Considerably off topic! PC vs Mac...

[whole diary]

[Btline]

Depends on the circumstances
ask me at 6pm on a friday night when trying to get home and you may have a different answer than today when sitting in front of a PC in my office

You appall me! 

[inspector_blakey]

From the Guardian: Charlie Brooker - I hate Macs. One of the best columns he's ever written in my opinion!  

[JayMac]

Here's me thinking that Btline was referring to FA sitting in front of a Police Constable. The mind boggled!!

BTW^▸ (by the way), welcome back Btline. Have you been on holiday the past few weeks?

At the risk of starting a debate re: PCs versus Macs, I'm firmly in the PC camp. My latter education utilised them and they were a natural progression from my earlier school computers; the Acorn Electron and BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Micro. My first home computer was one (a 286 with Compuserve as my ISP), and as I now upgrade by building my own system I'm sticking with them. Can't build a Mac from the ground up and I'm just plain confused when one is put in front of me.... to much style over substance. Oh.... and don't get me started on the iPhone - pile of (expensive) pants!

Charle Brooker was right: "Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui."

[Mookiemoo]

Depends on the circumstances
ask me at 6pm on a friday night when trying to get home and you may have a different answer than today when sitting in front of a PC in my office

You appall me! 

I was sitting in front of a mac

I'm sorry - I use language that is understandable by the non enlightened amongst us

[Btline]

I was sitting in front of a mac
I'm sorry - I use language that is understandable by the non enlightened amongst us

Phew.

And I don't want to start a major debate, but I'll say this: I absolutely HATED Macs (just like Charlie Brooker - I used to agree with much of that article), and I had to use them every day; I had a PC at home. Then I got a Mac, and now I don't look back. Everything works, no annoying pop up in the bottom right telling me my computer "may" be at risk, no millions of updates every day, faster, better software for media, Microsoft Office for Mac is better than the PC version, NO NEED to put a CD^▸ (Capital Delivery) in every time I add printers/cameras - Macs have all drivers pre-installed, everything works out of the box, etc.....

I guarantee that if you owned one for yourselves, you'd be converted! I was used to and liked XP but now I don't miss Windows at all.

Seriously, every time I have to use a PC now (rarely, thank goodness) my blood pressure goes up, and I cry out for all the functions that I use on my Mac to make everything easier and quicker. I also cry at the time spent booting up and logging in!

[Mookiemoo]

Comand plus F4

I think thats it - finally arrived in windows 7

10 years after os X

Makes writing training documents so much easier

[inspector_blakey]

I guarantee that if you owned one for yourselves, you'd be converted! I was used to and liked XP but now I don't miss Windows at all.

I had to use a Mac at work for six months. Everyone told me that it's take me a few weeks but then I'd be converted and never look back. To cut a long story short, six months later I still hated the b*st*rd thing with an absolute passion. Fortunately I got lucky, since in January some computers were being replaced and I successfully managed to beg my boss to get me a PC and cascade my (new, shiny and very pretty but entirely hated!) Mac to someone who would appreciate it...!

PS If it's thought appropriate I can separate off the Pc/Mac debate into a separate thread... No problem with chatting around random subjects (the board is called "Introductions and Chat", after all) but this part of the thread has ended up waaaaaaaay off topic!

[Btline]

Yeah split away - sorry, didn't mean to cause this!

The Mac you were using wasn't yours. Perhaps it was linked to a server or network - remember, I used Macs for years before I got one for my own. I hated it.

[devon_metro]

Btline, what you describe sounds like any modern version of Windows, I've currently got Vista SP2 and don't have any problems. However I should be on Windows 7 by Monday so it will be interesting to see how much improved it is. I can't really justify the price of a Mac, especially considering I'd need a copy of XP installed on it to run everything I want.

[JayMac]

I've just upgraded to Windows 7 from XP. Skipped Vista because that was a dog's breakfast of an OS^▸ (Ordnance Survey).

I also run a Linux OS on a partition.

[Mookiemoo]

Btline, what you describe sounds like any modern version of Windows, I've currently got Vista SP2 and don't have any problems. However I should be on Windows 7 by Monday so it will be interesting to see how much improved it is. I can't really justify the price of a Mac, especially considering I'd need a copy of XP installed on it to run everything I want.

Really?

I thought that way as well

Except for quickbooks (my accounting software) have not found a jot needing windows

[Mookiemoo]

Wind doze gets more like a poor mans os x with every release

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

i must be the only person in the world that likes vista and has never had a problem

[TerminalJunkie]

i must be the only person in the world that likes vista and has never had a problem

It seems to have broken your shift key. The spell-checker has improved, though...

[Phil]

Through necessity (corporate policy & the fact my team works alongside Microsoft staff) I use a combination of XP and Windows 7 in my day job (XP on the network for day to day stuff, Windows 7 & Office 10 on a development system). Outside of work I ran a magazine for 20 years so it's been Mac all the way. I think at home at the moment between us we've got a G4, a small Macbook, a 21" iMac and the machine I'm talking to you from now, a 24" intel iMac (the one with the white surround - I'm not keen on the look of the newer brushed steel ones).

The only thing I often wish I had on a Mac is a printscreen button - although having said that, the cmd-shift-4 function on a Mac is far more versatile than print screen anyway.

I'm a big fan of Coffee Cup software ( html, Flash, webby stuff available from http://www.coffeecup.com/) and unfortunately this isn't available at present for the Mac, but there's plenty of alternatives. Just not always free or as well designed.

Oh, and finally the full functionality of Egg's online banking isn't available if you're not using IE on a PC which is a bit of a bummer, but I'm gradually changing to another card provider in any case.

Apart from those minor quibbles though from an ease of use and sheer common sense point of view, I'd personally much rather use Macs - and breath a sigh of relief every day when I get home from work and wake up my sleeping Mac. But I recognise it's a matter of choice and certainly wouldn't berate anyone for having a different point of view to myself.