PC vs. Mac - DPChallenge Forums

Leica 50mm f/1.4 Summilux M MF - Chrome

01/08/2008 11:59:15 AM · #27

Originally posted by awpollard:

Speaking of Leopard has Apple released a Service Pack, oops Apple would refer to it as an Enhancement, to fix it's many issues including the Blue Screen of ..., oops almost said it, "The Blue screen" as Apple so kindly refers to it. Doh!

10.5.2 should be out this month, maybe February. 10.5.1 has been out for a while.

Leopard hasn't crashed on me yet on any of my 3 Macs. I often have 6+ programs, like Photoshop CS2, iPhoto, PhotoMatix (all memory intensive) running at once, and my kid plays webkins world and toontown a lot on the iMac. No stability issues at all.

signal2noise

Leica M9

01/08/2008 12:13:06 PM · #28

I try to be as platform agnostic as one can be. There are certain benefits of each, but the plus of being able to run Vista on a Mac is a nice accomplishment on Apple's part. It fits someone like me perfectly. I like the usability/interface of the Mac and OSX, but until someone creates an OSX system that can compete with Microsoft's Visual Studio for writing and compiling code, there'll always be a (technical) need for Windows (for me). There is a price premium for Mac's that I understand for some are unjustifiable, but they are well-built and extremely dependable.

EducatedSavage

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II

01/08/2008 12:22:39 PM · #29

Originally posted by d56ranger:

PC to Mac..... Mac to PC... Hmmmmm!!! I ask the question of all that have switched: Have you switch from PC to mac, or Mac to PC. I personally kknow about 30 people that have switched - Always from PC to Mac. I know of no one that has switched from Mac to PC.

I've actually switched from Mac to PC. I did it a very long time ago and switched from Mac to DOS - pre-windows. Haha! I've used Macs more recently at the art school I attended briefly (it was a bad experience all around) and I wasn't really impressed.

I can say, though, that they really do work for some people. The best I can offer is to visit any Macs or PCs similar to what you're considering getting and test driving them to see how they fit you.

Edited to add: I'm not happy about Vista. I've used it a few times and really feel that Microsoft shouldn't be trying to emulate Macs - Macs already are doing what they do beautifully and if I wanted one, I'd go get one.

Message edited by author 2008-01-08 12:24:28.

Louis

Nikon D800

Nikon AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.8D

01/08/2008 12:27:08 PM · #30

Originally posted by Dirt_Diver:

When you do the same thing with a MAC it does release all that memory back allowing it to not crash or have system errors.

This is why you SHOULD reboot your PC about every other day and defrag once a month.

You must be doing something wrong. My PCs running Vista at work and home are rarely rebooted, say, less than once a month. They're workhorses... Photoshop, Lightroom, all Office components, Zend Neon/Studio, plus Visual Studio on one, plus many and sundry smaller software packages. And defragging happens in the background, incidentally, you don't have to actively start defragging, even though you have that option.

Message edited by author 2008-01-08 12:28:15.

SamDoe1

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

01/08/2008 12:40:05 PM · #31

Originally posted by Louis:

I agree. If you're smart about it, you rarely have to reboot windows boxes and you won't get viruses. Granted if you do stupid stuff you can get viruses for either machine. I haven't rebooted my laptop in over 2 weeks and the last time was only cause I went on the plane and had to shut it down. And this laptop does everything from games to photoshop to solid 3D modeling to finite element analysis to fluid dynamic modeling to every day use. Windows isn't as bad as people make it out to be, again if you're smart about it, and PCs are a heck of a lot cheaper than macs are.

Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS

01/08/2008 01:38:54 PM · #32

Originally posted by SamDoe1:

If you're smart about it, you rarely have to reboot windows boxes and you won't get viruses. Granted if you do stupid stuff you can get viruses for either machine.

Can you name one virus for OS X? Or site a single instance where a Mac running OS X as been infected outside a lab?

I'll bet you can't, but you can site literally millions of cases for such infections on Windows.

ellamay

Canon EOS-1D Mark II

01/08/2008 01:51:46 PM · #33

Go MAC : )

they are just cooler all around....

nemesise1977

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO Macro Super for Canon

01/08/2008 01:53:02 PM · #34

I recommend the son "Every OS Sucks" by three dead trolls in a baggie. Basicaly Every os and platform has its issues, limitations ect. I Use PCs I build myself so I can quality control them and fix them (kinda like the old car tinkerers) Hardware wise the two platforms are pretty close so its like buying a Dell or a gateway with just a diffrent OS on it and you can install Windows, linux ect on there if you want.
So all depends on what you want, if you want a computer company to decide what you want/need in your hardware and soft ware and tries to push its own services on you because its right there and you dont have to look outside the box then a Mac is a good choice

On other hand if you like to tinker config and change stuff up some then a pre manuf PC is not a bad idea

And if you like to have your finger prints on the outside and inside build your own(it has a certin geek presteige I built thes beast with XYZ and abc and modded the case ect)

Edit
Forgot to mention that Even though MAC has less viruses it is not immune from them, or other security flaws, in general the mac populace of programmers tend to be less inclined to create and release harmful programs, It does not mean it cant/ wont happen. And if more people start using Macs and learing to code the more likely it will be to start seeing more virii in the wild for them so it behoovs the mac community to keep there user base small and somewhat ignorant ;)

Message edited by author 2008-01-08 13:57:11.

GeneralE

Canon PowerShot S3 IS

Canon 12x IS USM (S3 IS built-in Lens) -- 36-432mm (35mm EQ)

01/08/2008 01:53:32 PM · #35

Originally posted by AperturePriority:

There is much more software for Windows than there is for a Mac.

More software doesn't mean better software ... and just how many calendar programs do you need? Virtually every important program for graphics and business is available for both platforms -- except for certain games and maybe high-end CAD programs, I think it's pretty hard to find a really necessary program for Windows which isn't available (or doesn't have a valid equivalent) for the Mac.

I have Macs at work running operating systems ranging from 10.5 all the way back to 7.5 and still performing their assigned functions -- though to be honest, I still prefer system 9 to OS X, and the System 7 machine is actually a (rare) Mac clone, not an Apple box.

Louis

Nikon D800

Nikon AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.8D

01/08/2008 01:58:47 PM · #36

Originally posted by scarbrd:

Originally posted by SamDoe1:
If you're smart about it, you rarely have to reboot windows boxes and you won't get viruses. Granted if you do stupid stuff you can get viruses for either machine.

Can you name one virus for OS X?

Maybe here?

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

01/08/2008 01:59:11 PM · #37

Originally posted by nemesise1977:

Forgot to mention that Even though MAC has less viruses it is not immune from them, or other security flaws, in general the mac populace of programmers tend to be less inclined to create and release harmful programs, It does not mean it cant/ wont happen. And if more people start using Macs and learing to code the more likely it will be to start seeing more virii in the wild for them so it behoovs the mac community to keep there user base small and somewhat ignorant ;)

I couldn't disagree more with every aspect of that statement.

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

01/08/2008 02:01:45 PM · #38

Originally posted by nemesise1977:

in general the mac populace of programmers tend to be less inclined to create and release harmful programs, It does not mean it cant/ wont happen. And if more people start using Macs and learing to code the more likely it will be to start seeing more virii in the wild...

I've been hearing that chant for 7 years and the OS X user base continues to grow. Still waiting...

Canon 12x IS USM (S3 IS built-in Lens) -- 36-432mm (35mm EQ)

01/08/2008 02:05:12 PM · #39

Originally posted by Louis:

Originally posted by scarbrd:

Originally posted by SamDoe1:
If you're smart about it, you rarely have to reboot windows boxes and you won't get viruses. Granted if you do stupid stuff you can get viruses for either machine.

Can you name one virus for OS X?

Maybe here?

The last virus update on the site was May 2006, talking about a worm from Feb 2006. Almost 2 years ago.

//www.avira.com/en/threats/section/fulldetails/id_vir/1673/macos_leap.a.html

But OK, I'll give you that one. Now name another.

Oh, and the iPod virus on the list was for Windows, not Macs.

ETA: Interesting chart on Wikipedia

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_statistics

Windows virus count, 200,000+, OS X virus count, 0

Message edited by author 2008-01-08 14:10:20.

