Macintosh... The Naked Truth

From the opening pages of Scott Kelby's Macintosh... The Naked Truth, I was literally laughing out loud. I am a generally jovial character, so this is not the finest endorsement available, but it is typical of the experience the rest of the book offered me. Macintosh... The Naked Truth author Scott Kelby pages 219 publisher New Riders rating 7 out of 10 Macsbugs reviewer pudge ISBN 0-7357-1284-0 summary Funny, irreverent, but kinda bugged me in spots

The Naked Truth is a book about what it means to be a Macintosh user, in a world dominated by Windows. This should have tipped me off as to some troubles ahead, as I live as a Mac user in a predominantly Linux-dominated world. And I proudly use Linux (and, to a lesser extent, other forms of Unix, not even including Mac OS X) daily. As I write this, I have four terminal windows running in NiftyTelnet, connecting me to Linux boxes at work and at home. I am inserting a 700MB database dump into MySQL, scp'ing some MP3s, restarting some daemons, copying some source code for later porting, and monitoring disk space. I am a Macintosh devotee, and have been for more than 15 years, but I am a geek. A big, preemptively multitasking, geek.

But Kelly takes the perspective that Macintosh is not a computer for geeks, but for creative people who can't be bothered with geek-like things. So when he belittles those "PC users" who like to build their own computers, and I see the Linux box under my desk that I've recently been fiddling with, I just take it with a grain of salt. After all, geeks are allowed to like ease of use and a consistent and usable GUI, too.

This mischaracterization of some Mac users is also evident in his "definitive platform test." The questions, asking for things like a description of your own driving skills, are intended to tell you which platform you should use. On one end of the scale is the Macintosh user ("Average, I'm not a bad driver"), followed by borderline between Mac and PC user ("I'm an excellent driver, very cautious and alert") to obvious PC user ("I obey all posted traffic signs and don't exceed the speed limit"), to "militant" PC/DOS user ("I wish all those idiots would just get off the road!"). But clearly, any sane person would choose the latter response. I don't understand what the problem is. I selected the "Mac" and "DOS" answers evenly, which didn't do well for my overall score. I happily continue to use Mac OS nevertheless.

That said, Kelby is dead-on about many things, like how computer store personnel are mostly clueless (not that this is specific to Macintosh products, but it is more pronounced in that particular arena than in most); how most anti-Macintosh arguments by PC users either don't make sense any more or never made sense to begin with; how Apple has been the primary innovator of PC hardware and OS software; how Apple seems to succeed sometimes in spite of its own management. He tends to belabor his point on occasion (OK, we get it, CompUSA's Apple store-in-a-store is all the way in the back, we don't need you to spend two pages describing just how far back it is), but if taken in the good humor intended, it's a satisfying journey nevertheless.

His most interesting points, perhaps, have to do not with what it is like to be a Macintosh user in a foreign land -- I think everyone on Slashdot can understand these things, regardless of whatever non-Microsoft platform of choice they use -- but what it is like to be a Macintosh user in relation to Apple itself. He has some keen insights about where the passion comes from; why people love Apple; what's going on inside their heads.

But then again, reading his responses to letters written to Mac Today and Mac Design Magazine by PC users are just downright entertaining -- keenly insightful or not -- if you are the sort of individual who likes to see stupid people get smacked around. And who isn't?

Now, being a geek -- and a pedantic one at that -- I did take issue with him on some relatively minor issues, like claiming that Apple changed the name of Mac OS X to "OS 10.1" when it came time to do the first maintenance release; the fact is, the official name from day one was "Mac OS X 10.0," and that nothing has changed at all in that naming scheme. The current release is "Mac OS X 10.1.4." It's the same thing, with an incremented version number. He's absolutely right that this is a point of confusion, and in some ways poor marketing. For the next major release (Mac OS X 11.0? Mac OS 11? Mac OS XI?) there will surely be some more confusion, too. But nothing at all has changed in the naming scheme since the initial release. For now. I just want to make sure everyone is clear on this point. It is "Mac OS X, version 10.1.4," and "Mac OS, version 9.2.2." "Mac OS" and "Mac OS X" are OS names. "10.1.4" and "9.2.2" are version numbers. Got it?

Similarly, he bashes the Newton. Sure, the first release of Newton kinda stunk, but it was the first version. The last versions of the Newton MessagePad, aside from the size, were still by far the best PDAs around for the next several years. Newton still, to this day, has the best handwriting recognition in any consumer PDA, as well as the best (non-color) interface, and it was years ahead of its time in functionality. It was just too big. That was its only problem. Well, and too expensive. But maybe less so if it weren't so big.

And he also called Compaq's PDA an "iPac." And occasionally used poor punctuation. And I think I saw a run-on sentence in there.

But now I am getting worked up. I'll settle down. Deep breath, in, out, in, out. That's the thing about being a Mac user, Kelby points out: passion. Passion for Apple and its products, even the ones that stink, because Apple is more than just a company, it is an organization that changes our lives in important ways, by making products that make a difference to us.

OK, so maybe I am in the target audience after all.

Chapter List

1. Life after switching to Macintosh
   Using a Mac is easy; being a Mac user sometimes isn't.
2. "I can't believe you actually use a Macintosh!" and other stupid things PC users say
   Congress should rethink giving PC users freedom of speech.
3. Things Apple doesn't tell you about owning a Macintosh
   Since Apple's not going to tell you, dontchathink somebody should?
4. The definitive platform test
   Find out if you're really a Mac person, or just a PC person in cool clothing.
5. How to resist the overwhelming temptation to strangle Apple's management
   Is "Apple Management" an oxymoron? And is "oxymoron" actually a synonym for a pimple cream for really dumb people?
6. CompUSA: Your own private hell
   Tips for surviving the visualization of Apple's place in the world.
7. Why PC users need Apple
   Heere's why they should be kissing Apple's butt (instead of Microsoft's)
8. "Don't pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel"
   PC users write me nasty letters, and I give them the public flogging they so richly deserve
9. Pot shots at Microsoft, the media, and anything else that gets in our way
   Nobody gets out of here alive!
10. The 20 most important things I've learned about being a Mac user
    There were actually 22 things, but that made for a really clunky chapter title.
11. The secret of Macintosh
    Here's a hint: it's not Apple's advertising.

You can purchase Macintosh ... The Naked Truth from bn.com. Want to see your own review here? Just read the book review guidelines, then use Slashdot's handy submission form.

Comments

kissing microsoft's butt?

[Fucky the troll]

Why PC users need Apple Heere's why they should be kissing Apple's butt (instead of Microsoft's)

Or in the case of many slashdot readers, "instead of Linus'"

*shudder*

[klocwerk]

All i could think of seeing that title was Steve Jobs naked.

*twitches repeatedly*

Re:*shudder*

[Indras]

Hey, it could've been Steve Wozniak!

Re:*shudder*

[motardo]

At least it's not Steve Wozniak.

-motardo

Re:*shudder*

[motardo]

beat me to it! :P

-motardo

Re:*shudder*

[El Jynx]

They have psychologists for that, chief. Shock therapy can do miraculous things for a graphic imagination ;) But why did you have to tell us about it? Now I won't be sleeping for 3 days for fear of bad dreams. But if you want something really creepy, imagine US Senate meetings at a naturist resort.

El Jynx

Re:*shudder*

[sensate_mass]

Two words: Steve Ballmer.

Re:*shudder*

[JCCyC]

Better yet:

Jon "Maddog" Hall.

Try to top that.

Re:*shudder*

[klocwerk]

Ouch, damnit.
You broke my brain.
;o)

Yes, a pretty cool book

[PhysicsGenius]

As a big-time Mac user I really loved this book and its explication of Mac users as a cutting edge minority. Here's the way I like to explain it to people: Everybody goes to a regular doctor. But hip people who really care about their bodies seek out alternative therapies of wellness like herbal remedies and additives. Macs are kinda like that--the less popular but low-cost alternative to the overpowering majority.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Dante_H]

So, to continue the analogy, Linux people spend their weekends operating on themselves with their kitchen utensils?

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[leviramsey]

Macs low cost?

Good God, man. You've been hitting the bottle pretty hard lately, haven't you?

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[klocwerk]

Low-cost?
I can see alternative, but low cost?
Let's see...
pricewatch: athlon XP 2000 with 512 ram, 484.
Cheapest apple G4: 1584.

Low-cost? Hot damn. Give me your paycheck.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[QuantumG]

So ya all tree huggin' hippies who get ripped off by snake oil salesmen, that analogy really rings bells.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[CaffeineAddict2001]

Low-Cost alternative? To what? An SGI Machine? If that is the case, more people go for the low-cost alternative.

It is like alternative therapies in one way:
Pretty colored beads will not cure cancer or solve equations quickly.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[DNS-and-BIND]

That's the one thing that really bugs me more than anything else, how Mac users project this completely unfounded air of superiority. Quite simliar in my mind to Mensa and other activities people enter into when they desperately require validation. Here, buy a powerbook, and all the sudden you're a creative person! Wow, better living through consumerism, how progressive!

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Qwerpafw]

As a mac user, I resent this. I don't like alternative medicine. And I believe I pay a premium for what I like (the mac). So I am definately not seeking the "low-cost herbal/alternative solution."

You can't put me in a little box and define what I believe because I use a certain computer platform. All you can say is that I like that platform.

And that is my problem with the book.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Dephex Twin]

Macs low cost?

Good God, man. You've been hitting the bottle pretty hard lately, haven't you?

When compared with an equally equipped x86 machine, and taking into account the quality and resale value... yes, low cost.

mark

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[tps12]

Where "quality" is taken to mean "to the extent that it was manufactured by Apple." Pay no attention to that small IDE hard drive and small PC100 DIMM behind the curtain.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Dephex Twin]

pricewatch: athlon XP 2000 with 512 ram, 484.
Cheapest apple G4: 1584.

Um, new iMac G4 from Apple store: $1399. With included LCD monitor and CD-RW drive. I'll be willing to bet there are other components in that athlon you named which are also inferior.

And if you are in education you can get the eMac G4 for as low as $999.

mark

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Grab]

Herbal remedies on a Mac.

Oh yes, I have just the thing for you. Ladies and gentlemen, the iBong!

Inhale and enjoy...

Grab.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Dephex Twin]

Speaking of paying no attention, it's a PC133.

mark

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[tps12]

Sorry, was referring to the G4 Cube, which came out plenty late enough, and aimed at a high-end enough market, IMO, to have included a 133MHz bus. The ATA/66 instead of 100 disk was excuseable at the time, but I saw no reason to skimp on the memory speed.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[OldBen]

One thing that really bugs me is how everyone assumes that Mac users carry around an air of superiority. Funny that at the same time, there is a tacit acknowledgement that creativity is a trait that makes one "superior" (a viewpoint I don't agree with). Pay attention folks: Macs are a great platform to use if you are a creative professional since 1) there are a wide variety of creative tools available for the platform, and 2) the Mac platform is the de-facto standard for creative professionals, so it's just easier to do your work on a Mac if you're a creative type (much like it's easier to use Win32 if you work in a corporate environment). Therefore, there is a correlation between Mac users and creative types. I don't think anyone (even an arrogant Mac user) would try to demonstrate causality there. If you don't like the Mac platform, fine. Don't use it. You don't have to feel like there's a personal conflict between you and those who choose MacOS.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[matticus]

Cost of 15" LCD Monitor:
$250
Cost of 40x12x48 speed CD-RW drive (which is, incidentally, extraordinarily faster than the drive on the imac):
$80

So that's $330. You mean I have $1069 left to build the computer in order to defeat an imac with a 40GB hard drive (80gb hard drive, $80), 128MB of SDRAM (512MB of PC2100 DDR, $100), and a 700MHz processor (given Apple's faulty performance claims, I'll even spot you 2-for-1 on the megahertz, getting an Athlon XP 1800+ 1533MHz processor for $99). Now we're down to $790. Uh-oh, I have to beat a geforce2 mx with a Geforce4 TI 4600 VIVO ($309) just to blow you out of the water, oh, and because I can. Down to $481, oh no, I'm shivering. A nice case with a 420W quality AMD-approved PSU ($100), an MSI KT3-Ultra motherboard ($90), a quality keyboard/mouse/floppy drive/network card ($100 total), a Hercules Game Theater XP ($100)-incidentally, much better than the imac's crappy audio-and we still have $91 left for a Pioneer Slot-load DVD drive ($60).

There we go. $1368. No crappy components, even allowed $100 for the case. And this computer will play any video game at exponentially better speeds than that mac (if you don't play games, save $250 and get a geforce2 gts-v or something). The sound system is exponentially better. It has video capture, 4x the memory (twice as fast) and double the hard disk space. I personally would rather have a nice 19" trinitron than a 15" flat panel, but I catered to what you wanted.
Granted, this configuration does not have an OS, but if you're a Windows guy and want an OS, go one step down on the video card (we did buy top-of-the-line) and you'll have more than enough.

NEVER say macs are a cheaper alternative-they are only cheaper compared to PC prices of two years ago. I'm sick of macintosh users being spoonfed doctrine about how their computers are cheaper and faster. It's only to make them feel better for spending so much. Use a mac-that's fine with me. Just don't lie about it.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[tdemark]

Chill, dude... someone's got to realign your chi.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[smagoun]

Unfortunately, that air of superiority is a common side effect of being better than everyone else.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Surlyboi]

NEVER say macs are a cheaper alternative-they are only cheaper compared to PC prices of two years ago. I'm sick of macintosh users being spoonfed doctrine about how their computers are cheaper and faster. It's only to make them feel better for spending so much. Use a mac-that's fine with me. Just don't lie about it

Macs are the cheaper alternative.

There, I said it. I don't need to say it to justify
my outlay of cash for the Mac, I say it because I
have spent significantly less on my Macs than I
have on My PCs. I own both, and the components and
upkeep for my high-end 'doze box has been a hell
of a lot more expensive than it has been for my
Macs.

And that's just for the one I built myself. It's
quite easy to go to pricewatch and pull components
down and build a system, but not everybody's the
l33t builder you are, and for them, Macs may be
the cheaper investment.

You say you're sick of Mac users being spoonfed
doctrine, perhaps you should make sure you're not
feeding yourself similar doctrine. I agree, use
what you want to use, (in my case, I use both) but
you're living in a glass house, you should be
careful when throwing stones.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[phillyclaude]

Cost of 15" LCD Monitor: $250 Cost of 40x12x48 speed CD-RW drive: $80 80gb hard drive: $80 512MB of PC2100 DDR: $100 Athlon XP 1800+ 1533MHz processor: $99 Having a Computer that actually looks good , and an OS with a good GUI: Priceless

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[iomud]

Did you just cite resale value as a buying factor of an industry with the quickest rate of obsolete technology?!

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Svartalf]

As a Mac and PC owner, I will throw this comment out...

Looks don't get your work done. I could have "good looks" even on a PC and not get a single thing done with the looks.

A "good" GUI won't get your work done- your apps will. If the "good" GUI makes the box slower than it needs to, it may be getting in the way of your work instead of helping you, no matter how "easy" it is to use.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Art Deco]

Ain't this the truth! I ride bicyles. When I look at the rec.bicyles.* groups cyclists put their bikes in their signatures as if owning a high end bicycle makes them cooler. Ditto for the automobile and motercycle newsgroups. A few folks here even put the kind of computer and OS they use into their signature. I guess they have to tell everyone what kind of stuff they own so we will all know how just how very cool they are.

Bruceness (just so you know)
Cinelli Supercorsa w/Campy SR
Nikon FM2n
2000 SE Miata.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Dephex Twin]

Yes. This is the unique thing about Macs. They consistently have a much higher resale value than PCs, to the point that it is definitely something to take into account when purchasing a Mac. You'd be surprised.

mark

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Also is Apple's support on software and non Apple RAM. God that alone pisses me off.

Not that every OS rev from 9 and below had horse shit for memory management.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Dephex Twin]

You missed my point completely. I never said Macs were cheaper.

You acted as though purchasing a G4 Mac was almost 4x the cost of purchasing a PC. My point is, the price difference is very small if you compare similar computers, plus there are unique things about the Mac that you just can't have on a PC, and I think they are worth something as well. The design of the iMac G4 isn't just for looks, it has function and value. The G4 tower's case is so easy to get into, it's hard not to smile.

It has Unix, Word, Photoshop, and everything just *works*.

