MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Mar 10, 08 - 09:43 am Comment from: flappo

i still prefer tiger to leopard

"we like the Mac OS, but switching to it from Windows means buying new hardware."

And... switching from XP to VISTA does not mean buying new hardware and getting the worst OS?

I don't quite get the security scores. I guess I might have gone with: Mac 5.0, Ubuntu 4.5, Vista 2.0, XP 1.0.

How can they even argue otherwise?

I mean, when OS X gets its first real virus in the wild, then drop that a little. Until then, seems to me a 5.0 is the only way to go . . .

If you run a G5, you can't run Windows on your mac - there are still a few of us PowerPC users out there.

wow... a complete waste of time reading that article. Totally unscientific, purely subjective, and poorly researched. I am surprised that Leopard 10.5.1 even won the competition, given how poor the analysis was.

And of course, I disagree with many of the statements made in the article.

10.5.2 - running strong.

Mar 10, 08 - 10:08 am Comment from: Mr. Reeee

I wonder what the market share of Ubuntu is?

Linux geeks are constantly saying how wonderful it is. Seriously, are there any decent apps available, aside from server tweaking utilities?

I guess if you want to run Photoshop on your generic Ubuntu DOSBox™ you're still stuck with Windows.

Totally weird of them to recommend Windows to photographers.

Windows' colour management is non-existent compared to Mac where it is all built in - and works.

Networking, windows XP, are they for real?

It takes me two minutes max to setup any network on mac os x, or 3hrs on anything XP.

Vista is better, takes under 20minutes ...

also means buying new hardware. Eventually, you WILL buy a new machine.

Make it a Mac, and if you still need Windows (hint, you probably won't) then run Windows on it too. Which means software quantity (not quality) always favors the Mac.

(To Bone Machine: yes there are old G5s out there still, but they're not in stores to buy so it's not a buying decision people have to worry about.)

@Paul

Even with Leopard installed, Virtual PC still runs Windows fine on any G5 or G4 with sufficient memory.

I thought MDN's contents to ads and other junk ratio was poor, probably less than 10% of each page on that site is content!

Sooner or later you will have to buy new hardware - sooner with Windows than with a Mac. You might as well buy a Mac when you update.

Before I finally got rid of my last "Windows" laptop, a Dell, I installed Ubuntu and could not get a stable platform. It would freeze after about 1 - 3 minutes.

I'm happy with my Macs.

They should've also included Panther and Tiger in the comparison and it would have highlighted Apple's dominance (in quality) of it's operating system.

I don't understand why so many people, even those who like OS X are so down on Safari, sure it's not as expandable as Firefox but for me, for everyday browsing, it's quick and pain free.

Let me add my voice to the opinion the article was poorly researched. They dissed Safari as a bad browser! Safari has grown on me to the point I am switching to it from FF.

I mean IE7! Yak! I saw my 17 yr old nephew struggling with its abysmal GUI. What M$ lacks is the notion that human beings have to work with their gui. Safari is minimalist but soundly designed where IE7 is just straightforward baffling in its desire to withhold functionality from the user.

M$ simply cannot get any worse at interface design than IE7.

Did anyone else catch this????
From Bundled Software
"among them the slick Internet Explorer 7 (especially slick when compared with Safari on the Mac, a bad browser),"

Mar 10, 08 - 11:16 am Comment from: Cubert

"For example, Mac OS X 10.5.2 would have at least tied Windows XP in the networking category."

Not for me. I still can't network my Cube and PowerBook together to drag and drop files between the two (DropCopy was my favorite for this on Tiger) even though I am using an Airport Extreme.

And, yes, I have file sharing allowed on each.

I actually dual boot with Leopard and Ubuntu. Ubuntu is really easy to use once to get it up and running. Problem is getting it up and running isn't always easy. Little stuff like setting up your wireless card using ndiswrapper can be a pain. So, it's not for the average joe at the moment, but it's getting there.

So, Leopard is the winner atm. MS is seriously screwed. Windows 7 is probably going to suck as well. Momentum can only carry you so far. Eventually people are just going to start dumping Windows in very large numbers.

Mar 10, 08 - 11:24 am Comment from: Cubert

Has SP1 for Shitsa been released yet?

If so, I heard nothing about this, which to me is laughable, or are they talking about the beta?

If SP1 is out there, is it even shittier than before?

Best I could see they didn't facilite comments on their articles and it's probably just as well.
They equate a Windows XP Service Pack with a Mac System upgrade like from Juguar to Tiger to Leopard when it probalby should be equted as being like 10.5.1 to 10.5.2.
They also continue to insist that Unix is just as insecure as Windows - It's just that poor Windows is picked on more than the Mac. If I was a hotshot hacker/virus writer, which would I rather do - write the 946,543rd virus for Windows or the First to write a comparable virus for the Mac? Don't tell me it's just that the Mac isn't worth being a target.

Mar 10, 08 - 11:31 am Comment from: Cubert

@Name,
The dumping of Winblows is happening faster than Enron execs dumped their stock in their last few weeks.

Mr. Reee said
"Seriously, are there any decent apps available, aside from server tweaking utilities?"

All the freeware apps you see on OS X and Windows are also available for Linux (Vlc, mplayer, firefox, truecrypt, torrent clients, etc).

>>I guess if you want to run Photoshop on your generic Ubuntu DOSBox™ you're still stuck with Windows.

If you wanted to run photoshop on Linux you would use either wine or crossover. They're compatibility layers. They'll let you run windows apps without needing windows. Wine and crossover are also available for OS X. As long as you aren't trying to run a graphics intensive game both should work.

@Cubert

>>The dumping of Winblows is happening faster than Enron execs dumped their stock in their last few weeks.