GeneralE

Canon PowerShot S3 IS

01/08/2008 02:05:33 PM · #40

Eight-core processing is now standard on the Mac Pro (tower) models.

nemesise1977

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO Macro Super for Canon

01/08/2008 02:20:44 PM · #41

Originally posted by scarbrd:

Originally posted by nemesise1977:
Forgot to mention that Even though MAC has less viruses it is not immune from them, or other security flaws, in general the mac populace of programmers tend to be less inclined to create and release harmful programs, It does not mean it cant/ wont happen. And if more people start using Macs and learing to code the more likely it will be to start seeing more virii in the wild for them so it behoovs the mac community to keep there user base small and somewhat ignorant ;)

I couldn't disagree more with every aspect of that statement.

Thats because the user base still isnt high enough. also once a "good" virus gets created and enuff wanna be hackers are out there that know how to code for mac youll see 100 variants of the same bug ( there really are not that many orginal viruses on the PC it proll 50% or more are just variants where peole tweaked the code or encryption. Also the less people know about coding the less likely to find someone to create malware as more and younger people lear to code for the OS the more sploits, virii malware ect you will see out there.

slaakso

Olympus E-510

Olympus 50mm f/2.0 Macro ED Zuiko Digital

01/08/2008 02:28:36 PM · #42

I hope this has some use to,

artvet, the person that started this thread.

Message edited by author 2008-01-08 14:30:38.

Neil

Fujifilm X-T30

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

01/08/2008 02:32:18 PM · #43

I think I can give you a fresh perspective. (Mac fans can stop reading here, overall, this isn't going to be positive)

I just switched to the Mac. I've used them before of course. I used Macs a long time ago (Mac Classic) when windowing environments were just coming to personal computers. But I was never really happy with the classic user interface in the old days, or the performance. I much preferred the Apple Lisa, and then Windows for their better multitasking. I also had to support some software on the Mac, so I bought an old Powerbook 1400CS a number of years ago, but it was pretty slow and the screen was awful, so I didn't use it much (that's just a model and passive matrix issue, not relevant today.)

I was convinced to switch by the tales of the stable mac, the talk of much faster intel based peformance, and mostly by the fact that I was spinning so many cycles on my PC running antivirus, antispyware, etc. Jobs sometimes does a good job selling too, convincing me that Apple was actually putting useful new features in Leopard. In Windows, I hardly use any Microsoft software anymore; I have great utilities, file manager, PIMs etc. that I used that replaced functionality built into Windows and had better features, performance and a user interface.

Now to my Mac experience. I switched in early Dec, so I've been at it for a little less than a month. At least under Leopard, I've experienced pretty much daily failures on my high end Mac (A Mac Pro quad (2 duo processor). iTunes sometimes gets choppy--missing parts of songs. Apps crash fairly regularly. Yesterday, my sound went out so my speakers weren't playing anything. I could still play if I switched the output to a USB speakerphone I had bought. But otherwise, I didn't have very nice music. This morning I decided to reboot, and sound was working again from the speakers.

First, what I like about the Mac.

1) Parallels runs beautifully, allowing me to run Windows side by side with the Mac in a virtual machine. This has been the saving grace of my Mac experience.

2) Spotlight search is fantastic. Very fast way to run a program or find a file. (But you will find, like much of the Mac software I've tried, while it does one thing very well, it's not very flexible in terms of customizing searches and results.)

3) Mac mail is excellent, with a good search engine for messages. This is one of the most important things to me. (though I discovered now that it doesn't support return receipts!)

4) Mac handled my multiple monitors better, allowing me to turn one vertically, and one in landscape mode, giving me two screen choices for any given task.

5) Mac preview app is wonderful. It has full PDF functionality, and is much quicker and better than Adobe Acrobat (though it doesn't produce PDFs, it allows full management).

6) Mac quick look is really convenient too. But I wonder why this functionality didn't somehow link to, or integrate with Apple's preview app.

7) Memory support. I have 5 gigs, and I can expand to 8.

8) With effort, all my peripherals were supported and work fine.

