Submitted by “Poke around the net for a while searching for information on what it’s like to switch to a Mac, and you’ll quickly get a face full of hyperbole, zealots, platform bigots, feature weenies, and naysayers – from both the Windows and Mac camps.
But there are precious few places to get an honest word about what it’s like to switch, other than some deeply technical face-offs. So, I’ve been taking notes for the past few years, and thought I’d write them down.”
I’ve had my first Mac (from Linux) for about 4 months now and I can attest to number 14.
My linux machine was a desktop and I didn’t trust anything involving hibernate. I didn’t like the sound of my desktop while I slept (I’m single) so I turned it off at night.
My Mac is a laptop and I use suspend a lot. It’s a wonderful thing and I get really annoyed when every single update requires a reboot. I’m accustomed to Linux (I used Arch) where I never upgrade kernels and am virtually never forced to reboot.
I’ve also had issues with Parallels that I can’t figure out that require me to reboot. I get really annoyed then too, usually because I’m busy.
… or using a Mac in general, is how people drool in the presence of them.
It’s a computer for crying out loud. I use it because it has this nifty little application called bash and since it is somewhat easier to maintain than other platforms that have that nifty little utility. I’m disturbed by people who slobber all over it because of its plastic and metal enclosure.
The Mac has a number of shortcomings, and that article barely touches upon them because it is more concerned with the user experience. So unless those shortcomings are irrelevant to you, or the Mac offers something that is hard to get elsewhere, you probably should not consider switching.
Sure the geeks slobber, but I’m amazed at how many regular people comment on my laptop. I fix PCs now and meet a wide range of people, mostly with little to no PC skills and they’ve never seen an Apple computer before, but always comment on how nice it is.
Apple’s level of design is just not seen in the regualr PC world. People are used to noisy 3″ thick laptops, massive beige boxes and poor attempts at style from HP, PB, Dell et al.
How the computer looks matters a whole great deal more to regular people than how many jiggawatts it has.
But apparently how many times they heard the name on TV, how many of their friends have one, and the advertised price matters a whole lot more.
The entire populace of the UK is not 19 years old btw. Regular people (this means, not you) see a computer as a computer, without a PC/Mac divide. The ads have only just appeared in the UK, and regular people do not take much notice, and when regular people go to buy a computer, they go to a PC World which is all PCs. There’s only a handful of Mac stores here in the UK, not a lot of people even get to see a Mac.
> they go to a PC World which is all PCs.
Untrue. PC World sell Macs. My local store has MacBooks, MacBook Pros and MacMini’s on display within the first 3 isles as you walk in. It’s not a massive PC World. I’ve seen smaller ones, but I’ve seen bigger ones. In fact, they have always sold Macs for years. They used to sell the old B&W G3’s andG4’s and iBooks/Powerbooks back in the days of PowerPC.
Mind you, we also just got an Apple store about 20 miles west of us in Southampton too.
Apple’s level of design is just not seen in the regualr PC world.
Please. There are good looking cases built with plastic/plexiglas/aluminium, with sizes ranging from barebone to big tower. If people are used to cheap office boxes that’s OK, but don’t blame the whole PC industry — people get what they pay for.
People are used to noisy 3″ thick laptops
And I’m used to thin magnesium Asus and Sony Vaio laptops. So what? Tell people they should spend >$1500 on a thin good-looking laptop instead of buying that $600 noisy devices. I’m sure most of them wont’t follow your suggestion.
Yeah, and those Asus and Vaio models cost quite some money! I have yet to see a PC laptop as nice as a MacBook at the $1100 price point. Sony’s C-series comes close, but it’s a bit more expensive similarly configured, and is also substantially thicker and has less battery life. And of course there is nothing in the PC space that matches a Power Mac or Mac Pro for style, and I’m including all those $200+ Lian Li cases here.
And of course there is nothing in the PC space that matches a Power Mac or Mac Pro for style, and I’m including all those $200+ Lian Li cases here.
Hrm, personally I think some of their server cases (the ones that look like miniature 50s chrome refrigerators) are nicer-looking than the PowerMac/Mac Pro cases. My sister has been lusting after this case for quite a while:
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=21832&vpn=PC-626&manufac…
You’re showing the problem right there. The only people who care about nice design in the PC world are builders: They use desktops.
He’s talking about laptops: Which are becoming a majority these days.
