a Windows user's thoughts after experimenting with OS X
 

Hello all, hope you are good.

I want to start this thread by saying this, I am a PC user using Windows XP Pro SP2 on my machine. Lately i have been using my friends Apple Powerbook and I was impressed by the way it was so smooth, really easy to use, and so responsive.

Now i am not trying to start a debate here about Mac vs Windows so please those who think i am doing this please post your debates somewhere else.

I started using a pc from when i was a teenager and have updated to every windows from 98, 2000, and XP. Now the biggest problem is with Microsoft Operating Systems is all of them have this thing called registry and whenever you install any software it gets scattered everywhere, so when you try and uninstall it the software is still in there somewhere in the root drive.

This is where i like the OS X, it has no registry and whenever you install something it saves it in 1 file, that file, its actually a folder with all the files in there so that the application can run but if you double click on that folder it links straight to the program. That is really good what Apple done here. The other thing is its easier to uninstall software on a mac because all you have to do is move it to the trash and its gone. I am an administrator for a school and all of their machines run windows 2000 and i am fed up because i don't want the students to install anything on the machines, e.g limewire or even keyloggers. It took me about 3 days trying to figure out how to secure that, I done it today by assigning security permissions to the users by denying them to write anything to the disk but they save all their stuff on the main server.

I noticed with my friends mac everything that you try to install it asks for the administrator password. This is an excellent feature.
Microsoft is trying to do the same thing in Windows Vista by giving all users a normal user account and whenever they want to install something it asks for the administrator priviliges, there is a feature on windows xp similar to that i think its called administrative privileges but it doesnt work all the time.


Now comes the part what i don't like about the mac os x.

I think Apple should make their OS X available for PC users, that way they would have more customers because Mac has features that are good for end users. If they made it available for pc users then i would definately buy one.

The other thing bad about Apple is they don't have support for so many things. On a pc you can get every software and hardware you want, but on a mac its limited. I recently booked for a Driving Theory Test and they sent me a cd. Now that cd would never work on a mac. What i believe Apple should do is make their operating system standard so manufactureres will support them. Right now apple wants to keep away from the standard stuff and use their own things which is not always a good idea. If i got a PCI network card would i be able to put that into a mac and use it?

The other thing i don't like about the mac os x is that the GUI is scattered with loads of stuff, i mean you got some icons at the bottom i really don't know what it is, and how can i find a program? I want to access Adobe Photoshop but i can't find it anywhere, this is where windows wins, all of the programs you installed are on the desktop or on the start menu, that is a much easier way of finding things.

I tried to connect mac to a network and it worked but there was no security, i spent about 2 hours trying to figure out how to secure the folder. At least with windows you have sharing permissions where you can give access to who can access what. I am not saying mac does not have it, it probably does have it somewhere but its really hard to find it.

I am a person that likes both operating systems because both of them have features that is useful, but at the same time both of them can be more useful if they had some important features.

I would like to end this by saying i am no way a Apple or Microsoft fanatic, i just like things to be easy and be nice to work with. Please do not start a debate about how mac is better than a pc or pc is better than a mac. I just like to share my views about the 2 OS's.

Please share your views and maybe we can make a change happend where a PC user can can install mac on their pc's. But also if mac change their GUI design similar to windows it would be much more easier.

completely missing the point.... OSX and Apple products are great becasuse they have control over every part of the process from design to sales and everything in between.

I think its very healthy to be able to see the merits and flaws in both operating systems, 90% of the world wouldn't use Windows if it was rubbish. On the other hand I choose to use Mac OS as it makes my daily life much easier and more productive than Windows once did.

It might be worth you buying an Intel Mac, that way you can play with OSX and get to know it more... but still have the option of booting into Windows.

Photek covered that point very well. When you start selling your OS to run on any crap hardware, you end up with the driver issues and instability that Windows is famous for.

I'm a Windows network admin and most of my money comes from that. I've been a Windows tech/user since 2.x. I stopped using Windows a couple years ago and can't imagine going back.

