Dragging a window to the top of the screen maximizes the window. FOR GODS SAKE WHY.
It’s the “mile high, mile wide” button pattern. Grab the window bar and flick it against the top of screen. Boom Maximised. Grab an pull it’s normal size again, drag it to your other screen and flick it against the top of screen, bang it’s maximised on that screen.
Years ago, I had written the web-based IDE used internally by our dev team (long story short, we shipped custom hardware with a custom compiler targeting that hardware with a DSL; I wrote the compiler and a collaborative IDE for the team to write code that they released roughly once a week to customers). This was long enough ago that the concept of a “web-based IDE” was novel.
One time around Thanksgiving I modified the color scheme from the Amiga-inspired blue and gray to fall colors (browns, oranges, etc). No functional changes, just a nice color scheme change to celebrate the holidays.
I had to revert it immediately because a bunch of people complained about how it broke their workflow/moved their cheese/etc.
Once had a senior manager who was colour blind, completely missing one colour preceptor. Had to maintain a special colour map that made everything look (for normal people) like pizza vomit.
I detest paying for software except when it occupies certain specialized cases or represents something more akin to work of art, such as the video game Portal.
I detest this attitude. He probably also uses an ad blocker and complains about how companies sell his personal information. You can’t be an open source advocate if you detest supporting the engineers that build open source software.
Certainly. Actually, I would describe myself in that way. But you can’t believe that, and also believe you’re entitled to free-as-in-beer software. Especially high quality “just works” software the author describes. It’s a contradiction.
Alternative revenue streams like advertising exist to power products people won’t pay for. I don’t know many software engineers that want to put advertising in their products, rather they have to in order to avoid losing money. That’s why I happily pay for quality software like Dash and Working Copy, and donate to open source projects.
The act of powering up a computer, waiting for it to boot, doing some work, and then waiting for it to shut down gracefully is a barbaric ritual from ancient times. In 2018, we’re all modern and hip and just want to open up the laptop lid and get to work. Unfortunately this is easier said than done and as such it really only works reliably with the right combination of supported hardware. And even then, bugs in various layers of the OS can cause it to suddenly stop working consistently after an OS update.
This is one of the things keeping me on MacOS. The laptops are expensive for what they are, but the Just Works factor is pretty high.
This is one of the things keeping me on MacOS. The laptops are expensive for what they are, but the Just Works factor is pretty high.
Have you found that to still be the case with recent models and OS revisions? That’s also the reason I’m on macOS, but it’s gotten less true for me over the past 3-4 years. The worst is that sleep/hibernate no longer seems to work reliably, and it happens on two completely different devices, a MacBook Pro (2016 model) and a MacBook Air (2014 model). About once a month, one will fail to properly wake from sleep when opening the case. Sometimes it fails to wake entirely; sometimes it seemingly wakes but won’t turn the backlight on (in the 2nd case it sometimes flashes on briefly). Usually this ends up requiring a hard powercycle to fix. Googling suggests I’m not alone, and there’s a whole pile of cargo-cart suggestions for fixing it (NVRAM resets and such). That’s by far the worst issue, but there’s a bunch of software-side stuff seemingly getting more flaky too (especially the App Store app, which sometimes requires a reboot to convince the Updates tab to load).
In 10 years of using PowerBook and MacBook laptops 2004–14 I never had that kind of basic functionality fail to work flawlessly, and I would’ve completely agreed with you back then, which is why I kept buying them.
I can confirm your experience - I sometimes have the issue with waking from sleep, and regularly see the OS freezing for extended periods of time (I do have a lot of applications open, but come on, it’s 2018). The quality of software has been declining over the last 4 years. Unfortunately, I still don’t see any better alternative.
I wasn’t clear that I was referring primarily to the hardware - Windows 10 laptops with better specs (especially the GPU) and comparable build quality can be significantly cheaper than a new Macbook Pro.
It’s the Apple Tax: “In the end, we found each Apple machine to cost more than a similarly equipped PC counterpart, with the baseline Mac Pro being the exception. Usually the delta is around $50 to $150…”
So firstly, that’s an article from 8 years ago, that also highlights Apple machines having longer battery life, better resistance to malware, and use higher quality materials.
Secondly, the thread is about a feature that works quite reliably on Apple computers, but very poorly on generic PC’s running Linux.
