MS Vista & High-End Audio

[IWalker]

Yeah, wow. So only mac users can do " creative, innovative, visionary work now." Cool. That's about the snobbiest post/statement I've read/heard in quite some time. Glad to see you have such a high opinion of yourself.

So, is staying inside listening to music ok, but staying inside playing a video game isn't? Howabout watching a movie? Can you make us a list, so we can know what is ok to do and what isn't. Sheesh. Last I heard it was "everything in moderation."

Believe me, if macs were better for business, they'd be used for business. They do well for graphic design, but in terms of general advanced business needs, they aren't quite there, in terms of application support (or hardware cost) Having the ability to load windows is a start though If you had 200 "helpers" for 1000 pcs, there's something seriously wrong. I work in a company with hundreds of thousands of employees (who use pcs) and doubt if we have 200 "helpers" in our pc support department. We have a massive IT department...but they do a heck of a lot more than just tech support, as I imagine the IT people in your company did as well...and likely did more to support your mac use (from the backend) than you realize.

I used to fix computers in college, and got more calls for macs than I did pcs (based on percentage of users with each)...and their problems were always harder to fix, because it was almost always a "yeah, that doesn't work, there's no way to fix it...it isn't supported by apple yet" issue as opposed to pc issues, which were virtually always fixable.

The comment "I won't buy one, because of lack of support for..." is a main reason a lot of pc owners don't switch. His use just happens to be games, but there a number of other areas where pcs still have much greater software support. My personal reason is the overall flexibility and power pcs offer. I'm glad your mac works well for you. No need to bash PCs (or their users) just because they have a difference in preference. That's nothing but straight arrogance.

Just another point of view.

 

[jjqiv]

And therein, my friend, lies the fundamental difference between Mac users and PC users...

Mac owners consider their machines to be tools for doing creative, innovative, visionary work.

PC owners consider their machines some sort of high-end entertainment consoles that will, coincidentally, also run Word and Excel...

I would suggest that you buy a frisbee or a snowboard or a nice mountain bike or even a paintball gun, and use those for your play-time. Getting outside will do you a world of good, and the money you save not having to buy all those new games would be MUCH better spent buying music CDs, or new components for your stereo (for rainy or cold days)...

I have a MacBook Pro 17", and I bought it with JUST OS X installed. I will not install Windows. I will not install Word. Hell, I won't even download the free version of Explorer. I simply refuse to patronize a company which continues to force inferior products down the throat of the computer world, and is perpetuating the conspiracy of perpetually escalating employment for "IT Managers" and "PC Help Desk Jockeys". If, for any reason, I feel the need to put a second OS on my Mac, it will be Linux.

The last company I worked for had 1500 employees. Of them, we had PCs on about 1000 desks and Macs on about 250 desks. For PC help-desk support, we had nearly 200 full-time people (1 helper for every 5 PCs), and they OFTEN had to put in overtime. For the Macs, we had 2 "help desk" people (1 helper for every 125 Macs), and they were part time, and actually spent most of their time as production artists in the graphic design dept. You do the math. Macs are more reliable, last longer, more backwardly-compatible over their lifetime, and interms of "real cost" in the business sense, actually cost less than 50% what PCs cost, in terms of up-time, reliability, and user-support over the life of the machine.

Take a Mac out of the box, plug it in the wall, and it runs for 10 years...

The Mac I had before this one was a PowerMac 9500 (made in 1995), and when I retired it (in late 2006) I was running OS 9.1, and the current (non OS X) versions of Photoshop, Quark, and Illustrator.

You can't even run the install disk for the most recent version of Windoze on an 11-year-old PC, and if you could, it would run so slow that it would probably cause a warp in the time-space continuum and collapse upon itself, creating a mini-black hole which would suck your wallet out of your pocket and make it disappear into a singularity...

Oh, that's what EVERY version of Windoze does, on EVERY PC.... :haha1:

Don't support Windoze.
Don't support DIVX.
Abandon the digital heroin they call "gaming", and buy a frisbee.
The air will do you good.

Spend your money on something worthwhile, like TUBES and ESLs...

And if you really feel the desire to throw your energy and money into a cost-ineffective, stress-inducing, mind-numbing activity, start designing your own cables for your sound system. Believe me, you'll throw buckets of money away , end up with the twitches and a dangerously accelerated heart rate, and you'll **** off your S.O. with all the bits of wire and smell of solder. (same outcome as playing computer games!?!) But on the good side, you might actually accomplish something useful with your time.

