Author Topic: which operating system you like most.... (Read 63,452 times)

app103 · « **Reply #25 on:** August 10, 2008, 01:06 PM »

It depends what computer I am using as to which OS I prefer.

On my P1, I have only 3 choices to pick from: Win95, Win98, WinME.

I prefer ME because it's stable (at least on this machine it is). I would rather have the stability that ME offers than the faster speed of Win98. At the end of the day, Win98 isn't faster because of all the rebooting I'd have to do when something goes wrong, and that is a lot of rebooting.

On my other pc, I prefer XP. There is a lot more software I can run on it that I couldn't with ME. I miss some of the features that are in ME that are not included with XP though, and I have a feeling that if I get that machine running again, that I will have to go through an adjustment period all over again, learning to live without certain perks I have become acustomed to again by using ME for the last 6 months. (Why doesn't xp jump to a file you have selected, when you change folder view, like ME does? Why does it jump back to the top and make you scroll to the file again? That's annoying!)

My brief exposure to 2003 Server was about 1 day of wasting my time searching google for how to turn off desktop icons so none will show. I never did find out how. Unless I can turn them off, there isn't much hope of me liking that OS.

2008 Server, on the other hand, I turned off the desktop icons easily. But the Explorer windows have that ugly IE7 look and all the handy buttons that I like on the toolbar and can customize on older versions of Windows, are all gone. I don't like that.

I haven't tried Vista yet, but if I am forced to have desktop icons (like in 2003 Server), or the Explorer windows look like IE7 (like in 2008 Server), or they have taken away my ability to use old fashioned 9x style classic themes, I will probably hate looking at it enough to hate using it. And if my favorite software won't run on it, I don't see any point in trying it, nevermind buying it.

Quote from: yksyks on August 10, 2008, 10:53 AM

Just for an illustration--I was always terribly bugged with WinXP Explorer putting the newly created file at the end of the list and requiring refresh to position it properly. No more in Vista. The new file appears immediately just where it should be. A triviality, but it delights. And so on...

I actually like that feature in Windows...makes it much easier to find the file I just created instead of having to hunt for it in the list. The bottom of the list is easier to find a file, for me. I will actually keep an Explorer window open while downloading files, just to have it easier to find the new files when the download completes...they will all be at the bottom. Changing that wouldn't delight me.

Maybe I am starting to suffer from "old fart syndrome", getting too used to things and set in my ways and not liking all the "new fangled kid stuff". $:-\$

f0dder · « **Reply #26 on:** August 10, 2008, 01:25 PM »

Quote

For instance, in Vista's Disk Management console snap-in, you can now shrink and expand partitions (whereas in XP, you had to use Parted Magic or a similar tool, or reformat altogether). The Disk Cleanup tool is improved very much.

How often do you need to resize partitions? Sure, it's an advantage that you can do it, but just how much "value" does this add? For me, it would be none... I don't trust partition resizes... there's potential for losing a lot of data if something goes wrong

The new start menu in Vista is nice enough, but since I use FARR, I hardly ever use the menu.

Visual tweaks? Ugh. I hate the Aero look of Vista. Unfortunately, it's all-or-nothing - you can't get Aero acceleration with the classic theme, how mindbogglingly silly design is that? And Microsoft obviously doesn't support custom themes unless they're signed by MS, so you have to resort to hacks to get a different look.

Quote

The sleep mode in vista totally obliterates XP's wannabe Stand By mode (major plus for mobile users).

How so?

Quote

The wifi, you can not beat the wifi manager on Vista. It just works.

Heh. The amount of problems I've had with Vista wi-fi, ugh. And the diagnostics were useless - basically "uh oh, didn't work" shit. Was reaaaally obvious that I had to drop to an administrative-rights cmd.exe shell and use a cryptic netsh commandline to disable "auto-tuning", oh yes. With XP, my experience has been that things just worked, no need for broken diagnostics in the first place.

Too bad DX10 isn't going to be ported to XP (and don't give me crap about "it's new architecture and can't be done" yadda yadda, it's perfectly doable), so eventually I'll probably have to go Vista (or the next version, anyway) if I want to play games. But as it is now, not many games support/require DX10, and the ones that have it optional don't get that much advantage from it anyway.

