I liked Mac's easy interface very much back when I used them at work, but I felt like, behind that friendly interface, they stripped away much of my sayso and power. I've always been able to make Windows apps do things with "poisoned" files ( wrong file preamble, footer, etc ) that they didn't want to do. Back then , the Mac people seemed to have made that virtually impossible on their machine. You never told it anything - it always dictated to you what you would and wouldn't be permitted to do!
Aaaargh! >

Have you seen bluecurve, redhat's new ui? I can't put my finger on it, but it smacks of XP: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/4460/1/screenshot2439/

hehe.. well, i'd just be re-iterating what jtfolden said. suffice it to say that when the dental students in the computer lab where i work want to actually get something done, they use the macs. we have plenty of both here, and about the only time the pc's get used is when all the others are busy.

i'm talking ms office apps [particularly powerpoint presentations,] number crunching, multimedia, research apps.. you name it.

i'm not some hardcore anti-windows guy.. obviously but the apps are there, they work, and it's all-around more reliable. of course, it's unix.

More Reliable then XP? I Dont find it the case.

Well, here, where are work, we have two departments: print and multimedia.
Typically, inhouse, we just refer those as "That's a Mac job" and "That's PC work".

I like Big Macs. Is that the same thing?

hehe Fuzzy

bakerstreet.........there is something XPish about it...just what that is, I can't determine.

I have worked on both. Quite frankly I think you can do the same things on either one. If your in to graphics then you will definaitely be ok. If you need high end calulations or games, your out of luck with a Mac (lack of selection). I will be getting a Mac (laptop) soon and the main reason for getting it is DVD, simple movie editing, being able to communicate with the graphic community who uses Mac's, and because it looks so nice.

I am mostly into how the laptop looks and feels since I know just how far I will be using it and it will cover what I want to use it for. I have been searching for a PC computer or laptop with a stylish look (not grey or white, or off grey, or purlpe blue). I have been looking for covers, laptop holders; something to make my computer look or fit into its surroundings better. I would ove to have a matching windowblind that goes with the snap on case of my laptop.

well, dreams my come true.....

I've found OS X to be more reliable here than XP. Don't get me wrong, XP is generally very stable but I still occasionally see a blue screen or other oddity when I use it, which is rarely now. OTOH, I haven't had one crash under OS X since maybe the 2nd week of release back in April 2001.

Personally, I love the iApps. I haven't seen anything as intuitive and slick as iTunes 3.0, iMovie, or iDVD for the PC at the same price - free.

...and, yup, most Macs probably are more expensive than a lot of Win based systems. Luckily the resale value is also incredibly high, especially on the Power Macs/Books.

I guess it depends on people, jtf. I have a friend at work (a Mac artist), he has a PC with XP at home along with a G4 with OSX. He says that OSX crashes less often than OS9, but that it's not uncrashable. He says his PC with XP is more stable.

WMP and Windows Movie Maker is intuitive enough for me, for the same price as the iApps.

We should run a bet,to see who's the first person to release the (inevitable) BlueCurve WB skin.......

John: Depends on your definition of "free". Microsoft could go out and pay retail price for some of the top video and multiemdia apps, include it in Windows and it would still be cheaper to buy a new equivalent PC with all this included than a similarly configured Macintosh.

It's not that I don't like MacOS X. I do actually. What I don't like is their community. The pretentiousness. As I mentioned early on, what really riles us up at Stardock are Mac users taking credit for things we came up with and then having the gall to claim we stole it from them.

I have several MacFreak friends and I must say they are exactly as VFrogboy says.They have no problem obtaining software everyone else pays for and passing it around among themselves.And they wonder why they don't have much to choose from!!It has been my experience,on this planet,people do not work for free.Right click on that holmes.

I agree 100% with Fogboys last point. I Like my Mac, I like my OS-X 10.2, (if conditionly). But I am lerning to HATE the mac community, even more now that I have one at home.

Another perfect example of the MacMentals,,I have had a 20gig and a 30gig portable hard drive jukebox for almost 2 years.Then the Mac Freaks come out with their hard drive player and market it like it's a new thing.I guess they are so blinded by their bias they do not consider our equipment or our being ahead of them 2 years minimum valid.

These attitudes aren't just with computers. A certain German auto maker adopts hydraulic valve lifters 20 years after everyone else, and then splashes TV adds all over with a smooth running engine, and a voice which croons " listen to the sound of an XXX's valves adjusting themselves!" As if they had just invented some marvelous new technology!
Caveat emptor.

yer right BB,It just bothers me more when the Macster's do it,,I duuno why.It just makes me think to myself,there they go again catching up with the rest of the world and then stake their claim.