--Richard C.

I had one of those PowerMacs at work in that time-frame. Had to reboot it daily, often multiple times. What a POS! I was so envious of co-workers that had PC's. I was so glad when we the company through Apple out the door.

 

[lugano]

http://iowaconsumercase.org/index.html

take a look at the Admitted Exhibits. You will get a better picture of Microsoft.

 

[IWalker]

any particular ones of note? I'm interested...but don't feel like leafing through dozens of scanned documents. I read a couple, but didn't see anything more than aggressive corporate strategy listed.

There is a fine line in business between competition and anti-competitive practices...which is further grayed when you become the dominant player in the industry. Any player who is getting their market share stolen is going to claim monopolistic behavior, while the company doing it is going to claim innovative right. That's why these things generally take so long in the courts. Please do point out the things you think make microsoft out to be such a terrible company, though...

Given the opportunity, any of the companies now suing would have done the exact same thing. Look at Apple with the Ipod and thier AAC format and Itunes...or look at what made apple eat dirt initially...they horded all the development rights to their system (imagine the monopolistic consequences of that, if Microsoft hadn't won that war). So...there's no halo above apple's head either. They're all companies trying to succeed in a corporate marketplace where prior year's success means very little to your shareholders...it's all about future earnings. It may not be furry and fun and nice, but it's how it is. That's why going public can be a major headache for smaller firms...because you can't always make the smart business decisions...you sometimes end up making market based decisions that are bad for business. (example, homebuilders liquidating their stock at lower prices, as opposed to slowing down production and waiting out the housing slowdown)

Remember too, that Microsoft bailed Apple out a few years ago, and likely without that, they wouldn't be back where they are today. Microsoft is not "the man" oppressing mac users...they have developmed tons of software that now make macs VIABLE for mainstream use alongside PCs.

I can understand the mac love...I just can't understand the microsoft hate. It's not a zero sum gain.

 

[lugano]

any particular ones of note? I'm interested...

IWalker, from the perspective of a MacUser since 1985, making his living on this platform and often having to deal with microsoft operating systems, I will write down a reply to your post(s). Just give me time, because I'd like to cover all the aspects of this matter, in the most objective way I am capable of. My reply will come, eventually, and will show the whole eisberg. Related to the evidence stuff, just a quick copy-paste for now:

Two and a half years ago Microsoft executives were privately green with envy over the features soon to be released in Mac OS 10.4 Tiger.

According to a report on UK web site PCPro , Microsoft’s envy was revealed in a series of emails, submitted as evidence in the Iowa antitrust lawsuit.

Mail.app and Spotlight particularly impressed Lenn Pryor, former Director of Platform Evangelism:

Tonight I got on corpnet, hooked up Mail.app to my Exchange server and then downloaded all of my mail into the local file store. I did system wide queries against docs, contacts, apps, photos, music, and … my Microsoft email on a Mac. It was ****ing amazing. It is like I just got a free pass to Longhorn land today.

Top Microsoft executive Jim Allchin was also impressed: “I don’t believe we will have search this fast,” he wrote.


----


in the meantime, an interesting read is this one: http://software.seekingalpha.com/article/26163

 

[IWalker]

Thanks I always appreciate a good discussion.

Macs certainly have a wide variety of great features (and OS 10 was a great leap forward for them...and a great OS overall)...and I think anybody (including microsoft execs) would admit that they best pcs in certain areas. What that shows me, is that MSFT is doing market research, and adapting based on tools and ideas that arrive in their marketplace. Had that same meeting occurred at Apple (as meetings like that occur..and SHOULD occur at companies every day), regarding certain PC innovations..."wow, that's cool, we should add something like that" it wouldn't be thought of twice. Only because of MSFT's market share is it an issue. In fact, a lot of the status quo for PC development has come straight from MSFT, so a large number of the developments within OS X were based off that status quo...so thus off microsoft products.

Like I said...I don't dislike macs...I think they're great for certain uses...they just aren't to MY preference for MY uses...I just don't understand the pc hate is all...I never would have responded at all if this was just a mac <3 thread.

 

[Charliemike]

Mac vs. PC is one of the most pointless debates I have ever heard. Second only to Ford v. Chevy.

You'd be better off arguing "Tastes Great/Less Filling".

We use what we like but it's the compulsive desire of either camp to make their choice seem the better one that escapes me.