Note that this wasn't meant as a diss, if you're happy with Vista, that's fine and good. Just wanted to say that I don't particularly like it, and don't see much advantage in it over XP... it does have some base features that are better, but who runs a base OS with no extras? And, for me, it has so many little annoyances that the overall experience is worse than XP. I'd sure love having the enhanced prefetch, prioritized I/O and transactional NTFS, but meh.

I'm getting a laptop soon, so there's probably no way around Vista I guess - it's such a nightmare hunting for XP laptop drivers now

. So I guess it might be time to see how many annoyances can be fixed with vlite, and then give it a chance. But I have a suspicion that I'll end up hunting for XP drivers after all

Shades · « **Reply #27 on:** August 10, 2008, 05:53 PM »

My personal experience with Vista is/was creating and setting up a wireless network in the house of a girlfriend of mine so she could use her brand new Acer laptop everywhere.

The only wifi router brands they sell over here are D-link, Encore and Linksys...so I went the Linksys way. Quite frankly, following the Linksys instructions exactly to the letter to get it installed on Vista was extremely disappointing.

My impression was that getting, pulling and obfuscating the necessary electricity lines to the most efficient location for the wireless router would be the most time-consuming and labor intensive part of this job.

However it was appalling how bad the Linksys software in combination with UAC. When it was finally installed it could not find the router automatically, whatever I did. Fortunately I never leave home without my trusty 7-year old win2000 HP laptop. Both laptops have Broadcom hardware to make the Wifi connection, it took my old laptop 3 minutes (including unpacking and booting!) to surf the internet through her connection.

Trying to manually configure network settings in Vista is a B*ll-breaking experience...hiding behind way too many mouse-clicks, each guarded by UAC. Normally, you have to do a lot to get me cursing at a computer (letting me play a racing game get's me going rather quickly

), but UAC really brings out the worst. Don't get me going about Vista's ability to keep the connection alive!

Furthermore the graphical wizardry doesn't do it for me at all. Come on, the only useful widget being more or less force-fed into the desktop is the clock. The default other stuff is useless at best and distracting at worst.

40hz · « **Reply #28 on:** August 10, 2008, 06:18 PM »

Quote from: mouser on August 08, 2008, 07:08 PM

i just think all the major Operating Systems are horribly flawed and i just can't wait till we get a nice clean elegant modern object oriented Operating System built from the ground up without all the need to support legacy crap.

Old saying: Speed, price, quality - Pick any two.

wreckedcarzz · « **Reply #29 on:** August 10, 2008, 06:52 PM »

I have run Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) at school, and it isn't bad (ignoring the insane amount of cash they put out for ~20 new 23" iMacs, and about the same amount of aging PowerPC models). Safari is lacking, iMovie (normal and HD) falls on its knees to Windows Movie Maker (Vista's version, NOT XP's - forgot to mention that in my list above). It all looks pretty, but it lacks any kind of customization at all. Yea, you have your Dock (that can not be put @ the top with your... Apple Menu) and your Dashboard (that can be confusing for new users: I had to explain it to a few classmates personally). And the "Mac's are oh so perfectly secure" is all talk. I (inadvertently) scared the teacher into thinking that my iMac had a virus on it, because my portable hard drive malfunctioned! Talk about confidence in your products!

Mac is good, if you have the cash and don't want options.
</opinion>

I have to agree with Mouser on the "fresh OS" thing; Vista still holds backwards compatibility for some DOS filenames and whatnot. WHY?!?! Sure it is just an option, but millions of others are sitting there, to be used once or twice by all of the users. Pointless bloat.

And UAC: I disabled it on all 3 Vista PC's in the house. If your into Linux and don't mind the administration popups for your password once in a while, for Vista do this:
Disable UAC -> Install everything and configure it -> Let Windows Update do its thing -> Clean up your PC and defragment it -> Reboot -> Enable UAC

It doesn't nag you THAT much, in comparison, and it can save you- personally, if I am on Windows, it is either web, IM, coding, or games. Not the time to ask if that new Xfire update installer can be Allowed or not. (And this PC has never seen a malicious program)

Quote from: 40hz on August 10, 2008, 06:18 PM

Old saying: Speed, price, quality - Pick any two.

