[Grapho]

I really don't care what you use or even what you think is better or if it has any perceived value to you. Reality is an intangible thing that can only be parsed through perception, so perception trumps reality, so this discussion is useless at this point. You see an Apple Tax, I see a Windows Tax. One you pay with money, the other you pay with time. I usually have more money than time. Ether way, it simply is a choice that I perceived to be better and you do not. What does it matter?

[lord_xaero]

Grapho said:

I really don't care what you use or even what you think is better or if it has any perceived value to you. Reality is an intangible thing that can only be parsed through perception, so perception trumps reality, so this discussion is useless at this point. You see an Apple Tax, I see a Windows Tax. One you pay with money, the other you pay with time. I usually have more money than time. Ether way, it simply is a choice that I perceived to be better and you do not. What does it matter?

It matters because we did not start the discussion on time, we started this discussion on macs cost more to buy and own than a pc with better specs. Reality is in fact very tangible. Pc users did not go crazy when the multitude of apple ads came out with ridiculous claims. Like how an intel mac runs photoshop better than an intel pc.(apple did get sued over using a specifically optimized version of photoshop and disabling key features on the PC, all of which came to light when tom's hardware did a benchmark comparison and found the pc to be 270+% faster due to photoshop for pc (at the time) to be many generations old and since the osx refresh, the mac version was effecctively gen 1.



All of that aside IT STILL COSTS MORE MONEY to buy a mac and LESS MONEY to buy a pc. Thus the add is in fact TRUE. When people have less money (i.e. NOW) They will be MORE LIKELY to buy a "cheap" netbook, voting with their wwallets, giving a "high five" to a company that listens to their customers. Those customers will develop brand loyalty to windows and the company that helped them out and apple will lose more sales and so on and so on. In the future the only thing you will find an apple logo on will be an mp3 player or maybe a phone. And the discussion of Betamax, I mean apple vs PC will be over. On a side note do you have any idea what is needed to overcome 93% market share? Usually an atomic bomb or other natural disaster.

[lord_xaero]

[quote name='folklore']
>

NoteBook said:

> I honestly believe that some of the users posting to this thread have never actually used a PC.
Many of us have used Windows. Some of us have extensively used many versions of Windows over the years. I've personally used everything from Windows 3.1 through XP SP3 for daily work. I've not had much exposure to Vista.





> People who contend that PCs crash or freeze (or physically break down?) more than Macs either are using Radio Shack PCs, or, as mentioned, really do not use PCs.
Or they're using Windows outside of tightly controlled environments like school labs.





> Being a school jurisdiction, which uses public dollars to purchase our instructional technology, there is no justification spending almost 100% more for desktop computers and 50% more for laptop computers that have the same level of reliability and stability.

Of course there are justifications for using OS X regardless of cost. For example, if you're teaching audio/video editing, the Mac is the platform your students will use in the workplace. There are other examples - Mac software is often simply a more elegant way to get the job done. I can't tell you how many people say, "Wow!" when I show them what I can do in 5 minutes with amazing tools like OmniGraffle on my Mac. I can create the same drawing in Word or Visio on a PC, but OmniGraffle is (much) faster and the result is generally more appealing with less effort on my part.

As far as cost goes, even if you're right about Apple's offerings costing more, you're wrong about the magnitude. A polycarbonate (white) MacBook is reasonably close to the Dell laptop you cite, and at K-12 pricing is certainly not 50% more than $1,070 even if you have Apple add memory and a hard drive upgrade. The low-end Mac Mini retails for $599, less for K-12, and can be customized with additional RAM to get it close to the Dell. Add a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and it's probably more expensive than $725 - but it's certainly not 100% more.





> I should also mention, we have asked Apple if they would consider shipping Macs pre-loaded with our custom image, and unless we purchase in quantities of 1,000 they will not... Needless to say we do not purchase computers in the thousands!
Have you gotten quotes from Apple-certified systems integrators? I used to do that sort of work (mostly for Windows computers) and my labor was disturbingly inexpensive. We did quite a lot of work in the education market.





> So, whether you personally believe OS X is vastly superior to Windows XP SP3 or not is not relevant.
Actually, it is. When I'm buying a computer for my use, what I personally believe is pretty much all that matters. And as I've posted here, OS X is my operating system of choice because it facilitates me creating of all sorts of things in ways Windows doesn't.

