PC or Mac

[SlideMeister]

Some people say that Mac's are too expensive, that is not true.  If it were, people would not buy them.  Worth every cent.

Actually they are not only a lot more expensive, but are all but un-expandable. You can get about twice the power for your money with a PC; especially if you build your own. With a PC however, you are a much bigger target for the makers of spyware, ad aware, anywhere, Trojans, worms and other creepy crawlers, which require multiple CPU taxing TRS software aps that use up much of that extra power you get with a  PC and slow it down, especially while on the web.  Other non-web based aps, scream, but who even runs those anymore?

In a drag race between my dual core notebook and my little (7 year old) mac mini; going to an obscure (never before visited) website, and hitting enter on each simultaneously, the older, slower mac, gets there in almost half the time, even with MacKeeper installed.  (which is pretty cool BTW)

Like Jasonic, I work with both too, but find the Mac harder to work with.

If money were no object, I'd probably just get the fastest mac available with Parallels so I get the best of both.

@ge

[hdchromatic]

Macs all the way

[Bluesy]

My main computer is a new 21" iMac with a large hard drive. I partitioned it in half and installed Windoze 7 on one half.
It's the awfullest, clumsy operating system - I think I open it about 3 times a year, and quickly close it again. When I do I feel like I'm coming out of darkness into light.
(This is in no way meant to disparage Windows - it's just me.)

Tom/

[Danny G]

It tickles my funny bone to read chromatic guys commenting about liking something simple

[RolandTumbler]

iPad, and rarely an iPhone. And occasionally, a PC.

[ejacob4]

Hi,
If it shoots current across a motherboard, I have used it. Mac. I take my mac and a yeti and record the school choir and band in garageband. Even lets me get a few people back in key. I cut up the raw sound and make mp3s by the dozens, but prefer AACs. I train my students to work a concert in two songs. I train them to cut sound in a few minutes, to listen . . . and enhance . . . takes an ear, but given one, about fifteen minutes. to convert . . . a minute or two, unless they want to know all there is about formats, then half an hour.

We shoot vids on high end prosumer cams, then drop them into iMovie. the hard part is getting them to shoot past the lights in the auditorium, but importing and enhancement is a few minutes per task. They have overlaid video with soundtracks with voiceovers and slides to boot. Ilife was $60. Iwork, Ilife, and my last disk of OX cost $110 in a package. Fine, too simplistic and too expensive. Sure.

You want cheap, get open office, either platform, or other open source software. Works fine.

Meanwhile, down the hall, I got a math teacher with an IQ of 160 who can't keep outlook behaving for more than two days. I've been running mail forever with no problem.

It don't work, it don't work right, and it's better . . . than what?

Usually when I walk into a room and this debate, I have to leave. There's a concert or a play or a game and I have a crew about to hit the field, with canons, blue mics, and a mac laptop that can produce it all and burn the disk too, with a high school student at the keyboard. We have work to do, they have OS to serve.

[fieldflower]

Now I use both.

Have been a PC guy all the way, but recently got a macbook pro for music recording.

I love PC for normal working, surfing, etc.

But it's Mac (period) for music.

Tried to do music on the PC, but the unexplainable CPU spikes ruined both playback and recording.
The Mac seems to use CPU in somewhat linearity to what You've started whereas the PC is doing all kinds of things in the background that I cannot control.
(Yes, I realize You can do things to Your PC to reduce CPU spikes, but on the mac it works without doing things...)

But the ease of handling and possibility of user specific setup I can easily get on the PC makes it my first choice for work and simple home surfing, etc..
I'm very much an Excel (and similar) guy and I want the exact behaviour I'm used to.
You can probably get that to work on a mac, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be or behave exactly the same.

[SlideMeister]

Ditto over here.

Lately I've been having more PC problems than the law allows. (You name it, and I'm having problems with it) I've been using my Mac almost exclusively for everything and yes, I still hate it for everything but web surfing & music stuff (the two areas for me where the Mac really rox) 

[fieldflower]

I shouldn't have written so nice words about the Mac. It must have jinxed it, because yesterday it quit working.
After a while it agreed to boot again, and then it hit me that I hadn't heard the fans at all despite the computer getting REAL hot.
Downloaded a fan control and then the fans started working again, and I even get a heat indicator and possibility to set higher fans revs if I see the temp rising.

I take it as evidence to my previous notion about Mac vs PC: Mac has better capacity utilization. PC is more turnkey usage.

