Why buy an Apple?
- Thread starter Annihilatus
- Start date
Hey! i'm not so sure there, SimX. In the Past, Plug and Play alongside Windows 98 or even 2000 wasn't "all that". But From my opinion, in XP, this is greatly improved! When i plug in a Smartmedia Card, into the Reader, XP instantly recognises, and opens a Window, prompting me for what to do next.
Networking is greatly improved, and my home LAN with DSL Connection sharing over two XP Machines Works a Charm, Without it asking you to restart the machine, if you tamper with any Settings.
I Do think, XP has moved a Fair way forward with these kind of things. HOWEVER, i use XP 95% of the time, and 98 only to hack Crucial System Files for XP! (lol), and i do Find, XP is, well NOT unstable, but "Random". I assume i have a hardware problem, i now suspect my RAM may be at fault, but i get Daily BSOD's that point to Win32.sys and So forth, and quite frankly, it drives me mental, and strives me to move to Mac, or X, sooner! BUT, i was looking At XP on the Tablet PC's, and that looks impressive! Also, i assume Stability would be greatly improved due to their being less hardware to support! So i am "kinda" stuck between two minds, as to where to go, although i still find the Stability of X, and my past "eXPerience" with XP
Gives me a LOT of Direction! One thing i'd say XP has over X, is Customization! XP Can be Molded into something Quite different to out of the Box Luna, and Can GREATLY Change the way the computer works for you! Personally i find the Luna interface, and many of the things that tie in with it, difficult to use, and My present "System" works Far better for me!
NeYo
Why don't you do some research on your own? I'm not here to hold your hand, but here, I'll help you out again since the first link wasn't "good enough." Check out the URL below.
http://www.cybersoft.com/whitepapers/papers/networks.shtml
This couldn't have come at a better time as well. A security exploit for Mac OS X. Check out the URL below.
http://www.cunap.com/~hardingr/projects/osx/exploit.html
You'll find as OS X matures, more and more security issues will be found with it.
"UNIX is a decade-old system, and therefore it probably inherently has more security because it's been around longer."
UNIX was developed in the early 70's by Thompson and Ritchie so it's actually 3 decades old.
Short from a history lesson, let's just say UNIX is not "new." It's architecture and security are basically the same as they were since day 1. This is both good and bad, but the fact remains, UNIX gave birth to the worms, viruses, exploits and buffer overflows you see in Windows and other operating systems today. You have to realize as well UNIX lived in a time before the internet. Exploits weren't so readily available or transferable as they are today. You don't hear about exploits for Windows 3.11 do you? It couldn't be that Windows 95 came along during the dawn of the internet that has anything to do with the amount of exploits available for Windows today could it? I'm not defending Windows, yes, I think they could do better on security, but their not the only operating system to ever have a problem with it, UNIX in point.
"I plugged in my SuperDisk drive that I bought in 1998 when I got my ORIGINAL iMac. When I put in a disk, it popped up on the desktop whether it was a regular disk or a 120 MB SuperDisk NO DRIVERS needed. That's what I call plug-and-play, and I doubt Windows can match this ease of use."
So what is it? You're impressed with plugging in old Mac hardware and having it detected but when it's PC hardware, it's not that impressive? Make up your mind. It's obvious you're a Mac zealot so any discussion highlighting the benefits of Windows or the PC are going to fall upon deaf ears no matter how true they are.
I'm sorry but woopadedoo. Mac has a dozen devices you can plug in and have OS X detect automatically, so what? Windows has hundreds. The truth is, we don't know the numbers either way but we both no both operating systems can do it, and we know both operating systems stumble while trying to do it s well.
You hear mixed reactions about any new product. Should I get started on everything I heard about OS X.0? No. Why? Because I never ran it, but from what I heard "second hand", there was very few good things to be found with it.
Your argument becomes increasingly weak when all you know is from "what you've heard." The bottom line is you just don't know. You have little to no real world applications with Windows or UNIX. I don't know how people feel they have a right to comment on something they know absolutely nothing about yet they seem to do it all the time.
simX
Unofficial Mac Genius
Originally posted by ~~NeYo~~
Hey! i'm not so sure there, SimX. In the Past, Plug and Play alongside Windows 98 or even 2000 wasn't "all that". But From my opinion, in XP, this is greatly improved! When i plug in a Smartmedia Card, into the Reader, XP instantly recognises, and opens a Window, prompting me for what to do next.
