Windows vs Mac

daniel · Oct 2, 2006

I appologize for posting my Mac = Unix = Nice quip in the Vista RC1 thread.

Squid says that bragging about using a Mac is like bragging about being crippled. I say it's like gloating about living in a neutral city when a gang-war between an evil capitalist and the mafia is destroying everyplace else.

Sure, I've had to search out software that would do what I wanted. But at least my OS is not blinking at me every minute and a half, and I don't have "security" software hogging all my resources and spinning my HD constantly.

Alric · Oct 2, 2006

If you buy a Mac you can run Mac and Windows (or anything else). Virtual or Native. No reason for choosing either..

Cheers.

Proco · Oct 2, 2006

First, let me admit that I know nothing about Macs. I've done software development in Windows & UNIX environments, though.

I admit the main reason I use Windows is because it's ubiquitous. When my PC fried a year ago, I got another Windows machine because I didn't want to spend extra bucks for Mac versions of my existing software. The biggest problem I have with MS is how bloated their software is. Rather than give us a clean, relatively bug-free software release, they try to shove in as many features as possible. When you do that, you're going to introduce more bugs than you can reasonably catch.

I've always thought, for the home computer market, Mac was a superior product. Unfortunately, they shot themselves in the foot by keeping their technology proprietary. If they had allowed clones to be made in the 80's, we could have had "Mac-compatible" machines with real GUI rather than "PC-compatible" ones with nothing but MS-DOS 2.2 and an added Hercules video card. And who knows which way technological innovation would have gone.

I really like the Linux box I have at work, but it's not user-friendly enough for the basic home market. Heck, I had to have a co-worker recompile my kernel so my network card would work. That's not something the average person can do. For techies, though, I think it's the best option. Especially when you throw open source into the mix.

EricGo · Oct 2, 2006

I had notions last year of changing my home over to Linux from Macintosh (four people, 4 -6 computers) but backed off when I was the only one interested (read: would not kill me if I tried).

MS crud is not an option, so I imagine we'll stay Mac so long as it is a viable platform, and move to an open source OS eventually.

Mystery Squid · Oct 2, 2006

Quick and dirty...

All kidding aside (there goes the fun part... :lol: ), it really should pivot around what your primary usage is. Each perform spectacularly within various respects, the question is, what's yours?

I've ran XP since the day it was released, and have had few problems over the years. As a matter of fact, I've never had it crash a-la '98 style blue screen... I'm running a bunch of multi-media applications, it's primarily a gaming machine. I'm not into audio and video manipulation, and I believe MAC might be superior in that respect.

I did, however, notice MAC is very limited in terms of configuring, you seem to have limited options whenever some issue comes up. Problem with MAC, IMO is, they try and make it too idiot-proof. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it seems like whenever problems arise with MAC/its software thereof, I feel far more limited in trying to resolve the problem, seems like I don't have a lot of room to operate, so to speak...

Sort of the same thing with Ipods. There are plenty of better devices out there ( IMHO of course), but because it looks nice, it sells.

Marlin · Oct 2, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 2 2006, 10:36 AM) [snapback]326841[/snapback]</div>

But at least my OS is not blinking at me every minute and a half, and I don't have "security" software hogging all my resources and spinning my HD constantly.
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Mac community must wake up to security

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("ZDNet - Mac community must wake up to security")</div>

Apple Macintosh users believe they are immune from security problems and need to wake up to the potential of attack -- before they are rudely awoken by a destructive piece of malware.

At the University of Otago in New Zealand, where around 40 percent of the computers are Apple Macintosh systems, IT security manager Mark Borrie has been educating his OS X users in security best-practices. He said many of those users believed they were immune to security problems -- a trap many Mac fans seemed to have fallen into.

"On the security side of things I reckon the Mac community has yet to wake up to security. They think they are immune and typically have this idea that they can do whatever they want on their Macintosh and run what they like," said Borrie.

"If I can get our Mac users up to speed and say 'you are not immune' -- so when [the malware] hits, hopefully we will be pretty safe," he said.

The University of Otago's Apple desktops are all loaded with antivirus protection just in case of an outbreak.

"We want to be ready for the first big Macintosh virus -- because it will come. Some day, somebody will say 'I am going to create a headline and write a virus for Mac'," said Borrie.[/b]
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qbee42 · Oct 2, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Oct 2 2006, 11:57 AM) [snapback]326886[/snapback]</div>

Problem with MAC, IMO is, they try and make it too idiot-proof.
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There's an old adage that goes: "Make something idiot proof, and only an idiot will want to use it." That's not completely true, but there is some truth to it.

