Granted, I haven’t used one since middle school. Now that I’m taking an art class, I have to learn the new system. No problem…I can handle that. A difference of interface is fine…it still has to make some sort of sense, right?
I mean, it couldn’t just NOT list drives, right?
It should let you eject the CD drive even if there isn’t a CD loaded just in case there’s a read error and it doesn’t detect it, right?
I mean, the computer wouldn’t outright lie to me and tell me there were files written to my CD-RW that weren’t actually there even after verifying them twice, right?
It should be pretty self-evident as to how to get the scanner to scan up, right?
At the very least, I’m told they start up faster than IBM…
…
…riiiiiiiiiight.
I hate the primordial scum that is a Macintosh computer. I hate everything about it with every cell of my body. I hate it with a burning passion that would melt my keyboard if I were to attempt to put in into actual words.
I may still concede that Macs may have their purpose…but it’s not digital imaging…or word processing…or spreadsheets…or Computer Aided Drafting and Design…or games…or internet…
Now I know why Bill Gates is so rich…there’s no competition. Macintosh is an inferior system that should have gone the way of the Colecovision…a novelty…a passing fad.
I’m half considering going on Ebay to find a cheap Mac just so I can go all “Office Space” on it’s electronic ass.
Well, it’s too bad that you don’t like Macs, because you won’t be able to share in the wonderfulness that is known as Garageband.
Hey, that’s okay. Stay away from Macs. You are far too angry.
(Regarding the Garageband link: I created the MP3 file using Garageband’s easy loops and added a “melody” on top of that. I have no real technical musical ability, just a love for music. Garageband made it all so easy; I created my first musical piece within a half hour of installing Garageband. I know that my “composition” isn’t anything special but hey! I’m not a composer and have no real composing ability! Imagine what a real musician could do with this app! And it’s so easy and moreover, CHEAP!)
Okay, back to the OP: stay angry, don’t care, don’t care, don’t care. Lovin’ Garageband, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, OS X Jaguar far too much. Stay away, I don’t care. Be miserable, I don’t care. I’ll stick to being very happy and productive with my awesome computer, while you remain miserable. Fine, fine, fine—it’s all fine with me.
Wow, confrontational, are we? There’s no need to make this personal. I can hardly believe someone called me tedious and idiotic for blowing off steam.
From my experience this afternoon, there are some major shortcomings of the Macintosh system. Displaying files that aren’t there is not a misunderstanding of the platform.
But I feel better after posting some harsh words (directed at a thing, not a person, mind you) and blowing up some worms, electronically speaking. Thanks for asking, by the way.
Mambozzy, you must be deliberately obtuse if you think that you were starting something that was just “blowing off a little steam” and nothing more. Unless you’ve been living under a rock and are completely unaware of the heated Mac vs. PC debates that have raged for, oh, I dunno, the last decade or so.
With that said, still don’t care. Still too happy being productive on my Mac, as, I believe, are many other Mac users. Don’t care if you don’t share our experience; no skin off my nose. I’ll be right over here, happily tinkering with Garageband, while you, apparently, are miserable.
Y’know- and this goes for everything- you might want to learn how to use something before shitting all over it.
System 6.0.7- 9.x- Right there on the desktop OS X- Every single Finder window.
System 7.x- 9.x- Command-Shift-2 (I beleive), or hold down mouse upon startup OS X- F12, hold down mouse button upon startup All Mac hardware with CD-ROM drive- straighten paper clip, press physical eject button.
As opposed to sideways?
System 7-9 were slow, I’ll give you that, though I don;t remember anyone claiming different. OS X- don’t bother turning it off.
Why? Is it keeping you awake at night? Do you have an army of G5s camped outside your window throwing rocks? If you don’t like the mac, don’t use it, why would you care at all whether it continues?
mambozzy, your problem is not that the Mac sucks. Your problem is that you expect the Mac to be like Windows.
You greatly underestimated the differences between the platforms.