The Mac isn't the cheapest thing out there, but I believe you get what you paid for.

mark

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Loundry]

...and everything just *works*.

This is one of the most oft-repeated lies in modern computing.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[soupforare]

The main problem with this is when something breaks, it's expensive to replace.
I need a logic board for my 9600. To purchase one from a 'reputable' dealer (ie, not ebay) between 175 and 250USD. Power supply? 99-199USD.

Ok, screw it, I'll get a parts box from ePay; owwies! 120-500+ USD
For that, I could get a quad PPro server, or build a luggable out of a Shuttle barebones flexatx dealie, or get my band a used reeltoreel(or PA or some cabs), fnord!

I like the architecture. I think apple has done some great things, and some real boneheaded things.
I just wish the damn bits weren't so much.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Dephex Twin]

This is one of the most oft-repeated lies in modern computing.

What are you trying to say?

Try buying a bunch of PC parts, putting them all together, making the thing work, installing Linux, and configuring your computer for the internet.

Then compare that to the amount of time, effort, and expertise needed to buy a Mac and set up the Internet, and you'll understand what is meant by "it just works".

mark

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[krammit]

The easiest and most enjoyably tokin' ring you'll ever set up...

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Doppler00]

Resale value? Yes, maybe if you have a Mac in an unopened box and it is 20 years old, you might be able to sell it on E-bay and make a nice profit. Or just save the computer box. People have sold those on E-bay for more than the price of the original computer :)

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[suicidal]

And from your linked iBong article:
"...There is a strong connection between Macs and pot."..."Think Different"

lol

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Dephex Twin]

You can sell a used Mac for a very decent amount as well, as long as you've taken good care of it. I could probably get $1000 for my G4 tower, even though it's over two years old.

mark

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[jafac]

Not so much anymore. Apple has taken great efforts to raise the bar on obsolescence.

Case in point:
OS X not supported at all on pre-beige G3 machines, irregardless of CPU upgrades installed. (in fact, you could, in theory, install a dual 500mhz G4 in a 9600, last of the great 6-slot machines. But OS X is not supported, and you need to run a hack to get it to run, and most people I've heard from don't achieve any degree of stability with it). - In fact, you can't upgrade the OS past 9.1 on these machines. Period.

OS X not fully supported on beige G3 - irregardless of CPU upgrades installed (primarily, the video subsystem is not supported by graphics acceleration drivers - and the SCSI subsystem is poorly supported at best - believe me, I own one of these machines, I KNOW what I'm talking about).

iDVD not supported on machines that did not ship with the internal superdrive (Pioneer DVD-RW). You can buy the exact same model superdrive, external firewire or scsi, and plug it in to even the latest and greatest desktop powermac, and iDVD won't run. It's not a technical limitation, it's engieered into the product. The only alternative for those who want to author DVDs on a mac is to buy Apple's DVD Studio Pro for $999.

Video connectors on more recent macs aren't compatible with VGA monitors. (although they've finally corrected this by finally shipping an adaptor).

- -
I agree, that historically, old Macs retain their value longer - look at the resale prices on eBay as proof. But this fact is changing, and continues to change, due to marketing decisions, not engineering limitations.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Dephex Twin]

I agree, that historically, old Macs retain their value longer - look at the resale prices on eBay as proof. But this fact is changing, and continues to change, due to marketing decisions, not engineering limitations.

I just don't see this change you're talking about.

Maybe a pre-beige G3 has trouble running OS X (and needs a hack to allow installation). The absolute newest one came out 5 years ago, when OS 8 was just coming out. It would be nice I suppose if these things could still hold their own. But considering Apple has made the most significant OS upgrade since the Mac was created, and considering what a 5 year old PC will get you, I'd say it's really not all that bad.

The point is that someone buying a new Mac now can be pretty sure that it will have good resale value when they are ready to buy a new one. I say that is still true, and will continue to be true. If I buy a G4 Tower or iMac now, it will sell for a good chunk of money in 2 or 3 years.

mark

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[phossie]

"Video connectors on more recent macs aren't compatible with VGA monitors. (although they've finally corrected this by finally shipping an adaptor)."

how recent do you mean? my g4/867 has a standard VGA out... and i got the cheapest card. it works just fine with my A90.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[elmer-12]

Yeah, so don't upgrade the OS. IMHO, the reason for the lasting value is the utility/coolness of what originally ran on the machine.
Not every one needs the latest software or peripherals; not even every geek needs them.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[klez23]

irregardless of CPU upgrades installed

Not meaning to troll, but "irregardless" is not a word. You mean "regardless."

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[viperblades]

dude computers are like cars i realy don't care what computer you use.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[Alan Partridge]

what is this "Apple RAM" of which you speak? My last FOUR Macs came with clearly labelled Micron RAM modules. Leave it out with the FUD, please.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[proj_2501]

Mac video connectors have been different from VGA connectors for a long time. Most monitor manufacturers will give you an adapter for free, or something like $1 if you ask.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[jweatherley]

Maybe the kind of jackass who takes the renowned and humourus troll PhysicsGenius seriously and then is stupid enough to write about it?

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[phyxeld]

Macs low cost? Good God, man. You've been hitting the bottle pretty hard lately, haven't you?

My dear friend and fan, have you had a look at the apple store recently? iMacs start at $799, laptops at $1200, or laptops with big screens and combo (CD-ROM/CDR/CDRW/DVD) drives for under $2k. Yes, macs are competitively priced now. (especially those ibooks!)

In fact, some people are even buying macs for the hardware value, and ditching OS X for linux.

Re:Yes, a pretty cool book

[saintlupus]

Ditto for the automobile and motercycle newsgroups.

A fellow on one of the automobile mailing lists I used to subscribe to signed every message:

[his name]
--
'00 George Foreman Grill

This was, of course, a direct response to the "look what I got!" signature style of most subscribers.

Offtopic, I know, but hell, I thought it was funny.

--saint

Mac users aren't all clueless anti geeks

[Catmoderne]

Yes, I've noticed this "Mac users are clueless artsy types with no technical knowhow" slant over and over. Rubbish!

I'm an admin on Linux and OpenBSD networks AND I love my Mac as well.

There is no conflict, especially after OS X .

An elegant GUI is a wonderous thang.

Nuff Said!

Re:Mac users aren't all clueless anti geeks

[krog]

i started using Macs in 1989, and continued straight until 1997, when i installed NetBSD on a IIvx. that led me down the slippery slope of x86 hardware, mainly because i couldn't afford a Mac.

when i finally got a Mac again in 2000, i had forgotten how much i appreciated having a computer that was beautiful, in its designs and GUI. it really drove home the fact that the UNIX desktop is neither consistent nor pretty (usually).

now that OS X is here (read: now that i can pull up a Terminal window), i can't see a reason to use anything else.

Re:Mac users aren't all clueless anti geeks

[Qwerpafw]

I agree. It's terribly annoying when people categorize mac users into one single group.

Even more annoying is when a mac user categorizes everyone else who dares to use the same computer as him as being "exactly like him," usually going on to rant about everyone who is "not." It is blatant arrogance and hubris. Those are the people that give mac users a bad name.

And unfortunately the book sounds like it has a bunch of this.

Re:Mac users aren't all clueless anti geeks

[danamania]

Absolutely spot on. I've bought one brand new mac in my life (an iMac 400 - nothing spectacular) and it's so often presumed I'm a clueless know-nothing user because of it. Even more so being female.

Yes I love my iMac, but I also love OSX, I love the -underneath- of OSX, and I love my Linux-powered-Quadra-605-webserver

I certainly don't know everything there is about all things IT, but I can throw myself in pretty deep sometimes.

Re:Mac users aren't all clueless anti geeks

[Zane Edwards]

I have used, abused and trashed my iMac so much (how many partitions and distros of linux can you fit onto a 40G HD?) I am amazed that is still smiles at me.

The thing that I miss now is spending hours getting a program to config. NOW what am I going to spend my time doing? Certainly not switching WM's. Firewire and external devices just work! Now what fun is that?

Re:Mac users aren't all clueless anti geeks

[MikePikeFL]

I'd buy myself a nice G4 (or dual G4) if I could afford one! The only thing I don't like about Apple is the price. Even the educational discount I'd get as a college student isn't enough. I might have to just wait until I get a real job and can afford one... but by then Linux may have caught up and AMD's processors might blow away whatever Apple sells... and for a quarter the price!

Re:Mac users aren't all clueless anti geeks

[ACK!!]

I totally agree. I will preface my statement by saying I am personally not a Mac person. However, this makes my point more pertinent IMHO because I am a Unix and Linux person. I have worked in IT almost 7 years.

Many Mac persons love their computer. Therefore, they tinker and work and enjoy their computers a great deal. This leads to a technical comfort level with their machine that many times matches the equivalent skills for many PC users.

There are plenty of PC home users that have no clue about how their computers work. They surf the web, get their email and open their Word docs and they are happy. However, there is that other edge of users that tinker, upgrade and know how to manipulate their PC in imaginative ways.

Saying "Mac users are clueless artsy types with no technical knowledge" is as clueless as saying all
PC users are clueless Office clones blindly following everyone else's lead.

The stereotypes on both sides have fatal flaws.

________________________________________________ __

Re:Mac users aren't all clueless anti geeks

[thoughtcrime]

Ooh, I hate when guys do that! Even more so because it's the we're-too-smart-to-be-sexist guys.

I hauled my invincible Pismo PowerBook around RPI to laptop classes (which, BTW, were Windows-only). They got really annoyed when I was faster, smarter, and better than them on my beloved 'Book (his name is Xtopalopacetl, btw).

The problem in trying to convince Linux geeks that you're hard-c0re yet still using a Mac, is that they don't believe you can do any significant coding on one. The guys in my house stopped giving me shit when they saw the four translucent terms open (one reading a man page, one compiling with gcc, one using mutt, one ready and waiting).

So what're they doing now? Buying iBooks.

Grammar

[NickRob]

And he also called Compaq's PDA an "iPac." And occasionally used poor punctuation. And I think I saw a run-on sentence in there. Well, at least he didn't start sentances with the word 'and' or 'but', cos we all know you can't do that.

Re:Grammar

[ZiZ]

Well, at least he didn't start sentances with the word 'and' or 'but', cos we all know you can't do that.

But...but...but...

And another thing, young man...

Ahem. Sorry. My devil's-advocacy is coming out here, as it was when I was reading the review; I'm not OS- or platform-centric:

"All software sucks, but we still use software. All hardware sucks, but I've got quite a pile of that around me too. All social interaction sucks, but getting loved and laid beats the crap out of the alternatives much as a real OS beats the crap out of GameOS." -- adb in b.l-w

I like Macs, but I'm not a Mac advocist. I like Windows, but I'm not a Windows apologist. I like this book, from the little that I've read of it so far, and I like Scott Adams' books, and I like to read random entries in an encyclopedia...

Re:Grammar

[marktwain]

I usually like Adams' books too, but not this one except the trouncing of dimwits as mentioned by pudge....it's kind of fun. Adams ought to know what a Mac zealot is and a Mac user that just happens to like Macs. He doesn't. He plays into the hands of the "all or nothing" gang which is getting to be a pretty morbid line of thought.

"And I think I saw a run-on sentence in there."

[paranoid.android]

I know Slashdot isn't -- and doesn't need to be -- perfect in terms of spelling and grammar, but using a sentence fragment to complain about a run-on sentence is a little much.

Re:"And I think I saw a run-on sentence in there."

[toganet]

Let me guess, you probably follow the directions on the back of the mac & cheese box, too.

Fragments are ok sometimes -- their abruptness is part of their meaning. And you seem to have no problem with the fact that the sentence in question starts with a conjunction. Why didn't you fault him on that?

Re:"And I think I saw a run-on sentence in there."

[rbruels]

I think what he was getting at was that the sentence started with "and"... unfortunately, contrary to years of grammar school teaching, it is actually legal to start sentences with "and" or "but."

I know, I was shocked when I learned that, too. Damned middle school fascists!

Re:driving....

[QuantumG]

beos user

Get with the times Die hard Mac users

[nachoman]

I'm sorry, but the die hard mac users are going to have to get with the times...

Macs arn't just for non-geeks anymore (Arguably the first apples were for geeks, became less geeky...). Mac OS X is the ultimate hybrid to allow both geeks and non-geeks a common platform which both can enjoy and use how they want. Heck, why do you think there is an apple section on /.

I bought my first mac last year specifically because of OS X. I needed a laptop that I could use for work and school. I wanted a UNIX based system but the ability to run commercial applications if needed (I love OS and Linux, but there is still no MS Office for it and probably never will be... But everyone still sends me .docs).

I still have people come up to me and say... "you bought a mac??? Don't geeks not like those? They are too colorful to be geeky."

Macs are for geeks and non-geeks alike. For different reasons though (sometimes). Mainstream users will probably figure this out in 3 or 4 years time.

Re:Get with the times Die hard Mac users

[Gehenna_Gehenna]

Good point

I prchased a SuPeR SeXy TiBook 2 months ago( should've waited, damndamndamn) and both my geek and non-geek freinds keep drooling all over my shiny titanium case. I wanted a MS alternitive that tallowed me to

Re:Get with the times Die hard Mac users

[Spankophile]

OMG, I must be tired.. that should have said they don't mind pimping anything so long as it's not Microsoft...

I'll just sit down, and drink my coffee now.. heh and wait for the 2 minute lameness filter.

Re:Get with the times Die hard Mac users

[Dephex Twin]

I'm sorry, but the die hard mac users are going to have to get with the times...

I think those die-hard Mac users who still think that Macs aren't for geeks are a (sometimes vocal) minority. They are unhappy with how Steve has now significantly changed "their" OS (without asking their permission!), and some just don't like to see geek outsiders coming into their club.

I think a lot of Mac users welcome the influx of geeks because it adds some "legitimacy" to the platform, meaning that if geeks like it, then Apple can't be scoffed at as a toy anymore. And it means Apple more or less got it right with the Unix underpinnings.

Just my thoughts as a long time Mac user.

mark

Re:Get with the times Die hard Mac users

[rjung2k]

And some of us are just die-hard geeks who happen to be Mac users.

MacOS X just gives us more goodies to play with!

Re:Get with the times Die hard Mac users

[PCM2]

Macs arn't just for non-geeks anymore

This is a funny statement to me, since I remember the Old Days when geeks all loved the Macintosh. It introduced all kinds of fascinating, fun, and revolutionary software development concepts, like resource forks, the toolbox, standard GUIs, etc. It was Apple's office politics (and Windows) that dulled the Mac's coolness factor... not the fact that it wasn't a cool computer.

Finally Someone Understands...

[dalassa]

...macs are not evil. Macs are not inherently less of a computer than a PC.
I made the best decision of my life to move back to Macintosh a few months ago. OSX really does combine the ease of a mac with the power of unix. I hope that one day people will understand that it is not an either or situation with operating systems. I keep my Win box around and boot my mac into Linux all depending on the job I want to do. Quite simply what operating system you use should be determined by the task at hand.

Re:Finally Someone Understands...

[alfredo]

My wife, the ultimate technophbe, is now getting her intro into OSX. She loves it. She's a gamer, and will stand behind me and clear her throat, and shuffle around, hoping to irritate me enough so she can play Tony Hawk on my machine. She even knows some commandline commands. She love cal. Prebinding and top makes her swoon. She loves watching the characters flash by.

I will have to get her her own G4 so she will leave me to my machine.

There's a geek in there somewhere.

Is it just me?

[NickRob]

Or does it seem like any Mac user could've written this book? Granted, I'm definitely interested in picking it up (Along with Michael Moore's new book) But from what I've seen, it looks like 90% of people in a MUG could've opened up a word processor and typed it out. We all laughed at the blatant rip-off the iPac was. We all got confused around Mac OS 8.0 When the OS's name changed from "System" to "MacOS". Is there any physcological or sociological perspectives or theories about being a Mac user? The notion that we're creative is not new, it's been in countless articles and MacWorld keynotes. Lemme guess, he mentions that thrill of never configuring an autoexec.bat file, right? (While a great number of Mac users actually have, most often for work).

Not for me

[Qwerpafw]

Nice review. The book seems pretty good, and I might consider it worth buying, except for one fact--

I already have a personal identity. I know who I am. And I am a mac user. I don't need to read a book to tell me how I should behave, how I should think, or what my personality should be just because of the computing platform I use.

