Poll: Okay, so, like, for you geeks... mac, or PC?

Sorry for the poor HTML. I hit the wrong button. Anyways, it formerly mentioned that I was a PC user growing up, and that I kicked and screamed when I learned I'd have to switch to Mac because I was going to design school. And look at me now. :)

Yeah... well, I should have had an "either one" option of some kind. :)

I've used all kinds of systems - I ran a homebuilt PC using CPM in the 80's. I've programmed an Altair with toggle switches. I used a Sun workstation in grad school. I demo'd OS/2 and Nextstep. I have a next keyboard in my garage. And I've built my own macs out of surplus parts too thank you very much. Every version of Windows OS I've ever used made my want to kill someone (Gates, Balmer, my boss, whoever) and throw the PC in their grave. I don't like Steve Jobs, but I don't shout "F***ing Steve Jobs!" everytime I use my Mac. No floppies. I've never installed software on a mac that I couldn't unistall, unlike windows.

And for Unix geeks - screw Linux - try OSX.

OSX does rock the house.

I've never had a problem with it, really. I'm convinced that most Mac haters have never used it. and OS 9 and earlier did have some rather serious issues.

that said, Linux on a PC is pretty nice, too. but for music and pictures, it's Mac all the way.

so what *is* a rat's patootie, then? ;)

I see that all the Mac fans are night owls. Time for the PC users to wake up and put in their $0.02 (or $1.84 in Mac currency). *grins* I personally prefer PCs by a longshot. Why? Let me count the ways.

• Price. Like, duh. PCs are a fraction of the price. One day Lawrence and I were doing a price comparison of building a high-endish PC versus buying a high-endish mac. It's $400 for a 1.7ghz computer (512 RAM/80GB HD), the same specs with a Mac and a 1.0ghz processor was $2470. Yowza. Mac processors may be more bang for the mhz, but if they aren't more bang for the buck then who cares?
• Expandability. What do I do when I need to upgrade or replace failed parts? I drive to town and buy stock parts off the shelf for wicked cheap. There is a much bigger selection and variety of parts available for PCs.
• Real Mice. What in the world were they smoking when they came up with the hockey pick mouse? It must have been the same stuff they were smoking when they decided to use a one-button mouse. Granted, it was a long time ago, but times change. Does Apple? Yes, I know two button mice are available, but they're not well-supported.
• OSes. There's more of a selection available for PCs. You have Windows (ugh), Linux, and many others. MacOS is liked by a niche market, but I find it inflexible and hard to use. Yes, I've used Macs for almost 20 years now, and no I haven't tried OSX. I'll admit it seems like a turn in the right direction, at least it has a CLI. And hell, MacOS crashes more than Windows. That's a feat.
• Software. Imagine my fun this week when I tried to run Gnutella on OS9. To start with, there are only a handful of clients for Macs. The lions share (2) of them run on Java 2, and guess what, it's not supported. The other one sucked so bad it wasn't even useful. Granted, Linux has a limited number of apps (still more than Mac), but at least I can run Windows programs on Linux (or dual boot).
• Stupid Stuff. I hate Mac's process memory partitioning. "Sorry, can't open another IE window, please allocate more memory to this program and restart." No, you allocate more for it on the fly like any sane OS, you dumb computer! I hate Mac's file naming system. The max filename length is wicked short. And what's the full path to a file? Who knows. They're also in a way a monopoly. Once you buy a Mac with their hardware and OS, you're stuck. You're going to be running MacOS. Yeah, there are some marginal Linuces available, but they suck. And heaven help you if you want to run MacOS on PC hardware. Why don't they allow this? Because they're raking in the bucks by charging $2470 for a $400 PC. Haha.

</rant> :-)

*applause*

I totally agree on all counts. The price/performance ratio alone makes me realize that I could never EVER justify buying a Mac. It's like the US/Canada exchange rate! :)

Also, there is so much more flexibility! You can grab any software, any parts... off the shelf... at a show..... just collect the change in your car to pay for it, and you're all set. And while I'm on flexibility.... the interface is so inflexible! With a PC, you can use keyboard shortcuts to do things... right click... use the scroll wheel on the mouse, program your keyboard differently (if you have a programmable one)..... the MacOS is so rigid in it's use... up until OSX, it didn't even have a CLI!

As for people who say macs are more stable? I've never seen it. I have been running win xp for around 9 months now... and I've YET to see it crash.... I've had macs crash on me more often than 98SE used to! (To be fair, though, I have not tried OSX.)

Oh, and Josh: ".... in a way a monopoly." ? I don't know that it's even in question that they are. :)

My additional $.02.

> I hate Mac's process memory partitioning.

gone in OS X. now it allocates on the fly like a good OS should.

> I hate Mac's file naming system. The max filename length is wicked short.

also gone in OS X, I believe.

> It must have been the same stuff they were smoking when they decided to use a
> one-button mouse.

honestly, when I use a PC, I rarely use the right button anyway. I've never found it all that useful.

> Expandability. What do I do when I need to upgrade or replace failed parts?

the flip side of this is it also means if something breaks within your PC and you don't know what, you have no idea who to call. if something breaks in your Mac, you call Apple.

> but if they aren't more bang for the buck then who cares?

but they are more bang for the buck. the stability is a nice feature, although Windows XP is pretty damn stable itself. that is, if you want to pay $200 for Windows. OS X isn't a whole lot cheaper, but it certainly offers many more included features.

I've always always been a PC person because that's what I know and grew up with. That said, I now have a Mac addict living with me so the Macs in the apartment outnumber the PCs! Eeek! (Heh, by like 6 to 1 or more, even) I don't really have STRONG opinions...I prefer my PC because it's what I know. I sometimes have trouble with Macs just because I'm unfamiliar with some of the ways they do things. If Paul sees this you'll probably get a pro-Mac message as detailed as Josh's pro-PC one. :)

So I picked the "I don't care" option...*shrug*

-AK

I picked the PC b/c, although I don't build 'em, my brother does. Hence it's always been very easy for me to get cheap replacement parts, tech support at odd hours, and other such things. I suppose if he played around with Macs, I'd probably use those.

Look out... I am armed... More to come....

What happened to Linux? The flightless water foul demand recognition!

This isn't about OS, man.... it's about hardware. :)