Am I the only Mac Hater?

[Gordo2]

About 3 months ago I made the jump to an IMac - I went with the big 27" w/the 3.2Ghz processor.

I've been in hell since, wishing I would have taken Mac's 30 day trial and turned it back in.

Since buying I've dealt with:

-Safari (Internet Explorer equivalent) randomly direct you to the wrong web page. Its not even hijacking me to malware or porn sites, just random incorrect pages. The odd thing is that the web address shows the correct site in the address bar. Once it directs to the wrong page, it continues to send you there until a reboot, or for some reason, doesn't do it later. I've cleared cookies, cache etc - nothing seems to fix it. I've searched the problem and found I'm not the only one reporting this issue. Very painful when I try to go to Google only to end up on some obscure USAF site that I've never visited before (rogue USAF recruiter with web hijacking skills - I think not). Frustrating.

-Sharing folders among user profiles is confounding. I've spent the last 2 hours trying to un-screw my shared IPhoto library. I seem to have the folder in the right location, and permissions set to allow my wife to read/write, but I can't seem to get her profile to recognize the permissions. Plan to give a last shot at moving the photos to an external drive that ignores permissions - Painful If I'm ever successful, I might even consider sharing an Itunes library.

-The Windows transition: I'm pretty computer savvy; I was a DOS guy who came up through the various forms of Windows (and hated it as I lost the ability to control things as each new versions of Windows was released - I stopped at XP, but have a laptop with crappy Vista). I was tired of fighting with various Windows quirks, using multiple adware/anti-virus programs and still ending up with problems, and bought into the idea that Apple was easier and more user friendly and more secure. While I admit, in theory and I believe practice, the Mac OS is more secure (yeah), so I got that going for me. Meanwhile, I must be the old dog and just don't like learning new tricks - it seams everything I found to be easy with Windows, takes research to do on my Mac. My Mac friends said "give it 3 months and you won't look back" - Its been 3 months and I'm looking back.

My wife, who works in computer graphics (but currently on a high end Windows machine) thought the Mac would be a good move, has given up - she spent an hour trying to attach a photo to an e-mail (I found the problem - IPhoto library permissions, 2 hours later, still can't help her).

Am I the only Mac hater out there?


Gordo

[stomachmonkey]

Glen must be sleeping already.

Browsers read addresses.
They don't/can't randomly redirect you to some other place.
Try Firefox or Camino and see if it persists.

I'm unclear as to how you are trying to share iPhoto.

An hour trying to attach an image to an email?

Did you buy this from an Apple store? Go back and avail yourself of some free familiarization on the OS.

To be totally honest it sounds like you are suffering what a lot of Windows switchers suffer from. You are accustomed to tasks taking more steps/being more complicated than they need to be.

Seriously if you need some help PM me.

[Gordo2]

Monkey,

On the Safari issue - same as has been reported to Apple in these threads:

Apple - Support - Discussions - Safari loads wrong page!!! ...
Apple - Support - Discussions - Safari goes to wrong website typed in ...

On the IPhoto issue - multiple pages with info on setting up a shared library and setting permissions, but nothing has worked so far. My wife tried every possible way to export & e-mail the photo, but as I found later, if she doesn't have the correct privileges, its just not going to happen. It can be confusing though because in her user profile you can see the thumbnail (a large thumbnail, so you kind of forget that's what it is), but you can't open the photo from preview or directly from Finder due to permissions.

I bought the machine at my PX (military).

Greatly appreciate the PM assist offer; think I will be hitting up one of the advocates who pushed me the Apple direction - his son is an apple tech.

Gordo

[Mr Beau]

Two of your issues could be solved by using Google Chrome and Picasa. There are enough quirks in both Safari and iPhoto that I stopped using them.

Unfortunately I can't help you with the sharing issues...

[HardDrive]

THANK YOU. I need a new laptop, and I've been tempted to buy a power book. A welcome data point.

[LeeH]

Yeah... I don't get Mac either. My wife has two. I feel like an idiot when trying to use the things.

[Rick V]

I was never happier then the day I found I can use Linux to control my Ipod. I hate Mac, but I am sure most of that is a response to my own ignorance of the system.

[jwasbury]

My wife bought a macbook a little over one year ago...like you, we thought this would be a more stable system for her (she seemed to always be plagued with malware and viruses on windows). The mac experience has not really lived up to the hype. Her macbook freezes up pretty often and needs rebooting (by removing and replacing battery). Its actually more tempermental than my 5 year old windows XP Dell. She's had tons of issues with email set up, had to ditch Safari browser for firefox, can't get it to sync with blackberry (of course they want you to buy an iphone). She will be switching back to PC when the macbook craps out for good.

My wife was discussing her mac woes with our tenants, and they have been going through the exact same thing.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Linux is far and away the best choice, but honestly I don't have the time to be a "techno geek" anymore and deal with having to customize, load this or that add-in, hunt around for apps, etc. The Mac is the best "mainstream" choice out there and it excels at what I want - which is to plug in, not think about the computer, the hardware, the technical stuff and what-not. It's transparent and works and supports the stuff I need.

