Poppa’s got a brand new Mac
Well, Poppa has a used G4 from MacResQ.
So, after installing OS X (by the way, what’s with the Black Muslim naming scheme?) as easily as XP, I took the machine over to my father-in-law’s to teach him how to use it. The results were mixed.
Keep in mind that my father-in-law only wants to do two things: Pick up email and check on a stock price. This is the low end of the computer stress test, but it turns out that it has its own challenges.
Much of the success of the project was invisible to Grandpa, which is how it should be. For example, the Mac found and installed his HP printer without even being asked to look for it. Lor’ bless USB. Likewise, the trackball — from the Linux box I’d given him that replaced the Windows machine that kept crashing — worked as easily as one would expect.
Grandpa took to Sherlock right away. We loaded in a few stock symbols, and it’s perfect for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he explored some of the other pages as well.
The dock at the bottom worked better for Grandpa than the Windows’ task bar ever did, and that’s important because windowed machines are essentially confusing: If you’re not comfortable with stacked windows, the 3D cues aren’t enough. Grandpa had trouble switching among windows in Windows in part because he task bar goes for efficiency, truncating names to fit more programs in. But programs sitting in the Mac’s dock are clearly labeled and have, large flashy graphic representations — a deerstalker and magnifier for Sherlock, a postage stamp for email. Grandpa had no trouble switching among windows by clicking on the dock. So, score one for the Mac!
On the other hand, the minimize button that causes a program to be sucked into the right hand corner (sorry, I don’t know the Mac argot) was somewhere between confusing and terrifying, so we skipped it. For Grandpa, it’s better that all the windows be in a single state: open, big, and ready to go.
There were little inconsistencies that had me apologizing for the Mac’s design, though. For example, I had confidently told Grandpa that he could remember which button closes a window because not only was it red, but when you mouse over it, an X shows up. (Why isn’t the X there all the time?) Within minutes, though, we’d come across an X-less red button and a red button that had a dot in the center. Where are the GUI fascists when you need them?
I also couldn’t figure out how to get the spell checker to accept my father-in-law’s email address as a legit word. I’d click on the right menu choice, but it would only accept the part before or after the at sign, toggling the other side. Small annoyance.
I had trouble with the address book. I ended up inadvertently creating a couple of “NoName” entries. This is probably because I couldn’t figure out how to tell it that I was done entering contact info except by clicking on the “+” to create a new one. Well, I didn’t want to create a new one. I just wanted to say “I’m done!” with the old one. This is a place where the Mac seems to have opted for efficiency at the expense of explicitness.
Nits nits nits. But here’s the big problem: Email and Web pages repeatedly broke.
The very first email message we looked at had an attachment. When I clicked on it, I was told that it can’t be viewed, and I was given instructions for downloading a plugin. The plugin didn’t work either, although it did open a bunch of windows with icons, instructions, warnings and technobabble. The second message had a link to a video. To demonstrate the Mac’s multimedia proficiency, I clicked on it. Same drill.
Now, because I’ve been using a computer for a while, I know that the document didn’t open because it was a Word file and the video didn’t play because it’s (apparently) a Windows media file. [See Note 1 below before you go MacBallistic on me.] But:
1. The Mac handled these problems gracelessly. Had I not been there, Grandpa would have had to reboot just to clear the screen of the posters telling him that he’s paying the price for adopting a minority technology.
2. From Grandpa’s point of view, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. The fact is that the Mac isn’t letting him do what he got a computer to do.
3. Worse, when he makes a mistake, it digitally throws up — same as XP and Linux — without giving him a clear, one-button way to say “Ok, I understand. Skip it. Pretend I never asked.” Instead, I’m going to have to get on the phone and direct him to the right red buttons — some with X’s and some without — to clear the debris off his screen.
So, overall so far: Assuming the Mac is as stable as I expect, it’s the right OS for Grandpa. I got tired of reinstalling Windows, and desktop Linux (Mandrake and RedHat) is too unstable and too hard to do simple things with. But it is by no means the straightforward, simple machine that makes computing as easy as falling off a blog for a novice user like Grandpa.
NOTE 1: Because I’m a moron, the OS X disks I bought over eBay are in fact for an Ibook or an IMac or an IPod or some other over-branded Mac product. OS X seems to be doing fine, but the system restoration disks don’t run. So, it’s possible that there’s some default set of products I’m missing that would solve the Windows doc and media problem. If not, then I assume that buying AppleWorks to view Word files will do the trick. All advice gratefully accepted, as usual. And a big wet kiss to all of you who have been so helpful so far. Thank you!
NOTE 2: Grandpa sometmes reads this blog, so pretend you like me.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
The red circle with a dot means “the file you’re about to close has had modifications since the last save.” Not exactly obvious, but when you click the red circle, you’ll be prompted to save the file, too.
The Jaguar version of TextEdit will open and save Word docs (except those with tables) which is a start and will save the money you’d otherwise spend on Office for Mac (loads) or Appleworks.
Mariner Write reads (and writes) all the word files I have to read and write. It’s more comfortable than TextEdit and less expensive than Office…
So do windoze machines come with Word or Office loaded for nothing then!?