 

[Beat_Dominator]

Mac vs. PC is one of the most pointless debates I have ever heard. Second only to Ford v. Chevy.

You'd be better off arguing "Tastes Great/Less Filling".

We use what we like but it's the compulsive desire of either camp to make their choice seem the better one that escapes me.

What? That's not true. Chevy's are obviously crap! :haha1:



Mac users are all hippies


Windows is the creation of evil Mr. Gates. :devil:

 

[lugano]

Mac vs. PC is one of the most pointless debates I have ever heard
We use what we like but it's the compulsive desire of either camp to make their choice seem the better one that escapes me.

Charliemike, this safe harbor on the internet, this isle of common sense and great taste called Martin Logan Club has proved to be a great mind opening resource for all the attendees, in many aspects. As computers begin to take a bigger share of the audio setups we all have, I think it is a good thing to debate the positive and negative of the available platforms. I might be wrong, but my opinion is that 1) it's not pointless and 2) you can't dismiss this by just saying "we use what we like", because if we extend this to all we use (amplifiers, preamps, headphones, speaker cables, subwoofers, music, room treatment, power equipment, interconnects, voodoo etc etc) we could as well reduce the forum to a member's systems thread and be done with it. Fact is, we DO explain why we use this and that - in countless threads - may it be cost, synergy, intimate convincement that "it rulez", coolness, proven value over time, positive reviews, reality as we perceive it through our own ears, anything.... why should the n+1 piece of hardware we use more and more in conjunction to our setups (the computer) escape to this logic ?

 

[jjqiv]

Mac vs. PC is one of the most pointless debates I have ever heard. Second only to Ford v. Chevy.

You'd be better off arguing "Tastes Great/Less Filling".

We use what we like but it's the compulsive desire of either camp to make their choice seem the better one that escapes me.

Light Beer? Arghhhh!!!!!

"Tastes Disgusting/Makes You Bloated"

 

[lugano]

here comes the complete evidence piece I was talking about. Check out who are the senders and recipients of the mails, and of course, the contents... 3 years and some bilions of $ later, with Vista, they managed to implement a mock-up of what they saw in 2004. But the new OS X iteration, Leopard, is just weeks away... they have to order a new batch of photocopiers, at Microsoft...

http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/7000/PX07278.pdf

 

[lugano]

Lastly, Apple is not immune to this. As a matter of fact Apple helped to make DRM a viable comsumer control model with Fairplay, iTunes, and iPods. They have no qalms about using DRM. DRM is helping Apple maintain their near monopoly of downloaded music. We will definitely see more DRM in OS X.

Xray, please do me a personal favor and read Steve Jobs' take on this:


Thoughts on Music
Steve Jobs
February 6, 2007

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

 

[lugano]

I'm still ROTFLMAO....

http://images.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple-getamac-security_480x376.mov

 

[IWalker]

There's no doubt that the things you're pointing out, macs do better. A lot of other things as well (sleep function comes to mind). However, that's like saying Car X has more horsepower than Car Y, therefore it is better. There are many many many other elements involved.

That said...Apple's been making a great product over the last few years...and has great vision in what they do. If they keep it up, and improve in a few areas (and broaden their range a little bit) then they have the opportunity to pick up a good deal of market share.

Preference has a LOT to do with it, as it does with our stereos. Just because we have differences regarding "should I go Tube Pre/Class A Amp or Tube/Tube" doesn't, again mean that one is better than the other. Some people say B&W speakers sound better than MLs. I personally disagree...but I can leave it at that, or discuss the characteristics that I find lacking in B&Ws and I find so good in MLs. What I may find out is that the other person agrees...but just has a different set of preferences. (just as I agree that macs do a lot of things better...but do not fit my needs)

That's why maintaining the respectful attitude that is so widely shared on this forum is so important (on all subjects)...because no opinion on these subjects is better than any other, as the topics are both naturally so subjective.

I enjoy discussion, even if it doesn't accomplish anything (which I agree with charliemike that it really doesn't "accomplish" anything)...because you learn more (both information and perspective) and get new ideas to further investigate...I only enjoy it as far as it is civil though.

Thanks for the links lugano, and the always civil attitude...interesting reads.

Oh, and it's obviously "less filling" cause it really doesn't taste all that great

 

[lugano]

in related news...

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer

 

[kcl]

Please note that the following isn't a criticism as much as it is an observation.

