Why a Mac and not PC

[Earendil_Star]

Re: but there's no software for them
D200 wrote:
and they cost double. Out side those two observations everything is
the same.

Not following you here...

If you are talking about the OSX platform having "no software" and the prices for the hardware being "double" I'd have to ask you to join me in the 20th century. Find me something outside of a niche area like the medical or engineering field where OSX doesn't have a very well suited set of options for software. Or site me where two eually matched machines come out with the opposition being half that of Apples offerings.

Without some sort of sighting to back up your very extreme claims here, you are only asking to get an ear full and/or get lumped in with the ignorant bunch.

Not being up to date on hardware/software/Operating systems in the last 10 years is fine. Speaking about something you don't have current knowledge in is a fair bit silly. If you have been misinformed by someone I'd be happy to share more information, and bring you up to speed.

Tyler

 

[Earendil_Star]

No Text [NT]

 

[DNAmaster]

Everything you just bought would have also worked on a Mac, by
simply plugging them in!

So I looked at the hard drive box I bought from BJ. It is a buslink 400 gb drive. It says Windows SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP. It doesn't say anything about MAC.

Maybe what you say is true, but why take the chance? Could you imagine trying to explain to the store that you bought the drive, pluged it into a Mac and it does not work? Duh. Did it say Mac on the box (no).

My point is that it is easier to "go with the flow" and making your life easier.

We all know that Betamax is technically superior to VHS. You can still get Betamax tapes at B and H. VHS is not better. Buy why fight it? I want to get on with my life. I don't want to spend the rest of my life telling my VHS friends that they are using an inferior system.

I don't use a disel engine in my car because most of the neighborhood pumps dispense gasoline. Disel may get me a few more mpgs but it is not worth the hassle.

I value compatibility and lack of hassle a lot. When I save a graphic file, I don't want to remember whether it is in a Mac bit order or a PC bit order.

 

[Earendil_Star]

Everything you just bought would have also worked on a Mac, by
simply plugging them in!

So I looked at the hard drive box I bought from BJ. It is a
buslink 400 gb drive. It says Windows SE, Windows ME, Windows
2000, Windows XP. It doesn't say anything about MAC.

Maybe what you say is true, but why take the chance? Could you
imagine trying to explain to the store that you bought the drive,
pluged it into a Mac and it does not work? Duh. Did it say Mac on
the box (no).

When you buy a VHS tape or a DVD do you check to make sure it'll work in your penasonic player? Or is the fact that it'll fit, and every other DVD you've used has played? Perhaps a cheap rip off DVD from a forien cheap market may not work, that's possible.
And was it this HD here?

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?pfp=BROWSE&in_dim_search=1&N=404358+%2D790&product_code=51798419&Pn=400GB_Hard_Drive
Check out which platform is listed first in compatibility.

My point is that it is easier to "go with the flow" and making your
life easier.

Ah yes, there are many like you. Don't ruffle feathers, stay with the status quoe, always walk downhill. I completely understand, and if that's the way life works for you, by all means stay with windows, at least you can blame someone else when your product doesn't work, right?

We all know that Betamax is technically superior to VHS. You can
still get Betamax tapes at B and H. VHS is not better. Buy why
fight it? I want to get on with my life. I don't want to spend
the rest of my life telling my VHS friends that they are using an
inferior system.

Betamax is dead. Apple is growing.
How about we try market share of BMW vs Honda?

Sure a BMW is higher quality, a better ride, and is faster. But dang can it be hard to find a mechanic! And no one else you know drives a BMW so why risk it?

I don't use a disel engine in my car because most of the
neighborhood pumps dispense gasoline. Disel may get me a few more
mpgs but it is not worth the hassle.

argument aside, do you really have gasstations around that don't sell diesel along side gasoline? Are you someplace other than the US? Every station I've seen, from the boondocks where I live to the city sells diesel.

I value compatibility and lack of hassle a lot. When I save a
graphic file, I don't want to remember whether it is in a Mac bit
order or a PC bit order.

JPEG is a JPEG, TIFF is a TIFF, and a RAW file is a RAW file.

Personally I'd rather do a little research on my products and know that they will work, and work flawlessly, than rely on a sticker on the side of a box that claims it will function correctly. I'm pretty sure that sticker doesn't mean you won't have problems.

But to each his own, I suppose. Glad you found something that makes life easier for you

Tyler

 

[DNAmaster]

I am just saying it is easy to avoid headaches using the most common brands.

Don't be fooled by the commercials. Using one brand of computer or sneaker does not make you a better person.

I don't know what you mean by the walking downhill stuff. There are many great humans, volunteers, doctors who work for free, equal justice lawyers, social workers, writers, great photographers who use Windows. I suppose that to you, they are walking downhill. I rather walk downhill with them.

