PC or Mac?

[Hellfighter]

Hellfighter, have you overclocked yours?

Yes I have, I have my trusty Q6600 riding on a solid Gigabyte P45 board, and I keep pushing her further!

[Marc]

BTW, this wat you can do on a PC, and not on a Mac...

Actually, I have heard of people overclocking Macs. At least the older PowerPC-based systems (which I prefer to the Intels).

I haven't owned a PC since the days of Windows 95, so it's been a long time since I've had a PC, though I still use them from time to time. The first Mac I ever bought, an iMac (Summer 2000), is going on ten years old and is still kicking. It has never been in the shop for anything at all. That has been my most solid computer, ever. I have owned many more Macs through the years and just bought another one not two weeks ago, a quad-core 'Nahalem' Mac Pro.

All that aside, if you have any questions, Bryant, please feel free to ask. I've been a Mac owner for ten years and have been using them since the mid 90s. As others have said, every Mac comes with the iLife suite (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand and iWeb). Those apps pretty much do what the name says. iMovie (though I prefer the older versions), is a great application with some very powerful editing tools such as green screen, picture in picture, and auto stabilization. To get those features in the past, you had to upgrade to Final Cut Express. Having said that, I actually think Final Cut is easier to use. As I mentioned before, I prefer the older iMovie. That's mainly because they totally re-did iMovie in 2007 and really made it harder to use IMO. A lot of people like it better, but the lack of a true timeline in the newer iMovie really throws me off and I find myself using Final Cut more so than I did before. Though, iMovie has YouTube uploading automatically built in which is really sweet for your vids. No need to render and export and upload via your web browser. You just upload it directly to YouTube from iMovie. That's the kind of simplicity you get with a Mac. Also, since most of the software is made by Apple, once you learn how to use one application, the others will come fairly naturally to you. Apple keeps things consistent, which really cuts down on confusion.

I always tell people that Apple's approach to business is much better for the average Joe. Most people don't like having many choices, companies to deal with, and poor customer service. One of the best things about owning Apple products is knowing that if I have a problem, not only do I know there's only one possible company who's at fault, but I also know that if I need to give them a call, I'm going to be talking to someone in Austin, TX, not India.

[J N Winkler]

FYI, the user interface on macs is not bad. I don't know why anyone would have that idea.

PCs versus Macs is fundamentally a religious discussion.  But, from my perspective as a longtime PC user, these are the problems I see with the Mac interface:

*  One-button mouse = no easy or intuitive way to get context menus, use thumbwheel zoom, etc.

*  Historically poor support for keyboard shortcuts; although most Mac applications I have used recently (including the Mac version of Firefox) now have keyboard shortcuts, it is sometimes difficult to find them through a quick Web search because some sites will quote open-apple shortcuts while others will quote Ctrl shortcuts, and on some Macs I have found that one kind of shortcut will work while the other won't.  Shortcuts are also poorly standardized across applications of the same type.  If I sit down in front of a PC, I know that Alt + D will select whatever is in the URL bar in practically all browsers, including Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera.  If I sit down in front of a Mac, I don't know whether Ctrl + L will work in, say, Internet Explorer or Safari (I know it will work in Firefox).

*  No function keys--I depend heavily on F5 for page refresh, F2 to change file and folder names, etc.

*  A very limited selection of page navigation keys with poorly supported navigation functionality--I know what to expect with Home, End, PageUp, PageDn, etc. in all the Windows applications I use, but I have no such confidence with Macs.

Basically I can cope with Macs for up to five minutes at a time for simple jobs like using a Web browser to check my email, but anything more complicated usually has me making frustrated noises through clenched teeth.

From my perspective, the biggest advantage Macs have over PCs is their native support for Unix shell scripts.  The NT batch language is very powerful these days but there is still a lot more that can be done with Unix commands.  On the other hand, I have no incentive to switch from PC to Mac because, with the exception of Web browsers and Acrobat, the major software packages I use are not available in Mac versions.

Mac proselytizers have suggested that I could get a Windows emulator or set up a dual-boot configuration, but I take the view that if I am going to do either of those things, I might as well save money and get a PC of comparable hardware specification instead.  I supply my own input devices and for me configuration rather than form factor is the key thing, so the external appearance of Apple products has no effect on me.

[The Premier]

Vista was a failure. XP is what i use

Agreed. Microsoft should not have gotten Vista done. It had a lot of problems. Its a good thing that Windows 7 was done properly than Vista. But I have XP on my laptop, which is much better than Vista.

