New Apple Campaign Target PC Flaws 819
sodul writes"Apple just started a new campaign to emphasize the advantages of Mac versus a regular tasteless PC. The ads represent a young cool looking man (Mac) and a white collar in his 40's (not cool, PC).
In one of the ads the PC repeat itself several times because it had to reboot. In an other one (and maybe the most aggressive of all) PC is sick because of a virus, while Mac is healthy.
You can watch the new spots on Apple's site "
Doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Message from MS - you're a dinosaur (Score:3, Interesting)
Absolutely -- MS trashes their own products, too (Score:5, Insightful)
The wrongheadedness of that MS campaign is spectacular, isn't it? You can tell what they were thinking; basically the idea was to goad us into paying for upgrades to systems and app suites for which people aren't ponying up their upgrade fees. MS needs businesses, especially, to stay on that treadmill.
Talk about insulting their audience, though. That campaign is almost up there with the RIAA folks and their "our consumers are thieves" mindset. MS even does the RIAA one better -- because the point is that we're dinosaurs who are using Microsoft's old products. They trash us, and they trash their own software!
Re:Doesn't work (Score:5, Informative)
Well the PC guy (John Hodgman) is an expert. He's the daily show's resident expert and the author of "The Areas of my Expertise". Which was reviewd on slashdot [slashdot.org] and by the Onion [avclub.com].
Re:Doesn't work (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Doesn't work (Score:3, Informative)
Here are some of his clips from the Daily Show [comedycentral.com]
Re:Doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't work (Score:3, Funny)
Linux comes with 8 different calculators, half of which use RPN :)
Re:Doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus viruses really can hurt on XP. I managed to catch SpyBot, I think through Firefox, just by hitting a link on Digg. I managed to clean it manually, but MacAffee didn't peep, and an average user probably wouldn't be able to work out how to fix it.
I really am kinda looking forward to Vista being
Re:Doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, Apple does have the advantage in that most people who own PC's already hate them. They are just having a little fun with the hatred that's already there.
But really, I'm not an expert on commercials. Anybody who can point me to some hate campaigns by major companies that seem(ed) to be effective?
Hate campaigns usually require you to identify your competition, which nobody wants to do because then you are spending you
Re:Apple:"PCs"::FedEx:USPS (Score:4, Insightful)
Likewise, Macs do have fewer virus problems, better default-config security, superior media authoring software (for free and pre-installed, no less!) and tend to be considerably more reliable and more robust.
Now, Windows has gradually gotten better, as has the USPS, but neither has closed the gap, nor have their earned back their reputations just yet.
So really, it's FedEx and Apple: 1, USPS and Windows: -1.
And just like that, a "hate" campaign makes a lot of sense.
What if your strength is NOT doing something? (Score:5, Insightful)
What if your strength is that you don't do something horrible? What if your strength is that you do something better than a competitor, and you'd like to show how much better you are? What if failures are rare for both products, but you want to show yourself as better? Isn't it fair in that case to contrast your success against your competitor's failure?
If you're selling fluorescent lights, and you want to contrast the short life and high power consumption of incandescent lighting against your product, is that bad?
If your cell phone service doesn't drop calls and lets you communicate clearly, isn't it better to show your competitors failing at this rather than trying to show an entire month of not failing?
If your product cleans stains effectively, isn't it fair to compare it against "the leading brand" to show how much better it is?
I see no difference between the above commercials and what Apple is doing. However, I think it's a little like calling the Titanic "Unsinkable" before its maiden voyage to brag about how virus-free Macs are. That kind of hubris is definitely going to bite Apple when the platform reaches that critical mass of interest + talent especially now that much more common x86 assembler experience can be leveraged by malware writers against the Mac now.
Re:Doesn't work (Score:4, Insightful)
What did you really want Apple to say? "Macs are great, but if you don't want one, it's totally cool with us if you buy a Windows PC too, because Internet Explorer runs great on them!"
Apple can talk until they're red in the face about how great their own product is, but there are clearly still a lot of misconceptions about them. The only way to really drive home the fact that they do some things better and lack the problems that abound on PCs is to put the two side-by-side. You're right that people don't react well to negative ad campaigns (there's no such thing as a hate campaign), and that's precisely why Apple has struck an extremely delicate balance in these ads.
