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Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.
Darwin:
Oddly, moving to Vista is what provided me with the kind of experience you are describing for people who moved to OSX - I more or less just use my computer now and don't worry about all of the tweaking that I used to do to 3.11, 95, 98SE, 2000 and XP. I'm looking forward to giving Windows 7 a whirl because if it is half as much an improvement over Vista as it is touted as being, it will be a killer. Vista proved to be that big an improvement over XP for me.
PS my parents plague me with their issues with OSX...
Paul Keith:
This is a weird topic. People moving from Windows to OSX and liking it seems so overstated nowadays I expected this to be a topic of someone moving from Mac back to Windows because of all the price nuances/limitations/troubleshooting and the constant need to buy Apple products.
Btw ironically enough, I feel that Linux's time is coming. Linux Mint is coming around well. Few screw-ups whenever Ubuntu changes directions but so far the day of the copy-paste distroes for newbs seems to be getting slimmer and slimmer.
Photoshop is also starting to be less necessary. There may be a time that the confusing interface of GIMP could be dropped in favor of combinations of applications. Manga Studio for example is bad at colors but can handle more layers than Photoshop. Corel Painter, much easier interface for newbies to grasp I think. Paint.net much lighter than Photoshop. Toon Boom much suited for motion comics based on what I've seen.
Note that I'm not even a newbie to Photoshop and I don't understand it but from what I've read, Photoshop is becoming less and less an app for hobbyist except for the multitude of tutorials it supports.
If an art following can even touch the Linux community, there may be someone with the guts to rip out the guts from GIMP and provide it as separate complementary apps akin to a suite. That alone combined with an improving Linux could be a god send. Hell, the lack of games could even be perceived as a productivity bonus.
Lashiec:
Hey, hey, your computer was built to handle minor photo editing, so don't complain about slowness when you're trying to edit huge pictures :P
Graphics are slow to handle by nature. Whether is a Mac or a PC. Now, if you tell me you are using a pre-CS4 version of Photoshop, and the guy you talked with is using CS4, there you have your explanation as CS4 uses GPU acceleration while CS3 and earlier have to rely on the CPU. And the difference GPU acceleration can make is HUGE, you just have to check picture browsing with XnView or IrfanView vs. doing it with FastPictureViewer.
In the case both computers are using the same version, I would pinpoint problems with your installation as the culprit more than differences in how both OS operate. Which would mean I somehow agree with you on the problems with Windows :D
A PC is such a pain in the ass to use and get it running smoothly. Very few people have the ability, patience, and willpower to do it. We're not the norm here.
-superboyac (October 01, 2009, 02:13 AM)
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Is it? How so? Installing Windows and the software I use doesn't seem that painful to me. Configuring it is another story, but that's a chore here, there and everywhere.
Someone like me who knows so much about using Windows is very, very rare in my workplace and industry. The problem is that if you're not like me or us here, you WILL run into issues with the PC. Constantly.
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And that's because people don't listen and do whatever they want in the computer, and then shit happens. And when it happens they blame Windows, instead of putting the blame on themselves. I know it's a tired cliché, but it's the truth. OS X gets a free ride because of so little malware targeting it and significantly more obscure tweaking options, but like f0dder says it's a just a matter of time for OS X to reach critical mass (in the USA, though), and problems to pop up everywhere.
Oh, and frankly, I run into many more issues in my PC due to my own actions than because of Windows' own operations. Mostly it's because of my old habits of micromanaging the system, something that was necessary with limited computing resources and a more crash-prone OS, but useless with XP. I'm not even talking about Windows 7, which will hopefully kill these old habits.
My dad is afraid to do anything remotely adventurous on his laptop because he doesn't want to annoy me by calling me for computer help.
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How you define "adventurous" in this context?
Mac users are not like that. They are quite content in a very non-PC user kind of way.
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So there's a PC way and a Mac way to be content, and you tell me they're completely different? And can you be content if you use a Mac laptop and a desktop PC, like a friend of mine does? Sorry if all of this bothers you in any way, but I'm kinda interested in your assertion, and I'd like you to explain it.
So that's it. I think the Mac wave is coming. Vista sucked. The young people switched to Macs. These people will eventually influence the workplace. Slowly, the workplace will start using Macs. Windows may start dying slowly.
