I sometimes wonder if people Google for the two words together just so they can go be trolls.

Careful Paul, you don't wanna be caught blogging your admission that you hacked into a proxy server, which is electronic tresspass... Robin Hood stole. End of story.

Please don't let him represent all of us who like Windows.

And there's nothing wrong with being a Mac zealot (not saying you are! :)...) 'cause they are damn fine computers.

I fully concur with curtis. To wit - 'An idiot on a PC is still an idiot.'

Although I must say that I thought being an "Apple Zealot" was a point of pride...

But I didn't say which proxy server. He' s used dozens.

Why does it take forever for my comment to post?

holy crap, it ate my comment!!! :( :(

I don't understand the Apple critics who claim there is a lack of software. Just what is missing? I understand that some obscure techical fields are better supported by Windows developers than Mac programmers, and the reverse is also true.

But what about ordinary business, home, educational, and artistic users? We don't need hundreds of third-rate titles. We have the best of nearly every category of software available to us. In fact, creative users still enjoy better software support than Windoze users get. Photo and video editing, and color management, are still much better supported and more pleasant on Macs.

I have had Macs continuously since 1984, and I have been stuck with DOS and all versions of Windoze at my offices over the years. Never, not even in the 80's, did I find myself unable to do at home what I could do at the office. Nor did I have any significant compatibility problems (admittedly it required some effort in the 80's to transfer Mac work to the PC (but never the reverse); now it requires no effort at all.

I'm serious, somebody please tell me what you can do with your PC's that I can't do on my Macs. Is there any substance to the decades-old myth?

Mark A. in part of the post that dissappeared, no, not anymore.

However, I think it really comes down to not as MANY software titles. Not as much of a selection. That's fine, as long as it works, it works. But there may be 3 different programs that will work for a MAC, while for windows, there will be 30 different programs written by companies to do the same thing, with about 15 shareware programs , 4 freeware programs, and 2 open-source programs.

I'm not saying its better by any means, in fact, it can make it worse, because as someone with Windows on my PC, I have to make a choice between all those pieces of software, oftentimes without much information on each program.

My popularity just grows and grows. :-)

At the time that I was subject to prosletyzing by Mac zealots (actually, they identified themselves as addicts, the main reason I have never touched one) their sales pitch was based on niftyness. They had a system with two monitors and rolling the mouse along moved the cursor from one to the other. Big whoop.

The software I needed at the time was a cross assembler for the Z-8 microcontroller; they thought the lack of such running on the Mac was a feature rather than a bug. Simply a difference in focus such that I wandered off, and not a reason for hostility.

Note that I still have some residual fondness for OS-9 on the CoCo.

Henry,

There are more cockroaches than people. Quantity does not denote a higher life-form.

P

Cockroaches are a higher life-form. They've been around for about 500 million years and they will mostly like survive any nuclear war, where as we won't stand a rat's ass chance.

Oops, as usual, tired as hell. Make that:
they will most likely survive any nuclear war.

For Me, it's a matter of what OS I can stand. I think Windows is a horrible OS. In fact, the only ones I have personally used that are worse are AppleOS, AmigaDOS, AIX, B1900 MCP, B4700 MCP, B6800 MCP, BSD 4.x, BSDi, CP/M, CMS, CMW, DESQview, FDOS, GCOS, HP-UX, IRIX, Linux, MacOS, MPE, MS-DOS, MTS, MULTICS, OS/8, RT-11, RSX-11M, SOS, SunOS, Solaris, Ultrix, VMOS, and VMS.

Of course, that still leaves many that I haven't personally tried.

I'd wish someone would start with a clean sheet of paper and design something really good from the ground up, and have it succeed in the market and have lots of apps (including those I use) ported to it.

And a pony. I'd like a pony, too.

My deal with liking windows is definetly the do-it-yourselfer availabilty with windows. Macs ar great for people who want something simple anad fast. Windows is flooded with programs and new developers who don't quite use the most updated version to make their program. This creates problems because they can in turn take your updated windows and re add the older link files. (Stupid .dll files). Plus the fact that my industry won't create programs for MAC OS, and all the computers in banking use LINUX or WIN. It makes it very hard for me if I wanted an iBook.
Windows is also filled with people, who all know just enough to hurt themselves. And because Gates has managed to piss off a lot of people, some pricks create pain-in-my-ass viruses that attack windows. And with this creates widespread viruses, only for windows.
My point is, you really can't bash someone for liking or using one OS over another. There are probably reasons behind their choice, i.e. availabilty, portabilty with their industry, hobbies, etc.
So don't hate.

