What is Digg?89 Comments
- Darph.Bobo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"I can't justify the high price tag on their systems and the fact that to upgrade you need to buy a new box, can't just pop down to the shop and buy a new Apple motherboard to use with my existing gear."
posted by natemc (0)
You make two good points but there is a third you may want to consider. Keep in mind the huge resale value of ANY genuine mac you might buy.
In lieu of exchanging hardware when you want to upgrade, just sell your current Mac take the money you'd spend on parts put that with the money you'd get for your old Mac then buy your new one.
You'll find it's almost if not more cost effective and you don't have to deal with ripping apart one PC that's worth very little to produce another worth very little more.
Good luck! - spooky213, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3mac snobbery aside, the average windows user really would dig the current state of the mac. things are very good OS-wise with Mac these days...
- X111, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It takes a zealot (or a kid) to brand all windows users as having no culture or pride. Some of us have to work for a living, and guess which OS happens to get used in 95% of all companies...
Get a life instead of drawing your selfworth from the OS you use.
- A Windows and Linux sysadmin - - Deusiah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Good point fremm001, I have never met any people who are proud of running Windows. Till 2005 I used Windows for 11 years and I was always unhappy with it. I never once thought "Wow this OS is so great and just keeps getting better". All I had to look forward to as a Windows user was the same old same old with a new look, more DRM and higher PC requirements.
I'm not fully satisfied with Linux, there are areas where it does not meet my needs but the same could have been said about Windows however Linux excels in many areas that Windows didn't dare to tread and so for me Linux is great. Some people are happy running Windows and that's fine. Though I'll always reccoemend they at least try alternative OS's just incase they prefer them. I have nothing against Windows except it's monopoly, I think we would all benefit from a more equally shared market. - SlappyMc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've been thinking of converting.
- Apocalyptk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Just bought my first Mac two days ago.....
- Klisk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't enjoy PC gaming anymore, there's nothing out there....
Maybe it's time to convert. - thasmadawg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2From being a hardcore windows user, my newly purchased ibook takes the cake... my pc is feeling a bit neglected, oh well...
- rattboi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1EmilioLizardo, I don't think you know what you're talking about. Who cares what CPU they are using, as long as the performance is at least as good as what they got with PowerPC, which all the benchmarks I've read point to.
I switched earlier this year after using my girlfriend's iBook for 6 months. The way we use our computers is very very different, for different reasons. I really appreciate the BSD layer underlying, while my girlfriend really just thinks the dock maginification is cool, and the integration of apps. I really enjoy the ability to do things quickly and intuitively on my Mac. I think everyone can appreciate that fact. - rakish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I was a serious PC user for 20 years, with nothing but derision for Macs, I "switched" 6 months ago. I love it, My computer is now a tool that lets me get work done, rather than having to spend time working on it.
- HackWithRamzi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Have any of the anti-Mac fanatics even used a Mac before? I used one the other day at the Apple store and I'm buying one ASAP. It's good stuff.
- jameswfrost, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've been a Windows user since 3.1! I recently built a new XP box, which is very nicely kitted out, and which I used all the time.
A few weeks ago, I invested in a 12" iBook G4 for university. I wanted something really portable, and I really liked the look of an iBook. And I've been absolutely amazed with it. I thought they looked cool, and the operating system looked good, but you can't imagine how good it is until you actually use it. I had dabbled with Linux for a while before using OS X, but after days of faffing with things to try and get them working, I realised 'Why am I bothering? Windows does what I want it to, and for most things, it does them pretty well."
But once I started using a mac, I realised how badly Windows did the things it did. Things like connecting to the wireless network at university. Lots of people who've got laptops running XP have problems with the connection continually dropping, taking ages to connect, etc etc. I've had no such problems with my iBook. It connects much faster than my XP machine does, and it never drops the connection for no reason. The other day, I wanted to use my printer with my iBook. I plugged it in, and it appeared in the print dialog of my programs. No installation, no driver CD, nothing. It just worked.
