[QUOTE=threemae]
Also, is OS-X accessible to visually impaired or blind people? I don’t think it is, because there are plenty of thing where no matter what I simple have to use the mouse as far as I can tall, which is aggravating to me because I far prefer the keyboard to slower mouse inputs.
[/QUOTE]
Go to System Preferences, and thence to Universal Access.
[QUOTE=threemae]
Unfortunately not entirely. Office 2008 (Mac) is unable to open Office 2007 .docx equations. Also, when in Excel, I always have to do a “Save As” on the Mac again as an .xlsx and it keeps popping up apparently irrelevant compatability errors. It might be a minor annoyance, but they aren’t completely compatible.
[/QUOTE]
To be sure there are known issues such as these, but this person was saying the entire file was garbage when opened in Windows. That’s what confuses me.
[QUOTE=initech]
Build quality. Macs are better built than Dells, and most of the PCs seem to be Dells.
[/QUOTE]
Not here they aren’t. Most of the PCs I’ve seen are either HP/Compaq (They’re the same company) or a custom-made system from a local computer shop. I can count the number of Dell desktop PCs I’ve come across here on one hand, but there are a few Dell laptops around.
[QUOTE=Morbo]
To be sure there are known issues such as these, but this person was saying the entire file was garbage when opened in Windows. That’s what confuses me.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, now imagine how it makes me feel. 
No idea what version of Office it was, this was back in 2004-2005 in the Open Access Labs at Texas A&M on the big row of Macs that were never being used (and were often freezing up on logon, but I chalked that up to general computer lab related weirdness). I remember how kickass it was that the keyboards had USB ports, and it has vaguely disappointed me ever since to find that most keyboards on PCs seem to lack these ports.
In reference to the programs not being all contained in one window: GIMP, an open-source rough equivalent to Photoshop, works with a series of separate windows. You can get a plugin for it that makes it all open in one window (as well as one that modifies the interface to be familiar to Photoshop users). My main beef with GIMP is that it doesn’t work with Wacom tablets evidently. Nobody seems to be able to tell me why. Just another frustratingly weird software/hardware thing.
The compatibility problems with different versions of Office are entirely the fault of Microsoft. They like to make weird and proprietary formats that don’t conform to any ISO standards, sometimes force artificial dependency on new features with no thought of the impact on compatibility, and then refuse to even disclose methods to interface with their version of the files. They can’t even agree within their own products as to what format to support.
I had hundreds of Microsoft Works documents that all had to be converted when I got Word. Because I got burned that time, I made sure to save anything that was really important in a completely open and standard format. There were third-party programs that handled the conversion from Works to a readable file that I could then save as plain text better than Word did. The 98 version of Office for Windows broke backward compatibility with older versions of Office for Windows. Does nobody but me remember this? Similarly, XML support was dropped in the most recent revision of the Mac version of Office. For whatever reason, the Mac Office team at Microsoft couldn’t or didn’t implement it.
So many people blame Apple for Microsoft’s failures, when the truth is that these things are completely out of Apple’s control. Blame the people who make the program if files aren’t compatible. Blaming it on the OS is nonsensical.
[QUOTE=Sleel]
So many people blame Apple for Microsoft’s failures, when the truth is that these things are completely out of Apple’s control. Blame the people who make the program if files aren’t compatible. Blaming it on the OS is nonsensical.
[/QUOTE]
OS’s fault or not, it’s one more thing that must be dealt with in the OS. I think whenever Office 98 came out, I was using Corel Wordperfect on my dad’s computer because that’s what our computer came with. Imagine how frustrated I was when I had to learn how to use MS Office for school when I already knew that all the Corel stuff worked fine! :rolleyes: 
Hilarious. I can rattle off dozens of examples of why the Apple OS specifically has had everything to do with major aspects of file format compatibility, and why “Apple’s control” had absolutely everything to do with it.
I won’t of course, but I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t speak out of your ass on things about which you know very little.
