How I Came to Get a PC and Not a Mac

Joe Wilcox ^ | Posted on April 6, 2009 2:17 AM | by Joe Wilcox

[capt. norm]

3 million out of 70 million isn't much of a chunk of the market.....we're talking less than one percent.

Macs are good machines but they are certainly not Ferarri-level by any stretch of the imagination.

I work with both every day (87 boxes).

[WVKayaker]

I still own a lot of older Macs. I regularly use a G3 iMac for surfing, and iTunes, in the back of the house. I have 4 old Powerbooks, including a G3 Wall Street. I put it on the shelf, when I got a G4.

I still use m G4 17" Powerbook, though I broke the hinges and the screen isn't lit. I just hooked it to a 23" LCD TV, and added a keyboard and mouse. I may, or may not, get it fixed.

I still run a first gen G4 Tower, again for storage of pics and stuff. It has two hard drives, and a DVD aftermarket burner. I plugged them in. I am not a tech, nor have had problems. I have lost THE INFORMATION on one hard drive in 32 years of computing. I learned the value of back-up in 1986.

I have been lusting for a MacBook Pro, but haven't justified it yet. Every Mac I own, "just works"!

[AppyPappy]

Vista works flawlessly for me.

[WVKayaker]

So, how many Microsoft computers do you own?

Gates got lucky, when IBM needed to find a DOS for a desktop. The Feds were their market, so, with the help of Wordperfect, et al, became a defacto standard for business. If you did biz with the gum't, you did the c thing.

In 1984, Apple introduced the Mac. It made a difference to a lot of people. It's graphics and ease of use were it's market. It remains that way.

If you are running a network with this mixed lot, answer truthfully... "how much time per computer" is needed to keep everyone working? When was the last time you got a virus on your Macs? How about on the Windoze machines?

Oh yeah, Windoze had to compete, because consumers demanded a graphic operating system, as usual, trying to copy success, with a ball peen hammer!

I bought my first Mac in 1984. I recognized value, when I saw it!

I bought one of these "Fat Macs" and had to order it, and MacDraft CAD program vs. IBM PC with AutoCad (a 30 day training included).

I set up the Mac in 30 minutes, and produced my first floorplan print a half hour later. I've never looked back.

[dennisw]

I do not like Vista! It isn’t media hype, it is overloaded with jazzy looking features. I am not about appearance, I am about fast, efficient work. Never another Windows product again.

You can easily cut out the Aero glass and other visual features and make it look like Windows 2000. This also will also boost performance 7% or so

Also Firefox is much better on memory than IE7 so I use it with Vista

Windows 7 will be even better and faster with better code and a few more visual features

[dennisw]

I do not like Vista! It isn’t media hype, it is overloaded with jazzy looking features. I am not about appearance, I am about fast, efficient work.

All of the "jazzy looking features" can easily be turned off. The result is a superfast, efficient, and stable OS, if you have the hardware to back it up (i.e., don't expect Vista to run well with 256mb of RAM).

I eliminate those features and Vista runs great with 2gb ram for me and a modest dual core Allendale. Firefox conserves memory. IE7 squanders it

[capt. norm]

So, how many Microsoft computers do you own?

I have six at home, four of which I built using cherry-picked components.

At work I am in charge of 87 (all PC's except 8 Macs) being used by idiots (TV news people to be exact).

I started in the mid 70's with a TRS-80, IBM mainframes in the early 80's and desktops from then on.

I spend most of my time with a macro-assembler for small modules and C++ for larger apps.

[WVKayaker]

So, how many Microsoft computers do you own? -page

I have six at home, four of which I built using cherry-picked components.

So, you own NO Microsoft computers. You USE Microsoft PROGRAMS on your pc's. I can do that on a Mac, legally.

I never liked that c>. I loved the graphic environment. I had GEOS on my C64, using a joystick. It was clunky, at best.

The Mac was a real deal. It was easy to use, out of the box. I've never had a network administrator, though I did AppleTalk in the 80's at home and office. It was plug-n-play. I loved it when I first hooked up a modem, and dialed a local BBS. Now, I carry an iPhone, with more computing power, more POCKET capability,and EASE OF USE, than any competitor.

Good luck with those MSFT nophones...

[Pontiac]

Nope, just joking.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Sony VAIOs are the best PC hardware I've used. Avoid HP and its proprietary Windows drivers at all costs!

That said, I've made the switch to an all-Mac environment over the last year. I recently bought a Mac mini and installed Windows XP on it with Boot Camp to run a few Windows apps I needed - it makes an outstanding Windows PC.

[DouglasKC]

Vista is a great OS. The media killed it. The media hates Microsoft.