This point was brought up slightly in the review by pudge's criticism of the "definitive platform test," but it seems the problem would be endemic to the entire book. The author seems to be trying to get all chummy with every mac user out there, though most share the at best tenuous bond of using the same type of computer (and not even OS. Many mac users still use 9!).

However, this book might be ineteresting to someone who is not a mac user, as it could give some perspective into what "we" (and I hestiate to use the term) experience. But it seems like it alienates and bashes those who don't buy into the "jobs experience."

So my take on the book would be "don't buy."

Linux

[lorenlal]

Anything else just isn't worth it.

Of course, with the number of crashes Windows is responsible for, you'd think they'd be in a more reckless catagory.

Computer choice does not confer creativity

[OnanTheBarbarian]

You know, there are plenty of lame internet posts with this particular problem, but this may be the first book I've seen devoted to the idea that owning a particular brand of computer makes you a particular type of person. The people who think that owning a Mac makes them 'creative' and 'different' need to get over themselves a little (same with the people that think installing Linux automatically makes them an ubergeek).

Enjoy the OS of your choice, but please don't imagine that choosing it was a major life achievement. Edit together a really cool movie on your G4 (or write a kernel patch if you're an ubergeek wannabe) and you're living up to the hype... but until you've actually done something significant, the choice of OS is about as important as the choice of cola.

Re:Computer choice does not confer creativity

[the_2nd_coming]

there is a diffrence between "I own a mac so I am creative" and "many mac owners are creative people"

Sprite says it best I think in there commercials.

"hey that Pro basketball player drinks sprite, I drink sprite so I am just as good", then the youth gets his butt beat at basket ball.

thats a shame

[ph0rk]

as often as the applefans can argue that bashing the other guys is bad, i would have expected a more, well, objective book.

i mean, if we want to read one-sided propaganda, can't we just go visit apple.com?

where is the chapter on how totally cool it is to have an OS based on BSD, with a usable command line, that you can use or not at your discretion?

I used to be a Mac lover....

[bobtroy]

I bought my first Mac right before they announced the new Power Mac. I even bought an external CD-ROM, external modem, and extra VRAM. I bought a Power Mac clone right before they announced there would be no more support for Power Mac clones. I bought a G3 upgrade for my Power Mac clone right before they announced the new Mac OS would not support G3 upgrades, only native systems. I bought a Pentium II system, installed Linux, and I haven't paid a dime for hardware or software upgrades in three years.

Re:I used to be a Mac lover....

[feloneous cat]

Ah... so you blame Apple for your poor timing???

Re:I used to be a Mac lover....

[DebianDog]

Well in August when Apple announces it new line of systems. Buy one THEN!

It is obvious, with a PII, you are NOT using the system for video editing so I guess you can buy bottom of the line. Get Yellow Dog Linux and you will get 5 years out of the new box, without having to cough up more $$$.

I have 2 linux boxes at home and hardly EVER use them since I got my dual 533 with OSX.

I bought the dual 533 right before they announced the dual 800's :). Lesson learned.

Re:I used to be a Mac lover....

[sethgecko]

Which clone. Just FYI? OS X does run on some clones, and on those it will work with G3 upgrades. It's just not supported. But then neither is your linux box, I'm assuming.

Re:I used to be a Mac lover....

[Black Jack Hyde]

I used to be a Mac lover too. I learned to program on an Apple II. But that all changed the day I tried getting an old Apple printer to work with a then-fairly new Performa. I purchased a power adapter for the printer from the local Apple reseller. I'd purchased the printer from a friend, and the adapter had long since vanished. But the printer wouldn't power on, even with a new adapter. Since it looked like the problem was with the printer, my friend very kindly refunded my money and took the printer back.

I then went to return my new power adapter. I wanted a new keyboard at the time, so I'd hoped to exchange the adapter, give the reseller some more money, and get the keyboard instead.

Well, sales sent me back to service. Service sent me back to sales. Neither would accept the return. The manager was not in; I'll point out I left him repeated messages and visited the store a couple of times, and never got in touch with him. Bottom line, they wouldn't take the adapter back. Did I mention I wanted to give them more money plus the adapter so I could get a better keyboard?

I ended up having to dispute the ~$50USD charge on my credit card. The reseller never challenged this, so I never paid it. I also never went back. What I did do was call the sales rep at the reseller who wanted to sell my company a couple of Irix boxes and told him to forget it; if I couldn't get satisfaction on a lousy adapter return then I sure wasn't going to go forward with this purchase.

That reseller went out of business less than a year later. The absent manager works at a sign painting firm I think. And I've used M$, Solaris and Linux ever since. As curious as I am about the new OSX, that experience keeps reminding me of why I went away from Apple, and why a new Powerbook isn't in my future, even though it should be.

Jack

Re:I used to be a Mac lover....

[pythas]

This is honestly the stupidest story I've ever heard.

Here's a parallel story. Maybe you can see the problems with it:

"I BOUGHT A COUCH FROM A FURNITURE STORE. IT WOULDN'T FIT IN MY DOOR. THE STORE WOULDN'T TAKE IT BACK. I'LL NEVER BUY A COUCH AGAIN."

Ok. You had a bad experience with an independently owned reseller. Don't shop there.

Re:I used to be a Mac lover....

[sethgecko]

1s/clone\(\.\)\(.*\)(\?\)/clone\3\2\1/

i.e. meant to say: Which clone? Just FYI.

Re:I used to be a Mac lover....

[lePOT311]

I agree w/ Pythas.
Why did you post this?

VIM!

Re:I used to be a Mac lover....

[Black Jack Hyde]

Here's a parallel story. Maybe you can see the problems with it:

Yeah, your parallel is in all caps. :-) Here's a question for you: if you get ripped off by a business, do you continue to do business with them?

Ok. You had a bad experience with an independently owned reseller. Don't shop there.

Were there another Apple reseller less than a 90 minute drive away, then I would have done so. There was not. But this stance wasn't the reseller's stance, it was Apple's stance, and one which the reseller did not communicate during the sale. I should have included that in my first post, my apologies. The reseller chose to adopt Apple's hardline as their own, and cost themselves not only that sale but a few thousand dollars in additional sales that were complete save the last signature.

Jack

A PC vs. Mac vs. PC Point of View

[IronTek]

Based on this review, I do believe this author has been using macs for many years, and obviously is of the "old guard" of mac loyalists.

What I mean by that, is that they randomly attack the PC, while pointing out the stupid ways PC users attack macs. It's been my experience that mac users of this "old guard" (which is to say, they've been using macs well before OS X was a glimmer in NeXt's eye) are very annoying. Most PC users I know, before OS X, didn't give a sh*t about macs, be they good or crappy machines. Mac users meanwhile wouldn't shut up about how good their macs were...as if they were trying to compensate for...something.

Now, with OS X, I may actually go buy a mac one of these days. It's UNIX when I want it to be, and a pretty looking OS for the days when I just don't feel like thinking. If I do get one, however, I'm going to mostly steer clear of those longtime mac users and instead find people who got a mac for the same reasons I did. At least then I could get some work done in peace!

Re:A PC vs. Mac vs. PC Point of View

[CantGetAUserName]

At Leicester Uni there was one guy, year ahead of us (we were second years at the time) who was always in the middle (restricted access to 2nd & 3rd yr CS\SEng only) lab, which was kitted out with PIII/800s, dual booting to Linux and 2k (we were part of the guine^H^H^H^H^H beta test program). This guy never stopped complaining about how he hated PCs, linux or Windows or whatever. He'd say how the hardware was crap. Then we'd point out

1) The CS Mac room is down the corridor and turn right

2) Check prices for low-end PCs, high-end PCs vs. low, high end Macs.

He'd be quiet...until the next time. That was the time I aquired a certain...wariness of Mac users, especially the evangelical ones. But I wasn't about to argue with someone who does Judo. Much, anyway.

Re:A PC vs. Mac vs. PC Point of View

[jolshefsky]

Hey, as an "old guard" Mac user, I have to say I'm not compensating for anything! And I'd be glad to put mine up against yours with a graphical ruler on my true WSYWIG screen. Heck, why don't you send a picture so I can see it in gamma-corrected, hardware-calibrated, ColorSync'ed color and let you know what the exact Pantone® match is for any given pixel!

;-)

Re:A PC vs. Mac vs. PC Point of View

[w3woody]

Being one of the "old guard" (I've been using Macs since 1984, and writing software for them since 1985), and being a Windows programmer since Windows 2.11(386), I can tell you for a fact that while PC users generally don't care about Mac users, if you had a Mac in your office, you were almost guarenteed to get a deriding comment from the PC user without any provocation whatsoever.

I never did understand that. That is, when I worked at JPL I had a Mac and a PC sitting on my desk. Inevitably when a PC-only person would walk into my cube, he would immediately comment on the "paperweight", or how overexpensive the Mac was, or how the WIMP interface was for wimps.

Generally, when comments started flying back and forth in person, it always started with a co-worker making a negative comment about the Macintosh--not because the Mac user went on the attack. And while it was never a big comment, after an entire day of "why do you use that paperweight" or "I thought you were a power-user until I saw your Macintosh" or whatever, it was hard not to snipe back.

I had a theory about that sniping from the PC folks, by the way: there is a certain expectation that using computers should be hard. That is, sophistication in the computer world is related to difficulty: thus, typesetting documents with TeX is considered sophisticated while using Microsoft Word is not--even if the resulting document looks more or less the same. But now that MacOS X is based on Unix and now gives users the ability to replace Finder with Terminal (for example), people look to the Macintosh as "finally" being a sophisticated operating system.

Re:A PC vs. Mac vs. PC Point of View

[jdavidb]

When I was in Jr. High there were one or two friends who could never let it go that I preferred Macintosh. I wanted them to not care about what computer I used; I certainly didn't care about what computer they used. So there are people like that on both sides.

I think the problem is that the Wintel community outnumbers the Macintosh community so much that it's possible for a Wintel user to never notice someone who feels that passionately about it, but most Mac users have encountered someone like my Jr. High friends. And many of us react by responding in Jr. High ways.

Re:A PC vs. Mac vs. PC Point of View

[jholder]

You realize, of course, that NeXT and NeXTStep first came out in 1988? I had (okay, shared) serial number 36 of the first run of NeXT cubes back then when I worked at back at Los Alamos. NeXTStep version 0.6 or 0.7, I believe, was the OS release it shipped with. 'Twas a cool, cool machine. I went straight from PCs to NeXT, Sun, and SGI equipment. From there, been a *nix bigot ever since. Never have had a Mac, tho...

Re:A PC vs. Mac vs. PC Point of View

[greydmiyu]

Agreed. The only time I sniped at a Mac user is when said Mac user was pulling his own pud claiming the Mac could do all these wonderful things that a PC couldn't and in 99.9% of the time getting it completely wrong. I think my last round of that was a LTTE of a local computer rag when one of their columnists decided to write "10 things only a Mac can do." My LTTE debunked all 10 in spades.

If Mac users would stop making outragious and patently false claims about their machines godhood PC users wouldn't have to slap them back into place time and time again.

Re:A PC vs. Mac vs. PC Point of View

[greydmiyu]

News flash, until OS X the MacOS wasn't a sophisticated OS.

Yikes ... misconceptions abound

[thedbp]

There were probably a lot less "geeks" in the Mac ranks for the many years this author is basing his book on, so I can see where he'd draw some of these conclusions. While Linux and Windows-based geeks could command-line hack to their hearts content, Mac users have had a wonderful tool called ResEdit. It kinda makes me sad that with Mac OS X, ResEdit is sort of an anachronism sitting in my Classic Applications folder ... but there it is. We have much better hacking cracking and patching tools now :) And the migration of linux and unix users to Mac OS X has brought a surge in the geek numbers, which is good for any platform. When users are pushing limits as well as the manufacturers, progress speeds along nicely.
I think my original point was to say that there are always contingents of most OS fandom that are NOT geeks, and some that are. Such is life. Variety is the spice and all that.

as a mac user...

[simpl3x]

i am not entirely clueless, but i have better things to do than just play with stuff. i need to get paid--information designer... but, i like being able to configure routers, firewalls, switches, and program (c) once in a while. dividing by zero in cw on os 8 was bizarre. its just not my day job! and, there is plenty to learn, so its nice to have a machine that can do it all (i also don't like have a bunch of stuff sitting around).

version numbers

[Alan Partridge]

"Mac OS" and "Mac OS X" are OS names. "10.1.4" and "9.2.2" are version numbers. Got it? "

No, I don't get it. Calling it Mac OSX 10.1.4 implies that you're using version ten point on point four of OSX. You're not, you're using version 1.1.4 of OSX, although it would also be conceivable to understand it as version ten point one point four of the Mac OS. We know why Apple uses the X, but it would be more convenient if the seperated the version numbers more correctly.

Re:version numbers

[virex]

it is a marketing thing for sure..but you must remember that most of the code in os x came from OpenStep which came from NeXTStep...so it is probably even higher then a 10.0 release...it's been around for a good 14 years if i recall correctly. i personally think adding an x to the name of an os is better then going from 3.1->98...

Re:version numbers

[connorbd]

I think the cleanest way to think of it is as NextStep 7.1.4. Before that, the original OS X Server (Rhapsody, to the Mac-clued) would have been 6, before that the unreleased NeXTStep 5 that would have been the next release from NeXT had they not been bought out (which most people only know from their window manager), and before that NeXTStep 4 that was the last production version under the NeXTStep name and which was what MS ripped of for the Win95 interface.

/Brian

Primary innovator

[NullAndVoid]

I've got nothing against the Mac, but:

Apple has been the primary innovator of PC hardware and OS software

Really? Did they "innovate" the PCI bus and BSD? Their case design is admittedly innovative, but what they put inside has only recently caught up with the rest of the industry.

Re:Primary innovator

[CottonEyedJoe]

Apple didnt invent or popularize EVERYTHING. But they've done their fair share.

-Popularized USB (an intel invention that wasnt taking off)
- First (and really the only) desktop "PC" to have standard SCSI acoss product lines.
- Quicktime
- Firewire
- Dylan (a great language that never took off)
- Put a GUI in the hands of home users (Just to get this straight, Xerox sold the idea to Apple for stock, which Xerox made a hefty profit off of. Xerox actually made a GUI based computer for "business" that sold at the excellent price point of $19,000 USD....and you thought macs were expensive. Xerox had no interest in putting a GUI on consumer desktops).
- ColorSync , a technology probably never heard of by PC users, but essential for print work.
- When macs first came out they were expensive, but they had the same CPU's as many workstations and servers of the time.
- Digital hub, I know its a marketing term. But its real. Its nice for a geek with no artistic experience to be able to produce his own movies of the kids n send it to relatives. There are much better digital video editing programs, but anyone can use iMovie....and its free.

I'm sure there are many more I cant remember. If Apple was just pretty case design they wouldnt have the following they do.

Re:Primary innovator

[DNS-and-BIND]

I'm not sure I'd count SCSI as an asset. Sure, it's faster, but fantastically more expensive. Contributed mightily to macs not being widely adopted among people who had to pay for their own computer.

Re:Primary innovator

[tb3]

Here's a few more:
-affordable networking (AppleTalk)
-laser printers
-PostScript
-3.5 floppy drives

Re:Primary innovator

[JoeWalsh]

I was told that Apple also invented the touch pad - the little pad at the bottom of many laptops that is used as a pointing device. I don't know whether that was a good thing or not, but it's certainly a feature that's used on many laptops these days.

Re:Primary innovator

[jmccay]

I doubt that. The touch pad is similar in concept to the tools used by CAD developers. If that doesn't satisfy you, then I also had a "touch pad" like input device (about 4 times the size) for my Tandy Color Computer 2 and 3 (and possible 1).

Nothing will ever qualify Apple for that title. What they have done, while it may seem sgreat to you, is just a grain of sand on a very large beach.

Re:Primary innovator

[jmccay]

That still doesn't qualify them for that title. What about memory, buses, CPUs, etc. Nothing will ever qualify Apple for that title. What they have done, while it may seem great to you, is just a grain of sand on a very large beach.

Re:Primary innovator

[Linknoid]

OK, while you listed a few innovations from Apple in your post, here's a much more complete list, courtesy of MacKiDo.

Re:Primary innovator

[Lars T.]

Don't compare SCSI to today's IDE/ATA, but to the one of the mid-80s. One drive per controler, endless joy with configuration of disk-parameters in BIOS etc.

