Tuesday 26 July 2011

Get back to the jungle, if that is your real address..

So...

as you all know my good friends at apple from whom i buy all my stupid electrical toys have released a new version of the trusty platform that is (was) OSX and it goes by the name of LION.
and as you also may have gathered it has mildly irritated me.
just like the 'king of the jungle' lion is not exactly what its made out to be, lions don't actually live in the jungle and should really be called king of the savannah and OSX lion is really OSXI but they just call it that to seem cool, but details asside is this fancy new operating system a zebra in lions clothing?
i like OSX, i really do, i like the simplicity of it and the way that it doesn't try to be too clever or pretend to be something it isn't but instead it simply sits there in the background and allows everything to work.
now i am aware that some aspects of any computer can be a bit baffling to some people, and the people i am talking about are of corse the old people and the young people, both of whom annoy me for very different reasons but we won't go there (today).
what i am actually talking about is that 'o so familiar' layout that a computer has, the little boxes with things in that stack up on top of each other, the 'desktop' (whatever thats suppose to mean) and the humble web browser that simply displays the information you want and nothing more.
now to me these are basic instincts, i know how to use it because its always been like that and thats what they had at school and thats how it has always been, but no? now i have 2 no 3 'desktops?' whats this? am i suppose to open every window in a new desktop? thats just silly! you don't get a new table to put your cup of tea on while your reading a book you just move the book and put the tea down on the original table.
things like this do annoy me because it looks like change for the sake of change. i expect someone has been paid (handsomely) to sit down at a perfectly good computer and dream up some mad features he and his colleagues can shoehorn into it.
i mean a lot of it makes pretty logical sense, and that annoys me even more because i thoroughly approve of logic and sense, those are 2 of my favourite principles but this docent make sense to me! because i am so used to things that make little or no sense i find the logical and sensible layout and interface bonkers and stressful.
this point is illustrated very well by the 'natural scrolling' feature which climates the scroller bar which was made up by a boffin years ago and made no sense at the time and it has been replaced by a motion to simply push the page up or down just as you would a piece of paper. but it isn't a piece of paper is it. if i wanted a piece of paper i wouldn't have forked out for a fucking computer would i. computers work like computers and bits of paper work like bits of paper. thats just the end of it, id be pissed off if staples offered me an anti virus and some update software with my pad of paper and i am equally annoyed that my computer has offered me 'page turn navigation' on my web browser, its just trying to become a pen and paper again but thats exactly what we left behind years ago! you wouldn't like it if your car made foot step noises so it sounded more like walking would you, because a car is different to walking, walking is mainly for enjoyment and occasional light commercial use whereas a car is for commercial use or technology based entertainment, this is the same for computers and books, books for enjoyment and occasional use for study and the computer is for proper work and entertainment like films etc. i don't want them combined!
im not sure what the point I'm trying to make here is but all i know is iv only got one desk in my room and i currently seem to have 3 on my computer..