Thursday, December 4, 2003
I’ve long shied away from LCD font smoothing because the colored artifacts bothered me. However, after some convincing I decided to give it a try. After a few weeks, the colors are still there but I no longer really notice them (except when using Exposé) unless I’m trying to see them. When I switch back to CRT font smoothing to take screenshots, the text seems noticeably less black.
Similarly, now that I’m used to Panther, when I switch back to Jaguar to do some testing the window striping looks much more pronounced than I remember.
Eric Blair mentions that there’s a hidden Go To Folder command in Panther’s file choosing dialogs. It’s activated with Command-Shift-G, just like in the Finder. This came in handy a few weeks ago when I was explaining to a customer how to open a file in an invisible folder.
Panther’s incarnations of these dialogs are the best since Mac OS 9, but I still make mistakes when I try to navigate them with the keyboard. Either the key commands aren’t consistent, or my brain is too hard-wired to the old keys that I don’t even know what I’m doing wrong. For instance, a few days ago I was trying to syntax check a folder in BBEdit, and I kept accidentally choosing a folder instead of drilling down a level.
Mike Wendland, who switched to the Mac one year ago, lists five reasons why he won’t switch back, including:
The Mac community—I used to think they were fanatical nuts mesmerized by the cult of Apple. Now, I find them to be the most friendly, creative, caring, sharing, connected, informed and intelligent group of computer enthusiasts I have ever encountered.