Re:Primary innovator

[SpotBug]

Some of the stuff is so bleeding obvious now that it's hard to remember that somebody had to do it first.

My favorite: with the first PowerBook (not the first Mac portable) they pushed the keyboard towards the screen to give a place for the trackball and for your palms to rest while typing. Every notebook since then has done that very obvious thing (they also all turned black for a very long time).

Re:Primary innovator

[overunderunderdone]

Really? Did they "innovate" the PCI bus and BSD?

Was Apple innovative? Incontrovertably yes. Are they STILL innovative - that's a little more problematic. They still make their own OS but they are using a lot over other peoples innovations either by buying them (NeXT, FinalCut Pro, iTunes, Nothing Real (curious to see what that little purchase is about)) or getting them for free (Mach, BSD) .To be fair when they bought some of those innovations they also "bought" the innovators (Even in the case of BSD where they didn't have to, Jordan Hubbard is an Apple employee now.)

In the past Apple did "innovate" and even "invent" a lot of things. Unfortunately that also led them to have a vicious "not-invented-here" syndrome which caused them to always be non-standard in lots of ways which weren't necessary. They used their own technologies for almost everything - FireWire, NuBus, ADB (That's APPLE desktop bus) of course the MacOS, ColorSync, AppleScript, AppleTalk, MacSpeech, OpenDoc, QuickTime etc. etc. etc. They can even claim a little credit for the PowerPC chip - back when it was being developed the AIM alliance (Apple, IBM and Motorola) maintained a joint R&D lab - and yes some of the engineers & scientists were and a fair amount of the money came from Apple. A lot of primary computer science research on all sorts of things was done by Apple's Advanced Technology Group (ATG). In the personal computer industry Apple has been the first or among the first during every major development: first GUI on a PC, first PDA, first(? - or at least among the first) consumer digital cameras, first OS with system wide color management, First UNIX my granny can use. etc. etc. etc.

Sadly Apple has changed, The ATG is history, Fundamental research has given way to R&D that had better be in a money making product in short order. Industry standard technologies (PCI, USB etc) are "good enough" and Apple has stopped trying to invent their own superior version or choosing superior non-standard technologies (like when they standardised on SCSI when everyone else went with the cheaper option)

Happily Apple has changed. The not-invented-here syndrome is history. R&D money is spent more wisely and profitably. Industry standard technologies are good enough and Apple has stopped wasting time and money and ensuring their incompatiblity with everyone else by inventing their own expansion busses and connections or always choosing the better but less common standard.

Re:Primary innovator

[Gogo Dodo]

You left out Apple's case design. There is still no easier system to open up then the G3/G4 towers. Lift the tab, everything swings open. Even the beige G3 and Power Macintosh cases were easy to get into.

Yeah, other products are hard to get into, but I've never seen any mainstream PC as easy as the Mac desktops.

Apple's packing box designs are also quite elegant compared to others.

Yikes!

[keep_it_simple_stupi]

I've seen the new I-Mac with its clothes on... It's ugly enough that way. For the love of God, KEEP YOUR CLOTHES ON!

Just my $.02

Re:TV version?

[Skirwan]

Reading is one of the most important skills that is (or should be!) taught to our nation's children.

I couldn't agree more. I'd also argue that a close second to reading is reading comprehension, which enables such deft feats of intellect as responding to a passage with topically-relevant response.

Anyway... who wants to talk about socks?

--
Damn the Emperor!

Funny user assumptions

[rjamestaylor]

I'm sitting here importing client data directly from a client-provided MS Access MDB into a Linux-hosted MySQL database using Linux on my Toshiba Satellite laptop, reading Slashdot on Konq while running another series of sessions on my PBTiG4 550 running OS X. See, I'm on a "working vacation" 1500 miles from home and my Internet connection is not very stable, so I'm moving my server-side development environment from the remote Linux server to my Toshiba and then using my development tools on OS X, which has become my defacto development environment. And, to import the Access (Jet 4.0) database I'm using mdbtools to process MDB files directly from Linux (no need to dualboot, or use Access under Virtual PC on Mac OS X or Win4Lin on Linux).

So, I'm not the typical user, either, as the author presupposes in his "survey" as you described. But I am a True Convert to Mac OS X and things Macintosh. Funny how OS X throws the old assumptions about Mac users out the Window.

Re:TV version?

[daeley]

I was going to read your post closely, giving it due thought and respectful consideration, but since it turned out not to be entertaining, informative, or much of a tool towards understanding anything in particular, I decided to skim it. Life is too short to care what people think, especially if they use the written word.

Who can forget the Newton...

[Anenga]

Sure, the first release of Newton kinda stunk,

In the auditorium, Skinner speaks to the children.

Skinner: Children, the times they are a-becoming quite different. Test
scores are at an all-time low, so I've come up with these
academic alerts. [hold stack of cards] You will receive one as
soon as your grades start to slip in any subject. This way
your parents won't have to wait until report card time to
punish you.
Martin: How innovative. I like it!
Kearney: Hey Dolph, take a memo on your Newton: beat up Martin.
[Dolph writes "Beat up Martin" which the Newton translates as
"Eat up Martha"]
Bah! [throws Newton]
Martin: [being bonked on the head] Ow!
-- Good ol' Apple Computer, "Lisa on Ice"
(Thanks to SNPP)

Re:Who can forget the Newton...

[phillyclaude]

do your homework, dick. it absolutely said "Eat Up Martha"

Tonight on Letterman...

[Justen]

Top Ten Affects of Die-Hard Mac Users on the World

10. On a certain day in January and July, Akamai traffic increases... Ten, err, Xfold.

9. Gap can always fall back on selling black mock turtlenecks and deep-blue denim jeans in an economic recession.

8. The world's goldfish will always have a place to live. (Today, in the Mac Classic. Tomorrow in the hollowed iMac G4 dome...)

7. Translucent irons, toothbrushes, speakers, mice, cat bowls, and lingerie.

6. Grandparents. Surfing. By themselves. Ahh!

5. MacOSRumors. The single largest scam on the Internet, today.

4. iPhoto coffee-table books. (Trust me: It's the ONLY way "The Osburne's" will ever make it into print... I hope.)

3. The Trash. Call it what it is, damnit! Recycle Bin my arse: Microsoft trying to please the tree-huggers.

2. Aquafied slashdot. Whodathunkit?

1. Grandparents. Unix. AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

jrbd

Re:Tonight on Letterman...

[jcoleman]

How the hell does this get modded up 5 times as funny?

Above-average book

[JoeWalsh]

I enjoyed the book, but as a long-time Linux user (and recent Mac convert) some of it seemed overly whiny to me. Sure, it's rough having only a few score software packages for Mac OS in the typical CompUSA, but the total of zero packages for the Linux user makes that seem quite sufficient in comparison. I think he needs to get out more, and realize that there are more operating systems than the Windows and Mac franchises alone.

As for the chapter where he gives childish replies to childish letters written to him as editor of his magazine, I stopped reading it half way through. I don't need that sort of thing to make me feel good about myself or my choice of computer, and reading such displays of immaturity is just painful. Maybe when I was 12 years old it would have been thrilling, but I've grown up since then. I wish he would have, too.

The rest of the book was pretty good, though, and some sections were laugh-out-loud funny. He has a good writing style and a sharp wit that comes out best when he's describing everyday situations he's had to deal with as a Mac user (such as the hostile responses from sales clerks and fellow customers when he asks for Mac hardware or software).

Still, given his whinyness on the one hand, and his vindictiveness toward "pee cee" users on the other, I'm not sure I want to be grouped with him as a "Mac fanatic." I tend to be a lot more forgiving of others than he shows himself to be. If most Mac users have the same extreme siege mentality he does, then I'll be sure to avoid Mac user groups like the plague. I'd much rather enjoy my computer than spend time cutting down others' choices. And I'd much rather let someone use one of my computers and thereby learn what's so great about the Mac than tell them what a crappy OS they use.

So, althoguh my wife and I own three Macs right now (two quicksilvers and one icebook), maybe we should call ourselves "Apple users" instead of "Mac Fantatics." (This, despite his sneering remark about people calling them "Apple" computers intead of "Macs." As a long-time user of Apple ]['s, I'll probably always refer to computers produced by Apple Computer, Inc. as "Apples" out of habit, at least some of the time).

-Joe

-Joe

Re:Above-average book

[JoeWalsh]

I'm sorry. I thought it was clear I was talking about commercial, shrinkwrapped software (as was the author of the book - thus the context of my comment).

Of course there is a ton of free software for Linux, FreeBSD, etc. I should have stated that more clearly.

the ultimate geek/hacker's platform

[Anonymous Coward]

and I mean hacker in the old-school meaning: like in machack.

Since my first Mac Plus in which I inserted a 5.25" 20MB SCSI Seagate hard disk inside the Mac's case, with no fan at all, wiring all the cables directly to the motherboard (no connector: had to save!).

Since my first INIT code which allowed remote shutdown of a Mac (great joke to play in public labs back in the ol'undergrad days), raytracing on a Mac SE (dithering because of 1bit/pixel...)

I think there's no better hacker machine!

Re:Titles in the works?

[PunchMonkey]

Well, we did already have MacIntosh: Attack of the Clones; and we all know how that turned out :-)

Re:Prepare for moderation - Re:TV version?

[tps12]

Yeah, sucks huh?

I recommend using the +1 bonus whenever possible, if for no other purpose then as an offering to the slashgods.

Are you kidding me?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a Mac because I wanted a laptop that I could compile UNIX source code on and I wanted a slick user interface that could handle MS Office. OS X fit the bill, so I got it.

I keep seeing things like, "Smart consumers buy Apples because they're cheaper!" Uh... since when? My Powerbook was $3,000. A comprable PC laptop was $2,200. I selected the Powerbook because it fit my needs better and I was sold on the operating system.

Macintosh users are more creative? Wow. It must be because they like shiny lollipop colors on their iMacs, a marketing trend that has bled over into everything from cell phones to George Foreman grills. Props to Apple for trying something simple and basic that the stuffed suits at the PC conglomerates never thought of: make the computer available in bright colors.

I never bought into user stereotypes. I have definately noticed that a TYPICAL pre-OS X Mac user knows far less about how computers in general work than PC users. But I could say the same thing of modern PC users versus the pre-Windows 95 PC users. Anybody remember tweaking your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS endlessly to coax another 9K of conventional RAM out of DOS? Arranging and re-arranging LOADHIGH instructions to shuffle drivers around in upper memory and going seven rounds with QEMM and the myriad other memory managers to use that extra 2 MB stick you paid $200 for?

We had no choice. If I wanted to play Crusaders of the Dark Savant I had to find a way to get enough memory. That was how PC computing was. Modern users on average know far less because, for one, there's far more non-tech people who use PCs and for two there's no need. So I don't buy into this division along the Mac/PC line for technical competancy. You learn what is required to learn to operate your machine. The fact that the Mac removed this responsibility from the user 10 years before the PC did doesn't make Mac people less intelligent or more creative.

I love my Mac. I hate my PC. But I want to play Dungeon Seige so I need my PC. I think the platform wars should be winding down in the coming years. I think that with OS X, Apple has the BEST operating system available. Sorry Linux people, but Linux is a pile of crap. I do use it, simply because when I set up my web server I wasn't familiar with anything else (plus I got semi-orgasmic pleasure out of reformatting the disk with Win95 on it). But if there were any justice in the world, OS X would be the operating system of choice. Even the ports of MS applications to OS X are superior to the MS versions.

I'm right because I say so. I read Slashdot! I'm always right! And well-informed!

Re:Are you kidding me?

[SideshowBob]

I never bought into user stereotypes. I have definately noticed that a TYPICAL pre-OS X Mac user knows far less about how computers in general work than PC users. But I could say the same thing of modern PC users versus the pre-Windows 95 PC users. Anybody remember tweaking your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS endlessly to coax another 9K of conventional RAM out of DOS? Arranging and re-arranging LOADHIGH instructions to shuffle drivers around in upper memory and going seven rounds with QEMM and the myriad other memory managers to use that extra 2 MB stick you paid $200 for?

So tweaking your autoexec.bat means you 'know how computers in general work'?

Thats the funniest damn thing I've read on Slashdot in awhile :)

Using a PC doesn't mean you know squat, other than how to use a PC. You don't magically know how to program all of the sudden, or how to design a PCB, or even how to swap out a PCI card (you think the vast majority of PC users ever even open their machine's case? To them its a commodity, more akin to a toaster oven than to a personal hobby.)

Who would you want to naked?

[burgburgburg]

Are there any major players in this field that you would want see naked? From Bill to Linus (opposite ends of the spectrum), I'd like them all to stay clothed.

And the truly horrifying image is of dancing monkeyboy Steve Ballmer au natural.

Re:Who would you want to naked?

[guuyuk]

***retch****
***Gag******

***HURL!!!*****
***HURL!!!*****
***HURL!!!**** *

***HURL!!!*****
Next time, warn everybody that you're going to mess with our minds like that! :-)

Ballmer...*shudder*
--

Re:Who would you want to naked?

[Alan Partridge]

man, that's harsh. I'd much rather watch the naked Wozniak and Jobs show that that coked up burger-fiend, Ballmer.

Re:Titles in the works?

[alta]

It's Macintosh Damnit!

You're trying to make it in to some kind of fruit!

To sum up all Mac Vs. PC Debates

[writermike]

I have a [Mac/PC].
I can't buy a [Mac/PC]Mac today. (Not enough cash to own two computers.)
I don't want to feel bad about my current purchase.
Therefore, [Mac/PC] computers (and [l]users) suck.

Re:TV version?

[stevey]

I didn't even have time to read the review above, though from the first line on the front page it sounds funny

Just time to write 326 words about it.

Innovation? Sure.

[Colol]

USB (They didn't invent it, but they made it popular). FireWire (IEEE1394). Digital connections for digital displays. GUI. The list goes on.

"changes our lives in important ways"

[Argyle]

I quote the article:

"But now I am getting worked up. I'll settle down. Deep breath, in, out, in, out. That's the thing about being a Mac user, Kelby points out: passion. Passion for Apple and its products, even the ones that stink, because Apple is more than just a company, it is an organization that changes our lives in important ways, by making products that make a difference to us. "

What is he talking about? Are we supposed to understand exactly how Apple has "changes our lives in important ways" without him mentioning how? Look, I've got PCs & Macs running Windows, Linux, and Mac OSs. They each have their good and bad points. But none of them have something so special that they "change our lives in important ways". They are all jusy fscking operating systems. We'd all be doing fine if we were using OS2 or Amiga or Be.

It's what people do with computers that makes a difference.

Re:"changes our lives in important ways"

[2nd Post!]

I can't agree with the author's rhetoric, but I do think Apple has changed our lives.

Introduced the PC with the Apple I/Apple II, in a serious way and not just in a hobbiest homebrew way.

Introduced the mouse to computing.
Introduced the 'window, icon, mouse, pointer' pardigm.

Introduced the WYSIWYG concept.

Introduced color managment. Publishing industry.

Introduced audio and video, via Quicktime, to home computers.

You know, things that today you take for granted, Apple helped popularize.

Re:"changes our lives in important ways"

[donglekey]

nice troll. for those that don't realize why:

Introduced the mouse to computing.
Introduced the 'window, icon, mouse, pointer' pardigm.
Xerox? Xerox.

Introduced the WYSIWYG concept.
how exactly?

Introduced audio and video, via Quicktime, to home computers.
IM motherfuckin PEG baby.

You know, things that today you take for granted, Apple helped popularize You maybe right on that one, they did help popularize things like USB, like they help popularize shitty slashdot posting by you buying a Mac

Re:"changes our lives in important ways"

[2nd Post!]

Right, Xerox may have innovated the ideas of WiMP and mice first, but Apple's Lisa was the first machine you could buy, and the Mac was the machine that sold well, that brought something other than CLI or blinkenlights to the masses.

Quicktime 1.0 the product was released, what, 1991, while MPEG1 spec was released in 1992?

Unless you're talking about some other thing entirely?

I never claimed Apple *invented* the mouse, WiMP, or movies, in my post. I just said they introduced those concepts to home computers at a time when computers were more of a novelty than they are today :)

Re:"changes our lives in important ways"

[bcaulf]

Apple's Lisa was the first machine you could buy, and the Mac was the machine that sold well, that brought something other than CLI or blinkenlights to the masses.

The Xerox Star went on sale in 1981.

great...

