Has Vista gotten any better?

[Niode]

Mac does make a lot of sense for the consumer market though. I just don't understand why people are so close minded. Macs are ridiculously easy to use. I think that all the systems Apple sell are well worth the money. Then again I can't understand why more people don't just make their own PCs. They'll pay Dell stupid amounts of money for underpowered pieces of shit. Instead of just finding somebody who is nerdy enough to build them a computer for a fraction of the cost. I've made PCs for lots of people and they have never had problems with them. Despite taking a 20% cut of the final price they're still cheaper and out-perform quite a lot of system vendors out there.

[lordofduct]

then you're misunderstanding me if you believe I am a member of the close minded.

I have used a mac, I own a old iBook still and have subsequently removed Mac OS from it, I do not find the OS easy at all, and personally consider it to be convoluted and so idiot proof that it makes any educated user feel like an idiot.

I don't like it, for reasons... that isn't close minded.

[Niode]

I am a power user of OS X and in no way is it limiting to what I do on it. The OS never makes itself known. I am doing my work on a computer and that's it. I never think "oh man if only this worked this way" "why doesn't this do that". That never happens. The only time I ever have a problem, it's usually software related and 9 times out of 10 it's always microsoft office that's caused the problem.

I literally cannot work on windows. The sheer fact that I can't scroll a window that is not my active window seems completely idiotic to me. Without that functionality in Windows, it's broken to me. It's like having a mouse with no scroll wheel. Completely useless. Without proper multi-tasking the whole windows experience is useless to me. If I can't type and read a document at the same time I might as well just go back to writing on paper.

However I do use my PC for gaming and general browsing, purely because I like google chrome that much and I can't get it for mac. PC's have their uses, but productivity-wise, the Mac blows it out of the water every time.

[lordofduct]

and see there is one of the points on which our opinions divide purely on preference.

I'm an extremely competent Windows user, and it all just seems right to me. And my personal taste doesn't like that innactive windows can scroll when I scroll my wheel over them. Gnome has this option and I stripped that thing right out the first time I saw it.

[Niode]

I'm an extremely competent user of Linux, Mac OS X AND Windows (all flavours). Out of all three, OS X is by far and away the easiest to use, nicest to look at, most economic screen-use (IE no borders on ANY windows, means no wasted pixels and more room for other windows, 10% of the window isn't wasted at the top to tell me what program i'm using and nothing else, the new ribbon thing on office is supposed to rectify that but all it does is put a massive button in the top left corner leaving you to completely guess whether or not the item you want is hidden in that stupid menu) it's faster at drawing windows (have fun opening more than 50 files at once in Windows!! To counter the, why would you want to do that question. Answer: graphic/web design). It manages each window as a separate entity (ie you can have the basic program running in the background ready to have a window opened in it, therefore having the most economic use of system resources and not having to wait for each and every program to start up). Boot up times are faster. It now natively supports dual booting OS's, bye bye having to rebuild your MBR if you want to have Vista along side anything else. Having a proper dynamic zoom mapped to the ctrl+scroll wheel is incredibly useful not just for accessibility reasons. Being able to launch ANY program by pressing Command+space and just typing the first few characters of the program is unbelievably useful. Being able to search for anything on your computer/across network shares/on the internet just by pressing command+spacebar. I practically run my mac by using only that command. I have native SSL/SSH support through terminal. I have a proper VNC/VPN client/server already installed no 3rd party software required. I have a proper CLI which is a life saver for automating things. I have a proper system automaton that I can use to automate any menial task, again, without 3rd party software. A life saver when doing webdesign. Hell I can batch process audio files and auto mate fade-in/fade-outs, convert bit rate/sample rate/convert to low quality streaming audio file for use on websites within a few clicks. (once I've installed Logic Pro that is) and by the way, most programs automatically add themselves to the automator's queue system so I can batch process things in Photoshop for example once i've installed the program.

I could go on all day about what my mac enables me to do, right out of the box no extra configuration/software required.

[lordofduct]

Sorry if I'm wrong, but you seem so offended that I don't agree with you that Mac OSX is "da shit". Yeah it's nice... I still think it's overpriced nonsense.

You do know I don't use Windows? Right?

[Niode]

I just don't see how it's overpriced nonsense. I really don't.

I know you are an ubuntu user but the things you are saying is the same bullshit all the other PC knobheads say about macs. Half of them are myths. The other half are just wrong.

In a perfect world, Microsoft would have never invented DirectX. We wouldn't be stuck with a platform exclusive API for everything and everybody would've moved over to Linux/Unix by now. The only thing stopping people using Linux/Unix is the sheer fact that DirectX exists.

