Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello: Something we can all agree with

Friday, July 04, 2008

Something we can all agree with

Rodger the Real King of France 7/04/2008 05:01:00 AM 14 Comments

"If the number of Islamic terror attacks continues at the current rate, candlelight vigils will soon be the number-one cause of global warming. "
Argus Hamilton

14 comments:

Anonymous said...: Nope. It's missing the point.

I can drop into a Unix shell on my Mac (just like my Unix server), build Automator scripts to do common high-level tasks and run programs by remote-control, and I can run Windows when I need it (e.g. games, programming). And when i do this I can either reboot into Windows-only or run it at the same time, side-by-side with MacOS. Either way it runs at full speed. This is not emulation.
Beyond that, Apache web server, FTP, "remote desktop", and a very full-featured software development suite (XTools) are all standard features. Those are all add-ons for Windows or you have to purchase the Extreme/Ultimate (e.g. 2X the price) version of Windows. You can't run IIS (MSFT's web server software) on WinXP Home, for example. Apple doesn't cripple their software in this way. One version for everyone from grandma checking her email to the software programmer down the hall. You just turn off the features you want or don't. None of that "sorry, you want to serve a web page? Gotta upgrade your windows."

And unlike my PC, my Mac doesn't have a registry to get corrupted, doesn't slow down to the point of being unusable after a year or so (requiring a re-install of the OS).

SO IMO training wheels are a poor analogy since it implies limited capability when the Mac actually is the more capable system. A better example would be two aircraft, with the "Mac" airplane including an autopilot.

I make my living writing Windows software. But I use a Mac by choice because it's a better, more powerful and flexible OS for me.

--Jack

Just callin' em like I sees 'em, boss.; 7/4/08, 10:39 AM
James Hooker - Nipple Whisperer said...: For me, it´s a question of up-time verses down-time and clients forking over large moolah to me by the hour. I´ve also worked with both, and I´ve had more, FAR more client complaints while using windows. To this day, I have never missed or remotely come close to missing a deadline on my Mac.

If the two operating systems were weapons, I´d stake my watch and warrant only on the Mac.

Callin´em here too, boss.; 7/4/08, 11:48 AM
Anonymous said...: I'm with Jack and James here. The user experience is nothing like that trike vs. bike comparison.

Macs are plenty customizable. The one I'm using now has additional RAM, an upgraded processor and video card, and a second internal hard drive (which boots Ubuntu Linux). It can also run Windows and runs most POSIX-compatible software because OS X is a UNIX system. This is not a tricycle-- more like a swiss army knife.

rockville; 7/4/08, 12:04 PM
Anonymous said...: Rodge-Podge "real king of France":

I typically like 2/3 of what you say. And it's often fun.

BUT, you must have been smoking some of that crack with Obama before you made the above MAC-PC post. It's groundless in the real world.; 7/4/08, 2:11 PM
Rodger the Real King of France said...: Had I made it, I'da signed it. :); 7/4/08, 2:37 PM
Anonymous said...: And no matter where you drive, or what you try to do, every so often the PC will nosedive and bury itself into the ground. Why? Because it can.

If not that, then the throttle will freeze, either full-open or full-stop. And you have to change all the tires and the engine in order to fix the throttle.

I too find the trike vs bike comparison mostly groundless... due to the horrible strangeness of the errors you get on the PC.

As for a Mac, yeah, you can pretty much fire it up out of the Box and figure it out as you go. They've done a hell of a job figuring out user interface and seamless integration with, uh, THE WORLD. Not that anyone would ever want THAT.

I bought a toaster from Microsoft once. They gave me two wires and told me that I had to splice them directly with the outlet wires. Only sissies use plugs! And the temperature controls were down inside next to the burners. You could reliably set them only while making toast, and you had to use your fingers.; 7/4/08, 5:15 PM
Aggravated DocSurg said...: Sorry, Rodge --- after using PCs since 1983, I just jettisoned Microsoft and Dell for good and bought a MacBook pro. I just didn't have the time to deal with the constant barrage of problems from Microsoft's OS updates, the last of which pushed my 4 year old Dell running XP right into the toilet. In the next few months, all of my home computers will be Apples. I can't help feeling like a communist, though --- any way to help me with that?; 7/4/08, 8:32 PM
Rodger the Real King of France said...: Yes, send me your old PC's and I'll give you absolution...

Truth be known, if I could afford it I'd be on a MAC right now. Every one of my kids have one. I just bought the wife a new HP PC from Woot, and spent 4 hours trying to get the CD Drive to work - it hadn't been connected. Oye.; 7/4/08, 9:00 PM
Anonymous said...: Every time one of you girls buys a Mac, the terrorists win.

Lamont; 7/4/08, 10:40 PM
Anonymous said...: All those wonderful X tools and apache touted in the first response are available for free for windows, but you do need to be able to run a web browser to find them...

Apple hardware can run windows, so it follows that the only reason normal PCs can't run the mac OS, which is just another flavor or unix these days, is because the ghod of apples, Jobs, has decreed that he will sell wickedly overpriced wintel hardware as something special. It isn't.

Roger nailed it. Do the training wheels embarrass you?; 7/5/08, 7:29 AM
Anonymous said...: I have been running Vista since before it was released and it has never ever 'nose-dived'. I have never crashed. Ever. Everything I try to do just works. I am missing no drivers. I can run apache just like the Mac can. My powershell from MS is more powerful than you automator scripts.

Clearly none of you have run a Microsoft OS since Windows 2000 SP1; 7/5/08, 8:51 AM
Anonymous said...: I got XP with SP3 and IE8...Seems to work pretty good...I'll be sorry when it's no longer supported.; 7/5/08, 9:13 AM
Anonymous said...: I run both flavors, but what finalized my decision to go with Mac as the other machines die off is this: I have a template I use in Excel. It ran flawlessly until SP3 for XP was released. It threw my template to the ground and stomped on it. I am not a programmer, and should not have to be. Someone please tell me why an OPERATING SYSTEM update affects AN APPLICATION'S ability to do its job.; 7/5/08, 4:01 PM
Ken said...: If instead of the motorcycle you had a picture of a homemade helicopter, you'd be closer. Windows can be very powerful and very, very unstable. You might get there faster, you might end up dead. Use the system you like, I'll use the one I like and we'll both get done what need to be done. I'll be more relaxed when it is,; 7/5/08, 6:24 PM

Friday, July 04, 2008

Something we can all agree with

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