Grays and Plejarans use Macs. Real people use Wintel boxes

[pixelsmith]

I am a real person and I use a Mac. How is this possible? According to one poster here I must be a Mutant Mac user. I am curious now. Are there other Mutant Mac users here on the forum?

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I am a real person and I use a Mac. How is this possible? According to one poster here I must be a Mutant Mac user. I am curious now. Are there other Mutant Mac users here on the forum?

Well, David and I use Macs too. So are we mutants? Well, we do use Windows from time to time as well, so?

 

[Aaron LeClair]

There's a lot of Mac users here. Or at least was I think. Not sure what you mean by mutant. Someone who uses both like Gene mentioned?

When I first joined I was shocked at how many were here. I don't use Macs. I know nothing about them other than I think they are decendents of Apples I tinkered with when a child. Oh, and I hear their monitors are way better than any others.

I'm a big gamer and Mac seems to get screwed out of pc games. Their section in stores is smaller at least and support always seems lacking with Mac. Unfortunate for Mac. I'm sure they're good in their own right, only to get squashed by Gates' power perhaps. Gene would know more about this sort of thing than I though, so correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

There's a lot of Mac users here. Or at least was I think. Not sure what you mean by mutant. Someone who uses both like Gene mentioned?

When I first joined I was shocked at how many were here. I don't use Macs. I know nothing about them other than I think they are decendents of Apples I tinkered with when a child. Oh, and I hear their monitors are way better than any others.

Mostly,but I have a 24-inch Dell that's really as good or better than the ones Apple currently offers.

 

[Aaron LeClair]

Mostly,but I have a 24-inch Dell that's really as good or better than the ones Apple currently offers.

I would love to have a 24 inch. I have a nice flat screen and was just given a 19 or 20 inch. It's too fat to sit on my desk though. I like my wide screen that my flat screen has, so for now the fat bigger one remains on the floor. Plus, I can barely pic that thing up.

 

[David Biedny]

I use My Brain™, the Mac and Windows boxes on my desk are just stupid hunks of plastic, sillycone and metal.

That said, the Mac has always been the better designed solution. The Windows/PC/Intel thang is funky, has always been funky, and has always been 3-6 years behind the Mac. Qualifier - I've been a computer user for almost 30 years (oh, kill me now), I've used EVERYTHING, from IBM 360/370 mainframe beasts to Apple IIs, DEC Rainbows, and modular analog synths that qualify as computers in their own right.

I'm a total mutant, regardless of computing platform - and proud of it!

dB

 

[pixelsmith]

i jumped in with a Mac Plus, then a IIsi, 8500, G4 Quicksilver and now a G5 2.3 loaded with 8 GB ram, ATI 9650 256mb, Dell 200FPW and LaCie electr22b4, a little over a terrabyte external storage and 750 GB internal.

never in my wildest dreams could i have imagined having 8 gigs of ram or that much hard drive storage!

i also have my aunts MINT IBM PC with the optional 20 megabyte HD. i think she used it once or twice. the invoice says over 3 grand i believe.

 

[Aaron LeClair]

I just upgraded my new pc's ram and can tell a HUGE difference. It's only a little over a 1000 now though. Was 512, or whatever that standard number is I never can remember specs.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I just upgraded my new pc's ram and can tell a HUGE difference. It's only a little over a 1000 now though. Was 512, or whatever that standard number is I never can remember specs.

Yes, modern operating systems suck RAM. I have 4.5GB on my desktop Mac, and sometimes that doesn't seem to be enough.

 

[Aaron LeClair]

Yes, modern operating systems suck RAM. I have 4.5GB on my desktop Mac, and sometimes that doesn't seem to be enough.

I didn't know anyone needed that much ram. Even gamers don't I thought. What are you doing powering the space shuttle?

My pooter only holds about a 1000 more ram. So it only holds around 3000 I think.

