Works Like You Do

I was laughing when I saw one of the clever Apple commercials where they make fun of the Windows OS for it’s many problems. I’ve discovered that on several occasions the only way to bring my new MAC back to life is to terminate it. Remove power. Remove the battery. Reboot. I admit this happens when I’m using Parallels but so what? It’s an application process and when it dies, I should be able to shut it down without removing the battery. I’m very familiar with the Windows Task Manager and most of the time, it does the job. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever had to remove my IBM laptop battery just to regain control of the machine. I’m afraid that at least for a dual OS MAC, Apple hasn;t quite got it right yet. Maybe I should try Boot Camp to solve this.

Remember DOS? Before Windows there was DOS. MSDOS actually. Well, I have one program that I have used for almost 20 years and it only runs in DOS. In Windows, it works OK although it can no longer print. The work-around is to save the text files and import them into Word and then I can print. So, I loaded it up in Parallels to see how it worked. Most things have worked pretty well. This one didn’t. Amazingly, it loads and operates. Unfortunately, I have no control over the display and it runs in a very small window under Parallels. It’s close to unusable but I guess it does put to rest the claim that MACs have challenges with being backward compatible. I have to admit that a MAC that can run a 20 year old DOS program is pretty impressive.

I also learned that you can use the Option key if you need to use the F9 above keys. When you hit these, even in full screen mode, it reverts to the Finder commands. By hitting Option first, they act like Windows (or DOS) keys within your program. Score another one for testing intead of researching!

OK. I figured that since it is a MAC, I should be able to use it without reading the manual. I still believe that this works for some people. The problem is that once you’ve grown accustomed to doing things a certain way, in order to learn to do those same things you need some guidance. Mine comes from family and friends who use MACs. Here’s my learning model:

“I can’t do [fill in the blank].”

“Of course you can. Just do [fill in the blank].”

“Why is it so counterintuitive?”

“If you hadn’t learned the hard way on the PC, it would be intuitive.”

And on it goes.

My latest was saving a file. Yes, I can save a file but for a few days the only place I could save it was in the big bucket labeled Documents. I tried the down arrow next to documents but it wouldn’t open up any other folders. Every so often I would go to the Finder and drag documents into the folders I wanted to use. When I mentioned how painful this process is I was told you can click on the down arrow next to the file and that opens up more folders. Imagine that! I thought the arrow next to the file would open up file types or maybe memorized file names. Now I see that if you want to see more folders, you click next to the filename. When I questioned the “intuitiveness” of this arrangement, the response was that since you want to save a file in a folder, the folder expander button should be near the file. It works. I can live with it. I’m not sure I’ll ever think this way.

I have an Apple key on my USB keyboard but it is disquised as a Windows key! I had tried it before but I must not have done it correctly. I can now do simple copy and paste from the generic keyboard. I still haven’t figured out the End and Home buttons but I’m beginning to believe there is an answer.

[Time passes while I search. . . . . . . . .]

I found a couple of interesting things to help mitigate if not resolve the problem. But first, I discovered that the home and end keys on the MAC don’t work like the PC. So it wasn’t just my keyboard, it’s a MAC thing. The first interesting site, Garbage In Garbage Out, offers a small program to change the way the MAC keys work. The second site, is from Random Access, the Micro Center newsletter and offers key shortcuts and a link to the Apple site for their listing of shortcuts. It gave me a way to get to the end of lines and the start of a paragraph and that’s a good start.

OK. I hate the long row of mostly unused icons at the bottom of the screen. I also hate trying to see which apps are “live” by searching for the little black dot under the row of mostly unused icons. I know it can be cleaned up but I haven’t bothered. My goal wasn’t to conform the MAC to my Windows-centric preferences but to learn to appreciate a laptop that “works like I do.”

I love the utility that allows me to move the cursor to the corner and see all the open windows. This is a cool way of taking inventory of what you are doing. I rate it GOOD for Apple.

