Computers I have either personally owned or procured from research funds for professional use: a Commodore VIC-20 (elementary school), a Commodore 64 (junior high), a PC that I’m sure was made by enslaved children somewhere and whose hard drive kept breaking (college), a Mac Color Classic that was I lost custody of in a breakup (college), another Mac (grad school), a PC bought when I switched from qualitative to quantitative research (grad school), a Micron desktop (UW, office), another Micron desktop (UW, home), a pricey laptop that was way too heavy (UW), an ultralight laptop (UW), an upgraded office desktop (UW), a Dell desktop (Harvard), a ThinkPad Tablet (Harvard), another office desktop (NU), and now, at long last:I’m back to possessing a Mac. A black MacBook, more specifically. A project that I am working on involves some specialized software that is only available for the Mac, and there were some extra research funds for this project anyway, so here I am, typing out a blog post. I feel less schlubby already. A friend is fond of telling me that I’m just a Corvette away from a midlife crisis, but maybe a Mac is the Corvette counterpart for the otherwise-PC-inclined academic set. Especially if I now go and get an iPhone.So, is there anything cool one can do with this thing? I was going to take a screenshot of myself with the iSight window open, but I don’t know how to take screenshots. Is there any way to make the stainless steel table with the icons at the bottom of my screen go away when I’m in an application? How do I change the strange spacescape wallpaper to something else? What are the strange hook-like things on my power adapter? If I go and get the Getting Things Done software for the Mac that people go on about, would that really just be yet another form of procrastination? Is there really any advantage to only having one mouse button or is this just Apple being obstinate and not wanting to admit that Windows made some improvements? And: why does WordPress refuse to recognize my carriage returns as I’m writing this post?!
-
Pages
-
Categories
- ask a scatterbrain
- books
- Canada
- contest
- cryptic
- dialogues
- disarray
- dork
- economics
- fun
- gender
- help wanted
- kids
- meta
- misadventures
- music
- online wonders
- personal
- politics
- procrastination
- professional
- religion
- science
- sports
- students
- teaching
- too much information
- travel
- Uncategorized
- what does this have to do w/ org theory?
- work and family
- writing
-
Archives
26 Comments
WooHOO, Jeremy! I can answer all your questions via videochat if you just start up iChat. Hit the + button to add me as a buddy. I’m [email later deleted by author].
1. Can I do anything cool with it? Rookie mistake. With the mac it’s not about doing cool things, it’s about being cool when you sit down at Peet’s with your Macbook, set your iPod nano down next to it, and fire up your Safari. To read your own blog.
2. Take screenshots with ‘grab’. If you are using your mouse for this, it’s a shame. Go get Quicksilver. Then use your keyboard for such trivial tasks as starting grab.
3. System Prefs->Dock->automatically hide and show dock. If you move it to the side, a lot of the Leopard-weird supposedly goes away
4. system pref->desktop and screensaver
5. Hooks bundle the cord. The cord oozes with Apple specialness.
6. Yes. The best procrastination tool out there is OmniFocus. Or special Mac index cards. Yes. The Hipster PDA
7. If you change your settings->keyboard/mouse, you can tap the pad with two fingers for right-click, and drag with two fingers to scroll. And wireless mighty mouse (natch) has a right-click
8. Carriage returns are sooo Microsoft.
I could answer most of your questions for OS10.4, but since you probably have 10.5, I don’t want to steer you wrong.
One functional enhancement I really like is SideTrack, which lets you use parts of the mouse pad for scrolling and “clicking” I just checked, it’s still in beta for 10.5. Oh well.
The “hooks” on the power adapter are for wrapping the cord!
Enjoy!
a Mac Color Classic that was I lost custody of in a breakup
Think that now you’ve advertised your connection to this machine that this computer will show up on eBay as once belonging to Jeremy Freese, the king of sociology bloggers?
Jeremy, FYI, I am with you on the one-mouse button, and I make extensive use of the not-as-good ctrl-mouse feature for right-clicks. Also, the lack of a delete key continues to be frustrating, and no, you can’t just call a backspace key a delete key and sat it’s even. Otherwise, just about everything is better. How about that magnetic power cord?
