Before I make my comment I will preface it by saying I have been a Mac owner for the better part of 16 years. However, my home computer and what I have to manage at work are two different things. Macs do not play well with Active Directory, and as such, are not network friendly in an enterprise scenario.
We have over 1200 PCs ranging in age from 6 years old, to three months old. We also have about 800 Macs, ranging in about the same age. All the PCs can automatically pick up our 802.1x certificate and authenticate to the network, allowing all users to login and access their resources. Macs don't. We have contacted the software gurus at Hi-Resolution, Thursby Software, and Apple Canada. What have we learned? Macs before 10.4.6 will not access the 802.1x network without a user logging in locally first (period). Macs between 10.4.6 and 10.4.11 are suppose to be able to pass the certificate to the login window, but they don't.
Only 10.5 can actually remember a certificate and allow a user to login to the 802.1x network.
I would say, in this regard anyway, Macs were a full 7 years behind the development of Windows (I should also say that 802.1x is not a Windows protocol or networking idea, it is a security protocol that folks at Apple could have been developing OS for directly for years and years).
I've noticed something unusual about PC fans. Whenever you say to one, "I use a Mac", they immediately get on your case. It's like they're brainwashed or something. Mac fans tend to be far more tolerant.
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Used to be a PC person also. Got a basic MB a year ago and was impressed w/ the quality of the system and the quality and ease of use of the OS (Tiger).
Then I decided to get an Asus gaming lappy which had Vista on it...Ugh. MS tried so hard to copy Apple's OS w/ the graphics and ease of use but failed horribly.
First, unlike OS X, Vista requires a decently hefty amount of tech specs to run properly. Second, even though the OS is easier to use than XP it's still no where near as user friendly as OS X; you still need to run a bunch of different maintenance routines to clean and upkeep the system. You still need virus protection/ad and spyware protection. It still isn't as stable as XP. Third, the Nazi-like admin verification is extremely annoying.
There's obviously more, to be sure, problems that can be listed about Vista's negatives but I don't feel like retreading though all it's faults. I recently was able to sell my Asus (for a loss but it was a good enough deal) and bought a MBP (the summer 07 ones) last month and have had no problems w/ Leopard or the MBP at all.
The MBP is the same screen size and tech spec as the Asus yet it's a full lb. less in weight and more streamlined in appearance (not to running on less power to run and having a better battery lifespan). It cost a bit more than what the Asus was but considering the quality of the machine is better along w/ the quality of included software (iLife) it ends up being a better deal.
Leopard runs great and Safari seems to be more stable under it than it was for me in Tiger. It includes some pretty awesome upgrades over Tiger and unlike Vista can run on an "ancient" computer because the tech specs are pretty low.
As someone stated in a previous post, there are a lot of worthwhile and free apps for Macs compared to the PC in addition to devices rarely needing to be setup w/ drivers and what not; just easy plug and play setups on the Mac.
I also dig that on Macs there are less apps running in the background and the ones that are running take up a small footprint unlike XP and especially Vista which have numerous background apps (by default Vista has 70 some...yes 70 some running in the background that show up in task manager). I like that my MBP recognizes all 4 gigs of ram that I've got installed in it, which Vista Home did not because of its 32 bit architecture (only Vista 64 recognizes ram over 3 gigs).
I like that Leopard can run both 32- and 64-bit apps w/o issues. Unlike Vista which requires the user to buy the expensive 64-bit version which has major issues running numerous 32-bit apps.
I like everything about my experience w/ Mac products and am never going to use PC again unless I'm forced to because of work and after telling my family members about my experience w/ Macs they're going to be making the conversion as well.
If I'm going to buy a desktop computer, and it's a PC, I can needlessly waste hours deciding whether I want dual or quad, midrange ATi graphics or high-end nVidia, how quiet a cooling system I want and so on. But if it's a Mac, I just have to choose between one spec'd like a gutted laptop and another that starts at $2000+. Goodbye, burden of choice!
If I'm going to buy a desktop computer, and it's a PC, I can needlessly waste hours deciding whether I want dual or quad, midrange ATi graphics or high-end nVidia, how quiet a cooling system I want and so on. But if it's a Mac, I just have to choose between one spec'd like a gutted laptop and another that starts at $2000+. Goodbye, burden of choice!
Was that sarcastic? I think it was. You see, I'm not good at recognizing sarcasm because text is very ambiguous. Smilies like , , and are good at conveying emotions...
Use 'em!
P.S. PCs are cheap, we know that already. But there's so frickin' many of them! Do you really want to have to choose between the thousand different models, when there's a website (Apple's, that is) that contains a small selection of computers ? one of which will most likely suit you?
Plus, Macs don't come with bloatware. Sure there's a lot of applications, but they're useful! iTunes is cool. And you have the option to save as a PDF whenever you print something, so you don't need frickin' expensive Adobe software.
Oh, and PCs can't run Mac OS X but Macs can run all of the most popular operating systems.
Although, of course, it's your choice: spend a good amount of money on something that's easy to use and very, very cool; or, you can spend a small amount of money on something that's difficult to use, has conflicts fifty percent of the time, can't run any other operating systems, and is highly nerdy.
I recommend the MacBook. It's reasonably-priced, is portable, and comes with the latest Mac OS X version: Leopard. The Mac Mini is cheaper, but it's considerably lower-end. Again, the choice is yours.
No obfuscated Start menu! In XP (and even Vista!) everything is precisely where you don't expect it to be.
The Mac OSes are named intuitively! None of this NT, XP, 2000, 98, 99, Vista business.
