Apple computers

[Ken45101]

I'm typing this on an 8 year old Mac Mini. I also have a 6 year old Dell/Windows 7 computer on the desk. That was bought primarily for ham radio software.

If you are happy to stick to what Apple wants, the Mac is pretty good. I use it for email and web browsing.

One interesting tying: I have virus protection running on the PC, nothing on the Mac. I recently ran MalwareBytes on both computers. The Mac came up clean despite no protection. The Dell had 220 suspicious or bad files on it even though it runs with full time protection. Hmmm.

 

[MossRoad]

If you're in the IT department, IMO you write the code for the software your company uses to function as a business.

...

If you're in the IT department, you do what your employer wants you to do.

 

[MossRoad]

I'm typing this on an 8 year old Mac Mini. I also have a 6 year old Dell/Windows 7 computer on the desk. That was bought primarily for ham radio software.

If you are happy to stick to what Apple wants, the Mac is pretty good. I use it for email and web browsing.

One interesting tying: I have virus protection running on the PC, nothing on the Mac. I recently ran MalwareBytes on both computers. The Mac came up clean despite no protection. The Dell had 220 suspicious or bad files on it even though it runs with full time protection. Hmmm.

What's even more fun is when your anti-virus program thinks an upgrade to software is malware/virus and kills it! :laughing:

My old employer had that happen on numerous occasions over the years on production software. Splendid.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

If you like Mac's, they are the best.

If you like Windows, then those computers are the best.

There, did that clear things up?:laughing:

And if you use linux, you get work done.

Almost all the computers that run operations that I’ve worked on for the last 30 yrs run something Unix. In the last 10+ yrs Linux.

99% of desktop computers for email, office and sw development at work are windows.

If you want to customize your system and not run stock machine you don’t go apple.

If you just turn it on and browse the web use a chrome book.

If you want Apple Pay for apple.

 

[aczlan]

I'm typing this on an 8 year old Mac Mini. I also have a 6 year old Dell/Windows 7 computer on the desk. That was bought primarily for ham radio software.

If you are happy to stick to what Apple wants, the Mac is pretty good. I use it for email and web browsing.

One interesting tying: I have virus protection running on the PC, nothing on the Mac. I recently ran MalwareBytes on both computers. The Mac came up clean despite no protection. The Dell had 220 suspicious or bad files on it even though it runs with full time protection. Hmmm.

That would depend on what the suspicious file is, I have seen numerous cases where the antivirus software thought that a Windows component was spyware or a virus.

If you're in the IT department, you do what your employer wants you to do.

Exactly, we have a couple of software programs at work that are critical to making things function (especially at certain times of the year).
Some of them we pay for support on, some of them we had custom built to our specifications, all of them we do as much as we can in house, but there are places in the program where is simpler and more efficient to deal with someone who works with setting up a program day in and day out versus someone who knows more or less what makes it tick, but has to dig and try to remember the details.

Aaron Z

 

[MossRoad]

And if your vendor support contract costs less than an in-house programmer, well, you eliminate the in-house programmer.

 

[dragoneggs]

Not that my opinion is worth more than anyone else's here but I will spew my experience with 'PC's over the last fifty years and where I am now on the matter of Apple vs. Windows OS and hardware.

Apple hardware lasts longer than other
Apple support better
Apple OS much harder to mess up...
Apple much more expensive
Apple doesn't have as many programming options
Apple syncs easily with all related devices
Apple doesn't need paying for antivirus software
Apple can run windows (Parallels software)... l love it.


I have had many and still do use desktop Windows PC's and laptops (furnished by my company) over many years. I have had only a two Apple MacBook Pro laptops over the past 8 years. My boneyard of computers is full of windows based machines. Every Apple device I have purchased (iPods, iPads, iWatches, etc.) all still work and have been passed on to kids, grandkids, etc. as I upgraded. Can't say that about windows based stuff.

About 3+ years ago my first MacBook (5years old) was failing and I took it to Apple to fix. I spent about an hour in the store and after diagnostics they found the problems and could fix it but the time for parts was more than 30 days so they said they would not fix it but...

Long story short they offered me a brand new 15in Pro Retina display in exchange for about $350! Thought I died and went to heaven. I didn't believe them until I walked out of the store with a brand new $2500 laptop for $350. Loving it and typing on it as we speak.

Unfortunately, our IT department is only issuing windows OS machines. Our company needs to comply with the latest ISO and DoD regs for security reasons and they don't want to deal with multiple platforms and OS, so now I carry a crappy HP (with supposedly so much security built in), my MacBook Pro (that I do as much work on as I can unless I need security access, my iPad, and my iPhone. Four pieces of computer equipment when I travel and I am on the road about 100 nights per year.

The only machine I have problems with is the company issued Windows PC. And it is not the hardware... my company issues me a new laptop every two to three years and the sync and VPN connection problems continue to persist. I can't fault them too much as the security regulation 'goal posts' continue to change.

I could go on and on here but after using windows hardware and software for many years and still do, I prefer Apple products. Bottom line, Apple costs a fair bit more but if you have multiple devices, phone, tablet, computer... then it is a no brainer to me. If you don't care to sync your data, and are not a 'power' user, then save your money and get a windows device. My :2cents:

 

[Sigarms]

If you're in the IT department, you do what your employer wants you to do.

My point is there is a difference in technical ability between an IT person and a network administrator.

Salesforce is huge in business right now. The reason why it's so big? Because companies don't have their own IT department to write their own software for customer service management on what THEY want.

 

[Sigarms]

And if your vendor support contract costs less than an in-house programmer, well, you eliminate the in-house programmer.

After getting costs to add changes on simple "in house changes" (that the house couldn't change LOL), it would be far cheaper to have an in house programer IMO (pretty much starting off a 2k and up for ANY small change).

You also hit the nail on the head with the term contracts. Contracts change...

Biggest issue is IMO is companies buy canned software without testing it enough out in the field to get exactly what they want.

 

[Katahdin]

Salesforce is huge in business right now. The reason why it's so big? Because companies don't have their own IT department to write their own software for customer service management on what THEY want.

My old company has a sizeable IT department and we had other CRM packages like Siebel. My view is they went to sales force because the business just wants to outsource everything IT and put it in the "cloud."

Anywho, back to Macs:

My first Mac was an Amiga 500 with a MacPlus emulator that used real 128K Mac ROM chips

I picked up a used IIsi at a pawn shop for college.

Bought the first new Mac 9500/120 with my student discount, it was the first PCI mac, and at $4400 it was crazy expensive for my part-time lab pay at $8.30/hr, but you could get an Apple Loan like a car loan. It probably paid for itself for the photoshop and web work I was doing at the time. I made that Mac last for years with processor upgrades, the CPU was on a daughter card, but eventually the 50Mhz bus made it too slow to keep. That big sucker had 12 DIMM slots and 6 PCI slots.

After burning out from Web work I went into UNIX administration, bought the first Mac mini G4 for home use. That is the last personal Mac I bought for myself.

I set my Mom up with 2 generations of the intel Mac Minis, they never had problems.

That all said, when I went to replace my personal laptop this year, I tried hard to justify a new Mac for home web/email/video playing and I just couldn't do it. I went with a 15.6" ASUS full HD chrome book instead and I'm pretty happy with it so far.