Why Aren't Schools Adopting Open Source?

[PaulQ]

One would reasonably assume that "Mindblowing financial losses" would mean that the corporation in question would be posting those losses. For example, General Motors was posting what I considered "Mindblowing financial losses" during the period leading up to its bankruptcy; which, incidentally, had nothing to do with what operating system or office suite they were running on their computers.

 

In any case, I quickly grow weary of the Microsoft witch hunt. I grow equally weary of people who assume the market has only ever been Microsoft vs. Mac vs. Unix/Linux, and the belief that Microsoft steals from Apple. Fact of the matter is, Microsoft products do cover a lot of bases. I see people forgiving Linux for things that they'd crucify Microsoft for. It really is nit-picking for nit-picking sakes. In the world of business, it's never been about the operating system; it's always been about the hardware and applications. Microsoft has consistently delivered an operating system that really doesn't care what hardware you're using, and that in itself is an unparalleled feat. Linux still struggles even with some of the more common hardware. Mac is a closed box, with the company deciding what hardware their OS is going to run on. Neither is acceptable to me.

 

Fact of the matter is, if you're a manufacturer using some custom made equipment for your process, and you need to control and monitor that equipment from a computer, your most cost-effective bet is going to be a Microsoft-based PC. You'll have available a wealth of off-the-shelf solutions for interfacing, and the support you need for interfacing software from Microsoft is going to be very cost-effective. My favourite solution was usually a rugged embedded computer from TME running Windows 2000; it was simple and bullet proof. Apple doesn't even make an industrial computer, and getting the support you need to make it happen with Linux is going to mean a lot of work going between people and companies to reinvent something that probably already exists. With Microsoft, one phone call means you`ll be up and running with whatever obscure hardware you need to control, so you can spend your time manufacturing instead of recompiling your kernel.

[PaulQ]

Well, I'm only 32, so I have no idea what OS/2 Warp 3 is/was. My first computer experience was with a commodore 64, then we got a Colleco Word Processor. In school, we all had Mac Classics in computer lab, the front office, etc. and when I graduated HS and went to Full Sail, we used Mac exclusively. That's where I learned the "Win 95/Mac 88" thing, but I hadn't really worked in Windows until after I graduated Full Sail and came home to find my dad had bought a Windows 95 machine. I definitely felt that Win 95 was a very cheap rip off of Macs OS (forget what it was circa 96ish), and every new version of windows that comes out has "new" features that Mac OSX has had for at least 2 versions, and the Windows are never as good as the original Mac version.

 

P.S. I remember we watched some promo video about Win 95 that used the cast of Friends to tell us how great Win 95 was. The whole class would chuckle from time to time at the campy-ness of the film, but also, even a computer novice like myself could see these great new features they were all drooling over were already in our Macs.

 

The Commodore 64 pre-dates OS/2 Warp by a considerable number of years, so your lack of knowledge about OS/2 has more to do with ignorance rather than age. The truth of the matter is, the real innovative computer of the 80's wasn't the Macintosh, it was the Commodore Amiga, which, at the time the Macintosh was a single-tasking black and white machine, offered true multitasking and 4,096 different colours at broadcast quality resolutions. From a technical standpoint, the Amiga operating system and hardware architecture was decades beyond the Macintosh. You would have been 8 years old or so when it was released, so I can understand why you might have overlooked this.

 

I mention this because OS/2 took more from the Amiga design than it did with Macintosh. Everybody only sees the GUI interface and assume that anything with a GUI interface is a Mac rip-off; without recognizing that, around 1984, GUI interfaces became available for many computers, even the Commodore 64, and they appeared similar only because the standards had already long been established by Xerox's PARC. As such, the reason why GEM, Workbench, GEOS, Windows, and the MacOS were similar in appearances was because they were trying to follow GUI standards that had already been established long before Apple peddled its first 8 bit computer.

 

OS/2 started development in 1985, and the first version came out in 1987. In the late 1980's, it was touted as the operating system of the future. The reason why it didn't take hold is because it was well ahead of its time, with memory and hard disk requirements out of reach of the average consumer. Still, it had very little in common with the MacOS. It didn't see much use on consumer-level computers until the combination of hardware catching up and IBM making the OS leaner made it a cost-effective alternative with OS/2 Warp 3 in 1994. That's when I changed over from the Commodore Amiga to the PC platform; Warp 3 was well beyond anything Apple had to offer. Microsoft had their Windows NT, but that really wasn't as consumer-friendly as Warp 3.

 

Consider this Warp 3 screenshot:

 

 

Now, consider this one from Windows '95, which came out a year later:

 

 

At that time, this is what many Mac users were looking at:

 

 

It's pretty clear that Windows '95 looked a lot more like OS/2 than it ever did the MacOS; add to the fact that, in 1995, the MacOS was still a single-tasking operating system; whereas both OS/2 Warp 3 and Windows '95 could multitask quite well. This is why my opinion of the Macintosh around 1995 was that it was very over-rated and out-classed by just about everything else available.

