Sensible Windows vs Mac debate (NO FLAMES, please)...

Ah, Cornwall. I live in London (yes, as I write this I can hear police sirens dopplering past my flat) but Cornwall is my refuge every summer. Bodmin Moor is the home of my other half’s parents. I love it. We spend our time eating out at the Jamaica Inn, walking the moors, sunning ourselves at Rock and listening to the locals bemoan their plight in Padstowe. Love it.

Ha! Take that Portlanders! Now it’s the turn of the Brits to waffle on about local things (“local” pronounced League-of-Gentlement-stylee, obviously).

Best,
Keith

I find the “who’s better” debate kind of ridiculous.

From an “art” perspective, Apple wins hands down. Of course Macs are better – prettier, more stable, more elegant in virtually every aspect. Apple makes an OS that runs only on their machines. They answer to a relatively small and demanding user base. They are the culmination of a single (and singular) vision. They have no need to compromise their OS to accommodate hundreds of millions of people. Hell, even their trade shows are more fun.

On the commerce side of things however, MS, of course, has had that wrapped up for a decade. Microsoft may be Apple’s rival, but Apple is not Microsoft’s. At best, Steve is a thorn in Bill’s side.

Mr. Jobs and his ad agency have wisely chosen to pretend that there is still a debate raging. It’s convenient and profitable to have a bad guy, a fixed point of comparison – but I imagine that most Windows users see the whole thing as kind of odd, if not obnoxious. We Mac evangelists must seem like patrons at an Olive Garden, complaining loudly because it’s not The French Laundry.*

Apple is small and elite and narrowly focused, and I want them to stay that way.** I wish them continued success and growth – but I hope they never do much better than peeling off a few more market share points from MS.

I agree, Apple lovers, OS X should be the OS of choice for everyone in the world. God forbid.

*Sorry for the U.S.-centric example, rest of the world. I’m sure you get my point.

** That goes for Scrivener too, Keith!

All the same, I don’t doubt Safari for Windows might be making Microsoft a little nervous.

KB Wrote:

Jamaica Inn… Funny how we’re back to authors, isn’t it? Real du Maurier country! I drove past yesterday, detouring from the A30 to follow the old road through Bolventor, then headed over toward St Neot to take in the views at Colliford Lake, back around towards Hawks Tor as the sun was sinking, and I picked up the A30 again at Temple. Wonderful light! Sound familiar Keith?
I live ‘way down west’, about eight miles from Lands End - I won’t name the hamlet, but recently someone did over-paint the village sign with the legend “Royston Vaseyâ€

A good thread is like plant that needs love. Plant it and with the right attention is grows into something to admire. Then it matures and goes dormant, waiting for someone to pay attention to it and suddenly it’s bright and beautiful again.

Love a good thread, especially when it splits and goes in three directions at once.

Iain

Scuse me, but, as a definitely none/ none/ none techie, who couldn`t tell a command line interface, from his arse or his elbow; even if one jumped out of a darkened shop doorway, and indecently exposed itself to him, I was wondering if the title of this topic is grammatically correct.

Is there such an animal as, SENSIBLE Windows

I`m confused.

Take care
Vic

Sensible windows - yes. They have a PVC frame. You can buy them from the same retailer that sells Unhinged doors, though I do not recommend the latter.

It should be noted that Enterprise windows, though more expensive, have that nice mirrored exterior surfacing which will lend an exotic look to any home.

Not to mention the energy saving, heat retaining properties of triple K-type glazing. You can read anything through them too…

Scuse me,but can I interject for a second. I dont want to deflect the profoundly philosophical direction this thread heading in, but, I would like Keith to clarify in what sense is he using the word unhinged . Does he mean an object that has lost its ability to move in space, through an arc of X number of degrees of a circle, or does he mean, like that bunch of fecking nerdo`ells; deadbeats and no-hopers: my in-laws.

In anticipation of elucidation

Vic

Aye, there’s the rub.

Oh Great One, Sire of Scrivener,

Doest thou mean “Aye, they`re the rub”.

