“Last month, in Law Technology News’ Tech Counsel column, California attorney Ed Siebel sang the praises of running his law office with Apple Inc. computers and peripherals. Today, I’m singing a different tune. In fact, right now, I’m completing an online ad to sell my Power Mac G5 Dual 2.7GHz computer,” Larry Bodine writes for Law Technology News.
MacDailyNews Note: Please see “Attorney gets the job done with Apple Macs since 1988” – September 22, 2006
“I was suckered in by the hype about freedom from viruses, simplicity of computing and versatility. Instead, I bought a boat anchor that can’t view Web sites properly, is not compatible with Microsoft Word and can run only dumbed-down versions of regular software,” Bodine writes. “This time, I’m buying from Hewlett-Packard Co. or Dell Inc. — anything that runs on Windows. (I’ll assume the risk of flaming batteries.) Goodbye Steve Jobs, hello Bill Gates. I’ll be lucky to get half of the $4,552.71 I paid for the Mac on May 21, 2006.”
“I realized it was time to unload the silvery box of frustration when I had to buy a ‘Dummies’ book on how to operate it. I’m smart; I shouldn’t need this. Aren’t Macs supposed to be intuitive and easy to learn? My mistake,” Bodine writes.
“The signs of doom were there on day one, but I ignored them. I pretended that I liked the one button mouse. I quickly started using click + command keys (and other keyboard shortcuts). I really missed the little scrolling wheel in the center of the mouse,” Bodine writes. “I noticed it was slow; I saw that stupid spinning colored wheel a lot. The Mac would hang up; the TV ads said Macs didn’t do that. The widgets were cool and snappy, but after a while I stopped using them. They were fun — for five minutes. I did like the Finder because it was quick in locating files, but it would turn up a lot of false hits. It was comparable to the Google Desktop searcher on my PC.”
“What drove me nuts was that I would open Word for Mac and couldn’t delete files while I was in Word. There is no File | Delete option. So the documents took up space on my hard drive, until someone told me I had to find the document in Finder and then move it into the trash from there. This seemed stupid to me; I just wanted to highlight a file and tap ‘delete,'” Bodine writes. “Word files transferred from the Mac were missing pictures. PowerPoint files transferred from the Mac would lose their formatting. PCs and Macs are not compatible, regardless of what they say.”
Bodine writes, “The multiple clicking to accomplish simple tasks was a constant annoyance. Things I could do with a PC in two keystrokes took four or five clicks with the Mac. To do a “fast print” required clicking File, Print, find Copies & Pages, click Paper Type/Quality, click Normal and finally clicking Fast Draft. And there was no way to leave the setting as the default. I had to do it manually every time.”
Bodine writes, “Doing a simple screen capture was an immense chore. On a PC you just press Alt and tap PrtScr. With the Mac I had to download and launch special programs to accomplish this simple task.”
“I didn’t even bother with the Mac’s iCal or Mail, which required me to buy an @mac.com address. Instead, I went straight to Outlook for Mac. A lot of the software for Mac — such as AOL for Mac OS X — was dumbed down and missing may features of the current PC versions,” Bodine writes. “For me the killer was the Web browser. Safari simply cannot read Flash. It is, quite simply, a second-rate browser. I even called Apple headquarters and asked when a better version would be available and was told that Apple is in no hurry to improve it. On the suggestions of friends, I downloaded Netscape and Firefox, which were no better.”
“I run several Web sites, all optimized for IE 5.5 or higher. I couldn’t operate my own Web sites with the Mac. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Then the hard drive croaked on me after only three months of owning the machine. I couldn’t tell what was going wrong and had to hire someone for $125 an hour to come over and tell me what the heck was happening. Apple replaced it for free, but I became leery of what other hardware would fail unexpectedly,” Bodine writes. “I let the repaired shiny Mac sit on the floor for weeks, and instead used my reliable IBM ThinkPad, and rediscovered how much I enjoy it. Wish me luck on selling the Mac.”
Full article here.
Rather than rip the poor guy, as he obviously has been ruined by years of being shackled to Microsoft’s upside-down and backwards Windows OS and their Office software, let’s just make some points and realize that Apple has a lot of work to do in helping personal computer users to unlearn bad Windows habits and learn how to properly use Macs:
• Mr. Bodine bought a Power Mac G5 at pretty much exactly the wrong time. That’s unfortunate. If he had not purchased a PowerPC Mac (and why did he get a Mac tower, when he was replacing an IBM laptop?) and instead purchased an Intel-based iMac, Mac mini, MacBook or MacBook Pro (all of which were available on May 21, 2006), he would be able to run Windows for applications he can’t figure out how to use on Mac or that don’t meet his requirements.
