Are PC users diluting the IQ of the Mac community?

Sorry but it’s not even slightly primitive, it was a 300 page book 15 years ago. The difference is how the two companies relate to the software made for their OSes. Most software sold for Macs goes through Apple at some point, subsequently if they say “that’s not up to standard” they can do something about it. Most software sold for Windows never gets anywhere near MS, in fact if it’s not an MS product or a co-produced tie in they have NOTHING to do with it, they aren’t even the guys that decide if it’s up to standard, that’s all done by Veritest. The standards are developed by MS, distributed by MS, but enforced by Veritest. But since most people are just as ignorant about it as you lack of logo isn’t actually much of a punishment.

It’s the difference between having an 80% market share and a 7% market share. The way Apple enforces their standards quite simply will not work in a Windows sized market, the whole Apple Store thing can’t work in that world. The Windows standards are enforced the only way they can be when you have hundreds of retailers selling the products of thousands of companies. MS probably doesn’t even know who most of the companies are that are making products for Windows, and if those companies chose not to follow the standards there isn’t a damn thing they can do about it.

If it wasn’t for governmental agencies and ISO9000 the whole thing would be unenforced. The government and ISO are addicted to certifications, once they find out there is a certification that can be applied to what they buy they only buy certified things, most of the companies that go for Windows logo cert do so because some government agency or ISO9000 company came to them with the promise of their biggest sale ever but... That’s when they learn about the Veritest, go out and buy the book and find out how horribly unclean their product is. Or they hire a QA guy like me or the boss I had that first handed me the book. I push the Windows standards constantly even if we aren’t going for logo cert because they’re good standards that lead to good UI that’s intuitive and friendly.

And really the non-standard stuff isn’t tolerated. Most of the shops that deviate strongly from the standards are small and not terribly successful. The standards exist for a reason, it makes better products, it makes easier to learn products. If you want to make a million dollar software company that makes products for Windows then you need to get the PDFs http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=B996E1E7-A83A-4CAE-936B-2A9D94B11BC5&displaylang=en

MS understand UI a hell of a lot better than you think they do. They’re just a little over addicted to bells and whistles. Maybe now that you know they have guidelines you should read them before making bold false statements.

It’s been a while but I’m pretty sure you can throw your own fully custom message box without going through the trouble of cooking it from scratch.

Show me where. I just looked in VS2005.

and here you are doing any damn thing you want regardless of the standards?

Microsoft itself is inconsistent on this.

Problem is by setting the button apart you make it the natural focus of the dialog which actually makes it MORE likely to be accidentally clicked.

Wrong. If you'd noticed, it's the default button that stands out. On a Mac the difference between the default button and the others is quite obvious. Although the graphic didn't show it, the save button also pulsates in addition to being the only color on the dialog (or if you're colorblind the only filled-in button). The eye is drawn straight to it, and the dangerous button is the furthest away from that place.

Here we are with an article claiming Mac users are smarter than Windows users, and one of the Mac users doesn’t know to read the text.

If you'd been doing UI for any length of time, you'd know that people often don't read, or at most give a very cursory glance at, the buttons. This is because we get hit with dialogs so much that we get into the habit of making them disappear quickly, whatever we have to click. People read the title and caption even less, which means that at a glance "yes/no/cancel" is meaningless. That's why clearly descriptive text with the safe button standing out is important.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting the users to actually read what you wrote, there’s a reason RTFM is the most frequent piece of advice on application discussion boards, people should read.

A major rule of UI design is that the designer is always at fault. If a bunch of people are not doing what you intended then the answer isn't RTFM. The reality is that you screwed it up and should change the UI to the way people work. There are plenty of hard scientific studies out there showing how people work.

Most of those are from 3rd parties and holding them against MS is the worst kind of BS. What 3rd parties do, especially 3rd parties that didn’t bother with logo certification, can’t be controlled by MS. The rest is changes in time period. I also notice he’s careful to ignore the drop down which takes care of every single one of his little whines.

The problem isn’t our disagreement. The problem is you’re addicted to bold false statements. That’s the problem with all these threads, the PC people make bold false statements about Macs, and the Mac people make bold false statements about Windows. They sound great, but they’re BS. You started off by saying that Windows had no UI standards, I proved that proved that wrong and now you’re throwing in a website that does nothing more than prove that with 80% of the market place you really can’t enforce standards. If Apple ever took over the industry they’d run into the exact same problem, once most software for your OS is being distributed by stores that you don’t control ability to enforce the standards goes out the window.