The Mac guy doesn't come out and call the PC guy a piece of shit idiot who can't install Firefox and Ad-Aware to save his life. It's a friendly dialogue with upbeat music, far from the deep voices and forboding music of negative political ads.
This one worked, in reverse (Score:3, Funny)
What the picture does scream is hardworking father and lazy son who still lives with his parent unemployed and useless.
If this is the image Apple wants then good luck.
Further into the site you get asked the question "Wich mac are you". Hmmm. Well lets expand, wich computer am I? A dell (cheap crap), a powerbook (expensive, tastefull, useless), a mac mini (expensive, underspecced).
None of the above. Me, I am a gray. HAL ain't got nothing on me baby.
Just sell a good pro
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Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Doesn't work (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Doesn't work (Score:4, Informative)
Don't like Finder? Try PathFinder http://www.cocoatech.com/ [cocoatech.com] or RBrowser http://www.rbrowser.com/ [rbrowser.com]
Don't like Safari? Try OmniWeb, Firefox, Camino, Opera, iCab, or even IE5
Don't like Mail? Try Eudora, Thunderbird, GMail, Entourage, Notes, or any number of other mail clients
Don't like Quicktime? Try VLC, RealPlayer, or Microsoft's crappy media player [although QT is better than either of the latter 2]
Don't like Dashboard? Try Konfabulator
Don't like Keynote/Pages/AppleWorks? Try ThinkFree Office, OpenOffice.org, or Microsoft Office
You could replace nearly all the major applications and many of system components of Mac OS X, but then it wouldn't really be a Mac anymore, would it?.
Re:Doesn't work (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Doesn't work (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Apple's last advertisment where they talk about "dull little PCs performing dull little tasks" (by dull little people?) was a lot worse, pretty much only appealing to the Smug Mac User crowd.
Re:Doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
ah... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:ah... (Score:2)
But yeah, you're right about the peculiar timing of the onslaught of Mac virus stories.
This comment target lack of proof-reading. (Score:5, Funny)
"In an other one
Is the submitter actually a robot manufactured by Apple to demonstrate what happens when you make a language engine out of MS Office's grammar checker?
Re:This comment target lack of proof-reading. (Score:2, Interesting)
The sick with a virus ad... (Score:3, Insightful)
Virus writing is a business (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what people said about various things Apple and users did last year, and the year before that. Still waiting....
The thing is, virus writers are mostly not in it for the bravado now. It's a business, trying to scrape as many details or get as many zombie systems as possible. An Apple "gauntlet" means nothing.
The funny thing is, just like most software is on Windows because people are too set in thier ways to learn OS X programming, so to are virus writers pretty comfortable with what they can do on Windows and don't want to really do much extra work. So macs are proteced by an inertia that should keep them pretty safe long after some arbitrarily large threshold of marketshare is reached.
Re:Virus writing is a business (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a pretty astonishing theory, and I don't believe it. We've already seen spyware that attacks Firefox, and it start
Re:Virus writing is a business (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, but very little still compared to the level and sophisitcation of IE exploits.
By stating virus writing is a buisness I am attaching to that all the typical behavious software releases have in relation to the mac - in that even though the market share for a platform grows it sometimes takea while for a company to ramp up to that new platform. Thus the greatly diminished virus profile on Firefox and also the Mac. I am not saying we'll neve see anything, just that it comes later in the marketshare percentage than you would think because for the most part it's not some really motivated kid working nights and evenings to get a virus done because he's driven, it's some guy deciding to hire X more russian hackers for X dollars to probe for Mac weaknesses.
Actually some time ago in jest I proposed that the russian mafia all used macs and that's why we didn't see spyware - they didn't want to soil thier own nest.
I also don't see anything in the Mac that makes it technically more resistant to viruses than Windows. You don't need administrator access to do many of the things viruses/bots usually do, and the security system it inherited from FreeBSD is basically all they've got.
Now that part you got wrong. First of all, there's nothing like the registry - a target that gives you keys to the kingdom if you access. Furthermore as noted ad nauseum mac users are not running as admins and so have less access to the system as a whole to install things like rootkits. Even if a virus is encounterd a user would at least have to enter a password for that virus to have much of a lingering presence.
Also, it's much harder to truly hide the precence of a virus under OS X as it's harder to hide a process where it cannot be seen by at least some tool. Windows makes that simpler.