• Whoever sold him that Power Mac G5 did him more than a bit of a disservice by not anticipating his needs or informing him about the Intel transition. If he bought it himself without asking a Mac savvy person for advice, he made a mistake.
• He certainly bought way too much Mac and the wrong Mac model for his needs. He spent far too much; an inexpensive Intel-powered Mac mini would have sufficed.
• So, to make it absolutely clear: all Macs purchased today run Windows. Buying an HP, Dell or other OS-limited PC now makes no sense whatsoever.
• Mr. Bodine may indeed be “smart,” but he ignorantly seemed to expect a Mac to work like Windows. It doesn’t. He should have actually read his “Dummies” book, it would have helped immensely.
• Macs, including the Mac he bought, all ship with a multi-button, scroll ball Apple Mighty Mouse. If his didn’t for some reason, he could have easily and inexpensively purchased one or any multi-button USB scroll wheel mouse and it would work just fine with Mac OS X.
• That a Mac such as his was “slow” and “hanging up” is a warning sign that something was wrong. That Mac should have been blazingly fast for the basic tasks he describes. That he used so much Microsoft software is also a warning sign and could be a contributor to those issues.
• When he talks about “Finder” he is really talking about Spotlight. It sounds like he didn’t take 5 minutes to learn how to use it properly.
• Microsoft makes Word for Mac, not Apple. If you don’t like something about it, that’s a Microsoft complaint, not an Apple Mac complaint.
• To delete a file or files on a Mac, select the file(s) in the Finder and hit Command-Delete to move them quickly into the Trash for quick deleting.
• Microsoft makes PowerPoint for Mac, not Apple. If you don’t like something about it, that’s a Microsoft complaint, not an Apple Mac complaint.
• Apple’s Keynote presentation program makes better presentations than PowerPoint, by the way.
• You can do things as quickly or more quickly with a Mac than with a PC, but the Mac won’t magically remove your bad Windows habits and explain the proper way to do things. He should have used his Mac’s built-in help system, read his “Dummies” book, and asked a Mac user for some help.
• To make a new print setting with a Mac, save a preset in the Print dialog box with your desired settings. Choose that preset to quickly print however you’d like.
• Mac’s screenshot ability is unmatched by Windows:
– ⌘-Shift-3 (Command-Shift-3): Take a picture of the entire screen and save as a file
– ⌘-Control-Shift-3 (Command-Control-Shift-3): Take a picture of the entire screen and copy to the clipboard
– ⌘-Shift-4 (Command-Shift-4): Take a picture of the dragged area and save as a file
– ⌘-Control-Shift-4 (Command-Control-Shift-4): Capture dragged area and copy to the clipboard
– ⌘-Shift-4 then Space bar (Command-Shift-4 then Space bar): Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and save as a file
– ⌘-Control-Shift-4 then Space bar (Command-Control-Shift-4 then Space bar): Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and copy to the clipboard
– You can also take pictures of the screen using the Grab application (in the Utilities folder).
• iCal or Mail do not require a .Mac account. It’s too bad he didn’t try the applications.
• Third-party software complaints are for the companies making the software, not Apple. Oftentimes, the features Windows users want within Mac versions of software are there, they just can’t seem to shed their Windows ideas of how to accomplish them and/or explore the Mac program’s features.
• If you short-sightedly limit your Web sites by developing only for Microsoft IE, it is not Apple’s or any other browser’s fault that you “can’t operate your own Web sites with the Mac.” There are Web standards for a reason. Follow them and any browser will work correctly. Mr. Bodine has no right to complain about this issue.
• Hard drives fail. Even in Macs. Backup regularly. Apple did replace it for free.
• Mr. Bodine should not be recommending people don’t buy Macs. He knows very little about how to use a Mac. However, articles of this stripe are informative and should give Apple and the Mac community the impetus to figure out ways to better help such users.
• Some Windows users have a huge mountain overcome when it comes to shedding bad habits and learning how to use a Mac properly. Hopefully Apple and all of us who are so inclined can help new Mac users to acclimate better.
• Mr. Bodine should sell that Power Mac and get himself a MacBook or MacBook Pro. He should install Windows for applications he needs and take the time to learn about the Mac while still accomplishing his work. Over time, he would realize that the Mac is a far superior personal computer.
