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Pros and Cons of Switching From Windows To Mac
It's been a couple of years since Apple ran their Switcher ads — but folks are still making the switch. Rockgod writes to point us to his list of pros and cons after he switched from Windows to Mac recently. From the article: "It took me a long time to be convinced that Windows 3.1 was a better program launcher than X-Tree Gold, but it happened eventually. Since then, I have been a sucker for every upgrade — 95, 98, NT 4.0, 2000, XP... I bought the cheapest Mac available, a Mac Mini with a single-core Intel chip and the minimum of RAM — 512 MB. It cost me AU$949. Since plugging it in, I have barely used my $3000 Windows desktop... All this time later, I have almost exclusively switched to the Mac."
PRO - you won't be using windows
CON - Your sexual preference could come into question...not that theres anythign wrong with that of course
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
First, it isn't 10 Pros, and 10 Cons, it's 10 Pros and Cons (which I guess is technically what the article "says").
I recently ordered and am expecting a Nov 29 ship date (why?) for a new Mac Mini, the very first Mac I'll have ever owned. I'd never hesitated in the past to recommend to friends and family an Apple over a Windows box, and those who chose Mac virtually never came back with support issues.
As the blogger states, he's never looked back - my reasons for getting a Mac are more for being able to test my software on all platforms. I will review my experiences in my journal when the box gets here and I've burned it in for a few laps. I'm looking forward to it.
For the record, though the author loves his machine, I'd guess anyone considering today a Mac should look at a heftier configuration. (I'm getting the dual-core, super drive, 2G memory, 160G drive configuration.) I guessing I'll be happy with this box.
You'll just be able to buy more of those $300 jeans with all the money you will save not buying games.
A $3,000 Windows desktop?! Fucking gamers...
signal, noise, to me it's all the same.
"The GUI: It didn't take me long to get used to it. It is super smooth, even on the cheap Mac Mini .. It makes Windows XP look very late-nineties."
.. I don't run as an administrator. This simple action protects you from about 99% of malicious software. It is a simple fact."
"It's Unix!: You've got a very, very nice GUI but under the hood is good ole' Unix"
"It is only when you open the Terminal and get to a shell that you see all the ancient Unix directory structures, combined with Apple's more hip and happening directory names like Applications, System, etc"
"Notice I didn't say anything about viruses, trojans, spy-ware? I haven't been infected in three months on the Apple
"unless you are a rabid freedom-fighter it is a step above any Linux distribution out there. KDE and GNOME are still a long way away from achieving the polish that Apple has delivered with Mac OS X"
davecb5620@gmail.com
Our company did last year, city of Vienna did, it should work out very nicely for you too. Our former XP users love KDE.
No need to put yourself through pains when you can improve security, save money and achieve a good deal of vendor independence all at the same time. Why exchange overpriced software (Microsoft) for overpriced hardware (Apple), when you can run Free software on the industry standard (and thus inexpensive) hardware?
Knowing everything I know now, I only regret that we did not migrate to GNU/Linux sooner.
Probably more relevent to the /. crowd would be this article from someone that switched to Ubuntu from OS X and then went back to OS X:
http://digg.com/apple/Mac_OS_X_vs_Ubuntu
Let me say that if I could go into a store right now and buy a reasonably priced copy of OX X that would run on a plain PC, I would be running OS X at the moment (Yes, I understand that running on *any* hardware would make OS X less stable, but I would be willing to take the risk...and huge amounts of people would rather pay more for Apple's hardware and stability, and I wish Apple could see that and make us both happy).
But since that isn't going to happen, I'm really considering going to Ubuntu because I think MS is just going insane with Vista.
As the above mention, he doesn't think Ubuntu is too far behind OS X.
I would be interested in hearing others thoughts on this?
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Back to the insipid article - yep, I'm on XP, nope I'm not going to Vista. And I'm probably not going to Apple - too much of a pain in the ass for another vendor lockin.
When I get around to it (next year or so, perhaps), I will start playing with linux again and getting Photoshop and Vue to behave on crossover. Until then, XP just keeps on kicking (and rebooting and rebooting).
Well, I have to go know, Zone Alarm wants me to reboot and I really should do something more useful than sit in front of this screen.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Since then, I have been a sucker for every upgrade -- 95, 98, NT 4.0, 2000, XP...
He at least had the good sense to skip Windows ME.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
God I hate the mouse acceleration on my Mac Mini. Either you set the acceleration high so you don't need, you know, the entire desk to move the mouse a reasonable distance at the loss of fine movements, or you set the acceleration low so that you gain precision at the cost of having to drag and drop the mouse a few dozen times to get the cursor across the desktop. Windows doesn't have this problem. If you move the mouse a tiny amount your cursor moves in tandem; move it a lot and so does the cursor. Wow. Why can't my Mac do that? It's so retarted.
Don't get me wrong here, I love my Mac, but the mouse thing drives me nuts.
I'm buying my Mom an iMac, for the sole reason it's SEXY. It's slim, compact, and doesn't make alot of noise. Better tha the dell portable desktop they just made. Macs are like computing with a built in safety net. You can almost never break it. The only people I know that hate windows are the poor souls that manage to still run AOL, download weather bug, and install every piece of software that wants to install itself. I run windows XP, with firewall and firefox, and I watch what I download. My virus infection rate? 0. People need to LEARN how to surf, instead of just going out there all willynilly.
In Soviet Russia, dots slash you!
