Apple: the G,B,& U

[Lamplighter]

Apple: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

My bank, YouTube, and many other websites have been saying to me that I'm still using
an outdated browser on my outdated iMac, so $ be damned I bought a MacMini with OS 10.9.+

With old age comes a dislike for change... OS 10.9 is a change.

What are your thoughts ?

[Lamplighter]

Apple has decided to go it's separate way from MicroSoft.
MS "Word" is (supposedly) replaced by "Pages" and
MS "Excel" is (supposedly) replaced by "Numbers" and
MS "PowerPoint" is (supposedly) replaced by "Keynote"

Good#1: These replacement "apps" are free and automatically updated.

Bad#1: Pages ver 5+ will not open or save as RTF documents !
What is wrong with those people... where is Steve Jobs when you need him ?

.

[footfootfoot]

I think I've shared this before. Macs have their uses, I think your needs have just exceeded the parameters they are designed for, that's all.

[Lamplighter]

Pages ver 5+ will not open or save as RTF documents !

...your needs have just exceeded the parameters they are designed for, that's all.

But, but, but...
The purpose of RTF and RTFD was to unify text documents across applications.
Even this version of Apple's own TextEdit can not be opened by "Pages 5+"

So, I disagree about my exceeding the design parameters.
It is what I've been calling the "smoke-stacking" by these companies (Google, FB, MS, etc)
to create their own customer base for advertising and marketing purposes.

Apple seems to be going down a road away from computers towards phones and pads.
Maybe one unintended consequence will be to drive MacAddicts over to MicroSoft... {/shudder}

[footfootfoot]

By exceeding your needs I mean specifically, a computer that works and does what it is supposed to do without a ton of drama.


There is a reason that so many PCs are sold, just as there is a reason that most people build houses out of dimensional lumber and not strawbales. Not to say that strawbales haven't got a lot of wonderous qualities...

[Lamplighter]

There is a reason that so many PCs are sold, just as...

OK, the Mac vs PC thing is still alive and happy.

[Lamplighter]

As in the OP... with old age comes dislike for change

The display of OS 10.9+ (Mavericks) has been dumbed down to tablet levels.



Even the "nudge" arrows on the "thumb" have been eliminated, perhaps
on the assumption that touch screens and track-pads are, or will be, ubiquitous.

Here is an article with a POV from the other end of the spectrum:

The Motley Fool
Andrés Cardenal
June 19, 2013

Investing to Profit From the Death of the PC

The PC may not be dead yet, but the distinction between good old PCs
and mobile devices like smartphones and tablets is becoming increasingly blurry.
The fusion between desktop and mobile ecosystems, the rise of cloud computing and new
hybrid devices mean that PCs as a standalone product category are losing relevance by the day.

PCs are still important when it comes to business users and some particular tasks that require heavy computing power,
but for many users tablets are becoming a more convenient alternative.

If you are watching videos, reading, engaging in social networks and checking emails,
there is really no need for a PC, and a tablet provides a superior experience.

Apple is definitely moving in that direction with its latest operating systems,
OS X Mavericks for desktop and iOS7 for mobile: apps and services that were only available
for iOS like Maps and iBooks have been brought to the desktop
Some applications have been redesigned, and they now look much more similar in both platforms.
Even the way OS X Maverics handles memory and notifications is very similar to iOS.<snip>

The PC is dying, or changing; however you want to say it,
the computing industry is going through a major transformation.
Both Google and Apple are not only responsible for this change,
they look well positioned to continue profiting from it in the long term.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is facing a serious challenge, and the company
needs to prove to investors that it can adapt and thrive in the new computing paradigm.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

By exceeding your needs I mean specifically, a computer that works and does what it is supposed to do without a ton of drama.


There is a reason that so many PCs are sold, just as there is a reason that most people build houses out of dimensional lumber and not strawbales. Not to say that strawbales haven't got a lot of wonderous qualities...

Don't be cracking on the straw! Actually I saw a Euro site where they've approved straw filled SIPs renewable, effective, and dirty hippy approved.

[glatt]

Is Grifftopia built with SIPs? I can't remember. I know it's timber framed, so SIPs are fairly likely.

I was reading a thread on a construction site by a guy who was building with SIPs for the first time. He found them to be a fair amount of trouble. The supplier stacked them on site in the wrong order, and dropped them off earlier than expected, so they got rained on a lot and the wood skin swelled at the edges so they wouldn't fit together without using a handheld power planer to knock down the random high spots of swollen wood, and the crane used thin straps which crushed the edges in spots. Really frustrating for him.

This guy had been called in to take the job at the last minute and so wasn't able to plan ahead on using SIPs. He said that it was a real learning experience, and the next SIPs job would go better next time, but he thought they weren't worth the trouble.

Up until then, I'd only heard good things about SIPs.

[Lamplighter]

Of course Dwellars can drift this thread anywhere you wish, that's OK.
But...

This posting is not The Good or even The Ugly... that leaves The Bad

Is any Dwellar actually using Quicken or Mint
that can help me with changes described in the OP ?

I have been a super-fan of Quicken since it's earliest days, and now am looking
at a software product that seems to be written for ?
... the lowest percentile of middle school kids with smart phones.

Both Quicken and Mint seem to be parental monitoring services, rather than "tools".
Mint advertises that "No one can move your money around, not even you"

Specifically, I need to know about the current versions of Quicken.
How does one enter (business) expenses paid in cash ?

