That does it! The end of the world is near. News has reached me that Markle, our Brother Markle, has surrendered his Mac G3 and has marched resolutely out of the last century right into the year 2010 with the purchase of brand spanking new 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac. Will wonders never cease? Does this mark the Second Coming? Will the machine be delivered by Jesus himself? Hard to say, huh?

While I've never been a fan of All-In-One machines I have seen the LED-backlit displays that comes with the new iMacs and they look great -- a lot better than the inexpensive Acer monitor that I'm using with my machine.

It looks like Markle has a lot of catching up to do. If I remember correctly he never upgraded past Mac OS 8.6 so this means he is moving from that OS and that set of applications (MacWrite etc.) to Snow Leopard and more modern apps. He has a bit of work ahead of him. Not that much when you think of it. Word processors are still word processors and web browsers are still web browsers. None of them are all that much different than their predecessors. But still, they are different enough that Markle has some catching up to do.

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Word processors are still word processors and web browsers are still web browsers. None of them are all that much different than their predecessors. But still, they are different enough that Markle has some catching up to do.

I think he will like tabbed browsing, for instance. I think that's a great improvement. I don't know that word processors have improved all that much in the basic functions. They just seem to add more bells and whistles which often serves to make the basic functions harder to use. But the use of the internet will VASTLY improve with OS X compared to OS 9. Like night and day.

Oh Please I hope he went with the 27" model.

I have helped several other geriatrics upgrade their machines. There wasn't any real issues. You can even move over your bookmarks without any problem. Even the MacWrite files can be read albeit with some strange header information sneaking into the files. It should be a smooth transition.

Thanks for the update Double H.

He got the 21.5.

He also said he has to buy a few more pieces of hardware before he's up and running, before he calls in a consultant to help him set up. Which I know we could do... but I doubt he'll come back here. One political metaphor from anyone, especially you-know-who and you-know-who2 will send him packing, lol.

I still don't see tabbed browsing as anything but meh. And I REALLY hate the stupid Safari 4 Top Sites thing. That makes me mental. The A #1 worst addition to any browser in history.

My Dad has Markle's machine and loves it. He boots into Windows and Mac, and sometimes runs the two OSes concurrently with parallels or whatever the other software is called. And Windows seems to run fine on the Mac. You'd never know it wasn't a PC. It only slows down a bit when you run the systems side by side.

I say Word Processors most definitely have NOT improved since the old days. The last great Word Processor was Word 5.2... then came the bloat. It's almost better now to use a layout program like InDesign for your word processing.

I don't have the latest Mac Office, but I think Word from Office 2004, which is what I use, is basically crap. It's almost better for me to compose text in a more geeky editor, like BBEdit, and then pour that into InDesign, than it is to go from Word. I barely use Word anymore, except for envelopes and labels.

I agree that it's all about Bells and Whistles now, and those really haven't improved the performance of anything. In fact, all they do is get in the way.

All this shit needs subtractive process. It needs some unbloating. The whole feature-rich fad is so over in my view. I'd rather have an uglier word processor with fewer features (ones I actually need) that worked better.

With word, you CAN customize, but LEARNING to customize the app is almost not worth it. You tend to just suck it up and leave it at the defaults, because it's such an irritating process to strip out the shit you don't need.

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One political metaphor from anyone, especially you-know-who and you-know-who2 will send him packing, lol.

Rico, do you know who the hell he's talking about?

Oh, for god's sake, set up a "no politics" thread for setting up his Mac. It would be a shame in this OBAMA RECESSION for anyone to have to spend a dime more than necessary. I'll be nice. I won't mention THE HEAD NANNY NUTJOB PELOSI or anything like that. Besides, we're all becoming socialists and I could sort of get used to mooching off the government.

Tab browsing has really worked for me. I like to have various sources at my fingertips so that I have ammunition to talk about Mac stuff or OBAMA'S RECESSION. Actually, If I count the tabs I have open now, two of them are nature sites, 15 of them are open to various Atari pages (mostly programming stuff) and one is open to this internet forum site that often makes fun of THE HEAD NANNY NUTJOB PELOSI.

I really do like those all-in-one iMacs, although as I've said, I'd take the keyboard and mouse and donate them to a homeless person or something. But you can't beat that nice big screen. I'm not sure how upgradable they are, but I'm sure you can do some of the basics like adding memory, a larger hard drive, and ANTI-OBAMA RECESSION SOFTWARE.