This are done slightly differently on OSX than on Windows. Getting used to adequately use OSX takes time and experience. This can be frustrating. It *really* helps if you have friends who can help you make the best out of the OS.
:-).
/. ...). Learn, ask questions. After a time, you'll probably like your mac more than your windows machine. Why? It depends. Generally, it's for the details. The little intuitive things that makes you happier using a Mac.
One simple example. I love Spotlight. This feature changes the way we work with computers. If you switch from Windows and no one told you to try if that feature is for you, than you're missing one potential benefit for switching. Same for many other features. Mail is very good too (I'm an open source fanboy, but hey, I'll use the best free/open tools available
Be curious. Try things. Discover your new OS. Maybe the icons view is not for you and you'll prefer the column view? It's worthed to attend to some Mac User Groups in your area. They'll be able to show you some nice tricks, and, important, answer the questions you have. (oh, there's some great mac-oriented mailing lists for that too)
Switching is *not* that easy, especially if you're not a geek (but since this is
Animoog.org
I'm enticed by the new iMacs -- particularly that juicy looking 24" -- but it would appear that it's impossible to add hardware to those machines. Over the years, I've gotten used to extending the life of a PC by upgrading components like memory, vidcard, etc. I get the impression that few MacHeads do things that way. I'm not sure I could get used to that way of life, since I love to tinker, and it's kept my last desktop machine usable since early 2002 and it's still my main workhorse. I'm guessing that the Pro models are more upgradable, but those prices(!) keep me from making that jump. Has anyone managed to open up a new imac and replace a hdd or the like?
.nosig
While this is indisputably true, it isn't really the point.
Do most of the households in the world have a telephone? That is a far more relevant question.
And the sad fact is, yes, most of the households in the world most likely do. Despite Kofi Annan's 2000 statement to the contrary, it is very probable that more than 50% of households in 2000 did, and with the explosive growth of cell phones in Asia and Africa, an almost certainty that >50% do today.
One of my fellow goons created this to illustrate the mentality of someone going through the Windows > OS X switch, and I thought it was relevant to this discussion, as it perfectly illustrates the joy and agony of moving from one platform to another:
The OS X Satisfaction Chart
I use on a daily basis: Mac OS/X Tiger, Ubuntu, Fedora Core and Windows XP Pro. I consider myself an advanced user and a very good sysadmin on many platforms. I still prefer Windows.... - why? I'm not sure myself! (No I do not work for Microsoft). I've been trying to switch to OS/X as a primary OS admitting that it's driven mostly because of peer pressure - it's just not happening for me. I don't feel that compelled to switch - I don't see a good reason and I'm being opening minded about it, I feel like it's much more trouble than it's worth. Is there anyone else that feels the same way? I feel alone!
So, I have a 3840x1200 desktop (2x23" displays), and I can move from side-to-side with ~4 inches of mouse movement on the desktop if I move it fast. At the same time, when moving slowly, it's perfectly pixel-accurate. I guess I don't see the problem. FWIW, I have my tracking speed set about mid-way.
As far as I can see, it works in exactly the way you describe as how you want it to work. Not so "retarted" after all... Maybe you need a better mouse ?
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
To solve the Apple's mouse acceleration problem, install a utility called SteerMouse or better yet, buy a third party mouse like Microsoft and Logitech and use their driver. Then your mouse acceleration will be just like Windows. Switchers are always complaining about this and rightly so, it's a pain if you aren't used to it.
I couldn't pass it up. It's got 256 Megs of RAM OS-X 10.3. I use it, too, for checking how sites I design look on a Mac. Even given that it's old and a bit slow, the experience is not bad at all. I think a Mac Mini is in my future, too.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I'm not sure what you mean. If option-dragging (copies automatically on MacOS) or control-dragging (you're given a choice about what you want to do) is too difficult for you, copying a file in KDE can hardly be easier. Or am I missing something.
Home User: No real downside since most home users surf the internet, send e-mail, do a little word processing, play some MP3's. Pretty basic stuff, easily covered by a Mac.
Gamer: Lots of cons, no real pros. Are there any games for a Mac that do not suck?
Business User: Many of the industry specific vertical apps are written for a baseline of Win2K. Some of these vertical apps *MAY* run on Win98 but many of them use very specific features that are tied very closely to the WinNT/2K kernels. Almost none of them, unless they are browser based and standards compliant, work with a Mac. Then again, the server side of many of these vertical apps require that you run them on a Win2k/XP/2k3 system running IIS.
Overall I'd say OSX is an excellent choice for Windows users who want the advantages of UNIX without having to learn arcane lore, for Linux users who need a laptop that will just work without requiring a virgin sacrifice during a full moon and for people who need to talk to a variety of different systems in a heterogenuous network. It's a bad choice for Microsoft executives, MCSEs or anyone else who makes a living on Windows being the dominant OS in the market. If you're somewhere in the middle you should probably pick OSX for the better security. It's not perfect, but any improvement is better than nothing.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If you want a new Mac with more features than the base model and still save money, you need to get the base model and upgrade it yourself. I got a base model black MacBook (the extra $200 USD covers a bigger hard drive and the black sexiness) and I replaced the 512MB memory with 2GB third-party memory for $80 USD that took only 10 minutes to switch out. I will eventually upgrade the hard drive when SATA laptop drives get more reasonable in price. I had no problems using my MacBook over the last three months and the only Windows system that I still use is my gaming rig.
"I just backed over a family of four in my SUV, and I never looked back!"
