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Have a sip of my own medicine? Hmmm. I simple pointed out the problems I had working with Macs for about 3 years. You are right regarding the dev tools on OSX. I downloaded them right off the bat as I wanted to see what all there was to offer. I must admit I found the multiple interfaces required to build a GUI app weird to say the least. The idea of wiring things together was also very strange I though. Nice metaphor but the implementation sucked big time. Maybe this has changed. I didn't have any real requirements to build on a Mac so it was just early morning late night lunch time play. I AM a windows developer when I need to develop. The tools I used from Apple were pretty rudimentarty. GDB for a debugger? Ok.... but almost feels like I am just using Emacs again... hey thats and option! The Sys admin kept saying Power Basic Power Basic but I declined. VB is bad enough for me. I do like .Net but I also like the VCL. Yes the Carbon, Cocoa thing was another point of contention for me. Call it my ignorance if it pleases you....
As to the Office crude it is real. It is pervasive to anything that you save files in a specific format; regardless the platform. The Mac simply amplified it. I came from a PC shop and I never had anywhere near the level of difficulty dealing with the outside world as I had when I was using a Mac. Why? Because the rest of the world I dealt with wasn't using a Mac. That simple. If this was a Mac world the scenerio would have been reversed. It isn't though; just the reality of the situation.
Now, I didn't set up the system, the Sys Admin did that. If it was screwed than so be it. As far as performance I can give you the fact that I did see an increase when we installed 'Panther?" on my system. This was after the first Aqua if I remember right. But...... see, it was like this before the install; I could roll my mouses scroll wheel (no, there just ain't no way I am working with a one button mouse)in a multipage PDF file and it would take about 15 senconds to scroll.... A SINGLE PAGE!!!. Freaking comical. If I rolled the thing a bunch up and down I could leave to get coffee and when I came back it would still be redrawing. No. Not funny at all! We were in the process of converting all of our internal documentation to PDF format. My GOD! What a nightmare it was. What I had was a G4, I believe it was a 800 mhz with a gig of ram. As I said, when it initially had OS9 on it there were constant issues with app hangs. I recall the admin uping the mem allocated to some apps and this helped but was in no way a cure. I just meant I couldn't multitask much anymore which meant so much for cut and paste. OSX just didn't impress me other than the pretty interface. Mind you it is damn nice looking. Just useless to me. If it siuts your needs then more power to you!
Now for the Mac fanaticism I will offer up one simple and current anecdote as justification for my statement. Mind you, I could dole out many hundereds more like this if I can recall enough detail to them. They happen almost every day. Anyway, I was shown a new Mac Mini and was being told just how great it was. So small (and of course so attrative looking). The question posed was why did PCs have to be so big? The answer given was that Intel and M$ simply couldn't do it or just needed someone to show them the way (not my answer, the whole time I am simply say yah and huh. I found this the most effective way to walk away from these type of conversations without having hard feelings on the other side of the aisle). The next comment was (to paraphrase) 'Just wait. There will be little PCs on the market soon and everyone will act as if Intel and Winblows was the start of it all'. The whole time I am thinking, 'huh, how do you explain the EBX form factor PC with PC104 cards in it that I acquired two years ago to perform OCR? Just a tad bigger than the Mac mini; ugly in comparison but very adequate at performing it's task and invisible on the production floor. See, the difference the way I see it is I looked at the Mac mini with interest and saw a nice looking, well packaged computer.... that is small enough to HIDE... so you cannot see it.... Confused? Yeh. Cool case? Hell yeh. Are the cosmetics worth extra money to a business? Hell no! Especially considering the box will be hidden. Is it a great innovation? No. Small form factor boxes have been around a long time. Did this matter? Of course not. They were not Apple so they didn't even exist. Now, don't try to tell me the nice chassis is free. I can get an small form factor system with serial, floppy and a PCI port for about $100 less than the Mini and it uses a current processor (Pentium M) as opposed to the previous generation. See, that is the difference. I looked at the situation from the standpoint of dollars and payback. From this perspective it sickens me when I am told there really is no difference in cost between a $3500 G5 system and a new PC..... I guess I must have failed third grade math cause it just don't add up. That is unless you pad the PC with not needed SCSI (not in the mac either) a really monster video card (also not comparable to the one in the mac) and mutiple drives (the Mac had a single drive) Sure, the the prices equal out but the perfomace again goes to the PC. Simply crazy! It is such an obvious struggle for justification that it is silly.
