[OreoCookie]

Ooops, I got that wrong.
The British Royal Navy got the brilliant idea to base their next-gen computer systems in nuclear submarines and war ships on, you've guessed it, Windows! That this is just a great idea shows the infestation by a worm called `Conficker'.

Seems that if you are a terrorist who is interested in nuclear warheads, you don't even have to get off your behind and go to Pakistan to visit a terror camp

[Laminar]

Doesn't this belong in the Alternative OS forum? wink

[olePigeon]

Yeah, but it's funny.

[Tomchu]

There's nothing wrong with Windows.

The kernel is a solid, stable piece of work. Strip away the user-land cruft, leave the base subsystems and libraries necessary to make it do things, write and certify and recertify the drivers, and you have a very stable platform for many purposes. By the sounds of it, this is precisely what they've probably done.

No one actually thought they bought a few boxed copies of Windows XP and threw them onto the computers, did you?

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Tomchu 

No one actually thought they bought a few boxed copies of Windows XP and threw them onto the computers, did you?

They still became infected with viruses.

[Chuckit]

They have a very stable platform for many purposes. Such as participating in a botnet.

[mattyb]

All you need to secure Windows :

[nonhuman]

The Windows 7 taskbar. Although, to be fair, while it's a massive improvement over the old taskbar, only one thing about it (the aero peek, or whatever) is an improvement over the Dock. The rest is just bringing it—finally—in line with what OS X has had for years now.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5131933/giz-exp...mac-os-xs-dock

[Laminar]

A usable taskbar? Welcome to 2001, Microsoft.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

The Windows 7 taskbar. Although, to be fair, while it's a massive improvement over the old taskbar, only one thing about it (the aero peek, or whatever) is an improvement over the Dock. The rest is just bringing it—finally—in line with what OS X has had for years now.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5131933/giz-exp...mac-os-xs-dock

I think it would be better to look at Aero Peek as a substitute for Exposé.

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I think it would be better to look at Aero Peek as a poor substitute for Exposé.

Fixenated.™

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I think it would be better to look at Aero Peek as a substitute for Exposé.

True, but it should have some sort of integration with the Dock. Otherwise there's no obvious connection between the applications in the Dock and the windows that belong to them.

[osiris]

I like the way Windows allows me to conveniently launch as many instances of the same application as I want.
Want five versions of Word running? double click five times on the shortcut. Want more? Keep clicking until you're content. Have a ball.

This feature, coincidentally, is also the stupidest thing I've ever experienced on a personal computer.

[CharlesS]

^ My favorite feature is the one that results from that and the fact that Windows doesn't provide any feedback to let you know an application is launching, so when you double-click an app to launch it on a slow public-access machine, wait 30 seconds with no feedback at all, then double-click it again, figuring the first double-click didn't register, eventually you end up with two copies of the same app open.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

^ My favorite feature is the one that results from that and the fact that Windows doesn't provide any feedback to let you know an application is launching, so when you double-click an app to launch it on a slow public-access machine, wait 30 seconds with no feedback at all, then double-click it again, figuring the first double-click didn't register, eventually you end up with two copies of the same app open.

I love how in Windows the menus fade in, but after you select a menu item, it disappears instantly with no feedback that you've selected a menu item. It just happens to be directly opposite of how it should be, and how Apple does it: instant menu access with a flash indicating you selected a menu item.

I'm not sure decided that was a good idea, but the Windows menu model goes against everything in UI convention.

[osiris]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

I love how in Windows the menus fade in, but after you select a menu item, it disappears instantly with no feedback that you've selected a menu item. It just happens to be directly opposite of how it should be, and how Apple does it: instant menu access with a flash indicating you selected a menu item.

I'm not sure decided that was a good idea, but the Windows menu model goes against everything in UI convention.

lol that's one feature I would love to disable in OS X. Similar to OS 9's menu flashing option in General Controls. It wastes fractions of a second every time just to blink.

[Salty]

I like how Windows lets me know I'm smarter than everyone else...

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by osiris 

lol that's one feature I would love to disable in OS X. Similar to OS 9's menu flashing option in General Controls. It wastes fractions of a second every time just to blink.

