mac v pc

Linux has it’s place, and that is in a server room.

Absolute tosh!
I run a businesses which is wholly Linux based with the exception of one Windows box for testing.
We have 5 laptops, 3 desktops, 2 servers all running Suse sweet as a nut and and 2 Asus EEE pcs running a modified version of Linux.

To my PC-oriented mind that seems like a pretty typical example of Apple supporting users who are doing things in the wrong fairly odd way to start with. I guess in some ways that’s probably the key to the Macs success and why people go on about it being so easy to use.

Well this is an example of you talking rubbish. In the case I mentioned, my bank statements are delivered by my bank as pdf files. Other documents are ones I scan myself to pdf files. So your “better” way of doing things is a complete non-starter. (Unless of course the PC way is to choose a bank which takes into account the deficiencies of my computer OS?)

In this specific situation, I suggest you just try out what I have described and see for yourself how easy it is, rather than assume a priori that you can make a judgement about it.

I Love my Mac and if i turn gay i don’t care. 😯

I’m sorry but PC’s are just tacky.

I could not work day to day on a PC

Well yes, bank statements as PDFs is likewise a fairly odd way to go about things. So you’re starting from an odd place.

But if you’d stop getting so het up you’d see I’m at least partly agreeing with you. (Windows) PCs tend to inflexibly force you down a particular way of doing things — which tends make sense to my geek/software-engineer mind.

Macs are like “Yeah sure, if you want to store your bank data by copying them all out in crayon, taking photos of them then putting them together into a QuickTime move then that’s cool. Go right ahead and we’ll do our very best to help you every step of the way.”

PCs tend to be more “What the f*** are you doing?? That’s not the right way to do that. Have an unhelpful error message.”

Some personality-types think this means the Mac is easier to use. 🙂

Utter bollocks. I used the example of bank statements (which are fairly commonly delivered as pdf, by the way), but using electricity bills would make the same point. Or any other collection of documents.

retro83 wrote:

More like “it will do only a tiny fraction of what the Mac will (and waste lots of your life trying to get it to do those things properly)”.

You are entitled to your opinion but that hasn’t been my experience.

Utter bollocks.

Okay, I’m wrong. Macs are just as difficult as PCs to use. 😛

I used the example of bank statements (which are fairly commonly delivered as pdf, by the way)

Mmm.. maybe. I’m with the NatWest. I can view my statements online or download them as Microsoft Money, Quicken, Sage or CSV files. All of which seem like very sensible formats to me.

If they only offered PDF files then I’d complain – but presumably you’d be happier.

, but using electricity bills would make the same point. Or any other collection of documents.

Likewise I view my electricity bills online.
I suggest that if you conduct a quick straw poll you won’t find many folk on here that have large collections of documents as PDFs with no idea what is in each one.

Do any of you have girlfriends?

I have a PDF of a girl that I look at sometimes.

Lol!

I suggest that if you conduct a quick straw poll you won’t find many folk on here that have large collections of documents as PDFs with no idea what is in each one.

Maybe, but the point is that people are probably not keeping large collections of documents if it is not convenient to do so. From what I see at work, other people are no better at giving documents a clear name than I am, so I get folders of reports and no way to find the correct one other than by opening each 10MB file and looking through the pages. Takes quite a while.

At home, on the other hand, I can keep ALL my documents on my computer and be confident of finding the right one quickly. Without that ability, the whole project would fail and I’d have to resort to keeping paper records, which I really want to avoid.

Look – someone was asking for a real-world example of where the Mac OS offers something that Windows doesn’t. I gave this small case study, which makes a difference to how easily I can run my home paper(less)work. If it doesn’t work for you – fine. Stick with what you like!

Do any of you have girlfriends?

Yep! Who did you think it was shagging your missus while you were up in the attic rummaging around looking for your car insurance documents? 🙂

GrahamS; you’re just jealous, ‘cos you’ve only got a poxy PC!

I’m with NatWest; I can download my statement as a .csv file. Which I can open in Excel, or iWork’s Numbers App. Or, simply view in Text Edit.

How about that, eh??

Quicklook not only allows you to preview text documents, but also movies and audio files, without opening the relevant app!

My main HD is backed up to a second one, every hour, using Time Machine.

