All I want to do is bring a file from WinXP over to the iPad

On 8/4/15 7:58 AM, Michelle Steiner wrote:
In article , Ken Springer
wrote:

Exactly what I was doing, I was interested in buying a computer. I
wasn't window shopping any more than if I were shopping different auto
dealers.

But, that is the question I got. So, how would you answer that question
if posed to you?

Well, the first time I went to a computer store, I had an answer for
that question; I wanted to be able to keep a record of my books and
record albums.

Then, I think you were lucky. You knew something computers could do.
For all I knew about computers, you sat them in front of a door as a
door stop? LOL

No, I didn't know something computers could do. I knew what I wanted a
computer to do. For all I knew at the time, the salesperson could have
told me that the computer couldn't do it.

But here is the elephant in the room: Although personal computers were
fairly new at the time (late 1970s), computers had been around for
about thirty years, so just about every adult in the country had heard
of them and had at least a glimmering of what computers could do. So
pardon me if I take your statement that you had no idea of what
computers could do with a large helping of salt.

OH, no apology needed. One thing I've learned over the years,
especially being on the computer, people tend to think everyone knows a
little about the things they know. The friend that was with me during
the initial "introduction" to computers also had no clue. I'd never
heard of Eniac or Babbages Computer at this point.

I think it all depends on the environs you were raised in, and where.
For instance, if you were raised in Oak Ridge, TN, you grew up knowing a
lot more about nuclear reactors than some in.... say Boise, ID. Go
further away, anything other than the WWII atomic bombs is probably
unheard of.

My point is, no single person knows something about everything. :-)



--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 36.0.4
Thunderbird 31.5
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

In article , Ken Springer
wrote:

bundled tools are designed to be most things to most people but there
are always those who want to do unusual things, which is why there are
all sorts of apps and tweaks.

But, neither Tinker Tool and TweakUI are bundled with the bare system.

because most people don't need what they do.

those that do want to tweak things usually know what to look for or end
up finding a utility after searching for something to tweak settings.

And you guys have years of Mac experience that I still lack. I will
always go back to my observation that if a small book or quick start
guide came with any new computer system these days, things would be
different. I used the H out of the cards that came with my 8-bit software.

a quickstart guide would just be the basics which you already know.

Gotta admit, I'm getting more help with this Mac than I ever got from
the Apple groups I've visited. Either they would act like the Linux
people I've seen in a few places, or I knew more than most of them. And
that's a bad thing. :-(

check out comp.sys.mac.* sometime.

In article , Wolf K
wrote:

The G4 came with a one button mouse.
i assume you're talking about a powerbook, in which case, it didn't
come with*any* mouse.
[...]

Don't assume, accept my statement. When I bought the G4, the one-button
mouse was part of the deal.

was the g4 a laptop or a desktop?

mac laptops have a built-in trackpad. they do not include a mouse and
never have included a mouse. there is no need for a mouse.

mac desktops include a mouse/keyboard, except for the mac mini.

if you did get a laptop with a mouse, then it's possible that the store
bundled one for some reason but that doesn't make any sense. i don't
know why a store would do that. it's not normal.

in any event, any standard usb mouse works, which usually have two
buttons + scroll wheel. no drivers are needed. just plug and play.

also, as i mentioned, the built in trackpad has one physical button but
multiple virtual buttons. this has the advantage of being able to do a
secondary click anywhere on the trackpad.

In article , Wolf K
wrote:

At the time, very nice Windows laptops were available for less than a
third
of the cost. I don't know about their respective capabilities so I'm only
comparing price. I'm sure someone will tell me that the Mac was worth
every
penny.
the specs were different. that's why the price was different.

About five years ago, when it was time to replace the old laptop, I
decided to check out Apple products. I'd seen an acquaintance work with
a 17" laptop, looked really nice. So I compared the 17" Apple laptops
with Windows laptops with the same CPUs (i3, i5, i7), same RAM, same
HDD. Tedious. The Windows machines machines were about 30% cheaper.

not for the same specs, they weren't.

one difference that comes to mind is that many 17" windows laptops have
lower resolution displays than apple's 15" laptops. just because it's
17" physically doesn't mean they're all created equal.

another difference that comes to mind is that windows laptops usually
include windows home rather than ultimate. os x is comparable to
ultimate.

it's also pretty much guaranteed that the windows laptop doesn't have
thunderbolt and probably has a shorter battery run time.

There are of course Windows machines with much higher specs and prices
than anything Apple offers, built for gamers, mostly. Drool-worthy
hardware, and then some. Gamers spend serious money. ;-)

yep. the price is a function of specs, not the sticker.