"I was miraculously born with no neck, and I never looked back!"
and so on...
Really, there's nothing wrong with being straight.
Finder > View > Font size.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I used to use Windows exclusively, with Linux at work when I had to. I recently got a Mac and figured that I'd still use Win32 most of the time. Boy was I wrong.
After using OS X for a few months, I'm very happy to use it *all* the time. My 'favorite' apps--Firefox, PowerPoint, Excel, Word, iTunes, PhotoShop--all run there. After I figured out the OS it seemed slick and easy to use compared to Windows. And the things I like about Unix are all there at the command line when I want them. Now my PC is for games only, and with the amount of hassle of PC gaming, it is second string there to consoles.
-m
When I got my Mac, the control panel and features gave me no problem whatsoever. Very neatly organized, common-sense names..... But when I tried Vista last, the control panel was terrible... Different then XP, but by no means more user friendly. Might have changed since when I tried it (Beta 2 or Pre-RC1), but doubtful....
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
I bought my first Mac a year ago, and honestly it will likely be the last.
Despite what the fanboys say, there are just too many things that are irritating or poorly implemented (can you say "Finder?"), and too many places where you're forced into doing things the "Mac way", even if there are better alternatives.
I've given this machine a go for a year as my primary machine, and find it slow, crash prone, and often inefficient in the hoops through which one has to jump to do otherwise simple tasks.
Added to that is the relative lack of quality freeware and open source apps and utilities (compared to Windows or Linux platforms). There are at least a dozen such programs that I relied on on a daily basis on Windows. In almost every case I was boxed into paying what I considered an overly high price for a commercial app on the Mac.
Overall though it's the cumulation of a hundred little things that has convinced me that the Mac is not the machine for me. I just find the whole affair annoying, and I always seem be stopping work to change something that shouldn't have happened. A good example is the Dock, which invariably covers up a scroll bar or other part of what I'm working on, and which honestly is much less efficient than a good old Windows Task bar.
Maybe on a 30" monitor this doesn't happen, but on a 12" Powerbook it's an endless source of irriation. It's just bad design.
Three Squirrels
I've never known anyone to consider OS X as crash-prone as Windows.
Programs are slow, crash-prone and things can be misconfigured? That's obviously the OS's fault!
The keyboard shortcuts are listed directly next to the menu option in drop-down menus. Example
It's under the FILE menu under "Make Alias" and in the right-click contextual menu under "Make Alias". I'm not sure how this could be implemented in a more effective manner.
A computer is not a GUI.
I think you mean to say "It's different from what I'm used to and it's closed-source, therefore I hate it."
*sigh* yet another /. circle jerk on how Windows is inferior to other operating systems. Reading slashdot when Linux, Microsoft or Apple come up is like watching Fox News during elections.
FTA
"On a 19" [monitor], the available screen space is used more efficiently - the shared menu bar and the dock being the main reasons."
Yeah, but on a Apple's 30" monitor it sucks. When you have a window open and positioned, say, in the lower RH corner and you need to access the menu bar, it is a long drag to move the mouse to the upper LH corner. And often you can accidentally click on the desktop or other window along the way and lose focus of the application's menu bar causing you to go back and repeat the procedure.
I like OSX but this design feature should be a user's choice.
HA!
Back in my day if you wanted graphics, you taped a picture to your monitor. As far as color we had none. We were given black or white and loved it.
This works for all Cocoa apps:
0 119152725322&query=Quartz%2Bdebug%2Bmenu
http://www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html
But the Finder isn't Cocoa. You can set Desktop and folder font size in the Finder's view settings, but if you want to change the font size in the menu, you'll need to wait for 10.5 or play with the following -- It can change the scaling of any application, including the Finder:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006
OS X is one of the few OS's to allow total customization of keyboard short-cuts. You can assign almost any combination to any menu item on any program. The downside is you have to do it from System Preferences. Although MacOS has always been mouse centric, it's actually more keyboard-friendly than windows or even linux (Gnome is only now getting good keyboard shortcut access via atk and other accessibility things). Shortcuts are very consistent and work in almost every program. Command-Q to quit, Command-W to close the window, Command-H to hide the entire app (very useful -- almost eliminates the need for multiple desktops when combined with expose and command-tab), Command-S to save, command-O to open, etc.
One thing that annoyed me to no end was the apparent lack of a way to communicate with dialog boxes using only the keyboard. Most of the time command-first letter works, but often it doesn't. I found that if I turn on some of the accessibility options in system preferences, suddenly I can tab between buttons and use the space bar to activate buttons (enter always activates the default button, not the one you're highlighting).
Knowing about how to set shortcuts, the default shortcuts, and the accessibility options has really made OS X more efficient on the keyboard for me than any other OS (well almost -- I still like activating menus on linux and windows with alt-letter). Certainly it's not as bad you illustrate.
I agree that all GUIs are lousy to a degree. Case in point is CAD software. The old autocad shortcuts (still available on autocad to this day) are the way to fly. Puck in one hand, 2 and 3 letter shortcuts in the other. Modern GUIs just don't lend themselves well to CAD.
In the same way, MS Windows, if you run simple applications and games, was a very good choice, particularly through the 90's when people were migrating from Unix and Apple had trouble refreshing Mac OS. Now, however, with vista being increasingly delayed and features dropping away, Mac OS X is becoming a very viable alternative. It is here now, it works, it has a time tested CL interface, and in many ways there is much less vendor lock in than with MS. For instance, the OS Update does not require IE, although MS has gotten rid of that limitation in exchange for an update process that insures the User is running a version of MS Windows that MS believes is legitimate.
