and so it goes on........................

.... this reminds me the match between the Beofans and the Audiophiles....

Because there are multipal posts along a similar theme I'm posting again - despite my last. I'm not saying OSX can't have four or more operating systems running simultaneously - my point was who would want too and why (accepting that some (very few) will need to have two running under certain circumstances - and of course Alex).

End of post.

True, it's not a lot of use for some people. However, one person I saw posting on MacRumors was working with distributed processing, and wanted to test his software before executing it on a large scale (as you would). The only easy way of doing this on a large number of machines is emulation, so he ended up getting a maxed-out MacPro and emulating 32 windows machines at the same time on the same network.

I agree, it's not something 99% of people use, but it's a great example of OS X's ability to multitask. For example, at the moment, I have 11 separate applications open (all of which I'm using), and at most I'll have around 20 going at the same time, and never do I notice any slowdown, despite the fact I can be switching between each application every few minutes.

My God! Reading all your comments squabbling over PCs and MACs is ridiculous! I had to listen to the same rubbish when I bought my iMac from Apple today in Bath. Who cares about what a MAC can do and what a PC can't and vice versa? Stop believing all you read about MACs being some kind of super computer and better than a PC, its complete garbage. For crying out loud, Apple have had to use Intel now because their G series chips weren't up to it. If you are going to have a debate at least look at the facts properly. Both are a collection of electronic circuit boards with developers who write programs for them. MACs are just as susceptible to viruses as PCs are but nobody bothers writing viruses for them because its too small a marketplace and wouldn't make enough impact. PCs can do everything a MAC can do if they were so programmed, but they are not, it is a different market. As for the user interface, Apple took that from Xerox and adapted it, so at the end of the day you aren't left with much to talk about are you? Besides, do we (because I have now bought a MAC too) really want to support a monopoly where you have to go to Apple to buy anything you want, be it software or hardware? Horrible business philosophy. PCs and MACs are just tools for a job and they do it differently from each other - thats it. But you would be skating on very thin ice to suggest that a MAC is further ahead than a PC because I am afraid from a hardware point of view you are miles off. Its just a pretty interface with not a lot of oomph behind it. Thats why they are only developed more and more for specific tasks, namely the media industry (graphics and music) but no good for the general business world. You'd have far more job opportunities as a programmer/support/analyst in the business world if you had PC skills than you would MAC skills and thats fact. Just check out www.jobserve.com and a host of other reputable IT job sites to see how many jobs you see going for MACs, hardly any. The facts then surely speak for themselves so I hope this brings an end to your squabbling. Honestly, I almost didn't buy a MAC today for this very reason, it was like listening to a bunch of kids arguing. Absolutely pathetic. I bought one because I like the style of them, but I will be running Vista on it and all my Office applications. For the moment, I have a useless keyboard that doesn't type properly, I have discovered that iTunes has all sorts of restrictions and that I have to pay Apple to have a MAC email address. Not a great introduction to the world of Apple.

Simon. 

Update literally minutes later... pages not opening properly in parts of the BeoWorld site and now Safari informs me it cant open my Hotmail page. You don't suppose this is anything to do with the fact that its Microsoft do you? Who loses out? Me, the customer. Can't wait to see whats to come! Nighty night.

Simon. 

I've also had issues with hotmail in the past few days, just geting stuck in a continuous loop of redirecting. Nice one Microsoft!

There was nothing wrong with the PowerPC (G) chips, they were actually the fastest chips around at the time, but they produced too much heat to go into laptops. Either way, when Apple switched to Intel it was the right move because for a lot of people, the barrier that kept them from going Mac was that they couldn't then run Windows if they didn't find Mac OS good enough. Mac sales have more than doubled in that time I believe, although they aren't getting anywhere near as many people installing Windows as you would expect.

Macs are NOT as susceptible to viruses as Windows. Macs use a variant of the BSD kernel (similar to what's found in Linux), wheras Windows still uses something similar to what you would have found in DOS in the early 80s. This would be fine if A) it wasn't still optimized to run on 16 k of RAM (true story, Microsoft still haven't changed much with the kernel's sandboxing behavior and B) was designed at a time when the internet was around and as a result, introduced low-level thread execution protection into the kernel (Windows has protection for unwanted thread execution, but it's relatively high-level and possible to get past).

Macs now have something like 9% of the market, so how come 0% of the viruses out there are for Macs?

