A few weeks living with Apple Macs

[JodyH]

Stand down Applebots... I'm not hatin.
I'm overall happy with my Macs, just some irritating quirks with non-Apple (and Apple) accessories and I need some time to learn my way around the new OS.
The hardware rocks, everything feels well engineered.
Magic trackpad gestures are the best thing for computers since internet porn.
I'm not convinced OSX is anything special, seems like dumbed down, locked down Linux to me but I'm still a newb.
Whether I like it or not I'm a Apple guy for at least a year or two until I can justify another $1500 laptop to the wife so I might as well get used to it.
Maybe the Kool-Aid tastes better after the iLobotomy?

[jumpthestack]

Microsoft apps on OS X seem to only get worse. I love it when Microsoft Update requires you to close browser windows in order to update Office apps.

It's because they install some crappy browser plugins without asking you, and that you probably never use, but nevertheless causes irritation every update and probably exposes you to security vulnerabilities.

/Library/Internet Plug-ins/SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin
/Library/Internet Plug-ins/SharePointWebKitPlugin.webplugin

I deleted them on my system with no problems, and I didn't get asked to close my browsers the next time I did an update.

You can try this:
sudo mv "/Library/Internet Plug-ins/SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin" ~/
sudo mv "/Library/Internet Plug-ins/SharePointWebKitPlugin.webplugin" ~/

That just moves them to your home directory. If this seems to be working out, you can just delete them from your home directory. If it causes problems, you can move them back.

[MDS]

I'm not convinced OSX is anything special, seems like dumbed down, locked down Linux to me but I'm still a newb.

I've been tinkering with operating systems and writing systems software for longer than most folks on this board have been shooting. (Sold my first device driver in 1983. ) I tend to think of OS's and computers the way many of you think of guns. They all kind of suck, just in different ways. For fun, pick whatever you want and enjoy. For serious social purposes, you pick one of the top three and you get to know it inside and out and you use the snot out of it until its shortcomings don't affect you...much.

OSX is by far the most elegant commercially successful operating system on the planet. It's more elegant than Linux, though not necessarily more powerful. It's like switching from Glock to P30LEM - any whining you do during the first 5,000 live rounds and 50,000 dry trigger pulls is noise... (Not to beat you up on this, JodyH... )

For a fun read comparing various OS's see Neal Stephenson's classic 1999 essay In the Beginning... was the Command Line, updated in 2004 by Garrett Birkel. Maybe it's time to update it again...

[jslaker]

I'm not convinced OSX is anything special, seems like dumbed down, locked down Linux to me but I'm still a newb.

You're not incorrect.

My experience has also been that UNIX utilities are better documented on Linux than OS X.

[JodyH]

Solved the DVD Player crash issue.
The default setting for playing DVD's is "Play from last position".
Changing this to "Play from beginning" allows the DVD player to work.
It seems that the first thing the DVD Player needs when you insert your first DVD is what "Region" you are in and the program crashes because it's trying to compare the DVD's region with the non-existent region setting you haven't been able to enter yet.
Basically the default player setting interferes with the initial player setup.
Ummm... beta testers needed?

[Jason F]

Jody-

Glad you got it figured out - weird issue considering it still hasn't been resolved from Apple. But at least you're back on track.

[NETim]

My life has been infinitely better since I went with OS/X. Macs just work. I ask very little of my home computers but it seemed the MS OS's weren't quite up to the task of even my light workload.

I don't miss Microsoft products at all.

[LittleLebowski]

Those of you talking abut Linux being better than apple from a UI standpoint should try Gnome 3. Bloody awful.

[JodyH]

Those of you talking abut Linux being better than apple from a UI standpoint should try Gnome 3. Bloody awful.

Ubuntu is probably the most polished Linux GUI out there.
Has a "dummy proof" front end, some mid-level tweak tools but the "dangerous" stuff requires you to go look for it.
Grandma can surf the net and get email with about 5 minutes of instruction, yet my 9 year old can't format the hard drive with 3 clicks.

[LittleLebowski]

Ubuntu has Gnome 3 and it's awful compared to Gnome 2. I can't stand it. I've been running Linux on the desktop since Redhat 6 (not to be confused with RHEL). My current favorite is SuSe.