If I were purchasing computers for labs on campus, initial cost is certainly an issue that must be addressed. There are other concerns as well however, including the usable lifespan of the computer, administration costs (usually time), hardware break/fix costs, software license agreements for virus protection software, etc. Windows PCs might well be the right choice for your school district - but to make the decision based solely on initial cost is short-sighted at best.

Tightly controlled school labs? are you freaking kidding me? take 30 kids with myspace accts and put them on your home network and see what happens!

The rest of the post was basically I like it better because i do. I can call any pc maker today and get them to custom install anything i want. If i call apple its all about what THEY want. yes I can send my apple somewhere else at my expense to have them take care of what I want but really shouldn't a computer company care about its customers? Not demand i buy 100k worth of hardware to get what i want!

[lord_xaero]

jasystems said:

ONLY MICROSOFT BELIEVES MICROSOFT !

These people are incredible; incredibly stupid that is... not only does Microsoft produce an inferior product, but they boast about it too! - I've been using the Windows OS, as an IT Professional, for over 25 years now, and all I can say to sum up my experience is - NEVER AGAIN. I switched to Apple and haven't thought about Windows in any way, shape or form. As a matter of fact, I can't remember what the START menu option looks like anymore.... My cost of ownership for 3 iMacs in the past two years has been $180.00 - that's it.

I'm now headed into the X-Serer realm, and I cabn't wait as well because Apple beats Microsoft at that too. The cost of 10, 25 or unlimited users is trivial compared to the cost of total ownership with Windows Server 2003/2008 solutions !

I LOVE IT ..... MICROSOFT DESERVES EVERYTHING THEY HAVE COMING TO THEM.

Jose A.
Miami, Florida

Yes they do, they deserve 93% of the market share and enough money to buy apple a hundred times over. Oh wait they already have that.

[jasystems]

Not Really ...

I'd rather pawn my dog and sell my fiance in order to buy a used Mac than buy another blunder driven PC junket.

The word says it all... PC, which stands for "Personal Crapola". It's been 29 years and Microsoft nor all the major wonder vendors came agree on a single set of "stupid proof" guidelines that avoid shortfalls. Instead, you have the Microsoft giant leading the dwarfed blind and stupid through their maze of acronyms and lost promises of greater security, increased productivity and greater value through cost reductions in IT management, when all this time, it's been one big failure, one after the other. The only thing Microsoft has invented, at least that I can remember, is the Copy/Paste function, which seems to work almost always, for the most part.

Other than that, it stole every single idea, line of code and extinguished most major players in the North American software marketplace, all in the name of progress and market dominance..... Microsoft has done for the PC what AIG did for the Hedge funds and leveraged buyouts - PROMISES and NOT DELIVERABLES.

Let's count their major accomplishements below:

1. DOS 1.0/1.1 (Really CPM/86 that was stolen)
2. Windows 2.0 (Code again that was stolen from Apple)
3. Windows 3.11 for WorkGroups (N one knows what this was meant to serve)
4. Windows 95 (more crapola, left over from 3.11 but with new GUI)
5. Windows 98 & 98/SE (Somewhat better code, without any real networking)
6. Windows/NT (A major breakthrough, not bad for a 1st attempt at really writing code)
7. Windows/2000 (THE ONLY OS so far that really worked and still does !)
8. Windows/ME (ARE YOU KIDDING ME ? - a revamp of IBM's former PC Jr. product line)
9. Windows/XP (OK, Windows/2000 worked, so let's try to simply change the GUI this time around)
10. Windows/VISTA ( ARE YOU KIDDING ME? - Windows/ME again ?????)

The above OS Chronological description depicts 29 years of bullshitting the public, IT professionals and their own stock holders. People compalin about Madof, yet Bill has gotten away with pure murder.... and people admire him just like Che Guevara.

Oh wait, I almost forgot, let's not forget their major contribution to the Cleint-Server world and decentralized computing !!!!

LMAO - :)

Jose A.

[jasystems]

Yes, you are correct ... perhaps they do own 93% of the market share, but I'm on that 7% that refuses to be back ended like you and still remain confident and fullish hard that each subsequent new product rollout will be better than the previous non-performer(s).

