What do I like on Mac

What do I like on Mac:
1) You can easily open a cd/dvd image (iso) out of box
2) Small applications like Calendar and Address Book are really easy to use and still extremely useful
3) No shining blue LEDs
4) Unified keyboard shortcut for application settings (Command+,)
5) Nice terminal
6) Text auto-correction in all applications
7) Uniform icon decorations for counting (like number of unread emails in Mail icon)  
8) Recovery disk on the hard disk. So you don't have to boot from a slow CD.
9) Touchpad gestures
10) Simple management of wireless networks
11) Unified management of passwords
12) Virtual screens
13) Full screen mode of some applications where the application doesn't cover all the applications but rather creates a new desktop. Hence switching between the application and the rest of the system is fluent and fast.
14) The accents marks are displayed immediately, not like in Windows, where you don't know whether you have really pressed the accent key or not until you press another key.
15) You can trash a file, which is still in use, without an error message.
16) Applications are just one file. And installation and uninstallation of such application is easy.
17) I fall in love with Alfred, a quick launch application that 'predicts what do I want to run much faster and accurately than the default quick launch in the top right corner.
18) Omnifocus is another great To-Do utility.
19) Global switching of keyboard layout. Not application based as in Windows.
20) The password inboxes are delightfully shaking if you input wrong password.

What I don't like on Mac:
1) No Paint Brush by default.
2) Some keyboard shortcuts are ridiculous. For example print screen used to be one keyboard stroke, but on mac it is Control+Command+Shift+4. Ridiculous.
3) Window controls on Mac are unpredictable, sometimes you can close application, sometimes not.
4) When I click on an already active application in the task bar, the application should minimise. Or do something. Not so on Mac.
5) Can't control everything with just a keyboard.
6) Windows decoration is grey as everything else. Thus it is hard to distinguish the borders between the windows.
7) Windows on Mac are strangely layered - sometimes freshly started application pops up, sometimes it is hidden behind others.
8) You can't uninstall Os X applications like Mail. So when the are broken you have to reinstall whole system.
9) Forget about Microsoft Office for Mac. They are crap. Word for Mac is not fully compatible with Word for Windows. Just try to work with equation editor on Mac and then open it on Windows. It's not going to work nicely. And Excel for Mac is a joke as well - you can't work with a big amount of data in Excel since it is sooooooooooo slow.
10) Task manager doesn't allow increase or decrease the priority of a process - you have to do that from the console. And when one process steals all the processor resources it's really a pain to use other applications. On Windows you can use other applications with a hungry application in the background without any issue.
11) Lack of compatibility - with each version of mac Os X you have to use updated applications. In comparison on Windows you can run 10 years old without any problem, you can quite likely run 20 years (except games) and even 30 years DOS applications work.
12) It's hard to switch between different spell checkers. If you write just in one language it's fine but if you are bilingual you have a problem.
13) Ping command doesn't work completely. Supposedly it should support a variable size of payload but this setting didn't work. In the end I had to use Windows' ping command.
14) There isn't any keyboard shortcut for displaying context menu. In windows there is a button dedicated for that. But Mac doesn't even have a shortcut for that.  

Root in OSX

The root is not enabled by default. enable it from terminal but KNOW what you do with the root or you might end giving yourself trouble.

open terminal

sudo passwd root

You will be prompted for a new password to enable root access.


A harder way to enable root is to use the Netinfo Manager application (Applications/Utilities).

1) Open NetInfo Manager
2) Select "Users" from the second list.
3) Select a user you created andnd know the password for!
4) Double-click on the value across from "passwd" and copy it. It is the encoded form of the password for that user.
5) Select "root" from the list of users. Find the "passwd" value (default is "*") and paste over it.
6) Exit Netinfo Manager.
7) Open the Terminal and type "su root".
8) Enter the password for the user chosen above.

Have a different passw for root than the user - and make it something that you don't forget easily.

Never Combine, Hide Labels

Windows 7 does not have a "Never Combine, Hide Labels" option in the taskbar settings, but a lot of people would like to have this option. I have not seen instructions posted anywhere, so here is how to make Windows 7 never group taskbar icons but also hide the labels:

1.  Go to your taskbar properties and set Taskbar Buttons to "Never Combine".
2. Launch Regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
3. Create a new String Value and call it MinWidth.
4. Modify the string properties and set the value to 56.
5. Restart your computer, and now Windows 7 will never combine icons, but it will also hide the labels. 
   
   If you are unhappy with the changes simply delete the MinWidth key and change back to "Always Combine, Hide Labels"
   

I hope this helps some of you out.

My nightmares

The Stone
This is one of my oldest nightmares. In the nightmare, I am lying in a bed and a huge ball from polystyrene is pressing on my chest.

The Restroom
That I use a restroom in a dream. While it isn't terrifying in the dream, the consequence is terrifying.

The Math
Don't even attempt to solve a mathematical problem in a dream - even though you solve one part of the problem and write the solution on a paper, you forget it once you move to another part. So you have to return and solve the first part again. What a Sisyphus work!

The Time
It is dangerous to rely on clocks in dreams - their time don't have to be necessary the real time. And it is particularly embarrassing if you setup a timer in a dream and then you wake too late to attend an important meeting.


The Unpleasant Event
When you have to do something unpleasant, you may end doing that in a dream. But be aware, if you do it in a dream, it doesn't mean it was done in the real world even though you believe you have alredy done that!

The Laughing
This is a real nightmare - I start to laugh and can't stop. And to make it worst - I start to laugh when it is inappropriate.

The Loggia
Sometimes I slip on Loggia and I have to try hard to catch something and prevent a fall. This nightmare is particularly connected to my old loggia, which had huge cracks between the loggia floor and supporting walls, so the whole floor was tilted. To make it worse, the whole fence was connected with  four rusted steel bars, which were partially detached from the wall, so it was just a matter of enough force to pull it out completely. And the fence itself was from iron plates, of course thoroughly corroded, so you could see through. And did I mention that it was in the 8th floor, on a windy side and I was just 5 years old?

Unfinished House
Ownership of an unfinished poorly designed house full of rudimentary flaws is a true nightmare.   

Datamining has a bright future!

A study from University of California, Berkeley, found that data in the world doubles every three years. That means that I have approximately two times more work each three years!

Datamining

Statistics is good for description of population - with just two parameters, mean and deviance, you can describe amazing amount of things in the world. And more surprisingly, you can do that accurately due to the central limit theorem.On the other hand classification is good for description of individuals. Statistics tell you: with a 60% probability you die because this illness is averagely lethal in 60%. But classification can tell you more accurate prediction: you will die with a 58% probability because people with similar parameters to you die with a 58% probability. The disadvantage of this approach is that for classification you need much more data than for statistics. And a big amount of data requires datamining.


Thus if you need the highest possible accuracy you can get, you need datamining. If you are not an expert in datamining then you need a datamining expert. You need me. Leave a comment and I will contact you.

Memo

Už chápu, proč jsou Američané šílení z rozesílání mem. Já už z nich taky šílím. V kontaktním listu je chyba a ví se o ní. Tak se rozešle memo, ale kontaktní list se neopraví, i když je to velmi jednoduché. Proč? To je Amerika.