My point is that it is easier to "go with the flow" and making your
life easier.

Ah yes, there are many like you. Don't ruffle feathers, stay with
the status quoe, always walk downhill. I completely understand, and
if that's the way life works for you, by all means stay with
windows, at least you can blame someone else when your product
doesn't work, right?

 

[Daniel Soh]

I think what he meant was, do what you are comfortable with. A lot of us have our comfort zone and many choose to stay in it, for fear of changes or just out of habit. I must admit most Mac users are quite passionate about our choice of computers and are not afraid to speak our mind. Check this out just for the fun of it. http://www.apple.com/getamac/

I use Macs for work both at home and in the office. The only thing PCs are good for (My personal opinions) are games. But with Apple adoption of Intel processors, that is all going to change, they may not offer the same frame rates now as some PCs running SLI or Crossfire platform, but that doesn't mean, thing wouldn't change in the near future...

 

[Daniel Soh]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3389

 

[DNAmaster]

I appreciate your thougtful comments and polite reply.

I think the poster confused my lack of interest in the Mac for a lack of knowledge. Believe it or not, I am not an idiot.

I want to be able to share files. I want to send a word document to be edited back and forth maybe 20 times between two workers. That just doesn't work between a PC and Mac. Yea, there are conversion programs and such. Convert a complex word document, with index and formating 20 times between a PC and Mac and I am sure it will bomb.

Thing is, even if the file transfers is perfect now, who knows what would happen if there is an upgrade?

The safest thing for interoperativity is if everyone use the same OS. For many people, the risk of a ruined word document far outweights the benefits of a better OS.

So there are more reasons than habit or fear of change. My reason is business sense.

I think what he meant was, do what you are comfortable with. A lot
of us have our comfort zone and many choose to stay in it, for fear
of changes or just out of habit. I must admit most Mac users are
quite passionate about our choice of computers and are not afraid
to speak our mind. Check this out just for the fun of it.
http://www.apple.com/getamac/

I use Macs for work both at home and in the office. The only thing
PCs are good for (My personal opinions) are games. But with Apple
adoption of Intel processors, that is all going to change, they may
not offer the same frame rates now as some PCs running SLI or
Crossfire platform, but that doesn't mean, thing wouldn't change in
the near future...

 

[Watcherq]

I think what he meant was, do what you are comfortable with. A lot
of us have our comfort zone and many choose to stay in it, for fear
of changes or just out of habit. I must admit most Mac users are
quite passionate about our choice of computers and are not afraid
to speak our mind. Check this out just for the fun of it.
http://www.apple.com/getamac/

That may be so, but as seen on this thread, most of the time, that passion engenders a whole lot of (bad) attitude, smugness and other ugly stuff.

I use Macs for work both at home and in the office. The only thing
PCs are good for (My personal opinions) are games. But with Apple
adoption of Intel processors, that is all going to change, they may
not offer the same frame rates now as some PCs running SLI or
Crossfire platform, but that doesn't mean, thing wouldn't change in
the near future...

If you think that the processor makes a whole lot of difference in games coming over to Mac, I can tell you nicely that you are mistaken. The processor used is the least of your worries. The video card is one thing but the most important is the API. With DirectX so entrenched in PC gaming, unless it is ported properly, the number of games being ported would not significantly change.

 

[Mr Fee]

I appreciate your thougtful comments and polite reply.

I think the poster confused my lack of interest in the Mac for a
lack of knowledge. Believe it or not, I am not an idiot.

I want to be able to share files. I want to send a word document
to be edited back and forth maybe 20 times between two workers.
That just doesn't work between a PC and Mac. Yea, there are
conversion programs and such. Convert a complex word document,
with index and formating 20 times between a PC and Mac and I am
sure it will bomb.

There is no conversion, Office runs on a Mac, and has done for about 15 years: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/

An office file is an office file - JPEGs are JPEGs, .PSDs are .PSDs etc, there are no file conversions.

Thing is, even if the file transfers is perfect now, who knows what
would happen if there is an upgrade?

Nothing would happen - as above, they all use the same standard filetypes, it's just that you sometimes have different applications reading the files. (although the main ones like Office, Photoshop etc are the same)

I can't believe people still use the "oh well there's more software available" argument for Windows - you want quality, not quantity. Other than specialized applications (as has been mentioned) there's almost always an equal, if not better, program available for OSX. For those that don't - you can just run them in a window using Parallels.

There's plenty of great software on OSX that has no equivalent on Windows right now, and the only way to use it is to buy a Mac.

