I'm afraid I'll have to pull seniority here.

Built my first personal computer in December 1976
Programmed it with tiny Basic in January 1977
Bought the 5th Apple II made in May, 1977
Integrated Apple IIs into the workplace (Chiat/Day) 1979-81
Integrated Apple IIIs 1981
Introduced Kaypro 1983
Managed advertising for Microsoft 1983-1986
Managed advertising/marketing for Quarterdeck 1987-1993
Introduced first digital PC camera, 1991-2
Introduced first VoIP-enabling multiplexor, 1993
Board of Advisors: CyberMedia 1991-93
Developed ecommerce site selected as Microsoft case study, 1998
(that's just the highlights)

Having been on both sides of this debate for years, I can tell you that there is definitely an entrenched IT industry supporting Windows -- in many cases against all logic. Where I have seen equivalent installations -- especially in aerospace. the legal industry and manufacturing, Mac support overhead has typically been about 20% of the support overhead needed by Wintel platforms.

Yep, spot on. Mac product is sharply honed in on the average consumer. Absolutely no doubt about it. --one button mouse, so not to confuse.

If however, one needs some above average software . . . like, say, computational fluid dynamics; well.... it's not a Mac.

Oh, the biggest plus for a Mac's and Mac users; each one comes with the ever-popular, Mac-only, i-tude^tm.

Watch NOVA sometime, and be sure to catch the episodes about the Mars Spirit and Opportunity rovers. You know, the ones designed for a 90-day operational lifetime but have been going for nearly 2.5 years?

Be sure to take note of the notebook computers the engineers and scientists are all using.

Mac TiBooks, all of them.

By Leander Kahney

02:00 AM Mar, 08, 2003 EST

The U.S. military is shipping a lot of hardware to the Middle East for the impending war on Iraq, but only one Mac.

In the entire theater of operations, involving nearly 300,000 troops and hundreds of tanks and aircraft, one lonely Macintosh shipped out, according to the major who took it there.

The Mac is a Titanium G4 PowerBook, and it belongs to Major Shawn Weed, an intelligence planner with the Third Infantry Division, which is preparing for action in the deserts of Kuwait.

"It is the only one out here in the desert," said Weed. "The problem with computers in the Army is they are bought by the gross and not necessarily purchased to accomplish certain functions. The Army doles out laptops in the same way we dole out boots, tents or any other class of supply."

According to Weed, he was issued the rugged Panasonic Toughbook, but it didn't work fast enough. Weed declined to specify what he does exactly, but said he works with giant satellite and reconnaissance images, presumably for battlefield planning. When he opened these giant image files on the Toughbook, it would slow to an excruciating crawl, he said.

"Frankly, lives are in the balance here, so the quicker I can get stuff done accurately, the better," Weed said. "The Mac makes this work simple, quick and efficient. The other laptops either can't open the files or lock up halfway through, losing whatever I was working on at the time, and then (I have) to restart the computer and start over."

Weed's PowerBook has a 1-GHz chip and runs Mac OS X. He had to write a special requisition order to get it, he said.

The Third Infantry Division is a mechanized unit, specializing in desert warfare. The division played a key role in the Gulf War, and has been rotating units through the region since then.

First Lieutenant David Chasteen, an officer in the U.S. Army's Chemical Corps, who first alerted Wired News to the Mac's presence in Kuwait, said Weed fought a "predictable uphill fight" to persuade the army to buy the PowerBook. Chasteen said the motto of the army's IT department is, "We fear change."

"He's got a Mac at home and knew it could do it better," said Chasteen. "They signed off on it only a month before we deployed, and while it isn't ruggedized like the Toughbooks, it has remained trouble-free, stable and solid as a rock."

According to Chasteen, the only other Macs in the Third Infantry Division are back at the headquarters in Fort Stewart, Georgia. The Public Affairs Office uses a couple of dual-processor PowerMac G4s to publish the division's newsletter, he said.

Chasteen said he noticed Weed's PowerBook on a visit to the Third Infantry Divisions' operations center in the desert.

"In a room full of ugly, ruggedized Panasonic Toughbooks running Windows 2000," he said, "the glowing white Apple against the titanium skin of the G4's lid draws looks from everywhere, and acts as a magnet for the closet Mac addicts serving with the Third Infantry Division."