Speaking for most of the internet: I'll take my 3: Speed, Quality, Torrent (I mean, wha...)

(I'm on legit Vista, don't send the feds after me!)

-Brandon

EDIT: I own 2 Linksys routers (one in use) with 2/3 of the wireless PCs using Linksys cards (everything is Draft-N

). I followed the instructions the first time I setup the old WRT54G... I never did that again. You gotta just plug everything in, head over to http://192.168.1.1/, setup your options, and setup the computer's wifi. The instructions are pointless IMO.

wreckedcarzz · « **Reply #30 on:** August 10, 2008, 07:18 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on August 10, 2008, 01:25 PM

How often do you need to resize partitions? Sure, it's an advantage that you can do it, but just how much "value" does this add? For me, it would be none... I don't trust partition resizes... there's potential for losing a lot of data if something goes wrong

If your installing Linux for the first time, or you dual partitioned a hard drive and want to combine it (ex: OEM "backup" partitions) it comes in handy.

Quote from: f0dder on August 10, 2008, 01:25 PM

The new start menu in Vista is nice enough, but since I use FARR, I hardly ever use the menu.

Visual tweaks? Ugh. I hate the Aero look of Vista. Unfortunately, it's all-or-nothing - you can't get Aero acceleration with the classic theme, how mindbogglingly silly design is that? And Microsoft obviously doesn't support custom themes unless they're signed by MS, so you have to resort to hacks to get a different look.

If you use it (or use applications that use it: Switcher is a great app) it becomes the new Luna. Everyone complained how XP made their computer look all "cartoony". Now you go with a classic, professional glass appearance and everyone complains about that.

Quote from: f0dder on August 10, 2008, 01:25 PM

Quote from: wreckedcarzz
The sleep mode in vista totally obliterates XP's wannabe Stand By mode (major plus for mobile users).
How so?

I have read multiple times over the internet that their battery life increased by hours in Sleep vs Stand By (2 hours comes to mind, but I read it a while back so not sure). Also, it is more reliable than Stand By (sometimes XP would just turn off, or crash, or it would wake back up immediately/randomly (I have had the 3rd problem personally, very annoying).

Quote from: f0dder on August 10, 2008, 01:25 PM

Quote from: wreckedcarzz
The wifi, you can not beat the wifi manager on Vista. It just works.

Heh. The amount of problems I've had with Vista wi-fi, ugh. And the diagnostics were useless - basically "uh oh, didn't work" shit. Was reaaaally obvious that I had to drop to an administrative-rights cmd.exe shell and use a cryptic netsh commandline to disable "auto-tuning", oh yes. With XP, my experience has been that things just worked, no need for broken diagnostics in the first place.

Every time I have used the diagnostic tool it has helped me. It is just a series of questions, then it runs tests based on your answers, and repeat until it locates an issue. Strange it doesn't work for you.

Quote from: f0dder on August 10, 2008, 01:25 PM

Too bad DX10 isn't going to be ported to XP (and don't give me crap about "it's new architecture and can't be done" yadda yadda, it's perfectly doable), so eventually I'll probably have to go Vista (or the next version, anyway) if I want to play games. But as it is now, not many games support/require DX10, and the ones that have it optional don't get that much advantage from it anyway.

That's like wanting to put AERO on XP or Windows Defender on 2k. Not gonna happen. If you make a product and it has a major selling point, your not going to give it to the older versions.

Personally, I have several games that have DX10 support (and I have taken advantage of it, in lieu of the cut frame rate (single core can't do it all anymore)). If you want the latest bleeding edge, DX9 is just so much more... yuck after you see DX10. It is like HDR vs "traditional" lighting.

Quote from: f0dder on August 10, 2008, 01:25 PM

Note that this wasn't meant as a diss, if you're happy with Vista, that's fine and good. Just wanted to say that I don't particularly like it, and don't see much advantage in it over XP... it does have some base features that are better, but who runs a base OS with no extras? And, for me, it has so many little annoyances that the overall experience is worse than XP. I'd sure love having the enhanced prefetch, prioritized I/O and transactional NTFS, but meh.