True Apple stole the design of Xerox, but they knew what to do with it unlike Xerox who only marketed their machines at stupidly high prices for large-scale businesses, and there were a number of notable differences between Mac System 1 and Xerox. Either way, this doesn't affect me nowadays, what does affect me is the differences between Windows and OS X, and that difference seems to be between 3 to 5 years for features to appear, and about 25 years in terms of low-level OS security.

OS X is certainly NOT a pretty interface with not much oomph behind it. From a software point of view, OS X is Unix/BSD based (although Apple has modified the kernel significantly), on no other OS can you run 64 bit and 32 bit apps side-by-side like you can with Leopard. From a hardware point of view, PC world recently rated the MacBook Pro as the most powerful laptop they've ever had, and said it was more capable of running Vista than any other laptop they kept in stock. The MacPro is the most powerful consumer/pro (non-speciality-OS) desktop on the market (bar the graphics card) and it's about to get a massive update, the iMac is the most powerful all-in-one on the market, yet still costs less than Sony/HP's rival products.

Also, that may have been the case about Mac programmers a few years ago, but now that Macs are seriously growing in popularity, a lot of companies are desperate to see more coders because their customers are demanding Mac applications/drivers.

iTunes has no restrictions that I know of. Windows Media Player has more restrictions (automatic content protection, aka, DRM) than iTunes (you only get DRM if you download non-iTunes Plus content from the music store. ANYTHING from a CD etc... is completely 'free' of restrictions, same goes for iTunes Plus content.

Also, RE MacMail, you don't need it. When you pay for dotMac, you get loads of other things, such as 10 gb of online storage space and a loada other features in OS X (which costs Apple money to keep running). If you want something like dotMac's Mail, just get a Lavabit account, which works seamlessly with Mail (it's what I have). Gives you all the same features as dotMac Mail, but you don't get all the other synchronizing features and webspace, and it's free.

The only thing at the moment which is going to make you think Mac OS is bad is either if you start to experience issues with the early version of Leopard (which I am), or if you try and use MacOS with a Windows-user approach - it just won't work, you'll hate it. You will never look back, believe me...

Attaboy Alex!!!!  Well said!!  In fact you gave a very reasoned reply to some inaccurate comments.  I bet you've had a lot of practice at that!  One of the best points is to tell switchers not to try and use Macs like PCs.  Just think logically, and it gets results!  Cliff

"MACs are just as susceptible to viruses as PCs are but nobody bothers writing viruses for them because its too small a marketplace and wouldn't make enough impact. "

 

err , you obviously have no idea what you're talking about 

Oh no there was nothing wrong with Simon's reply. The issue is that people get so used to one OS (Windows) that when they switch, the kinda react against it. It's happened to a couple of people I helped get onto the Mac platform, and they straight away started hating it, but after a while and some good advise, they realised how much better Mac OS is than Windows.

ironic how the guy bought a mac for it's looks , then rubbishes it as all showand as for macs being mere toys and an os with no oomph ( god , that's the most stupid thing i've read in a LOOOOONG time )do your researchhttp://www.apple.com/business/http://www.apple.com/science/ie;http://www.wolfram.com/ - mathematica is a mac only high end scientific mathematical program that is renowned all around the globewhereas most pc users buy their machines to - play games !!! ( but it's NOT a toy - a mac is ! )the mere fact you're using vista on a mac says it allutterly pathetic , do us mac users a favour and buy a dell to do your REAL WORK on.. hahaeveryone knows the reason there are more pc jobs about is because pcs require more maintenance than macs , the IT dept's have a vested interest in keeping the inefficient ms status quo going as it's basically keeping them employed , if the average IT dept used macs , the dole line would be full of beardy losers with degrees in pc maintenancecheck this outhttp://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2182854,00.asp"Desktops | AppleWhat's left to say? If you buy a Mac, not only will you in all likelihood love it, but you're also going to recommend it to your friends while enjoying all the time you can spend not fixing it."apple leads reliability and customer satisfaction poll AGAIN by MILES !!!!http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2182831,00.asp"Of course, no Windows machine comes close to Apple's 9.1 overall score. But even Apple was down from last year in just about every category except technical support, which went up to 8.4 points. Apple's high marks extend even into areas we don't have room to print charts for, such as the 85 percent rating for the reliability of software included on the computer (aah, iLife), the 93 percent score for new desktops working right out of the box, and the 9 out of 10 score for the attitude of the tech-support provider. Even the Apple.com Web site gets kudos for how much information it makes available."and that's from a PC centric magazineand as for slow underpowered macs , guess who makes the fastest laptop that runs vista ??http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136649-page,3-c,notebooks/article.html""The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year is a Mac," PC World reports."Try that again: The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year--or for that matter, ever--is a Mac. Not a Dell, not a Toshiba, not even an Alienware," PC World reports."as i said , before you make such silly comments as above kindly do your research

this quick reply box is hopeless  , so much for all my formatted text , it just appears as some vast coagulated mess

reminds me of windoze :) 

