[emceepj]

....do you move your mouse to the left/right/bottom of your screen so the dock will pop up?

or by hitting the "x" in the top corner, you're shutting down the program, not just the window?

i've completely forgotten how to use the "start" program menu. i always go into my bf's shared files folder and i can never find his programs. and i don't think his computer likes me. when ever i go and do something with it, it freezes or crashes. i think i just ask it to do too much (which isn't much. like, open winamp and explorer at the same time.) and his computer isn't old/slow either. *sigh* he's getting a powerbook soon though.

Phil

 

[james_squared]

Hello,

That's funny, I think my wife's PC doesn't like me either. I'm very adept with PCs and, for some reason, her computer just doesn't like doing more than a couple of things at a time. Oh yes, you shouldn't open IE and Winamp at the same time, especially if Eudora is about to check for email; big blue screen!

I sit in my computer room, working away, checking email, surfing, playing iTunes, all at the same time, and I hear her say some sort of expletive*, and it usually means her computer has crashed.

She'll be getting an iMac, eventually.

James

* expeltive: A profane or obscene term: blasphemy, curse, epithet, oath, swearword. Informal : cuss. (From Sherlock)

 

[MacNutt]

I suspect that all of us who have used a PC in the past know what an expletive is!

The English language is SO VERY descriptive, after all.

Perhaps that is why we here have all switched to Macs!

I find myself swearing at my computer once a year, instead of once a day!

LOVE my Pismo!!!

HATED my last company supplied PC laptop! Didn't much like the five or so others that came before it either! In fact, one of them was so errant that it accidentally fell out of a moving helicopter. Too bad...so sad. New computer....happy again! Sort of.

Then I discovered Apple computers!

WOW!! What a difference!

Now I will NEVER go back!

Simple as that.

 

[VertiGoGo]

I don't go looking for the dock, but I do go to close indows in the top left, instead of the right.

Sometimes I also look for the window scroller in the wrong place.

Oh well.

 

[james_squared]

Hello,

I do find myself looking for Command-W and Command-Q, but I can never find them on the PC.

James

 

[PosterBoy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by james_squared:
Hello,

I do find myself looking for Command-W and Command-Q, but I can never find them on the PC.

James<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

For most apps, both these commands are lumped into ALT-F4.

--PB

 

[james_squared]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PosterBoy:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by james_squared:
[qb]Hello,

I do find myself looking for Command-W and Command-Q, but I can never find them on the PC.

James<HR></blockquote>

For most apps, both these commands are lumped into ALT-F4.

--PB[/QB]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hello,

Yes, I do recall that now.

James

 

[Griller]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by james_squared:
... her computer just doesn't like doing more than a couple of things at a time. Oh yes, you shouldn't open IE and Winamp at the same time, especially if Eudora is about to check for email; big blue screen!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

At work my friend's XP machine loves lots of apps. open at the same time (6 or 7 I usually see). IE, Winamp, Outlook Exchange(?), Messenger, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, mIRC. Then again it is a P4 2.2 Ghz, with a 64MB GF4, and a Gig of RAM. It's a stylish dark-grey/ black Dell --- it's so solid I wish I had one, along side my Mac.

I guess it depends on the machine.

 

[jfpoole]

Griller wrote:
"At work my friend's XP machine loves lots of apps. open at the same time (6 or 7 I usually see). IE, Winamp, Outlook Exchange(?), Messenger, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, mIRC. Then again it is a P4 2.2 Ghz, with a 64MB GF4, and a Gig of RAM. It's a stylish dark-grey/ black Dell --- it's so solid I wish I had one, along side my Mac."

I've got a similar Dell (I'm actually typing on it right now) and it's been a solid machine. I've had more problems (at least with the operating system) with my PowerBook than with my Dell.

The new Dell cases are nice, actually. They're a snap to open and you hardly need any tools once you're in the case. Plus, all of the cases have a headphone jack and USB ports at the front of the computer, and some even have a firewire port or two. I still think the PowerMac cases are better in terms of aesthetics, but Dell's not bad.

 

[Griller]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jfpoole:
... I still think the PowerMac cases are better in terms of aesthetics, but Dell's not bad.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

For sure, the Mac cases (note: case not "box") and design cues are way better.

Side-opening case -- That's awesome.
2 USB ports on the keyboard -- Coool!

 

[PosterBoy]

In all honesty, while USB on the Keyboard is cool, and I dont thinkit should be dropped, I'd also like to see some ports up front and a firewire port up front as well. Lots of people have their machines under desks and such, so it can become a bother to use a device that may need these ports.

--PB

 

[MacDoc]

Now if they would just make them quiet
PC cases I think are far better geared to expansion and mods - Apple seems to love making it difficult.
There is a limit where style gets in the way of use - ie white letters on black keyboards and certain notorious Apple designed rodent better used in a game played on ice.
Style over sustance has sunk many a car company. Style WITH substance keeps companies like VW doing way better than one would think for their size.
Apple has skated that knife edge of extracting pretty big dollars for great looking machines but sometimes has fallen for more glitz than function.
Right now that may be shifting finally. White keyboards, their portable line is almost flawless in form /function, dual 5 1/4 bays, triple ata buses, good RAM capacity, easy remove drive trays...all this speaks of a maturing view Apple design in relation to client use. The iPod is a terrific piece of industrial desgn.

The areas still to come are a headless entry level Mac which is rumoured

and the demise of the 15" monitors for any desktop Mac. Horsepower needs to get in order but there is little Apple can do about that and I have to think that the volume Apple is seeing in 867DP sales says power at a lower price point gets a lot of users over to X quickly.
Lowering the bar to a $999 US fast single would do wonders.
Does anyone happen to know the volume #s on 867DPs??? I would think they would be a bright spot in otherwise lackluster desktop volumes.

