Arrgh, could a moderator please close those quotes for me?
Here are the intended links…
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=61514
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=58244
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=59739
Sheesh. It’s a matter of personal preference. I have no problem believing that some people really have good reasons for preferring PCs. I would hope that many PC users would have no problem accepting that Mac users have good reasons for preferring Macs.
My main issue is that people be informed properly, on BOTH sides. (No B.S. about how a 1998 $900+ iMac is the cheapest Mac out there, for instance. 
) Just information, not clouded with so much bias and emotion. And maybe, let people tinker with both systems, to see which they prefer. Not just railroad them into one system over the other. (Which is what happened to me.) I see this as being a problem more with the PC side, since there are SO many more PC users. Not that all Mac users are exempt from being biased, but there are a lot less Mac users overall. They have less of an opportunity to “railroad” the newbie computer user to the Mac side.
I give credit to Monster that he has managed to present information in a balanced manner, so much so that some people have actually bought Macs after listening to him. I try to do this as well. I love Macs but I can’t realistically believe that everyone I encounter will (or should) be getting one. And I believe it works the other way - not every new computer user is better off with a PC, no matter how much some of you prefer them over Macs.
Yeah, so?
So?
If you want to take personal examples, then I can conclusively prove that Macs suck sour frog ass, simply on the basis that I’ve had more trouble with them than PCs.
But I know that that’s not conclusive proof… because one or two instances of bad luck do NOT form a strong basis of evidence.
“Your Mileage May Vary”.
Tejota:
First, it’s vanishing menus - not vanishing windows. Second, everything that goes on has everything to do with the multitasking model… by definition!
Since you seem to have missed the point, let me spell it out for you. Let’s say I just printed several long documents. I’ve also got a networked disk mounted. I’ve got an infrared link to my PDA. I decide I’m going to start up a new application (Word) from the Start menu. I begin to navigate the menu: Start -> Programs -> Microsoft -> Microsoft Office… Pop! My menus disappear and Windows politely informs me that one of my print jobs is complete… Let’s try that again: Start -> Programs -> Microsoft… Pop goes my menu. Now apparently there’s some issue with my network and my network disk is unavailable… I still haven’t launched Word: Start -> Programs -> Microsoft -> Microsoft Office… Damn! Another print job is finished… Start -> Programs… “Infrared device detected. Would you like to synchronize?” Start -> Programs -> Microsoft… Well, there’s my third print job complete.
You betcha. Unless the machine is about to burst into flames, once a user initiates a user interface action, they get priority. I’ve never had a Mac menu disappear on me.
This is not precisely true. The Macintosh OS is a hybrid. From a high level user perspective, it’s a cooperative multitasking model, however at lower levels the hardware initiates preemptive tasks. For that matter, Windows (except NT) is a hybrid because it uses cooperative multitasking for some tasks, as well.
I think you’re misinterpreting the situation. Mac users rearrange their desktops (and file system) more because they CAN. I don’t move anything around in Windows unless it really bugs me, because history has taught me that some applications and files have to be in certain locations or things break. Sure the Mac OS has some restrictions (Extensions, Control Panels, Control Strip Modules, Contextual Menu Items,etc.), but they are well documented and consistent. In Windows, I have application icons on my desktop that I never click on, but I am UNABLE to move or remove them. They just sit there eating valuable real estate…
Not at all. Tell me one “power user” thing that you can do with Windows that I can’t do with my Mac… I can name several power user things I can do on my Mac that you can’t do in Windows. Here’s a few off the top of my head - I can name a few more:
Create an alias to a folder so that the same directory sub structure can appear to be in two different places in the file system.
Associate some of my jpgs to launch with one application and other jpgs to launch with another appliaction and still other jpgs to launch with a third appliaction…
Move applications from one folder to another or even one disk to another. Some Windows applications can tolerate this, many cannot.
Easily change keyboard shortcuts in applications and even the Finder.
Disable the “Recent” menus (Essentially the same as the Documents menu in Windows).
Hardly a neophyte, but admittedly not as strong with Windows as the Macintosh. With Wintel, I’m not a power user - I’m just a user. Believe me it’s frustrating, because I AM Mac power user and a unix power user and a vms power user and several other operating systems that you never heard of… I continue to learn more and more about Windows every day, but it’s been a much steeper learning curve than with other OSes. I’m sure there are Windows power users out there, but when I’m having trouble, I can never find one. Oh sure, there are a lot of people who CLAIM to be Windows power users, but they rarely live up to the expectation.
Sorry. My bad. They were jumpers, not dip switches. I think the computer is about three years old, definitely a Pentium class - which incidentally is newer than my Mac.
