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One more reason to hate Microsoft

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by daniel, Jan 23, 2007.

  1. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

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    Full eWeek article here
     
  2. Mystery Squid

    Mystery Squid Junior Member

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    Yeah, and too bad every piece of software you buy, unless it's MAC of course, you have to check for compatibility. Too bad you can't effectively upgrade your MAC's by choosing from an array of custom components (oh yeah, unless it's from MAC), too bad you really can't troubleshoot problems with a MAC, or even custom configure all sorts of components thereof...

    I can go out there, and build an entirely custom machine that will blow away any MAC, for less, and not be a slave to the nickel and dime Nazi MAC regime... MAC is truly for simplistic computer users, which is all fine and dandy, as they are far more idiot proof than MSFT...
     
  3. galaxee

    galaxee mostly benevolent

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    well, that's what you get for letting microsoft install whatever it wants on your computer :blink:
     
  4. judymcfarland

    judymcfarland Queen of Moral Indignation

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    every day, I hug my iMac (when I'm not hugging my Prius)
     
  5. eagle33199

    eagle33199 Platinum Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Jan 23 2007, 02:30 PM) [snapback]379664[/snapback]</div>
    LOL

    Sorry squid, but i used to think like that... however, the (somewhat) recent switch to the Intel architecture has really changed things.

    True, home built computers are far cheaper than purchased computers, i won't argue with you there - i haven't owned a purchased desktop, ever. Always build my own.

    Where things get competitive, however, is in the laptop market. it's not really feasible to build your own laptop - the cramped space requirements for a laptop means that everything pretty much has to play nice. In that arena, MAC's blow away PC's. Price wise, high end MAC's are cheaper than PC's, middle of the road are about the same, but MAC doesn't really off the low end of the spectrum... so you are forced to get something a little nicer.

    In terms of the OS... It's true that i generally spend less time in the guts of the OS with my MAC than i do with my PC's, but thats because everything just works. There aren't any driver conflicts (and even with my Dell laptop i had previously there were... but we won't get into that). Software install is generally much simpler than in PC's - just pop in the CD and drag the icon into the applications folder. no need to get complicated about where to install it or anything like that - who really cares?

    However, on the few occasions i have had to go into the guts of the OS, MAC was much easier to find what i needed and fix it... being unix based, you don't have to deal with all of the holdovers M$ has from Dos.

    And i have troubleshot problems on a MAC. I've even troubleshot them from halfway around the world (my sister just last week was having problems with burning DVDs on her powerbook) successfully.

    So yes, MAC's and OSX are more idiot proof than PC's and M$. They're also much more useful when something goes wrong - it's a lot easier to fix the problem.

    The final kicker is parallels, which lets you run both OSX and Windows on the same system - in fact, it even lets you (with a little hacking, admittedly) run OSX on a PC... i can't wait to get my hands on that...
     
  6. Mystery Squid

    Mystery Squid Junior Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Jan 23 2007, 05:53 PM) [snapback]379685[/snapback]</div>
    riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight..........
     
  7. jtullos

    jtullos New Member

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    Well, I can't say much about Macs, as I haven't used one since 2000, but I use both MS and Linux normally. Each has its strong points and its weak points. But as for the IE7 update, there was plenty of warning out there that they'd be pushing it out as a standard update. Though I will agree that something so major should be done separately, especially for the people who just set Windows to automatically install all updates and don't pay attention to what's going on with their computers.

    For the record, I'm still on IE6, having told the updater to never download that update until I specifically request it, which I likely won't be doing, since I almost never use IE anyway.

    EDIT: I forgot to add that others at work have upgraded to IE7, and I'm not getting any complaints about it yet. Doesn't mean that everything is working perfectly, but nothing is bad enough to warrant anyone asking for assistance, and since I am the entire IT department at my company, I get to fix it all. So if someone starts having issues, I'll probably do the upgrade to try and replicate the problem myself.
     
  8. wan

    wan New Member

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  9. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(wan @ Jan 23 2007, 01:42 PM) [snapback]379717[/snapback]</div>
    I actually tried several different distros of Linux before deciding to go with the Mac. There were some things I just could not find the software to do with Linux. I still run Linux on my laptop, because I only use that for travel, where my needs are far more limited. Basically email, a bit of web browsing, and web access to my bank just in case.

