• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Microsoft vs. Apple software - which do you prefer

Which do you prefer?

  • Word

    Votes: 27 38.6%

  • Pages

    Votes: 10 14.3%

  • Excel

    Votes: 33 47.1%

  • Numbers

    Votes: 6 8.6%

  • PowerPoint

    Votes: 15 21.4%

  • Keynote

    Votes: 14 20.0%

  • Windows 7

    Votes: 34 48.6%

  • OS X

    Votes: 32 45.7%
  • Total voters
    70
Illustronic said:
However I don't like the fact so much freeware is written for the PC platform unavailable to the MAC platform, I can't wait until everything is open source.
Click to expand...
There is a ton of freeware available for Mac. Just as much as for PC, if not moreso, now that Mac is a unix variant. You just need to know where to look for it. I've had no issue finding freeware and open source software -- most of what I use on my Mac is free/open source, in fact.

By the way, it's Mac. Not MAC. An abbreviation not an acronym.
 
BobTheDonkey said:
Kind of defeats the purpose of buying a Mac doesn't it?
Click to expand...

Not really; as far as I can tell, the primary purpose of buying a Mac is to have a glowy Apple logo on the far side of the screen to show off the fact that someone is now a member of the cool kids' club.

I've got a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo Mac Mini, OS X 10.6.7, here on my desk that was purchased by my employer for the specific task of allowing easier support of our subscribers who use Macs (I work for a rural ISP). It has no third-party software on it at all, it's used pretty much exclusively for an example when walking subscribers through system settings and Safari and Mail. Other than that, it does nothing whatsoever. And it still locks up occasionally. You click on Network Preferences, and the spinning pinwheel sits there... and sits there... and sits there. Or you try to open up Safari, and nothing happens, at all. Or it's just sitting there, you go to move the mouse to clear the screensaver, and nope, not gonna do it. Hard restart, here we come.

I'll reiterate, there is no third party software on this Mac at all. Not Firefox, no third-party email client, solely what is shipped from Apple or what came in as system updates. But once, maybe twice a week or so it still crashes a program or locks up entirely. It's no big deal, just restart, but there is no truth whatsoever to the idea that Macs don't crash.
 
Last edited:
Odd that it crashes that often, is it on a UPS? Power fluctuations can often cause crashes.

I won't say this one never crashes, but it's really rare that I don't go a week or two at a time before rebooting, and this runs jobs (unix cron-started programs) 24/7 and has a lot of third party and self-written software running on it at all times.
 
I've gone through several Macs over the years. I've never had any hard lock-ups. World of Warcraft occasionally freezes, but only the UI. The process can still be killed and all is well. Like BenBurch, I run all sorts of stuff in the background. It's rare that I ever reboot -- kernel updates mostly.
 
BenBurch said:
Odd that it crashes that often, is it on a UPS? Power fluctuations can often cause crashes.

I won't say this one never crashes, but it's really rare that I don't go a week or two at a time before rebooting, and this runs jobs (unix cron-started programs) 24/7 and has a lot of third party and self-written software running on it at all times.
Click to expand...

My other half's experience with the Mac was pretty much the same as Yalius, it was one of the reasons he wanted to move back to a PC running Windows 7.
 
I've worked in a mixed windows/linux/macos environment for years, I'm comfortable using all the mentioned OS's, since i've had enough experience to get comfortable with them. All that asside, they ALL freeze, hang up, crash, from time to time, admittedly linux appears to be the most stable of them, but it's also the least used. Since windows 7 came out, OS X seems to be the OS that has most of the problems these days.

Just the other day i found it amusing when i thought about how the developers on the macs were cussing out their computers in a way that reminded me of the days of developing on win95.

I've also noticed i'm building an ever growing disslike for anything Apple because of the apple cult based on nothing other than fanboism, and i don't like the feeling. I much prefer disliking Apple because of its company policies. Same reason why i have a general disslike of Microsoft. Their products though? meh, they can both improve, neither of them is the best on the market and i much prefer thinking that an opensource platform is going to take over once the 'smartphones' become powerful enough to replace the 'computers'.
 
BenBurch said:
Odd that it crashes that often, is it on a UPS? Power fluctuations can often cause crashes.

I won't say this one never crashes, but it's really rare that I don't go a week or two at a time before rebooting, and this runs jobs (unix cron-started programs) 24/7 and has a lot of third party and self-written software running on it at all times.
Click to expand...

It's not on a UPS, but it is on a regulated and filtered circuit. We've got outlets in each office dedicated for delicate equipment like PCs and test equipment.
 
Jaxe said:
Just the other day i found it amusing when i thought about how the developers on the macs were cussing out their computers in a way that reminded me of the days of developing on win95.
Click to expand...

I gotta say, XCode needs some help. I'm not a fanboy; when Apple messes up, I call them on it. But overall, my experiences with Macs have always been better. True story:

Was trying to play a networked game between two macs on System 7.3.5 (or something like that) with a PC guy. It wasn't working. I said, "maybe if I update the system software." He said "No! Don't!" I downloaded the updates, installed them, and the game started working. This took around 20 minutes, as we were still on a 33.6k modem. He was amazed. His experiences with "upgrading" the OS Windows computers had made him very hesitant to do so.
 
Jaxe said:
I've worked in a mixed windows/linux/macos environment for years, I'm comfortable using all the mentioned OS's, since i've had enough experience to get comfortable with them. All that asside, they ALL freeze, hang up, crash, from time to time, admittedly linux appears to be the most stable of them, but it's also the least used. Since windows 7 came out, OS X seems to be the OS that has most of the problems these days.
Click to expand...

Its amazing how when you actually have to maintain/operate many different platforms and OSs you come to learn that they all have their fair share of problems, annoyances and quirks. So I feel ya on that one.

Just the other day i found it amusing when i thought about how the developers on the macs were cussing out their computers in a way that reminded me of the days of developing on win95.
Click to expand...

We don't have any Macs here but we have 3rd party software companies where their techs refuse to service their software on Windows 7 (They were cussing out our computers :boggled: . They claim their software has to run on XP and 99.99% of the time XP mode serves the purpose) It tickles me when I show their software operating happily in a virtual machine in a window on a 7 desktop

I've also noticed i'm building an ever growing disslike for anything Apple because of the apple cult based on nothing other than fanboism, and i don't like the feeling. I much prefer disliking Apple because of its company policies. Same reason why i have a general disslike of Microsoft. Their products though? meh, they can both improve, neither of them is the best on the market and i much prefer thinking that an opensource platform is going to take over once the 'smartphones' become powerful enough to replace the 'computers'.
Click to expand...

I havn't run into any of the rabbid fanboi's yet, the few people's macs I have serviced for personal use seemed to be down to earth kinda of people, lil eccentric but far from rabbid. I guess I've been lucky with the mac users I have encountered
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom