Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

[f0dder]

My computer life took a new direction a while back and I also grew tired simply keeping up with Microsoft's turns and twists, primarily with document formats. I could no longer afford to chase them version after version within their proprietary format. Then came ODF.

ODF sucks almost as much as OOXML; both formats are pretty much XML memory dumps of the internal structure, rather than being sane; the only positive thing about ODF is that it's specification is shorter than OOXML.

Having an XML-based document format for document exchange is nice, but because of the fscktarded nature of both formats, they're only useful when being loaded in their native word processor - and thus the exchange part falls flat and useless on the ground. If you've ever poked around inside the guts of an OOXML or ODF document, you'd hopefully hate them as much as I do. PDF is the only proper "portable" document exchange format, but it's read-only.

Choosing an XML-based document format as the default in a word processor approaches level 10 retardedness. It works fine for small documents, but when you're working with 100+ pages... gah. The old .DOC format might be proprietary and all, but only updating modified sections in an efficient binary format sure as hell beats streaming out several megabytes of crap-XML, especially since the bloat of the crap-XML is hidden by the use of ZIP compression...

As for the cloud computing rambling, I find that as likely to happen as everybody moving to thin clients. It works for simplistic uses, and sure thing a lot of internal applications are done via web-based apps - more power to that. But games and compute-intensive stuff isn't leaving the desktop for years++ to come, and thanks DOYC for that. I'm pretty happy of having control of my own data, Google's "do no evil" my ass

[Stoic Joker]

The thing that's always killed me about the ODF quest is that while "they" are trying to find a common method of rendering formatted/rich text on any platform ... (which is a great idea...) ... nobody has even managed to even pull that off with a plain ASKII text document. Basically because there appears to be about 5 different methods of defining a line break. 

I do agree with Adobe's .PDF as the best yet attempt at a cross platform document (considering it really does actually just work), but damn that thing is turning into a cagey pita with all the other (Swiss-Army-Knife style) crap they keep trying to squeeze into it.

[superboyac]

The thing that's always killed me about the ODF quest is that while "they" are trying to find a common method of rendering formatted/rich text on any platform ... (which is a great idea...) ... nobody has even managed to even pull that off with a plain ASKII text document. Basically because there appears to be about 5 different methods of defining a line break. 

I do agree with Adobe's .PDF as the best yet attempt at a cross platform document (considering it really does actually just work), but damn that thing is turning into a cagey pita with all the other (Swiss-Army-Knife style) crap they keep trying to squeeze into it.

Yeah, and these bloat and speed issues is my main frustration with just about every mainstream program/OS that i run into.  When you step back and consider the power that we have available now in our computer (CPU, RAM, GPU, etc.) it's very surprising that programs are not zip-zip fast.  I'm not saying anything is slow on my new computer, they are not slow.  But it definitely could be faster.

Why is Acrobat such an enormous application?  It's all bloat.  Don't come to me with the features that 0.001% of the people use.  I bet the program could be 20 MB and nobody would notice.  And a hell of a lot faster.  It should open and close almost before you click the button.

Same with Office.  Let's talk Outlook.  All it does is email and calendar stuff.  So slow.  There's no need.

Same with any large mainstream software.  Nero, Mcafee, Norton, Photoshop.  It just doesn't seem like we are able to enjoy the processing power we have today.  The more power we get, the more bloated programs get.  And if the OS is bloated or inefficient, then we're instantly off to a bad start.

[Josh]

Why is Acrobat such an enormous application?  It's all bloat.  Don't come to me with the features that 0.001% of the people use.  I bet the program could be 20 MB and nobody would notice.  And a hell of a lot faster.  It should open and close almost before you click the button.

Why is it so big? Because companies do use a lot of the functionality built into it. Heck, the company I am with has very few people compared to some organizations I have dealt with, and we use quite a few of the PDF distribution capabilities that acrobat provides. But, also remember, that Adobe ACROBAT is not designed solely as a reader. It is designed for the business/user which wants to control distribution of their documents, provide change tracking, add form capabilities to documents, and quite a lot more. The functionality I list above is only the tip of what acrobat can and is used for. The biggest thing I see people making the mistake about acrobat is using it as an "editor". Acrobat is NOT DESIGNED to edit documents. It is designed to convert your existing documents into a cross platform distributable document with the type of security or modifications you require. Most users think that a PDF document is meant to be a SOURCE document, which it is not (minus, again, form-based documents). You still require a word processor/3rd party application to create the base document.

