What's the general concensus around here? Do you think that all the Mac has to offer is a pretty user interface, or do you think that the Mac os is the way to go?
Personally having worked on both, I think the Mac os sucks big time, but I just love the look of OS X.
It really all depends on what you use your computer for. If you are using your OS for graphic design, or audio or video design or production, a Mac is DEFINITELY the way to go.
If you're using your OS more for office-related stuff, or business-related stuff, then (people on this board may shoot me for this 
) Windows may be the way to go, or LINUX.
I've never used LINUX, and certainly don't know anything about Unix or anything else. So, I can't tell you about that.
It all depends on what you need it for. A lot of people like Macs because they're generally known to be easier to operate than most PC's are, although XP is the easiest Windows-based OS I've used yet.
I just don't understand why some people think Mac OS sucks... In fact I think the exact opposite of you 
I love Mac OS X :rule: 
Originally posted by iindigo@Sep 23 2003, 03:42 PMI just don't understand why some people think Mac OS sucks... In fact I think the exact opposite of you
I agree with you. I fell absolutely in love with Mac OS X (and the beautiful computers themselves) the first time I saw it!
There isn't a time when I've walked out of CompUSA here in Tulsa that I haven't wished so BADLY I could afford one. :cry:
I'll have one in a few months, and it will be worth the wait because Panther is going to R*O*C*K!! :rock:
I would go with a MAC over PC anyday, and with Linux over Windows any day. MAC's hardware is more exapnsive, and it is faster and shows better perofrmance for any tasks.. graphics or not. It is used alot for graphics because it renders faster then a PC. MAC mainly perfomrns any other task faster...
Linux, Linux has everything Windows has and plus. The only pain in the ass about it is no longer the isntallation but configuring it, configuring the kernel correctly for your system which is hard for an average computer user. Linux does perform faster then Windows too.
A few common misconceptions there, Mac is not better than XP for multimedia, Linux is fast but a pain in the ass to configure and Offices can be run succesfully on Mac or Windows, unix, linux etc.
I stand by my argument that the Mac is a pretty girl that is a bit stupid underneath, while Windows is a plain jane who is really smart and can dress herself up and look good if she wants to.
Originally posted by skeeter@Sep 23 2003, 04:29 PMA few common misconceptions there, Mac is not better than XP for multimedia, Linux is fast but a pain in the ass to configure and Offices can be run succesfully on Mac or Windows, unix, linux etc.
I stand by my argument that the Mac is a pretty girl that is a bit stupid underneath, while Windows is a plain jane who is really smart and can dress herself up and look good if she wants to.
What exactly don't you like about OS X? I have a feeling Panther will fix alot of stuff you don't like.
Ive found that every time i get on a mac, i dont like the way stuff flows. I find that its more difficult to multi task with. Its posible that i jsut dont use it egnouf tog et confortable in, but i feel this sint the case, as ive used many windowmanagers, and still find it difficult to navigate. I love the eyecandy of it though, it realy is beautifull. I also dont like how little you can custimise in it compaired to windows. It seems to me that all the osx style screenshots i see are identical, just diffrent programs running.
Macs WERE better for graphis work, but the bridge has been gapped.
To all thoes people who say macs' hardware is better that is totaly wrong. You go out and spend the amount you did on a mac as you would a pc, the pc will blow the mac away with a unix installed (to isolate dependents). The only reason macs are 'faster' is because they know EXACTLY what is in the pc, and can use extremly optimised drivers. After all apple probaly only uses 8 diffrent GPUs, 4 diffrent microprosesors, and mabie 2 types of ram. I dont know why everyone has this big hatred towards windows, It is realy a stable operating system after you get it set up. Any instablitiy you experance is you hardware cause you spent 400$ on an emachine (example). Why are macs so expensive, because they use exceltn hardware. As for rendering, thats bull. If you get a computer for rendering you get a farm of a couple cheap computers, and that will blow your g5 out of the water. Basicaly macs are about as fast as a PC.
Hasnt anyone wonderd why osx hasnt been released for pcs. Is it possible that outside of the closed hardware enviroment the operating system sucks, because its been so optomised?
crap i spell bad
every has their opinions...
mine is i prefer OS X a billion times over windows...
...this is gonna turn into another flame-war/windows-bashing-thread
Originally posted by lostspyder@Sep 23 2003, 04:57 PMIve found that every time i get on a mac, i dont like the way stuff flows. I find that its more difficult to multi task with. Its posible that i jsut dont use it egnouf tog et confortable in, but i feel this sint the case, as ive used many windowmanagers, and still find it difficult to navigate. I love the eyecandy of it though, it realy is beautifull. I also dont like how little you can custimise in it compaired to windows. It seems to me that all the osx style screenshots i see are identical, just diffrent programs running.
