MBP, why I still use it

Despite the fact that I've been suffering quite a bit from OSX, I'll probably continue to use it at this point, because:

1. Fantastic keys in the keyboard. I really liked Thinkpad keyboards (my first laptop was Thinkpad 560, and I've been a user of T-series, including T43p). However, I really get to like MBP's keyboard keys. It has just the right amount of key travel distance, and spaced just right, and can be pressed small amount of force, unlike some other keyboards, yet it's not overly soft. In other words, it's the goldilocks of the laptop keyboard for me.
2. Battery life. T43p lasted barely 2 hours, and I used to carry extra battery. MBP lasts easily 4 hours, and more like 5 hours. Practically I can carry around all workday without charging.
3. Performance. Whatever I can say, MBP is fast enough for what I used it for. It's almost never a bottleneck for my use.

I'd guess #3 will be similar in other laptops with similar hardware. So it's not really MBP's advantage. That said, things I wish the most:

1. Page up/down, home/end keys. Out of all keys, I miss those four keys the most.
2. Fast way to cycle through the windows, instead of applications, without touching the mouse.
3. Less awkward keyboard shortcut for copy and paste (I guess I'll have to practice two-handed copy-and-paste - pressing c/v with left hand and right-command with right hand). If only left command key was slightly moved toward right, by reducing the space key a bit - as is, either I have to move my whole left hand/palm to press left command key with my left thumb, or my left thumb has to bend a lot to press it. Awkward either way.
4. Consistent keyboard shortcuts between applications. I'm still quite confused of shortcuts in many applications. Not the app specific ones, but more basic ones like beginning-of-the-line and end-of-the-line, page-down and page-up, beginning-of-the-page and end-of-the-page. And also how certain shortcut combos are treated differently depending on whether a textbox has a focus or not. It's all confusing and annoying. e.g. I mapped ^-T to be "New Tab" in Safari, but if the focus is in the text area, it doesn't open a new tab. Instead, I think it does "transpose" of the last two characters. :(

OSX pain continues...

Skype crashes on the startup. I tried deleting plist files (system default and personal), no success. Disabled firewall, no success. System is up-to-date and yet, Skype continues to crash upon login to Skype.

Then, Open Office didn't start up upon the first use. Had to force-kill it, then open up an existing file. Now it can start up without opening an existing file. But nonetheless very weird.

I tried mapping ^-C and ^-V as copy and paste for all applications, but it didn't work on Terminal. Then I removed the mapping for all applications, but the terminal application continued to show ^-C and ^-V as the shortcut and it didn't work. So, in that state, all applications except Terminal used %-C and %-V, but Terminal had no functional shortcut for cut and paste. Eventually restarting the terminal removed this annoyance, but it again shows the keyboard shortcuts (and its customization) are a very sore thumb in OSX.

Not all keyboard shortcuts are equal, part 2

I tried mapping ^-L to "open location..." menu item in Safari. And guess what? It doesn't work, despite the fact that the menu shows ^-L next to "open location..." item. I don't know what Safari does with my ^-L stroke. Of course, clicking a menu item "open location..." works. So it must be that something eats my ^-L in Safari. Arg :(

Chrome works fine, but Chrome-on-OSX isn't quite ready for prime time (it's already much faster than Safari, but there are enough things that don't work yet on Chrome, and it's also not quite as stable). So until Chrome becomes stable enough, I guess I'll have to suffer...

In OSX land, not all keyboard shortcuts are equal...

I think I'm giving up on using command key as the shortcut - it's just too awkward to use everyday. So I've ended up overriding a lot of shortcuts using control- combo. ^-C ^-V ^-X ^-T ^-N all know works as everywhere else, and with caps lock mapped to control, my thumb doesn't have to bend to press command and something else.

However, one inconsistency in Safari and Chrome still bugs me. I've remapped tab movements to be control-up/down both for Chrome and Safari. The problem is, in Safari, if the focus is in a text box inside a page, the new shortcuts don't work. What's funny is that the original shortcuts (control-tab and shift-control-tab) work fine even when the focus is in a text area.

*sigh*

So, on Mac, not all keyboard shortcuts are equal :(

Mac OS X: "Not enough disk space can cause directory corruption"

...at least according to one Apple employee named Carolyn Samit:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2086575&tstart=0

I was just looking for a solution to my MBP hanging problem, and encountered this particular post. I'm just hoping that this is just a clueless tech support type person perpetuating unsubstantiated personal opinion (which flies in the face of the basic principles of the operating system/file system design, and I'd almost interpret it as a slander/libel against OS X), but since I can't know if this "Carolyn" is a lowly tech support or Apple's filesystem engineer, I'll have to assume that this is Apple's position.

I tried to post a reply asking for clarification, and Apple rejected it. Below is the email Apple sent me about the removal.

Dear Seongbae (S. Park),

Apple removed your post on Apple Discussions titled "Re: Random freeze/not-responding in 10.5.7" because it contained the following:

Rude or inappropriate language
Non-constructive rants or complaints

We are including a copy of your post at the end of this email for your reference.

Our terms of use, which include helpful information about using Apple Discussions, is located here: http://discussions.apple.com/help.jspa We encourage you to continue using the Apple Discussions while abiding by our terms of use.

If you would like to send feedback to Apple about a product, please use the appropriate selection here:http://www.apple.com/feedback

As part of submitting feedback, please read the Unsolicited Idea Submission Policy linked to the feedback page.

Kind regards,
Apple Discussions staff

++++++++++

This message is sent from a send-only email account. Any replies sent to this address are deleted automatically by the system.

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A copy of your message for reference:

I'm suffering from this same problem, and this makes my new MBP 15" one of the worst systems I've ever owned in my past 10 years (the last time I remember having this kind of random instability issue is Windows 98).

I hope you're either joking or hopefully just half-informed when you said "Make sure there is always 15% free disk space. Not enough disk space can cause directory corruption".
What you're saying is essentially Mac OS filesystem can not function correctly with less than 15% free disk space. Can you substantiate this claim ? Since you're an Apple employee, can I take your word as an official Apple advice and publish this ?

Mac convert, another focus oddity

Try this with your Mac:

Fire up any application and have a window that has a scroll bar.

Then using Expose, switch to any other window that's smaller than the first window, so that at least part of the first window can be seen. Then move your mouse cursor on top of the first window (i.e the one that doesn't have focus), and try scrolling. The scrolling would work - even though the application itself is not in focus. It's as if scroll event uses "focus-follows-mouse" principle. Confusing? Hell, yeah. However, I'd still call this useful. If only I can type as well...

Mac convert, sync between Address book and Google Contacts

This article shows a complicated workaround - if you want to try this, make sure you read all the comments as well - to enable Address book and Google contacts sync. Why on earth Apple hides the Google sync option from Address Book's preference is anyone's guess. I find it incredulous that I have to edit plist to fake, and go through manually invoking a command on the terminal to get this working... Clearly this isn't something Apple wants to make users happy about.