I hate Macs!

Deathmetalconga

Platinum Member
But it's a lot harder now because I bought one. 2011 MacBook Pro on Craigslist for $500, including Microsoft Office for Mac and other accessories. I am starting a computer science program next month and everyone I talked to said Macs are best for computer programming, including Web development and hosting virtual machines. So I got one.

Still trying to figure out basic things but I'm sure it will come to me.
 
Well, if you've never used one you have to give it a chance. Sooner or later you'll be flying on it and getting things done. I've been a mac guy since 1990 and the experience just keeps getting better and better. I do however worry about a computer company that makes it's living from phone sales, though ;)
 
It takes a while but you will love your Mac once you get the hang of it.
You got a real good price on your computer and software.
 
Welcome to the Twilight Zone!

OS X is a UNIX environment and a lot of the old programming languages (C, etc.) were originally developed on UNIX systems. Better for programming? I don't know outside of my specific experience (Max/MSP, C) but I do know that Apple's native programming environment (Xcode) is wonderful.
 
I will only say that if everything works you got a good deal. Have fun.
 
I will only say that if everything works you got a good deal. Have fun.


Thank you, you are very gracious, more than I deserve. You and a few other people here have license to rub it in now that I finally got one! A few people predicted I would eventually get a Mac and they are right.

Yes, it was a good deal. People were wanting around $600 for 2008 models, fifteen inches with some good software. This is a little small at 13 inches, but just a couple of years old. It was 4 gigs of ram, very respectable, and a 320 gig hard drive, and has Office for Mac. I do admit it looks cool. My laptop finally croaked after five years of use and I needed to get a replacement.

I have been attending web technology meetups and most of the professionals use Macs. They say the Mac is set up better to run virtual machines, set up LAMP stacks and other Web development tasks, and recommended I get one for my classes.

It seems to run faster than my PC laptop but it sometimes freezes up when downloading stuff. I can't use a lot of the software I got for my PC - bummer.
 
If you go to www.apple.com, then at the top right, click Support, then second row down, far right, click Communities, you can ask and read a ton of issues with a good crew of Apple users always willing to help.
 
I've been brought up in an IBM world, starting with Fortran back in 1976. I am still heavily vested in Windows OS, but got a MacBook a few years, and an iPad just for fun.

I appreciate what a Mac does, and also the virtues of a PC (funny, when I was coming up, everything was technically a PC.) There's a lot of crossover between the two platforms, and certain things at which each excels. While I like some of the intuitiveness of the Mac OS and especially the i devices, I find that there are some limitations and some maddening aspects. I guess the same can be said for a PC.

In the end, I've still got my MacBook but I use my PC, and I keep an iPad handy for 3G access when I travel. I haven't made the leap to a smartphone yet, but that's imin...immen... about to take place. Really digging the iPhone5, also lured by the SamsungS4, although the Windows phones have no appeal for me.

Anyway, depending what you do the most, the Mac may be the best choice. It does excel at audio and video applications, and in fact I have Final Cut Pro and Logic on my MacBook, while the PC is all business, web, and graphics.

Bermuda
 
Windows 8 made me convert to Mac full time.

There are certainly some weird things to get used to, but at least it works.
 
I had a friend innocently ask me if you could buy new XP laptops. I restrained myself - that whole system is inherently insecure and pushing twelve years old. I think I have one pair of shoes that old.

Having used Windows 8 on a work laptop, I'm very glad that I have a Windows 7 on my main work PC and on my laptop (as well as OS X on my laptop, obviously). The ideas are good but the execution is horrendous. I'm computer literate and have used the main operating systems as well as a few obscure ones but I've never had so much of a headache as trying to navigate Windows 8. It's the lack of discoverability that's the real problem. If I wanted to find my settings, how am I meant to know that they're on the right hand side on a fold-out menu unless I discover it by pure chance?!

Absolute nightmare.

DMC, you got a very good deal. The 13.3" MBPs are good machines. I have a 2009 15" model and it's done me very proud for the last several years. It's been dropped and worked hard and it's never let me down. I've upgraded the RAM, HDD and put a new battery in it but other than that, it's basically stock. If I put an SSD in it, it'll scream along but that's just out of my grasp financially at the moment but might be worth considering as an upgrade. Which version of OS X are you on? I'd imagine 10.7 or 10.8.

