Here’s a report on the costs and collateral damage caused by Vista’s obsessive and intrusive DRM. Tell me again why I’d want to ‘upgrade’?
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Actually, the correct comparison is between Mac OS X and Vista. Check out this hillarious video on youtube.
According to Steve Balmer, Vista is selling by leaps and bounds. I guess there are a lot of masochists out there.
2, it’s easy to say it’s selling well when nobody is allowed to sell XP.
I wouldn’t install Vista on any of my computers even if it was free.
I just wish it would respect my decision to turn off font smoothing.
It’s what I’ve known for 20 years. OS X 10.4.9. is so far ahead of Vista and so much more sophisticated in it’s organization now it’s laughable. I guess Windoze users will have to wait another 5 years to get what Mac has today.
#5: Just curious, but why would you want to turn off font smoothing?
#6: I believe MS has gone to using dog years when they mention time to next release.
6, don’t kid yourself…I don’t think many Windows users will ever want what you have today. 🙂
I’ve never seen font smooting do anything but make the display blurry and make my eyes hurt. I have to thank you guys for being
suckersearly adopters. and working on SP-1 for me.…Just read part of the link and skimmed the rest. Hang on to your Win 2k and XP CDs, guys.
Putting on the Mac geek hat…
When resolution independent display comes out in Leopard, you’ll all switch.
#8, I can only go by what my 18 yr old son (who runs 2 PC’s w/XP and designs web pages) said when I got OSX 10.4.9. I had to scrape his jaw off the floor and peel his coveting fingers off my keyboard, and warn him about the language he was using towards Windoze.
Microsoft: “Where do you want to go today?”
Apple: “Where do you want to go tomorrow?”
Linux: “Are you coming or what?”
Though I do have to give Apple credit for innovation, especially since OS X…
Jayson – please, Linux is behind so badly on desktop UI and experience it’s not even funny. I love my Ubuntu laptop, but my powerbook is so much of a better experience to use.
Font smoothing is great, but it works best on LCD monitors, in fact it makes things a lot clearer. However XP’s font smoothing is a little.. well.. poor. Vista is better, but for some reason Apple seem to have really nailed it. It just looks a little nicer on a Mac.
My new powerbook from work has really reminded me how much nicer it is working on a mac, and this from someone that uses and loves PCs.
Executive Executive Summary
The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history
Since most folks who visit here already know about Cranky Geeks [shameless plug], some might wish to visit Steve Gibson’s site at grc.com and listen to his ‘Security Now’ podcasts (also available from TWiT). This topic was discussed in detail about a month ago. IMHO, worth listening to.
Now, anybody got a guess how much it’s going to cost me to upgrade 4 dual-cores that are less than 1 year old? I’ll be running out right now to upgrade if it’s less than negative $1000.
I do not like the font smoothing in Vista because it decreases readability, slows me down, hurts my eyes, and makes it more difficult to navigate. I like high contrast, crisp, readable text. After staring at a blurry screen for hours, my brain hurts and I feel I absolutely need to get into XP so I can get some work done.
When I turn off font smoothing, Vista insists on leaving it enabled in a number of places. I wish it would just turn it off completely.
I once had a conversation with a psychologist who insisted that Microsoft designs its OS, Apps, and especially upgrades to apps with the intention of befuddling the user. I couldn’t get him to decide on a reason as to why they do this but he insists they do studies to further this effect. I think at the very least it is to make it appear that more features exists in new products (Vista), when many of the old features have simply been shuffled around or renamed. It could be that MS wants average users to feel inept so that they rely on Microsoft’s wizards and help to get what they want done.
This brings me to the way vista looks. When I use vista, nothing feels solid. When I look at a directory listing I have to read through it to find what I want, and not just let my eyes find it for me. When I’m navigating the components of windows, I feel like this wispy transparent glassy look is there to hide a disjointed jumble mess of a product. Have you looked at the number of control panels?
It all just leaves me feeling annoyed and the eye strain gives me a freaking headache.
#10
We’ll all switch to Macs the day when WE WON’T HAVE TO PAY 3X MORE FOR THE SAME HARDWARE.
#11
Tell him to look for OSX86.
#6
Really Jimbo. Have you ever tried remoting into a Mac box from a Windows box? What about something equivalent to GoToMyPC? How about tools to manage the computers on your corporate network?
Mac works great for artsy fartsy types and luddite home users that aren’t in a corporation environment. However, once you move into a corporation they become a support nightmare.
Thomas. That’s Bizarro-worldspeak. One thing that has never changed is the relative support costs of Mac and Wintel. And nobody from the Wintel side even bothers going through the pretense of comparing them any more, because it’s a no-win slam-dunk. Wintel costs a lot more to support. Always has. Always will, even if you subtract the large percentage of Wintel support time spent on just malware eradication and system crashes.
The only shops that have problems with Mac support are those cheesebag outfits that’re too goddamn cheap to put one or two Mac experts on the payroll.
