Mac computers

My brother is not very computer literate. He just presses keys until something happens. He currently has a previously owned eMachine, which is the biggest lump of junk I've every had to deal with.

So now he wants to buy a new computer. I've never even stood next to a Mac. How are they REALLY for a newbie? He isn't going to read any instructions because is the next thing to illiterate.

I know a bit about computers, at least some basics, so could I learn a Mac on my own and show him what to do? (Remember, I have ADD and am a slow learner of concepts, and have a short memory unless I'm obsessed with something.)

Are the prices about the same as a regular computer (whatever they're called)?

Sue

That's good timing Sue. No, I don't have any answers to you questions, but I am standing right behind you listen to the answers you get.

I'm moderately computer literate, but certainly no match for the Nerd Herd (Chuck reference). I managed to install wireless LAN cards to my kid's computer so that it can connect to my AT&T wireless LAN. I also figured out how to connect my work laptop to the home wireless LAN. But that's where it stops.

A few weeks back I bought a fancy schmancy HP printer that says it will allow PC's to print to it wirelessly. I tried and tried to get my kid's PC to print wirelessly to this printer - no luck. I tried to get my work PC to print wirelessly to it. No luck.

I'm somewhat convinced that Windows PC's (home WinXP) are on the edge of melting down - that they essentially barely work. I find that they slowly fall apart until they simply don't work. The hard drives somehow get messed up. Since when does software "age"? This has happened on several home computers and seems to happen on most work laptops ... the software essentially degrades to the point where it won't work right.

Based upon this, I've been wondering just in the last few days whether our family's next computer purchases should move in the direction of Apple computers. Do they degrade too? Is it easier to build working home LANs on them - without degree in computer engineering?

Ken

Macs are very intuitive, I'm using one right now, bought it used, no instructions, just plugged it in, and it works. It's one of 3 that are in use here with another laptop coming later this year.

As for Windows software "falling apart", you're probably being overwhelmed with virus' and malware. If you don't keep anti-virus software running religiously with frequent updates and you're going online with a Windows computer, it's only a matter of time before you'll get infected with some sort of computer virus. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. The end result of a lot of the virus' out there is a slowing down of the processor as it's often trying to run multiple programs, sending out emails laden with even more virus', etc. It's also possible that your machine has been hijacked and is being used without your knowledge by a hacker.

Sue, if you can, take your brother to an Apple store and let him talk to one of the folks there, he can also try a variety of Macs right there in the store.

They are gonna cost more than a Windows based machine, to my mind, the time saved by not having a machine that is constantly under assault by virus' and hackers is worth it, it might not be to you.

John E

Hi Sue. I recently purchased a Macbook Pro. I've been using every version of windows and countless UNIX/Linux distributions since '94. For me the Mac was/is a little hard to get used to. I'm accustomed to doing things the "hard way". I'll either sit down write my own software or read through man pages (documentation) to have the machine do what I want.

Apple does a very good job of simplifying what would be under other OS'es more complicated from the perspective of a non-computer savvy person. So much so that I and friends of mine, who like me are very adept with computers, find ourselves over complicating things. I have to keep reminding myself: How would my mom do this? Invariably if I stop myself from trying to get it to do things how I think it should, it does what I want it to. For most non-techy folk it will be very intuitive.

Apple puts a lot of focus on reducing the options down to what is just needed and therefore the user is less likely to make an error. (Less is more) That's not to say just cause it's idiot proof they won't make a better idiot. I've worn that hat many a time.

As for viruses, software "aging", or the system slowly degrading. It will happen on Windows/Apple/Linux whatever. It's either user error, bad programming, or malicious programming. Computers are tools and like any tool if you don't learn how to keep it from damage or how to repair it... be ready to pay someone else to do it for you or replace it.

Like JohnE said if you have an Apple store nearby play with the machines there. I've seen people at the store spend hours surfing the web and just using the machines. If he's a student or has a student in the house you may even qualify for a discount (they don't check anyways). Oh and yes they may tend to cost just a little bit more. Thus far I think my purchase was worth it. Then I just spent a little over 1k on a Drobo and an Elgato usb tv tuner..... sigh

-H

Hi,

I am currently using a 7 year old Mac Laptop (G4) with Apples latest OS. It runs really well for me except it can't handle the latest HD video cameras. (I guess that is why my wife gets to take care of the kids videos. ) Generally perceived performance has just gotten better over the last couple of OS updates but I will probably upgrade in a year or so.