Cash !!! ... WTF is that ?

[Lamplighter]

I've just RTFM for the new Quicken (108 pages).

And yes, some of my ????'s have been answered, so maybe it's a lot of
cosmetic changes coupled with the loss of "advanced functions"
...but still functional for most of my needs.

Visually, the new format is like one Excel spreadsheet for each account.
But I don't know yet if I can display more than one at a time.
The old Quicken allowed as many accounts as your monitor's geography could handle.

Still, I can't seem to get over the idea of giving access to all of my bank, credit card,
loans, retirement accounts, etc to some "cloud" organization on the web.

Have any hackers managed to get into "cloud data" ... yet ?

So, I'm now off to creating from stratch a whole new Quicken database for 2014,
and sadly waving good-bye to my software-friend of about 15 years.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Still, I can't seem to get over the idea of giving access to all of my bank, credit card,
loans, retirement accounts, etc to some "cloud" organization on the web.

Have any hackers managed to get into "cloud data" ... yet ?

The NSA has access to all that stuff. Don't know if private hackers do. Yet.

If your credit card info is compromised, that's a serious problem for the credit card company.

If your bank account info is compromised, that's a serious problem for YOU.

I don't trust online financial stuff. I've had too many viruses on my own machines and read too many stories about hackers to think real money is safe online. Credit cards, I don't worry about. That's not my money. But bank accounts are real.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by glatt

Is Grifftopia built with SIPs? I can't remember. I know it's timber framed, so SIPs are fairly likely.

No, I did infill so it could be done cheap over time. SIPs seem ideal if you're using professionals.

*de-drift engaged*

[orthodoc]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Apple has decided to go it's separate way from MicroSoft.
MS "Word" is (supposedly) replaced by "Pages" and
MS "Excel" is (supposedly) replaced by "Numbers" and
MS "PowerPoint" is (supposedly) replaced by "Keynote"

Good#1: These replacement "apps" are free and automatically updated.

Bad#1: Pages ver 5+ will not open or save as RTF documents !
What is wrong with those people... where is Steve Jobs when you need him ?

.

Very late to the conversation, but my laptop only today flagged that I can 'upgrade to Mavericks free!'. Lamplighter, are you saying that Mavericks will only provide/recognize Pages as a word processing app, Numbers instead of Excel, Keynote instead of Powerpoint? Egad.

My iPad always and only has had Pages as a document creating app. It's worthless, like former Mac word processing apps. As for the other apps - it took me enough time to become barely proficient with Excel. All of my presentations are in Powerpoint, and all of the hospital/university computers are PCs. If Mac has decided to make these office apps incompatible between platforms henceforth, that's a HUGE mistake.

I've always been a happy Mac user but if I can't use Microsoft Office, that's it for me. I'll continue using the old OS and Microsoft-compatible software until it crumps, and then it's PC for me.

[Lamplighter]

...Lamplighter, are you saying that Mavericks will only provide/recognize Pages
as a word processing app, Numbers instead of Excel, Keynote instead of Powerpoint? ...

Do you remember when MS Word was an 8k file and transferred
from one computer to the next by a simple drag-n-drop ?
That's the way it's "supposed to be".
After a month, I'm still getting used to the new Apple software.

First, it's my understand that Mavericks still allows installation of "Parallel" ($79), so
true to the long standing tradition on Mac, you should be able to run most any MS software,
including Office, and I think another thread here on the Cellar
says Office for Mac still runs on Mavericks. But your mileage may vary.

Next, with Numbers... it does open an Excel (xls) file,
and it also opens an exported text file in UFT (txt).
So far I'm not able to open a standard delimited file (cvs).
And as I said before, Numbers is a dumbed-down version of Excel,
where even formatting workbook page and/or reports leaves a lot to be desired.

As for Pages, you probably already know what it is like, but compared to Word it is an imbecile.
It does NOT open some of the standard text formats.
IMO, for Pages to NOT open a Rich Text Format (rtf) document is an deliberate crime.

Apple's "Mail" software is visually different, but buried in the menus are the same functionalities.
Likewise, the most recent (Mavericks-compatible) version of Firefox browser is visually different.
One functionality that I miss is copy/paste the actual web link directly from the default screen.
It is still possible, but now requires first displaying the "History" one way or another.
I guess that's a relatively minor issue.

Lastly, I have used Intuit's Quicken (a fairly sophisticated) financial software,
based on a "check book" model since it came out in the 80's (?).
The only Intuit product that runs on Mavericks is called "Quicken Essentials for the Mac" (QEM)

Now if you owned MicroSoft and you wanted to sabotage Apple,
you would hire programmers to write QEM, and give it away free.
But since MS does not own Intuit it's not free... it's all of $15.
So many formatting and functionalities are missing from QEM,
it looks, feels, and acts like a piece of children's software.

But all is fair in love, war, and marketing, Ituit also sells "Money"
which (I think) is the same product as QEM, but for the PC.
Of course if you want the (fully) functional versions of Quicken,
you have to pay for them, and run them on a PC, or on a Mac via "Parallel".

Thank you, Ortho, for giving me an excuse to spout off some of my anger.
This whole Apple software conversion has made me an angry person for the past month.
Maybe now I'll begin my mental health recovery... at least my wife hopes so...