Hi, here we go again. Every time I switch on my Mac I take a deep breath. I think about all the amazing reviews I’ve read about these computers and assume that perhaps, this time, I will finally have a really positive experience. Today’s task was uploading something to sendspace. Things started off so well. Sendspace.com loaded no problem; I found the select file button no problem/ when I clicked on it, I got a window opening for me to choose my file. I’m not saying this is the fault of the Mac; it’s probably me and my stubbornness after years of using windows, but it took me ages to find the file I wanted. Did I have to interact with the sidebar or the thing that was called list. There was also a popup menu with a folder selected. Choices choices. After a few minutes of pressing buttons I found the file. The process seemed to have some level of cohesion to it, but I’m not sure what exactly it was. I’m sure it’s very clever and much simpler than the windows way of doing things. In windows I could have found my file in three seconds, rather than four minutes.
Anyway, I accept that this is probably just something I need to learn and practise. Fine. I found my file and went to upload. I pressed the upload button and I got: “Safari busy. Busy. Busy. Busy”. After a half a minute I eventually heard “safari, ready”. Hurrah, I can finally check to see if my file is uploading. I pressed VO right arrow and heard to my dismay “Safari busy. Busy. Busy”. I quit safari and tried again. But I got the same problem. Yet again I shut down my Mac and booted up my windows machine. Within two minutes my file was happily uploading to send space. While it uploaded I checked my emails using another instance of Internet explorer. The file has now finished uploading and I am going to email it to my friends. Windows hasn’t said “busy” at me once. And what really gets me about this is that the netbook cost £150 and I’m using the free screen reader NVDA. How is it possible? I really want to know. I’ve got way more am than my windows machine, and my Mac cost fifteen times more than my netbook. How come I have to keep turning off my Mac and turning on my windows machine? The mac looks great; it’s fast; it’s really quiet – very little fan noise. But it can’t do things. It’s ten times faster than my windows computer, but that only means it can do much more to annoy me in a far shorter period of time than my windows computer. I want to join the Mac party. You all seem so elated by your Macs. Is there a magic button to press that starts making it behave. I know I’m ranting again but surely you can see my point. Is my experience so anomalous? I read about all these people who say they bought a Mac and now never use windows. But if I didn’t have a windows computer then I’d achieve nothing. I know this isn’t’ VO specific. I know it may even annoy some of you. I know it’s not a particularly productive email. But if you do find this email to be annoying and unproductive, think of it as a metaphor for my general experience with the Mac. I feel as if I am the odd one out, and I am waiting for the day that I am castigated from this list for being “too PC”. O what irony. I hope you all enjoyed my hilarious ending joke. I’m so sorry for ranting. I feel like an idiot. Please, treat me like one. Tell me how I get the Mac to do the fundamental element of a computer. That is: to compute! Because I am going to end up not bothering to turn this machine on, which is such a shame because it should be a great computer? Apparently. I’m sure I’ll get there, and I promise, if I do, I’ll be singing the Mac’s praises. Thanks to everyone for being so patient and understanding. -- http://www.davideagle.co.uk -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
