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Quality MacBook Pro

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 12:44 pm
by jason
Apple is awesome and so easy to use.

1. Buy MacBook Pro.
2. Find something wrong with MacBook Pro.
3. Send in for repair.
4. Repaired!
5. Get sent new DVDs. Must use new DVDs if you want to install OSX. Using other version of OSX means it will break computer again. WTF?
6. Later on, forget which set of DVDs to use when reinstalling OSX.
7. Install.
8. Contact Apple. Apple Support doesn't know which OSX to install. Tells you to go to Apple Store.
9. We are now going to the Apple store.

So, just to be clear, installing Vista might require a few updates and restarts. Installing OSX requires a trip to the store!!!!

Also, Vista has 6 different versions. Mac OSX has secret versions even Apple support can't tell apart.

Go go Apple!

I love my wife.

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 12:58 pm
by s.dot
Vista was a painfully long install.
But, beats that. :lol:

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 2:09 pm
by seodevhead
I bought a mac a little over a half year ago and had such high hopes... but so far it has been nothing but a major dissapointment. I use Windows XP heavily and rarely have application freezes. I've had numerous with my limited use of OS X. So many programs I took for granted only run on windows... not even a mac substitute can do what I wanted. Apple regards itself as "simplicity" and takes pride in their design... however I have a network of printers and just simple things like installing a printer on a mac is pretty horrible compared to windows.

For example... I just bought a real nice Kodak printer. On the instruction manual for installation.. the windows XP directions stated..

1) Plug Printer in USB port
2) Place Install CD in drive and continue with installation.
DONE.

For Mac OS X:
1) Place CD in drive. Continue installation
2) Go to Devices and Select Printers and Add the Printer.
3) Add the drivers in the Printer Configuration Utility.
4) If no drivers exist for Kodak (which they didn't).. download drivers from website.
5) Install drivers from web.
6) Configure the drivers in the Printer Utility.
DONE.

Not to mention I always like to listen to music using a music subscription service. There are gobs of providers out there like Yahoo Music, Napster, Rhapsody, etc. NONE of them work on a mac. You can listen to songs in Rhapsody on a mac... but it's the "in-browser" version and not the real player. It's horrible. I talked to the "guru" at the Apple Store about this to see if there was another option out there... he shrugged and said sorry. I said, "Welcome to Mac".

Why does it take two clicks to close an application? Sure I can do the keystroke to quit, but what if I don't? Do I really need to take two clicks to quit an app???

Ehh... I could go on... I'll end the rant here. I've learned one thing... it sure is a Windows world.

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 4:11 pm
by jason
Update: Apparently the Apple recommended service provider that fixed the laptop in the first year of warranty was wrong. Both sets of DVDs are the same, according to the sales guy at the Apple store. We couldn't talk to an Apple Genius. It was really busy and apparently you have to make an appointment. Anyways, Piera is still having problems. To log into her account, she needs to restart her Mac. Every time.

It's awesome.

As for a Vista install, it's always been quick and easy for me. Sure, you have to work at the updates a bit after install, but to be honest, I have to do that any time I install any OS. Have to run updates and install all my custom stuff anyways.

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 11:50 pm
by s.dot
Quick? My vista install took 3 1/2 hours. It was an upgrade. I guess it just seemed longer because there's no interaction required. So I just sat there staring at the screen.

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:27 am
by The Phoenix
I gotta say I've had precisely the opposite experience - on both sides.

I had to install XP to support some users running it. It was basically my first 'personal' xp experience. Such a nightmare. Driver problems, 'activation' (prove that I'm a genuine user? Thats what my cold hard cash did!), a multi-hour install, and so much more. Then add in finding a free-for-corporate use anti-virus program (hint: only four allow this out of about 40 on the market)..

Compare with my experiences over the last two months with my Mac. Every piece of hardware auto-detects and auto-installs. *Zero* 'new hardware found' prompts, searching the net for drivers, installing "UNTRUSTED UNSIGNED EVIL BABY-KILLING CODE" prompts, *reboots* for a network card (!?), and more.

Then XP has crashed virtually every day for me, and thats on an extremely minimal install, with only a handfull of programs. My Mac? Hundreds of apps installed now, and not one crash.

Thats not to say my Mac experience has been perfect. It has no insert key, rendering a common combo useless (shift-delete, shift-insert). Worse, the replacement (Apple-V, Apple-C) isn't consistent across all apps. Grr.

The comment about the two-clicks to close an app hits home. Their justification is that the OS is 'document based' so apps stay open after you close the document. To which I offer the counter examples of both iTunes and Terminal.app. Neither have documents, and both stay open after their 'data in use' (psuedo-document) is closed. There is a solution (free too) called Stoplight. But it seems to cause my Shutdown to require two steps, while allowing all other apps to QUIT on Close, ala Windows. That was a reasonable tradeoff for me.

