In Which OS Do You Feel More Productive? 1391
HTMLChecker asks: "I found an article in which the author talks about how she is more productive using Mac OS X.
What about the people of Slashdot? Where do you feel more productive, in Linux? Windows? DOS? Mac OS X? Also, what is the best way to rate productivity in an OS?"
Productive...doing what? (Score:2, Informative)
However, when it comes to office applications or presentations, at this point I still feel more comfortable with Windows - though Open Office is coming along quite nicely.
Re:It depends (Score:1, Informative)
Umm you can install X on OS X and use any windows manager you want.
Science's dependence on MS Office (Score:5, Informative)
Re:OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, what you want is Command+LeftArrow and Command+RightArrow. That goes to beginning of line and end of line, respectively, on OS X.
Re:OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Create a file ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict with this content:
{
"\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLine:";
"\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLine:";
"$\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:";
"$\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:";
}
Window managers (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Duh (Score:3, Informative)
I would prefer a Mac-mini. Seriously, for such a limited set of tasks, why is Windows XP ideal? Linux could handle such tasks easily as well.
Re:OS X (Score:1, Informative)
Re:It depends (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Windows (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I'm a switcher, (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.apple.com/switch/tell/us.html
Re:Which hat am I wearing? (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think messing with shortcut properties can do anything even remotely like that.
Re:OS X (Score:2, Informative)
I Know UNIX (Score:3, Informative)
What can I say? I've been using UNIX since before there was a Windows and I've always been a DOS command line user too. Microsoft's insistence that everything now be done through the GUI usually ends up pissing me off. I still end up doing most stuff through the command prompt in Linux, too.
Re:OS X (Score:4, Informative)
Here's an updated DefaultKeyBinding.dict file.
{
"\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLine:";
"\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLine:";
"$\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:";
"$\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:";
"^\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfDocument:";
"^\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfDocument:";
}
Re:Linux (Score:1, Informative)
In fact, you can run the GNU environment on just about anything.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Learning LaTeX (Score:5, Informative)
It isn't difficult to learn & becomes much more powerful when you eventually ditch the GUI & either use a quality TeX-focused editor like KILE [sourceforge.net] (KDE), TeXnicCenter [toolscenter.org] (win32), TeXShop [uoregon.edu] (OS X) (all F/OSS) or your favorite multi-purpose editor. I prefer vim [vim.org] with LaTeX-Suite [sourceforge.net].
The best way to learn is to look at other code. Either get some from peers, from the net, or make some in either the GUIs or the friendlier editors. Then just write.
If you need a reference, you can usually learn to google for how to do something (or post to comp.text.tex). I maintain a list [del.icio.us] of www links. You might find something useful, but I can't suggest the best starting point from that list. The best introductory book I've used is Guide to LaTeX [amazon.com]. The other books in LaTeX Companions [amazon.com] are also excellent for reference, particularly The LaTeX Companion [amazon.com].
Productivity Killers (Score:2, Informative)
I'm not "Docu-centric", I'm Project-centric. I do my folders per project. So I have C:\dev\proj... Why? What's the diff between "My Documents\Dev" and "C:\Dev"? Easy! sometimes I use the command line or some old school piece like WS_FTP. If I save a doc to My Docs\dev and go to FTP it up, where is it? C:\Documents and Settings\MyUserName\My Documents\dev. Oh yeah.. I can type THAT! Do I LOOK like a UNIX usr?
In MacOS, you can choose three general places where you save files, set in the Control Panel, General... App Folder, Last folder used, Docs folder...
In Windows... I DON'T KNOW! I've seen files try to be saved into the temp directory of the Temporary Internet Files with a hash of numbers because I just download something and that's the "current folder". That's useful... If I want to save it in C:\x\y\... i have to navigate my way up the tree. I could just do the dropdown to desktop, but sometimes that takes seconds to fill in. The Mac knows the path to where it is and immediatley loads up the dropdown for easy navigation in the tree.
This is a 2.6Ghz with 512MB of RAM. Why am I waiting? You know those right arrowheads on teh menus that pop open a submenu? Why do they take 3 seconds to load? It takes 6 seconds to get to a sub of a sub. Macs are super fast for that. THAT is why they feel "organic". I have a shortcut to a folder on my Quick Launch... it takes 4 seconds to open the folder after staring at a blank window frame. Why!?
