Can't We All Just Get Along? (Win/Mac)

Great Debates
21

Spoken like a true mac bigot.

I do full video captures on my PC and make SVCDs and VCDs that play on a standalone DVD player. Whenever I’ve used video capture on a Mac, it is mediocre. It does not perform as well as I’d want it to, and generally doesn’t have the power to capture in the modes I desire.

Windows machines are great at capturing, manipulating, and editing video. The Mac interface attempts to be stupid proof. I want more control over my computer than a Mac will allow. I also want more control over what goes in the case.
This is why I build my own PCs.

Not true. For a Mac which does the same things my PC can do, it would cost a buttload. My computer is faster and more powerful than any Mac I’ve seen, and I wouldn’t want to go from my three button trackball to that sad mouse that they ship with a Mac. You may find it better for what things you do, but my PC is superlative for what I do.

22

This is just a crazy idea, you know, off the top of my head: have you tried using two fingers at once on the mouse?

One for the left button, one for the right…

23

This isn’t the first time that we’ve seen Mac vs PC on this board, but I can’t resist tossing in an analogy that works for me:

PC users are like car people who love to tinker with their cars – soup them up, buy lots of bits and pieces from J.C. Whitney, polish them on weekends, etc.

Mac people are those who just want to get in the damn thing and go somewhere, without having to worry about all the bits and pieces.

Both are perfectly valid viewpoints, appealing to different types of people. After extensive computer experience going back to TRASH-80s and Commodore-64s and both Mac and PC platforms since, I have to say that I own both and value each for different things. Instead of spewing on each other, why not enjoy what a long strange trip it’s been. Thank Ghod we no longer have to keyboard in programs…

24

Really? Damn, now I have to stop using Virtual PC on my iMac to run Office 2000 in Windows 98… (screenshots available on request :slight_smile: )

Virtual PC is fine for what’s generally considered “applications” or “productivity software.” Games are its weakest point, but that’s because VPC doesn’t emulate anything resembling a high-edge video card. Speed is okay, though I find that the new Virtual PC 4.0 gives a significant performance increase (probably because it uses the PowerPC’s ability to directly perform endian-conversions, instead of doing it in software).

Not to get inflammatory or anything, but if Mac owners feel the need to “defend” their computers, that implies that there are people out there who are attacking their choices. Some of the earlier messages in this thread certainly have a Windows-offensive-drive tone to them…

(All I know is that I use Windows NT every day at work, and continue to feel that it reinforces my Mac-using habits.)

25

My post mentioned that I thought virtual PC would be fine for things other than graphics/games. So no, a screenshot is not necessary.

I find it ironic in all this that people with macs who have a real distaste for windows PC feel a need to buy a product to emulate the very thing they hate.

In this thread so far, Mac people have been doing most of the original points, and windows countering it. So, therefore I would not say that windows people are on the attack…mearly some pro-mac people once again, trying to justify their purchases…which as I mentioned are good machines, they are just way overpriced and underpowered for what you pay for…IMHO of course! :slight_smile:

26

Usually it’s because Mac users run into Windows-only requirements. “Submit your resume in Windows Word 2000 format,” for instance.

(Though it is also fun to bring some Windows-using Mac-unsavvy friends over and watch them freak out when I start booting up Windows on the Mac … “that’s a gag screen saver, right?”)

“Spoken like a true mac bigot.” --Hastur

“Apple makes computers that are pretty and exceptional in a thousand small ways, none of which particularly matter … as far as getting work done goes.” --hansel

“[Macs] are not the ideal home computers.” --bernse :wink:

Not quite entirely innocent there, are we? :slight_smile:

And not to drag this out into Yet Another Computer Platform debate, I’ll simply iterate that the reason why Macs cost more than comparable PCs is because

(a) Macs come with more features standard, and
(b) Apple has to actually fund monies for R&D expenses (new motherboards, cases, peripherals, etc.) that most PC companies don’t need to deal with.

27

My roots are PC. I started with PC. But I have some friends who had some lovely Macs, and I was enticed to try 'em out. I love my Macs. But I still like my PC.

I have gotten some SHIT from PC users (some in my own family) for getting a Mac. And mind you, I am not abandoning my PC, I still like it, still use it, and drool over the new PC models. But I still get grief. All the cracks about “iFruit”, that Macs are not “real” computers, and the dire warnings that I will not be able to do anything with Macs. At my old job, a pro-PC co-worker would just get nasty with a pro-Mac worker. The PC person always started any arguments, the poor Mac lady got so she didn’t even want to talk about computers, period. I have never seen this go the other way. Granted, it’s partly because there are so many more PC people than Mac people floating around. But that is kinda the point too.