I'm getting a laptop soon, so there's probably no way around Vista I guess - it's such a nightmare hunting for XP laptop drivers now . So I guess it might be time to see how many annoyances can be fixed with vlite, and then give it a chance. But I have a suspicion that I'll end up hunting for XP drivers after all

Everyone has an opinion

Just my rebuttal

Eóin · « **Reply #31 on:** August 10, 2008, 08:41 PM »

I switched to Vista after SP1 came out and I got a new PC even though I had bought Vista back at the very beginning, I just never used it.

It grew on me very quickly I have to say once I gave it a fair go, now I love it.

donco666 · « **Reply #32 on:** September 30, 2008, 04:51 AM »

Quote from: wreckedcarzz on August 10, 2008, 06:52 PM

...It all looks pretty, but it lacks any kind of customization at all....And the "Mac's are oh so perfectly secure" is all talk. I (inadvertently) scared the teacher into thinking that my iMac had a virus on it, because my portable hard drive malfunctioned! Talk about confidence in your products!
(And this PC has never seen a malicious program)

Modify: OK, that was weird. By clicking on "Quote" the quote got entered by itself without my actually clicking to enter a post. The following post was intended to accompany the quote.

donco666 · « **Reply #33 on:** September 30, 2008, 05:00 AM »

To wreckedcarzz:
1) I use both Windows and Mac almost daily. I find Mac easily customizable with a couple of freeware utilities. For example, my Tiger Dock has floating icons with no Dock area showing. My windows (generic) can be dragged by any side.
2) When you try to criticize the security of OS X, you seem to have gotten off track. Even I can give better examples of security problems but you seem to have shifted over to faulting a school teacher for her caution that you interpret as lack of confidence. Even if you can convince us that the teacher had no confidence, the single situation is anecdotal at best.
3) "Insane amount of cash"? Do you mean to buy OS X or to buy the hardware? That gets us off the "best OS" topic but I will go with it if you think it is important. I guess the school should have bought Mac Minis for $500 each (maybe less with their edu discount). I think "insane" would mean something like seven grand each. Can you really think that $3K for a high quality tower is insane?

CleverCat · « **Reply #34 on:** September 30, 2008, 06:11 AM »

Still love XP - I'm heavily into customization and eye candy and I have Stardock ODT.

Switching to Vista would cost me a bomb R900 for OS and a whole hardware upgrade would be around R2000! On my Disability pension, I'd have to borrow heavily from my bank.

I use the BOM Bank Of Mother!

f0dder · « **Reply #35 on:** September 30, 2008, 06:14 AM »

Quote from: donco666 on September 30, 2008, 05:00 AM

Can you really think that $3K for a high quality tower is insane?

Yeah. That kind of cash should get you at least a quadcore with 8gigs of ram, GPU in the GeForce 8800 or better class, fast harddrives, high-quailty tower and powerful PSU.

When mentioning OS X, hardware and cash does come into the picture, since you're really limited to what Apple offers... unless you're building frankenmacs. Which Apple really really really doesn't want you to.

zridling · « **Reply #36 on:** September 30, 2008, 06:58 AM »

Apple lost 13% of its value with the crash on 9/29. The market for $1000+ computers is shrinking as we speak.

Darwin · « **Reply #37 on:** September 30, 2008, 02:13 PM »

OTH, OSX is ridiculously cheap compared to Windows. $129 gets you a DVD with the OS on it. Period. No worrying about multiple different releases (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, etc) at different price points. No "update" releases, etc. Of course, you fork this out every 1 to 3 years for point updates (10.1 => 10.2, etc.), if you want to keep up with the latest and the greatest, but each new release adds features and improves the operating system.

Darwin · « **Reply #38 on:** September 30, 2008, 02:20 PM »

Quote from: zridling on September 30, 2008, 06:58 AM

Apple lost 13% of its value with the crash on 9/29. The market for $1000+ computers is shrinking as we speak.