Flappo The Grate:

"MACs are just as susceptible to viruses as PCs are but nobody bothers writing viruses for them because its too small a marketplace and wouldn't make enough impact. "

 

err , you obviously have no idea what you're talking about 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12537279/ 

http://www.macworld.com/news/2004/02/18/virus/

By the way, how do I copy and paste using this MAC as I had to type out those web addresses. Also, it keeps underlining words in red (obviously spelling) but does not make it apparent how you correct the spelling? Thanks.

Simon. 

Flappo The Grate:

ironic how the guy bought a mac for it's looks , then rubbishes it as all showand as for macs being mere toys and an os with no oomph ( god , that's the most stupid thing i've read in a LOOOOONG time )do your researchhttp://www.apple.com/business/http://www.apple.com/science/ie;http://www.wolfram.com/ - mathematica is a mac only high end scientific mathematical program that is renowned all around the globewhereas most pc users buy their machines to - play games !!! ( but it's NOT a toy - a mac is ! )the mere fact you're using vista on a mac says it allutterly pathetic , do us mac users a favour and buy a dell to do your REAL WORK on.. hahaeveryone knows the reason there are more pc jobs about is because pcs require more maintenance than macs , the IT dept's have a vested interest in keeping the inefficient ms status quo going as it's basically keeping them employed , if the average IT dept used macs , the dole line would be full of beardy losers with degrees in pc maintenancecheck this outhttp://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2182854,00.asp"Desktops | AppleWhat's left to say? If you buy a Mac, not only will you in all likelihood love it, but you're also going to recommend it to your friends while enjoying all the time you can spend not fixing it."apple leads reliability and customer satisfaction poll AGAIN by MILES !!!!http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2182831,00.asp"Of course, no Windows machine comes close to Apple's 9.1 overall score. But even Apple was down from last year in just about every category except technical support, which went up to 8.4 points. Apple's high marks extend even into areas we don't have room to print charts for, such as the 85 percent rating for the reliability of software included on the computer (aah, iLife), the 93 percent score for new desktops working right out of the box, and the 9 out of 10 score for the attitude of the tech-support provider. Even the Apple.com Web site gets kudos for how much information it makes available."and that's from a PC centric magazineand as for slow underpowered macs , guess who makes the fastest laptop that runs vista ??http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136649-page,3-c,notebooks/article.html""The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year is a Mac," PC World reports."Try that again: The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year--or for that matter, ever--is a Mac. Not a Dell, not a Toshiba, not even an Alienware," PC World reports."as i said , before you make such silly comments as above kindly do your research

Thanks for your comments Flappo. My research is based on working in IT since leaving school at 16 years old and having an interest in computing generally and following the developments over a period of years. I am now 38 and although I have had several breaks from the IT sector in between I am still reasonably up to date in terms of what I read. I appreciate your passion and loyalty to the Apple brand but I would encourage you to look at it a little more objectively. This should be a polite and free debate with people's opinions being respected. Personalising it and being critical is unproductive. I enjoy a good healthy debate and the one between MACs and PCs is a good one to have. I should like to know if you have any experience of using or progamming PCs other than in a home or school capacity? You spoke of Unix which is written in C on Sun and PC platforms. I like the style of MACs and I decided to buy one to see if they are any more useable than they used to be in a mainstream environment. So far it is proving to do a good job. However, I do not find it as logical as you suggest, not at all in fact as I pointed out with the spelling comment. There is no use of a right mouse button, applications are slow to load, the GUI is pretty (transparent and colourful etc) but not necessarily intuitive. I am sure I will find more teething problems as I go but I also acknowledge of course that once I know how to do something then it will become second nature too. Change is often difficult and as a PC user changing over to Apple I am highlighting these changes. You don't have to like what I say or agree with it of course, but having bought a MAC these are my thoughts so far and thats how it is. Since I am the new kid on the block you have a new target for your PC bashing and thats fine, I am up for the challenge.

I look forward to your next response which I hope will take a little more effort on my part to read.

Simon. 

I am not a computer expert. Couple of points though:

1. I would suggest using Firefox for this site rather than safari. This is an asp site using software from MS and it is not optimised for Safari.

