Two things that make me grumpy when I use Windows
February 8, 2009 — Abigail Hamilton
I really try hard not to be an insufferable Mac snob, and I think I do quite well, considering by what an enormous margin I prefer Apple computers.
But I have to vent about two things that are effortless on a Mac and deeply annoying in Windows.
- Screenshots.With a Mac Command-Shift-4 gets me marquee-dragging crosshairs adorned with the window dimensions. When I drag, the adorners read out how big the screenshot would be if I released the mouse button. When I do release the mouse, a auto-named png file is there on my desktop waiting for me to use whenever I feel like it.In Windows, I have to open a Snipping Tool app with dialogue, or I can use PrintScreen/Alt-PrintScreen key input, but then I have an image on the OS clipboard and I need to put it somewhere. I need to paste it into an Office doc, or into an image editing program document. That’s right, I need to have a program open either way I do it, with dialogue boxes, choices, etc.
Grrrr.
- The em dash. It looks like this: —. I use it a lot. It’s more than a comma, and sets things off nicely in a way that offers an alternative feel to parentheses. On my Apple machine, Command-Option-[hyphen] inserts a lovely em dash into my text wherever I want it.Contrast that experience with the Windows way: First, you have to have a keyboard with a 10-key pad on the right, or to turn on NumLock (I think). Then, you have to hold down Alt while typing 0151 into the 10-key pad.
There are two reasons why #2 is especially annoying:
- It slows me down and is stoopid.
- Other prople do not know how to get an em dash in Windows and have begun to use _ instead, as well as – and – -.Why should Windows’ shortcomings create new punctuation?! I find it kind of uncaring that they will ignore user needs to the point new punctuation is created out of frustration.
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