Given that stock Linux, MacOS X and Windows are all equally crappy when it comes to security, all with "bolt-on" security systems designed in the 70s for a totally different threat model, I would be very hesitant with making any claims that Macs are more secure than PCs (which basically means MacOS is more secure than Windows). Right now they ALL suck! Apple have had more than their fair share of stupid exploits, often ones which worked in the same way as Windows exploits released months or years before.
But it's kind of hard to argue with the reality of the situation in that there are well over 10 million macs in use today and yet we do not see any viruses. Market share is a part of that but if they were as easy to infect that would not have been an impediment after the first million computers came online. You know how much each zombie computer fetches on the black market?
Yes Apple computers also have exploits, but not ones that are as easy to reach and not ones that are actually being exploited. You have to make a distinction between an expploit being used in a while vs. a theoretical attack that no one is using because it's too hard to reach and wouldn't effect enough people. An example of that on a Mac is an SSH exploit - while a problem SSH is not enabled by default on OS X so the practical result is that no-one writes SSH exploits for the mac because it would not have enough payback.
I'm putting my hopes in MAC security frameworks like SELinux and AppArmor
Ultimatley that will probably be the best approach, or at least part of a whole defense in depth approach that we will all need.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The sick with a virus ad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you can find a situation where a virus could easly jump from one Mac to hundreds of others, it will likely remain that way. As someone's joke goes "You could potentially take out an art school or a small advertising agency".
Note I have "virues" in quotes because like most Windows "virues" they are acutally stupid trojans along the lines of "HAY! RUN THIS!".
Re:The sick with a virus ad... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The sick with a virus ad... (Score:4, Informative)
Please do not comment about what is going on underneath the hood of the OS unless you know something about the underlying architecture.
Re:The sick with a virus ad... (Score:4, Insightful)
There's been many Mac "viruses" over the last 5 years, they just don't spread very fast or very far, probably due to a dispersed userbase.
There have? Name one.
Unless you can find a situation where a virus could easly jump from one Mac to hundreds of others, it will likely remain that way.
Imagine if someone hooked a Mac up to a network accessible by hundreds of others Macs!
Note I have "virues" in quotes because like most Windows "virues" they are acutally stupid trojans along the lines of "HAY! RUN THIS!".
So you have "virues" (sic) in quotes because you mean Trojans. There haven't even been many Mac trojans in the last five years (maybe three).
Apple should be honest (Score:2, Insightful)
This "restart" ad is false advertising -- Windows XP is an extremely stable platform (unless Apple is referring to people who are still using Windows 98 and Windows ME -- but I don't think so).
The entire campaign smacks of Apple's vintage "lemmings" ad which didn't work because it offended their IBM using audience. This new campaign is flat out calling PC users fat dorks. The potential switcher I know are
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:2)
I switched a year ago and MS would have to do something wonderful to make me switch back.
These ads are funny, but Apple should be honest.
The ads are cool. Apple are just playing on people's experiences with PCs. The ads wouldn't work if there wasn't truth in them.
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:5, Informative)
I'll let others flame you about the start menu and shortcut keys (If you want MacOS to behave exactly like Windows, why not just use Windows?) but:
a) Right-clicking should work the same as ctrl-clicking.
b) MacOS doesn't have "windows-style "uninstall" functionality" because uninstalling is trivial.
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:3, Informative)
...except when it's not. See any system utility like a firewall or antivirus. You get a bonus uninstall round!
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:3, Informative)
Then those applications are wrong. They should only be installing stuff in at most 3 places: /Applications/[appname]/, /Library/Application Support/[appname]/, and ~/Library/Application Support/[appname]/.
If your application is putting stuff elsewhere, complain t
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:3, Informative)
All components are packaged as bundles (special directories) which have info.plist file which advertises what services they bundle provides to the system. These plist files are dynamically scanned by launch services and other components in the core OS to autodiscouver new compon
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:5, Insightful)
How about, instead, Windows stops using a keystroke that has meant "kill this process RIGHT NOW" for over 20 years? You know, Control-C ?
And, yes, it still does make me cringe when I have to use Ctrl-C for "copy," and Ctrl-D for "duplicate," and a few other keystrokes that Unix and VMS defined back in the paleolithic age.
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:5, Insightful)
Lastly, and certainly not least, control is used by every version of the Mac OS I've ever used, as well as Unix, to send
As for the Chevy/Mercedes comparison, it's a wholly false analogy. Nobody drives a Mercedes with reversed pedals or a joystick. A better one would probably be automatic vs. manual transmission, but even that fails to take into account the subtleties of the issue.