My Mac friends have said nothing derisive to me about my PC. When I got my first computer, a PC, they just said that they were glad I got a computer, period.

I don’t think Mac people are trying to “justify” their purchases, I think they are just SICK of the cracks, and the crap. I mean, look at me. I am pretty “cross-platform”, I use and own both systems. But some PC people are just irked that I used (my) money to buy a Mac! Why should they care? Why should they give a damn? I haven’t been into Macs that long (a little over a year) but I can already understand why some Mac people can have a little “edge” to them.

28

PC: Intel or AMD? Or Cyrix? I’m using a Cyrix, but I’m not liking it. Or why not Sparc? I know a guy who uses a Sparc as his primary box.

I’ve always liked Macs, hardware-wise. I’m not such a big fan of the OS. But, fortunately, there’s Debian Linux for PPC.

Windows? Naaaaah. I play my games on a console, or an emulation thereof. Really, why argue Win vs. Mac when all Windows is is Dosshell trying to be MacOS?

29

I must be out of it. I thought it was generally accepted that Windows was less stable, less intuitive, more buggy and more saturated with such annoyances as “the active desktop”, or “the Channel bar” or Mr. (Ms?) Clippit. (Memo to Redmond: Just let me get my work done, gang.)

So why do I own a PC? Cost is one reason, but mostly because everyone else does: the wide user base makes it a breeze to share files and it gives me access to a much broader selection of software.

I’m happy that newer Macs can emulate PCs to some extent, but that seems to be a hassle for Word or Excel (OK, that’s ignorance talking, correct me if you want) and for me the general unavailability of statistical programs in Macland language is a killer.

So MacUsers: We know our operating system s*cks. The upside is that we get cheaper hardware and a broader selection of software for both games and specialized office products.

30

Working at a company that supplies software to school districts our biggest pain in the ass is when you get some tech guy at a district who thinks the Business Office and Administration needs Macs.

A Mac’s place is in the classroom at a school. Not on the desk of the business manager. Macs are fine and do some things better than PC’s and I have no problem with that but the business world is run on a PC for the most part. Macs cause headaches when they try to run software designed for a PC. Hopefully these compatibility issues will be resolved some day.
Until that time though the last thing I want to hear someone say is:

“We’re running your software on our Macs and…”
Give me the guy with a Dell rack system in a controlled climate server room with Dell PC’s on everyone’s desk any day. (This of course being the exception in school districts also…but it’s a good kind of quirky!)

31

flowbark:

I agree that Windows is unstable, unintuitive, buggy, and annoying, on an absolute scale… but I’ve never had nearly as much trouble with PCs as I’ve had with Macs.

I’ve had very little trouble with Windows 2000. But even my Win95 installation, which bluescreens several times daily (usually harmlessly), is heavenly compared to the Mac I had, which would freeze stone-dead at random times and wouldn’t let me interact with it at all while Netscape was taking its time laying out a page.

Sometimes one program would monopolize the system long enough that my PPP connection would time out and disconnect, then my Internet applications would crash, then the whole system would go down. I found it hard to believe that money actually changed hands in order for that machine to be designed, manufactured, packaged, and placed on my desk.

32

What model was this, and how long ago did you use it? It sounds like a lemon, or maybe it was configured improperly. Or something. I have no problems like this on my (two) Macs. My iMac has been on continously for over a week. No problems.

33

yosemitebabe:

Performa 630CD. Yeah, it’s old… but it was doing that from the day we bought it until the day we got rid of it (a few weeks ago).

I’ve had similar trouble on almost every Mac I’ve used, although not as pronounced. We’ve also owned a PowerMac 6100, and in school I used all sorts of LCs and PowerMacs and a couple G3s.

Maybe I’m just cursed.

34

Yeah, maybe your Macs were cursed, Mr. 2001! Because if everyone’s Macs were that crappy, they wouldn’t have the customer loyalty that they do.

In the year I’ve been into Macs, I’ve had 2 6100s and an iMac. I sold the slower 6100, but it was a dandy machine. The current 6100 is great as well, though it is a little neglected these days, after I got the iMac. All these machines I bought on eBay. Just took my chances. All work fine.

Sometimes system software can be a big problem. (I say this with my ample year of experience! :)) I try to stick with the stable OSes - OS 8.1 (on the oldest Mac, since sold) and now 8.6. I ran OS 7.5.3 on a 6100 for a while, it was horrible. And (don’t laugh) I installed OS 7.5 on a Zip Disk on the 6100, just to be geeky. Crashy and very unstable - I’m glad it was just on the Zip! I hear 7.6, 8.1 and 8.6 are good. Can’t speak for 9x, never tried it.

