On Jun 17, 2004, at 5:55 PM, Imal Tornapart wrote:
This is a really cool, well-integrated machine. It picked up my digicam
right off the bat with OS's own drivers, which is more than Widnows 2000
could do.
You will find, again and again, that this is the prime virtue of "the Mac Way"; things that work, just work no fuss, no muss, no unneeded user intervention required.
An example. We use our sandisk 256 meg USB sticks *constantly* here. They're great for installing patches, av patches, etc etc to new windows systems before we hook 'em up to the network.
On a Mac, we stick 'em in a USB port and they appear on the desktop as drives.
On a Windows XP system first a box pops up "Hey I found new hardware!!! I have to load some things!", soon, "I gotta rebuild my device database!!" then "Hey it's a disk device!" finally " Hey I installed software for this sandisk 256K memory card!"
Then a dialog pops up saying "What do you want to happen when you plug in this card" and offers a list of options: start Windows Media Player, do this, do that. You have to select Cancel to just make it appear as a removable drive in "My Computer".
You do this dance with any other different brand of memory stick that's inserted. Someimes it's *stick* dependent. I've seen the same thing happen sequentially for each of two of the same n=model sandisk sticks that were inserted.
All of that was useless. I don't NEED to know that the computer found new hardware...it's *supposed* to do that; I expect that of it. It said on the package that this was a certified plug and play device.
I should only be told if there's a *problem*. None of all of that dance was necessary information for the user.
But Microsoft seems to feel this desperate need to continually inform the user that, yes, the computer is STILL WORKING! WOW!
Sometimes, I think they secretly hired Dave Barry as their Human Interface consultant years ago...
You will find that the mac largely just gets the heck out of your way and lets you work, only interrupting you if you need to make a decision. (note throughout that entire USB Stick dance, no decision is required of the user)
This is not to say that things don't break, or mysteriously not work at all or any of a number of other ills.
And you'll love the fact that viruses and spyware will bug you no more...
--
Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Phar macy Information Technology Group
Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs
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