Mac’s towers are butt ugly (I’m sorry but they look like an ancient Viking Weapon, not high technology). Their laptops are beautiful, as are their other desktops.
ancient Viking Weapon
Heeey! What’s wrong with a viking weapon? They are highly sophisticated
– the ultimate geek dream 
Problem I’ve found with pretty much all PC laptops is that they’re designed with bumpy undersides. The underside is always full of bumps, for who knows what reason.
I know this sounds like a small nitpick, but having a laptop with a totally flat bottom just feels much nicer on my lap.
Totally agree. Much more comfortable to have on your lap for a couple of hours. Not to mention, it gives it a much sleeker profile
Sure the geeks slobber, but I’m amazed at how many regular people comment on my laptop. I fix PCs now and meet a wide range of people, mostly with little to no PC skills and they’ve never seen an Apple computer before, but always comment on how nice it is.
I’ve had the exact same comments on my Thinkpad, and it’s a measly x30 (people are mostly impressed by the small size).
People are used to noisy 3″ thick laptops, massive beige boxes and poor attempts at style from HP, PB, Dell et al.
The thing I find amusing here was that I did some work on an iBook G4 a few months back and noticed some funny things when it was sitting side-by-side with my Thinkpad. For one, despite having a significantly larger footprint than the Thinkpad, it actually managed to have a smaller keyboard – despite the nearly full-sized function keys on the IBM, comapared to the half-size F keys on the iBook.
And, of course, there’s the old Douglas Adams line about the original Mac portable where he described it as “Great for for eating sandwiches off and slightly lighter than carrying around a table.”
Apple’s level of design is just not seen in the regualr PC world.
Eh, that’s a bit of a sweeping generalization. Sure, there are many people don’t know any better and end up with 9lb luggable spacewarmers with displays that are overkill in size for a portable (for the vast majority of users), but compensate by having ridiculously low pixel density. The mere existence of many of those junkers doesn’t mean that there aren’t any well-designed PC laptops.
I would have to agree on most of these things. Then again, some of my personal experiences contradict some of the things that were said:
11 – Personally, I do love the way shortcuts work. No messy keyboard and no alt-gr-ing. But still I am able to insert quite a lot of logic and mathematical symbols in a split second, while none of my Windows-friends seem to be able to even find out how they could potentially get this done. (no, my friend, you have to install character pallette first. Yup. And then you should go dig up the program, as it is burried in your start menu. You’ll get there. Just keep trying.)
01 – People will ridicule you for having a Mac… or people will pat you on the back if you are a university student or you are involved in research. For some odd reason, universities seem to be flooded with lifetime Mac users. Well, the reason really isn’t that odd. When the dean comes in and remarks that every serious computer scientist buys a mac, then you know that there must be something up with those strange white machines. And in fact it has mostly to do with 13; you don’t waste time fiddling with settings, and yet it all seems to work just fine. This ensures that you can spend almost all of your time coding or doing whatever you have to do. I can’t even remember the day that I last had to install a driver. Pure joy. And a lot of time spared in which you can do what you have to do.
Then again, there is one thing that I find that is left out:
23 – you’ll forget all about security precautions and start to think you are the King of the World. While OS X allows you to be a restricted user and still do administrating stuff with the least amount of annoyances, hardly any OS X user will even consider this. For some odd reason, people forget to turn on the kick-ass firewall (with respect to simplicity and performance), forget to turn on memory encryption (which is completely transparent) and forget to have an account for every day usage with olny limited priviliges (heck, you simply enter your password and boom!, you are elevated to administrator privileges for the time that you need these higher privileges.)
But then you come to rule 24:
24 – Mac users do not really like to be criticised. So if you have something nasty to say, please, proceed very gently and beware of biting Mac users.
But then again, times are changing and so is the Mac world. Frankly, the list is great and it sums up most of the things that every switcher will be confronted with.
“24 – Mac users do not really like to be criticised”
Correction;
Mac users do not like to be criticised by people who have never even used a Mac.
Mac users are happy to criticise their own platform. Every Mac blogger does that at some point.
>> 24 – Mac users do not really like to be criticised”
>> Correction;
>> Mac users do not like to be criticised by people who have never even used a Mac.
>> Mac users are happy to criticise their own platform. >> Every Mac blogger does that at some point.