Spaces allows me to have multiple ‘desktops’; one for email and Skype, one for web browsing, one for Photoplop and Illfrustrator, and one for me Hi-Choons dem. Ctrl-arrow, and I can zap between Spaces. I can have loads and loads of them, if I choose (I could have a game running in one; pause it to answer a call on Skype, for example).

Ooh look, I can resize my icons, if my eyesight’s not too good. 16×16 pixels, up to 128×128!!

Macs are just as difficult as PCs to use.

No, they’re not. Every single person I know who’s swapped over to a Mac, says they are much easier to use.

As for price, the link DrJ posted has it about right. How much would an integrated video editing, audio playing and organising, DVD authoring, Music composing, photo organising and editing and website publishing suite cost, for PC? What? There is not one, just loads of frustratingly incompatible spensive 3rd party apps? Boo, rubbish!

My Mac Pro cost over a thousand pounds less than a similarly specced Dell (actually, this was not possible at the time i purchased it, as Dell din’t have equivalent spec processors at the time).

And what about that one, eh????

Okay, I’m wrong.

Yes, you are. Now just go and get yerself a Mac, and stop being such a grumpy pants! 😉

Indeed and my hypothesis is that certain personality-types get on better with Macs while others prefer Windows PCs.

What you describe doesn’t work for me cos I’m of the rigid PC-style mindset that thinks that accounting data should be in suitable accounting formats and so on.

Likewise I can see a benefit to being able to flip through tons of files easily and quickly, that would be handy. But I recognise that either those files still need to be opened to do that (so if they are 10MB then they’ll still take a while); OR every application has to provide a lightweight viewer version of itself; OR there is a second pre-rendered copy made of every single file needlessly wasting my disk space.

(I’m not actually sure which of these approaches the Mac uses)

Ultimately if it was really something I needed on a PC then I’d go download an app to do it.

PCs tend to be more “What the f*** are you doing?? That’s not the right way to do that. Have an unhelpful error message.”

‘It looks like you’re trying to criticise Macs, but aren’t having much success. Do you need any help with that?’

Look, it’s horses for courses. Lets play nice and agree that Mac is best 😛 and answer the real question

Tubs or Clinchers or Tubeless?

I’m with NatWest; I can download my statement as a .csv file. Which I can open in Excel, or iWork’s Numbers App. Or, simply view in Text Edit.

I wasn’t debating whether a mac can handle a CSV file, I was suggesting that banks that only offer statements as PDF files are very backward.

Quicklook not only allows you to preview text documents, but also movies and audio files, without opening the relevant app!

But it’s still opening an app. Quicklook is presumably an app. It presumably has components that must be loaded to view each of these file types. Just because you’re not opening THE app that you associate with that file doesn’t mean you’re not opening anything at all. It may be smoother and well integrated into the OS – but you’re still actually running an app.

Likewise I can see movies and pictures in Windows Gallery without loading Photoshop and Media Player. But Windows Gallery is still AN APP.

My main HD is backed up to a second one, every hour, using Time Machine.

That’s amazing. If only there was some way of backing up data on PCs… 🙄

Spaces allows me to have multiple ‘desktops’

Wow – multiple desktops eh? Blimey.
You mean like Microsofts Virtual Desktop Manager – available for XP for free since 2002.

Or VirtuaWin, ManageDesk, Active Virtual Desktop, Cool Desk, WinSpace, Nvidia’s nView, Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager, DesktopAccel or any of the other Virtual desktops available for Windows.

As for price, the link DrJ posted has it about right. How much would an integrated video editing, audio playing and organising, DVD authoring, Music composing, photo organising and editing and website publishing suite cost, for PC? What? There is not one, just loads of frustratingly incompatible spensive 3rd party apps? Boo, rubbish!

Video editing? check. Windows Movie Maker comes with XP.

Audio playing and organising? Media Player. Pretty much the same organising as iTunes. Or indeed I could just use itunes. check.

DVD authoring? DVD burning is built-in. check. Producing my own movies to DVD? Yup Movie Maker does that. check.

Music composing? Got me there. Though I’m not sure how many professional musicians are using Garage Band.

Photo organising and editing? Thumbnails. Windows Gallery. Support for EXIF data and IPTC ratings/tags. Check.

website publishing suite? I’m not even sure what that might be or why I’d need one.

Cost? Apple Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.6 £78, Vista Home Premium £84 (or Basic for £67).