One of my colleagues and I tried out the little white (should be silver) remote control. We wanted to use them to control PowerPoint. Wrong. It controls entertainment applications. We can use it to listen to music, view pictures or watch videos. I immediately got to work with Bittorrent to fill my hard drive with entertainment files - not. I did do some research and determined that Mira looks like it will turn the remote into a tool we can use for work. I’ll be testing and then add another post with the results. If it works, Mira will become part of our “standard build.”

I use an external USB keyboard and LCD monitor when I’m at home. I have a Belkin KVM switch and share with my home PC (still on Windows). Since the Apple has direct digital video out, I have one extra step to change over the video but no big deal. The real issue in the keyboard. Now, I don’t CNTL C and CNTL V to do a cut and paste and since it’s a generic keyboard, it doesn’t have the Apple key. The laptop is sitting on the desk. I just reach over if I want quicker editing. This complaint is about the HOME and END keys. Now, I admit I haven’t researched this yet but it drives me crazy not to be able to easily move around within my text. If I discover there is a solution or I missed something, I’ll print a retraction, but right now, the lack of compatibility with a standard USB keyboard earns a BAD post.

Another BAD Microsoft post, but it works in Windows (what did you expect?)

I use my email like a filing cabinet. I store almost everything there. I have attachments. I use gigabyte of storage for my email files. So that my email doesn’t take 10 minutes to load and doesn’t crash, I use more than one Outlook .pst file. That’s the container file where your email, calendar, tasks, contacts and notes all live. I started doing this by archiving. I extended it to a separate files for calendar, notes and contacts so I could easily update my home and work PCs.

Entourage doesn’t allow more than one email container file for a user. The MAC expert explained that a new version is due out in Q2 2007 that should bridge the four-year gap between Outlook and Entourage. Maybe they should rename it to Outrage.

My solution is not pretty but seems to be working.

I set up Thunderbird on my home PC and the MAC. Every so often it refuses to close on the MAC. I suspect it’s related to the sleep mode problem but I haven’t lost anything so I’m OK with it. I leave emails on the server for work and on the server for home from the MAC. I download my personal email only at home.
For my calendar, I am using Outlook in Parallels and nothing at home. I intend to move it all to Sunbird but I haven’t been able to export successfully yet.

I have a fair number of Notes files. I’m planning to migrate the important ones to KeePass Password Safe and leave it in Parallels with a back up at home.

Contacts moved with my email to Thunderbird. It’s not quite right but I haven;t had time to re-import them.

This is an are where I needed better tools and options. I’m getting by but it is frustrating me more and more.

I’m not going to categorize this as good or bad because I think it just IS.

I used to put my IBM in hibernate mode every time I shut it down. Whatever I had open would then open up when I started it up and away I went. The MAC allows you to just close the lid and it enters the sleep mode. IBM had this open but it drains the battery where hibernate saves all your settings to disk and then shuts off completely. I’m not so worried about the battery (yet) but the sleep mode doesn’t seem to handle relocation as well as hibernate did. It finds the new network most of the time but in the past two weeks, I’ve had to restart it several times. Everything is slow and some apps don’t want to come up. I try for awhile and then a restart seems to clear out the cobwebs.

As I said, I’m not sure it’s a bad thing but you need to be alert to it. Perhaps the lesson is to shut down whenever possible and you might not even notice this.

I guess all the MAC users already know that MS hasn’t really paid a lot of attention to the MAC. You’re the 5% of people who use design apps, why should they bother? It’s clear coming the Windows world that they aren’t even trying.

PowerPoint doesn’t work the same or as well. The big deal breaker for me is that you can’t display thumbnails on the left column and the slide in the center. I really don’t care about displaying the outline. I can’t possibly read the 1 point type and the images aren’t visible anyway. I do want to see how the slide layouts look at a glance and that isn’t possible. This one a researched because the app is so important to me and no can do.

PowerPoint from Office 2003 works just fine in Parallels.