But don't rule against the Mac. If Apple can lower the cost of their Macs, I could have bought them. The Macs are pretty good too, if you know what you are doing.

[Marc]

Clearly, you have obviously been a longtime PC user because none of what you said is remotely true. Having actually owned both systems in the past, here's what I can tell you.

One-button mouse = no easy or intuitive way to get context menus, use thumbwheel zoom, etc.

Yes, in the past Macs have had single-button mice, but it's been nearly five years since Apple has shipped a single-button mouse. Apple has had two mice now (the Mighty Mouse, and now the Magic Mouse) that have multiple button functionality. The buttons are programmable to do pretty much whatever you want. Of course left click, right click, and scrolling, but also application launching. I personally don't care too much for the new Magic Mouse, though an interesting concept, I think the design is poor. I stick with Apple's wired Mighty Mouse (now called the Apple Mouse). Even before Apple made their own multi-button mouse, there was always support for it in the OS. Even back in OS 9, you could simply plug in a basic USB mouse and without installing any drivers, it would work on the spot. Left click, right click, scrolling, whatever the mouse could do. Even with a single button mouse, you can still access contextual menus by holding down Control and clicking. On the Apple laptops made since 2005, you use two fingers and click to "right click" (or Control+click). You also can scroll 360° by using two fingers as well on the trackpads. On Apple's "Late 2008" models and on, there are even three and four finger gestures for various things (navigating back/forward through webpage history, showing all open windows/desktop, etc.).

Historically poor support for keyboard shortcuts; although most Mac applications I have used recently (including the Mac version of Firefox) now have keyboard shortcuts, it is sometimes difficult to find them through a quick Web search because some sites will quote open-apple shortcuts while others will quote Ctrl shortcuts, and on some Macs I have found that one kind of shortcut will work while the other won't.  Shortcuts are also poorly standardized across applications of the same type.  If I sit down in front of a PC, I know that Alt + D will select whatever is in the URL bar in practically all browsers, including Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera.  If I sit down in front of a Mac, I don't know whether Ctrl + L will work in, say, Internet Explorer or Safari (I know it will work in Firefox).

Couldn't be further from the truth. Macs have far better support for keyboard commands, bar none. Here's a link to a page on Apple's site that shows the key commands (note that these are just for Apple's apps, so there are more in third party apps)
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343

The fundamental difference is that on a Mac you use the Command key rather than Ctrl for shortcuts. Most of the time, you simply press Command in place on Ctrl and it'll work. I'm not a fan of Ctrl. You basically have to be a contortionist to use it because it's placed on the extreme exterior of the keyboard. I love the fact that Command is located on either side of the space bar, much better location than Ctrl.

BTW, I just checked and Command+L selects all in the Address Bar in Safari.

No function keys--I depend heavily on F5 for page refresh, F2 to change file and folder names, etc.

Then what are these "F" keys at the top of my keyboard for then? I have 16 of them as a matter of fact and the newer keyboards have 19 I think. They are always programmable by the Keyboard preference pane inside System Preferences.

A very limited selection of page navigation keys with poorly supported navigation functionality--I know what to expect with Home, End, PageUp, PageDn, etc. in all the Windows applications I use, but I have no such confidence with Macs.

Again, those are all present on my Apple Keyboard. On the newer keyboards, those keys aren't labeled, but you press Fn+[arrow], and it'll do it for you.

I have no problem with people using whatever they prefer to use, but I do have a problem with people not liking a certain side because of false reasons. The single-button mouse is the oldest excuse in the book. That was years ago now. Apple is not living in the stone ages, people.

I do agree with cost, however. Back in the day, they could justify higher prices because they were so far ahead in terms of their hardware, but these days, especially now that Apple is using Intel, they are getting to the point to where they need to do some price cutting. Though, in their defense, their business model seems to be working for them, over half of the Macs they sell are to first-time users, so I dunno. They still have some things working for them in terms of price (much cheaper software, most made out of aluminum, not plastic, etc). So, up front they are more expensive, but in the long run, maybe it balances out, who knows.

[Marc]

...it turns out you're right; there is no way to simply restore a file from the Trash in OS X.

I forgot to mention this in my previous post. I'm not sure if this is new to Snow Leopard or not as I have never used or needed this functionality, but there is a "Put Back" option if you right-click the file in the Trash. Good to know it's there just in case I do need it some day.

[vdeane]

It might be.  The system I discovered that on was running Panther.

[Marc]

Yeah, that seems like a Snow Leopard-esque feature.