P.S. Who here is driven mad by people who pronounce "Mac OS X" as "Mac Oss Sex?" Have they had any experience with the English language? If something is all uppercase, it's an acronym! Oh, and even first graders know what the Roman numeral "X" means. Pronounce it as such!
That's about it. The HW is nothing to write home about, but it comes in a fancy box. The actual hardware costs pennies on the dollar anymore, and I don't give a lot of thought into having uber thin designs. I don't think very highly of Apple's consumer apps either, but maybe they've been hyped to death, so anything was bound to be disappointing.
Comments
We have over 1200 PCs ranging in age from 6 years old, to three months old. We also have about 800 Macs, ranging in about the same age. All the PCs can automatically pick up our 802.1x certificate and authenticate to the network, allowing all users to login and access their resources. Macs don't. We have contacted the software gurus at Hi-Resolution, Thursby Software, and Apple Canada. What have we learned? Macs before 10.4.6 will not access the 802.1x network without a user logging in locally first (period). Macs between 10.4.6 and 10.4.11 are suppose to be able to pass the certificate to the login window, but they don't.
Only 10.5 can actually remember a certificate and allow a user to login to the 802.1x network.
I would say, in this regard anyway, Macs were a full 7 years behind the development of Windows (I should also say that 802.1x is not a Windows protocol or networking idea, it is a security protocol that folks at Apple could have been developing OS for directly for years and years).
Then I decided to get an Asus gaming lappy which had Vista on it...Ugh. MS tried so hard to copy Apple's OS w/ the graphics and ease of use but failed horribly.
First, unlike OS X, Vista requires a decently hefty amount of tech specs to run properly. Second, even though the OS is easier to use than XP it's still no where near as user friendly as OS X; you still need to run a bunch of different maintenance routines to clean and upkeep the system. You still need virus protection/ad and spyware protection. It still isn't as stable as XP. Third, the Nazi-like admin verification is extremely annoying.
There's obviously more, to be sure, problems that can be listed about Vista's negatives but I don't feel like retreading though all it's faults. I recently was able to sell my Asus (for a loss but it was a good enough deal) and bought a MBP (the summer 07 ones) last month and have had no problems w/ Leopard or the MBP at all.
The MBP is the same screen size and tech spec as the Asus yet it's a full lb. less in weight and more streamlined in appearance (not to running on less power to run and having a better battery lifespan). It cost a bit more than what the Asus was but considering the quality of the machine is better along w/ the quality of included software (iLife) it ends up being a better deal.
Leopard runs great and Safari seems to be more stable under it than it was for me in Tiger. It includes some pretty awesome upgrades over Tiger and unlike Vista can run on an "ancient" computer because the tech specs are pretty low.
As someone stated in a previous post, there are a lot of worthwhile and free apps for Macs compared to the PC in addition to devices rarely needing to be setup w/ drivers and what not; just easy plug and play setups on the Mac.
I also dig that on Macs there are less apps running in the background and the ones that are running take up a small footprint unlike XP and especially Vista which have numerous background apps (by default Vista has 70 some...yes 70 some running in the background that show up in task manager). I like that my MBP recognizes all 4 gigs of ram that I've got installed in it, which Vista Home did not because of its 32 bit architecture (only Vista 64 recognizes ram over 3 gigs).
I like that Leopard can run both 32- and 64-bit apps w/o issues. Unlike Vista which requires the user to buy the expensive 64-bit version which has major issues running numerous 32-bit apps.
I like everything about my experience w/ Mac products and am never going to use PC again unless I'm forced to because of work and after telling my family members about my experience w/ Macs they're going to be making the conversion as well.
If I'm going to buy a desktop computer, and it's a PC, I can needlessly waste hours deciding whether I want dual or quad, midrange ATi graphics or high-end nVidia, how quiet a cooling system I want and so on. But if it's a Mac, I just have to choose between one spec'd like a gutted laptop and another that starts at $2000+. Goodbye, burden of choice!
Was that sarcastic? I think it was. You see, I'm not good at recognizing sarcasm because text is very ambiguous. Smilies like
Use 'em!
P.S. PCs are cheap, we know that already. But there's so frickin' many of them! Do you really want to have to choose between the thousand different models, when there's a website (Apple's, that is) that contains a small selection of computers ? one of which will most likely suit you?
Plus, Macs don't come with bloatware. Sure there's a lot of applications, but they're useful! iTunes is cool. And you have the option to save as a PDF whenever you print something, so you don't need frickin' expensive Adobe software.
Oh, and PCs can't run Mac OS X but Macs can run all of the most popular operating systems.
Although, of course, it's your choice: spend a good amount of money on something that's easy to use and very, very cool; or, you can spend a small amount of money on something that's difficult to use, has conflicts fifty percent of the time, can't run any other operating systems, and is highly nerdy.
I recommend the MacBook. It's reasonably-priced, is portable, and comes with the latest Mac OS X version: Leopard. The Mac Mini is cheaper, but it's considerably lower-end. Again, the choice is yours.
Unlike PCs!!
The Mac OSes are named intuitively! None of this NT, XP, 2000, 98, 99, Vista business.
P.S. Who here is driven mad by people who pronounce "Mac OS X" as "Mac Oss Sex?"
"Où est mon ordinateur? Où est mon ordinateur?"
That's about it. The HW is nothing to write home about, but it comes in a fancy box. The actual hardware costs pennies on the dollar anymore, and I don't give a lot of thought into having uber thin designs. I don't think very highly of Apple's consumer apps either, but maybe they've been hyped to death, so anything was bound to be disappointing.