 

[thirdeyevision]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PosterBoy:
In all honesty, while USB on the Keyboard is cool, and I dont thinkit should be dropped, I'd also like to see some ports up front and a firewire port up front as well. Lots of people have their machines under desks and such, so it can become a bother to use a device that may need these ports.

--PB<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's one feature I've been whining about for too long. With the many reincarnations of the tower casing from the B&W's to the current mirrored front G4's, I thought they would have implemented a few stock firewire & USB ports on the front by now. With Apple's whole 'digital hub' pitch, a few front access ports would be more efficient for all these iPod's, digi-cam's, etc., we're supposed to be plugging in.

 

[MacDoc]

Yeah better real ports than air intakes

like the current wind tunnels

 

[jfpoole]

macdoc wrote:
"ie white letters on black keyboards..."

What's wrong with white letters on black keyboards? My PowerBook has white letters on black keys and I don't have a problem with it.

"certain notorious Apple designed rodent better used in a game played on ice."

Okay. That mouse (and the iMac that it was attached to) I hated.

 

[Griller]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by macdoc:
.... Apple seems to love making it difficult.
There is a limit where style gets in the way of use - ie white letters on black keyboards and certain notorious Apple designed rodent better used in a game played on ice.
Style over sustance has sunk many a car company. Style WITH substance keeps companies like VW doing way better than one would think for their size. .... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

- Difficult for sure, maybe they just didn't think before they put the CD-ROM drives in the G4 and just happened to make the headphone jacks unusable due to the fit and the bay door (maybe it's just my G4... but it shouldn't have been any!), the first of several annoying details that irked me with my first Mac owning experience (which was also relatively expensive, as Mac's used to go).

- I love the black keys with white lettering. Sure the white lettering is starting to fade just barely on my A,S,D keys but that's due to cheaping out on the paint and coating by Apple NOT bad design, AND me playing UT too much. White on black is fine.

- the urinal cake shaped mouse, was definitely questionable. I switched to 2-button+scroll MS Intellimouse Optical and have never missed the puck.

- I don't think style over substance will be Apple's downfall. The Sega DreamCast had both and was superior to the PS2 many ways, but was ignored for no good reason. Like the DreamCast, Apple may fail due to lack of consumer knowledge about a high-quality alternative product.

- VW owes everything to their acquisition of the superior and amazing car manufacturer Audi (who is putting VW's resources to good use for itself , and VW )

Griller

 

[MacDoc]

One of the first things taught to design students is - "don't use reverse lettering" - it's hard to read and the mind does not handle it well. Any glare and the stupid keys are concave so it makes them unreadable as does low light conditions.

The first item on this tips for web pages is http://www.ksu.edu/tools/design/tips.html

This from
Interface Design and Optimization of Reading of Continuous Text at U of T

"Black characters on a white background produces faster reading than the reverse,
and most readers prefer it. "

and this from the advertising legend David Ogilvy
"David Ogilvy, the advertising guru, says that copy should never be set in reverse. He says that it used to be "believed these devices forced people to read copy; now we know that they make reading physically impossible".

The same principles apply to keyboards - Apple bloody well knows this.
Hence white keyboards
MacAlly knows this. IceKeyboards
Microsoft certainly knows it as all of their top productivity keyboards are black letters on light backgrounds.
Full white can glare too which is why beige is better but not so stylish.
Now fully backlit reversed keyboards are fine too and that may well come.
More info on reversed type - it's one of my main complaints about idiots designing on the web to "look cool "
http://www.ianmc.com.au/articles/article10.html
http://www.cornerstoneword.com/edgepage/layout/layout.htm

this is good because it actually demonstrates the problem http://marvin.mrtoads.com/overprinting_black.html

and more
http://www.medicine.uiowa.edu/uhs/comprehend5.cfm

which leads me to another cranky note - "designer" business cards with text so small, fine or slanted that you cannot get the contact information easily.
Once again looks over effectiveness.
Growl grumble

Of all companies Apple, who invented DTP should know better.

 

[Griller]

Nice links Macdoc very interesting and useful, esp. for me. I agree with the comments about web application. White text on black (yellow on blue, etc.) is extremely 'harsh' on the eyes, especially basic HTML white lettering on a black bg (as illustrated in that one link...ugh!)

With regards to the keyboard. I'm quite familiar with keyboards so maybe that's why it doesn't affect me so much (I'm sure you're familiar with keyboards too, so maybe it depends on the individual). Maybe for a person who's new to keyboarding, black type on light-coloured keys could be better. As a professional who's not new to keyboards I don't mind white on black on keyboards in my case. Even when I do have to look at the keyboard for an odd key combination, the colour scheme doesn't bother me.

It could also be that, the majority of the keys only have a single character on each --- as opposed to sentences or multi-character words as used in Wheildon's study.

Glare is really dependant on the present lighting situation. Also, if people were so diligent about proper keyboarding posture and positioning then glare could also be reduced to a non-factor. Aesthetically, like approaching my black-keyed, snow on graphite keyboard... though the new iBook keyboards do look nice black on white.

The recent Harper Collins reprint of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of The Rings" series all had white and silver text on a black spine and black front and back cover. The copy also used a serif typeface (as Wheildon did in his study) and I thought it was gorgeous to look at, pleasant to read --- a sweet bit of design.

Personally, I don't look to studies, theories, or rules when it comes to design. They do provide interesting guidelines, reminders, and opinions of the basics, but for me that's all. I don't always challenge convention and popular design cues but I can usually tell when something looks or will look garish or hard to ready, or not.

White on black won't always work, I'll agree, but in certain situations a good designer with a good eye, something you can't really teach, can make it work and have it be pleasing to 'most' people.