Macs may be few and far between in the armed forces, but there are plenty among the press corps, according to reports. Apple's machines are popular in the media, especially with the TV news crews, who use them to edit digital video footage.

Weed's claim that his Mac is the only one in the desert couldn't be verified. Numerous queries to four separate information officers based in Kuwait and Washington failed to elicit any information about the different kinds of computers the army uses.

I hear this often, but never exactly why. Can you elaborate on how you manage to do things twice as fast on a Mac? Like real life examples?

So if that is the case, why is a price of $79 listed for it at the bottom of the page you posted?

Sure there is, but it's for a very compelling reason: standardization. The less variances in hardware there are in an organization, the less expensive it will be to support.

Right on Island. How many times have I said in this thread that Macs are good machines? I reiterate: I like Macs. Think any Mac user would ever say the same about a Windows machine? Few I think. It's more fun to just bash them...

ianc

I run my office on proprietary, very complicated practice management software. It is Mac native. My colleagues (95%) run similar programs on Windows. If they do not have an in-house IT department, they budget thousands annually for IT contracts.

In 15 years, I have NEVER used outside IT services. Any problems I have had, networking, data access, adding new computers has been done quickly and quite simply by ME, and I'm no computer expert.

So are you saying that Mac product is NOT sharply honed in on the average consumer? -- I think it is.


Also, since you see Mars Spirit and Opportunity rovers as thee example, :cool: consider this; they where designed with Windoz based software.

...built in SolidWorks, analysis using COSMOSWorks and COSMOSFloWorks; animation and simulation with PhotoWorks and SolidWorks Animator; ...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1147975846.jpg

to rendering
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1147975873.jpg

to Mars
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1147975900.jpg


Though, I do imagine that many of the engineers used Macs for surfing the web, or listening to music. :cool:

An ex-GF used to work at Huges Satellite, designing satellite components. Officially, *all* corporate support of Macs had been removed due to IT rules, but over 50% of the designers still used them (support costs =$0). Boeing used to be about 50% Macs, as was NASA. Both became Windows shops through some well-documented political maneuvering.

I think I read that AMD just did a study showing PCs running an average of 6 simultaneous programs -- but 5 were anti-spyware/anti-virus!

Oh boy, get ready for a rant:

- Cntr-l C when nothing is selected will wipe out the last copied thing on the pasteboard. Why? Is that useful?
- Apps come with all their internals exposed and littered all over the system. What are they, what do they do, what is important?
- Explorer navigation is a joke
- Drag-n-drop is only half supported in the system and by only half the apps.
- The "Start" menuing and nav is horrid and overly complicated.
- Half the alert panels are non-descript, and completely useless. Have the exposed config options are beyond comprehension, who uses them?
- The bundles apps are complete ****. Notepad? Image Viewer? Please.
- Is network configuration still a treasure hunt? Why not put it with the rest of the system configs?
- "Command" is a joke.
- Add/Remove apps? Why? Drop the sucker on the Desktop and lets go.

Man, I could go on and on and on and on. Lets not get me started on Visual Studio, that ****er isn't half done, much less usable.

I want full control of the system when I want to have it, and when I don't, I don't want to see any of it. I don't want to beg the system to find my files, or let me delete things, or let me install things. I don't want my intelligence insulted when I need to configure things or change the system.

Here ian,let me blow your mind a little. This is the system config where you can touch nearly anything, and its all in one happy place:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1147976963.jpg

And here is the "Sharing" pane where the services are configured:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1147976945.jpg

No reboots, no treasure-hunts, no unknown HTT TRF WERR features to wonder about.

BTW, I took these screenshots using a system feature, they were saved to my Desktop as PNG's. Select both, double click, they open in "Preview", the Swiss Army Knife of viewers, where I could save them in a variety of different formats, but I chose JPG. I could have saved them as PDFs (with no Adobe mind you, its not needed on a Mac), but JPG is fine.

Now, Im sure there are ways to do all this in Windows, but the point is on the Mac its not a game of cat and mouse, it just works, everytime, with no bull**** to get your way.

Well, Mars rovers and what-not aside, try walking into a major studio or support-studio used for effects, sound, editing - anything - and find a Windows machine, and you won't make it past the receptionist.

After all, in our world it seems across the board entertainment trumps the boredom of space exploration.

