HotCorners 1

[jpadie]

I am new to macs and vaguely on the way to becoming a convert (ish).

i'd like to be able to use hotcorners to switch a screensaver on before its normal timeout. i've done what i think is the necessary in the systems preferences (both under dashboard and under desktop/ss). but try as i might i cannot get any of the corners of my trackpad to react to the presets. they stay resolutely inert and my little fingers are getting rather sore with the tapping.

am i missing something? i do feel sure it's pilot error. i've tried leaving my finger on the hotzone, double tapping, single tapping, hold and click et al. any suggestions welcome. i'm getting strange looks in the starbucks i frequent...

 

[mrn]

Move the cursor to the corner of the screen

Mike

"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters."

 

[jpadie]

ah! somewhat redfaced about that!

thanks

 

[mrn]

No Problem, we've all got to start somewhere.

Mike

"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters."

 

[jpadie]

but ... i've been designing application user interfaces for 20 years!
thanks

 

[mrn]

Oh! hehehe

Mike

"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters."

 

[Welshbird]

Hee. On what platform did you design them jpadie?

I found the change to a MAC quite expansive having used Windows before, but once I'd got the hang of some things the others become really obvious. For example, once I'd realised that [apple] and [w] closed a window, it seemed obvious to try [apple] and [n] for a new one.

Its very different than trying to remember [alt] + [f4] to close something.

Have fun!

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[jpadie]

Hi Fee

back in the dark ages it was neat text interfaces to an exam results processing application in Basic (for a PET if you remember those ...). I tried writing games for the Spectrum but never got the hang of it, too many picky bits to deal with!

in the intermediate years I played around with machine code on CP/M machines which never needed more than a text prompt for an interface. I think they were RML boxes sitting on an early mainframe that used those wonderful old Winchester Drives. i remember also mucking around with pascal, fortran etc although i think this was all theory/academe (processor optimisation, driving external devices, science experiment integration etc) rather than for any practical use

graduated some years later to designing front-ends for garages and similar industries to run their front and back office systems. From memory this was in a 4GL extension to Sage Sterling, but i might have got the variant wrong. This is what really turned me on to the power of database driven applications and what business will really pay for!

moving on to VB and VBA (trying to make word do what i wanted it to) and finally ending up with the web (served by php).

it's been a bumpy ride (i'm now a lawyer...) but I've consistently shown, over the years, that I'm pretty terrible at designing my own interfaces but just great at criticising other people's!

on the Mac i'm finding the learning curve quite shallow but frustrating - i can't get under the bonnet of the OS as much as I want to and am able under windows. I will inevitably return to Windows, I think, as I'm not happy with changes in my core apps of Word and Outlook between win and mac. I spend 90% of my working day using these and they represent my business output too. I also really need tight AD integration and the ability to use the offline files system that win server 2003 (runs my domain) uses. Thursby tell me that they can sort of do it with AdmitMac but why have "sort of" when you can have "absolutely".

on a related matter, my wifi card stopped connecting to any base station but apple's own when i installed a software update (2006-07). there was no way to uninstall the update so i had to reburn (archive and install) the machine. this feels like really poor design. i don't think this kind of thing happens in the MS world (at least not to me), and even if it did the user base would create a "fix-it now" imperative which does not seem prevalent in the mac-world.

So i will end up with a dual boot mac i think. Parallels (the beta that runs off a boot camp partition) has caused me all sorts of headaches but to be honest the log out log on process is so quick on a core 2 duo that i won't mind the slight clunkiness and will keep parallels for running *nix vm's. i'll keep using the mac for music and photos but even then windows does not feel so far out of kilter with macs...

but the macbook (black) is beautiful (never thought i'd say that!)...

The next question for me will be whether i jump in to Vista or stay with XP. battery life is the key decider for me and i've consistently read that vista's prefetch et al hurts the battery life on my mac.

sorry for the ramble!
Cheers
Justin

 

[mrn]

From what I've seen of vista, they have borrowed a ton of stuff from the mac. widgets = gadgets, spotlight top right on mac - spotlight type app bottom left....

Mike

"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters."

 

[Welshbird]

I do agree with the 'not being able to get under the bonnet' thing with Mac's.

I guess for me the 'pooter was always just a means to an end, and I only ended up under the windows bonnet because I had to. I chose a Mac at home because I don't have to.

Actually, I have done one thing. I switched on my SMTP service so my MBP would send its own outgoing mail, no matter where I am. But even that was incredibly easy.

Horses for courses I guess. I just want to muck about with photos and video; surf, and write. I'm loving Pages in iWork, and as I spend all day messing with data I don't miss spreadsheets and stuff when I'm at home.

If I used the same machine for both then I would surely dual-boot so I could use Mac when I could.



Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]