If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Posted on 02/14/2008 8:16:57 PM PST by jdm
Linux OS, with a home modified/upgraded processor with 32 cores and a clock speed of 14.3Ghz.
Good for about 30 seconds before being consumed by fire.
Amusingly, Tim Allen uses Macs - as did his character on the show. And Tim Taylor never managed to blow up his Mac.
http://www.timallen.com/actor/press_archive/
Chris Pirillo has the evangelical intensity of a new convert.
Several things keep me in Windows (and Linux)...
1. No integrated DVR applications. Both Windows Media Center and Linux MythTV turn your computer into a networked TV server. Apple TV is a platform for iTunes sales.
2. Unless you are willing to build a “hackintosh,” Mac means Apple hardware. It isn’t as overpriced as in years past, but you are still stuck with Steve’s vision of what a computer should be. Want a simple tower with a CRT monitor (still the best option for photographers) and three internal hard drives? Be prepared to shell out $2500.
3. No Blu-Ray support. Vista has (for good or ill) integrated much of the technology needed to support Blu-Ray and HD DVD (R.I.P.).
4. Games. Windows and DirectX is still the platform of choice for PC gaming.
5. Upgradeability. Machines like iMacs are designed to be disposable. Most of the parts are proprietary. No new motherboards, no new processors. Take it down to the recycling center and buy a new Mac in a few years. The new Macbook Air is the ultimate statement of the computer as disposable commodity.
Don’t get me wrong. Macs are nice machines. I enjoy using OSX, but I don’t enjoy the idea of tying myself to one company. I have built my own machines for more than a decade and don’t want to give away that freedom for a nice OS.
I have been a convert for almost 6 years. I use Windows for a few apps such as DVD items but that is about it !
I said that for a couple of years... I just purchased my first Mac. Windows was always good enough for me, until... Vista. I made the mistake of purchasing a really nice system with Vista. It's really slow. The system is a dual 3.2 Ghz with 3 Ghz of RAM, TV tuner, upgraded graphics card and some other parts.
Before that, from newegg.com I built a 3.2 Ghz system with 4Gb of RAM and a Terabyte of disk space, a TV tuner, updated graphics for ~$1200... and I put XP on it. It was a nice system! But then I put Fedora Core 6 on it and it really flew!
I think Vista has a nice GUI look and seems fairly stable. It's just really slow considering the hardware.
I'm now switching our Windows systems out for Mac. The wife will get a 24 inch iMac, the kids a 20 inch iMac and I'll probably get the Mac Pro one of these days. For now the 17 inch Mac Book Pro I'm using is really nice... and it's real Unix underneath!
His Mac was the only tool he ever encountered that didn't need to be hotrodded. Great, just as it was...ARR, ARR, AAAR!
1. http://www.miglia.com/products/tv.php
3. Apple declared support for Blu-Ray back in 06, and the OS has been ready for it since then. Apple isn’t shipping any BR drives just yet because of certain non-Mac-related compatibility issues: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/11/1815258
5. As a consultant, I can tell you that most “normal” people (not geeks) prefer to buy another machine rather than upgrade what they have.
Fair enough.
Software makes the DVR, not hardware. MythTV and WMC are great applications that allow me to watch programs in HD or SD on any TV in my house, computers or portable players. Until there is really good software for the Mac, that is still a liability. Front Row is a good start, but it doesn’t have the recording functionality.
Blu-ray is already here for Windows. I’m not sure Apple is willing to make the compromises necessary to play back the Blu-ray DRM.
I’m not a “normal” person when it comes to computers. I tend to like cheap, single purpose machines. One box sits in the corner recording TV and serving it across the network. Another is dedicated to work. A third is for internet use.
My next project will be a hackintosh, although I may break down and buy a mini.
>Office used to be good. At work we were required to upgrade to Office 2007, and it’s a significant step backwards.<
Correct. MOST XP run Office software runs on 2003 at the LATEST.
If you send an MS Word in 2007 as an attachment, it is rejected by the other company’s 2003 version. Our company had to revert back to 2003 apps.
The seeming cheaper price on a Windows box ignores the lack of integration. Windows appears to still have some DOS code in parts of it.