I use Windows PCs at work and I agree that Windows is just really hard to manage. A lot of my coworkers have been getting Macs lately. The good news is that current Apple HW can run Windows if you decide the Mac OS isn't for you. We just got our kids a Mac Mini at Christmas and it can switch between Mac and Windows pretty quickly. Needed to do that since Grandma decided the kids needed a game/toy that only runs on Windows.

My experience with recent Mac purchases is that they run about the same cost as similarly configured quality PCs. People can always find a similarly spec'd PC or go all out and build their own for less than a Mac but if you compare to some of the brands with good quality reputations you will find that Macs are very price competitive these days.

No tool is user / idiot proof. My dad uses Macs and can get into some interesting things from time to time. Of course when I think about turning him loose on Windows I just start to shudder.

The only other advice I would offer is get a real mouse - Apples 1 button mice and their "mighty mouse" drive me nuts. I like Logitech and Kensington 3 button mice and the cool thing is you plug them into the computer and they "just work" for basic 3 button mouse functions.

Personal Computers (all types) are a personal choice. I like Macs for a lot of reasons that don't apply to a lot of people.

Try to find one to play with and good luck.

- Eric

I've got little experience with the newer osx, more with the older versions.

A few months ago, a customer had an Mac and multifunctional printer, but it would not work on the Mac. I was there to install a laptop for his work, and could easaly install the printer. Then he asked for installing it on the Mac.

After trying a lot of options, I got it to work, but definatly not as easy as everybody say's it was.

So I guess it's easy with the os you are used to, but more troublesome if you are new to it.

As far as virus / malware.... Maybe it's because I'm carefull out there on the internet, but my pc is running beautiful. And I did not got infected the last 18 years. Watch out what you accept and you'll be fine.

They are not really any easier to learn, just a little harder to mess up. I've sat people down in front of them and they had to have just as much helping as the rest but with the OS locked down pretty tight by default its harder to screw things up or mistype a web site address and get hit with malware.
The hardware is more $ and has some issues despite all the mac fans putting perfect reviews into places like consumer reports its not the quality they claim.

I've worked with MACs, PCs and Unix based office systems. In my experience, MACs truely are more user friendly than any of the other systems. Less of a learning curve.

I also found MACs less prone to problems and software glitches, BUT, when they did occur, they were impossible for the user to fix and the MAC consultant had to be called in. PCs overall probably had more problems, but were overall easier to fix and tinker with. PCs also had more unique scientific/engineering type software available than the MAC.

If you are starting from scratch and not doing anything exotic that requires some specialized scientific software, I would recommend the MAC due to the shorter learning curve for the user. If you have a history with PCs and know your way around a bit, I would go with a PC. I found trying to know 2 systems confusing; I kept hitting the wrong keys and getting confused.

Susan:
Here's what I think about people knowing nothing about computers teaching people about computers:



OK, despite my rant about not wanting to fix your computer, I am very happy to post a few things about computer selection.

First of all, yes, I have a bias toward Mac for most users, simply because what it does, it does right and what it doesn't do, it won't do at all. If you get a used mac, get a "G4" system at the very minimum running OS X 10.4. Better get the newer Intel chip based Macs, they are faster, better, stronger, etc.

Peripherals are simple. 90% of the time, installing a printer on a recent vintage Mac consists of plugging it in. That's it. Just plug it in, pause a moment, and print. Similarly, with digital cameras, you connect the camera, and the picture will transfer to iPhoto. The security of a mac is good, but not perfect, and yes, there are actual viruses for the mac out there. Software availability is good, Openoffice, which lets you make MS Word, Powerpoint and other "office" documents is free (www.openoffice.org) and OK, the iWork suite (Keynote for presentations, Pages for documents and Numbers for spreadsheets and math documents) is utterly awesome but when you down-convert to other formats, such as powerpoint or MS word, you loose a lot of the nice features. Maintenance on a Mac is - usually - simple. Their laptops are good, but not that durable, you need to buy the $250 Applecare insurance, your laptop WILL break at least once in 3 years and you'll be glad you had the insurance.

That said, if you are willing to work a little bit harder to get stuff connected (printers, scanners, Roku boxes, whatever), you will save a bundle of money with a simple Windows XP box, but I have never encountered an XP system used by a "novice/casual" user that didn't have spyware and viruses on it. I even almost got one the other day, but it was intercepted by Clamwin, the anti-virus I prefer.