[lordofduct]

I just don't see how it's overpriced nonsense. I really don't.

I know you are an ubuntu user but the things you are saying is the same bullshit all the other PC knobheads say about macs. Half of them are myths. The other half are just wrong.

In a perfect world, Microsoft would have never invented DirectX. We wouldn't be stuck with a platform exclusive API for everything and everybody would've moved over to Linux/Unix by now. The only thing stopping people using Linux/Unix is the sheer fact that DirectX exists.

There's a chance you just prefer it.

Let's take my sister and her husband. They aren't the most computer savvy, to tell you the truth I'm surprised they find the power button. This is the average computer user in America (you know the type, you probably service these people regularly if I'm correct about your job).

Now they wanted a new computer (they got money to burn as well) and my sister decides "hey, these macs look cool and I hear good stuff about it despite what Dylan is saying to me... let's give it a try." She spends a good chunk of change on a nice laptop, good specs, towards the high end... you'd probably love this lil' machine. I even played on it and thought "if it weren't for the OS itself I'd like this little box".

She couldn't figure it out. Her husband couldn't. They were calling me constantly asking how to do this or that or anything. They found it arduous and annoying.

2 or 3 months later they have a new computer. This fandangle super expensive tablet PC thingamabob that they have NO use for (my best friend wants to rob them). It runs Windows Vista Ultimate with the tablet PC capabilities. They love the machine, the macBook sits in a drawer next to it. They pull it out randomly only when they have a party so they can sit in the living room and show off some of their pics on MySpace... that's about the extent of it.

It's a 2000 dollar photo viewer.



I know more people who just never get their macBook and are royally upset about the money they spent on it. One of my friends got on when the intel macBook first came out. He get's "bombed" once a week. Luckily his roommate is a "Mac Genius" in his town and she fixes it for him when it "bombs".

My mother is the same kind of thing. She has an older G3 with OS9 on it. Now this woman isn't the greatest with computers. But she's worked on a lot of legacy machines and windows machines at all her different jobs. Even some bizarre of brand OS's that no longer exist or no one even knows of (she actually knows how to use BeOS!!! I couldn't believe it). She hates her clam shell. She wants to throw it out a moving cars window.

I remember when she first got it from her brother. She's a writer and started writing up some docs and saved them to a floppy. She wanted to get the floppy out and couldn't figure it out. Her brother and I were visiting one day and she asked "ok, computer nerds, how do I get this damn floppy out."

When my uncle explained she had to drag the icon to the trash bin to eject it she said the most obvious thing about it. "WHAT!? I don't want to delete the thing. That's stupid... who designed this thing!?"

I love her cynicism.



My whole point is, I don't like it. It's not the perfect little OS everyone makes it out to be. It has flaws, and I personally... because I'm cheap bastard possibly... think it's overpriced.

Oh and all those people I just described don't play videogames. They don't even know what DirectX is.

[Niode]

How strange. Mirror every single one of your points but change windows to Mac and PC to whatever mac equivalent and you have my experience.

Nobody I know hates mac. Everybody hates windows and wishes they have a mac. Then again, I teach Studio Techniques and Audio Programming in a mac orientated college...

Maybe the people i'm in contact with are in much better surroundings to just take the leap with OS X. If they get stuck either me or their friend's just go "oh it's this *click click*". They go "ah" and then that's it. More often than not it's because of the learning curve of Pro Tools/MaxMSP that's caused the problem rather than the OS. Then we get the sequencing class using Windows. That class is practically me buzzing around everyone trying to fix tonnes of problems. Either with the OS or sodding Cubase. I hate that piece of crap more than anything.

One thing that is great about the 'obscurity' (for lack of a better word) of OS X. Is that you don't get little shits changing the sodding wallpaper or disabling the admin locks on the system so that they can fanny about with the display settings etc.

The macs stay the same way as they did when they were first installed (aside from a few folders that say "smith is a dong grabber" or "A folder of shit". *sigh*

[RadarScope1]

I have a PC I bought a year ago with Vista. It's shit. I seem to have little niggling problems here and there that I have to go in and fix for seemingly no reason.

My wife and I have used Macs at work and PCs at home for years and we both prefer Macs. while weren't not power users, I would call us higher level consumer-grade users than most "average" computer users, I guess. I wish I would have dropped the money and just gotten an iMac instead of a Vista box. I want a computer that I don't have to think about if I don't want to. I want it to be like my car -- just something I turn on and use when I need it.