Problems so far, and dislikes (just a sampler, quick list):

1) iPhoto crashes when it gets a Jpeg2000 file. Any jp2k file, during import. Consistently.

2) Only OS I've ever used which defines home and end as top and bottom of page instead of beginning and end of line. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to change this at the system level, only to find that apps don't honor the system keyboard definitions making the change inconsistent and useless.

3) iPhoto insists on importing the files into its own "library format". Even after I found a workaround to let me look into the package, and access it from other programs, I realize this isn't a good solution because my other apps (Lightroom) create sidecar files which aren't automatically imported (and I don't know how iPhoto will like other apps adding files to its library)

4) I find apple's system of chorded (two and three modifier keys) keyboard accelerators requires pure rote memorization, compared to the simpler Cntl scheme of the PC. I also like the ability to use letter keys to select menus and dialog options on the PC, missing from the Mac.)

5) Despite the better two screen handling, its a bit silly that when working on monitor 2, I have to return to monitor 1 in order to make a choice from one of the applications menus.

6) Seems to always limit me, so I have to turn to third party apps, which are more expensive than their PC brethren (which are often free).

a) I can't get the DATE to show up in the menubar. Only the day of the week and the time. I think there's something I can buy to do that, but it seems a silly thing not to do in the OS

b) Finder is very limited in functionality. PathFinder is much better. It would have made a really good finder. However, so far, it doesn't work as well for the basics as finder (e.g., it won't show me thumbnails of PDFS or even JPEGS like finder will (though it has a preview mode built in as a pane.) I find (pun!) the lack of a tree with just folders to really slow me down. On the PC I use FreeCommander, a split view file manager that lets me see two folder trees and the contents of the selected folder in each, all at once. There's one third party app that offers an explorer like (tree pane and detail pane) on the Mac, but it crashes constantly. So far, the best file manager I've been able to use on the Mac runs in Windows.

c) iMovie. It recognized my video cam, and captured right away. That's what Macs are supposed to be good for. Unfortunately, the beginning of the video was captured like a badly tuned TV from the 60s. So I went to recapture, and had trouble controlling the camera from iMovie. Each time, a reboot fixed it, but only for one "use", then it stopped working. Not a good Mac experience.

I could go on with my bad impressions and experiences, but I'll just try to hit a few more big things. Sometimes I move a window from one monitor to the other, and I can't see the bottom right corner anymore. Why is that important? Because Apple has deemed that that's the only area of the window where you can resize the window. Jobs law.

And you will find that the mac sages tell you to use "Hide" to minimize windows rather than minimize so as not to take up a slot in the documents area of the dock. Ok, that's nice. But then why isn't there a mouse equivalent for hide? Why not a fourth button, so I can choose hide rather than minimize when my hand is on the mouse. Instead, I have to take my hand off the mouse and use the keyboard. (And the dock icons in the program area behave differently for windows that are minimized versus hidden...if the icon exists in the document area (minimized) clicking on the program icon does not bring it up..you have to click on it in the document area. So you also have ro remember whether it's minimized or hidden. Not so easy, since all the icons in the document area look pretty similar except for a 5x5 pixel application icon in the bottom right of the larger document icon (which my eyes can't make out.)

Anyway, why am I still using the Mac? I'm trying to develop a liking for it, to get used to it's idiocyncracies, etc. To find apps to make my mac experience better. But has it been worth it? Will I "change" my Mac to a PC. It's still possible. I would miss the good things I listed above. But really, so far I'm not convinced the Mac is viable in the long term for me.

(Oh, another biggy: On the PC, I can rearrange my bookmarks in Firefox, or delete a bookmark on the bookmark menus just by right clicking. Makes daily maintenance of bookmarks easy. Why on the Mac -- even in firefox -- do I have to make a special effort and open the bookmark manager! That's really frustrating to me.)

I've been tempted to write up my experiences in more detail, with the intent of perhaps getting a message to Apple about the mac (well, at least feedback). I even started a blog. But from what I've seen on the web, criticizing the Mac publically is just like an open invitation to get hate mail. If you ever read some of the blogs about it, and the commentary, it's almost scary. I'm betting DPCers have a more open mind and are willing to hear both sides!) (And if not, I'll just delete this post!)