I’m not at work and don’t do work crap at home.

Sorry NOT wrong. There are 3 ways to set an item from a group: size, position, and color. That dialog uses size and position twice (spacing and left to right) to focus the eye towards Don’t Save. I acknowledged color but that still give the 3 to 1 focus advantage to Don’t Save. That’s a simple fact, you can deny it but you’d be wrong. Don’t Save gets more attention than Save in that dialog, period.

I’ve been doing UI stuff for a long time, and the fact that people don’t read is too bad for them. All we can do is give them the information, if they’re too lazy and stupid to read it that’s not my fault. And of course your dialog does NOT solve that problem. In your dialog the person still has to read the buttons to realize that the one drawing their attention the most is the least desirable.

Sorry I’ve seen the complaints of too many stupid customers to buy into the customer always being right. I’ve learned that in reality the customer is usually completely wrong, but you have to explain their error without calling them an idiot. I learned that when working on accounting software and having a customer complain that they couldn’t make unbalanced transactions, on that day I lost all respect for the customer and learned that most of their complaints are the result of their stupidity not ours.

And of course the other reality is that your UI is no less confusing. You’re drawing attention to Don’t Save on a 3 to 1 level, and really the smart attention should go to Cancel the safest of all the buttons.

Sorry NOT wrong. There are 3 ways to set an item from a group: size, position, and color. That dialog uses size and position twice (spacing and left to right) to focus the eye towards Don’t Save.

You're right in the sense that those who absolutely don't read can't be saved in all cases. For them we just have to make a safe button the default. Most people quickly scan buttons, quickly reading the text unless it's an annoying dialog that pops up too much that they just want to constantly be rid of (Vista UAC for example). I was thinking more of those when I was talking about not reading buttons. But many, especially power users, still rarely read the text dialog. You've seen it so many times you "know" what it says.

But let's say we have three buttons and the user will quickly read them. You think we should but the safe button on the left. Those who read them will scan from left to right, seeing the left button first as you say. But that's only the first one they read. If they read at all they will continue scanning to the right, reading the button text. On a Mac the last one they'll land at is the Save button, a safe button and one they're also more likely to click. On a Windows machine they have to regress -- backtrack -- to the safe Yes button. The Mac arrangement leaves more fully informed users and is faster. The Windows arrangement again is seeing the first "Yes" with the question "Yes" to what? Likely "Yes" to the preconceived notion of that the dialog text says.

Windows has UI guidelines, but they weren't quite thought all the way through. As a relatively recent switcher, it's obvious.

I’m not at work and don’t do work crap at home.

One thing that separates really good programmers from the rest are those who program for fun, not just as a job.

All we can do is give them the information, if they’re too lazy and stupid to read it that’s not my fault.

The biggest mistake a programmer usually makes is that he designs an interface for him. But that's wrong, you're supposed to design an interface for people. You have to take into account that people get lazy or cocky. True, there's only so far you can compensate for that.

I learned that when working on accounting software and having a customer complain that they couldn’t make unbalanced transactions, on that day I lost all respect for the customer and learned that most of their complaints are the result of their stupidity not ours.

I don't know anything about accounting, so can't address that. If their problem is that they don't know about accounting and are using accounting software, there's not much an interface can do for that. But if the question from an accountant is "How do I do unbalanced transactions on your program?" then the UI probably needs a change.

Problem is now you’re assuming they make it all the way across. That’s not how it works, especially not when you separate out a button. The best way to get people to read ALL three buttons is to make all three buttons as equal in visual weight as possible, now you can’t do anything about the leftmost problem, some button HAS to be the left most, but you can do something about separation and size. And that’s the problem with that dialog, by separating the Don’t Save have having it larger you’re weighting the human instinct towards it. The human instinct you have to fight isn’t the instinct to read to the end and then decide, the people that read to the end will be fine, the instinct you have to fight is the snap judgment click on the most obvious button instinct. And there are two ways to fight that: make no button the most obvious, make the safest button the most obvious.

Really following your logic then Windows is better. If they read through to the end and linger on the last button that’s Cancel in Windows which truly is the safest of the buttons, Cancel means don’t exit without saving and also means don’t overwrite existing saved data.

Windows guidelines were thought through just as much as Mac. In the end you always have to make assumptions and in some areas Windows assumptions are different than Mac. Sometimes Windows assumption is right (not really with this dialog because it’s generic, it’s not only for dirty exits), sometimes Mac assumptions are right (definitely not in this case because it focuses the eye on the least safe button), sometimes neither is right.