Mr2001:
Nope. It’s not just pop up menus and it doesn’t only occur when other windows pop up. I’ve seen the same phenomenon when other background tasks occur, such as when a sys admin connects via Timbuktu or when my automated backup fires up and other instances. No windows pop up, but the menus that I’m still mousing down on disappear.
The problem is you’re desensitized. You’ve come to accept it and dismiss it as merely annoying. However if you’re used to using other GUIs you’d know that this is a trait that is peculiar to Windows. The Mac OS doesn’t do it. X-Windows under unix doesn’t do it. The Amiga OS doesn’t do it. VMS on the vax doesn’t do it. BeOS doesn’t do it… Yeah, I think I’d call it a design flaw. If it were the only annoying design flaw, I might tend to overlook it, but…
Last time I checked, the SOP around here was to respond to bad debating techniques with good ones, not simply call for the thread to be closed.
Or simply stop debating and let the thread die of its own weight.
I just really find it annoying when people call for thread closure simply because *they * are bored with the topic or feel it’s going in circles (almost all debates around here go in circles out the gate, that’s hardly a reason to close the threads). And now that I am reminded, i do recall that this is something Esprix does sort of often. I don’t get it. Don’t read what you aren’t enjoying, don’t participate. But if others wish to talk in circles all day long, who cares? Leave 'em alone.
stoid
Joey, you are reminding me of all the things about Wintel that make me nuts. not that I ever really have to deal directly with them, but I’ve heard tell. And now that I am reminded, I am amazed that anyone can make the claim that Wintel allows more control than Mac does. Are you kidding? Control how? To do what? If your operating system can’t even track an alias or allow an application to be moved…give me a break! Not to mention the fact that it doesn’t recognize any document lacking an extension? yeah, you can hide 'em, but what…?
I’m really, really curious. I’ve asked it before and no one has answered…what is all this control that Windows offers that Mac does not? So far I’ve only seen anyone talking specifically about the reverse.
Well? I’m perfectly happy to hear accurate information, and I can’t argue with it, because I’m no Wintel weenie. So enlighten me. Please.
stoid
You’re kidding!! You can’t do that in Windows?? No way, Windows CAN’T be that pathetic!
::launches W_95 in Virtual PC::
::launches NT in Virtual PC::
I seem to be able to create a shortcut to a folder and copy it to a different place in the file system with no problems. God knows Windows has more than its share of inadequacies and frustrators, but this doesn’t appear to be one of them.
Yep, now that’s certainly one of them. Or you install a new operating system on a different drive and set up the computer to boot from the new drive, and most of the old applications that were installed when you were booted from the other drive won’t run right or won’t run at all.
SOP is also to stop beating a dead horse. IMHO, nothing new nor useful has been added to this thread in the past week, just a bunch of people going around and around the same points over and over again. Last time I checked, the OP asked for a simplified statement of differences - discussing dip switches and UNIX-based OS’s isn’t simple. If the OP hasn’t been answered or, more likely by the discussion here, cannot be answered, he might want to consider my suggestion of asking this to be closed. And remember, kiddies - it was just a suggestion. I have no power here.
I’m reading this thread because the topic does, indeed, interest me, and I’ve contributed to it. But it is, again, MHO that we’re involved in necrosadoequinism here (or whatever that word was that someone came up with). I can’t imagine anyone finding any worth in the “debate” of two people going back and forth with, “No it isn’t!”/“Yes it is!”
As always, the usual disclaimers stand; namely, YMMV.
Esprix
Oh, and if you want to bitch about me, Badtz, feel free to take it to The Pit where it belongs; otherwise, stuff it. Thanks! Smooches!
Esprix
One other thing before I’m run out of town - long threads are the bane of this board lately. I, for one, have noticed a lot of drag time, and I’m on a T1 - I cringe to think of what Dopers dialing in have to deal with. So not only do I personally spend a lot of time opening up a thread I’m interested in time after time when there’s a new post just to discover the latest round of “Is not!” has been posted, but I imagine the mods are getting a bit twitchy about the length of threads versus what’s actually being contributed (hell, they’re complaining about sig lines for heaven’s sake!).
Ultimately, it comes down to the Mods and the OP. And, again, it was just a suggestion. Sheesh.
Esprix
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Esprix *
**
I disagree. SOP is to beat a dead horse until it is pate’. You have described 85% of the active threads in GD, don’t you think? Do you imagine that the abortion threads recently started have a single new thing to say? How about evolution vs. creation? Whether Bush is an idiot or not?