Same with Office.  Let's talk Outlook.  All it does is email and calendar stuff.  So slow.  There's no need.

Outlook does FAR MORE than just calendar and email "stuff". Again, my small organization (~300 people worldwide) uses outlook quite often. We share calendars, exchange email, perform task processing and tracking, manage our organizational contact lists, conduct meetings, and quite a bit more with outlook. Plus, outlook is designed to interact with our user portal so we can share information between outlook and our web-based portal so that users can access this info anywhere in the world. I have yet to meet a program which can do as much as outlook is capable of, minus notes but we won't touch that monstrosity.

Same with any large mainstream software.  Nero, Mcafee, Norton, Photoshop.  It just doesn't seem like we are able to enjoy the processing power we have today.  The more power we get, the more bloated programs get.  And if the OS is bloated or inefficient, then we're instantly off to a bad start.

With more processing power comes more ability to perform. Application developers adapt to what their users request. The issue with power users is that all they want is something small but power users, as much as I hate to say it, are not the majority (Minus photoshop/video editing professionals). Nero added most of it's media processing applications to the Nero suite because end users requested it. Nero started as a very basic CD burner but with the change in technology came a change in the end-user requirements for what they hoped the application could do.

Now please, do not get me wrong, some of these changes should be optional and selectable at install (and in Nero's case, they are), but most of what is included has been requested. The vocal MAJORITY determine, in most cases, what is important. Look at Microsoft, the users complained and complained about vista (although I personally had no issues with vista) and now we have Windows 7 which is lighter and as fast, if not faster depending on hardware, as Windows XP.

[cmpm]

The plus of macs imho, is that you can reload it/reformat and get everything back without 3 days of updates. And downloading things to make it do what it needs to.

My son in college uses a mac, and I told him to be sure to save his work to the college's servers or his flash drive. Just in case.
And I feel like he has more time to do his college work then mess with a pc.

The problems he has run in to has been more in the format area. Such as not being able to read or write to ntfs. And problems converting certain videos, divx for one. So then there is a search for mac compatible converters, and reading the user guide a lot, just to figure out how to do things the mac can do.

Overall, even with the price I paid, I'm glad he has a mac to do his college work. Cause he would be distracted with a pc, with it's games and it's flexibility to get almost any program to accomplish any task. While finding a program to convert divx to something a mac can read I have not found. Of course the divx came from a pc.

Personally I will stay with a pc, but I hear the student for mac deal, as a parent. Half of his dorm has macs. I know he's not playing most of his games cause he can't.

I don't know enough about macs to do what I can on a pc.
Which may be the bias for me.

edit- in case you were curious,
he wanted the macbook pro
i tried to talk him into a pc notebook
but a macbook pro is what he wanted
so he has it

[f0dder]

but a macbook pro is what he wanted
so he has it

So... do you check up on him regularly to make sure he's not... you know... a bit to artsy-fartsy?

Sorry to hear that you've wasted a boatload of money to satisfy you son's whim. I'd rather suffer the *u*x brainwaishing of http://daimi.au.dk/ than some {m,f}a{c,g} studio.

[mouser]

f0dder the first post by you on this page was a great one.  most recent post.. well.. not.  just my 2 cents.

[cmpm]

No, it was not a whim, he knows more about macs then me.
For a couple of years he has wanted this.
And he deserves it and anything else he wants to do college.
A lot of his friends have macs as well.
He also knows about pcs.

I think that's all I can say about your post fodder.
At this point.

[MrCrispy]

I would like to dispel 2 common myths about Mac vs Windows. I'm not saying you believe in these, but they are very common in almost every discussion like this -

1. Mac's have superior hardware - they have the exact same components as a pc, ever since Apple switched to Intel. If anything, Apple lags behind pc makers. Unless you buy a Mac right after a refresh, for the next year or so you'll be forced to buy outdated graphics cards, hard disk etc, and don't have the option to upgrade. The difference is in the laptops, which have better design (such as the unibody) and better appearance, but this does not mean they are built better.

2. Mac's are safer - OSX is technically inferior to Windows in nearly every aspect of security. Its safer in the exact same way there's less chance of a robbery in a cottage with no doors in the middle of a desert compared to a house in a big city.

Here's an experiment - buy a pc, clean install Windows (this I totally agree with, pc makers bundle a ton of crapware, but things are improving). Only every install selected hardware from a special list which has been tested and whose drivers are included. Don't install just any random software. And leave well enough alone, don't go around tweaking things (very easy in Windows). In other words, treat the pc as if it were the Mac ecosystem, with very limited choice and premium products. Then see how it behaves.