As far as icon and program location, they are there, just different. The apps are in a folder, not on a menu, but you can make that a menu. If you drag the apps folder to the right end of the dock, it will be like a "start" menu. You can also get nice pop-up app starters; that's what I use, much faster.

The dock is for programs and folders. The menu bar at the top right is for system items (kind of like systray). The menu bar at top left is the application menu. I think it all makes much more sense (once I got used to it).

every road leads to Roma.....
and...
every OS leads to Mac....hi hi...Vista is an example.

You've named one item that runs on a PC but not on a Mac, but there are things that run on a Mac and not on a PC. Does that mean that the PC is limited? Yes, but so what? Your Driving Theory Test isn't cross platform. It should be, and the fact that it isn't is the fault of the developer, not either platform. There are plenty of PCI network cards that work in Macs, just as there are for PCs.

Go to /Applications (Shift-Apple-A from the Finder) to find your applications. To add/remove things from the Dock, simply drag them to/from there.

Use Sharepoints.

God I hope not! As has been said in a previous post, part of what makes the Mac OS great is its tight integration with the hardware. Running OS X on cheap PCs will only cause problems. If you spend a few weeks using OS X, you'll probably find the Windows GUI to be very cumbersome when you go back to it. The Start Menu for example is a nightmare of slow to appear submenus that disappear if you don't keep the mouse in exactly the right position! If you want a computer that acts like a PC, use a PC, but please don't mess with the world's best user interface.

Hello, nearlyconverting! Thank you for your thoughtful post and the spirit in which it was written.

If I may generalize, I think the problem is that you're used to a different system which has its ways of doing things. I, too, am in that position (MacOS 9/8/7 did a handful of things in ways I like significantly better than I do the OS X way).

Do what I did: find the freeware and shareware apps and other tweaks that let you modify the user experience to be more like what I'm accustomed to.

Many other folks in here will probably tell you to just relinquish your desire to work in OS X the way you're used to working, and that after awhile the OS X will seem natural to you. That's not altogether bad advice, but I don't see any sign that you're inclined to see every difference setting the OS X experience apart from Windows as something that needs fixing.

I, for one, can't stand having icons to every app I've got cluttering up my Desktop. Ugh. But it's easy enough to create them (Command-Option-Drag each app to the Desktop).

I use a freeware add-on, X-Assist, as my app launcher. (I used OtherMenu under OS 9, and before that Apollo and OnCue. The Windows Start menu is the same general idea except X-Assist works from upper right corner instead of lower left). You have to configure it yourself, creating categories and, where desired, subcategories, and then put aliases to your apps where you want them to be. On the other hand, you probably spent some time reorganizing your Start Menu, unless you actually liked the inconsistent & arrogant arrangement created by the various software installers.

I agree with you about sharing folders or volumes with permissions you set up with granular control instead of the annoyingly inflexible OS X way. Do give SharePoints a try, although it still comes short of the flexibility I had under System 7 fifteen years ago :eek:

Everything you don't like about OS X has probably bugged someone else. Find what tweaks and tools give you what you want and customize your experience. It's a Mac: part of the Mac tradition is you get to do things your way :)

I just noticed this and while I agree that the Mac OS isn't perfect, I have to point out that nearly 90% of the world is unaware or only vaguely aware that there are alternatives to Windows. Sales are never a good indication of quality. Even the Ford Pinto (the exploding car!) was once a number one seller, and nobody ever accused it of being a good car.

Thanks for the comments guys, i think by next year i probably will buy a mac.

to cwtnospam:

thanks for the help but i do find one thing that you said not very nice.
when you mentioned this comment:

The really thing that bugged me is when you said "cheap PCs". I would like to say that I don't get cheap pc's, i build my own custom spec, i always get the latest and best of every component.
If Apple supported hardware other than their own i would recommend a mac to everyone. I am not saying Apple has bad design, Apple has got the best designs in the market but i would prefer to customise my computer. Its like saying everyone has the same brand and same model of a phone but I would like to be unique and be different. Nobody likes having the same car, everyone has different choices and tastes.

These are my views for mac:

Pros: Security, stability, graphical, smooth, just works, good features.