Sorry Matt, but your examples are not compelling and my mind is not blown.

The things you list come down to personal preference and user familiarity. I can accomplish all the things you list with a minimum of effort. Everything I need is right here within a couple of clicks:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1147978239.jpg

I also took this with a system feature and saved it to my desktop. I also could have saved it as a .PNG, .TIFF, .JPG, etc.

I can change my IP address, DNS server, add static routes, switch between network adapters on the fly, and no reboots required.

I'll give you the crappy bundled apps though. Vista should fix this.

ianc

Like I said, Im sure there are ways to do it on Windows, sure fine good.

But heres a few nit-picks about that window:

1.) Thats way too many options, and way too hard to find things. Some of the text is even cut off on the names, nice.

2.) Are those icons representing apps, or panels, or something else? They look like every other app on the system, can they be moved, deleted, etc? The Explorer they are shown in sure makes it seem that way. Can I rename them? God knows I would...

3.) Different panels for keyboard and mouse? Why?

4.) Networking: You've got "Network Connections", "Phone and modem", "Internet Options", "Windows Firewall", "Wireless Link", and "Wireless Network Set...". What for? What do these do? Isn't the modem a network connection? Isn't the wireless link and also the network setup, aren't those also connections? I can see it now, Im going to have to hunt through those aren't I?

5.) Security Center? Let me guess, that has network options in it?

6.) Add Hardware? What, the system can't detect new hardware on it own and maybe load a default driver until you install something extra?

7.) Scanners and Cameras, Portable Media Devices, Game Controllers.... Just configs for external devices? Why do you need configuration at the system level for these? The drivers and apps should take care of these things, and if the system doesn't know about any of these devices there shouldn't be an option to configure them.

8.) Mail? Is this a server setting of some kind? Shouldn't that be a preference in the Mail application and not a system setting?

9.) Java and Java Plug-in? What are these doing as a system configuration? It makes no sense to have it here. Why not in Internet Options?

10.) Administrative Tools? Ok, but shouldn't "User Accounts" be a part of that? And what about "System"? Aren't we looking at the "System"?

11.) "Folder Options"? Why not make that accessible in every Explorere window instead of over here? Why would I want to go away from my folders to configure them? The same goes for Fonts.

12.) You've got "Accessibility Options" in the corner, but then below you've got "TrackPoint Accessibility"... Oh I get it, the system didn't give the developers the option of tying into the system Accessibility config for that.


Do you see what Im getting at here? Placement, organization, intuitive controls, this is what differentiates a tool from a good tool. Granted, some of the points I've made may miss the mark, but that doesn't detract from the fact that even a highly critical and needed part of the Windows system is overly difficult to use.

Here, I've made some changes, and while not completely like a Mac, they really make it a lot easier to use:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1147982105.jpg

If it were truely Mac-like, there would be:
- no text clipping
- the sections would be alphabetized
- namings would be more descriptive
- a lot of the networking options would be in one unit, as well as the device options

Here's a few responses:

1) Any app can add things to the control panel. Some shouldn't but do. Icon spacing and text size can be adjusted to remove the cutoff text if it bothers you.

2) The icons represent little applets to be used for controlling various options. Some come with the OS, some are added by IBM, Symantec, etc., and have really no place there IMO. They can be deleted and\or renamed.

3) They're two different devices.

4) Internet options are primarly IE settings. Phone and modem lets you setup dialling locations, telephony providers, etc. Wireless link is for infrared connections, not network. Wireless Networks starts a wizard to let you configure a new wireless network or configure existing ones.

5) Security center contains redundant settings; I agree it doesn't need to be there.

6) The system can detect and install new drivers on its own generally. However, unlike Macs, not all hardware is made by MS, and some doesn't work properly. This app is for working around problems that arise.

7) All these devices have an app to configure them. Of course the system knows about them, and this is where they're managed. Where else would you do it?

8) Mail lets you setup mail accounts, profiles and data file locations. This setting is modified with the installation of Outlook. These things can also be done from within the mail client.

9) Both Java icons are created with the installation of Sun Java. They are not part of the OS or created by MS.

10) User accounts can be accessed from administrative tools, or in a number of other ways. It is just a commonly used item and got its own icon. It can be deleted if deemed unnecessary. The system icon allows various hardware settings of the system to be modified. Everything in the system icon can also be done elsewhere in a more relevant place.