Macs WERE better for graphis work, but the bridge has been gapped.
To all thoes people who say macs' hardware is better that is totaly wrong. You go out and spend the amount you did on a mac as you would a pc, the pc will blow the mac away with a unix installed (to isolate dependents). The only reason macs are 'faster' is because they know EXACTLY what is in the pc, and can use extremly optimised drivers. After all apple probaly only uses 8 diffrent GPUs, 4 diffrent microprosesors, and mabie 2 types of ram. I dont know why everyone has this big hatred towards windows, It is realy a stable operating system after you get it set up. Any instablitiy you experance is you hardware cause you spent 400$ on an emachine (example). Why are macs so expensive, because they use exceltn hardware. As for rendering, thats bull. If you get a computer for rendering you get a farm of a couple cheap computers, and that will blow your g5 out of the water. Basicaly macs are about as fast as a PC.
Hasnt anyone wonderd why osx hasnt been released for pcs. Is it possible that outside of the closed hardware enviroment the operating system sucks, because its been so optomised?
i totally agree with all your claims. 100%.
You cant ignore the millions of hours of usability testing of XP though.
When you use XP that is a direct result of that testing. It is in a way (process driven) perfection. Like the first things your mouse grazes after hitting the start button are things you most used grouped ergonomically to varying inerconnection states, all of these are a result of endless testing.
In Mac after you hit the apple button your mouse grazes (incredibly) the single least used button of all on the mac, (about this Mac).
It's stuff like this that is usually forgotten. Mac is *very* cool to look at. But in terms of ergonomics it is very old fashioned. XP is the opposite.
That is why XP skinned to look like Mac is so good, you get the best of both.
macs are pretty UI wise(not to me though) gets incredibly boring after a while.
Is it better? yeah, probably. I've used os 9 thru panther(beta), and it seems to
get easier to use with each incarnation, kudos to the apple software people.
Now, with the *nix base its more stable and productive.
To me personally the best os is FreeBSD, would i use it? NO.
for me = windows.
I would agree for the most part that XP runs [pretty much] as fast as OS X (that could very well change with Panther). And if we're going to be honest here, Windows has come a long way as far as UI goes. XP really isn't the dull sights that 9x - ME was. And really, as much as Mac salespeople tell you that macs don't crash, I have known people who DID have theirs crash.
Lostspyder said that people have trouble with their PCs because they spent $400 or so on an Emachine. I would definitely agree. I used to sell computers, and I've worked with Emachine and I've worked with Dell, and there is a HUGE difference in stability. And most people shopping for computers (who aren't used to computers) don't know enough about computer hardware to make that call. They only know, "Hey, this Celeron $350 Emachine plus monitor is CHEAPER than the $1299 Sony! I'll get it!" What they don't think about is that three weeks later, the Emachine will be in our shop.
OS X is still beautiful, though. And that will be what keeps drawing people to Aqua-soft.
Well, I absolutly love OSX. Its pretty, but its got a great UNIX backend, and everything IS true unix (so I already know how to modify startup scripts, etc).
This is all opinion. You cant really talk about "usability" because most people are used to Windows, so moving to XP was easy compared to moving to OSX.
Now im gonna keep an eye on this thread, NO FLAME WARS!!!
Originally posted by tland@Sep 23 2003, 01:00 PMAnd really, as much as Mac salespeople tell you that macs don't crash, I have known people who DID have theirs crash.
It's not that Macs don't crash, it's that they rarely crash. Sometimes an app will crash, but that's more or less poor coding (usually it's the third party shareware apps, i.e. Nintendo emulators, etc that crash). Sometimes Safari crashes. But a full system crash? Almost never. I just had my first kernel panic (full system crash) yesterday, and I've had my iBook since March. OS X is a solid system, and very easy to get around in, IMO. Sure, it's going to feel weird and uncomfortable if you demo it at Best Buy or something; it took me about 2-3 days to get settled in after transitioning from Windows. But believe me, once you get acquainted, OS X is a great system to work in.
And as far as Macs being better/worse than Windows? I'd consider them equal, it's just a matter of preference. It used to be that you'd obviously choose Windows because of compatibility issues, but it's rare nowadays that there's a Windows app without a Mac version (Office, Photoshop, etc.) It's more or less a user preference- which platform is more comfortable to get around in.
-godpunk
Aside from personal preference and opinons, its all about what youre used to...
Windows has been a lot more popular so people have accepted the looka nd the way it works as a de facto standard, but im pretty sure that if you had used mac for all your computer life (i know some of us havent only used windows for all our computing life but its a general fact that people have only used windows on a computer) youd probably be saying the contrary about mac...