Just to be clear I in no way said everyone who uses a Mac fits in this catagory but I really cannot think of anyone who had a party so their friends could all gather around while they opened up the box their new PC came in.... can you?
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davemc759 wrote:
I simple pointed out the problems I had working with Macs for about 3 years.
Your problems were indicative of you sound like you aren't too familar with Macs. Oddly enough, if you listen to many average end users in Windows, a lot of them complain about their computers being slow. The point is, some times the OS isn't the only thing to blame. Not trying to sound harsh, but it's the truth.
davemc759 wrote:
You are right regarding the dev tools on OSX. I downloaded them right off the bat as I wanted to see what all there was to offer. I must admit I found the multiple interfaces required to build a GUI app weird to say the least. The idea of wiring things together was also very strange I though. Nice metaphor but the implementation sucked big time. Maybe this has changed. I didn't have any real requirements to build on a Mac so it was just early morning late night lunch time play. I AM a windows developer when I need to develop. The tools I used from Apple were pretty rudimentarty. GDB for a debugger? Ok.... but almost feels like I am just using Emacs again... hey thats and option!
Apple has released more developer tools than the MPW and GDB ya know - search harder. Also, if you're looking for a commercial environment CodeWarrior is popular for Mac development as well.
davemc759 wrote:
see, it was like this before the install; I could roll my mouses scroll wheel (no, there just ain't no way I am working with a one button mouse)in a multipage PDF file and it would take about 15 senconds to scroll.... A SINGLE PAGE!!!.
Actually, I remember the slowness of PDFs on 10.0, but I believe your exaggerating because it nowhere near that for me and I was on a G3 w/ 256MB of RAM. Perhaps your PDFs were extremely large. If memory serves me correctly, OSX was the first time Apple included *native* PDF support, I guess there was some issues, but 10.1 fixed a lot of them.
Either way, Acrobat Reader isn't the fastest (until recently) on the planet in Windows. It's silly to judge an OS based on that.
davemc759 wrote:
I found this the most effective way to walk away from these type of conversations without having hard feelings on the other side of the aisle).
I agree. Most people like such don't really know much about computers whether or not they are pro-Windows, pro-Mac, or whatever.
davemc759 wrote:
I can get an small form factor system with serial, floppy and a PCI port for about $100 less than the Mini and it uses a current processor (Pentium M) as opposed to the previous generation. See, that is the difference.
Well, there are some more differences (it's a whole other discussion though), but I'll say a few: less heat, RISC, and better throughput (haven't speced out the minis yet, but it's typical of Apple to have this).
davemc759 wrote:
That is unless you pad the PC with not needed SCSI (not in the mac either) a really monster video card (also not comparable to the one in the mac) and mutiple drives (the Mac had a single drive)
The higher end Macs are still SCSI (SCSI used to be the Mac standard until IDE finally became decent). Nowadays though, the higher end Macs are shipping with SATA. If you had EIDE, you probably hade a lower end Mac (you can still skimp out on parts to save money even on the PowerMacs) and it didn't cost $3,500.
About the video card, it all depends on the configuration. No different than the PC world.
davemc759 wrote:
Just to be clear I in no way said everyone who uses a Mac fits in this catagory
I never implied it (at least I don't think so). My point is, I just don't like seeing people needlessly bash Macs. I'm not saying you, but most people bash them without ever having used them, or they might have used them for 5 mins. but didn't like it because it was unfamiliar and they therefore bash it.
Jeremy Falcon
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You know, had I been introduced to a Mac in a different fashion I might have found it more enjoyable but that is just more water under the bridge. Now I have that once bitten twice shy syndrome. So based on my real life experiences I will never ever recommend a Mac to anyone... at least that is where I stand today. As I said in my initial post, things have a habit of changing and time tells all. So we will see where the chips lie when they all fall eh? In the mean time, enjoy your Apple. I hope it meets your tastes well. I have code to write, late as it is.
Choa.
So many adages, so little space
BTW the 15 seconds was when I opened fairly large PDF files, say over 200 pages (and yes it was that slow).
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I have a small network at home with one server station, 3 high quality desktops and one laptop. I use soa applications to keep everything in sync. If I can connec't to internet I don't even need a special computer personalized. I just use remote desktop to one computer at home and it's just like working from home.
