MAC or Windows

[piercewhat 0]

What do you prefer and why? I am a techie and I have had my share of computer crashes. But never once have I got a virus or any issues running a mac. I just had to purchase a new one because my laptop crashed and once again I lost all my important stuff, yes I did a backup but damn why should I back up if I have a firewall, antivirus, spyware removers, and pop up blockers. Ok now I am just venting...

[grue 1]

I use a Mac, but I also do a LOT of photo work, so it makes sense

No spyware crap to deal with makes it nice, too.

My next laptop will have to be a windows machine of some sort though, I have to run a few specific software packages at grad school that aren't made for Mac, so I'll have a PowerBook and a VAIO I guess

cavete terrae.

[Frenchy68 0]

Partial to Macs. Tiger is very stable. As usual, graphics look great. Amazing new search engine. But I don't know enough about PCs to knock them down...

"For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

[popsjumper 2]

MAC by far....

If it ain't broke, it's a MAC.
If ya have to fix it, it's a Windows PC

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[gordy 0]

"why should I back up if I have a firewall, antivirus, spyware removers, and pop up blockers"

The above will try and prevent software problems, won't help at all if your hardware fails. Losing important information is generally something that you only let happen once. I think I have about 8 copies of my PhD thesis in various different places, just in case, any of the three PC's that I keep it on spontaneously combust

[daniel_owen_uk 0]

The reason MACs are not plagued with virus spyware adware etc etc is because no one writes virus spyware etc etc for MACs, why? Because not enough people use them.

Which coincidentally is why no one writes applications for them either.

I am a tech too, and know how to look after a windows install, up to date virus protection, don't open bigtits.exe everytime you get it on email, use Firefox instead of Internet explorer, and have a hardware firewall.

MAC = Problem free, but as useful as a chocolate firewall

Windows = Needs looking after, but useful

Nobody using linux then?

__________________

BOOM Headshot

[gordy 0]

I was actually going to mention linux, but I thought it could hijack the thread a bit

[piercewhat 0]

Even doing updates and looking after it the jackass down the hall that downloads bigtits.exe and it infects him and mass emails the company and by that time you want to issue everyone construction paper and crayons. I enjoy working on a mac especially for the linux end of it. I prefer Debian but this is a lot more stable.

Hijack away for linux, what distro do you prefer?

[Joellercoaster 6]

Given the choice between Mac and Windows, I'd buy a Mac right now. Actually, I did the other day

I've been a Linux user for over a decade, and since OSX, MacOS is the commercial (consumer) operating system that comes closest to letting me do what I want, and just getting out of my way, in the way that Linux does. I guess that's something to do with MacOS actually being a form of Unix nowadays... talk about interesting times.

It's also incredibly pretty, if that matters to you.

But:

To the people who are saying the lack of spyware/trojans etc is a reason to buy a Mac, I'd say that's not actually much to do with the OS's security - it's more that not much malware gets written for it yet, because the audience is so small. Why attack a few dozen Macs when you can infuriate tens of thousands of Windows users?

Also, modern versions of Windows aren't terribly insecure if you use them properly. Most attacks rely on user trust or carelessness nowadays. I've been using Windows at work for about five years now and haven't had a single successful attack.

Still. Get a Macintosh just 'cause they're sleeker. And they come with, what, 5 programming languages out of the box? Can't argue with that.

--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

[Joellercoaster 6]

Yarr! Hijacked ye be!

Debian is still the one for me after all these years, though I'm recommending Ubuntu to other people lately.

--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

[skymedic 0]

I have every application I could ever want for my mac available...actualy most of what I want came WITH the thing. with iLife 5 with it's various items...and now having tiger it it's awesome spotlight feature, I have no need for anything else. plus...it just works. it really does. my upgrade to tiger was error free and without issue.


oh and my iMac G5....it does look pretty!! so does the OS too.

one other thing I like about apple is if I do have any issue's with it...whether that be with the OS, with my iPod and the OS, or with hardware I call ONE place...not 3,4, or more tech places for all the different hardware. they make it all there and that is nice.

Marc
otherwise known as Mr.Fallinwoman....

[gordy 0]

My first linux distro was by Slackware, back in the days when you had to kind of guess your monitor refresh settings carefully!

After that it was Red Hat, as I could get this cheap as I only had a 56k connection and downloading it wasn't an option.

After that it was various due to work, most linking real time extensions to the kernel via either RTLinux or RTAI. As I needed at the time to get tighter real time performance, which I just wasn't going to get with any microsoft product.

[ryoder 1,400]

Quote

The reason MACs are not plagued with virus spyware adware etc etc is because no one writes virus spyware etc etc for MACs, why? Because not enough people use them.

Just keep telling your that, and eventually you start to believe it. In 1988 Robert Morris released his worm which used three different exploits that demonstrated worms/viruses were a real threat. This was a wakeup call from which the IT industry learned a valuable lesson, except for Microsoft. It was 7 more years until Microsoft even learned what the Internet was, and to this day they haven't learned the idiocy of practices like treating email as executable code, or giving executable code on web pages open access to the OS.

I have been on the Internet since 1986. I currently run machines with: Solaris/SPARC, Solaris/Intel, Linux/Intel, FreeBSD/Intel, OpenBSD/Intel, NetBSD/Intel, Dragonfly/Intel, Mac OS X/PowerPC. I have never used any antivirus sw, never worried about clicking on a link, and never had a virus.

Here is my challenge: Give me a copy of a Mac virus or a URL to a Mac virus, and I will attempt to infect my Mac.

I feel sorry for people who are so "married" to a hw architecture, or a piece of software. There are always alternatives. I've never encountered a piece of hw or sw that I couldn't live without.