I’m not a programmer, I’m a QA guy. One of the reasons I went to QA is that I found in school I couldn’t leave programming at “work”, if I ran into a programming problem I would obsess on it. I don’t like that. I work to live I don’t live to work. I have a full and rich non-work life that includes a wonderful wife, enjoyable hobbies and comfortable furniture. Work belongs at work and that’s where I leave it.

The biggest mistake designers make is they try to make the program all things to all people. Eventually you need to realize that not everybody is going to be happy but you made a good product so screw the ones that are too dumb to realize it. When you try to do every possible thing perfectly what you wind up doing is way too much and doing it all poorly. A lot of hand holding in a program might be good for new users and the generally not computer literate, but it annoys power users. I’ve often joked with bosses that the application world should take a clue from the game world and include cheat codes, as a power user I find most apps give me way too many warnings, yes I know when I delete that it’s gone forever that’s why I’m deleting it stop asking. And as the second generation of kids grows up with computers I think we’re going to see the industry move to less hand holding, that’s one of the big criticisms of Vista, you have to tell it you know what you’re doing 3 times for every action (unless you uncheck most of the security).

Double entry accounting is double entry because it makes the most basic kind of checksum there is, you add up the left and the right subtract one from the other and if it doesn’t equal zero you screwed up. All entries must be balanced. But people are lazy and stupid, they had a product that didn’t do this and they grew to like it. They forgot that unbalanced entries are incorrect entries and now wanted it back. There was nothing wrong with the UI, we let you enter a transaction and when you tried to save it we checked if it was balanced, if it wasn’t we told you it wasn’t and even told you which fund was out of balance, it was simple, it followed a spreadsheet model so it had a familiar look to anybody that knew accounting, and gave useful messages. But they had gotten used to a bad application, an app that had driven their auditors nuts with it’s ability to make bad transactions, an app that cost them money because irritated auditors are expensive auditors, and they wanted to be able to be lazy again and save bad transactions rather than figure out how to make it right.

It’s a shining example of dumb users, I’ve had many in my life. Then there’s the idiot that screwed up his Windows services to the point where on bootup it would try to start our app (different app), which depended on Exchange, before Exchange, this was a nearly impossible thing to do under NT4 which was actually quite good at tracking dependencies and figuring out the start order of automatic service, but he did it and then got all pissy when I couldn’t fix it and whined to my boss. Forget the fact that it was no bug in our software, forget the fact that Windows wasn’t even getting to our software before it would error out (I put a breakpoint on WinMain just to make sure, never got there), he had hacked his registry and $%^&ed his machine and yelled at my boss because I couldn’t fix it.

Some users are just too stupid, there’s nothing you can do for them, and if you try to protect them from themselves too much you get stuck with Vista or 2003 in full security mode, basically unusable because of the number of verification messages you have to clear just to run an exe.

The best way to get people to read ALL three buttons is to make all three buttons as equal in visual weight as possible

IS THIS TEXT EASY TO READ or is this text easier. Equal visual weight generally hurts reading. The only thing being larger accomplishes is that it's faster to hit according to Fitts' Law.

As far as size goes, the main extreme UI evil to overcome is non-descriptive buttons. One dialog can say "Do you want to save" yes/no/cancel, and the one that pops up two seconds later could be "Do you want to erase your disk" yes/no/cancel. User clicks yes and yes. Oops.

In order avoid that you need to have different lengths of text on the buttons. And you always need to have the safe buttons in the same general location every time, and non-safe buttons in another every time. Now why Apple didn't put the action button on the left I don't know, unless it's for regression efficiency, but it works well.

If they read through to the end and linger on the last button that’s Cancel in Windows which truly is the safest of the buttons

It's not completely about safety. The default or action button, the one most likely to be clicked, is put on the right unless it's a non-safe button. This gets grouped with other safe buttons apart from any non-safe buttons. Depending on your program, Cancel could be on the right.

I have a full and rich non-work life that includes a wonderful wife, enjoyable hobbies and comfortable furniture.

You do the stuff you get paid for at work, you do the stuff you want to do at home. Interviewers are advised to look for programming as a hobby as a positive sign. That means the person didn't just get his ticket punched at college.

I think we’re going to see the industry move to less hand holding, that’s one of the big criticisms of Vista, you have to tell it you know what you’re doing 3 times for every action (unless you uncheck most of the security).