Vista was mentioned earlier in the topic, well, I've just spent two days running Beta 2 here now after this, and I honestly cannot believe how bad it is at this stage - not just when compared to OSX. It certainly doesn't feel like beta software - XP Beta 2 was virtually done, and perfectly usable as a Main OS - Vista has a long way to go.

Right now, it basically just feels like XP with a new skin, and smarter looking, but horribly designed control panels / apps that do the same thing in a greater number of steps. It was sluggish (OSX gets faster with each new version on the same hardware) and very buggy. I had planned to spend a week or two with it, but for no reason at all, it just started bluescreening on boot today, so I've gone back to XP. For example, to change display properties on XP (themes, resolutions, colour profiles etc) I just right click my desktop and everything is available in a fairly well laid-out dialogue. In Vista, it opens a new window listing 5/6 items, each of which opens another window equivalent to one of the tabs in XP's display properties. (if that) I wanted to change graphics card accelleration, which was a real pain - not only did it take longer to get to, but once I got to the window where it should be, rather than the slider, there was a new button which opened ANOTHER window for the slider itself - nothing else there. It's just backwards. Not to mention that trying to do anything often ends up with at least one or two password prompts that grey over the screen, not letting you do anything else.

 

[ClassicMan]

Thanks for replying in a calm, informed manner.....sometimes I do miss that on these forums.

regards,
CM

--
Photos speak louder than words.....let's all post more photos.

 

[DNAmaster]

An office file is an office file - JPEGs are JPEGs, .PSDs are .PSDs
etc, there are no file conversions.

Mac and PC's TIFF's are written backwards from each other.

 

[DNAmaster]

There is no conversion, Office runs on a Mac, and has done for
about 15 years: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/

Today is 2006. 15 years ago was 1991. You are telling me that in 1991, I can take a file from a mac and stick it in a PC and it would work. Assuming I have 1991 versions of everything.

That was not my experience in 1991. It is definitely not true for me. Back then, if you convert the file back and forth, you lose the whole thing in a file crash.

 

[echelon2004]

--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism

 

[echelon2004]

if you remembered to DOS format the floppy=)

Some things looked different, some formatting didn't quite work, but most worked.

Now everything works of course, for a few years Office ran much better on mac than it did in windows. Right now I don't know, haven't had a reason to use any office program on either platform for some time =)
--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism

 

[pixelbender]

Everything you just bought would have also worked on a Mac, by
simply plugging them in!

So I looked at the hard drive box I bought from BJ. It is a
buslink 400 gb drive. It says Windows SE, Windows ME, Windows
2000, Windows XP. It doesn't say anything about MAC.

That's because there is no need for it to! ANY generic HDD, card reader etc, is seen as just that by OS X.

It says "Windows x, y, and z" because the developers had to spend time writing drivers and/or software progs for those OS's! Perhaps on the OS X retail box it has a logo saying "works with all external HDDs"!!!!

Maybe what you say is true, but why take the chance? Could you
imagine trying to explain to the store that you bought the drive,
pluged it into a Mac and it does not work? Duh. Did it say Mac on
the box (no).

Again, there is no "chance." IT JUST WORKS, that is the point!

Do you have to explain to them? If whatever computer part doesn't work, why don't you just say "it isn't compatible"?

My point is that it is easier to "go with the flow" and making your
life easier.

If you mean being stuck by the man, conformists, then I hope your life is easier for you. I'm a huge republican, but then again I'm getting sick and tired of Bush taking our freedoms away for "national security" and to make your life "easier." Just because you "go with the flow" doesn't mean its a good thing to do..

We all know that Betamax is technically superior to VHS. You can
still get Betamax tapes at B and H. VHS is not better. Buy why
fight it? I want to get on with my life. I don't want to spend
the rest of my life telling my VHS friends that they are using an
inferior system.

VHS =/ Windows, and BetaMax =/ OS X. Get a working analogy please.

I don't use a disel engine in my car because most of the
neighborhood pumps dispense gasoline. Disel may get me a few more
mpgs but it is not worth the hassle.

You dont' use a diesel engine because the car makers have made that decision for you. Now, they're gradually making the decision for you to use e85 or hybrids. This isn't the same choice as computers..

I value compatibility and lack of hassle a lot. When I save a
graphic file, I don't want to remember whether it is in a Mac bit
order or a PC bit order.

Would you people PLEASE quit bringing up TIFF files. ONE file type, that is ALL you can be referring to (or else you are wrong). AND, both OS X and WIndows can save in both TIFF orders, and BOTH WIndows and OS X will open and work with the "other's order" just fine.
--
pixelbender
http://www.brianmueller.com

 

[pixelbender]

I am just saying it is easy to avoid headaches using the most
common brands.