Networking is greatly improved, and my home LAN with DSL Connection sharing over two XP Machines Works a Charm, Without it asking you to restart the machine, if you tamper with any Settings.
I Do think, XP has moved a Fair way forward with these kind of things. HOWEVER, i use XP 95% of the time, and 98 only to hack Crucial System Files for XP! (lol), and i do Find, XP is, well NOT unstable, but "Random". I assume i have a hardware problem, i now suspect my RAM may be at fault, but i get Daily BSOD's that point to Win32.sys and So forth, and quite frankly, it drives me mental, and strives me to move to Mac, or X, sooner! BUT, i was looking At XP on the Tablet PC's, and that looks impressive! Also, i assume Stability would be greatly improved due to their being less hardware to support! So i am "kinda" stuck between two minds, as to where to go, although i still find the Stability of X, and my past "eXPerience" with XP
One thing i'd say XP has over X, is Customization! XP Can be Molded into something Quite different to out of the Box Luna, and Can GREATLY Change the way the computer works for you! Personally i find the Luna interface, and many of the things that tie in with it, difficult to use, and My present "System" works Far better for me!
NeYo
I do admit that I haven't used XP at all, and I've really only read secondhand reports about it. However, I've heard VERY mixed reactions. In the business community, like at work, I've heard that Windows XP is only a hell of a pain to integrate into existing networks. Then I hear from regular users, like you Neyo, who say that XP is much improved over previous versions. Of course, that's a relative statement.
However, when you hear about Mac OS X, you hear a resounding approval about its plug-and-play abilities. I haven't heard very many bad reports about OS X (actually, the only one I remember was an Ars Techinca article a few years ago when Mac OS X was in developer preview/public beta stages). I believe there was an eWeek article posted a week ago that was annoyed that XP had some issues with a FireWire hard disk, but when the author plugged it into a Mac, it "just worked", and mounted on the desktop. In addition, compared to OS 9, Apple has really improved the plug-and-play abilities of the Mac, especially since most of the third-party drivers are now built-in to Mac OS X. That's a big benefit.
About the customization, Neyo.. I don't think your statement is entirely correct. XP probably has more "official" customization than Mac OS X, but I can probably still do many of the things you do with XP. There are skin hacks for iTunes, theme hacks (I currently have been running one called AluniteX for a couple months now), and there are various third-party products that greatly enhance OS X, like FruitMenu, ASM, WindowShade X, Silk, Xounds, A-Dock, DragThing, Trash X, etc. etc. (funny how many of the ones I just named are from Unsanity). It's just that all these things are "hacks" rather than officially supported theming.
Heh, it was funny.. I brought my Cube into the Palo Alto Apple Store the other day (my AirPort card is dead, and it's not covered under my cube's warrantee
), and the Mac genius was appalled at how much "skankware" I had installed, and basically had me do all of the troubleshooting myself. It was kind of fun, because I was doing all of the swapping of AirPort cards in front of everybody, and they all loved the look of my cube.
simX
Unofficial Mac Genius
Now there's something substantial. Heh, it'll take me a while to read that.
Yeah, I heard about this, too. But this is largely Apple's fault, not UNIX's.
I meant to say "decades" old.
Heh, I don't hear about exploits for Windows 3.11 because no one uses it anymore, and no one particularly cares about it anymore. As for Windows 95, I don't see how coming along during the internet boom has anything to do with it. We've been in an internet boom for at least half a decade, and you'd think that Microsoft would learn how to not expose security holes. At least when you hear about UNIX security holes, they get patched up (case in point, the last Apache security exploit was fixed with the July Security Update, just about a week after it was revealed. With the April Security Update, Apple fixed a security exploit within days of it being revealed). Microsoft takes a "the back button is not a feature so it's not a security exploit" tactic to everything that is exposed.
No, you're right here. My SuperDisk Drive was a bad example. Probably a better example would be my Que Fire! FireWire 12x10x32x CD burner that I got for my cube. I plug it in, and whenever I put in a CD, it mounts on the OS X desktop (no additional drivers needed), and when I put in a blank CD-R or CD-RW, Disc Burner automatically recognizes it and formats it so that I can burn stuff onto it. Great plug-and-play abilities.