I've noticed in the last 3-4 years gaming computer requirements have sored big time. My new pc still isn't good enough to play this game that has these requirements:

- 3 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
- 1GB System Ram
- ATI Radeon X800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series or higher video card

Minimum System Requirements:
- Windows XP
- 512MB System RAM
- 2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
- 128MB Direct3D compatible video card with DirectX 9.0c compatible driver
- CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
- 4.6GB free hard disk space
- DirectX 9.0c (included)
- DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
- Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework for toolset (included)
- Broadband connection for multiplayer online play
- Keyboard, Mouse

 

[pixelsmith]

no one really needs more than 4 gb ram.
i installed 8 gigs primarily for showing up my snobby peecee buddy Jim. he would come over to my house and bad mouth my mac all the time. macs are going out of business you know and they are ONLY good at graphics, etc etc etc and then he would always say "and my peecee has 2 gb ram in it so i can blow your doors off"
so i installed 4 gigs first then another 4 a few months later. trouble is i had to take 4 gigs OUT for awhile because of a tool lag issue in photoshop. now there is a workaround for it an i was able to install all 8 gigs but now there is a lag when choosing color related tools.

the look on a snobby peecee users face when they find out you have 8 gigs of ram is PRICELESS!!! worth every penny. Jim doesnt like to talk computers anymore.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

no one really needs more than 4 gb ram.
i installed 8 gigs primarily for showing up my snobby peecee buddy Jim. he would come over to my house and bad mouth my mac all the time. macs are going out of business you know and they are ONLY good at graphics, etc etc etc and then he would always say "and my peecee has 2 gb ram in it so i can blow your doors off"
so i installed 4 gigs first then another 4 a few months later. trouble is i had to take 4 gigs OUT for awhile because of a tool lag issue in photoshop. now there is a workaround for it an i was able to install all 8 gigs but now there is a lag when choosing color related tools.

the look on a snobby peecee users face when they find out you have 8 gigs of ram is PRICELESS!!! worth every penny. Jim doesnt like to talk computers anymore.

So my paltry 4.5GB doesn't cut it anymore, eh?

 

[pixelsmith]

snicker snicker... 4.5 gigs?... lol... snicker...

i had never thought about bragging rights towards my Mac friends. seriously tho, i cannot tell any difference between 4 and 8 gigs.

 

[klatuu_berada_nicto]

Mac Pro and dual G5 here. Love the Mac's! In fact, I sold off all my Wintel boxes after making the switch. Mmmmm, OS 10.5 is just right around the corner!

I don't think I would like being a Gray because of all the abductions and weird medical experiments that I would have to perform and being a Plejaran means I have to bolt some cake pans together to make the trip home (damn BM and his pix). He he he!

 

[Koji K.]

So who uses Linux/AMD boxes, besides me?

 

[Gene Steinberg]

So who uses Linux/AMD boxes, besides me?

This site, for one, is run on a Linux/AMD box, as are all our sites. We chose a Linux host as they are the most cost-effective and efficient for this sort of thing. Mac hosts are just not in the ballpark in terms of price.

 

[pixelsmith]

The Apple Way: A broader take on the "Mac vs. PC" debate

One man's take on the Apple Computer approach. Why designing the "whole widget" is the best way to design computers. I dig in to vertical vs. horizontal integration in the computer industry and why the Windows PC approach has resulted in an inferior and unacceptable consumer experience.

What better place to start the Apple journey than to examine the fundamentals of how Apple delivers its products and why they remain one of the few "whole widget" computer companies.

PUTTING TECHNOLOGY FIRST

Before I begin, let me make one thing perfectly clear: I do not and will never celebrate business success at the expense of technological and social/consumer progress. I recognize that every technology company must make compromises in their products to achieve various business objectives. Omitting features (as opposed to shipping broken features) to meet a shipping schedule or adding functions that are tailored to certain customers at the expense of some interface consistency or philosophy is to be expected. Computer companies are not charities. They are in business to make money and must remain competitive in the market place. However, just because a company succeeds in the market doesn't justify its approach nor does it qualify its means to achieve that success. The market isn't always right. I am saddened by the success of bad products and disappointed by those that celebrate them. While this disdain clearly implies Microsoft, it is not limited to them.

