The Great Mac vs. Windows Debate

[airforceindy]

Mac all the way... had mine for two years now, and it's truly an amazing machine. All we use it for is Web, Pics, Videos, and Music, and it blows away our old Dell PC. No comparison.

 

[imported_the_librarian]

To perhaps fuel the debate a bit more, have you seen the stuff IBM is doing with the OpenOffice and Lotus? Makes the PC pretty darn attractive:

http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/04/27/2256217.shtml


Just a thought..........

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

I have a hard case for my new MacBook, an InCase brand in red. Very stylish and sexy. I was wondering...do I need to get a soft case too? I think the hard case probably just protects against scratches, not bangs.

 

[pgoat]

uh-oh.......

Our three month old iMac is makin' some weird sounds....like an electronic timer ticking; steadily non-stop since last night.....only happens when the monitor is active (Sound goes away when the computer goes to sleep......)

everything else seems normal right now - any ideas what this could be?

 

[matei]

You don't necesarily need a new Mac...

My wife's workplace was binning a few old Macs, G3 iMacs to be precise. She inquired about them and her employer just said "take 'em".

One is a 500MHz iMac Indigo G3, and the other a 600MHz iMac Graphite G3. They had not been used since 2003, and barely been used to begin with.

Brought them home, installed Tiger on them (had Mac OS 9.2, which is cute but not terribly useful) and they run great. The Indigo iMac needs some more RAM, but the Graphite iMac is surprisingly quick.

The quirky design and bold colours of the iMac are quite appealing aesthetically. One of them is going in the kitchen, as a "cookbook" computer. It has all my wife's recipes, conversion programs, notes etc. It also connects to the iTunes server in our house, over the network, and functions as a jukebox/radio.

The iMac has surprisingly good sounding speakers, and works great in this role.

 

[pgoat]

Sad to say, but Apple is outsourcing the QA on their computers these days to ... their customers. It's cheaper than having the Chinese manufacturer start up every machine and put it through its paces.

You get a year of hardware coverage and three months of phone support. If you haven't actually passed the three months, give Apple a call. If you have, you can still sometimes get phone support using this technique:

"I'm hearing funny noises."

"You'll need to buy AppleCare for phone support."

"I see. Well my hardware warranty is still good right?"

"Yes."

"O.K. Rather than buy the Apple Care, l'll just have you guys pick it up under the hardware warranty. When should we schedule that for?"

"Uh ... before we do that, check out this URL ...."

As for your problem, I've had to send my last two iMacs back within their first couple of months for hard disk replacements. It seems to be a weak link. Check System Preferences > Energy Saver > Sleep > Put the Hard Disk to Sleep, and if that is checked, then perhaps the hard disk is sleeping when the display sleeps and is starting up again when the display starts up. If so, you might uncheck that box and see if the clicking continues even when the display is asleep. If you do hear it, then you may have isolated the problem to the hard disk. Call Apple and send your iMac back.

(I make a point of complaining about anything and everything when I send something back to Apple, to force them to give it a thorough once-over.)

If you have a lot of data on the internal drive, you should have an external drive or two for backup. You can use one for TimeMachine, and another for SuperDuper (you can download a demo online). SuperDuper makes a complete, bootable clone of your internal hard disk. If Apple replaces your internal, you can pick up where you left off by booting from your SuperDuper external, and when you have the time, just clone it back to your internal.

hmmm....that's not so good!

I'll check those settings...I doubt it's too much stuff on the HD - we got the 1TB hd and there's only maybe 80 or 90 GB used at this point....we do have two externals hooked up; a 1 TB Time Capsule and a iOmega 300GB. Maybe the two drives are too much for the iMac simultaneously?

 

[freebird]

Microsoft Vista is the last straw, when they quit selling xp they can count me out. It seems every new version of windows is worse than the one before it.

My last xp machine was so old that when I formatted it the last time I had to call microsoft because they want to be sure I wasn't installing it on more than one machine. If they sell you a computer with a disc to re-install windows, there shouldn't be any limits placed on it.

My next computer will be a imac.

 

[Warbaby]

I've been a Mac user since 1990. When we left the U.S. about 5 years ago, I got rid of all my gear except for my laptop - a 500mhz G3 Pismo. It's an amazing machine and considered by many Mac afficionados (including me) as the best laptop they ever built. I've lugged it all over the world, often without a case, gotten it wet (worked fine after I opened it up and let it dry out), even dropped it a couple of times, and it's never failed me. After nearly 10 years of faithful service, it's finally wearing out - the screen is not as bright as it used to be and the hinge doesn't hold very well, but it still works perfectly. Am I going to upgrade to something more modern? Nope. After a year or so of searching, I recently found a N.O.S. Pismo to replace it. I don't really need any more speed than 500mhz, even for large graphics (hey, I'm not in that much of a hurry) and it has some features that the new ones lack. The CD drive/burner can be replaced with a second battery for 7-8 hours runtime, or a module that holds a second hard drive (which I use for backup). The the new laptops may be faster, lighter, and thinner, but I doubt if any of them will still be working 10 years from now.