Again though it comes down to a different personality/mindset.

Apple’s approach is to try to provide an OS with loads of supplied apps. That makes it’s users happy because they don’t need to add anything themselves or do anything “complicated” like downloading and installing software.

That’s nice.

Conversely, Windows generally supplies basic but usable tools, and lets users choose from a massive selection of alternative software from other vendors.

That’s nice too.

Wow – multiple desktops eh? Blimey.
You mean like Microsofts Virtual Desktop Manager – available for XP for free since 2002.

“Note: We take great care to ensure that PowerToys work as they should, but they are not part of Windows and are not supported by Microsoft. For this reason, Microsoft Technical Support is unable to answer questions about PowerToys. PowerToys are for Windows XP only and will not work with Windows Vista.”

And you’re telling me that MS MovieMaker etc works as well as iLife? I’ve tried it, it does not in any way. It’s a pale imitation.

Time Machine is easy to use, and is very easy to navigate to the specified time you want to revert to. I don’t know of a built in indoze app that does this job so well.

Fact is, Apple have thought their software through a hell of a lot more than Microsoft do. MS rushed out Vista, just to beat Apple’s release of Leopard, and loads of people found it was rubbish. I know a few web codey bods, and software geeks, and they all told me to avoid Vista until a Service Pack was released. Everyone I know that bought a PC with Vista included, had problems with it.

Windows generally supplies basic but unusable tools, and forces users to have to revert to a massive selection of crappy alternative software from other vendors, which contain no end of bugs, and crash everything else because of software conflicts.

Yep. That’s about right!

Shut up.

No, I shant!

La la la la la la la!

Phlllwwlwgghhhh!

Vvvvrrrrp!

Boolooloolooloo!

😆

And you’re telling me that MS MovieMaker etc works as well as iLife? I’ve tried it, it does not in any way. It’s a pale imitation.

Dunno – probably not. It is a bit clunky but it let me stick together movies with stills, effects, transitions and audio tracks. That’s all I need. Good enough. If I wanted something better I’d download it.

Time Machine is easy to use, and is very easy to navigate to the specified time you want to revert to. I don’t know of a built in indoze app that does this job so well.

Vista can version control files, folders or drives via Shadow Copy.

But I could also setup a periodical backup job and maybe use RAID striping.

I know a few web codey bods, and software geeks, and they all told me to avoid Vista until a Service Pack was released. Everyone I know that bought a PC with Vista included, had problems with it.

Well I’m a REAL codey bod and software geek and would advise exactly the same thing about any brand new point-0 release operating system or major piece of software.

Although obviously Mac software is built by little pixies and is perfect from the moment it is conceived – it is completely immune to any teething problems, which is why everyone is using the Mac OS 10.0 or Mac OS 10.5.0 (rather than version 10.5.6)

Likewise I can see a benefit to being able to flip through tons of files easily and quickly, that would be handy. But I recognise that either those files still need to be opened to do that (so if they are 10MB then they’ll still take a while); OR every application has to provide a lightweight viewer version of itself; OR there is a second pre-rendered copy made of every single file needlessly wasting my disk space.

Just as a small experiment – I have a 143MB pdf file (scan of a user manual) on my HD. I just previewed it with Quicklook and was able view it immediately, and to scroll to any page more or less instantaneously. AIUI, the Quicklook app has the option of generating previews on the fly from the raw file, or using auxiliary data saved in addition inside the file. Of course there is a trade-off in speed and disk space, but in practice, the overhead is not noticeable.

GrahamS has it on points at the minute.

You Apple guys are going to have to do better than stamping your little virtual feet and shouting “It’s better…’cause it is…”

You Apple guys are going to have to do better than stamping your little virtual feet and shouting “It’s better…’cause it is…”

I don’t see anyone doing that. I gave a concrete example of how it’s better. In response GrahamS suggested that I should choose my bank so that I can use Microsoft Money. Hmmm… not too convinced.

GrahamS has it on points at the minute.

No he does not in any way! Don’t be so stupid. in fact, I’d say he’s some way behind, and he himself has admitted Windoze is not as good as Mac OSX, more or less!

Graham; I’m using 10.5.0; no probs here. Spose I could update, but I don’t see a need to, atm.

Shadow Copy is not as easy to use as Time Machine.