THE WHOLE WIDGET

Now, back to Apple. Apple certainly has a sordid past as a business, going from towering heights in its early days to near extinction in the mid nineties and now returning to a healthy, though smaller firm. At its heart, Apple (in particular the Apple of Steve Jobs) is a company devoted to creating great products. They put their products first. While that seems like a truism, the computer industry often fails to put products first. Microsoft is a company whose products are almost always put second or more, trailing behind their agenda for dominance and survival at all costs.

Apple's product-first attitude is evident in the quality of their work and their attention to detail, but also in their methodology as a computer maker. They design the whole computer experience themselves. They choose and/or create the internal hardware components such as the processor and chipsets, design the enclosure and write the operating system and software that provides the crucial user interface. Hence, they build the "whole widget". Apple is the only vertically intergrated consumer computer maker. What this provides is a level of control and continuity that is impossible in the horizontal market of the Windows PC world. I will examine in detail the individual merits of Apple's hardware and software in other articles but it's safe to say that Apple computers are the most integrated and consistent computers you can buy. In this way, Apple's approach is more akin to a consumer electronics company such as Sony or Samsung than to Dell or HP.

SEAMLESS INTEGRATION - "It Just Works!"

The most important advantage of being a vertical computer maker is seamless integration. Everything works together because it's all coming from the same company. Consequently you also gain accountability. When something doesn't work, you only have one company to call. No finger pointing toward one of the various component vendors. Apple wrote the software to work with the hardware specifically. As a result, the experience of buying and using an Apple computer is closer to the out-of-box experience of an appliance than a PC. Plug it in and start using it. And when something is broken, they fix it or replace it. This is evident in their consumer reports reviews. Even PC magazine rates Apple #1 in every category. Check out the complete breakdowns here for: Desktops , Notebooks and Servers .

When you buy a Dell, you are essentially paying Dell to put together a PC kit for you. You can forego the added cost and do it yourself, as many PC enthusiasts do, choosing the motherboard, processor, case and every other component. What you'll end up with is essentially no different than a Dell. Dell is a computer parts assembler. So when your new scanner causes your system freeze, even though you've installed everything properly and by all accounts it should work... well, we all know what happens next. The he-said-she-said of PC tech support. Imagine finding your new DVD player doesn't work with your TV and neither company can explain it or take responsibility.

3RD PARTY ADD-ONS

What about all those third party peripherals and accessories that make having a PC so expandable and subsequently so complicated to support? Clearly it's not Dell's fault if the scanner has poor software!

Well the experience of using third party add-ons with an Apple computer is largely just as seamless as the out-of-box experience (provided the peripheral supports the Mac). Plug in almost any printer and it just works, like a DVD player being connected to your TV. Connect your printer and now you can print. No notifications that something new is being installed. No error messages. Nothing at all. When you go to print from Word or any other program, the printer is there and you can print. The same is true for video cards and webcams and most other gadgets. On rare occasions with more esoteric upgrades you'll need to run a software installer, but after that the experience will be the same.

The reason for this goes back to the fundamental choice to build the whole widget. In the Windows PC world, the individual system components are the real "product". The video cards. The motherboards. The network adapters. What ties them together into a single, work PC is a set of standards with too much room for error born out of the necessity of its horizontal market and an operating system that's as loosely constructed as those standards. But the consumer doesn't look at it that way. They see a computer. A single product that should work as such. This is the way Apple sees it as well. So they set the standard at the computer level with their Operating System and make sure all the individual components adhere to that standard very tightly. This reduces the variables that lead to most of the incompatibilities and unpredictability which plague the Windows world. Stuff just needs to work with a Mac, not worry about thousands of potential hardware combinations. Apple ensures the hardware adheres to the standard because they make it.