I find it obscene that an self described “smart” individual could not “figure out” how to use a MAC. I am a recently new to mac’s (about 5 months now), and everything was so much easier to learn how to use. I will admit that the first couple of day’s I was thinking the M$ way about things, I just needed to become a free thinking (READ: not assymilated to the M$ world) and look at what was on my screen. I loved it so much, I bought my wife, who has trouble figuring out a solar powered calculator, an iMAC. She figured things out right away, and, to pull out the Apple standard of marketing, IT JUST WORKS!!!!!
The most hilarious part is when Mr Bovine says: “I am smart” EHHAHAHAHUHUHAHHOHAHOHAHUAHUHHAUHAHU
Really, smart? HAHHUHHAHHUHHUHHAOHHAOHHAHHOHAUHHHAOHH
Hard to believe idiots such as this guy truly exist. Mr Bovine, are you there listening? if yes, moooooohhh back to us so we know you’re a real bull.
What a dolt.
He probably went to college too.
My 12 year old grand-daughter is more savvy.
MW–major–as in, his major was in dumb.
Word in Rosetta slow? How fast are you tying Bill? My secretary does consistently between 90 and 100 wpm. Word on the Mac just follows her tying. Slow? We do not see performance issues wrt Word on a Dual PowerPC 2GHz.
Bravo MDN for a well articulated response that will go a long way to clear these sad little tirades. We human beings get so attached to things that are familiar. So much so that anything that is new can be perceived emotionally as a threat. I feel that’s why we read many of these venemous little articles.
Personally, I feel a little lucky. I started using computers about 13 years ago and had to work on Macs and Windows machines including Windows NT back about 8 or 9 years ago. On both systems I became familiar with navigating menus, using shortcuts, troubleshooting which included watching our IT person resolve more complicated issues.. I have had my frustrations with both systems.
After all these years of working both sides of the isle I can say with confidence that if someone were to give me a Windows machine I would just turn around and give it away. I wouldn’t use a Windows OS in my personal life because I have a choice. I don’t have to tell you why. Any Mac user already understands how fluid you computer experience can become on a Mac…..and anyone who has needed to work on both systems knows how much the Windows OS can get in your way.
Oh, and one more thing. Just imagine if there were no Apple Computer…no MacInstosh.
Far be for me to defend Microsoft and a Windows user, but I’m willing to cut this guy some slack over his formating problems with Word and probably PowerPoint,too. Most likely they are related to font issues which have to do with the goofy-assed way Apple has implemented font use in OS X. I know that is the main culprit behind formating issues I have had in dealing with Word docs from Windows using client.
Dealing with fonts and managing multiple font libraries has always been a major pain for print graphics pros, and the Apple implemented font control in OS X did not help us, at all. Apple should have implemented font usage in a manner similar to the way third party font managment programs do. Through a single font library outside of the system folder.
1st thing there is no file/Delete in Word for Windows. By def. in windows you can’t delete files that are open. So either someone wrote a macro for closing and then deleting the file and placed it in his file menu, or he was using Windows Explorer! (There is another more likely explanation, but its rude to call people idiots, so I won’t)
I am relatively new to the Mac universe (switched last year), and yeah there were some growing pains (1st week) – mainly me doing things manually instead of letting the mac handle it. IE going into finder and rearranging my photo library, instead of using IPhoto. It took me a while to realize that yeah it really is that easy. I don’t have to do all the work. And Boy was that a wonderful relevation.
My other big issue was using the apple key when i was used to using the control key for shortcuts, it took me a while to get used to it, but now I find myself hampered on my work windows box, since I find myself using KB combinations that don’t work – no expose, no using the keyboard to go forward and back. And other little things that I don’t realize how much I use until I am doing somethign and then realize “oh, can’t do that, this isn’t a mac.”
But on the bright side, maybe I can buy his PowerMac from him dirt cheap. 😀
I guess Macs aren’t idiot-proof, because this one sure didn’t understand it. I was nearly crying reading the summary. MDN, don’t blame MS. I understood Mac and I was using Windows since 3.1. Its not MS, it’s him. And who the heck buys a $4,000 system to use Word?! He deserves not got understand Mac. I cracked when I read you needed a .mac account for Mail… NO YOU DON’T, YOU THICK-HEADED MORON! DID YOU EVEN CARE TO LOOK IN THE DROP-DOWN BOX IN THE WIZARD!? And stop inflicting pain and suffering by making your sites only work with IE. Get Firefox! AND IT’S ENTOURAGE, NOT OUTLOOK! *sigh* Some people…
delete files from the Open/Save dialogue box
amounts to being able to stop the computer using the START menu.
