OSX doesn't like sharing.

I own a PC with Windows 7 and a mac mini with latest version of OSX. No I'm not a collector or have them just to say i have them, I actually use both of them. So naturally I sometimes need to share files between the two and to do that, I made a shared folder in Windows because at the time; that was the computer that was running.
When I first got the mac mini (it's so cute... especially with the stickers i put on it.) it had OSX 10.8.
So for sharing I had to use a 3rd party plugin to enable it to use the NTFS partition. Hm... ok...
Windows could read and write fine into OSX.
Then the updates came along and that plugin stopped working. Well damn it.
A friend of mine that is a real genie (he's an actual technician certified in most stuff apple) told me that OSX doesn't like it if the shared folders are not in OSX.
"So wait, instead of the computer telling the other computer - hey here is some data, please write it in your folder - it goes by itself and accesses another machine?"

I didn't really like that method as changes in an operating system or in a file system may ruin that.
I was expecting the transaction to go more like "here's a buffer, write it as you will".

He then said "You can do two things. Either make the folder to be shared in OSX and access it through Windows, or enable OSX to read *and* write in NTFS partitions."

Wait. So OSX already has the capability to do that but is disabled by default? - Yeah, it's Unix based after all. There is no option visible in any configuration panel though, so I can only guess that apple just didn't want it's operating system to be able to do stuff out of the box. It doesn't make sense to me since a lot of companies may run multiple departments with multiple systems. Why force them to either use FAT32 in networked drives or just only use ... osx ... oh....
And no, that 3GNTFS plugin thing won't work anymore. Or not well enough.

Well in any case, it seems you can enable OSX to read NTFS by using terminal and then edit a plist file to just tell it that it's ok to ready NTFS. And it is per volume, not global...

So i had to open terminal, then sudo nano etc/fstab (for the uninitiated, sudo means super user, do).
That would open a GNU editor called nano and load the fstab file that is located in the etc direc... folder. (could use any other editor in sudo mode i guess, he just likes that one) and write LABEL:DRIVE_NAME none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse then save it with CTRL+O (It's a unix thing it seems. It means write Out.) Then restart the system.

I guess my main issue with this whole thing is that an operating system should let you do the things you need as hassle free as possible. Having the capability and then just not letting you do it...

I also have another issue with the sharing stuff in View info in OSX but that is a logic VS UI design thing instead of a technical one.

Design consistency

Something to take note when designing anything, is consistency. That's because your users or clients will be conditioned/taught and they'll expect something to "be there" or be in a certain way. It's why the close button on Windows hasn't moved from where it is. It may be changing slowly, but it's still there, looking all Xed and red now.

And my issue is with OS X, or rather the way it has implemented a feature in the Finder; to be able to go back to the folder you came from by using the keyboard. You press Command and the UP arrow on the keyboard. From an engineer's point of view it's fine, because the data on a computer are thought as trees. The more folders nested in other folders you open, the deeper down the roots you travel, and so Command + UP to go up, closer to the surface makes sense. But not with the way the GUI is designed.

Look at the buttons right there on the left. They are pointing left and right as if further back the timeline or forward.
Yet with the keyboard you go up and down. You might say that i'm nitpicking and most probably I am, but it actually took some time to get used to it, it's two different ways of thinking and it's nice that it's not the whole OS like that. Command + left arrow or right arrow does the same thing as Shift + <- / -> as far as I know.







In Windows the Windows key with the arrows does something expected, it throws the window in the directions of the arrows. Stacked to the left, to the right, maximised, minimised, similar to what Control+arrows does on OS X.

By keeping things consistent you make for a smoother UI experience, and keep nitpickers happy :).