The older MAC OSs were poor. They had a nice GUI, but poor multitasking and networking that crashed a lot. Now that they have moved to UNIX, the OS is robust, so the main limitation now becomes one of application software. The move to Intel processors provides a good way around that, but then you are running Windows part of the time, with all of its associated problems. The hardware also tends to be more expensive due to its proprietary nature.

Tom

wan · Oct 2, 2006

Linux market share is growing and as long as it grows (no matter how slowly) it is a good thing. Large corporation like Microsoft and Apple will have to inovate a lot more in order to justify the price. Many just need email, browser, and word processing. At some point you simply don't pay that much just to email and write a letter.

daniel · Oct 3, 2006

Ogg amd Grog were cavemen. Ogg lived in a cave at ground level. Grog lived in a cave 25 feet up a sheer cliff that he reached by a narrow path and a scramble. Ogg had to worry constantly about saber-tooth tigers and bears and hyenas. He kept them at bay by keeping a fire burning at the entrance to his cave all night long. He spend 3/4 of his daylight hours fetching wood for the fire, and he had to get up every 2 hours during the night to feed the fire. There were cockroaches as well, those prehistoric ones two feet long, but they only ate rotten plant material, so, although they smelled bad, they were not dangerous and he tolerated them. Ogg told Grog that life at ground level was better because he could come and go easily, any time there was an opportunity to whack a cave woman over the head and drag her home, though Grog noticed from his vantage point that the women always ended up kicking Ogg in the belly and running away. Ogg told Grog that he should not be so smug, because his cave was not 100% safe, but Grog replied he knew it was not 100% safe, but he was still happy to be safer than Ogg, for all Ogg's fires, plus he didn't have to spend 3/4 of his daylight hours gathering firewood, and he could sleep through the night, cozy under his bearskin blanket, and not have to get up constantly to feed a fire. His own fire could be smaller, easier to keep burning, to fend off the lesser threats of his inherently safer location. And while Ogg chased after the prettiest cave women, who always got away from him anyway, Grog spent his nights with his plain but perfectly satisfactory woman.

The Mac OS is not 100% safe, but it does not require us to devote 3/4 of our computer resources to security software. Running Windows is like living at ground level, surrounded by growling predators. The Mac moves you out of reach of most of the predators, and makes you more of a bother than it's worth for the rest to make a concerted effort to go after you. You still have to observe safe practices. But you don't have to live your life in constant worry. There are more programs available for Windows, but they're so full of holes they're likely to damage you in the end.

Ogg was finally killed by a hyena while he was rolling on the ground in pain after a cave woman he was trying to hit over the head kicked him in the private parts. A sufficiently deternimed hyena might have been able to get to Grog's cave, but why bother? It would have been a terrible lot of work to get through the natural defenses of the location, and most of the cavemen lived at ground level, just because "everyone else" did, so there was plenty of food without trying to get at Grog.

zapranoth · Oct 3, 2006

Just installed Windows on our iMac today. It runs great -- runs all of the iMac's bells and whistles (bluetooth, wireless networking, etc) just like it should.

And the best part? I can use Windows for the 3 or 4 things I use it for, and the rest of the time it's off!
It only gets a 32 gig partition -- it physically cannot bloat itself beyond that boundary.
If it pisses me off, I'll delete and reinstall. (and if you didn't know, it boots in one OS or the other -- not both at the same time.)

But for day to day work I use the better OS. That's OS X. If you wanna believe Windows is "better," well, labor under that delusion and more power to ya. Because you're going to need it.

DavidTO · Oct 3, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(zapranoth @ Oct 2 2006, 11:49 PM) [snapback]327202[/snapback]</div>

and if you didn't know, it boots in one OS or the other -- not both at the same time.[/b]
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It is possible to run both at the same time with Parallels. Also, you can get Crossover Mac and run specific Windows applications without even installing Windows!

Of course, I do none of this stuff, so I'm no expert on it, I just have friends who have.

Oxo · Oct 3, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(qbee42 @ Oct 2 2006, 11:14 AM) [snapback]326898[/snapback]</div>

There's an old adage that goes: "Make something idiot proof, and only an idiot will want to use it." That's not completely true, but there is some truth to it.

[/b]
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Did you say this about cars of the 1920s? In those days cars were complicated to drive: there were various levers, e.g. an ignition timer. manual gear changes, sometimes with double de-clutching necessary, no power steering. no indicators so that you had to stick your arm out to show you were going to turn a corner, a crank to start the engine (that was really hard work) and more. So on your adage, cars would still be like this and the automatic modern car only chosen by idiots.

daniel · Oct 3, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Oxo @ Oct 3 2006, 07:30 AM) [snapback]327270[/snapback]</div>

... So on your adage, cars would still be like this and the automatic modern car only chosen by idiots.
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I think we are all idiots for making ourselves dependent on cars. We have gained personal mobility, but we have lost our clean air, we have lost our sense of community, we have depleted a resource that could have been put to much better use, we have gotten ourselves into wars, at the cost of trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives, many of them innocent, which we will be held to answer for in the unlikely event that there turns out to be a just god, and all so that we can spread out from the compact cities of yesteryear and convert valuable agricultural land into pavement and grass.