And that's largely what I've found with a Mac. It really does do things well. Everything *just works*. Installing and uninstalling programs is so simple - drag an application (usually one icon) to the Applications folder to install it, drag it to the trash to uninstall it. Simple! My iBook hasn't crashed once in over a month! Not even close!
My once spangly new Windows box is now only being used to play games. That is all. Next time I buy a desktop machine, it'll be a mac. - frem001, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3"I've been an all Mac user since the beginning. So when I go to the Apple store I really don't want some snobbish ***** talking to me like he even remembers MacPaint. The Apple Stores suck for Mac-Vets. We need Mac Vet stores!"
You're the snob! - dorianinnes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1pupppet - the old adage applies here, "you get what you pay for"
im a former boot-stomping xp supporter. i switched to the dark side and am never, ever going back.
get someone to loan you their mac for a month and youll see exactly what I mean. (and i mean a mac running osx, not the POS known as os9). - frem001, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Does the rabid Mac enthusiasm stem from the need to validate your overpriced purchase?"
Nope it's knowing when things are good and wanting to share it with other people. Just like microsoft, their users have no sense of culture or real pride. Linux users are proud and enthusiastic about their OS which is cheaper than a windows box. Where is that with windows users... sad really, you deserve so much better. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm a Mac convert :D , although I still use Linux very frequently
- Lynn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have nothing bad to say about Macs. It would be nice if the Mac Zealots would admit that not all Windows users have problems. I built all the systems for my family and none of them have viruses, spyware or crash. Have one setup with MCE which streams our family videos, pictures and music to 3 different TVs with Media Center Extenders. It is great.
Tell me why I would switch all 5 systems to Macs? What would I gain? Remember I DO NOT have problems with viruses, spyware or crashes. - neocitron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1why do you have to pick sides? i use both.. and i like both for different things... it's just the human natural desire to pick and defend a favorite... my favorite is my Mac... but that's just because i do a lot of Post production video.
- jamester, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I love my mac. For budgetary reasons, I simply use a mini at home. At work, I have an iMac. Both of my macs together were less than $2k. Hell, my mini was less than $600.
Not *all* macs are uber-expensive. Give one an earnest try and there's a good chance you'll come away from it having enjoyed the experience.
That said, I'm actually pretty excited to see what Intel brings to the table performance-wise. It should be interesting! - wilsonics, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You know, i've been using my girlfriend's G3 iBook more than my xp desktop lately.....it's very strange. I am beginning to like osx for it's simplicity, and the "it just works" feature of the operating system.
I bought a Apple Cinema Display 20" widescreen for my xp desktop about a year ago, and i couldn't be happier. I have an ipod as well, duh....i think i may be a mac user if their intel platform is impressive enough. I think after 10+ years of being in the tech industry....i just want my computer to work, not have to fart around with the settings every other day, and NEVER reinstall the os.
*sigh*
these are my wishes. - merm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Have been a Windoze user for 10 years, just bought my first Mac 6 months ago. I worked in IT for 8 years and love the fact that OS X is built on BSD. No more Putty for me! I can't wait until OS X can be run on an x86
- Lynn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@deusiah
Thank you for your input, but I am not in a constant battle with viruses and spyware. I am 100% sure my network is clean. Spend 30 minutes when you first setup your box and you are done.
1.) Start with WindowsXP SP2 ( Firewall on )
2.) Install Anti-Virus software. ( I like Kaspersky )
3.) Install AntiSpyware app. ( I use Microsoft AntiSpyware )
4.) Surf the Net with Opera or FireFox ( Opera is safer )
5.) Turn on Automatic Updates.
6.) Run under a limited User Account. ( Done )
I have setup many systems this way with no need of additional maintenance.
So again, I have nothing negative to say about Macs. I just find it annoying that most Mac users can not admit that not all Windows users have problems.
