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Ground Rules for the Windows vs. Mac War
FreshlyShornBalls writes "The New York Times is running a story that I think needs to be seen by everyone on both sides of the on-going Macintosh vs. Windows debate (i.e. just about everyone who posts on Slashdot): Some ground rules for the Windows vs. Mac War." From the article: "Last week, I wrote about some of the changes Microsoft has in store for the next version of Windows, which is slated for the end of 2006. Interestingly, very few of you responded to that column, probably because so much may change in the next 19 months. But a few of you fired off diatribes about how I'm either a Microsoft 'shill' or an Apple 'apologist' (or maybe it was the other way around). It's not just me, either; it's a running sardonic joke among tech columnists that you can't even USE the word 'Apple' or 'Microsoft' without getting hate mail from somebody or other."
From bugmenot.com, u/p: yourmom915/yourmomshouse
I'll flame you into extinction for not mentioning Linux!
And what about my BSD brehthren?
I think we've been far to lax for some time... time to take up arms.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I love getting my news from Freshly Shorn Balls. In this age of no media credibility (Newsweek, NYT, I'm looking at you), Freshly Shorn Balls are clearly the answer. :)
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
"...in a knife fight?"
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
It's not just me, either; it's a running sardonic joke among tech columnists that you can't even USE the word 'Apple' or 'Microsoft' without getting hate mail from somebody or other."
/., its been a constant that I can always count on; rabid fans of both spouting broken record thoughts about how poor the other is.
I certainly hope no one thinks it will be any different here. In my several years reading
Seems to me both have their uses, both have their faults.
It's not just me, either; it's a running sardonic joke among tech column readers that the writers just cut-n-paste press releases.
I don't know what this guy's on, but Thomas the Tank Engine rules.
from the users-need-to-think-before-they-pick-names dept.
How excellent.
"No one likes working in a hamster wheel, and your shop smells of cedar shavings from here." - TaleSpinner
I've read this article.
Its obvious, vacuous dribble.
I condemn it.
Move along, Move along
in the long run, we're all dead anyway.
Apple Zealots probably helped keep apple afloat during the difficult times before Steve Jobs came back, but they really rub people the wrong way.
I remember one fat Mac zealot in a Computer Engineering class smugly telling me that Intel made it impossible for their chips to do multimedia and floating point mat "at the same time". Technically, you couldn't run MMX instructions and Floating instructions at the same time, because they used the same registers, and it took (I believe) 150 clock cycles to switch modes. Definitely not something a user would notice. This kid seemed to think it was now impossible to play a video and do any kind of mathematics.
These shrill, obnoxious people, I think, turned a lot of people against the Mac, because, as a PC user the basic idea is that PC users are idiots, and buying a Mac is like validating all that BS.
And the whole "lets worship a corporation as a god, who can do no wrong" is pretty obnoxious these days as well.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Yeah, who knows, maybe Windows Longhorn will be the chosed OS for the new Phantom console, which will use the Glaze3D technology.
And, of course one of the shipping titles will be Duke Nukem Forever!
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Last week, I wrote about some of the changes Microsoft has in store for the next version of Windows, which is slated for the end of 2006. Interestingly, very few of you responded to that column, probably because so much may change in the next 19 months.
But a few of you fired off diatribes about how I'm either a Microsoft "shill" or an Apple "apologist" (or maybe it was the other way around). It's not just me, either; it's a running sardonic joke among tech columnists that you can't even USE the word "Apple" or "Microsoft" without getting hate mail from somebody or other.
It's kind of amazing that various extremists could find the same column too pro-Microsoft AND too pro-Apple. But hey--that's the nature of ideological soldiers, whether they're in the conservative-liberal war, the evolutionist-creationist war or the Hummer-Prius war.
The Mac-Windows war, though, is especially pointless, protracted, and winnerless. There will always be people on each side who are every bit as rabid and un-convincible as those in any other religious war.
Still, I'd like to suggest, as a starting point of civility, a few pointers for participants in the O.S. war. Consider it one man's version of, "Can't we all just get along?"