With the exception of debates about new events in the world, such as the China thing (which I’ve ignored, but I’m betting those threads became pretty redundant pretty quickly), I’d say that almost everything we talk about around here has been talked about many, many times before. Many. MANY. And that there is little, or nothing new being said. It is just as sure that there are MANY people who find MANY of these discussions repetitive and pointless.
And again: so what? Apparantly, people enjoy having these endlessly reduundant, repetitive discussions, or the damn board wouldn’t be choking every day trying to load.
Participate in what you want to participate in, and leave the rest.
stoid
If the current thread approaches the longevity of Guy Talk (or was it Guy Threads?) {whatEVVer!!} I’m sure there will develop a concensus that it is too much and time to do thread-killing.
Meanwhilst, oh Gay Gay Manifested in the SelfDesignated 3rd Person: You got a problem with a handful of folks, numbering, oh, let’s say 10% give or take, who don’t do a certain process in the fashion in which it is done by the majority? Say it isn’t so!
Well, I find myself in agreement with Esprix. Not necessarily because no new info has been added (It’s been pointed out nearly EVERY debate has such back-and-forth style), but rather because this thread has been severely hijacked. Not once, but TWICE. The OP asked for a simple explanation of the differences between the two OSes, which got hijacked into a full “Fight to the Death: Apple vs. PC” debate, which got hijacked into why a thread should or shouldn’t be closed.
By now this topic should either be in IMHO or closed and buried with the rest of them.
(When Windows XP* comes out and Mac OS X is finalized, start another debate. By then, new material should be available)
Anyways, my humble input.
*Speaking of which, I’m getting the Windows XP Beta 2, so if anyone wants to know what that is like, just let me know and I’ll tell you what I think.
JoeyBlades:
Care to explain what settings required changing jumpers? Even on my 386, the process was nearly the same.
Perhaps these tasks involve creating invisible windows - a “window” on the Mac is a box that the user interacts with, but on Windows it’s a more abstract concept. Anything that can receive messages is a window.
In any case, the problem is simply that some actions cause menus to stop tracking when they arguably shouldn’t.
I dismiss it because it rarely happens and it’s purely cosmetic. If files disappear at random, that’s a show-stopper; if once in a while I have to select a menu again, that’s a minor annoyance.
(Incidentally, I have the opposite problem more often - menus that won’t go away until I click an item. Of course, it only happens in Delphi apps, which are known for interface bugs.)
MacOS doesn’t do it because it doesn’t have real multitasking… sure, it won’t hide the menu while I have it open, but it also won’t play MP3s or show new lines on IRC.
X doesn’t do it because there is no X server GUI; apps are responsible for drawing their own menus, buttons, text boxes, and so on. And because of the X client and Unix task models, which are basically the complete opposite of MacOS, one application can’t interfere with the GUI operations of another.
AHunter:
Close, but no cigar. Shortcuts are not the same as symbolic links. A Shortcut merely let’s a click at one place look like a click at another place. What you cannot do with a Shortcut of a folder is actually save files to or read files from the target folder. In other words, to file I/O operations, a Shortcut of a folder simply looks like a file.
I’m not sure I’ve made that clear, so here’s a fairly simple demonstration of how they are different:
Create a new folder at the top level of your C disk. Call it TopFolderOne. Repeat this process calling your second folder TopFolderTwo. Inside TopFolderOne, create a folder called ImageFolder. Inside ImageFolder place an image file (say a gif). Create a Shortcut to ImageFolder. Now move the Shortcut to TopFolderTwo. Rename the Shortcut in TopFolderTwo to ImageFolder. Now create an HTML page in TopFolderOne. On this page, create an image tag to the image in C:/TopFolderOne/ImageFolder. The html code should look something like this:
<html>
<head>
<title>Junk</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" id=all>
<img SRC="ImageFolder/apple.gif">
</body>
</html>
Confirm that this html file displays correctly in your browser. Now copy this html file to TopFolderTwo. Now, to all intents and purposes, the files and hierarchies of TopFolderOne and TopFolderTwo should be identical. However, opening the html file in TopFolderTwo reveals that they are not. The image graphic cannot be found. The reason is that the Shortcut to ImageFolder is merely a file. On the Mac, or unix, or any other modern operating system, symbolic links will render this as identical directory structures.
To the casual user. This will rarely matter. To power users, it’s a big deal. To programmers, it’s a big deal. To web designers who mirror multiple web sites, it’s a big deal. I have three web sites that I maintain. They all exist on different systems with different hierarchies. They all share a lot of the same graphics. To make it easy to maintain, I keep mirrors of the sites on my laptop. When I did this on my Macintosh I simply had one image directory and aliases to it in all of the appropriate mirrors. Now that I maintain these on a Wintel box, I either have to keep duplicate copies of the image directory (and it’s huge) and keep them synchronized, or I have to move the image folder around depending on which site I happen to be maintaining today… Big, big hassle!