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Damn, I missed the train. I skipped Vista, and didn't switch to the Mac (I'm still young, right?). To be fair, the newest MacBooks are damn good pieces of hardware, but I can't get myself to blow more than 1000 € in a laptop when those sexy ultraportables are starting to fill the shops.
Being COOL is not high on my list of priorities. :)
-mrainey (October 01, 2009, 07:13 AM)
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Well, well, it would be the first in my list of priorities if having a Mac helped with summer heat. /hides
Innuendo:
superboyac, lots of good replies before mine, but I hope you manage to make it through them all and read this one.
Think very hard about what you are wanting to do. Every computing platform has its troubles and the Mac is no different. You will be trading one set of problems for another. Usually, the enthusiasm levels of Mac users is so great that the problems OS X has get lost in the hub-bub of all the cheerleading going on.
Yes, video and photo editing are a great experience on the Mac. It should be as the Mac has always been the tool used by video & photo editors since way back when the Mac first came out. There's been a lot of innovation in this area & the best programs in this area usually come out on the Mac first and then later on the PC if at all. And this brings me to Adobe. Historically, PhotoShop has been coded and released on the Mac first and then ported for release on the PC. I think this last version of PhotoShop was the first to ever release on the PC first, but there's still a lot of ported coded in there slowing things down.
Once you leave this area of software development for the Mac the landscape changes a lot. Where there was a wealth of software choices in the video and photo editing areas there's a decided dearth of choices in a lot of different areas (but not all). There's a lot of software I use (Total Commander, mp3tag, Newsbin Pro, AnyDVD, foobar2000, and others) that have forums full of messages from Mac users pleading for a port of that program as nothing on the Mac platform is as powerful & easy to use or in the case of AnyDVD, doesn't exist at all on the Mac platform.
Now let's talk about the OS for a bit. OS X is slow. It's not lumbering slow, but it is slower than any version of Windows on the same hardware, including Vista. Yes, even the Microsoft OS that everyone mocks for its slow speed is faster than OS X. Mac users will tell you that it's not a race and that they don't need blazing speed for the tasks they do because it's all about the user experience and not about the speed in which tasks are accomplished, but I have a hunch that if you spent most of your OP discussing how you like things being slow that the Mac users' reason for the slowness of OS X is going to carry much weight with you.
OS X is not perfect and I don't know if they have fixed this 'feature' or not, but I just found this out and I was shocked. As recently as Leopard (don't know if it was fixed in Snow Leopard or not, but I haven't heard that it was, so....) if you moved a directory named, say....Bob that was on Hard Drive A to Hard Drive B and that drive also had a directory of the same name OS X replaces Hard Drive B's Bob and all its contents with Hard Drive A's Bob and all that's contents. Yep...that's right. You just lost data. Where Windows will happily merge the two directories and ask you when there's a filename conflict OS X assumes you want to replace the directory and its contents. There are other fun 'features' of OS X besides this one that you have to discover on your own because Mac users are too busy extolling the virtues of their OS over Windows.
Finally, let's talk about computer trouble. Every OS crashes & I have seen some spectacular crashes on Windows, Linux, and even OS X. With Windows you can check the registry, uninstall programs, repair the OS, reinstall the OS, and if there's a hardware problem run to the store and buy what you need. With OS X, you can uninstall programs, repair the OS, reinstall the OS, or take it to a service center. There aren't many user-serviceable parts on a Mac. They are almost like an appliance.
Just do your research, but don't buy a Mac because of what Mac users tell you. It's been my experience they never talk about a bug or problem with Macs or OSX until after it's been fixed. It happened with the move to the Intel platform. It happened when the Macs finally got pre-emptive multi-tasking. And it's happened countless other times.
If after you do all your research you still decide a Mac is for you. Buy one and make the most of it. Enjoy it to the fullest.
Lashiec:
Just do your research, but don't buy a Mac because of what Mac users tell you. It's been my experience they never talk about a bug or problem with Macs or OSX until after it's been fixed. It happened with the move to the Intel platform. It happened when the Macs finally got pre-emptive multi-tasking. And it's happened countless other times.
-Innuendo (October 01, 2009, 10:20 AM)
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That it's something I completely agree with. Wise words, indeed.
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