It's hard to know what is going to happen with the price of computers - the market for higher end computers will shrink because people won't be able to justify the expense. OTH, the cost of sourcing materials for them and then transporting them will presumably become more expensive as the cost of fuel goes up. I suppose that other factors will be demand drying up as consumers have less money to spend... But then, labour costs in some of the countries heavily involved in the production of computer components may actually go down...

I gambled and bought a new computer on the assumption that the price was going to go up this year. I'm regretting that now, because system prices DO look to be going down. Thankfully, the price I paid is still less than the current retail price on that system...

zridling · « **Reply #39 on:** September 30, 2008, 04:10 PM »

Quote

[Darwin]: OSX is ridiculously cheap compared to Windows. $129 gets you a DVD with the OS on it. Period. No worrying about multiple different releases (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, etc) at different price points. No "update" releases, etc. Of course, you fork this out every 1 to 3 years for point updates (10.1 => 10.2, etc.), if you want to keep up with the latest and the greatest, but each new release adds features and improves the operating system.

[attach]

Darwin · « **Reply #40 on:** September 30, 2008, 05:24 PM »

Heh, heh, great cartoon, Zaine! Nice find

FWIW, I'm in learning mode at the moment as I've inherited (yet) another old notebook that I've set up with Ubuntu 8.04 and I'm playing with Vista (Home Premium) on a new notebook. I also have an iBook awaiting a new optical drive - it's going from 0S X 10.2 to 10.4 as soon as I install the drive (disks for 10.4 arrived about 10 minutes ago - Yippee!).

Finally, a rant: why the H-E-L-L doesn't M$ have a reasonable upgrade path to move from 32-bit to 64-bit versions of Vista? One of the factors contributing to my regret about buying a new notebook two months ago is that I didn't do any research about the OS, beyond making sure I wasn't saddled with Vista Home Basic. Fargin bastiches!

f0dder · « **Reply #41 on:** September 30, 2008, 05:32 PM »

I thought it was free to move from 32bit to 64bit Vista? That you just had to contact MS and get your license key 'converted' or something along those lines?

(Probably can't upgrade the OS without a reinstall, though).

TucknDar · « **Reply #42 on:** September 30, 2008, 05:43 PM »

Fun cartoon, but I've been thinking something similar about Linux, TBH. There are so many distros and even several desktop environments with tailor made software(right?).... Looks like I'll be getting a tiny Asus EEE one of these days, and I'll probably put Ubuntu on it, but maybe one of the other n distros are actually better for me? I should report in a few days

f0dder · « **Reply #43 on:** September 30, 2008, 05:49 PM »

TucknDar: you might want to go for XUbuntu which uses the XFCE system - I've been told it's lighter than GNOME and KDE.

Darwin · « **Reply #44 on:** September 30, 2008, 06:34 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on September 30, 2008, 05:32 PM

I thought it was free to move from 32bit to 64bit Vista? That you just had to contact MS and get your license key 'converted' or something along those lines?

(Probably can't upgrade the OS without a reinstall, though).

Yes, this is what I thought as well... However, I have an OEM install of 32-bit Windows, which I'm betting isn't going to help me AND I can no longer find any mention of it

Maybe that upgrade offer was through the manufacturer, not MS?

f0dder · « **Reply #45 on:** September 30, 2008, 06:36 PM »

Or perhaps a limited-time MS offer?

I never looked too closely into the details, since I was already running XP64 at the time :/

TucknDar · « **Reply #46 on:** September 30, 2008, 06:52 PM »

f0dder: Thanks, yes, XFCE appeals to me more than KDE or Gnome, but there's a special Ubuntu-eee that already includes Gnome, so I'll go for that at first, then see if I'll switch to XFCE later on.

zridling · « **Reply #47 on:** October 01, 2008, 02:27 AM »

Quote

[TucknDar]: Looks like I'll be getting a tiny Asus EEE one of these days, and I'll probably put Ubuntu on it, but maybe one of the other n distros are actually better for me?

You lucky dog. Also, seriously consider gOS 3. The bugs are all but out and it has a new UI for netbooks. Going to buy one of these for the wife's work next Spring, so I'll be interested if you'd post a follow-up of your experience, whichever one you choose.

wreckedcarzz · « **Reply #48 on:** October 01, 2008, 03:22 AM »

Huge Macintosh rant - if you don't want to read it, then don't.