1. Hate something for its failings, not for its success.
It's totally fine to criticize something because of its flaws--to hate Windows because it's bloated and cryptic, for example, or the iPod because it's too easily scratched. But condemning something just because it's the dominant product is just sour grapes. Arguments along the lines of "I hate Bill Gates because he's rich" or "I hate the iPod because everyone has one" add nothing to the dialogue.
2. No condemning something until you've tried it.
If everyone abided by this idea, about 95 percent of all the Windows-Macintosh diatribes would evaporate overnight. But here it is: If you haven't tried something, then you really have no basis to comment.
3. Execution matters.
I'm so tired of reading discussions like this: Person A: "I love Mac OS X Tiger! That Spotlight thing is so cool: press a keystroke, type a few letters, and get an instantaneous listing every file, folder and program containing that text."
Person B: "You pathetic loser! It's called hard-drive indexing, and Windows XP has had it from Day One." Of course, the truth is that Windows Indexing Service is to Spotlight as Thomas the Tank Engine is to a bullet train. In Indexing Service, you can't search with a single keystroke, the speed is nothing like Spotlight's, you can't search for metadata (115 kinds of secondary information, like music genre, Photoshop layer names, camera settings in digital photos, etc.), the index isn't updated in real time as you create or delete documents, and so on.
It goes the other way, too. "I love how Windows XP lets me delete or rename files right in the Open or Save dialog boxes."
"What's the big deal? On the Mac, we just switch to the desktop and delete or rename things there."
Sorry, but that's just not as good as being able to do it within the dialog boxes.
The bottom line: How well something works and how elegantly it's been built is also relevant to the "which is better" discussion.
4. Don't make grandiose purchasing plans by guessing on technology's future.
This pointer is directed exclusively at Mac-bashers, particularly the ones on the nation's boards of education.
If you decide to standardize on Windows across all schools, fine. But make sure you have legitimate reasons like economics or the need to run some Windows-only software suite.
"We want the kids to learn what they'll one day use in the business world," however, is NOT a good reason. If you think you know what anyone will be using in 2020 (when today's first graders will graduate from college), you must have a heck of a magical crystal ball.
Truth is, by 2020, no operating system will look an
Let's get this in early.
It is entirely possible that if Mac OS X had the marketshare of Windows it would be compromised as often. 95% is a plum target.
It is important to note that OS X will never have the marketshare of Windows.
Apple is a single company. To supply the entire world's computing needs, they would have to grow to dwarf even IBM.
The question before us, then, is how much marketshare Apple would need to have for it to be compromised as thoroughly as Windows has been.
Is it 10%? 15%? Would an Apple which had 40% be so completely helpless in the face of viruses?
I doubt it. I think Windows has reached a point of critical mass, where a worm can easily assume that almost every contact in an Outlook address book is also an Outlook client running on Windows. The speed at which worms proliferate in this environment is shocking.
Firefox is starting to have some real marketshare, and remains relatively untouched. As often pointed out, Apache is the majority player in serving, but it mostly untouched. Nothing in the computing world remotely compares to what has happened to the Windows/Office collective.
Perhaps, then, the problem is not inevitable. Perhaps it is not the common outcome of having decent marketshare, but the very unusual outcome of a strikingly insecure OS with full dominance. Any system is likely to be compromised, but I urge you to consider the possibility that any other system is unlikely to be so completely unreliable.
In the meantime, Mac does have the minority share, is completely free of known viruses, and can do anything a PC can do that doesn't require very specialized software. In some hypothetical future when Apple is supplying hundreds of millions of units a year, we might have to worry about Mac security.
That time is not yet. In the meantime, every Mac that is used in place of a PC reduces Microsoft's dominance. By reducing their marketshare, we actually reduce the virus risk on their platform. We slow the spread of computer viruses in the same way condoms slow the spread of STDs. It help the user, of course, but it helps society too. If you don't have a virus, you're not spreading a virus.
