Slow it up!

Oh no! The Mac had to 'think' for the first time today. The machine slowed down and I got this little beach ball umbrella looking thing. It wasn't for too long and was just processing. It did it a few times and then kicked into another gear ... that was nice.   :)

What? Oh .. what apps was I running when this occurred?

• Multiple Finder Windows
• Dropbox upload
• Mac Mail
• iCal
• iTunes up and playing
• Excel
• Word
• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• Windows XP Virtual with apps running
• Adium
• Filezilla
• Acrobat
• Razor SQL (SQL Developer Application)
• Firefox
• A few other things (terminal windows, text edit, photo preview)

Yes... it was a crazy productive day. I was jumping through apps, writing sql, creating reports, analyzing data, printing docs, checking mail, scheduling meetings. I just didn't close stuff. lol.

A couple additional notes. At no time did the music pause, skip, burp or other. The backgrounds continued rotating without stutter. Nothing crashed. I did end up closing a couple apps though.

20 days, 11 hours

What is this number you ask? That is the current up-time on my Mac. How often do you go 20+ days solid uptime in Windows? I don't know ... feels like I reboot all the damn time which just pisses me off because I am always in the middle of something.

I have to say .. OSX has only asked me to reboot one time. That one time it saved the current windows position and state of everything running ... did its reboot thing and came back just like I left it. I didn't even know it did this. I assumed it would just close apps and such .. shut down.. come back .. and I start over opening all my stuff.

Admittedly... I was pretty shocked by this. I keep wanting to do it again .. but don't want to kill my up-time. I will just wait until I need to reboot again. Please power stay on ..

I will post every so often as I break new uptime records.

Of course ... my Droid X is running at 24.5+ days of uptime right now. Android vs OSX uptime .. fight!

Update:  It happened. The Droid X rebooted today. It ran for 25.75 days without a restart, reboot, battery pull ... etc... Pretty awesome I think. Let's see if the Mac catches up.

Turn Left in 500 Feet ...

Let's talk Window Navigation ... 

Okay ... so I am still struggling with window navigation. I totally dig corners, spaces, and expose. It really makes managing lots of apps more convenient. I generally group like items together and can jump between them.

However, I really miss alt-tab functionality. What is up with the not being able to alt-tab to minimized items. What is the minimize anyway?

I've come to the conclusion that it is supposed to work like this ... Open windows are things you are working on now and can alt-tab between quickly. Items that are minimized are intended to come back to and work on and thus not in the alt-tab because it is not a pressing item. Of course I could just hide windows ... which is that like the boss button.. quick hide my blog entry .. lol.

Maximize is another weird area. OSX does not like maximize functions. It really wants you to work in 'Windows' ... see what I did there ... anyway. I prefer to work in windowed spaces so this is not a problem but there are times I want full leverage of my screen. For example, when working in Excel with lots of data ... I want the whole view. Often I have two excel apps open on multiple screens comparing data and they both don't want to maximize. I just drag them to most of the space .. it is an unnecessary pain though.

I miss some of the Win 7 features like throwing things to the top or side. I miss the ability to view thumbnails of minimized items (in a size I read .. that little icon in tray sucks). I miss maximize. I miss shake to minimize ... .... just kidding .. shake is kind of stupid. I miss the Windows Aero ... the Mac Grey is pretty ugly compared to the beauty of Aero.

I also kind of miss being able to resize any window from every side .. but this is also kind of wasted space. I like that the Mac windows are so minimalistic with menus and borders. I always find myself changing settings in every MS Windows app to small icons, no text, smaller ... etc.

Lastly, I use a lot of apps and jump between them often. Sometimes I find the 21.5in screen constraining. I would love to jump to the 27in model.  :)

Oh wait ... forgot about the button in the top right corner. I have found little to no use for this button. It minimizes the toolbars and leaves only the menu bar. That is cool for some things and if I remembered it was there I might use it ... but doubtful. Most interfaces are already pretty minimal.

Finders Keepers

The jury is still out on finder. Some days it is really working for me and other days I can't seem to find anything. I keep playing with the different views trying to find one that I like but it just seems like something is missing.

It could be that I am really used to using Windows Explore for navigating my files. Folders are always grouped together at the top or bottom.

One of my big compaints is that I cannot type ahead to get to the folder I want. Well ..I can but I cannot open it. So if I have dozens of folders and know that the one I am looking for is 'School' .. I can just type that into the window and it goes to school but then I have to use the mouse to actually open the folder.

In Windows I can just hit enter and keep drilling down. It is very fast. Also. I don't like how names get cutoff so easily. It is kind of a pain .. especially since I sometimes give things long file names.

A few other things. I really miss the thumbnail previews that for photos and music that Windows provides. Windows also has the task bar that allows me to see all my Explorer windows grouped together to quickly find stuff. Figuring out what Finder windows are open and where is a pain.

I don't know. Finder works .. but just seems to missing the extras that Win 7 has ... and that I am used to.

Maybe I am missing some super finder feature somewhere??

Edit: Okay. Got the thumbnail thing figured out. Sweet. It still doesn't seem as smooth as Win 7. I like the order of column, rows ... sometimes the icon interface is kinda crazy. It also drives me nuts that it doesn't auto resize/order.

Expelliarmus!

I hear the word echo as the mighty mouse flies from my hand and on the floor. I watch it squirm for a second as the little red glow under its belly dies out. I look around for the culprit savior of my woes with the Mighty Mouse and who should I find sitting in the spot once held by the mighty?

Enter ... the Magic Mouse. Armed with an arsenal of spells and a bag of tricks, I was immediately overwhelmed with the simple yet complex nature of this new creature. At first glance it doesn't seem like much .. no buttons to speak of and no scroll wheel... Okay enough of that.

Really though ... the Mighty Mouse was awful and was so glad to be rid of it. Maybe it was awesome like 10 years ago when it came out but today it is barely a step up from offering a mouse with an actual ball in bottom. Right click was terrible and tracking was awful. It was getting replaced one way or another.

The magic mouse is a whole new beast though. It looks like a hovering sports car from the future. Sleek, tiny, aerodynamic,  with simply curves. Sexy. Yes .. I called a mouse sexy. My first thought was this is going to be a pain to use. It is too small, no ergonomics and where was my tactile feedback for scrolling and such.

I began using it and it wasn't so bad. At first scrolling was a little awkward but I quickly got used to it and adjusted the sensitivity to my needs. The tracking is excellent. It is very smooth, responsive, accurate, fast, and works on almost any surface.

However, I quickly found out the mouse was very limited. It could only perform a few functions. Left/Rick Click, 360 scroll, and back/forward..... see anything missing?

How about a middle click ... it doesn't exist? WTF. Then I came across an app called Magic Prefs that opens the magic mouse to a huge range of possibilities. I can do more actions on this mouse than anything I have ever owned. It is incredible. I was still worried about daily use though and feared it would hurt my hands/wrists after long use.

I find this has not been the case. I can hold it a few different ways and since the whole back is touchable it can just reach over and lightly pet the back like a hamster and magic happens.

I will see how the ergonomics hold up after serveral weeks of use.

Overall, I am impressed with the mouse... much more than I expected to be. Don't get me wrong .. it is no Patronus Charm ... well for some it might be ...