Finally, there's the 3rd way, which is 100% free using open-source software. I think Ubuntu is the most mature and ready for primetime package, and it runs OK on older (2003 vintage) hardware. That said, there's only two use cases I see for it. Case 1: The utter novice who never does anything but use the web browser and maybe - just maybe - has a digital camera. In this case, a Ubuntu Linux with Google's Picassa package added in (relatively painless) is perfectly fine. If they want to install ANYTHING, if they want to do ANYTHING other than the web and email, they will need some "computer skills" (more coming on that).
Case 2: A geek (like me) who likes to tinker and customize ALL DAY LONG. It's a busybox for adults.

For the novice users, there's no real disadvantage compared XP. It's a lot cheaper - some say free. As far as the software being "free" - my favorite saying about Linux is "Linux is free if your time is worthless". So, if you have some time, or if you actually want to learn more about computer systems, by all means, go for the Ubuntu.

Now, one thing that I need to pontificate on.

Computers are machines, certainly the most complex machine you'll own. More importantly, computers are machines that require their operator to observe explicit behavior of the machine and respond accordingly (there's a window that says "press any key to continue" - what do you do, what DO you do?) and also to infer what the outcome of an action will be. For example, you get one of those USB keychain drive things. You plug it into the computer. What next? Do you understand that the device will appear as a new disk on the system? On windows, at home it might show up at the "e:\" drive and at your buddies house it might show up as the "h:\" drive. On a Mac it will show up with a name, not a letter, and on Ubuntu it will show up as a named "volume" in the "filesystem".
Do you really "get" files and "folders" on a computer? No Mac or PC will help with that - that's a key requirement of the peripheral located between the chair an keyboard.

I often think that novice users should start out with a command line. No windows, no mice, no icons. Just a cold terminal window. Because that FORCES you to build a mental map of the inner workings of the machine, it FORCES you to develop an abstract level of understanding of how a file system and operating system work. More importantly, it gives you the ability to treat the organizational principles and functions of a computer as an interchangeable abstract concept.

For example, any of the geeks here would know why these command-line descriptions of certain "folders" (directories, really) are related:

/var/opt
/usr/sbin
/usr/bin
/bin/
c:/Program Files
/applications

(depending on the computer, these all represent places you'd expect to find "programs")

I'm just saying is that a Mac isn't going to make you a competent computer user, any more than a Glock 19 will make you a competent gun owner. In both cases, they are intuitive machines that have fairly obvious functions and they allow you to immediately set to using them. In both cases, you can end up with a big mess if you don't take some time to learn how to use them.

All I ask of any and every novice or "I don't really get computers" people is to spend no less than 12 hours with basic tutorials on how to use computers. I like the "for Dummies" series, but go to a book store - a real, physical book store, and look inside the books. If you see one that you like in terms of how it is laid out and how it reads, buy it. Turn off the television at night and spend the time you would have spent watching Americas Funniest Industrial Accidents or some such and use that time to enrich your computer skills. There's no downside at all to learning more.

Sue,

First +1 on everything Martin said.

Second Mac initial purchase is somewhat more expensive new.

Family and I have been PC users/owners since 1998, and me since the first IBM PC XT came out and I upgraded from Tandy TRS-80.

We moved to Apple MacBook's a year ago December 25th and have not had a single problem.

I have one program that is not Mac useable, but it is a very specific construction estimating program. Said program is now run on Windows on the MacBook. (Yes the newer Mac's can run windows also.)

The only way I am going back to a PC is if I ever find a new gig and they provide the computer.

BTW, I started my 2 year old PC the same time I started my MacBook. I have since logged on to ETS and typed this post, and the PC is still starting up. No it is not slow, Mac is just that fast.

I'm on a Mac and love it. Martin makes some very good points and his descriptions of Macs are accurate.

Good luck.

Cheers,
Logan.

I think a lot depends on whether your brother is willing to actually learn how to use a computer properly. If it's just his personality to "push buttons until something happens" and he doesn't want to actually learn the system, then it really doesn't matter if he's on a Mac or a Windows machine--or a manual typewriter. It's just not going to work as he wants.

So, this is probably the first question to answer. If he's not willing to learn, then a new computer isn't going to help, unless his attitude is because his cheap eMachines computer is such a piece of junk that it doesn't work properly and THAT is what makes him just push buttons until it does something.

But if he's willing to learn, Macs are great. I use a Mac as my main personal and work computer, although I still use Windows daily for work, too. Depending on what your brother uses a computer for, it really may not make much difference whether he uses a Mac or Windows. Using a mouse and starting programs, dragging files around, etc. are conceptually pretty similar, although there are differences that can be a bit strange at first when learning a new system.