Cons: Compatibility issues e.g i tried to connect me Sony PSP on my friends mac and it didn't recognise it even after updating the mac. Third party software hard to find. Can't put mac on a pc. Apple should support this problem and i believe thats how they make their money by selling their hardware, so it would probably never happen.

These are my views for Windows:

Pros: Compatibility, easy to use, every hardware and software work on it. Good features.

Cons: Secrity issues, stability.


Also is there any website that i can trust on honest reviews of mac software and hardware?

Lastly i have seen a few people trying to start a debate this is one comment.

i'm sorry but they way you are saying this is like saying Microsoft always copies Mac and thats not always true becuase some of macs features comes from a windows operating system and vice versa. e.g Remote Desktop for mac.

Please stop trying to start a debate because it won't happen with me. I don't like to debate, instead i like to see facts and figures instead of opinions.

Anyway thanks guys for the comments, my friend is selling me a mac mini for £200 and i'm gonna go for it. I want to learn more about this OS because i beleive that the only way to change something is learn it yourself and show others.

one more thing i have to say is is Apple would take the plunge and make their software available on custom built pc's then they will have more customers

As has been said many, many times before (on these and other forums), Apple is a hardware company (they make most of their money from hardware).
So Apple wants to sell more Macs more than it wants to sell more copies of OS X.
If it sold OS X for non-Apple hardware, it would have to hugely increase the price - the current $129 price for OS X is subsidized by the hardware sales.

There's no way to allow OS X, or any OS for that matter, to run on only the best PC hardware. The fact is that there are many cheap PCs out there, and running OS X on any of them would diminish the Apple brand just as it has Windows. Personally, I hate Windows almost as much as I hate Microsoft, but I do recognise that Windows would be better than it is if Microsoft had control of the hardware.

I don't have a PSP, so I can't say anything about that, but generally plug-n-play is a reality on the Mac. I have a scanner, camera, printer, external hard drive, Palm PDA, iPod, Razr phone and I may still have a Zip drive around here somewhere. They all work easily with my Mac. The only problem that I can remember is Palm Desktop got corrupted once about 5 years ago. That may have been when I was using OS 9 though. I can't remember.

Third party software is easy to find. Here are a few places to begin any search:
http://www.macupdate.com/
http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/
http://www.aspyr.com/
http://www.freemacware.com/

Another new Mac user
 

Hello,

I have always been a PC user and my most recent job before my current one was as a PC technician for a school district. I applied for an "IT Tech" position in the classifieds and during the interview discovered that they use these strange machines called Macs instead of PCs. Not knowing anything about them, I figured after the interview that I would never hear from the company again. I was suprised to get a job offer and now I work almost exclusively on Macs.

While I am certain that most of the users I support probably know more about the machines than I do right now, at first glance it seems to me that learning a Mac is easier than learning a PC. I am impressed with the stability and feel of the Mac OS. I think the company I work for is going to send me to a Mac training course and I look forward to learning more.

Now, being a Windows user, it has taken some time to get used to a different way of doing things. However, I have not felt like I have been limited in any way or that Macs lack crucial features that would make them inferior.

Just one man's opinion/experience in a world and internet full of them.

If you strongly understand basic computing principles and networking, you can work with any platform. Especially when, like Macs, the machines are stable and require little direct work. Keeping the servers and infrastructure working is far more of my job than tending to workstations (even Windows, though they require certainly more effort than Macs).

The issue with most "Windows techs" is that they don't really understand computers. They learned details of Windows and a specific way to do things. They have no real understanding of the underlying principles and processes.

You make a good point. My experience up until recently had only been with Windows machines. It is easy to not think about how a task is accomplished on a different platform when you don't have to worry about anything other than what you normally support.

I hope to learn a lot more about Macs and computers in general. It just takes an open mind.

You can do what I do, and just install Linux on your PC. I have been working with windows since about 1993ish version 3.1 and never touched a mac till about 1998 with OS 8.6 or maybe it was just 8.1 I can't remember. Anyways, I was never impressed with older versions of the Mac OS, and I never really liked their hardware, until the B&W G3s came out. They were slick looking and got rid of that boring old Apple IIe look. However, the OS was still kind of lame to me. Then OS X came out, and I had been toying with Linux for a couple of years by then, so I was familar with Unix and the like.

