digg.com? "Move along, people... nothing to see here..."
Ok, yeah, I know what it is, I just never gave any value to an entity that is suceptible to "Mob psychology" - at least Slashdot has some sort of moderation for new articles, instead of the "me too" AOL foolishness of yesteryear, which seems to be the rage at digg.com. Nothing there was really very interesting anyway.
It's been completely solid for reliability. Its light weight and built in WiFi and Bluetooth makes it a snap to move around. The new Mac Mini coming in May will have better 3D graphics but I don't play games so it is fine as is. The mac mini works fine with the 23" Apple Cinema HD display, etc.
The bottom line for Apple stuff is that "It Just Works." No fiddling with stuff. Gamers need the Mac Pro with high-end graphics but unless you need that kind of graphics the Macbook or Mac Mini will easily transition you from Windows to Mac OS.
The commercial software is out there for the Mac - MS Office on the Mac works just like Windows. I've been told that Microsoft Office was originally a Macintosh product that was ported to Windows - whatever the case it has been around a very long time and looks identical to the Windows versions.
I work from home a lot so the Mac's VPN client works great with MS Remote Desktop, my old HP LJ4+ printer works great, even my microsoft keyboards and mice work fine although I now use a bluetooth Apple Mighty Mouse and wireless keyboard.
I have no reason to go back to Windows at home. At work I have to use it because some of the business applications require it, but I don't want the hassle of patching Windows all the time. People who don't preoccupy themselves with patching their Windows machines ultimately wind up with spyware (or worse) and a slow, clunky desktop machine (my parents suffer this today).
With the Mac OS I get kick ass software to manage my digital photos, make DVDs, good mail program and good web browser. All of this with a completely unintrusive patching process that takes care of things. I'm too busy to waste time with Windows' patch hell.
Small business owners should take heed - did you budget for having to replace nearly all of your existing computer hardware to run Vista?
Windows is a huge pain in the ass now. It used to be tolerable to upgrade the OS (on the same hardware) every 2-3 years but i'm not buying new hardware to run Windows. I spent my money on an Apple Mac Mini. The cost was less, the machine makes no noise and unlike PC hardware it looks great.
For the first time in my life I have a computer that works great AND looks good (not to mention small). No more Frankenstein-looking PCs with noisy fans and annoying viruses.
Peter Gutmann makes a good point about MS caring relatively little about security and making a Windows admin's life simple. It's time to move on to something better.
The vulnerability of Vista or any other OS can be traced back to the requirement to modify the OS for software installation. It makes no reasonable sense that an end-user should modify the operating system when installing a software package (exceptions for servers but that's iffy, too). CONFINE the end-user software to the end-user's space (i.e., home directory) - and as suggested earlier, the notion of each user having an independent registry instead of the global system-wide Windows registry is a great idea. An infinite number of users should be able to use a Windows environment without any influence by one user upon another. This goes for all operating systems. I can't understand why this idea hasn't been pursued already. It's too late for Vista but in another 3 years or so this may happen.
One of these days Microsoft will realize that system-wide changes are killing them. Perhaps when they start leasing remote desktop connections for $9.95 a month they will figure this out.
Slashdot Mirror
digg.com? "Move along, people... nothing to see here..."
Ok, yeah, I know what it is, I just never gave any value to an entity that is suceptible to "Mob psychology" - at least Slashdot has some sort of moderation for new articles, instead of the "me too" AOL foolishness of yesteryear, which seems to be the rage at digg.com. Nothing there was really very interesting anyway.
It's been completely solid for reliability. Its light weight and built in WiFi and Bluetooth makes it a snap to move around. The new Mac Mini coming in May will have better 3D graphics but I don't play games so it is fine as is. The mac mini works fine with the 23" Apple Cinema HD display, etc.
The bottom line for Apple stuff is that "It Just Works." No fiddling with stuff. Gamers need the Mac Pro with high-end graphics but unless you need that kind of graphics the Macbook or Mac Mini will easily transition you from Windows to Mac OS.
The commercial software is out there for the Mac - MS Office on the Mac works just like Windows. I've been told that Microsoft Office was originally a Macintosh product that was ported to Windows - whatever the case it has been around a very long time and looks identical to the Windows versions.
I work from home a lot so the Mac's VPN client works great with MS Remote Desktop, my old HP LJ4+ printer works great, even my microsoft keyboards and mice work fine although I now use a bluetooth Apple Mighty Mouse and wireless keyboard.
I have no reason to go back to Windows at home. At work I have to use it because some of the business applications require it, but I don't want the hassle of patching Windows all the time. People who don't preoccupy themselves with patching their Windows machines ultimately wind up with spyware (or worse) and a slow, clunky desktop machine (my parents suffer this today).
With the Mac OS I get kick ass software to manage my digital photos, make DVDs, good mail program and good web browser. All of this with a completely unintrusive patching process that takes care of things. I'm too busy to waste time with Windows' patch hell.
Small business owners should take heed - did you budget for having to replace nearly all of your existing computer hardware to run Vista?
Windows is a huge pain in the ass now. It used to be tolerable to upgrade the OS (on the same hardware) every 2-3 years but i'm not buying new hardware to run Windows. I spent my money on an Apple Mac Mini. The cost was less, the machine makes no noise and unlike PC hardware it looks great.
For the first time in my life I have a computer that works great AND looks good (not to mention small). No more Frankenstein-looking PCs with noisy fans and annoying viruses.
Peter Gutmann makes a good point about MS caring relatively little about security and making a Windows admin's life simple. It's time to move on to something better.
The vulnerability of Vista or any other OS can be traced back to the requirement to modify the OS for software installation. It makes no reasonable sense that an end-user should modify the operating system when installing a software package (exceptions for servers but that's iffy, too). CONFINE the end-user software to the end-user's space (i.e., home directory) - and as suggested earlier, the notion of each user having an independent registry instead of the global system-wide Windows registry is a great idea. An infinite number of users should be able to use a Windows environment without any influence by one user upon another. This goes for all operating systems. I can't understand why this idea hasn't been pursued already. It's too late for Vista but in another 3 years or so this may happen.
One of these days Microsoft will realize that system-wide changes are killing them. Perhaps when they start leasing remote desktop connections for $9.95 a month they will figure this out.