 

[Spw4922]

I've been using Unix/linux in some variation for about 20 years. 4 Years on my laptop. I'm pretty tech-geeky so command line stuff is fun for me but I've been using Ubuntu 9.10 on an old Dell Inspiron 6000 with a max 2GB RAM for a good 2 years now (different versions) and love it.

I can do most anything I want I could do on winblows and not have to worry about malware and all the inherent issues that come it.

It's not for everyone but someone put it well earlier in this thread...why run an OS that doesn't work well or one that works well but costs too much when you can have a free on that works really well and is entirely customizable?

YMMV

TTFN,
Steven

 

[rue]

I have had a Mac for over a year and I would never buy a PC ever again

 

[randooch]

I have had a Mac for over a year and I would never buy a PC ever again

Change "a year" to "11 years" and that's me. It is so pleasant NOT being the target of hackers and, ergo, a virus-prevention-software customer.

 

[rue]

No need to brag randooch

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I've used both Mac and PC and really have no issues with either, but I have often wondered if a Mac would be better, considering I'm a major iPod enthusiast.

 

[Chas]

I have both - my home PC is a windows beast and my laptop is Mac. My laptop has some issues, but they are minor. Vista, on the other hand, occasionally makes me want to run out and set fire to stab your mother's best friend to death with a screwdriver.

My next home PC will be mac.

Microsoft are Motherfudgers.

Sorry. I'm an angry possum in this subject. Accept my apolly-lodges.

 

[Chas]

double post. How do I do that?

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I just had to deal with Apple for some iTunes issues, all my purchases were lost. In the same week, my computer went kaput and my iPod ended up in a puddle. They got me all my songs back the next day, no questions asked. I'm very satisfied with the service I received.

 

[Spw4922]

Jeez folks...I'm all behind people spending their hard earned cash on a mac, fine machines....but when that old Microsoft OS machine is being used for a clothes hanger or a door stop, take 20 minutes, download UBUNTU linux and load it on to it....even dual boot it.

You will have a POWERFUL OS that'll run like a dream, for free and you can still shell out your 1K+ for a mac flavor. My $.02

 

[BinkieBaumont]

I have always used a Mac at home and one of those other things at my workplace

 

[Mike in Seattle]

We had the house broken into last July and my HP laptop was among the loot the crooks made off with. After listening to the "Macs are so much better" harrangue now for 20 years, I said, "Fine. I'll give you what the insurance company gives me as replacement value" (a year-old $2200 desktop replacement laptop) "and you pay the difference to get me the comparable Mac model that you think is just what I need."

So I now have a MacBook Pro 17" - bought a month before the latest incarnation hit the stores. So now I duel-boot between Win7 on my "Bootcamp" section of the hard disk or into OSX if I want to use the Mac section.

My biggest complaint is no Mac laptops come with the 10-key. That's important since I do a lot of accounting. You have to buy a wired keyboard (if you want it to match the look of the laptop) for $49 or a buy the wireless version for $69 with a $40 add-on bluetooth 10-key that attaches to the keyboard so it doesn't "walk" across the desktop or table. (Making the add-on 10-keys to be insanely light is a BIG mistake in my opinion because they don't stay put as you're inputing).

The keyboard of a Mac is laid out slightly different. My main anoyance so far is there's no DELETE key. "But there's a backspace!" True - but if you're used to deleting from the insertion point forward, instead of backward, its a big changeover. The control key is a control key for the Windows side, but you have to use the command key in the Mac side. ARGH!

But I walk around with a silent grin every time I hear how the Mac cost $800-1000 more than the HP equivalent. But I was already done with HP at that point - my last two (before the stolen) HP laptops have had problems. Among the break-in booty, they took my earlier burned out one, which there's a class action settlement on. Insurance company valued it at $300 or so originally. But since the class-action settlement would have given me a brand-new $1800 model, the insurance company grumpily has to fork over to me.

So for ONCE, it seems I came out ahead.

The Mac's a good computer. Frankly, though, it's not the computer itself where problems occur most of the time - it's with the OS or the software being used. I do notice, though, that things like MS Office do seem to start up faster on the Mac side...but then again, the Mac side has lion's share of the disk and there's not a LOT of stuff on that side as yet. Good old iTunes seems to run a little snappier there, too, but that's to be expected.

I think a big part of it is Apple has a lot more rigid standards which their developers have to adhere to than Microsoft. A lot of that, I'm sure, has to do with Microsoft concessions given up in the anti-trust hearings and settlements.

The big test is going to be final lay-out of the newspaper I edit & publish next month & June on the laptop here. We're taking a cruise (Scandinavia to St. Petersburg & back) in July/August. I've got to wrap-up layout on the plane, on the overnight in Amsterdam, and then the next day in Copenhagen before boarding the ship. It's my first major trip out of the US, except for day trips to Tijuana as a kid when we lived in LA, or up to Victoria (high tea at the Empress! Yea!) since we moved to Seattle 16 years ago. I'm excited about the trip, but a little apprehensive about the timing with my workload.