[krillbee]

I bought a sawtooth G4 about a year ago, and put OS X 10.4 on there. I wanted to try it out, and see what Mac OS was all about, without putting down big bucks. I used the mac off and on over the last year for web browsing, writing some documents, and listening to music mainly. I'd say I've probably spent maybe a hundred hours total on this mac.

I had some extra memory and a video card lying around, which i popped in to kick up the speed a bit. While its not quite a fair comparison since this machine was no where near as fast as my PC, here are my thoughts:

There were many features that I really liked:

-Expose,
-dashboard,
-the prettiness,
-the simple control panel,
-the dock.
-painless installation of software

But there were many things that XP had which I couldnt find in OSX:

-Right clicking didnt allow me to create new files on the desktop, i had to open up word, and save the doc to the desktop
-I could not see the text label of the documents/pages which were running in the dock, unless I moved my mouse over them individually.
-I could not see the text label of the documents/pages/programs in expose without moving my mouse over them individually.
-pages/documents that are open dont appear in the dock unless i minimize them there.
-not being able to run Guild Wars, Nero Burning Software, Power DVD, and some P2P software. also AIM was different.


I didnt really do any cd/dvd burning under OSX, nor did i find an IRC client I liked, so I relied on my PC for a lot of things while using the Mac. I didnt explore the Unix shell either.

I guess overall I am still more drawn to the PC, even after trying the Mac, so I guess the switch campaign didnt work with me, lol. I'll have my mac around for a little longer, but i might sell it soon, since i could use the money, and i use my PC a lot more.

So what do you all think? Did I give OS X a good enough try? And are there solutions to the problems that I encountered?

[lookmark]

Well, first of all, it's up to you. Use what you like.

That said, keep in mind that for much of you didn't like there's free solutions or decently priced options or equivalents. (And a new Mac is going be a hell of a better experience than using a Sawtooth G4, hands down.)

Originally Posted by krillbee

-Right clicking didnt allow me to create new files on the desktop, i had to open up word, and save the doc to the desktop

Easily solved -- you want NuFile... or for even more power, this.

-I could not see the text label of the documents/pages which were running in the dock, unless I moved my mouse over them individually.
-I could not see the text label of the documents/pages/programs in expose without moving my mouse over them individually.
-pages/documents that are open dont appear in the dock unless i minimize them there.

Sounds like you'd appreciate the handy Witch.

-not being able to run Guild Wars, Nero Burning Software, Power DVD, and some P2P software. also AIM was different.

Toast = Nero. Plenty of P2P software out for the Mac... Acquisition, Poisoned, a zillion BT clients, etc etc. Colloquy is a nice IRC client. Stay away from AIM -- check out the excellent and free open-source Adium.

New Intel Macs of course can run any Windows games via OEM XP SP2 (~$80) + Boot Camp.

That's about it. If you like OS X and like the design of Macs, go for it. If you don't, go for the PC.

[blackbird_1.0]

Roxio Toast offers a good replacement for Nero, I'd imagine.
X-Chat Aqua is a very cool IRC client.
There are add-ons to get create new documents ala right-clicks (contextual menus).

Maybe down the road, you should look at an Intel-based Mac. Then you could run the things you couldn't use in OSX in Windows (on the Mac, natively).

^ Heh. Someone beat me to it.

[krillbee]

lookmark,
hmmm, wish i knew about that NuFile thing earlier
the Witch would have come in handy tool, lol

blackbird,
True, having a faster machine would have made the experience a lot better. Its tough to cough up the price for an Imac though. I will probably end up waiting for awhile, before considering to buy a new mac, i dont have the money right now! lol.

I'll have to try out some of these programs on my sawtooth.

[seanc]

A core solo mini would be a worthy upgrade. Apparently the 1.5ghz solos are comparable to 2.0-2.2ghz P4s.

[lookmark]

Originally Posted by krillbee

lookmark,
hmmm, wish i knew about that NuFile thing earlier
the Witch would have come in handy tool, lol.

If you ever need something, don't forget to spend a little time googling for it or asking at Your Friendly Neighborhood Mac Forum. There's just a ton of great free or very low-cost Mac software out there.

