Damn Computers (in appropriate category)

Eldorion wrote:So I very unexpectedly got a MacBook Pro for my birthday yesterday and I spent a good portion of last night setting it up and then trying to figure out all the little ways it's different from Windows and Linux (I'm switching from Ubuntu 14.04 LTS).

Congratulations on your new mac, Eldo. And welcome to the club. I've had mine since.. June, I think. And I've really gotten to enjoy it. The light build, the durability, and the hardware is really working like clockwork. There are still some things that I'm coming to terms with as far as OS X is concerned, and some things still seem kind of counter intuitive and over complicated coming from windows, but it's an ongoing process definitely. I'm actually really liking the touchpad and the added functionality, although I've done some tweaking with it. Not sure how I ever lived without it now. And I have to say it overheats a heck of a lot less than my previous computers.

Eldorion wrote:Thanks bungo!  Reading through some of you and Halfy's recent-ish discussions of Macs is part of what made me think and talk about them a few months ago.  I'm definitely enjoying it so far.  I wanted to get a new computer soon and wasn't planning on staying with Ubuntu (I was probably gonna get a Windows 10 laptop and dual boot it with Linux Mint), but so far I've quite enjoyed OS X.

Hey, I think that must have been the discussions from when I got mine. You're welcome, America Eldo. (Taking full credit for my literally infinitesimally small part in getting you your new mac, that is. )

I'm kind of undecided on safari, but at least the flash player plug in doesn't crash every five minutes as it's been doing for me on firefox for a while.

Now that you mention it, I think it was the discussing you started about your new computer. Sorry for forgetting your role there, Blue! I'm glad to hear you're enjoying your Mac as well. There were a few things, like the process for installing software, that threw me off at first, but fortunately Google is on hand to help me out and it's all starting to make sense.

I ended up downloading smcFanControl since I care less about the noise the computer makes (especially since I recently got real headphones to replace my earbuds) and more about the thing not scorching my lap or stomach. I've turned the fans up from the idling rate of 2000 RPM to 4000 RPM when streaming video a couple times. It doesn't help that my room is one of the warmest in the house. But all in all it seems to be well within the acceptable range. The only thing that still worries me a little is if the heat will reduce the battery's lifespan, but ultimately that's easy enough to replace (and I usually have it plugged in anyway).

I've continued using Chrome for the time being since I like it, despite the resource hogging. I did try something I read about online where you block Chrome from playing plugins (usually Flash) by default in order to reduce its CPU usage, but I dunno if that makes a huge difference. Generally speaking I'm glad that HTML5 seems to be showing Flash the door, though the transition for the web as a whole is a gradual process of course.

Well Blue, after my old computer went up in smoke, finally got a new one (after a week) so am now on the newest version of OS X, I now understand one of your complaints.

If you want to see the hard disk, while in finder click on the 'preferences' menu, then click 'show hard disks'. Why in damn hell they ever thought anyone would NOT want to see the hard disk so made NOT seeing it the default....well it just tells me the idiots are now in charge at Apple. I fear for the company.

I got pretty annoyed at the default Finder when I was getting things set up a couple weeks ago. Once I realized how to change it I went through and completely re-arranged the sidebar.

Yeah, it used to make sense. Now it looks like apple is going down the Microsoft route of royally screwing things up with each update. Nothing less than profanity is in order. Unbelievable what they've done.

Well, my OS X experience prior to this month has been pretty limited, so I don't have the same frame of reference, but I don't know if I'd go that far.

You have missed the intuitive beauty of what came before. They've &%$! blown it. Jobs isn't around to knock their blocks off for not being obvious anymore. I've not been impressed with the direction taken since Jony Ive took over interface design: he needed impatient oversight. Now that he's not directly in charge I think it's getting even worse.

Catching up on old posts. For overheating while using Safari, get the Click to Flash plug-in. It refuses to play any flash videos unless you click on one, which really makes a difference for some busy webpages with lots of ads. Chrome doesn't have this, which is one reason to prefer safari.

I actually figured out how to enable to click to play flash in Chrome and had that going for a while but it was a pain and on further research the temperatures weren't as serious as I worried so I turned that off.

My disc drive does not read cds, dvds work fine though. Good thing I already had an external drive as I don't really want to bother fixing this.

ugg Windows 10 sux bad. I went back to 8.1 or whatever it is. 10 was chock full of stuff I don't need and I couldn't find the simple things I did need. its over complicated and frankly, pants.

Is it true that solitaire is no longer free?

I'm curious to try out Windows 10 for myself but my old PC is too crappy (cheap, 4+ years old) for me to want to mess around with it anymore. Ubuntu was barely enough to make it usable towards the end. Going back into Windows mode ... no thanks.

I've been on a windows 10 machine - the graphic design felt like nursery school.  And don't get me started on trying to find stuff in the new MS office.

Of course this is a general trend.  I've been hacked off at Apple for a while for starting the trend of flattening everything so much that you can only figure out links and buttons by context.  You click and hope, 'cause there's no obvious indication that what you click on is clickable anymore.  $%@  idiots.

Put windows 10 on my PC today, so far everything is ok ? ( fingers crossed )

The graphics don't make you feel like they are aiming for primary school?

Hee hee Nope, your dealing with an idiot here

I don't mean whether they are clear or not. They should be as clear and obvious as possible. I mean they don't look sleek and adult - more like something drawn by magic markers that were translated into computer graphics.

Nagual has been using it a while now and says once you get the desktop as you want it it works almost exactly the same as using win7 only its a bit faster at a lot of stuff.

Sorry Halfy I agree its a bit "Sesame Street", tho Im not really taking it in to let it bother me...........yet. And Ive got mine set up like Windows 7 so finding stuff & navigating isnt Mensa provoking.

I tried it and didn't like it one bit. first problem it wouldn't let me upload my photos which was a major problem, I spent hours trying to figure it out and gave up. then I couldn't find the fucking internet, srsly theres no explorer just this Bing rubbish. then I couldn't find the simplest things that I take for granted like Programms, or anything in the Start menu. I couldn't find the basic way to open two screens at once, probably there is but it was dauntingly hi-techy looking. it was chock full of stuff I will never need, my computer was slower and nothing I wanted was easy to find. oh and Favourites was horrible, on the right of the screen and weird looking. I MUCH prefer the simple layout of 8, it does what it says on the tin without all the bells and whistles. I hated 10.  thank goodness they let you go back.

I cant stand Bing or Yahoo, I only like google, Firefox, & I also like things were I left them. I dont do that much on my PC so I dont need much Ive got favourites like, here, Ebay, Amazon etc, Ive folders & files for my other crap & a bit of downloading now & again & thats all really. I only use facebook 2 contact family as its the easiest way to get hold of them

I've been using WIN10 since May, and I've had few to none problems with it. The thing is that I've spent a few too many hours figuring out in and out on PCs the last few years. Is there anything I can help with?

I had to do a few minor tweaks to get the OS to work the way I wanted and now I will probably never go back to win7/8.

Interesting to get your perspective huffjuff; I take it you were using the beta version in May? Are the tweaks you made stuff like using the start menu or has that been restored to the default?