You can probably get a better deal on a Windows machine than a Mac, but then again, I feel like I see people using their Macs much longer than for Windows machines, so over the long haul, the Mac may be cheaper.

Thanks for all this good info!

I hadn't even thought of having him use one at a computer store, as I don't think I've ever BEEN IN a computer store... That sounds like good advice.

Sue

Although this doesn't probably apply in your case, keep in mind that any business or industry specific software is almost certainly going to be Windows based. My wife works for an airline, and the software they use to check schedules is only available on Windows, for example.

Also, if you get a new Windows based system, be aware that many are coming with Vista-64. It is a better system, but it is does not have nearly as much 3rd party device support (scanners, cameras, etc). Vista 32 is a better option at least for now for less experienced users.

This is the issue I have with Apple, you can count on a break sometime yet Apple users still insist their hardware is so much better.

Remember everything works easy on the mac because you have to research a lot more up front and buy the Apple compatible hardware, you can't just buy the camera/scanner/printer that's on sale and plug it in, you'll have to be sure ask or research to make sure it will first. IMHO with that up front work its no different to search for the particular model on a linux site to see if its supported, then you plug it in and it works just as easy.

If you MUST run windows (as I do for Visio and for Outlook), you can run it - concurrently - on the Mac without any problems. I do it every single day without a hitch.

Sue,

I personally, like Mac's.

The menu system is the basis of all Windows that people use so much today.

Mac's are also less likely to pick up virus's because there are very few Mac language Virus's out there since most virus's are designed to infect IBM compatible systems.

If he can handle Windows, he can handle a Mac.

Has he checked out the Net pads that have come out now (approx $400 per copy). They get you on the internet, have word processing, database, and spreadsheet programming.

That's what I'm looking at getting within the next couple of months.

As usual Martin has summed things up very nicely. The other thing to keep in mind is that Apple does not intend to compete at every possible price and performance point. Where they do choose to play they are viewed by the industry (not me) as being very competitive and their quality ratings (independent) are 10% above their nearest competition. Having said that any computer is a very complicated machine.

I fully agree with Martin that everyone should start with a command line, preferably on a "REAL" (tm) computer - you know one that uses UNIX or it much younger brother LINUX. Hmmm - I think I just dated my self there.

- Eric

This depends a lot on the industry. A lot of the "creative" industries actually use or prefer Macs. This is especially true in graphic arts and some of the video editing fields since this is one area where Macs truly stand out. Having a fully integrated and unified color handling system is literally priceless in these areas. A lot of scientific and engineering work is moving to the Mac (from UNIX) since the move is relatively painless (UNIX lurks under the hood of OS X). On the other hand if they need business utilities, including many business focused web applications they may really need a Windows PC. DirectX and some of the other MS only things make many network applications fully dependent on Windows.

- Eric

Ok - this one I don't get.

I have had great luck with my Apple computers, starting with the old IIe and working my way up to my current computer, a 7 year old Tibook G4, my wife's 3 year old Macbook and the kids new Macmini. I have always gotten about 7 years out of my computers before toy envy finally drives me to get something newer. On top of that my Dad, who is notoriously hard on things and my computer challenged inlaws have all had great luck with their Macs.

Anecdotal information isn't worth much but I have direct experience with over 100 Macs used by my place of work and my family and friends. None of them have had any significant problems (well ok - my then 2 yr old daughter did destroy one computer, but the brand wouldn't have mattered in this case )

Any manufactured product will have the occasional escape due to statistics and tolerances. Or less nicely, occasionally uhmm.... stuff happens. If you ignore the fanboy inputs (on both sides) from forums etc. the statistical data is that Apple computers have had an excellent track record over the last 10 years when compared to the rest of the industry.

Of course if you really want reliability you can always step up to a "REAL"(tm) computer - maybe something nice from the IBM Power Series < thats a joke folks>. Those toys are expensive and really do require more than a fair bit of knowledge to setup and maintain. Of course for a "small", ongoing fee, IBM will be more than happy to help you out with that

Similarly - it used to a real pain to find things to plug in to the Mac (back in the bad old pre-OSX days). Haven't had any problems lately. Of course I do envy all the cool time wasters (games) that PCs have.

- Eric

I own both Mac's and PC's and I've had to use both for work and home use so I'm going to suggest going Mac to you specifically because you've emphasized "newbie" and ADD.

If you have a technological interest, like to "tinker" with hardware and actually enjoy poking around the net for hours trying to get 3rd party hardware drivers and in general, spending significant amounts of time and energy constantly updating software...go PC.

