So Macs are more stable, huh?

[PeteyNice]

So, my brother has a PowerMac desktop. It's not a G5 but is a dual G4. Anyway, last August it would not turn on. He is a musician and he is on the road a lot so he just finally got around to taking it in a few weeks ago. They had to replace the logic board and both processors. He brought it home today and proceded to do the 6 months worth of system software updates. He said they all installed except for the mammoth OSX update but it said to reboot and try again so he did. Now he gets a kernel panic. He has the OSX CD so I had him run Disk Utility and it told him "keys out of order". According to the Internet that is bad news that is generally only fixed by a reformat or using an expensive third party disk repair program. I am going to bring another HD over tomorrow and try to make an image and format and restore off that since he has things he would rather not lose. The moral of this story is that Macs suck just like PCs and probably more because if it was a PC I would be able to download the third party disk saving program off the Internet and burn it to CD to fix the drive.

[sheeps]

I always imagined myself to be a Machead for life.

And then Mac OS X came out.

I gave it a chance. Six months of using it daily.

It is the worst operating system I have ever used. Worse than Windows ME and I am NOT exaggerating. What I liked about old Mac's is they actually gave you a ton of freedom, not software-wise for sure, but I actually had a freeware program that allowed me to EDIT applications. That's not bad! But with OS X everything is "simplified." In other words, they put everything on simple mode and make it hard as hell to do what you actually want to do because the computer thinks it knows more than you do and wants to prevent you from doing stuff.

What I like about Windows is you could total it in 60 seconds. I'm not joking. I'm looking for freedom here, people, and part of that freedom means you can kill your computer in 60 seconds. That freedom also means you can tell the computer what to do and it WILL do it.

My mom has a new-ish iBook and it's literally painful to use. How can an operating system be SO SLOW. We have broadband and it feels like I'm on dial-up. She's directly connected to the router and I'm upstairs on wireless. Guess whose computer is ten times faster?

[David Puddy]

Learn some shell commands and you could probably total OSX pretty quickly.

[sheeps]

P.S. Gotta replay this joke I heard on NPR. Beware, it is NPR humor.

A computer running Linux is like a car that will run on any road but never seems to have a map in the glove compartment.

A computer running Windows is like a car that will run on any road but, about once every six to twelve months, breaks down (if not properly maintained, of course).

A computer running Mac OS X is like a car that will only run on local roads, never the highway, but comes with a GPS system built-in.

That was paraphrased, of course.

All I can say is: give me the highways, baby. I've had one wreck in owning this computer for over two years now and it was well worth it. I am NEVER going back to Macintosh again, not after they spewed out the atrocity that is Mac OS X and seemed to think it was holy. I even bought a Rio Karma instead of an iPod - I am a full-blown Mac-hater now. And even when the scroll wheel on it broke, I said I'd rather have a broken Rio Karma than a brand new iPod. They fixed the wheel for free, though, so bad example...

[sheeps]

Learn some shell commands and you could probably total OSX pretty quickly.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, yeah, but that's my point: you need to learn commands to get any sort of control over the system - the system controls you until you learn its language. With XP, anything I've wanted to do, it's been easy and completely adhered to what I wanted. No commands.

[njdevils_info]

Ya know, Mac OS X was a neat idea, but a bad idea at the same time. It was a good idea that they built it on top of Unix. Fantastic. But: here's my beef with OS X.

At work we use mostly PC servers because, well, they work and are cheap. But we got a couple of Mac OS Xservers and I had the wonderful task of configuring Apache on them. I can configure Apache on Windows and Linux, but OS X was awful.

1. I tried to upgrade PHP from 4.1 to 4.3.4 (at the time, the latest build of PHP). I had to reformat the HD in order to accomplish this task.

2. To configure Apache, I typically use the config files everyone uses, but on OS X, they don't exist. They obviously do exist, but it's like hide and seek trying to find them.

3. Upon configuring Apache after I found the confg files, I find that when I restarted Apache, it decided to wipe clean the config files and start over from scratch.

4. Apple Tech Support sucks just as much every other tech support out there. They have a book from which they read a script from. Got a problem not in the book? Well, you're on your own then!

5. Try to find information on Apple server problems online. I dare you. You won't find any info out there because IT DOESN'T EXIST!

Oh, and don't forget to check this out: http://admin.njdevils.info/mac.mpeg

Edited March 3, 2005 by njdevils_info

[Don]

Sheeps: Can you give an example?

Petey: That's really odd. Apple is usually at the top of the Consumer Reports quality computing list.

Info: I love that video. Even though I'm a converted Mac-head, I'm willing to admit it's not perfect - I've run into just about every one of the things he mentions.

[sheeps]

Sheeps: Can you give an example?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Petey's example works: "2. To configure Apache, I typically use the config files everyone uses, but on OS X, they don't exist. They obviously do exist, but it's like hide and seek trying to find them."