I haven't had any of the kinds of issues you mention.

The Apple stuff (while closed-source) is the absolute best closed-source option you can get. If you've got hours to spend configuring/tweaking like I did once upon a time, Linux is better still. But the reality is I've got better things to do with my time than become a de-facto IT geek. I just want the damn computer to work now.

[widgeon13]

is Safari the current update. I have an old 12" macbook and attaching and sending pics can be cumbersome. I usually just drag the pic to the desktop window and that resolves the problem. On my 15" Macbook pro, no problems at all.

I would try a different browser but make sure all apple software is properly updated. And if all else fails, go back to the store.

Good luck!

[wdfifteen]

Sorry you're having so many problems. At my shop the business side uses Windows and the creative side uses Mac. The biz folks have ten times as many problems, mostly with viruses and malware. I use Safari and Firefox on the Mac - Firefox 90% of the time. Firefox is better in several ways, so downloading it would be a good move.

[GH85Carrera]

I have used both Mac & Windows over the years. The ads make it seem Macs don't have problems. That is just advertising BS. We had a brand new Mac that would crash, and it would take several attempts to get it to reload the OS.

I have been fighting with my netbook to get Ubuntu 10.10 to run at the proper screen resolution. No OS is perfect. They all have issues. I can make Windows work and it does not have virus & malware problems. My computer at home 7 years old and works great.

[stomachmonkey]

Redirects of the type you are experiencing are usually due to bad DNS either at your machine/router or ISP.

Crashing machines used by creative types can be due to poor or no font management on the users part. Creatives ten to amass a large font library and if they are just dumped into the system without a utility to turn them on/off they will eventually kill a system.

[Scuba Steve]

My wife had the opposite experience - she was glad to go from her HP laptop running XP to a 13in Macbook Pro. No problems whatsoever except she doesn't have photoshop yet and that bugs her.

I can't claim to be a neutral party... I've been a computer guy since the Commodore days (PET / 2001 series, none of this fancy C64 stuff) but have preferred Macs for the last 25 years.

[Gogar]

Gordo,

Have you updated your software stuff recently? Close all your programs and in the upper-left apple menu go to "software update?" If you haven't, there's likely a Safari update that will fix the issue. If not, download Firefox for free and use it, it's nice and works more often IMO.

As for your wife's iPhoto problem, I hate hate hate using iTunes and iPhoto for email attachments, and you can adjust your preferences to not use them. When downloading an mp3, I choose to have mp3s played by Quicktime instead of iTunes. That way it doesn't get put into iTunes and is much much cleaner. Same with pictures, have .jpgs and .gifs etc viewed by "preview" instead of iPhoto.

If she wants to attach a photo that's in iPhoto to an email, she can just go to the photo in iPhoto, and just drag it onto the 'desktop.' It will automatically make a copy and then she can attach the copy in the email, by selecting the photo that's on the desktop, not directly from the iPhoto library. When done, throw away the copy that she made on the desktop to keep it tidy.

I talked my Dad into a big iMac like yours and he's still not excited about it, 2 months later. I've got hope, though.

[Joeaksa]

Gordo,

Feel the same here. One of my sisters still uses a Mac while the other finally gave up and went back to a PC and loves it.

Everytime I fiddle with a Mac its the same thing, just a different way of doing things and after 20+ years working with PC's I am not going to be making the switch.

Sell the puppy and get a PC. The holidays are coming up and you can get a much better deal then.

[GH85Carrera]

My dad went with a Mac. The best part for me is I am no longer called on for tech support. He just loads it up and goes to the Mac Store and talks to a Mac Genius.

[VINMAN]

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Scuba Steve

....she doesn't have photoshop yet and that bugs her.....

The GIMP can tide her over till she gets CS5.

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program

[speeder]

FWIW, I'm not very tech-savvy and I've had both PC and Mac. I started-out on a PC, (that I was very happy with), and have used a Mac for the last 5 years or so. I prefer using the Mac and maybe I'm lucky but I've had none of the problems I read about here on either platform.

One thing to note is that all I use a computer for is the internet+photo/video managing and I'm 100% on a laptop, always on the fly. My 3 Mac laptops have all been tough as a billygoat including the 13" Macbook that I'm typing this on. Once in a while I'll have to re-boot it after using it in multiple WiFi locations w/o shutting it down, (Safari will freeze-up or something), but that's nothing to me. I recently had a dog bump my outdoor table at a coffee shop and spill coffee on the keyboard, computer completely shorted-out and took a schit. Apple store told me $800 to fix, (more than it's worth at this point). I bought a new factory keyboard on eBay for $135 and installed it my self, works good as new. My techie friends could not believe it, said I was lucky. I figured nothing to lose and it worked out. Now I feel like I can work on laptops, it's just a mechanical device when it really comes down to it.

Sorry for the babble....PCs are actually better for web-surfing, (faster), but Macs are way nicer to use. And I vastly prefer Safari over Firefox. (Have both).