You know, I am on the other side of the fence. I appreciate MS for allowing a liberal development process which allows quick and dirty coding in the languages I know, particularly C and C++. But I never believed they were capable of producing an OS that would allow me to work without the OS getting in my way too much. Certainly MS Windows NT proved that they could, but it was never so good to make me move from my Mac. It does not look like MS Vista will do so either.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I have been a PC Wiindows(Microsoft) bubba for over 20 years. I have a taught many classes on PCs and Windows. I recently purchased a Mac Book Pro. I started off dual booting. After about a month I realized I was hardly ever booting to the PC side. I deleted the Windows side and reclaimed the space.
l
;)
There is simply no good reason to get a PC. If you want to run Windows, fine, get a Mac and dual boot. At the least you double your chances of getting things done. It also makes you more versatile and more marketable. Apple was genius to first change to a BSD based OS and then to move to intel. The BSD based Mac OS X has the best of both worlds. Simply the best most powerful command line interface, and the most impressive and user friendly GUI.
I recently wrote and article for the Ins and Outs Magazine.
Viva La Revolution!
http://www.insandoutsmagazine.com/content_tek.htm
I advise all my clients and students that, if you are going to get a computer, get a mac. Once you go Mac, you will never go back!
Since a computer is just a tool, it all depends what you want to do.
As a game player and game developer (PC, consoles), using a Mac would be a painful exercise in disaster.
But if it runs all of the applications you want, in a more user-friendly and efficient environment, then why not switch?
Hardware is irrelevant - software rules. The OS is irrelevant, whether it runs the software you want is all that matters.
sig fault
I maintain a school district full of Macs (almost 1200 machines, including desktops, laptops, and servers) so I'd say I'm fairly familiar with their hardware and software, including the new Intel macs and OSX 10.4. So here are my criticisms of the Mac platform: 1. The finder is the worst file manager I have ever used. Nautilus, Konqueror, and even Explorer are vastly superior for manipulating files. You can't set it to default to list view or even alphabetized icon view, its "column view" is absurd, its tree view shows you everything in every folder(instead of just showing the folders), so moving something from one folder to another is a real pain, you can't have it list folders before files, it's slow over the network, it can connect to ftp sites but only in read only mode. It remembers how far you were scrolled down in a file list, even if you change view modes, so if you switch from icon view to list view and you're scrolled down to the bottom, you're suddenly looking at a blank space and have to scroll up to view files. If someone moves stuff around in a folder, and then you go to look at it, you see it as they left it - an arbitrary mess. In every other file manager you can set it to ignore customized folders, but not in the finder. I could go on but I think you get the point. 2. The Dock sucks. If you're using a resolution of 1024x768 or less (which is the default, and maximum size of the 12" powerbook and ibooks, which I use every day), then the dock constantly gets in your way. If you have it set to hidden, if your mouse gets anywhere near the edge of the screen it pops up, even if you moved to an area where the dock isn't - it's centered on the screen, and doesn't take up the whole width of the screen, but if you move the mouse to the corner of the screen it pops up anyway. You have no idea where the dock is when it's hidden. On windows and in gnome, kde, xfce, etc. you see a thin line on the edge of the screen to show you where you hidden taskbar/panel/whatever is hidden. With the dock, you just have to try the left, right, and bottom of the screen until you find it. The difference between running and non-running programs in the dock is minuscule - running programs have a tiny black triangle underneath them which is very easy for a new osx user to miss. We have people in our district who have been using osx for 3 years who still don't get this distinction. Since mac applications can still run without having any windows open, it's very easy for someone to have a bunch of stuff open and not realize it, then wonder why their computer is performing so slowly. 3. There's no "maximize window" button. I like to run some applications in full screen, such as my web browser. Instead of "maximize window", the mac has "optimal size". It makes the window just big enough to show you everything it contains. If you happen to be viewing a web page that's very small when you hit this button, then browser window will be very small. In order to get it to fill the screen, you have to move the window so it's top left corner is in the top left of the screen, then grab the resize handle and drag it into the bottom right of the screen. Also, the window controls are ambiguous - the don't show their icons until you hover on them, then they show the "dash square x". Granted, these glyphs are ambiguous in themselves, but at least someone familiar with other operating systems would be able to figure out what there were immediately. 4. OSX seems to corrupt its own file system through normal use. We have a lot of incidences of computers not booting - either they get to the apple logo and hang, or they flashing mac logo with a question mark icon. In order to fix them, we have to run a third party utility called Disk Warrior. Yes, macs come with fsck but this doesn't always do a good job of fixing the errors, and it doesn't fix the metadata in the filesystem (aka, the "resource fork"). I'm sure I see these kind of problems far more often than a home user does since I deal with so many computers on a daily basis, so my view of this is probab
Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".
Amen! Switching sucks. Understand that I'm definitely not a fanboi. I understand that productivity, ease of use, multi-tasking, etc. factors in a person's technical aptitude, and usage patterns among other things. So I'm objective enough to NOT shoot down and discard an alternative just because it does something Different, or it does so in a way that I'm not used to because I've used Windows for that past 8 years.