I’m buying an i-phone very soon. I was going to wait until it could run on ATT’s better network, but I’ve decided not to. Welcome to Mac Land. It’s a nice place. The thing that’s odd about it, though, is that it has real believers. I mean REAL BELIEVERS. The faithful, you might call them, who think that because they own a Mac they are somehow part of an anti-corporate underground movement. I find that funny. People who have intense corporate brand-loyalty who believe the branding of such loyalty: that it makes them hip folks who are sticking it to the man! Says he who is typing on his mac…
Oh, my, thank you for posting the answers to Jeremy’s questions. I just recently got a macbook as well and that stuff has been tormenting me.
Now, another rookie mac question–how the heck do you switch from one application to the other, up at the top? As in, when I’m in Firefox but want to do something using the main mac menu…how can I get there without shutting down Firefox?
The one button mouse thing comes out of human factors studies from a long time ago. I’m not sure if any research has been done recently, but anecdotally I can say that people I’ve known who aren’t power users get confused when they have to click using anything but the left button anyway, so Apple is probably is right.
But the three button capability is there for those so inclined, and has been since at least OS 9. Unfortunately, to get it on the laptops you have to either plug a mouse into a USB port or use ctrl-click for the right button and apple-click for the middle button. The desktops come with a mouse that by default acts like a one button mouse, but in System Preferences can be set to be a four button mouse (clicking on the left, center, or right part does the regular three buttons, squeezing does button 4). Plus it has a ball that does vertical and horizontal scroll.
#7 racheltk:
You don’t switch applications at the top in OS X. You either click on the application you want to switch to in the Dock (usually at the bottom) or use Apple-tab (like alt-tab in Windows but with the Apple/command key instead) to flip through open applications.
Hi Jeremy,
Interface fun: Check out Quicksilver (more). For text-editing: I used to use Aquamacs, an Emacs port, but now use the excellent TextMate. Time-wasting: if you’re still using Twitter, look at Twitterific. For blogging, MarsEdit. For organization, OmniFocus will cater to all your GTD fantasies, and the same company’s OmniGraffle is excellent for drawing (conceptual) diagrams and flowcharts. For presentations, Keynote is much better than PowerPoint.
Hey congrats on the BlackBook! Your barrage of questions were about my exact ones in August, nearly in that order, when I made the big switch after my PC crashed. Don’t know if you found it yet, but function-delete operates as a workaround to this. Still trips me up, though.
clarification: fn-delete works as a proper delete task, not backspace.
I wonder if the people who think Macs are so much cooler (I used to be one of them and still own the original bondi blue iMac) have used a PC any time recently. I don’t mean an outdated PC nor one running Vista, just a sound PC running, say, XP. The arguments about graphics and video editing, for example, are several years old. You can do that kind of stuff with legally free good software very well on a PC, too. Of course, you can also do crappy work using Macs if you have no idea what you’re doing.
All these questions about how to do the simplest things on a Mac point out that it is just as confusing and non-intuitive if you don’t know it.
I wonder if there is any sound research that compares people of equal general computer literacy and ability and looks at how they do - both task-wise and emotionally:) - on a PC vs a Mac after some time using each.
Shakha, I agree, it’s really funny to watch that level of intense corporate brand loyalty.
One more thing: it seems to me that a lot of what most people do on a computer nowadays is done within the browser (or can be). In that case, does it matter much if you’re using a Mac or a PC as long as you have some basic familiarity with the OS?
thanks, sabishi!
Hi Jeremy,
Jeff Gill and I have a list of applications (and links) for scientific computing on the Mac (doesn’t include Textmate at the moment — Jeff uses Vi, and I use Aquamacs, but on Kieran’s suggestion above and in his excellent Choosing Your Workflow Applications , I’m downloading Textmate now.).
Jake
I assume that most have already seen this, but for those who haven’t there’s a wonderful Youtube video of a MadTV skit of Steve Jobs introducing the “I-Rack,” which manages both to comment on the cult of Apple and foreign affairs. Pretty neat trick.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcjLEwZqcQI
Also, just for fun, you can run rm -r * and see what happens. More mac fun! (um, yeah, don’t do this)…
Oh, and has anyone taught you sudo yet? I mean, you’re not logged in as administrator, right? You have created a normal user for regular computer use, right? RIGHT?
<i<I don’t mean an outdated PC nor one running Vista, just a sound PC running, say, XP.
I have Windows XP installed on my Macbook Pro. Usually I use VMWare Fusion, so the one or two Windows-only applications I’m using can run seamlessly in Mac OS. But occasionally I’ve just booted into XP. My impression as a casual user is that it is stable, secure, and retains many of the terrible design choices characteristic of Microsoft’s approach to software.
but on Kieran’s suggestion above and in his excellent Choosing Your Workflow Applications , I’m downloading Textmate now.).
