Since I'm into creating comedy videos and recording my own music, I
thought I'd try shifting to the Mac platform for my creative
pursuits. I made the move in late 2007, and in general I've been
quite happy. However, as this stuff is created by humans, it's
not without imperfections. Here is a list of my top gripes
regarding the Mac and some of the ways I've addressed them.
The mouse doesn't feel right.
This one's hard to explain in words, but most Windows users will know what I'm talking about when they experience Apple's idea of mouse pointer acceleration. The mouse pointer just doesn't move the way you'd expect. Before migrating to a Mac, I highly advise trying out the desktop mouse action in an Apple store. If you agree with my sentiments, then please complain to those sleek tshirt-wearing cult-like Apple store sales “consultants.” Apple might be king of hi-tech fashion and style, but their ergonomics really suck sometimes.Fortunately, being a top gripe among Mac users, some decent solutions do exist:
Brand-name Mouse
If you own a brand-name mouse (e.g. Logitech or Microsoft), then the included driver software often overrides Mac's default mouse behavior and allows far finer tuning of the settings. I suggest starting here because it's a free solution that comes with your mouse. This is the solution I use, and thanks to this post by an IT god, I did not chuck my Mac off Tokyo Tower (yet). My Mac's mouse action now feels exactly like Windows, and that's a very good thing.
Steer Mouse – free trial / $20 to buy
This software simply adds some mouse acceleration and pointer speed settings allowing you to get much closer to a more ergonomic acceleration curve.
USB Overdrive – free trial / $20 to buy
Another often-mentioned Mac mouse-setting software. I haven't tried it, but it seems very similar in function to Steer Mouse.
In your googling adventures, you may also stumble upon a free solution known as MouseFix. I used to use this; however, it stopped working come Snow Leopard.
The buttons are too damn small.
Why are the close, minimize, and maximize buttons (red, green, and
yellow circles) at the top-left of each window so damn small? Why
can't I figure out how to make them bigger? Combine crappy mouse
acceleration with microscopic buttons, and you have the recipe for
“throw the computer out the window” frustration. I still haven't
found a solution for this one.
The Finder sucks.
The Finder is Mac's Windows Explorer, and sadly, its poor design, lack
of basic functionality, and single-pane setup make it near
useless. A few examples:
Why can't I move
files? I always have to copy, then delete. What a
pain in the ass. Apple cultists say “Oh! It's dangerous to
move files, so the Apple gods have disabled that in your best
interest.” It's also dangerous to pummel this f'in $3000 brushed
aluminum shit ball with my bloody fists, dude.
To rename a file
you can right-click, then click “rename,” right? NOPE!
It's not there. You either click it once praying that you didn't
click too fast and inadvertently open the file, or you right-click,
click “show info,” then edit the file name. Yeah, that's
intuitive.
Why can't I save
directly to my network volumes sometimes? I know it's
Unix, so it doesn't have those windows-y drive mappings, but why do I
often find myself having to save to my home folder, then later copying,
then deleting? I have 3 TB of storage on my Netgear ReadyNAS, and
I wanna use it, dammit! Safari always saves to “Downloads” in my
home folder, and I still haven't figured out how to map my home folder
directly to my NAS. I've just been told that it's dangerous to do
that. Windows, on the other hand, always let me save directly to
the NAS. I could even configure Windows to use the NAS as default
and map “My Documents” to a NAS folder.
Needless to say, I searched, researched, and tested a myriad of Finder
alternatives. Most of them were crap. These 3 are
glittering diamonds in the rough:
Pathfinder –
30-day trial / $40 to buy
Damn, this one's good—fully customizable, multi-pane, and maintains the
Mac-like design while expanding greatly on functionality. The
genius that single-handedly created this software holds a deep
understanding of all the missing functionality of the finder and
answered just about every feature request there is. This is
everything that the finder should be. Apple should hire this
dude. His mad IT skills are not of this earth.
Regrettably, I have not yet purchased it as it has issues with my
ReadyNAS. I sometimes get permission errors when trying to move
to or delete from network volumes. Googling these errors pointed
me to articles on changes in Snow Leopard that were at least partly to
blame. I even found a workaround for the NAS, but could not get
rid of the errors 100%. I still found myself at times having to
open the Finder when dealing with files on my NAS.
However, it's so very close to perfection that I will most certainly
buy it after working out the NAS issues.
Forklift
– 15-day trial / $30 to buy
Forklift is another rock-solid contender, and it has a very cool batch
renaming feature that's not easy to find in such a feature-rich file
manager. Although I personally found Pathfinder to have a
slightly more intuitive and customizable interface (e.g. Pathfinder
picked up all my Finder shortcuts automatically), Forklift is surely
worth mentioning as others might prefer it over the other 2 champion
options listed here. Unfortunately, 15 days is a little short to
really give the software an all-encompassing trial run, so hit it hard
from day 1 to see if it's for you.
MuCommander
This is a free option, and considering that, it's pretty good.
But given the issues I had with getting it to work with my ReadyNAS, I
soon gave up on it. If you're simply looking for a multi-pane
alternative to the Finder, then MuCommander could very well be your
ticket.
All 3 of these options are either free or have free trials, so there's
really nothing to lose in trying them all out—especially if you agree
that the built-in Finder sucks.
Preview kinda sucks.
I say “kinda sucks” because it's got a lot of functionality for a mere
image previewer. But 2 things annoy the crap out of me:
Why don't the
arrow keys open the next picture?
I have to highlight all the pictures I want to open, then double
click. I freakin' hate that. I wish I could just open 1
picture, then press the right arrow key (→) to open the next picture it
finds in the folder. Sometimes Windows really is better.
Loss-less image
rotation is lame.
When you rotate an image, Mac does it “loss-lessly.” That is,
instead of rotating the actual pixels and adversely affecting image
quality, it writes the rotation as information in the file
header. Any modern image viewer reads this header and displays
the correct rotation. That's the idea.
The problem with this idea comes when uploading the image to a web
page. Many web-based image viewers ignore the header or strip it
out during upload. Although I rotated the image and saved it, the
rotation is lost when displaying on my website. I want lossy
rotation—I want it hard-coded, dammit! But it's not there as an
option (a common Mac “theme”). I have to use other software (like
Gimp) or use Windows. I notice the same problem when emailing
photos. Not all software reads that new-fangled rotation
information in the file header, so lossy rotation is a much-needed
compatibility option.
Final Words
Generally speaking, Mac takes the minimalist approach—a minimum amount
of buttons and settings will untangle the user experience and make the
computer more user-friendly overall. You look for a setting or
control, but it's simply not there.
One look at Windows Vista's control panel will tell you that Microsoft
takes the opposite approach. So many settings and controls indeed
complicate the OS, but the setting you want is most likely in there
somewhere.
I know. I know. I could always dig into Mac's config files
to find a plethora of undiscovered settings. But if I was going
to do that, I might as well save 3 thousand bucks and use Linux, which
is ironically what powers the netbook I used to compose this article.