PS: I just checked out MacBook Pro. No more 17". Bummer, that could
tempt me.

the 17" macbook pro was discontinued a couple of years ago because it
didn't sell as well as the 15" and 13" macbook pro and particularly the
macbook air (13" & 11"). people don't want to carry something that big.


those who want the extra space typically connect their macbook to an
external display (sometimes two displays) when at work or home and
benefit from having a smaller laptop to carry around.

also, current 15" macbook pros have a retina display which has a higher
resolution (2880x1800) than the discontinued 17" did (1920x1200).

that means that it can be set to the same resolution the 17" had but in
a 15" package. since it's a retina display with pixels that are smaller
than what the eye can resolve, there are no scaling issues. some users
even set it at its native resolution but text gets a little too small
for my tastes.

normally, it's set to 1440x900 points (not pixels), and with a retina
display, it's 4 pixels per point, so it's *very* sharp.

if you're doing price comparisons, you need to account for the retina
display. some windows laptops now have hi-dpi displays but most don't.

No more iPhoto, either, it's now Photos, and includes
"intuitive editing tools". Wow. They caught up with the casual user, I
guess. ;-)

iphoto was rewritten and is now called photos.

it's much better in a lot of ways but it's also a work in progress, as
not all features have been implemented yet.

photos is still targeting the casual user. more advanced users usually
choose lightroom. there are numerous other options too.

On 8/4/15 11:04 AM, nospam wrote:
In article , Ken Springer
wrote:

bundled tools are designed to be most things to most people but there
are always those who want to do unusual things, which is why there are
all sorts of apps and tweaks.

But, neither Tinker Tool and TweakUI are bundled with the bare system.

because most people don't need what they do.

Nor are they interested. But those are the kinds of things I like to
fiddle with, make the computer "mine". As opposed to a computer mine
(like a gold mine). LOL

I just don't feel that including those types of tools is a fair way to
compare one OS to another.

those that do want to tweak things usually know what to look for or end
up finding a utility after searching for something to tweak settings.

And you guys have years of Mac experience that I still lack. I will
always go back to my observation that if a small book or quick start
guide came with any new computer system these days, things would be
different. I used the H out of the cards that came with my 8-bit software.

a quickstart guide would just be the basics which you already know.

But, that quickstart guide would have been marvelous to have 5.5 years
ago, before I know what I know that I knew sometime in the past! ROFL

Gotta admit, I'm getting more help with this Mac than I ever got from
the Apple groups I've visited. Either they would act like the Linux
people I've seen in a few places, or I knew more than most of them. And
that's a bad thing. :-(

check out comp.sys.mac.* sometime.

Looks like about 20 of them on albasani.net. Which one(s) carry the
best general info?



--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 36.0.4
Thunderbird 31.5
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

In article , Ken Springer
wrote:

Gotta admit, I'm getting more help with this Mac than I ever got from
the Apple groups I've visited. Either they would act like the Linux
people I've seen in a few places, or I knew more than most of them. And
that's a bad thing. :-(

check out comp.sys.mac.* sometime.

Looks like about 20 of them on albasani.net. Which one(s) carry the
best general info?

the most active ones are .system, .misc, .apps, .comm and .portables.

a few are rather dead, seeing pretty much only spam.

In article , Ken Springer
wrote:

check out comp.sys.mac.* sometime.

Looks like about 20 of them on albasani.net. Which one(s) carry the
best general info?

comp.sys.mac.system and comp.sys.mac.apps Avoid, eschew, and keep away
from comp.sys.mac.advocacy

In article , Wolf K
wrote:

Don't assume, accept my statement. When I bought the G4, the one-button
mouse was part of the deal.
was the g4 a laptop or a desktop?

IIRC, I've already said it was a G4 Powerbook.

Don't try second-guessing my statement. You might as well argue that I
couldn't have born.

I got a one-button mouse with it, and got two-button mouse as soon as I
could. That's the way it was.

thanks for the confirmation. i thought you said powerbook, which means
no mouse was included, at least from apple.

if you did get a mouse somehow, then whatever store you bought it from
threw one in for some bizarre reason.

In article , Wolf K
wrote:

if you did get a mouse somehow, then whatever store you bought it from
threw one in for some bizarre reason.

You could guess, you know. Maybe I asked for one. ;-)

given your distaste for a one button mouse, why would you have asked
for a one button mouse? why wouldn't you have asked for a two button
mouse from the start?

On 8/4/15 12:21 PM, Michelle Steiner wrote:
In article , Ken Springer
wrote:

check out comp.sys.mac.* sometime.

Looks like about 20 of them on albasani.net. Which one(s) carry the
best general info?

comp.sys.mac.system and comp.sys.mac.apps Avoid, eschew, and keep away
from comp.sys.mac.advocacy


Thanks for the suggestions, signed up for system, misc, apps, and vintage.

--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 36.0.4
Thunderbird 31.5
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 8/4/15 5:06 PM, Lewis wrote:
In message
Ken Springer wrote:
That is not Mountain Lion that I have.

[snip]

The point is, for the basics, you should *not* have to resort to the
Internet for the information. Apple and Microsoft should provide that
as a minimum to get new users started.

You're running an OS years out of date and complaining about OS X?

