

> Ever see somebody grab the mouse and click in the User Id field, go back to the keyboard and type their User Id, go back to the mouse, click in the Password field, go back to the keyboard and type their password, then go back to the mouse and click the "Log In" button?

Yes. Drives me mad. Showing them does no good.

Must be a lot of them, because I'm seeing more dialog boxes where TAB or Alt- doesn't get you to the box; ONLY a mouse will get there.

> I just don't see why people got their underwear all bunched up over it.

Because a basic FUNCTIONAL short-cut menu is an OLD-OLD-OLD custom, and very helpful for the many people who are not as smart as you.

Back in DOS 2.1 days I (and everybody) was cobbling-up menus, with BAT files and such. I graduated to COM files (and found a wicked bug in my compiler). Norton and especially Bourbaki took the idea much-much further.

And more so than us, Microsoft is in the business of selling more computers to less-motivated users.

If MS can't even get that right, what other easy things have they made obscure? (We found out.)

Perhaps MS still remembers MS BOB (AKA "Utopia") and avoids making things easy.  Steve Ballmer mentioned Bob as an example of a situation where "we decided that we have not succeeded and let's stop". (But Bob was in effect a tile-oriented selection menu somewhat like Win8's tiles, except the "bookcase" didn't move around the room like Win8's tiles.)

http://toastytech.com/guis/bob.html

 

[Phrazemaster]

I suppose every change works for a few. Most did not appreciate the clunky win 8 interface, the charms that popped up unbidden - or failed to do so when bidden. The menu in the upper left corner that popped up by accident all the time. And the difficulty in finding apps. And the missing start menu. It was, actually, a big deal for most.

Sounds like sub-par operators behind the keyboard. I had zero such problems.

I've had no problems with charms, no problems with the upper left corner menu, and no difficulty finding apps. Like I said, I press the "win" key, start typing, and the app is selected for me; 'enter' - done. As simple as it was on Win 7.

And it extended far beyond just how you launched things. It seriously sucked and also hampered me in a lot of other ways too, such as the awful IE browser, etc, etc, etc.

But it worked for some.

Well, I use Fireforx so if IE sucked I didn't notice. But as I said, I use my Win 8 laptop for media production when I use it, and I see close to no difference when actually working on the thing.

Excuse me MattiasNYC, please keep things civil. I'm not a "subpar operator" - in fact I am a computer TRAINER. And a damn good one at that, over 20 years. I've taught Windows many times my friend.

I know the shortcuts you speak of, and they don't compensate for the other shortcomings aforementioned -- for ME.

I appreciate that you love win8 and have such a fantastic work flow with it. But respectfully, please consider others have different experiences. One of the great things about this forum is we can all have different opinions and experiences, but you're crossing the line quite frankly. We can agree to disagree, but calling names - LAME!

Mike