[Guest]

Interesting. I just looked up OS/2 in Wiki to learn a bit more. So it was basically a "Pre-Windows" OS? If Micro$oft was developing it, and it is/was better than Windows, than why couldn't they transfer that "better-ness" into their Windows product?

 

After reading a bit and looking at those screen shots you posted, I remember why I was ignorant of computers at that time; they couldn't really do anything. I was 18 in 1995, and was just learning how to record music in my walk in closet with a cassette 4-track. I remember some guy came in with a computer when I was a junior, I think, and showed us how a computer could be used to edit a waveform, and that was when I sat up and realized what a computer was good for. It was still several years before I got a computer able to edit audio, but that was the moment I started wanting to learn them.

 

 

Before that day, we had that P.O.S. Prodigy "internet", and that was the only other use I saw for a computer other than typing out my school reports.

 

And, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Win 95 the first Windows OS that you didn't need to type DOS commands for? IIRC, that was the big thing everyone was drooling over, and that was something I never had to do with a Mac, I didn't see the big deal. Color screens didn't mean much to me at that time either, cause again, I didn't use the computer for anything that needed color at the time. I had forgotten about the Mac Classics having a B&W screen, but not all Macs at the time did. At Full Sail we had desktop Apples (certain labs had the generic PowerComputing Macs, the studios had "real" Macs) that had color screens, so the OS could support color. The Classics must have been the low level unit and tried to save a few bucks.

[PaulQ]

OS/2 was a joint project between Microsoft and IBM at first. They had a disagreement; in particular when Microsoft wanted to market a new GUI shell for DOS, so they each took what was theirs and went their separate ways. Microsoft put the Windows 3.x shell on theirs and marketed as Windows NT, which eventually became the Windows we all use today; while IBM developed it to a very mature Warp V3. The fact that Microsoft's operating system supported a much broader range of hardware than OS/2 led to Windows winning that war.

 

It's important to consider the fact that DOS had the smallest footprint of all the OS's, yet offered great power in contrast. People complained about the 640k limit, but the applications were much more powerful and feature-rich on a 640k DOS machine than it was on a 1MB Amiga or Macintosh. Companies had to strip down their business applications to get them to run on a Mac. Windows 3.x brought more than a GUI interface to the PC; it also eliminated the 640k barrier, introduced multitasking, and provided a set of common API's to make it easy for developers to develop new GUI applications. What's important to note is the minimal requirements for Windows 3.0; it would run on a 640k 8088 based PC with monochrome graphics. Windows 3.1 upped that to a 1MB '286. OS/2 was much more demanding at the time; needing anywhere between 4-8MB just to run. Not much by today's standards, but back in those days, 2MB of RAM was considered a lot.

 

As for what they could do, there was no end to the capabilities of OS/2. For example, OS/2 was used in many of the early ATM's of the day. Musicians were laying tracks with various MIDI interfaced products. The spreadsheet and word processor still remain valuable tools to this day, and at the time the word processor was becoming a desktop publishing application. Scientists would use it to run simulated models of their experiments. OS/2 Warp 3 Connect offered a web browser and internet connectivity; along with tools like FTP and Gopher. Honestly, operating systems of today have not become significantly more useful than what OS/2 Warp 3 was.

 

As for the command line, it was possible to configure a Windows 3.x system to boot straight into the GUI. I personally preferred a command prompt; it made maintenance tasks a lot easier. Even today, I drop into a shell and use the command prompts because it's so much quicker for me to touch type a direct command rather than hunt down through sub-menus and icons. Of course, I was an Amiga user, where I would use whichever method was best; either the Command Line or GUI. I felt that Apple catered to "Dumb" people because they only had one mouse button and no GUI.

[Guest]

 

As for what they could do, there was no end to the capabilities of OS/2. For example, OS/2 was used in many of the early ATM's of the day. Musicians were laying tracks with various MIDI interfaced products. The spreadsheet and word processor still remain valuable tools to this day, and at the time the word processor was becoming a desktop publishing application. Scientists would use it to run simulated models of their experiments. OS/2 Warp 3 Connect offered a web browser and internet connectivity; along with tools like FTP and Gopher. Honestly, operating systems of today have not become significantly more useful than what OS/2 Warp 3 was.

 

 

Well, I meant they didn't do anything for me. I was in my early to mid teens at that time, I was into playing rock music and hanging out with friends. ATM software didn't interest me and MIDI still doesn't, but it was big and confusing to me as a teenager. I wanted a computer to do multitrack recording, and that was still about 6 years away from being affordable for a native system. Whatever applications/OS were out there that could do what we have today my family just didn't have. I didn't get the "real" internet or an email account until early '97, but most everyone I knew was getting on board at the same time as me. I never felt like I was behind the curve on any of this. We all had Prodigy before this as well. That was pretty useless, IME.