Would you call this plug-and-play for Windows? I certainly wouldn't. You say Microsoft "invented" plug-and-play? Well this article certainly doesn't show that. Windows XP might have solved some of these problems, but like I said before, there aren't very many bad articles/reviews of plug-and-play abilities on Mac OS X as there are on Windows XP.
simX
Unofficial Mac Genius
Heh. Go ahead, rant all you want about Mac OS X 10.0. You know, just because I haven't tried something first-hand doesn't mean I don't know anything about it. I frequently read articles from a wide variety of news publications, ranging from PC Magazine, to the newspaper, to things like appleturns.com. And from what I read, Windows XP doesn't live up to the hype that it has been given and/or the abilities that the current version of Mac OS X has.
Actually, I have used Windows many times, and I haven't seen any of the capabilities on Windows that Mac OS X offers. And I have taken a class and read up on UNIX to familiarize myself with it since it's there under Mac OS X. I have a lot of experience with Windows, mainly because 95% of the world is Windows-based, and so there's no way I can avoid it.
Originally posted by simX
I do admit that I haven't used XP at all, and I've really only read secondhand reports about it. However, I've heard VERY mixed reactions. In the business community, like at work, I've heard that Windows XP is only a hell of a pain to integrate into existing networks. Then I hear from regular users, like you Neyo, who say that XP is much improved over previous versions. Of course, that's a relative statement.
However, when you hear about Mac OS X, you hear a resounding approval about its plug-and-play abilities. I haven't heard very many bad reports about OS X (actually, the only one I remember was an Ars Techinca article a few years ago when Mac OS X was in developer preview/public beta stages). I believe there was an eWeek article posted a week ago that was annoyed that XP had some issues with a FireWire hard disk, but when the author plugged it into a Mac, it "just worked", and mounted on the desktop. In addition, compared to OS 9, Apple has really improved the plug-and-play abilities of the Mac, especially since most of the third-party drivers are now built-in to Mac OS X. That's a big benefit.
About the customization, Neyo.. I don't think your statement is entirely correct. XP probably has more "official" customization than Mac OS X, but I can probably still do many of the things you do with XP. There are skin hacks for iTunes, theme hacks (I currently have been running one called AluniteX for a couple months now), and there are various third-party products that greatly enhance OS X, like FruitMenu, ASM, WindowShade X, Silk, Xounds, A-Dock, DragThing, Trash X, etc. etc. (funny how many of the ones I just named are from Unsanity). It's just that all these things are "hacks" rather than officially supported theming.
Heh, it was funny.. I brought my Cube into the Palo Alto Apple Store the other day (my AirPort card is dead, and it's not covered under my cube's warrantee
Yea, i think i've heard the same kinda of "Vibe" regarding networking! XP does have enhanced wizards from 2000, which i assume Helps Those not so Familar. But i set mine manually, and is quite simplistic really! Just Twisted Pair Cable, One comp to another with DSL Shared. But as i mentioned, i love how XP Can kinda Notice Stuff, in realtime, without you having to restart your computer! Another example would be, when i installed my PCI, DSL Card. i installed the Drivers, and then a tooltip pops from the clock area, and States that the hardware is INSTALLED and Ready to run, without restarting. it may seem trivial, But moving from time ago, back say With the wretched "Me" ... this is SOOO GREAT! i couldn't stand installing a new OS, and having to restart the system after installing every individual Driver, and even Some Software!
I did Hear Peeps Who quote XP is a nightmare on a corporate scale, while inserting it into an existing network! i heard peeps say that one machine Took Down huge Networks! So, i don't know what the deal is there, that side of things is far from where i delve. My Personal opinion would be that if you want an OS to Just work, and Dont' need All this crap, and eye candy, WMP 8 and so forth, GO FOR Windows 2000! As a whole i'd hate to admit it, but it worked better for me, fewer Crashes, and Just worked! but i upgraded, and Got stung by the bug of all te niceties from XP. i still wouldn't call XP, and Experience, but merely i guess a step in the right direction, for Microsoft, something they can build upon!
As for Customization, SimX, you're very right! The only reason i assume XP is So Customizable is due the market Share Issue, Obviously, there's more Software Written to Manipulate Windows, than Mac! but i guess, if you have interface you like, why would you want to Manipulate it anyhow?! i Really hope Microsoft Look at what people on the net have done to XP, and Take Note. Anyone with Personal Preference and relative skills wishes to get rid of Luna, and i hope they come up with something more comparable to Aqua in the Future.