You’re going to have to be a lot more flexible if you’re going to learn how to use the Mac.
Though details are scant, I’ll try to address the things you’ve mentioned:
Not listing drives.
Macs don’t list hard drives and optical drives the way PCs do under My Computer. But this isn’t to say that they’re hidden, either. A Mac’s hard drives are represented as icons along the right side of the screen. Likewise, removable media and external hard drives appear as icons on the desktop when they’re mounted. CD/DVD drives don’t have iconic representation on the hard drive, but they’re still there.
Not letting you eject the CD drive even if there isn’t a CD loaded…
I have never heard of CD read or detection problems, so I think it’s kind of silly to need to eject a CD that isn’t there. But a CD can still be ejected using the Eject/Put Away command (depending on your OS version) or forcibly by inserting a safety pin into the tiny hole near or inside the drive opening.
files written to my CD-RW that weren’t actually there even after verifying them twice
Were these files you created or unknown ones? If they’re not yours, then they may be invisible files. I know a couple of them (Database DF and Database DB) appear in my CD burner software window when I make a CD. They’re for your OS’s use, are totally harmless, and may not always appear after you burn the disc.
how to get the scanner to scan up
If you mean set up, it’s easy with OS X, and a little less so with OS 9. OS X reduces the need for third-party peripherals drivers. In the case of my external hard drives, I just plugged the cables in where they needed to go and they worked without me using the software disc it came with. Ditto for a lot of printers, scanners, optical drives, and digital cameras. With OS 9, you probably have to install the drivers.
If you are having problems getting the scanner to work, then you are having problems with the scanner or scanner software. Not the Mac.
Why thank you, AudreyK for your response. I know it sounds cliche, but I really appreciate the effort.
I don’t particularly mind the way the Mac displays the drive when removable data is inserted. What started bothering me was when I had inserted the CD only to watch the computer continue to do nothing. I attempted to eject via the button on the drive itself…by the eject command on the (pardon me) taskbar and by a third method which would have been frowned upon had the techie present had full view of my station. When I did finally swallow my pride and ask him for help…his solution was to restart, which did work but was also very inconvenient in the process. There was no ‘manual eject’ redily apparent and the techie made no mention of it.
The two additional files you mentioned were present and duly ignored. The files I was after appeared to be present on the Mac but when I returned to my room and looked them up on the PC (these are Tiff files, by the way) one of them, the important one, was not present. There are no hidden files on the CD.
In my (brief) fury, I was incredibly unclear on the scanner issue. There were two modes for the scanner to scan in; up - which used the regular flatbed on top, and down - which used a rack of sorts to hold negatives, slides, or regular photos. The scanning element actually rotated depending on what you were scanning where. The setup dialogue box was remarkably unintuitive, though, that’s more a problem of individual software, rather than operating system.
Basically, my point is that Windows tends to be more logical in the way it displays and organizes files and programs than the Macintosh system despite my best efforts to be unbiased. I’ve noticed that crashes and freezes are much more common in the Mac lab at my university than on my IBM-compat…and I beat the hell out of my desktop, what with all the downloading, gameplaying, multitasking and such.
I would also like to point out how amused I am that yosemitebabe mentioned twice that she didn’t care that I thought Macintosh was inferior in the midst of typing nearly 300 words. Do you really care or are you just trying to cause conflict? Yes, I’m just blowing off steam…is it a matter of life and death that I like using the Mac? Does a pre-existing controversy mean I can’t voice an opinion about it…especially if I have just had a very positive or very negative experience with one of the machines?
Additionally, to those criticizing my character in this thread, am I not allowed to rant a bit when I’m frustrated? Is it a sin? Must you condemn my personality? Criminy…I thought dopers were the upper crust of philosophical society…
I’m getting bored of being made fun of so these will be my last words in this thread. Enjoy your attacks on my personality, morality, intelligence, etc. I hope they make you feel really good about yourself.