So, if you want to call “better, more reliable features” a TAX, then we have to agree to label any product anywhere that is objectively better than it’s competitors, and has a higher price, “Includes CompanyName TAX”
Got a HP laptop that works faster than a piece of shit Chromebook? Must be a HP Tax.
Got a BMW that has more comfortable seats than a Camry? Must be a BMW Tax.
Any time a person ever gave me a set of Mac specs I was able to find a cheaper Windows machine that could do the same with hardware that works well. It’s not shocking at all to me given Apple’s marketing strategy of going for high margins. They’re currently one of the most profitable companies in the world with that strategy. Whereas, most of the other vendors became something more like commodities competing so hard on things like price. Your strawman comparisons don’t change that.
And any time a person ever said to me “I found this non-Apple machine with the same features/specs” they conveniently leave out features that they personally don’t place value on.
We can trade anecdotal stories all day, but the article you linked to, doesn’t really support your argument the way you seem to think it does.
The thing keeping me on macOS is being able to use Control and Alt for emacs style shortcuts for editing text anywhere (like my browser’s URL bar) because all the system keyboard shortcuts use the Command key.
Same. Apple can’t be beaten there in the current ecosystem. It just won’t happen. Unless Red Hat acquires a hardware vendor and builds a HatBook, there’s no chance. And they won’t do that because it’s not profitable enough.
That’s definitely the key. And while I’m glad you have a setup you’re happy with and have no doubt it works for you, I doubt it works for everyone, or even a majority.
It’s the “mile high, mile wide” button pattern. Grab the window bar and flick it against the top of screen. Boom Maximised. Grab an pull it’s normal size again, drag it to your other screen and flick it against the top of screen, bang it’s maximised on that screen.
Nice.
I use it all the time. Very handy.
Relevant XKCD for you… https://xkcd.com/1172/
Years ago, I had written the web-based IDE used internally by our dev team (long story short, we shipped custom hardware with a custom compiler targeting that hardware with a DSL; I wrote the compiler and a collaborative IDE for the team to write code that they released roughly once a week to customers). This was long enough ago that the concept of a “web-based IDE” was novel.
One time around Thanksgiving I modified the color scheme from the Amiga-inspired blue and gray to fall colors (browns, oranges, etc). No functional changes, just a nice color scheme change to celebrate the holidays.
I had to revert it immediately because a bunch of people complained about how it broke their workflow/moved their cheese/etc.
Once had a senior manager who was colour blind, completely missing one colour preceptor. Had to maintain a special colour map that made everything look (for normal people) like pizza vomit.
I detest this attitude. He probably also uses an ad blocker and complains about how companies sell his personal information. You can’t be an open source advocate if you detest supporting the engineers that build open source software.
I’m literally disgusted.
It’s reasonable to disagree with the quote about paying for software. But how on earth does this defense of the advertising industry come in?
Certainly it’s possible to be an open source advocate and use an ad blocker and oppose the selling of personal information.
Certainly. Actually, I would describe myself in that way. But you can’t believe that, and also believe you’re entitled to free-as-in-beer software. Especially high quality “just works” software the author describes. It’s a contradiction.
Alternative revenue streams like advertising exist to power products people won’t pay for. I don’t know many software engineers that want to put advertising in their products, rather they have to in order to avoid losing money. That’s why I happily pay for quality software like Dash and Working Copy, and donate to open source projects.
I don’t get that sort of vibe from this article. He doesn’t seem to be entitled at all.
“free as in free beer”!
I can’t afford to have a different attitude.
This is one of the things keeping me on MacOS. The laptops are expensive for what they are, but the Just Works factor is pretty high.
Have you found that to still be the case with recent models and OS revisions? That’s also the reason I’m on macOS, but it’s gotten less true for me over the past 3-4 years. The worst is that sleep/hibernate no longer seems to work reliably, and it happens on two completely different devices, a MacBook Pro (2016 model) and a MacBook Air (2014 model). About once a month, one will fail to properly wake from sleep when opening the case. Sometimes it fails to wake entirely; sometimes it seemingly wakes but won’t turn the backlight on (in the 2nd case it sometimes flashes on briefly). Usually this ends up requiring a hard powercycle to fix. Googling suggests I’m not alone, and there’s a whole pile of cargo-cart suggestions for fixing it (NVRAM resets and such). That’s by far the worst issue, but there’s a bunch of software-side stuff seemingly getting more flaky too (especially the App Store app, which sometimes requires a reboot to convince the Updates tab to load).