 

Thanks for a very informative few posts there!

[Thurisaz]

Microsoft has consistently delivered an operating system that really doesn't care what hardware you're using, and that in itself is an unparalleled feat. Linux still struggles even with some of the more common hardware.

 

Wrong. Drivers are mostly provided not by M$ but by the hardware manufacturers. Most of them don't bother providing drivers for operating systems as long as M$ rules the market. The few manufacturers who do bother (for example Nvidia does commonly offer a gfx card driver for Linux) demonstrate that Linux itself has no problems. Where there is no driver, however, the Linux crowd has to write one all on its own... which takes some time and can easily be a trial-and-error thing as they don't have direct access to all the internals of the hardware.

[Guest]

Microsoft has consistently delivered an operating system that really doesn't care what hardware you're using, and that in itself is an unparalleled feat. Linux still struggles even with some of the more common hardware.

 

Wrong. Drivers are mostly provided not by M$ but by the hardware manufacturers. Most of them don't bother providing drivers for operating systems as long as M$ rules the market. The few manufacturers who do bother (for example Nvidia does commonly offer a gfx card driver for Linux) demonstrate that Linux itself has no problems. Where there is no driver, however, the Linux crowd has to write one all on its own... which takes some time and can easily be a trial-and-error thing as they don't have direct access to all the internals of the hardware.

 

This claim that Mac locks out it's hardware always confused me too. I have never come across a piece of gear that wouldn't work for my Mac. Is this claim more for building your own custom computer, or does this have to do with the PowerPC Macs rather than the newer Intel based Macs? (Although I still never had any hardware problems with PowerPCs).

 

And I have a question that my go-to Windows guy isn't sure about:

 

Why is it that I can plug any camera into my Mac, and it knows what it is, and downloads the pics into iPhoto with no problems whatsoever; I just plug it in and it goes to work. I can plug in my camera, my sister's, my father's, a co-worker's, a stranger on the street, all with different cameras. Plug it in and the Mac knows what to do. However, in Windows if I plug a camera in, I then need to install the drivers for that camera. After I've done that, I will have to install the drivers for the other cameras as well.

 

Why is it that the Mac can recognize any camera I plug into it but Windows can't? I haven't even needed to think about the word "drivers" since I made the switch to total Mac OSX last year...

[PaulQ]

Wrong. Drivers are mostly provided not by M$ but by the hardware manufacturers. Most of them don't bother providing drivers for operating systems as long as M$ rules the market. The few manufacturers who do bother (for example Nvidia does commonly offer a gfx card driver for Linux) demonstrate that Linux itself has no problems. Where there is no driver, however, the Linux crowd has to write one all on its own... which takes some time and can easily be a trial-and-error thing as they don't have direct access to all the internals of the hardware.

 

I'm afraid you have it backwards. The reason why Microsoft rules the market is because they make it very cheap and easy for developers to write drivers for their operating systems. So easy, in fact, that many hardware developers continue to release drivers for new versions of the Windows operating system for hardware that they no longer sell nor profit from. Apple developers have to pay considerably more, and the support isn't nearly as good. That's why Microsoft rules the market. You need to bear in mind that when OS/2 Warp 3 was released, it could have very easily taken over the market. It was compatible with all existing DOS and Windows products; but its weakness was a lack of drivers. Microsoft made it easy; IBM, like Apple, made it difficult. If Linux is ever going to be a worthy competitor, they're going to have to come up with something to make it really easy for hardware developers, like Microsoft has done. As it is, hardware developers need to rely on a largely dysfunctional community.

 

This claim that Mac locks out it's hardware always confused me too. I have never come across a piece of gear that wouldn't work for my Mac. Is this claim more for building your own custom computer, or does this have to do with the PowerPC Macs rather than the newer Intel based Macs? (Although I still never had any hardware problems with PowerPCs).

 

I have a USB scanner I guarantee you will not work with any Mac. I lent it to my sister, she connected it to her Mac, and nothing she could do would get it to work.

 

However, in Windows if I plug a camera in, I then need to install the drivers for that camera. After I've done that, I will have to install the drivers for the other cameras as well.

 

Depends on the camera, really. However, I have noticed that, with Windows and certain digicams, I can do a lot more than simply download pictures into my picture viewer. Some cameras I can use as web cams, for example. Also, bear in mind that Apple is pretty militant in having hardware vendors comply with their (Apple's) demands. Clearly, if you're making decent digicams, you'll want them to work with the Macintosh, since photographers love their simple one-button mice. Windows gives them the latitude to create a custom driver to do whatever they'd want with their hardware; Macintosh is all about being complaint with the goose-stepping Jobs.

