The Mac Experience

[ambitious_wench]

OK, for those of you who don't know, we finally took the plunge and bought a PowerMac G4. Visually, it is stunning. The computer box is liquid, but the real kicker is the viewsonic 19" viewpanel.

some early impressions:

Keystroke commands don't seem to be uniform between applications. i.e, the end key doesn't always move the curser to the end of the line. This is a jolt for a heavy-text user like myself.
Viewpanel colors seem to be washed out-ish...and I find my eyes getting tired more quickly for some reason.
I HATE standard keyboards. My tendonitus is acting up more as a result. I want my ergo-kaybee!
Need to have access to my old machine. That will come with time.
The astute reader will note that with the exception of the first one, none of these are mac-specific bitches.

So much to learn. So little time.

Now for general updates: Car is back again--with a new alternator: Mentat, you were right. Let's hope this ends the problem.

Horseback riding lessons begin Tuesday: This is the result of a challenge between me and Andrew: He has to get his motorcycle license, and I start riding again. Yes: Again. I took equestrian lessons about 8-9 years ago, and miss them. I'll be taking lessons out at "Journey's End" in Scituate.

Horse is a "Swedish Warmblood" by the name of "Tor". He's a 20 year old gelding. He's BIG. I am going to have sore legs--rather like riding a dining room table. But he is a sweet animal, curious and good natured. Willing to lick my hand with a velvety tongue and wuffle in my hair when my back was turned. I think we will get along fine. My instructor's name is Kim--and she is a redhead like me.

Photo will be forthcoming. I think I need to take a road trip up to New Hampshire to State Line tack again. I don't know where my helmet is...and paddock boots! and RIDING boots! And a crop. Will wait until I talk with Kim about that.

Oh, back to the Mac thang--on Jazz Masterson's suggestion, I am trying Phoenix as my journal client.

*groan* Oooh, gods, iTunes is EVIL.

I just got a hankering to hear Galileo's head was on the blockÊ
The crime was looking up the truth
And as the bombshells of my daily fears explodeÊ
I try to trace them to my youth
And then you had to bring up reincarnationÊ
Over a couple of beers the other night
And now I'm serving time for mistakes made by another
In another lifetime
How long till my soul gets it rightÊ
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light
I call on the resting soul of GalileoÊ
King of night vision
King of insight
I think about my fear of motion
Which I never could explain
Some other fool across the ocean years agoÊ
Must have crashed his little airplane
How long till my soul gets it rightÊ
Can any human being ever reach that kind of lightÊ
I call on the resting soul of GalileoÊ
King of night visionÊ
King of insight
I'm not making a joke you know me I take everything so seriously
If we wait for the time till all souls get it right
Then at least I know there'll be no nuclear annihalation in my lifetime
I'm still not right
I offer thanks to those before me that's all I've got to say
Cause maybe you squandered big bucks in your lifetime
Now I have to pay
But then again it feels like some sort of inspiration
To let the next life off the hook
Or she'll sayÊ
Look what I had to overcome from my last life
I think I'll write a book
How long till my soul gets it right (till my soul gets it right)
Can any human being ever reach the highest light
Except for Galileo (resting soul)
Resting soul (of Galileo)
King of night vision
King of insight
How long? (till my soul gets it right) (till we reach the highest light)
How long? (till my soul gets it right) (till we reach the hightest light)
How long? I got it. 99 cents. Oh, no... I need to find out how to make alt+codes on a Mac....


ARRRGGGHHHH!!! I'm too old for this shit!

And I want my touchpad, dammit!

That's it. I am going out to the garden.

And for those of you who are friends with Auntie Ambitious, you can bet she's on extended hiatus until I get this whole thing figured out to a better degree. Write your own Pron in the mean time. Be sure to hide it behind a warning cut.

Edie

Comments

[jazzmasterson.livejournal.com]

alt+codes?

[jazzmasterson.livejournal.com]

Oh, also:

http://faq.arstechnica.com/?s=11

If you have a question, look here first. A better forum for helpful and smart things on this subject cannot be found. Registration not required.

Re:

[ambitious-wench.livejournal.com]

Yeah, on a PC, you press alt and a numberic sequence, and you get various other symbols.
http://www.cotse.com/altcodes.html

[jazzmasterson.livejournal.com]

There are two ways of doing this. One's old-school, the other's new.

Old School

Go to /Applications/Utilities and open up "Key Caps." It shows a keyboard with normal letters on it.

Now hold down "option." Symbols! Hold down shift-option. More symbols! ctrl=more! shift-ctrl=more... option-ctrl... you get the idea.

Those are all built into the system, so they work everywhere, provided the font you're using has the symbol. (Most do, but a windows font (OS X handles windows fonts fine, btw) might not, or a freeware graphic font also might not, depending.)

Anyhow, you can either learn the keystroke from experimenting, like I know that option-2 is the trademark symbol, and option-; is an elipses, and option-shift-1 is the upside-down exclamation point.

Or you can find the symbol you want, click it, and copy/paste.

Note that certain symbols modify the letter you type after them: option-e and then e makes an e with an accent over it, and option-e and then i makes an i with an accent, as well. Option-n and then n makes the spanish n-with-a-tilde-over-it. So if you hit a symbol and it doesn't show up, it's waiting for the letter you want to modify.

So yeah, that's the old-school way of doing it... it made a lot of sense in 1984, and I'm used to it, and if they changed it, pitchfork-wielding mobs would burn down Cupertino.

New-Fangled

In System Preferences, click "international," and click the "Input Menu" (the rightmost) tab. Check the box next to "character palette." Bing! A little menu has appeared in your menu bar (or it will next time you launch another application), to the right of the "Help" menu.

You can also check the box next to, say, Dvorak, if you want to be able to switch your keyboard layout to Dvorak on the fly. Or a Hungarian keyboard. Y'know, just for fun.

In whatever app you're typing in, you can open up the character palette from that menu, and find the symbol you're looking for, and click "insert." Click the little triangle at the bottom of the window for more options. (That's a universal widget used everywhere that shows or hides more options, fyi.) You can do things like select the font you want to insert the text in, or tell the system you want symbols from any alphabet.

(Whee! Hiragana, katakana, and cyrillic figures! Nifty.)


So, you can either learn the keystroke for the most common symbols you use (option-e and then a letter to accent a letter, e.g.), or learn to pop open the character palette from the menu bar.

I do both. Your Mileage May Vary.

Hope this helps.

[jazzmasterson.livejournal.com]

Oh, two last things: http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=8300945231&m=2590909735&r=6230959735#6230959735

Never expect "home" and "end" to work as they do in Windows. They don't, period. They're for going to the top or bottom of a long page or document.

Ctrl-left and ctrl-right are the keys. Or, if you're on the last line of your document, just hit "down" and you're at the end. I miss this terribly on the PC at work. Grrr.

Also: http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/08/30/switch_tips.html

will help with the transition.

HTH.