This is a long rant/reply that is partially NSFW, it is not a personal attack (though it may seem), it was a reply to a conversation that I took a bit out of hand, but I feel like I should express my feelings about it. If you don't want to read the main rant, do not open the second portion of this post. Thanks for understanding

(feels good to vent my feelings about Mac and Apple as a whole).

Reply to donco666, SFW:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Quote from: donco666 on September 30, 2008, 05:00 AM

To wreckedcarzz:
1) I use both Windows and Mac almost daily. I find Mac easily customizable with a couple of freeware utilities. For example, my Tiger Dock has floating icons with no Dock area showing. My windows (generic) can be dragged by any side.

You can customize Windows (and Ubuntu, and almost every other Linux OS) out of the box. I don't use any customization other than a couple addons (dock, that I haven't run in a month or so, and Switcher (Expose for AERO).

Quote from: donco666 on September 30, 2008, 05:00 AM

2) When you try to criticize the security of OS X, you seem to have gotten off track. Even I can give better examples of security problems but you seem to have shifted over to faulting a school teacher for her caution that you interpret as lack of confidence. Even if you can convince us that the teacher had no confidence, the single situation is anecdotal at best.

But my point was that every Mac owner I have met always screams that Mac can never be intruded, infected or anything else. But when something does go wrong, it is like "I never said that". C'mon, stick to a side - it is either safe, or it isn't, but at least have some stable footing behind your choice on the matter!

Quote from: donco666 on September 30, 2008, 05:00 AM

3) "Insane amount of cash"? Do you mean to buy OS X or to buy the hardware? That gets us off the "best OS" topic but I will go with it if you think it is important. I guess the school should have bought Mac Minis for $500 each (maybe less with their edu discount). I think "insane" would mean something like seven grand each. Can you really think that $3K for a high quality tower is insane?

Insane as in the hardware - I can go out and get a Windows Vista PC (as in building it myself) for the price of the low end Macintosh (iMac) that can run all of today's games - and still have money left over to buy said games. Yea yea, the computer is all in one - a friend of mine in Australia just got stuck with an HP all in one - he asked me a few questions about if he could upgrade the CPU, overclock, or get a better graphics card. All the answers were not what he was hoping for - bringing me to my second point about this: You can't upgrade an iMac past RAM after you have it in your ownership. So your constantly purchasing a new one, and throwing the old one away (or hopefully your having it recycled by a credible company!).

And a Mac Mini is still nuts for the price. Seriously. $200 Dell can do the same the $600 Mini can - and it usually comes with a keyboard, mouse, speakers, and monitor. But then again, you can't play games on either of those systems

Rant, NSFW:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

On a further note, Apple sells "Notebooks" and has advertisements of people with them on their lap, yet you are "strongly advised" not to use it on your lap because of something like 300 degree (F) temps?? My HP laptop hit 170 (CPU) and 180 (HD) on a pillow with no airflow playing The Sims 2 Pets after about 45 minutes. Seriously.

And then, the false advertising. Macs don't use the most up to date hardware. Just as Apple announced the Core 2 Duo Macs, Intel based PCs had Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Extreme! Now you have the Mac's with Core 2 Quads @ 3.06Ghz, but wait a minute - we have the Intel Skulltrail platform running 2 Quad Core CPUs at a faster speed: 3.2GHz (without overclocking!)!!

That leads me to RAM. Why the **** would someone pay that much for "Apple Certified RAM"?? It's insane! Like $80 for a GB! And Microsoft even went and took this point and accelerated it with Vista's ReadyBoost - so you don't even need to "upgrade" anymore if you run Vista, just pop in a flash drive - $20 for the Apple cost of $160+.

Now don't get me wrong - I do hate OS X's GUI, the dock, and how it functions, and all that; it is just me - but come on. The prices are high, the technology is below what they claim, they have and continue to have false advertising, the OS's main catch is that "if you can use iTunes," (that DOES NOT UNINSTALL PROPERLY ON WINDOWS) "you can use a Mac!". Uhh, no. iMovie HD is nothing like iTunes. Finder is nothing like iTunes. The menu system makes you look constantly for items that could be in front of you, and they should be!