At first 10.0 kind of got on my nerves, but I would say once 10.2 came out I was really starting to like OS X. Then of course 10.3 and 10.4 pretty much sold me solid on the OS. However I am not a fan boy of apple hardware. I build all my systems myself. I don't like paying the premium price for mac hardware. Even though people say it is comparable, and it honestly really is, I still would rather build it myself. A lot of people argue you can't compare a Mac to a build yoru own, and that also has some merit.

However, I would buy a Mac book Pro C2D if I you know had 3000 dollars of disposable income. I think apple truly makes some of the best laptops out there, and you can't really build a laptop.

I think Apple should release an open source version of their OS, and a community could be responsible for loading them on non apple hardware. Of course Apple, and others will say that will hurt their revenue. I think novell has the right idea right now. Make an enterprise level pay for software, OS, ServerOS, etc; then also make an open source version. I run open SuSE 10.1 and 10.2 on work computers and love it. They get everything done and work with everything. I run windows applications on my Linux box, and I have virtual machines of windows running on them as well.

Also, just to be fair all around, Macintosh computers really are some of the best ones you can use in digital arts. At the school I work for we have a G5 Maya render farm, and it is pretty damn impressive.

the one thing I hate about the mac platform is how apple kind of designs it in the idea of they know whats best for you. Other platforms tend to make what the users want. I know this is highly debateable and I am not trying to start a flame war, but if they were truly that much greater at everything then they would have the market share.

That's the other challenge for Windows admins. Well, and for Mac admins who are "forced" to work on Windows. Or the Linux guys who say that nothing else is worthy.

Sadly, I am slowly becoming one of those, nothing beats linux guys for networking infrastructure. Of course I think that Linux is not for every end user, but I am slowly becoming a Linux elitist I think......

Help me:eek:

A better example would be Budweiser.

Budweiweiser is a good example, but I wanted to show a product with lots of serious problems that still managed to be a number one seller. Besides, I think some people might claim that Bud is good. :eek: I don't think that anybody's going to claim that the Pinto was a quality vehicle. :D

http://www.google.com/search?q=Bud+is+good 3,110,000
http://www.google.com/search?q=Bud+is+bad 1,750,000

Same with Windows.

So then you see my point! :D

I've been a Mac owner for 4 days, and I disagree that the "GUI is scattered with loads of stuff". The GUI stays as clean as you want it to, I much prefer not to have my desktop cluttered with useless shortcut icons. Everytime I install a Windows program I have to remove the shortcut from the desktop, OS X never dumps shortcuts icons on my desktop. I hate the Start Menu paradigm, it's becomes a complete mess once you have had your Windows installation for a while. I end up having to waste time cleaning up my Start menu. This isn't just a Windows issue, try using KDE.
Now in the OS X world, I have the Dock, which is the equivalent of Windows' Taskbar and Quicklaunch Toolbar. I find the Dock takes up less space, is easier to use and manage than its Windows equivalents. Finding things in Mac OS X is 100 times easier than in Windows. Ok, I can't find Adobe Photoshop, big deal, I press Command-Space and start typing Photoshop, or I can install Quicksilver and press CTRL-Space and start typing Photoshop. The combination of Quicksilver and Spotlight has removed the need for a Start Menu.

I have owned my Mac since about the end of March 06 and i don't care about the fact that i have to save-up my money(no job, no income:() for a while to afford a new Mac when the time comes...

i won't be going back to any m$ OS ever again!!!;):D

I was quite happy too when i ran Windows but i knew that nobody swiched back to Windows after switching to Mac so i bought a Mac, and never regreted it despite my Windows-using father's nags about "me being the stupid one who bought a computer that is abnoramal" etc

One day he will change his mind:D

The only reason i may run Boot Camp would be for me to learn more about the worlds worst(in my opinon) OS (because a job i IT will probably require more expirence with M$ Windows to my utter disapointment:()

Even if i do decide to run Boot Camp or other, i will still use OS X as my primary OS.