But, really, Markle should have you guys help him. I see no need to hire a consultant when yuze guys can do it better and for free.

That is right Markle has an ancient printer he needs to upgrade too.

The iMac's can take up to 16GB of RAM. Plus the HD can be upgraded. They should have one eSATA portmultiplier type port as well but they don't. The Mac Mini should have the same. That would increase their potential for expansion.

At any rate the 27" iMac can be upgraded with the same Quad Core CPU that is in the Mac Pro. Really brings the iMac to a whole different level. If they also had the port I was talking about would really give them serious potential for higher end design applications.

Well Markle knows we are here for his service if he wants it. Glad to see he finally made a decision after 10 years.

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Originally posted by thalo:
The last great Word Processor was Word 5.2... then came the bloat. It's almost better now to use a layout program like InDesign for your word processing.

You couldn't be more right. My last regular word processor was WriteNow. After it faded from the scene there was nothing but bloat to replace it. At that time I didn't own a page layout program so I often used MacDraw Pro for word processing. It was great. I could draw text and graphic boxes wherever I wanted them on the page without a lot of fuss.

These days even though I own Microsoft Office and Apple iWork which includes Pages I just use TextEdit for the small quick stuff and InDesign for more formal things. For envelopes and labels I still use the old AppleWorks app. I have yet to see a dedicated word processor that is good enough to use on a regular basis the way WriteNow was back in its day.

Rico, eSATA is the way to go on both the iMac and the, well, any computer really. I guess Apple still wants to promote FireWire. In theory there is a huge difference between eSATA and FireWire 800 but in practice the speed difference isn't as big as it seems and FireWire has the advantage of being able to daisy chain from device to device.

That said, you are still right. Apple should have eSATA ports on its machines. That theoretical speed difference will very quickly become more real as devices take advantage of it and FireWire, while it's nice to have, is not the future of high speed connectivity on consumer computers.

I use TextEdit all the time. Word for labels. Word really is the worst for creating documents.

One factor with eSATA portmultiplier type port is that you can attach up to 5 HD's to one port. This would be invaluable for higher end production like video editing and a whole host of other things. It would really expand usability of every product. Firewire has its place for certain applications but for sheer performance involving HD's eSATA is the standard to beat.

Well when the first G5 towers came out I said why didn't the nitwits put the power supplies at the top so as not to heat the whole tower. I pretty sure they have done that with the new Mac Pro's so there is hope they are listening.

That's a good point about the power supplies. That tower design really is a radiator. It's designed like a space-heater.

Without being able to install a Firmtek card, I'd be lost. That's a deal breaker for me. But I guess as long as I had a server with a a bunch of hard drives, it wouldn't matter if the iMac didn't have the port multiplier.

Another signal of the end times:
The Psystar controversy

Gee, I wonder why Apple is letting these guys have it with both barrels?

Could it be that cheaper Mac Clones, or PCs that can run OS X as well as Macs would be somehow offensive to them? LOL.

I read this story as kind of a huge con-buster. It shows that now that Apple is Intel-based, all you're really getting by buying Apple hardware, is the license to run OS X, and some style shit thanks to Jon Ive and some Apple Marketeering.

It's OK to run Windows on a Mac but whoa ho ho if you try to run Snow Leopard on a cheaper PC.

That it can be done, is really all you need to know right there, my brothers.

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I read this story as kind of a huge con-buster. It shows that now that Apple is Intel-based, all you're really getting by buying Apple hardware, is the license to run OS X, and some style shit thanks to Jon Ive and some Apple Marketeering.

Cue Handel's "hallelujah chorus." No, no, no. I don't wish to imply that thalo has woken up to anything. I just think he so clearly articulated it. As I've said, I find nothing wrong with wanting to own cool stuff. But when people go all ga-ga over style and forget about the substance, then that's when we [insert Obama analogy here] or get the round mouse. And because the hardware generally goes under the desk anyway, and there are plenty of companies making good keyboards and mice, who really cares what logo is on the box? If you like OS X, by all means run it. And you can (or could) do so on less expensive hardware. And not only was that hardware less expensive, I can't imagine that, like most PC stuff, it isn't far easier to have repaired and upgraded as well. In many respects, just as thalo said, this issue exposes the fact that people are paying a premium for nothing more than an Apple logo on the box. Many of you would gladly pay extra for the operating system. But will one day OS X itself be exposed as little more than Linux with a better gui? And what happens when Linux catches up with that? What reason then for OS X and Apple hardware other than snob appeal?