[Sebastopol]

...more ways to divide people and make enemies.

do we constantly have to make it 'us' and 'them', the other side always claiming moral highground?

this is just one more thing for people to get angry at each other for. like dads beating each other up at hockey games, or fans beating each other up at sports arenas...

does it fucking matter? are we so superficial as to group each other by the types of computers we use? this is sad, sad, sad.

:

and by the way C64 rocks, you all suck. ;-)

Re:great...

[w3woody]

Well, the world has always been divided into those who believe the world can be divided into two groups, and those who do not.

As you do not believe the world can be divided into two groups, you're one of *them*.

Be gone from my sight, foul demon!

-1, Flamebait

[blair1q]

Biased review of biased book about company that doesn't do very well despite its imagined superiority.

--Blair

Re:-1, Flamebait

[blair1q]

Most companies are massively up from their low on Sept. 21.

Apple has underperformed its prophesies financially and technologically since the mid-'80s.

--Blair

Why I gave up on Apple

[swm]

A tale of unrequited love

It's not Creativity +10...

[rjung2k]

To put it in geek terms...

The notion isn't that buying a Mac automatically confers you with a +10 to Creativity, the notion is that using a Mac means your Creativity doesn't take any penalties.

Have you ever tried to make a home video or DVD with the software that comes with the typical Dell or Gateway PC? Definitely a case of Creativity x 1/2 right there...

Ugh... Glad I didn't eat breakfast this morning..

[Svartalf]

What a positively nauseating image you had there...

I don't even look at resale value when I buy a CAR

[FatSean]

Concern about resale value usually means you cannot really afford whatever it is you are buying.

OSX 10.1.4

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want to make sure everyone is clear on this point. It is "Mac OS X, version 10.1.4," and "Mac OS, version 9.2.2." "Mac OS" and "Mac OS X" are OS names.

So does this mean it really is "oh ess ex, ten dot one dot four", or "oh ess ten, ten dot one dot four"?

Reminds me of http-colon-slash-slash-slash-dot-dot-org.

Macs and PCs, the Price Thing

[Wyatt Earp]

People will always point to price as a reason why PCs are a better buy than a Macintosh.

Here is some of my experiance.

I have a Beige G3 Tower from Apple, I've upgraded it to 512 MB of RAM (it came with 32), Firewire/USB card, 40 GB HD (it came with 4) and an ATI Radeon card. Total price for the machine over 4 years and 4 months, $2900 US.

In the same time, at work, I've been through 3 PCs that were bought for $1800, $1550, and $1060 dollars or $4410 US.

Take iMacs, a 2nd rev "Flavored" 266-333 MHz iMac with a 6GB drive will fetch around 400 dollars, while a 266MHz P2 tower is worth about 150 dollars.

Apples may be more expensive up front, but they do last longer than the majority of PCs.

Re:Macs and PCs, the Price Thing

[bruns]

How true it is. My old Quadra 800 is still chugging along, just as good as the first day it was turned on. Install A/UX on that baby and you have a rather solid and reliable system that many people would swear by.

geez guy ... occam's razor ...

[taniwha]

Mac users meanwhile wouldn't shut up about how good their macs were...as if they were trying to compensate for...something.

Or maybe they were just enthusiastic about their computer in a way you weren't about yours. Sometimes the truth is right in front of you and not a paranoid conspiricy about people's secret thoughts

Re:geez guy ... occam's razor ...

[taniwha]

To close, if you're mac is so great, shut the hell up

but I use a Linux laptop .... this kind of makes my point for me - remember Occam's razor - maybe someone who posts simply means what they say and doesn't have some hidden secret agenda

Re:geez guy ... occam's razor ...

[1in10]

Or maybe they were just enthusiastic about their computer in a way you weren't about yours. Sometimes the truth is right in front of you and not a paranoid conspiricy about people's secret thoughts

He is using occam's razor - the simplest explaination is a small minority of people are making a lot of noise because they're compensating, or jealous, or feel the need to reassure themselves, or whatever.

The complicated explaination is that all these zealous Mac users are somehow singuarly brilliant enough to see something that each and every one of the unwashed masses of PC users don't.

Now that would be stretching credibility.

More stupid Mac FUD

[IamTheRealMike]

The fact that the Mac removed this responsibility from the user 10 years before the PC did doesn't make Mac people less intelligent or more creative.

I seem to recall that up until about 2 years ago MacOS 9 users had to manually assign memory allocations? And if you got it wrong, the program would crash?

I love my Mac. I hate my PC. But I want to play Dungeon Seige so I need my PC. I think the platform wars should be winding down in the coming years. I think that with OS X, Apple has the BEST operating system available. Sorry Linux people, but Linux is a pile of crap.

More zealotry. Why do so many Mac users insist on giving Apple free advertising? It's not like they don't buy enough TV airtime anyway! And actually, the platform wars wound down years ago, I think you'll find that the open architecture of the PC, for all it's faults, was the winner.

Sorry Mac people, but saying things like OS X is better than Linux is ridiculous. I for one, will NEVER buy a Mac, not because I'm a poor student (though I am), not because I don't like Apple (though I don't), but because if everybody bought a Mac we'd suddenly be even worse off than we are now. Microsoft showed us what damage a monopoly can do when it controls the standards, a monopoly of Apple would be infinitely worse as they control the hardware too!

The only monopoly that wouldn't cause massive damage would be a monopoly of PC/Linux. Nobody, but nobody, should control the OS/Hardware. I don't give a damn about the software on top, if I want to pay MS for Office then I will, but the OS and hardware are too key.

I hate people who get modded up for saying "I love the good looks and UNIX core of Mac OS X". It's redundant. We don't care. So you like your new Mac, good for you, I guess we just have to hope not everybody is like you, cos if they are then we're screwed all over again.

end rant

Re:More stupid Mac FUD

[Van Halen]

It's not like they don't buy enough TV airtime anyway!

Personally, I think they don't. AMD, too. During the few primetime shows I sometimes watch, there will inevitably be at least 2 or 3 Intel ads. Often an MS ad too. I think I saw the new iMac ad once since it was announced 4 months ago. Can't recall ever seeing an ad for AMD on tv. Is it any wonder that MS/Intel continues to "win" the platform war?

As a fan of both Apple and AMD, I can't understand why they don't spend a few bucks and put more ads on tv. I don't know much about marketing, but it seems to me that this would nearly translate to an instant boost in sales for both. A lot of people I know have no clue who or what AMD is, and if they do, they assume it must be inferior because it isn't the Intel brand name they get shoved down their throats. Most of those same people haven't even seen or heard of the new iMac, let alone know anything about what Apple is up to these days and what they offer in terms of the whole digital hub thing. Many of them may not even realize Apple is still alive and kicking!

Strange.

Re:More stupid Mac FUD

[singularity]

And actually, the platform wars wound down years ago, I think you'll find that the open architecture of the PC, for all it's faults, was the winner.

You are equating popularity with superiority. By that rational, Ford makes a *better* car than BMW and Mercedes Benz sinply because they sell more cars every year.

Mac users would argue that while the i386 platform is more popular, there are better things out there. That is not too hard to grasp, is it? Would you buy an SGI machine if it was only a 5-10% premium over a similar PC?

but because if everybody bought a Mac we'd suddenly be even worse off than we are now. Microsoft showed us what damage a monopoly can do when it controls the standards, a monopoly of Apple would be infinitely worse as they control the hardware too!

This is, without a doubt, one of the most ignorant thigns I have ever read on Slashdot. Yes, if everyone bought Apples instead then Apple would have a monopoly. You not buying a Mac does not prevent Apple from having a monopoly (welcome to the wonderful world of being a MS competitor), but actively encourages the continument of MS's monopoly, since it knocks down MS's only sizable commercial competitor.

The only monopoly that wouldn't cause massive damage would be a monopoly of PC/Linux.

For the love of God, why are you so preoccupied on the fact that there *has* to be a monopoly on computers? Suppose Windows on PCs, Linux on PCs, and MacOS X on Macs all had 33% of the market? Can you say "competition"?

A monopoly is the exception. Regular capitalistic competition is normal. You apparently cannot see that as a possibility. Competition is a *good* thing.

I would go almost as far as to call your post a troll.

Re:More stupid Mac FUD

[IamTheRealMike]

A monopoly is the exception. Regular capitalistic competition is normal. You apparently cannot see that as a possibility. Competition is a *good* thing.

Yes, competition is a good thing, and the third each scenario would be the best, but when the OS is full of closed specifications a monopoly is in fact normal. It's a catch-22 situation:

Person looks at what computer they want. They look at platform X, and platform Y. Platform X is good, but it doesn't have many applications. Platform Y isn't as good, but it has lots of apps and is slightly better known and supported. They buy platform Y, because at the end of the day it may suck but it lets them get more done.

Developers look at what platform to target for the next project. X is easier, but Y has more users. More users = more potential customers, therefore they target platform Y. Cycle repeats.

This, in a nutshell, is what keeps MS at the top of the food chain, despite years of terrible products. Because porting programs between platforms is made deliberately difficult, the market becomes distorted.

Now look at Linux. It's easy to port Linux apps to Mac OS X, and to a lesser extent Windows. Why? Because it's based upon open and documented interfaces.

That's what I meant by my only-monopoly comment: not that I want to see a monopoly, because I don't, but instead that due to lack of central control this would be the only one that wouldn't end up being subverted for corporate agendas.

Re:More stupid Mac FUD

[singularity]

I believe that years of living under the Microsoft monopoly has scewed your sense of reality when it comes to consumer OSes.

Your logic that closed OSes inheriently cause monopolies is strange. I am not a huge MacOS programmer, but as far as I know all Cocoa APIs *are* completely open. The source may not be, but the APIs are all documented.

This was one of the major complaints against MS - their closed, non-documented APIs (ones that would allow Office to work better than other office suites) in the scope of a monopoly were illegal.

Your jump from a closed-source OS to closed APIs make no sense that I can see.

Yes, specs should be open. I should be able to know all of the Winodws APIs and I should be able to know the exact specification for MS Office documents. Simply because MS does not currently do that does not mean anything, though.

Competition would promote more open standards. Why would anyone want to port/design to your platform if they cannot inter-operate with the other 66% of the market out there?

My argument would be that in a 1/3 market share for each OS, that competition would help drive inter-operability and open standards.

Take TCP/IP, for example. Because there are so many different operating systems out there, TCP/IP, an open standard, is going to be the standard networking protocol.

Sure a specific computer might support AppleTalk or another networking protocol, but something like MS's bastardized Kerberos is never going to take off (realizing that I am slightly moving anaologies here from networkign protocol to auth. schemes) because all of the other platforms are not going to support it.

Does this make sense? Compettion would drive the need for open standards.

(Or maybe I am just missing what you are saying entirely)

Re:Innovation? Sure.

[jmccay]

Two things DO NOT make Apple "the primary innovator of PC hardware and OS software". The GUI came from Xerox Parc. Even the list provided by another comment doesn't qualify Apple for this title. There were and still are a lot of companies involved in innovation. How have the innovated ANYTHING for an OS? The GUI came form Xerox PArc, OS X came from various other sources.

Nothing will ever qualify Apple for that title. What they have done is just a grain of sand on a very large beach.

Sounds like another "Macs are great!" book...

[mttlg]

Just what we need, more propaganda to sweep under the rug in 10 years with all the "We don't need a CLI!" and "Who needs more than one button?" nonsense. People who don't like Macs won't care about this, and people who do like Macs will feel smug for a little while until they too don't care. I guess I just don't see the need for all the back-patting anti-PC rhetoric.

I would like to see a pro-Mac book that actually addresses the shortcomings of Macs instead of pretending that they don't exist. Instead, we get David Pogue saying stuff like "Who needs to be able to encrypt files when your entire computer is password protected?" in his Mac OS X Missing Manual book. Why hasn't anyone addressed the spatial information deficiencies in Mac OS X? Why aren't there any articles about how horrible iPhoto really is (Apple's own discussion board on iPhoto is almost entirely composed of usability complaints, with no comments from Apple staff)?

It gets frustrating seeing the stupid "love it or leave it" mentality used to defend Macs in the absence of a critical but fair analysis of Apple's hardware and software. While I can't imagine using anything but a Mac as a general purpose computer, I don't see why Macs should be exempt from reality.

Lighten up!

[macaddict]

The review left out the subtitle--"An irreverant, off-the-wall, PC-slammin', totally biased look at what it's like to be a Macintosh user in a Windows-dominated world." This book never claims to be a fact-based investigation of the life of a Mac user. People are taking this book waaaay too seriously.

That "definitive platform test" is a joke. I mean, come on! If you score 20-40 (militant PC user), his advice is to "...put your hands on your head, walk out the front door of your home directly toward the officers, and listen carefully to their instructions. Keep your hands clearly in sight and don't make any sudden moves." Yup! That sounds like a serious platform quiz to me!

Kelby's humor takes a little getting used to and his over-exaggeration of Mac and PC user stereotypes wears a little thin, especially in the era of OS X. There is some useful info in here--covering the obstacles you're probably going to run into and what to do about them (if you want lots of games, buy a Playstation), but for the most part the book is meant to be fun (usually at the expense of Wintel users). In the last chapter, he reveals the true origins of the Cult of Macintosh (and a lesson in media manipulation). General Burkhalter? Go fig! ;-)

Buying advice--if you prefer MacAddict over Macworld, you'll probably enjoy this book.

Sara

Better user factors

[schmaltz]

Simply put, Mac OS has far better user interface factors than Windows, Linux, or any other OS that I've used for a period of time. What do I mean? that the user interface does its best to help you do what you gotta do, and doesn't get in the way... mostly I mean mouse interaction with the GUI.

Most X interfaces suck badly, and have poor mouse tracking/accel/deceleration that leave you squinting and gripping your mouse in the hopes you will hit what you're trying to click. Windows is a little better, but still pretty lame next to MacOS7-9 (my jury's still out on X).

So my point is, better user factors leads to better usability, which lowers barriers to creativity with a computer. Face it, drawing with a mouse is like drawing with a brick in your hand ... would you want an OS that tracks like a brick, or like a pen?

To put it in automotive terms, the Mac drives like a BMW, Windows like a Ford, and X like a 1967 VW Bug with the a broken steering mechanism!

Re:Better user factors

[Paradise Pete]

I find Windows to be way more user friendly and generally more useable

Let's see...how do I shut this thing down? Oh I know! I'll click the Start menu!

Re:Better user factors

[serbanp]

Let's see...how do I shut this thing down? Oh I know! I'll click the Start menu!

Let's see...how do I eject the floppy? Oh I know! I'll drag it to the Trash Can icon!

Re:Better user factors

[Alan Partridge]

what floppy? obviously you don't use a Mac, or you'd notice that there are many ways to remove disks; that the KEYBOARD has an eject key and that the trash icon turns into an eject icon as soon as you click and drag a mounted volume.

Re:Better user factors

[Alan Partridge]

>MacOS 8 and 9 suck so hard. I don't know if the >retarded behaviour can be configured out, but the >defaults are ridiculous:

>- Can't have a few windows from one application >and a few from another at the top. If you have a >bunch of browser windows, clicking on one brings >them all to the top.

MacOS has various ways of hiding and showing certain windows, including "window shading" and "pop up" windows. You can also properly HIDE applications entirely if you'd like.

>- The Start menu is so much better for launching >programs. The idea of having to open folder after >folder of windows that stay open is worse than >the Win 3.1 Program Manager.

Merely holding the Option key will close the previous window automatically. You can combine this with tie window title bar hierarchy to move very swiftly and cleanly - much faster than Windows, in fact.

>- Apple made a conscious decision to avoid >2-button mice for so long. The context menu >right-click is so useful in windows. Yeah, yeah, >you can press the apple key to fake it, but that >is a pain.

Nope, you press the Control key to bring up contextual menus. Why is using click modifier keys such a pain? What are you doing with your other hand that doesn't involve the keyboard?

>- The lack of a taskbar (remember, we're talking >about OS 8 and 9 here) makes it hard to switch >between programs. The peice-of-junk menu at the >top right is no substitute.

MacOS has a device called the "application switcher" that tears off from that menu, and can be placed anywhere on the desktop as a floating palette.

>- Finder is much worse than Windows Explorer.

Finder is infinitely superior to Windows Explorer.