It’s funny to me, when people try to use Macs these days, and they discover that – gasp – they’re not PC’s! And what’s worse – double gasp – they don’t use Windows!
I mean, really, is it really that much of a surprise that different hardware, running a different operating system, would – extra surpirised gasp of terror – run differently?
Nah, perish the thought. They should all be clones of the wonder that is Windows (never had a CD drive that wouldn’t open on a Windows machine… riiight).
You counted how many words I wrote? Isn’t that kind of . . . pathetic?
You’re kidding, right?
You’re the one that started a platform-hating thread. Oh yeah, every message board loves the good will that comes from those. Like we don’t get enough platform wars as it is . .
Start a platform-bashing thread at your own peril. Voice your opinion all you want, but be prepared to accept the consequences that you knew ahead of time would happen.
By the way, I still don’t care about how miserable you are on the Mac. Enjoy your misery; be my guest. It does not take one iota of pleasure away from my enjoyment (and productiveness) on my machine. I do, however, form opinions about people who start “hotbutton” threads and then act all innocent and astonished by the expected and inevitable reactions.
I have nothing really against Macs specifically, just that they don’t really do what I need.
They don’t really work great for games, in my experience, almost all the games I like to play never seem to have mac versions, or when they do come out they’re usually really buggy (so I hear) or they just don’t come out for years.
For graphics? Photoshop is all I really use as a common image manipulator, and it works plenty fine on windows.
E-mail / web browsing? I have no idea what the difference is, but I can’t really notice any, right now I just like windows because it’s familiar when I’m browsing. Besides, I use Opera, a platform neutral browser, so the platform doesn’t really affect web viewing.
Multimedia? Haven’t really had any problems with Windows Media Player so far, works fine for everything I need.
Storage and things like that, well, CD-RW’s have inconvenienced me, but that was just the software.
I donno, I haven’t really found a use for Macs, and the change from Windows seems to be a hassle, learning a new system and all that, besides, its a lot less compatible.
I wonder: have the Linux vs. Windows flamewars eclipsed the PC vs. Macintosh flamewars yet, and if so, at what point in time?
And how do they both stack up against the age-old Ford vs. Chevy flamewars (using the term loosely, as those predate the internet – that’s yo daddy’s flamewar)?
… but I learned on a PC, and I’m comfortable with a PC, and a PC does everything I need it to do.
…until I’m dealing with some idiot professor or co-worker who insists on thrusting a Mac at me, and then looks at me like I’m a child molester when I say, “I can’t use that thing.” Particularly the coworker who had her Mac all customized and doodled up with all these fancy toolbars and bizarre stuff that looked even less like the simple Mac user interface, and looked complicated enough to scare a drunk 747 pilot.
For some reason, there is a substantial strata of our society that seems to feel that you’re a fraggin’ cripple if you haven’t dropped everything and mastered basic Mac operational procedures, whether you have any need for them or not. Not being up on Mac is, to them, nearly equivalent to being entirely computer illiterate.
But your OP was a list of things you couldn’t figure out. The Mac does list the drives if you know where to look and how to do it. But you assume that because you can’t find them in the same place that Windows displays them that it doesn’t make sense, therefore the computer is to blame. Or you don’t understand why the computer doesn’t let you manually eject a disk at any time whether or not the drive heads are engaged. I think on the Mac that is called a feature because it keeps idiot users from ejecting disks which are being written to, mm? I’ve always felt it’s completely stupid to allow PC idiots to eject a disk while the light is still on.
No, I don’t care if you don’t like the Mac. But don’t blame the computer for your ignorance of its operation and expect the SDMB people to cheer along with you.
is there something wrong with the far right top corner button on your keyboard? press it, it (de-de-derrr!) opens the CD/DVD tray!
its magic! While I dont expect anybody to get to grips with any kind of OS straight off, you could have least give it a chance. Macs are a piece of piss to use compared to PCs.