Also, I am told Conflict Catcher is a must. I am glad to have it, don’t use it all that much, though. (Knock on wood.)

OK, quite a hijack, there! Carry on, everyone!

35

Don’t know what channel I was watching the other day, but I ran across a sales presentation for Apple. Steve Jobs was on introducing Apple’s new DVD burner, and how it is integrated with iMovie, etc.,etc… Even though it had some cheesy parts that reminded me of the old Ginsu knives commercials (“But wait! There’s more!” (smattering of applause from the audience.), I sat riveted to my screen. And I had to come to one, earth-shattering conclusion.

Steve Jobs gets me hot.

As a Windows users, I could definitely “get along” with him.

36

I’ve become sort of cross-platform myself, although if you cut me I still bleed six colors.

95 (reactions circa 95): Four cheers for how far Microsoft has brought this architecture! I can USE this, without having to add anything to it to make it palatable! No way in hell I’d swap in my Mac to get a PC with 95, but this is so much better than Win 3.11 even with Norton Desktop replacing the stupid program manager, and in general it is so much like the System 7 universe I’m used to on the surface. Congrats definitely in order here. The protected memory and preemptive multitasking don’t seem to be much better than the cooperative multitasking and shared-pool memory on the Mac, but it points out how it’s supposed to be. Hope Stevie is listening. MS could get better at this.

NT 4.0 (reactions 98): Hmm. I’ve heard the rumors that this is VMS architecture reimplemented with a Windows 95 face grafted onto it. Definitely not the same as W95, just feels different. Oddly enough, for all the new power it is supposed to provide, I hate workstation. Hard to explain why, but it feels like I have LESS control than I did with 95, and that it is hiding MORE of the real computer from me and treating me like I’m too stupid to use a computer. Server is nice. I really wish there were a Mac equivalent of NT Server, though. But thank God, or Bill at least, for Mac Services on NT Server.

98 (reactions 98): With this silly-ass version numbering scheme, whereby what ought to have been Windows 4.0 became “Windows 95”, it is not immediately obvious to the general public that Windows 98 is essentially “Windows 4.1” or even “Windows 4.0v2”. Not much going on here unless you have USB, is there? And buggy as hell in a lot of ways that 95 wasn’t.

Linux / Gnome / KDE (circal 1998): Get a GUI!!! A pseudo-shell that lets you launch a few apps but requires you to go to the command line to change parameters as simple, ubiquitous, and obvious as screen resolution isn’t much of a shell. And I couldn’t even change the blasted screen res from the command line. Sorry, I was not a DOS afficionado. I want a bloody Control Panel for every setting I might conceivably have to change, and it ought to be self-explanatory, and it ought to work. Aside from not being commercial, you don’t have much going for you yet. But keep at it, I like the idea.

W2K (ca. 1999): Yaww-wwwn. USB for NT, plus some interface gizmos that eat up processor cycles. Don’t see any reason to ditch NT 4 for this, and too bad you can’t buy 4 any more.

Meanwhile, on the Cupertino side–

Mac OS 7.6 (ca. 1997): Way cool! better multitasking, and a scriptable Finder. Whoo-hoo!

Mac OS 8.0 (ca. 1998): Uh…call me when you get rid of the enormous slowdown in the Finder. Don’t know what you did to enable multitasking of Finder functions, but everything feels like molasses. And my favorite extension breaks.

Mac OS 8.1 (ca: 1999): Ummm…OK, the speed hits of 8.0 are gone. I could use this. And I like the multitasking Finder as long as it doesn’t cost me anything. It still breaks my favorite extension.

Mac OS 8.6 (ca: late 1999): Whooo! The most solid OS since…oh, I dunno, maybe System 6.0.5! I like going for a month without crashing. That is really unusual, I mistreat computers and they crash. And faster by far on the same CPU. And another third party developer replaced my favorite extension, so I am upgrading for keeps from System 7.

Mac OS 9 (ca: 2000): Yaww-wwn. I don’t need the multiple user thingie. It’s less stable. Only reason I have it is because OS X Public Beta requires it (and not 8.6) for classic apps.

Mac OS X Public Beta: Please, someone, carbonize the Finder and save us from Aqua! And must I restart every time I change a networking parameter? What is this, Windows or something? Ugh! And how about some printer drivers? And some native apps? OK, I like the promise of Unix bones underneath this thing. Now make it work like a Mac or I’ll stick with 8.6 forever.

