• More on the nee MacBook Air

    From Tom Elam@thomas.e.elam@gmail.com to comp.sys.mac.advocacy on Fri Mar 20 13:40:51 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

    Summing up a month. Transition to Mac OS has not been seamless, but
    Google is a big help. I got along fine in Windows, and just basically
    had to learn a different dialect, not a whole new language.

    Except for Quicken apps mostly did not change.

    Quicken for Mac is VERY different. The interface and workflow are not at
    all the same. However, I'm finding that the Mac version can do all the
    same things if you just hunt around and spend time to learn. There are a
    few workflow differences that are actually more efficient on Mac.

    I transitioned to Safari this week, and glad I did. It is in a few ways
    better organized than Chrome or Edge.

    Transition to the hardware has been an absolute joy. You can guess why. Battery life, no fans, no heat, less weight, fluid screen refreshes, no stuttering, instant response, visually more consistent interface, worked
    great with my existing software and hardware base. The only other thing
    I had to buy was a SD card dongle.

    But, one little complaint. After hearing for years about Windows coming
    with program bloat I find that Mac OS does too. I cannot delete these
    apps that I have zero use for mostly because I have substitutes:

    Chess
    Books
    Calendar
    Freeform
    Home
    Mail
    Music
    News

    and

    TV among a few others.

    All together about 1 GB of clutter and disk space.
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Tom Elam@thomas.e.elam@gmail.com to comp.sys.mac.advocacy on Fri Mar 20 13:50:34 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

    On 3/20/26 1:40 PM, Tom Elam wrote:

    Damn!
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy on Fri Mar 20 20:59:09 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

    On Fri, 20 Mar 2026 13:40:51 -0400, Tom Elam wrote:

    But, one little complaint. After hearing for years about Windows
    coming with program bloat I find that Mac OS does too.

    Trying to escape from the progressive enshittification of one
    proprietary system, only to let yourself be captured by another one
    ... is anybody surprised?
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Brock McNuggets@brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com to comp.sys.mac.advocacy on Fri Mar 20 21:14:56 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

    On Mar 20, 2026 at 10:40:51 AM MST, "Tom Elam" wrote <10pk0r6$1q1hb$1@dont-email.me>:

    Summing up a month. Transition to Mac OS has not been seamless, but
    Google is a big help. I got along fine in Windows, and just basically
    had to learn a different dialect, not a whole new language.

    Except for Quicken apps mostly did not change.

    Quicken for Mac is VERY different. The interface and workflow are not at
    all the same. However, I'm finding that the Mac version can do all the
    same things if you just hunt around and spend time to learn. There are a
    few workflow differences that are actually more efficient on Mac.

    I transitioned to Safari this week, and glad I did. It is in a few ways better organized than Chrome or Edge.

    Do you have any specific examples?

    Transition to the hardware has been an absolute joy. You can guess why. Battery life, no fans, no heat, less weight, fluid screen refreshes, no stuttering, instant response, visually more consistent interface, worked great with my existing software and hardware base. The only other thing
    I had to buy was a SD card dongle.

    But, one little complaint. After hearing for years about Windows coming
    with program bloat I find that Mac OS does too. I cannot delete these
    apps that I have zero use for mostly because I have substitutes:

    Chess
    Books
    Calendar
    Freeform
    Home
    Mail
    Music
    News

    and

    TV among a few others.

    All together about 1 GB of clutter and disk space.

    You cannot delete those, but they do not really do any harm (other than space, I guess). Still, it is not the same as the trial-ware and adware and the like. And some of those apps are to some extent front ends for system services other apps use -- Calendar for example. Oh, and to be fair, Apple is including some of its own adware these days. Apps pushing their bundles and having ads (such as News). Not a big deal, but not a trend I like.
    --
    It's impossible for someone who is at war with themselves to be at peace with you.
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From CrudeSausage@crude@sausa.ge to comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy on Fri Mar 20 21:21:40 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

    On 2026-03-20 4:59 p.m., Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
    On Fri, 20 Mar 2026 13:40:51 -0400, Tom Elam wrote:

    But, one little complaint. After hearing for years about Windows
    coming with program bloat I find that Mac OS does too.

    Trying to escape from the progressive enshittification of one
    proprietary system, only to let yourself be captured by another one
    ... is anybody surprised?

    There wasn't much bloat on the MacBook Air M1 I used. It bundled the
    software Apple makes like Facetime and Podcasts, but they can easily be removed, as far as I remember.
    --
    CrudeSausage
    Islam is poison, leftism is retardation.
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Tom Elam@thomas.e.elam@gmail.com to comp.sys.mac.advocacy on Sat Mar 21 10:52:24 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

    On 3/20/26 5:14 PM, Brock McNuggets wrote:
    On Mar 20, 2026 at 10:40:51 AM MST, "Tom Elam" wrote <10pk0r6$1q1hb$1@dont-email.me>:

    Summing up a month. Transition to Mac OS has not been seamless, but
    Google is a big help. I got along fine in Windows, and just basically
    had to learn a different dialect, not a whole new language.