Now Windows should provide a standard that creates this stability, but it doesn't. That is evident in the experience, even to this day with XP. So it's not really Dell's fault, or HP's or any PC assembler's. It's Microsoft's. They set the standard that matters: the software.

THE SOFTWARE COMPANY

This is where the difference between a Mac and a Windows PC matters most. At this point, the hardware in both systems is virtually the same. Same hard drives, same video cards, same PCI slots, same USB and Firewire ports. What makes a Mac distinctive from a PC is principally its Operating System: Mac OSX. What is so unique about the Apple software approach is that software is a tiny portion of the company's revenue. The overwhelming majority of Apple's revenue comes from hardware sales. So improvements to Mac OSX are made primarily to improve the user experience and drive sales of their Hardware. Despite being a hardware-driven company, their software efforts usually extend the life of their computers rather than driving them into obsolescence. Each version of Mac OSX has been significantly faster than the version before it on the same hardware while adding hundreds of new features and graphics-heavy interface improvements. I will focus on the particulars of the Mac OSX vs. Windows in another article.

Behold the applications that compose iLife: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD. Each one is far and away the best app in its category for the Mac and outshines anything on the PC (and now that iTunes is freely available on the PC, Windows users are confirming its supremacy ). Yet these apps are included in the purchase of every Mac.

These are all software innovations built to drive the sale of their the total product, the computer, to users. The continued improvement in Mac OSX on existing systems comes from Apple's commitment to its customers and a desire to maintain those customs. Hence, they have created the most loyal user-base of any technology company on earth. It must be noted that all of the applications Apple includes with its computers can be ignored, replaced with 3rd party solutions and/or deleted from the system without any harm to the computers stability. This is very different than what motivates Microsoft and its "improvements" to Windows.

THE MICROSOFT APPROACH

Why is Microsoft, a company with over Forty Billion in cash reserves and Six Billion in annual R&D incapable of matching the innovation and reliability of tiny little Apple with its 500 million in annual R&D? Because they don't have to. Because they don't care to. You see, end-users like you and I, whether consumer or business, are not Microsoft's customers for Windows. They don't have the direct customer relationship that Apple does, or Dell for that matter. Microsoft's customers ARE Dell and HP and the other computer assemblers. So how do you make Computer Companies happy? Create software that drives hardware replacement. That means making each successive version of Windows more bloated and slow and the last, which is exactly what they've done ALMOST EVERY TIME. Windows 98 was slower than Windows 95. Windows XP is slower than Windows 2000.

But that's just a small piece of the puzzle. From the beginning, Microsoft recognized that the IBM-compatible hardware business was a commodity market. The name of the game in the PC world is price. Why buy a Dell instead of an HP? Price. Otherwise they are the same product. Of course there is service and support as a factor, but every business has to try and excel at those. This horizontal market is great for lowering costs but leaves little room for R&D with its razor thin margins. Controlling the crucial software that makes the computer a useful tool is where the money's at, which is why Microsoft makes more money on the sale of every PC than the PC manufacturer themselves.

So what you have in this model is computer makers with little power to improve their own product themselves and a Microsoft with little motivation to optimize the crucial Windows operating system since bloated code makes their customers happy. Of course, when something goes wrong for a customer they call the people that sold them the product: the computer makers. Who then point the figure at Windows who then does the same. How convenient.

Now this approach isn't entirely underhanded. The nature of software development has demanded a common platform also know as an Application Programming Interface or API. Therefore there is logic in the theory that the operating system is an area that leans toward a natural monopoly, like the electric company. If everyone has the same operating system, software developers are ensured the largest market without the cost of developing for multiple platforms. As a user, you are assured wide variety of software that will work with your system. This is the great benefit to the PC model and the key ingredient to its market success. Of course, with modern high-level programming languages like Java, cross-platform protocols and web based applications, the OS no longer needs to be the common denominator ... but I'll get into that another time.