Correction[2];
Mac users do no like to be criticized by people who have never even used more than one OS and thus don’t realize there is more than one way to solve a problem.
Correction to your correction:
He is right, you are wrong. Mac users do not really like to be criticised. This has been shown time and time again: no matter how experienced someone is with Macintosh computers, if they criticise Macs, or Apple, they will get stomped all over by highly offended partisans.
Of course he is generalizing and it obvious from the context he doesn’t mean *all* Mac users. Your reply indicates that you do mean *all* Mac users. Clearly some aren’t partisan, but there are large numbers of touchy Mac users for some reason. Including you.
but there are large numbers of touchy Mac users for some reason.
There are also large numbers of touchy Windows, BSD, Linux, Solaris, MSOffice, Photoshop, <put your favorite app, OS, car, brand and whatnot in here>, too. What’s the point of your statement about Mac users?
<rant>
It’s just that sometimes you meet such enlightened persons like the lad which bought a $2800 Mac but couldn’t figure out how to compile software with gcc on it and then starts to tell the world the OS must be broken somehow. Or the guy thinking if you need an installer on Windows MacOS must somehow be wrong because it normally uses drag and drop installation.
Different OSes works different. Just because Windows has a trashcan, icons, alias and whatnot, doesn’t mean that things behave the same on MacOS (it doesn’t!).
You have to adapt to an OS or you’ll end up fighting against it continuously.
</rant>
Edited 2007-03-03 20:30
“16 You’ll spend more money than with Windows”
I have to agree with this, and I think it’s a good thing. With Windows, I would never pay for anything. I was ruthless in avoiding shareware and crippleware because of the amount of spyware and tat out there.
With Mac software it is entirely opposite! Shareware on Mac is of outstanding quality and polish, decently priced, practical and useful and I’ve found myself buying software, lots of it, for the first time. I feel like I’m supporting hard working independent developers, I never felt that on Windows. Software was something to be horded.
After reading the list it sounds like the only reason people switch are to feel good about themselves. The first five indicate that. Getting smiles, being in a little club? I don’t need a computer to make me feel good, I need a computer to accomplish tasks. I can feel good about myself doing other things like exercising, shopping, etc.
“I need a computer to accomplish tasks”
Didn’t read up to “#19 You’ll get more things done” then?
A Mac is very much about getting things done.
by downloading OS X from internet and installing it on their $399 whitebox. I personally cannot do this because BitTorrent speeds are just too terrible even when configured and BitTorrent port ranges unblocked by my router.
The Mac systems themseleves are just expensive high-end x86 systems with fancy keyboards, mice, and BIOS-alternatives.
But don’t forget that “PC” users also have fancy keyboards and mice.
Ever see a color LED keyboard before?
http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/
The selection of high-precision wireless laser mice with programmable side buttons are extensive as well.
Don’t get me wrong I agree with your sentiments entirely but you are aware you can’t actually buy one of those keyboards nor have you ever been able to since they designed it two years ago.
Perswonally I doubt the project is viable otherwise someone like Logitech would have stolen the idea by now.
According to their site, the keyboard will be ready for sale late this year.
Anyway… that was just an example. I would never buy such a thing; it will probably cost hundreds because of it’s color OLED keys.
Fantastic! Before, I was always irritated when great products expected me to pay money for them, but now I see that I can use them WITHOUT such a burden on my wallet! Thanks for this amazing post!
Well, compared to the PC market, it is still quite a small club. But I am pretty amazed at the number of people I meet these days, that have migrated from PC to MAC.
I am currently enrolled in a master level IT program, and I think that around 30-40% of the laptops I see in class, are now MACs. Besides that, I know quite a few other people that have MACs also. This is of course completely anecdotal, but I still feel that something has changed.
Last thing I heard was that OS X now have a marketshare of around 6.4% which is still a minority, but certainly a healthy increase.
Maybe it’s the iPod effect? 😉
“Mac” is an abbreviation for “Macintosh”.
“MAC” is not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC
I bought a PowerBook Pro I think it was, the 2800 dollar model, and return it in a hurry.
I returned it because I wanted to use the ports, only to find that I have to use MacPorts, but didn’t get it working. I downloaded some source and compiled the software source code but had nothing to do it with. So I downloaded and installed the 900MB development softer, that sounded like it had some compliers to configure and make, make install, all that, but had errors messages trying to compile software from source. Tried using a few typical BSD commands and that got nothing.