    Except for Quicken apps mostly did not change.

    Quicken for Mac is VERY different. The interface and workflow are not at
    all the same. However, I'm finding that the Mac version can do all the
    same things if you just hunt around and spend time to learn. There are a
    few workflow differences that are actually more efficient on Mac.

    I transitioned to Safari this week, and glad I did. It is in a few ways
    better organized than Chrome or Edge.

    Do you have any specific examples?

    Transition to the hardware has been an absolute joy. You can guess why.
    Battery life, no fans, no heat, less weight, fluid screen refreshes, no
    stuttering, instant response, visually more consistent interface, worked
    great with my existing software and hardware base. The only other thing
    I had to buy was a SD card dongle.

    But, one little complaint. After hearing for years about Windows coming
    with program bloat I find that Mac OS does too. I cannot delete these
    apps that I have zero use for mostly because I have substitutes:

    Chess
    Books
    Calendar
    Freeform
    Home
    Mail
    Music
    News

    and

    TV among a few others.

    All together about 1 GB of clutter and disk space.

    You cannot delete those, but they do not really do any harm (other than space,
    I guess). Still, it is not the same as the trial-ware and adware and the like.
    And some of those apps are to some extent front ends for system services other
    apps use -- Calendar for example. Oh, and to be fair, Apple is including some of its own adware these days. Apps pushing their bundles and having ads (such as News). Not a big deal, but not a trend I like.


    One small Safari example - you can have your Favorites as a drop-down at
    the top or in a sidebar, or both.

    Books, News, Music, Home and TV are all Apple paid services or products.

    Books - We have a Kindle subscription
    News - I use several sources
    Music - YouTube Music is included in my Premium subscription
    Home - We use Google Home
    TV - we have 4 Roku TV sets

    And I cannot remove them from this Mac.
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Tom Elam@thomas.e.elam@gmail.com to comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy on Sat Mar 21 10:55:43 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

    On 3/20/26 4:59 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
    On Fri, 20 Mar 2026 13:40:51 -0400, Tom Elam wrote:

    But, one little complaint. After hearing for years about Windows
    coming with program bloat I find that Mac OS does too.

    Trying to escape from the progressive enshittification of one
    proprietary system, only to let yourself be captured by another one
    ... is anybody surprised?

    Really? What is the alternative?

    Spending time trying to make Linux work for us after 40 years of pretty
    good Windows/Android and now MacOS/iOS experience. No way.
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy on Sat Mar 21 20:30:45 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

    On Sat, 21 Mar 2026 10:55:43 -0400, Tom Elam wrote:

    On 3/20/26 4:59 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

    On Fri, 20 Mar 2026 13:40:51 -0400, Tom Elam wrote:

    But, one little complaint. After hearing for years about Windows
    coming with program bloat I find that Mac OS does too.

    Trying to escape from the progressive enshittification of one
    proprietary system, only to let yourself be captured by another one
    ... is anybody surprised?

    Really? What is the alternative?

    Spending time trying to make Linux work for us after 40 years of
    pretty good Windows/Android and now MacOS/iOS experience. No way.

    Classic example of the sunk-cost fallacy.

    By the way, Android is Linux-based, too. So you cannot claim to be a
    “Linux virgin” ...
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Brock McNuggets@brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com to comp.sys.mac.advocacy on Sat Mar 21 21:30:04 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

    On Mar 21, 2026 at 7:52:24 AM MST, "Tom Elam" wrote <10pmbbc$2hagk$1@dont-email.me>:

    On 3/20/26 5:14 PM, Brock McNuggets wrote:
    On Mar 20, 2026 at 10:40:51 AM MST, "Tom Elam" wrote
    <10pk0r6$1q1hb$1@dont-email.me>:

    Summing up a month. Transition to Mac OS has not been seamless, but
    Google is a big help. I got along fine in Windows, and just basically
    had to learn a different dialect, not a whole new language.

    Except for Quicken apps mostly did not change.

    Quicken for Mac is VERY different. The interface and workflow are not at >>> all the same. However, I'm finding that the Mac version can do all the
    same things if you just hunt around and spend time to learn. There are a >>> few workflow differences that are actually more efficient on Mac.

    I transitioned to Safari this week, and glad I did. It is in a few ways
    better organized than Chrome or Edge.

    Do you have any specific examples?

    Transition to the hardware has been an absolute joy. You can guess why.
    Battery life, no fans, no heat, less weight, fluid screen refreshes, no
    stuttering, instant response, visually more consistent interface, worked >>> great with my existing software and hardware base. The only other thing
    I had to buy was a SD card dongle.