And among my 27 years of computing adventures, I put in a couple of them doing Tier 2 ISP end-user tech support for both platforms – I know whereof I speak.
Funny how all the most serious IT trade pubs and independent research labs disagree with you…
And Mac users the ‘Luddites’? HAH! That’s pretty feeble. More pseudo-snobbery from the “if it isn’t hard to use, it’s not a serious computer” school of thought. Jeez. Ain’t it time to hang up the hair shirt? You really believe it’s superior to spend a big part of your time getting the computer to work, instead of just using it? I think you’re afraid of Macs, since they make the mystical, all-powerful priesthood of tech support irrelevant and unnecessary. If everyone used Macs, all those nerds on petit power trips would have to get real jobs. 🙂
Just keep on repeating the same old tired falsehoods, there’s always someone gullible enough to buy it – just like Angel, there, who’s never heard of Return On Investment or Total Cost of Ownership.
2007 – The Year of Apple. Get over it.
I spent over 15 years developing software as an independent contractor and have worked with many, many companies ranging in size from one guy to Fortune 500. **Without exception**, Macs caused more hassle (cost) than if those people had been using Windows. No question that those costs are primarily due to having to support two platforms and recently, another browser. We might be able to talk on even terms if we were talking about two companies that were entirely using one OS verses another but I have never witnessed such a thing. In my experience, I have never encountered a company employing more than five people where Macs were used exclusively. Never in over 15 years. Even when Macs were at their peak. At best, I have encountered corporations where a handful of mavericks decided it would be cute to use a Mac. In every case, having more than one internal platform was more costly. You have to have additional internal support people that understand Mac and any applications you sanction on it. Building rich user applications that can be used on both platforms is no longer cost effective. Enabling Mac users to use existing internal Windows applications is a chore. There are still occasional issues in terms of file format compatibility. You typically have to buy separate software for the Macs and typically cannot roll it up into a single volume license. Similarly, you run into the same purchasing and support problems on the hardware side. The list of management tools is not nearly as cohesive and extensive. The list goes on. From a system administrator standpoint, Macs are more costly. On a one-on-one comparison, we might talk about the relative support differences, but in a corporation with hundreds of employees, Macs are simply not used in any great numbers. Companies will move to Linux or some (pure) Unix variant before they would switch to Macs.
finally broke down and baught a mac a few months back. I have been using computers for twenty years. digetal art and cad programs are what I use to earn a living. To make a long story short I found the mac OS as hard to learn as any I have ever delt with. Whats up with that mouse. The mac has been gathering dust while I have gone back to making a living on my PC.
Small business administrator here… I dont spend any time eradicating malware, or troubleshooting unstable computers, ever. Sure I had a virus problem once, but that was back in 2003, not been an issue since.
I am developing a Maytag repair man complex. I do that in an environment where my take home pay is about 3x to 4x that of #20, and I have been in the same job for almost 11 years. So I don’t have the experience of a bunch of short term gigs like he has had. All I do is make sure my windows 2000 and XP network works day after day, year after year.
What is the cost of ownership of employees? Employers, do you want your employees to stick around for 10+ years loyally doing their jobs? Or do you want your IT staff to move on after 2 years, and having to replace and retrain them all the time? What is the cost of one employee vs 50 computers? 100 computers? 200 computers?
IT employees, do you gain more or less job security as you entrench in your job for a decade, or is it better to be the fresh new face every couple of years? IT people who have been woking a career, what is your ‘hit by a bus’ premium after 2 years vs 10?
Managers, do you prefer employees, who look at the computer system and say, “Tool! I can make that work!”. Or do you prefer employees who complain endlessly that engineering compromises have been made and suggest a course of action that involves ripping all the companies infrastructure asunder, and starting anew. How does this compare to the fresh collage graduate that suggests a total rewrite of the companies software?
Oh, you didn’t really want to talk about TCO after all… You were talking about something else.
Thomas’ well-considered post merits an equally well-considered reply, but I’ll take a mo to respond to GregA…
Whatever I may’ve been talking about notwithstanding, what you ‘re talking about is good old-fashioned risk-averse, ‘don’t-rock-the-boat’, rigid, lockstep conformity. “That’s the way we do it here; we don’t need your newfangled ideas.” “That’s the way it’s always been done; why mess with what works?” “Let somebody else try new things; we’re barely competent with the old crap.”
If all business leaders thought like you, the world’d still be looking at green ASCII text on 12″ monitors.
#20
“Just keep on repeating the same old tired falsehoods, there’s always someone gullible enough to buy it – just like Angel, there, who’s never heard of Return On Investment or Total Cost of Ownership.”
Wow, a Mac user who actually knows about things other than Photoshop.
#24,
I am a business leader. I know all of my peers feel exactly the way I do about computer systems. The conservative way we run our business has resulted in at least 20% ROI profits year after year for as long as I can remember. Since I have been working at this company, we have gone from a