Mac vs PC

[nine]

Markus,

With that set of arguments and the fact that anyone who likes and uses their pc would feel that they can instantly refute them all ... there is only one choice left ... meet somewhere and fight. The two sides can never come together ... bloodshed would seem to be the only option.

Cheers



Edit: Perhaps we could thow our respective tools of choice at each other and whichever stops connecting to the internet first is the loser --- you guys can have those new thin Macs.

 

[BSD]

Nine, actually what I find quite amusing is that such a discussion always drums up scores of unpaid proponents of the respective side to the extent that it does.

Think we should start sending some invoices ?

After all, we all know that no amount of expensive advertising will ever even remotely generate the bang that free mouth to mouth propaganda does, eh.



That said, I would have thought that particularly you Brits with your very admirable sense of fair play would have been more in favor of the underdog, and less supportive of the quasi-monopolist.

What's always important is being free to choose amonst a variety of alternatives, as only that keeps prodding suppliers to keep on their toes without getting complacent, and then it doesn't matter much if ones due diligence efforts end up guiding one to Microsoft, Apple, or Linux, but we all had our freedom of choice.

Good trading

 

[shadowninja]

And you really cannot delete anything on a Mac without knowing exactly what you're doing...

The way you delete something is by clicking on it, and dragging it to what very clearly looks like a trash bin, and dumping it inside.

That's the thing, isn't it.

You think you're tidying up icons, dump some icons in the "trash can" and you've uninstalled the program. Cue phone call. At least with Windows, you can't accidentally uninstall a program. Sure, the fix is simple, but the novice won't know that.

I am still convinced it is a case of argueing whether the Chinese or English are correct about writing (left to right, right to left). Nothing is black and white. Nothing is left and right. Sorry, couldn't resist writing that.

 

[BSD]

Ninja, not sure what you mean by icons.

I've got my dashboard, like on a car, at the bottom of my screen, and that is where I have pictograms of most of my programs that I regularly use. Do you mean those.

Well, those are the programs.

EG a picture of a camera for my picture program, a picture of a postage stamp for my mail program, etc.

If I want to open a program, I just click on it.

If I want to delete one, I just drag it over to the picture of my trash can.

That is all one has to know or has to remember.

Click on a picture, and you open the program that picture stands for.

Click on that picture, drag it to the trash bin, and you're throwing away that program.

VS MS, where you have to go through yonks and yonks of menue levels to get most things done or undone.

Complexity to save oneself from remembering that a picture of a program stands for that program, and that a trash can stands for, umm, a trash can, and that everything can be done via point, click and drag, does not seem very sensible to me.

Plus Mac offers the enormous advantage of an environment where I do not have crashes or freezes, nor have to worry about the immense problem of viruses, trojan horses etc, PC's beset by those problems are imo a direct consequence of MS's monopoly status and resulting complacency.

Offhand the exclusively only advantage I can see in favor of MS is price, but even that isn't that much is it.

Besides, the money that I saved on MS when I had mine was more than compensated for by the ongoing services of PC Doctors I had to keep calling in regularly.

Actually one of the best things that happened to the entire software industry was when Linux made it's appearance, not in terms of userfriendliness as that was originally by pros and for pros, but in terms of crash resistance and stability.

The stability of Linux is why more and more governments are switching over to it, be it here in Germany, other countries in Europe, or Asia. Of course the fact that it is free doesn't harm it's success, but governments wouldn't base their decision on price alone if the product did not have other clear cut advantages.

I would have gone Linux and probably will once it reaches the level of user friendliness that Apple currently has.

Which brings us back to the importance of competition, which one simply does not have when everybody and their cousin buy from the monopolist.

 

[gododdin]

That's the thing, isn't it.

You think you're tidying up icons, dump some icons in the "trash can" and you've uninstalled the program. Cue phone call. At least with Windows, you can't accidentally uninstall a program. Sure, the fix is simple, but the novice won't know that.

But if you want to, with OS X you just drag the icon OUT of the trash and the program is back too...

Another thing that bugs me about Win is when you delete something it's going in the 'recycle bin' or whatever right? And the idea of the bin is you can get it back if you want, yes? So why on earth when you go to delete a file (any file) does Win find it necessary to warn "Are you SURE you want to do this?" and make you click an 'OK' button when you can get it back anyway. Just seems like another unnecessary step to me.

 

[nine]

gododdin,

Its just a trap for mac users and old ladies.

The great thing about open operating systems like linux and windows xp (yes, I said open because it is when compared with macs (and remember, I owned a Lisa as well as Macs over the years)) is that there is flexibility and the possibility of change. That's the return you get for complexity.

So, right click on the recycle bin, select properties, and untick "Display delete confirmation dialog."

Power users like choice

 

[dcraig1]

gododdin,

Its just a trap for mac users and old ladies.

The great thing about open operating systems like linux and windows xp (yes, I said open because it is when compared with macs (and remember, I owned a Lisa as well as Macs over the years)) is that there is flexibility and the possibility of change. That's the return you get for complexity.

So, right click on the recycle bin, select properties, and untick "Display delete confirmation dialog."

Power users like choice

"Open" must be about the most abused word in computing marketing speak. Windows is not "open" and neither is OSX. And it is not just me that thinks Windows is not "open", the EU thinks so as well.

Microsoft has repeatedly put as many obstacles in the way of interoperability as it can get away with - from file formats, to communications protocols and the use of undocumented APIs. This is what really counts - not how your trash bin works, which is a matter of GUI design.