You should take a look at Apple forums and how threads about problems get deleted. Apple has excellent PR and marketing, even the fact that Apple is by far the worst when it comes to locking down users is spun as a positive.

I've never owned a Mac (can't afford one and honestly don't care to) but have tried to use them at the Apple store. Maybe I'm too trained in Windows and don't 'think different' but I just find it frustrating after the initial wow factor.

[urlwolf]

My biggest hurdle when leaving Windows was leaving behind AutoHotkey. That's the only program I missed for a while. Everything else has been a joy.

Zaine, you know about autokey, right? What do you think? python syntax beats ahk's any day...

[mrainey]

The plus of macs imho, is that you can reload it/reformat and get everything back without 3 days of updates.

Make an image of your C partition once a week (twenty minutes on my system) and your Windows PC can be completely restored in no time.  Surely, Macs need backing up too.

[cmpm]

Yes, I know about backing up my pc, and do.
I don't know about a mac though.
What I do know is, it doesn't take long for a reformat,
since the OS has everything he needs already.
I'm pro PC myself, and wouldn't switch to a mac.

[Innuendo]

The plus of macs imho, is that you can reload it/reformat and get everything back without 3 days of updates. And downloading things to make it do what it needs to.

[Talking about the Mac] and it's flexibility to [not be able to] get almost any program to accomplish any task.

What you said in the first quote is directly related to the second quote. If your choices in flexibility are very limited you therefore don't have much to do when you do a reinstall...not because it's not necessary, but because you simply can't. You are mostly stuck with the choices Apple has chosen for you for better or worse.

[Innuendo]

What I do know is, it doesn't take long for a reformat,
since the OS has everything he needs already.

No. What you know is that it doesn't take long for a reformat since the OS has everything it thinks he needs already. Every week I run across messages posted in software support forums by Mac users pleading that xyz software program for the PC be ported to the Mac & the author's response is always the same: it's just not worth it financially.

If you are a fish who doesn't mind living in a small aquarium then buy a Mac. If, however, you are a fish who craves the open sea & all the diversity it will provide then your only choice is to buy a PC.

[cmpm]

That is a good analogy Innuendo.

And yes he is looking for different programs for his mac.
But everything he needs for college is in OSX.
He also has ms office for mac.

I'm sure he will find what he wants eventually.
The extra mac choices are limited though.
As I stated in my first post on this thread.

[40hz]

But everything he needs for college is in OSX.

That alone seems like a pretty unarguable point for him using a Mac. It is his college machine after all.

When in Rome...

[Innuendo]

That alone seems like a pretty unarguable point for him using a Mac. It is his college machine after all.

I think the unarguable point for cmpm is (and please forgive me if I'm putting words in your mouth) that with that Mac there's an ample enough supply of software available to help his child excel in college without there being an ability to run much software that will distract the child from his studies, i.e. no abundance of games that will take him away from his studies.

And I can appreciate that. If one is putting their child through college (paying tuition, buying books, buying a PC for studies, etc.) one would want to ensure that one is getting a good return on one's investment rather than finding out later the child has been spending time best spent on studying on trying to become a professional gamer.

[Lashiec]

We all know the Mac lacks any kind of distraction. No Boot Camp and it doesn't even have a browser

Why is Acrobat such an enormous application?  It's all bloat.  Don't come to me with the features that 0.001% of the people use.  I bet the program could be 20 MB and nobody would notice.  And a hell of a lot faster.  It should open and close almost before you click the button.

Same with Office.  Let's talk Outlook.  All it does is email and calendar stuff.  So slow.  There's no need.

Same with any large mainstream software.  Nero, Mcafee, Norton, Photoshop.  It just doesn't seem like we are able to enjoy the processing power we have today.  The more power we get, the more bloated programs get.  And if the OS is bloated or inefficient, then we're instantly off to a bad start.

But no one is forcing you to use that software. There are several lightweight alternatives to all the apps you have mentioned which most of the times can beat the functionality they offer by quite some margin.

[40hz]

But no one is forcing you to use that software. There are several lightweight alternatives to all the apps you have mentioned which most of the times can beat the functionality they offer by quite some margin.

Very true. But when all your peers and instructors use Macs; and all the handouts and examples you are given show a Mac interface; and your formal and ad hoc support networks all think in terms of Macintosh - why fight it? You'll be done in 4 or so years - after which you can switch to anything you want.