However, as with so many other theories, its real world result doesn't match the ideal. What you find as a result of this "natural" monopoly, which for all intents and purposes has come to fruition, is a company whose primary objective is to maintain the dominance of Windows at all costs, regardless of the impact it has on the users. I will devote much more time to the woes of Microsoft's Windows lock-in agenda in another article but it is at the heart of nearly all of Windows' instability and insecurity. On top of that, you have a complicated market of hardware specifications and requirements that lead to frustrating incompatibilities and unpredictable operation. Plug in a new device and you never know what's going to happen next. The likelihood of it working has steadily improved over the years, but is that acceptable for such expensive products? Things should work as advertised. Plug-and-play shouldn't be a feature, it should be a given.

On the Mac, that has always been the case. It has always been "plug-and-play", because that's what a good product should do. The horizontal market may have won the day, but the vertical approach continues to provide a better product and more loyal and happy users.

MS TAKES THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

There is one notable exception to the chaos of the PC world. A machine built entirely out of industry standard parts and running on Microsoft software with the appliance-like reliability of a Mac: The Xbox. The Xbox just works, even though it is essentially a Pentium PC running Microsoft software. The reason: it has to. While the Microsoft Windows PC world has trained us to expect failure from computers, the video game console market adheres to the expectations of consumer electronics. It's a product that you buy and expect to work. If your Xbox breaks, you call Microsoft. No finger pointing or multiple vendors. So when Microsoft entered the gaming market, they chose the business model that provides the best reliability and user experience: the Apple Model. They took control of the hardware and wrote the software to match.

Microsoft is taking further steps down this road with the Athens concept PC. You'll notice it's striking similarity to a certain other computer . A quick look at the specs reveals a computer whose headline features can can be found on the THREE YEAR OLD Power Mac G4 Cube: behold . Here's some quotes from the Microsoft Athens developers and Bill Gates himself:

"The hardware industry and Microsoft are leading the next wave of PC development by creating unprecedented levels of synergy between hardware and software," Gates said. "The result will be innovative products that improve the way our customers work, communicate, learn and are entertained. The Athens PC prototype is just one example of the amazing things that are possible when hardware and software companies collaborate deeply on new designs."

Athens is "a wholly integrated design that is intended to reduce the visual, physical, and cognitive complexity of the PC," not by specifying so many gigahertz or such-and-such a hard disk but by merging "all communication media -- including voice, video, and text messaging" -- into "consistent," "compelling," and "rich experiences with everyday communication and collaboration tasks."

What Gates and company has found is that their beloved horizontal PC industry is utterly devoid of the R&D resources and motivation to improve the PC as a physical product. Perhaps that's because Microsoft makes ALL the real money in the industry. So of course they need to take up the cause themselves.

The most important features of this new system aside from its Mac-inspired form factor are the integration of video, telephony and voice communications. Of course, this is all just a prototype for systems that won't appear until 2006 when Windows Longhorn arrives. Meanwhile I've got a seamless video , voice ,and bluetooth enabled telephony , as well as a quiet system that can wake from sleep in 2 seconds, has few cables and a small widescreen form-factor. Every single touted advantage of the Athens PC is available today with a Mac. Most have been available since 2000 with the G4 Cube.

How is it that all the billions of research dollars and heft of the entire PC industry lead them to copying three-year-old Apple Designs in a prototype that won't ship for at least another year or two? What could be more of an indictment of the Microsoft Windows PC approach than to listen to Bill Gates describe features that Apple users have taken for granted for years as if they are major new innovations?

WHY CAN'T THEY GET IT RIGHT?

Clearly the answer must be that Apple can move so fast due to its closed proprietary nature and smaller user-base, Right? It is hard for Microsoft to move the entire hodge-podge of Windows hardware forward by leaps and bounds as Apple does with its tiny market share, isn't it? Apple charges a premium for this cutting edge experience, don't they?

