Mac users opinion?

[SLO-BOB]

930addict-"You obviously do not have an intimate knowlege of either."

I'm not so sure how that's obvious. But to help you out-a little backround. My business (electrical and medical systems installation-networks and computers too by Golly) was spawned from the first retailer in Milwaukee to carry vcrs. Yes- They were beta. They were huge and expensive. I lived and breathed those machines. I've forgotten more about Beta VCRs than you think you know about Mac computers. I've had Mac computers since 1982-quite a bit more experience than you my friend. I know their strengths and weaknesses as well.

I have many friends that swear by them as you do. However, their applications are for publishing. For business they all use Windows. You and the other Mac groupies are so quick to attack someone like me without even understanding what we're trying to say. Maybe it's some sad need to justify your purchase. I've never said all Macs are bad. I never said they have no applications. I have said that for the average user, like Pwd, windows is the way to go. I have also said that my iBook sucked and based on that, I will not buy another consumer based mac product in the near future. Should I go into porn video production or mixing rap, I'll consider the Mac as the correct piece of equipement. But then I'll probably spend as much for my computer and periphrials as you did on your 930.

I'll give you this-you can certainly put a spin on this issue. Costs? Please. How does that affect-again-the subject matter-a guy who surfs the net? His cost is the machine. Period. Macs cost more-period. Photo organizing? What's that? I simply place my photos in a folder. There's your organizing. Hey-try this. Burn a bunch of photos from your beloved iphoto program onto a disc. What's with all those sub-folders? Oh? You can make those go away? But why do I have to?

So junior, I get the feeling you don't know nearly as much about Macs OR Beta VCRs as you say. You would know about the common problems that I have mentioned and have better answers than "Don't know what's going on there". Well said-pretty much sums it up.

[stomachmonkey]

I was really hoping that this thread would go away.

First off a course in excell is a course in excell. They are identical on both platforms. There is no difference in anything. If you have used Macs as long as you claim that you have you would know that.

And if there were some differences in a cross platform app it'd be akin to the ignition key being on the left of the steering column not the right. Tell me you'd need drivers ed again to figure out that difference.

I'd offer that you don't need a university course to use a Mac because they are so simple to use you can teach yourself.

Got this straight from the VP of IS at an international corporation with thousands of employees. "I buy IBM because no one gets fired for buying IBM. If I buy something else and it breaks all I get is s__t from the CFO. No one complains when the IBM stuff breaks, in fact they give me a bigger budget for the extra consultants that I need to fix it."

Sebring had an issue with some previous sources that I posted re: the cost issue, he thought they were biased.

So I'll offer this one and then invite you to do your own research.

PBS, that's gotta be fairly unbiased right?

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030814.html

So why did Windows prevail. People are inherently cheap and will look for the best deal. IBM screwed up back when it was just them and Apple and opened the door to the PC being cloned creating massive competition driving down prices and quality.

Back in the day Big Blue was the Sh_t, everyone that worked in an office had used their products which equated to massive mindshare/consumer awareness.

And since most people were buying their first PC no one knew any different and they bought into the premise that they could have an IBM quality product at a reduced cost.

Actually very similar to VHS/Beta. The public embrassed the cheaper product and settled for less quality.

[pwd72s]

Geeze guys, I apologise for starting this thread. Really, all I wanted to know was if Mac would give me better odds of not getting garbage emails than windows...

[techweenie]

The garbage e-mails are a function of the Internet and scumbags who exploit it. The platform won't make a difference.

If you want a computer that you don't have to add a lot of little programs to, and one that will not fall victim to some of the more destructive and devious worms, viruses etc. (some are even buried in jpgs now), get a Mac.

I have both platforms, but I just have the Dell to run games I can't get on a Mac. And even though I hardly use it, it's given me far more problems than the Mac I use 10 hours a day.

[rcecale]

Akkkk, no worries, PWD. Afterall, everyone knows it's W's fault!

Randy

[stomachmonkey]

It's OK,

I once started a cup holder thread.

Who knew?

Oh yeah, the answer to your question is no.

But viruses are a different story, to date 50,000 documented Windows viruses vs 300 documented Mac viruses and none of those 300 in the last 4-5 years since the release of OSX.

[rcecale]

Actually, if all you're looking for is a way to protect you from the onslaught of BS e-mail. Try MailWasher. It's been around for a few years now and it really works.

I'm not going to go into explaining it here, just click on the link.

Randy

[techweenie]

Originally posted by rcecale
Akkkk, no worries, PWD. Afterall, everyone knows it's W's fault!

Randy

Well, of course, there's that. But remember, Wintel machines are generally the 'red state' choice. Too many liberal use Macs.

[rcecale]

Originally posted by techweenie
Well, of course, there's that. But remember, Wintel machines are generally the 'red state' choice. Too many liberal use Macs.

Hmmmm, that actually seems to make sense. Can't handle the real world, so you live in your own private Idaho, off the beaten path!

Ha, listen to me, the guy venturing into the Linux world...

I'm just kidding, Tech. Really!

Randy

[dd74]

Originally posted by rcecale
Ha, listen to me, the guy venturing into the Linux world...

I was gonna' say "WTF is he talking about with his Linux boxes?"