At this juncture, they are better off buying SCO-Unix and making a go at it. I advise many clients to either go Apple for simple and complex networking, without the hassles of the Microsoft "upgrade" Sould Train.....


Something tells me that Windows 7 won't be any better than Windows 8,9,10,11,12 or whatever they bring forward.........

This company is not driven to produce "quality" products and it shows - Microsoft is the market leader at producing 93% of the mediocre market share in the world's Operating System marketplace. The day these people produce a Print Spooler (one that works) and simple TCP/IP networking (in a single screen, with no more than two dialog tabs), I will swallow my words !

LOL :)

[Grapho]

Fact: All Bot-net are composed of compromised Windows PC. All of them!!!

Fact: Windows run one program a lot faster then a Mac, a Mac runs several programs a lot more efficiently than a PC. So if you want to play a game, sure, use a PC, if you need to multitask use a Mac. Windows will even start chocking running two simultaneous processes much worse three or four, heck, even your mouse starts moving erratically and things slowdown to a crawl.

Fact: Everything, including the software ran on a PC is fully compatible with a modern intel Mac. My Mac Pro can run all the software that you PC can, but your PC can not run all the software that my Mac can.

Fact: Apple still designs it's motherboards in close cooperation with Intel, Macs don't use a generic Intel board regardless of what you state. A Mac is not a generic PC box, it's an integrated software and hardware solution that has always worked a lot better then a Windows box. I use Windows, we have a mixed network here of Macs and PCs. The Macs have outlasted their PC counter parts by a factor of 2X. This is anecdotal, but it is also my personal experience and the exposure I have had. Also, we have had show stopping problems with ALL the PC, some hardware some software. Hardware is to be expected, a HD will not run forever, on a Mac or PC, but software issues, viruses, registry problems, corruption of certain files, crashes, computers not starting up consistently. We had a copaq that would start up only when it wanted too. We are not running a single Vista license, so if Vista fixed all this, we are not aware of it, but XP has been lack luster for us. I will say this, it is better since Service Pack 2.

Windows is good enough when it works, but when things get messy, it's a lot easer to trouble shoot a Mac, you simply have less variables to deal with.

Do you even use a Mac? Have you ever used one? What is your point of comparison?

[mdawson]

Quote

jasystems wrote:

>

Quote

The only thing Microsoft has invented, at least that I can remember, is the Copy/Paste function, which seems to work almost always, for the most part.

Nope. Copying and pasting were there on the original Mac and if I recall correctly, the Apple Lisa had the same capability in its GUI.

[folklore]

lord_xaero said:

>

Quote

Tightly controlled school labs? are you freaking kidding me? take 30 kids with myspace accts and put them on your home network and see what happens!

On my network, absolutely nothing that isn't supposed to. Because I use Macs.

Quote

The rest of the post was basically I like it better because i do.

No, the rest of the post was basically I like Mac OS X better because it facilitates creating what I create. I'm a scientist. I create knowledge - primarily peer-reviewed journal articles and course content for teaching. I commonly have many, many applications open at the same time, as I switch between various pieces of software that help me manage different sorts of information.

Right now, I have over a dozen applications open across two monitors. My PhD comprehensive exams are on Friday, so I'm simultaneously creating 10 outlines for likely questions using OmniOutliner from extensive notes (in Sente) on over 300 academic journal articles and books. The way that OS X's window management works, doing this is all quite effortless in operation, allowing me to see and work on all of the outlines simultaneously and focus on the work itself instead of how to do the work.

If you commonly work with just one app at a time, Windows probably works for you. But working with more than one app at a time in Windows is bloody painful. The way application and document windows are drawn and managed in Windows absolutely blows compared to OS X for the sort of multi-tasking that I do on a daily basis.

Mac users aren't mindless followers of Steve Jobs (well, most of us, anyway). We have simply found that the Mac platform is better for what we do. When I was a Windows technician - and I was one, for nearly a decade - I wouldn't have believed that either. But it's absolutely true. Mac OS X has changed how I work for the better. The difference is very noticeable and has accumulated over the past five years to the point that using Windows feels very clunky and unproductive today.

Ultimately, what has Mac users cheesed off about all this "Apple tax" malarkey is that even if there is an "Apple tax," the dollar cost is lower than is commonly reported, at least when comparing similar hardware. Moreover, the initial difference in dollar cost, if any, is more than compensated for by the increased productivity gained by using Mac OS X combined with the stunningly excellent third party software available (for example, Sente and OmniOutliner are best-in-class applications, regardless of platform, and both are Mac-only).