NeYo
Annihilatus
Banned
XP Home to me is a God-send for operating systems. While I find it great that XP Pro allows you to run a telnet server and has remote desktop options, all I need is a stable OS that is usable for everything I want to do. XP Home is just that.
While there are glitches (essentially in the video playback department using third-party codecs), everything else is absolutely fantastic.
And yet, I'd still rather use a Mac. Not because I don't understand or enjoy the PC (I can fix my own problems and there is a lot of fun to be had with the PC's extensive support), I simply like the fact that Apple innovates faster and in the areas where I would want a company to innovate.
When I read about the Jaguar release's new features, I was stunned. It's like Steve Jobs just scoped my mind and decided to put everything I wanted into the programs. On the other hand, I share his birthday so maybe we think alike.
Andre
Annihilatus
Banned
This is one situation in which theory is scarier than practice. In theory, the licensing of Microsoft's products is absolutely horrid, in practice it's fine. I have three MS products that require online activation and I've upgraded some components in my PC over the past months. Never once was I asked to re-activate.
Andre
Annihilatus
Banned
I completely agree here but you'll notice that most of the people doing the complaining have always been around 95/98/Me. Those three systems are absolutely horrid. The second people make a clean install of XP or 2000, suddenly they enjoy windows.
Andre
I agree. I'd have to say out of all the Windows offerings, Windows 2000 Advanced Server is the best for me. The worst for me would have to be Windows ME. I tried Windows XP Professional and love a lot of the new features but it had a few glitches that I just couldn't forgive. I really like how you can switch between users while keeping their applications open.
When .NET Server is released I may give it a try. I am also very excited about Windows "Longhorn."
Expect great things from MS in the near future.
Have you tried PowerToys for Windows XP? It has a lot of cool things. One of the things I like with PowerToys is "virtual desktops."
The more I think about XP, the more I kind of miss it. As for product activation, like you said, it's a much scarier idea in theory then it actually turned out to be. I can understand MS wanting to protect itself. You give the end user an inch and they walk all over you.
When MS starts to actually infringe on my freedom and not just in theory, I'll just switch platforms completely. Until then, I'll continue to happily use Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and OS X.
drustar
Gold Member
I am a student that is majoring in the multimedia and web design field. I must say the moment I started to use Apple (or Macs) - It was more practical and a lot easier. I get more work done.
I hear a lot of users that are very loyal to Windows. One point in class, I'd hear from some doof that Macs suck. I told him to suck it.
My reasoning behind that is because - well, it's good that you know both. I know my way around both OS, X and Windows. I just think that it's very beneficial for my part is because I just increased my chances of getting a job. As for the other guy - he's stuck in the Windows world.
I just think that it fits a designer's lifestyle and needs when he/she uses an Apple machine.
I hear a lot of users that are very loyal to Windows. One point in class, I'd hear from some doof that Macs suck. I told him to suck it.
My reasoning behind that is because - well, it's good that you know both. I know my way around both OS, X and Windows. I just think that it's very beneficial for my part is because I just increased my chances of getting a job. As for the other guy - he's stuck in the Windows world.
I just think that it fits a designer's lifestyle and needs when he/she uses an Apple machine.
Koelling
I Think Different
My parents are web/print designers, and they use Macintosh. As owners of the small business, they were approached by a senior graphic design student at the metro college asking if he could fill an internship requirement with them. They thought, "Why not? it's free labor and maybe we can teach him something." The first day he showed up, they realized that he had no Macintosh experience aside from the class labs. He got in the way more than he helped. Not only did he lack the required skills to work in their office, he complained about it in a very unprofessional way. He was impressed with their productivity but as for him, he would not have kept his job because he was unqualified. Point is: learn the tools of your career. Most of today's jobs can be done better with Macintosh. Some can't. Don't close your options by only learning Windows or Macintosh or Linux. Branch out as much as possible.
Ricky
Registered
And don't you dare forget that multimedia on computers was born on the Mac. I'd say most of the commercials and TV shows out there wouldn't look nearly as good if they had been done on a PC. Yes, you heard me. Haven't you seen the commercials? Almost every commercial I see for major web sites is shown in a Mac interface with IE. Why? Because it looks so much better than Windows. My dad's friend uses Final Cut Pro on a Mac for video production, and he uses Photoshop along with that. They're an unbeatable combination. And they were both created on the Mac platform.
