drseuss9311 said:
......
Also: Can anyone suggest some lines of 'attack'/discussion with my windows centric friends who are totally cool with *nix, but just can't seem to get away from windows becuase that's all they know (and they know a lot of it!)[/I]
........
Hmmm, where do I begin?
As an example of what I call "AOR" (Arrogance of Redmond), I recently had to swap out a small hard drive with a larger one on an older WinXP machine. As many Windows users know, you really really want to boot off of C: since many software goes to C: to find things. But somehow, without my doing anything on purpose, my boot volume became some drive letter other than C: I started digging into how to change that. All the usual Windows commands failed. None of my Windows gurus can help. Finally I found this:
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;223188>
You just have to read it as a Mac user and you won't know whether you should laugh or cry. Since 1984, the boot volume of the Mac can be any drive. And the drive can be named anything. I named my drive "My Computer" just to make my Windows friends feel at ease. Today, you can even boot off of your Firewire attached iPod! After 20 years, Windows will finally allow you to give your hard drive (volume label) a name besides C: But it must also have a drive letter (one of 26!!!) I routinely back up servers and workstations by CarbonCopyClone (donationware) and if disaster strikes, I can boot off of my firewire backup on ANY mac hardware and it will run. Recently, I have an OSX 10.3.8 image from a Blue&WhiteG3 (hardware is at least 6 years old) which I was able to boot off a brand new Mac Mini and it ran as my backup server. You can do the same with iBooks and G5 iMac's. Don't even think about imaging windows onto different hardware. Even if you can defeat XP's Activation nightmare, every Windows system has different drivers for different motherboards and peripherals. Go to any support site like Sony Vaio or HP and look at the mess of drivers you have to install for each and every model of PC you own. My 60GB iPod has an image of OSX with my apps and email setup that I can boot off any recent (last 4-5 year old) computers made by Apple and it has my desktop set up, all my preferences set up, my Ethernet settings, PPP dialup settings. I know it is not that difficult to program. And Microsoft has had 20 years to watch what Apple has done. Why can't they do it? Answer: They don't give a damn about their users. Some 20-something programmer in Redmond decided, "They don't need to boot off of anything but C:"
Another example is Network setups. For at least a decade, my Mac laptop has settings for several static IP subnets, and DHCP settings. Apple calls it Location these days. On Windows, the only "innovation" in XP is that you don't have to reboot if you change your TCP/IP settings. You can only change it manually. Windows will not offer to remember your settings between your office LAN and your home LAN. I see Windows users all have pieces of paper where they write down all the TCP/IP settings. And one typo and they are screwed. Sure, for $$, you can buy 3rd party utility that will let you set up multiple TCP/IP settings. But again, it is not rocket science. Some kid in Redmond decided that since he can get away with one static and one DHCP, why can't the rest of the World? If you need more, just change them manually and write down your settings. Don't bother us. We have security holes to patch.
Anyone who has to use both platforms will appreciate Apple's programmers and hate Windows programmers with a passion. You know they are not stupid. They are basically equally educated from the same schools. But Redmond instills arrogance into everyone they hire so they turn what would be good programmers into "we don't care if you like us" programmers.
I can tell you like command line. WindowsXP was supposed to get you away from DOS. But simple things like running ping or nslookup and until recently, just finding out your TCP/IP IP address required reaching the Command Prompt! You will soon learn that you can forget command prompts and do everything with GUI on the Mac.
Why is it that on the Mac, you can use a GUI in Control panel to tell you machine to reboot when power is restored. Yet on a 2005 Windows machine, you have to interact with a 1980s vintage BIOS to set that?
Why is it that you can hold down the option key when you boot up a Mac and tell the OS which bootable volume to use to boot up and in a 2005 Windows, changing the boot sequence requires the user to go into BIOS? What is worse is different motherboard uses different F-keys to initiate BIOS. What is even worse is that many BIOS doesn't have USB driver. So, if you only have a USB keyboard, which works just fine for XP, you cannot change the boot sequence if you OS is sick and you want to boot off of a removable drive that is not set up ahead of the C: hard drive. You have to borrow someone's PS2 Keyboard so you can get into the BIOS!!!!
I cannot count how many hours I have spent helping friend with Windows networking. So you need to have a name for your "workgroup". Of course, XP Pro and Win98 defaults to WORKGROUP (as does MacOSX's Windows Networking). But XP Home defaults to MSHome. Now, if this is such an important parameter to get computers to see each other, why isn't it in a prominent place where users and see it and change it? Good luck finding this vital piece of information. Then in Win98, you can set up a password to protect your computer on a network. In XP, good luck figuring out how to achieve the same thing. The only thing that seems to work is to open up your computer to everyone or no one. Why does it have to be so difficult? Why can't Microsoft offer at least a Win98 "option" so it is no more obscure than Win98? Apple filesharing just works and has been working for well over a decade. It has moved from LocalTalk to Ethernet and Appletalk to Appletalk IP and now totally TCP/IP. All that without the users even knowing everything has changed under the hood.
You got more time? Try to install a printer on Windows and then try to install the same printer on MacOSX. I can go on and on and on....
You will love the Mac.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to argue with a Windows "guru" on these points. Not only will they make up excuses for Redmond, they will actually try to convince you that it is "good" to have drives name with single letters of the alphabet in 2005! Your best path is to enjoy your Mac and offer symphathy and encouragement to your windows friends when they tell you their next horror story about how they have to spend 2 days re-installing Windows when their computer suddenly slows down to a crawl and they can't figure out what was wrong with it.
Charles