And what's with the wierd setup of having all the desktop icons on the right and not the left. The Apple Menu is on the left. The clock is on the right. What one are you going to use more? (You could debate this here, and I could go on with this Mac-hatred speach of how the clock is probably the most useful part, but I digress. You can't even change the time zone WITHOUT AN ADMINISTRATOR!!!

). The freaking Apple Menu! So you have to drag the (slow, one button) mouse all the way across that amazing 21" screen (at the speed of 600DPI) to get from your Macintosh HD icon, to your Apple Menu.

And now we have iMovie, or iMovie HD. Neither one makes sense at all, and once you do figure one out, the other one is backwards.

Oh, and back to the peripherals - the keyboard, can you get any more underpowered USB ports on that thing? It could barely power my 1GB flash drive. C'mon, waste some voltage and give the USB hubs some power. Jeez!

And now, whats with the point of having the Mac for media stuff, if you only have 2 speakers and NO SURROUND SOUND SUPPORT. And why not show the speakers on the front and make them sound half descent. Having them point down is like... why? Head is up, sound is down, what the FU*K!?!

And the system crashes. Mac's are supposed to be this whole crash proof system - the hardware works oh-so elegantly with the hardware, and it is a seamless environment where the loly-flowers fly in the wind and peace comes to the world. Then you get this little caution alert saying "Interrupting this program may lock up the system." You can't do anything because IT IS ALREADY LOCKED UP!

And the laptops again - specifically that piece of paper Air - 1 USB port? NO optical drive??? If you can't use it, it isn't worth it. On top of that, its 3 grand for a system that you can't do jack with! You can always make one of those cool movies, as the machine burns the skin off your legs down to your bones, or you can mess with the O-M-G zooming features in iTunes and iMovie with the trackpad, and... that's about it? You can always blow on it and make it fall apart...

Then you have the faulty software that runs all the time - AirPort for example. Original naming too, no one thought of that until like 1910 (or whenever planes were mass produced, I'm not a history nerd). You disable it, and log off, come back later and guess why you don't have internet? It re-enabled itself, KILLING your ETHERNET connection. On Windows you can have as many connections as you want - Mac allows you ONE. Why? Who knows.

And to go along with iTunes, you have to use it to use an iPod or iPhone, because of some idiotic attempt to lock you into their service (a plus of the Shuffle family - it does not suffer the iTunes lock in; something Apple did right

). I buy a $300 phone with a $150 signing fee and a $100 a month plan, only to also have a computer at home with broadband and iTunes, or I can't use the d@mn thing.

And as a final point, the fact that Mac users run Windows but Windows users don't run Mac... need I say more?

Anyways, I'm getting off track, and I'm sure the moderators here are going be jumping all over me, but I can't take it anymore. It's time I expressed my displeasure about how much Mac, and Apple sucks.

-Brandon M. Seal

EDIT: Spelling
EDIT 2: More spelling
EDIT 3: Watch this video to know my experiences with the Macintosh I used at school. Old video, still true. (NOT MINE): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CrQjfgvqJQ

Darwin · « **Reply #49 on:** October 01, 2008, 06:01 AM »

Wow! Brandon, tell us what you REALLY think

Thanks for sharing that, actually. At a certain level, I agree with each of your points. I've always felt that Macs push an image - image over substance. Having said that, I have been genuinely happy using OS X (10.2 and 10.4), enough to upgrade the iBook that I inherited to allow me to run 10.4 so that I can continue to use it... I want to connect it to a WPA encrypted wireless network and play with Quicksilver and see what all the fuss has been about these past four years. FWIW, I have upgraded the RAM and the HD in my parent's 20" iMac and have replaced the optical drive in my iBook and upgraded the RAM and the Harddrive and installed an AirPort card* (initial view on this last is more or less in line with yours: why the heck does it keep dropping the connection? At least it is trivial to reconnect...). Overall, I am a Windows guy out to experience Linux and OSX. So far, I've enjoyed the "ride"

*NB replacing components in the iMac is easy. the iBook is a real nightmare! Check out this link for the steps involved in upgrading the harddrive - most of them are the same for the optical drive...!