Even when I say I do not have a problem, you tell me "This isn't the case" and "you could easily have a virus or piece of spyware installed and not know about it".
Amazing that some are so closed minded that they can not believe that I have a perfectly working and clean windows network.
Well, I do. - Deusiah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@lynn
No need to apologise :)
When the virus struck it's hard to know if I was running as a limited user or not since I had to switch to Admin to install things so it could have struck then (it was going on for some weeks before I started getting loads of odd emails back).
Well that's great if you like it. I'm not trying to get you to switch and never have been I'm just took the defensive side and explained that the others might be worth a look and gave reasons as to why I use Linux.
Yes, I'll admit some Windows users have no problems at all. Don't tie me down as a Linux zealot just because I happen to use it, as I said before I think Linux is a great OS but not perfect. I do not believe a perfect OS has been created but for me Linux is a close as you can get.
As for why you would switch, well you can only answer that after looking at the pros and cons of each as I don't know your exact applications. You may for instance wish to switch one of your boxes to Linux (or perhaps obtain another) to run as a Firewall/Router to add the extra security that Linux brings. It really does depend on what you do and of course if you are already happy with what you are using. I, as mentioned above, was never happy and the virus was the last straw but I'm more than happy running Linux now.
Because I am a student and part of the MSDN AA (ironic I know) I can get some MS software for free, inluding Windows XP but even though this and other titles have no price tag it's still not enough to tempt me back to Windows. - planticus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Macs rule, they are all that is computer.
- hayden.evans, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0im a convert, im lovin it :P
- floejoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I find this particularly amusing:
Wolf projects that a growing number of Windows-to-Mac converts will propel Mac shipments from 3.3 million in 2004 to 12.8 million in 2014, by which time Apple's market share will effectively double, to about 4% from 2%.
YAY 4% in 2014! - jpb0104, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0http://www.flickr.com/photos/jbouffard/58563433/
i'm one! sort of. i still got to have my xp box. - Lynn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@deusiah
Thank you for the intelligent conversion. - sedgemonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0One of the reasons I can't bring myself to buy a Mac for home is my love of PC games. Nearly every single game that I would consider "a favorite" over the last eight years has not been available on a Mac. Hopefully this will change once Mac is running on Intel machines. I feel bad that Mac gamers don't get a chance to play some of the outstanding games on PC.
- kinobe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I love the beauty, simplicity and stability of OS X. It's slow tho, and i'm not talking about hardware speed. It's just that the OS has been built that way. Try running a few huge excel file on OS X and Windows XP, all located at diff locations. Windows and linux are snappy that way. OS X takes its time. As for Excel (or any kind of processing) itself.. well I've never tried a top of the line Mac before, but the point is a low end machine running Windows XP is fast enough, why pay that much for a G5 to get the same speeds? Just my opinion tho. That said... I love OS X. Anyone who's sick of Windows problems, and fear linux, I highly recommend Macs.
- greenemeansgo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0mac is rocking my musical world! media performs soooo nicely on osX. The last pc i had was a 2ghz AMD athlon running XP (which i built). OSX just seems so much smoother....and the audio drivers are nice...i can play itunes, a logic audio composition and a dvd back all at the same time and hear all the audio - that shocked me.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+01) I was dissapointed to learn that network printing works very
>differently on the Mac. In Windows, if you have a Windows print driver, and a
>small network print server, all is well. In the Mac world. This did not hold
>true. I had a Samsung laser printer that wqorked great when plugged in to my
>machine, but going through a linksys print server did not work.
>
>2) There's no "maximize" for the windows. I know the Mac users will probably say
>this is a useless feature, but I like the window I'm working in to take up the
>WHOLE screen (most of the time). It seems like it wouldn't be a difficult
>feature to add, and it would help us Windows-people assimilate better.
1... i run OS X, Linux and XP... the only computers that don't like to to print
are the PCs. this is what drives Mac people to continually bitch. To share the
printer you click the "share printer" check box. to print to a network printer
you select the printer... make it the default or not. print. it is actually the
PC that is giving you troubles.