That being said. If you were to learn computers from scratch on a PC you would, out of shear necessity, possibly become proficient at the Windows operating system. Then again, you may just become so frustrated that you start to questioning how much quality really costs. By that I mean, do you want to save money by getting a cheap PC with a questionably stable OS, or would you rather pay more upfront and get a more user friendly OS?

As far as reliability is concerned, my first iMac was a G3 with 512m ram and a 6 gig hard drive. No problems until last year when the power supply went bad. We're talking about almost 9 years of continuous use. PC's? I lost count of the power supplies, bad motherboards, inexplicable crashes leading to lengthy system reinstalls...and that's just on my own PC's, not the ones at work.

Go Mac. You'll only cry once.

This is working a a reseller for years. Schools will but HP, compaq, IBM, Dell dekstops (business models, not the presarios and such you see in retail stores, look at vercra, deskpro, evo, etc as there is a big difference) by the hundreds and we would get the occasional failure. Then they buy a dozen Apples and complain that they got two DOA's and three more fail in the first month then kept asking us to get apple certified which apple had a big catch 22 preventing that from happening so I kept sending referral after referral to other places for repairs.

Then there was the one guy at the state agency who every time I was there kept telling me how much better has mac was than by 5 year old compaq Armada I carried with me every day and was my home and work main system and was run 24x7 all that time. He could never show me his apple because it was in for repair every time yet he still bragged about how much better it was than a pc. Apple users seem to forget about all the overheating problems and happily buy expensive cooling pads and have to chain theris to a desk, or the power supply fire issues, or the ffact that you can't swap the drive without vioding the warranty so they have a half dozen externals hanging off of them (might as well buy a desktop then).

I have a newer laptop now a 6 year old dell latitude c400. It has dents and cracks in the case from me banging it or dropping it and the backlight started getting dim so I had to order a $10 replacement. I keep thinking abot buying a newer laptop but this one just keep working so well and I can't find anything I really like.

Oh well - that just goes to show that statistics and individual experience don't often match well.

Apple does have pretty bad anecdotal track record for 1st of kind (or rev 0) versions of computers. The usual comment is if apple is introducing something new wait 6 months and get the B model. Not as true as it used to be but apparently one of the hazards of buying bleeding edge tools/toys from a computer company that wants to "think different".

What ever gets the job done for you is the tool you should use.

Of course sometimes Karma (or the Force) is just against you and you should pack it in and try something else.

- Eric

Thats because the statistics are all from user surveys. no matter how bad the service apple users will report it perfect to places like consumer reports.

So you recommend a $400 box running VISTA?


------

Internal Microsoft emails were released in a class action suit against Microsoft over Vista's failure to deliver.

Translation: We screwed up Vista beyond any hope of fixing it, so we have to do Windows 7 right.

quote:
From: Jon Shirley
To: Steve Balmer
Subject: Vista

I upgraded one of the two machines I use a lot to Vista. The most persistent and so far hardest to fix issues are both with MSN products, Portfolio in MSN Money and Music (downloads that I had bought in the past).

The other machine I will not upgrade as there are no drivers yet for my Epson printer (top of the line and in production today but no driver yet), Epson scanner (older but also top of the line they say they will not do a driver for) and a Nikon film scanner that will get a driver one day but no date is set yet. If I had purchased a new machine I would be in the same situation since the Nikon driver is used by current as is the Epson printer. I cannot understand with a product this long in creation why there is such a shortage of drivers. I suppose the vendors did not trust us to us enough to use the beta for driver testing?

Most of the software I use is OK or available for Vista except for spyware and some obscure utilities.

Jon

From: Steve Balmer
To: Jon Shirley
Subject: RE:Vista

You are right that people did not trust us have you checked windows update I assume you found no drivers there either?? Thanks

From: Steven Sinofsky
To: Steve Ballmer
CC: Bill Veghte
Subject: RE: Vista

This is the same across the whole ecosystem.

From: Steve Ballmer
To: Steven Sinofsky
CC: Bill Veghte
Subject: RE:Vista

Should we do something different do you agree scanners are particularly bad thanks

From: Steven Sinofsky
To:Steve Ballmer
CC:Bill Vehgte, Jon Devaan
Subject: RE:Vista

I think folks are working on this now and we just need time.