As a preface, I've been in the computing field for about 40 years. I've written a couple of operating systems and probably 10+ language compilers, using many different languages. I'm expert in probably four languages, competent in perhaps another five, and have a nodding acquaintance maybe ten more. I've used mainframes, minis, and micro computers, and I've lost count of the number of different operating systems and/or environments that I've used.

With all that, the one thing that I can say from experience is this: Each language and/or operating environment will do certain things quite well, but other things very poorly. (A corollary, of course, is that none of them does everything well or everything poorly.) Unfortunately, for some folks, the good things an environment supports can overshadow the poor things, and vice-versa.

I stopped being concerned long ago about what I can't do well in an environment and just try and focus on what they can. If that turns out to be a problem for what I'm trying to do, then I just use something else.

 

[enilsen]

Ken,

I totally agree with you, use the best tools for the right job. If Vista becomes a reliable OS and users embrace it then all the power to them. If it proves to be a white elephant then this could be the chance for other OS manufactures to grab a larger market share. I don’t care. I’ll use what ever works.

Like your self I have also seen the progress of OS and programming languages over the last 3 decades and still find the most stable environments today are mainframes and UNIX based systems hence we keep them alive.

The justification for Vista and any new upcoming OS is to protect 3 party vendors by incorporating more security. With this in mind there will be more overhead that can fail due to the complexities involved (murphy's law).

Wait for the day when users complain they can't save a picture or a music file on their stand alone PC because the OS tells them they need administration rights.

 

[Yang1815]

It doesn't even make sense to claim that the reason one doesn't use a Mac computer is due to the lack of "support" for games.

First of all, with the new Intel-based Macs, one can run Windows XP on Mac hardware, thus getting all the support for games. In addition, it's not Apple who doesn't support games, but the game manufacteurs who don't support Apple.

In addition, I have come across some very stubborn people who simply claim that they have problem using Mac OSX, or how it crashes all the time, etc. Well, the truth is they never bothered to learn how to use Mac OSX in the first place, and applying the the how-to from Windows to OSX just doesn't work. Does anyone eat sushi with a fork? Maybe at the beginning, but eventually you learn to use chopsticks. And for those who don't bother trying sushi, well it's their loss.

However, for those people that actually take the time to learn how to operate a new OS, I can tell you they are very happy. Three friends of mine recently switched to MacBook/MacBook Pro and they can't be happier. They can't believe how easy it is to install/un-install applications, and how the entire experience morphs together especially with iLife applications integrated in the OS.

Lastly, I'm actually fine with the fact that Microsoft is dominating. Don't we all enjoy being the few proud owners of ML?

 

[JonFo]

Xray, please do me a personal favor and read Steve Jobs' take on this:


Thoughts on Music
Steve Jobs
February 6, 2007

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

This is groundbreaking news. I'm surprised there are not more comments on this.

I for one wish general media (Music, movies) DRM would just disappear. It's an annoyance for us legit users who purchase *all* our content.

If DRM on music is abolished, then DRM on HD video content might be next. Removing some of these massive constraints Hollywood is putting on computer makers and forcing many of the issues discussed earlier in the thread.

And Apple will not be exempted from DRM hell if they want to support BlueRay or HD-DVD playback on their devices. No doubt they’ll do it elegantly and user friendly as possible, but DRM is DRM and it will get in the way of what I consider ‘normal’ usage of purchased content.

So three cheers for Steve Jobs and this very public statement on why DRM is bad. :cheers:

 

[Rich]

The justification for Vista and any new upcoming OS is to protect 3 party vendors by incorporating more security. With this in mind there will be more overhead that can fail due to the complexities involved (murphy's law).

This statement to me connotes a fundamental difference between MS and Apple. Vista is coming out primarily to address security concerns and to put a different face on an aging product line. Whereas, when Apple comes out with a new OS, it is all about providing additional functionality and enjoyment to the user experience. In a nutshell, it seems to me that MS is all about MS, and Apple is all about the user experience.

I'm only a recent convert to Mac after having used MS for 25 years, so don't accuse me of being just another Apple fanboy. But to me, after having tried the Mac, the differences between the two as far as the user experience are like night and day, and that gap continues to widen. After downloading and using I.E.7 on my P.C., I am ready to dump MS completely in favor of the Mac. Apple simply provides a more pleasant, user-centric experience.

Vista is a non-issue with me. I won't be upgrading my current P.C. But when the next version of OS-X comes out, you better believe I will be upgrading the Mac.