Yep. Only idiots buy modern cars.

vtie · Oct 3, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 3 2006, 06:24 AM) [snapback]327168[/snapback]</div>

The Mac OS is not 100% safe, but it does not require us to devote 3/4 of our computer resources to security software. Running Windows is like living at ground level, surrounded by growling predators.
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Hmmm.... The same old stuff you hear people say over and over again. It was true one day, but not anymore.

I use a lot of PC's, bot professionally and in private, and have never encountered any security issue in the last 5 years. The only time I have to invest time in security issues is to make sure the Norton security software on all my computers is not expired. 5 minutes per computer per year. And the resource overhead caused by this security software is neglectible.

And, before you ask, the last time that I had an OS crash was several years ago...
My PC's do what they need to do, day after day, with minimal supervision. All my professional activities are built around them. They are reliable tools.

Macs are fine computers, but why do so many of its users have so many prejudices againt PC's?

Angelus · Oct 3, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(qbee42 @ Oct 2 2006, 11:14 AM) [snapback]326898[/snapback]</div>

The hardware also tends to be more expensive due to its proprietary nature.
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Not anymore.

See Fortune magazine's comparison: Fortune's Peter Lewis looks at top-of-the-line iMacs and Dell PCs - and concludes you'll get more for your money with Apple.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/11/magazines/...sion=2006091112

Oxo · Oct 3, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Oct 3 2006, 10:28 AM) [snapback]327304[/snapback]</div>

Macs are fine computers, but why do so many of its users have so many prejudices againt PC's?
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In my case it's because my first computer (c. 1985) ran on MS/DOS. It was a struggle and a painful experience to use it so a few months later I bought a Mac and saw what a nonsense the other operating systems were. I've never tried to get rid of my MS prejudice, although I realise that Windows has helped them a little.

priusenvy · Oct 3, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Angelus @ Oct 3 2006, 09:42 AM) [snapback]327348[/snapback]</div>

Not anymore.

See Fortune magazine's comparison: Fortune's Peter Lewis looks at top-of-the-line iMacs and Dell PCs - and concludes you'll get more for your money with Apple.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/11/magazines/...sion=2006091112
[/b]
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My own recent buying experience agrees with that.

If you compare the cost of a MacPro system to a Dell Precision Workstation, the Mac actually comes out a few hundred dollars less than the Dell when comparably configured. IMHO, this is a fair comparision. I could build a much cheaper PC out of a box full of parts from NewEgg (and I do for my home PC), but the the comparable machine from the PC world is a high-end workstation.

I recently purchased a high-end Dell workstation and a MacPro system, and was shocked that the Dell system weighed in at nearly twice the cost of the MacPro system. Even when configured identically, the Mac was still $200-300 cheaper.

The Dell was a PW690 with two 5160 Xeon processors (3.0GHz dual core), 2x250GB SATA drives, 2GB PC5400 DDR2 RAM, and an nVidia Quadro 3500 video card, and cost just under $5100 (a couple hundred dollars less than the price you'd get by configuring it online at the Dell store). The Mac had two 5150 Xeon processors (2.66GHz dual core), 1x250GB SATA drives, 2GB PC5400 DDR2 RAM, an nVidia 7300GT video card, and cost about $2600. Going from two 5150s to two 5160s is about an $800 option on both Mac and PC, and going from a single 5060 to two 5160s on the PC was a whopping $2000 upgrade.

Our high-end corporate standard MacPro workstation is about the same price as the PW690 but it comes with 4GB of memory and 2x500GB SATA drives instead of 2GB and 2x250GB.

daniel · Oct 4, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Oct 3 2006, 08:28 AM) [snapback]327304[/snapback]</div>

Macs are fine computers, but why do so many of its users have so many prejudices againt PC's?
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I've had my Mac for a couple of weeks now. I am not prejudiced against PCs. Prejudice is judging a person or a thing before you have known him (person) or encountered it (thing). I have used MS-based PCs ever since I got rid of my Kaypro 2X and bought an 80286 instead, mainly because I wanted the graphics capability for hobby programming.