I tried an openSUSE DVD, that didn’t work, tried it in Parallels, that didn’t work. It booted my OpenBSD CD, but I didn’t try to install it to see if it fulled worked the way I normally use it.
So I am think Mac systems are not for people how want to know how something is made, how it’s put together, and people who want to write software that is platform or OS independent. So I have zero respect for Macs, can’t stand them, not until and I can customize source code and compile it for any program I want and install it. Since BSD seems to be built around developers and not end users, I find the configuring and compiling really simple and consistently smooth, so that’s my preference.
So I am think maybe you MAC PowerBook Pro maybe not best option? Maybe not good with compupoturs? Maybe you try different softer!!!! Linux softer? Windows softer? It fulled worked!
Mac systems NOT MADE FOR PEOPLE HOW WANT TO KNOW HOW SOMETING IS MADE! Errors messages compiling from source!
Seriously, stick with Linux and your cabal of IRC friends that have absolutely no grasp of written English. It’s not Apple’s fault you didn’t do any research into these things. I had OpenSUSE running under Boot Camp and Parallels pretty easily and found DarwinPorts fairly effective, if somewhat different from the Apple way of organizing your filesystem.
I honestly don’t really know what you mean in a lot of your post, nor do I know what you mean by “MacPorts”. If you’re talking about ports (as in connections to connect peripherals, then they’re the same as with PCs. USB, Firewire, RJ45 10/100 (and 1Gbit sometimes), RJ11 Modem, etc… It’s all the same.
As for compiling software – I switch from a “PC” and Linux because I was sick of it. I wanted my software to just work. It’s not that compiling software was hard for me (I used Linux for about 7 years), but it just got tiresome. It’s sometimes great to know how your computer works down to a source level. In my opinion, however, your average joe user simply doesn’t care. Most just want music, a web browser, email, word processor, and perhaps a chat program. They don’t want to do any “work” to get that working either. Even still, if you want to dive “deep” and compile software, it’s really not too much different from Linux. You’ve got a terminal with bash and developer tools.
I personally was willing to give up being able to dive *deep* into my system for things to “just work” like I have already said. I’ve had my Powerbook for wow, 2 years now and I haven’t had a single hiccup (knock on wood..) – it has been the best laptop I have ever purchased.
By the way, I think you mean Macbook Pro
I honestly don’t really know what you mean in a lot of your post, nor do I know what you mean by “MacPorts”. If you’re talking about ports (as in connections to connect peripherals, then they’re the same as with PCs. USB, Firewire, RJ45 10/100 (and 1Gbit sometimes), RJ11 Modem, etc… It’s all the same.
Oh dear. Not to be a total dick but if you don’t understand what he meant by ports, you needed to stop your post right about there. You’re not qualified to continue on. He meant ports as in BSD ports tree for compiling software, and he’s absolutely correct. None of the BSD ports trees will work and the Darwin ports are pathetic.
Oh dear. Not to be a total dick but if you don’t understand what he meant by ports, you needed to stop your post right about there. You’re not qualified to continue on.
I also didn’t know what he meant by ports, but it’s because he can’t write. The problem was not with the reader, but with the parent. The offending line was, “I returned it because I wanted to use the ports.”
In English, adding a definite article (the) in that context does two things: it tells the reader you’re talking about a common noun (not a proper noun, like the name of a project), and a particular specimen thereof identifiable from the context, meaning it has to have something to do with the product in question, and a PowerBook has ports on it. Thus, a logical conclusion would be that he’s trying to use the USB port.
I doubt the poster you’re responding to genuinely doesn’t know what ports is, but it’s possible. What I’m sure of is that, had the original poster talked about it clearly, the one you’re responding to would know what sort of thing ports is, and thus be able to gauge his own familiarity accurately and know whether he’s qualified to comment.
The top post is junk, and I can’t believe it was at 4. Bad English is the least of what I hold against it. It’s an incredibly ambiguous, rambling communication of frustration, judging a whole product by his own inexperience and lack of research with installing a single piece of software. I can’t fathom anyone buying a Mac to do software development without even knowing that the compiler is on the optional Developer Tools package, but I can imagine about how long he must have kept it before throwing up his hands based on the fact that he doesn’t even remember what it was called.
No, I did not know what MacPorts specifically was; however, I did know what Ports was.