Still <span style='color:blue' title='I'm naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span> about the insert key though.

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 7:36 am
by jason
scottayy wrote:Quick? My vista install took 3 1/2 hours. It was an upgrade. I guess it just seemed longer because there's no interaction required. So I just sat there staring at the screen.
Ahh, mine was an install. Not an upgrade. Took about 30 mins. =)

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 7:48 am
by jason
The Phoenix wrote:Compare with my experiences over the last two months with my Mac. Every piece of hardware auto-detects and auto-installs. *Zero* 'new hardware found' prompts, searching the net for drivers, installing "UNTRUSTED UNSIGNED EVIL BABY-KILLING CODE" prompts, *reboots* for a network card (!?), and more.
It's not that bad.=p On most machines anyways, you get an installer that comes with everything you need anyways. The difference is when you upgrade hardware and what not.

Of course, with Macs, you don't have that option. So even though you can run Windows on your Mac for gaming, you are stuck with crappy hardware. Sure, I understand it's the way things work. Apple also deals in hardware, but it's akin to a Car that you aren't allowed to modify. At least with PC's, I can upgrade piece by piece if I want. Sure, it means Windows has it harder having to account for all this different hardware, unlike OSX which can just make easy assumptions. But then, I can actually upgrade my hardware.

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:57 pm
by The Phoenix
jason wrote:
The Phoenix wrote:Compare with my experiences over the last two months with my Mac. Every piece of hardware auto-detects and auto-installs. *Zero* 'new hardware found' prompts, searching the net for drivers, installing "UNTRUSTED UNSIGNED EVIL BABY-KILLING CODE" prompts, *reboots* for a network card (!?), and more.
It's not that bad.=p On most machines anyways, you get an installer that comes with everything you need anyways. The difference is when you upgrade hardware and what not.
This isn't a hypothetical - its an actual experience. I was installing wireless cards in Windows XP machines. It went one of two routes: Install from the windows update site (search the net), or install from the CD. In both cases, it gave the untrusted unsigned warnings, reboots, and in one case, a lockup on reboot.

Compare with the desktop Mac, which installed it and had it running first boot. No prompts. Just had to open networking and configure its settings.

It really is that bad!
jason wrote:Of course, with Macs, you don't have that option. So even though you can run Windows on your Mac for gaming, you are stuck with crappy hardware.
Most of the major hardware video cards you'd need for gaming are supported, the CPU's are in many cases BETTER than the PC equivalent, and the memory is generic. Whats crappy about the hardware?
jason wrote:Sure, I understand it's the way things work. Apple also deals in hardware, but it's akin to a Car that you aren't allowed to modify. At least with PC's, I can upgrade piece by piece if I want. Sure, it means Windows has it harder having to account for all this different hardware, unlike OSX which can just make easy assumptions. But then, I can actually upgrade my hardware.
Its true that there is less variety allowed on the Mac, but its increasingly a rather small differentiator. By which I mean, most of the hardware you'd like to run on your Mac, you can. However, on the Windows side, the number of annoyances and interface flaws only grows with time. More prompts for driver installs, reboots, settings, warnings that you are about to do something dangerous, and so on.

Those are things you can't get around. And that is really bad. :)

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:18 pm
by Charles256
what do you do to crash your computer so much? On XP I tried to crash that sucker numerous times and it wouldn't do it. On vista I've only managed to lock it up completely once. And that's after opening a few games full screen, alt tabbing them, and playing some music and videos. At that point Vista screamed "no" and shut down. Or maybe that was me. Either way, I had similiar experiences with XP. Oh well, I like Mac OSX and Vista and XP and Ubuntu. They're all great OS' in my opinion. : shrugs :

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:37 pm
by Kieran Huggins
Crashes in XP are almost exclusively caused by either hardware failures or crappy drivers.

I've seen OS X lock up due to software, but almost never due to drivers. Apple seems to have excellent driver quality, and they can since they have such a limited hardware pool (intentionally).

I'd agree that XP, OS X and Ubuntu are all excellent, but I would liken Vista to WinME in terms of performance / stability. It definitely needs to mature before I'll touch it again.

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:55 pm
by The Phoenix
seodevhead wrote:There are gobs of providers out there like Yahoo Music, Napster, Rhapsody, etc. NONE of them work on a mac. You can listen to songs in Rhapsody on a mac... but it's the "in-browser" version and not the real player.
Unfortunately, its going to depend on the format of the music and the files. Flip4Mac, VLC, and democracy make it possible to play almost every file type from Windows on a Mac.

However, for systems where you have to run their software to access the files, thats the fault of the software maker - not Apple.