I'm not complaining about the OS. I'm complaining about the lack of
printed documentation available for the new user when they take the
shiny new computer out of the box for the first time.

For your information, OS X is at 10.10.4, with 10.10.5 and 10.11 fast
approaching. If you refuse to run the latest OS, you don't get to
complain about the OS.

I know what the current version is. I haven't updated because I've seen
nothing in Mavericks or Yosemite that is of value to me. I can't help
it if your feelings are hurt that I haven't updated.

Once again, in case you skipped the reply a couple paragraphs above, I'm
not complaining about the OS.

Also, almost everyone would rather NOT have thousands of help files on
their computer when they can get them easily off the Internet. Sorry
that *you* don't like it, but you are in a tiny and insignificant
minority.

Stop acting like a Linux junkie, and think of people besides yourself.


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 36.0.4
Thunderbird 31.5
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 2015-08-05, Ken Springer wrote:
On 8/4/15 5:06 PM, Lewis wrote:
In message
Ken Springer wrote:
That is not Mountain Lion that I have.

[snip]

The point is, for the basics, you should *not* have to resort to the
Internet for the information. Apple and Microsoft should provide that
as a minimum to get new users started.

You're running an OS years out of date and complaining about OS X?

I'm not complaining about the OS. I'm complaining about the lack of
printed documentation available for the new user when they take the
shiny new computer out of the box for the first time.

I think you will find Yosemite pleasant in this respect. Usually when I
search for something in the system Help menu I find lots of relevant
information. This wasn't the case in other OS versions, as you know.

--
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

In article , Wolf K
wrote:

if you did get a mouse somehow, then whatever store you bought it from
threw one in for some bizarre reason.

You could guess, you know. Maybe I asked for one. ;-)

given your distaste for a one button mouse, why would you have asked
for a one button mouse? why wouldn't you have asked for a two button
mouse from the start?

Because _at the time_ there was no two-button mouse support.

nonsense.

all macs with built-in usb (which began in 1998) can use *any* standard
usb or bluetooth mouse, with full support for two buttons and a scroll
wheel. no driver is needed nor is a mac-specific mouse.

a driver is only needed if the mouse has *more* than two buttons, such
as a gaming mouse, or is otherwise not a standard usb hid device.

without a driver, only the standard two buttons & scrollwheel are seen
and with a driver, full functionality is provided.

for instance, this mouse needs a driver:
http://www.wowgamingmouse.com/wp-con...Redragon-Gamin
g-mouse.jpg

The
two-button mouse, it came with a driver disk. Really. An update or two
later, any two-button mouse worked.

nope. *any* usb two button mouse worked and always has worked.

if someone told you otherwise, then they were wrong.

anyway, which mouse was it? more details would help.

you said that at some point the driver was added to the os itself,
which suggests that the mouse was apple's mighty mouse.

the mighty mouse is *not* a standard usb two button mouse and the
built-in usb hid driver, which has been part of os x since day one,
would not have worked properly.

it's actually a *four* button mouse with a clickable trackpea that can
scroll in two dimensions (versus a scrollwheel's one dimension), side
buttons and capacitative sensors to differentiate primary and secondary
clicks.

once the mighty mouse was out, support was added to os x itself.

On 8/4/15 7:23 PM, Wolf K wrote:
In message
Ken Springer wrote:

Old Unix guys have told me that the "power" of Terminal surpasses the
Command Window. Anyone here used both sufficiently to comment on that
claim?
Absolutely true. A Unix shell is about as similar to cmd as a
thoroughbred is to a rocking horse.

Sure, but so what?

Any command shell is only as powerful as the user's knowledge and skill.

U-h-h-h-h-h, no. A command shell is only as powerful as the commands
and abilities provided. :-)

--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 36.0.4
Thunderbird 31.5
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 8/4/2015 11:08 PM, Lewis wrote:
In message
Ken Springer wrote:
On 8/4/15 5:06 PM, Lewis wrote:
In message
Ken Springer wrote:
That is not Mountain Lion that I have.

[snip]

The point is, for the basics, you should *not* have to resort to the
Internet for the information. Apple and Microsoft should provide that
as a minimum to get new users started.

You're running an OS years out of date and complaining about OS X?

I'm not complaining about the OS. I'm complaining about the lack of
printed documentation available for the new user when they take the
shiny new computer out of the box for the first time.

This is not 1985.

Once again, in case you skipped the reply a couple paragraphs above, I'm
not complaining about the OS.

Yes you are.

Also, almost everyone would rather NOT have thousands of help files on
their computer when they can get them easily off the Internet. Sorry
that *you* don't like it, but you are in a tiny and insignificant
minority.

Stop acting like a Linux junkie, and think of people besides yourself.

Sorry, but YOU are the one who is thinking only of yourself. As I said,
and you ignored, people do not want to have thousands of help files on
their machines.

No company is going to print manuals in this century.


I love it when I get a thick manual and start to read two paragraphs
in the language I understand.