DOS was total garbage. Windows 95 and 98 and ME were all garbage. XP, I will admit, was a great improvement, but still garbage. The Registry alone would convince any sane person who understood it to run screaming from the room. By the time I shut down my last computer, the HD was running almost constantly and the screen was blinking at me.

So, my disgust with Windows is not prejudice. It is based on long, intimate experience with five different Microsoft operating systems.

And according to what I have read, Apple hardware is better in quality than most PC hardware, and comparable in price. You can buy a more-cheaply configured PC, if you are looking for low-end hardware. But if you compare similarly-equipped computers, you'll pay similar prices.

No system is foolproof. But Unix is to Windows what Prius is to Yugo. Design. Quality. Reliability. Security. Bill Gates has proved that you can fool most of the people all the time. But I don't care anymore. I gave Bill the boot and I can sit back and enjoy the peace and quite, just as I can relax and enjoy the peace and quiet when my Prius shuts off its engine at stoplights.

vtie · Oct 4, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 4 2006, 06:22 AM) [snapback]327708[/snapback]</div>

I've had my Mac for a couple of weeks now. I am not prejudiced against PCs. Prejudice is judging a person or a thing before you have known him (person) or encountered it (thing). I have used MS-based PCs ever since I got rid of my Kaypro 2X and bought an 80286 instead, mainly because I wanted the graphics capability for hobby programming.
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Well, technically, I never said that you are prejudiced against PC's. I only said that many Mac users have prejudices against PC's. But then we still have your claim that PC's "devote 3/4 of our computer resources to security software". If it's not a prejudice, then perhaps I should consider it deliberate spreading of false information?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 4 2006, 06:22 AM) [snapback]327708[/snapback]</div>

DOS was total garbage. Windows 95 and 98 and ME were all garbage. XP, I will admit, was a great improvement, but still garbage. The Registry alone would convince any sane person who understood it to run screaming from the room. By the time I shut down my last computer, the HD was running almost constantly and the screen was blinking at me.
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Windows 2000 was the big step forward. Ever since then, the OS has become a non-issue for me, as soon as you take a few simple precautions. I know the details of the registry system, and I agree that it's not a very nice design. But it's not as bad as you make it sound.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 4 2006, 06:22 AM) [snapback]327708[/snapback]</div>

And according to what I have read, Apple hardware is better in quality than most PC hardware, and comparable in price. You can buy a more-cheaply configured PC, if you are looking for low-end hardware. But if you compare similarly-equipped computers, you'll pay similar prices.
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Then I have some bad news for you. Apple is actively shifting towards PC hardware. Silently, this has taken place already for things as graphics cards, and now it is also happening for CPU's. Why? Because the market size of PC components allows for more competition and economies of scale, resulting in more innovative products and sharper prices. nVidia and ATI have revolutionised the entire graphics world, based on the PC platform. They even wiped away SG. IBM isn't even interested anymore in fullfilling Apple's needs when it comes to CPU's, leaving them in the desert. That's why Apple decided to implement Intel CPu's in their new generation computers.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 4 2006, 06:22 AM) [snapback]327708[/snapback]</div>

No system is foolproof. But Unix is to Windows what Prius is to Yugo. Design. Quality. Reliability. Security. Bill Gates has proved that you can fool most of the people all the time. But I don't care anymore. I gave Bill the boot and I can sit back and enjoy the peace and quite, just as I can relax and enjoy the peace and quiet when my Prius shuts off its engine at stoplights.
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I always laugh when I hear somebody claim that 90% of the people are wrong. But anyway, Unix is not about security. Unix has had security issues that eclipse everything that has happened to Windows. Unix isn't even about good design. Under the hood, the design of Unix is clumsy and old-fashioned, the result of several decades of uncontrolled modifications.

I like Unix a lot, and I worked for years with many systems on a professional basis. I have worked with Sun/Solaris, HP/HP UX, Dec/Ultrix, IBM/Aix, Digital Unix, NeXt, and various flavours of Linux. They all have their share of problems. It's not the miracle OS some people like to think about it.

priusenvy · Oct 4, 2006

327773[/snapback]</div>

Then I have some bad news for you. Apple is actively shifting towards PC hardware. Silently, this has taken place already for things as graphics cards, and now it is also happening for CPU's.
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I'm guessing that's not what Daniel meant. Apple's MacPro systems use very high-end desktop and workstation class components, not the stuff you find in sub-$1000 machines. Take a look at the case and power supply. The motherboard can take 16GB of memory (8 slots]
I always laugh when I hear somebody claim that 90% of the people are wrong. But anyway, Unix is not about security. Unix has had security issues that eclipse everything that has happened to Windows.
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Sendmail alone has probably generated more CERT advisories than all Microsoft software put together.

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