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:3, Interesting)
These people are deluded. All the files are just *hidden* in folders you'd never guess.
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:2)
And I've always seen the right mouse button perform the Ctrl-click option, though I prefer Ctrl-click to right-clck
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:5, Informative)
Why? On a Mac, I can use my thumb to hit the command key (the clover leaf), and use any other finger to hit any other key. It is a very simple reach, and works even on my laptop, where the size of the keyboard limits me to only one command key. Under windows (or Linux, for that matter), the control key requires a pinky finger, and a rather large reach (compared to, say, the shift keys). I much prefer the modifier key right next to the space bar. I am glad that Apple have decided not to change this. And, honestly, it doesn't take that long to get used to a different system, and if you are constantly switching back and forth from one kind of machine to another (I have Windows machines at work, Macs at home), it ceases to cause any confusion after a day or two.
In fact, most of your complaints are fairly trivial, and represent the cost of moving from one OS to another as much as anything else. Why would we need an uninstaller on a Mac? Most, if not all, dependencies are contained in the application bundle. To uninstall a program, move it to the trash. There is no registry to get corrupted, and no
Again, the complaints that you raise seem fairly minor and trivial, and would only really bother people that have been using Windows for a long time. Apple is not really targeting the hardcore Windows market, as far as I can tell. They are trying to target those people who do not have a great deal of computer experience, like the archtypal grandmother, or the computer illiterate English major. These people are not really going to care that the keyboard shortcuts are different (how many of them even know that there are keyboard shortcuts?) or that there is no Start Menu.
Cmd-C, V came first (Score:5, Informative)
Also, Cmd has been the traditional shortcut key on Macs for a long time, since the days of Apple II, when it was the Apple key, so there's a long history there. In fact, the Control key didn't even exist on Apple keyboards until years later.
Re:Cmd-C, V came first (Score:4, Interesting)
With a few exceptions, I can be guaranteed that any Mac app can have it's window closed with Command-W, quit by Command-Q, a new window created with Command-N, and hidden using Command-H. There are a ton of others, I could go on and on.
On my Windows machine, I've never bothered to learn the shortcuts because they're mostly too complicated to save much time. (Except for the applications that have adopted Mac-like shortcuts, only replacing the Command key with Control, there are quite a few of these now.) I know of a bunch of programs that use Alt+F4 to close a window -- who the hell ever thought that was a good idea? I have to move my entire arm to do that.
It's definitely Windows that could use some serious reconsideration of its shortcuts, dump a whole lot of cruft, and maybe get on par with what the MacOS has had for a while now.
I could accept Apple perhaps offering an option in System Preferences somewhere to reverse the behavior of the Command and Control keys, for Windows users that really can't stand using their thumb to use hotkeys, but I think ultimately Apple has a strength in its use of hotkeys, and they realize this.
Maybe the solution would just be to have keyboards that have a little switch on them for "PC compatibility mode" that swapped the keys (my KVMP switch does this, I use it to make my Linux machine more Mac-like, although I could probably do the same thing in software somewhere).
Re:Apple should be honest (Score:3, Interesting)
My mother had been using Windows for years. Two years ago, she was looking for a new computer for her email and internet usage, because her Win2k box was virtually dead from virii and spyware. I told her she ought to get a Mac, she was convinced by a salesman to buy a Linux box for $300. She plugged that in and used it twice before giving up. She then went out and got a Mac Mini. At first, she was a little confused by it, but that only lasted a few days. Now, she
I'm not buying "XP is stable" (Score:3, Interesting)
This is anecdotal, but this "XP is stable now" is something I'm not buying. Here goes:
I have four boxes here in my office, a six-month-old, high-end Dell Windows box, my Powerbook, a Dell 2800 running VMware ESX Server, and a Dell 2800 running Ubuntu (crazy, I know, but the 2800 was what was available).
Re:Mac Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
Start Menu was more of cleaned-up version of CDE Drawers IMO.
Great, mudslinging from Apple. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not going to be one of the "I hate Windows so much that I'll..." people who are willing to jump in with both feet to another platform (and a credit card in hand).
Give me a reason to buy Apple, not a reason to leave Windows.
14 reasons from Apple (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.apple.com/getamac/ [apple.com]
One definite reason would be that you can either run OS X or Windows or Linux - that seems like a lot more choice than only being able to run Windows.