I need to update that note, or reorganize it so that it gives options for Windows, Linux and Mac users. TextMate continues to develop very positively: its LaTeX/BibTeX functionality is now very strong, with built-in support for XeLaTeX. It also has good support for MultiMarkdown, which I use for a lot of memo/comment/review writing, as it’s very simple but you still get LaTeX output. Textmate also has functional R and SWeave support. The main thing missing out of the box is true ESS-like functionality, where you can have an R session running inside the editor itself. But just this week a guy on the mailing list has been demoing software that does just this, so it’ll happen fairly soon.
did anyone mention photobooth? you’ve got to take pictures of yourself and post them here on the blog!
– mac-admiring pc user
I would agree with Eszter that a well-maintained Windows XP Professional installation works well enough, but cool? What next, the Zune is totally cooler than the iPhone?!1! (Right now, my MBP is doing one of its cool Intel-based Mac tricks, running XP on monitor #2 via Parallels Desktop while I write this in Mac Firefox on the built-in display.)
BTW, Jeremy, Parallels is the best $70 you can spend if you still have some need to run Windows apps — as long as you have at least 2 GB of RAM in your MacBook, which you should get as needed since RAM is dirt-cheap from reliable 3d parties.
#17 Peter:
With regards to the administrator thing, it’s not a big deal to run as an Administrator on the Mac like it is on Windows. An Administrator account on a Mac is something like being in the /etc/sudoers file with a PASSWD:ALL entry on a Unix, i.e. anything that requires admin privileges makes you enter your password. It’s perfectly normal and safe to run as an Administrator, and the first account created is one. By default the root account is disabled, so users aren’t accidentally running around logged in as root or anything.
Yes, Tom, I happen to think that my X60 ThinkPad is cool.:) I like what I did with the stickers on it. But stickers still seem to be a very Silicon Valley thing. At every conference or meeting I’ve gone to since I left the Valley, I’ve been the only one with stickers on her laptop.
Plus yes, I think my desktop images are cool as are my screen savers (e.g., here’s a pic of my transparent laptop with rubber duckies behind it, I mean, we’re talking geekiness at all sorts of levels and how could that not be cool?:). I’ve customized tons of things and have all sorts of programs that can be helpful tools (although I can get a lot done efficiently with pretty little so I don’t necessarily run many of these regularly).
Of course, cool is a pretty subjective idea.:) Also, just to be clear, I’m not saying that Mac users can’t be cool, of course they can. I’m just saying that it’s not the machine in and of itself that constitutes one’s coolness factor. A PC and a PC user can be just as cool. But now I’m starting to sound like a lecture about technological determinism.:)
By the way, Jeremy, this has the potential to turn into a major source of procrastination. I’d prefer it if you spent time on our paper instead.:-)
Eszter, that’s a nice transparent desktop. My own wasn’t really fit for public consumption — or maybe a tangle of cables is cool in the right place. (Otherwise, as I say at the link above, I use and endorse these wildflower tiles for my desktop patterns.)
The depicted PowerBook G4 replaced a 1999-vintage X-series; it soldiers on for light web-surfing duty in the basement. It turns 7 in February — how old is that in computer years?
The point about customization reminds me that Jeremy should also install X11 (on the Leopard DVD), in the event he should wish to install some useful geek toys that depend on it. Though I see R.app is native.
congratulations on the new toy, Jeremy. i, too, would be happy to help you if you need it. however, i do not use ichat by default because it doesn’t have tabbed chatting. i use adium instead.
the remainder of my comment turned into a blog post.
kristina b - iChat in Leopard does have tabs. and if you are in Tiger (10.4) still, there is a great add-on called iChax that allows for tabbed chats and oh so much more. They also just released a Leopard version.
iChat in 10.5 is quite good, though. it has background images and video as well as an option where you can share your desktop with someone. quite useful for trouble shooting or collaborative work.
disclaimer - i work for apple and may or may not have encouraged Tina to switch to a mac. yes, that one you have on your lap.
3 Trackbacks
[...] right tools for the job December 13, 2007 Kieran A discussion about Mac applications at Scatterplot (which is threatening to spill over into a Windows vs OS X [...]
[...] discussion about Mac applications at Scatterplot (which is threatening to spill over into a Windows vs OS X [...]
[...] Posted by kristina b under technology toys | Tags: familiarity, geek, mac vs. pc | This conversation over at Scatterplot is [...]