 

 

Hmm, become part of the solution. Didn't Hitler say something similar?

[woodsmoke]

Man, even when it's done in jest the invoking of Godwin's Law hurts to see.

[PaulQ]

We are at the bottom of page two of this thread, and I'm long overdue. What did you expect?

[Ouroboros]

I'm afraid you have it backwards. The reason why Microsoft rules the market is because they make it very cheap and easy for developers to write drivers for their operating systems. So easy, in fact, that many hardware developers continue to release drivers for new versions of the Windows operating system for hardware that they no longer sell nor profit from. Apple developers have to pay considerably more, and the support isn't nearly as good.

Are you sure about that?

 

Both Apple and Microsoft got different levels of membership. Apple's cheapest is free, and you have access to a lot, even source code to many of the built in programs (and I think I saw source for OS X somewhere too, but I'm not quite sure where it was). The lowest seeding program is $500, and the full ADC is $3,500. The full development tools for Apple (XCode) is completely free.

 

Microsoft got free stuff too, but the lowest MSDN Premium with seeding program is $2,499 new and $1,999 renewal , and the highest level of MSDN Premium is $10,393. Only the Express version of MS Development tools (Visual Studio) is free, and professional costs money.

 

I'm not sure what you base the cost on? Is the the certification process you're thinking of? Apple's is included in the $3,500 price. Microsoft's certification is probably different.

 

I guess in the long run MS is a bit less expensive, because they have a lower renewal fee, but if you are a team and need the highest level, then the renewal fee is the same as the regular feel for ADC.

[PaulQ]

Are you sure about that?

 

Both Apple and Microsoft got different levels of membership. Apple's cheapest is free, and you have access to a lot, even source code to many of the built in programs (and I think I saw source for OS X somewhere too, but I'm not quite sure where it was). The lowest seeding program is $500, and the full ADC is $3,500. The full development tools for Apple (XCode) is completely free.

 

Microsoft got free stuff too, but the lowest MSDN Premium with seeding program is $2,499 new and $1,999 renewal , and the highest level of MSDN Premium is $10,393. Only the Express version of MS Development tools (Visual Studio) is free, and professional costs money.

 

I'm not sure what you base the cost on? Is the the certification process you're thinking of? Apple's is included in the $3,500 price. Microsoft's certification is probably different.

 

I guess in the long run MS is a bit less expensive, because they have a lower renewal fee, but if you are a team and need the highest level, then the renewal fee is the same as the regular feel for ADC.

 

I suspect you're basing this on current pricing. My experience goes back nearly two decades, and things were different back in the days of Mac OS 7.5, OS/2 Warp 3, and Windows '95 (a real battle Royal!) Today, they're fairly competitive, which partly explains Apple's market share gains. Apple is still rather limited when it comes to certain applications; for example, they continue to offer absolutely nothing along the lines of an industrial computer designed for harsh environments which really is critical. For example, consider gas pumps, access control at ski resorts, ATM's, and other places where a computer is going to be exposed to extreme temperature and humidity levels. You're going to stick with whatever will run on those machines, so it'd be foolish to have the guys in the office running Macs when you have PC's out in the field!

 

When it comes to open source, they're really going to have to get organized and deliver a more competitive option. A business doesn't necessarily do what's right; they'll do what's profitable. Make it profitable for them, and suddenly Linux becomes viable.

[Ouroboros]

I suspect you're basing this on current pricing.

Correct.

 

And another point is that Mac now use EFI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface) for device interfaces. I just took a look at my free ADC account and I have access to the SDK for EFI. And even debug kernel for OS X.

 

My experience goes back nearly two decades, and things were different back in the days of Mac OS 7.5, OS/2 Warp 3, and Windows '95 (a real battle Royal!) Today, they're fairly competitive, which partly explains Apple's market share gains. Apple is still rather limited when it comes to certain applications; for example, they continue to offer absolutely nothing along the lines of an industrial computer designed for harsh environments which really is critical. For example, consider gas pumps, access control at ski resorts, ATM's, and other places where a computer is going to be exposed to extreme temperature and humidity levels. You're going to stick with whatever will run on those machines, so it'd be foolish to have the guys in the office running Macs when you have PC's out in the field!

Yes, I agree. Apple's strategy was to have high prices on everything and make it hard to develop. I don't know why, but it did hurt them, and it's probably part of Microsoft success over the years. Apple has changed their strategy however, and they're more open now.

 

And you're right about the gadget applications. Technically it is possible to have a Linux running (and some do) for ATM machines etc, but Microsoft has gained a lot of grounds there with Windows CE.

 

When it comes to open source, they're really going to have to get organized and deliver a more competitive option. A business doesn't necessarily do what's right; they'll do what's profitable. Make it profitable for them, and suddenly Linux becomes viable.

