Mac OS/X Lion (Out Now)

[Grall]

1. Under MacOS X: click on the finder icon on the dock, then click on the eject button right next to the device. Two clicks. The eject button is the only button there.

LOL! Ok, you win. It actually is three clicks in windows vs just two on the mac.

Maybe you now can tell me why the two-finger swipe on a magic mouse that used to perform browse back/forwards in Safari (and, I think, Chrome, probably FF/Opera, though I've never used them on a Mac) no longer works in Lion... Kind of miffs me majorly actually, it's a feature I use all the time, since it's extremely convenient for browsing.

Only reason I can think of they'd have to remove it is because of the single-finger swipe to switch between apps (and maybe they feel people would get "confused"), but shit, if I can't have my swipe because of another swipe I never use and probably never will use, why can't I have an OPTION to pick the swipe I DO want? Grrh... Apple's propensity for deciding for their customers how they should think and function can become rather overbearing at times.

*Edit: Shit. Disregard above rant... I'm an idiot. Seems they made browse back/forwards the single-finger swipe gesture. Fullscreen switching is two fingers? Not sure, I haven't tested such features yet.

Sure you do, but the OS is not designed solely for you.

No of course not, but that still doesn't mean I can't - as a power user rather than an ignorant serf - have my convenience by being able to kill off the useless and redundant warning. I don't want to click two times, uselessly. Sure, it's even faster to just click once on the warning's OK window but why should I have to click even once?

(The logical answer would be that OSX isn't for power users, but that would probably irk some Apple fans, so I won't say that... )

 

[pcchen]

No of course not, but that still doesn't mean I can't - as a power user rather than an ignorant serf - have my convenience by being able to kill off the useless and redundant warning. I don't want to click two times, uselessly. Sure, it's even faster to just click once on the warning's OK window but why should I have to click even once?

(The logical answer would be that OSX isn't for power users, but that would probably irk some Apple fans, so I won't say that... )

I disagree with your definition of "power users." To me, a power user is someone who uses his computer to maximum efficiency, that is, to allow him finish his work faster. That includes reducing the chance of costly error.

Remembering to properly eject an USB drive is to reduce the chance of an costly error. Maybe you have never been burned by such error (yet), but to me an additional operation which may take only a few seconds to prevent a possible lost of hours of works is worth the investment.

After years of developing different applications, I now learn to not blame "stupid users." There is no stupid user, only stupid UI.

 

[Arwin]

I fail to see how transparent window borders in of themselves would be so awfully terrible as you imply - sounds more like you think they must be terrible because Macos doesn't have them, IE fanboy reasoning.

Please don't use that word, it hurts my eyes!

Anyway, I agree that transparant borders would be nice, as long as it is optional. Aero does use something like 40% more power, after all, and can be switched off. But on my desktop, I like it a lot.

 

[Grall]

Remembering to properly eject an USB drive is to reduce the chance of an costly error. Maybe you have never been burned by such error (yet), but to me an additional operation which may take only a few seconds to prevent a possible lost of hours of works is worth the investment.

I think the problem there is not actually remembering to properly eject USB drives, but rather having only one copy of valuable data, which you as a power user should know should NOT be moved to a removable media.

After all, it doesn't matter if you properly eject the USB thumbdrive or not if you then subsequently lose it or have it stolen, your dog drools on it and uses it for a chewing toy, or find it had bad flash on it and all of your data's now corrupted.

Don't keep just one single copy of important stuff and then move that copy onto a removable media. Then it doesn't matter if you eject the thing or not, if you by chance was so fast at yanking the damn thing out of your computer it messed up the filing system you can just copy your stuff again. No problem.

 

[pcchen]

I think the problem there is not actually remembering to properly eject USB drives, but rather having only one copy of valuable data, which you as a power user should know should NOT be moved to a removable media.

Not necessarily. Considering that you have to bring some data to a customer (who apparently don't have access to internet at his location), then you have to copy it into your USB drive. If you don't properly eject the drive it's possible the copy may become corrupt. Although you may still have the data on your computer, but if your customer can't see it, it's as good as nothing.

 

[Arwin]

I personally find Lion a pretty exciting release, but my goodness you've managed to create an insanely boring discussion on it ...

 

[Grall]

PC, you're creating incredibly contrived scenarios to support what is an unsupportable position, there's no logical reason that redundant and simply annoying warnings should not be able to be disabled.

 

[pcchen]

PC, you're creating incredibly contrived scenarios to support what is an unsupportable position, there's no logical reason that redundant and simply annoying warnings should not be able to be disabled.

