Mac verses PC

[Locturian]

I have to disagree with you on your reasoning here;you use the 'larger' support for upgrades and software as a testament to why Windows/PCs are better, but the simple fact is that Macs rarely require upgrades because the operating system and Apple software isn't full of holes that need patching in the first place!

Windows has to support EVERY hardware brand out there, and EVERY software from every softwaredeveloper - You think that's easy to coap with? Easy to figure out 1.000.000 posibilities for holes and gaps? Windows need to support everything, because it has to please the end-user.

Mac is a "come-out-of-the-box" product. It rarely needs upgrades, that's corrects, cause it's build for it's os, and the software is build almost to the exact specs of the type of mac you have. Again, MS product's has to perform on ANY pc.

What's the statistic for you being run down by a car - At your home parkinglot, or standing in the freeway? Same thing applies to bugs/virus for mac/pc. As mentioned, hackers/crackers/awful people, makes the stuff for the main-stream-user - The Windows User. That dows not make the Max/Linux any more safe. It's just not so interesting to mess-up or hack, cause Mrs. Smith is not using a Linux for her home-banking!

I love Windows, because it can run just about anything. You cannot say the same thing for Max/Linux, where driver support is a foreign language...

Your other argument is essentially saying that Windows/PCs are more user friendly than Macs, which is just plain daft! They are different, but my experience on computers over the last 20 years has the Mac winning hands down as far as usability goes. Start up is quicker, maintenance if needed is easier, moving files and folders has always been much easier, naming files doesn't have the stupid restrictions that Windows does....I could go on but your post smacks of a committed Windows user who has tried and failed to use a Mac because it is different. You use the example of a wife treating your car badly, or a five year old using a computer for the first time - press the wrong keys on a Windows machine and all hell breaks loose, but do the same on a Mac and no problem. Programme crash on a PC? Complete shut down or freeze. On a Mac? Well just that programme is affected and you can carry on without having to reboot - they even have a nice feature called 'Force quit' which allows you to select a programme that isn't responding and start it again.

Well, we could go on forever, for again, i must dis-agree. Mac and Linux are NOT as userfriendly and easy to use, as Windows. What the hell can the user do, if the printer he/she just bought is not compatible with the Mac, without needing special drivers. Just tell that to a newbee user.

I say again, Windows supports just about anything, and that's good for the end-user. Yes, it comes with it's problems and security holes, but we have to live with that, cause the support for everthing is so good! Just keep updated with the latest security software, and you should be fine.

Mac (and I am sure Linux) users do not do so because they want to be different, they do so because they believe them to be better; popularity does not necessarily mean better, it normally means cheaper, and you get what you pay for.

Well, whatever makes you happy. I still say, that a well-tuned Windows PC (like my own) can kick the arse out of your Mac. A good pc can do the job of ANY Mac, sadly, it does not apply the other way arround. So, say what you want, i will stick with my Windows box. Thx...

Hey, hope we can all still be friends, just cause we differ in techinal issues

[Guess]

This is good as experts are present. Please tell me why?:

1) Norton System Works 2005 plays havoc with my Fujitsu laptop?

2) Windows firewall and Norton firewall don't want to turn off and allow my BlackIce to function as it should?

3) Why Windows XP Home is crap as compared to Professional? (The above 2 problems do not happen on my other Fujitsu loaded with Pro??)

4) Why on XP Home commands are delayed and notices/sounds of function completion are seen/heard 60 seconds or more after the fact?

5) Why when automatic MS updates is turned off, everything simply slows down in performance when on-line?

I am currently using XP/PRO, Windows Firewall and CA antivirus with CA antispyware. Both the latter are lightweight but efficient and 12 month trails for free.

This is a relatively powerful laptop, 1.60 ghz and 564 ram. Thanks. Pete

I'll have a crack at this although it really should be in its own thread.

1) NSW is a very resource hungry piece of kit and laptops tend to have a whole bunch of their own stuff running in the background. Conflicts between these often occur, personally I wouldn't recommend NSW.

2) You can't run more than one firewall, you're effectively trying to run three. Choose the one you want and ditch the other two, Black Ice will conflict with NSW.

3) XP Pro has a lot more networking and admin stuff in it, as the name says its more for people who like to tinker. Home is a stripped down version more for limited users.

4) This one seems to be a memory or processing problem, you say it has 564 megs of RAM, thats a bizarre figure, its usually 512 with some shared for the graphics card.

5) This shouldnt happen at all, I never have MS updates on, sounds like something else is causing it, possible one of your 3 firewalls or the dialup connection. If anything having them on will slow it down as its constantly trying to download patches to Gate's flakey software.

And to add my bit,

1) Buksida spot on. Ditch Norton. It is greedy and inefficient.

2) I have had no problames with MS Firewall on XP/Pro but I have tried Zone Labs. There a are better around but I don't like paying.

3) Accoring to the marketing blurb Pro is just XP with additions. I have found this to be untrue. Use Pro any time and re-install rather than upgrade.

4) I don't know but Buksida is probably right. Always have as much memory as you can put in the machine.

5) This sounds like MS spyware reprisals. Without getting updates they cannot spy on you so easily. Update it has never caused me any problems until I completed formatted my system drive and installed from a copy SP2 Disk. Now it says that I have got an illegal version of XP. No end of emails have gone out to point out the the original XP/Pro is legal and the SP2 upgrade is free with no response. Does not seem to cause any problems other than the five secom message after every reboot. That is only once per week at most and usually down to power cuts and a Mickey Mouse UPS.