Basically I think three things worked against us:
- No one really believed we would ever ship so they didn't start the work until very late in 2006. This led to the lack of availability. For example my home multi-function printer did not have drivers until 2/2 and even pulled their 1/30 drivers and re-released them (Brother).
- Massive change in the underpinnings for video and audio really led to a poor experience at RTM, especially with respect to Windows Media Center. This led to incompatibilities. For example, you don't get Aero with an XP driver, but your card might not (ever) have a Vista driver.
- A lot of change led to many Windows XP drivers not really working at all - this is across the board for printers, scanners, wan, accessories (fingerprint readers, smartcards, tv tuners), and so on. This category is due to the fact that many of the associated applets don't run within the constraints of the security model or the new video/audio driver models. For example, OrlandoA is not on Vista because there are no drivers for his Verizon card yet. Microsoft's own hardware was missing a lot of support (fingerprint reader, MCE extender, etc.)

People who rely on using all the features of their hardware {like Jon's Nikon scanner) will not see availability for some time, if ever, depending on the mfg. The built-in drivers never have all the features but do work. For example, I could print with by Brother printer and use it as a stand-along fax. But network setup, scanning, print to fax must come from Brother.

The Vista Ready logo program required drivers available on 1/30. I think we had a reasonable coverage, but quality was uneven as I experienced.

Intel has the biggest challenge. Their "945" chipset which is the baseline Vista set "barely" works right now, and is very broadly used. The "915" chipset which is not Aero capable is in a huge number of laptops and was tagged "Vista Capable" but not Vista Premium. I don't know if this was a good call. But these function but will never be great. Even the 945 set has new builds of drivers coming out constantly but hopes are on the next chipset rather than on this one.

The point Jim had of declaring a Release Candidate was because he sensed people were not really working under a deadline in the ecosystem. This helped even though we knew we had more work to do on our side.

So far I am surprised at the low call volume in PSS. I think we have a lot of new PCs which helps and the hobbyist people who bought FPP/UPG just know what to do and aren't calling, but I know they are struggling.

All of this is why we need much more clarity and focus at events like WinHEC. We need to be clearer with industry and we need to decide what we will do and do that well and 100% amd not just do a little of everything which leaves the IHV in a confused state.

From:Bill Veghte
To:Mike Slevert, Mike Nash, Brad Brooks, Scott Di Valerio, Jawas Khaki

Fyi... I think Steven's mail is spot on and highlights how much we need to keep pushing super, super hard if we are going to accelerate our deployments and quality of customer experience.

From: Mike Nash (Microsoft vice president)
To: Bill Veghte, Mike Slevert, Brad Brooks, Scot Di Valerio, Jawad Khaki
Subject: RE:Vista

Agreed.

I personally got burned by the Intel 915 chipset issue on a laptop that I PERSONALLY (eg with my own $$$). Are we seeing this from a lot of customers? I know that I chose my laptop (a Sony TX770P) because it had the vista logo and was pretty disappointed that it not only wouldn't run Glass, but more importantly wouldn't run Movie Maker (I guess that is being addressed). I now have a $2100 email machine.

Is there a spreadsheet that shows feedback on h/w compat issues by IHV and OEM based on customer call etc?

Thanks,

Mike

From: Scott Di Valerio
To: Jim Totton, John Kalkman
Subject: FW:Vista

Do you guys want to craft a response?

From: John Kalkman
To: Scott Di Valerio, Jim Totton
Subject: RE:Vista

Not sure what we would accomplish. We told Poole what would happen if he changed our position on 915, and we did. Best thing to do is continue helping IHV and ISV's to make solid drivers and apps. That work is happening, as Steven notes below steadily. We have a ton more drivers available with Vista than we did for XP. Biggest thing I'm worried about is UAC (user access control.) It looks like more and more people are turning it off (based on advice from websites) for easier friction free use. This was the recent note you fwd'd that went to Steveb.

From: Scott Di Valerio
To: John Kalkman, Jim Totton
Subject: RE:Vista

I think we should jump in with a good response on what we had suggested and what we are seeing happening with the customers on the install etc. If we have suggestions for corrections to ease the customer pain going forward in the near term and long term. Expect this will get to KT soon so we want to have what we have done and what we plan to do (with the BG) to ease some pain.

From: John Kalkman
To: Scott Di Valerio
CC: Jim Totton
Subject: RE:Vista

Attached is the mail explaining the decision process and initial outcome with HP. In the end we lowered the requirements to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with 915 graphics embedded. This in turn did two things: 1. Decreased focus of OEMs panning and shipping higher end graphics for Vista ready programs and 2. Reduced the focus by IHV's to readt great WHQL qualified graphics drivers. We can see this today with Intel's inability to ship a full featured 945 graphics driver for Windows Vista.