Macs hold their value for a good reason. They are very well-built and reliable machines. OS X is no easier or harder to learn than Windows (7 that is...) and once you get the hang of it, it's very simple. Bermuda - what are you trying to do? I have the opposite problem. If I need to do something in Windows, I get stuck for software. Most of what I do (and used to do) was either cross-platform or Mac specific.
 
Every new Windows OS is the reason I stick with XP. :)

haha...

I wish!

My old laptop finally died. I had fixed it so many many times, and it was being held together with glue and duct tape. I had no choice but to replace it.

And I've had a MAC tower for music production for years. I felt I might as well drink the rest of the apple kool aid.

And for all the complaints people have about the "cult of apple" and having to buy into their lifestyle to use their products, Windows has gone the same route with Windows 8. It's not longer just an operating system, it's now a lifestyle system. ugh.
 
XP is like the cockroach or DW 5000 pedal - perfected long ago and impossible to improve upon. Well, Windows 7 is pretty good and I really like it. From what I've heard of Windows 8, I'm going to stay far, far away.

The main issue with XP is the automatic access to the root (super) user. If you're trying to execute remote code then unless you log in as a user with limited privileges (which isn't the default) then it's quite trivial to gain access to the system. If you accidentally download malware (incredibly easy to do), that malware automatically has access to everything and has a free reign on your computer. This cannot be fixed in XP and is an integral part of the system.

That's why Vista, 7 and 8 all prompt you to enter a password when you install something new. Most of the time you're running as a reduced user and only when you need to install something are you briefly logged in as the root user and then only to execute that process. This model has always been used in UNIX and Linux (in Linux, it's called the 'sudo' command). So OS X is inherently more secure than XP - that's before taking into account the relative obscurity. Modern Windows systems are probably roughly as secure as OS X and Linux but are still more prone to attack by being the biggest target.

I liked XP. I was using it very early on and it was buggy but after two or three years it was a great operating system - but it was always a security liability. Now there are so many methods of compromising XP I would suggest that everybody uses something newer and more secure unless you're running it offline and keeping tabs on every remote storage device that is used.

I've been impressed with Microsoft's built-in security features in 7 and they really are quite excellent free options. With 7 working with many legacy XP applications, I can't think of a compelling reason to continue using XP - especially now computers powerful enough to run it are very cheap indeed. 8 is at its root a good system and definitely improves upon 7 in terms of efficiency and speed of execution but the user interface is horrible and split down the middle. 7 is the best version of Windows I've ever used and at various points I've used them all (including NT and Me) since Windows 3.1 and a couple of them before that (I used 2 when I was at primary school and very young - five or six).

If you're running XP as a day-to-day system now and you're using it online the chances are you have a virus or malware of some kind on there - no matter how cautious you are.
 
On another forum I frequent, one of the members offered to tell me what he thought of Macs. Here is his post:

Well, one of the biggest disadvantages to MAC is that MAC basically equals limitation. Upgrading, overclocking, troubleshooting, and even regular maintenance are impossible or close to impossible. Then there are the factors of inefficient coding, which causes higher than usual CPU load, resulting in hardware based lag, and even complete crashes quite often. Then there's the issue of compatibility. Stevie actually decided to implement what he likes to call "parallels", which run a component of windows within the MAC OS in order to reduce compatibility issues. This actually made me laugh quite hard when I first learned about it, because it begs the obvious question: Why the hell would you buy a MAC if you can't use it without parts of a PC OS? Though I will admit that I hate Microsoft nearly as much as I hate MAC. This is an overview of the root major problems with MACs.

This guy is a self-admitted computer nerd. I'm not sure that any of his issues have had any impact on me, although it's quite possible.
 
On another forum I frequent, one of the members offered to tell me what he thought of Macs. Here is his post:

Well, one of the biggest disadvantages to MAC is that MAC basically equals limitation. Upgrading, overclocking, troubleshooting, and even regular maintenance are impossible or close to impossible. Then there are the factors of inefficient coding, which causes higher than usual CPU load, resulting in hardware based lag, and even complete crashes quite often. Then there's the issue of compatibility. Stevie actually decided to implement what he likes to call "parallels", which run a component of windows within the MAC OS in order to reduce compatibility issues. This actually made me laugh quite hard when I first learned about it, because it begs the obvious question: Why the hell would you buy a MAC if you can't use it without parts of a PC OS? Though I will admit that I hate Microsoft nearly as much as I hate MAC. This is an overview of the root major problems with MACs.