Since I'm still a student everything works perfect for me and the people in my family at home.
I also got the blogging virus..[^]
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i have a desktop pc. 192 MB Ram, 600Mhz PentiumIII, 40GB of HDD with a DVD ROM. i have this one for the last 4 yrs
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I have a fairly good desktop (1.25GHZ Athlon CPU, 512 MB RAM, 120GB HD, XP Pro), and an 'ancient' laptop (233MHZ CPU, 96MB RAM, 2GB HD, Win98SE). I use the laptop for Remote Desktop to my PC when I don't want to be actually at my PC (I use it in the garage, workshop, livingroom, etc). Bit irksome to use sometimes because under Windows 9x, Alt+Tab and other system hotkeys aren't forwarded to the host PC, and because the max resolution is 800x600 - but it's useful to have.
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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to a very good pc with high end components. So now I have to wait until I have enough money for a nice laptop ^^
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I use laptops 95% of the time, and am amazed at the different response my hands have to various keyboards.
First off, I used to get carpal tunnel using a standard keyboard on a desktop machine. I've never suffered symptoms with the MS Natural Keyboard. With laptops, I've had mixed experiences. With the Dell laptops I've owned, I've never had a problem. In fact, I stopped using a full-size keyboard with them. When I purchased a Toshiba P25-S507, I thought that the larger keyboard size wouldn't be a problem.
Boy, was I wrong. There's something about the fact that the keyboard is sunken or something else that causes my little fingers to start tingling within 10 minutes of using it, which eventually spreads to my whole hand and doesn't go away for about 48 hours.
So, while I use it at home as my primary machine, I always have a full size keyboard plugged into it, and like Corinna said, a mouse, a second monitor, etc.
Marc
MyXaml
Advanced Unit Testing
YAPO
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... up until last year when i put it inside my backpack with a big bottle of Pepsi...
Norman Fung
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I have my Toshiba Tablet PC which also supports an additional 1280x1000 resolution monitor and it rocks.
I'm suprised to hear people prefering a "bigger" keyboard; unless you're coding in Hex I wouldn't have thought the number pad would be much use.
Since I switched to using laptops with their smaller keyboards I have suffered less strain, and I also get to count my 30 minute ferry ride every morning and evening as quality programming time; an hour a day certainly adds up.
Laptops rock!
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Anyone else working on a Terminal Server?
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I believe that laptops are just too small to work with - I have this dekstop with a large-keys-MS-keyboard, dual monitors (thinking about the 3rd), and a good optical mouse.
We use laptops only for product presentation on customer sites, and even our sales people prefer using desktops.
BTW, just to be fair, my computer is not a "desktop", it's an "under-desk", only the KVM is over the desk 
I see dead pixels
Yes, even I am blogging now!
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Mostly, I use my portable like a desktop.
I have a big screen, MS Natural Keyboard, and a mouse on my desk, all attached to a little laptop... and whenever I want to leave, I take the core of my desktop computer with me!
_________________________________
Vote '1' if you're too lazy for a discussion
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Corinna John wrote:
I have a big screen, MS Natural Keyboard, and a mouse on my desk, all attached to a little laptop... and whenever I want to leave, I take the core of my desktop computer with me!
Exactly!!! 
Marc
MyXaml
Advanced Unit Testing
YAPO
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Corinna John wrote:
laptop with certain anchor
Does a docking station count as an anchor?
-------------------------
Spiffdog Design
It's ok.. he's no ordinary dog...
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i don't like laptops because i think their keyboards are uncomfortable, so i use desktop only
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but you can attach external keyboard
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just another thing to plug in, carry around etc.
Mouse, Keyboard, Power supply. yuck.
Pandoras Gift #44: Hope. The one that keeps you on suffering.
aber.. "Wie gesagt, der Scheiss is' Therapie"
boost your code || Fold With Us! || sighist | doxygen
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if u r having Laptop plzzzzz send it to me 
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I agree, that's why I have a spare keyboard at work and at home, to plug my notebook in to.
Christian
I have several lifelong friends that are New Yorkers but I have always gravitated toward the weirdo's. - Richard Stringer
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What about monitor size... I can see how to code in VC++ without a 21" monitor!
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I'm the reverse.
I think my typing improves noticably when using a laptop keyboard, although I only use laptops for general IT tasks and not writing code. I do hate using those trackpads though.
Die Freiheit spielt auf allen Geigen
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