Quote

Which coincidentally is why no one writes applications for them either.

So apparently you can't find the following web page:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[AggieDave 6]

Quote

I guess that's something to do with MacOS actually being a form of Unix nowadays... talk about interesting times.

Not quite, OS X evolved from NeXt OS (remember that one?) and the NeXt OS was a watered down evolution (de-evolution) of Posix. So basically if you want to compare OS X to *nix, call it a 3rd generation back woods cousin.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[ChrisL 2]

Quote

What do you prefer and why? I am a techie and I have had my share of computer crashes. But never once have I got a virus or any issues running a mac. I just had to purchase a new one because my laptop crashed and once again I lost all my important stuff, yes I did a backup but damn why should I back up if I have a firewall, antivirus, spyware removers, and pop up blockers. Ok now I am just venting...

Its too bad that you consider those to be your only choices

__

My mighty steed

[gjhdiver 0]

Quote

What do you prefer and why? I am a techie and I have had my share of computer crashes. But never once have I got a virus or any issues running a mac. I just had to purchase a new one because my laptop crashed and once again I lost all my important stuff, yes I did a backup but damn why should I back up if I have a firewall, antivirus, spyware removers, and pop up blockers. Ok now I am just venting...

I've been in IT for 20 years now. I have used PC's all that time.

This year I personally went to a new G5 iMac as a cautious experimant. I wasn't sure if I'd like it.

Two weeks later I gava away the PC. I'll never go back if I can help it. The iMac is just much better at everything the PC tried to do. It's more intuitive than the PC, and has an OS that gets out of the way when you need it to, rather than in it like Windows.

[seejanefall 0]

Mac. It's what I grew up with having a mom who was a graphic artist.

_____________
PMS #394

[Joellercoaster 6]

This is true about the evolution from NeXT, but not about being a distant cousin to Unix.

The current MacOS is wrapped around a Mach kernel, which makes it a fully-fledged form of BSD. Pretty much anything you can get to run on a BSD will compile for MacOS X, as well (obviously) as a lot else.

It's definitely a Unix.

(For what it's worth, POSIX or no, it's closer to being an official Unix than Linux is )

--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

[AggieDave 6]

Quote

The current MacOS is wrapped around a Mach kernel, which makes it a fully-fledged form of BSD.

I'll give you that...I guess I'm just tired of folks stating "I use a Mac so I'm a unix user." I feel like telling them to fuck off, open up vi and see if they even know how to type in it.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Joellercoaster 6]

I had the opposite problem.

I brought the Mac home, popped open a (transparent, yay OpenGL yay) terminal window and sterted playing with Python (yes, in vi - hadn't downloaded Emacs yet ).

I had a bit of fast talking to do to explain that this didn't mean it was going to be the Linux experience all over again, and this really was going to be nice to use for someone who had only ever used Windows.

An hour later, she turned to me and said, "You're right. Let's never go back."

--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

[ryoder 1,400]

Quote

Quote

The current MacOS is wrapped around a Mach kernel, which makes it a fully-fledged form of BSD.

I'll give you that...I guess I'm just tired of folks stating "I use a Mac so I'm a unix user." I feel like telling them to fuck off, open up vi and see if they even know how to type in it.

In 1991, I was working for Purdue U, in the Engineering Computer Network. Our primary platform was SunOS running the OpenWindows GUI. OW came with a pretty good interactive tutorial. They were even dropping Sun workstations (or X-terminals) on he desks of secretaries, showing them how to login, then telling them: "Here, click on this", (the tutorial icon). The end result was secretaries running SunOS on Sun workstations, to handle email and text editing, even though they never used the command line.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[murrays 0]

Quote

Quote

The current MacOS is wrapped around a Mach kernel, which makes it a fully-fledged form of BSD.

I'll give you that...I guess I'm just tired of folks stating "I use a Mac so I'm a unix user." I feel like telling them to fuck off, open up vi and see if they even know how to type in it.

hehe..every once in a while I open a terminal window on my Mac...just to remember that the reason I bought a GUI is so I don't have to learn all that command line stuff.

I do find it neat to be running Windows 98 in Virtual PC, OS X, an old program in OS 9 Classic mode, and a Terminal window open all at the same time on my Mac. I don't have X11 installed on my work laptop or I'd try running an X11 app also.

I installed Tiger 10.4 a few days ago at home. I had to muck about with my Mail for a bit but otherwise the upgrade went well. The new Spotlight feature is awesome!! Spotlight spent about an hour indexing my hard drive and the external firewire drives and I was very impressed with its search capabilities. I often spend too much time looking for an Excel file or worksheet or e-mail and this feature is going to be a godsend.

I'm firmly in the Mac camp. At work I spend my days in Excel and accounting programs on my Mac, tax programs on my PC or in Virtual PC on the Mac, at night I spend it in iMovie, iPhoto and iDVD. I switched in 1999 and have had no regrets.

--
Murray

"No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

[Nightingale 0]

Mac.

I got one a few months ago. I will never buy another PC, ever again.

I'm saving up all my spare cash so I can get an iBook for school next year. Right now, I've got a toshiba laptop and when I get to school and have to use it, I think "damn...I gotta put up with windows again"

There's a reason that PCs have users and Macs have evangelists.

iPod...the gateway drug.

[Joellercoaster 6]

Toshiba laptop, you say?
Putting up with Windows, you say?

Get your friendly neighbourhood Linux nerd to hook you up, I say!

(It's really not that hard to deal with, no matter what Dvorak says. Hasn't been for years.)

--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

[jsaxton 0]

run linux/FreeBSD and most of your problems will disapear