Wastes? What were you going to be doing in that fraction of a second that it prevents?

[osiris]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Wastes? What were you going to be doing in that fraction of a second that it prevents?

Fractions add up and it's my time. Instead of blinking, just open the app/doc/server already. I feel this should be an option, as it was in OS9 and earlier.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by osiris 

Fractions add up and it's my time. Instead of blinking, just open the app/doc/server already. I feel this should be an option, as it was in OS9 and earlier.

You're assuming that nothing else happens until the blinking stops. More likely it's simultaneously blinking the menu item and opening the whatever. So no time is actually being wasted and you're being provided with useful visual feedback that you did, in fact, select the menu item you intended to.

[osiris]

Alright, we need a team of scientists to explore this.

edit: but I still don't like the blinking.

[sek929]

In Safari when opening a new tab (under File) the blinking takes less time than the tab does to open.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by osiris 

I like the way Windows allows me to conveniently launch as many instances of the same application as I want.
Want five versions of Word running? double click five times on the shortcut. Want more? Keep clicking until you're content. Have a ball.

This feature, coincidentally, is also the stupidest thing I've ever experienced on a personal computer.

I can't say how many times I've accidentally been running 3 Firefox apps at the same time. Wy doesn't it just open a new window on the already running app is beyond me.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

You're assuming that nothing else happens until the blinking stops. More likely it's simultaneously blinking the menu item and opening the whatever.

You might think so, but interestingly, it works the way osiris suggests. A menu's action is only invoked after the menu closes. I just threw together a quick app to confirm, and it's definitely not doing anything while it blinks.

[Tomchu]

Originally Posted by osiris 

This feature, coincidentally, is also the stupidest thing I've ever experienced on a personal computer.

And yet it's a stupid limitation when it comes to applications that don't follow the document model. There was the odd time I would have liked to have two Calculators running. I can't on OS X.

There's nothing wrong with allowing the user to run multiple copies of the same application (UNIX/CLI?). What's stupid is users who try to open the same application multiple times in order to work on multiple documents at once -- fortunately the last few versions of the MS Office suite detect a running copy of an app and only let you run one instance, which was the most common case I've seen of this.

[zro]

Originally Posted by Tomchu 

And yet it's a stupid limitation when it comes to applications that don't follow the document model. There was the odd time I would have liked to have two Calculators running. I can't on OS X.

Can.

Try double clicking /Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/calculator

They spawn on top of each other since they read the same preference file with one set of window bounds.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

You might think so, but interestingly, it works the way osiris suggests. A menu's action is only invoked after the menu closes. I just threw together a quick app to confirm, and it's definitely not doing anything while it blinks.

Huh, that is interesting. But I guess to do otherwise would require spawning a new process just for the blinking menu item which could probably be perceived as a bit of a waste...

On the other hand, maybe this is one of the many performance improvements we're going to get in Snow Leopard.

[Oisín]

The one thing that I’ve truly always wanted in OS X, but which hasn’t thus far been incorporated, has been standard in Windows since, I think, Windows 98 (possibly even 95): the ability to assign specific shortcuts to specific keyboard layouts. Having one to switch between the two last used and another to iterate through the entire list of layouts just isn’t good enough when you regularly switch between five or six of a list of 15.

Also, a proper task manager that can be invoked by a simple key combo, rather than as a separate app, for those times when both the Finder and Quicksilver hang (generally, I find that if one hangs, the other is soon to follow, which makes navigating to the Activity Monitor a bit of a pain). Cmd + Alt + Esc works fine, but only shows ‘regular’ apps, not hidden ones, or non-app processes.

Also: In Before James9490.™

[besson3c]

The one thing I wonder about is how Apple might solve the problem of running out of function keys by replacing some of these with mouse/trackpad gestures?

It is confusing having dedicated keys labeled to stuff by way of the picture printed on the function key, and having to incorporate the function key (fn) on the keyboard to have the key double as something else. Since I don't like to click on the dock items, I would like a better system for invoking stuff like Expose, Spaces, Dashboard, etc. than having to memorize function keys which are mapped differently on different keyboards.