37

You have just experienced the fabled “Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field,” which makes everything Jobs says in a speech unbelievably cool for about three days afterwards. Fear it or embrace it, it’s hard to ignore.

AHunter3, I used the Multiple Users feature of OS9 all the time on my G4 at my old job. It was the newest fanciest computer in the building, and I knew that student workers in the evening and weekends would come in and play with it. Which was fine as long as they didn’t go poking through my email or futzing with my application settings - so I set up a guest account for them and password-protected mine. Now at home, on my own computer, yeah, I never use it. But I do use OS9’s Keychain feature, which comes in very handy.

Also, I’m pretty sure that the final version of OS X will not require you to restart after changing network settings. I’m sure the native apps will come along soon enough.

For me, I prefer Macs because of the attention to detail Apple usually has compared to the attention to detail Windows often doesn’t have. Practically everything is where it ought to be on a Mac. On a PC? Well, if I want to make a boot floppy disk, I can find the utility for that in the “Add/Remove Programs” control panel. If anyone can give me a rational explanation for this… well, I’ll shut up then.

BTW, these days Microsoft Office documents transfer from PC to Mac and vice versa without any conversion necessary. It’s quite nice, in fact. (Excluding Access, of course, which doesn’t exist for the Mac…)

38

Amen, halleujah, and encore.

Anyone wondering why Mac owners are “edgy” or “defensive” definitely needs to hear from people like yosemitebabe, who get flak just for even daring to use something different…

39

Every time I have gotten into a Mac vs. PC debate, it was started by a Mac fan. The last one in these forums was when I asked about what kind of software I should get for recording music on my PC, and one of the first posts was someone telling me to get a Mac. When I asked why, I was basically told ‘You can’t do that on PC’. Of course I attacked Macs after that!

There are a few things that Macs are better at than PCs, I’ll give them that. It’s not so much because of superior hardware, it’s just that their software and hardware are custom made for each other and for performing particular tasks. A Mac is like a game console in that way…if you design the system for one particular thing, it will be more powerful at that than a less specialized machine. A Sega Dreamcast has a 200 Mhz processor and 26 megs of RAM, total, yet for certain games it performs nearly as well as a 800 Mhz PIII with 256 Mb of RAM.

40

Why people say Mac’s are just things to have, I don’t know. The G4 is an awesome chip. I wish I could use one with my PC. However, I think that’s the only good thing Mac has going for it (Well, they’re not that bad off now that they’re using the better NVIDIA chips instead of the crappy ATI chips). However, I prefer my SoundBlaster Live! to what anything the Mac can offer, I prefer the far lower prices, and I enjoy being able to tinker around inside my computer, knowing I can upgrade any part when it gets outdated. I enjoy the GUI on Windows, and find it just as intuitive or more so than Mac OS. It’s hard to compare the two: Mac OS is simply different.

When people compare Macs to PC’s though, they generally refer to Pentium III’s. Then they try to compare the new G4 to the Pentium 4 (Which sucks right now because it’s too new). However, when will we see an accurate comparison to an Athlon? You can get 3 Athlon 1.1 ghz systems for what it would cost to get a powerful G4 system, and the Athlon far outperforms the pIII. How would it stand up to a G4? I believe they would be fairly equal, which would then discredit claims that “Mac is more powerful”.

Video editing: All my friends who are into high-quality video editing use PC systems, even the two of them who are Mac people. They simply prefer the cheaper, more powerful video editing software available for PC.

Sound editing: I’d say they’re fairly equal. There are better sound cards on the market for PC’s (ie, Sound Blaster Live! Platinum). Software is most likely to be more abundant and cheaper on PC as well (I don’t know this area too well, just basic knowledge about it).

Graphics editing: The G4 will usually win because of how many operations it can do. However, I believe an Athlon 1.1 Ghz with a 64 mb GeForce 2 Ultra will beat a G4 733 with the GeForce 2 MX (The only GeForce I’ve noticed for Mac so far, and it’s better than the Radeon POS). With the more affordable price of the Athlon, I would think this would be the better buy.

Mac’s are good machines. They’re not good average Joe computers (since the average Joe is an idiot and can’t figure out a good computer, and iMacs suck hind tit), but they are powerful for what they do. Like I said, I would love to have a G4 for PC. As far as OS goes, yeah, Win98 has issues, but once you learn what those issues are, it’s easy to avoid encountering them again. I think PC’s have better OS’es in Win2k (And Whistler is going to be far superior), but that’s primarily a network/business OS.