Heaven in a touch screen pad!

[mtlhddoc2]

all I do every single day is fix computers. Macs and PCs and syncing the damn Blackberries and such. And I have to say, I have NOTHING but problems with the Macs. I support over 1000 Macs and 6000 PCs and I do 1 for 1 on service calls. The 1 and only thing the Macs do better than a PC is 3D. And even then, if you optimize a PC for CAD, you can achieve nearly the same results. If I had my way, i would take each and every Mac in the company and set it on fire in the parking lot.

I find the "91%" figure to be a little, well, snooty. since for what you spend on the cheapest Mac (about $1500) I can buy 2 PCs which perform twice as good. My Dell Inspiron I bout 2 years ago is as good, maybe even better, than the cheapest Mac on the market right now, and I only paid $500 for it. My Dell Optiplex at work is about 6 months old and is better than any Mac we have on the floor. I run the full CS4 suite and never have a problem, yet my Macs blow up with it regularly.

The iPad is just another example of Steve Jobs and his brilliant marketting. Yes, i said it, the guy is a marketting genius, if nothing else, he sold millions of $20 MP3 players to millions of people for $150 a pop. Genius.

[ryos]

My anecdotal experience is exactly opposite yours. In cases like that, we can agree to disagree.

Also, snooty? For that to be true, I'd have to look down on PC buyers, but I don't. Sometimes, I envy you. I once tried to join you, because cheap hardware is tempting, but I couldn't do it. Oh, to honestly believe that any $20 music player is the equal of any iPod! But no, I was cursed to care about details. "Good enough" isn't good enough for me. Like I said before, there's nothing in that statement that suggests that this makes me better than other people. You may as well say "he has blue eyes, he's a snob," when in reality it's just an ordinary part of who I am.

(Your figure for the "cheapest Mac" is $900 high, by the way. And, I'm still waiting for a link to that $50 iPod Touch knockoff.)

[mtlhddoc2]

I didnt pay this much:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ematic-8GB-Touch-Screen-Video-MP3-Player-with-5MP-Camera/13070375

I didnt say YOU were snooty, just the figure comes off that way, because mostly it is true.

Link to sub $1000 Mac? And not an "iMac" either, because thats not a real computer. It is nothing more than the mac attempt at an eMachine.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

What is your definition of a real computer, mtlhddoc2?

I look at my 24" 1920x1200 screen with 42% free space on the hard drive, lots of RAM, more than fast enough processor, and wonder what I've been using this past year if not a real computer.

[Silk]

I watch all you people rhapsodizing over the specs of all these new gadgets and think there must be something wrong with me, 'cuz I just don't really get why I should care.

[Patriotic Kaz]

I'm with you Silk, I remarked earlier b/c the argument of the best selling bugged me, marketing is everything and i-pod accessories are readily available while others are lacking. It's much more complex than this is better than that.

[Shivertongue]

What is your definition of a real computer, mtlhddoc2?

I look at my 24" 1920x1200 screen with 42% free space on the hard drive, lots of RAM, more than fast enough processor, and wonder what I've been using this past year if not a real computer.

Got me wondering the same thing now. Apparently, I haven't used a "real computer" since 1999...

mtlhddoc2: The MacBook, only $999. There is also the Mac Mini for $599, but I wasn't sure if that counted.

[mtlhddoc2]

Mac Mini doesnt count, no. Can you network it? not really. Same with an iMac, not easily networked. Just ask my 100 pissed off videographers when some genius thought they should all get brand new iMacs. And they call me at least once a week because it dropped the network again and i have to reinstall Tiger. And they cant run Leopard, or SnowLeopard. We tried, and failed. so they lobbied for PCs when their upgrade time comes around, and they are going to be getting Lenovo ThinkPads, possibly, Dell Latitude E6400s. With docking stations of course.

If you just need a computer that surfs the web and plays an occassional game, have at it, spend too much for a Mac, or an AlienWare Laptop. more power to ya. But no one should pay over $1000 for a computer for ANY reason at this stage of the game. I paid exactly $548 for my Dell Inspiron 530 21 months ago. It came with a 1TB had drive, 3GB SD-Ram, 1800 DuoCore Processor, 256MB nVidia card, a 21" monitor, Office 2007 Pro, NetGear N Router and some crappy speakers, which I have upgraded. And I am thinking about getting new, but dont really need to. But if i did, it would be a Gateway with a QuadCore 2k processor, 1TB again, upgraded vide card again, all for $400! Why, why why would you pay $1000 because "good enough" isnt "good enough" when in fact "good enough" is BETTER than your $1500 computer?

http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html

Look at teh Specs! My Gateway NETBOOK has better ram, processor and memory than that!

[ryos]

The Mac Mini for $600 is the cheapest Mac. For most people, it's more than they need.

I had a look at that Ematic MP3 player. The short version is that it looks like it's absolutely worth the asking price (but no more). I feel the same way about the iPod Touch. That's all the assessment I'm qualified to give since I've never owned either; actually, given a choice I'd buy the iPod Classic (which is what I use every day). The Touch still doesn't have enough storage capacity for my needs. Once they get there, I'll upgrade in a heartbeat...