[besson3c]

The one thing I wonder about is how Apple might solve the problem of running out of function keys by replacing some of these with mouse/trackpad gestures?

It is confusing having dedicated keys labeled to stuff by way of the picture printed on the function key, and having to incorporate the function key (fn) on the keyboard to have the key double as something else. Since I don't like to click on the dock items, I would like a better system for invoking stuff like Expose, Spaces, Dashboard, etc. than having to memorize function keys which are mapped differently on different keyboards.

[Oisín]

^ But surely that’s not a way Windows is ahead of OS X? I tend to think Windows lags rather behind OS X, having a lot less availability both in overall shortcuts (my gripe above notwithstanding), and in mouse/trackpad gestures.

[besson3c]

I have no idea how Windows or Aero Peak works, Windows is totally off my day-to-day radar... I'm mostly interested to see how Apple and/or Microsoft solves these problems. These advanced type features work best as keyboard commands since they are generally the fastest to invoke that way, but obviously too many key bindings to learn or too awkward default bindings make this much tougher...

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Can I finally put a Blu-Ray drive in my Home Theater PC running 10.5.6 and watch Blu-Ray movies on it with full HDCP? (Plex truly rocks)

If not, then, Windows still has that over OSX.

[Big Mac]

Scrolling is substantially faster and without distortion of window contents (clipping) in an app llke Firefox. The alt style of keyboard menu navigation is sometimes nice to have. Other than that, I can't really think of anything. Oh yeah, and Windows can run just about anywhere, while people have to illegally hack OS X if they want a low-end to midrange tower.

[Maflynn]

I have to say I love the ability to cut/paste files in the windows explorer. Makes moving files easier and I wish apple would do that.

I know the idea of "cutting" files fails people's notion of a proper interface paradigm and I'm not going to argue that. What I am saying is that the cutting/pasting action in windows makes moving files a lot easier and I wish OSX had something similar.

[zro]

I say that's bad. Having the only place a file "exists" being the clipboard is a disaster waiting to happen.

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by zro 

I say that's bad. Having the only place a file "exists" being the clipboard is a disaster waiting to happen.

I never ran into a problem doing it and windows doesn't truly get rid of the file until the paste action. So if you hit ctrl-x on a file, but then you bounce over to your text editor cut some text for pasting and then realize you should have pasted the file first. The file that was ctrl-x'd still remains in the original location.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Maflynn 

I never ran into a problem doing it and windows doesn't truly get rid of the file until the paste action. So if you hit ctrl-x on a file, but then you bounce over to your text editor cut some text for pasting and then realize you should have pasted the file first. The file that was ctrl-x'd still remains in the original location.

What if you control + x and then your machine crashes? What happens to the file then?

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Maflynn 

I have to say I love the ability to cut/paste files in the windows explorer. Makes moving files easier and I wish apple would do that.

I know the idea of "cutting" files fails people's notion of a proper interface paradigm and I'm not going to argue that. What I am saying is that the cutting/pasting action in windows makes moving files a lot easier and I wish OSX had something similar.

Well, you can drag the file from one place to another...

[Luca Rescigno]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

What if you control + x and then your machine crashes? What happens to the file then?

Nothing. It remains in its original place.

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

Well, you can drag the file from one place to another...

Yeah but that requires you to either open two windows, one for the source folder and one for the destination, or it requires you to navigate with spring-loaded folders, which is slower and requires you to hold down the mouse button the entire time.

Another thing Windows does that I like is it takes advantage of the corners and edges of the screen. If you move your mouse to the upper right corner, it'll hit the close box. Bottom left corner opens the start menu. Bottom edge (or whatever edge the taskbar is on) will allow you to click on things in the taskbar. This can make things a lot quicker since it increases the size of the target. There was some guy who wrote a bunch about computer interface design and he talked about that stuff (target sizes and all that). In fact, one of the only Windows apps that doesn't respect the idea that the upper right corner of a maximized window should activate the close box is iTunes. Apple specifically designed it so you have to click directly on the close box graphic to close the window, and they also gave iTunes a rounded corner so if you just throw your mouse into the corner and click, it'll close any fullscreened window that is behind it. Terrible, terrible UI design.