As long as they work, there's a lot to be said for standards and platform commonality. In some environments (like a school) almost any standard is preferable to platform chaos, even if it's not an ideal one. A standardized platform removes one unnecessary source of distraction from the mix.

At least so long as it works.

And Macintosh computers (bless their pointed little heads!) do work rather well. So do PCs and NIX boxes. And so do books, pens, paper, and slide rules!

In the end it doesn't really matter what 'gets used' as long as the student is getting educated.

to help his child excel in college without there being an ability to run much software that will distract the child from his studies,

I'm not sure that's so true any more.

Except for the real diehards, games aren't that big a thing at most colleges these days. At least from what I've seen. The biggest sources of distraction seem to originate on the Internet. And those are reachable from anywhere by any computer regardless of OS.

As long as there's things like Twitter, YouTube, FaceBook, P2P media torrents, chatrooms, e-mail, and porn sites , the distractions will always be there.

And you won't need to break shrinkwrap to be exposed to them.

[Lashiec]

Very true. But when all your peers and instructors use Macs; and all the handouts and examples you are given show a Mac interface; and your formal and ad hoc support networks all think in terms of Macintosh - why fight it? You'll be done in 4 or so years - after which you can switch to anything you want.

Huh? I was commenting on superboyac examples of bloated software on Windows, not on the adequacy of a Mac computer on a Mac ecosystem

[40hz]

Huh? I was commenting on superboyac examples of bloated software on Windows, not on the adequacy of a Mac computer on a Mac ecosystem

Hey Lash! Why so you were.

Hmmm....and here I thought you were...

Wow!

Must have been responding to one of those Voices I've been hearing lately

(I really need to get some sleep one of these nights. And also stop straddling several forum discussions at the same time like I'm doing right now. Apparently I'm nowhere near smart enough to do that. )

[superboyac]

Very true. But when all your peers and instructors use Macs; and all the handouts and examples you are given show a Mac interface; and your formal and ad hoc support networks all think in terms of Macintosh - why fight it? You'll be done in 4 or so years - after which you can switch to anything you want.

This is more on the point of what I'm trying to discuss here.  This is what I'm seeing more and more lately, and I'm assuming (and I may be wrong) that it will eventually have an effect in the computing universe.  Will there be a time when the workplaces start shifting to Macs?  Or away from PC's?  That's what I'm talking about.

The other stuff is more off-topic.  I know that there are pdf alternatives.  I know how to tame my PC, I've spent my whole life doing it.  I know all the options and tweaks out there, and all the little software.  That's why I'm here!

It just hit me last week that I had never seen so many Macs around me before.  And I was wondering if we're in some kind of transition period right now that hasn't been seen yet.  The computing world has been dominated by PC's for the last 20 years.  I'm curious how much ground they are losing, if they are at all.  Maybe I'm wrong and I'm not able to see the big picture.

[Innuendo]

I'm curious how much ground they are losing, if they are at all.  Maybe I'm wrong and I'm not able to see the big picture.

Probably not much ground at all, at least in the corporate business world. These companies have too much money invested in their specialized software to switch computing platforms. Heck, there are a LOT of companies running custom apps that have been written in COBOL and can't make a switch to a newer programming language as it'd cost the company millions & that's just the cost of moving from one PC programming language to another PC programming language. Start talking about moving to a different computing platform and having to leave *all* your software behind there'll be people in accounting having strokes.

[f0dder]

This is more on the point of what I'm trying to discuss here.  This is what I'm seeing more and more lately, and I'm assuming (and I may be wrong) that it will eventually have an effect in the computing universe.  Will there be a time when the workplaces start shifting to Macs?  Or away from PC's?  That's what I'm talking about.

I certainly hope this is never going to happen, considering how closed Apple in reality is. I wouldn't like it from a developer perspective either - you're pretty much forced to used Objective-C if you want to have an easy time writing GUI apps... and then there's the issue of Apple introducing proprietary features to the language. Sure thing, closures might be lovely and sexy to work with, but boy does it give vendor lock-in.

Btw, why is it that people  say "mac vs PC"? Macs are personal computers, and have been so since day 1. Sure thing, they weren't x86 to begin with, but these days you won't find a non-x86 mac... I guess Apple is happy about it, some people might see it as a perfectly valid reason to pay the premium for their standard-quality PC components

[superboyac]

Btw, why is it that people  say "mac vs PC"? Macs are personal computers, and have been so since day 1.

I know you're kidding, but people say it 9even if they know better, like me) just because it's a phrase that will be generally understood.  Just like the words "kleenex" or "xerox".