    But, one little complaint. After hearing for years about Windows coming
    with program bloat I find that Mac OS does too. I cannot delete these
    apps that I have zero use for mostly because I have substitutes:

    Chess
    Books
    Calendar
    Freeform
    Home
    Mail
    Music
    News

    and

    TV among a few others.

    All together about 1 GB of clutter and disk space.

    You cannot delete those, but they do not really do any harm (other than space,
    I guess). Still, it is not the same as the trial-ware and adware and the like.
    And some of those apps are to some extent front ends for system services other
    apps use -- Calendar for example. Oh, and to be fair, Apple is including some
    of its own adware these days. Apps pushing their bundles and having ads (such
    as News). Not a big deal, but not a trend I like.


    One small Safari example - you can have your Favorites as a drop-down at
    the top or in a sidebar, or both.

    OK, fair. I mostly have them at the top -- but also have a button I can push
    to easily hide them. Useful for making videos for folks where they do not see my (too many) Favorites.

    Books, News, Music, Home and TV are all Apple paid services or products.

    Books - We have a Kindle subscription
    News - I use several sources
    Music - YouTube Music is included in my Premium subscription
    Home - We use Google Home
    TV - we have 4 Roku TV sets

    Pretty much the same for me... I use Google News and other sources. I use Pandora and my own downloaded music. Did have a free trial of Apple Music and it was pretty good, but not with the money to me. I do use the app though.
    Also use Roku.

    And I cannot remove them from this Mac.

    You can... but it is not recommended or obvious how. Means reducing security (disabling System Integrity Protection (SIP)) and more... and you do not get back all the space you thought you would. These are built into the system... not quite the same as the third party stuff you often get with Windows.
    --
    It's impossible for someone who is at war with themselves to be at peace with you.
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Joel W. Crump@joelcrump@gmail.com to comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy on Sat Mar 21 17:34:08 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

    On 3/21/2026 10:55 AM, Tom Elam wrote:
    On 3/20/26 4:59 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
    On Fri, 20 Mar 2026 13:40:51 -0400, Tom Elam wrote:

    But, one little complaint. After hearing for years about Windows
    coming with program bloat I find that Mac OS does too.

    Trying to escape from the progressive enshittification of one
    proprietary system, only to let yourself be captured by another one
    ... is anybody surprised?

    Really? What is the alternative?

    Spending time trying to make Linux work for us after 40 years of pretty
    good Windows/Android and now MacOS/iOS experience. No way.


    Using Linux isn't hard if you have time to learn a few things. I just
    find Win11 has gotten better with 25H2, and it's simpler to use, some
    minor advantages with either platform, but for my use they're both
    rather similar at the end of the day.
    --
    Joel W. Crump
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Chris Ahlstrom@OFeem1987@teleworm.us to comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy on Sun Mar 22 08:14:55 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

    Tom Elam wrote this screed in ALL-CAPS:

    On 3/20/26 4:59 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
    On Fri, 20 Mar 2026 13:40:51 -0400, Tom Elam wrote:

    But, one little complaint. After hearing for years about Windows
    coming with program bloat I find that Mac OS does too.

    Trying to escape from the progressive enshittification of one
    proprietary system, only to let yourself be captured by another one
    ... is anybody surprised?

    Really? What is the alternative?

    Spending time trying to make Linux work for us after 40 years of pretty
    good Windows/Android and now MacOS/iOS experience. No way.

    Linux already works for "us". The big difference is that there is
    not a singular powerful company controlling/supporting Linux.
    This constraint (of the big companies) limits the choices that can
    be made; for some, this is a good thing. [ By choice here, I mean
    configuring how one's desktop works. ]

    In other news, I bought one of those cheapo under-the-desk
    platforms for the mini PC and the ethernet switch, so I've got
    more room up top.
    --
    And the French medical anatomist Etienne Serres really did argue that
    black males are primitive because the distance between their navel and
    penis remains small (relative to body height) throughout life, while
    white children begin with a small separation but increase it during
    growth -- the rising belly button as a mark of progress.
    -- S. J. Gould, "Racism and Recapitulation"
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From vallor@vallor@vallor.earth to comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy on Sun Mar 22 15:52:14 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

    At Sun, 22 Mar 2026 08:14:55 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom
    <OFeem1987@teleworm.us> wrote:

    Tom Elam wrote this screed in ALL-CAPS:

    On 3/20/26 4:59 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
    On Fri, 20 Mar 2026 13:40:51 -0400, Tom Elam wrote:

    But, one little complaint. After hearing for years about Windows
    coming with program bloat I find that Mac OS does too.