I'm thinking that by 2011, OS X will have a market share around 20%.

I find it laughable that they rated xp higher than OS X on networking. As someone who switched to OS X about a year ago, I can tell you unequivocally that OS X is far easier to setup and share with other computers than Windows.

Mar 10, 08 - 12:49 pm Comment from: Tommy Boy

@Cubert: No SP1 has been delayed (yet again): http://www.crn.com/software/206901670

This is hilarious, "Early reviews show that Windows Workstation 2008 is the speediest and most secure version of Windows to come along in a decade" the problem being that "Microsoft doesn't actually sell a product named Windows Workstation 2008": http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/03/microsoft_relea.html

They might read this to see how much more advanced OSX browser are compared to others:

http://www.anomalousanomaly.com/2008/03/06/acid-3/

I just want to point out the obvious:

'Vista' wins NONE of the comparisons.

The seven year old freaking dog's dinner that is xp is better than 'Vista' - according to a PC magazine?!?

Now THAT'S funny!

Mar 10, 08 - 02:38 pm Comment from: Mr. Peabody

Ok, there is some cause for ignorance in this survey, which could render those parts worthless - even anecdotally:

Third-Party Software (Quantity, not Quality):
5.0 - Windows XP
4.5 - Windows Vista
</b>4.0 - Ubuntu
3.5 - Mac OS 10.5.1</b> HUH?1 They're going to stand there and tell me that there's less 3rd party software for Mac than Ubuntu, I think not.

Networking:
4.5 - Windows XP
4.0 - Mac OS 10.5.1 WHAT?! Maybe in prison...
4.0 - Windows Vista
2.5 - Ubuntu

Mar 10, 08 - 02:44 pm Comment from: Mr. Peabody

One additional note to the "Networking" thing. The fact that people perceive that it is easier to network XP than a Mac (of any version, all the way back to OS 6 and earlier), surely harkens back to the days when I had IT people walk up to me and lie to my face about Macs being hard or impossible to network.

No way in Hell XP beats OS X in networking!

I've wasted untold hours trying to configure XP networking. Very non-intuitive network control panels.

Regarding, third party software and drivers, quantity sure as Hell doesn't mean quality. At least these PC folks finally figured that one out.

Mar 10, 08 - 03:25 pm Comment from: LordRobin

No one's noticed this little gem??

With Apple, users pay every year (or so) to get a major upgrade. Microsoft provides its major Windows upgrades, called Service Packs, free of charge. Paying more for Mac OS upgrades is a bit galling when you've already paid a premium for the hardware.

I have heard this idiotic misconception so many times. Mac OS upgrades are just as free as Windows upgrades. You can't equate installing a Vista Service Pack with moving from Tiger to Leopard. Service Packs are Microsoft's equivalent of OSX's 10.5.x releases, which are free (and more frequent to boot)!

------RM

Mar 10, 08 - 05:02 pm Comment from: Cubert

@Name,
Couldn't agree more.

@Tommy Boy,
Thanks dude!

"Son of a......that's gonna leave a mark."

Mar 10, 08 - 07:44 pm Comment from: Grigori

MDN:

"This is news?" = "Of COURSE OS X Leopard is better than these schmoes; who here doesn't already know that??"

Get a sense of humor, for crissakes.

Come on 3 hours to connect a XP machine to a network, did it take you 2hes 59 minutes to find the start button?

Mar 10, 08 - 10:01 pm Comment from: Cubert

@Grigori,
I'm assuming your post was deleted. Next time try the sarcasm tag:

<sarcasm>

LordRobin,

I'm sure many others posters noticed your valid point (I sure did) but there was so much wrong with article that most of us just focused on one error. I looked at how the article (aka piece of crap) could include two windows operating systems but didn't include Panther and Tiger, especially the latter.

As a final but slightly unrelated point, my latest switcher (Nov. '07) said the main difference between windows and the Mac OS is different terminology. Once you get the different terms right it really is easy to switch. He also added one other interesting point…that Macs just work.

"With Apple, users pay every year (or so) to get a major upgrade. Microsoft provides its major Windows upgrades, called Service Packs, free of charge. Paying more for Mac OS upgrades is a bit galling when you've already paid a premium for the hardware."

I'm also getting sick of hearing this crap from the PC brigade.

But just for fun, lets put that statement to the test.

Take Windows XP for example, which is about to receive its third service pack.

When Windows XP was released, it was somewhere around the equivalent between Jaguar & Panther. (I'm being generous here)

XP1 should than have been somewhere near the equivalent of Tiger.

Similarly XP2 should have been near the equivalent of Leopard.

Shortly, (if we are about to believe PC magazine) XP3 will be the equivalent of Apples next OS.

Any way you look at it, the statement just doesn't stack up.

Combined with other equally stupid/dubious statements (like IE 7.0 being a slicker browser than Safari) it was amusing that Leopard still won hands down.

It was like a boxer going into the ring with one arm tied behind his back, against 3 opponents at once, while being scored by judges who had been bribed by the opposition. During the fight, Leopard was punched below the belt several times, kicked in the nuts, and bitten on the ear, but ultimately knocked each opponent out. Vistas team threw the towel in early, while Ubuntu and XP bravely fought on for several more rounds, Lack of finesse and poor technique let Ubuntu down in the end, while XP just got tired due to his old age.
The judges begrudgingly, gave Leopard the victory, only after it became apparent the crowd would lynch them if they didn't.

Mar 11, 08 - 09:41 am Comment from: Grigori

@Cubert,

Not really sarcasm; "Wow, this is big news" would have been. More like "nudge nudge" I guess. But you're right, I should have spelled it out.