I’ve only switched to a touchpad within the last few years, and only then when faced with the clear superiority of Apple’s product. I’ve grown so enamored of multitouch gestures that I even have a touchpad for the desktop, sitting alongside my mouse, which I use mostly for browsing.
There are programs out there that allow you to customize your systemwide gestures, but I’ve always been kind of a purist when it comes to input solutions. I’d rather learn to use what ‘the masses’ use, so I’m equally at home on someone’s stock install as I am on my highly customized one. Recent self discovery has made me rethink my position a bit, but I digress.
Read the rest of this entry »
I set up someone’s new Macbook Pro recently, and I ended up having to do a little command line work to move some files over from my desktop, and do a little vi editing. The funny thing is, I was unable to actually use the terminal on this brand new install of OSX until I had customized the terminal.
Read the rest of this entry »
Several years past, my morning ritual involved launching a web browser and loading a dozen or more web pages. First as separate windows, and eventually as tabs, when they became part and parcel of the browser. Sites like cnn.com, slashdog.org were my launching point for broad swathes of news. I poured over arstechnica.com and anandtech.com for more in-depth information to sate my technothirst. Enthusiast sites like nvnews.net and tomshardware.com kept me up to date on the minutia of gaming hardware.
Read the rest of this entry »
I’m not the first to complain about this, but I won’t be the last.
There is no worse sin for an OS than to let an application take control of my focus. Nothing is quite like the exquisite torment of being in the middle of giving your program commands, and nothing happens. Perhaps another program popped up in a second window when I wasn’t looking and took focus from me. Sometimes I launch a program, then switch to a web browser and start navigating, only to have my focus is lost to a modal popup. I switch back to the web browser, continue navigating, and the same app opens another modal popup, breaking up my browsing experience yet again.
Read the rest of this entry »
So I fire up iTunes, and see there are 17 updates for my iOS apps. I click on the Apps sidebar option, then click on the little 17 Updates Available link in the lower right. I then click the Download All Free Updates button in the upper right. The Enter Password box pops up. I enter it, then switch back to browsing the web while it updates. I switch back to iTunes a few minutes later greeted with a Some of these apps contain age restricted material, please click OK to continue box. I click OK, switch back to browsing.
Read the rest of this entry »