31 replies to this topic

[dragonlady7]

Does anyone else here use a Mac?
If so, have you ordered your update to Panther yet?
If so, are you as excited as me?
If so, are you planning on throwing a party when it arrives?
If so, are you as big a dork as I am?

I'm so excited about it!
It's going to have a bunch of really cool features and it's going to make me cooler than I already am!
Well. To myself, anyway.

I just thought I'd share that with you. The window-management stuff is going to save my butt, and fast user switching is going to make it easy for me to separate my business self from my personal self without buying a new computer. (I can switch my login between Business Me and Personal Me without having to exit any applications or anything at all. Very handy.)

But, I have a feeling nobody else cares, so I'm going to go now and get back to work at my boring day job and using my boring Win2K PC.

[qwerty]

Well, I care. I just can't relate. My only experience with a Mac was using a former housemate's powerbook to word process, and this was years before I'd ever used a Windows machine -- my only WP experience at that point was with Wilbur, Syspub, and some Cobol-based thingy I had in my office at the time. So I hated it just because I couldn't grasp the concept of insert mode

All the design and academic people I know adore Mac, and curse Uncle Bill every time they have to touch Windows. I just don't have any major problems with my XP box, so I don't see the point of learning a new OS.

But I recognize that Mac people, for better or worse, are special. Revel in your specialness, Mac-folk

[dragonlady7]

There's nothing wrong with Windows.
It's just... it's just not as *pretty*. You can get Windows machines that are as well-put-together as Macs... they'll cost more, by the way... but they just won't have the same attention to detail, because nobody else puts the effort into the design. And it DOES make all the difference that I can adjust my monitor's position with my toe, and that the thing is adorable even when it's off. It just puts the joy back in computers.
Using my computer at home is something I do because I *like* it. It's pretty, it's convenient, there are all these little details that make it more pleasant for me to use it, there are all kinds of really cool programs built into the OS, or free or cheap. It's just nice, and fits my personality better.

Lick Me, I'm a Mac
I hope that link's not broken-- my boyfriend sent it to me. There's another little essay about why Macs are just *nice*.

Oh, p.s., they're coming out with The World's Best MP3-Playing Software, new Windows edition, next week. Or so it's rumored.

It's really not hard to learn Mac OS-- it took me like three days to adjust, and I've never really looked back since. Only problem I have with switching back and forth daily is that the ctrl key is used differently, and that the close and minimize boxes are on the left, not the right, of open windows. Other than that... Whatever, there's no difference except one's shinier and the other one just wishes it was.

[qwerty]

For those who want a clickable link: the above-mentioned article

That was one fetishistic little article. What was the line from that Prince song (slighly modified)... "I was drooling when I wrote this, forgive me if I go too far..."

[dragonlady7]

> a clickable link

Ah, thanks.
See, I couldn't see that webpage from inside my company intranet, because it was blocked by our filters, because... I don't know, but I can't see any news sites from California or Australia. No idea why. So I had to read the article in a screenshot PDF Dave sent me.

It was a really funny article. But, so true. And, so topical!

[qwerty]

Yes, I'm sure it's all true. However, the writer had to know that his adoration of the packaging of his powerbook wasn't going to win over any converts. To a fellow Mac-ite, I imagine it brings up feelings of pride and affection.

To the rest of us, I expect the reaction will not be "Wow. I should get myself one of those things." More likely it'll be "Ok, they packed it nicely. Calm down."

Are you familiar with Monty Python's "Eric the Half a Bee" sketch? In it, a man becomes very upset because someone says to him, "You must be a loony". He receives an apology, forgives the transgressor, and continues with his request for a license for his pet bee. The response to this is "You are a loony."

[dragonlady7]

I am indeed familiar with Eric the Half a Bee. Didley dum, deedlee-dee, Eric the Half a Bee. John Cleese can't sing.

But... but... ATTENTION to DETAIL! Is so sorely lacking elsewhere in society! We must begin a revolution!!
OK, not really. I just think the best possible thing for the Internet would be if more people chose nonstandard operating systems-- so that one little bitty worm wouldn't take out so many people. Greater diversity means less devastation.

But, I was right-- nobody on this board uses anything but Windows, it would seem. Hmm...

[qwerty]

nobody on this board uses anything but Windows, it would seem

I can't believe that. There are a lot of designers here, and I bet lots (ok, some) of them are on Macs. They're probably just afraid we Win-folk would mock them.

For the record, I am not mocking Macs! When the new G-whatevers came out, ZDnet had an interview with the guy who was responsible for the case, and I thought all the little details he'd come up with were pretty ingenious.

And I can definitely relate to the point about nobody writing viruses that attack Macs. I've never been hit with one myself, but I've cleaned up a few viral Win boxes in my day. Of course, if Macs had a bigger market share, they'd probably get attacked more. So I guess that brings me back to my point that you lot should revel in your specialness.

[dragonlady7]

I'm sure you're not mocking Macs, qwerty. You're not the mocking type.

Apple, Inc. has some very very good designers and it's a very good, very sophisticated niche that they cater to. I mean... have you ever been into an Apple store? They're amazing retail experiences. The one in Soho in NYC is incredible. Glass staircases, glass floors, etc. It's just amazing.
The fun thing now is to go with a friend, and find the two computers running iChatAV with the webcams on 'em. Then you can make faces at each other from across the store. And passersby will get very confused.