2... this is the feature that drives me nuts about PCs. i want it to remember the
last position of the windows. if thats full screen... it just toggles between the
smallest window you last used and the biggest window you last used. i hate being
locked into abosolute window sizes.... - Deusiah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@lynn
I must admit it's not often you get the chance to have such a conversation over digg so thank you for your contributions. - Web_Weasel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0They missed another reason for all the conversions. IT professionals like myself are getting tired of spending their weekends cleaning the crap off their non technical relatives computers all the time. I hear the same story over and over. "I went to my parents/sisters/brothers house last weekend and spent hours cleaning their PC AGAIN." It's the worst in households with 1 computer and teenagers. The kids run every spyware ridden piece of software they find and then wonder why the computer is so slow. Lot's of us are just sick and tired of cleaning these boxes off over and over and either threaten to stop helping unless they get a Mac or just buy them one for as a gift for the next holiday/birthday. It's worth it just to be able to visit without spending hours cleaning off the latest Windows malware. Besides, do mom and dad need more then a Mac Mini to surf the web and buy stuff off eBay?
- Blackfish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I love OS X. It just keeps getting better and better. I've been selling Mac at retail since 1988, and I've seen all there is to see. I still don't own a Mac tho'. First it was cost, then it was lack of interesting apps (I'm mostly a gamer). Only now it's starting to get interesting because price is down a bit, I game mostly on Xbox (soon to be Xbox 360) and there are more interesting apps on Xbox. iLife products are all quite good, as are the professional apps.
However I bet my next computer will be a PC. Probably running Windows Vista Media Center Edition. For what I'm interested in, there's still so much more going on in the Windows market/community than on the Mac.
And I can run Konfabulator to get those pretty widgets and iTunes and my iPod nano run just great on Windows... Sorry Steve Jobs, you don't have this PC user converted yet, no matter what processor you use :P - Blackfish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0ooops? that was supposed to be "more interesting apps on the Mac OS" not "Xbox"!
- blistered, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm a windows user. I might try a Mac, from what I understand its a great computer and I like the idea of trying something different. What I dislike is some, not all, Mac users have a holier than thou attitude toward PC users. Your not better, or more enlightened, you just use a different (perhaps better) computer.
- cranium, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Prior to OSX, macs were for granolas.
Now they're for geeks too. - mardigrasnut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I was with the mass of individuals who had nothing but bad things to say about macs, till my pc gave me the blue screen of death for the last time. I was one who was tired of having to buy this and that to get one program to work or having issues when i would upgrade a hardware component. I can not tell you how strange it was to turn on my powerbook and be able to start working and playing right away. I didn't have to add anything besides WOW:) I know one individual had an issue with the assistants at the apple store. I have to say I love the one near my home. It is fantastic to be able to go in and have someone tell me how to run certain programs or tell me the ins and outs of my powerbook and not have to pay them!!.
- darkteb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0try a mac, u will not regret it..
- Lynn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@deusiah
I am sorry if I offended you.
You are right I can not be 100% sure but with the setup I described my network is extremely secure. I have not once had a problem. I am sorry about the virus that infected your system. Were you running as a limited user?
I am very happy with my setup. I love MCE and the extender technology. I love streaming my videos, music and photos to the MC Extenders in my house. I love playing games over my network with my family. I have lots of fun with my computers.
If you could come to my house and see and experience my setup you would love it too.
Why would I switch?
Can you admit that some windows users have no problems? - isalpha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm a potential switcher (just waiting for the move to Intel) but here's a great link about a Linux guys attempt to switch to the Mac: http://ex-parrot.com/~chris/sucks/ibook.html
Here are his conclusions:
* Don't for the love of god buy an Apple Macintosh if you believe both that you'll be buying an appliance, and that the thing is a real, usable UNIX computer. I cannot now imagine how I could have been stupid enough to do so.