I like the Michigan Wolverines!

Frogboy, I find the current Power Macs to be over-priced for what many would use them for but, as I'd mentioned previously the PM's have a much better resale value. I've got a couple Power Mac's here that are on the verge of hitting the two year old mark. I could easily sell them for $1,000-$1400 which more than makes up for any 'over the top' price I might have paid when new, imo. OTOH, I don't think the new iMacs are expensive at all, especially when you compare them to the recent Gateway AIO. Build-yer-own boxes will always be cheaper of course.

As far as the 'community' goes, I'd guess I would agree for the most part - except that I've seen the same thing with just about every OS. Though the Linux ones tend to be far worse, imo.

I'm not really into portable music players, brazil, but I do have a question... Do they support FireWire?
That seems to be the only big draw for me if I were to buy an iPod. USB seems rather slow for moving 20GB of mp3's through (but USB2 eliminates this bottleneck I guess).

yer right jtfolen,USB is a drag.And yes both of mine are.Luckily I am a musician and have over 3000 cd's and found it somewhat enjoyable ta mess around and organize them in little boxes.The slow process became kind of like a break point for me ta stratagize my next burn. And I am also told by me MacFreak buddies,I have Apple to thank fer the USB itself.Whatever the case I do indeed have Firewire envy.You might want ta get you one at some point,,having 700 discs with you in yer gym bag or backpack is quite a thrill!!

I will say that I'm a big fan of firewire and USB2 (I have both on my PC) -- see my article at www.joeuser.com about home movies 2002 to see how I used them.

The thing I like about the Mac is that it's excellent at doing the things it's good at. Whereas Windows is decent at a ton of things but not really excellent at anything in particular.

But that's all besides the point in my mind. I just don't consider MacOS as being particularly innovative. Sure, it was pretty innovative in 1984 but it's 2002 now. Nearly 20 years later. I don't think OS X is innovative. I don't think fireware is innovative.

And since I obviously think of Stardock as an innovator (I mean let's be real, if it weren't for us, there'd be no Luna in the first place in XP). We were skinning the GUI back in 1994. We did alpha blended shadows first. And we've been sensitive to the concerns of Mac users (we have a full blown Aqua dock that we've not publicly released for going on 2 years now -- complete with genie effect and ability to view movies and other things right in the dock).

So when they claim to retroactively have invented things that we did first, it riles up the blood.

IBM OS/2 was the home to a helluva lot of innovation (as my friend John can tell you). Apple and Microsoft stole plenty from it (and it stole plenty from them) but it tends to get forgotten.

Wow, a Aqua dock, I would have been exsited before I got the real thing and got sick to death of it afer a few weeks. I would love it on the mack again if I could customize it, but apple goes out of there way to make sure it is as hard as posible to do.

That is indeed VERY TRUE about OS/2. I remember suffering from culture shock when I finally had to abandon it for NT4... there was just so much missing that it wasn't funny. Actually, I think MS and Apple could still do well to re-visit some old innovations there. OTOH, a lot of the more useful features and traits found in OS X are only there because of it's NeXT heritage.


I have to wonder what the computing landscape would look like today if it had been OS/2 and NeXTSTEP that went on to rule the roost, rather than Windows and the 'Classic" Mac OS.

Hurray! A thread I can say something in!

I have been a mac user since July when I got my g4 imac, but I hesitate to say I "made the switch" because XP is a fine OS, I still use it daily to sync my PocketPc (Apple will not force me to use a Palm... Doreen - I'm back!), and we network and blah blah blah everything you'd do if it were two pcs in the house.

Basically, no one wants to be told teir OS of choice sucks. And besides being a minority, there's such misinformation out there that PC users tend to spread (not here.. I'm talking about people who only think they know how to use internet explorer. You know who I mean), that's it's only a bit natural for Mac users to get a tad defensive.

I just use a mac because I like it. There's nothing that I do with it that a pc can't, it's just I find it peaceful to use. Having said that, Apple is as two-faced about their digital hub as Microsoft is about Pocketpc. They shout from the rooftops about universal standards, yet only support a handful of devices. We'll see how it progresses, but I bet it's one of those sea monkey ideas. Speaking of insanity, Apple is just plain stupid about customization. OsX could be just as customizable as XP, if Apple allowed it (it's purposefully broken with each update). They just end up driving away the very kind of graphics customers they'd like to attract, but that's their stupidity.

But in a fit of mac snobbishness: It took me 30 seconds to set up bluetooth with my Mac, and it took Juni hours to find out that XP wasn't working right.

Sorry.. couldn't resist