I think I mentioned it earlier in this thread, the problem with Open Source and Linux is that as soon as someone takes on an organized and competitive approach, they become a corporation, and then they need profits etc too, and some of the ideological beauty of open source is lost. Several companies have gone that way. Open Source is usually equal to "you're on your own."

 

But it's getting easier though. I have a neighbor who is a contractor remodeling hotels, with no computer knowledge, who built his own computer and installed Linux just a few weeks ago. He only needed the right push, and the right store to go to, and he's happy as a clam. The best computer in the house, for a few hundred bucks.

[Guest Davka]

I've been running Vista with Office 2003 for over a year on my notebook with no complaints.

 

2003 was a decent version. I'm talking about OfficeXP and beyond. They moved everything just for the sake of moving everything. No "file, edit, etc" menus. Total redesign of the GUI for aesthetic purposes rather than ease of use.

[Guest Davka]

(and I think I saw source for OS X somewhere too, but I'm not quite sure where it was)

 

OSX is Linux-based. It's open-source. You can get the source on the Apple website.

 

Jobs screwed the pooch when he insisted on Apple hardware for his OS. He could have kicked MS butt if he'd kept the OS available for apple clones.

[Ouroboros]

2003 was a decent version. I'm talking about OfficeXP and beyond. They moved everything just for the sake of moving everything. No "file, edit, etc" menus. Total redesign of the GUI for aesthetic purposes rather than ease of use.

I think 2003 was the last one of the old series, wasn't it? With the traditional interface. So Office XP is the one with all the hidden menus? My wife got that one, and it took forever to figure out how to do things. All the old functions are there, but in new places, and you have to look for the icons. It's too "user-friendly", to the point of not being user-friendly. Hate it.

[PaulQ]

I've been running Vista with Office 2003 for over a year on my notebook with no complaints.

 

2003 was a decent version. I'm talking about OfficeXP and beyond. They moved everything just for the sake of moving everything. No "file, edit, etc" menus. Total redesign of the GUI for aesthetic purposes rather than ease of use.

 

The first legitimate complaint about Microsoft I've seen in this thread. I ignored Office XP on my notebook (I just wiped it and installed Office 2003), but when my wife got her netbook, she couldn't just pop in the Office 2003 CD and install (no drive on netbooks). She tried Office XP, but it was easier to just download and install OpenOffice for her. Perhaps Microsoft is trying to help OpenOffice gain ground? Between OpenOffice and FireFox, Microsoft is definitely facing some of the stiffest competition it's seen since WordPerfect and Lotus 123 were the standards.

 

Jobs screwed the pooch when he insisted on Apple hardware for his OS. He could have kicked MS butt if he'd kept the OS available for apple clones.

 

That's because Jobs is, for lack of a better word, a Megalomaniac. He wants total control, and believes his vision is that of the future. This has been documented numerous times.

[Thurisaz]

I'm afraid you have it backwards. The reason why Microsoft rules the market is because they make it very cheap and easy for developers to write drivers for their operating systems. So easy, in fact, that many hardware developers continue to release drivers for new versions of the Windows operating system for hardware that they no longer sell nor profit from. Apple developers have to pay considerably more, and the support isn't nearly as good. That's why Microsoft rules the market. You need to bear in mind that when OS/2 Warp 3 was released, it could have very easily taken over the market. It was compatible with all existing DOS and Windows products; but its weakness was a lack of drivers. Microsoft made it easy; IBM, like Apple, made it difficult. If Linux is ever going to be a worthy competitor, they're going to have to come up with something to make it really easy for hardware developers, like Microsoft has done. As it is, hardware developers need to rely on a largely dysfunctional community.

 

And why do you think it would be easier to write drivers for M$ in comparison to Linux?

 

To write a driver you need to know the hardware specs and where and how to "connect" your driver to the operating system. The way of M$ has always been "security (HA!) through obscurity" (we see how well this approach works every day, with every new security hole discovered). You don't pay or kiss their arse, preferably both, you don't get information. With Linux, the entire operating system is available in source code. Let alone that no one charges you any amount for Linux while with M$ even breathing would be billed if they could (What you pay for if you buy a Linux distro in the store is the additional software the distributor wrote).

 

Really, how do you think it would be "cheaper and/or easier" to write drivers for M$? I don't see how this possibly could be the case.

[PaulQ]

And why do you think it would be easier to write drivers for M$ in comparison to Linux?

 

Because Microsoft practically does it for you. These days, with the tools and support Microsoft provides, a developer doesn't need to worry about how the operating system works; they only need to know how their hardware device functions. This means that, instead of hiring and retaining a guru for modification and updates, a company can often hire a co-op student for writing or updating their drivers. When Microsoft releases a new operating system, they provide the developers with the necessary tool to update their drivers, making the process so simple a first year College student could do it.

