Going Mac...maybe.

[dmccarty]

I have used dozens and dozens of Windows systems over the years. Right now I have four at my desk plus three that we have at home. I have only had to reinstall windows once on a work system in the last few years. That system got hosed when I moved which put me on a different network. Should not have been a problem but the system appears to have been in the middle of a update when I moved. This is the only work system I have had to rebuild that I can remember.

Of our home systems, my first windows system caught on fire. Yes you heard that right. But a fire in the power supply is not Bill's fault. It did not require a reinstall. The other two desktops we have are just fine.

My wife is having fits with her laptop. She has had to reload previous configurations a few times for some reason. This is the only windows system that has been a constant pain. And I'm not sure its hardware related.

Our last system we got this year for about $700 is a Quad core with 4GB running 64bit Vista. Its been working very well. I'm using it as a DVR. It can record TV shows while I do other work or play games. No delays at all.

I don't like Windows but the software I need runs on it so I'm stuck. Mac is just too expensive for what you get. My first micro computer was an Apple II+ which I paid $800 for a 16K or RAM and used a cassette drive for storage.

Later,
Dan

 

[Dargo]

Second, and perhaps more importantly, Microsoft steals from people!! I had a laptop that I bought about a year and a half ago. It came with Microsoft One Care on it so I went ahead and subscribed to it. My son took that computer to college and it got destroyed. After it was about a year old Microsoft emailed me to tell me that they were going to charge me another $55 for continuing the One Care antivirus etc. software subscription. I emailed them and wrote them telling them that I do NOT want it continued because that computer no longer exists. Surprise, surprise, when I got my next CC bill Microsoft had charged me anyway!

OMG!!! They did it again!! Microsoft apparently had a American Express CC number of mine from where I bought some software on a business trip. After the above mentioned experience about 6 months ago you'd think that One Care crap would be over with me. Oh no, I just saw where Microsoft billed me $55 on my American Express CC for their One Care service for the same computer that has been destroyed almost 2 years ago!! When questioned, they said that they did it "for my convenience". Oh BS!!! Freakin' thieves!

BOA told me that they have had hundreds and hundreds of calls about Microsoft doing this lately. I actually had to cancel that AE card and get a new one issued because of Microsoft! I was unaware that there is no such thing as credit card fraud in this country. It seems that if they have your number they are free to bill away until you catch them. Then, at worse, they have to give the money back. There is no real downside to stealing like this. The bank rep even told me that they firmly believe many companies bill people fraudulently on purpose because they know a certain percentage of people will never catch them. Microsoft is one of those companies who will positively steal from you.

I still have almost a dozen Windows based computers between my small business and home. My new Mac networks fine with all of them. I think as I replace existing machines over time it will be with Apple computers.

I have to make a change to that quote. Almost immediately after posting that my MacBook Pro no longer recognized any other computers on my home network. It would still find the network and access the internet, but will not share with any other computers nor is seen by them. I've spent untold hours trying to get that thing to see my other computers to no avail. I've tried talking to dozens of other people and the best I get is that "Mac computers are sometimes difficult to network".

Now one of my daughter's computers died last night. I hate to say it, but I'm going back with a PC since my MacBook Pro is a $2800 stand alone laptop that won't do anything other than access the internet. I can't use any of my printers on my network or anything. I'm pretty frustrated with Mac and regret ever purchasing one after having it for about a year now.

 

[DocHeb]

My wife is having fits with her laptop. She has had to reload previous configurations a few times for some reason. This is the only windows system that has been a constant pain. And I'm not sure its hardware related.

I suspect that there are more problems with systems that are purchased with Brand Specific proprietary versions of Windows and pre-installed software. When I look at computers at the store, they promote how much software is pre-installed as a benefit. I look at this as bloated trash with potential interactions that I don't want.

I have built four Windows machines by myself. I am careful about what hardware and software I use. I use Windows Update which runs automatically, and I am behind a Linksys router using Norton Internet Security and Spybot Search and Destroy. Two of my computers run constantly and don't require frequent reboots. I have never done a Windows re-install on a computer, going back to Windows 3.1 (more than a few years ago.) My daughter accidently downloaded something nasty that slipped by NIS/SSD and really froze up one of the machines a year ago. I just used the prior week's backup and overwrote everything - in 20 minutes all hunky-dory.

Despite my satisfaction with my home-built Windows boxes, I still recognize that Macs are better computers, Mac users are better users, and Mac user lives are better lives, however.

 

[N80]

That is the reason Apple Computers are so "stable". You can only put their things in their computer.

Of course this is not true. Macs run on tons of different 2nd party software and always have. And current Macs can even run Windows. So that does not account for stability in Macs. There's lots of sorry software out there that can make a mess out of a Mac.

 

[N80]

One thing to clarify... for me at least...

I don't think Mac computer hardware is any better or any worse than a good PC.

That is correct and that's were a lot of things get confused. A Mac and a well built brand name PC are probably equal in hardware quality. But just saying 'PC' can refer to a wide range of machines from excellent, expensive machines to absolute cobbled together junk. The thing is, there are very few Mac models; a couple of laptops, a few iMacs and a tower unit. They were all designed for OS X and the quality level is about the same throughout the range. This cannot be said of 'PC's in general.

 

[N80]

Mac hardware does not last any longer than PC hardware.

That's not entirely accurate. Macs tend to have higher end, better made components than the average PC. Some PCs have as good a components or maybe even better, but the term PC encomposses a wide range of quality and that range is heavy on the bottom with lots of absolute garbage out there.