2. I use the right mouse button all the time on my Mac. Works a treat.

Peter:

I am not a computer expert. Couple of points though:

1. I would suggest using Firefox for this site rather than safari. This is an asp site using software from MS and it is not optimised for Safari.

2. I use the right mouse button all the time on my Mac. Works a treat.

Thanks Peter, unless you tell me otherwise I don't believe my mouse has a right button? It might do but I can't distinguish it from the left if it does. When I bought this iMac yesterday I paid a difference of about £35 to have a wireless keyboard and wireless mouse. Are these the same as the wired ones? Perhaps I need to go back and revert?

Simon. 

you posted two links to supposed viruses and the mac

the first was from an ms sponsored site who are obv 100% anti-apple and the second was 3 years old

 20 million macs later and there's still no exploit that's damaged a mac in any way - your point is ? 

 

as for your It credentials - big deal - in the mac world , we're all equal , you'll find . a 12 year old kid an be just as competent as a supposed IT professional as the os and the hardware are designed from the outset to be as easy to use as possible , you'll find that out eventually ( as long as you stay out of the terminal ! ;) )

 

i've been using macs since 1992 in a business capacity , been through an LC2 , quadra840av , imac bondi blue , ibook blue, ibook white500 , imac G417", powerbook 15 & 17" , imac Dual core and now a mac pro 2.66 quad xeon

 

and in all that time , i've called out an engineer once

 ..

to fix a laserwriter IIg after it'd prnted 100,000+ pages and needed an internal part replaced

 i surf the net all day , 7 days a week and have never had a single virus . trojan , worm , anything affect my current network which includes a powerbook 1ghz G4 , a 17" powerbook G4 , a mac mini , an imac dual core and my mac pro

all coexisting , all communicating via airport and all utterly reliable and virus free

and not an IT support guy in the house ! 

I am glad you are happy.

Flappo The Grate:

you posted two links to supposed viruses and the mac

the first was from an ms sponsored site who are obv 100% anti-apple and the second was 3 years old

 20 million macs later and there's still no exploit that's damaged a mac in any way - your point is ? 

 

as for your It credentials - big deal - in the mac world , we're all equal , you'll find . a 12 year old kid an be just as competent as a supposed IT professional as the os and the hardware are designed from the outset to be as easy to use as possible , you'll find that out eventually ( as long as you stay out of the terminal ! ;) )

 

i've been using macs since 1992 in a business capacity , been through an LC2 , quadra840av , imac bondi blue , ibook blue, ibook white500 , imac G417", powerbook 15 & 17" , imac Dual core and now a mac pro 2.66 quad xeon

 

and in all that time , i've called out an engineer once

 ..

to fix a laserwriter IIg after it'd prnted 100,000+ pages and needed an internal part replaced

 i surf the net all day , 7 days a week and have never had a single virus . trojan , worm , anything affect my current network which includes a powerbook 1ghz G4 , a 17" powerbook G4 , a mac mini , an imac dual core and my mac pro

all coexisting , all communicating via airport and all utterly reliable and virus free

and not an IT support guy in the house ! 

I think you're getting a little OTT, Simon has only just switched to Macs (which if you've used PCs all your life can be a bit scary) and what you're saying isn't going to help make things any smoother for him.

RE the right mouse button, this is one area I am disappointed with Apple. The right click buttons on their laptops is great (place two fingers on the trackpad and click the button, soooo much easier than anything else I've ever used), but the Mighty Mouse is just useless! You can use any other mouse with a Mac and it works fantastically, I've got an el-cheapo £5.99 PCLine USB optical mouse which I prefer to the mighty mouse.

Honestly Simon, keep the MightyMouse in a drawer as a backup or something, find yourself a nice bluetooth mouse to work with. It'll make everything so much easier for you. I know it's a pain that you've spent a bit extra to get it (although you did get the Apple keyboard out of that). I'm not sure what to suggest, but pop down to PC world (where they seem pretty helpful) and try out some of the mice they have set up right at the back, they should have those available to buy.

Alex, I'm thoroughly impressed by your well reasoned and factual response to Beonic Man's rant.

First, let me try and put to rest a canard: that Apple stole the GUI from Xerox PARC. I had dinner with Arnold Wasserman a short while ago, and discussed this with him. He was at PARC at the time and as VP of Human Centered Design he was charged with trying to turn around Xerox attitude to making products speak to people. I'm certain there are many variations on this tale, but Xerox didn't at the time have a mindset where they would design around the human, rather expecting the customer to become an operator of equipment (they experienced serious losses in photocopier sales, for instance, due to this mindset).