The answer to all these questions is NO! Apple's hardware is all industry standard gear with the exception of the Processor. I can and have pulled out the RAM and drives from my old PCs to use in my Macs. The same USB peripherals that work on the PC, largely work on the Mac. In fact, my Microsoft Intellimouse's 5 buttons all work without any special software. That's right, a Mac using a multi-button mouse. And Mac OSX is the most industry standard compliant Operating System on earth. From TCP/IP networking to XML to MPEG4, Apple supports every major software and communications standard. Even file sharing and printing with Windows computers is now seamless with Mac OSX, often more seamless than it is between two Windows PCs.

As for cost, somehow Macs are comparable to PCs, and sometimes even cheaper. The new G5 is up to $1500 cheaper than the closest comparable Dell Precision Workstation, and faster too. The iMac and eMac are comparable to similarly equipped Dell or Gateway all-in-one desktops. The iBooks and the Powerbooks are very competitive with the best in the PC world on price. What Apple doesn't make is a stripped down, $500 computer. They have decided to set a higher minimum for their platform so that every Apple user gets the same quality experience. So you have an $800 computer that can do everything the $3000 model can, only slower and less expandable.

Microsoft could achieve the same things Apple does if only they weren't so busy trying to lock out competitors by ganging all their software together in insecure and intrusive ways. I will tackle why Microsoft produces shoddy products in another article. In the meantime read THIS and THIS . They are some recent articles that shed light on the nature of Microsoft today by Robert X. Cringely, maker of the legendary "Triumph of the Nerd" documentary series. They highlight the brutality Microsoft inflicts on its "partners" in its quest for unlimited power and profit. How could any industry be healthy with a company like this steering the ship?

FINAL WORDS

That's it for this installment. My next techno-tirade will tackle the Apple look-and-feel and why I believe Apple has the best user experience in computing. Thanks for you time. In the future, I hope to implement comments so that a healthy discussion about these issues can commence.

by: John Papola
Posted: Wed - December 17, 2003 at 09:51 AM

 

[Rick Deckard]

So who uses Linux/AMD boxes, besides me?

Me - I run a local Debian server in my home (used to be a Win98/Intel box) - I've got all my files, music, video and websites running on it. I also run my email account from there - stops all the nasty viruses (virii?) from spreading to my Winblows machines...

...I have to use windows for the time being 'cos I'm trying to finish the development of my shareware game - I'm using Blitz 3D which is windows only (Direct X 7). For my next project, I'm aiming for cross-platform - PC. Mac and Linux.

My professional experience is developing apps for IBM OS390 Mainframe (COBOL/CICS/DB2 and a million other 'glue' languages) - but I'm trying to get into the LAMP (Linux,Apache,MySQL,Php) development platform in the very near future (I can't rely on shareware games for an income - well not yet, but in future, who knows?)...

...so, for me, Linux is my O/S of choice...

BTW, I found some interesting quotes made by Bill gates and by other people about Bill Gates on Wikiquote.

I like this one from Douglas Adams:

"The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place."

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Me - I run a local Debian server in my home (used to be a Win98/Intel box) - I've got all my files, music, video and websites running on it. I also run my email account from there - stops all the nasty viruses (virii?) from spreading to my Winblows machines...

...I have to use windows for the time being 'cos I'm trying to finish the development of my shareware game - I'm using Blitz 3D which is windows only (Direct X 7). For my next project, I'm aiming for cross-platform - PC. Mac and Linux.

My professional experience is developing apps for IBM OS390 Mainframe (COBOL/CICS/DB2 and a million other 'glue' languages) - but I'm trying to get into the LAMP (Linux,Apache,MySQL,Php) development platform in the very near future (I can't rely on shareware games for an income - well not yet, but in future, who knows?)...

...so, for me, Linux is my O/S of choice...

BTW, I found some interesting quotes made by Bill gates and by other people about Bill Gates on Wikiquote.

I like this one from Douglas Adams:

"The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place."

Our Web hosting provider, DreamHost, uses Debian Linux on their servers too. So that is what is delivering The Paracast to you.

 

[thegreenman]

I'm a Feisty Fawn....so there..............

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070220 Firefox/2.0.0.2