I've owned my Mac Pro for a little over a month now. It's my first Mac. I'd label myself as a casual gamer: I like playing just about every type of game out there, i.e. WoW, Half-Life 2, Planescape, etc.. but I don't need to be running at 1600x1200 with 60fps. Hence, I was fine ordering the Mac Pro even though I knew I'd get better gaming performance from a Core 2 Duo system. I plan on running either MS Virtual PC or VMWare to run multiple VMs so that I can experiment with network environments, linux, etc.. so this is a good middle ground for me.
The reason I bought it was mostly because Dell and HP's dual Core 2 Xeon systems were significantly more expensive than the Mac Pro. This is also mostly due to the fact that Dell wouldn't let me order one without an LCD screen, and HP had very limited configuration options. So I'd get a Dual CPU PC, with quad cores for a relatively good price (3 Ghz, low end Nvidia 7300 card), and be able to give OS X a fair chance.
Yet try as I might, using my OS X on my Mac Pro and throwing everything I could at it to get familiar with the OS and the applications available to it.. it's a long way from winning my heart.
1. Interface
I honestly don't like the interface. It is more inconsistent between applications than I have seen in XP. Trying to click on round minimize/quit buttons is a pain compared to square buttons because they have less surface area for me to click on. The bubbly scrollbar also does not seem very responsive.
For the non-visual aspects of the interface, I absolutely love Expose. I've had Vista RC2 on a seperate system and it's Windows Flip pales in comparison to Expose. It's just easier to see the previews of your windows in Expose instead of Vista's cascaded view.
3. Resizing windows.
I'm used to being able to resize windows from any of the four sides. I've tried to adapt and live with only being able to do it on the lower-right. Yes, I can live with it. I don't want to, because I know this could be easier.
4. App closing.
Quitting applications doesn't always quit them. They "hide" in the dock. Why? I know I can hit Command+Q to close the window, but when I click on the "Quit" button, I expect the program to quit.
5. Performance.
OS X has been perhaps SLIGHTLY more stable than XP. Applications still crash and hang. The OS still kernel panics without giving a reason. The console logs don't always have the explanation either. This one irks me enough to point out because there seems to be some kind of mantra that is always implied by my Mac fanboi friends that such events are practically non-existant on OS X. Far from it.
6. Customization.
With XP, I at least had the option to change the themes to my UI. Not only do I prefer the visual style of XP, and now especially Vista's.. I liked being able to change the window colors. I even liked being able to change my cursors (I think that OS X's cursors are terrible.).. and change the system sounds. The Brain telling me it's time to take over the world every bootup is a small tiny perk. I know it might be possible to do this to OS X with 3rd party apps, but it's easy as pie in XP.
7. Responsiveness.
I've installed Boot Camp and XP just FEELS more responsive when I ALT+TAB, open programs, and use them. (Word, Excel, Outlook.) I've tried having OS X not do the genie animation when minimizing apps, but moving around in the UI doesn't feel as fast. Scrolling up/down documents is slower, navigating through Finder is also slower because of my personal issue with rounded scrollbars and "aquafied" ui elements. iTunes esp
Why? Because the article tries to imply that Macs are cheaper than PCs. I have a ton of respect for Macs, but they are not cheaper than PCs.
$3000 Windows deskop? I guess it's possible, but $300 windows desktops are far more common. About a year ago I bought a complete brand-new windows system for my brother-in-law for $200 after rebates. It's not the greatest system, but it's perfictly acceptable for ordinary home use.
Now tell me where I can buy a brand-new complete Mac system for under $300?
I'm a sysadmin in a Windows shop for my day job, and I have a Mac at home. I've always been partial to them, but I went back from a PC about 2 yeats ago.
The pros are definitely that I have to worry less about the computer. Security is an issue, no matter what anyone else says, but things like installing software and upgrading versions of software are much more predictable. I have a very busy day-job, and the fact that I can come home to a working computer for my personal tasks is nice.
The cons stem from lack of industry support. If you're a gamer, your choices of ported games are limited. Certain specialized software either doesn't exist for the Mac, or the Mac version is inferior to the Windows version. To combat this, I keep a Windows machine to run the occasional Windows-only program. Also, virtual machine technology can be a help here.
The software support issue may be going away soon anyway, given vendors' rapid move towards hosted applications. Take Windows Live mail for example (the hotmail replacement.) The UI is almost as good as MS Outlook, even in browsers other than IE.
We'll see what happens in the next few years. Personally, I'm happy paying the premium for what I feel is a better designed machine.
I also use Windows XP, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu Linux on a daily basis- desktop, laptop, and server, respectively.
There is something about Windows XP that just makes me feel efficient. I can get things done really quickly. If I need to do any sort of tedious computing task, I'd like to do it on windows.
However, sometimes I get in a "mac" mood and want to use my laptop. But as flashy and cool as it is, everything usually feels clumsy and cumbersome. Simple tasks seem to have many steps and seem to take longer. I feel like I am swimming in molassas, as opposed to water with windows. But it's a warm and comfortable molassas.
Ubuntu is bringing a very polished product to the table. If open source ever catches up with applications and drivers, Ubuntu could be a very real choice for many people. Linux was my primary OS on and off through college. Mark Shuttleworth is doing a great service to the public with Ubuntu. If I ever made it big time like he did, bringing high quality open source applications to Linux (video editing, etc.) would be high on my list. As they stand, Linux applications are simply too limited/unstable for my daily needs which include music and video production.
I still think that a mac is an excellent choice for the "casual computer user," due in no small part to the fact that you can bring it back to that Apple store and they are going to fix it. Computers are complicated machines and they have problems. The Apple Store is not going to tell you it's a hardware problem and so it's not their fault. They're not going to tell you that it's a software problem so it's not their fault. They're going to fix it, and that's what casual computer users need - service and support.