[SlideMeister]

That's one of the problems I'm having with my Compaq CQ-60 notebook; the fan works fine, then outta nowhere, it decides to take the day off. (I suspect a motherboard problem. It wouldn't even work with a notebook cooler fan under it till I put a external power supply on the thing and cut most of the grillwork out of the fans. Been working okay since then, except of course, for some software problems.  The thing worked great for three years and all of a sudden, its the notebook from hades!

[Anharmonic]

PC!

I have never used a Mac, and when I encounter one out in the wild, I do a 180 and run for the hills.
Seriously though, I know a guy who uses a Mac and he encountered all sorts of problems in our undergraduate physics lab because almost no scientific equipment software is written for the Mac OS.
He is now an unwilling owner of a PC 

[SlideMeister]

Ten minutes playing around with GarageBang, and you may find yourself wanting a Mac. I pretty much hate mine for everything else (except it flies on the web and the lack of software thing goes for viri and stuff too)

[BeeWee]

A.J.

No PC and no Mac.

I use android.

[smojoe]

One thing you have to be careful with Macs is that since they don't easily get virus', IF someone DOES try to hack data from your computer, and they can't find anything useful, when they leave, they leave behind trash that can disable sections of your unit. It's almost like a revenge thing. Like I am currently getting a 'plug in blocked' message when I try to pull in you tubes.
smo-joe

[English]

Like I am currently getting a 'plug in blocked' message when I try to pull in you tubes.
smo-joe

Joe. That's almost certainly because there is an update available (there was one in the last couple of days), and you haven't applied the update. Safari will then block the plug in until you update it. Nothing to do with being hacked.

Alan.

[English]

Prior to a year ago, I used Linux exclusively for the previous decade or so. Because I had a contract with a company that insisted on using Windows only software, I gave in and bought a shiny new PC with Windows Hate Windows 8. I gave it a good try for a couple of months, but couldn't stand it. Sold it for half what I paid for it. I was happy just to get rid of it.

Now, I really dislike Apple as a company. Mostly because of their litigious nature and all the patent nonsense. Also because of their language arrogance. They used to have a team in Ireland who "translated" the OS from American to English. But, when OS X came out, they sacked the entire team, and only provided what they call "International English" which just happens to be American—despite the vast majority of the English speaking world spelling things in English. It seems I can have my OS in Swahili or Swedish, but I can't have it in English. Grr.

Anyway, having resisted Mac for over a decade because of this, I finally gave in, and bought a very expensive MacBook Pro. Reluctantly, I have to report that I have an almost unhealthy attachment to this computer, and the OS. It has all the reliability of Linux (it is, after all, based on a flavour of Linux), and it is supported by peripheral and software manufacturers. I love it.

Alan.

[SlideMeister]

Yeah, the little I know about Windows 8, I hate. Actually, I'm still an XP fan, but my notebook won't run nothin but Vista and later,and I dislike 7 a little less than Vista, so I'm stuck with 7 till 9 or 10 comes out.

[smojoe]

Thanks English, I was unaware of any update. I shall check that out.

On that note, the only reason we have a Mac is because our older daughter was once a Mac-genius (that's what they called them), and worked for Apple. Trained at Cuperintino, and worked on the Americanism of the manuals. She has technical writing, business systems, computer sciences, English, Spanish degrees. Was part of a 'purge' several years ago. Word on the streets was: Don't talk to Steve..he can't be bothered with peons.

What they were looking for was a 'neutral' English language with NO accents. Basically same as used in international shipping and air traffic. But
the final language was heavily proof read for approval.   

She, through connections, is still is able to get Apple products at, shall we say, an indecent discount. So we always get her last model. For free. Hey, can't pass THAT up. But this is because we got her her first computer back in the late 80s, for school, and it was outrageous.

smo-joe 

[pmelissakis]

I made the wrong decision to go with PCs for writing tech manuals after looking at the MAC. It looked pretty much like a toy with a 9" B&W screen at a ridiculous price. 

