Breaking Windows

what this site is (and isnt)

this site is not a site to bash Windows or Mac or Linux. there will be no 'this one is better' pros found here. i am a mac person so i come to understand the mac way of doing things better. so i am more inclined to think it is easier to begin with. and so i have a bias toward the Mac and most probably always will. of course, i have been working with the Mac OS since i was a kid, and i have never gotten into workings of the Windows OS - i have never used it on a day to day business for work or play

This site was created to be a journal of my experiences with my first PC. first impressions are the most important ones right? i am sure i will be drawing a lot of comparisons to and from Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Windows 95/98/Me/2K/XP and Unix/Linux. i will not be doing anything else on this site unless i have the time :)

a little history, not too much tho, you would get bored stiff.

the first computer i ever used was a Apple ][, i loved the stickey bears series, q*bert, and other memerable educational titles, that math one was fun, cant remember the name. the text based RPGs were great, and the ASCII games were a lot of fun back then.

the first mac i ever got addicted to was an Apple II GS, it was an apple ][ that looked like the mac. the first mac i ever had as my own was a 6400/200 circa 1997 when i graduated high school, it was a gift from my aunt. i maxed the RAM and the cache in that thing, also put in a faster video card, and it now runs Yellow Dog Linux, tho thats not the first distro it has run.

the last mac i ever owned was a PowerBook G4 500 circa 2001. i have had Yellow Dog on my TiBook, but now run OS 9 on one partition and OS X on the other.

in between the Apple ][ and the TiBook i haved used many macs, pretty much every model at some point or another. i have used DOS, Windows 3.1, 95 - XP, NT 3.5, 4, 2k - just not on a day to day basis. either at a friends rig, or a server at work i maintained, or a workstation at work i helped teach people how to use.

i have used SGI IRIX, Apple A/UX, a few versions of the Amiga OS, and many distros of Linux. i am eager to really use XP tho, as it is the most advanced version (like Mac OS X) of the OS.

i have gotten a lot of flak from friends about getting a windows box. i could care less what they think.

first off i will not respond or recognize anyone sendimg me flames.

Mac users - if you think i am abandoning the mac you are wrong. i keep my TiBook 500 as up to date as the next guy.

Windows users - if you think i have finaly 'seen the light' you are wrong. i have used windows to great extent in my past jobs, and have 'accepted' the Windows OS.

i come from an artistic background, and understand the difference between constructive critisism and just plain critisism. if you do not use contructive critisism that i do not wish to hear from you.

"veriety is the spice of life," "the best of both worlds" those are some good cliches are they not? i have a very portable powerhouse in my TiBook 500, and now i have a powerful desktop powerhouse in my 3 Ghz P4 rig.

when i told my mac-loving friends i was getting a PC their responses were very colorful to say the least. i figured id get flak, some persecution, etc. etc. to going to the "Dark Side." it just showes how neive and blind some people are, almost afraid of some forign OS. you might call it blind faith. but for me personally, i am fine working on Mac OS, Windows, and many flavors of Linux. my first taste of the command line was on a Mac 9500 Workgroup Server, it was called A/UX. now i prefer the Mac OS, i have never owned a PC before, but i wanted the best of both worlds.

im not going to make apologies or exuses. i got a pc because i wanted one. its something different, a challenge if you will.

oh and please do not email me about my grammorical or spelling deficiencies, i know i have them. after all, i am going to school for art and not english. grammer and spelling are surely not my strong suits. and considering this blog software does not have any server side spell checking, im not gonna worry about spelling something wrong. thats what spelling and grammer in Word are for :p

"Are you sure about this? trusting our fate to an operating system we hardly know" he he, ok im done with the star wars humor. i wrote this before i got my pc. i got it on 1/21.

i have and will get roasted for getting a pc by my mac loving friends and family. but in all honesty i think it is rather ignorant to not work with both operating systems.

i have never had a pc and i cannot wait. my current work hourse is an original Titanium PowerBook G4.

so i have been thinking of getting a pc for some time now. i spent about 2 months researching prices and brands. in the end i chose Alienware for both their cool factor (something that is very much lost in the Windows world) and for their prices. so i got an "Area 51" system. here are the specs:

- PentiumÔø‡ 4 Processor 3.06GHz 533MHz FSB w/512KB Cache w/HT
- 1GB RDRAM PC-1066
- Promise Ultra100TX2 IDE Controller
- 120GB Western Digital UltraATA 7200RPM 8MB Cache
- Pioneer DVD-RW A05
- Lite On 48x12x48x CD-RW
- HerculesÔø‡ 3D Prophet 9700 Pro 128MB AGP Dual Monitor
- Sound BlasterÔø‡ Audigy 2
- Iomega Internal 250MB Zip Drive - IDE
- MicrosoftÔø‡ WindowsÔø‡ XP Professional
- Aliencare Toll-Free 3-Year 24/7 ONSITE Warranty

i got 2 promotions too, free shipping and a the CD-RW was free as well. at first i was not gonna get the DVD-RW but then i said what the hell. i got a heck of a deal, this rig would cost 5k from any other vendor, as much as a maxed out G4. and thats one reason i got a pc (the price), as i did not want to put 6k into a G4 and a monitor.

i looked at every good monitor manufacturer i could find. i ended up getting a Sony FD Trinitron 21" CRT, its a G520P and good lord is a purrdy. its 20" viewable and text is very readable at 1600x1200.

i originally wrote this on 1/21.