That's one of the reason people are paying less and less attention to dialogs. How many people do you think actually look at the text or buttons for any dialog that on first glance looks like a UAC dialog? Most will dismiss it for the thousandth time, wanting to get rid of the irritation. This isn't entirely Microsoft's fault since it's programmers programming for pre-Vista that usually makes the UAC come up too often. Unfortunately, the current situation is training a generation of Vista users to just make the annoying, useless dialog go away. You don't have to uncheck the option to lose the security, as it's already mostly lost because of the boy who cried wolf.

Apple has warning icons for its dialogs too, but programmers are told to use them rarely. Even save/don't save doesn't have a warning icon. So you notice it when you actually get a warning.

A lot of hand holding in a program might be good for new users and the generally not computer literate, but it annoys power users.

There's always a balance to be achieved. Even though it apparently didn't apply, the accounting problem is what I meant. If it's an accounting program, then an accountant should find it fairly easy to do any standard accounting function, fairly easy to find those functions. The interface isn't designed well if the program has to hold his hand or he has to hunt excessively for it.

They forgot that unbalanced entries are incorrect entries and now wanted it back. There was nothing wrong with the UI

Not at all if the intent of the program is to enforce proper accounting. Such restrictions do constitute a bit of hand-holding, but are entirely reasonable. I haven't used a compiler that lets me compile with syntax errors either.

Some users are just too stupid, there’s nothing you can do for them

True, but as far as not reading text or buttons it's the more experienced people you have to watch out for. My mother in law is practically computer illiterate, but she reads every dialog like a message from God. But if you've been using for a long time and work fast you "know" what that dialog that just popped up says and just click on the button you know is right. With the standard Windows dialog that's not apparent when you look at the button. That's when it gets dangerous.

Sorry you’d be wrong even if you were talking about the right thing. Equal visual weight does not hurt to read unless it’s in large blocks of texts without breaks (which are tough to read one way or the other), and I’m not talking about equal visual weight for the text I’m talking about equal visual weight for the BUTTONS. The only thing being larger accomplishes is that it draws the eye to it making it more likely to be the first choice. This is simple known fact, by disagreeing with that you’re disagreeing with the very research the fed Apple’s UI standards.

Sorry but your need to go to such a ridiculously extreme example shows you know it’s crap. Size matters, the eye is drawn to the larger item, just look in any store, manufacturers are always trying to find ways to make their products bigger than the competitor to draw the eye.

Sorry but that grouping method is 100% wrong. By separating out the unsafe you draw attention to them. This is a simple concept every monte dealer in history knows. Now with consistency you’ll eventually train the user, but you still have to buck centuries of human instinct to get that training done. That which sticks out draws the attention, back in the hunter-gatherer this was simple survival, the path to defeating camouflage and finding food and avoiding being food. It’s an instinct we still have today, you stick something out from the group it gets the first attention. It’s simple doctrine.

It depends on what you want out of an employee. I want people that won’t obsess, will get rest so they’re at peak productivity, and not prone to burn out. To get those things you need people who leave work at work. I’ve never had a hard time getting a job, and the places that wouldn’t take me I learned from insiders were horrid sweat shops, companies that want you to obsess on work are just trying to get 80 hours for the price of 40. You’re only getting paid for 40, that’s how much you should work.

I think even Apple throws up too many messages. The whole industry has gotten message happy. The more we try to compensate for people’s stupidity the stupider they get, and meanwhile all projects get bigger and bigger and require more and more testing and most of the growth is just trying to protect the user from themselves. It’s time for the whole industry to put the responsibility for the data back on the user. Back in the day when it was all paper file cabinets and trash cans didn’t try to keep people from throwing away the wrong stuff, and somehow the world got along.

Of course part of how a person “knows” the button is right when they aren’t really paying attention is that it drew their attention. Again always remember the big shiny candy like red button, the more your button resembles that the more likely users are to push it without paying attention.

It depends on what you want out of an employee. I want people that won’t obsess, will get rest so they’re at peak productivity, and not prone to burn out.

That's not what it's about. Do you want a mechanic who just went to tech school, or one who also likes to tune his own cars as a hobby? Wouldn't you prefer the one who tells you he just finished rebuilding the engine on his '67 Camaro?

Again always remember the big shiny candy like red button, the more your button resembles that the more likely users are to push it without paying attention.

You just contradicted everything. The shiny, colorful, pulsating button in a sea of gray is the safe action button on a Mac. I've used Windows since 2.0 and only recently became a serious Mac user, and my experience is that I get drawn to the safe action button on a Mac far more than on Windows.

Even Windows started doing the descriptive button text, like on the IE run/save/cancel. Of course they put the most dangerous button, run, on the left, the save default in the middle. No consistency.