Picture this. You open a folder with an image, x.jpg, open it, then save as x2.jpg. Now you want to drag drop it to FTP. Where is it? It's in the folder, which is sorted by date descending, It should be at the top. It's not, is it? It's at the bottom, so you have to F5, or double-flip the Date Modified tab to get the sort order correct. Does Microsoft actually USE this stuff? Macs pop the file where it belongs. THAT is "humane".
Re:OS X (Score:3, Informative)
Apple Menu > System Preferences
or how to get out of
cd
Re:OS X (Score:3, Informative)
To put a path name of a file or folder in a Finder window into Terminal, simply drag the file or folder into the Terminal window. If you want the path of the Finder window itself, drag the little folder icon from the title bar into Terminal instead.
To open a Finder window for the working directory from the shell, type 'open .' in Terminal. Likewise, you can open a Finder window for any other path from the Terminal, including directories that are normally hidden. There's a free extension that allows you to do the opposite: right- or control-click in a Find window to open a Terminal window at that directory (similar to the "Command prompt here" utility for Windows).
Using these techniques, you can move to and from a path and the Finder easily.
Re:OS X (Score:5, Informative)
So if you want to go to the beginning of a line, Control-A does it, and Control-E goes to the end of the line.
I love this because I don't have to take my hands off the home keys to make it work. It's a real godsend to die-hard emacs users such as myself.
(This works only in Cocoa applications, so Internet Explorer users are out of luck, but in most programs, such as Safari, Mail, OmniWeb, etc, it works great.)
D
Try Quicksilver (Score:3, Informative)
Try Quicksilver [blacktree.com]
It will let you lots of cool things with hot keys...
To quote the Quicksilver site: "In the end, Quicksilver has one very important effect. , The effort associated with frequent tasks fades into the background and you are able to act without thinking. After an adaptation period, Quicksilver becomes an extension of yourself; the process fades away leaving only the results"
BBEdit (Score:4, Informative)
Simple: does the platform support BBEdit ?
BBEdit still doesn't suck. I write code on both the Mac and XP. I often mount a Windows share on my Mac so that I can edit the Windows code in BBEdit.
-S
Re:OS X (Score:2, Informative)
KeS
Re:Easy. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Science's dependence on MS Office (Score:3, Informative)
I'm an English teacher, not a computer programmer or scientist.
If you can code HTML, you can code LaTeX. I use it for producing all my teaching material. Unfortunately, I have to send .doc files to my editors (no PDFs) when writing ESL textbooks.
TeXShop is a sweet little program for OS X.
Re:Easy. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Erm... (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, you can set the lookup order. In 10.1, the default was something like netinfo, dns, then
Windows XP and WordPerfect 6.1 (Score:3, Informative)
But (and perhaps this is a little off-topic as I'm talking about apps here) what I really use most of the time is good old WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows. It's simple to use, and because it's 10 years old, it runs like lightning on any modern computer. It's perfect. WP 7-9 were more or less too buggy to use. WP 10+ (it's up to v12 today) work well, but some of the older computers we use at my office (Celeron 600's) won't run anything that's bloated with any efficiency whatsoever. They run WP6.1 just fine. The only thing that WP6.1 doesn't support that would be nice to have is long filenames, but since it's the devil we know, nobody complains about it - and the speed at which WP6.1 runs makes the loss of long filenames an acceptable cost. Also, since we've been using the same word processor for 10 years now, every document we prepared over the last ten years opens looking exactly the same as it did when it was drafted.
As long as the OS doesn't crash, and for me XP doesn't crash, it's the apps that count. If you have a stable OS, and the old apps work, stick with them. You won't have to learn new tricks. Ever. True productivity means learning something that does the job, and never, ever, having to "upgrade" to a new app with new "features" that you won't use at the cost of you and your less computer-literate coworkers having to take time away from actual work to learn to use from scratch.
Re:Easy. (Score:3, Informative)
I've never quite gotten the hang of the focus-follows-mouse setup, but I can certainly understand your reasoning - It's very quick once you adjust. But you must be running OSX 10.2, because Expose in 10.3 has blown away anything I used to know about finding windows. Sure, my screen is cluttered beyond belief behind the front window, but I can quickly find any one I'm looking for with F9, or any of the same application with F10. If I need my desktop, F11 - No fussing to find the "Show Desktop" icon on the taskbar.