Vista is okay if you turn off the stupid user account control and have upgraded to sp1. Works great for me.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

The media killed it.

No, DRM killed Vista and the media piled on. The first real assessment of Vista came from a Prof. Peter Gutman of the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He wrote an exceptionally long paper entitled: "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection" He analyzed Vista with everything: medical software (images downgraded), to new $4000 Samsung monitors (no images at all). It was an extremely thorough and damning review. Microsoft tried to refute some of his points, and he simply updated his paper with new information and illustrations on Microsoft's inaccuracy. It was quite a war of words. But the damage was done. There was never any real refutation to his original claim: Vista disables functionality at a very high cost to business.

[capt. norm]

So, how many Microsoft computers do you own? -page

I have six at home, four of which I built using cherry-picked components.

So, you own NO Microsoft computers.

This may come as news to you, but Microsoft doesn't manufacture computers.

Glad you're getting good service out of your Mac.

If you were a programmer/developer you'd soon discover that writing apps for a Mac is like manufacturing hubcaps for Rolls Royce cars.....potential customers are few and far between. The only profitable alternative is to write for PC's and let the Mac users settle for either running it on Windows or getting an app. that has been compromised to work in a Mac.

Writing for PC's is, to paraphrase Willie Sutton, "where the money is". I have no love for Microsoft or Windows, but my income depends on a good customer base....it's as simple as that.

[LoneStarC]

Re: “Windows 7 is going to kill the overpriced Mac business model.”

Is Win 7 going to retain the “”registry” ?? — if so, it will kill itself just like it’s predecessors.

So far the problem with MS is that they need to completely rewrite the system and they can’t do that without losing too much momentum.

The registry can’t be fixed and the Win can’t be rewritten without it — so all that can happen seems to be increased GUI gadgets and a more bloated memory/cpu-hog system.

If your time is worth anything, the saving of not having to spend 30 minutes a day or more fighting bugs, viruses, firewall conflicts, registry cleaning, etc., more than pays for any extra cost of a Mac.

I built my first 2 computers, bought 7 others, and have had OS variations HDOS/MDOS/LINUX/WIN95/WINXP Pro and now MAC OSX.

Mac OSX (Leopard) is hands down the slickest OS. If you don’t know how to do something, just think, “how should this work?” Then do it. It’ll work.

[Marie]

I have two computers. My little “put-put” - an eight year old Gateway with only 250MB of RAM and a 32GB hard drive with which I run Windows XP. I have to reformat the poor thing every two years or so to get off the junk that accumulates and be sure to defrag it at least once a month or it slows down. It hangs up or drags if I have too much going on, but it fits my needs as far as watching videos, surfing the web, general word processing and email.

I did get sick of the drag. I got broadband and I wanted to use it! (I also needed a computer that had enough memory to run my husband’s Ipod.) With economy in mind, I bought a used, one year old computer about six months ago.

This puppy roars! Quick start up. Zips around the net like a sports car on tight corners.

Within an hour I was p*ssed. Vista slowed down the performance of this computer so that it was as bad as my little grandma computer.

I tried to reformat the beast and to install XP over Vista, but it wouldn’t let me.

I unplugged the damn thing and went back to grandma. I plan on buying a nice hard drive for the new computer this summer and installing XP on it. In the mean time, my son uses it for video games.

I’d be interested to find out if Windows 7 is really better than Vista. Honestly, I don’t know what’s wrong with just sticking to the tested, tried and true XP. It’s a great little program! Doesn’t use a lot of memory. Rarely glitches. It works!

[DevNet]

Most everything in that paper was false - based on third hand evidence.

For example I have zero trouble view 4k*4k images under Vista - even when the box in question is hooked up to a non-HDCP monitor.

Please tell me what functionality has been disabled because I haven’t been able to find any.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

Prof. Gutmann has several sections in his white paper with the follow headings:

• Disabling of Functionality
• Indirect Disabling of Functionality
• Decreased Playback Quality

(Link supplied in previous post.) Its his research, not mine. I was merely pointing out that the origins of the criticism to Vista stem with this research.

[Swordmaker]

Mac v. PC... this time the guy picks a PC. PING!

Mac v. PC Ping!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[DevNet]

And he was wrong. His *research* is on par with what al gore calls research.

I use Vista and 2K8 daily and experience zero of what he talks about. Any specific points you would like me to refute?

[Swordmaker]

3 million out of 70 million isn't much of a chunk of the market.....we're talking less than one percent.

Sorry, I don't know where you get your figures, but the US Market share for Macs last month was 9.81% and there are 35 million Macs in the installed base. Among private individuals it's higher than that. Some studies say 20%.