The windows desktop/mac laptop/linux server setup has been working very well for me and satisfies all of my OS moods, so I will probably continue with this for a long while.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Based on the article, it's not like his PC was really that old. Given the heavily upgraded, top-of-the-line PC he was using, even if it's was a few years old, and the minimalist Mac (512MB? Jeez...), it's a pretty fair comparison. Actually the hardware edge might go to the PC.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You definitely know your cons, but at least one of them actually can be solved--
7. You can't alt-tab between windows in the same application. You can switch between programs that way, but not between windows. So if you're typing something in one window (say in Word or whatever) and you need to switch to another document, you can press one of the function keys to get expose up, take you hand off the keyboard, grab the mouse, select the window you want, then put your hand back on the keyboard. This takes far longer and requires much more thought than just pressing alt-tab. You can also select the wind you want from the "window" menu or click and hold the application's icon in the dock until the menu comes up and then select it. Both of these are slower than having a context switch that shows all windows.
While you cannot alt-tab (er, well, Cmd-tab on the Mac) between windows in the same application, you *can* Cmd-` between application windows. No, it's not an obvious command, which really bit for me at first. I spent a month very frustrated with my first Mac because of that. But then I discovered it by accident, and it made everything much, much easier.
I'm also not sure why you think you need to grab the mouse to select a window in Expose--if you just use the arrow keys to go around and select the given window, then press Enter or Space, it will select the window. I can understand Cmd-` being nonobvious, but this method is a lot more accessible.
You know, I get more and more sick of postings like this.
No need to put yourself through pains when you can improve security, save money and achieve a good deal of vendor independence all at the same time. Why exchange overpriced software (Microsoft) for overpriced hardware (Apple), when you can run Free software on the industry standard (and thus inexpensive) hardware?
Don't get me wrong, I liked the Linux desktop, but I switched back to Win2k before ultimately moving to OS X. Free software is excellent when it's available. Even on Windows, I used loads of free software. If your company does a lot of office work, Linux is great. I've heard it's excellent for scientific work too. However, exactly how do you do things like desktop publishing, video editing and real graphics work (a la Illustrator and Photoshop). You don't.
Software availability has and will continue to cripple Linux on the desktop. People can scream about "choice" all they want and say, "See, I have 30 browsers to choose from (running a whole 2 rendering engines) and a bunch of IM clients, three office suits and a program that makes a pair of shifty eyes sit on my desktop. I even have two whole major desktop environments to choose from!" Of course, you have zero choices for much of the above mentioned software.
Linux works where it works, but just like Windows or Mac, it's not the be all, end all nor is it a universal solution.
I guess I am a little weird, but after 4-1/2 years of running a Mac with OSX I just went full time to a Linux machine. I loved the Mac, but:
- I spent over $3,000 for it in 2002 (PowerMac system with LCD)
- In order to keep current and keep all your software running, you have to buy a new MacOS X distribution once a year ($80-$129)
- Even an iMac replacement would have cost me $1,700 (20" with extra SDRAM and upgraded graphics) vs. $1,000 (HP AMD64 X2 4600+ with 20" high res LCD and upgraded graphics)
I have struggled a bit with configuration but the new system is humming along pretty well now.
Apple did not "get dumped" by IBM. The PPC chips they were using were manufactured by Motorola, not IBM. IBM simply partnered with them and Motorola to develop it, and went on to manufacture their own version of it. At one time, they did buy the IBM version, but moved to Motorola a few years ago.
Apple has been running an Intel version of Mac OS X since the very beginning. They began developing it in a dual process from the git go. How do you think they were able to switch from PPC to Intel in less than a year? You don't think they actually DEVELOPED the OS Intel version from scratch in a year? D'oh! So, actually, Intel really was their first choice!
And given the fact that their US share went from 4.8% to 6.1 % in just one quarter, then I'd have to say that, yeah, there is an increasing number of people in the computing world that ARE willing to pay for Apple computers, and they aren't all higher priced anymore, either. (and along with the US market, their standing worldwide went up too, just not quite as dramatically.)
"Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash." Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Robert A. Heinlein
The primary reason was the hardware. I don't mean this in the sense that I have a particular affinity for homebuilds, or that there aren't any other reasons. The cost was simply prohibitive with Apple, and this was big enough to cut short any consideration I might have otherwise given to the platform, regardless of merit.
.sit and .dmg files downloaded from various websites (Apple, VersionTracker, etc), and so on. With Ubuntu, it's all available from a single interface. One front end handles all the installations, removals, and updates. Even proprietary things like video card drivers and Sun's Java are handled this way. This cuts way down on the time it takes me to get a system set up with all the various apps I need. Downloading something from VersionTracker isn't difficult, but doing that over and over again for dozens of different things takes a significant chunk of time. With Ubuntu, I've found that I don't need to do it all at once, because clicking a checkbox and clicking "apply" in Synaptic takes seconds -- installing an app is barely more difficult than lanching it, and making a list of things I need would be more trouble than installing them when I notice they're missing.