Face it; you can buy a new Mac, and straight out of the box, once you’ve plugged it in and turned it on (with an iMac, and wireless keyboard and mouse, that is literally all you have to do), it is ready to use. The initial set-up thing is a joy to use, and once you’ve gone through that, your machine is ready to go; internets, movie making, get pics from dijicam, print a document, the lot. Within just a few minutes. Networking with other Macs is a doddle, as is printer/NAS sharing, iTunes sharing, etc.

Mac produce better products for most home computer users. They looked at what most people wanted to do with a home computer, and tailored the hardware and software to those needs. Microsoft just seem to listen to geeky IT bods, who insist of having all sorts of complicated ways to achieve simple aims.

And even for heavy duty applications, Macs still rock. Number one platform for HD video production, and only Avid (very, very spensive) really offer a serious alternative. Wall-E was made using Macs. As was No Country For Old Men. And a good few other titles.

PCs can be tailor-made for business and industry applications. Macs can’t (and don’t try to) compete in these fields. But what they are designed to do, they do extremely well.

That said, my Home Entertainment PC is ok. A smart custom case gives it a look of other bits of my HiFi, rather than a computer. I use iTunes for music, and can play DVDs and stuff from it. And until recently, I needed it to download iPlayer stuff, watch F1 and footy online, and that. It has one or two advantages.

But I’ve had to add wireless capability, as well as Bluetooth (built in with Macs), and I’ve had issues with peripherals. Getting it to work with the networked printer was a right faff. And the other day, it decided to dump the drivers for my wireless card. With no explanation. I had to use my Mac to download the driver again, put it on a stick, and transfer it to my PC, to get it back up and running. And even though I’ve set it to prefer my home network, it sometimes connects to a neighbour’s unprotected wireless (shite signal, slooow speed). Why does it do that? I jolly well have not told it to.

I concede praps a greater knowledge and understanding of computers may be needed, on my part, to get the bugger to work seamlessly. I can’t be bothered learning all that, I find it interminable boring. I just want the thing to work. Like my Macs do.

everyone knows macs are better for normal people, its just weirdo’s that still use old fashioned pc’s, right? 😆 this’ll run and run all night.

rogerthecat – Member
Absolute tosh!
I run a businesses which is wholly Linux based with the exception of one Windows box for testing.
We have 5 laptops, 3 desktops, 2 servers all running Suse sweet as a nut and and 2 Asus EEE pcs running a modified version of Linux.

Sorry, but I stand by what I said.

I work at a company developing software (mostly scientific apps & drivers) for Linux on machines ranging from large servers to RT embedded apps, and not a single dev uses Linux on the desktop.

Also, frankly if it was as good on the desktop as MacOS or Windows it would have vastly more than a 1% market share.

Let me refer you to this blog[/url] for further info! in particular here’s my favourite post about the path your eye is supposed to take when trying to use the SUSE updates window:

Just one of many useless and poorly thought out Linux desktop apps.

Just one of many useless and poorly thought out Linux apps.

As opposed to the wonder that is the mac:

* Close a window, the application stays open.
* iTunes, Apple’s cunning attempt to kill your PC. What a steaming pile of poo!
* Four fingers, one mouse button. Big news: you can use a decent mouse. Except your laptop still only has one button…
* The killer app that’s persuading people to switch to Macs? Boot camp, so you can run Windows. Oh, and MS Office.

everyone knows macs are better for normal people, its just weirdo’s that still use old fashioned pc’s, right?

It’s that 10% majority of the population that defines normal 🙄

this is a question about the 10% figure. Does it count Business users and/or individual users?

Close a window, the application stays open.

Because I might want to close the document I’m working on, yet stay in the app. I don’t have a problem with it. Think it’s a much better system.

Four fingers, one mouse button

Wrong. PC users can only detect one button, but in fact there are 3. And the scroll ball goes in all directions!

The killer app that’s persuading people to switch to Macs? Boot camp, so you can run Windows. Oh, and MS Office.

Not really. Boot Camp is just one of the many superior features of /Mac OSX. And iWork is fully compatible with Office.

NEXT!

(I’m enjoying this)

Just one of many useless and poorly thought out Linux apps.
As opposed to the wonder that is the mac:

* Close a window, the application stays open.

Yes, you’re closing the document, not the program.