Oh yeah, and cockroaches suck ass. Any animal that hoardes around open feces is not a very high life form in my book.
Also, the exoskeleon is over rated. Not very good at mending itself.
They may survive a nuclear holcaust, but my cat whoops up on roaches on a daliy basis.

Its't the number of gaming titles for me- not necessarily software as a whole.

You need to see this video:

Internet Help Desk

It even gives our friendly Mac users a mention near the end. :)

bigmacwithanegg:

Not having open feces around my apartment, what would I know.

Julie, I think he was speaking metaphorically of "Dave's" comments.

"I sometimes wonder if people Google for the two words together just so they can go be trolls."

Yes. And some people post out-of-context remarks and try to start a flamewar in order to prove their platform's superiority, as if it matters.

I honestly don't understand why people argue incessantly over this.

I happen to think that Macs are well thought out and easy to use. Furthermore, the people snapping up iPods and similar doodads seem to be quite happy with them.

Linux and other fringe OS's have a lot of good ideas going for them, such as non-bloated replacements for MS Word, etc. (oh, how I wish!)

And neither of them means a damn thing to me because I can't get the software I want for the Macs and it isn't worth my time to learn Linux, etc., because all the techie people who actually use it (and argue about this sort of crap, I might add) won't condescend to tell us how to actually use it.

So I'm stuck with Windows, which has many aggravations, despite (oddly enough) being very reliable for what I happen to use it for. Sure, the other options are better from a technical standpoint, but they don't DO anything for me.

If your OS does what you need it to, good for you. There is no special place in hell for the users of certain OS's, only for those who wage some sort of holy war against all the others.

Mark A, a specific point I forgot to add -- and I'm not a Mac critic, mind you, I'd LOVE to have one -- about what is missing.

I'll tell you what is missing;

GAMES. Cheap, readily available games. I liek to play them, and I like to mod them even more. When is the last time you heard of one that came out for Mac but not Windows or Linux? I'm not talking about tic-tac-toe or minesweeper, mind you.

For millions of guys my age, that's a deal breaker. It's half the reason I own my PC -- I can do my word processing, spreadsheets, and so on with any old machine.

heheheh Paul, go get em!

Cindy

PS why do we need to hack anyway?
IP should be enough.

:-)

Cindy

Irix SunOS and Linux here, cant stand winblows.

Do find the quasi religion stuff strange tho.

Btw, macos is a unix now, a bloated mickorkernel unix
but still, not too shabby

Frankly i like the ability to stack boxes and take
atvantage that X11 is network transparent.

One screen, lots of cpus, makes all else look dumshit,
cause they cant do it, all in all, kinda neat.

But my mini supercomputing stack is for a geek like
me, where the machines are an end to themselves,
not the kinda thing that would appeal to the ave
Jane that just wants it to do x and y, and not every
combination of every alphabet ever to exist.

Linux comes with many compilers and a zoo of
languages so rich few if any know them all, what
would the average Jane Doe do with em ?

She would wire your privates to the light socket if you
tried to drag her by the hair thru the land of makefiles

She would then tell all her friends and so on, and if
something did show up at your door looking for love
after that, it would be holding leather articles or a
raygun.

Hmm, Raygun girl ...

Games are a huge reason, if not the primary reason...although 3DStudio is another huge reason. I am currently unaware of a similar-strength program for the Mac, and frankly I doubt that I could afford an Apple system that could run that one properly. Probably a thousand or so more than my current system. As for other programs...well, Photoshop runs just fine on my machine, thank you very much.

I mostly use Unix (these days via PowerMacs). I do have several PCs lying about. As is the want with these, they tend to die over time. For me the lower hardware reliability more than makes up for the lower entry cost of the machine. These days, I mostly install Cygnus Windows and run them as brain-dead Unix boxes.

The exception is to run software like Labview, Matlab, Mathematica, Morrowind, etc. of course.

I also do a fair amount of development work, mostly in the audio/sound area. For this, the Macintosh (Mac OS X/10.3+) is a much better software environment. I use the Cocoa development environment, which is the grand child of NextStep (and which I have been using in one form or another since version 0.8alpha back in 1989).

Anyway, when people ask me about my preferences, I always have to ask do you use a screwdriver for every task? Meaning: match the computer/operating system to your needs, not the other way. For creative work, I much prefer the Mac simply because Apple understands that OS's which jump up and down and say "look at me!" impede creativity. (Unfortunately Bill Gates and friends don't quite get this.) Obviously, the Macs run smoother out of the box as well, which is a plus for creativity.