I don't know... I think my example is actually quite common, at least to sales, or those who needs to demonstrate programs to customers.

What I want to say is simply that not everyone is the same. You can't just say that because you don't want something it's must be bad. Maybe it should be disabled for some who don't care, but on the other hand many airplanes have warnings which can't be disabled. To me it's better safe than sorry, and you apparently think otherwise, but it's not fair to claim that people who want to be safe must be an "ignorant serf."

Note that I didn't say it's perfect to give warning every time. I mentioned before that it's possible to only give warning after a write (or better, gives an indication when writing to the USB drive, such as a message showing "do not remove the drive now" somewhere on the screen), then you can avoid showing warnings every time. Actually that's what they did for iPhone. You can remove an iPhone any time and there will be no warning, that's because you can't normally write data to an iPhone, except when syncing using iTunes. But since iTunes already shows a warning while syncing, there is no need to display another warning when removing an iPhone.

 

[Onkl Bjorni]

I personally find Lion a pretty exciting release, but my goodness you've managed to create an insanely boring discussion on it ...

Yeah I think so too, only complaint I have is that it (Lion) broke the hack that allowed me to use one of my raid5 FreeNAS servers as a Time Machine server
But as a temp solution I bought a 2tb USB drive. Not as safe as a raid5 server but should be good enough until they find a new way to use FreeNAS as a Time Machine server..

 

[Rys]

Maybe you now can tell me why the two-finger swipe on a magic mouse that used to perform browse back/forwards in Safari (and, I think, Chrome, probably FF/Opera, though I've never used them on a Mac) no longer works in Lion... Kind of miffs me majorly actually, it's a feature I use all the time, since it's extremely convenient for browsing.

Agreed. I use BetterTouchTool to put it back. I'm leaning towards replacing the mouse with the trackpad now, because it's got more surface area and supports more gestures. I think there's a lot of power to be had with one and BTT.

 

[Grall]

Rys,
How is BTT compared to MagicPrefs (assuming you've used it)? I'm using MP now to get third-button emulation for the Magic Mouse (in order to play Portal (2)... ), but the app is rather wonky and has a tendency to hang after coming out of sleep mode (and after Lion it's been going berzerk on me in that regard, to the point I can't even run it anymore)...

 

[Rys]

I don't think I've ever used MP. I've not had the Magic Mouse for very long, and I'm pretty sure BTT is all I've used to augment the gesture support built into Snow Leopard and Lion. Happy to give it a go if you want me to test something in particular versus BTT.

 

[Arwin]

My Magic Mouse died because I hadn't used it a while with batteries left in there (AAA brand) had a melt-down. Once that happened I pretty much vowed not to ever get any wireless peripherals again when it makes absolutely no sense to do so. I was put to the test this weekend when I saw one of these new official touch-pads for the Mac, which I thought would work very nice with Lion and had a great feel. As soon as I noticed they were wireless only too though (which is even more silly for me since they are static devices), they were off the table. I'm sure there will be a wired version again sometime, just as there are decent PC speakersets on the market again without a subwoofer.

Initially I had my WaCom on my Mac but for now that is off the table, as it recognises it as a tablet input a little too aggressively (I also use the mouse that comes with it) - the mouse pointer disappeared and I couldn't find a way to get it back. So I switched it back again with the PC for now (where Windows 7 initially wouldn't recognise it during locked screens, but thankfully that's back to normal again now too).

 

[Grall]

Well, you can tell me if BTT supports 3-button emulation please (I use triple-finger click for middle mouse button right now)...

I've also sort of wanted thumb button emulation support, as that would make WoWing so much easier with the Magic Mouse... For browsing the standard swipes are fine, but those aren't equal to a thumb button click from the OS point of view; they're swipes and not clicks and seemingly handled differently internally. So the swipe can't be mapped in a game's key customization menu...

 

[Rys]

Sounds like your Mac already has a touchpad, for you to not use the mouse for such a long time? In that case, why would you think about getting the external one?

Regardless, I'd put your meltdown down to a fluke and just take the chance that it's highly unlikely to ever happen again surely? The benefits of the pad far outweigh the downside of you having to manage its batteries, IMHO.

 

[Arwin]

Sounds like your Mac already has a touchpad, for you to not use the mouse for such a long time? In that case, why would you think about getting the external one?

Nope, it is a Mac Mini so there is no other input. I just didn't use it for that long (one or two months probably). I have a decently powered Win7 PC, a work laptop, two PS3's, and a 360, so some of them are bound not to be used for a while.