Other reasons I use a Mac:
I'd say most of the commercials and TV shows out there wouldn't look nearly as good if they had been done on a PC. Yes, you heard me. Haven't you seen the commercials? Almost every commercial I see for major web sites is shown in a Mac interface with IE. Why? Because it looks so much better than Windows. My dad's friend uses Final Cut Pro on a Mac for video production, and he uses Photoshop along with that. They're an unbeatable combination. And they were both created on the Mac platform.Other reasons I use a Mac:
- Ease of use. When I want to get something done, I can do it without fussing over details.
It stays out of your way. You can have a dialog box open and it won't command you to take care of it immediately.
The iApps. I created a photo album in iPhoto in about two minutes, including the photo import. iTunes is my music solution, and is much better than Windows Media Player on Win XP because the music doesn't hop around when you play it. I don't use iDVD because I don't have a SuperDrive, but I will be using iMovie for school this upcoming school year.
It connects to PC's. My work Mac works with our XP file server. That's all I need for my job.[/list=1]
So, you can do everything on a Mac that you can do on a PC. "Except crash, like the stock market."
MDLarson
Registered
That's funny I wore my Microsoft Monopoly shirt today!
I got it at MacSurfShop.com a while ago. It's my favorite T-shirt!
hulkaros
The Incredible...
...It's not from Wintel side of things which is the closest thing in the Dark Side of the Force in our realm
Seriously though: Working as a technician for both Mac and PCs (for PCs for ages while for Macs only a year or so...) I found out the truth: The PCs no matter what you do to them or from where you buy them or even what OS they have (Win2k server editions included) they misbehave! For no apparent reason even if you reformat them, clean-install apps and OSes they work like bombs: They just tic-tac then BOOM even if you or someone else didn't press the button ;(
At the same time the worst thing that can happen to a Mac is to reinstall the OS, apps and any backup you may have in just under an hour at the most! Hardware related problems are nowhere to be found!
For those they say that their PCs with Win2k and/or XP are rock solid that's far from truth: I've seen Win2k servers crash on installing a network device or app, or even worse power-supplies burning, hard disks crashing, Geforce's not working ANY resolution above 1024x768, NAT services crashing, security holes, viruses and other stuff that you ALMOST never see at the Mac side of the force... Hell, I've seen PCs with XP rebooting themselves just by running Media Player on a fresh installation after a minute or two with ONLY office 2k and/or office XP installed... Modems disappear after turning off the PC and starting over again... CD-RW NOT burning disks or lose previously written contents!!! Inserting CDs, DVDs for 5 or 10 times and after that you cannot read optical media no matter what you do, only a reset will get things back to normal... I could go on and on but at M$, Dell, IBM, HP, Compaq, Intel sites and MANY other huge PC companies' sites ANYONE can read the BIG problems that Win2k and XP have... but hey: I forgot! Your PC with XP does not have any problems... Well I have news for you: The world has hundreds of millions of PC users out there and they DO have problems with Win2k AND XP and you know what? HUGE problems... Do you know how many human working hours have been lost on Wintel's avatar? Infinity! And that's only part of the problem because you see you lose time and money too! Time that you could read a book, watch a film or simply hang out with your friends... Money that you could buy that book or film-ticket...
Anyway, I think that no matter what I or anyone says, a Mac is a Mac and a PC is a PC... Which one is better? Mac of course... Why? Because:
-Crashes less than ANY windows version
-You can troubleshoot a Mac with less time and knowledge
-If looks can kill, Mac is a serial killer
-Mac's TCO is cheaper
-I can GUARANTEE to someone that his/her Mac will work with his Digital devices
-Mac has the iPod (I know that it works with PCs but NOT that good)
-You plug devices and they work even if you HAVE to install the drivers
-When you put your computer to sleep you can have that word processor or app open and still got it back when you wake your computer and after all said and done Mac does it faster and 99% of the time
-Mac has the eject button on the keyboard
-Mac has the Dock
-Mac has the Column View
-You can be sure that when you shut down your Mac that it will do just that while a PC, yes even with XP, will tell you something that says that you, the user, HAVE to END NOW that stupid app that doesn't respond ?!?!
-Viruses? What viruses?
-Security holes getting fixed in less than a week by Apple and not after a month or more like that M$ company or dare I say that M$ DOES NOT fix 'em at all
-iApps rule!
-When you install Mac OS X.x.x you can guarantee that old-Mac-fella that his 10 year old app and/or device will work with the new OS but can you say the same thing with Win2k and/or XP?