[mtlhddoc2]

ryos: I have about 10 different MP3 players, including an ipod classic and a touch, how much music do you have that 8GB isnt not enough? Much less the 32 for the highest end model? I can fit nearly every song I own on an 8GB memory stick or SD card (iPods do not support SD cards, a very very big negative on them, and neither does the iPad, even the Nintendo DS supports microSD and the Wii has an SD slot!)

quite frankly, the best music player of the bunch is this crappy little on I got at K-Mart for $15. I never have a problem with it. The iPod had the power problem that is so frequent with them (about 1 in 5 have it).

[ryos]

Mac Mini doesnt count, no. Can you network it? not really. Same with an iMac, not easily networked. Just ask my 100 pissed off videographers when some genius thought they should all get brand new iMacs. And they call me at least once a week because it dropped the network again and i have to reinstall Tiger. And they cant run Leopard, or SnowLeopard. We tried, and failed. so they lobbied for PCs when their upgrade time comes around, and they are going to be getting Lenovo ThinkPads, possibly, Dell Latitude E6400s. With docking stations of course.

 

Every Mac Apple ships is equally networkable. Right now I'm sitting at work in a lab full of 86 happily-netowrked iMacs. With Apple Remote Desktop, I can do anything to any Mac on the entire campus-wide network to which I've been given rights. With my MacBook Pro, I can VPN in to the network and do the same from over the Internet. We can remote-boot those machines with an image stored on any Mac on the network. We can hook in to the university's LDAP service to provide logins to our students, with no additional software beyond the base OS.

I can state with 100% confidence that there is nothing network-related that Macs can't do. Your claim is ridiculous.

Why, why why would you pay $1000 because "good enough" isnt "good enough" when in fact "good enough" is BETTER than your $1500 computer?

http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html

Look at teh Specs! My Gateway NETBOOK has better ram, processor and memory than that!

If hardware specs are all you care about, then I agree with you: why WOULDN'T you buy the cheapest PC you could find? But, honestly, I just really don't care that much about hardware specs anymore. Far more important to me is that my software work elegantly. I'd also like my laptops to last me 4 years, which is something PCs seem to have a hard time doing; what I've seen from PC laptops owned by family members, roommates, and friends is that they start to fall apart after 2.5-3 years.

The hardware is fast enough. My 2-year-old Macbook Pro is still plenty fast for everything I do with it. I've upped the RAM to 4GB and the HDD to 500, but that's a typical mid-life upgrade. I develop software and websites, often at the same time. I run multiple virtual machines simultaneously. I run office programs, email, RSS, web browsers, Adobe Creative Suite apps. I can even boot into Windows and play games. My machine never feels slow and never bogs down. Why should I care if PC hardware is higher-specced and costs less, when I'm far happier with my Mac than I ever would be using Windows?

ryos: I have about 10 different MP3 players, including an ipod classic and a touch, how much music do you have that 8GB isnt not enough? Much less the 32 for the highest end model? I can fit nearly every song I own on an 8GB memory stick or SD card (iPods do not support SD cards, a very very big negative on them, and neither does the iPad, even the Nintendo DS supports microSD and the Wii has an SD slot!)

8737 songs, 3023 photos, 138 videos, 158 podcasts and 4 games. That all occupies 63 GB of space. When I run out space on my 80 GB iPod (11 GB to go), I'll delete the photos, since I don't really use them anyway.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

mtlhddoc2 I begin to suspect the reason macs suck in your office is because the guy they hired to support them is you.

[Miyabi]

LOLOLOL!

If Karma wasn't restricted to just Admins I would be giving you some right now Peter.  That truly made my day. =]

[mtlhddoc2]

mtlhddoc2 I begin to suspect the reason macs suck in your office is because the guy they hired to support them is you.

Thats funny, except I am not the only one supporting them, I am the first line of defense on the Macs only. I dont install them, just support them when necessary. we have a guy who spent 5 years at Apple installing and supporting them as well. You really think I would be support 7000+ machines on my own? Thats ridiculous. I spent 3 years in the 90s at Microsoft supporting Apple/Windows interoperability.  They didnt mix then, and they dont mix now. and apple doesnt make servers, so Unix and Windows servers are what we have to work with. Macs dont like them. Ever. and that is on purpose.

[Shivertongue]

Thats funny, except I am not the only one supporting them, I am the first line of defense on the Macs only. I dont install them, just support them when necessary. we have a guy who spent 5 years at Apple installing and supporting them as well. You really think I would be support 7000+ machines on my own? Thats ridiculous. I spent 3 years in the 90s at Microsoft supporting Apple/Windows interoperability.  They didnt mix then, and they dont mix now. and apple doesnt make servers, so Unix and Windows servers are what we have to work with. Macs dont like them. Ever. and that is on purpose.

Um... mtlhddoc2? Apple makes servers. OS X is a Unix-based system. You can run Windows on a Mac.

...how did you get your job?