Interesting read about Mac productivity

[lowededwookie]

http://homepage.mac.com/mstamper77/CoolStuff%20folder/CoolStuff/

It's quite long but it does have some interesting points.

Anyone else here feel real tired after using a Windows machine?

[thingy]

So she went from Windows 3.1 (blerg) to Windows NT 4.0 (not very customisable, probably a very locked down system to as it was for work purposes), to Linux (don't get me started, least user-friendly OS ever, complete shit unless you have the time/patience to learn 100001 commands just to install it let alone use it - and the GUI's are TERRIBLE), to Mac OS10.3.

Going by the IBM-compatible OS's she's used, no fucking wonder she didn't fucking like IBM's!

The first thing I do for any windows installation since Windows 95 (this includes both PC and Mac OS's) is turn the resolution to the maximum the screen can handle, and even THEN I have to shrink text size, bar sizes, menu sizes etc. She's the type of person who would make her resolution on a 30" Apple Cinema display 640 * 480, and STILL have to increase the size of all her icons etc. She doesn't need a new computer, she needs glasses!

No respect for the writer of this article at all.

Note: No, I'm not mac bashing, just bashing the writer of this article.

Many of the "really cool" features she's talking about, funnily enough, are available for PC! Some were even existant on MS Windows long before they were in MacOS! She talks about them like they're mac-only things, but of course she'd only know that because she's comparing a MS operating system made in 1995 with a mac one made in 2004! 9 years difference, of course Windows wouldn't have made any changes. Even if they did, she wouldn't know because she's changed to the most user unfriendly OS available.

"I saw my bf plug his printer in, and it just worked!". Yes, Windows NT couldn't do that, but 95 onwards started having such features which were constantly improved upon. Sure you may need to throw in a disk with drivers, but there's such a large variety of hardware options out there for PC you can't expect Microsoft to write code for all of them. Many mac devices [gasp] need drivers installed too!

[yobsta]

i switched to osx about a year ago...so sick of windows and virus hassles...I personally think people should try a mac with osx for about a week and make their decisions on computer and os choice after they have used windows and mac osx...i now have sold my pc's and i dont think i will bother buying another..ill stick with my macs that i have bought recently till something better comes along...its nice to have a computer that just works

[dwarfthrower]

Yep.... What thingy said.

[lowededwookie]

Actually I thought Thingy's arguements were as one-sided as the original writer's. He only looked at the cosmetic side of the article. My conclusions from her work was that she is indeed poor sighted and so in that regards I found that side of things to be dumb but then other points she made were sensible and should not have been written off so easily by Thingy. Sorry, Thingy, I'm not making a personal attack or anything.

For example her thoughts about the PDF printing being built into the OS. Windows has no ability to do this without expensive software or Shareware alternatives.

System Preferences is so much better in its layout than the hodge podge of apps on Windows. One app, multiple tabs, logical.

As for plug and play on Windows? It's not true plug and play. Plug a camera into the Mac and it automatically loads up iPhoto. Do so on Windows and you would first have to install drivers before you could do anything. Plug in a bluetooth adapter on the Mac and all you need to do is setup the pairing. On Windows you need to first install the software and drivers. Then you need to setup the pairing end even then it's not guaranteed to work as well as on the Mac. Video cameras on Windows? Not as easy as plugging in the FireWire lead and firing up iMovie is it? Sure XP is better in terms of PnP than previous versions but it still doesn't have the same abilities as MacOS X where you just plug it in and go without having to wait or do anything.

Of course there are some things Windows is better at than the Mac. There is much more hardware support for Windows as these are the first things written. There is a lot of software that just isn't compatible with Mac but then a copy of Virtual PC can solve that in most cases.

No system is perfect but what she wrote about problem solving on a Mac is definately true. Windows problems tend to be some obscure thing such as one DLL that is set to read only. When you've got to search over 30000 files to find one stupid file that is set to read only instead of read/write, you can see how time wasting Windows is. Everything required for a Mac app is right there in the app itself. I've spent many months on some jobs only to find out a corrupted version or an older version of a DLL has been installed over the top of the System one by lame installation software. This does not happen on the Mac under MacOS X.

Yes I am a Mac fan but I'm a fan because it just works. I don't have to piss around with problem solving for things that should not have to happen.

The only good thing I can say about Windows is that it keeps me employed. :D

[Al]

Different solutions suit different people. Obviously some of the features that macs have work for her, so great.

Personally my memory and visual identification of icons is great. I use windows for simple stuff like bt and playing movies etc. That works no worries. I code in it all day at work and even though I sporadically reboot and install shitloads of different programs for whatever i'm working on it has remained stable...

Each to their own.