>- Applications that don't quit even after closing >all Windows is a weird feature. I can see how >sometimes it may be useful but most of the time >it just gets in the way. The OS even detects that >and pops up a dialog to ask you if you want to >close it. This is a sure sign of bad design

What do you know about design? Why shouldn't I be able to close all my windows in an app and then hit Command-N for a new window? Applications and windows are NOT the same thing. Microsoft's window-centric design is hugely frustrating and clutters your desktop with many menu bars. I use Win2K a work, and get along with it OK, but the OS9 FGinder is - to my way of working - about a thousand times more functional, flexible and fast.

Re:Better user factors

[cakoose]

MacOS has various ways of hiding and showing certain windows, including "window shading" and "pop up" windows. You can also properly HIDE applications entirely if you'd like.

Window shading is a dumb feature (yeah, yeah, my opinion). I think minimizing and using the taskbar is a much better way to do things. Do you really find shading/whole-app-only switching a good thing or did you just say that so that every point of mine was responded to?

Nope, you press the Control key to bring up contextual menus. Why is using click modifier keys such a pain? What are you doing with your other hand that doesn't involve the keyboard?

Regardless of what I'm doing with my other hand (you're a funny guy), there's a reason your mouse has a button in the first place. Why not just add another key to the keyboard? Because it's stupid. There are five fingers on your hand and while some are used for grip, I'm sure even apple users can handle two buttons. I think that it is natural to make implicit associations between the pointer and the mouse and so using the mouse buttons to control different types of clicks is just not as easy? I can't believe you prefer single button mice (unless, of course, you are impulsively arguing in defense of your cult leader :-).

MacOS has a device called the "application switcher" that tears off from that menu, and can be placed anywhere on the desktop as a floating palette.

Yeah, I've seen the application switcher. But I honestly do prefer the windows taskbar. It doesn't get in the way and, especially with browsers and telnet windows, it's nice to see right away what windows are present.

Merely holding the Option key will close the previous window automatically. You can combine this with tie window title bar hierarchy to move very swiftly and cleanly - much faster than Windows, in fact.

This I'll need to try. This window title bar heirarchy...is this at the top of the finder window? Is that what most people use because the alternative (opening window after window) really sucks. I'll have to try this next time I'm in the Mac labs. I can't imagine it being faster than the Start menu....but I'll try it before I say anything stupid :-).

I don't think Windows is the greatest UI in the world but I also don't think that the Apple UI is everything people seem to blindly proclaim it is. My limited usage of Macs has something to do with it but c'mon, one button mice?

Re:Better user factors

[Alan Partridge]

I'm using a PC right now (one that I built myself, actually) that has a 4-button-plus-scroll-wheel MS Intellimouse Explorer. I hate it, I really do. I find the scroll wheel to be a very clumsy and uncomfortable tool, the 3rd and 4th buttons are COMPLETELY useless and the whole mouse creaks when you squeeze it. I DO use the 2nd button (windows is designed that way) but I really, honestly prefer the Apple modifier keys approach. In my opinion, Apple should incorporate 2 scrollwheels into the top corners of their keyboards - that would be far superior to the wheel-on-mouse design. As to the taskbar, don't you find that the whole concept falls apart when you've got more than about 5 minimised windows? I use a 1280x1024 desktop on my Windows workstation and often find myself having to check through the taskbar to see what things actually are. Maybe it's just me, but most people who criticise the MacOS don't seem to use it much whereas most Mac users seem to use Windows a lot out of necessity. Who would you say is better able to judge their relative merits?

"creative" Mac users are geeks, too

[j09824]

I find this constant refrain of the "creative people" that can't be bothered with technical intricacies silly. People into typography, color, graphic design, photography, etc. are every bit as geeky as, and no more "creative" than, your geekiest C programmer. And when it comes down to it, those "creative people" spend inordinate amounts of time fiddling with their Macs, installing extensions, installing little add-ons, tweaking the color, experimenting with different network settings, etc.

The Mac has a shallow (=good) learning curve and makes it easy to get started. And OSX is now (finally) a robust and powerful Macintosh operating system, and that is great. But anybody who spends significant amounts of time with computers will naturally learn a lot of arcane trivia, and that's no different for Mac users.

Re:Prepare for moderation - Re:TV version?

[Geek In Training]

Did we just get bitchslapped?

I recommend using the +1 bonus whenever possible, if for no other purpose then as an offering to the slashgods.

Hell yeah, you're right. I am in one of those moods now, realizing that I have spent 4 years getting UID 12075 to 50 Karma and trying to keep it there. Since I've already blow 4 karma points being "offtopic" today, why not go for a hatrick here? Just gives me more incentive to post a few more Score: 5 remarks later.

I'd also like to point out that several of the other contributors to this sub-thread have all still got Score: 2's and they are just as offtopic as I am. At least I'm up front about being offtopic. If it pleases the moderators, I'd like to see a little equality in passing judgement, s'il vous plait.

"Posted at +1 Bonus for Maximum Karma Burn!"

version scheme

[a_d_white]

It is "Mac OS X, version 10.1.4," and "Mac OS, version 9.2.2." "Mac OS" and "Mac OS X" are OS names. "10.1.4" and "9.2.2" are version numbers. Got it?

I suppose Apple called it version 10.0 for consistency with the rest of the Mac OS version scheme. They could/should have called it "Mac OS X 2.0" (but for anyone who has used OS X 1.2, perhaps a 9.8 jump in version number is actually kinda appropriate).

Heck, the OS used to simply be called "System", as in System 6, System 7. It's only been called MacOS since, what, 7.5.5?

Re:Won't Buy from Apple Until Keyboard Problem Fix

[thoughtcrime]

Okay, I'll bite the troll.

Look here, dumbass. Took about two minutes. If you'd Google before you formed an opinion, perhaps you wouldn't need to hide behind an AC so much.

Re:driving....

[suicidal]

If you can't drive, you're a Mac user. No skills, but likes to watch the pretty scenery.

"It just works"

[Loundry]

What are you trying to say?

What I'm trying to say is that the moment a Macintosh locks up, freezes, or crashes, then it no longer "just works." Comparing the difficully of setting up a Macintosh vs. setting up a Linux system is not the issue (in fact, I'll agree with you that setting up a Mac is light-years easier than setting up Linux). What is the issue is the validity of the claim "it just works." You can't claim that something "just works" if it crashes or freezes. I don't think there has ever been a computer* that did not crash or freeze, and this includes computers that run MacOSX, Linux, *BSD, whatever. Thus, the "it just works" claim is a lie disguised as marketing hype.

*Ok, maybe OS/390 is an exception, but that's comparing apples (pun intended) to oranges.

Re:"It just works"

[Dephex Twin]

I explained what I meant by "it just works". I didn't mean "nothing will ever go wrong". I meant, if you want to do something, it is straightforward and quick.

mark

Re:"It just works"

[vanguard]

I wonder if you've used OS X? I use it all the time and it never crashes. I normally reboot it every three weeks or so for a software update from apple.

When I first plugged in my digital camera I understood what "It just works" means. It recognized the camera the first time and with a single mouse click all my photos were downloaded.

Anyway, ease of use and stability are both hallmarks of Apple. I will concede that stability has only been true for a few months now.

Vanguard

Re:"It just works"

[Loundry]

I explained what I meant by "it just works". I didn't mean "nothing will ever go wrong". I meant, if you want to do something, it is straightforward and quick.

Then don't say "everything just works." Instead say, "if you want to do something, it is straightforward and quick." The former implies stability (since system stability is certainly contained within "everything") while the latter does not. How can "everything just work" if the system crashes? When that happens, nothing is working!

Re:"It just works"

[Loundry]

I wonder if you've used OS X? I use it all the time and it never crashes.

And others have posted that OS X has crashed, and has crashed many times. If OS crashes even once, then it does not "just work."

When I first plugged in my digital camera I understood what "It just works" means. It recognized the camera the first time and with a single mouse click all my photos were downloaded.

I will agree that using your digital camera with your Macintosh was easy. Kudos to Apple for making it that way. But if the system crashes, even once, for any reason, then it does not "just work." If the system crashes then nothing is working!

The only thing I'm opposed to is people saying that their technology "just works" when they know that their technology freezes and/or crashes.

Re:"It just works"

[Dephex Twin]

Then don't say "everything just works."

I said "it just works", not "everything". And in the context of what I was saying, it makes sense too.

The former implies stability (since system stability is certainly contained within "everything") while the latter does not.

To you, it implies stability. But fine. I'll just come right out and say that Mac OS X is *extreeeeeemly* stable.

How can "everything just work" if the system crashes?

Well, for your information, I've never, ever had my system crash since installing OS X 10.0. Many others have had a similar experience.

mark

Re:"It just works"

[GlenRaphael]

When I first plugged in my digital camera I understood what "It just works" means. [OSX] recognized the camera the first time and with a single mouse click all my photos were downloaded.

As for me, the first time I unplugged my digital camera, OSX crashed. More specifically, I plugged the camera into the USB port, it popped the "do you want to import your pictures?" dialog box but as this box was /behind/ some other windows on the screen I didn't see it. Instead I went to the desktop and double-clicked on the camera's icon, copied the photos I wanted off it, and unplugged the camera from the USB port without dismissing the hidden window or closing the open folder view. Instant freeze. I think I had to actually pull the power and yank the battery to reboot my TiBook.

I think they fixed this issue in one of the later system updates. But if you've never crashed OSX you've been pretty lucky. I've found OSX more reliable than 9.X but not bulletproof.

Re:"It just works"

[Golias]

What I'm trying to say is that the moment a Macintosh locks up, freezes, or crashes, then it no longer "just works."

WTF are you talking about!? It's been about a month since my Mac has even been REBOOTED (I just throw it into powersave mode when I'm not using it), and I have not had a lock-up, freeze, or crash since version 10.0.1 came out, which was what? about a year ago? (and that was only because I had an unsupported firewire device hooked up when I turned it on... caused a kernel panic.)

If you consider macs unreliable, it can only be because you have not used one in a long, long time.

Re:"It just works"

[Loundry]

It's been about a month since my Mac has even been REBOOTED

And others have had less pleasent experiences. Just read some of the posts attached to this story. Certainly you are not suggesting that 100% Macs are perfectly free of crashes or freezes, are you? Unless 100% of Macs are 100% free of crashes and freezes, then they do not "just work."

If you consider macs unreliable, it can only be because you have not used one in a long, long time.

I never said Macs were unreliable. In fact, I probably agree with you that Mac OSX is very reliable, even as much so as any BSD variant. My argument is this: you cannot argue that a Mac "just works" if even one of them crashes or freezes just once for any reason.

It's your choice to make

[Weasel Boy]

"That's the one thing that really bugs me more than anything else, how Mac users project this completely unfounded air of superiority."

What you don't understand is, there's nothing unfounded about it. It's not that Macs make people superior, it's that superior people choose Macs. If you can't see why Macs are superior, either you have never used one, or... oh, I don't know, some other reason.

As we know, one of the ironic side effects of inferiority is that self-diagnosis is difficult. By the time you elevate yourself to the level where you are properly able to recognize your own inferiority, you will have become superior. And when that happens, the Apple Store will be waiting for you.

:-)

Resale Value

[vanguard]

I bet the resale value aspect of a mac changes soon. The hardware required to run OS X is so much higher than the previous versions that nobody in their right mind would pay nearly full price for an old mac. That old mac is slow.

That wasn't true when OS 9 was the OS of choice. Back then an old mac would do the job just fine.

In summary, now that Apple has joined the windows world of increasing hardware requirements you'll see the resale value of macs drop.

Vanguard
(Written on my favorite notebook, a 500mhz iceBook)

Re:Resale Value

[Dephex Twin]

I bet the resale value aspect of a mac changes soon.

On eBay it looks like my G4/450 is selling for between $700 and $1000, at a glance. And it runs OS X just fine.

Are you saying that in two years or so that G4 won't be worth the $1000? Or that, say, an 8500 can't be resold for that much anymore? If so, then that's pretty obvious I think!

The hardware required to run OS X is so much higher than the previous versions that nobody in their right mind would pay nearly full price for an old mac. That old mac is slow.

Bah, OS X seems slow. When OS 9 came out, it seemed slow. When OS 8 came out, it seemed slow. And so on!

This new OS isn't any different. The only difference is that it still hasn't been fully optimized yet, and so it continues to be speedier at each OS upgrade.

mark

Re:Resale Value

[cakoose]

This new OS isn't any different. The only difference is that it still hasn't been fully optimized yet, and so it continues to be speedier at each OS upgrade.

I don't mean to flame, but this is exactly what I dislike about some people in the Mac community. They regurgitate everything Jobs tells them as if speaking from first-hand experience.

Have you seen the source code to OS X and realized that there is a lot of room for optimization?

Do you realize that you are paying (in terms of hardware and time) for the slow and completely useless genie effect? Do you realize that Apple advertising is geared towards, well, whoever likes to watch colorful computers skate around on the TV screen?

Apple wants to be 'hip' and if that's all you expect from a computer company, that's fine. Going around calling PC's expensive, and basing comparisons on resale value is not right. I can see how old Macs may fetch a higher price: the key element, the appearance, doesn't degrade as quickly as the key element in PCs, which is relative performance.

Re:Resale Value

[Dephex Twin]

I don't mean to flame

No?

Have you seen the source code to OS X and realized that there is a lot of room for optimization?

I have installed OS updates, and so far have had a much speedier OS. I know that those beta-testing the next update to the OS say it is even faster. I know there is an unimplemented Window buffer compression feature that is switched off until it is stable enough. For example.

Do you realize that you are paying (in terms of hardware and time) for the slow and completely useless genie effect?

If you can't stand the .5 seconds the genie effect takes then it can be turned off. What's *really* a time-waster: that effect, or trying to install new hardware on a PC? (That is rhetorical.)

Do you realize that Apple advertising is geared towards, well, whoever likes to watch colorful computers skate around on the TV screen?

Totally irrelevant, and meaningless.

Going around calling PC's expensive, and basing comparisons on resale value is not right.

Why? And to clarify, that was only one aspect of comparison.

I can see how old Macs may fetch a higher price: the key element, the appearance, doesn't degrade as quickly as the key element in PCs, which is relative performance.

I disagree, but in any case, what does it matter *why* they have good resale value... so long as they do.

mark

Doesn't everybody do that?

[mjfgates]

I mean, they're right there, and you're supposed to keep them clean and properly sharpened anyway...

Just remember, if you're Jewish, to use the "meat" untensils, not the "milk" ones.

Not a sentence fragment

[Macrobat]

My subject line is a sentence fragment. No verb. "And I think I saw a run-on sentence in there" has a subject and a verb--the "and" in the beginning makes it stylistically suspect, but not a fragment.

Another Book is Required

[micromuncher]

Another book needs to be written because the religious user debates do not really explain why Apple has a 3% market share.

I would call this book "The Rise and Fall of the Mac Developer."

In this book, I would enumerate all the things that Apple has done to drive truly creative developers from the platform. Of course one can argue "semper fi", but where is Guy Kawasaki today?

In this book I would have the following chapters.
1) The failure of Marketting/Evangelism
Yes, I'd have this in the book. I spent five years promoting the use of Macs in enterprise and engineering. Apple could never keep these positions well stocked, and when they did find people, they gathered a self-delusional-reinforcing clique of groupies that denied that Apple was pooching NOT attempts to enter the space, but pooching toeholds they had in the space, and telling developers trying to build products that their applications were not "killer apps." Is there an engineering killer app? For five years Apple reps announced at WWDC the same thing: We will foster development and awareness through VAR incentives. That's right... No help for people building products - but give a salesman who doesn't know a Mac from Adam a T-Shirt and he'll promote a product into an Oil company without ANY SOFTWARE to make it useful.

2) Starve the Developers for Development Tools
First tell developers they must pay for expensive development tools, and delay on providing those tools. [The developers want free tools to write product to sell your platform.]

3) Jerk the Developer Chain through Legalese
Have developers wanting to support new technologies sign incomprehensible NDAs and technology agreements. [The developers must wait months to actually get there hands on the technology.] Then announce that certain specs for internal hardware will NEVER be released.

4) Remove the Reason for Start-ups to Use Macs
Any developer incentives like the hardware purchase program must be abolished. [It is more likely small start ups that cannot afford 200%+ mark up will support fringeware.]

5) Run in Circles and blow the Developers Credibility
Get new technologies out, convince developers they must support them, and kill them a year later. [Copland, OpenDoc, QD3D...]