You can buy MS Office at the educator’s discount price of $150.00. Nobody checks to make sure you’re an educator or a student. Aren’t we all students in life anyway? The downside is the $150.00 price means you won’t be eligible for upgrade pricing on subsequent Office versions. Which, I expect, will be more than $150.00 anyway, so where’s the downside?
AppleWorks will run you $70.00 or so. It’s still a nice little suite, but if your father often encounters Word documents, and has to create or send documents in Word format, you’re probably best served buying MS Office. Office is well-behaved on Mac OS X, at least the latest version I’m using has been. Installation is very simple, but you’ll need to go to MS’s site and download a couple of updates which have to be installed in sequence. The instructions are there so just pay close attention.
You can download and install Windows Media Player from MS’s Mac site (www.mactopia.com), and it’ll play pretty much all the Windows media files you’re likely to encounter (I’ve never encountered one it wouldn’t handle). It’s free.
Apple has extended the Mac OS Up-to-date program until 29 February. Here’s the page: http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/ I don’t know if you’d have a problem with the product you purchased, but you may wish to try it and see if you can’t move up to 10.3 for $19.95. One of the nice things about 10.3 is Mail handles attachments a bit better.
Euan mentioned that the Jaguar version of TextEdit can open Word documents, but I don’t recall that feature being in Jaguar. I think it first appeared in Panther.
I forgot to mention the trackball. You didn’t indicate if it was a Kensington or not, but they have a nice driver that adds a System Preference Pane to configure the various buttons on the trackball, and control the cursor speed and acceleration. If it is a Kensington, it’s probably worth your time to download and install it.
Thank you all!
Euan, XP comes with WordPad which opens and writes .doc files. I’d tried TextEdit on the Mac and it opens RTF docs, but didn’t seem to know about .DOC files. Also, the Mac help suggested that I rename .doc files as .rtf, but that’s more than I can ask my father-in-law to do. I’m looking for the impossible dream of a zipless UI, so to speak. (I think I’m stealing that from someone…)
Just a week or two ago I was paying a house call to a woman with computer issues. When she referred to herself as “a computer dummy” because she didn’t understand something I had to stop her. I told her that computers just weren’t as easy to use as they should be and that it was a shame that perfectly competent people like herself are made to feel stupid just because the machines themselves aren’t very smart. I told her that the computer industry should be ashamed of itself for how little progress has been made in terms of usability in the last ten or twenty years. Computers still require a large amount of computer-milieu-knowledge on the part of the user in order for anything useful to happen and that’s too bad.
Macs are certainly included in this assessment. Some people said Apple should have totally redesigned the computer user interface, eschewing the “desktop” metaphor and going with something completely different when it created OS X. I think it’s a nice idea, but Apple probably could not have afforded to gamble on something so radical at that juncture. And even if they did and it worked that’s not a guarantee that it would be significantly more intuitive and novice-friendly.
BTW, for my money if you want to open Word get Word. The idea that anything else is going to provide a reliable substitute is flawed. WordPad only works because it’s made by Microsoft. I think there used to be a free Mac viewer for Word – made by Microsoft – but it’s a dead piece of software and never made the jump to OS X.
Hey, 1) if you have restore discs… they only run on the system they were shipped with. They check first.
2) 10.3 “Panther” ships with TextEdit which reads “.doc” file, and is in the default install. However, it only deals with simple ones well. The translation isn’t so great unless you’re reading basically text.
3) AppleWorks has more-or-less the same ability to read .doc as TextEdit. If you’re spending $79 on AW, you mind as well spend the $149 for Office. Getting a copy now gets you a $10 upgrade to the next Office, when that ships… the student copy also comes with three, family license numbers.
…Or you could tell him to ignore “.doc” as a political statement on open standards and formats…
Microsoft’s OS X version of Office is very nice, but if it is too pricy, OpenOffice will handle most Word files you throw at it. It looks like a Windows 95 app though – aesthetic discontinuities.
The address book has an edit button under the entry – it toggles the editability. Closing the window also commits edits.
I haven’t used it, but the Apple stores in Australia have been selling ThinkFree Office: http://www.thinkfree.com/ The online price is US$49.95.
I gather it’s pure Java, thus runs on Mac and Windows.
Others have suggested getting the windows media player for those inevitable wmp and avi files, but I would also suggest that you give VLC a look (www.videolan.org/vlc). It has the advantage of supporting other additional media formats like divx, etc. With VLC and the free Real client he will probably have all of his media needs met for the next couple of years.
You also mentioned some web page breakage. Could you elaborate? Between Safari and IE there is not too much I have trouble with, although I am not a CSS-nazi so my standards are a little lower than most. With these two browsers provided as a part of the standard install you would just need to go on a plug-in download and install frenzy for an hour or so to take care of most needs.
“BTW, for my money if you want to open Word get Word. The idea that anything else is going to provide a reliable substitute is flawed.”
I strongly disagree. I use OpenOffice for Linux and XP all the time in a professional capacity, and have yet to come across a .DOC file which wasn’t easily imported. With complex files there are the occasional conversion glitches but hey – you’ve got those with different versions of MS Word itself.
Too bad the Quartz/Aqua version of Openoffice seems to be several years away ( http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/timeline.html ), as it can have a real impact on the economics of home (and business) computing for most users.
My fault – I was getting my big cats mixed up. It is the Panther version of textedit which will open and write .doc files albeit in a limited way.