* Proprietary software really does suck if you have ambitions to make it work the way you want, not the way Steve Jobs does. I wasn't misremembering, and Richard Stallman is right.
* Linux still sucks, too. Running it on a strange platform in 2003 is just like running it on bog-standard PC hardware was in 1998: nothing quite works, and you have to spend ages pissing about with XFree86 configuration files before it will do what you want. Worse, since 1998 it's grown all sorts of desktop environments and selected `easy-to-use' components which just get in the way.
* The iBook is still a nice machine. One day I expect I'll learn to love it, by which time I fully expect it to be obsolete. (Arguably, it already is.) - pr0t0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I'll chip in my $0.02 and say the Mac and OSX is by far my favorite computing environment. For perspective, here's my history with the silicon beast...
I've been using computers a LONG time. My first was a simple terminal with a 300 baud modem I used to connect to the BBS (yeah Tradewars!). I had a friend who had a MacSE and I really liked using it. Another friend had what was probably a 286 that we did some basic programming on. A third friend had an Amiga 500...really fun for gaming. The high school had some Apple II's that I learned to do some more programming on. In the mid-90's I bought a PentiumPro180 with Win95...that kinda sucked.
I started working as a graphic artist and was reacquainted with the mac. OS8 wasn't great, but got in my way a lot less than Win95/98. W2K came out and I thought it was pretty good. Comparing W2K to 9.0...both had problems, but neither had issues any more significant than the other. They both crashed a lot. But the PC did things like suddenly be unable to find any printers. At least when the Mac rebooted, everything still worked.
I finally went back to school and got my Computer Science degree in 2002. Upgraded of MacOS9.2.2 to 10.3. HUGE improvement!
My XPPro gaming box still crashes with some weird-ass error that I haven't been able to track down. But my OSX box has never crashed once in three years. Every rare once in a while an app will crash but that's NBD, and I typically run 7 programs simultaneously, while streaming MP3 content without so much as a hiccup. Sometimes I'll have so many CPU intensive things going on at once I just sit back and marvel that the machine isn't a smoking pile of metal...but it just keeps working.
Here's my take on Macs for the tech-crowd. Before OSX, you really couldn't tinker a whole lot with the OS. What fun is that? Now that the new OS is out and maturing, there's all kinds of things you can tinker with...and it really does "just work".
Hardware comparisons aside, if you think that Mac's are overpriced, then you probably don't place any value on your time. - nutcase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i got a mac, just didnt get a new computer ;-)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0As far as mac being expensive, check out the refurbished section of the apple store. I just picked up a refurb mac mini for the office for $379. And it runs just fine (crosses fingers).
- pyrolyte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0World of Warcraft looks great on my new 20" iMac G5. But I didnt switch from windows to mac. I switched from linux to mac. There are probably alot more linux to mac converts than there are windows to mac.
- orangetiki, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I liked the article that was liked from inside this article more.
- zeroxcape, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0work of art: http://www.apple.com/powerbook/
- Deusiah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Lynn, there's no need to be rude, I'm just saying that you can never be 100% sure your system is safe regardless of the OS it's running on. What about the Virus your virus scanner hasn't yet been updated to pick up? It can happen.
As I tried to empahsise before, you can never remove the possibility of infection only increase your defence against it which switching to Mac/Linux certainly does.
Thanks, for the tip about XP setup but it was not needed, in the 11 years I have been running Windows I have learned how to put up a good defence again virii and the likes. A virus got passed my virus scanner (it disabled the scan but kept it running it) and used my PC to email thousands of people effectivly rendering my email account useless due to the high volume of spam . That's when I decided I needed to switch.
I find it ironic that you are the one calling me "closed minded" when you are the one denying any possible security issues with your Windows machines. - Leftyshields, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The crappy thing about commenting on Digg is that there is no conversation. Everyone talks. No one listens. You should work on that.
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