[rosso]

What's the statistic for you being run down by a car - At your home parkinglot, or standing in the freeway? Same thing applies to bugs/virus for mac/pc. As mentioned, hackers/crackers/awful people, makes the stuff for the main-stream-user - The Windows User. That dows not make the Max/Linux any more safe. It's just not so interesting to mess-up or hack, cause Mrs. Smith is not using a Linux for her home-banking!

Sorry, Windows is coming up from the desktop-side and Linux is coming from the server-side. As fact of this its more stable as windows.

My job is to be a system-engineer for Unix, Oracle ... and thats the reason for me to work at home with Linux. Just for daily use its for the normal user still to complicated. And the supported hardware is much less then Windows.
But today you get a great desktop and you can do nearly everything. Also I do my home-banking stuff with Linux

regards Rosso

hmm.. still 5 days to wait for a beer at HH

[Guess]

Sorry, Windows is coming up from the desktop-side and Linux is coming from the server-side. As fact of this its more stable as windows.

hmm.. still 5 days to wait for a beer at HH

Not exactly correct Rosso but I see what you mean. I can tell you the history of all three and bore the rest of the forum to tears. It would be a better converstaion over a beer or two when you get her.

I have been a Unix (and clone) fan for years even before Windows was invented. It is not for the feint hearted though. Windows, as someone else has mentioned already, is designed to cater for kids and grannies.

[Wanderlust]

Locturian wrote

Well, whatever makes you happy. I still say, that a well-tuned Windows PC (like my own) can kick the arse out of your Mac. A good pc can do the job of ANY Mac, sadly, it does not apply the other way arround. So, say what you want, i will stick with my Windows box. Thx...

Hey, hope we can all still be friends, just cause we differ in techinal issues

This is just a technical discussion so of course there is no hard feelings!
However your assertion about a good PC, and a Mac not being able to do the job of any PC is factually incorrect - the new Intel based Macs can run anything they want, including any Windows OS at the same time as the Mac OS. Even the old Macs could run a Virtual PC if wanted (I have one that runs Windows 2000) but to be honest this is a rare event.
Somebody else made a point about compatible peripherals, and although that wasn't really the point we were discussing, it is a valid one; Mac isers do have to check whether printers etc will work with their computer, but then again so do people who still use Windows 98! However this is not a fault in the OS, it is the fault of the manufacturer of the peripheral.
A final point that (I believe) backs up my assertion that Windows based PCs are not very user ftiendly is that the Compaq that I bought in the UK before I left for Thailand, which I upgraded over time and left with my Dad (who is 80) to use, was constantly beset with problems, so much so that eventually my Dad had to replace it. I won't go into the list of things that went wrong, but whenever I went home and used it I had very few problems, other than the normal irritations of a Windows PC. My Dad is not a dunce, but he is not very computer savvy either, so I think that a lot of the problems he had were down to him clicking, pressing or changing something without realising, and that to me is not a definition of user friendly/ I know this is only one example but the number of crashes and unexpected happenings on PCs which require a restart, shut down or a phone call/ trip to a computer expert that I have heard about over the years also backs this up I think.

[buksida]

A final point that (I believe) backs up my assertion that Windows based PCs are not very user ftiendly is that the Compaq that I bought in the UK before I left for Thailand, which I upgraded over time and left with my Dad (who is 80) to use, was constantly beset with problems, so much so that eventually my Dad had to replace it.

Bad example, Compaqs use their own hybrid system, not out of the box Windows, this is why they are notorious for software problems.

A generic box with a clean Windows install will be as stable and efficient as any Mac.

To the Linux user, yes I've worked with that as well but if it takes an Oracle Admin to be comfortable with the system what hope is there for the average joe.

Agree with all the comments about installing additional hardware on a Mac - bloody nightmare, a friend of mine simply wanted to watch .avi files on his Mac - could we find anything from Apple that would allow this without him inserting his credit card number? I think not. Over an hour later we managed to find a DivX player compatible with his OS version, on Windows this would have taken seconds.

[Wanderlust]

Bad example, Compaqs use their own hybrid system, not out of the box Windows, this is why they are notorious for software problems.

A generic box with a clean Windows install will be as stable and efficient as any Mac.

That is the PC expert talking, but how many people who go to their local PC World (or Panthip Plaza) know what you know about Compaq or other big name PC manufacturers? (I'm sure Compaq are not the only one, especially as they are now owned by HP). Especially as we were talking about the 'fact' that PCs are designed to be used by 5 year olds to grandparents!

Agree with all the comments about installing additional hardware on a Mac - bloody nightmare, a friend of mine simply wanted to watch .avi files on his Mac - could we find anything from Apple that would allow this without him inserting his credit card number? I think not. Over an hour later we managed to find a DivX player compatible with his OS version, on Windows this would have taken seconds.

Except that the example just given is not a hardware issue but a software one, is it not? Installing compatible hardware is a breeze on a Mac, but the issue is the compatible hardware being available (or at least being supplied with the software/drivers to use it). There are now a lot of 'generic' drivers available for the Mac which will work with most hardware out there, and most new hardware is now being supplied with Mac software/drivers, so this is much less of an issue than it was, say 3 years ago. I have never had a problem with .avi files incidentally, as the Quick Time Player supplied with Macs plays them (although that may not always have been the case) although there are some video files that I haven't been able to play in the past. I think that is a bit of a red herring though, as it comes back to the software issue that has already been discussed, and I think we (in Thailand) are all being a bit unrealistic and spoilt because we rarely have to buy software at the full price, if at all.
On a related but separate note, I do think that the software manufacturers have made the same mistake as the record companies did by massively over pricing their products, leading to people using various and nefarious means to get their software cheap or free. I understand there are development costs but the prices for (particularly newly released) software are ridiculous (both PC and Mac). Heaven knows how much the new Windows OS will cost....