You can say that again.

Now to sleep, per chance to dream,
Sweet dreams, me thinks and you too , Lord of the House of Scrivener.

Keith my Liege
Your liegeman prostrates himself at your feet in supplication, for , having slept: but fitfully; and dreamt, not sweetly, there In my sleep of death like state, was it not revealed unto me, the error of my ways; Do not deign to doubt your Masters words, uttered or written.

In this most parlous state, was I not pursued by three of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Which three, my Liege, I know not, but only that they were of fiercesome disposition and appearance. Two, launching themselves into cyberspace from Bodmin Moor, the third from off the Oregon Trail.

As one is wont to do, in situations such as this, my Lord, did I not dream of being trapped on the edge of a precipice, confronted by the leader of the three; his sword raised high above my head, intent on cleaving me in two.
Suddenly, the sound of a bugle call, drifted over the ether. The three demons looked at one-another and as one, they uttered the word, “Shit !!”. Whereupon with the sound of POP! POP! POP! they disappeared.

Not as I expected; the banner of The Horsemen of Rohan fluttering on the breeze, as they rode up-to me, but that belonging to a troop of the US 7th Cavalry. There leader dismounted and approached me.

Stopping a few feet away and with a knowing look on his face, he said, " Buster, you screwed up up big time, didnt y?" I just smiled sheepishly and nodded. He continued, “But, to err is human, to forgive divine”.
“Just a minute John”, I said, " The plot is supposed the be Shakespearianesque, but you just dragged Alexander Pope into it".

John turned slowly towards his dust spattered cavalry men and their mounts and then back to me, "There aint nothn Shakesperian about that lot and anyway the scriptwriters are crap". 'Thats what I thought, when you used the phrase screwed up`
“Pay attention now and stop splitting hairs”

" Our friends the double glazing company in Redmond, Washington", he continued, " Have openly admitted trying to get their product, to look like the product of that other well known double glazing company, in Cupertino, which entitles them to call themselves `Sensible Windows".

I was about to agree with him when I woke up , drench in sweat.

Your loyal subject
vic

I can go back to punch cards and paper tape and the delights of editing individual cards with a hand punch…

To me the difference between Macs and PCs is down to the philosophy of Apple v Microsoft. For MS designing software is all about ensuring domination. Things are done either to eliminate opposition or at the very least make it difficult, in order to ensure the maintenance of the monopoly.

OTOH, Apple is about the end user. It’s about designing stuff that brings something to people’s lives, either enabling them to do things they couldn’t do before or make it easier.

Those philosophies rub off on developers. ‘Good enough’ doesn’t cut it for Mac users, they crave elegance and ease of use. The average PC user though, regards ‘cheap’ as the main criterion.

As somebody elsewhere on this thread (almost) remarked, a PC user will come to you and tell you how cheap their machine was, a Mac user will show you something exciting they did with their new Mac.

Just my tuppence worth…

Greetings Tacitus,
If you can go back that far youre possibly older than I am. Im 63.

If youve clocked any of my other posts, youll be aware I dont do serious very well, its nearly all asinine tripe, looking for lodgings in somebody`s chuckle, unless, that is, where a lack of seriousness is offensively irreverent. So this will probably choke me, but:

A nursing sister on a degree course once informed me, as we debated the near impossibility of reconciling practice with theory , that on her course, they had been shown how it involved Quantum Mechanics. It was Christmas Day and both of us had imbibed, so I didnt venture down that avenue and as a consequence, I dont really know how Q.M. impacts upon conflict resolution, which is what this thread is all about, is it not?

The best way to resolve contentious issues is to take the best from both sides of the argument and blend them together and put to one side. Now take that, which with a little bit of give and take from both sides can be deemed acceptable and blend together with the first blending, and there you have it ,
an acceptable compromise; all the things of value from both sides of the debate, as there will always be something of merit to be gleaned from both sides.