In 10 years of using PowerBook and MacBook laptops 2004–14 I never had that kind of basic functionality fail to work flawlessly, and I would’ve completely agreed with you back then, which is why I kept buying them.
I can confirm your experience - I sometimes have the issue with waking from sleep, and regularly see the OS freezing for extended periods of time (I do have a lot of applications open, but come on, it’s 2018). The quality of software has been declining over the last 4 years. Unfortunately, I still don’t see any better alternative.
I am sorry, are you talking about your actual computer or was this a metaphor about human condition?
Haha, it’s true, we’re all sleepwalking through life most of the time.
Get a Thinkpad.
So, not really expensive for what they are, given that apparently no others do what they do, reliably?
I wasn’t clear that I was referring primarily to the hardware - Windows 10 laptops with better specs (especially the GPU) and comparable build quality can be significantly cheaper than a new Macbook Pro.
It’s the Apple Tax: “In the end, we found each Apple machine to cost more than a similarly equipped PC counterpart, with the baseline Mac Pro being the exception. Usually the delta is around $50 to $150…”
So firstly, that’s an article from 8 years ago, that also highlights Apple machines having longer battery life, better resistance to malware, and use higher quality materials.
Secondly, the thread is about a feature that works quite reliably on Apple computers, but very poorly on generic PC’s running Linux.
So, if you want to call “better, more reliable features” a TAX, then we have to agree to label any product anywhere that is objectively better than it’s competitors, and has a higher price, “Includes CompanyName TAX”
Got a HP laptop that works faster than a piece of shit Chromebook? Must be a HP Tax.
Got a BMW that has more comfortable seats than a Camry? Must be a BMW Tax.
Any time a person ever gave me a set of Mac specs I was able to find a cheaper Windows machine that could do the same with hardware that works well. It’s not shocking at all to me given Apple’s marketing strategy of going for high margins. They’re currently one of the most profitable companies in the world with that strategy. Whereas, most of the other vendors became something more like commodities competing so hard on things like price. Your strawman comparisons don’t change that.
And any time a person ever said to me “I found this non-Apple machine with the same features/specs” they conveniently leave out features that they personally don’t place value on.
We can trade anecdotal stories all day, but the article you linked to, doesn’t really support your argument the way you seem to think it does.
Yup. Buying a product purely on paper specs instead of including things like build quality seems foolish.
Macs aren’t that expensive anyways when you compare them to machines in the same class, like ThinkPads, Surfaces, XPSes, Latitudes, etc.
The thing keeping me on macOS is being able to use Control and Alt for emacs style shortcuts for editing text anywhere (like my browser’s URL bar) because all the system keyboard shortcuts use the Command key.
https://jblevins.org/log/kbd
Same. Apple can’t be beaten there in the current ecosystem. It just won’t happen. Unless Red Hat acquires a hardware vendor and builds a HatBook, there’s no chance. And they won’t do that because it’s not profitable enough.
This is basically the idea behind Librem laptops.
If only they had gigantic truckloads of money.
Only way to make that happen is to vote with our wallets. :)
I like the idea of librem, but unfortunately I cant see myself buying a laptop without a trackpoint…
There are some nice vendors where this Just Works. I use system76. Dell xps developer laptops are also great linux laptops.
As a very happy Surface Book user, I’d argue you’ve forgotten about the other OS vendor.
I’ve had this working on a de-chromed chomebook and xubuntu for a long time, the key is using not too new hardware maybe?
That’s definitely the key. And while I’m glad you have a setup you’re happy with and have no doubt it works for you, I doubt it works for everyone, or even a majority.
Is there anyone who can review a distro without reviewing some desktop manager?
Is there anyone who understands that desktop managers are independent of distros?
distros are mostly the same under the hood, linux, systemd and deb/rpm packages.
the interesting parts are things like “will it destroy itself during distro upgrades” but those are rarely included in reviews
Why oh why did they have to call it “bionic”…were they trying to increase general nomenclature confusion?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bionic_%28software%29
All the names that are actual words are already taken by someone somewhere. Naming something these days with a word is a guaranteed collision.
See also Apple’s A11 Bionic processor (the one that’s in the iPhone X)
Increasing general nomenclature confusion is kind of all the Ubuntu release code-names are good for, yes.