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Posted on 10/26/2009 10:54:49 PM PDT by Swordmaker
I have a confession: I'm a switcher. My long journey with Windows, which began even before Windows with MS-DOS, ended with Windows Vista. While so many others navigated the Vista debacle by sticking with Windows XP, I gave Vista a try -- and gave up. I leapt to the Mac OS.
Could Windows 7 lure me back?
Windows 7 was built to fix the problems that plagued Vista, and it unquestionably succeeds in doing that. It's a bit less bloated, and it runs a bit faster. The annoying security alerts from User Account Control have been quieted. And the compatibility issues with third-party software and hardware device drivers have largely been ironed away; after all, it's been two and a half years since Vista debuted. Windows 7 even includes a virtual "XP mode" for running legacy programs.
[ Which is better? The Mac OS and Windows 7 UIs face off. | Get InfoWorld's 21-page hands-on look at the next version of Windows, from InfoWorld’s editors and contributors. | Find out what's new, what's wrong, and what's good about Windows 7 in InfoWorld's "Windows 7: The essential guide." ]
Windows 7 goes a few steps beyond merely repairing Vista. It borrows --and improves on -- tricks from the Mac's playbook to make it easier and faster to organize files and launch programs. Like Apple's operating system, Windows 7 not only looks good, but it has tools and shortcuts that help you work more efficiently. If there were ever a Windows that could challenge Mac OS X, Windows 7 is it.
(Excerpt) Read more at computerworld.com ...
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Computerword.
Snicker.
Based on the preorders vs Vista and projected sales for 2009 and 2010, Microsoft is going to make a big chunk of change on 7. I heard 68 million for 09 and 180 million plus for 2010.
I’ve been liking 7 since RC1. If it had been out two years ago I might not have switched to Mac, at least for reasons of OS. I still might have gone for the great hardware though.
The OS X advantage over Windows is definitely slimmer now, but it’s still there. OTOH, there should be an OS X 10.7 (”Ceiling Cat”?) before there’s a Windows 8, continuing the pattern of OS X leaping ahead just before Windows lands just short of where it was.
I just upgraded to 7 this afternoon. Liking it much. You can keep your Mac ‘Fisher Price My 1st Computer’.
CNet did a similar face-off and Leopard won that one too.
This is actually from InfoWorld, not much better.
Some of the kudos and points that this reviewer, Curtis Franklin, Jr., gives to Windows7—those about pinning a folder to the task bar—have been on Mac OS X since version zero. I don't quite see how duplicating something that Mac OS X has been doing since 2001 gives those "points" to Windows7 as though this functionality is somehow lacking in Leopard. In fact, on the Mac you can make those folders "Smart Folders" that dynamically change to include automatically new files associated with their purpose regardless of where the actual file is located. I suspect that, even though Franklin is a "switcher." he really doesn't know all the features of OS X. Perhaps he should have asked someone who really does know the features.
You apparently are not aware that Mac OS X is one of the four fully certified UNIX™ operating systems, and it can easily run OS X Leopard, WindowsXP, Windows Vista, Windows7, and Linux, all at the same time.
I suggest that perhaps that makes it more than a "Fisher Price" toy.
I hate getting involved in OS flame wars, but as a software engineer that has developed on Windows, Mac (OSX), Unix and Linux - that is just an ignorant statement.
being able to use the *nix command line makes tons of tasks faster than Windows for developers, plus I also do music and video editing which the mac is great for.
I have mac, windows (laptop and Vms), and ubuntu installed here at home.
Windows is my least favorite OS, but to equate Mac’s to Fisher Price toys is just ludicrous.
I hope to all get out you are being sarcastic or tongue in cheek. Unless you are hot, in which case, yes, mac sucks big time.
Can you tell me why so many PC users are gratuitously obnoxious and snide? I really would like to know.
I manage several businesses worth of Macs with Snow Leopard now running and I have three right here in my family room. None of them have had to be cold booted to restore lost speed.