I needed a workstation, but I have no use for a quad-core machine, so a Core 2 Duo or Athlon64 could easily meet my needs. I also needed a large RAID array and a scratch disk, as well as other things like multiple ethernet ports, PCI/PCI-E slots, and so forth. With Apple hardware, the only way to get what I want is to spend large amounts of money on stuff that won't benefit me (like that extra Xeon). When I tried to price out a Mac Pro to meet the same requirements it couldn't be done without more than doubling the price. Even if I were willing to go around upgrading the thing with cheaper 3rd party hard drives, RAM, etc, that stuff wouldn't be covered by Apple's warranty, and that's a big downside for me. Even then, it would still cost thousands more, and it wouldn't even be that much easier than a homebuild when all was said and done.
A secondary reason was that I've had an iBook up until recently, and getting the various *nix software I need was significantly more annoying there. A good distro's package manager will have many times the selection of the Mac alternatives such as Fink and Darwin Ports, and the time I spent compiling the missing stuff by hand on MacOS was significant. This easily overwhelms any savings of effort that I might have gotten from MacOS initially, and that's not even that much with easy distros like Ubuntu. I'm not a rabid freedom fighter, I just know empirically it's a lot more trouble for me to use MacOS.
Another way this advantage applies is that the software I need comes almost entirely from one place. With MacOS, it was a mix of Fink, Darwin Ports, stuff I've compiled myself, various
I've seen what Macs have to offer, and I don't think I'd be interested even if it didn't cost so much more to meet my needs.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
I got a mac last January. I like, a lot, and won't be going back anytime soon.
.mac). .mac page too! Very good!
Nitpicks? I miss "cp -r", "top -i" and iptraf.
As for the GUI, can I have Ctrl-tab back, please? And, when I'm on a 12in screen
I NEED A MAXIMIZE BUTTON THAT ACTUALLY MAXIMIZES. What sick cripplewit thought a
"lets-randomly-resize-and-move-your-window" button was a valid replacement???
Apart from that, I love the way PDF "just works". Spotlight's cool. Expose is very
handy. The mail.app is useable, but could do with better threading. Searchable mail
is a great idea, but when I tried to import my mail archive, about 4GB, it thrashed
for about 4hrs and then exploded. iPhoto's perfect for my snaps (but IPTC support
would be cool, and I'd like to be able to publish to somewhere other than
iTunes sulks if the samba server with my mp3 collection on isn't mounted first;
it tries to play a tune while mounting, but times out and puts a (!) mark as unplayable,
so never does that tune again, leading to library rot.
The whole searchable metadata is *very* nice. I was a 4DOS junkie and love being able
to add my own tags to files. RubyCOCOA is finally a GUI environment that doesn't my
my brain hurt. And I love the way I can sync my Treo and the address/calendar/todo
is on my laptop and I can even get it from my
Overall? 8/10, better than anything else I've tried by a good bit.
(But I really mean it about the maximize button!)
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
OK, I'll bite: in what sense is it not UNIX? I've been working with various flavors of UNIX since v7. OS X cetainly feels like UNIX to me. I switched to a iBook as my laptop when I moved from a Windows shop to a Linux shop where I do 'C' and Python development. I move my source back and forth between Linux and OS X daily. My understanding is that the threading model on OS X sucks, so it makes a poor server platform, buy what makes it 'NOT UNIX'?
Worked for Lot. Too bad about his wife...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
G5's are IBM, not Motorola.
Motorola switched gears and was targeting the embedded market and no need to move towards something like the G5.
I was going to spend $399 on a full retail copy of Windows Vista Ultimate, but then I caught wind of the EULA they're including with it, and now I'm noticing that the low-end Mac Mini is only 50% more.
I'll likely be making the switch before Vista is released.
Totally agree its dead easy. And if you're running Windows XP or Linux in a Parallels VM it works there too.
Add to that the slick two-finger scrolling on the trackpad and it's incredibly easy and powerful combination. If I find I absolutely have to have a left+right click mouse experience (like when I'm playing WoW) then the wireless mighty mouse fills the gap for me perfectly.
Here's my main concern with Macs. They're better machines with better OSes, but here's what I can't do with a Mac. I can upgrade a component in the Macintosh but only after doing extensive research on what is and what is not Macintosh compatable. This was a major problem for me when I moved to a house that did not have Wired ethernet, only unwired ethernet, and my computer could only take Airport instead of Airport Express -- eventually I looked around for a compatable card, and found a Motorola - but I was very lucky in that regard. If the power supply goes bad in my Macintosh, I have to order a special part. There are no "off the shelf" MacCPUs or MacMotherboards that I can quickly replace. The Macintosh is tied to the Macintosh chassis - I got a little burned by the fact that my 800mhz PowerMac did not allow for two optical disc drives - when I already had a DVD-Rom drive that I could have used. I'm not -unsatisfied- with my Mac experience - I used a Macintosh for three years... but the problem was that in the intervening time, I couldn't make the tiny little upgrades - esp. to the CPU/motherboard - that would have enabled me to keep it. Instead it just ran slower and slower to the point that I was frustrated with response times. After three years, I just built my own, and for the cost of a Mac Mini, I have a PC that can be upgraded; I plan to drop in a dual core Athlon 939 chipset chip when I save up the money for it - I'm thinking of adding a TV tuner for $60 (instead of $200 for the Mac) etc, etc, etc. The thing is, I'm not happy with either proprietary vendor - Apple's DRM forbids you from running MacOSX on your own hardware, Microsoft's DRM forbids you from upgrading your computer (with Vista, which is why I'm not upgrading.) But if I'm going to get screwed, I'd rather be screwed to the order of $500 for an upgradable box than $500 for a tiny, non-upgradable box.