-You can be sure that in a presentation that you will make at your boss, your clients, your friends, et al. your Mac will not make you feel uncomfortable by crashing on you
-You do not restart your computer after installing a 400KB update or a simple system utility... Even when you MUST do that at a Mac you can log out and log back in!
-Mac is like wine and/or whisky... After some time, it works better and most reliable while a PC gets slow, slower, slowest and then dies... Mac's life is closer to human's life time while a Wintel PC's life is closer to dog's time
-Aqua looks and acts better than Luna in any area
-No System Restore! If XP was THAT good then it would not needed such a feature (or is it another problematic utility from M$, hmmm?)
-No Activation procedure... Since when I have to buy 2 or more XPs just to use them for my 3 or more PCs? No thanks! I can be sure that when I buy Jaguar I can install it at my 3 Macs (for home use) without letting Apple knowing if and when I do such a thing... What the fack? Since when I have to buy 2 or more DVDs, Audio CDs or games to use them in my car, in my wife's car, in my living room, console and/or DVD player et al? Come on! We all know that Activation Procedure is NOT democratic by any means and M$ MUST be punished for wanting to act Big Brother on their customers...
-You can listen to the music, burn that audio CD, download from the internet, read/write/view that presentation for your work, have misc apps open and ALL these in an iMac 500Mhz/512 RAM/20GB/CD-RW without worrying that the system will crash or anything...
-Hell, even M$ says that some features in their Office:Mac are MUCH better than their windows counterparts at their own site!
-Hardware/Software MEGA compatibility! You can be sure that TiBook/iBook/PowerMac/iMac et al. can use the same apps, devices/peripherals with NO problems...
-Airport: You cannot find a wireless network solution that works THAT good in a Wintel PC with any OS installed...
-No floppy!
-No COM, LPT, IRQ, DMA, etc. BS that you find in that arcane Wintel platform
-Gigabit ethernet
-Xserve + unlimited licenses = less money and headaches than ANY Wintel solution
-Mac OS 9.x.x... Yes, I know that is old but it still does MANY things that no new OS can do and also you can have it at the SAME time with the new OS... Can you say that with ANY Windows version? Nope! For God's sake they went on and decreased DOS support into a minimal one in the new Windows versions!
-Final Cut Pro + DVD Studio Pro + Cinema Tools
-Photoshop, Quark, et al simply work better at the Mac side of the force...
Oops! The time passed and I still write why I use a Mac: Well, enough time lost explaining, lets get back using my Mac
Seriously though: Working as a technician for both Mac and PCs (for PCs for ages while for Macs only a year or so...) I found out the truth: The PCs no matter what you do to them or from where you buy them or even what OS they have (Win2k server editions included) they misbehave! For no apparent reason even if you reformat them, clean-install apps and OSes they work like bombs: They just tic-tac then BOOM even if you or someone else didn't press the button ;(
At the same time the worst thing that can happen to a Mac is to reinstall the OS, apps and any backup you may have in just under an hour at the most! Hardware related problems are nowhere to be found!
For those they say that their PCs with Win2k and/or XP are rock solid that's far from truth: I've seen Win2k servers crash on installing a network device or app, or even worse power-supplies burning, hard disks crashing, Geforce's not working ANY resolution above 1024x768, NAT services crashing, security holes, viruses and other stuff that you ALMOST never see at the Mac side of the force... Hell, I've seen PCs with XP rebooting themselves just by running Media Player on a fresh installation after a minute or two with ONLY office 2k and/or office XP installed... Modems disappear after turning off the PC and starting over again... CD-RW NOT burning disks or lose previously written contents!!! Inserting CDs, DVDs for 5 or 10 times and after that you cannot read optical media no matter what you do, only a reset will get things back to normal... I could go on and on but at M$, Dell, IBM, HP, Compaq, Intel sites and MANY other huge PC companies' sites ANYONE can read the BIG problems that Win2k and XP have... but hey: I forgot! Your PC with XP does not have any problems... Well I have news for you: The world has hundreds of millions of PC users out there and they DO have problems with Win2k AND XP and you know what? HUGE problems... Do you know how many human working hours have been lost on Wintel's avatar? Infinity! And that's only part of the problem because you see you lose time and money too! Time that you could read a book, watch a film or simply hang out with your friends... Money that you could buy that book or film-ticket...