It's important that KT understand the decision process, and Jimali not necessarily being in agreement with decision. On what we are seeing happening with the customers on the install. This is harder to determine at the moment. Call volumes to CSS has been low, and graphics historically has been the largest call generator. 30% of crashes are continuing to be graphics related. Attached is the latest report on all IHV parts.

On suggestions for corrections to ease the customer pain going forward in the near term and long term. There is really nothing we can do in the short term. Express upgrade is almost over. In the long term we have worked had to establish and have committed an OEM Theme for Win7 planning. This was rejected for Vista. Having this theme puts accountability and early thinking on programs like Capable/Ready so that we make the right decisions early on.

Again to repeat the above more succinctly, it was a mistake on our part to change the original graphics requirements. This created confusion in the industry on how important the aspect of visual computing would play as a feature set to new Windows Vista upgraders. We will take this learning into Win7 planning.

Let me know if you need more details or if missing something to front end a response to KT.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/MSFT.pdf

The class action suit: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/plaintiff_complaint.pdf

Does anyone know how many $2500+ Apple Mac Pros with 8 2.9 Ghz Cores and 8 Gbytes RAM and 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s of storage are out there with their owners sending and recieving the occassional email (if they can figure how to setup their accounts in Mac Mail) and browsing the internet on a 256kbit/sec 'Broadband' connection (if they can figure out how to setup their Ethernet ADSL router, let alone Wireless connection) there are?

Or do they just use their Apple Mac Pro as a handy handsome electrical panel heater sitting in the corner of the room?

Customer loyalty (however misguided in some cases) does say something about a company. Of course I'm not always sure exactly what it says

I wasn't thinking so much about the surveys by consumer reports and other consumer focused organizations- though those are probably pretty good. I was thinking about some of the more academic stuff that occasionally gets reported by those well know mac loving organizations like Wired and CNET (sorry for the excessive sarcasm - it has been a really uhmm odd day around here). Even if the fanboys are going to try to bend the results, professionally administered academic reviews have a lot of safeguards and usually produce representative results. On top of that I would expect groups like Wired and CNET to be pretty darned careful about publishing anything that sounded pro Apple, in my experience they tend to be a bit MS centric.

I think I'll bow out of this part of the discussion now since we know around here that the tool I love may not work for you and vice versa. Of course if I could just find an Apollo 3500 with the 40 MB hard drive and the 1 MB memory upgrade along with the token ring network card and grayscale monitor we could have fun discussing our favorite shell environments or how Domain rocked!! Now that was a computer!!

- Eric

I would hate to guess on the total but as a percentage I would say it about the same as the folks with the super duper high end Dell (or whatever) with lots of Cores and plenty of never to be used expansion slots etc., that use it to play solitaire or minesweeper. Sales dudes are great at up selling and an awful lot of people think that bigger numbers (whatever the sales droids are spouting this week) just have to be better than smaller numbers. It is never that simple with computers but very, very few people want to dig in enough to understand these complex marvels that most of us love and hate .


- Eric

Commodore 64 all the way!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64

Nah... the TRS-80!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80

Now that was a machine!

Easily the best school/home/personal computer from that period was the BBC model B computer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Model_B

It reigned supreme over Apple IIs, Commodore 64s, Orics, Sinclair ZX81/Spectrums, TI-99/4As, Dragons etc.

When Bill Gates was shown the machine and its Econet network capabilities he replied 'Whats a network?'

95% wrong, but 5% useful information. The only devices that I've run into ANY trouble with immediate plug-and-play functionality on a Mac have been GPS devices. No camera problems, no printer problems, no scanner problems - not even a problem with All-in-one print/scan/faxers.

That said, before you buy ANY technology, read up on it.

Is this the computer which has BBC Basic on it? One of my coworkers swears the only sw language anyone ever needs is BBC Basic.

- Eric

While it has gotten easier in the last few years I still find hardware that macs don't like. That same hardware now is the ones that linux doesn't like either. I've found that linux recognizes almost as much as the ma does now with the exception being apple hardware that apple intentionally makes that way.
Funny I bought a dvd burner and an external usb case and plugged into my linux system and it recognized with no problem. Plugged into my wife's xp laptop and I had to pull out a drive cd for the drive and a driver cd for the usb case then dvd burning software so three discs before xp could use it. The tables have really turned. My mother in law was whining the other day that her desktop pc doesn't work anymore, it won't boot, windows is all messed up. She didn't ask me to fix it this time though, I get on her about going to sites that want to load crappy adware like aol or yahoo but she still goes there and installs everything they ask.

