Quote from: A on October 05, 2013, 03:16:57 PMRather, everything has always been much more practical to do on Windows.
Clearly you haven't used Macs very much. Everything on Windows requires four more steps to do. To illustrate this, look at the instructions for cross platform software. The Windows installation will have many more steps than the Mac, which often involves dragging the app to the app folder. You delete them the same way. Things aren't hard to find on a Mac because there are not zillions of archaic named files scattered in the system folder like you have on Windows. Deleting an application generally involves moving it to the trash. There are no plethora of files it installed, and no register to mess with.
Plus, I have never had a virus on my Mac since a fairly harmless one in the mid 90s. I don't even run any anti virus software. Windows on the other hand is a very insecure platform, and there are way too much malware out there.
I don't know a single graphic designer than uses a PC. Not in the NYC area anyway. Like I said, go work for Sony Music and see the look on their faces when you tell them you want to use a PC. They will say no. They don't have any, except maybe in the accounting department. Same with any of the major graphics firms. I've worked for AJ Bart, RR Donnelly, etc. You might find some Windows file servers, and that's about it.
Heck, even Microsoft uses them. I'm sure you heard the whole thing about the Windows 95 logo being designed on a Mac in Macromedia Freehand? Why didn't they use a PC? And the startup sounds done by Brain Eno were recorded on his Mac. Then they got Robert Fripp to do some sounds, probably recorded on a PC, but Robert uses a Mac. He said he would rather have made sounds for Apple, but they didn't ask. The new Metro touch interface was designed on Macs. See a pattern here?
Then you have music production. PCs? So they can blue screen on you? 99% of all the music you listen to was recorded or edited or mastered using Macs. Because they are bullet proof, have less latency issues, and far less driver issues and conflicts. Creative types want to just turn the thing on and use it. Using a computer should be like using a toaster. It's an appliance.
QuoteExcept one thing. The Mac's search engine is a lot better.
Hmmmmm. The search engine in OS 9 was great. On the other hand Spotlight, the search engine in OS X blows chunks. The actual database is good, but the front end sucks. So I use a third party replacement. It was better a few OS versions back. I can do a search for a file I know I have using the
exact file name, and it often finds nothing. The third party front end finds it in seconds. I've complained to Apple about this on many occasions.
QuoteHowever, I have run into many things that were impractical or even impossible to do on a Mac. For example, if you get a folder from the server whose permissions have been messed up by a bad network configuration (like ours at school) and you need to remove "read only" from the folder, you press Cmd-I, and you change it... but surprise, there's no way to have it apply to the contents of the folder. Then you select all files in the folder, and press Cmd-I... Surprise, no bulk properties edit, you get 12 informations windows to have fun with. Not to mention that everything about the interface, to me, is completely unintuitive... Though at school, the computers have Snow Leopard, so some newer version may have changed things. But I figure not so much.
OK, you select the folder, change the permissions, and then you go down to the little gear icon on the bottom, and select: "Apply to enclosed items..." That copies the permissions to the items in the folder. It works 99% of the time.
Sometimes it's a server issue. Macs use the standard SMB protocol. If however, the file server is a foreign file system, like NTFS, then it's read only, and you need something like Tuxera NTFS to make them read/write. You can also use something like BatChmod. Or use the terminal.
If you don't want multiple Get Info windows to open, hold down the Option key and get Info becomes Show Inpector, which works on multiple files at once. See, you just have to learn to use Macs better.
There are lots of less commonly used features for power users.
Snow Leopard is pretty old now. I'm on 10.8.5 Mountain Lion, and it's about to be superseded by 10.9 Mavericks which should be out in a few weeks. As soon as my music software is qualified, I'll be updating the OS, which is generally a painless process. My son is still running Lion on his mac Book pro. He doesn't update much of anything. I think my ex still has Lion on her MacMini. Or maybe Snow Leopard. I'll have to look next time I'm over there. But she just upgraded her RAM to 8GB, so I think she's ready for a newer OS.
QuoteAt school, we're forced to use Macs for some of our classes, because indeed many businesses in the field use Macs. I do know about there being more specialized sound software (though for my own needs Audition has always been more than sufficient, and like everything it's heaps more comfortable to use on Windows) for Macs, but largely, in the graphic design industry, as far as I know the whole deal about Macs is because people are used to them. Because indeed, ages ago, Windows was inadequate for graphic design. Now, however, it does just as well as the Mac for (if you shop well) a fraction of the price. And it has decent programming software, and it can run a thousand times more games, etc.
I don't know why you would say "forced" when it's the proper platform to use in the real world. Stopped being so stubborn. Change is a good thing. I use Audition too. It's mostly a stereo editor. It's not very good at multitracking, and I'm not really sure why they put that in there. I guess for post sound editing where you want to mix tracks. But you can't really do music production on it. And I'm only using it because my favorite audio editor, TC Works SparkXL, was discontinued and never updated for Intel processors. So I couldn't use it anymore after Lion, because Apple dropped support for non Intel software. I kind of like Audition, until I really need to do edits. Then it sucks. There are lots of things you can't do easily on it, as you can on other pro editors. I just got Sony Sound Forge Pro, and I think I might switch to that. But I don't use stereo editors as much as the DAW multitrack application.