A dual core MAC will run:
1) MAC OS,
2) Unix - the underlying core
3) and Windows
Reason #51: my tax rebate plus stimulus check should add up to about the cost of a MacBook.
Question is, do I want to get a MacBook Pro instead? The bottom-tier MBP is exactly what I want in a laptop, but it’s a little too big to be portable.
You can use “save as” to save a file in the 2003 format in word 2007.
You can use XP on a Mac. I'm doing it right now. BootCamp is free, or you can run VMWare or Parallels if you don't want to reboot to switch.
When I'm building a Web page, I keep Windows open in Parallels. That way, I can test my pages in Safari, Firefox and Opera on Mac, IE and Firefox on Windows, Sometimes I test in Lynx and in Blazer on my Treo. If I had a screen reader for the blind, I'd try it. As a matter of principle, I believe in universality.
But Web testing is about the only thing I use Windows for -- everything else, I have a Mac app for. If you have custom apps that are only for Windows, you can run Windows on a Mac through the above methods; you can run a Windows box over RDC; or you can run a Windows environment over a server-based VM like Citrix. A lot of corporate IT departments prefer the latter, because they can roll out updates to everyone at once.
And a Harley V-Twin. I don't know what that would do for a computer, but he'd put it in anyway.
Of course, it would require one hell of a cooling fan, and you wouldn't want to run it with the windows shut and without robust hearing protection.
so do i (have special work related lock-down software).
Vmware fusion can encapsulate it in a single click.
I run it on mac os x now. Works FASTER than the brand new DELL the company gave me. (no joke, Dell’s power management (how hot the laptop doesnt get) is a joke, the processor is speedstepped down to slow most of the time).
Also, push a button and snapshot your virtual machine (the dell windows image). That way I can protect myself from oops...And time machine can automagically take me back....(it’s built in to leopard now).
I got 5 macs at home an 1 vista + 2 lappies from corporate that have xp.
I HATE vista. My kids have it.
My PC running XP died last November. The only thing I could replace it with was Vista. I am not computer literate. My engineer husband and son love MS. But I wanted something I could use without having to get them to come help me every time. So there was no way I was going to buy a Vista machine.
I told my husband I wanted a Mac. We have three desktops and three laptops. The iMac my husband got me for Christmas was the first Apple computer we’ve owned. It took me a little time to get it running and integrated into our system, but aside from a problem the iMac had with our modem, I was able to set up everything on my own. That has never been the case with any of our Microsoft computers.
I have so much Microsoft software that one of the requirements I had for the iMac was that it run XP. I was able to dual boot the Mac with Boot Camp. I did this on my own with no help from husband or son. My husband was pleasantly surprised because he had never set up a dual booting system and did not think I could do it myself.
Now whenever I need to run a MS program, I boot up in XP without any problems. It even operates more cleanly on the iMac. I would occasionally have glitches on my XP PC but I haven’t had one problem with XP on my Mac.
Before the dual boot system, I tried Parallels. I could not get it to work properly. I would like to try VM Ware’s product because it would be nice to be able to access Windows programs without having to switch operating systems. I can access Windows based files like MS Word files and Excel files without having to boot up in Windows, but I can’t use the Windows programs themselves. I am hoping that VM Ware’s Fusion will solve that.
In my experience, XP works very well on the Mac. My husband, on the other hand, has been having all kinds of Vista problems. I guess it’s a good thing he’s an engineer.
In fact, the fastest Windows laptop you can buy is the MacBook Pro.
Conversely there are plenty of windows computers that would run the latest Apple OS just fine.
Only problem is Apple has designed its operating system so it won't run on computers that don't use Apple motherboards with special bioses
So I can buy the latest Apple OS on DVD but to load it onto my machine (let's say it's an Intel E8300 with nvidia graphic card and 4GB crucial memory) I have to resort to Hackentosh hacks which are very iffy and flaky
IOW the latest Apple OS is purposely designed to only run on Apple computers
When in reality it could run on many Dell, HP, home made etc etc computers except that Apple cripples the OS so it cannot
Aside from esoterical philosophical reason, what’s the problem with that?
Remember, Apple tried the “run the OS on whatever hardware you want” experiment already. It ended up as a support nightmare and almost killed Apple.
Given the persistent driver and support issues with Windows, I suspect that MS is wishing they’d controlled the HW and SW...
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