Windows do lots of stupid things in wrong places. Apple has GUI guidelines and no dolt is allowed to do seemingly brilliant things that are plain wrong. Who but Windows users could possibly think about finding a DELETE option in a Open/Save dialogue box.
It is just wrong. The fact that Windows Word does it does not change the thing. Word for Mac is done at REDMONT, by MICROSOFT and — thanks Jobs — they too have to stick to GUI guidelines, hence no STOOPID allowed on the Word for Mac GUI: no crazy DELETE option on a Open/Save interface.
Lipstick on pigs is not a good idea, sorry to break it on you ex-Windows users. No pigs allowed (or corrupted, wrong, misleading GUI)
This message is in response to @tterbo. Although your solution is correct about ‘tricking’ the server into accepting Safari as IE 6.0, there is a far easier and less adventuresome method. Simply download Tinkertool 3.6.1 from http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html. Install it and enable the ‘debug’ command from the setup dialog box. The drop-down menu ‘Debug’ will appear in the top menu. Scroll to User Agent and choose MSIE 6.0. Very easy.
This guy does smell very fishy. I also expect to see lot’s of Pee Cee switchers complaining in the comming weeks, especially since Vista won’t be here for the holidays. It’s amazing how a little FUD just paralyzes folks.
The guy did have a very good point though, one that I struggle with when recommending Apple to long-time PC users. Generally, some of the software written for the Mac isn’t as good as the PC software out there (functionality built in). Office is a good example, in addition to the Powerpoint issues pointed out, there are some missing functions (charting) in Excel, (i learaned this from trying to help my son on this Physics homework, yuck) Also, Quicken for the Mac is really a poor second cousin to Money and Quicken on the PC. (I’m a CPA, been using both sides for years PC at work, Mac at home) For many home users, this is a big deal, especially for the more well healed users considering Mac. Intuit’s been taking Mac users for granted for years!
Chaz
The free “Safari Enhancer” is an application for enhancing the functionality of Apple’s Safari Web browser.
Safari Enhancer current has the following features:
• Enabling the Debug Menu
• Removing underlines from hyperlinks
• Increasing the font size in the bookmarks sidebar
• Disabling Safari’s web content cache
• Forcing the download of all PDF files
• Changing the colour of hyperlinks
• Switching between the Brushed, Aqua and Unified Title/Toolbar application appearances
• Disabling the website icon cache
• Importing bookmarks from the Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape, Omniweb and iCab browsers
• Adding of a “New Tab” button to the Safari toolbar
• Configuring of the history retention settings Safari uses
• Changing the search engine used in the Safari toolbar
• Choosing whether background imagery is printed
• Choosing whether to display complete URLs in Safari tooltips for links
• Changing what browser Safari identifies itself to websites as
Approved for use with Safari 2.0.4 with several new search engines added.
http://www.celestialfrontiers.com/safari_enhancer.php
Astroturfing of highest order
how embarassing for this guy! Can you imagine how dumb you would feel to publish an article like this that just shows you can’t even figure out how to delete a file? And then he tries to blame others for this! Truly embarassing.
Well, I sent a Letter to the Editor of Law.com including the words “libel”, “completely and entirely wrong”, and “reputation.”
You can easily do the same from the Law.com website.
It appears that Bodine is a real person. His websites are extremely “interesting.” I surfed as much of them as I could stomach. I used my powerful iMac 400 DV SE. Not even a hint of a problem.
Check out his website it’s a joke. It is barely a step above “dial a Lawyer”. He should stop spending time on computers and spending more of it in his car chasing ambulances.
I wouldn’t hire anybody that dumb.
First, a nice new iMac (Intel) would have done fine. A high-end PowerMac for basic office use is incredibly dumb.
Second, Firefox or Camino can handle the very few web pages that Safari renders weird. BTW- The fault is not Safari- it’s the non standard sh*t that IE tolerates. Nothing like Front Page crap, is there?
Third, the effing moron should have hired a Value Added Reseller to do it right. Why anybody would put their livelihood’s tools at risk by not hiring expert help and indemnification. I always thought legal people were risk averse.
http://www.apple.com/services/consulting/
http://agents.apple.com/
http://consultants.apple.com/at_a_glance/prescient/
Re: Delete from Application’s Open/Save Dialog
Apple has clearly separated application functions from Finder functions. The primary reason for this is to help prevent user mistakes. It is not as if the file cannot be overwritten from Open/Save if you want to. (Although, I have found that many people are unaware that you can click on a grayed-out existing file in a “Save As” dialog list, and it appears in the file name text block, so you may quickly replace it.) To delete a file, you must intentionally go into Finder to do it, and then delete the Trash. Deleting a file is a Finder specific function much as getting file info, duplicating it, moving it around or playing with the sidebar.
