Monthly Archives: November 2006

The agony continues

4

This is a work machine, it is not meant to be enjoyed.

iTunes. Open Network. Find folder. Select All. Click to play. Several minutes later iTunes opens. It has 3 copies of each track and decides to start with track 7. Given I have no fine control over the mouse it is impossible to change things. Close window.

Firefox. Download. Run. Disk Image icon created on the desktop. To unmount I have to drag it to trash. So I have to trash it but not trash it? I think I get that. Just.

Finder. I KNOW where stuff is on my machines. I am supremely tidy on a HD. If I were that tidy IRL some would call me a freak.

I really hate the dock.

Middle click. Would it really destroy the mouse aesthetics to put another button there? And no Cmd+click is just a cop out.

Widgets. Even on a PC I’ve never seen the point. Bloat?

And it’s all so slow. I don’t mean performance-must-get-3gig slow. I mean click …. yawn… open…….. I like clickopen. That fast. If I want to do it I wanttodoitnow.

That bar at the top. No matter what I open I need to quit it from there. Can’t mac coders get over a right-click menu phobia? That top bar is very irritating. If I want to quit I want to quit. Cmd-Q is my friend. I use it lots.

This is a work machine, it is not meant to be enjoyed.

Maybe if the mouse had been good and behaved as a mouse should then things would be better.
But it didn’t.

I really want to like it. Explore around a new OS, learn new stuff. But then if the mouse is screwed……..

Later:
There may be an improvement……. more news soon!

And the news is.. I reinstalled the OS. I have not installed the Mighty Mouse drivers. Now with the MM and a scaling of 14 it’s okay. With a real mouse (Logitech mx7) that 14 is way too fast. So – two mice. Same setting. One piece of hardware is crap. Guess which? So I still need a new mouse because MM is of no practical use whatsoever. (I own an iPod shuffle and a MM. Both made by apple, both crap.) So my frustrations are lowered.

And this is not a Win / Mac thing. If I’d got a new PS2 controller and a thumb switch didn’t work I’d be annoyed. If someone gave you a new car but the steering wheel was ever so slightly wrong you would be annoyed. Fact is that a piece of white hardware is useless and were it not for that I wouldn’t have had this anger at it.

Some details Mr Jobs.

16

Just fired up a mac mini.
It wanted my name, address, postcode and phone number. I’m sure Windows never did.
And it’s found some updates. 300mb of them.
And even at full speed the mouse isn’t quite quick enough.
Hmm….

Later:

Conclusion

The mouse acceleration and tracking speed under Mac OS X are sufficient to allow an experienced operator to traverse an arbitrarily large desktop without exceeding the bounds of an ordinary mousepad. Any difficulties experienced by users are likely due to a lack of familiarity working with the mouse or operating system in use.

Whoever wrote that – I assume he rides a bike because why would he need to go any faster? Idiot.

Windows:
Update. Reboot.
Mac.
Update. Wait. Wait. Shut down. Hold power button in. Wait. Wait. It starts.
Hmm…..

That bouncing. Killed as quick as I could.

The mouse is still slow. Feels clunky. Maybe opening a terminal in the Applications folder didn’t work. Command line. For a mouse?

Still, it’s playing Starship Troopers well :)

Even Later:
defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling 20.o is what I have. The speed across a clear uninterrupted screen is just about okay. But if goes over ANYTHING it slows to a crawl. Can this be speeded up? Should I chill the hell out and get used to a task-a-day ?

Testing a connection

3

You know when you need to test a dvd player/TV connection, am I the only person who doesn’t just grab the closest one but who selects one based on what mood I’m in? Am I alone in doing this despite the fact it’s only a few minutes of the film I’ll see?

Around midnight

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You know how Christmas ‘always gets earlier’? It doesn’t so much when you don’t go to work in the traditional sense – not for me. There’s no bickering about shift patterns for a start. And because I’m sat at home working there is some isolation from it all which in some ways is no bad thing because I only get small doses of the xmas muzak as I grind my way through the supermarket. J was saying the other day that she feels even less xmassy. This year she can’t go shopping at all so what irritates the constant town dweller and which mildly distracts me she gets none of. The TV doesn’t cut it.
In some ways at least the girls are old enough to sort themselves out and buy stuff. I could go town with them if needed. But mums are meant to do that with their daughters. It’s the done thing. It’s how it is meant to be. But it isn’t. There nothing I can do either. I’m damned if I do stuff (because she feels guilty that she can’t) and I’m damned if I don’t (because she feels guilty again). You just get on with it though. Not like there’s a whole bunch of choices. This is wallowing but I don’t care – you know what I’d like? For J to be able to stand up straight. That would make my year.

Mark.

1

Out shopping earlier and while looking at dvd’s I hear someone say “Mark”. I looked up. The name was said again – and I looked around for who was saying it. 6 months ago I’d not have registered it. It’s already strange that some people called me Mark.

Opera whacks film.

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Reloading a page of ~400kb in Opera badly affects DVD playback.
Doing the same in Firefox does not.
Opening tabs in Opera has a worse effect than opening the same in FF
And opening GMail screws the film hugely. Amazing effect. k-k-k-k-k-k-kkkk–i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i—l-l-l-l-l–l—-llllllllllllll——-s the page.

XP not Vista

1

The Register has an interesting piece on the Vista EULA. How to not get the wary to buy it. And if Microsoft get to use that, who else will? It’s not like other OS developers do not pose restrictions is it? To save the hassle though – and reduce the wait – those nifty swedish guys have just the right signposts – thepiratebay+windows+vista. Not that I can see me running Vista – XP does me just fine and none of my software is locked in to anything coming down the pipe from them. Though one would hope that in the intervening period from now to the XP cut-off someone would make a version of linux that is actually useable (cue ubuntu fans…)

BA and the cross.

5

I actually had some sympathy for the woman who was fighting BA for the right to wear a cross. Some, not much. But she lost. And reading the report I was not that surprised and my feelings about if were ambivalent until I got to this:

“It is important to wear it to express my faith so that other people will know that Jesus loves them.”

WTF is THAT all about?? I don’t care about that religious stuff and I’ll be screwed that someone wears that because they think it does something for ME. Does it hell. It’s not some beacon beaming out a golden beam of love for us all to get bathed in is it?
You want to wear it for you – fine. Go for it. No problem. Enjoy it.
You want to wear it for ME? get real woman.
Does she have a clue how bigoted that is? (Ah you poor person who is not of my religion…. but don’t worry, my Jesus still loves you)