This guy is a self-admitted computer nerd. I'm not sure that any of his issues have had any impact on me, although it's quite possible.

Wow. That guy sounds like he hates everything. I bet he sits on his front porch yelling at the kids to stay off his lawn ;)

Actually, I look at my computers as tools. If it works great when I get it and I can use it to actually get things done, then I'm happy. I've never understood that whole "can't upgrade thing", because I normally buy the max-ed out model to begin with, so when its time to upgrade, I'm buying a whole new machine. Why upgrade? Usually, when I discover new things I want to do, that new software will require a more powerful model anyway, so the whole "being a computer geek so I can keep my hardware up with my software" I've never understood.

Computer geeks remind of the people with Harley-Davidson motorcycles who keep tinkering and tinkering to get the bike to stop leaking oil. Or the drum geek convinced there's a new thing right around the corner to make playing easier.

Just get the work done, eh?
 
Just to answer Jay's post.

i) I rarely have full-system crashes. In the last seven years I've been running a Mac, I think it's happened four times. My systems are on practically 24/7 and I rarely reboot. Two of those were after I installed updates. Full-system crashes are very uncommon.

ii) 'Parallels' is what's called a 'Virtual Machine'. There are lots of different virtual machine programs out there and Parallels is only one of them. It is there ostensibly to run other OS's in OS X but you can likewise do the same on Windows or even on Linux. The fact that OS X has a virtual machine tool available for purchase is no different from any other operating system.

iii) Overclocking is a dangerous game - especially in laptops. Computer designers always use trade-offs to design their machines and in laptops that is usually to use a lower-power and lower-heat ULV (ultra-low-voltage) or small version of the desktop chip because heat dissipation is a real issue. That's not taking into account the effect of overclocking on battery life - which is usually absolutely catastrophic. Sure, having a Mac makes it hard to overclock but you should only be overclocking on a box that is built from the ground-up to do so. Extra cooling, a more rugged power supply and a blasé attitude towards your electricity bill help.

iv) Modern Macs are harder to repair and tinker with, absolutely. Apple is not the only company gluing in batteries and soldering in RAM though. Making the machines harder to repair does mean that they can design the product more efficiently. Take a Macbook Air, take away all the little hinderances to repair and you have a laptop half as large again. It's a compromise and I will admit that the difficulty of repair is a sore spot for me.

Frankly, your 'computer nerd' friend needs to wake up and smell the roses. If he's using the concept of a virtual machine as an argument against Macs, then he needs to read about what virtual machines actually do and realise that they also exist for every other system.
 
I simply try not to support monopolies... but I think google controls my life.

Other than that, I didn't grow up on macs, so it's not very user friendly and from what I've seen, windows is more efficient (And you all know how I love efficiency) when it comes to doing what I, the user, wants it to do. (I'm American, I like doing what I want! And things that will do stuff FOR me!) Haha.

I just searched Google, "Does Google control my life?" And it's true, it does.

Apple is in no way a monopoly. I'm unclear whether you think Google is a search monopoly. It's definitely not a monopoly in terms of any of their other products. Apple is only a monopoly in that they control their own ecosystems - Apple has a monopoly on Apple products (vertical integration if we're getting into business analysis terminology). In the PC market, Microsoft holds the position of power in terms of install base (and was found to be practising uncompetitive behaviour - abuse of a monopoly several years ago).

Macs let you do plenty. Availability of programmes is excellent, especially professional creative software. The programming environment (Xcode) is superb and I would say that it is no easier or harder to use than Windows, it's just easier.

So, are you having issues with iPhones, which are locked down, or Macs, which aren't and even when they are are easily overridable and designed as such?
 
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Not to inject politicism into this discussion, but I saw a funny picture where someone was protesting big corporations and how they squeeze out the little guys, and had to tweet it on his iPhone, so all his friends with iPads sitting in the park and/or coffeeshops (obviously not working) received the tweet to go join in the demonstration ;)

Silly humans.
 
Not to inject politicism into this discussion, but I saw a funny picture where someone was protesting big corporations and how they squeeze out the little guys, and had to tweet it on his iPhone, so all his friends with iPads sitting in the park and/or coffeeshops (obviously not working) received the tweet to go join in the demonstration ;)

Silly humans.

Millions of people display their individuality on Macs.
 
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