Stop living in some strange dreamworld, and examine the real risks and benefits that are here *now.*
Neither of them is the perfect solution to every problem (and no, neither is Linux or any other OS). I work for an art and design college, and our labs are split about 50:50 between Windows and OS X, depending on the academic program (interior/industrial/furniture/jewelry design classes use Windows, fine arts/illustration/digital media/print media use OS X). My own home network contains multiple Windows, OS X, and Linux boxes.
So when people come to me with problems or for advice, I don't preach from the Gospel According to Steve or the Revelation to St. Bill (or the Epistles of Linus). I listen to what their needs are, and I suggest whatever offers the best solution for them.
Last week, I wrote about some of the changes Microsoft has in store for the next version of Windows, which is slated for the end of 2006. Interestingly, very few of you responded to that column, probably because so much may change in the next 19 months.
But a few of you fired off diatribes about how I'm either a Microsoft "shill" or an Apple "apologist" (or maybe it was the other way around). It's not just me, either; it's a running sardonic joke among tech columnists that you can't even USE the word "Apple" or "Microsoft" without getting hate mail from somebody or other.
It's kind of amazing that various extremists could find the same column too pro-Microsoft AND too pro-Apple. But hey--that's the nature of ideological soldiers, whether they're in the conservative-liberal war, the evolutionist-creationist war or the Hummer-Prius war.
The Mac-Windows war, though, is especially pointless, protracted, and winnerless. There will always be people on each side who are every bit as rabid and un-convincible as those in any other religious war.
Still, I'd like to suggest, as a starting point of civility, a few pointers for participants in the O.S. war. Consider it one man's version of, "Can't we all just get along?"
1. Hate something for its failings, not for its success.
It's totally fine to criticize something because of its flaws--to hate Windows because it's bloated and cryptic, for example, or the iPod because it's too easily scratched. But condemning something just because it's the dominant product is just sour grapes. Arguments along the lines of "I hate Bill Gates because he's rich" or "I hate the iPod because everyone has one" add nothing to the dialogue.
2. No condemning something until you've tried it.
If everyone abided by this idea, about 95 percent of all the Windows-Macintosh diatribes would evaporate overnight. But here it is: If you haven't tried something, then you really have no basis to comment.
3. Execution matters.
I'm so tired of reading discussions like this: Person A: "I love Mac OS X Tiger! That Spotlight thing is so cool: press a keystroke, type a few letters, and get an instantaneous listing every file, folder and program containing that text."
Person B: "You pathetic loser! It's called hard-drive indexing, and Windows XP has had it from Day One." Of course, the truth is that Windows Indexing Service is to Spotlight as Thomas the Tank Engine is to a bullet train. In Indexing Service, you can't search with a single keystroke, the speed is nothing like Spotlight's, you can't search for metadata (115 kinds of secondary information, like music genre, Photoshop layer names, camera settings in digital photos, etc.), the index isn't updated in real time as you create or delete documents, and so on.
It goes the other way, too. "I love how Windows XP lets me delete or rename files right in the Open or Save dialog boxes."
"What's the big deal? On the Mac, we just switch to the desktop and delete or rename things there."
Sorry, but that's just not as good as being able to do it within the dialog boxes.
The bottom line: How well something works and how elegantly it's been built is also relevant to the "which is better" discussion.
4. Don't make grandiose purchasing plans by guessing on technology's future.
This pointer is directed exclusively at Mac-bashers, particularly the ones on the nation's boards of education.
If you decide to standardize on Windows across all schools, fine. But make sure you have legitimate reasons like economics or the need to run some Windows-only software suite.
"We want the kids to learn what they'll one day use in the business world," however, is NOT a good reason. If you think you know what anyone will be usi
When crafting your flames, follow the guidelines below to ensure the highest troll-to-signal ratio.
1. Always mention gaming as the pinnacle of computing.
E.g., "The Macintosh has not proven itself to the gamers market as of yet, but excels in media production."
"Windows, whatever your complaints, has wide support for a variety of gaming technologies not yet implemented on other platforms."
2. Refine to make sure it doesn't make sense:
E.g., "Apples suck because my friend tommy once he tried to play a game on his apple iie and it puffed smoke and i was like wtf??!! WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SANDIEGO??!"