What springs to mind, is this thing I`m writing this post on: INTEL CORE2 DUO iMAC with at last, has obscene amounts of RAM; Exocet fast processor and gi-normous hard drive. A quantum leap for Apple, and why? because of an amalgamation with Intel, making use of a piece of evolved PC technology, thats used in, probably, every other non-Apple PC manufactured today. AMD are making similar spec.chips.

Wintel v Apple is a more sensible title (Keiths gonna luv that), since it acknowledges the fact that were debating the relative merit and demerits, of numerous brands of hardware incorporating MS OS and one brand, the other, OS X

Its awhile since I read the Mac Mags and Press, but at the time it seemed to me, that all the Mac Heads were saying that, MSs Office for MAC was a better piece of software, than it produced for its own MS OFFICE, and also O for M was the most widely used piece of software for the MAC OS. Perhaps things have changed, I don`t know, but MS must have been doing something better than Apple.

As far as hardware goes; apart from the aesthetic side of the debate, in which it can be said without fear of contradiction, that Apple are the trail blazers, what went on under the cover, has been a different story. PowerPC chips, pound for pound relatively faster than than the others; true, but when youre watching Intel and AMD moving into multiples of gigahertz, while IBM are still fannying around with megahertz, the pound for pound analogy becomes redundant when all other PC manufacturers are installing 100+Gig hard drives, Apple are still pushing 6/10 20 Gig. Apple graphics cards ? "not that brilliant", etc. etc.etc. It doesn't say much for Apples opinion of its loyal customer base. It does however make you wonder if Apples Execs have been cynically exploiting that loyalty.

Another thing about customer loyalty, especially the European customers. Why can my daughters boy friend go the States on holiday , and buy himself a MacBook substantially cheaper than he can over here. Dont go looking for the near 2 to 1 $/£ exchange rate, you wont get it not from Apple. But what you can count on with Apple, is the oppotunity of paying substantially more for your favorite product, than the guy next door pays for his favorite non-Apple product of similar or superior spec.

The iMAC I`ve just bought came with a keyboard PINBALL machine. If I plug my mouse into the LH USB socket, the curser flies all over the screen just like the pin ball. I can only use the RH socket.

My Mighty Mouse is no longer as mighty as it when it came out of the box, because the scroll wheel has stopped working, but, it doesnt matter, because Im using MS Optical mouse.

The fact that, approx 40% of the time, when moving the curser over the screen the window I`m working in zooms away to the left or right or to the top or the bottom.

I`m starting to get used to the very sharp, loud, mechanical CRACK!!! that quite often occurs when booting up, as the the little wheel stops spinning. It still scares my wife though.

My iMAC`s Superdrive makes noises similar to our waste disposal unit in the kitchen sink only quieter.

Sooner or later my wife is going to wet herself when she hears that crack!! and I suppose thats when Ill get round to taking Mac back to John Lewis, and say to guy behind the counter,Macs poorly, can you make him better please, but dont hurt him. Hes not a computer yknow, hes a MAC.

You see Tacitus, the Wintel/Mac debate, has been going on for ever and is shrouded in the swirling mists, not of time, but urban myth and its that, that fuels the proselytizing that emanates from both camps, and is probably 40% fact 60% mist But, and its a big but, long may it continue, just as long as you can still pick the PC man`s empty glass up off the pub table and ask " Same again, friend?’.

Take care
Vic

Quote: “If you can go back that far you’re possibly older than I am. I’m 63”.

Not quite but you’re in the ball park. At the risk of getting off topic I used to design motorways for a living and I recall that a section of motorway had a whole tray of cards to it, each one giving its position, level and other details at 100 foot intervals. The sequence had to be correct else the programmes wouldn’'t work. Once saw a grown man weep when he dropped a whole tray representing a 10 mile stretch of road…

Back on topic, since both Apple and MS are US companies they do like to make shed loads of dosh. It’s the American Way, but if you accept the profit motive as equal to both companies I still think the ‘way’ of making it is different, hence the difference in philosophy.

And I don’t even use Scrivener… Just trying it but until now didn’t have something to give it a decent workout.