Many tasks in industry require input from devices and Macs do not do that well at all. That is the hardware truth.

Right. That's why Macs are and have been preffered amongst graphics designers, TV and movie work, bio-sciences and astro-physics labs.

As for the software truth... nobody bothers to hack Macs because it is not yet lucrative and it is tougher than attacking windows. There are just not enough Macs out there to bother with and Windows is an easy target because it is so poorly written, patched, etc...

That is part of the truth. Still, security experts most say that OS X is generally more secure. And, as the Mac market share has crept up, the security issues have not, particualrly regarding viruses. Time will tell.

Edit: P.S.: I have never purchased or owned a Windows computer. But, I've used them everyday at work for 18 years. I've been using Apple/Mac since 1985 starting with the Apple IIe. I've got 4 active Macs at home, soon to be five. So I've had a lot of experience with both. I've had some not so great Macs. I've used lots of junk PC's at work. Current box is terrible.

 

[Chuck52]

Right. That's why Macs are and have been preffered amongst graphics designers, TV and movie work, bio-sciences and astro-physics labs.

I believe the point being made was that almost all computer interfaced instruments are interfaced to PC's these days. In the past, lots of scientific instrumentation was controlled by proprietary computer equipment. Some of that stuff is still around and is often a pain to deal with. Newer equipment is interfaced to PC's running Windows. If the computer fails, you just switch any proprietary boards to a new computer and away you go. Macs were never designed for that kind of work, and though there might be some instrumentation which is interfaced to Macs, I'm not familiar with any. Processing data can be done on any kind of computer running the appropriate software, but because of the above connection, most scientific work is still done on PCs....collect the data on an instrument run by a PC, process on the same or equivalent PC on your desk.....just kinda comes naturally. Even the protein crystallographers mainly use PCs for their work. Good graphics are good graphics, and come with PCs and Macs.

Another reason PCs dominate the scientific computing community is history. When I switched from mainframe computing to desktop computing, I needed to keep using the old FORTRAN based programs which were the only software available for the tasks I performed. I could do that with a PC, but very few people were porting those programs to Macs. The theoretical chemists I know still mainly use PCs. Often they use large arrays of PCs, like 50 or more all linked together into the modern equivalent of a super computer. Is that done with Macs?

Got nothing against Macs. Some of my best friends are Mac users. Their computer-controlled instruments use PCs.

Chuck

 

[N80]

I believe the point being made was that almost all computer interfaced instruments are interfaced to PC's these days.

I guess I don't understand then. Scanners, cameras, etc are computer interfaced instruments aren't they? How about telescopes, sensors, lab equipment etc etc?

The statement that was made was that Macs do not do well at all with input from devices. Kind of a blanket statement. Especially odd when the truth is that Macs have always done well with 2nd party devices, and this was especially true with high end scanners ($30,000 and up) which did not interface with Windows at all.

Again, Macs are very popular amongst astro-physics labs and biosciences in major university settings as well as entire departments at NASA.

So the statement continues to confuse me. Maybe he was just referring to proprietary systems in large companies. But that has almost nothing to do with the majority and maybe entirety of typical home and small business users. The newspaper where my wife worked had a proprietary layout system (utter and total garbage) that interfaced only with Windows. Of course, the entire graphics department of this nationally owned paper was 100% Mac.

 

[SnowRidge]

A number of companies make proprietary data capture boards for industrial/scientific use. They are designed to plug into an available PC slot. They first appeared on the scene shortly after IBM introduced the PC.

Here's a link to one.

The PC's open slot design and essentially non-proprietary architecture made the this kind of data acquisition product possible at a much lower cost than dedicated stand alone data loggers. As far as I know, nothing like this is available for the Mac.

 

[Chuck52]

I suppose we could work up some statistics on which platform is most used to control what, but I was referring specifically to things like various kinds of spectrophotometers (infrared, UV-Vis, nmr, Mass Spec) and X-ray diffraction instrumentation, not scanners and the like. Certainly telescopes, cameras and other lab equipment which need only a usb port to communicate with a computer can indeed work nicely with Macs, PCs, or any other platform for which the required software is available. However, I stand by my statement that most scientific instrumentation in use today which is interfaced to a computer is interfaced to PCs. As SnowRidge notes, proprietary data capture boards, like the one in the PC which controls my CCD-based diffractometer, are more often designed for use in PCs. They could be made for Macs, and I have no doubt that some are, but that kind of interfacing is much more common with PCs. Some of that may have to do with the international market....anyone know how well Apple has penetrated the European market? Most of the Europeans I deal with about computer issues run flavors of Linux on PC systems. Apparently, most of the software I use would run several times faster under Linux than under Windows, but naturally my favorite program has not been ported to Linux.....the guy who wrote it as a postdoc is now a Professor and has better things to do than figure out the necessary graphics routines.

Interestingly enough, I just got back from coffee with the guy in charge of our teaching labs. I was discussing this thread with him and he told me the 100+ computers we just installed in the teaching lab are iMacs. Great. I helped install about 20 of them and didn't notice what they were. They replaced some Dells, I think, that were getting old. Those computers do indeed communicate with various sensors used in the teaching labs, through usb connections. Of course, they are running Windows XP, because that is the platform for which the software was available, so in effect they ar PCs made by Apple. They were apparently cheaper than new Dells were going to be. I bet we could have bought all new software and run the Apple operating system, but gotta save money. Turns out they're having almost 10% hardware failure on those boxes, mainly power supply issues.

Chuck