Jim

I personally find the commercials entertaining, more so because I just don’t buy the whole Mac superiority thing. Or more importantly, don’t care. If the things Mac users are doing with their computers are easier or more functional that with a PC, good for them. I personally am a PC gamer. Mac is not a good platform for gaming because those who make PC games have not recognized it as a legitimate (read profitable) platform for gaming. With the increasing performance of consoles, PC gaming may die its own death someday, but that time is not now and I still get better performance on my PC with games that any console systems. It is getting closer, but not there yet.

If I was doing more artistic stuff with my computer I might want a Mac. As it is now I get as turned off by the Mac superiority argument as I do with politics. The commercials are funny. The fanatics are not.

When I go down to visit my boss and he shows me all the cool new features of Leopard that he’s using I’m pleased and excited. I like hearing about cool things, new things, inventive things. I don’t attack Apple because I don’t use it. I do grumble about supporting it, that’s true, but I do admire Macs.

Whether you like Exchange or not, it doesn’t really matter because that’s what we have. If you guys were telling stories about some problem of Exchange and how you found a neat trick to overcome the problem then that would be fun to hear.

I wouldn’t want a lunch conversation of Apple suck, or Tux suxs either. My answer to Dvorak is: Vista is here so write some essays how to make it better. Microsoft products are what I use. I know they have problems. What I want to hear is how to fix them because I’m not going to switch. And the point I keep trying to make is I’m not sticking with Windows because it’s better but because it’s just the practical choice at the moment. Hearing blah blah blah Microsoft is shit blah blah blah Windows sucks blah blah blah Vista needs to pulled off the market blah blah blah is boring.

I know this sounds Pollyannish and I know you love to argue but this topic is just not a fun anymore.

Jim

Most who hated on Apple had never taken the time to get to know what they were hating. At least if I bash Microsoft I speak from experience. Some of our most staunch Microsoft supporters in IT realize what a terrible OS Vista is. I do not need to bash it, the ones who are using it do so. How useful is an OS than prevents you from saving files downloaded from the internet, even files from the maker of the OS? I suppose if you wanted an Read Only OS then Vista could be the one for you.

No one is telling you not to speak your mind. Please have the courtesy to allow those who disagree to speak theirs. If you disagree with them, the argue your point. It has nothing to do with being a team player. There are many valid complaints about Vista.

Take for example the email situation. Since moving from the severely outdated Netscape Messaging Server which ran on a single Solaris machine, we have bought and installed no less than 9 Exchange servers. If it were not for the blind “need” for Exchange, we could have email run on a couple of Mac, Linux or Solaris systems. This need is really a want. People want to use Outlook and think it requires Exchange. Microsoft loves this line of thinking.

Microsoft is a big company and they do not need you to defend them. Maybe you have a desire to feel needed? I dunno.

I like Linux and Mac OS X. I was using my Linux machine at home this weekend while burning CDs with my Vista machine. If Macs were affordable I’d add one to my collection of machines. But what I get tired of is the constant anti-Microsoft hatred by Linux and Mac guys, and now more than ever, by Windows users themselves. And I think some people’s whining, like Dvorak, is unfair spreading of toxic ideas, like how some Republicans spread lies about Kerry’s swift boat service.

The thing about computers is you can change them. Any problems with Vista or Exchange can be fixed or dealt with. Ditto for other platforms. I don’t rile against Leopard because it crashes some during it’s rollout. Also, if the company you work for picks a platform you don’t like, deal with it instead of constantly grumbling.

I think Macs are beautiful machines, but when you’re supporting hundreds of Windows XP machines and some new employee demands to have a Mac it seems unfair at the team playing level. If I went to work at some company that had all Macs I would never be egotistical enough to demand a Vista machine.

Jim

As one of Jim’s Mac/Linux friends I feel I need to say something. I do not see things the way Jim does. Does that make him wrong and me right? Maybe, but no necessarily.

I moved away from Microsoft years ago. I think it was before Windows came out. I had a 286 running DOS, then I became the Apple Certified Support Techinician for the campus. Naturally, I need to know what I was doing so I moved full time to the Mac (Mac OS 6 on a Mac SE/30 built from spare parts, as the big boss did not buy me a Mac). Maybe that is not being a “team” player, but if I supported and repaired Macs, I needed to know all I could about them.

That move was eye opening. I went from a command line based OS with sporadic support for GUIs to a GUI based OS that did what I needed in a consistent manner. I did not have to relearn things each time a new application came out. They were more consistent. Things just worked.

Over the years, things changed. Microsoft came out with Windows, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP and now has Windows Vista (on the desktop). I upgraded from Mac OS 6 to Mac OS 7 to Mac OS 8. I always had a PC as well, I became the Campus Network Administrator and was responsible for many Novell servers. I earned my CNA and my CNE. I kept up with Mac OS, Windows and Novell. Jim forgot to add Novell bigot to my list of computer snobbery. Somewhere in the mix of this I became a Linux fan too. I used on a daily basis all the OSes that were available to me. I preferred some over the others. On the server side, Linux and Novell were my choices. I ran NT from the time it first shipped (NT 3.1 and NT 3.1 Advanced Server).

The first official FTP site for the University was run on Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server on a 486 66 Mhz machine at my desk. Later it was moved to a DEC Alpha running OSF/1. I used NFS to copy files to it from my Mac, a Quadra 800.

I used my Mac to copy files to the NT system as well, I ran Apple services there which made it easy. It was also easy to connect an NT machine to a Novell server through a gateway that Microsoft supplied. This allowed one to get around the Novell user limit. This was the beginning of Microsoft going after Novell. Novell helped them by trying to compete on the desktop by buying Wordperfect. Between Microsoft and Novell, they successfully relegated Netware to the scap heap. Like Beta to VHS, Netware was to NT. It was better. Being the most popular does not make something better. There are more cockroaches than people too. Unless your sole measurement is who survives nuclear holocaust, then you get my point.

Apple had really low points when it failed repeatedly to ship a real multitasking OS (Multifinder was not real multitasking). Novell was sinking, Apple was sinking. Linux was rising. I was skilled in all of them. So I did not despair. I had more than one tool in my belt. NT and Linux became the front runners. Most everyone wrote off Apple. I was not one of them. Rumors of Apple taking over Be and the BeOS lead me to take a trip to Nashville to see the BeOS in action. It was not to Be. Apple bought NeXT and brought back Steve Jobs who helped bring Apple back.

So, with the exception of Windows 2003 Server and Windows Vista I have used every version. I have used every version of Mac OS since version 6. I have used Red Hat Linux since version 3. I have used many other Linux versions as well. I think I have the experience to know what I like and what I don’t. I have not heard anything that ever makes me want to run Vista. I have many issues with Leopard which I freely tell anyone who will listen.

It is not religion, or politics or even philosophy Jim. It is called preference, based on experience.

Donnie