Do you believe it is easier to live your life conforming to others? Will you ever stand up and fight for your freedoms? Have you ever been told to quit photographing when you had the legal right to do so, but walked away because it was "easier."

The most successful people is this world, the ones who make large contributions to society, generally don't take the easy road.

Don't be fooled by the commercials. Using one brand of computer or
sneaker does not make you a better person.

YOU CAUGHT ME!

"I was like, using Windows because it was awesome, until like, the other day when this cool kid told me I'd be fab if I bought a Mac. I mean, who uses Windows anymore? Let's go shopping in the valley!"

I don't know what you mean by the walking downhill stuff. There
are many great humans, volunteers, doctors who work for free, equal
justice lawyers, social workers, writers, great photographers who
use Windows. I suppose that to you, they are walking downhill. I
rather walk downhill with them.

Think Different.

--
pixelbender
http://www.brianmueller.com

 

[Daniel Soh]

I think what he meant was, do what you are comfortable with. A lot
of us have our comfort zone and many choose to stay in it, for fear
of changes or just out of habit. I must admit most Mac users are
quite passionate about our choice of computers and are not afraid
to speak our mind. Check this out just for the fun of it.
http://www.apple.com/getamac/

That may be so, but as seen on this thread, most of the time, that
passion engenders a whole lot of (bad) attitude, smugness and other
ugly stuff.

I know everyone so ready to flame or talk down the competition. Irony is despite our different preferences on computer platforms, everyone forgotten we share a common passion on photography and camera. And the computer is just a means of processing the finished product.

I use Macs for work both at home and in the office. The only thing
PCs are good for (My personal opinions) are games. But with Apple
adoption of Intel processors, that is all going to change, they may
not offer the same frame rates now as some PCs running SLI or
Crossfire platform, but that doesn't mean, thing wouldn't change in
the near future...

If you think that the processor makes a whole lot of difference in
games coming over to Mac, I can tell you nicely that you are
mistaken. The processor used is the least of your worries. The
video card is one thing but the most important is the API. With
DirectX so entrenched in PC gaming, unless it is ported properly,
the number of games being ported would not significantly change.

The processor makes a lot of differences in the sense that now game programmers do not have to divide their job load between creating a version for PC first, then followed a Mac version. As for the video card, it would be just a matter of time before the differences are bridged. Direct X is now the status Quo for game, cross licensing or a different Mac format ones might be the solution. Or better still run Boot Camp, download XP and run the PC games direct....

 

[pixelbender]

I appreciate your thougtful comments and polite reply.

You obviously weren't talking to me!

I think the poster confused my lack of interest in the Mac for a
lack of knowledge. Believe it or not, I am not an idiot.

I want to believe this, I really do, but when it comes to the topic at hand the evidence below suggests otherwise:

I want to be able to share files. I want to send a word document
to be edited back and forth maybe 20 times between two workers.
That just doesn't work between a PC and Mac. Yea, there are
conversion programs and such. Convert a complex word document,
with index and formating 20 times between a PC and Mac and I am
sure it will bomb.

Microsoft Office for Windows is made by Microsoft. Microsoft Office for Mac is made by Microsoft. Perhaps the problems you are referring to arise from the fact that more features are in the Mac version?

Thing is, even if the file transfers is perfect now, who knows what
would happen if there is an upgrade?

Yep, they're going to throw Samba out the Window. Oh, and no more FAT32. And while we're at it, let's get rid of TCP/IP. You honestly thing the computer industry is going to throw out COMPUTING STANDARDS?

The safest thing for interoperativity is if everyone use the same
OS. For many people, the risk of a ruined word document far
outweights the benefits of a better OS.

Many people, as is easily proved, are ignorant. This, being the most widespread mental disease in the world, besides Liberalism

So there are more reasons than habit or fear of change. My reason
is business sense.

Poor or wise sense?

You fear "word conversion" woes, which simply aren't true. Are you going to tell me Photoshop won't open a PSD on OS X that was written in Windows?

If "business sense" was so up to par, I would think that increased productivity, less down time, less potential for data loss, and arguably a smaller cost of longtime ownership would be some important issues to tackle.
--
pixelbender
http://www.brianmueller.com

 

[pixelbender]

There is no conversion, Office runs on a Mac, and has done for
about 15 years: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/

Today is 2006. 15 years ago was 1991. You are telling me that in
1991, I can take a file from a mac and stick it in a PC and it
would work. Assuming I have 1991 versions of everything.

That was not my experience in 1991. It is definitely not true for
me. Back then, if you convert the file back and forth, you lose
the whole thing in a file crash.

--
pixelbender
http://www.brianmueller.com