In short, I seem to have gained a few nice apps in Mac OS. But my experience hasn't proven that the Mac is more reliable. And I seem to not be able to replace my PC applications -- many of them. So if I'm running Windows on the Mac, I haven't replaced my need for all that antivirus scanning anyway!

Your mileage may vary.

Message edited by author 2008-01-08 14:37:43.

Mr_Pants

SiPix Blink

01/08/2008 02:39:22 PM · #44

Originally posted by Nikolai1024:

Originally posted by andrewt:
...On the other hand , the perception that Windows stability is poorer is no more true. Vista is pretty good.

100% right

Yes, I've had nothing but trouble with Leopard.

Olympus 50mm f/2.0 Macro ED Zuiko Digital

01/08/2008 02:43:11 PM · #45

Originally posted by nemesise1977:

Originally posted by scarbrd:

Originally posted by nemesise1977:
Forgot to mention that Even though MAC has less viruses it is not immune from them, or other security flaws, in general the mac populace of programmers tend to be less inclined to create and release harmful programs, It does not mean it cant/ wont happen. And if more people start using Macs and learing to code the more likely it will be to start seeing more virii in the wild for them so it behoovs the mac community to keep there user base small and somewhat ignorant ;)

I couldn't disagree more with every aspect of that statement.

Thats because the user base still isnt high enough. also once a "good" virus gets created and enuff wanna be hackers are out there that know how to code for mac youll see 100 variants of the same bug ( there really are not that many orginal viruses on the PC it proll 50% or more are just variants where peole tweaked the code or encryption. Also the less people know about coding the less likely to find someone to create malware as more and younger people lear to code for the OS the more sploits, virii malware ect you will see out there.

Your assumption that Mac programmers don't know about programming because they are Mac users is insulting to say the least.

Don't you think that with all the hype Apple makes about how much better the security on OS X compared to Windows that some hacker out there worth his salt hasn't tried to hack OS X?

Apple sells millions of Macs every month. How high does the user base need to be? Apple has been flaunting it superior OS and security like it's waving meat in front of a dog.

The ignorance is in believing that Windows is the victim of some over zealous hacker community. Truth is MS routinely issues software full of security holes and lets the users find out the hard way to figure out what they need to patch. Plus, there's a cottage industry in the Windows world whose sole business model is the fact the Windows is insecure. Symantic, McAfee and others probably love the fact that Windows is so easy to attack. It keeps them in business.

So save the condescending tone and statements that Mac users are ignorant.

People who know both systems well overwelming choose Macs.

slaakso

Olympus E-510

01/08/2008 02:55:05 PM · #46

[quote=nshapiro] I think I can give you a fresh perspective. (Mac fans can stop reading here, overall, this isn't going to be positive)

I am surprised by all of your difficulties and do wish you well in your PC to Mac saga. I do not take offense and enjoyed reading your impressions and insights. Thank you for your candidness.

On the other hand, I am not going to convert to PC, I am extremely happy with where I'm at on the Mac with Win XP, in it's own partition and hardly ever used.

Louis

Nikon D800

Nikon AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.8D

01/08/2008 03:03:20 PM · #47

Originally posted by scarbrd:

But OK, I'll give you that one. Now name another.

Why should I? You said one, I gave you one. Anyway, here's more, for what it's worth.

At the end of the day, these tit-for-tat threads are pretty silly. Mac evangelists aren't going to convert Windows weenies and vice versa. "My OS is better than your OS, nyah!" is about as puerile as it gets. My advice to the OP would simply be to try both and see which interface you can use most comfortably, because at the end of the day, that is going to be the measure of your experience.

01/08/2008 03:11:47 PM · #48

Originally posted by nshapiro:

I think I can give you a fresh perspective. (Mac fans can stop reading here, overall, this isn't going to be positive)

Neil,

The issues you list are about user experience and I appreciate that. Don't know why you're having problems with iPhoto and that file type.

I use both systems as well. Is OS X perfect? Of course not. There are a couple of new features in Leopard that I don't like.

At least you didn't have to buy any eSATA cables, right? ;-)

Message edited by author 2008-01-08 15:16:05.