A Month with a Mac: A Die-Hard PC User's Perspective
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 8, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Perfect Multi-tasking
So far, I've described OS X's multi-tasking as very similar to what is currently available under Windows, but where OS X sets itself apart is in a little feature called Exposé (note that typing an accented "e" is extremely easy under OS X - ALT-e followed by the "e" key or any vowel will do just that).By default, Exposé is activated by one of three function keys - F9, F10 or F11. Each function key serves a different purpose, each of which is a feature of Exposé. The theory behind Exposé is simple: it is a way of getting to a specific window on your desktop as fast as possible.
We start with our cluttered desktop...
Click to enlarge.
Hitting F9, for example, will cause Exposé to zoom out all of your active visible (unhidden) windows and essentially, tile them across your desktop. Then, using either the keyboard or the mouse, you can select the window that you want and everything goes back to normal, with the window that you have selected appearing in the foreground. The rest of the windows are untouched and are all in their original positions. The window that you selected is also in its original position; it is simply moved to the front so that you can see it.
Hitting F9 activates Exposé across all applications.
Click to enlarge.
If you don't want to Exposé all windows, you can just Exposé the windows within a particular application (F10 by default), which is extremely handy for dealing with tons of images in Photoshop for example.
Hitting F10 activates Exposé across only a single application's windows.
Click to enlarge.
Another example of Exposé's usefulness in editing all of the images for this article in Photoshop.
Click to enlarge.
The final Exposé function lets you view your desktop (F11), which, to me, was like a more polished version of Windows-D, since after I was done doing whatever it is I needed to do on the desktop, Exposé deactivated and my screen was restored to its original state.
Hitting F11 reveals the desktop.
Click to enlarge.
The beauty of Exposé is difficult to convey in text alone. Honestly, the best way to evaluate it and understand its potential is to use it - luckily, there are Apple stores for this very purpose. Keep in mind that Exposé is very customizable as well and the three function keys that I mentioned above, although the defaults, are not the only ways that you can configure OS X to activate Exposé.
The benefits of Exposé are numerous. If you ever feel overwhelmed by having too many windows open, Exposé definitely alleviates that feeling as you don't have to tab through multiple applications to finally get to the window that you want. While Exposé does make having only a single display better, heavy multi-taskers will still enjoy the benefits of a dual display setup.
Since the OS X desktop environment is completely OpenGL accelerated, the performance of features like Exposé are not CPU limited - instead, they are GPU limited. Luckily, using Exposé with many windows open is not very stressful on even a Radeon 9600, but you do run out of video memory very quickly - in which case, your system ends up swapping to main memory over the AGP bus, making the Exposé animation considerably choppy. It seems that the sweet spot for more than a handful of windows open is around 128MB of video memory, with 256MB being perfect - needless to say, I found the mere 64MB that came on the Radeon 9600 which shipped with the system to be too little. There is no detriment to functionality if you don't have enough video memory; the Exposé animation simply becomes more choppy (which can be annoying on a $3000 system).
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dmr9748 - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
You again failed to provide proof. The first site is a bunch of pictures. I have been to that campus and have met some of the people in those pictures. This is how funding works, if someone gives you money and says that you can only spend it on x, are you going to give up that funding? NONow, let's take a look at comparing 2 exact same items. They will never perform the same. Do you know why? There is about a billion reasons why. The mos striaght and to the point example is the movie "Timeline." Look at post #97.
The only one that came close to proving me wrong was the linuxsinder.com post. Problem is, he doesnt tell me what vendor he is going to except for dell and the things is I just did a price comparison on both those items. I have given the direct links to the vendors.
With some of the last links you posted, go back to post #112.
rxmz - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
Azkman has already answered #112 very well, but just a quick look at the Dell shows it only has 2 HD bays, neither front accessible nor hot swappable. It's not 64-bit, and doesn't have a 1GHz front-side bus. I'd guess there are other reasons it's not in the same comparison class as the Xserve G5, but I think that's plenty already.azkman - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
Hard evidence for #112 (none from pro-apple sources):http://www.tcf.vt.edu/systemX.html
http://www.colsa.com/cover_page/news_front/news_de...
http://www.top500.org/list/2003/11/
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/36120.html
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/36964.html
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke%5C6133.html
http://www.pcmag.com/review/0%2C2491%2Cs%3D1564&am...
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1369037,00.as...
Specs do not equal performance. I haven't heard of any Dell supercomputers being built at breakthrough prices. I'd believe the jugdement and results of VT and the US Army over an arbitrary price comparison any day.
dmr9748 - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
I just did a price comparison of my own between an xserve and a dell server.Here is the xserve for $2898.99
http://www.ctistore.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Scr...
I priced a rackmount server with the same specs on dell.com for $2021
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx...
#95 Don't post an article that explains one system and then say it is more cost effective for what you get compared to another system when the article doesn't even mention a price for the system they are describing. Do not attack my post unless you have some hard evidence.
kmmatney - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
reading all these comments from (most) the mac users that have posted makes me want a mac less and less.-- I second that one. $2500 for a computer with no monitor and a crap video card. That's the "uncomfortable" part to me.
victorpanlilio - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
#109 dextrous wrote: reading all these comments from (most) the mac users that have posted makes me want a mac less and less.Care to elaborate? Using this same sort of reasoning, then all of the positive comments a people might happen to make about their own country should dissuade foreign tourists from visiting. And of course, such people should not object if their country is portrayed in a bad light by foreigners who know little or nothing about the country. What's more, the foreigners are afraid that a learning experience might actually force them to rethink their prejudices. To bring this discussion back on topic, what Anand has done is the equivalent of visiting a foreign country, sampling its cuisine, experiencing something of its culture, and so on. His "travelogue" describes his impressions. The forum participants chime in with their own dispatches from the field -- and those who have visited and perhaps lived in the foreign country for some time are in a better position to comment knowledgeably.
dextrous - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
reading all these comments from (most) the mac users that have posted makes me want a mac less and less.victorpanlilio - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
In #107 topcat903 wrote: "Basically, this article describes the "uncomfortable" feeling we get when we switch to something we are not used to."And if that's all it was, then the remedy is simple -- learn. But in the article, as well as in the comments, uncalled-for remarks about price etc. detract from the overall message that it is quite possible for a diehard but open-minded Windows PC user to discover genuinely superior things about MacOS X even without delving into applications that make best use of the platform.
topcat903 - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
I don't think this article was to compare which system (hardware or software wise) is better. It was written to describe the "experience" one would feel when switching to another OS (heck, the same thing could be said about switching girlfriends or boyfriends).I started my computing days using the Apple IIe, then the first Mac...eventually I switched to the Windows platform, and recently since my wife got an iBook, I had to switch back to OS X.
Basically, this article describles the "uncomfortable" feeling we get when we switch to something we are not used to...A feeling I experienced many times over. All the speed, power, and storage of a system could mean nothing to me if I don't know all the ins and outs of what I'm using to get what I needed done.
Overall, the article was a good and interesting read...just wish there was more on the audio/video apps (where Apple truly excel), however I assume it's not what the author's primary use of the G5...but hopefully a start towards many more articles.
rxmz - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link
A quick FYI semi-related to Mac OS X scroll speed. Clicking in the empty area of a scroll bar jumps by a page, but clicking while holding down the "option" key jumps straight to that point (reversible via a system preference). This comes in very handy for long documents (or file listings), when you know about where you're trying to go.As an aside, the only app I have seen where this does NOT work is MS Word....