"I JUST PRESS A BUTTON IN MY WINDOWS SYSTEM CONTROL PANEL AND BACON COMES OUT!!!11one"
3. Make sure you're l33t. If you're not, girls won't like you. They also won't like you unless everybody else is a homosexual.
"FARGOT!! jesuz christo wtf MY 4PPL is T3H L33T BOMB ROX0R!! micro$0ft sux0rs to play fallout and i dont evan LIKE BACON"
"YOUR MOM like to play counterstrike and my W1NDOZE MACHENE IS WIN-WIN SITUATION!!! onbly liberals like bacon cocknut"
4. For clarity, just translate it into Spanish and ROT13 it. It's not like anybody's gonna read it anyway. Then go do your homework like your mom told you to half an hour ago.
Your Karma is sitting somewhere near the "Plain Old Text" option.
vi!
I prefer, an Apple box, runing Ubuntu Linux with a Microsoft mouse and IBM Keyboard. There is everyone happy now?
If you leave CP/M out of the debate, you are in league with the devil and deserve the evil fate that befalls you!!!!
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
"Mac will never be on par with Windows because of the lac (sic) of software choices."
:P
Kind of depends on what you are *doing* and what software you need. Yeah, windows has a lot more choices for software... virus scanners, trojan removes, spyware scrubbers...
"Windows are faster, they have twice as many Mhz as apple's (sic)"
Yeah, because clock speed is a direct indication of how fast the OS runs. Takes nothing about processor and bus architecture into account. A 3 MHz x86 is OBVIOUSLY twice as fast as a 1.5 MHz PowerPC.
"Windows are getting the job done..." Depends on the job. They *all* are "getting the job done".
Mac OS vs Windows vs Linux is just like anything else... they are a tool, designed to do a job. You first identify the job you need to do, then you fit the proper tool to that job. Each fills a particular niche pretty well.
You're obviously an idiot. I think that sums it up.
There's a qualitative difference between "condemning" something as immoral (crimes) and "condemning" something as useless (technology).
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Both OSes suck.
The Spinning Pizza Wheel Of Death is bloody annoying.
In true Slashdot style though, I can't imagine much worse than Windows.
Linux kinda sucks too, manufacturer support would be nice here, though there'd still be suckiness left.
I'm not intentionally trolling, it all sucks to varying degrees. Otherwise we wouldn't care.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
... part where you can't even mention Apple nor Microsoft without getting hate thrown in your direction.
Shocker!!! I post on non tech forums as well, and whenever either is brought up, the level of hatred and name calling is amazing. The only think that produces more anger is talking about the president.
My point is that this is so obvious, then why not put "The sky is blue" in the news section here. IT's something we all know.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
Just like most religious wars, the casuses of the hatred (on both sides) are historical. The here-and-now is of little import.
Well, you're right, but:
19 Month is a lifetime is IT, so STFU
Are you trying to prove his point? The "so STFU" was utterly unecessary, and only served to detract from your argument and make you look immature.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
#1) Calm, rational discussion has no place in discussions of ideology (or /. for that matter)
#2) I am always right
#3)????
#4) Profit !!!
#5) see rule #2
+1 fashionably cynical
Finally the debate will be settled once and for all!
E = m c^3 Don't drink and derive E = m c^3
She would tell me never to discuss religion, politics, or operating systems in mixed company.
I have used them all and stick with Windows at home because I know how to keep it clean and stable.
I have been running Windows 2000 since late 2000 and never reloaded the OS and keep it clean as can be.
Use what you like and then go out and play in the great outdoors.
A Windows vs. Mac debate is as silly as a G.I. Joe vs Strawberry Shortcake debate.
One is for boys, and the other is for girls and male homosexuals.
Duh.
The Internet is generally stupid
An actual war between Windows and Mac users would be awesome. I'd love to see some cubicle to cubicle Molotov cocktail tossing.
First you'd have to get people to RTFA, for starters.