One of the talk-backers said:

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And you all thought Microsoft was bad. Apple is just as bad. Linux and other open source solutions are the future.

Obviously there are some legal issues involved. Being "Big Bad Microsoft" is no more of an excuse for trampling over the law than being a "Big Bad Apple." But I'm rooting for Psystar. I hope they can continue to sell their product.

Right, the whole thalo.net revolt was about loving cool stuff, but being pissed off that substance got steamrollered by marketeers. To the detriment of usability.

ESPECIALLY in my industry. I mean, of COURSE I love cool industrial design. But I'd take high performance and usability over it in a NY heartbeat. I have only bought ONE Apple computer specifically because it "looked cool", I'll tell you about it in a minute... My story is one of being with Apple from the beginning because it WAS cool, and did the job... and then really being unable to change infrastructure for financial reasons.

I didn't buy the 30" cinema because it looked cool or was aluminum. I bought it because I needed a huge monitor that had great color and a crisp image. The design is just a side benefit.

My laptop? OK, there I bought the 17" PowerBook because it looked cool. It was impressive looking, and I thought I'd get more clients showing up to a meeting with that big screen slim laptop. And I think it worked. But holy crap that thing ran hot. And it wasn't a bad computer, I just wish it was faster. I miss having a laptop (had to sell it)... but it was more a status symbol than anything. I could have gotten away with a cheap laptop which would have done more.

Apple has it way over Windows when it comes to software installation, interface, networking, and graphical capability. Otherwise I'd have tried to deprogram myself from Apple key shortcuts and start learning Windows ones. It's actually tough for me to hit control-something rather than command-something. I've got so many years of Mac use under my belt. I pretty much hate my PC. But I do recognize it's faster on the web than the mac.

But all bets are off if I could run OS X as well or better a PC as a Mac. Then it'd be Ive Schmive. I will go with whatever is faster and works better.

My main ISSUE with Apple, is that they don't really seem to be TRYING to make the interface any better or easier to use. The marketeers are in charge, and so it's all overdesigned garbage and bloat. The very visual COMPLEXITY of it, is now a commodity. Rather than helping people DO work, it's more about helping them avoid it. The Mac has become the postmodern leftist computer par excellence.

It's elitist now, where it used to be egalitarian.

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It's elitist now, where it used to be egalitarian.

People commonly come into my office and say "Oh, you have a Mac." And it's hard to tell whether they mean it is "Oh, you have such good taste" or "Oh, you have herpes." The Mac is a bit of a freak of nature for a lot of people. It marks you as an oddball (at least in these parts) but some see it as the Mercedes of computers. It's sometimes hard to read what they mean when they say "Oh, you have a Mac." It would be the same case if I owned one of those "green" golf-cart-like cars. "Oh, you have an EnviroCoffin." Some would be impressed. Others would see me as one of those PC mindless "save the earth" minions who think C02 is poison and that we can run civilization on propellor-powered beanies. But one of my insanely liberal friends drives a Hummers, so I have yet to come up with a definitive answer about all this stuff, other than that liberals tend to be the bigger hypocrites.

I'm just getting too old and wise, really, to play the whole image game. I'm sure some hack designer can barge into someone's office, and because they have the latest and greatest stylish hardware, they can get the job. Graphic arts and marketing is, after all, in the business of image-making. It's all a game. Would a client give you credit for being smart enough to save money on a computer with twice the power for half the price? Probably not. There's that game again, and you must play it. It's almost as if in order to be competent at bamboozling and manipulating others, you must show that you can be bamboozled and manipulated yourself. You're in the chain. Your hand is on the pulse of superficiality.

Ooooo! I just had a thought. Could I say the above in some kind of new-style Ellen Feiss-like Apple commercial? Please? Pretty please?

The problem with the Mac right now is nothing that the MacLash couldn't cure. A return to legacy, less-is-more usability, high performance, plug and play, intuitive interface, and MINIMAL. LESS IS MORE.

Apple could redefine itself again. All it needs to do is throw the hammer in Big Brother's face again. Right now, they are complicit with Big Brother. They've become everything they hated. Arcane, difficult to use, underperforming, geek elite.