[rollei_list] Re: Rolleiflex Sale OT email clients etc

Hi,

On 28 Nov, 2005, at 11:34, Laurence Cuffe wrote:

if it does, you have a major problem. Another big "win" til Win....
Ok Thor. You are right! In Pegasus mail When I hit the reply button with
your message, I get a window which gives me the following options as to
whom to reply to Thor Legvold ‘From field’
Rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ‘Reply-to’ field
None ‘CC’ fieldd
Rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ‘To’ field
Rollei_list-boune@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ‘Sender’ field
and a couple of other options.
I use Pegasus when I can because I can deal with it in a text only way
and believe that this protects me from at least some viruses.

I'm not familiar with Pegasus mail, but can highly recommend Eudora if you're on Windows. A very nice and powerful email client.

If you want to stay all-text based, Pine was at least very nice, but it's been years since I've used it. A bit simple, but easier than ELM and other emacs/curses based clients. Plus it works nicely on Windows.

I suppose to be honest my reply was more to the tone of the post which
was "Mac is best" and its not worth finding out about anything else. I

My apologies if I gave that impression. Certainly people should find out as much as possible and make an informed decision, IMHO. I've used Windows (and other OS's) for years myself, both as a user, sysadmin and systems integrator. I'm actually new to the Mac (missed out on all the earler System stuff, lucky me ;-). One argument I don't like is "Windows is better because almost everyone uses one". Market share has it's importance, but in this day of dual platform software (pretty much everything can be found on both OS's) and universal file formats I think it's overrated. By the same argument we should all be shooting 35mm digital, not 6x6 manual TLRs :-).

My "informed opinion" after many years is that although today the two OS's are superficially quite similar (i.e. both will do what you need to do, in most cases), the many small details as to how operations are performed, workflow in general, tight and stable integration (both interapplication and application to hardware) give the Mac a decided advantage. I sit here with the distinct impression of "fighting against" the Windows OS to get things done, always "babysitting" the OS, upgrading something or another, removing (or preventing) virii, finding the proper driver version (that didn't step on something else, rendering it useless), i.e. playing sysadmin a great deal of the time instead of just getting things done. I note that in the few years since I got a Mac (my first) I've been much more productive, and sworn less at the machine as it seems to not get in my way as much as Windows did.

It is an opinion, and is subjective. I recall one episode where a couple I know had just gotten a new Dell laptop and multifunction device (print/scan/copy/cook coffee/etc) and asked me if I could help them set it up, configure the device and help them get on the internet. At that point I had had the Mac for about a year. That afternoon of using "wizards" (and then having to fix things manually after the fact) made quite an impression and highlighted how important each one of those little details is.

Is the Mac perfect? No way, loads of problems, Apple has it's share of stupid and customer-hostile moves. But all in all it's still (for me) a much better experience, makes me more productive, and "just works" like Windows never has. Remember "Plug and Pray"? :-) MS has had an incredibly effective marketing department. I remember 3.0, 3.1 and finally Win95 - each promising to deliver the goods, each failing. Win98 actually started getting usable (considering it was mianly a GUI and a BIG collection of patches and extensions trying to hide DOS from view...), XP was a good idea (built on NT developed by the old VMS team) but needlessly complex (any idea why the Registry is a Good Idea...?). Being flippant for a second, the XP GUI looks like something the TeleTubbies might have conjured up :-). Do look and feel matter?

Another thing I learned after the first 6 months with the Mac (and I did have two weeks of swearing and hair-tearing after the initial purchase while "gettting to know" the system and OS) came with the new OS version. On Windows, each major upgrade (3.x - 95 - 98 - NT - XP) meant buying a new computer, as the OS would hardly run on "older" (previous models) hardware, at least not well enough to be useful. I usually ended up buying components and building it myself, as I have (had) since the late '80's. When Panther (10.3) came out, I was sent a free copy, loaded it over 10.2 (Jaguar, which came with the machine) and was pleasantly surprised to see that the machine actually performed faster (not just the GUI, also program tasks and functions) than it had under 10.2. That's a trend I like! That also means that my machine will be usefull longer, meaning more value for my money.

Apropos money, the TiPowerBook I bought was actually less expensive than the IBM ThinkPad (pro model desktop replacement with "everything") it replaced. And while the IBM could never edit DV video without hiccuping (or crashing), the PB did with ease (strange considering the IBM had a 5200rpm drive and the Mac a 4200).

personally find the mac OS's tend to couple to the programs a little to
tightly, and coset the user insulating them from what is actually going

I find tight hard/software integration a plus. In fact it's a hallmark of many professional systems (Avid, ProTools, SonicStudio, etc). At minimum it usually ensures better stability.

on with their hardware. It doesn't improve as you get deeper either, by

In my experience users are insulated from arcane or obscure settings, but these are (normally, but not always) available for the "power" user (in a menu somwhere, usually).