11) Folder options can be accessed from any explorer window, as well as from here. Fonts lets one add or remove fonts from the system.

12) Accessibility is for handicapped people and allows 'sticky keys', magnification, etc. The Trackpoint is added by IBM and not part of the OS. They could have incorporated it into the accessibility options, but chose not to.

About 90% of these settings can be accessed from other places within the OS, usually in more relevant places. The control panel is just a convenient place to group them all. As you gain experience, it becomes more seldomly used. I rarely use it, but just showed it to demonstrate that things are grouped in one place, if that's what you want. For myself, I don't place that much importance on having everything in one spot. I would rather have things where I'm likely to need them. For example, folder options can be accessed from any folder, internet options can be accessed from within IE, and for me it's more convenient to do things from there. Your choice.

Regarding your modified view, again I think it's just user preference. You group things according to perceived functions because you're used to Macs and would prefer it the way Macs are. The default Windows grouping is alphabetical. Once you get used to that, it seems preferable to me to group things that way.

It's all in what you're used to and how you work,

ianc

What is point of having everything alphabetical and in a big list if you don't know what things are called, or what you're looking for? Again, the engineers at MS were lazy and figured, ah, **** em, let the users do the searching. Sure, it works, but its not very usable, it doesn't feel like quality, its another hurdle you have to cross because MS didn't bother to help you out. I guess if you enjoy working for your computer instead of your computer working for you you'll be totally happy on Windows.

I don't want my computer 'doing things' for me. I would like to customize it and manage it the way I like.

Why? They're two different devices. Two different configuration applets seems to make sense to me. Why not have sound cards and fax machines configured in the same applet? It doesn't make sense.

None, both can be configured separately.

Hmmm. I noticed a 'security' item in the Mac control panel as well. Another bad joke?

There are nowhere near the amount of third party vendors making parts for Macs as there are for PC's.

Why? The device is part of the 'system'. All in what you're used to.

I agree, but any app can add an item here. Microsoft doesn't restrict vendors in this way. As I said, they can be removed if desired.

We don't need any as far as I'm concerned. Talk to Sun about it.

See my comment about having things where they're handy. I find it less convenient to put everything in one place rather than where I'm likely to need it. Again, user preference.

User preference, and a kind of nit-picky one at that...

This rant doesn't make any sense to me. Are you saying you don't gain proficiency with experience? Or that you're not interested in gaining proficiency? I don't need to 'discover' what's important, I know. And the tools to let me do what I need to are right there where I need them without having to fish for some control panel. As far as 'expensive computers', I don't think there's much doubt over who has the less expensive computer...

You're not making any sense with this rant either. How could I not know what things are called? Let's see, I want network connections. Ummm... I think it might be called 'Network Connections'. That might start with 'N', so I look under 'N'. I don't need to determine if that's categorized as hardware, or personal, or some other silly thing. And how could I not know what I'm looking for? Did I forget?

You are really reaching here. I know how difficult it is for you to admit that there might be some other way than the 'Mac' way, but you're getting silly in your blindered obstinacy. Think outside the 'Mac box'. There are other ways of doing things.

ianc

Reminds me of a quote: "Linux is free if and only if your time has no value."

Sounds like Windows is double-charging.

Yep, spot on. BTW, links to the non-existent Computational Fluid Dynamics apps for Macs.

http://aaac.larc.nasa.gov/tsab/tetruss/mac/

http://www.pointwise.com/gridgen/index.shtml


Scott

Anyone who calls the iLife applications 'crappy' isn't even worth having a conversation with on the topic of personal computers.

iLife comes on all new Macs. What part of that doesn't compute?

Yes, it is for sale separately. For those with older machine, or for upgrades from previous versions that came on their machines.

There are certain niche applications that are win-only. There are also some niche applications that are mac-only (sub-etha-edit for one).

I use machines running both. But I think Mac is way more elegant and the iApps are best-of-breed. Also, in the creative fields that I either work in or collaborate in, Mac rules. Most of the IT guys I know love windows because they can tweak and twonk to their heart's delight. Funny thing is that you can do *real* tweaking with OS X due to it being *nix at its core. Although there are some maddening customizations that have given us fits, especially with OSX server. But no OS is perfect...never said it was.