Originally Posted by krillbee

True, having a faster machine would have made the experience a lot better. Its tough to cough up the price for an Imac though. I will probably end up waiting for awhile, before considering to buy a new mac, i dont have the money right now! lol..

Keep your eye too on refurbished machines at Apple's online store (see the Special Deals section near the bottom). They come with full warranty and you get a nice price reduction.

[Brass]

Originally Posted by krillbee

So what do you all think? Did I give OS X a good enough try? And are there solutions to the problems that I encountered?

That's very subjective. I tried the same thing the other way around a few years ago. At work, I stopped using Macs completely, and used only Windows for about a year or so.

It was only after not using my preferred platform for about 6 months that I really got the hang of the alternative... really started hunting around for the "windows way" of doing things, changing habits, and finding decent software to do what I used to do on the Mac.

If you still rely heavily on your windows machine you'll never get used to something else, because it will always be different to what you're currently used to. That's not a bad thing, but just the way it is.

[eobet]

I still rely heavily on my Windows machine, but after having bought a Macbook Pro, I feel that I don't want to use it as much. Granted, it took me a week to get used to OS X, and I still feel that the taskbar is better than the dock (it's not prettier, but it's more efficient, partly because of the reasons krillbee stated), but even though working in OS X is slower, I find that I enjoy it more than working on Windows.

I will still probably always keep a Windows machine around, though (I used to be a PC gamer, though not so much anymore).

[kick52]

for any software you need, go to www.pure-mac.com It has a nice friendly categorised view and i find thats its better than macupdate or anythting else. you'll find all you need there.

[production_coordinator]

IMHO, you wanted the Mac OS X 10.4 to act like Windows XP... on a seven year old computer Sorry, but no wonder it's somewhat disapointing. Try running Windows XP on a PII. I'm running OS X on my 733 tower at home, and I probably would be very upset if it was much slower.

-Right clicking didnt allow me to create new files on the desktop, i had to open up word, and save the doc to the desktop

click on the desktop and do a command+shift+N that will give you a new folder. Also, as others have said, there are little programs that will add that if you need it.

-I could not see the text label of the documents/pages which were running in the dock, unless I moved my mouse over them individually.

IMHO, this is no better/worse than what Windows does. If you have a large number of applications/folders/applications running in Windows, good luck finding the correct one.

I currently have 23 programs running, and about 15 documents open... And I'm not having any problem keeping track. Also, the item most uses is on the right hand side. Very intuitive if you ask me.

-I could not see the text label of the documents/pages/programs in expose without moving my mouse over them individually.

The names are there... they are just too small for you to see. I guess if I had multiple open or items that look VERY similar, this could be a problem.

[/quote]-pages/documents that are open dont appear in the dock unless i minimize them there.[/quote]

Again, this is a perfect example of you wanting the Mac to act like Windows. This is NOT an error... it's been like this since 10.0, and is very intuitive IMHO, as the dock acts like a dock... not a window selector.

-not being able to run Guild Wars, Nero Burning Software, Power DVD, and some P2P software.

It's no secret that Guild Wars does not run on OS X. The Mac platform isn't known for the wealth of fantastic games. Regarding Nero Burning, Power DVD, etc. etc. there are a number of programs that do the same thing on the Mac. Many are free or shareware.

also AIM was different.

Did you expect it to be exactly like the Windows version?

I didnt really do any cd/dvd burning under OSX, nor did i find an IRC client I liked, so I relied on my PC for a lot of things while using the Mac. I didnt explore the Unix shell either.

So you criticized that Mac because it didn't have nero, Power DVD etc... but really didn't try anything that was built for OS X. Doesn't sound like you gave it a fair shake.

[/quote]I guess overall I am still more drawn to the PC, even after trying the Mac, so I guess the switch campaign didnt work with me, lol. I'll have my mac around for a little longer, but i might sell it soon, since i could use the money, and i use my PC a lot more.[/quote]

Different strokes for different folks.

So what do you all think? Did I give OS X a good enough try? And are there solutions to the problems that I encountered?

I think you got out of it... what you put into it. I think the #1 solution would have been... give OS X a chance. It sounds like you were using your PC as a crutch instead of learning how to use the Mac.

Most of the items you complained about aren't problems with my Mac.