So, what was it you said?
It can be!!!
stoid:
Actually, there is one thing that Windows does that the MacOS doesn’t. I really like it a lot and I suspect that there’s a Mac utility out there that does it - I just haven’t found it yet. Windows lets you do some basic file maintenence in the file dialogs. You’re about to save that file you’ve been working on and you decide you’d like to rename the original to add a revision letter to it, or move it to an archive folder. Windows lets you do that right there in the save dialog. To do this on the Mac, you’ve got to cancel the save dialog, go to the Finder, make your changes, return to your application, then save your file.
Mr2001:
Well, I suppose I can give my friend a call tonight and see if he can remember. It was about a year or so ago…
Not true. In fact, I’ve observed just the opposite. Audio on my Windows machine frequently drops out when the machine gets busy. That never happens on my Mac. Want to know why? I’ll tell you anyway… It’s because the mouse and keyboard are interrupt driven (it’s polled in Windows). The interrupts only send change of state information to the OS, so the OS can keep on doing whatever it was doing until it needs to change the display to reflect a change of state for the mouse or keyboard. This is also why the Macintosh rarely loses mouse or key events. My PC loses them all the time. I don’t use IRC, but I know a number of terminal packages that use the mouse down to signal a pause so information doesn’t scroll out of sight. That’s quite possibly a feature. If it’s not, then it’s a function of how the software was written - not the OS.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Shortcuts differ from aliases in another important way. Move the ImageFolder from TopFolderOne to another folder under C. Now double click on the Shortcut. The link is broken… On the Mac, the symbolic link is preserved, no matter where you move the target on the same disk (symbolic links can traverse disk boundaries, but they cannot be copied across disk boundaries - this actually makes sense, if you know how they work).
But wait… there’s another problem. You may have noticed that when Windows couldn’t find ImageFolder, it defaulted to TopFolderOne. Alas, as it turns out, this is a permanent change, because if you return the ImageFolder to TopFolderOne, subsequent attempts to open ImageFolder via the Shortcut will always take you to TopFolderOne. For some reason, Windows breaks the Shortcut link so the only way to get back to square one is to remove the ImageFolder Shortcut, create a new Shortcut to ImageFolder, copy it to TopFolderTwo, and rename it to ImageFolder. Now that’s user friendly for you…
Well, I’m sorry to hear your Windows machine frequently drops sound, but your reason for it happening is not accurate. Sound does NOT drop because the mouse and keyboard are polled in Windows. The primary reasons sound will drop in Windows are A) You’re severely running out of system resources, B) Another application is trying to use the sound card (Which doesn’t always cause it to drop, only when they’re written poorly…sometimes running Winamp and a game of some sort together might cause one program or the other to not play sound or stop functioning altogether), and C) You have a crappy sound card, so upgrade (Which you can’t do very much with a Mac).
joeyblades:
The Mac utility that does it for me (and several other really nice things) is Default Folder. With Default Folder, you can do the following from within any Open, Save, or Save As dialog box:
delete files
rename files
change file type
change file creator
make file invisible
edit Finder comments
lock the file
lock the file name
create folder
rename folder
change Finder comments on folder
Default Folder is one of those pieces of excellent shareware that I can’t imagine living without. It does a half dozen other things in addition to the functions listed here.
Hell, I’m on a roll now. I figure I’d better get my shots in quick before Esprix successfully shuts down the thread. Again, admittedly, these are more power user issues and not specifically “simple” differences between a PC and a Mac as called for in the OP, however it is my belief that it’s better to enter a situation as a novice with some idea of the limits of your decision… In other words, today maybe you want simple answers, but someday you may be a power user. Your platform choice today may prohibit you from changing in the future - so make the best choice today… And BTW, I’m not saying that Macintosh is the best choice for anyone except myself - I’m just trying to arm you with factual information…
So here are a few other Mac only power user things (some useful for average users):
File Visibility
In the Mac OS I can make files invisible (and/or make invisible ones visible). This has various uses, but the most basic one is that if I had this ability in Windows I could get rid of those annoying unused icons on my desktop.
Print Scaling
There are a few applications under Windows that allow you to scale your printing by some percentage or “reduce to fit”, but most do not. This functionality is built-in to the Mac OS.