It depends on the school they went to and their grades. Also it’s a matter of timing, if I’m hiring someone fresh out of college sure some “extra” time “in” the field as a hobbyist will help, if no the other hand the person has been in the field for over a decade some life outside the industry is a plus.

It’s not a contradiction it’s a cliche. There was a theme in bad sci-fi for a while where the self destruct button on the spaceship was always this HUGE button that was just begging to be pushed and you always had to wonder how the ship got out of dry dock without some dumb ass pushing the big shiny candylike red button. It’s the symbol for people who’ve watched these movies of making an object draw unwanted attention to yourself. While in the Mac dialogs case the bad button isn’t shiny or red it is big, and it is separated from the group and it does draw more attention to itself than the other buttons. So even without the shiny and the red it still manages to be the thing that should not be pushed yet draws extra unwanted attention to itself, it is the shiny candylike red button in practice even if not in transliteration.

Even the run/save/cancel dialog has the buttons at mostly the same size, you can equalize button size even if the text is of different lengths, that’s what center justification is for. And of course it’s a different situation than yes/no/cancel, there is no yes/ no option. Yes/no/cancel is for a situation where there’s 1 active verb option (yes I want to do that), 1 passive verb option (no I don’t want to do that) and of course the bail out. Run/save/cancel is 2 active verb options (you can run it or you can save it) and the bail out so it needed a new messagebox. I don’t like the fact that run is to the left and the default, not because it’s unsafe but because when I’m in a download mode I download a bunch of stuff then run it all later, and I compulsively save the exes in case I need a reinstall later.

It depends on the school they went to and their grades.

Oh come on. I've seen MCSEs who passed with flying colors but didn't know squat about Windows networking. I want someone who knows and loves his work. Programming outside is a good sign of that.

While in the Mac dialogs case the bad button isn’t shiny or red it is big

And also still not the most attention-drawing button in the dialog. Theory is losing out to practice. On the Windows that I've been using for years I have more of a problem with coming close to hitting the destructive button than I do on the Mac with only months of semi-regular use.

Run/save/cancel is 2 active verb options (you can run it or you can save it) and the bail out so it needed a new messagebox.

The Mac UI guidelines: Every dialog button is a verb. You push a button to do something, thus the mandate for verbs. Yes and no are not verbs (are we really back in English class?). The Windows norm is to make a decision, mixed with that one verb (mixing also not good). Except for cancel they mean nothing out of the context of the dialog text that is often not read. Yes could be safe in one dialog and destructive in the next. And that is the problem.

Did you know that below this dialog I've never accidentally hit that huge "Word Wrap: ON" button? It's almost twice the size as those above it with little space between. It is proven that it would be much faster to hit that button coming from anywhere but straight up or down than the others, but that doesn't mean I'm more likely to click it.

That’s MCSEs, probably the single most useless piece of paper on the planet. If you want to hire the obsessed that’s up to you, me I’ve seen too many wunderkins burn out, I like guys with a life that doesn’t involve silicon.

No it is the most attention drawing button. I already lined that up, it’s the left most, it’s the largest, and it’s separated from the group, that gives it 3 points of attention drawing compared to the 1 (color) the Save button gets. That makes it the most attention drawing. And that’s not just theory that’s practice, that’s the reality of drawing the person’s attention. Yes some people are more drawn by color (everybody has a natural preference on what of the attention getters they’re more susceptible to), but if you want to play the odds you need to handle everybody not just the color people.

Verbs are OK, but it means you have more standard dialogs. Windows went the other direction: work your app around the dialog.

Being below the Word Wrap On button is hiding below the attention. It’s below the fold, just like newspapers (even after the front page people pay more attention to the top of the newspaper page than the bottom, we’re a top to bottom people).

That’s MCSEs, probably the single most useless piece of paper on the planet.

Exactly my point. I know some good engineers who have MCSEs, but they were already good engineers before getting the paper. Others get the paper without knowing squat. I'm not talking about hiring the obsessed, I'm talking about hiring those who love what they do. And doing some programming for themselves shows they love it.

That makes it the most attention drawing.

Have you even used a modern Mac?

Verbs are OK, but it means you have more standard dialogs. Windows went the other direction: work your app around the dialog.

Huh? The question is whether to put meaning in the buttons or the accompanying text. I vote buttons because they're more likely to be read, since a user's eyes are focused right there when going to click on it. When going the Windows way you're just hoping they read the accompanying text.

