This is Why I Don’t Use a Mac
Every so often, I start thinking that I should buy a Mac.
All the pretty eye candy in the interface and the promises of speed and stability start to make me forget what a pain in the ass the Mac interface can be to actually use and how stable Windows XP is. The oohing and ahing in the press over the latest Macintosh model somehow makes me forget that I could assemble something just as fast, stable, and good looking as a Power Mac for a third the price.
At times like these, I’m grateful for hilarious parody videos like this for knocking some sense into me.
your mac parody doesn’t work on my pc.
nyaa.
Comment by Jen — February 7, 2005 @ 12:01 pm
Okay, it’s not my Mac parody.
To play it, you’ll need the Divx video codec. It’s one of the best out there for both compression and quality, and more sites are using it all the time. Definitely a worthy download, and it plugs right into Windows Media Player nicely.
Heck, it’s even available for Macs.
Comment by Adam M. — February 7, 2005 @ 12:10 pm
Actually, the guy who made that video does, in fact, use Macs professionally. It is a funny video though.
I’ve never really experienced the Mac interface being a pain in the ass to use, but then again, I’ve used them since the beginning.
Windows XP… Hmm… It’s definitely *more stable*… but just the word *stable* on its own? I’ve never heard that one!
Comment by Chris Vincent — February 7, 2005 @ 3:05 pm
Yeah, the page mentions that Happy Nowhere is a Mac shop. Even the biggest OS partisans can get frustrated to the point of insanity with their machines, however.
As for XP stability, I find the operating system itself to be very stable so long as you take proper security measures to avoid viruses and spyware.
Honestly, though, I’d be using Linux if it were just a little bit more mature in the areas of hardware support and UI. I think in about two years, it’ll be ready for prime time and major vendors will start to port their applications. Macromedia is already considering it!
Comment by Adam M. — February 7, 2005 @ 8:58 pm
True, Windows XP is worlds more stable with precautions against spyware. Of course, there’s always a new hole to cover, and certainly more often so than with other (better?) operating systems. Really, the only thing Windows has on any other major OS is that it’s ubiquitous.
As far as Linux goes, I’d really like to get a cheap box some time with absolutely nothing on it and try and install a hardcore Linux distro from scratch. I’m kind of a bottom-up guy; I like to know how everything works from low-level to high-level (which is why, for a long time, I was using a custom-built blog package on Passive Digressive).
There certainly are some good UI setups for Linux, depending on what you need. That’s one of the great things–with Linux, you aren’t “stuck” with anything. And if you know what you’re doing (I don’t), you can write your own hardware drivers.
Linux is definitely going to be a big part of the future of computing. It should be pretty much required learning soon enough.
Comment by Chris Vincent — February 8, 2005 @ 12:52 pm
People are having serious arguments over this mac vs. pc thing! I was a PC user who bought a Mac Mini and for a time I used both pretty equally. I have a Macbook now, and while its really buggy, I still prefer it to Windows. I do still use my trusty PC for hardcore games but if i want to do anything artistic or if i want to set up a network I use my mac.
Neither machine is better! For either company to pass themselves off as the way to go is just conceited and wrong. I agree that Linux is probably going to come out of nowhere and give Apple and Windows a run for their money. As soon as i learn more about Linux, I’m partitioning my macbook’s hardrive and loading it on.
Comment by ben — February 7, 2007 @ 5:29 pm