Change Default Font in Text File
People with Windows-only expereince will be scratching their heads on this one, because everyone knows that text files don’t have font information… right? Well, many text edit applications on the Macintosh do support a global font definition for all of the text in that file. This information is encapsulated into the resource fork of the file. Wintel file systems don’t support resource forks, so they don’t save font setting information for text files.
AppleScript
Nearly every Macintosh application, Control Panel, and even the Finder is scriptable to some degree. The scripting language is interactive and can emulate typing, mousing, and other user interface actions. Much of AppleScript is available through the recorder which essentially makes macros out of user interactions. AppleScript is extensible, which is really cool if you’re a power user and a programmer.
Apple Events
This is cool! I can use a scripting language such as AppleScript, MacPerl, MacPython, etc. to post events to the Event Queue. These events can let me drive my Mac via remote control through some program. The Macintosh doesn’t know the difference between Apple Events generated by the user or Apple Events generated bby some program. Note: This is similar to what I can do with AppleScript, but with much more power and flexibility.
Macsbug
I’m not aware of any source independent debuggers for Windows. What I mean by this is that the debuggers are generally integrated into the development tools and are relatively useless without the assembly source. Macsbug works on any Mac code segment, independent of what development environment was used. Because of this you can even use Macsbug to debug the operating system, which can be useful in crash recovery situations. Frankly I hardly ever use it for crash recovery anymore because my Mac is so stable, but I find it very usefull in figuring out how other people’s code works… [wink]
Folder Actions
Open a folder, close a folder, add items to a folder, remove items from a folder, resize a folder, or move a folder. All of these actions can trigger a Folder Action which automagically runs a script of your choice. Use it to synchronize folders, monitor drop boxes on a network, and hundreds of other automated tasks.
File Labels
Great for system maintenence. I use labels to help maintain the stability of my system. I can classify extensions, for example, as “Apple”, “Known Stable”, “Unknown”, and “Known Conflicts”, etc… I use labels for other things too - I only wish I had more…
Extension Manager
I can manage Extensions, Control Panels, Fonts, and other start-up files on-the-fly during start-up. Turning off the ones I don’t need or am suspicious of, turning on ones that I use infrequently, etc… Another system stability and flexibility tool.
Speech Synthesis and Recognition
Sure you can buy this capability for PCs, but it’s built in to the Mac and it’s even useful from time to time.
ResEdit
This is huge. This tool lets you manipulate most of the resources that are used to build applications and encapsulate special data in some files. I already mentioned the font resources, but what if you want to change the names of menu items, change the hot keys for menu items, change images, background textures, icons, cursors, files types recognized by the application, dialog boxes, sounds, and more. Sure you can do bits and pieces of some of this in Windows with a myriad of tools, and then only for applications that go out of their way to support it. Most Mac applications support this because it’s much easier to develop with resources. In fact, while most of these features may have limited value to the typical user - if you’re a developer, you love this stuff because it lets you make changes on-the-fly without recompiling your code. It puts the user interface development into a user interface environment. I can’t even begin to do this power user tool justice. Ain’t nothing like it in Windows, though.
Still waiting on that feedback about how Windows gives power users more flexibility than the Mac OS… Maybe I can help… Based on common questions that I have to fend off…
Point: What about DOS and the CLI? Mac OS doesn’t have a CLI.
CounterPoint: Not built-in, but MPW has more capability than DOS and it’s free from Apple. Just as with DOS, it’s not for weenies.
Point: Windows supports multi button mice.
CounterPoint: So does Mac. The difference is that it’s downright difficult to do some things without a multi button mouse in Windows, but not so on a Mac. I’ve been using multi button mice on my Macs for about 10 years…
Point: Macintosh doesn’t support contextual menus.
CounterPoint: Does. Control-click, or if you have a multi button mouse… right-click (though it’s programmable).
Point: Macintosh doesn’t have a Task Manager
CounterPoint: ProcessWatcher, ProcessInfo, and others…
Point: Macintosh can’t ping, whois, finger, etc…
CounterPoint: WhatRoute, Mac-Ping, & others…
Point: Macintosh doesn’t have an “Add/Remove Programs” utility.
CounterPoint: Don’t need it. Simply drag unwanted programs to the trash. Occasionally, applications will install extensions and/or control panels, but they’re usually easy to spot and normally harmless if you do leave them installed. Some installers for the Macintosh do, in fact, support an uninstall option.
Point: SimpleText is a lame text editor.
CounterPoint: So is Notepad. Try Alpha or BBEdit. The most powerful editors on the planet - nothing to compete in Windows (Yes, I’ve tried UltraEdit, Zeus, EditPlus, EditPro, MED, and many others).
PC guys… help me out here. Surely we can come up with something…