Also, 10.3 comes with X11.
I also think that Comparing "Linux" to Windows or MacOS is a bit confusing, since I am a PowerBook owner. Linux/PPC doesn't have nearly as much development going on as Linux/x86. I recently installed YDL4 and was horrendously disappointed. I should give Debian/PPC a shot one of these days but haven't gotten around to it yet. Even if I did, OSX is still my OS of choice for most day-to-day stuff.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Easy. (Score:2, Informative)
Perhaps you should check out Expose.
I have it mapped to my middle mouse button. Since doing that when 10.3 came out, my productivity has increased insanely.
Re:Easy...Ninnle! (Score:4, Informative)
1) Windows hasn't always had a predictable UI (and IMHO still hasn't). Case in point: drag n drop a file between 2 folders on the same disk: it moves the file, do the same between 2 disks: it copys the file, do the same to the desktop: it links the file. This is unpredictable in the extreem.
2) X bashing is so last century, and today is not much short of trolling. X has never been slow, and when you use the proper video driver, and a (reasonably) modern machine (Athlon XP 1600 here) Gnome and KDE aren't eather. Personnally I've always found KDE more responsive than XP on the same config (Gnome has some lag, it's true)
3) You're 'nothing works' shows me that you probably haven't used slack since the version inflation, and in anycase it isn't the distro for you. I'm currently running Slack 10.1 and DLG 2.8.2 on my machine, and Mandrake 10.1 on my gfs, and, surprise: everything works!
4) Try real, quicktime, wmv, shockwave, flash: all work (yes, on my Slack!, without tweeking!)
5) Trying out apps (from source) is done either in
6) smb shares work out the box with modern DEs (XFce 4.2 found my Windows network at work all by itself, no problems , nothing)
7) Free software is about scratching your own itch, for some people it's KDE, for some Gnome, XFce or Screen, there is no war, each borrows from the other, tries to get an improved user experiance, and both improve. XFree in itself should show you why this is a good thing.
Oh, and 8) Win95 doesn't act exactly like XP, you're moving the goalposts there, and 9) A WinXP BSOD is either bad drivers or massive spyware infestation, that one doesn't work anymore either.
HTH
David
Re:Easy. (Score:2, Informative)
So get a three-button mouse. It works well with OSX
'The simplest example is copy-and-paste. You can always do this. But the X-Windows scheme is quick and simple (and doesn't involve the keyboard at all); just three quick clicks or a click-swipe-release-click. OSX is materially slower, though slightly faster sometimes than Windows.
This actually works (somewhat) in terminal.app, but if you really feel you need this, install the X11 under OSX.
Similarly, linux and other X-Windows systems implements focus-follows-pointer, and doesn't insist on raising a window when it gets focus.
You can do this using third party software for all windows under OSX. For terminal.app it is achieved by setting "defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse -string YES", under X11 for OSX it is achieved by setting "defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm -bool true". Both in a terminal window...
Maybe I should give up and install an X server on my PB.
If you like X11 I see no reason why you shouldn't. It works well and is quite well integrated with OSX. I dont see how this could be ''giving up''...
Re:Easy. (Score:2, Informative)
All the contextual things that a right mouse button is used for are accessible using those keys in combination with click.
OS X is definitely useable with a single button mouse, just needs a different interaction, that does not affect productivity adversely.
The thing that I miss is the scroll button.
That is the single most import productivity enhancement on a mouse.
I find the number of buttons irrelavent.
Re:Easy. (Score:1, Informative)
I got it at my first try to:
You are in Room # 10
Tunnels lead to 2,9,11
I smell a wumpus!
I feel a draft.
You are in Room # 9
Tunnels lead to 8,10,18
Aha! You got the Wumpus!
You Win!
As far as I can tell the game is totally random.
A good Java IDE for Linux... (and windows and macs (Score:2, Informative)
I also prefer the Javadocs to MSDN documentation. Javadoc puts all the information for a class on one page which I thought made understanding a class very easy and limited how much you have to navigate to find the things you're looking for.