I'm often amazed however at how many non tech literate people I know simply refuse to even try OSX even when I offer to show them how to. These are people who are completely frustrated by Windows but stick with it only because it's what they know and cannot even fathom an alternative.
** http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/ ** Human rights in North Korea. 1 million estimated dead from starvation.
If everyone abided by this idea, about 95 percent of all the Windows-Macintosh diatribes would evaporate overnight. But here it is: If you haven't tried something, then you really have no basis to comment.
That 95% -- probably more like 99% -- of Windows fanboys have never tried a Mac, I can well believe. But the reverse? Uh-uh.
Windows is everywhere, and unavoidable. Anyone who uses a Mac, or Linux, or any other OS that's not Windows, almost certainly has made an informed decision to do so based on harsh experience with Microsoft's crap.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The problem is, if we /don't/ go ahead and make this comparison, then Microsoft has lost on all accords, or has won on all accords, depending on which side of the fence you are on.
.Net 2, buzzword after buzzword, but no real evidence of anything. This means that either a) Microsoft's ideas are SO advanced that they're YEARS beyond us, or b) Microsoft has nothing. I know which side I'm on if you're looking at it from this perspective.
/now/. Microsoft has a fancy alt-tab skin.
If you don't make the comparison to future software, Microsoft can claim anything in the world, as they have been with Longhorn to date. WinFS, Avalon,
So what if 19 months is a long time. _Both_ companies have 19 months, and as I recall, the release cycle of OS X has seemingly hit that miraculous 18 month interval, meaning that when Longhorn actually does come out, so will Mac OS X 10.5.
At this point, we can only compare what exists, and what doesn't. Dashboard and Spotlight exist
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Or maybe you just didn't understand the guy? He was probably just saying you couldn't play a video and do any other math at the same time at the processor level which seem true enough to me. Probably the fact he was fat, greasy, and lacked social skills predisposed you to misinterpreting him. Yeah, ok that's still a bad image for Apple...
...but Intel processors are the suck. If processors weren't a prime example of market lock-in there would be no reason to use any x86 (even AMD) over Power, or over 68k back in the day. Check sandpile.org and see if you can made any sense in the instruction set.
This post, however, is so it'll be AC.
Or, as we say around here, "+5, Insightful"...
Man aren't we getting tired of the NYT zealots. Mossberg rules. Pogue sucks! End of discussion.
This is...
O
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R
A
G
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I'm inside of a doughnut shop and I need to find a way to get fat. Does anyone know how to do this?
www.slashdot.org. It's fairly new, so you've probably not heard of it yet :)
...other than "tech columnists" that is. The entire world has pretty much seen about all there is to see in Windows so not much excitement there. Presumably fewer people have seen Mac but they can go down to their local outlet and check it out anytime they get the urge. Either way, this hardly seems like a 'war' between Windows and Mac. The Mac users I know don't care in the slightest who else likes it. Same for Windows users.
When TFA author says: "It's not just me, either; it's a running sardonic joke among tech columnists that you can't even USE the word 'Apple' or 'Microsoft' without getting hate mail from somebody or other." he is probably making the whole thing up. For one thing, do tech columnists really get together and tell 'running jokes.' I doubt it. Most of them seem as serious as a heart attack and for sure they never talk to other fellow tech columnists so that they won't inadvertently give away any ideas for their next article to them.
And then TFA author says "Interestingly, very few of you responded to that column..." but then gets missed by the cluebat and goes on to give his handful of readers a second dose of snooze.
2. No condemning something until you've tried it.
If everyone abided by this idea, about 95 percent of all the Windows-Macintosh diatribes would evaporate overnight. But here it is: If you haven't tried something, then you really have no basis to comment.
There is an interesting corallary to this, which to this day amazes me. The token zealot (on either side) appears to believe that the world is divided amonst though who don't have either "competing" product, those who own A, and those who own B.
Apparently, the notion of owning - and perhaps more importantly, enjoying - both products is so counter to the agenda of your garden variety fanboy, that it is anathema to their very dogma.
I have mod points, but I don't see +1 "Funny flamebait" in the list.