[smojoe]

I'll tell you never amazes to cease me..138 messages, BUT only 13 people answered the poll. lol

smo-joe

[Scotty]

I'll tell you never amazes to cease me..138 messages, BUT only 13 people answered the poll. lol

smo-joe

True, but--some likely never saw the poll. Age usually doesn't leave them up for long and if you notice--it ended back in 2007. If I saw it I would have participated (maybe even did)...can't remember now.  Heck, that's nearly 8 years ago! lol

The posts were made over the years --with a lot of really interesting input from Mac owners (I just read the whole thread today)--another reason I SO thoroughly enjoy these older threads still being available and not having someone begin their own 'version' today.  Lots of info here I didn't know about Macs. It's unlikely to make my husband's choice of new computers any different, though...but I'm glad to read it all as I learn more about computers - and which to use for music, etc.....

Elizabeth (a/k/a Scotty)

[English]

I think I looked at the poll, but it was closed.

[SlideMeister]

Yeah, it has been closed for a very long time.
Okay, Just for fun, we'll lite it up again.
Have at it!

@ge

[Scotty]

Yeah, it has been closed for a very long time.
Okay, Just for fun, we'll lite it up again.
Have at it!

@ge

I just saw it --and signed in immediately - this time. come on guys, see if we can do better than 13!? 

Elizabeth (a/k/a Scotty)

[grstatdoc]

Hmmm....
the current poll seems to be doing worse than the original (with 5 votes, and I was the fifth one)
I remembered (somewhat fondly) the old Apple III/Appleworks stuff until ITS switched over to Windows in the late 80s.
Since then, the Apple world has not been in play for me, and seems to be a whole different language (or dialect) to me.
I have been using Windows 7 64-bit (because of Windows XP mode being included), but have a virtual machine with W7 32-bit installed to run the 32-bit stats programs I use (for that reason, I'm very reluctant to use W8, because I'd have to purchase a 32-bit OS to run on a virtual machine)

[SlideMeister]

Oooooo! A dead heat! (3 fer'it and 3 a'gin' it)
But with just six respondents, it doesn't say much.
Hey, maybe Smokey's right!

[Philos]

Well, I threw my vote in there…. hoping I win the prize!

It's a Mac from me.

Being a bit of a simpleton when it comes to all things computerised.. I've found my Macbook so easy to use compared to PC and my Iphone's a breeze too.

Mac back up support is great too.. I just take it to an Applestore for updates and check-ups every now and again and occasionally vacuum all the cat hair (!) out of the keyboard..

Have a merry and safe [Christmas] everyone..

[Scotty]

Well, I threw my vote in there…. hoping I win the prize!

It's a Mac from me.

Being a bit of a simpleton when it comes to all things computerised.. I've found my Macbook so easy to use compared to PC and my Iphone's a breeze too.

Mac back up support is great too.. I just take it to an Applestore for updates and check-ups every now and again and occasionally vacuum all the cat hair (!) out of the keyboard..

Have a merry and safe Christmas everyone..

Hahaha - Philos, THAT's the part which causes me the most problem 'occasionally vacuum all the cat hair (!) out of the keyboard.."      especially when one has seven (really - 7) indoor cats, two of whom are bound and determined to get into my computer armoire behind my monitor and who will actually sit ON the keyboard while chittering away at me. If you've ever seen the cartoon 'Simon's Cat' (on YouTube) --that's my Kuma to a tee--except Simon's Cat is far more clever. Kuma doesn't learn--anything.   His saving grace is that he's adorable, and is 'the' one our dogs seem to take to the most. He's already won over his newest doggy friend while the other kitties are still a bit apprehensive about this stranger in their midst. But his fur is the kind which goes EVERYwhere--including my keyboard, monitor, PC, etc. even I've found it stuck statically to my mouse as well. So MY [Christmas] is likely to be extremely busy --at least when we get back from Maryland and have to do all the cleanup.

Hope everyone has a safe and merry Christmas too, as well as Chanukah and Kwanzaa. Driving this year will be a mite hazardous again (at least on the East Coast), so be careful out there on the roads. Want to see all of my SlideMeister friends again next week so we can wish each other a Happy New Year.  We're going to try for Maryland again traveling with our newest canine--with house and cat sitters tcob back home. This should be 'fun'. 

Elizabeth (a/k/a Scotty)

[jasonic]

I appear to have tied up the race with my vote for Mac...

[wheelz421]

Doh! Tied up again

Mac for me. I used to be "Mac or Die!", but lately I'm gravitating to more of being on the fence.  I'm becoming fed up up with Apples "Upgrade until it's not supported" game plan to drive up sales.  If your going to make the hardware last 10 years, please support the software that long.

We have a pc for the little guy, dealing with the spyware/adware/virus is a serious pain in the butt.

Your screwed if you go one way or the other...