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jazzfishStill thinking seriously about this Mac switch. For awhile I was contemplating a 13" Macbook, but I'm starting to suspect that may not be enough screen real estate. Which means a Macbook Pro, which would push me up from Expensive into Really Bloody Expensive. So I stopped by the Apple store at lunchtime, figured I'd take a look at a Macbook and see what the size was like.
"I wonder how it types," I said to myself. "I'll just click at the end of the URL field..." where "click" took a bit of figuring out, but, okay, I can probably get used to that, "and select everything in it. CTRL..." what idiot put a "Fn" button where my pinky is supposed to be hitting CTRL? Does this stand for "Fail now" ? Because it's going to cause all my navigation and copy/past muscle memory to do just that. "...and Home." And I quite literally tried twice to hit the Home key in its usual places: first to the right of theBackspace Delete key, then just above it. Nothing. Who the hell designs a keyboard without a built-in Home button?
... okay, poking around online reveals that if I revert to my original plan of "laptop plus iPad" and get an iMac, I can get a "keyboard with numeric keypad," which has a six-button navigation keyclump and also puts the CTRL key in the lower left LIKE GOD INTENDED[1].
It also reveals that under OSX, Home and End don't perform the more common task of jumping to the beginning and end of the line, but instead do the 'top' and 'bottom' thing all on their own. The way to go to the beginning and end of a line is CMD+left/right. Because why would someone want to go to just the beginning or end of a line? It's much more sensible to make those common actions require a second keystroke, and for the rarely-used 'top' and 'bottom' to happen more easily so I can completely lose my place in the document.
(This Home and End behavior is very nearly unacceptable in the Neo, which was designed by ex-Apple engineers. Neo only gets a pass because I know better than to try to edit anything on its six-line screen.)
My budding love affair with Macs may have just crashed and burned, much like a second date when the other person says, "Actually, I'm feeling much better after having my engrams cleared."
Argh.
[1] I'm not unsympathetic to the argument that CTRL really belongs to the left of A, since I spent my first eight years using an IBM Model F.
"I wonder how it types," I said to myself. "I'll just click at the end of the URL field..." where "click" took a bit of figuring out, but, okay, I can probably get used to that, "and select everything in it. CTRL..." what idiot put a "Fn" button where my pinky is supposed to be hitting CTRL? Does this stand for "Fail now" ? Because it's going to cause all my navigation and copy/past muscle memory to do just that. "...and Home." And I quite literally tried twice to hit the Home key in its usual places: first to the right of the
... okay, poking around online reveals that if I revert to my original plan of "laptop plus iPad" and get an iMac, I can get a "keyboard with numeric keypad," which has a six-button navigation keyclump and also puts the CTRL key in the lower left LIKE GOD INTENDED[1].
It also reveals that under OSX, Home and End don't perform the more common task of jumping to the beginning and end of the line, but instead do the 'top' and 'bottom' thing all on their own. The way to go to the beginning and end of a line is CMD+left/right. Because why would someone want to go to just the beginning or end of a line? It's much more sensible to make those common actions require a second keystroke, and for the rarely-used 'top' and 'bottom' to happen more easily so I can completely lose my place in the document.
(This Home and End behavior is very nearly unacceptable in the Neo, which was designed by ex-Apple engineers. Neo only gets a pass because I know better than to try to edit anything on its six-line screen.)
My budding love affair with Macs may have just crashed and burned, much like a second date when the other person says, "Actually, I'm feeling much better after having my engrams cleared."
Argh.
[1] I'm not unsympathetic to the argument that CTRL really belongs to the left of A, since I spent my first eight years using an IBM Model F.
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Date: 2010-09-25 01:06 pm (UTC)