Well boy o boy am i exited. have not been this exited about a new tech toy since i got my TiBook 2 years ago. Alienware sure has good packaging. i had it delivered to the university (were i work) and could not wait till i got home so i unpacked it at work.

here we go. head to head Entourage for OS X and Outlook for XP. i am in a bit of shock that a thing that is so basic to an email app is handled so differently in both of these MS apps. i think this shows the differences between the MacBU and the MS Office development teams very well (or not very well, as the case may be).

well i must say i am impressed. i am impressed with the price point more so than the dual 1.42 Ghz system. it seems like Apple is starting to hear people bitch about the price point of the G4. i am a little disapointed to hear that its still a 167 Mhz system bus, but i guess a faster bus will have to wait. the inclusion of the ATI 9700 Pro (available soon it sais) as a BTO option is nice. it sounds to me like they put the DVD-A05 in the G4 now too. the "ultimate" option is $4,107.00 with the AppleCare protection plan and a set of apple speakers ($4,806.00 with the 17" flat panel).

so am i miffed i did not wait to get a new G4 tower? nope not at all, and not at $4,806.00. would i have bought this G4 tower had it been out in December when i bought my PC? well i didnt have $4,806.00 then, and i would not have had $4,806.00 if i had waited till now.

I plan to update this as i find new differences between Dreamweaver for the Mac OS and Windows. i have never used Dreamweaver on Windows. Like FileMaker Pro and Photoshop, Dreamweaver is a program i spend a lot of my time in.

the addition of HomeSite features to Dreamweaver MX (DWMX) like the auto tag completion features was one of the best parts to the upgrade to MX. i have always liked the HomeSite/ColdFusion UI. and the auto tag completion addition to DWMX is great. so why am i bringing this up if it is in both the Mac and Windows versions of DWMX. well with the auto tag completion, the Windows version of DWMX got what Macromedia (MM) calls "HomeSite/Coder-Style" the Mac version does not have this, and it is a shame. The "Coder-Style" puts all your pallets on the left side instead of the right (big deal) it also gives DWMX a SINGLE document window with small tabs at the bottom representing the open documents. holy cow talk about productive! this is a much nicer UI to work with. the Mac OS might not have this option because of its use of the Multiple Document Interface (MDI) model. MM could have still added a tabbed UI for the open documents, they have a tabbed UI for the Insert pallete.

More things i figure out when i figure them out (good or bad) pertaining to the Windows version of DW.

I plan to update this as i find new GUI elements in Windows XP that i like and do not like

the document buttons on the task bar - i like the fact that if you click them it toggles between showing and hiding the document. this might have been a feature of previos versions of Windows, but this is the first version i have really put to use

groups of documents on the task bar - very cool new feature in XP, no more 10 zillion tiny icons when i have a ton of Word documents open. very nice. it even tells ya how many are open in the group. the right click menu for the group is also got the commands you would want.

save and save as dialoge boxes - if you want to overwrite a file, all you have to do is click its name, and the file name changes. then you just confirm that you want to overwrite the existing file. this is something that i was hoping Mac OS X would include. on the Mac OS you have to type the name of the file, then confirm that you want to overwrite it. a mouse click is a lot better then retyping_a_really_friggin_long_hard_to_spell_file_name.doc. this is one of my favorite UI features of Windows.

This is a great FREE tool to change your Netscape/Internet Exploder window to 640x480, 800x600, or 1024x768. it will also compensate for the TaskBar and the Office Bar. check it out.

"Sometimes the keys on your keyboard just aren't in the right place." Yes this is true, the Alt key and the Ctrl key are in the wrong spot on the PC keyboard. the Ctrl key should be right next to the spacebar. This is because i am a Mac user, and the Command (Open Apple) key is right next to the spacebar. and leave it to Apple to come up with a non standard way of using modifier keys. even SGI (and other *nix) keyboards have the Ctrl key on the outside. well im used to it on the inside, and my pinky is not trained to rest on the Ctrl, it rests on the Shift key. on the Mac the Ctrl key brights up the "right click menu" wich is useless to me since it has been many years since i have used a Mac with only one mouse button, my average is five. my buddy Jim suggested this little gem, TradeKeys, to remap my keyboard layout. that quote i started this post off with is from TradeKeys discription, and it does a nice job.