Unless you have worked closely with Apple and MS as a file format compatibility developer and have some insight into the inner workings of these compatibility issues and are therefore speaking from authority. I doubt it, b/c I would know who you were.
I would know who you were b/c for the last 15 years I have been a developer for Microsoft, working that entire time in Mac Office, working closely with Apple and Win Office on developing cross platform file format compatibility.
As such the rest of your post is an insult to me personally (I have given “no thought” to compatibility??) but I’m not going to get too worked up about it personally, b/c I really enjoyed the “out of Apple’s control” belly laugh you provided.
As a Doper however I’d like to thank you for taking this civil discourse and turning it into every other Mac / PC thread with your inaccurate and uninformed threadshitting.
And that means that you can explain why Windows versions don’t play well with each other either then. That has nothing to do with Apple. Are you going to blame that incompatibility on them too?
Did I ever say anything that indicates I’m either an insider or expert? No. I offered, to the best of my ability information I have about the issue. By the way, thank you very much for the personal insults while offering absolutely no information of your own. I really appreciate how mature and informative you were.
[QUOTE=Sleel]
The compatibility problems with different versions of Office are entirely the fault of Microsoft. They like to make weird and proprietary formats that don’t conform to any ISO standards, …
[/QUOTE]
I’m no expert in the topic, but this post seems rather disjointed from reality.
“On April 2, 2008, ISO and IEC officially stated that the DIS 29500 had been approved for acceptance as an ISO/IEC Standard,… On April 2, 2008, ISO and IEC officially stated that the DIS 29500 had been approved for acceptance as an ISO/IEC Standard,”
Past sins aside (which every other major office suite beyond OpenOffice were also guilty of)…
Nevermind.
[QUOTE=threemae]
I’m no expert in the topic, but this post seems rather disjointed from reality.
“On April 2, 2008, ISO and IEC officially stated that the DIS 29500 had been approved for acceptance as an ISO/IEC Standard,… On April 2, 2008, ISO and IEC officially stated that the DIS 29500 had been approved for acceptance as an ISO/IEC Standard,”
[/QUOTE]
Hang on - isn’t that the OpenXML standard that got passed through the ISO procedures in such extremely unusual and questionable ways that several national standards bodies have lodged formal complaints with ISO about it?
The standard that was developed and promoted by Microsoft as an alternative to an already-established standard, and which it turns out even Office 2007 XML is only partially compliant with? Not to completely derail what was a moderately interesting discussion, but 29500 is a pretty poor example of ‘standards’ in software.
[QUOTE=initech]
Is it more billable hours than it would take to buy a mini and a copy of Office?
[/QUOTE]
Also, I’m not the IT person around here, but I hear much swearing regarding networking Macs and PCs from one. 
[QUOTE=minor7flat5]
If your scroll ball is getting grotty, there are ways to clean it out, usually involving compressed air and rolling the mouse upside-down on a sheet of paper. Sadly, after a while it doesn’t do the trick.
If you have AppleCare, they will swap out your mouse for you if it was bought with the machine. They did this for me and I am so happy that my MM is back in action. I love my Mighty Mouse. It is such a beautiful mouse, and it is Bluetooth, so no wires and no dongles.
I am certain that with a wiped-clean install of Leopard on my MBP I had to re-enable the right click button. Perhaps other machines have that on by default, as you said.
ETA: How did I miss out on the kiss? I can’t see how Ice Cream Man slipped in with the MM answer…
[/QUOTE]
An alcohol swab works very welll to clean the scroll ball - think I got this hint from the online help files by clicking on “Help” and typing something like “stuck scroll wheel”. Since we’ve got a diabetic and an RN in the family, these are pretty readily available around my house, and have always worked for me.
I remember early versions of OSX shipped with right click disabled by default, but I don’t remember having to enable right-click since 10.1 or 10.2. Could be this is persistent across upgrades, but I don’t think I had to do this with my wife’s MacBook Air.
