Yoshino

Off topic, but wasn’t Xserve just Apple’s rack mount system running Mac OS X Server? How was it trying to co-opt and extinguish the internet? (Not snarking, genuinely curious)

I do agree that Yosemite has had some performance regressions, but people seem to remember the older operating systems with rose colored glasses. I used 10.3 to 10.5 on the 2005 PowerBook G4 (1.67 GHz) and it was incredibly slow. Spotlight was nearly useless. The fans would frequently spin up. And let's not talk about Finder locking up when a network mount disappeared. Right now I use 10.10 on the original 2012 Retina MBP, and even though Yosemite is a bit slower than Mavericks it is still leagues faster than (Mountain) Lion on the same machine (which is what it shipped with). The biggest performance regressions I've seen have been in Safari, but Chrome doesn't seem to have the same problems.

I think they are paying attention, since 10.10 performance has improved considerably since the first DP, but they need to do more. I wish they would stop fucking with it on a yearly cycle and just release a stable, fast operating system with no new features. The graphics system needs more optimization and they need to kill HFS+ (but that's a whole different can of worms).

(Edits: wording)

Homebrew's openssh formula include a patch for Keychain support:

    $ brew info openssh
    openssh: stable 6.6p1
    ...
    ==> Options
    --with-keychain-support
        Add native OS X Keychain and Launch Daemon support to ssh-agent
    --with-ldns
        Build with lens support

Perhaps you could add the notification patch to Homebrew's openssh and get the best of both worlds?

I switched in 2005. It took me at least a year before I really felt comfortable and maybe another year before Windows felt harder to use.

Perhaps you already know this, but I found it really hard to use Finder until I stumbled upon the hotkeys, which seem nonsensical when coming from Windows:

  Cmd-Down/Cmd-O - open
  Cmd-Up         - go up
  Cmd-C          - place item on clipboard
  Cmd-V          - copy item on clipboard
  Cmd-Opt-V      - move item on clipboard
  Return/Enter   - rename

In other words, to cut in OS X, you must do a Cmd-C followed by Cmd-Opt-V (as opposed to Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V), the reasoning being that you can choose to copy or move at the destination. I must have used the Mac for 5 or 6 years before I found that out.

I also use an app called Moom to mimic some basic tiling window functions. I have hotkeys bound to move a window to a quarter, third, half, or full screen. This is nice for setting up MacVim and iTerm side-by-side, or two or four Finder windows. Alfred (application launcher) includes some functionality to make working with files easier. Mine is set so Cmd-Opt-\ will pull the currently selected file(s) in the frontmost Finder window, and then you can perform an “Open With…”, or Copy/Move the file (you can just start typing the letters of the destination without browsing to it). Shortcat, Witch, Little Snitch, KeyRemap4MacBook are also fantastic.

As for Page-Up and Page-Down, I tried to remember that Fn-Up is bound to Page-Up, and Fn-Down is bound to Page-Down, and therefore Home/End are bound to Fn-Left/Right. It becomes second nature after enough use.

I agree that some of these things should be built in, but I think any operating system is going to have these kinds of issues. There’s no way to cater to everyone. I just wish some of these modifications to OS X felt a little less… hacky…

(edit: formatting issues)

I agree, although I’ve noticed that the Retina screen is coated with something that makes it far less reflective than the older glossy screens.

Would you mind sharing how you configured Alfred to let you switch your VPN endpoint?

I turned them off completely. I found that the line numbers and file position in the status line was more than enough to get my bearings, and it looks nicer without the scrollbars.

In ~/.gvimrc:

  " no toolbar
  set go-=T
  " no right scrollbar
  set go-=r
  " no left scollbar
  set go-=L

As someone who uses Transmit... what would you recommend instead? Command-line sftp?

Why so much hate? The foundations of Apple were built by Jobs and Woz. Several days ago someone else on HN pointed out that had it not been for Jobs, Woz probably would have been just another nameless, brilliant engineer at HP. Likewise, without Woz, Jobs probably would not have had a computer to sell.

Apple did not invent the graphical user interface or multitouch displays. However, you cannot deny that Jobs was a driving force behind the Lisa/Macintosh and the iPhone. Without those products, the technology innovations that supported them might still be languishing in expensive, niche markets.

Fortunately there are a number of utilities that make window management on OS X more tolerable.

Off the top of my head, try looking at Cinch, SizeUp, MondoMouse, or Divvy (there are definitely more out there that I can’t remember). I’ve set MondoMouse so Fn-Shift drags a window, and Fn-Ctrl resizes a window. It really helps.

Sure, these hacks are shareware and aren’t as elegant or infinitely configurable as tiling WMs for X, but they’re pretty close.

> Not to mention compiz/beryl had desktop effects before any other operating system.

You’re joking, right? Mac OS X has always had some sort of desktop effects. Hardware accelerated Quartz Extreme was part of 10.2 in 2002. And Exposé was introduced in 2003… All before Compiz/beryl.