Regardless, I'd put your meltdown down to a fluke and just take the chance that it's highly unlikely to ever happen again surely? The benefits of the pad far outweigh the downside of you having to manage its batteries, IMHO.

Possibly, but I just think it is a stupidly unnecessary hassle and burden on the environment to have a wireless device in this scenario. Perhaps in the future, they can make something like a multi-touch version of my WaCom tablet which can host a wireless mouse as well as a pen, but the tablet itself being wired.

EDIT: looks like muli-touch versions of the Bamboo already existed since 2009, but they had their own multi-touch engine and not everything may be working smoothly yet with Lion. I'll have a look out for these - sounds much more like something I'd use.

 

[Rys]

Possibly, but I just think it is a stupidly unnecessary hassle and burden on the environment to have a wireless device in this scenario.

I think you're blowing it out of proportion. You use other devices that take rechargeable batteries, and the power draw of the trackpad is so low that I don't think it does the environment any more harm than buying yet another cellphone, or changing the batteries in your TV remote. You use one of them, right?

Apologies if I'm missing something extra with the environmental concerns. You're going to power the thing one way or another, and I don't see why rechargeable batteries are bad. After all, you were willing to do it for the mouse in the first place.

 

[Rys]

Well, you can tell me if BTT supports 3-button emulation please (I use triple-finger click for middle mouse button right now)...

Seems to support 3-finger tap and click on the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad:

 

[Arwin]

I think you're blowing it out of proportion. You use other devices that take rechargeable batteries, and the power draw of the trackpad is so low that I don't think it does the environment any more harm than buying yet another cellphone, or changing the batteries in your TV remote. You use one of them, right?

Apologies if I'm missing something extra with the environmental concerns. You're going to power the thing one way or another, and I don't see why rechargeable batteries are bad. After all, you were willing to do it for the mouse in the first place.

First of all, batteries are a bigger burden on the environment than power from the outlet. What if every mouse that comes with a PC from now on is a battery powered mouse? Second, remotes and cell-phones are meant to be portable, while mice are generally stationary. A wireless mouse may be fine on the road, for those cases where the trackpad isn't, but I only need something for desktop use. And third, it is ridiculously inconvenient to have to keep track of a) having the mouse charged b) replacing the batteries when empty, and c) removing them if you're not using them for a longer period of time, which is something I never know in advance. I need my mice to be able to plug in at a whim, and I need to be able to swap them between the PC and Mac with various OS's (and sometimes even the PS3, although with Linux gone now that's less of a concern).

I personally just don't feel any convenience here outweighs the downsides. For me personally it is a pretty clear-cut case, but in general it needlessly makes for more waste, and batteries are some of our worse waste out there.

I went to our store and picked up a Bamboo Pen & Touch by the way, which was only a bout 10 euro more expensive than the trackpad, and comes with a pen. So here's hoping they don't wait too long with optimizing their drivers for Lion, but most of the basic stuff already works (it's a fine 'finger'-mouse, the pinch/zoom, two-finger scroll, four-finger bring up task menu, etc. all works). Will report after more experience. I was also really impressed by the improved hand-writing logic in Windows 7 and Office 2010's integration in particular. Not bad at all (though not available in my native language by default, maybe I have to pay / install it separate, will look into it).

 

[Arwin]

So a short impression on the Bamboo Pen & Touch: I like it a lot. . Seriously, of course I was using very outdated stuff (Graphire 2 or whatever it was called, one of the second generation I think). But this combination of a touchpad and a pen tablet is genious.

The switch from the pen to using the pad is much more seamless, with a single finger being able to act as a very accurate mouse (I think they rate it at just over 100dpi, but no complaints at any rate), and two finger scrolling in all directions while being able to pinch for zoom at the same time is pretty awesome stuff. It shows me that the multi-touch interface that the iOS devices have is more than just great for pads, but really works a charm on regular desktop devices as well.

The two combine amazingly well too. I love being able to use the pen with my right hand while being able to immediately pinch for zooming in and out to work on some fine detail. Really sweet. And the precision both in terms of pressure sensitivity (1024 steps apparently) and positional reading (2500dpi it says on paper, but I just only notice it is *really* precise) makes me so glad that the Apple track-pad was wireless and I didn't buy it, because this is proving to be a tonne more value at just 10 euro more (I paid 80 euros).

I don't think this little baby is going to go back to the store anytime soon.