Embracing the Shiny
Amanda wanted a new computer. But not just any computer. She wanted something different™. I’ve tossed around the idea of getting a Mac for the past few years, just to get familiar with them, in case they end up taking over some day. It’s the same thing I do with Linux from time to time, except that those experiments are free. Macs are FAR from free, but I figured now was a good time since at least Amanda will put it to good, full-time use, whereas I would only be able to “play” with a Mac.
I must say… Macs are very nice. I guess I should really say, OSX is nice. The first thing that impressed me when the computer started up for the first time was that when it came time to connect to the internet, it saw my wireless router. That’s not surprising, but when it couldn’t connect to the internet through it, a message popped down telling me what the problem was. I needed to add the MAC of the Mac’s (that’s annoying) wireless card to my allowed address list on the router. Now, I knew this was going to happen, but Windows doesn’t tell you anything that specific which might lead some people to needless frustration.
The second thing was printing. I have a Dell network printer that I have to run an install CD on my Windows machines to use, but the Mac just found it and after a few mouse clicks, was able to print to it. Geez. That’s nice.
Lastly, was connecting to a Windows shared drive where we keep all of our photos and music. After entering the username and password, the Mac had no trouble browsing the network and connecting to it. Sweet.
So, first impressions? Nice and shiny. Oh, and quite impressive.
September 7th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
You know, if you are going to talk about embracing the shiny, you have to post pictures. Happy experimenting. You can now experiment with linux ON a Mac :-). or Windows, I guess.
September 7th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
I figure Apple shoves enough pictures of their pretty products in our faces. Although, I did want to take pictures of our “first mac” but was overruled on that proposition.
September 7th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
WHOO!! Let me get my blue zip front hoodie!
September 8th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
So what kinda Mac did ya get?
Something I wish was EASIER on a Mac (y’know, just to be fair): automatically connecting to that Windows share when you log in. Open System Preferences, click Accounts and go to the Login Items tab. Drag your mounted share into the list. Next time you login, it’s automatically mounted.
BTW, your RSS feed doesn’t have the complete URL in the links. I’ve never seen that on a WordPress powered site. I just get relative URLs. Strange.
September 9th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
wait till you want to upgrade it.
or play a new game on it.
September 10th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
Well, I did build this server and install WordPress myself, so I probably did something to screw up the RSS feeds. I’ll have to add that to my list.
We got a 15 inch Macbook Pro. Seemed like the middle ground between the “crazy” and “sick” price points Apple uses.
Upgrades? Games? Well… Yeah. I’m not switching anytime soon, but I’m finding that I’m upgrading computer parts less and less. It’s hardly worth the time and expense. RAM perhaps. But when I find that I can’t run the latest game, I usually need a faster CPU, video card, and more RAM. I figure, why not just get a new computer, and have the old one as a spare instead of spare parts. I already have too many cards lying around. Besides, in my case, I’ve been going backward in the games I play. My favorite game right now is Dune 2000 which bores my Dell XPS laptop to death. Of course, my wife can’t play that with me on her computer anymore. :[ Lucky for me, I have all of those spare computers lying around!
September 11th, 2006 at 12:51 am
The appropriate response would have been “Well, my wife basically needs a computer for email/surfing and doing schoolwork and a Mac fits that well. It has lower market share so I don’t have to worry about viruses/spyware that might crop up. Trust me, I hate sleeping in the same house as a Mac, but I love her more than I hate Macs. PCS FOREVER!”
But since you didn’t, I babble more:
Parts lying around is probably the best part of the PC. I used them to upgrade my sister’s computer, made a computer from old parts and gave it to my mom (her first computer), gave parts to friends who had something break unexpectedly (motherboard and 2 power supplies), built a linux box (bought a $15 mobo combo on ebay), and used an old computer for work (had it been a Mac couldn’t have used .NET). I also sold some parts on craigslist and ebay and get to save money by buying discounted parts off of them as well. If something breaks, I have the option of asking friends if they have a spare part, running to best buy or getting a deal online (if i can wait). Basically, once the warranty period ends, I’m not SOL and I never have to deal with Customer Support.
Top 5 reasons I use a PC:
5) Contrary to popular belief, XP doesn’t crash all the time. (Mine hasn’t crashed in years.) You don’t have to reboot to connect to a network (ROFL).
4) More software, game, and hardware selection.
3) When I upgrade hardware, I can shop various hardware competitors and get deals/discounts.
2) OS X is a variant of freeBSD. I can run freeBSD on a PC if I so choose and not have to pay for Chinese workers to build a closed system and then install a suped up freeBSD on it.
1) ASP.NET/C# makes me a lot more money than PHP ever could and I enjoy writing applications for my operating system when needed.
September 11th, 2006 at 9:32 am
That’s true. When people need replacement parts (myself included) I do teld to tear down older PCs turning them into bulky card storage boxes anyway. But this isn’t happening as often as it used to. Most of my family and friends have newer machines anyway.
I’m trying to give Apple a relatively fair shot, but I doubt I will make the switch. I’m still enjoying C# too much. Just like everything else, you just use the right tool for the job. And right now, I write a lot of code dealing with external hardware that currently only supports Windows. So, my decision is made for me.