But since you mentioned specifics, there are specific solutions:

- Yahoo Music on OSX
-Rhapsody's web client works on OS X
- Napster's web client is craptastic, so you'd pretty much have to run it in a VM (VMWare, Parallels, etc).

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 11:17 pm
by jason
The Phoenix wrote:Most of the major hardware video cards you'd need for gaming are supported, the CPU's are in many cases BETTER than the PC equivalent, and the memory is generic. Whats crappy about the hardware?
Not to get into a PC v.s. Mac debate, but my issue has a lot to do with hardware.

For example, outside of a MacMini or a Mac Pro, I'm stuck with a computer attached to my hardware. So if my monitor goes bad, I lose the ability to use my computer. This is painful in both a business environment (of which I have to buy for) and at home. Really, most components are like that. Also, the form of Macs usually restrict upgrading. For example, adding an additional hard drive really isn't an option in most of the macs. Finally, the cost of upgrading an entire machine is painful. Sure, Apples have greater resell value, but for a smaller business, selling computers isn't really what we are in the business of doing. It takes more time and money to upgrade. The best thing Apple did was make the Mac Mini. For office situations, it's a great idea. The downside though is up until a few days ago, there wasn't an upgrade (not sure if it's officially available yet), and still you suffer with the restrictions of a smaller formed computer. Of course, you also run into the problem where the Mac Mini simply isn't a gaming machine. So the moment you want to use it for something heavy, you run into limits.

Next, at home, the bonus of being able to run Windows for gaming is offset by the fact that I can't run my video card. In this case, it's the nvidia 8800 GTX. In this case, Apple simply doesn't offer anything on par. With my PC, I'm able to upgrade my components as needed. As for the memory, it's hardly generic. =) Granted, in Apples case, they are a bit pickier about their memory. Granted, this is for higher quality memory.

Finally, it's the knowledge that if something goes wrong, I have one source to turn to, and that's Apple. If something is wrong with my PC, my ability to fix the problem is highly increased. If my monitor goes bad, I have the ability to fix it without having to suffer missing the computer. If my computer goes bad, my monitor doesn't suffer. It's the same reason I'm not really into laptops. They aren't as portable (I've never seen a person really use a laptop on the move) as they should be, and their setup pretty much ensures that repairs come from the manufacturer.

It's the difference between sending your car back to Ford to get it repaired and just bringing it into a garage.

Don't take this griping as me hating Macs and loving PCs. I hate all computers each in their own special way. I just find it odd that every Apple my wife has owned (including her iPod) has suffered major problems that required it to get fixed. Her eMac had problems, her iBook had problems. Her MacBook Pro had problems, and now it's having problems again (and Apple support keeps giving her wrong information).

And of course she still loves her Macs.

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 9:56 am
by seodevhead
I purchased a 30" Apple Cinema Display from an Apple Store for use with my PC. I plugged it in and started it up for the first time and everything worked great. However, when I rebooted my computer for a second time a week later, I noticed the power button didn't work at all. I couldn't turn the monitor off unless I unplugged it from the power source. The little LED light wasn't working at all either.

So I called AppleCare and talked to a few people and they told me that there was a hardware issue with the monitor and that I would need to take it in to an Apple Store for servicing.

Completely and utterly mad, I did a whole lot of searching online for other people with this problems. Apparently there were opensource drivers (not made by apple) for the 30" ACD that the folks at Apple had no clue about. I downloaded them from sourceforge and whamo... monitor's power button worked like a charm.

HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THIS STUFF APPLE!??! They would have had me take in a perfectly working monitor for servicing for absolutely nothing.

Those "experts" in the apple store know nothing either.

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 10:07 am
by TheMoose
It's always personal experience that lends people to turn to Macs or PCs. I have never had a problem with either PCs or Macs, but my main desktop has been, and always will be a PC. I am a modder. I mod just about anything I get. It's that feeling of making it unique, and truly my own that makes or breaks whether I will buy something. I can't mod Macs to the degree I want, and as such I won't use one as my main computer.

However, I will use a Mac heavily because I enjoy creating videos and music to accompany them, and this is much easier and more powerful on a Mac. So I respect them in that case. But as soon as I'm done, I'll be sure to encode it in a format that so I can enjoy it on my PC.

As for personal experiences, out of the 5 years of having my own powerful XP machine, it has never crashed, I've never had to reinstall, and I've never had a virus. I have installed numerous apps, numerous games, and uninstalled even more. I've installed countless hardware on other (work) PCs with XP/XPPro and never had issues other than just installing proper drivers and then away it went.

The "untrusted unsigned" driver warning is just that, a warning. All it's saying is that the driver was not specifically made to work in an XP environment, and it makes no guarantees that it will run. 9 times out of 10 it will work perfectly fine, because XP has good compatability with older drivers.