I hate bashing English here, but like I said in my original post – the original post was extremely hard to read. If he had said something like “”I returned it because I wanted to use MacPorts”, that would have prompted me to Google what MacPorts was before posting – but I could hardly understand the sentence in the first place so I made the conclusion I stated in my original post regarding “actual” ports.
I can’t fathom anyone buying a Mac to do software development without even knowing that the compiler is on the optional Developer Tools package, but I can imagine about how long he must have kept it before throwing up his hands based on the fact that he doesn’t even remember what it was called.
<p>
I couldn’t agree more here. It seems like English is a bit of a barrier but not knowing the product name after owning makes me think he didn’t do any research before the purchase nor afterwards to figure anything out.</p>
<p>EDIT: Formatting issues
Edited 2007-03-03 07:20
Alright, appearantly my space between paragraphs didn’t show up before and adding <p> tags didn’t fix it. Sorry for this off-topic post.
I’m sorry, but your post makes no sense at all. You spend 2800 dollars without doing a little research to know something of what you are purchasing? What is the point of buying a Mac to prove that OS X is not OpenBSD? You got modded up to 3 for this absurdity?
I suppose one good thing will come out of your wasting the resellers time and money is that someone will get a good deal on a refurbished “Powerbook Pro” or what ever it is you claim to have bought (MacBook Pro?).
On Windows, I double-click an EXE, click a couple next buttons and my app is installed, with menu-entries already created.
On linux, I double-click the RPM or deb, and enter my root password, and the app is installed, usually including menu entries.
On Mac, I double-click the download file, and an .IMG file is created and I now have a drive icon on my desktop!. I open the drive and find an app icon inside. I then drag this app icon to my Application folder (after I find it). Last, I make an alias, and then drag this alias to my desktop.
That seems very wierd to me!
Disclaimer: this piece is MY PERSONAL OPINION and should NOT be taken as a personal attack.
“On Windows, I double-click an EXE, click a couple next buttons and my app is installed, with menu-entries already created.”
Clutter.
“On linux, I double-click the RPM or deb, and enter my root password, and the app is installed, usually including menu entries.”
Clutter.
“On Mac, I double-click the download file, and an .IMG file is created and I now have a drive icon on my desktop!”
.dmg files, while being the most popular means of distribution (as they mimic physical media, and there are conscious developers that ACTUALLY make use of this feature by including readme files, full documentation, optional goodies like plugins etc; case in point: Adium), aren’t the only one. Still, I find them to be the most sane.
“I open the drive and find an app icon inside. I then drag this app icon to my Application folder (after I find it).”
Some developers put an alias to the Applications folder on the .dmg root (C.I.P., again: Adium, and if I’m not mistaken, Office v. X and 2004).
“Last, I make an alias, and then drag this alias to my desktop.”
Well… Now we’re back to cluttering the desktop.
“That seems very wierd to me!”
What seems very weird to me is how people still aren’t accustomed to launching their apps by either calling Spotlight with Command+Space, or placing application icons on the dock. I personally have less than a handful of application icons on the dock. And I set the dock to hide itself. And I’m not talking about Mac OS X only; I do the same on Windows (I don’t use lauchers there, yet) and on the XFCE4.4 desktop I’m currently sitting on at work (yes, Alt+F2). Taskbars all hidden by default.
Windows gave us the horrid habit of cluttering the desktop with application icons. I’ve seen more than my share of great family photos, fabulous landscapes and very intriguing abstract art wallpapers, all littered with dozens of drab (and some not so drab, but that’s not the point!) icons.
Hence, clutter. Nothing personal against your taste, mind you. Clutter, still.
(p.s.: I used to have a littered desktop, and also used to have the most disorganized folder collection ever. After losing a couple of HDs and their contents, and forcibly having to start afresh, there was some zen quality on a clean desktop. I forced myself to keep it that way and to organize my personal files. Needless to say, productivity skyrocketed. This is only a humble advice; if a busy desktop works for you, all power to that!)
“I do the same on Windows (I don’t use lauchers there, yet)”
Now you will:
http://www.launchy.net/
It maps to ALT-Spacebar and works just like Spotlight or the Baghira Starter in linux. Very cool.
Your comparison using the mountable disk image isn’t a fair comparison. This is just a distribution method and standalone installers can be downloaded also.
To be a fair comparison, you should be comparing with downloading zip file that would have to be decompress first.