    Trying to escape from the progressive enshittification of one
    proprietary system, only to let yourself be captured by another one
    ... is anybody surprised?

    Really? What is the alternative?

    Spending time trying to make Linux work for us after 40 years of
    pretty good Windows/Android and now MacOS/iOS experience. No way.

    Linux already works for "us". The big difference is that there is
    not a singular powerful company controlling/supporting Linux.
    This constraint (of the big companies) limits the choices that can
    be made; for some, this is a good thing. [ By choice here, I mean
    configuring how one's desktop works. ]

    There are a few businesses doing a brisk trade with
    capable Linux workstations, such as System76 and Dell.

    Just before the RAM spike, I bought a System76 workstation
    with 512GB of RAM, because I need 4GB per core, and it has 128 ht cores. (Threadripper CPU.) It's still boxed on its pallet, swapping it in
    to replace this system will be quite an operation.

    ht one of those cheapo under-the-desk
    platforms for the mini PC and the ethernet switch, so I've got
    more room up top.

    I got one of those for $170 to run adb on Linux and control a FireTV
    we're using for signage at our congregation.
    --
    -v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 Mem: 258G
    OS: Linux 7.0.0-rc4 D: Mint 22.3 DE: Xfce 4.18 (X11)
    NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090Ti (24G) (595.45.04)
    "Paranoia is nothing to be afraid of!!"
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Tom Elam@thomas.e.elam@gmail.com to comp.sys.mac.advocacy on Sun Mar 22 15:23:34 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

    On 3/21/26 5:30 PM, Brock McNuggets wrote:
    On Mar 21, 2026 at 7:52:24 AM MST, "Tom Elam" wrote <10pmbbc$2hagk$1@dont-email.me>:

    On 3/20/26 5:14 PM, Brock McNuggets wrote:
    On Mar 20, 2026 at 10:40:51 AM MST, "Tom Elam" wrote
    <10pk0r6$1q1hb$1@dont-email.me>:

    Summing up a month. Transition to Mac OS has not been seamless, but
    Google is a big help. I got along fine in Windows, and just basically
    had to learn a different dialect, not a whole new language.

    Except for Quicken apps mostly did not change.

    Quicken for Mac is VERY different. The interface and workflow are not at >>>> all the same. However, I'm finding that the Mac version can do all the >>>> same things if you just hunt around and spend time to learn. There are a >>>> few workflow differences that are actually more efficient on Mac.

    I transitioned to Safari this week, and glad I did. It is in a few ways >>>> better organized than Chrome or Edge.

    Do you have any specific examples?

    Transition to the hardware has been an absolute joy. You can guess why. >>>> Battery life, no fans, no heat, less weight, fluid screen refreshes, no >>>> stuttering, instant response, visually more consistent interface, worked >>>> great with my existing software and hardware base. The only other thing >>>> I had to buy was a SD card dongle.

    But, one little complaint. After hearing for years about Windows coming >>>> with program bloat I find that Mac OS does too. I cannot delete these
    apps that I have zero use for mostly because I have substitutes:

    Chess
    Books
    Calendar
    Freeform
    Home
    Mail
    Music
    News

    and

    TV among a few others.

    All together about 1 GB of clutter and disk space.

    You cannot delete those, but they do not really do any harm (other than space,
    I guess). Still, it is not the same as the trial-ware and adware and the like.
    And some of those apps are to some extent front ends for system services other
    apps use -- Calendar for example. Oh, and to be fair, Apple is including some
    of its own adware these days. Apps pushing their bundles and having ads (such
    as News). Not a big deal, but not a trend I like.


    One small Safari example - you can have your Favorites as a drop-down at
    the top or in a sidebar, or both.

    OK, fair. I mostly have them at the top -- but also have a button I can push to easily hide them. Useful for making videos for folks where they do not see my (too many) Favorites.

    Books, News, Music, Home and TV are all Apple paid services or products.

    Books - We have a Kindle subscription
    News - I use several sources
    Music - YouTube Music is included in my Premium subscription
    Home - We use Google Home
    TV - we have 4 Roku TV sets

    Pretty much the same for me... I use Google News and other sources. I use Pandora and my own downloaded music. Did have a free trial of Apple Music and it was pretty good, but not with the money to me. I do use the app though. Also use Roku.

    And I cannot remove them from this Mac.

    You can... but it is not recommended or obvious how. Means reducing security (disabling System Integrity Protection (SIP)) and more... and you do not get back all the space you thought you would. These are built into the system... not quite the same as the third party stuff you often get with Windows.


    The Dell XPS the Mac is replacing had 0 3rd party slop from the factory.
    But that is likely an exception for Windows machines.

    But I DO NOT understand how CHESS, Music or Books are baked into Mac OS!
    But NOT iOS! So I hid them. Like I said above, it's a small issue.
    --- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2