1) Just have your DVD writing program test the files for validity. Guarrantees they're written right. ...
2) Save oodles of time.
3)
4) Profit
Most guys here prefer having sex with their computers over women anyways. quad GPU, raid0, dual core rigs. how can women compete really.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I am washed and informed about Linux, yet I still use windows. I wonder why? Could it be that such a paradox is causing the space-time continuum to collapse in on itself? Or could it be that Linux has certain compatibility issues with most software and hardware?
Oh, and BTW, some of my friends are Christian. They especially like the community they get with their church group. They get good, polite people (in accordance with "Love thy neighbour"). You might say they are ignorant (assuming you can actually disprove the existence of God), or you might say they are harmlessly ignorant. How exactly does their ignorance adversely affect their lives? And who are you to judge?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I am an experienced Windows user and a GNU/Linux geek. This summer, I worked at a company which used Macs, primarily, and I was loaned a G5 server to use at home.
Mac OSX did not run well on it, and it was considerably better than a 400MhZ G3. Applications took a fairly long time to load, and if the machine was on for a few days it got so unresponsive/slow, that I had to upgrade. I was never happy to work on it, and always glad to get back to my nice GNU/Linux computer (though never to Windows).
Yes, but since I mentioned that I've been working with UNIX systems of various flavors since 1976, a reasonable person might give my perception some consideration. I stand open to correction, but you haven't provided any further information.
Let me try to make my question more clear: Is there some feature set, some API, that OS X doesn't implement that makes it 'NOT UNIX'. Or perhaps you are refering to the fact that it is not 'UNIX(TM)'? If so, do you also correct people when they refer to "Kleenex(TM)" or "Xerox(TM)"? If Leopard Server is certified by the Open Group will it become UNIX with the stroke of a pen?
Put it this way. Say your system has 100 features, and your "polish" level is such that the average user can understand half of them. Effectively it has 50 features. To reach 70 available features you can either improve the polish to 70%, or implement 40 new features.
And I claim that for the vast majoriy of software, doing the actual "polish" work is much more bang for the buck.
Each and every time this type of discussion takes place on ./ I am struck by the apparent fact that a great many people have strong views about Windows XP, but very few of them reflect any serious time being spent to learn the OS and optimise the user experience.
Granted, it would be best if Windows 'just worked' out of the box like OSX (allegedly) does.
Nevertheless, if you sit down with Windows and seriously dig around for a while you may be surprised to discover that XP is highly configurable and can be tweaked and optimised to the point where it really is very slick and usable, and is absolutely lightning fast. Combined with the right hardware, it is also extremely stable - since upgrading to XP not long after its release, I have had perhaps 5-10 crashes on a PC that runs most of the time. This compares very favourably with the Apples I have used, including recent model iMacs.
Seriously, try it before you decide that OSX is 'better' for your needs. Some suggestions:
- read up on services and turn off everything you don't need
- turn off absolutely everything that loads at startup other than the essentials, and for god's sake learn how to use MSCONFIG and other undocumented but powerful MS tools
- learn how to PROPERLY use (file) explorer, windows networking, device manager, and the numerous other system tools
- be disciplined in the way you allow software to modify the system, and where you install it. You would do the same in Linux, presumably.
- check out TweakUI and similar software which can get you around most of Microsoft's more annoying 'assistance' and add a few cool features to boot, such as visual task switching (yes, like in OSX)
- spend what you would spend on Apple hardware on your (preferably custom-built) PC and appreciate that the increased performance and stability is a reflection of better hardware quality, not just a reflection of the OS
- learn how to adjust the GUI to look much prettier and be much more user friendly: play with icon sizing, fonts and typeface rendering, the taskbar and quicklaunch bar and their size and position - you can even achieve a 'dashboard' type arrangement with a clean install of Windows XP if you think about it creatively
- if you're really adventurous, look into some of the alternative shells you can use with Windows - some are virtually indistinguishable from those that come with current Linux distros and are extraordinarily customizable
- work out what your software needs are and get your system loaded up with the best open source or freely distributed solutions, such as the Mozilla suite, Winamp or VLC, and so on
- pick up the free software that will keep things running nice and smoothly, such as AdAware, AVG and so on
- learn the shortcuts used in Windows - you can do a lot more than you might think with the Windows key, control, alt and tab
I will happily agree that it would be much preferable not to have to do all this stuff just to get your system running nicely, and that non-IT types would struggle with most of the above. I am just a little tired of people rambling on about how 'bad' Windows is when they've never really applied themselves to getting it running sweetly and experienced the results. Considering that a large proportion of the people on this site would presumably spend as long as neccessary frigging around with a Linux install to get it working with their hardware and customised to their liking, the criticism of Windows is generally pretty rich.
Read Pynchon.
There's a lot of free and commercial programs for remapping keys. I use Controllermate, which has all the GUI loveliness you could like and a reasonably versatile flowchart-style configurator.
But, yes, Microsoft's user interface is more keyboardable, and more consistently keyboardable. Though I will never forgive them for deciding that the standard keyboard navigation would bypass the task bar, requiring a separate set of keystrokes to access it, and that toolbars wouldn't be keyboard accessible at all. Windows 95 has much to answer for.
Something like Controllermate, but operating at a higher level (generating events like 'paste' or 'beginning of line') and that applications would register hotkeys with ('expose - show desktop', 'spotlight - search selected word') is something that Apple should have had long ago. Automator, Applescript, Spotlight, all these tools are frustratingly close to the tool that's needed...