I honestly haven't used Mac OS X in over two years save for the occasional use of my mom's iBook. Why is it SO SLOW? That's what I want to know. She got one that's supposed to be fast and Internet Explorer takes twenty seconds to load up. Then every page takes at least ten seconds. And I know that sounds like a little, but she's directly connected to broadband here. I'm upstairs with wireless and everything takes less than a second, less than two seconds MAX.

Mac OS X seems to me like they want to make everything simple for you, so they make many things, by default, harder to change. So you have to basically prove yourself to the machine. On XP, if you want to do something, it lets you do it, it might pop up a warning button, but it will still let you do it.

[El Diablo]

Its so sad that you guys will never get it.....

MAC users dont just want to be different... we just are.."

[sheeps]

I did get it. I was with Mac for over a decade. I was loyal to the cause. I had a subscription to Mac Addict. I was a loyal member of the PC vs Mac chatrooms on AOL. I was a diehard.

And then Mac OS X came out.

Unfortunately, most Macheads DON'T get it: they don't realize what a dumb operating system they have because they're too blind by their previous loyalty.

[nj96]

Internet Explorer probably runs so slow because you're running it on a Mac. I know it sounds like a Duh answer, but let me explain. With Windows since NT4.0 SP4 (I think) IE has been embedded in the OS. So most of the code is already loaded into memory, or in quickly loaded DLLs. That's also why a lot of the security updates update IE code. With the new Win OSs (Win2K and XP), the same UI code that runs IE basically runs Explorer. On a Mac, it all has to be loaded one piece at a time.

I've been a firm Mac hater for the past 10 years. We used to have 2 at work and we're down to 1 collecting dust in the back. Never really had too much experience with OSX, though. From the comments here, I don't think I want to.

-Dan

[sheeps]

I finally convinced my mom to switch to Firefox, now she's another Firefox diehard I even got her office to switch to Firefox :evil: !!!

Firefox is much faster than IE, but still sluggish. I'm still blaming the Mac. Interesting stuff though...

[Don]

Well, I think there are a few biased folk here.

My W2K machine at work froze up more TODAY than my OSX Mac has at home in 4 years.

Maybe it's because I know my way around a UNIX box, I really don't fear the terminal. And while I'm short on games, my primary reason for buying a Mac remains the primary reason for staying with the Mac: Final Cut Pro. I can edit video far better and easier than with anything available on the PC.

[El Diablo]

I did get it.  I was with Mac for over a decade.  I was loyal to the cause.  I had a subscription to Mac Addict.  I was a loyal member of the PC vs Mac chatrooms on AOL.  I was a diehard.

And then Mac OS X came out.

Unfortunately, most Macheads DON'T get it: they don't realize what a dumb operating system they have because they're too blind by their previous loyalty.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sheeps,, its not blindness by previous loyalty - I manage a corporate advertising mac dept with 120 macs although company wide there are over 1000 pc's. There is no way those pc's can do the job those macs do from concept to separator to print and its the standart in the whole industry. Believe it I hear it from every Pc head in MIS how much macs suck -until I sit them in front of a G5 and give then a chance to kick the tires - booting up from my 250 gig pocket firewire drive usually seals the deal... and if they get too annoying I mention Y2K !!

[njdevils_info]

Petey's example works: "2. To configure Apache, I typically use the config files everyone uses, but on OS X, they don't exist. They obviously do exist, but it's like hide and seek trying to find them."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm Petey now? I'm not even getting recognized as myself anymore!

Internet Explorer probably runs so slow because you're running it on a Mac.  I know it sounds like a Duh answer, but let me explain.  With Windows since NT4.0 SP4 (I think) IE has been embedded in the OS.  So most of the code is already loaded into memory, or in quickly loaded DLLs.  That's also why a lot of the security updates update IE code.  With the new Win OSs (Win2K and XP), the same UI code that runs IE basically runs Explorer.  On a Mac, it all has to be loaded one piece at a time. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As of not too long ago, Microsoft no longer "supports" IE for Mac. They won't be coming out with new releases as far as I know. This was because it just isn't worth it to develop it. Especially since Safari is really the perfect choice for Macs.

[Don]

Er, you mean Firefox, eh?

[njdevils_info]

no, I meant Safari. It's like the Explorer only for Macs (or at least they made it look that way).

Don't get me wrong, I use Firefox myself and I think it's a great browser as an alternative to any OS's main browser. But for all intents and purposes, Safari is the main choice for Mac users, as IE is the main choice for PC users. I don't mean it's better, just more in use. about 85% of the Mac traffic on my site uses Safari. Firefox barely even shows up in my site's logs.

[sheeps]

Diablo I get Mac's kicking PC's asses at many things, like video editing, the reason why Don has a Mac. And I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about my family, who only uses computers for word processing and the internet. I'd take a PC for those two jobs in a heartbeat.