This is much more than an "I like it better because I like it better" argument. It's an "I like it better because it works better" argument. If you can't see that difference, then you're not only a troll, you're an idiot troll.

[jasystems]

I love it ... I was even wrong about Microsoft's innovation about Copy/Paste !

That was a MAC too !!! - LOL :) Too funny . . . .

So the question should be pu this way - what, if anything, has Microsoft really innovated over the past 29 years ?

Jose A.

[spinoza2]

Microsoft has innovated by successfully developing the means of securing a far higher market share than its competitors over the past 30 years. Market share, not customer service, nor the user experience, nor in creating great products, has been Microsoft's raison d'etre. It has done this by focusing on creating a relatively inexpensive and minimally acceptable common platform for business. Microsoft is the GM of the computer industry: create products for the masses that are functional commodities, nothing more, nothing less. A Microsoft product is about as sexy as Buick or Chevrolet.

The history of Microsoft is a wasteland of products that had promising starts in terms of technology, but were never allowed to mature or become fully developed by Microsoft. Does anyone remember Microsoft's SPOT watch technology? Or MSN Direct? How about Windows CE (or Pocket PC, or...)? What happened to the Microsoft Reader, which was going to be the future platform for ebooks? All of these, and a number of others, were products that Microsoft released in little more than a beta release and then quickly lost interest in them. They were never fully developed or allowed to mature by Microsoft.

The latest series of Microsoft ads are an excellent example of the company's unscrupulously brutal marketing prowess: Who cares whether the ads are fake, or whether they're true or not, or whether the laptops being purchased are actually good quality, the important thing is to sell product, and to do so by tapping into American gullibility (just like the American automobile industry). "Who cares whether our cars get only 15 miles to the gallon and are as ugly as dogs, the important thing is the $3000 rebate you get if you act now!"

[jasystems]

I couldn't agree more .....

This is a great summary of Microsoft's past 30 years.... much promises, poor delivery. The GM of the computing software world !

Great comments .....

Jose A. :)

[lord_xaero]

jasystems said:

Not Really ...

I'd rather pawn my dog and sell my fiance in order to buy a used Mac than buy another blunder driven PC junket.

The word says it all... PC, which stands for "Personal Crapola". It's been 29 years and Microsoft nor all the major wonder vendors came agree on a single set of "stupid proof" guidelines that avoid shortfalls. Instead, you have the Microsoft giant leading the dwarfed blind and stupid through their maze of acronyms and lost promises of greater security, increased productivity and greater value through cost reductions in IT management, when all this time, it's been one big failure, one after the other. The only thing Microsoft has invented, at least that I can remember, is the Copy/Paste function, which seems to work almost always, for the most part.

Other than that, it stole every single idea, line of code and extinguished most major players in the North American software marketplace, all in the name of progress and market dominance..... Microsoft has done for the PC what AIG did for the Hedge funds and leveraged buyouts - PROMISES and NOT DELIVERABLES.

Let's count their major accomplishements below:

1. DOS 1.0/1.1 (Really CPM/86 that was stolen)
2. Windows 2.0 (Code again that was stolen from Apple)
3. Windows 3.11 for WorkGroups (N one knows what this was meant to serve)
4. Windows 95 (more crapola, left over from 3.11 but with new GUI)
5. Windows 98 & 98/SE (Somewhat better code, without any real networking)
6. Windows/NT (A major breakthrough, not bad for a 1st attempt at really writing code)
7. Windows/2000 (THE ONLY OS so far that really worked and still does !)
8. Windows/ME (ARE YOU KIDDING ME ? - a revamp of IBM's former PC Jr. product line)
9. Windows/XP (OK, Windows/2000 worked, so let's try to simply change the GUI this time around)
10. Windows/VISTA ( ARE YOU KIDDING ME? - Windows/ME again ?????)

The above OS Chronological description depicts 29 years of bullshitting the public, IT professionals and their own stock holders. People compalin about Madof, yet Bill has gotten away with pure murder.... and people admire him just like Che Guevara.

Oh wait, I almost forgot, let's not forget their major contribution to the Cleint-Server world and decentralized computing !!!!