Re:Great, mudslinging from Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
From the commercials:
iLife
plug-and-play peripherals
fewer viruses
ease of use
good reviews in the WSJ
Those seem like reasons. They are not really targeting the geek audience with those reasons, which might be why you don't care. But, to someone like my mother, they seem like very good reasons.
Re:Great, mudslinging from Apple. (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to have failed to understand the point that I was making. The original post complained that the adverts did not provide any good reasons why one should buy a Mac. I suggested several good reasons from the commercials, then suggested that those reasons are perfectly good for the majority of computer users, though they may not cut it as far as a geek is concerned. Again, most of the world is not made up of geeks, and most people, they are good enoug
Hmmmm PC not Windows...??? (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm just assuming that they figure people who know the difference will 'know the difference' and read between the lines.
I foresee some petty flame wars happening in tech rags though..
i dont care if he is a PC (Score:2)
I think it's good marketing (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple doesn't aim to market to people who know what they are doing with a PC (I use the term in its original context, Personal Computer, without any bias to one OS or another). They are aiming for the less tech-savvy user, and hoping to create the (not entirely incorrect) impression that Mac's are easier to use than pretty much any other OS based machine on the market.
John Hodgman (Score:2, Informative)
*sigh* (Score:5, Funny)
Ever notice how Macheads never comb their hair? It must be like buying a Volkswagen.
Penny-Arcade (Score:4, Funny)
The Hipness Threshold [penny-arcade.com]
Re:*sigh* (Score:3, Insightful)
Macs don't freeze? (Score:4, Funny)
Over the usage of "PC" (Score:4, Funny)
People, people!
To the ones complaining that "PC" is not "a machine running Windows", please note that no Linux (or *BSD, or Solaris x86 or, or...) using geek/nerd/unsanitary person is ever going to call a Intel-based computer running the said operating system a "PC". It's a "Linux box". The cooler ones use the plural "Boxen"
You know it's true, now focus on bashing either Apple or Microsoft, or maybe Dell or some big PC manufacturer, I don't know.
(It's [trying to be] funny, laugh)
Great (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:3, Informative)
It seems to me like lots of people who make the PC==Mac argument know what PC stands for & have been using the term PC to describe Macs through Apple's motorolla, ppc and intel days.
Have a look at these old Apple Manuals/Advertisments [computerhistory.org] and you will see that Apple has been calling their products Personal Computers since day one.
It is only the post 1992 Mac Fanboy crowd that started differentiating - and quite frankly, I'm dissa
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:2)
Don't you think it is to Apple's advantage to promote the "difference" between Mac's and "PC's" since they've lost the distinctive of PPC vs Intel? Even if it means fudging a little bit regarding the terminology?
I noticed you didn't answer the question about owning an Intel Mac.
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:5, Funny)
The two cases where a mac user uses the term PC are:
1) Disparagingly, as in a comparison to Macs
2) Defensively, when claiming that Macs are PCs, since PC stands for Personal Computer.
It's in Chapter 1 of How to Be an Irritating Fanboy, page 17.
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is marketing to the general public - the people who use "PC" to mean a "computer using Windows" and "Mac" to mean "a Macintosh" or "Apple computer."
They're using informal language because the people they're targeting know exactly what they mean when they say "PC" - their audience knows that the "Windows" is implied.
They don't look like retards - no more than someone who says "Kleenex" when they really just mean "tissue" or "Band-Aid" when they really just mean "a little sticky bandage." "PC" means "a computer using Windows" to the vast majority of the people who use that term. Get used to it.
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:5, Insightful)
The "dumb" ones are those that hold on to the notion that the worth of a computer is solely in its hardware. That "even nicer software" is what seperates the two - the consumer on average doesn't really care much about how well the hardware can perform, he/she just cares what he/she can do with the computer (other than overclock it, give it shiny lights, or add four of those latest extreme ultra super graphics cards for $500 each).
Re:Personal Computer != personal computer (Score:3, Insightful)
In retrospect it was a huge mistake for IBM because they were using a brandname that they could not trademark, which only assisted with the product becoming genericized.
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:2)
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:5, Insightful)
They know that in vernacular English (rather than pedantic geekspeak), "PC" means "a computer running Windows". (Most non-dumb geeks are at least aware of this fact.)