 

To you, it's "Security through obscurity." To a hardware developer, it means they don't have to worry about understanding the operating system, only their hardware. The Operating System is Microsoft's problem. The cost is easily defrayed when considering the manpower savings.

[Guest]

Clearly, if you're making decent digicams, you'll want them to work with the Macintosh, since photographers love their simple one-button mice. Windows gives them the latitude to create a custom driver to do whatever they'd want with their hardware; Macintosh is all about being complaint with the goose-stepping Jobs.

 

 

My Windows guy likes to make fun of Apple's "One Click Mouse" too, but I'm not aware that any models ship with that mouse anymore, and the OS has supported right clicking for at least 10 years. The Mighty Mouse has 2 mouse buttons, and I believe the MM is shipping as standard with all Macs, it came standard with my dad's iMac a few months ago. You do have to set the secondary click in the preferences pane...My Windows guy looked kinda dismayed when I showed him Mac has right clicking, as if he didn't have a "silly" thing to make fun of them for anymore...

 

Thanks for the camera info! Another thing about Mac I love is that on several occasions I have had to spend over 2 hours trying to set up a wi-fi connection on a windows machine (my dad's). I had to call tech support and speak to an Indian in order to get the thing working on 2 different times. When my dad got his Mac, I walked in, plugged it all in, turned the machine on, and was surfing the internet within 5 minutes. I just do not understand why Windows has to be so much more difficult than Mac.

 

Also, could it be that there are no Mac drivers made for that scanner? I have one (Cannon) attached to my dad's iMac, works fine. He bought it at the Mac store though...or is it really old? Back 10+ years ago, I could see hardware problems occurring on Mac; I never had any most likely because I work in Pro audio, and that hardware would have been built specifically for the Mac. But printers, etc, never were a problem in the studio office either...lol! I still get so confused with these machines sometimes!

[PaulQ]

My Windows guy likes to make fun of Apple's "One Click Mouse" too, but I'm not aware that any models ship with that mouse anymore, and the OS has supported right clicking for at least 10 years. The Mighty Mouse has 2 mouse buttons, and I believe the MM is shipping as standard with all Macs, it came standard with my dad's iMac a few months ago. You do have to set the secondary click in the preferences pane...My Windows guy looked kinda dismayed when I showed him Mac has right clicking, as if he didn't have a "silly" thing to make fun of them for anymore...

 

Oh, they've made some improvements over the past decade, that's for sure. They also have a command line interface, and it really does multitask. By making it more like Microsoft Windows, they've made it a lot better.

 

Thanks for the camera info! Another thing about Mac I love is that on several occasions I have had to spend over 2 hours trying to set up a wi-fi connection on a windows machine (my dad's). I had to call tech support and speak to an Indian in order to get the thing working on 2 different times. When my dad got his Mac, I walked in, plugged it all in, turned the machine on, and was surfing the internet within 5 minutes. I just do not understand why Windows has to be so much more difficult than Mac.

 

Most Mac people like to compare a <$400 PC system with a >$1300 Mac system, and wonder why the <$400 Windows PC system is so difficult with things like WiFi. I would bet that your father's computer is a <$400 special. Thing is, the budget PC is equipped with the cheapest hardware. This typically means the "Lowest bidder" WiFi card, with a driver that's been outsourced to some sweatshop in India. This means that, while it will work, it's not going to work easily. You will encounter difficulties, but that's because you get what you pay for. Now, if you spend the same money on a PC system as you would on a Mac system, suddenly everything works as easily as expected; but on average, you end up with a much more powerful system for your money. To get good quality hardware with good quality in-house drivers, you don't need to spend anywhere near the price of a Mac; once you pass the $700 mark, you can find some pretty well-designed trouble-free Windows-based PC's.

 

Also, could it be that there are no Mac drivers made for that scanner? I have one (Cannon) attached to my dad's iMac, works fine. He bought it at the Mac store though...or is it really old? Back 10+ years ago, I could see hardware problems occurring on Mac; I never had any most likely because I work in Pro audio, and that hardware would have been built specifically for the Mac. But printers, etc, never were a problem in the studio office either...lol! I still get so confused with these machines sometimes!

 

This scanner demonstrates a point I made earlier. It was made by Acer, and when I bought it, it came with drivers for Windows '98. Shortly after, Acer got out of the scanner business, and sold it to Benq. Even though this scanner had been discontinued before the sale to Benq, and even though Benq was no longer making money from the sales of this scanner, they continued to release drivers; all the way to XP. There never was any Mac drivers released for it; and scanners that were Mac-compatible tended to cost more, but didn't perform any better (in fact, mine was rated as one of the fastest scanners back when it was new).

 

So, to me, it's a matter of value. When looking at various complete Macintosh systems, I find I can get the exact same ease of use, build quality, and performance in a Windows-based PC for two thirds the price. This holds true right across all of Apple's products; often, superior MP3 players can be found for two thirds the price of Apple's iPod. It really depends on if you want to pay for a brilliant advertising campaign or not.

