On Wed, 13 Nov 2002, Lou Forlini wrote:
> Ed,
>
> Now there you go again. It is so completely laughable that you
> claim to use Windows and not ever to have had any of the problems
> those users in the Switch ads talk about. Imagine that, Ed has never
> seen a Windows BSOD, or had a peripheral that wouldn't work right
> under Windows. Well sir, that either means you have never actually
> turned your Windows machine *on*, or you are a liar.
<DECLOAKING>
I have to jump in here and state a few things. First off, let's quit this
OS bashing BS right now. We all know Apple is on the right path and
Microsoft is the evil empire. There's no reason to keep stating it any
more than stating that the sky is blue (except when it's gray.) :)
That said, a bit about my background: I've been a practicing MCSE for the
last 7 years and have used the evil dark side OS's for just as
long. Further, back in the days when money was tight, I took up teaching
MCSE courses and managed to get a trainer cert. I bailed out when I
managed to get decent paying jobs and saw that the class was filled with
burger flippers who never touched a keyboard before and said "I hear I can
make better money if I get this Microsoft thing..."
Meanwhile I had been using Unix for almost as long, and got more and more
into Solaris, but that's another tale.
The bottom line is this, in theory Windows NT, 2000 and the like are
excellent, great OS's. In practice, they're buggy and full of holes.
I've seen plenty of machine BSOD all the time. This is a simple
issue. You've got either bad hardware (RAM's going bad, CPU overheating,
etc.) or far more likely bad drivers. And let me tell you, there are
PLENTY of badly written drivers out there.
I've also seen extremely stable NT and 2000 machines (security holes
aside) with hundred days or more uptime.
At the same time, the trend from my view has been that the more I know NT,
the less I like it. I never got into XP, and never will, not because it's
a horrible OS, but because Microsoft decided to become big brother and
force hardware registrations and the like. I don't care to have to call
Microsoft each time I wipe and reinstall or upgrade my machines. 2000
works fine for the machines I need it on, Solaris works great for the
machines I need it on, and so does MacOS.
No, it's not any harder in Windows or in OS X. They're both operating
systems, and if you dont' get it, you don't get it. There's nothing to be
done about that. There are people who don't get MacOS either. It's the
way it is.
I've used tons of platforms in my time and started out on Commodore Pet's,
Sinclair 1000's vic20's c64's, c128's, Macs, Coleco Adam's, old TI's,
PC's, AT&T EO's, Newtons, Suns, SGI, HP-UX, NeXTStations, Cannon Cat's,
Lisa's, and even the fabled Xerox Star.
And let me remind you MacOS <=9.x is a very pretty, but crappy OS in terms
of multitasking and VM. I'd use 2000 over it any day because it's far
more stable. On that point, I'd rather use Solaris, OpenBSD, or Linux
over both of them -- the reason I don't is because of hardware and
software availability. That's all.
And should by some stroke of luck Apple be in a position to grab 99% of
the market, you'll find that peripherals on Macs will also have lame buggy
drivers that cause crashes. Linux, Solaris, and *BSD have the same
issues. Bugs in anything that lives in kernel mode will crash the
machine, no way around that. Get over it.
You just see less of it because there are less hardware and software
vendoers for MacOS than there are for Windblows, AND because only Apple
makes Macintoshes now.
Don't give me any bull about better stability on MacOS, it just ain't
so. I have vivid (or should I say livid) memories of the PPC 7200 - one
of the 1st PCI slot Macs being about as stable as Windows 95. This was a
hardware issue also. Or that wonderful little powerbook that was prone to
catching fire?
None of this means that Jobs is either genious nor idiot. It's just life.
It's true, Apple has always been an innovator and always willing to spend
the R&D $$$ where Gates happily and greedily copied it all.
Switch commercials are after all just commercials, they are not the law of
a burning bush, brought down from the holy mountain by Steve Jobs for all
to worship. They're intended as tools of capitalism, to ultimately put
money in Apple's coffers, and keep Apple alive.
That Apple makes kick ass hardware and (now) a great OS is not in dispute
either. But there are bugs in all things, and there are lemons out there
to be bought. (And if you've never seen IRIX running on an SGI Indy with
the camera hooked up, you haven't seen a great user friendly beautiful
OS - in a lot of ways MacOS has caught up with IRIX - but I've never been
deep into IRIX due to that old saw, lack of software - that I could
afford anyway.)
Flaming Ed is just a sign that you foolishly have drank the Koolaid from
Job's cup extended to you in little customer sound bites. Yes, I've loved
Apple for many years now despite the warts. Hell, I even had the 1984
commercial as my answering machine message in the past. But a commercial
is just that. Apple is not a temple, Mac OS is not a religion, and Jobs
is neither Satan nor Jesus.
Wake up. It's just hardware and software. You won't gain Jedi mind
powers if you use a TiBook, and despite The Joy of Tech comic, hot girls
will not flock around you because you use a Mac versus a Linux box. :)
The force will not be with you if you flame others for being OS agnostic.
The only thing you're showing is narrow mindedness and lack of
flexibility.
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