Another thing is what you are going to use the OS for... in my opinion things just look better in a mac... so graphical design and web design and anything htat has a design on it ends up being performed "more gratefully" than in windows for example...
Anyway, i dont want to start a war hehehhe, this is just my point of view... im in the middle...
Cheers...
Seph
just maknig a few points in repsonse to tland (and to agree with godpunk), macs rarely crash. often, its an application that will crash, and "quit" but leaving the rest of the system unaffected. hell, if safari froze, i could still use Fire, Finder, iTunes or any other apps that were running...but if something like that happened in windows, it brings the whole system to a crawl until explorer.exe crashes...not your fault
ive only had two or three kernel panics...and what was i doing? trying to connect to a PC 
three drives said something about the "apple menu" going to "About This Mac" first...the only thing i need from the apple menu is logoff and shut down...but on the powerbook (and most likely the iBooks) you can tap the powerbutton to bring up a dialog window asking if you want to put it to sleep, shut down, reboot, or cancel. maybe i use force quit once in a while, but you can right click (or control click) the dock icon usually and choose to force quit. and system preferences in the apple menu...a dock icon is easier. and i hardly ever use the "recent..." menus in there
as for the start menu in XP and the "first things your mouse grazes after hitting the start button are things you most used grouped ergonomically to varying inerconnection states"...in my opinion, the XP start menu annoys the crap outta me. if i have to use a XP machine (like at my new job), one of the first things i do is set the start menu to "classic". at least its more "static" than the XP menu. if i have to start an app through the start menu, i usually know where it is and go through it and find it pretty quickly. i couldnt rely on my "most used apps" or whatever, because i dont usually use the same apps over and over (like IE and Outlook...get them outta here :ninja:)
if youre annoyed about the apps not in your dock for OS X...drag your applications folder from finder to the right side of the dock. then right click (or ctrl-click) the folder on the dock. it give you a list of the folder. i "organized" my folder into various things "OS X Apps", "Video", "Utilities", "Games", "Internet"...i know where all my apps are, and OS X doesnt tell me what i use most, i choose what i use most and keep it in the dock
my two cents...but i want a refund (Y)
off topic:
it's possible to seperate all the processes under windows, so that if one crashes
it doesn't bring down the whole machine. problem is that it uses up more resources. would try and post a link to the tweak soon.
if you want frequently used programs at your finger tips in windows, pls use the
quick launch function on the taskbar. it's not that hard.
how can you not love osx? Isn't that the main reason that people come to this website? If aqua-soft had been a normal skinning site i never would have joined, but due to osx and the ability of members here to skin i decided to join. My windows looks like osx and only because of this place.
Seriously, if you are a mac hater, i don't understand why you would hang around aqua soft unless you don't have anything better to do. Aqua soft is based on making your comp look like a mac.
Originally posted by RoyalPain@Sep 23 2003, 04:15 PMoff topic:
it's possible to seperate all the processes under windows, so that if one crashes
it doesn't bring down the whole machine. problem is that it uses up more resources. would try and post a link to the tweak soon.
if you want frequently used programs at your finger tips in windows, pls use the
quick launch function on the taskbar. it's not that hard.
Actually, NT has had this all the time.
Its always on, you can't "turn it off". Its called "Protected Memory". Every modern OS has this (though some work better than others 
)
The feature you are refering to is running EXPLORER in seperate processes.
The big reason Windows "Crashes more" even though it has protected memory is because it runs WAY too many things in kernel space. Kernel memory isnt protected, and that can be brought down by one crazy app.
probably right contra, but under 2003 it was turned off.
t'was called "seperate process" under some obscure setting in registry.
thats kernel THREADING.
Its used on things like servers, where each user of the server gets his own process, running things faster and more efficiently.
Apache 2.0 has this too, and I assume MS IIS has this.
But MS runs IIS in KERNEL SPACE. Aint that stupid and insecure. Oh well.
I have to go with XP. 
I've also used Mac's on and off since OS 6.x through 9 and OS X. While it may be a decent OS, it doesn't get away from the fact that I just don't like the way Mac's work... their operating methodology. I much prefer how windows does things, irrespective of how good the base of either OS is, if it don't work how you like, it's no damn good. Which is why I'll probably never buy a Mac.
This is very much like the Lightwave 3d and 3dsMax arguments. Both are good 3d programs but operate in very different ways. Lightwave has a much smaller, but fanatical user base (like Mac users), and Max is the biggest seller with a huge market share (like Windows). Max users generally dislike using Lightwave because the interface and the way you operate it is a right pain in the ass to them. Lightwavers think the other way around.
Like I say, it doesn't really matter what the merits of either are. For me, using a Mac just sucks ass. For Mac fans, using Windows is almost worse than having your balls put through a grinder. >.
Aqua-Soft Forums