This is just a distribution method and standalone installers can be downloaded also.
Good to know. I must just have bad luck with what I have downladed (firefox, games, etc).
On Windows, I double-click an EXE, click a couple next buttons and my app is installed, with menu-entries already created.
On linux, I double-click the RPM or deb, and enter my root password, and the app is installed, usually including menu entries.
On Mac, I double-click the download file, and an .IMG file is created and I now have a drive icon on my desktop!. I open the drive and find an app icon inside. I then drag this app icon to my Application folder (after I find it). Last, I make an alias, and then drag this alias to my desktop.
Not exactly 😉
1. Download the disk image (.dmg)
2. Double click it (equivalent to inserting a disc)
3. Drag the app wherever you like, usually to your Applications folder
4. Eject the disk image (equivalent to ejecting a disc)
5. Optionally, drag your installed app to your dock for easy access.
I agree that the *first* time a new Mac user downloads a disk image it may take a bit of thinking, particularly for Windows-used people. But after you realize that a disk image is actually just that, a “virtual disc” and that Mac applications are treated just like any other file on Mac OS X, the three-step process becomes obvious and installers start to seem clumsy in comparison.
Here is a great compilation of disk images, and I think that most people could figure them out pretty easily:
http://softwaretrenches.com/2006/09/dmg_disk_image_is_the.html
I agree that the *first* time a new Mac user downloads a disk image it may take a bit of thinking, particularly for Windows-used people. But after you realize that a disk image is actually just that, a “virtual disc” and that Mac applications are treated just like any other file on Mac OS X, the three-step process becomes obvious and installers start to seem clumsy in comparison.
Part of the problem is that while it’s easy to run an application directly from a disk image, there’s no obvious indication that you shouldn’t do so. I understood the concept of disk images long before OS X was released, so I never personally found it confusing – but on about half of the OS X machines I’ve supported, I’ve seen things like: users who run Firefox directly from the dmg (at least, now I know what to expect when I get calls from a Mac user saying “help, I restarted my computer and now I can’t find [some application] anymore!”
I’m not exactly sure why you got modded up for this since all you did was confirm what the previous post stated. The only difference was you tried to justify that it’s ok because Macs like to pretend installer files are hard disks. *rolls eyes* How’s that for intuitive? I’m starting to think .dmg stands for damaged thinking.
On Windows, I double-click an EXE, click a couple next buttons and my app is installed, with menu-entries already created.
Speaking of menu entries: You mean the horrible Windows way with a folder and a list of not very useful file links burring the one you really want (the link to the app)?
It’s really funny! How many times did you use the ‘Uninstall X’ or the link to the ‘Support website of X’ or the ‘Read me of X’ or … which is usually all put in the start menu ? Why the hell does almost every software on Windows install such things in the start menu when the only thing you’re really interested in is the app itself?
This must be because Windows misses a shortcut for going from a link to its target directory ([CMD] [r] on the Mac) and because Windows also misses a concept to differentiate between files belongig to the app but are intended for the user (e. g. readme) and files belonging to the app and needed by the app (e. g. dlls) leading usually to a messy install directory. I prefer the Mac way where app files are hidden in the *.app directory. Clean and simple..
On Mac, I double-click the download file, and an .IMG file is created and I now have a drive icon on my desktop!.
.. where you’ll normally find all that stuff you need only once like corporate website links, readme files, version history, etc. I normaly don’t install them at all.
Furthermore, the Mac way is far more flexible. E. g. if I want the programm to be installed locally (e. g. to try it out before other users on the machine can use it) I drag it to my local app directory (~/Applications) and move it to (/Applications) later. Try doing that on Windows..
Or have you every tried to start the app directly from the disk image? This works for most apps (as long as they don’t try to write to the *.app directory on the read-only disk image).
Last, I make an alias, and then drag this alias to my desktop.
[CMD] [ALT] Drag to target is the faster way to get an alias. However, most people I know don’t put app aliases on the desktop because the dock is a much more useful spot for that (actually, I’m using folders in the dock, to group app aliases)
Or just use spotlight and forget about aliases.
Edited 2007-03-03 08:45
I have to agree with Kroc about software’s quality – it’s outstanding. On Windows you just don’t feel it, you don’t enjoy paying for software while on a Mac it’s exactly the opposite, because of the sheer amount of love put into every detail by the developer.
