On 6 Aug 2008, at 13:23, hugh wrote:
Sorry not to reply earlier, but Paul, I would NEVER wilfully
misunderstand you. I just don’t understand the aphorism you
mentioned - I’ve never heard it before and I didn’t understand what
it meant.
Sorry Hugh, I felt sure you’d know and appreciate the meaning of this
one; it’s been around on the Web for years, and is the usual answer to
people who say ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. That original phrase
has itself been around for years but originally applied to things like
tractors or machinery of some sort, and in that context, it’s a great
saying and one I like a lot, and agree with. But it doesn’t fit very
well with computers. With, say, a tractor, if it works, it works, and
you get the field ploughed. The tractor is unlikely to get much better
over time, and advances in tractor production happen relatively
slowly. A five year old tractor is unlikely to be much worse than a
current one. With computers though, when your one year old machine is
already out of date, if you apply the aphorism ‘if it ain’t broke,
don’t fix it’ then I think it’s legitimate to say ‘if it aint’ broke
(as far as you’re concerned, that is) then you haven’t been paying
attention. I’m thinking here of your claim not to be that interested
in the technology to spend that much time thinking about it, that you
have more important things to do. My point, in turn, is that were you
to spend a little time just acquainting yourself with recent advances
such as OS X, (I’m stretching ‘recent’ here 
you’d end up with a
lot more spare time to spend on those things that you considered, in
your last post, ‘better investments’.
Hence my reference to ‘working smart’ which you seemed to find so
abhorrent; I didn’t mean anything sinister, I just meant the kind of
thing you do when, if you need a whole pageful of thumbnails in
Freeway, you don’t make each one ‘by hand’ and then align each one to
its neighbour, you make one, duplicate it across so you have a row,
then duplicate the row downwards so you have a block. That’s ‘working
smart’. You can use OS X like that except it works not just in one
way, but all over the place; everything you do becomes simpler,
although I’m aware that that hasn’t been your experience.
The net result of all this is not kudos for being savvy, but simply
more time with your family, or fishing, or whatever you do.
I’m disappointed to hear that my machine is ‘out of the ark’
I doubt that you’d argue that is isn’t though?
( Just reinforces my cartel argument
There is no cartel. There is just the opportunity to buy new stuff if
you want to. Nobody’s making you, but you will lose out if you
don’t, although that is a choice you have. And are taking, it seems -
just look at all the trouble you’re having!
, I feel. I don’t remember the OS8 version you’re talking about, I’m
afraid…as I mentioned, I’m not THAT interested! And I really don’t
see what’s wrong with pre-installed software - I don’t want to get
paranoid about people spiking my drinks, life wouldn’t be worth
living! It’s all just 1s and 0s, after all!
But don’t I remember that you were having trouble with installations
and things working originally? Many applications won’t work properly
if you just drag over the application itself. They have other support
bits in different folders elsewhere on your machine that have to come
across as well. Photoshop is a case in point. I’d never dream of
dragging Photoshop over from one machine to the other, I’d do a clean
reinstall of it on the machine I wanted it on, but you can’t do that
because you don’t have the disks. That’s what’s wrong with
preinstalled software. Also, is it licensed? What if you want to
upgrade, or will you use the same version for evermore because ‘it
ain’t broke’?
You’d also have got more of a ‘feel’ of OS X is you’d installed it
yourself.
But Paul, you’ve just said my machine is ‘out of the ark’! And if
that doesn’t suggest getting the wallet out I don’t know what does!
Yet it is, after all, the very same machine that you had (or still
have?) and which runs Tiger!
Yes it is! But mine runs Tiger perfectly, and if I put Leopard on it,
it’d run that perfectly too. Yours doesn’t. But get the wallet out
anyway, not for your ‘cartel’ but for yourself. You’re the one it will
benefit. Oh, Apple too of course, but they’re in business, they aren’t
breaking any laws by trying to get you to upgrade. They’ll only get
your money, and that’s nothing compared to what you’ll get.
Anyway, we are going to differ on all this it seems, and we’re
straying from the original post about Mail. Not fixed but
Thunderbird and Firefox working fine!
But Hugh, Mail isn’t broken …
best wishes,
Paul Bradforth
http://www.paulbradforth.com
offtopic mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options
Just reinforces my cartel argument, I feel. I don’t remember the OS8 version you’re talking about, I’m afraid…as I mentioned, I’m not THAT interested! And I really don’t see what’s wrong with pre-installed software - I don’t want to get paranoid about people spiking my drinks, life wouldn’t be worth living! It’s all just 1s and 0s, after all!