So true! Another factor to consider is that there is a huge network effect working against Apple and Linux, and still they have made inroads. The fact that practically every company runs Windows, almost every big game comes out for Windows first, and there are zillions of vendors in the Windows world makes it that much more difficult for someone to buck the tide and choose a Mac or load Linux on their PC.
That to me says something about just how bad the computing experience has become in the Windows world. Several relatives have switched from Windows only after repeated horrible, costly Windows experiences. It's not that they wanted to go buy Macs; they wanted their Windows machines to make their lives easier. It's like the movie reviewer vs. the paying moviegoer. If I paid money for something, I'm prejudiced in favor of it working properly. Yet Windows pissed them off so much that they had to jump ship.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
notepad!
(hey where'd everybody go?)
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
Went into an apple reseller yesterday and picked up a keyboard. Asked a salesdroid "What are my chances of getting this to work on a PC?" (I already knew the answer to that, was just trolling!). Salesdroid said "Zero - there's no drivers for it". (Clearly doesn't know about USB HIDs!). I said "Mind if I try it?".
Whipped out Dell laptop and fired it up. Windows XP detected an "Apple Extended Keyboard" and a "Generic USB Hub", realised that the keyboard was a regular Human Interface Device (HID) and just worked. Apple key == Windows Key. Everything else works. F13-F16 has no function (need to remap some of them to Print Screen and Pause/Break at some point), and even the volume up/down/mute keys work out of the box.
Fired up Gentoo Linux with a 2.6 kernel, it detected it as a "Mitsumi Electric Apple Extended USB Keyboard" and again, just worked.
So yeah... I really really like the slimline minimalist style of this keyboard. Sure, it isn't an IBM/PCKeyboard.com style buckling spring [pckeyboard.com] keyboard, but its a very nice alternative. I think I'll be trying more Apple hardware as the mood strikes.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
As you have said, alot has changed in 5 years.
make world, not war
Keep in mind, every OS has things it's good at.
Most OS's get two of the following:
Cheap - The combination of operating system, hardware, running software and updates is below or on par with the other choices.
Easy to setup/maintain - You average inept home user can shove a disk in, follow basic directions and expect to end up with working apps, sound and video and peripherals. If any problems arise they might be able to stick in a disk that came with a piece of hardware and remedy that problem without in depth knowledge of system editors. Updates should be easy to find and nearly automatic to install. Choosing and running updates should require little to no knowledge of computers. Joe user should also be able to walk in to the nearest wally world, pick up a slide scanner take it home and get it running without calling their family computer geek.
Stable - Would you want this OS controlling a robot doing eye surgery on you? Well you probably wouldn't want that in any case but you get my drift. Will this system do that it's intended to do without failure? Can the system be easily compromised due to minor operator oversight or ignorance?
On my desk sits a Mac to my left, an XP box to my right and a FC3 box straight ahead.
What the Mac does, it generally does well. Looks are obtained at the cost of speed but not so much that it makes the experience painful. It's very stable but it lacks good apps without a lot of money invested.
The Mac is the business guy in the tailored suit, a professional but he doesn't come cheap. He isn't really any better than anyone else, but he looks the part. He's pleasant to be around and if experience matters more to you than money, he's your man.
The Linux box is Fast, what it does, it generally does well. What it doesn't do by default requires endless toil and RTFM. It's rather stable and you can force it to do just about anything if you have enough time. Once you have all the stuff in the right places it's not hard to use but getting it to that point on all but the most generic hardware/software requires an experienced hand.
The Linux box is the genius teenager, You can dress it up, take it out, it's a cheap date and very able. It lacks refinement and organization but makes up for it with flexibility and low expense. If you can figure out how to motivate it, minimal investment can prove a staggering return.
The Windows box is pretty fast, fairly cheap but it takes a lot to keep it in proper condition. There's a large collection of free software that does a descent job though there's a large collection of expensive software that arguably does the job better. The biggest problem is that it will continue to work if it's not kept up to date. Eventually it will be struck down through it's unpatched insecurities. You can't leave it alone. If novices understood how important patching and not running too much cheesy third party software was, the competition would have a hard time holding on. Windows has great flexibility, unfortunately that usually comes at the cost of stability. It's all in how far you take it.