6) No Support for You
Put a barrier between your core developers and technical resources that do not know the technologies and claim every bug you report in the Software is a support incident requiring the DEVELOPER pay for it.

7) Close the Playing Field
Make sure that any attempt to support CHRP and get other Vendors making Macs is pooched.

8) Kick your Developers in the Groin
Never return the phone calls of a developer known as a Doubting Thomas. Make sure the development teams that do have tight contact with developers ignore advice from the seasoned ones because it illustrates design flaws, or points out missing key parts of a strategy, or because the developer said after stating factually why something is stupid, resorting to saying "The Idiot Who Did This Should Be Short" must be threatened with LEGAL ACTION.

9) Lie To The Developers
In 1996, WWDC, "Apple will be the Number One Java Development Platform." Apple FIVE YEARS LATER delivers a functional Java implementation.

10) Creativity Must be Stiffled
Kill ATG, research, and disclosure because Microsoft delivers the cool thing you saw at WWDC the previous year.

11) OpenSource this
Don't forget to kill mkLinux because you might eat into your OS X sales. But wait - OS X won't run on older hardware. F**k ADB and NuBUS - who uses old Macs [except every die hard Mac developer I know.]

Unfortunately most of the things that Apple has done right, they did long, long after it would make a difference. Think different? I don't think so.

p.s. Tim, f**k you for breaking all the UI guidelines making iWhatever look and feel like consumer products. A skin should be a choice... and Apps should be consistent.

Re:Another Book is Required

[micromuncher]

I almost forgot my favorite last nail.

x) Discourage your Developers from Cross Platform Development (by pulling the rug out from under them)
Document QTML as a way for Mac developers to port their Mac [QuickTime] applications to Windows easily. When questioned about what is or is not supported in the library after porting an application to Windows using QTML, change the documentation to say this library will NOT BE SUPPORTED. (Ha ha, stupid developer, you thought we were giving you solutions to increase your market share.)

Re:Another Book is Required

[Phil Wilkins]

Speaking as an ex mac developer, A-fucking-men!

Of course, now I'm considering buying my first mac in a decade, but maybe because I'm actually making money for once, and it's not by being an Apple developer!

Goddamn OpenDoc. I still have the t-shirt I got for writing one of the first demo parts.

brains are not necesary

[visionsofmcskill]

the whole MAC vs PC debate is about as worthwhile as starting a fire with your powersupply.

A: to those who say Macs are NOW cool because of MAC OS X having unix underpinngs

--Shut up. LOL... MAC OS has always had the tools for power users... and to think it was just some kids computer until X came around is to ignore VPC, LinuxPPC, Terminal apps, Hexediting and the whole kit n kabbodle

B:to those who say PC's have are supirior, or macs arent tweakable.

--i have taken my rev b imac apart installed a scsi/video card... upgraded the processor, added firewire, upgraded the ram/HD/and video ram, and installed my own internal cd-r. AAAll of this in a All in one case.... uhm.... thats a great deal of tweaking in my book. If it wasnt for the fact that linux reads so many disk formats macs would be the only real good IT computer... but no-one in IT realizes that... sigh... misunderstandings will continue till the end of time...

telnet?

[talks_to_birds]

"...As I write this, I have four terminal windows running in NiftyTelnet, connecting me to Linux boxes at work and at home..."

Who the fsck uses telnet?

This isn't the 1990's...

t_t_b

Re:telnet?

[Permission Denied]

NiftyTelnet is basically the standard ssh client for MacOS 8/9. OS X comes with a real ssh, so you don't have to use it there, but on OS 8/9, you're stuck with NiftyTelnet or MacSSH. I don't really like NiftyTelnet all that much, but it does have some advantages over Terminal.app, such as:

• Terminal.app does not work with any fonts other than the default one. You would think that any monospace font would work, but it's not the case; you get screen corruption with all fonts except the default. This is a documented problem and Apple is working on it according to our rep. Many times I have screwed up scripts because I wasn't using the default font (I usually give up, go to a Linux box and ssh in to fix it). The default font is very small, especially at high resolutions, and the font selection dialog box does not make it clear which fonts are monospace (laughable idea, but I think you are supposed to "know" which fonts are monospace from the names).
• Nifty telnet allows you to assign the "CMD" key to META, where God intended the meta key to belong. With Terminal.app, you can use the "alt/option" key for meta if you muck around in the dialogs, but it still makes Terminal.app completely unusable for an emacs user. (I'm a die-hard vi user for all the admin stuff I do with OS X, but I need my heavily-customized emacs (~90 Kb .emacs) to do any C coding - thus, I don't do any C coding on OS X.)
• Terminal.app steals page up/page down for its scroll bar. NiftyTelnet sends them to your programs. Not a big gripe since I can't think of many applications where I use page up/page down.

Anyway, Terminal.app completely sucks if you ever want to do any unix work with an OS X box. There are only four alternatives to Terminal.app:

1. This thing called "GLTerm." Worse than Terminal.app; not worth your time.
2. Install rootless X and use xterm or rxvt. Works fairly well, but it's stupid that I have to install X just for a decent terminal emulator.
3. If you only need to ssh out, use NiftyTelnet in Classic mode. I actually need to work with the OS X box, so this doesn't help unless I combine it with the next possibility:
4. SSH into the OS X box to do any real work. This is the only way I work with OS X - I ssh in from an xterm on my FreeBSD laptop, using VNC whenever I find yet another annoying thing I can't do from the command line.

This is for the newest version of OS X Server (have to use it, management likes the little GUI user management crap), but regular (client) OS X is exactly the same.

Unless you're poor

[yerricde]

Quite simply what operating system you use should be determined by the task at hand.

I agree, with one caveat: Some people don't have enough money to buy as many boxes as they have tasks that they want to run simultaneously (e.g. Windows is best for games, but *n?x is best for file sharing), or the duopoly (cable and DSL) Internet service providers' TOS prohibit connecting more than one computer through their connection.

Apple innovated BSD...

[yerricde]

Really? Did they "innovate" the PCI bus and BSD?

Yes. Apple innovated pre-installed commercial BSD on the desktop. Apple also innovated bundled USB keyboards and mice.

Three ways to run an MS OS on the Mac

[yerricde]

unless you know of a MS OS that runs on the Mac?

Early versions of MS-DOS were published for 68000-based machines as well as for IBM PCs. It probably would have been trivial to port those to the early Macintosh hardware.

Windows 2000 runs on Macintosh computers through Connectix Virtual PC software.

Microsoft Internet Explorer is the default browser for Mac OS X, and Microsoft considers IE to be part of the operating system.

Re:Won't Buy from Apple Until Keyboard Problem Fix

[drsmithy]

As the tip itself noted, this won't work on Powerbooks because the internal keyboard is actually ADB and not USB.

You're all wrong.

[money_shot]

I'm a painter. I'm a techie. I'm a manager.

I grew up with Apple and used Macs in college.

I work with PCs and build my own PCs. They are high quality machines that work very well. I upgrade with top notch parts as I need to or feel the urge.

I do most of my creative work on a PC running XP. It works very well... Photoshop and Primiere fly, Counter-Strike rocks, and there are drivers for everything. I plug things in and they work.

I play with linux just for fun. I can almost do something useful with it now. A couple lines of code, a email check, some webbrowsing. Eventually, I might get my USB multimedia perpherials to work with it.

My point is that the stereotype about who uses what is wrong, but seems to be consistently reinforced from various media. I am the creative type whose also a techie. I started using PCs because of price and software, now I see no reason to even try a Mac again other than playing with it a few minutes at CompUSA.

If only I could get some cool apple industrial design in my PC cases without taking a dremel to it...

Dodging stereotypes

[i0lanthe]

maybe we should call ourselves "Apple users" instead of "Mac Fanatics."

Reminds me of the MIT Science Fiction Society's t-shirt motto, "We're not fans - we just read the stuff".

Stereotypically frothing-ever-so-slightly-at-the-mouth enthusiasts serve a useful purpose (reminding people that their topic of interest exists, and selflessly defending it from onslaught whenever necessary), but alas they also make it harder for "normal" folks to admit to liking something, be it Apples, SF, or (fave /. topic) Open Source.

Re:Listis missing one important thing

[Teut]

Excel. Most Macs in the earlies were sold because MS put Excel on the Mac first because you can't do spreads easily on a DOS screen. And it sold like hotcakes. There are many more innovative programs which were created on the Mac and later migrated. Photoshop is one of them as well as the mentioned QuarkXPress and Pagemaker.

NiftyTelnet does ssh

[sfgoth]

NiftyTelnet is probably the best free ssh client available for Mac OS 9.

It certainly shames the commercial SSH cleint.

-pmb

hidden costs

[GunFodder]

Last time I checked the Mac has a bunch of built-in software that the PC doesn't. And if you're going to buy from the cheapest vendor on Pricewatch don't forget to add a hefty surplus for shipping and waiting a long time for stuff on backorder. And you will probably have to return a part or two as well.

And most people charge money to assemble computers. If you're going to build it yourself don't forget to account for that time spent. I built my own PC and I don't regret it but I spent a lot of time physically assembling the machine and installing software. I spent hundreds of dollars worth of my own time.

I'm not saying that Macs are cheaper than PCs, but I hate it when someone quotes Pricewatch prices for PC parts assuming that those components will somehow magically become a computer.

Generally jovial character?

[gsfprez]

OMG. sorry.. but Pudge calling himself "jovial" would be up there with hearing Tom Daschle calling himself "professional bullshit artist" - accurate, but hearing it from him, you'd swear you'd entered the Twilight Zone.

You all should see how "jovial" pudge is when he's beating the stuffing out of some poor college freshman's poor argument. Its like watching a 800 pound gorilla tackle a miniature poodle and stuff it into a thimble. Its so awful, you can't help but watch in glee (i mean, doesn't everyone find glee in the idea of one of those horrible little poodles being stuffed into a thimble?)

Re:Generally jovial character?

[marktwain]

Hey, pudge does pretty good with this. His main problem is not having most of those open terminal windows in os x if I read him correctly. Nothing like having a box that boots your favorite GNU/Linux flavor and also Mac OS X 10.1.4 and Mac OS 9.2.2 (nomenclature which he got right). Beats heck out of a box that boots GNU/Linux and Windoze. :-) Actually a decent review of the book which I thought sucked. Best part, as pudge mentioned, was the dumping of shite all over the heads of some Peecee/Windoze turkeys.

iBong - This article is at it again

[alphadan]

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,50820,00.html

iBong... extremely funny, until you read the article:

"There is a strong connection between Macs and pot. Both are countercultures, in the loosest sense of the word, appealing to people who are creative or artistic, people who, as a particular ad campaign might say, "Think different.""

Just like this book, totally wrong view of Mac users.

Re:Innovation? Sure.

[Colol]

The basic GUI concepts from Xerox, as many stories scattered across the web do tell, sucked. It wasn't a modern GUI in any way, shape, or form. It's like saying XFree86 is perfect without a window manager or any applications. Refinements went into the GUI of what is now known as Mac OS that went well above and beyond anything at Xerox PARC. Apple stole the concept of being able to interface with the user graphically from Xerox. Big deal.

Dodge, Chrysler, Mercedes, BMW, VW... They all stole the concept of the automobile from Ford. But we don't go around bitching about that. They improved upon a basic "product", as did Apple upon a GUI.

Apple innovates. Look at the design of their systems. Nobody else put out a mass-produced, small-footprint computer for the masses that can master DVDs. Their mobile computers get far better battery life than anything Gateway or Dell can offer.

They're pushed to actually better their systems, where the Wintel world gets excited over an extra 2 minutes of battery life or 50MHz.

Look at the software. iTunes. iMovie. iPhoto. There's some truth to Apple's "Everything's easier on a Mac" campaign. Equivalent software for Windows largely either: (a) sucks and is free or (b) is overpriced and sucks.

I paid nearly twice as much for my top-of-the-line Dell laptop as I did for my 500MHz iBook, and what do I get for it? A GeForce2 Go. The standard software complement on Apple's consumer-level computers blows Dell's (and most other Wintel resellers) out of the water. I've got AppleWorks on the Mac that can do everything I need, and Works on the Dell that has, uh, an old copy of Microsoft Word bundled. Whoop-de-fucking-do.

4 months later, the Dell battery's dying and they don't want to touch it, the touchpad's dead, and Windows has been reinstalled several times, each creating a new and fun hardware conflict. If there's innovation somewhere in that... Oh, wait, there is! Innovation in customer service!

Re:Why I hate Mac

[UnTdWrLdGv]

You missed the point of my post. I was introduced to Apple first, but ended up hating Apple. I love PCs and have an unhealty addiction to them.

Re:Are you kidding me? [techhnohubris remix]

[mzungu]

>Thats the funniest damn thing I've read on Slashdot in awhile :)

Actually, your post is the funniest.

I particularly liked your assertion that:

Using a PC doesn't mean you know squat, other than how to use a PC. You don't magically know how to program all of the sudden, or how to design a PCB, or even how to swap out a PCI card

Hilarious and quite true. I am sure the vast majority of PC users are just that, users. They see the computer as a tool and have no interest in knowing how the tool works.

However, I take exception (non-fatal) to your assertion that knowledge of PCB design and programming are prerequisites for having a GENERAL UNDERTANDING of how computers work.

I think anyone who has had the dubious pleasure of tweaking qemm to optimize memory back in the days of DOS and Windows 3.11 does indeed have at the very least a general understanding.

Your post reeks of technohubris.

The price issue in no uncertain terms.

[JavaJones]

Yeah, dealing with a ton of online retailers can be a real pain in the ass. Of course there are excellent, low cost online retailers like newegg.com but lets ignore that too because the amount of people who are willing and able to build their own computers is small in comparison with the total computer market. And I guess if you make bad purchasing decisions or are bad at machine assembly and setup it could, maybe, take 10 hours to set the thing up. No comment on your silly "cost of lost client" point though.

To make a comparison fair we'll take the 2 most popular computer retailers in the PC world and pit them against the only source of Apple hardware currently available. Dell and Gateway vs. the Apple Store.

Apple Store:
G4 800Mhz
256MB PC133 RAM
40GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive
CD-RW Drive
ATI Radeon 7500 dual monitor
56k Internal Modem
Apple Pro Speakers
Apple Keyboard
Mac OS X 10.1.4
90 day tech support, 1 year hardware repair

Total: $1600

Oh but wait, you gotta be able to *see* what you're doing on your computer, right? So we'll add the smallest and cheapest monitor they carry. After all I wouldn't want to bother going to a third party retailer to get a monitor, especially if it didn't match my case and say Apple on it.

Total cost with "15 LCD monitor: $2257

Now we'll see what Dell has to offer.

First, we'll be using the double Mhz rule just for argument's sake. So we'll need at least a 1.6Ghz processor on the PC side to equal our G4, memory issues aside.

Dell Dimension 4400 Series:
1.9Ghz P4
256Mhz DDR SDRAM
Geforce 3Ti 200
15" flat panel LCD
40GB Ultra ATA/100 HD
24x10x40 CD-RW with Easy CD Creator
56k Modem
Harmon Kardon HK-206 Speakers
Microsoft Works Suite with Money (includes Word, etc)
Dell Picture Studio and Image Expert Standard (to match OS X built in tools presumably)
Dell Keyboard and MS Intellimouse
Windows XP Home
Epson Stylus C80 Printer
HP Photosmart 318 Digital Camera
Standard Dell Move Studio Bundle (presumably competition for iMovie)
HP Scanjet 5400 Scanner
3 free DVD movies or software titles
1 year limited warranty, 1 year at home service, 1 year phone support.

Total: $1,847

Ok so let me get this straight, I get everything the Apple comes with, *plus* a printer, scanner, digital camera, better support, a better mouse (regardless of the 1 vs. 2 button debate, this also has a scroll wheel and 2 extra programmable buttons), faster RAM, a better graphics card, more software, and 3 free movies or software titles, and all for $400 less than an "equivalent" Apple system? If I purchased today I even would have gotten free shipping. I'm trying to restrain my laughter here.

None of the above value judgements are, I believe, very subjective either. Feel free to argue if you disagree.

At the very least, even if I have more problems with this system than with the G4 (debatable, XP is from personal experience pretty stable), I'll certainly be enjoying my digital camera, scanner, and printer allot more than a $400 hole in my wallet and a few less crashes (conjecture, for argument's sake) and being able to use iMovie. Not to mention that those extras are precisely what I would need to properly enjoy one of the major purported uses of Apple products: graphic arts.