Anyway, I think that no matter what I or anyone says, a Mac is a Mac and a PC is a PC... Which one is better? Mac of course... Why? Because:
-Crashes less than ANY windows version
-You can troubleshoot a Mac with less time and knowledge
-If looks can kill, Mac is a serial killer
-Mac's TCO is cheaper
-I can GUARANTEE to someone that his/her Mac will work with his Digital devices
-Mac has the iPod (I know that it works with PCs but NOT that good)
-You plug devices and they work even if you HAVE to install the drivers
-When you put your computer to sleep you can have that word processor or app open and still got it back when you wake your computer and after all said and done Mac does it faster and 99% of the time
-Mac has the eject button on the keyboard
-Mac has the Dock
-Mac has the Column View
-You can be sure that when you shut down your Mac that it will do just that while a PC, yes even with XP, will tell you something that says that you, the user, HAVE to END NOW that stupid app that doesn't respond ?!?!
-Viruses? What viruses?
-Security holes getting fixed in less than a week by Apple and not after a month or more like that M$ company or dare I say that M$ DOES NOT fix 'em at all
-iApps rule!
-When you install Mac OS X.x.x you can guarantee that old-Mac-fella that his 10 year old app and/or device will work with the new OS but can you say the same thing with Win2k and/or XP?
-You can be sure that in a presentation that you will make at your boss, your clients, your friends, et al. your Mac will not make you feel uncomfortable by crashing on you
-You do not restart your computer after installing a 400KB update or a simple system utility... Even when you MUST do that at a Mac you can log out and log back in!
-Mac is like wine and/or whisky... After some time, it works better and most reliable while a PC gets slow, slower, slowest and then dies... Mac's life is closer to human's life time while a Wintel PC's life is closer to dog's time
-Aqua looks and acts better than Luna in any area
-No System Restore! If XP was THAT good then it would not needed such a feature (or is it another problematic utility from M$, hmmm?)
-No Activation procedure... Since when I have to buy 2 or more XPs just to use them for my 3 or more PCs? No thanks! I can be sure that when I buy Jaguar I can install it at my 3 Macs (for home use) without letting Apple knowing if and when I do such a thing... What the fack? Since when I have to buy 2 or more DVDs, Audio CDs or games to use them in my car, in my wife's car, in my living room, console and/or DVD player et al? Come on! We all know that Activation Procedure is NOT democratic by any means and M$ MUST be punished for wanting to act Big Brother on their customers...
-You can listen to the music, burn that audio CD, download from the internet, read/write/view that presentation for your work, have misc apps open and ALL these in an iMac 500Mhz/512 RAM/20GB/CD-RW without worrying that the system will crash or anything...
-Hell, even M$ says that some features in their Office:Mac are MUCH better than their windows counterparts at their own site!
-Hardware/Software MEGA compatibility! You can be sure that TiBook/iBook/PowerMac/iMac et al. can use the same apps, devices/peripherals with NO problems...
-Airport: You cannot find a wireless network solution that works THAT good in a Wintel PC with any OS installed...
-No floppy!
-No COM, LPT, IRQ, DMA, etc. BS that you find in that arcane Wintel platform
-Gigabit ethernet
-Xserve + unlimited licenses = less money and headaches than ANY Wintel solution
-Mac OS 9.x.x... Yes, I know that is old but it still does MANY things that no new OS can do and also you can have it at the SAME time with the new OS... Can you say that with ANY Windows version? Nope! For God's sake they went on and decreased DOS support into a minimal one in the new Windows versions!
-Final Cut Pro + DVD Studio Pro + Cinema Tools
-Photoshop, Quark, et al simply work better at the Mac side of the force...
Oops! The time passed and I still write why I use a Mac: Well, enough time lost explaining, lets get back using my Mac
Dehuti
Electric whale
I'll try to write brief: it's not about stability of OS (I hanged AIX, Linux, W2k, OS X also), it's about what lies beneath. I think Apple has got themself rank of immortal company, because of switching to UNIX in technical layer of OS. I saw many things in my life, but X is coolest system ever. That's why whitout any doubt I bought myself G4, gathering possibility to run commands like VI or ps -aux | grep <smething>. It makes life much easier when you can carry all power of that tools in you suitcase. Microsoft can't do that. I'll not deal with who is going to win on the market and (Apple or Soft&Micro) and which computer is better - it's worhtless. Apple makes computers for choosen ones, they are for sure better designed and more practical but still not for everyone (in terms of price for example or avaliability - in Europe/Poland it's hard to find reseller!). I'm proud owning one and be different than anyone here. Originality - that's what is all about.