Windows is that lazy uncle that never seems to get things right. If you keep on him he's ok (if not pretty good) at what he does, just not very trust worthy if left alone. He's pretty cheap to impress and can be dressed up, you can let him house sit, but you don't trust him with your china. Whether it's society that makes him that way or his own shortcomings is irrelevant. If you need to deal with him, keep him in his place everyone will be OK.
With the exception of marketing gimics and minor tweaks in the product lines, Mac will continue to make moderately expensive hardware that gets combined with moderately expensive software with the main goal of providing a fantastic user experience to the unknowing public and a fair amount of flexibility to the experienced public that can afford the platform.
Windows will continue to be reactionary to the markets needs. They will continue to create ne
An interesting win for companies regarding the network effect is that now a lot of employees are buying their own laptops for work with their own money, because the company won't pay for a Mac. Ironically, most of the executive staff and sales staff and half the engineers at the company I work for do their work on Macs, but the company won't buy them Macs, so they buy their own. Win win for the corporate bottom line.
Irony: you're currently modded insightful.
;))
(Now, anyone who mods me insightful, don't - it's funny
It's all the fault of you people who were too stupid to buy BeOS back when it was coming out in beta and clearly better than every other operating system on the planet! Now you're stuck complaining about systems that aren't even object oriented and don't have BeFS which could have done everything Spotlight or WinFS can do or would have if people had just used BeOS so it didn't die out back before Search was king!
Yes, I see it now:
The Windows users building some kind of overcomplicated Molotov-cocktail which ignites with the least effort and causes most of them to get blown up. The balance of Windows users have already by chance attended Molotov-cocktail University and are certified to make the basic explosive.
Mac users, on the other side of the office, order theirs from molotovcocktail.com. Each one comes in box so pretty that few ever remove the contents and those that do, adorn their person with multiple cocktails. Although still heavily outnumbered, they are quite skilled at throwing. The battle plays itself out to a near draw, given the ratio of Windows users left to the Mac users who can get the cocktail out of the box and through attrition there are only two users left standing.
After that, in walks the Linux user with a mini-nuclear-bomb which he took 20 years to construct in his basement. He rids the office of both Windows and Mac users.
Afterwards, a race of mutant Linuxes grow up to inhabit the Earth.
The polite explanation for this might be Stockholm Syndrome*. The impolite explanation is pig ignorance.
you had me at #!
Can anyone prove me wrong? Have you heard someone actually say "I think windows is great" who didn't have MS stock options?
If Microsoft really wants people to say "Windows is Great!", they are going to have to innovate their own version of the Reality Distortion Field(tm).
If you're talking about an environment for professional programmers or other technically savvy people, there lots of places that also employ Macs and Linux. But most IT departments at large corporate or government entities (in my experience, YMMV) are extremely keen on standardization.
For example, a government agency I worked at back in the late 1990s actually went to the trouble of purging all instances of FileMaker on client machines because not only did they want to standardize on Windows, they adopted a policy that explictitly stated that not only the OS, but the desktop apps had to be purchased from Microsoft, and could only purchased from another software company if a special need could be demonstrated.
I literally had to go to the CFO and explain why an exception to the rule would be necessary, since I wanted to use a Mac to develop and maintain a large (1,200+ page) website, which I wanted to host on a Linux server. The head of IT, who wanted me to develop and host it on Windows, and I sat and argued in front of the CFO until the CFO finally decided to let me do it my way, provided that the IT department would not provide support for the Mac or for the Linux server. Of course, no support was ever required for either of them, as it was easy for me to take care of both on my own.
Admittedly this was "back in the day" and I haven't been in a corporate/government environment in some time. Your workplace sounds like a great example of how the engineers have routed around the sort of militant emphasis on standardization that ends up creating more problems than it solves.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
It's obvious you haven't read "The Little Engine That Could," or you'd realize that the locomotive in question is really a she.