I don't like things dubmed down either, but I do see how not presenting every single choice available helps make "normal" operation smoother and faster. In the cases where one needs fine control, it should be available (and often is, but not always, as you point out).

which I mean this kind of codology:
"If Mac OS 9 is present but not recognized, it is likely that the Mac OS
9 System
Folder needs to be blessed" etc.

I think I've been blessed by never having been exposed to the "Classic" Mac OS (i.e. 9 and earlier) ;-).

It just seems to be an operating system which makes it uniquely
difficult for users who start on it to adjust to other systems.

That might be a very valid point. It does encourage users to use the machine as a tool to acheive something, not as a way of learning about computer systems in general. I didn't start there, so it's hard for me to say.

Well I wouldn't want to totally discount Xerox Parc's contribution or
smalltalk for that matter, and we tend to forget that there were a lot
of graphic based OS's around back then such as TOS for the ATARI and the
programmers work bench for the amiga etc.

The Amiga rocked! Look at what it was doing for computer video when nothing else (short of a dedicated very expensive setup) could touch it. We specced one for the University's in-house TV information system when I was working there. A really great platform for video overlays, titling and outputting.

TOS was pretty nice too.

Smalltalk was the basis for NextStep (as you probably know) and the Objective-C model it was based upon. Xerox (actually many research facilities) should have credit for developing many important ideas in computing taken for granted today. They weren't always that hot at making the technology availble to users (i.e. actually building and marketing something).

Sorry about the last bit, this cold I have is killing me (sinuses)
and
my patience is short. I've been in IT since at least the early
80's,
done VMS, done VM, done Unix, Dos, Windows, BeOS. In fact Mac OS is
the
I started with JCL on an IBM360... Tops20, Unicos.., eunice, minix,.. 

Wow. Dude, you're *much* older than I am :-).

Minix as in the precursor to Linux? Nice.

only OS I didn't have any experience with until quite recently.
NextStep was my OS of choice for many years (the WWW was originally
conceived by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXT machine at CERN) , and

Here I envy you, I've always wanted a next cube, but have settled for
the Mac cube instead. Its running OS X on twin 1.5GHz G4's with a new
HD, 1Gig ram, its not a bad little machine..

I got in at the right time - I had purchased an IBM PS/2 only 6 months before, and was visiting the university research lab where they had just bought a few NeXT's. They demonstrated the system to me and I was hooked. I think that was in 1988, Just when the new MB's were announced (25 and 33MHz, wow!). So I got an old Cube from a "Firesale" in the US (I phoned the same day I found out about the upgrade deal) for next to nothing, upgraded to the latest MB and sold the PS/2 for more than I paid for the Next. I found a second hand NeXT printer about 6 months later. It was the best system I've ever had. I sold it to a guy in Japan in 1995 and got an Intel license and kept running the OS on a PC. I still have it :-). I'll bet the guy in Japan still has the cube :-).

When a friend of mine whom I had turned on the the Next told me a few years ago that OS X was basically the same thing, I asked him to show me, and well, that led to my very first Mac..

As for the internet being invented at CERN... I'd prefer to use the word
evolved given the prior existence of bitnet, arnet, DECnet...

The WWW, not the internet. As you say, ARPAnet, DECnet, etc. all existed long before, originally as university/research and US military defense networks. However there was a slew of stuff running over the network (email, usenet news, ftp, archie, gopher, etc) and the idea of hooking it all together with a hyperlink metaphor was there, but not implimented. Originally it was pretty much like Gopher, that changed pretty fast.

Back to camera talk. Anyone taken any nice shots with a Rolleiflex
lately?
What's a camera again? 

LOL!

Anyone want to say a few words on the comparitive advantages/disadvantages to 4x5 vs. 6x6? Not regarding movements, but primarily size of negative. 6x6 is around 3x bigger than 35mm. A big jump in quality. Is the jump the same (or bigger/smaller) to 4x5?


Cheers (and lots of coughing, sneezing and snot),
Thor
Get well soon! 

I sure hope so, it's been evading all my efforts to get rid of it!

All the best
Larry Cuffe


Cheers,
Thor

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