Ricky
Registered
Hulkuros is right about one thing... the longetivity of the Mac. The PC seems to wear out after a couple of years... We have an 800 MHz Compaq in our offices that couldn't be more than a year old, and it's already almost dead... I know people who still use their Mac IIci's!
Apple is like a brand name shoe. If you buy shoes at a local K-mart, they fall apart in a couple of months. If you buy a pair of $50 Nike's, they'll last for about a year to a year and a half. So for $30 extra, you get so much more life out of the shoe. It's the same with Macs and PC's... People complain about the hafty price tag for a Mac, but you get what you pay for and then some. It lasts a long time.
This is why Macs are in the Industrial class of computers, while Dells are only Consumer class.
Apple is like a brand name shoe. If you buy shoes at a local K-mart, they fall apart in a couple of months. If you buy a pair of $50 Nike's, they'll last for about a year to a year and a half. So for $30 extra, you get so much more life out of the shoe. It's the same with Macs and PC's... People complain about the hafty price tag for a Mac, but you get what you pay for and then some. It lasts a long time.
This is why Macs are in the Industrial class of computers, while Dells are only Consumer class.
I use both Windows 2000 at work and Mac OSX at home. I have to say that my experience with Windows 2000 is really bad in terms of stability: it crashes on me completely at least 2-3 times a week (however, this was a tremendous improvement compared to Window98 on the same system (multiple daily crashes) and Windows NT (about the same as now)).
I also waste a huge amount of time fixing stuff. Lately my problem was trying to uninstall some applications before installing a new version that my company required. A nightmare.
So this is why I like my Mac at home. If my company chooses to give me a Windows machine, it means they are ready for me to spend countless hours fixing it or being on the phone with IT support. I can't afford to do this at home, neither do I want to since it would take time away from my family.
Macs really just work. I have used MacOSX at 100% since last Fall. I had one kernel error one day (I still don't know why because it happened while I was away. Your guess is as good as mine) and that was my one and only crash. My computer is on all the time. Application-wise my biggest problem is Internet Explorer (Microsoft), which I have to Force Quit pretty often.
Installing applications on MacOSX is ultra easy. So is removing them. They are very well compartmentalized, so they don't interact with each other. I can have 20 applications running at the same time, I can't even tell the difference (well, OK I have over 1GB of RAM on my system so there is room)
I can move hundreds of file around and my system is still usable while it's happening (try doing that on a PC: take a folder full of images and copy them somewhere else: the system goes down to its knees and you can barely use it to do anything else. I was trying that on a brand new 2.4GHz P4 Compaq last week and I just could not believe it). On a Mac, not a problem. You have to love multithreading. That's a really pro system
I also like the fact that I can name my files anyway I want, and am not constrained by extensions.
And obviously I love iTunes. I was never able to find anything close to being as good to install on my Windows work PC ... still waiting. Bummer
So get a Mac, you won't regret it.
I also waste a huge amount of time fixing stuff. Lately my problem was trying to uninstall some applications before installing a new version that my company required. A nightmare.
So this is why I like my Mac at home. If my company chooses to give me a Windows machine, it means they are ready for me to spend countless hours fixing it or being on the phone with IT support. I can't afford to do this at home, neither do I want to since it would take time away from my family.
Macs really just work. I have used MacOSX at 100% since last Fall. I had one kernel error one day (I still don't know why because it happened while I was away. Your guess is as good as mine) and that was my one and only crash. My computer is on all the time. Application-wise my biggest problem is Internet Explorer (Microsoft), which I have to Force Quit pretty often.
Installing applications on MacOSX is ultra easy. So is removing them. They are very well compartmentalized, so they don't interact with each other. I can have 20 applications running at the same time, I can't even tell the difference (well, OK I have over 1GB of RAM on my system so there is room)
I can move hundreds of file around and my system is still usable while it's happening (try doing that on a PC: take a folder full of images and copy them somewhere else: the system goes down to its knees and you can barely use it to do anything else. I was trying that on a brand new 2.4GHz P4 Compaq last week and I just could not believe it). On a Mac, not a problem. You have to love multithreading. That's a really pro system
I also like the fact that I can name my files anyway I want, and am not constrained by extensions.
And obviously I love iTunes. I was never able to find anything close to being as good to install on my Windows work PC ... still waiting. Bummer
So get a Mac, you won't regret it.