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, put a Mac and a, um, Dell in front of 1000 people and ask them to point to the PC. The only one who'd say, "Well, technically,..." is wearing a pocket protector, has a serious case of nasal drip, and has distinct opinions on whether Kirk or Picard is the better captain.
Geek speak != common speech. Get used to it.
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunate.
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:4, Interesting)
At least in the past they did: http://www.architosh.com/news/1999-08/0831-supper
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:5, Insightful)
It's semantics. "PC" in this context means IBM PC compatible. You know, I know it, and everyone reading this knows it. Pretending to be naive about it accomplishes nothing.
Re:Dumb. PC==Mac. Mac==PC (Score:3, Insightful)
Thus, it would be logical that all of the PC guy's behaviour in the ad applies to a Mac, too. This actually seems to be the case, though in less significant amounts than in a pure PC.
Need for an occasional reboot? Check.
Malware? Check (Well, attempts do count. And CNET articles.)
iTunes, clock, calculator? Yup.
Networking glitches? Sure.
Rave reviews? Hmm... I'm sure Vista will get some.
I'd say the Mac is a PC. Because he's younger and c
Re:Is Apple on the offensive (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Is Apple on the offensive (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is Apple on the offensive (Score:3, Informative)
Haven't tried NetInstall because we're too busy to get the server working, but I've heard that it works for Intel Macs as well.
Re:Is Apple on the offensive (Score:3, Interesting)
So from where I'm standing, it looks like Unix geeks are switching to OS X on Apple hardw
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Is Apple on the offensive (Score:3, Insightful)
(post written from an Intel iMac which is more stable, easier to use, less buggy and faster than any of the Linux boxes I've had over the years)
Re:Is Apple on the offensive (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Is Apple on the offensive (Score:4, Informative)
I use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup my entire desktop and laptop drives to an external hard drive. This works very well and if something happens, I can simply boot from the external drive and everything is exactly as I had it on the other disk. I've tested it a few times and everything worked exactly as expected. So, the ghosting software you talk about is very easy to do on Macs, unless I am missing some other aspect of what you want to do.
Or, you could use rsync (installed by default) to sync two computers over the network. I use this to sync various things on my laptop and desktop.
Re:Is Apple on the offensive (Score:2)
I thought the macs actually had something easier than this over the betwork, but don't know the details.
Re:Don't get the Macbook Pro... yet (Score:3, Informative)
Your advice (don't get first versions of new hardware) is sound, but I don't hear any kind of whine from my MacBook. I got my MacBook Pro last week, and so far, I'm extremely happy with it. The only thing slightly annoying is that some applications have crashed on me once or twice, probably because they're fresh ports to the Intel chip.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Okay, so I'm late today :) (Score:3, Insightful)
The same could be said about any well-made PC.
I generally on the anti-wintel basher side, but I've set up Dells, Gateways, IBMs, and a iMacs, and damn, iMacs are freakin' slick.
I agree with all yof our responses except this one. I have yet to see a PC that even comes close to the OOBox experience you get with a Mac. The $$$ Apple spends on packaging details and aesthetics is money well spent, IMHO.
Re:The Linux Guy (Score:5, Funny)
00
01
10
11
So, it should read as such:
There are 1 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
You just established yourself as one of the ones who can't.
10 = zero in the "ones" plus one the "twos" column. In base-10, you would write that as "2".
1 in binary is the same as it is in base-10 or hex. It's 1. You can't have "one types."
You also made an enormously stupid fencepost error.
You don't assign one item as "0" when counting how many things you have. Even if you do say something like "the apples in this basket are numbered 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4", you still have FIVE apples in your basket.
Also, where do you get 11 from??? 11 is more than 10. He said 10 types of people. Counting them would be done thus:
1.
10.
Done.
Re:The Linux Guy (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? Everything I've seen says you only get that kind of an increase for things like games, due to OS X apparently underclocking the GPU due to heat concerns -- that's not what most people call "normal daily use." If spending however long it takes to back up data, reformat, reinstall Windows, drivers, and software is worth a few extra FPS to you, be my guest. Viruses were ma
Re:Apples shoots itself in the foot... Again! (Score:3, Funny)
Its white-collar. White-collar, as in they wear white shirts with white-collars (probably with ties attached) instead shirts with "blue-collars" or t-shirts or tank-tops or what-have-you, implying that they don't "get their hands dirty" when they work like "blue-collar" workers do. This means that you can actually include non-caucasians in the whi