What were we talking about? Who is John Galt?
posted on Thursday, July 13, 2006 11:33 AM
But once you have worked on a Mac you will really enjoy how well it just works. These commercials do highlight the features on the Mac which are good reasons to switch. I have to use Windows so I can do .NET development but would really prefer to run a Mac because of many of the headaches I have had with WinXP. A key feature I want is network profiles. http://www.greasydaemon.com/macosx/firstlooks/gallery/locations.html">http://www.greasydaemon.com/macosx/firstlooks/gallery/locations.html I wrote that First Looks review when OS X first came out and you still cannot do network profiles in WinXP. http://www.greasydaemon.com/macosx/firstlooks/
If all you want is network profiles, download it here. http://www.interactive-studios.net/products/plugbrowse.htm?gclid=COjS_IrfkYYCFUdtDgod-jfFww My X41 Tablet came with it and I agree it is very handy! As for things just working, that’s how I’d classify Windows XP, it just works. I used Apples and Mac in the 80's and 90's and as a developer was constantly frustrated with Apple's pompous attitude and closed thinking. This attitude ultimately turned me off to Macs and Apple in general. However I think it's this attitude that is appealing to Apple's 3% global market share. "We are better than everyone else!" I agree that OS X is pretty cool but I would never consider buying a Mac just so I can install XP on it to run my applications. As a consumer, a cool OS is not my only consideration. I want a choice in platform manufacturers and peripherals. I want the largest amount of available applications. I want the computer I use in my home and office to run the same OS. As a developer, I want a large Internet resource base. I want a huge selection of tools and examples. I want a large amount of reference material. I want a platform that can support the majority of debuggers on the market. Why would I use a Mac? I think most people buy a Mac to be a part of the Mac community. It's more of an emotional response than a logical one.
When I bought my new Dell laptop I had to do a lot just to get it ready to use. One area was to get the antivirus and firewall software working. It comes with competing software and you have to be careful that the WinXP is not blocking communications while a third party utility claims it is not blocked. Then on a Dell you get 3 utilities to manage the wifi connection and if they are somehow all activated the fight with eachother and prevent the wifi connection from working. I have experienced this and it took a while to find out what was wrong. But on my Mac I have not had to deal with that. The security features which have existed on the Mac is being introduced in Vista, such as allowing the user to run as a non-Administator user so that trojans and worms cannot silently install themselves from Outlook or MSIE. That means I do not have to deal with AV software. And the Mac firewall works well enough that a third party utility is not necessary. And the same goes for the wifi system. It does the job. These are just a couple of examples where Vista has to improve over WinXP and where the Mac has already been doing well.
As far as your comments that getting a Mac is more of an emotional response than a logical one, you might say your response to the Mac ads is the same. When comparing computers I have to consider the costs of AV and backup software such as Norton Ghost so that I can recover from a virus and registry problems. When I compare the costs of a WinXP or Mac machine I find the Mac can cost a lot less and also take a lot less effort to maintain a machine I use to do email and use websites.
So why do over 90% of all desktops have Windows on them? Although the word "better" is a very relative term, PC's must be "better" in some way for them to have such a huge share of the market. Mac's have never had more than about 10% of the market...why? Of course I have some ideas but I am interested in what you think. With regards to the Apple commercials, when's the last time you saw a Microsoft or PC add being critical of Apple?
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