It looks exactly the the same on a Mac or Windows, so I think you are just more comfortable on Windows. Most modern software looks the same when you are in the applications' interface. ProTools looks like ProTools. Cubase looks like Cubase. Photoshop looks like Photoshop.
The thing is Macs are more reliable. I've been sys op at several printing firms and we never had issues with the bunch of Macs we had, but the Windows machines were always pitching a fit.
Macs come with excellent programing software, Xcode. You can write cross platform software too.
I started on PCs with Windows 3.1. At work I was on Macs using System 7.1. It was clear that Macs were heads and shoulder past Windows back then. And in fact, that windowing code was licensed to MS by Apple when MS wrote the first version of Word for Macs.
Windows 95 looked a little better, but it was still clunky to use, and was just a shell on top of DOS. NT/2000 was better, but still ugly. The latest versions of Windows are a lot nicer, but no where as elegant in use. Several members of one of the bands I'm in use PCs. Since I worked in the computer field, I'm the person they call. While we are jumping through hoops to do some simple networking thing, I like to point out that I don't have to do that. lol
When I got married my father-in-law started calling every week with a problem with his PC. He couldn't get his printer to work unless he reinstalled the printer drivers every time he wanted to print. Then there was another issues. He had an HP, so he got a new Dell. Similar issues. Then his daughter told him to get rid of the PC and get a Mac. So he bought a G5 iMac. Of course everything seemed backwards to him, and he called me every couple of days asking how to do simple tasks. And then one day the phone calls stopped. He got it, and never has an issue now. The last call I got from him was how to transfer all the files from his iMac to his new Mac Book pro. I told him, plug in a Firewire cable and it's automatic. Makes a clone on the new Mac. Now he's happy as a clam, and never has a single issue with his Mac. I wish that was true of the PC using friends I have.
My friend's brand new Lenovo can't copy all his files from his old Dell without buying software from MS. They wouldn't even help him over the phone. And of course he was talking to someone in India. They told him to call Dell. They told him to call MS...
I've spent so many hours with these friends, and they are smart people, that I'll need to start charging them. lol
QuoteSo if I'm hired somewhere and my work tool is a Mac... I'm going to kindly ask if I can install Windows on it and get my own mouse (ugh, Mac mice!)
Dumb reason. You can use any mouse you want. I used a Microsoft two button mouse for many years. Then I use some nice wireless Logitech Laser Mice. Now I use a wireless trackpad. But I hardly use the mouse when working. I use the keyboard, or if I'm doing artwork, my Wacom tablet. And you know the current Mac mice have two buttons, you just can't see them.
QuoteI complain and complain, and no doubt you would have a ton to say against Windows too. But I think that in the end, that whole computer war is about almost nothing but what you're used to. Someone raised with a Mac will 95 % of the time prefer Macs forever, and the same goes for Windows.
I've had to use a number of platforms at jobs... Macs, Windows, SGI IRIX, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, etc. Notice that they are all UNix bvased except Windows.
QuoteAs for Linux... Don't think any global comment apart maybe from there being less compatible software applies. There are so many kinds of Linux OS, that range from very similar to Mac OS or Windows to completely dissimilar to either. And I'll be honest, I've never tried any distribution of Linux for more than a few minutes.
I have a friend that uses Linux. He's always trying to get me to switch. All the things he said that are good about it, well the same things apply to OS X. My Mac never crashes. Except for system software installs I never reboot it. Applications never crash. The last one that went South on me was a prerelease version of Safari (I'm a Apple developers member), but thats to be expected.
So I say to my friend, "what happens if I want to run Photoshop, or Illustrator, or InDesign, or QuarkXPress, or MS Office, or ProTools, or Cubase?" I use these programs almost daily. He says... wait for it... "Oh, well if you need to run that kind of software... boot into Windows" LOLOLOLOL
So I had to point out I didn't need to do that. I have a Unix based OS that runs all the commercial software I need. If there are any instances of software that is not out for Macs, and I haven't run into much, I run it in Windows in VMWare Fusion. I don't play games on my Mac, except Tetrus. We have an XBox here, a Playstation, several Nintendo boxes. The kids play with all that.
Yep there are lots of versions of Linux. I've been using them since they first came out. I had MKLinux on my old Powermac 6100 in the 90s. I had RedHat for PowerPC CPUs on my old PowerComputing Mac clone. I also ran Be OS on that. That was a very nice operating system. Now I run, Haiku, which is an open source version of Be OS. It's much nicer than Linux or Windows.
It's good to know your way around on different operating systems. It's like driving two different cars. I might like one better, but I know how to drive the other one too. Microsoft is slowly losing its dominance in the marketplace. Just Apple's iPhone division is bigger than all of MS! And the iPhones and iPads run a stripped down version of OS X. I like to tell the story that in 2000 I was commuting daily from NJ to NYC. On the train I would see maybe one Apple laptop, as I walked from car to car looking for a seat. Now I see mostly Apple laptops, and an occasional PC laptop. So that's like at least 10 I see every day on one train, and I didn't even walk the entire length. I've sat next to people programing software, connected to their job using VPN, editing music, video, writing, you name it.