[thingy]

Actually I thought Thingy's arguements were as one-sided as the original writer's. He only looked at the cosmetic side of the article. My conclusions from her work was that she is indeed poor sighted and so in that regards I found that side of things to be dumb but then other points she made were sensible and should not have been written off so easily by Thingy. Sorry, Thingy, I'm not making a personal attack or anything.
Not taken as an attack at all. :)

For example her thoughts about the PDF printing being built into the OS. Windows has no ability to do this without expensive software or Shareware alternatives.
True.

System Preferences is so much better in its layout than the hodge podge of apps on Windows. One app, multiple tabs, logical.
System prefs handles a lot of things, but a HELL of a lot of the time I find myself going to Macintosh HD:Applications:Utilities and finding some discreet program to make the changes I want (mostly Directory Access and changing printers - but there's a few other programs in there too which would be better suited to System Preferences).

As for plug and play on Windows? It's not true plug and play. Plug a camera into the Mac and it automatically loads up iPhoto. Do so on Windows and you would first have to install drivers before you could do anything. Plug in a bluetooth adapter on the Mac and all you need to do is setup the pairing. On Windows you need to first install the software and drivers. Then you need to setup the pairing end even then it's not guaranteed to work as well as on the Mac. Video cameras on Windows? Not as easy as plugging in the FireWire lead and firing up iMovie is it? Sure XP is better in terms of PnP than previous versions but it still doesn't have the same abilities as MacOS X where you just plug it in and go without having to wait or do anything.
Wrong. Not all devices "plug in and work straight away". I have had devices on a mac which I've had to install the drivers before it could be seen. Scanners, external burners, printers. What made it even better was that the documentation made no mention of drivers or anything else at all. I had to install the software that came with the device (even though I had no intention to use its software) before the mac would see the device. Macs don't have the wide countless varieties of hardware and different configurations to deal with either, which is why most Mac users are under the illusion (as you are) that EVERYTHING just plugs in and works. Windows doesn't confuse us by making us doing something that should be totally irrelivant to get a device working.

Of course there are some things Windows is better at than the Mac. There is much more hardware support for Windows as these are the first things written. There is a lot of software that just isn't compatible with Mac but then a copy of Virtual PC can solve that in most cases.
Despite there not being as much hardware support, that hardware that IS supported is generally of bigger more reliable brands & names. Way too much no-name stuff in the Windows world. Unless you've already got a mac and you need VirtualPC to run software, you are better off getting a PC as it would be a hell of a lot faster and half the price to get the PC software/hardware required than getting the mac hardware/software PLUS virtualPC.

No system is perfect but what she wrote about problem solving on a Mac is definately true. Windows problems tend to be some obscure thing such as one DLL that is set to read only. When you've got to search over 30000 files to find one stupid file that is set to read only instead of read/write, you can see how time wasting Windows is. Everything required for a Mac app is right there in the app itself. I've spent many months on some jobs only to find out a corrupted version or an older version of a DLL has been installed over the top of the System one by lame installation software. This does not happen on the Mac under MacOS X.
I'll give you this one for now. I've had that precise thing happen to me in OS9 many a time, but I have been tied up in other duties to do as much mac troubleshooting as I used to in my pre-OSX days.

Yes I am a Mac fan but I'm a fan because it just works. I don't have to piss around with problem solving for things that should not have to happen.

The only good thing I can say about Windows is that it keeps me employed. :D
Prior to 10.3 I would have reversed what you said. 10.3 has turned me in to a mac fan as well (they've finally gotten it right), but I haven't been able to afford changing over as yet (My computer at home is 3 years old and still going strong even with the latest games - so no need to make any changes).

I tried to ensure my post looked as though she was the only one I was giving shit to, not Macs. The point she was alluding to (ie, that they are good if not better than PC's these days) I would have to kinda agree with. Her supporting arguments were shocking, and she was just proving to be very clueless herself. It was her I was opposed to, basically.

[thingy]

Only on mac can you:

* Change the permission on a folder, tell it to apply these changes to all enclosed items, only to have LESS THAN HALF of the items have it applied. Fucking hell, I've manually had to change the permissions on 10 friggin folders so I could actually use the program, despite the fact I went to the Applications folder and told it that EVERYONE can read & write, and told it to apply these permissions to all enclosed items.

[muga]

I remember trying to setup wireless internet to an iBook - it wouldn't accept the WEP key even though it was right, so I had to remove WEP and just use the MAC filter. The other 2 machines on the network were XP machines they went on perfect, not a trouble in the world.

Then trying to get the mac to use the printer installed on the XP machine to work through the network on the iBook - that is an issue that is still not fixed. It's a HP Laser 1000 printer - NFI how to get it working on the mac.

I just don't like mac's at all, I find them hard to navigate around and having to open and close programs seems to take forever, then little things pop up and down from the menu at random.

I'll stick to my XP machine - it does everything I need to do.