I find it interesting that you (Luke) are the ONLY pc user in my blog roll now. I guess that’s why I’m not so hostile towards Macs. Most of the very intelligent computer people that I know, use them. It’s only the casual computer users that I know, who don’t. Seems opposite from the norm, but that is my case.
I really feel caught on the fence on this one. I mean, from what I’ve read and seen about Vista, Windows still will not be on par with OSX, in my opinion. OSX just feels like a more advanced operatiing system. Going back to my PC feels awkward and somewhat sad now that I know there is a much nicer OS available. If Vista fails to impress, maybe more people will switch and more devices and programs will start to support OSX? We all know competition is good. To me, it’s still choosing between two evils, but why not choose an evil with a pretty facade?
Ugh…
September 11th, 2006 at 9:40 am
Actually, his “wife” whose name is Amanda, btw, wanted a computer that wasn’t going to crash every time she wanted to multi-task and who wanted something with some amazing creative aspects built right in.
September 11th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
If you like the OSX so much, install Ubuntu or Gentoo. Practically the same thing.
Out of working at Automark with 40 tech people, and trader with 80 tech people, and my dealings with my various sidework buddies, the ONLY people I know who use a mac are 8 graphic designers. If by ‘intelligent computer people’, you mean those that use Mac software day in and day out, cool.
I multi-task every day on mine. Right now, I honestly have IE, Firefox, Outlook, 3 Remote Desktops pointing to 3 different remote machines (home machine, live server, dev server–both hosted outside our network) , Winamp, Visual Studio 2005 and Textpad open on a PIII 933 w/ 512mb of RAM; I do this consistently every day with no crashes and its fast too. But, hey, this computer was built with a clean install; unlike the various computers you can run out and buy at Best Buy with trial software on it.
Again, this isn’t meant to be an attack on Macs as much as it is to be a defense of PCs. People get caught up in Macs marketing hype and the Mac-cult lingo acting like Macs are so superior and that you’d be stupid not to get a Mac. Yes, Apple took free Unix OS modified it and called it Mac OS X. Then, it built closed systems and put that software on it. Of course thats going to be better than a PC. Its simple to write drivers for it. You don’t have to worry about 150 different graphics cards working with it or 30 sound cards, or several thousand processor/mobo/memory combinations. Yay Mac > PC!
But if we lived in an Apple world, then we’d have computers like we have ipods. Just bought the ipod mini, ROFL well here’s the ipod nano. 2 months later, here’s the Ipod Video. SUCKA. (So now I have 3 mp3 players, 2 photo viewers, and 1 video player when I just wanted the Ipod Video. Granted you could sell the first 2 but there was such a flood of mini’s being sold on ebay, noone wanted to buy them.) So, yea now the computer realm. Just saved up and bought a Mac with Pentium D architecture. Rad man. Oh, here comes the Core 2 Duo Machines. Guess I need to buy a whole new mac if I want to upgrade even tho the graphics card and harddrive and everything else are perfectly fine…… I really don’t want to live in that world, and I don’t know any serious computer person who would—-too much fun having creative control over hardware and software.
And, yes, if Vista fails to impress and more devices and programs start to support OSX, we both know your shiny OSX is going to feel less shiny. Why do PC’s crash? Mostly cause of the buggy software thats run on them. Programs need to access memory and accessing the wrong memory or not releasing the memory causes most crashes. You can hardly blame this on PC’s. And, why do PC’s get viruses/spyware? cause PCs have 90% market share. Who cares about affecting 10%? (i doubt these numbers are exact but are fairly close) As the market share increases, so will the negatives.
All that being said, I’m glad you like your Mac and I wish you the best with it. I’ve considered getting Macs for some of my family members, but Firefox saved me the frustration.
September 11th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
:: sucks thumb ::
September 13th, 2006 at 9:44 am
I’m not going to put on a Zip Front Navy Hoodie and slip-on Vans because I agree with a great deal of your pro-PC statements—I wish I could build a Mac from scratch—but in the interest of fairness:
Top 5 reasons I use a Mac:
5) Applescript. I can make just about any application talk to another application. I can even use Applescript to make a PHP page talk to Photoshop. And I’ve done it. And Automator makes it even easier.
4) ColorSync. I’m primarily a graphic designer, and while it’s still a bit of a mysterious art, the process of getting predicatble color out of all my hardware and software is invaluable — and unmatched on the PC side without additional hardware.
3) Sexiness. I appreciate aesthetics. Some audiophiles are okay with a Panasonic stereo that pushes out excellent noise. Some will pay the extra for a Bang and Olufsen because they also look pretty. Same with computers.
2) Superduper. Just one example of how Mac software’s low quantity it made up for in quality.
1) Document-oriented UI. I find that I work faster with the menu-bar always at the top (Fitts Law, y’know). With Windows, that means maximizing your application so you can’t see any other applications. With a Mac, that means a lot less Command-Tab (your ALT-TAB equivalent — yes, we have that). I’m a graphic designer, and when working on a diagram in Illustrator that’s going in an InDesign document, it’s a huge boon to have them both on the screen at once easily.
That’s just my opinion. YMMV.
September 13th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Sorry about the comment delay, Arlo. I didn’t realize that WP holds comments for me to moderate if there are two or more links contained within. I just changed that.
nullgel <- WP newb.