Now can I have fun and go off on the Windows menu bar? To be fair I do have some criticisms of OS X's Dock too.

It doesn’t make your point at all. For one thing MCSE aren’t part of college work, for another I said it depended on the school and the degree. Sorry but you are talking about hiring the obsessed, that’s exactly what you were pushing yesterday, inability to leave work at work, that’s called obsession. I love what I do professionally most of the time, I also love to do many many other things and therefore leave work at work.

You showed mer the dialog, I told you what’s wrong with it and why the Don’t Save draws people’s attention more than the save button. Now you’re asking a complete red herring question. Stick to the facts, the facts are simple: Don’t Save has a 3 to 1 attention grab advantage over save, period.

You vote buttons, MS voted text. Neither is really the “right” vote. Putting it in the buttons has certain advantages and disadvantages, putting it in the text has certain advantages and disadvantages.

You can whine about more Windows stuff if you want It won’t change the fact that your dialog draws attention to a bad place.

Sorry but you are talking about hiring the obsessed, that’s exactly what you were pushing yesterday, inability to leave work at work

Talk about inability to read. I never said not to leave work at work. I said having programming as a hobby, where you do the fun stuff you want to do as opposed to the stuff they make you do at work, is a good thing. It's also one of the recommended things interviewers should look for.

Stick to the facts, the facts are simple: Don’t Save has a 3 to 1 attention grab advantage over save, period.

I just opened Notepad in Windows XP and TextEdit in OS X. Typed a few characters on both, hit close on both. Impressions (positions mouse over close button, closes eyes, shakes head a bit, faces middle of screen, clicks button and opens eyes):

First is a little off the subject, but TextEdit uses Sheets, document-modal dialogs attached to the document's title bar. You always know this action is happening for this specific document, even if you have multiple documents open within an application. Windows pops up a dialog in the middle of the screen, and I have to read the title bar to know what application I'm dealing with if I have multiple open. Score one for Mac.

Windows: Eyes are drawn to the Yes, the safe action button, which is good. Being on the left among three crowded buttons is the main reason, the slight hilighting doing little good. Didn't notice the text, and thus the context of the Yes, until I went back up to read it. It tells me the text has been changed and asks if I want to save it. I consider the question, decide I agree to the question, and hit Yes. I always find myself hesitating before clicking, even if I just did it three times in a row.

OS X: Eyes flash over the other buttons (half-comprehending the text) while being drawn to the pulsating blue Save button. I know what I want to do is save, so I hit the Save button. Once my focus is fixed, the next thing I see is cancel. From there my eyes wander, to Don't Save and then to the text. Note, with the window at the left of the screen I noticed I don't skim over Don't Save and Cancel before getting to save, but I do when the window is at the right side of the screen (probably invoking left-to-right reading in that case).

Score one for OS X again.

While I'm at it, what happens when you hit Save?

OS X presents a simplistic dialog where you can type the file name, choose from a dropdown all of the common places to save it to, and pick a format. You can press a button and get the full Finder file browser to more exactly pick a non-usual location.

Windows: Pops up the full file browser/save from the beginning. Common locations are right there, although not as fine-grained, but then you don't need to click a button to get to the full-browser functionality. Type the name, choose your format.

I'd say this one's a wash, except that if you immediately start typing your file's name (what you'd normally do), you overwrite the file extension that's been provided. A user might panic and re-type the extension himself, but it's not necessary since Notepad saves the extension anyway. It is not serious, but it is some confusion that doesn't need to be there. It would also be nice to be able to default OS X display to the more complex dialog if desired.

Oh, and I can move, minimize, use the menu, pretty much anything but modify the text in the TextEdit window. The Notepad window is completely frozen by the modal dialog. Score one more for OS X.

Same thing. Computers is computers, and once you’re making a living on computers you need to be able to walk away from the things. Maybe when you’re 25 or less and fresh out of college hobbying with them is fine. But past the age of 35 people need to get a life without silicone, and in between 25 and 35 they need to be constructing that life. Most days my computer isn’t even turned on, I’ve found a life outside the damned things. And that’s something interviewers should be looking, people that can’t get away from the beast burn out, people with a life might not give you 80 hour weeks without complaint, but if you treat them well they’ll still be productive for you in 5 to 10 years. Much more useful over the long haul.

OK now you’re just being weird. This whole “close eyes shakes head” thing is the activity of a person with a serious obsession problem, read the above paragraph again you REALLY need a life without silicone, fast. Go read a book, one that has nothing to do with computers, math, or electronics.

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