It’s a shame Macs have to be a bit of a “secret club”, especially considering how much good time one can have just by getting rid of all the viruses and general insecurity of using a computer.
This article mirrors the exact sentiments practically word for word on occasions of the current Mac advertising campain….Odd that!
Could not agree with you more. Less clutter and increased productivity.
at the back of my mind. I keep telling myself that the next machine I buy outright will be a new Mac.
Like anyone else on a (fairly) restricted budget, I then weigh-up the investment I have in PC hardware and software.
I have to ask myself, does my computer (or rather, do my computers) DO the stuff that I need it/them to do?
The answer is always a resounding YES!
As far as investment goes, I (primarily) use Ableton Live and Reason, a superb combination of audio tools which, in the 2 years of using this pair have never let me down…YES! on a Windows XP PC people!
Everything else, browsing, imaging, email, messaging. etc. etc., can be accomplished with little or no hassle on my machines. BTW I have an Ubuntu box and a BeOS, Haiku, Zeta box (mostly for the love of OS tinkermania) :o)
Having read the article through, many, many of the ‘plus’ points for switching seem to echo my own experiences by simply booting up my BeOS/Zeta box although with one SERIOUS caveat! We’re talking about a serious shortcoming in ENTERPRISE level apps for the BeOS related platforms. That is NOT so discredit in any way the hard work input by developers on this platform thus far. User ‘experience’ on BeOS did/does offer the same kind of ‘wow’ on a PC that OSX does on a mac….discounting the eye-candy factor.
My point is this, the PC per-se is not really a problem. The mac is not the only platform with a ‘it just works ethos’. If you don’t believe me then step outside of the box. It’s as simple as that! Windows in ANY guise is probably the ‘blot’ on the PC landscape.
Now, I once bought (second user) Mac for my wife’s birthday. Damned Mobo borked within 6 weeks. A seriously bitter pill. You know what I’m saying?? I threw it away.
So, ‘fancy a new, super-sleek, state-of-the-art, sexy-looking Mac’ I say to myself? ‘Nah!’ I usually say to myself. Prolly just shove a dual-core AMD chip in my existing mobo instead. Maybe slot another Gb of ram in too…for good measure. That is, of course, when my current windows box appears to have become too slow by all available specs.
Soz! I love Macs because I dislike Windows soooooo much.
1. Since Macs run boring i386-PC Hardware, the only difference to a PC is the Operating System.
2. Why would one switch only because of the OS?
3. You are a mac zealot. Congratulations!
What kind of lame-ass logic is that? The user or developer doesn’t interact with the hardware. It could be hamster-powered for all they care. It’s the OS and apps that the user actually deals with, and the OS and its APIs that the programmer deals with. The hardware doesn’t matter at all, as long as its fast enough (and while x86 hardware may be boring, its fast!)
As a 6-month, or so, switcher….why did I wait so long???
As a Linux, Windows, OSX user I have discovered that most, if not all MS products…can be lived without. OSX is what I hope Linux, or BSD, becomes. As long as MS insists on spagetti code and a grade desire not to redo the “whole ball of wax” they will never approach the ease of use or the quality of experiene…and most people don’t know what they are missing.
I have been “switched” for the past 2 months or so, and I can agree with a number of the points made.
Good things:
Not worried about viruses (though better not become too complacent).
Not tweaking as much as before with Windows
Ease of install when it comes to software
Being able to move, back-up, and re-use system installs in a way that could not be done with Windows (AFAIK)
Gripes:
Problems apparently in OS X to do with WEP security settings and connectivity
Lack of hardware (compared with what I have been used to)
Cost of hardware (compared with what I have been used to)
Lack of legacy hardware support (as opposed to system support) from Apple
Increasing precariousness of PPC/G4-based systems (I run a second-user Sawtooth) in terms of future OS X support
Conclusion for me: experience of this Unix-based/like system and the probability that G4 support will be dropped in the relatively near future mean that I will probably have a lot more to thank Linux and BSD for in the future.
I tried to read his website in Safari, and if you boost the font size (like I do), the main page is truncated, but the second page is illegible. In Firefox I can read most of the second page.
Guess he hasn’t quite completley switched…
He doesn’t understand the idea that somebody would ever want to read his website at a font size different from the one he ordained.
It’s like he’s from 1998 or something.
to linux