Finally, when people say "there are 30 commerical versions plus two open source versions" (paraphrase of above comment), I have to ask, "Damn!? How many screwdrivers do you need???" Personally, I just need one or two really good ones. Let's face it, most PC software is jacked up, hard to use and overall just plain brittle (meaning it's easy to exercise the bugs). Most good software on a PC ends up migrating to the Mac. This includes every major scientific program I use that's worth a crap.

LABview and MATLAB....hah I learned those programs @ my school. I even tutored computer programming (with MATLAB) for soph engineering students for a lil cash on the side. Thats cool that its actually used out in the industry, I'm glad it won't go to waste

Now how about ANSYS Workbench or PTC Wildfire? (PTC wildfire is also called PRO/Engineer or PRO/Mechanica)

by the way Paul, if you bothered to read my post, I also said that, that quantity never compensates for quality, but I lacked to mention that greater quantity allows for greater VARIETY. Different programmers allow for a different feel to the programs themselves, oftentimes allowing me to find that rare gem that's perfect

(example, photo viewing/converting/basic editing program : IRFANVIEW, ...awesome program...ask for more info)

Sometimes when I start a new class quarter I ask my IT students which is better:

- A MAC

-A PC running Windows

-A PC running UNIX/Linux

I listen to their answers; often these answers spawn debate, and when it's all over I smile and tell them that one day when they mature in their chosen field they will realize my question is actually a silly one, as are their answers.

A computer and it's OS is just a tool. There are many kinds of tools for many kinds of jobs. You use the right tool for the right job. Asking which computer is best is as silly as asking if a spoon is better than a knife.

(Although I really dig the sporks)

Tim in PA,

I chuckle at the irony of your response. In the 80's and early 90's, DOS and early Windoze users wrote off the early Macs as game or hobby machines. In the late 90's the roles reversed.

I don't play computer games now, but I used to beta test flight simulators on the Mac. At that time, 1995ish, there seemed to be much more advanced games available for the Mac than PC. That seems to have changed around 1997, at least it did for a while. I can't comment on today.

With Virtual PC, one can run most Windoze applications pretty well--but not games, especially simulators (actually, I haven't tried the latest version which is supposed to support 3d graphics cards, but I'm skeptical it can competel.) Maybe I'm wrong about this today.

For games, my kids have me playing their PS2, xBox, and Game Cube. I'm tempted to hook up the rudder pedals, throttle and stick, and try flying my Titanium G4 around the Warbirds arenas, but that sounds like a lot of effort. Tagging the walls in GTA San Andreas requires less effort.

Dang, I was hoping for a larger cat v cockroaches debate. That would be new and fresh, unlike Mac v Windows.
I still play with rocks.

"For me the lower hardware reliability more than makes up for the lower entry cost of the machine."

Funny, my hardware is all top of the line. This is just another Mac Zealot Myth. The Apple hardware is, save for the custom mobo and chipset, off-the-shelf standard hardware. Has been for a long time. Any PC can be hardware-reliable if you buy good hardware, or it can suck if you buy junk.

In other words, it's usually the same hardware (or same level of quality) unless you CHOSE to buy bargain-basement crap.

Unless you work in the industry and have a vested (i.e. commercial) interest in one OS over another, how does it not make sense to just use what you like and leave it at that? We all have different reasons for picking our machines - some are quasi-ideological; some are pragmatic. That means there's nothing you can necessarily infer from someone's use of one or the other. So all this talk is just speculative jerking off.

EC

Mark A.

The main reason that macs had better games in the early to mid 90's was their graphics. Mac's were using color screens with higher res before the pc's. Most pc's in the early 90's were using monochrome or CGA. Mac's were the first to have high color video. So...what games would be cooler....mono games or VGA games.

Also, back in the late 80's early 90's, macs were(still are) the most common computer found in public schools. Now, as a gaming company, what would you choose to do...make a game on a PC that has very limited graphics and are mostly used in business offices...or make a game for a mac which kids are using every day at school and are comfortable with??? You do the math.

Another point...most of the problems with "BSOD" are a result of either...cheap hardware not on the HCL, or shareware/freeware software that is coded poorly.

Right now I have a WinXP box set up as a fileserver in my home(for home movies, pics, music, etc). Granted, I am not running tons of diff software on it, but the fact that it has been up and running for the last year says something about using quality hardware and stability.
I have not turned it off in the last year.

Mac's are great computers...dont get me wrong. But like Jim Price said, computers are just tools. Does every carpenter use the same brand power tools. Personal preferance(bias) is natural and is a hard thing to overcome. Lets face it, PC...Mac...Sun...if it does the job you want...who cares what the name is on it.