LMAO - :)

Jose A.<!--if gte mso 9]><xml>

It's Personal Computer, which
technically applies to macs as well

Dos 1./01.1 was purchased from
[ Tim Paterson to
fulfil an order from IBM. when it was discovered that Tim had borrowed code
(which was pretty common back then as there were no software stores and
computers were still pretty scarce) Microsoft licensed the software from the
original author for $75000, a far cry from stealing.

windows 2.0 was in fact licensed
from Xerox, it was also in fact "stolen" BY APPLE. it was part of a
dead DARPA project which Xerox shelved. Both companies apple and Microsoft were
allowed extensive access to the system. Microsoft (with deeper corporate pockets
at the time IBM contract was worth millions upon millions, and licensing rights
worth even more) paid for it. Apple however, used large sections of code to
make "LISA", one of a long list of curiously omitted Apple failures.
LISA didn't sell (it was too expensive and wasn't compatible with the leading
software of the day, hmmmm sounds familiar)

Windows for workgroups was in
fact designed to serve businesses that didn't have access to expensive server
tech. It was designed as a way to connect computers in a new way to one
another. TCPIP was used by computers of this vintage by way of a program called
Winsock, designed by microsoft. Apple computers at that time used serialized "AppleTalk"
connections which could only effectively communicate with apple machines. We
still use Tcpip today. AppleTalk is long dead, yet another failure of apple to
get anywhere. Apples today use TCPIP pioneered by WFW.

Windows 95 used a more advanced
networking stack that was capable of ppp not just slip Winsock was fine tuned
further. not to mention the new gui was based on the capacity for 24 bit
graphics, and at the time could smoke any mac in video reproduction due to a
new VLB architecture which evolved into pci which is still used today. macs at
the time used a macbus which also was a huge failure.

98&98 se had the most advance PC
network stack to date it included almost all the things we have now minus
packet scheduling and qos or upnp. SE was of note as it natively supported usb,
at this time macs only supported firewire All modern systems have some version
of usb, firewire has been largely forgotten due mostly to lack of vendor
support. ALL current macs have usb pioneered as a joint venture of INTEL/Microsoft.

Windows nt should go right around
WFW as it had been available for quite some time. NT was an operating system
for enterprises not found on many Personal Computers but yes it had quite a few
upgrades and was quite good. by windows 98 times, if memory serves they were in
the 5th release of some variant of nt. (4.0 if memory serves)

Windows 2000 was also a scaled
up (read with higher end more technical features than it's retail counterpart)
it was not intended to be used on pcs more to be used for companies than
people. This was about the time apple was in a death spiral.

Windows ME was a failed attempt at a
product refresh from 98se. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't good. Apple is now
close to bankruptcy

Windows XP offered Everything. It
featured a heavily upgraded graphics core DirectX, which gave it VAST superiority for
gaming. And with new easier networking options and web technologies it becomes
the dominant force in the computer world. At this point apple had about 2 weeks
away from full bankruptcy. Only an emergency 100 million dollar hand out keeps
them open. The hand out came from..... Microsoft? If apple were allowed to fail
at this time it would be likely that Microsoft would face antitrust action,
without apple as a defense they would lose.

In the present, Microsoft wouldn't
have to worry so much about antitrust as there are alternatives to apple.

The above corrected chronology
represents 29 years of apple stupidit,. There is not ONE thing that apple
brought forth in the beginning that is now the standard. You love to badmouth
Microsoft "stealing" from apple but We aren't using AppleTalk to
connect to the internet, on macbus modems. Your mouse isn't connected via fire
wire. And near as I can tell PCs have had the lion’s share of the innovation.
Apple has just looked cooler, at failing.

[jasystems]

WOW !!!

For the most part, you have all that Wikipedia details down to the "T", except that Microsoft hasn't produced a product that it hasn't stolen, from DAY 1 on this planet.

That's a fact and everyone knows that..... and I would rather have a downward spiral company like Apple behind me, than one that doesn't provide an upgrade path for it's programming languages, except having to re-write all your existing code (i.e., .NET)

Again, I'm not ANTI-Microsoft, I'm just dead tired of dealing with their incompetence and "rigging" the OS on an ongoing basis, which doesn't say much for their quality control - their simply isn't any!