The BBC computer did have the BBC BASIC on it, which was widely recognised as being so much better than the Microsoft BASIC versions on the other early 1980s machines. The BBC model B was interface rich compared to the other computers and was excellent for using the computer for mechantronics projects i.e. simple robotics and scientific experimental recording and for control systems implementations.

You can download a BBC model B emulator here at

http://modelb.bbcmicro.com/download.html

and get the games here at

http://www.bbcmicrogames.com/acornsoft.html

At school we had at first the Apple IIs (at school I designed an 8 bit ADC interfaced on to a 6522 PIO for the Apple IIs backplane for digitising voice input for voice activated control - which required some 6502 hand coded machine code; mind control at that time was a bit beyond what we could do - Firefox (the movie) had just been released a year or two earlier), but then moved on BBC model Bs. The local Russian Spies were aquiring their Sinclair Spectrums made just up the road for their aerospace defence or perhaps they wanted their children to play computer games as well

The BBC BASIC was very good to use to go on to develop early structured programming skills. BBC BASIC also had a complete built in 6502 assembler as well. It was a good introduction before going on to program in PASCAL (taught on Apollo Domains at University) and later C and OCCAM and a little FORTRAN for signal processing projects i.e. Dynamic Infra Red image processing. Borlands Turbo BASIC was pretty good for MSDOS programming.

I mostly lost interest in the bloated and tedious C++ Object Oriented Windows (OCCAMs process oriented programming still hasn't caught on yet and I suspect most modern Information Technologists and even programmers involved in that game wouldn't even begin to tell you how even the basics of a computer works).

I should have went into the games development side of things and I would have have probably now been a Multi millionaire like Davy Jones of Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto fame. Oh well..

Hi Sue,

We changed from PCs to Macs at work a little over a year ago. Although it took a little while to adjust, it's been a good decision. They generally are faster and easier and you don't have to reboot every few hours. When you do reboot, they do so much faster. PCs are much more vulnerable to viruses and hacking and the anti-virus software that you must have slows the machine down.

I was reluctant to make the change but now I'm much happier. I still have a PC at home and would like to change to a Mac on my next upgrade. I can't now because my DW must have a PC to work from home. Macs aren't perfect, but they'll probably reduce his suffering.

Macs will run Windows, sometimes better than other computers, without much hassle. I use VMware Fusion to occasionally run XP but there are other viable options. Go on, get a Mac at home!

Not everyone has the same level of experience and training with computers so there are going to be lots of differences in opinion and some unintentional mistakes made. To mildly misquote a wise person "never attribute to malice (or fanboyism) what is adequately explained by ignorance".

It is possible to write malicious software for any computer system / operating system. Having said that, the basic architecture of Windows (at least thru XP) is much more vulnerable to true Viruses or worms when compared to Linux, UNIX and OS-X.

MS Windows is a much more target rich environment (more common and therefore more targets and more badguys) but the other platforms are not ignored - there are lots of attempts to show how "vulnerable" Linux and OS-X are but to date the worst the various teams have managed are some demo's that might work under very controlled conditions. I am pretty sure there are no current Apple or Linux specific exploits "in the wild" that are equivalent to the worms and viruses currently impacting a lot of PCs. To someone who is a more casual user that surely looks like "there are no mac viruses".

I am always at a bit of a loss when people bring up Anti-virus SW for the mac as indicating that Apples must have viruses. Most of these companies are out to make a buck not help the users. Many of the "viruses" they scan for haven't been a threat to the Mac in a long time (as in no longer matter with the current OS) assuming they ever were a realistic threat. The other things they seem to scan for are application vulnerabilities (like Flash, or Adobe acrobat reader) which are not exactly Apples responsibility. This is also where some of the architectural choices behind OS-X are better at limiting the impact of the malware than the same exploit on Windows.

In many cases the recent "viruses" aren't really true viruses but require a social exploit also - having the user do something specific to catch and share the "fun". In my experience those who fall for these things will continue to do so and there is very little I or the OS designers can do to help these people. Currently this is mostly Windows users (due to population size) but I expect we will see more of this on other platforms as they grow in popularity.

- Eric

Well, again, kinda sorta true. First of all, there's plenty of know vulnerabilities in OS X, it's just that they aren't really that easy to exploit.

What's more important is the underlying guts of the OS X platform, which is, of course, a BSD-based kernel and it is, ultimately, Unix. That's an OLD and MATURE OS and a lot of the attacks and issues faced are well known and well patched.

The biggest security vulnerability for ANY computer is the peripheral that's located smack in between the screen and the chair.