[Timo]

I like windows mapping of drives better than OS X's. Seems more robust.

When it works.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Timo 

I like windows mapping of drives better than OS X's. Seems more robust.

When it works.

To completely arbitrary letters?

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno 

Nothing. It remains in its original place.

… and that means it breaks with the paradigm. I find it much more natural to use Exposé and drag-n-drop.

[Luca Rescigno]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

… and that means it breaks with the paradigm. I find it much more natural to use Exposé and drag-n-drop.

Yeah, people always say this. You just don't realize how useful it is. Apple breaks their own paradigms all the time. This is minor compared to some of the inconsistencies I've heard people complain about. And really, it works in the most nondestructive way possible, only deleting the file after it has been successfully moved to the destination. Would you rather it give you the chance to accidentally delete your files? What if they changed the name of the command from "Cut" to "Move"? Keep the same keyboard shortcut and everything, but change the name so it's not inconsistent, because that makes so much of a difference.

Besides, Exposé? That still requires you to have two windows open. It works but it's just not as nice since most people like to use just one window at a time.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

… and that means it breaks with the paradigm. I find it much more natural to use Exposé and drag-n-drop.

Maybe so, but Apple has catered to Windows users in a variety of other ways, they should probably provide this feature as an option of some sort.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno 

Yeah, people always say this. You just don't realize how useful it is. Apple breaks their own paradigms all the time. This is minor compared to some of the inconsistencies I've heard people complain about.

It's still no reason to make things worse.

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno 

What if they changed the name of the command from "Cut" to "Move"?

Move wouldn't be acceptable either, after all, the file isn't moved. It's moved when you hit `paste'. If you want to make it consistent, then it should read Cut and Paste/Move in the Finder, depending if there is anything in the clipboard. However, bad thing is that everything that has been `cut' is gone, like in text. (When you hit cut and don't paste, the text is gone, too.) I don't think this is desirable.

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno 

Besides, Exposé? That still requires you to have two windows open. It works but it's just not as nice since most people like to use just one window at a time.

The original problem was to cut and paste in IE, I believe. So there are at least two windows open (unless the file is on the Desktop, of course).

In any case, you can also navigate with a single Finder window via spring-loaded folders.

[Luca Rescigno]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Move wouldn't be acceptable either, after all, the file isn't moved. It's moved when you hit `paste'. If you want to make it consistent, then it should read Cut and Paste/Move in the Finder, depending if there is anything in the clipboard. However, bad thing is that everything that has been `cut' is gone, like in text. (When you hit cut and don't paste, the text is gone, too.) I don't think this is desirable.

Okay then, so change it to "Pick up" and "Drop" or something? And add two extra commands to a menu that also don't have shortcuts because, like you said, "Cut" and "Paste" are already used for cutting and pasting text.

I just don't see why such a minor change in behavior to prevent it from being destructive (making the icon appear transparent and only deleting the file after it has been moved successfully) is such an awful thing. It's a useful function.

EDIT: Apparently copy and paste doesn't work in Finder the way it ought to either. According to this blog post, copying files, then moving them to the trash, and then trying to paste them somewhere else does not work. But you'd expect it to work since if you did the same with text (copy-delete-paste) it would work just fine.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

In any case, you can also navigate with a single Finder window via spring-loaded folders.

Yes, but it's still slower and it's more prone to mistakes because you have to hold down the mouse button the entire time.

EDIT: Another thing I like about Windows is the amount of flexibility it gives you to do things with the filesystem (rename, move, and delete files) from open/save dialog boxes. I use this all the time at work, where I use MS Word about 95% of the time. You can even open files in other applications with a contextual menu. I'm not sure how much OS X lets you do from open/save dialogs.

[ort888]

I know...

Windows is better in that it runs on hardware that costs about a third as much.

[nonhuman]

Code:
mv [-f | -i | -n] [-v] source target

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by ort888 

I know...

Windows is better in that it runs on hardware that costs about a third as much.

except if your using vista then it won't run at all, since its a complete dog