* iTunes, Apple’s cunning attempt to kill your PC. What a steaming pile of poo!

Oh and the Linux equivalent is … ? Amarok? A poor man’s iTunes clone (yay! you can make up for it’s lack of functionality by writing Python plugins!)

* Four fingers, one mouse button. Big news: you can use a decent mouse. Except your laptop still only has one button…

Two fingers tapped on touchpad = right click
two fingers on touchpad moved up and down = scroll around your document

* The killer app that’s persuading people to switch to Macs? Boot camp, so you can run Windows. Oh, and MS Office.

I would argue the killer app is OSX itself, however, yes it runs real 100% compatible MS Office and real, quality, proprietary desktop apps. Not shoddy semi-working alternatives like openOffice, FSPOT, Cinelerra, Gimp, etc.

everyone knows macs are better for normal people, its just weirdo’s that still use old fashioned pc’s, right?
It’s that 10% majority of the population that defines normal

I’m not saying Windows is not as good – far from it – I use both myself. Just never Linux on the desktop!

Because I might want to close the document I’m working on, yet stay in the app. I don’t have a problem with it. Think it’s a much better system.

Assuming you don’t care about memory use, cpu cycles etc.

And the scroll ball goes in all directions

Oooh! Like the clitoris on an IBM laptop? The one I had in 1999, with three buttons?

Boot Camp is just one of the many superior features of /Mac OSX

It’s a necessity, not a superior feature. A hack. And iWork doesn’t work (did you see what I did there? :-)) very well with the rest of Office: MS Project, Visio, …

DrJ: no I didn’t. I suggested that PDF was an odd choice of format for bank statements. Quicken and Sage were also on the list, as was CSV which RudeBoy atests that even macs can handle. 😉

RudeBoy: yeah pretty much same kind of angle I’m coming from.

Macs come as a package with lots of reasonable apps and typically work out of the box. That’s cool.

PCs are a lot more open-ended and flexible. If you can work them then they can do everything a Mac can do and more. That’s cool too.

Some people like the limited scope of Macs because it leads to tighter integration and stability.
Conversely some people find that a bit too restricting and prefer the openess of Windows.

Horse for courses.

I can work computers so I like PCs. Others don’t want to worry about working the computer, they just want it to do a job. Macs are good for them.

Just never Linux on the desktop

I use Vista and XP, mostly. I have used Linux extensively in the past, and for home use it’s fine.

I have used Linux extensively in the past, and for home use it’s fine.

Again, for most people this is so so wrong!

DVD’s still don’t play properly out of the box (VLC got close but the menus didn’t work properly), suspend/resume still broken, default sound level on ALSA still too high causing clipped/distorted audio, can’t use all the features of any currently popular printer/scanners like ink level monitoring, can’t easily edit videos, can’t accurately rip CDs.

Just look on the Ubuntu forums, on 90% of the support topics, the answer posted will be “open up a terminal and type BLAHBLAHCOMMAND”. Yeah- great for home use …

i don’t use the trackpad on my work dell laptop cause its such a pain in the ass to use, on the other hand my old ibook G4 trackpad with one button works flawlessly. I don’t run bootcamp on my iMac, no need for it so not a necessity at all.

The 90% that don’t use it from your figures are just used to windows because its what nearly every workplace uses, so for the uninformed they go and buy a windows pc and yes you can buy one a lot cheaper (with poorer spec). Its much easier for the average person to drop a few hundred quid on a cheap laptop than say 700 on a macbook. Doesn’t make it better.

I’m bored now, macs good, pc’s for weirdo’s 😀

Its much easier for the average person to drop a few hundred quid on a cheap laptop than say 700 on a macbook. Doesn’t make it better.

Not really a fair comparison, though, is it? You could drop 700 on a cheap macbook, or 2000+ on a top of the range Vaio, too…

Every time I go to my parents’ house I’m stuck with their mac, nothing ever quite works how I want it to, it’s always getting in the way. I dare say if I bought one I’d get used to it, but why would I want to? I’ve yet to see any real advantage to a mac, certainly noone (no, not even you rudeboy!) has managed to post one on this thread!

Enough: time to take the dog out. I’m bored too 🙂

You all get so passionate about it, but they are both just tools, just means to an end, and girls don’t care which one you like. 😉