I got several people in my office using it and even those that were totally dependent on a GUI editor admitted that it was a better IDE. The auto-completion was just as helpful and *a lot* less intrusive than VS.
Lastly, IntelliJ can be extended to implement features that people want. A favorite in my office was VI emulation [intellij.org] in the editor.
Anyway, I'm not in anyway associated with IntelliJ, but I'd recommend checking it out. It was pricey but not as expensive as Borlands stuff, and they give a free month to evaluate it. I found it worthwhile. Runs on linux and macs too.
Re:Easy...Ninnle! (Score:3, Informative)
I actually wasn't referring to its usability. I was referring to the fact that Windows users by and large are unwilling to try. They claim Linux isn't ready for the desktop because "it doesn't do X like Windows does". Well of course not, that's because it's not Windows. They're afraid to try something different for the simple fact that it's different and they feel intimidated by that.
I've been using OS X for a year, Linux for 5 years, and I used various incarnations of Windows for 6 years before that. On a large screen I'm most productive on either Linux or OS X. On a small screen I absolutely need Exposé. And Windows, well XP is not bad as long as I only install putty and use it as a way to open many shells on a real OS. Even then it's difficult to get any real work done when I'm forced to use Windows. I agree with the author in that I spend more time fighting with Windows to get it to do what I need it to do.
Re:Easy. (Score:3, Informative)
Well, I can't speak for OS X, but Alt-Esc pushes the current window to the back on Windows.
Earlier versions of Windows had this bizarre bug that if you Alt-Esc'd the current window, then minimised or closed the then active window, the window you'd just Alt-Esc'd would then jump forward, grabbing focus from the 3rd window that should then have been active, but as far as I can tell that's fixed in Win2k and XP.
> Windows experts are agonizingly slow, with lots of extra motions for everything
You seem to have an odd definition of "Windows experts." Most things can be done quite simply if you know how, which before you start howling with laughter is equally true in OS X and Linux. The main difference is that in Windows most things are actually labelled; you only need to RTFS.
Examples: System menu: Alt-space. Close window: Alt-F4. MDI child window "system" menu: Alt--. It's all there. It's even labelled in most cases. Press Alt-F for the File menu. See the second column in the popup? Those are the keyboard shortcuts. TalsoMTOWTDI. See the little underscores? Those are keyboard shortcuts as well. So here in Firefox, to open a new tab, there's Ctrl-T, or you can pull down the File menu with the mouse and click New Tab, or you can pull down the File menu with Alt-F and use cursor up/down and Return, or you can do Alt-F-T. Want to exit? (1) hit the X button with the mouse; (2) Alt-space-Close; (3) Alt-F-X; (4) Alt-F4; (5) double-click the system menu; (6) right-click the titlebar and select Close.
Often "Windows experts" are agonisingly slow because they choose to be or can't be arsed to look for new ways of doing stuff, not because there isn't a quicker way to do things. Windows was actually designed in the early days to operate without a mouse, and a lot of that code is still present in current versions and very usable. X-Windows could learn a lot about usability from Microsoft.
Find a Windows user who hardly ever touches the mouse (and if they're anything like me, curses the stupid designers of a particular piece of software that didn't think of a keyboard shortcut for a particular operation). THEN, and only then, will you have found a true Windows expert. Someone who reaches for the mouse, waves it around to find the pointer on the screen, takes several attempts to click the File menu, moves the pointer up and down over the menu several times until their brains finally click into what they're looking for, then double-click the menu option and wonder why the thing behind the menu just got a click; that person - I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you - is NOT an expert.
Re:Can't live without scripting (Score:2, Informative)
For IIS5, find the correct path using an app like MetaEdit
For IIS6, lookup the path in Metabase.xml
then pass the path parameter and value to adsutil.vbs
Re: Click count and mindspace (Score:3, Informative)
> It doesn't help that I find myself constantly dropping to the command line to do simple things
> that should have an easy GUI equivalent - kill and ps, for example.
In KDE:
kill:
1) press CTRL+ALT+ESC, pointer turns into skull, click on a window to kill its process
2) press CTRL+ESC, a graphical ps appears. click on processes to select them and click the kill button to kill them.
ps:
1) CTRL-ESC
--
-JC