[polarmate]

Ah! Congrats DL7! I envy you!

I volunteered at my daughter's kindergarten library just to be able to get near a Mac. They have the cool blue ones. I want an iMac and I am hoping to generate so much revenue that my boss might think of giving it to me as a bonus! Wishful thinking but who said I can't dream?!

I love it when my computer is as pretty as what I can do with it!

[dragonlady7]

My boyfriend's company is run entirely on Macs. They have a whole set of computers that are basically autodialers (they do traffic reports on telephone switches, so don't go thinking that's something spammy) and they're all the old, colorful iMacs-- and they have them arranged in rainbow order. It's the first thing you see when you walk into their beautiful office-- eight or nine iMacs ranging across the spectrum. It's just gorgeous.
It doesn't even *have* to be, it just *is*.

People just don't understand how much it raises your spirits to enjoy the computer even when it's off. I can carry my computer in one hand. The whole thing. I carry the mouse and keyboard in the other. Only one cord has to plug into the wall, because I got a wireless ethernet card. (Internal antenna's built into the computer.)
It's pretty, it's functional, it's pleasant, it's nice to use, it's shiny. It's stable, it's intuitive, and everything Just Works.
Of course, I have a Mac software engineer close to hand, which is essential in the enjoyment of any computer. I have had one or two small problems that might have annoyed me if he weren't there to take care of it. (I couldn't get a program installed, I think. It was a pirate program anyway.)
It takes a mindset-- you can't haxor your own boxen unless you're a BSD expert, and you can't really build yourself a Mac from scratch. So if you're a leet haxor you're better off with a PC. But if you're willing to relinquish control and not worry about the desktop color scheme (which you can only adjust between two themes-- one with color, and one all in grayscale) and the like...
It's just a personal computing experience where the only thing you notice about the computer is how nice it is. You shouldn't have to think about the computer-- just your task.
I sound like a salesman, but I'm not-- I'm just happy I've found an operating system that makes me happy and productive. I don't think so many people are as happy with theirs. You have to get what you really want or it quietly oppresses your soul and you never realize. When we lived in Jersey City, my boyfriend didn't like it there, but never acknowledged that. He claimed his boss was annoying, his job was a pain, his food was tasteless, the weather was awful, etc. We moved across the river to a nicer apartment in a nicer neighborhood, and suddenly his job is awesome and the same food tastes good. See? Subtle soul oppression. Don't do it-- make yourself happy and your life improves.
Capitalism at its finest-- as a religion.

It would be nice of your job to give you one! You should drop lots of hints.
And set a picture of one as your wallpaper.

[qwerty]

Dang it, you're making me feel bad about my (semi)precious Dell(eterious) box. I'm going to have to stop reading this thread.

I remember being the first in my office to get his Win2k machine upgraded to XP and I was soooo thrilled. 2k always seemed too much like NT to me, and almost had me wishing I was running 98. But as happy as I am with XP, I still just think of my pc as nothing more than a tool. It's a tool I like using, but it's not "nice," you know?

[DianeV]

I had a Mac, the first that came out in 1984. No hard drive (the salesmen failed to mention that) and the price was ridiculous, as was the price to get a second disk drive (because you had to keep swapping the floppy OS disk with the disk you were saving to, back and forth, back and forth -- sometimes 25+ times just to save changes to one page) -- followed, later by what was at the time a huge cost for getting a hard drive. Not to mention that computer crashes were common. That was my thanks for supporting Jobs and Wozniak in their "we have a dream" re a new personal computer.

I finally opted for a PC that could just get the job done, at far less cost and with far more power. When we switched to Windows, it was no problem because we could already run a Mac. They're very similar from the user perspective, if not identical.

Most of the people I know who are steadfast Mac users are print people; this stands to reason because Apple was the first to implement the Xerox graphical display (it didn't originate with Apple, doncha know) -- and thus the mystique about Macs and design. However, as far as I can see, use of a Mac does not create a better quality simply because of the machine; it's the designer's skill, talent and eye that's always been the issue. And, although my Mac print friends are also locked into using software that even they complain about (Quark comes to mind), there's something about having to replace software and making changes that kills the urge.

I feel the same way; I've been thinking of switching to some flavor of Linux but wanted to ensure that I don't have to replace the thousands of dollars in Windows software I need for my work and pleasure. That time is apparently already here.

Viruses? I had one sitting on one of my Windows computers for quite some time; it never got activated because of the software I use. Nowadays, I just screen out viruses on the server so that they never arrive. (The clients quite like this.)

I've now had, for a year and a half, an extremely stable Windows PC with a gig of RAM. This thing will do just about anything I want it to do, and will do it fast, and adding stuff to it is no problem.

As to colors of computers, I'm not crazy about the idea of working on a lime green computer; just not my thing. Some of the other Macs I've seen in pictures are really pretty; however, that doesn't make me want to change. But I don't fault anyone who likes Macs. As a Windows user, it's not about a "Users of X are better than users of Y" thing, and I don't fall for the "think different" advertising (it was a nice try, way back when). I just say: to each his own.

[DianeV]

<ahem> Sorry. I'm still annoyed at having bought a computer at really high prices that didn't even have a hard drive. Even in 1984, a hard drive was a must. <lol>

[Scottie]

LOL, Diane.

A great example of why you shouldn't tick off customers- they will talk bad about you for the next 20 years...