But hey, maybe Dell was having a fire sale the day I checked prices (uh, that was today btw). Lets try Gateway.

Gateway 500S:
P4 1.8Ghz
256MB DDR SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA/100 7200RPM HD
16X DVD-ROM *and* 24x10x40 CD-RW
64MB NVIDIA GeForce2 MX400 w/TV Out
15" Flat Panel LCD Display
Sound Blaster Audigy w/Firewire
Boston Acoustics BA745 Speakers
56k modem
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet
Windows XP Home
Gateway Keyboard and Logitech Optical Wheel Mouse
MS Works Suite (Includes Word and Encarta)
1 Year Limited Parts / Labor / Support
Epson Stylus C80 Printer with USB Cable
Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 5400C Scanner
Fuji® FinePix(TM) A201 Digital Camera
Nomad II MP3 player
The Sims

Total: $2,055

Huh, whaddya know? They're also cheaper, and include even more extras. OK, I can no longer restrain my laughter. HAHAHAHA! But of course my case doesn't look pretty. I'm all sad inside now. And of course admittedly Gateway isn't the best manufacturer of computers. But then not all of Apple's components are top notch either (IMO). That's why I build my own computers. But from a consumer standpoint, arguing lower price is obviously ludicrous, and arguing a better user experience is seeming more and more suspect the more I write.

For argument's sake lets go visit a PC manufacturer that uses high quality components, caters to an elite crowd, and has pretty cases and hardware: Alienware. Now I suppose we'll finally see price equality, since surely if a PC manufacturer tried to include all the extras that Apple does, they could not undercut Apple in price. Lets see how Alienware does.

Hive-Mind:
P4 1.8Ghz
256MB DDR RAM
MS Keyboard and Intellimouse Explorer in choice of colors
40GB Ultra ATA/100 7200 RPM HD
NEC 19" 95F Flat Screen CRT Monitor
ATI Radeon 7500 dual monitor
Sound Blaster Live 5.1
Plextor PlexWriter 24x10x40x CD-RW
USR 56k modem
Creative Inspire 5.1 5300 speakers
Intel Pro 100S Network Card
Microsoft Works
Windows XP Home
1 year 24/7 onsite support

Total: $2078

Wow! It even comes in my choice of colors! I'm really sporting wood now! Unfortunately they don't carry LCD monitors smaller than 19" or something, so I've had to go with a 19" flat CRT. I don't think I'll really be complaining, but if I really want a lower refresh rate, smaller viewable area, and a fixed resolution I'm sure I could order a 15" LCD for $100 or so more than the 19" flat screen CRT, including shipping. An equivalent Athlon system is also comparable in price from Alienware.

So as you can see, the price difference is very real. While it is true that there are certain features - tangible and otherwise - that Apple offers in its computing experience that are difficult or impossible to match on the PC side (I mean who *doesn't* want a Superdrive?), whether they are worth a $400+ price premium is debatable, and this doesn't even take into account similar features on PC's difficult or impossible to match on a Macintosh (how about a good selection of modern games?).

Bottom line: There's nothing wrong with liking Macintoshes. There's nothing wrong with liking Apple's industrial design. There's nothing wrong with liking Mac OS, 9, X 10.x, or what have you. What is wrong is being a zealot about it. What is wrong is being narrow minded and stupid in your computer buying decisions. What is wrong is buying marketing hype and giving it away for free as your own "product", while the company you *bought* it from gets free advertising and makes yet more money off your stupidity.

Mac's and PC's share the computing world, and each seems to have maintained thier own respective niches for some time now. I don't see this changing. Both have plusses and minuses. Above all everyone owes it to themselves to be *informed* when they make computer purchasing decisions. If you don't know the truth behind the "Mhz Myth" then you shouldn't be arguing relative system performance. If all your buying decisions are based on performance in Apple's test of 5 filters in Photoshop, you shouldn't be talking about which platform is superior.

- JavaJones

Re:The price issue in no uncertain terms.

[Alan Partridge]

why do people do this price comparison crap EVERY TIME? It's caveat emptor out there, son. Companies are NOT obliged to give you best value - determining THAT is your perogative as a consumer. And, as any fool can see, a huge pile of beige crapola is NEVER going to be an equal proposition to an iMac - not to mention the difference when you turn it on.

Re:The price issue in no uncertain terms.

[JavaJones]

I did the price comparison because people brought up the price issue yet again. This is in black and white and quantifies the issue so people can make judgements about it without having to do the research. You yourself make the very valid point that value is a perogative of the consumer to determine. I merely facilitate that determination with some amount of information, however miniscule. I think it's beter than nothing.

I also attempted to address the "user experience issue" to some degree. Ultimately it all comes down to opinion, but as far as these discussions go I think it's worth keeping each other honest. Doing a price break down in my humble opinion shows the factors in the issue in no uncertain terms.

The only variable is individual user experience and satisfaction. Unless you imagine that people pay for products that make them miserable (hmm, wait, maybe they do...), then there is surely a reason why Apple has less than a 10% market share, and unless the price point is conceded as being extremely relevant, then one cannot blame that factor either.

Using "a huge pile of beige crapola" to refer to your average PC shows your obvious bias and negates the usefulness of my replying to you. But for some odd reason I'm compelled to anyways. Go figure. As long as we're on about it though, I think the user experience from your average beige box big name PC is at least as good as your average 1st gen iMac. 2nd gen wins out for industrial design I must say, and this is an area Apple has always excelled in, no doubt about it. But then it also comes at the cost of upgradeability and price. And after you get over the nifty case and swing-arm monitor, it's all about the OS and the hardware driving it. For some OS X is the cat's meow, for others it's pure trash.

The iMac fits a particular market well and that's all it needs to do. But saying its initial or long term user experience is far superior to your average PC, end of disucussion, seems pretty arrogant and ignorant.

I imagine you probably didn't finish reading my post, either. Granted it does continue with some more of the price comparison drivel, but I think I end on a pretty fair "arms open" note. Different platforms for different folks and needs. Plain and simple.

I just don't think there's a fair way to say that Mac's or PC's are better and leave it at that. It makes much more sense to be aware of and acknowledge the plusses and minuses of each platform and choose based on that knowledge for your own needs. Of course that takes too much intelligence and patience for your average person, so I'll just shut the hell up now. Mac's rule, PC's suck, I'm sorry, I repent.

Oh and don't call me son. :p

- JavaJones

Re:The price issue in no uncertain terms.

[Alan Partridge]

I didn't say the iMac experience was necessarily better, just that it wasn't directly comparable. And the pile of beige crapola is true - those massive PC-plus-scanner-plus-printer-plus-camera-plus-spea kers-plus-monitor deals always leave with an enormous amount of kit that looks apalling in a domestic setting, isn't generally very good and probably isn't what you'd buy given the choice. The same kind of thing happens with DVDs - you want to go and buy Robocop so you can watch Robocop. WHat you HAVE to buy is Robocop AND Robocop 2 AND loads of pointless extras which add NOTHING to the film that you paid for but DO detract from the available disc space and therefore potential quality of the main feature. Bundling, IMHO, demonstrates the dead hand of marketing at work and adds very little REAL value.

Windows is a Mac OS clone..

[Darth Cider]

Has this been mentioned yet? Windows is a Mac clone. The look and feel, the "plug and play," the point and click, etc.

Both are asymptotes of something ideal that users want, and the competition is good for us. What MS tries to accomplish with market dominance and dollars, Apple tries to accomplish with stability and aesthetics.

Let em fight it out.

I' dying to see the ...

[chris_sawtell]

MacOS-X.I.IV release

Things I hate about Windows and Mac OS GUI's

[B. Vhalros]

Well, since this seems to be turing into a dialogue about UI's, here are some things I hate about both Mac OS and/or Windows.

• Desk Top Icons- What a useless thing. I can't get to these if I have windows open.The startmenu is some what of an improvement, but it would be nice if you could make it appear any where.
• Have to go to corner to resize/shade(okay, the top)/maximize/minimize/move windows. It's very obnoxious, you should be able to do this any where.
• Having to do funky stuff to force quite when an application dies. I want to hit a button and brutally murder it.

There is probably other stuff I forgot about too.

How I learned to stop worrying.

[toybux]

As I grew up, I had both Macs and Windows machines around. I didn't know much about using the Windows machine besides how to load Doom and Civilization on it. I was taught to use the Mac in school, and as thus used it to do most of my productive work.
Later, when I acquired a 14.4 modem for my Windows machine and smooth-talked my parents into paying for CompuServe for a few months, I got started down the path of the PC. I used it more and more, and got more and more drawn into it. I still used the Mac for productivity, but the Windows box for my goof-off time. As I learned more and more about the PC, I began to love it more and more. Eventually, the Mac started to merely gather dust.
The arrival of Windows 95 was one of the happier moments for me, as it resulted in my parents buying me a new computer to run it. My experimentation was endless, and I loved every minute of it.
Fast forward a few years, and my parents decide it is time to upgrade the computer once again. I was ever so excited, with dreams of Pentium 3's dancing in my head. Instead, they got an iMac. Not too bad, the G3 is certainly a more than competent processor! Joy! Sadly, my use of the Windows machine had jaded me. Something didn't click for me. I kept trying to right click, I wanted to play Quake II and Starcraft! Curses! It just never really worked out for me to be using a Mac again, despite the joy that Escape Velocity:Override gave me.
Now, a coupla years later and a lot more experienced, that standard still stands. I acknowledge Apples as very competent platforms, espeically with the introduction of OS X. However, I will continue to use my Windows/Linux dual boot machine. I love the openness of the Windows platform most of all, I think. Upgrading the hardware on a Mac, while possible, is not cheap nor reliable.
I enjoyed myself quite a bit recently when I splurged on an brand-spankin' new system, which I bought piece by piece, unassembled. I had a jolly good time putting it all together, booting it up for the first time, installing Windows XP and installing slackware. I unforetunately could not have had this fun on an Apple. And that is how I learned to stop worrying and love the monoply.

Re:Won't Buy from Apple Until Keyboard Problem Fix

[thoughtcrime]

Oh, piss. I tested it on my Pismo... while using a USB keyboard.

Hi, I'm a dumbass too. Dock me a clue point or five, please.

Sales types.

[Shanep]

Kelby is dead-on about many things, like how computer store personnel are mostly clueless

Yesterday, I was in a computer store and over heard a sales guy say to a customer inquiring about RAID, that "Seagate drives don't work in a RAID setup, because they're just too fast. Trust me, I know, I've tried at home! I've spoken to Seagate about it and they acknowledge the problem." He also stated to the customer that Seagate does not make anything else but hard drives.

I was'nt really in the mood to interupt and tell of my RAID setup at home that has been working nicely with Seagate drives for about 3 years now.

Sometimes helping out other customers with correct advice in the presence of these nit-wit sales types can be fun though.

Re:Author uses telnet and scp

[pudge]

Nowhere does it say I was using telnet anywhere. The program's name is NiftyTelnet. It can connect via ss1 or telnet protocols. It also doesn't say I've been a Unix geek for 15 years, but a Mac user for 15 years (I've been using Unix for about 10 years). Bah, who needs reading skills?

Pick a platform tests

[Felinoid]

It is my opinion that any test with "PC" as a posability has lost credibility.
The PC is just the hardware and not everyone means the same thing when they say PC..
PC.. is that Linux? OS/2? BSD? Dos?

In my view such a test should score points between diffrent Unix platforms.. In the past it would be diffrent Unix platforms and MacOs but now that MacOs is a Unix platform the tests should be a bit diffrent.

I think Mac people do often over emphasise the point that MacOs is an effective Geek machine but I understand why when people keep labling it a dummy box.
On the inverse I am puzzled why Unix/Linux people alow non Unix types to speak so poorly of Unix in the user friendly department.

In my view MacOs is an artists/newbie machine who's capabilitys extend well into the expert user arena..
Linux is a geek/admin box with capabilitys extending well into the artist/newbie arena.

The reality is they overlap and unless your at the upmost extream they both work extreamly well. Outside the upmost extream I might recomend two other options... BSD and Geoworks.. however Geoworks is dead... :(

Geoworks becouse the whole freaking os is installed on ROM and the system is basicly low end so the end user is paying for a cheap system that dose exactly what he/she needs with no additional cost. The Geobook was a nice portable system at a cheap price.

BSD is the extream in internet services.. handles the load designed and updated on reliability and uptime more than anything else.
Even if that means sacraficing multimedia nicitys.. Sorry no Video4BSD.. There are ways around that if you really want a web cam.

Nothing prevents BSD from doing everything Linux dose but often takes more effort on the end users behalf.

All Unix systems can be updated to be user friendly. KDE and Gnome is proving this..
Preveous user friendly Unixes did exist. However the typical user friendly GUI of the 1980s was a bit more than any typical consummer box could handle leading to overtly expensive Unix systems that failed on the market.

The non-Unix MacOs was worth while in it's time.
We didn't know what a graphics libary needed in order to be effecent so anything standing between the application and the video chip slowed everything down to much.
Unix security means libarys only.. no dirrect access posable.

Todays systems are significantly more powerful and we know a lot more about making good graphics libarys. MacOs X takes adantage of that.

We have not yet learnned how to make low overhead user friendly interfaces.. Geoworks did but a closed source dead os isn't going to teach us anything.

In the end I'd say the gap between MacOs and Linux is illusionary... there is a huge overlap.

Windows is the os for those who just want what "everybody else is using"... not what works best..

Re:I don't even look at resale value when I buy a

[rbruels]

Heh. Well, if you don't look at resale value of a car, you're a pretty moronic fuck.

That, or just an annoying rich fuck, and so we still don't like you anyway. ;)

"I just bought a car for $19,000 that will depreciate to $2000 in five months, and I don't care."

Good man!

It's just that Mac has fewer newbies

[bcaulf]

I do agree that there seems to be a higher percentage of Mac users with some kind of clue. But I chalk it up to my belief that the Mac user base includes more long time users. Mac had a greater than 10% share back in the 1992 period. Mac share proceeded to slump. I think those Mac sales consist largely of happy Mac users.

Meanwhile the PC was the main beneficiary of the Web fad. All kinds of idiots bought PCs. And all kinds of idiot companies put PCs on every desk. Result: lots of idiots running their PCs. People who have used PCs for ten or twenty years are a small minority.

Re:I don't even look at resale value when I buy a

[FatSean]

Not true on both counts. Buying a car that is a year or two old lets you bypass the most painfull depreciation. It also lets you pick a model that will break less than the average vehicle. This lets you buy a nice (not base) car that will last 5-8 years at the least, with acceptable maintenance.

Of course, there are always better and faster models coming out. If you desire to always have the best, then you should look at resale.

you make a good point - 2 button mouse?

[Lovejoy]

Can someone give me the nutshell version of the 2-button mouse argument? I have a ThinkPad for my work laptop, and a Mac desktop for my work (and my personal laptop) I MISS the second button on the Wallstreet (I have a 2-button mouse on my work Mac). Why does Apple reject the second button? It's software supported! Just 'cause it wasn't Apple's idea?

Nope

[bcaulf]

What a load. MS-DOS has substantial assembly language pieces. It has never been ported to any architecture other than x86.

IE on Mac is not composed of libraries littered across the OS, as it is on Windows.

You are right about a Mac being able to emulate a PC and run Windows that way. But anything can emulate anything given enough storage.

Re:Nope

[yerricde]

MS-DOS has substantial assembly language pieces.

Linux has substantial assembly language pieces that exist in parallel for each supported architecture.

It has never been ported to any architecture other than x86.

Got documentation for that? If you give me a month, I'll be able to get back to the library in Fort Wayne (I'm away at school at the moment) and dig up a book about MS-DOS whose history chapter has a table that lists an edition of MS-DOS for at least one 68K machine.

IE on Mac is not composed of libraries littered across the OS, as it is on Windows.

Only because Mac OS X has a nicer directory structure than Windows. (Did you know that IE 5.5 for Windows is a port of IE for Mac?)

Re:Nope

[bcaulf]

I would certainly be interested if you can substantiate that claim about MS-DOS. In a little googling all I could come up with was Microsoft Xenix on 68000 at

You're right that portable OSes have assembly in them. But portable software must be built portable from the start, so that for example the application programmer is shielded from directly calling those assembly routines. MS-DOS was never built with portability as a consideration. Portability would not be possible without emulation.