For me there is one overriding virtue of Linux (and BSD) - transparency. There are no secrets and there is no perceived commercial imperatives in keeping secrets. In fact, exactly the opposite. That is really what openness is about.

One consequence is that system administration issues on *nix machines are almost always fixable. None of the "reinstall the OS" nonsense. They are just more maintainable.

Not to mention the complete absence of the interminable *issing around with virus scanners and the such like.

There is less work in running a Linux box than a Windows box.

And this without getting into debate about the technical merits of any PC OS.

 

[gododdin]

Okay nine - you got me there...

 

[new_trader]

I think one of the things to consider is that Macs basically come in one flavour and are a proprietary product controlled by Steve jobs et al. On the other hand, IBM gave us the free blueprint for the PC and although there is commonality in hardware and software, it's not all the same in design, quality or build. Add to that the world-wide dislike of Bill Gates (why do people dislike success?) and you can see how the PC suffers.

As BSD rightly says, computers are just a tool. With home computers we're still at the stage of the automobile in the early 20th C - you need an expert mechanic on hand, need to grease it & change the oil frequently, and God help you if you don't understand what goes on under the hood!

Give it another 20 years and perhaps the Mac "ideal" will extend to just switching on and leaving the rest to the "automatics" like today's cars. You'll still need to understand support & resistance though.

IBM had no intention of giving away their "blueprint", they had no intention of giving the world desktop PC's for that matter. They expected it would be a short term fad and people would stick to client-server systems which they specialised in at the time. Xerox should have been the world leader in personal computers.

 

[new_trader]

Whenever I read or hear MAC Vs PC discussions the MAC people's argument centres around one thing - MACS are pretty and easy to use
They rarely talk about processing power such as MIPS or FLOPS. PC people don't really care about user friendliness and all that nonsense because they are more interested in what it can do. Give me a PC any day!

 

[0007]

IBM had no intention of giving away their "blueprint", they had no intention of giving the world desktop PC's for that matter. They expected it would be a short term fad and people would stick to client-server systems which they specialised in at the time. Xerox should have been the world leader in personal computers.

Unwitting it may have been - but that's what they did! (law of unforeseen consequences?)

 

[rnicoll]

Why are there no viruses for Mac? Virus writers just the sort who hate Macs? I've learnt in life that nothing is perfect...

OS X is based on a platform that is more designed towards security than Windows is, even if Windows is making good progress. Also, Macs are mostly enough of a minority that its not really worth the time writing viruses for them.

 

[rnicoll]

I am familiar with Macs. My dislike is based on four things: they are proprietary, thus expensive, they hide complexity at the expense of limiting choice, and not liking the emulation software much compared with native windows xp I consider the software choices limited.

Complexity: Double click Macintosh HD, Applications, Utilities, Terminal. You're at a command line. Type "sudo bash", re-enter your password. You're now at a command line, with superuser access. Ya want complexity, you've got complexity.

 

[rnicoll]

Build quality on all modern Apple hardware is second to none; far superior to anything in the PC mould, with the possible (equal) exception of something like AlienWare - again, a premium-priced product.

You can have my Mac Pro/MacBook Pro when you pry them from my cold, dead hands, but no, build quality isn't all that. First gen Mac hardware is a liability (a MacBook from last year might well have been first gen still), and I would avoid it unless I absolutely needed new hardware _now_. Second generation Mac hardware tends to be fantastic, but I'm not about to forgive them for releasing first gen hardware that really just isn't up to scratch IMHO.

Also; Alienware aren't actually that good. I self-build PCs personally, but have heard good things about both HP and IBM PCs, while Alienware mostly amount to Dell PCs with better components and an insane price premium.

 

[nine]

One of the most interesting things to happen to Macs is that you can now run Mac software on a standard PC. Not trivial and I suspect not legal ... but interesting all the same.

However, I love my VisionXP so I'm going to stick with it. Keep trying linux variants but most of my software is windows based. Curious about Windows 7 though

 

[rnicoll]

One of the most interesting things to happen to Macs is that you can now run Mac software on a standard PC. Not trivial and I suspect not legal ... but interesting all the same.

However, I love my VisionXP so I'm going to stick with it. Keep trying linux variants but most of my software is windows based. Curious about Windows 7 though

Definitely neither legal nor trivial. Also, I pay a premium for Apple stuff because I don't want to have to fiddle around with it, so it seems insane to me. I'd go with Ubuntu if I wanted a stable OS on PC hardware, personally.

And I do wish more finance software was written in Java or C#. Amazed we don't see more C# for Linux & Mac, for that point, given that AFAIK they should run trivially on Linux/Mac using Mono. NinjaTrader, this means you.

 

[tornprophecy]

well what about trading on macs?! what's a good software..? i use OANDA.. for forex. and i want something for equities that works as well on my mac..
please HELP! newww trader..!

 

[nine]

Interactive Brokers TWS is java based and runs on PC, Linux and (god forbid) macs.

 

[olefj]

The world would have been a better and more efficient place if the PC-Mac relationship was reversed... And absolutely no-one would use a PC.

 

[shadowninja]

I daren't use a Mac for fear of becoming more of a self-righteous prick than I already am.

Besides, I use MT4, IG's trading platform and play BF2 and Diablo 2 a lot. I'd have to run Windows on a Mac. Which means I spend more money to end up in the same place. Which is daft.

Besides, if Macs were that great, this thread wouldn't exist. Neither would anti-PC websites...