And “Option” almost always does something useful. For example, Option + Clicking on the infamous green button truly maximizes the window to the size of the screen.
Another underdocumented feature is the magnifying tool. If you hold down “Control” while rolling the mouse wheel up, you zoom in on the area surrounding the cursor. On a later model laptop, you can zoom in by holding down “Control” while sliding two fingers up on the trackpad.
And on late model laptops (I think beginning with the introduction of the MacBook and MacBook Pro), two fingers plus a click makes a right click. This even works in Windows running inside Parallels on my MacBook Pro.
[QUOTE=Sleel]
And that means that you can explain why Windows versions don’t play well with each other either then. That has nothing to do with Apple. Are you going to blame that incompatibility on them too?
[/quote]
No, but that’s not what I was responding to.
It should be obvious that I can not offer this information without violating, oh, about ten NDAs.
I will apologize for the personal insults (but not my comments on your threadshitting). When I’m sitting here working in depth to solve prescient compatibility problems and then I read something that erroneously criticizes what I’m sitting here working on, past Midnight, I tend to lose my perspective. Still, out of line for IMHO and I apologize.
[QUOTE=SuperNelson]
And “Option” almost always does something useful. For example, Option + Clicking on the infamous green button truly maximizes the window to the size of the screen.
[/QUOTE]
I was all excited about this and then when I got home I tried it to find out…
It’s pretty much the same: each app does what it wants to do when option+green button is clicked. Safari doesn’t seem to care if the option key is pressed, while iTunes does a pretty good attempt at real maximizing.
In other words, totally unpredictable.
About that double-finger-tap on the mouse pad: There is a checkbox in Keyboard & Mouse under System Preferences called “Tap trackpad using two fingers for secondary click” and another useful one called “Use two fingers to scroll”
Both of these were off by default when I brought my Mac home.
If any of you have been following my threads in G.Q., I have a problem with the sorting impulses of the Ipod.
But other than that, my biggest complaint about Macs is how, on the laptops, how easily cords become unplugged, especially the external monitor one. It just slips the hell out.
[QUOTE=acsenray]
If any of you have been following my threads in G.Q., I have a problem with the sorting impulses of the Ipod.
But other than that, my biggest complaint about Macs is how, on the laptops, how easily cords become unplugged, especially the external monitor one. It just slips the hell out.
[/QUOTE]
How does the external monitor cable slip out? On my MacBookPro, it is screwed in with two screws… I think I could swing my Mac around above my head by the cable without it coming out. (Not gong to test it tho).
There are no screws on mine.
[QUOTE=acsenray]
There are no screws on mine.
[/QUOTE]
Is it an Apple monitor? All Apple monitors have two screws on either side of the cable’s plug. Even if not, I’d be surprised if your monitor cable didn’t have two thumb screws, every monitor I’ve ever had, has had these.
[QUOTE=Morbo]
I will apologize for the personal insults (but not my comments on your threadshitting). When I’m sitting here working in depth to solve prescient compatibility problems and then I read something that erroneously criticizes what I’m sitting here working on, past Midnight, I tend to lose my perspective. Still, out of line for IMHO and I apologize.
[/QUOTE]
Thank you for the apology, but I believe your comments about threadshitting are also out of line. It is the responsibility of the company that makes the software to make sure that their file formats are compatible across platforms. If there are OS peculiarities that make it difficult, it’s still the responsibility of the external software maker to solve them. I realize that some of Apple’s architecture may make your job more difficult, but cross-platform compatibility within your program is your problem, not Apple’s.
I don’t normally blame Windows if a program doesn’t work properly, I blame the company that makes something that doesn’t work properly in Windows. If the system crashes, on the other hand, or becomes slow or unstable, then I blame the OS. That is why I pointed out the fuzzy thinking I’d seen here and many other places.
On a related note, it’s interesting how both OpenOffice and Apple’s Numbers can both open a .xls file created in MS Office 2003 on Windows – without character encoding problems – while the Mac Office 2008 can’t.