The Mac OS is designed so you can keep your Open/Save dialog window open and still go into the Finder and make adjustments. The changes will instantly be reflected in the Open/Save dialog; closing and re-opening it is not necessary.
I have absolutely no doubt that much time and thought went into the Finder at the original Mac OS inception, and I am quite sure Steve and Woz’s design decision was based on making deleting files an intentionally cumbersome process. The alternative is to make deleting files as easy as saving them which doesn’t make any sense… unless you’re Microsoft.
What Outlook for Mac did he run? There is no Outlook that will run under OS X.
re: missing pictures in Word/Powerpoint files from Mac.
This has been a problem going back over half a decade. If you copy and paste a pictures into any Mac MS Office program, it shows up fine–until you move it to Windows.
See more here: http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00534.htm
Worse, the so-called “Compatibility checker” in Office 2004 doesn’t flag this as an error. So a Mac user is made to look like a fool when s/he hands over a perfectly good (to the Mac user) Office document to Windows users, as a deliverable/assignment/presentation, and in one fell stroke Macs AND Quicktime are marked as “not being compatible (enough)” with Windows. Imagine doing a PPT presentation to a room full of people and your images not showing up!
I believe dragging and dropping image files (JPG, GIF, PNG) into the document itself gets around this, but the only guaranteed way is to Insert > Picture. Which negates one of the biggest advantages the Mac brought to the world back in frikkin’ 1984, copy and paste between programs!!
A fix would be as simple as auto-converting pasted images into PNG or whatever format copy-paste images are saved as in Windows (not BMP; resulting filesizes are way too small). MS has billions at its disposal, so it’s obvious they have NO intention of removing this hidden time bomb.
Being a Mac user since the 1980’s, it always amazes me when I see stories like this (I have two brothers-in-law that switched, and behaved similarly). However, I think the point that was made in the MDN Take is very valid – – – either we as an Apple community or Apple corporate need to work better to help people transition from Windows to Mac. In my industry, we have a very similar problem when people switch from our competitor’s gear to our products. There is no simple solution (not all of the customers who transition have the same needs when learning something new). Many people aren’t willing to take the time to learn something new that, oh by the way, will enrich their lives.
Maybe it’s time for Apple to convene a brainstorming session with both “die-hard” Mac people and switchers to develop a real transition methodology. In the end, everyone would win.
Edward said
“hey, do think that only damn lawyer work hard in the business? that’s why they don’t have time to learn simple mac? that’s absolutely no sense at all. yeah, they’re important. but I am also professional as much as they do. I am an architect to have responsibilty for designing all type of buildings. I use mac. it’s very easy to use. if you’re not an infant, you can very easily learn mac in a short time. lawyer? come on. the occupation can’t be excuse because they’re simply busy.”
My friend, you miss my point. I’m not saying that lawyers are any more important than other careers, but that they all have a tendency to focus solely on their workload, even to the point where they honestly believe they don’t have the time to learn anything different. They also have a tendency to believe themselves the most important person in the room, which makes life hell for a tech consultant like myself to implement anything into their office because EVERY single person wants it done their way.
MDN: “”…articles of this stripe are informative and should give Apple and the Mac community the impetus to figure out ways to better help such users.”
Amen to that. MDN has moments of rightness, which are sadly usually lost among the mountains of blind cheerleading.
This article is probably a plant, but his problems are exaggerated versions of the problems all switchers have had and will have when approaching the new platform. The Mac user community has got to reach out to these people and help show them the way, rather than calling them ignoramuses who deserve what they get.
Powerpoint problems are Microsoft’s fault. The inability to delete a file in an Open or Save dialog is and has always been a problem with OS X. That’s not MS’s dialog box, it’s OSX’s dialog box. You ought to be able to create and rename folders and delete files and folders from ANY standard OS file dialog. Windows has this right — a file dialog is just a modified instance of the explorer window, and OSX’s file dialogs SHOULD be modified instances of Finder windows.
Gee, I hate working on a Saturday.
delete files from the Open/Save dialogue box
I think the point was that it may be possible in Windows to delete files that are NOT open from the Open/Save dialogue. There used to be a utility for OS 9 that added that feature. Personally, I would love to be able to do this again.
A guy in a bar stands up and says, “All lawyers are idiots.”
Another guy stands up and says “Hey…I resent that…”
The first guy says, “Why? Are you a lawyer?”
The second guy says, “No. I’m an idiot.”