My personal 24" iMac that I am typing this on has been operating continuously 24/7 since I updated it to OS X.6.1 on September 11th, 45 days, 6.5 hours ago. There is no observable slowdown in operation and it is currently running 22 major applications simultaneously.
My 1st generation MacBook Pro has been running for 16 days, 3 hours. No slowdown seen.
One of my client's business' has eight OS X Macs that have been running 24/7 on OS X.5.8 (I won't let them upgrade for awhile) going on 77 days with no slow-down.
I don't know what Franklin's problem with his reported slow down in Snow Leopard is (perhaps that unnecessary anti-virus he's running at start-up?), but it is certainly atypical for Mac OS X to evince any slow down in operation over time at all.
I have one question for everyone:
On what computers will Windows 7 run on and on what computers will OSX-Leopard run on?
When a company controls both the operating system and the hardware that can be used to run the operating system it should beat any other operating system but be considerably more expensive to purchase.
There are always tradeoffs.
Windows-open architecture. Apple-closed architecture.
I used to work in a mainframe environment and software was always bundled, the hardware restrictive and extremely expensive. The PC changed all that.
The only reason Apple will not allow the Dock on the top is because that is reserved for the Menu bar.
It still works in Vista.
Thanks, TChad. I thought so.
You sound like I did 5 years ago before switching. Now, I’ve drunk the Mac Kool-Aide. I have a PowerMac system with two 30” dual HD monitors and can run Windows from a program called Parallel desktop. When I need to be in a Windows program, I click the launch button, do my thing, and then click back to my iTunes or whatever.
I would never go back. The space feature is huge for me. The only downside is the Mac version of Microsoft Office SUCKS. It is horrible compared to the recent PC version, so I run it from within Windows.
I’m not going to defend Apple’s commercials. They turn me off, but Apple seems to think they work.
And I appreciate that you choose to comment on actual issues with Mac hardware and software without ever implying that Mac users wear ladies underwear. Honestly, that is appreciated. And, it’s true that some hardware is designed to require Apple parts. But, some is not. I just installed two 2 terabyte hard drives in my MacPro. They are standard off the shelf hard drives. Off the shelf mice work pretty well. Laptop batteries are a different story.
Speaking of Mac Pro’s.
I have a very fancy Mac Pro at work. Cost with corporate discount over $9,000, retail was around $11,000.
Have a PC machine at home which runs faster, has more memory, better graphics, better sound, better raid capacity, more hard drives, better monitor, even runs OS-X. Total cost $4000 out the door.
I’d say that’s a pretty hefty profit margin. Must be the price of the priviledge of owning Apple.
I guess there is one advantage to being a Mac user, we don’t care if you like the system or not. It matters to us not one iota that any of you choose to stay where you are.
I came to Mac after trying a MacBook Pro. When my Dell gave up the ghost, again, I did not try to bring it back to life, again, I got an iMac to replace it and have never looked back. You want Windows? I got your Windows. I run XP on a partitioned hard drive whenever the need arises, there are still a couple of programs essential to me that haven’t been written for Mac, yet.
Once you go Mac, you never go back.
I’m sorry, that was so racist of me.
So, what do you do with that Mac Pro that requires all that?
Have a PC machine at home which runs faster, has more memory, better graphics, better sound, better raid capacity, more hard drives, better monitor, even runs OS-X. Total cost $4000 out the door.
Give us the comparisons... specs, please.
By the way, who built your $4000 wonder?
Me, I’m just the opposite. My PC is at work, lousy graphics, no sound, small screen, no ram to speak of, but access to plenty of networked storage...
At home, fast dual quad core Mac Pro, 16 gigs of RAM, 8 terabytes of drive storage, beautiful wide screen graphics, etc., but no way all that cost me $11,000 - probably right around $7,000. $9,000 out the door? That’s very high, must be the CPU speed and/or hardware RAID controller.