[930addict]

Sebring, I never said that I know a lot about macs, only that I've been very happy with mine. I kid you not it has never crashed on me and I use it for everything. You, on the other hand, definately have more experience with the mac platform than I do. I certainly missed the ball on that count. But can you blame me? Comparing the way you talk about them with my experience, and that of several other mac users at work, I just assumed that you didn't know what you were talking about. For that I apologize.

Also, just to give you an idea of my background - I'm an enterprise administrator for a government agency with 80 sites, 150 servers and 5000 users. We are a windows/unix shop (mostly windows). I know a lot about windows as this is what I grew up with and work with on a daily basis. I'm not a mac groupy. Just a satisfied customer. Before buying a mac I built all of my home WinTel systems. I still have both platforms at home but my windows environment is used as a lab for work.

As to the other points you make: saying that macs are only good for publishing is really an old-school thought. Many people have this belief because back in the day that's how it was - but things change. Also, the WinTel platform is definately the de facto standard in business. Does that make it better? Not really. Does it mean we should migrate everyone from windows to the mac platform? Not feasable. I will say this. OS X is built on a Unix Kernel. And Unix is the work horse of many companies and the internet (that's sounds like a Sun commercial doesn't it?). Many mission critical applications are hosted on the Unix platform. It is my experience that OS X is more stable, is more intuitive and is way more user firendly than its WinTel counterpart.

I have 3026 mp3's and 1330 photo's and you want to keep track of them via a manual filing system? No thanks - the technology is there. I say use it.

I know that iPhoto and iTunes organize via folders and such but what are you trying to say here?

"Hey-try this. Burn a bunch of photos from your beloved iphoto program onto a disc. What's with all those sub-folders? Oh? You can make those go away? But why do I have to?
"

Just curious.

If someone - the average user - is looking at buying another computer for home use, I would definately recommend the mac.

Stomachmonkey, this is slightly off topic but there's another very intersting documentary put out by PBS I think it's called the nerds. It talks about how the computer revolution started and is actually very interesting.

[930addict]

To answer pwd's question Techweenie and stomachmonkey are correct. The platform you have is not going to affect the amount of junk email you get. But viruses are a different story.

[stomachmonkey]

930, I've seen nerds, it's great.

BTW, do the iPhoto folders really perplex you guys?

They are so simple to understand, they represent the date of the photo. A timestamp if you will.

Look in photos folder, first one in iPhoto will be something like 2003, that's the year, in there are more, 03, 04, 06 etc.., those are the months, go one layer deeper and you get 02,10,12,23, those are the days of the month.

so 2003/03/16 is the 16th of March 2003.

Makes perfect sense to me. If i'm a programmer and I need to come up with a default file handling protocol for a photo management program I'd be hard pressed to come up with anything better.

[930addict]

stomachmonkey, not at all perplexed by the way the photos are organized in iPhoto. I was just wondering what sebring is trying to say with his quote:

"Hey-try this. Burn a bunch of photos from your beloved iphoto program onto a disc. What's with all those sub-folders? Oh? You can make those go away? But why do I have to?"

What does this mean?

[stomachmonkey]

Maybe he's annoyed that the OS is doing something logical.

Certainly a lot easier to deal with than that stupid window that pops up on my PC everytime I wake it up, "you are now connected to the internet on wireless network blah blah blah" No s__t sherlock, no go the f away and let me do some work, "bling, new updates are available blah blah blah" shut up and go away, "bling, it looks like you are trying to blah blah blah" GO AWAY, LEAVE ME ALONE.

I swear all the help the damn thing tries to give me wastes more time than it saves. Its worse than my last psycho girlfriend.

[stevepaa]

Sebring
That must have been an Apple ll, lll or a Lisa you started on. Macs did not come out until 1984. Remember that TV ad. I still have my SE and a Color Classic. Did you get rid of all your macs?

I do find your rap on Mac costs disingenous at best.

[930addict]

stomachmonkey, LOL. You too? When XP first came out I setup a computer for my dad. All I wanted to do was configure the network. I was so annoyed at all of the wizards that pop up - one after another in an endless cycle. I felt like drop kicking the computer.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

I dropped MSFT like a stripper's bra when Win2K went into endless windowsupdate/reboot cycles on me. On a fresh install, no less.

Now I use Gentoo (Linux) and Mac.

My Dell (running Gentoo) is noisy as hell and slower than a P3 that's half the MHz.

My Mac keeps failing to wake up after being put into sleep mode (aka, closing the lid). This despite 4 repair attempts by Apple over the course of 6 weeks.

Final story: ALL computers suck. All computer COMPANIES suck. It just depends on how much and what kind of suckage you're willing to put up with.

Choose accordingly.

[dd74]

Just a suggestion for your computer woes...

[nostatic]

So Sebring, you are generalizing from n=1? Good work if you can get it...

These debates are so 5 years ago. The wintel people have been claiming the death of the mac for the past 10 years or so. "It's just like beta". No, it isn't. That was a single battle for a standardized media format. This (computing OS, and now turning into entertainment/education/etc environment) is a whole 'nother ballgame. And if you don't get that, I suggest you really have no clue as to the digital revolution. No dishonor in that...very few people really "get it" at this point.

You had a bad iBook. Stuff happens. If you want to disregard the entire company and their quite stunning string of innovations based on that, party on Garth. As for the masses having spoken wrt windoze...well, as your mom said, "would you jump off a cliff just because all your friends were doing it?"