No, it doesn't make sense to me either, but I didn't write the story. Then again, the start of the story talks about how the kids in the village will love eating their fresh spinach, so it's not exactly rooted in reality...
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
I have a PC for work stuff (like web site planning and designing) and a mac for work stuff and play stuff. I don't see what the big fight is all about. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose.
Well I can't see it, because it requires registration, you apple-loving worm !
Not that I'd actually use or care about either Windows nor Mac, but still...
Windows is a living dead virus incubator which waits for the worst possible moment to keel over and crash when not sending porn spam with pictures of the goatse man to your mother, boss and neighbours. Mac is an overpriced decoration item for yuppies too stupid to learn how to use a two-button mouse or to be able to realize that a colored computer case is not high art, built on top the dying BSD kernel. GNU/Linux is a secret communist plot by hippies who like vi since it colors C code with pretty colors to turn the world into coder's paradise and sing USSR's national anthem in assembly while urinating on the smoldering remains of Microsoft HQ.
Now, if this post seems a bit insulting, don't forget: you could have laid out your ground rules in an open forum, webblog or something; but you chose NY Times. make a better choise next time.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
You know, as someone who owns and uses both a Mac and a PC (thereby insuring my lack of bias), I have been saying for a while that the difference between using the two is only slightly more acute than the difference between Coke and Pepsi.
As someone who owns and uses and writes code for and maintains other people's code for and has released free software for and supports users on both Mac and Windows, I have good reason for my bias against Windows.
Despite that bias, for most of the '90s I really couldn't in all honesty recommend a Mac against a Windows box for anyone but the computerphobic: Macs were great for them, not because they were simpler to use but because they were simple to understand and because "common sense" actions actually tended to work.
But the OS was horribly kludgy and unstable if you needed more than something to run one program at a time. Multitasking on the Mac was a matter of being able to pause your use of one program, switch reasonably quickly to another, and use IT for a while.
And while Windows needed a lot of stupid maintainance (you STILL need to manually defragment the file system? I honestly find that hard to believe, but I'm assured it's so) as long as you didn't download and open untrusted files you were pretty much OK.
And there's some design decisions that Microsoft made in Windows that really were very good. The original key bindings and controls were well designed, and it was easy to work primarily with the keyboard, primarily with the mouse, or using both in concert. They did this much better than anyone else has ever done. Unfortunately since Windows 95 they've systematically undermined this, and even if they hadn't it wouldn't make up for the rest of the things Microsoft has done to Windows over the years.
Which brings me to the two things that changed my mind about recommending Windows.
First, Internet Explorer and desktop integration changes the virus threat on Windows from "if you don't do stupid stuff, you should be OK" to "if you want to be OK, you have to commit to abandoning Microsoft's browser and mail software, and sticking to it"... and for most Windows users, particularly when they hit web pages they couldn't use in Netscape, that was too much to commit to. It still is for over 90% of Windows users... even the ten or twenty percent who use Firefox don't use it exclusively or even primarily.
Second, Mac OS X meant that instead of having one of the worst operating systems under the hood, it had one of the best.
Now, I'd managed to get a few people to try FreeBSD or Linux, I used to hand out copies of the FreeBSD install disk as business cards, and I've done the same with Linux and BSD liveCDs. But it wasn't the same kind of experience for them, and they ended up back on Windows. Even I ended up using Windows as my desktop with UNIX apps running through a local X server from another computer.
But Mac OS X gives you not just the same kind of experience as Windows, with lots of good commercial software and a well integrated UI that most programs follow... it does all that BETTER than Windows does it. And, with a few exceptions, it's avoided the big "virus magnet" design flaws in Windows.
"let's get something straight. I don't love my computers. They are machines that help me work, that's all."
And THAT is the best reason of all for choosing OS X over Windows, when you have a choice, when you have to choose.
When I recommend a Mac to someone I know, I want their computer to be something that's just there, that just works. I don't want it to be a burden to them, and (and this is a selfish reason, yes, but it's an unbiased one) I don't want to have to return again and again to help them out of a jam.