That might work fine for Windows (assuming anyone would want to do that... I'm sure someone can think of a good reason), but I can imagine that the reason this isn't an option on OS X is because the menu bar is docked to the top of the screen, unlike in Windows where the menu bar is docked to each main application window.
On OS X, that would probably be confusing to have both the menu bar and the dock anchored to the top...
Most PC's ship without the Intel EFI enabled. What hardware did you use to enable this "hackintosh"?
I don't know what Franklin's problem with his reported slow down in Snow Leopard is (perhaps that unnecessary anti-virus he's running at start-up?), but it is certainly atypical for Mac OS X to evince any slow down in operation over time at all.
I could not but notice the anti-virus thing, as well. How much of his Mac's CPU cycles is being wasted that way, and does it affect anything else but startup time?Concomitantly, I wonder how likely it is that the first self-propagating OS X virus will arise before the first Win 7 virus is identified and put in the anti-virus database after corrupting a bunch of Win7 users' hard drives?
“Mac version of Microsoft Office SUCKS...”
Might want to try NEoOffice...
http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php
And he was running AV on his Mac which is not that common.
LOL. With Win8 being basement cat?
Even after I shut down XP, the memory wasn't released until I did a cold boot.
~~~~~~~
Microsoft software has never been as fastidious about releasing (disposing of) used memory (including pointers, handles, etc) as Mac software. I know: a huge amount of my own Mac code is dedicated to making sure I "leave a clean slate" whenever the app moves on to another task...
Can't help but wonder if Franklin also had Windows running alongside OS X when his system slowed down...
Sorry, couldn't resist. The following are mostly Solaris and Linux
wap13 up 743 days
wat10 up 715 days
wat09 up 715 days
wap12 up 715 days
wad04 up 715 days
sat02 up 715 days
sat01 up 715 days
sad01 up 714 days
wad07 up 599 days
wat13 up 540 days
wat14 up 539 days
wap22 up 453 days
wap16 up 445 days
wap20 up 443 days
wap17 up 443 days
wat16 up 415 days
wat15 up 415 days
wap21 up 415 days
wad01 up 384 days
was01 up 382 days
WooH00!
Not even the ladies who use Mac?!? ;-P
Personally, my reason for not wanting to explore Mac is simple: My brother in law is an insufferable boob, and a Mac devotee who understands exacly ZERO about the modern, advanced file cabinets called computers, and yet he likes to try and show off his non-knowledge.
I guess I'm just an anti-apple bigot, huh?!? ;-P
He totally missed the best part of the Search in 7, if what you’re asking for is obvious it just opens it. You go into the search box and type “cmd” it doesn’t find where the command prompt is it opens a command prompt, type UAC (because it’s still an annoying feature and I want to turn it off) it doesn’t find the icon it open the UAC control panel. I actually didn’t realize it was for searching for a couple of hours, when I finally read the caption, I was using it as a one less click version of Start Run, then I spotted Run on the menu and saw that what I had been using was actually for searching. That kicks butt.
For all those that want to run OS-X but not be tied down by Apple hardware, try this little piece of software by Psystar.
Rebel EFI http://www.psystar.com/rebel_efi
You might want to download it before Apple gets a restraining order and kill distribution.
Good thought... definitely a possibility.
The Macs could probably equal those times except for a more frequent cycle on point upgrades.
I can visualize cases where that might present a problem. It may be a little too helpful. Let's say you really want to find that article you wrote entitled "UAC, blessing or blight?" but every time you search for it, UAC pops up instead.
Video is part of it, with hundreds of file averaging 350 to 400 gigabytes each, but its more a function of requiring archival storage for many thousands of RAW format photographs, each well over a gigabyte. The processing power is for Photoshop and Aperture to do some fairly processor intensive adjustments to create actual work product from the archival files.
Probably if you kept typing past UAC it would get to it. Or you’d bring up the full old fashioned search and tell to only look for document files.
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