PC or Mac?

Dean wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: Dean wrote: What Microsoft and Apple have done is actually made the OS more complcated that it practically needs to be, so that when (not if) Joe Public busts it it is exponentially harder to fix, and that makes my life harder and more complicated than it needs to be.   okay? I'm totally with you on that.  I've been using PCs for what is it?  Holy crap twenty years at least.  My experience is that they change things but never really improve things too much.  I can't deny that there haven't been improvements. It remind me of a duck swimming on a lake - all serene and graceful on the surface...   When I buy a quad core 2GHz piece of hardware with 4GB of RAM and a huge feck-off harddrive I want it to do my processing, not just to power the OS - I really do wonder how much of this hardware I'm buying just to make OS software look good.

Trademark wrote: I prefer to actually use a computer to do work (of various kinds) rather than sit for hours tinkering with the operating system settings and preferences so I use a mac (have since 1987).  Turn it on and start working.

I think most of us do, and for the lion's share of the week that includes me. I detest "tinkering with the operating system", but unfortunately in my line of work I have to. It's like my guitar - I like playing it, really don't like setting up the Floyd Rose.

Dean wrote: JLocke wrote: Oh, yes, How DARE the average joe be able to actually get his money's worth when buying a home computer? I want my products to work perfectly (or as perfectly as possible) right out of the box, thanks. And if that makes me somehow inferior to you, then I honestly don't care. I have better things to do with my life than learn the ins and outs of computers. I just want them to work, and Macs work best for me.  I'm not dumb just because I prefer to use Macs. And you're not smart because you use Linux. It's preference, alrighty?  Touchy tonight aren't we?     All operating systems work perfectly out of the box and for 90% of all users there really isn't an issue - if you are that bothered by whether OS X is better or worse than Windows or Linux then you are already elevated above dumb onto some smarter plane of existence since you would evidently be aware that there is such a thing as an operating system and that it is far more capable than simply browsing the interwebs, playing games and sending emails. At surface level all these operating systems are exactly the same - they all do the same things in essentially the same intuitive way to achieve exactly the same outcome - it's only when you delve deeper, (or have to delve deeper I should say), do you find that there are differences and these differenced determine what you can do, what you are allowed to do and how easy it is to do it. What Microsoft and Apple have done is actually made the OS more complcated that it practically needs to be, so that when (not if) Joe Public busts it it is exponentially harder to fix, and that makes my life harder and more complicated than it needs to be.   okay?

Edited by JLocke - July 30 2010 at 13:44

Dean wrote: I think most of us do, and for the lion's share of the week that includes me. I detest "tinkering with the operating system", but unfortunately in my line of work I have to. It's like my guitar - I like playing it, really don't like setting up the Floyd Rose.

If you're talking about the tremelo (what else would you be?, I'm curious if you aren't ), my latest electric guitar has one.  It's a few years old.  I tried tuning it up when I first got it and the damn bridge kept rising up.  It didn't come with any instructions telling you that you had to tune the strings in a particular order.  It's no big deal now.

This thread is heating up... Soon it will join the new trilogy Atheism/theism-Libertarian-Mac/PC 

Trademark wrote: JLocke wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: Dean wrote: I think most of us do, and for the lion's share of the week that includes me. I detest "tinkering with the operating system", but unfortunately in my line of work I have to. It's like my guitar - I like playing it, really don't like setting up the Floyd Rose. If you're talking about the tremelo (what else would you be?, I'm curious if you aren't ), my latest electric guitar has one.  It's a few years old.  I tried tuning it up when I first got it and the damn bridge kept rising up.  It didn't come with any instructions telling you that you had to tune the strings in a particular order.  It's no big deal now. Or you could just use this: Tighten it up and toss away the tremolo bar.  'Tis what I did, and I never would have used the damn thing, anyway. NOW who it that wants things to always stay the same?

Edited by JLocke - July 30 2010 at 13:59

JLocke wrote: Tough. People like myself prefer Windows 7 and OS X to WIn 3.1 and DOS. You and people like you who want things to stay exactly as they are tend to baffle me plenty. Sure, there can be drawbacks, but there are tons of improvements as well, especially for folks like me who only want an easy to use home device for music and video editing, web surfing, e-mailing, and everything else in-between. Every single PC I ever owned always ended up with something seriously wrong before three years passed. Without fail. Don't talk to me about the 90%. I'm part of the ten percent who had MAJOR issues with Windows-based machines. I kept virus scanners on, firewalls up, and unnecessary junk out. I took care of my computers. And how did they thank me? The broke.  So forgive me sir if I and all others with my problems have rained on your parade by asking companies to make easier-to-use equipment. The beautiful thing is that you can still do stuff the hard way if you want to. If that's 'easier' for you, have at it, hoss. Go build a PC from the ground up, use Linux or some other obscure OS nobody cares about. I don't care enough about your personal preference to elaborate much on my views. Yes, I gave my opinion on Macs and why I prefer them. But I didn't target PC users and insinuate that they are somehow stupid or ignorant simply because they choose to use a different product than I. But nearly everyone I come across who opposes modern day Windows or OS X seems to take it all so personally. I just don't get it. So you think OS X dumbs things down. For most people who want computers to simply work, that isn't a problem. Out of the 90% of happy PC users you mentioned, I guarantee you only about 7% or less actually care one way or the other about the stuff you're talking about. For everybody else, it's live and let live.  Yeah, we can discuss our preferences and why, but when you start blaming people over this and say the only reason they don't share your take on computers is because they need to be 'made smarter', you bet your life I'm going to take offense to that.  Go tinker away with your toys, that's fine. But don't be so bitter just because everybody else now has the chance to join your club and enjoy computers, also. There is room for everybody, right? The personal computer was meant for the masses to conveniently enjoy, not for a single clique of tech-heads to fiddle around with. Yeah, those guys can do that too, but that's not the home computer's only function.  Anytime an innovative, helpful tool can be configured for use by everybody, that can and should be a good thing.

I said Apple AND Microsoft are dumbing down, not just OS X but Vista and Win7 too - and I'm not exactly a Linux freak either however that OS does appear for the moment to be moving in the right direction because it is driven by the users, not by some mega corp who needs to shift boxes of product we've already paid for - and please do correct me if I am wrong on this score, but I do not believe that making things easier to use is actually dumbing down, (Linux is getting easier to install and use with each release), what I consider dumbing down is treating the user like an idiot and spoonfeeding them what they should have rather than what they want to the point that they start believing that what they are given is exactly what they wanted in the first place. This was not a step function that has suddenly appeared with the latest and greatest release of whatever OS floats your boat but a gradual shift that has come incrementally with each subsequent release. This is not a nerdy tech-head view, this is a dumb user view who not only wants the damn thing to work first time every time, and to be able to get on with whatever I set out to do without fiddle around with it.

Anyway, anyone know how to print from an iPhone to a wireless printer?"

I are a idiot.  If it aint already in the OS I can't do it.  

Edited by Trademark - July 30 2010 at 14:40

As much as I hate to piss on people's parades, a mac is also a "personal computer"