    Sure, you can build a cheaper desktop PC. But running Windows is like walking down the streets of Nairobi at night with a sign saying "rich American." You need three different kinds of protection and never let your gard down for an instant. I just plain got sick of it. And now MS has confirmed the wisdom of my decision, as it has decided to stick software on your computer without even telling you. Sure, a savvy computer geek can stay one step ahead of MS, but the garden-variety computer user gets shafted from both ends at once if he uses Windows.
     
  10. Ken Cooper

    Ken Cooper New Member

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    Now that I don't allow my PC to visit the outside world via internet any more I'm perfectly happy with it. The stress has lifted, I'm smiling again, and I no longer approach it with cold dread (what new virus, what new worm, what new popups am I going to get all irritated with today? What latest patch do I have to find somewhere on one of Microsoft's sites - Is my anti-virus software current or do I have to send them $35 again to cover this new year?). My PC just kept getting more and more frustrating until finally I just broke its link with my broadband modem.

    No, since I bought an iMAC a couple of years ago it has been my internet interface machine. No hassles, no problems, no virus, no worms, no popups, none of this crap has even been hinted at since switching to the MAC.
     
  11. Godiva

    Godiva AmeriKan Citizen

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    Run Mozilla and Safari on my Macs.

    Run Mozilla on my PC at work.

    Why run IE when you could use Firefox, or something else?
     
  12. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    haha.

    I didn't fall for that. I read the list and unchecked IE7 before installing. I've got FF 2.0, why do I need IE7?
     
  13. TJandGENESIS

    TJandGENESIS Are We Having Fun Yet?

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Jan 23 2007, 05:30 PM) [snapback]379664[/snapback]</div>
    :lol:

    Gawd, that was FUNNY!
     
  14. eagle33199

    eagle33199 Platinum Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jan 24 2007, 12:44 AM) [snapback]379938[/snapback]</div>
    Unfortunately, some of us have to run IE, whether we want to or not... When producing a website designed to service god knows how many people each day, you're pretty much stuck with using IE for your development - unfortunately it's what most people are still using. Of course, it's fairly easy to use firefox and install IETab to handle those pages you're working on...
     
  15. jtullos

    jtullos New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Jan 24 2007, 07:30 AM) [snapback]380037[/snapback]</div>
    IETab isn't as great as it seems. All it does is run IE inside of FF, so you've still got all of the issues with IE, just in a different window. And IETab is useless under Linux (not sure about Macs) as IE isn't on Linux.
     
  16. eagle33199

    eagle33199 Platinum Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jtullos @ Jan 24 2007, 09:41 AM) [snapback]380041[/snapback]</div>
    Completely understood... but it is still better than running separate windows for IE (especially when still using IE6 which doesn't have tabbed browsing), and it allows you to at least run everything from the same window and can automatically make the determination if a page will be loaded in firefox or ie based on your settings...

    It's basically just a nice way to be able to integrate everything - you have a site that only works in IE, then you can set it to only load that site using ietabs so you don't have to worry about which browser you're in.
     
  17. jtullos

    jtullos New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Jan 24 2007, 07:45 AM) [snapback]380044[/snapback]</div>
    Granted. Though if you're doing web development, I'd think you'd want to hit every browser. Safari, I don't know if it's available on Windows or not. But Opera is, and as far as standards go, as I recall is the only one to pass the ACID2 standards test.
     
  18. eagle33199

    eagle33199 Platinum Member

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    Yes, you do want to... however it's not always feasible or within your budget to design for every website. as you said, they don't follow the standards - it's more like each browser decides which standards it will follow and screw the rest. So you start off by designing for the most popular browser, which i believe is still IE (unfortunately...)
     
  19. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

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    FWIW, I normally run Firefox. But the Mac came with Safari, and I use it occasionally for sites that won't display under Firefox. I don't know if it's my security settings, but on some sites (and only some sites) content pop-ups don't work in Firefox; and on some (and only some) sites (perhaps because of my text-size setting?), Firefox cuts off the tail end of some text displays. I can do a copy-and-paste into a text editor and read it that way, but it's easier then to go to Safari, which seems to be more compatible with more sites.

    By choice, I do not have (and refuse to have!) IE installed on my computer. That goes for any other MS software as well. I use NeoOffice (which is sort-of/kind-of OpenOffice, but runs in the native Mac environment).
     
  20. parrot_lady

    parrot_lady Member

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    I saw it on my dad's computer and was like Wth, I don't like it and don't want it, so as always it was a custom install.

    If it weren't for my windows machine, I wouldn't play the games I do. ^_^