The GUI was there to be taken. PARC had developed one version, but an earlier version had been created at Stanford. Jobs and Wozniak were looking for a better interface, and wrote their version of the enabled Graphic-User-Interface, much inspired by thework of others, but in no way a theft. This link tells the real story:

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/real-history-gui/3

 

@Beonic Man

I'm mystified: why did you buy a Mac? I won't even begin to try to counter your post, Alex has done a fair job of it, but I do trust you'll have some fine moments when you begin discovering what Macs can do. And if you want, you can open the OS without the GUI skin, putting you right into UNIX command territory on full-screen, or you can go through the Terminal app and use unix commands there. Then it won't feel like a Mac at all.

Alex is pointing at a crucial difference, though, which makes almost your entire rant moot. The fact that there is a little 16k scoop of data at the bottom of everything a Windows machine wants to do. This is why processing speed has been so important on Windows machines, to get those scoops out of the way as fast as possible. And why Macs haven't needed similar speeds to get more done.

I see you're going to be using Office in Vista. Have a look at the Mac version of Office, just for fun.

No one uses Apple's MAC account, I wouldn't sign up for it, and I've been using Macs since 1985.

There are no restrictions in iTunes, beyond the fact that some purchased music will have DRM tags, and you'll find that migrating it to other equipment may require authentication.

Do try to enjoy your new computer. Based on my direct experiences and informal studies. Macs are more effective at helping you get things done - in fact, to the point where I've told organisations I've worked with/for that they'll improve productivity by 40% by moving to the Mac platform. It's two completely different animals, in my opinion.
 

'simon' comes over as a 3rd rate troll imo  , if he was open to the experience of a mac he wouldn't make such silly flame bait comments in the first place , making ridiculous statements about things he doesn't even have the faintest grasp of , despite supposedly being a big shot IT specialist

then collapsing like a pack of wet playing cards when someone is capable of refuting his outlandish claims by showing 100% proof in PC magazine no less !

we get a lot of his sort over at the mac forums 

it's sad , really

Hi Alex, actually I have figured it out thanks. I thought that the mouse I had did not have a right mouse button. At least not one I could see visibly. It does though, but it was turned off in the mouse preferences in control panel, or MAC equivalent. It was set to primary and I changed it to secondary which now works. I have just been on the phone to Apple of Bath, speaking with a guy called Tom, who is now trying to help me with my Administration account that is set to Standard when apparently it shouldn't be. We can't install any software or make any changes to my computer because we can't log in! He says this is something he has never come across before and so he will phone the technical support department to find out and get back to me. I am sitting here laughing because it just goes to show that Apple is no more straightforward than a PC, which has been my point from the outset. You take it with the right spirit Alex which is good, just as I do with comments about PCs which have all sorts of problems as well. My 'gripe' is with the mentality that some people have about how wonderful MACs are when they are not, and to be honest, I really do get sick and tired of hearing it over and over again every time I walk into a MAC shop or meet a MAC user. They are just another type of machine, thats all. Whenever you go into a shop to buy a PC you never hear the staff criticizing a MAC. Why then, when I go into a MAC shop do I hear staff criticising a PC? What is the reason for this? I have bought a MAC and I am trying to understand it and get it to work. Tom, was not really that interested in helping me resolve my problem. He said that the shop was busy and he may ring me back if he gets a chance. He also said that the Administrator account should work because its a MAC. What kind of ridiculous response is that? It doesn't, and I can't log in, therefore my computer is pretty useless at the moment. Also, when you mention that you want to log in so you can install Windows they are not interested in supporting you at all. What kind of customer service and support is that when you have just spent £1,400? You see Alex, my gripe is with the mentaility of some MAC users who only acknowledge and help you if you agree how wonderful MACs are! Its so childish and actually they are not great at all. They have just as many issues as PCs. It is laughable at this 'must belong to a group' mentality. PC users don't bother knocking MAC users, why would they? They don't think like that.

Simon. 

and you're an IT specialist ?

 what in - commodore 64's ?? 

Flappo The Grate:

'simon' comes over as a 3rd rate troll imo  , if he was open to the experience of a mac he wouldn't make such silly flame bait comments in the first place , making ridiculous statements about things he doesn't even have the faintest grasp of , despite supposedly being a big shot IT specialist

then collapsing like a pack of wet playing cards when someone is capable of refuting his outlandish claims by showing 100% proof in PC magazine no less !

we get a lot of his sort over at the mac forums 

it's sad , really

I am glad to see that I invoke such a passionate response from you Flappo. If you get a lot of 'my sort' then you have already validated my point for me.

Simon.