[evil]

I switched to mac os x about 9 months ago, and I rekon I'm 20% more efficient. Yeah I'm a geek that knows unix, so the switch actually gave me the benefit of a REAL shell (and no, cygwin on windoze doesn't count as decent ...), but just the lack of viruses and other things like expose are just brilliant. And no fucking registry to screw you over. Dunno how I lasted so long on win boxes (win 2k OK, Win XP == piece of shit)

[evil]

despite the fact I went to the Applications folder and told it that EVERYONE can read & write, and told it to apply these permissions to all enclosed items.

Did you tell the Applications folder gently, or forcefully?

I suspect you mean the finder, which is only a gui app that wraps command line tools like chmod and chown. If you're browsing newtork drives you may not have the permissions you think you have, and hence things won't be changed.

I had a similar problem with a network I built last year at a music studio. 1 windows domain controller, bunch of laptops/PCs, 4 mac servers and an apple raid. I was using SMB (ie native windows) and weird things happened with permissions and groups. Turned on appletalk and haven't had a problem since.

OS X ain't perfect, but it's much better to work with once you get an understanding of unix stuff

[thingy]

I'm talking about programs I'm trying to run, which means from the local drive. I installed these apps under one user account, then I log in as the user who is going to be using the machine and realise that despite them having admin access, they still can't use these programs because they require write permission to their own install directory which the OS didn't give them. It means I have to go through changing permissions so this user CAN write to those directories. Yeah, that's VERY smart and simple isn't it? :rolleyes: Then, to top it all off is the issue I was talking about there - I decided to save time by doing it at the "applications" folder level, which of course only passed on the settings to less than half of the program folders I needed it to.

"Ohh ohh ohh, but you can just to chown and chmod". Try telling a home user that. That means bringing up the command line, which funnily was one of the major gripes and things mac users used to point out when talking about how evil Windows is.

Sure, on your mac you can plug in hardware and 95% of the time it will "just work", but at least in windows I can install software, change accounts and it will load.

Permissions in OS10 seem to have taken over where drive fragmentation left off in OS9. A significant amount of my problems are fixed by removing corrupt preferences files, and instead of running a defrag/disk doctor tool I run the fix permissions tool.

[V_Max]

the switch actually gave me the benefit of a REAL shell (and no, cygwin on windoze doesn't count as decent ...)On that front, Monad (http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=25915) looks really interesting. I've only had a quick play so I can't pass judgement yet, but from the videos it seems very cool.

[druid]

I'm not touching the pointless Mac debate with a 10 meter chopstick. However some claims made me curious especially when the generalisations are so gross:


As for plug and play on Windows? It's not true plug and play. Plug a camera into the Mac and it automatically loads up iPhoto. Do so on Windows and you would first have to install drivers before you could do anything.

I would like to know what cameras and Windows versions you've used since I've never experienced anything like that. Most cameras show up as cameras or removable drives and on XP you can choose the default app to use. I don't because I strongly dislike that type of behaviour. Always loading iPhoto or some other app would be disgusting.


Windows problems tend to be some obscure thing such as one DLL that is set to read only. When you've got to search over 30000 files to find one stupid file that is set to read only instead of read/write, you can see how time wasting Windows is.

Not saying it isn't possible but I can't fathom a DLL that would require write access. More info?


I've spent many months on some jobs only to find out a corrupted version or an older version of a DLL has been installed over the top of the System one by lame installation software.

Many months? You seem to have issues with DLLs. :p Given the requisite permissions, can you not do damage like this on almost any operating system? Blame the 3rd party developer(s) and not the OS.

[wolfpac181]

Blah....

OSX is aqua on BSD, hacked up, but BSD nonetheless.
I get messy "not responding" errors on mac, isn't perfect.
Reason why mac's I think have bad names are cause it used to be Rich dick-goblins could affort the thousands of dollars it took to get a mac.
it is kinda dork that they take one thing, hack it up, and sell it off as something that will change the world........if you could afford it.
If Unix was a vagina, OSX is a shaved vagina with glitter around it. Still the same thing!

Windows (98,xp,2k) It's more likke your car, lot's of maintainace required to keep it top shape. Update this, update that, but at the end of the day, it's still running and going strong. Best games, nothing can touch it for game market. PC's are fairly cheap, though paying hundreds for an OS that is more ass lag for updating does seem crappy. Thousand of made apps out for the windows group, and all are fairly reasonable for price.

*ix Family (linux, unix, bsd) These guys are body building midgets. Can do anything really. Webservers, sql servers, desktops, multi arch's. It's nice, works great, can be picked up free usually. Billions of apps, but way too overwhelming most of the time, and so many copycats; how many different versions of Nmap do I really need. Stupid people can't understand these platforms, so transition from Win to Lin usually results in suicide, or murder.
No un-geek person wants to us command lines still.

The article writer still sucked.
"I hate windows cause it's 3.oldshit and it is ugly, I hate linux cause I forgot ./configure a few times, I love MACS cause Icons look pretty!" Blah. bench test of bitches don't stadnd well with the rest of the world.