[Guest]

It really depends on if you want to pay for a brilliant advertising campaign or not.

 

Actually, I think it depends on whether you want to spend all your time learning how to build a computer and how they work or if you would rather use that time to use the computer. You're lucky you have the ability to understand how these things work; I think the inner-workings are just too abstract for me, and many people.

 

I should have been more specific with the Wi-fi scenario. My dad has a Windows laptop and had a windows desktop in the office. He had some surgery a few years back and got the wi-fi router so he do work on the couch with his laptop. My problems setting it up were this: either the laptop got the wi-fi signal and the desktop didn't any signal, or you could go online with the desktop but the laptop wasn't getting signal. Yet everything everywhere was "green light", as if it was all working properly. The desktop was plugged directly in with an ethernet cable. I had to go into some pretty hidden things in the guts of the desktop OS in order to make both computers see the internet. A few years later, the router broke and I had to do the exact same thing all over again. It was as if all those esoteric settings were just erased when I plugged the new one (exact same model) in. 3 months ago it broke again, but my dad decided he was over Windows too (IE would take over 30 seconds to load a page with DSL and for some reason was running "without add-ons" and we couldn't figure out how to fix it; XP would take almost 5 minutes to boot up, etc) and so we went to the Mac store and he is completely happy now.

 

As for me, it is well worth the extra $$ to get a computer that has quality components, works 99.999% of the time without tech support, does not come with bloat-ware, is immune to most spyware and/or viruii (for now at least) and has a much more intuitive GUI, IMHO. (Just my opinion, no flames please! ) I used to build my own Windows machines for my studio, cause I could build a really fast computer for less than a Mac; that claim is true. But my windows machine was never as stable as my Macs are, ever. My Windows ProTools rig would love to just restart with no warning. Just be sitting idle while we were having lunch or something, and the whole thing would just restart. That happened on all 3 of my Windows PT rigs (98SE, XP SP2 on the last 2), and I used quality components for them. I hardly ever see my Windows friend anymore, cause he doesn't need to come over and tune anything up anymore...and those studio machines were never online. It just seems Windows runs down over time, gets slower and slower for no reason at all...

 

BTW, I don't really think the "Mac are more $$" claim is all that relevant anymore either. My dad's iMac cost him $1400, and it's got a 2.7GHz Core Duo, 8 gigs of RAM, and a 640 G HD, along with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and all the other little things you'd have to add on to a Windows machine. As a comparison, I'd spend between $1500 and $2000 to build a Windows ProTools rig with the same features (minus the BT and Wi-Fi) and it still would act up on a somewhat regular basis...

[PaulQ]

Actually, I think it depends on whether you want to spend all your time learning how to build a computer and how they work or if you would rather use that time to use the computer. You're lucky you have the ability to understand how these things work; I think the inner-workings are just too abstract for me, and many people.

 

When I'm talking about getting a PC system for two thirds the price of a comparable Mac system, I'm talking about a turn-key, you-need-to-know-nothing-about-computers type of system. If I'm going to build a computer, I could build a Mac-comparable system for half the price of a comparable Mac. I tend to prefer laptops these days.

 

I should have been more specific with the Wi-fi scenario. My dad has a Windows laptop and had a windows desktop in the office. He had some surgery a few years back and got the wi-fi router so he do work on the couch with his laptop. My problems setting it up were this: either the laptop got the wi-fi signal and the desktop didn't any signal, or you could go online with the desktop but the laptop wasn't getting signal. Yet everything everywhere was "green light", as if it was all working properly. The desktop was plugged directly in with an ethernet cable. I had to go into some pretty hidden things in the guts of the desktop OS in order to make both computers see the internet.

 

I can't say I've ever encountered this sort of problem, and I have a pretty broad range of computers connected to my secured, password-protected WiFi router. My wife's Windows XP Netbook connected easily without issues; same with my Vista based laptop. My son's desktop had some issues, but that was due to the cheap-ass dongle that came "Free" with the package. My guess is your father is (was) working with some cheap bargain budget hardware, with its drivers written in some sweat shop in India. You gets what you pays for. Better quality hardware with better quality drivers will "Automagically" configure and work right every time on a PC just like it does on a Mac. Lower quality hardware with poorly written drivers is going to require you going into the guts of the system to get it working.

 

As for me, it is well worth the extra $$ to get a computer that has quality components, works 99.999% of the time without tech support, does not come with bloat-ware,

 

I agree; as I mentioned before, when you break out of the <$400 bargain PC world, you get the quality components, a machine that works 99.999% of the time without tech support, and isn't subsidized with bloat-ware...

 

is immune to most spyware and/or viruii (for now at least) and has a much more intuitive GUI, IMHO. (Just my opinion, no flames please! )

 

Can't say I've ever had a problem with spyware or viruses. The only time I run a virus checker is to confirm that I'm still virus-free.

 

I used to build my own Windows machines for my studio, cause I could build a really fast computer for less than a Mac; that claim is true. But my windows machine was never as stable as my Macs are, ever. My Windows ProTools rig would love to just restart with no warning. Just be sitting idle while we were having lunch or something, and the whole thing would just restart. That happened on all 3 of my Windows PT rigs, and I used quality components for them. I hardly ever see my Windows friend anymore, cause he doesn't need to come over and tune anything up anymore...and those studio machines were never online. It just seems Windows runs down over time, gets slower and slower for no reason at all...

 

If you were unable to build a Windows machine as stable as a Mac, then that says more about your ability (or the lack thereof) to select the right hardware and to assemble things properly than it does about the nature of Windows-based PC's. Unfortunately, many people's opinions are based on both poorly-constructed home-brew PC's (yes, everyone "Swears" they got the best hardware, but can't seem to remember the name of the chipset) and on the budget sub-$400 PC's. The Windows-based PC's I build only need to be rebooted after updates have been installed. My notebook hasn't been shut down for over a week and it's still running fine.

 

On the other hand, I recall the issues I had with the Macintosh Performa. There's your proof that, when Macs are built as cheap as the cheap PC's, you start running into the same problems with instability.

 

BTW, I don't really think the "Mac are more $$" claim is all that relevant anymore either. My dad's iMac cost him $1400, and it's got a 2.7GHz Core Duo, 8 gigs of RAM, and a 640 G HD, along with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and all the other little things you'd have to add on to a Windows machine. As a comparison, I'd spend between $1500 and $2000 to build a Windows ProTools rig with the same features (minus the BT and Wi-Fi) and it still would act up on a somewhat regular basis...

 

Every PC system in the $1000 range are shipping with quad core processors, the same amount of RAM, a terabyte hard drive, and if they don't come with wi-fi and/or bluetooth, premium versions of both will set you back no more than $70. In the $800-$1000 range, you can expect solid reliability and performance.

[Guest]

Well, I had to get the chipsets that were compatible with ProTools, I would research everything they needed, because the computer was only to be used for ProTools. All 3 machines were built to the exact specs of the Digidesign website. My dad's computer was a Dell, so it's probably a bargain machine, but mine were not, and yet they never worked properly. I had the help of my Windows friend, who, like you, knows Windows inside and out. He could never explain to me why they didn't work the way they were supposed to either. And that is another point in Macs favor...ProTools is made for Windows as an after thought; many music related programs are made for the Mac first. Digidesign has no requirements for a Mac because they test everything on Macs and they all have the same chipsets, hardware, etc.

 

As for the spyware thing, this angers me still so much:

 

I recently learned that the major record labels were putting root kits in their CDs from 2003-2006 that would fuck up the registry of a Windows machine. I had a legally bought iPod, and used to buy my CDs new in the store to support the artists I liked. So even though I made conscience efforts to avoid P2P networks and illegal downloading of music, the record industry decided to fuck me over anyway. If I had a Mac (like I do now) it would not have affected me at all. I don't surf illicit sites that I have to worry about virus or spyware, but I now have to worry about manufactures fucking my shit up for no reason, and just like the virus makers, they target Windows exclusively...

 

And now that you mention it, we had a PowerComputing generic Mac in the office of a studio I worked at over 10 years ago, and we had some problems with the modem and getting online, but this was the days of dial-up still. This was some of our first computing experiences at this time (late 90's).

[Guest Davka]

Having spent the last 3 days wrestling with an IRQ conflict that kept randomly bluescreening my XP Pro machine, I can't say I'm all that impressed with MS giving hardware manufacturers "all the info they need" to integrate their hardware with the OS. Nor am I particularly impressed with the MS error reports. In the end, it was good old trial-and-error that solved the problem, not any of the OS-integrated apps.

 

Another beef I have with MS: They love to roll out what is essentially Beta version software as a market-ready product, and then collect error reports from the public so they can patch their software to create a truly market-ready product. And twice now they have rolled out absolute dogs in the OS department, once with the nightmare called ME, and now again with Vista. At least with Vista, they fixed almost all the problems with the first Service Pack. ME never did get fixed, it just got scrapped.

 

MS is overly concerned with look-and-feel, often at the expense of performance. Why does a fresh install of XP suck down 120 megs of RAM on boot (a huge amount when the OS was first rolled out, as most PCs shipped with 128 megs on board)? Memory-intensive GUI. Turn off most of the fancy graphics crap and XP runs like a champ. This same looks-over-performance bias can be seen all across the board with MS. They are the AOL of software companies, designed more and more for idiots, and less and less for people who know what they're doing.